“So, that’s a no-go on the sash?” Joe asked Puqmup when he came to collect his reward for rescuing Margen.
“Would that I could, Joe, but Lady Blackgrove’s [Sash of Sacred Sanctuary] is a relic of her order. She only offered it when she heard what the Hellions had encountered,” the short man replied as he pulled a large roll of maroon velvet off a shelf. “Still, you and Yuk brought home an honest-to-goodness legend. Let’s get your reward for it.”
The guild’s item-specialist unfurled the large bundle. As it unrolled, spectral representations of items appeared on the lush covering. Most of them were weapons and armor, smaller than they would be in reality. There were also quite a few pieces of jewelry alongside worn items, such as belts and boots. The scaling reduction was not the same; the rings were close to actual sizes, whereas spears looked like long knitting needles.
“So first things first. I need a drop of blood on the mat. That will let us see which items you can use now. We can also push the requirements a bit to see what you are almost qualified for, but that can be tricky. I recommend taking something you can use immediately.”
Joe used a claw to prick his elbow and wiped the liquid on the velvet. Thanks to the cloth’s dark red coloring, his blood left no noticeable smear, but the effect was immediately apparent. Most of the items vanished from the large swath of material.
“I just got a solid epic handaxe, Puq. Can we filter out weapons?”
“Easy peezy,” answered the little man, who was standing on a raised stool next to Joe. He placed a finger on the thick fabric, and one by one, the weapons vanished.
“So, I can’t actually touch them, right?” Joe asked, looking at the remaining items.
“The actual items are in the guild's vault. The mat will allow you to fully assess the items, but you are correct in that you won’t be able to touch them until we go get your pick. We had someone try and make a grab-and-dash once with some precious artifacts. Myllo and I came up with this to prevent that from happening again.”
Without the weapons, there were only six items remaining. Three of them were wands and scepters, probably due to Joe’s high Spirit score. In addition to the magic rods, there was a pair of gloves, a bejeweled ring, and a cloak.
“Much slimmer pickings.”
“Epic items often have level and attribute caps. Also, it’s not like they grow on berry-bushes. The guild only has so many, and we don’t stockpile them in vaults if we can help it. They don’t do much good for the city if they are locked away.”
The gem-encrusted band was a [Ring of Diamond Defence]. Once a day, for five seconds, the wearer was impervious to any form of harm. Joe noted a small caveat in the description, stating the band had not yet been tested against divine beings. That was fine by Joe for a couple of reasons. One, he hoped he would not run afoul of the gods, and two, more defense was not really what he was looking for. He wanted something interesting.
The gloves might just be that cool item. The items required someone with Exceptional or better Sand affinity. The [Gloves of Sand Shaping] would allow him to do just as they were named. Utilizing mana or stamina, the wearer could manipulate up to three cubic feet of sand into any shape they could imagine, and the form would last for as long as the user spent resources on it.
The [Cowl of the Shadowwalker] was a great stealth item. It had a very high mana usage which explained why it was still available, but Joe had a huge Mana pool, so he was considering it. The garment would allow the wearer to be completely invisible and silent in anything less than bright light. It also allowed the owner to step into a shadow and exit through another shadow they could see.
He moved onto the rods. The first one he skipped. The [Scepter of Lordly Obedience] was just out, no matter what it did.
The next one was a golden baton adorned with scarabs that made Joe think of Yuk. He assessed it and found it was a [Rod of Resuscitation]. Joe qualified for it by having a healing power with over 50 ranks. It would soak up a ton of mana, but it could bring a slain person back to life if they had only been dead for no more than three minutes, Having only one usage a day meant it was very limited, but it would give him a chance to save those he cared for from dying. He had already lost far too many loved ones in his life.
He glanced at the last wand and quickly noted it was focused on light-based spells. He dismissed the [Wand of Luminence] before pointing at the scarab-adorned representation of the reviving rod.
“That one,” Joe stated confidently.
“Good choice. That has been handy to have during emergencies, but the religious orders have a few who can resurrect the dead already. That one-daily-use, short-window item is less useful in town than you’d expect. But in the field, it could be a literal lifesaver. I'm glad it will be in good hands. Let me go get it for you.”
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A little while later, Joe and Puq were joined by Myllo, who had come to talk about the other half of Joe’s reward.
“I have to say, you have amassed quite a pile of Reputation with Fort Coral and the Adventures guild. Our tally has you at rep of 2,535,” Myllo specified, looking in a leather-bound ledger. “Any idea what you want to do with it?”
“Uh. Dumb question, I know, but what sort of things can I do with it,” Joe asked. Reputation was one thing he had spent zero time researching.
“No worries, Joe. One of the most common uses for Reputation, especially early on is Skill Reversal. Many people make choices before they realize the ability is not a good fit,” Myllo began. Joe knew he had one spell he wouldn’t mind swapping out. [Sundering Strike] was useful but he could probably have done better. It might be worth spending a chunk of his Reputation on if there was nothing better.
“You could hit up the guild treasure again and look for a rare item,” Puq supplied. “There is a suit of morphic mail you might like.”
“Folks also often use it to acquire land or housing,” Myllo added. “If you want to own land inside the city walls, it needs to be awarded by the council, and the only currency they take is reputation. The original Fort Coral charter bequeathed the land to those who defend it. Even the wealthiest of the trading houses rent the land they sit on unless they, like Doran Barbarrow, have quested in service to the city and earned the points needed to buy their plot.”
“You can also spend your gains to fund a quest of your own, paying the quest-takers with your earned reputation,” the korrian continued. “What else, what else?”
“Guild resources,” the gnome prompted.
“Oh yeah. If you want to send a magical message to some far off country or even look in on loved ones overseas. You could also get some of your gear enchanted. Standard enchantments are very affordable, but with your pool, you could get quite a few potent or esoteric enhancements.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Joe thought back to the promise he had made to himself when Yuk first mentioned their huge reputation award, how they had said they didn’t have a place they could call home. Joe had been considering moving as well. While he loved his place in the Abaaka House, staying there was going to be a problem with the three huge wolfhounds that were semi-patiently waiting for him back in the axe.
Also, there was Finn. The huge akhlut would not work in the quiet apartment house.
“Does the property have to be on land?” Joe asked.
When he explained his idea, he saw both of the guild specialists’ eyes grow wide and broad grins pull back their cheeks.
“I like it,” Myloo breathed, grabbing a large swath of parchment.
For the next four hours, Joe and the two arcane experts plotted and planned out Joe’s idea. When it was done, all three men were excited. It would take all of Joe’s Rep, and he would owe them a couple of quests to boot, but it would be worth it.
“Give us a week, and we’ll have it done,” the red-bearded guild leader exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
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It only took five days. When Myllo was excited by a project he didn’t stop.
The result was a large, heavily enchanted houseboat. Unlike most vessels that bore this name, it was not a boxy cabin wedged into a hull. Joe’s new home was half-deck, allowing plenty of room for a rhinoceros-sized, chimeric orca to come aboard.
She was formally named the “New Haven,” a nod to his favorite oncologist, who was a proud Yale graduate. But Joe thought of her just as “The Haven.”
The ship’s deck had a tree growing up from an octagonal space in the planking. The magical mangrove’s roots formed the vessel's ribs. Joe even had a way of keeping it healthy.
While waiting for the Haven to be built, Joe had received his blessing from Mercy Suku for the quest to find his balance. She offered him an evolution to [Eye of the Healer]. The perception skill became the rare [Eyes of the World Healer]. He could now see the state of health of plants and even soil. Even though he had passed on the skill that would allow his healing to affect plants, it turned out he had a plant healing spell already. He had never noticed it, but [Heart Fire] restored plant-life, too. If the tree suffered damage, Joe could mend it with his cozy campfire.
Mylo, Puq, and Joe had considered adding some turf around the tree, but balancing the weight of the soil needed for it was too expensive enchantment-wise.
Already, the boat was heavily enspelled. It could withstand anything short of a second Cauldrakon-level storm. It was ensorcelled to stay steady in the constant waves of the ocean harbor. Anything less than a five-foot swell was repelled automatically. Crests taller than five feet would lift and rock the boat, but force and water magic cut the vessel through tall, tidal surges, shunting the water around the boxy craft.
The cabin had all the amenities available to high-end residences. With his cleaning ring, Joe didn’t actually need a shower, but he had one installed anyway. Some days, there was nothing better than a long soak under spraying nozzles.
Inside the boat, the kitchen was spacious and well-stocked. There was a bright windowed sitting room. And, best of all, there were four bedrooms of varying sizes.
Kenda, never having had an apartment of her own, had taken over his lease with Halten Rigg, but she spent as many nights here on the boat with him as he did back in his old place that was now hers.
Yuk had his own room, and he wasted no time in covering the walls with paintings of his hero, Margen. Joe had noticed that lately, Yuk had become increasingly made of water-striders and flying insects, leaving out his typical centipedes. It was easier for him to get the whole of himself across the docks and over to the boat that way.
Currently, the tatterdemalion and another frequent visitor were standing by the rails, fishing. Mahq was aboard so often that his grandparents just assumed that if the boy was not at home, then he was aboard the Haven.
Their version of fishing was not what you’d expect. Mahq declared that terrorizing the fish by dragging them out of the water with a spiked hook was cruel. Their method was to have Yuk’s water striders draw the targets close to the boat, where Mahq waited with a long-handled net. They always let the ones they caught go, Mahq apologizing to the animals for startling them.
The only fish kept were those Joe caught, and only enough to feed the boat's residents —except, of course, Finn. No one could ever catch enough to satiate the akhult’s endless curse of hunger.
Currently sprawled on one of the deck chaise lounge chairs under the mangrove, Joe was trying to figure out what Mahq and Yuk had been so vigorously debating. At the moment he wasn’t part of their [Parasictic Connection], so he was only getting half of the conversation.
“What the heck are you two going on about?” he finally asked, burning with curiosity.
“We are trying to figure out who is older,” Mahq flatly answered, never looking up from the undulating water.
“You guys have been at it for twenty minutes now. How can that conversation take more than two?”
“Well, Yuk was Yuk before I was Mahq. But Yuk’s soul is only as old as this incarnation. My spirit is much older. But if you count from where the first essence of what made Yuk, Yuk, began, then the Locust King is much, much older than my soul. But is that actually Yuk?” Mahq intoned. “Then there is the body. My body is younger than when Yuk first got a body. But there is no part of Yuk’s body now that is older than the oldest part of my body.” The boy took a breath and began to add, “That’s not all…”
“No. No. No. That was plenty. I’m sorry I asked. You two have fun. But get ready. Here they come again.”
A second later, Ranu dove out of the ocean and dashed around the deck.
Hot on the spectral dog’s heels came Finn; his huge maw opened wide with excitement. The one-ton chimera managed to rock the deck, but a prepared Joe balanced his drink enough not to spill a drop.
Maru made sure the two boys were well out of the way of the racers.
The reason Joe knew the lunatics were incoming came bounding out of the waves right behind the black-finned tail. Bayu’s shouting barks were deafening out of the water, but even below the ocean’s surface, Joe’s enhanced hearing could track her endless spectral baying. The trio made another circuit around the ship before vanishing into the sea once more.
Joe smiled at their play.
He turned to look inside, seeing Tez, RC, and Kenda deep in a very animated conversation in the sitting room. They were planning to join the next trip back to the valley to search for any loot that had survived Taylyn’s detonation. Joe was going to take a few more days off before considering any new adventures.
He finally understood Hah’roo’s desire to just do nothing when they first arrived in Fort Coral. The wind-dancer, herself, had been by earlier to sun herself on the cabin’s roof, but she had left a while ago to go get ready for a date with Reven later that evening.
Reclining in the shade, Joe realized that he had never been less alone. Even in the hospitals where he had been surrounded by people day and night, he was able to build a bubble of isolation around himself, regardless of the number of bodies nearby.
He didn’t have that here.
All of these people were inside his bubble. They were part of his life.
His once-constant desire to keep a moat between himself and the rest of the world had been thoroughly and completely forded.
Taking a sip from the fruity concoction he had mixed up for the group, Joe knew he couldn’t be happier about it.
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End
Joe and company will continue the adventure in Book 3: Turning Tides