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Calaf breathed deeply. Big mistake, as he took a massive whiff of steamy, humid Port Town’s dire-bovine troughs, located near the docks.
Just have to get this over with, Calaf thought and then took a second step, so that both feet were once more on dry land. Well, as dry as it got in Port Town.
All roads back to Riverglen ran through Port Town. But last time Calaf had narrowly escaped being literally silenced and carted off to a monastery for the rest of his days. He would prefer not to tarry here longer than necessary.
Port Town’s sky was a vibrant azure blue this time of year, one that mirrored the adjacent sea. That was an improvement already.
Overcrowding, however, had not improved. Many more people were streaming in from the docks. Resulting unseasonable crowds mixed poorly with the stifling humidity.
At any rate, Calaf searched around town for a bit. He’d prefer to take his chances camping by the side of the road out in the swamp than risk staying here another night. To those ends, he endeavored to find another caravan leaving south and westward bound on short notice.
Merely two steps into the market, Calaf encountered his first sales pitch:
“Hey, you.”
Calaf gave no response, as he was unaware anyone was talking to him, specifically.
“You. Stalwart. Level thirty-nine.”
“Oh?” Calaf looked around, eyes settling on a mid-level fellow wearing a Shifty Merchant’s Cloak of Commerce +2.
“Yes, you! You look like a Paladin of discerning taste.”
“Well, I’m just a Stalwart.”
“Hey, it’s on the road, yeah? Where are my manners, allow me to introduce myself:”
Name:
Honest John, Humble Merchant
Rank:
Trailblazer
Level
13
Status:
24/24 (Smile Never Spreads to His Eyes)
Weapons:
Merchant’s Ordinary Stabbing Knife (x1) (Str: 2, Agl: 20)
A low-level along the Scout path. Awfully adept to make it this far up the route so early.
This ersatz merchant wasted no time in summoning forth a modest inventory out of his cloak, hawking his wares.
Item: Miniscule Colorless Level Up Bauble (x30) (500 gold)
Description: Provides fifteen experience points to a single target when used.
Item: Medium Red Level Up Bauble of Strength (x2) (1500 gold)
Description: Provides fifty experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level-up stat distribution towards Strength. Effect can stack.
Item: Medium Silver Level Up Bauble of Charisma x1 (1800 gold)
Description: Provides fifty experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level-up stat distribution towards Charisma. Effect can stack.
Item: Considerable Honeydew Level Up Bauble of Intelligence (x1) (35,000 gold)
Description: Provides 200 experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level-up stat distribution heavily towards intelligence. Effect can stack.
Item: Gargantuan Obsidian Level Up Bauble of Arcane (x2) (50,000 gold)
Description: Provides 5,000 experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level up stat distribution stupendously towards Arcane. Effects can stack.
“What’re you buyin’?” Honest John asked expectantly. “Perhaps I could interest you in some pamphlets? Or perhaps the grand manifesto of…”
Any of these higher-tier baubles would push him close to level 40 alone. Everything other than strength was relatively useless to him at this range. Charisma was irrelevant until he was on the doorstep of Paladin and looking into the class’s endgame party-wide buffs.
The real question was, could these even work?
“These trinkets.” Calaf furrowed his brow, and the bridge of his nose angled upward.
He’d seen his fair share of false relics along the path, as of late.
“Ay, catch your eye? Perhaps this one?” The merchant brandished the red-hued Medium Bauble of Strength. “Use ‘em both. Next time you level up, that’s a full five points into strength.”
“Five points?” Calaf asked, incredulous. “Why, you can go from level one to thirty and never see five points in any one stat at any given level.”
“Well, it’s two-point-five to any given stat per bauble,” the shifty merchant admitted. “But it rounds up, yeah? Stackable. Pop thirty, and watch the stats flow. I know, for your build, stats will start coming few and far between, yes? Common problem, for a man of your level.”
It was true. From level forty onward, stats built slower. This was compensated for with a quick boost upon swapping to a more specialized, more permanent, pre-paladin class, but individual levels would grant increasingly paltry sums. By level seventy vital statistics would be down to single stat increases, if that. But the skills of specialized classes, high-level equipment, spell repertoires, and general combat expertise compounded by that point prevent these soft caps from dulling anyone’s edge.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“I’m sure I can find you an Endurance-focused level-up bauble,” the merchant said, still trying for the sale.
Calaf held his hands up in a crossed fashion.
“I think I’ll manage,” he said and marched off.
Gaming the stat system like that just didn’t feel honorable to the Stalwart’s chivalrous tastes.
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The cathedral district was cleared out relative to how it appeared in Calaf’s ill-fated first visit to Port Town. The entire corrupt establishment had picked up and fled once it was clear a church hunter was poking around town. Someone was still working, maybe an intern replacement bishop, maybe not, but the cathedral was not currently open for reclassing.
Even if Calaf wanted to stay, the inns were full-up. Some sort of mass-booking, but by who or for why the innkeeper would not say.
It wasn’t until reaching the port itself that the source of the crowds became apparent. Fleets of boats floated about outside of port, queued up and awaiting disembarkation. The boats were broad-bowed and wide of sail, of the kind meant to transport dire-cattle, missionaries, or perhaps inbound overseas converts in a pinch.
For those ships that already docked, their passengers emerged in neat and orderly lines. It was a discipline that existed primarily among the church militant.
Once Calaf checked the nearest recruiting booth, his suspicions were confirmed.
“Did the church decree a levy?” he asked.
“Aye,” said the recruiting sergeant. “Heretics in the hinterlands! Got their hands on some relic or some such from Granite’s Pass.”
Calaf swallowed, then chewed on the inside of his cheek.
She did say that she’d pawned the Granite’s Pass relics off somewhere around Deepwood…
“Apostates used this relic to cheese the Battletower. They’ve gathered all manner of odd relics and weapons and have begun an anti-clerical movement. They call themselves… Cultivators.”
“Cultivators?” Calaf scratched his chin. “Never heard of ‘em.”
“And lucky you are!”
A great booming cry came from a level fifty armed to the teeth across the way. This grizzled veteran approached. He was an old man with the airs and accent of a fancy highborn Highlands lad. But he wore the mix-match colorful garb that was common to seasoned Battlemages.
“Been harassing and wangling travelers throughout the deep woods all season. Killing any clerics and deacons they come across. Started as a small group of brigands, but now they’re at a fever pitch. Beating clerics and wayward church personnel to death with their own talismans. Seen it with my own eyes, I have.”
“And you are?” Calaf asked.
“Aye. Excuse me. Excuse me.” The old man coughed. “Hard to turn on me interface when the ol’ bones are creaky from all that static in the air, what with the Cultivators flinging spells about for fun and all. Here ya go:”
Name:
Gael, Sellsword
Rank:
Battlemage, Independent Contractor
Level
68
Status:
712/712 (Seasoned)
Weapons:
Mage’s Overlarge Melee Club (Str 35)
“Hail, good sir.” Calaf raised his hand in salute.
A level 68 mercenary was a rare sight indeed. Old man Gael had likely seen more combat than the entire Riverglen guard.
“I haven’t been in the woods much this pilgrimage season,” Calaf admitted. “Had a detour. Long story.”
“Consider yourself lucky. Travel the forests north of Deepwood ‘bout a month back? Maybe have a Magician or two in your caravan, who need to rank up? Well, soon ye’d be beset by level twelves. Though they look like easy prey, they’d soon belt out spells not seen since the great battles of the Olde Heroes’ age.”
“Well, I’m suddenly glad I skipped the woods, then.”
“There is no branch of the pilgrimage route that’s not at risk,” said the old man. “Even now a conclave of cowardly confederates convenes in the highlands, plotting to enact a world where godly deacons are defenestrated from the towers of the Olde Capital, and every man reigns as king over his own Interface.”
“Is that so?”
“Aye. They put out a manifesto. Mayhaps you received a ‘System Message’ at some point? Well, that was cut off at the source right quick. So they’ve taken to transcribing them with some newfangled ‘printing’ item, drawing in many new adherents with the promise of unfathomable stats-based rewards.”
Calaf gasped. “Does this have anything to do with some sort of ‘level up bauble’?”
“Why, yes.” Gael’s eyes lit up. “Have you seen any?”
With a nod, Calaf described his unsolicited encounter with Honest John, the humble merchant. Gael rustled up some assigned guards to run after the legitimate businessman’s last known location.
“That’s how they get you,” Gael said. “Appeal to low-levels barely out of Riverglen. Promise to grant strength enough to dual-wield zweihanders. Then, boom! After a short season of indoctrination, suddenly promising young pilgrims are out to overthrow the church!”
“I see…” Calaf scratched his cheek-stubble. He could use another shave at some point.
“What will it be, brave Stalwart. Will ye answer the call, and be let loose against this heresy? To defend ye friends and loved ones against this horde of apostate fiends?”
And there it was. Another sales pitch, albeit with a slightly different objective than Honest John’s attempt at culling the gullible out of some quick gold.
Calaf stopped him there. “I’ve been traveling the length and breadth of the pilgrimage route for some time. I’ve gained more experience than ever thought possible. While I wish you well in your own heretic hunt, I simply must get back home.”
“Very well,” said Gael. “I wish ye safe travels on your journey home. And that it still be standing when you get back.”
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Menu-based warfare rendered standing armies logistically inefficient. Combat under the Interface tapped out at squads of five. Larger hordes than that often tripped over themselves in the Interface’s turn order. So, the default squad for any larger formation still scaled off this four-to-five member ‘Party’.
The Church replaced most aspects of social life that would otherwise be handled by lords and aldermen. Why bother paying fealty to secular authority assigned some holy mandate to rule, when you could just cut out the middleman and pay all tithes directly to your local Bishop?
Some areas back near the Olde Capital still possessed some landed gentry. Lords and knights of a pre-Menu tradition, capable of raising levies for more traditional combat roles. Calaf wondered why these armies were not being let loose against the organized brigands that were ‘cultivating’ as the old man had called it.
The realm had something of an adventurer-based economy. So when larger organized marches or the call of crusading went out from the Demon Lord’s Fall, groups were hired by the party. Throngs of ‘independent contractors’, more professional sellswords, and eager converts wanting a proper wage for their pilgrimage in exchange for a bit of combat milled about, loosely organized into armies by region. Calaf passed a small contingent marching under Granite’s Pass colors, having doubled back to Riverglen, cut down to a small port, and taken a boat over to the Delta. After a brief time recruiting amongst the populous river delta, the columns would be marching off to meet some regiments raised from Plains Junction before deploying into the forests.
None of that was of Calaf’s concern. Truly, nothing could distract him from his journey back to Riverglen, Charlotte, and home. Why, the only complication was that the war path would likely disrupt the overland path southward!
With that in mind, Calaf would have to consider booking passage on a ship down to the southern ports.
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Before he pursued that route, though, Calaf returned to the scene of a previous adventure.
The cistern remained empty, abandoned. A hidden entrance that was at once easy to find for anyone with the most basic perception-based Interface abilities, while also being a forgotten and furtive secret for which there was little reason to ever use.
Calaf explored through the hidden passageways again. All traps were sprung, and all doorways opened. Nobody had been here since he and Gerard had briefly checked in again following their fateful scrap against that hulking hired muscle from the thieves’ guild. Calaf duly recalled that the city guard wouldn’t even search the cistern. No doubt on the late Metzger’s payroll, at the time.
So, when the Stalwart reached the central water reservoir and found it entirely barren, he couldn’t help but sense that something was off. Bruce was nowhere to be found. The hulking monk’s corpse had been too dead to consecrate. With local authorities refusing cleanup it would’ve just stayed here, festering, even poisoning the reservoir.
Only, when Calaf returned he found… nothing. The water was plain, shallow, but unspoiled as ever. And in place of Bruce’s rotting corpse, there was only a strange golden-shaded set of vines. A yellow-tipped pine tree sapling in the middle, having grown to ankle height in the intervening weeks since that duel to the death.
Vines and fair-colored moss snaked over to a nearby aqueduct, rapidly disappearing into the town’s network of reservoirs and cisterns. Calaf couldn’t help but get the strangest sense he was being watched. With a shudder, he rose to his feet and returned the way he came. There would be nothing left to pick through of the thieves' guild in this hidden hideout.
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