Chapter 28 - Disguise my Intentions

I awoke to a polite tapping on my door. It wasn’t easy. The bed, though probably hard and uncomfortable by my old life’s standards, was the pinnacle of luxury now that I’d had the humbling experience of sleeping on a cave floor. I opened my eyes, instantly regretting doing so. The overhead light was still on, a cursed sun that burned my retinas and mocked my somnolence. Apparently, I hadn’t bothered to turn it off after Science Time, not that I knew how anyway. There were no switches on the walls or a chain to pull.

I groaned, sitting up, my eyes bleary and swollen. I put my head in my hands and let my weight slump down until I was nearly doubled over and a quiet sigh slid from my dry lips. The bed creaked under the strain of my shifting weight.

The tapping came again.

That’s not going to go away is it?

It did not, in fact, go away. It waited for about a minute, when I was just beginning to hope, then the tapping returned.

Reluctantly, I rose from the bed, made my way over to the door, disengaged the slide lock, and yanked the door open more forcefully than I intended.

The hallway was empty.

“Ah. Good morning, Brother Ryan! I brought you breakfast.”

The hallway was not empty. I just hadn’t looked down. There, holding a tray of some kind of glazed pastry stacked in a little pyramid was Yik’i’trix, his little black eyes staring up at me expectantly. The sleeves and hem of his robe looked like they’d been dusted with chalk or maybe flour.

“Uh. Hi,” I said, staring at the little Volpa blankly, the speech center in my brain not allowing for much more. After a few seconds of silence, I realized that maybe I should say more. That would be the normal, human thing to do. I’d never been a morning person. “How long did I sleep?”

Yik’i’trix did his full body shudder again, all the way from the tail to the tip of his nose. “Nearly fourteen hours, Brother.”

“Fourteen?”

“Yes, brother,” the tiny monk said, nodding gravely. “I did try to wake you, but you must have needed some time to yourself after such a long journey.”

I blinked as my mind made a few connections. “Wait. How long have you been out here?”

Yik’i’trix got even smaller than he already was, ears flattening, whiskers drooping, his posture curling inward like a browning leaf. “Since earlier today, Brother Ryan,” he answered evasively.

“How long?” I pressed.

“Oh. I didn’t really keep-”

“Please.”

“Eleven hours.” He said the words so quickly, like he was anxious to rush through them to have them out and be done with them. I’d bet that without the System, I might have had to make the little guy repeat himself, but they came through loud and clear.

“You’ve been waiting on me for eleven hours? Why?” Constance, how did I kill so much time? I had a whole planet to save.

“I convinced the Bishop to let me be your guide. I’ve heard tales of the Rising Suns, how your bodies are disciplined to need very little rest, and I thought I would wait, lest you need to leave early. It’s actually been quite pleasant, not having to do my regular duties around the church. Half a day alone to meditate is practically a luxury.”

I brought my hand up to my eyes to rub them. Could I get conventional headaches anymore? I was probably about to find out.

Kolash did say not to encourage the Volpa when it came to Order of Dawn stuff. I needed to get some distance. “Ah, I see. Please don’t do that on my account, Yik- Uh- do you have a nickname or something shorter?”

“Trix, Brother Ryan.”

“Trix,” I said, letting the name roll off my tongue and reminding myself that no matter how I perceived it, I wasn’t speaking English.

Curious, I wanted to try something.

“People call you Tricks?” I asked experimentally, consciously thinking about communicating the meaning of the English word instead of the literal phonetic sounds. What came out of my mouth didn’t sound like English at all.

“Oh, no, Brother. I would never deceive you,” Trix assured me. His ears deflated like leaky triangular balloons and his gaze slid down to the floor. “I am… not like that.” The little guy looked genuinely hurt.

Apparently, intent is what matters in the translation. Names are different from words. Noted. Kinda feel like a jerk now though.

“I’m sorry, Trix. Really,” I said as I squatted down to get closer to his height. “Your name sounds like something else in my mother tongue, and I was just- Well, I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“No offense taken, Brother,” he replied. I knew it was a lie though. Sore subject maybe?

“Anyway,” I said, clapping my hands together. It made a sort of ringing, flesh on metal sound these days, but it worked to break the tension at least. “Let’s go hit the town. Next time, please don’t wait for me like that. I might keep a weird schedule.”

He shuffled his feet nervously. “Well, it is my duty to be at your side whenever you need. I took the room across the hall just in case,” Trix replied, indicating the door by turning around and pointing his nose at it.

Of course he did.

I ran a hand down my face, imagining all the trouble this was going to cause me. “Wonderful,” I said. “How thoughtful.”

Trix drew up straighter at that. “So, what is the plan today, Brother Ryan?”

“Just Ryan, please.”

“Oh, no. I don’t think so, Brother.” He did that full body shudder thing again, the pastries getting the worst of the kinetic energy, sometimes leaving the tray entirely only to land back on top of their pyramid. With that, I realized I still hadn’t taken the breakfast Trix had offered. I reached down and grabbed the platter to take the burden off the little fox guy.

My stomach rumbled. It seemed like a lot of food for one man, but they smelled delicious, sweet and savory at the same time, one of those foods with multiple layers of scents that rolled over one another. Maybe there was meat in the middle or something.

“Did you want one, Trix?” I asked.

Trix shook his head, rubbing his front paws together. “Oh, no. Baked goods don’t really agree with us Volpa, though I hear they are delicious. I already had my fill at lunch. What’s the plan today, Brother Ryan?” He asked again.

I sighed. This was going to get old if we were going to be attached at the hip. However, I could use a little bit of orientation, and he’d volunteered for just that. “I need to know everything, and I’m not just talking about the plague.”

“Everything?”

“Yep. Trix, you are my local expert on everything Eclipse. Pretend I know nothing. Show me around.”

He shuffled his feet some more, unsure of himself. “Would you like to start on a specific topic, Brother Ryan?”

I rubbed my jaw as I thought about that. The root of everyone’s problems right now, other than my mere existence, was the scourge-touched. They chased the goblins and beasts out. They brought the plague. They were attacking people outside the city. How could I dig at that problem?

If you’re going to dig, you’ll need a shovel.

“Trix, we’re going shopping. How good is the church’s credit?”

Yik’i’trix’s whiskers trembled slightly. “I- I didn’t ask.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Nevermind. Wishful thinking. So, I have a list of things I’ll need, and I need you to keep an open mind.”

—-------------

Skill unlocked: Disguise

Your current skill level is 1.

“I just don’t see why you would want to cover your holy raiment with… that,” Trix said as we stepped out into the daylight once again, having to lean to the side to allow two elderly women to enter the building behind us. I tipped my hat to the two of them as they passed by, but neither of them took any notice of the courtesy. Maybe that was Gray Man working.

Gray Man: Stealth now receives bonus efficacy from your Deception skill. While you are attempting to hide, others are less likely to notice you, and those that do are more likely to disregard your presence. [Passive]

It wasn’t the sexiest choice on my list when Stealth hit level 5, and I still wasn’t sure it was the right one. One with the Shadows was a straight up ninja type skill that gave me bonuses to hiding in darkness, which had all sorts of fun applications at night or on, say, a planet covered in trees. Meanwhile, Reduced Presence, the other option on the list, was a way to resist detection by magical means and had minor bonuses to resist magical effects. All of the skills were situationally useful, but after focusing on the long game with my Shape upgrade, I’d felt the need to balance that with something that would be useful to me right now.

My Deception skill was getting a workout while I was living undercover, and I spent a lot of my time ‘hiding’ in plain sight. Gray Man made the most sense there, and I couldn’t discount that I might find another way to use it in the future.

So far, it had been hard to detect if it was working, like with the women entering the shop. Maybe the women didn’t respond because they disregarded my presence, or maybe hat tipping wasn’t a thing here.

A man buys his first cool hat, and there’s no tipping? A travesty.

It had a wide brim and a pointed top that reminded me of old kung fu movies my dad used to play on movie nights. I’d gotten the hat for cheap after buying a full set of local clothes and a pair of shoes to go with.

Trix didn’t complain about the clothes, since he’d picked them out, a simple pair of brown trousers, a long sleeve white shirt, and some light boots. I thought he was going to have a seizure when I proposed taking off my orange headwrap, though. Thus, the hat was added to the tally, despite Trix’s frequent objections. The old tailor had been enthusiastic to sell it to me, like he wanted to be rid of the thing.

“What? I can’t go around looking like a lit candle the whole time, right?” I asked, straightening the woven straw hat so that it sat properly on my head. It had a tendency to slowly slip down to cover my face.

The Volpa winced. “Brother, please. You share too generously.”

He didn’t like it when I spoke in public either. Apparently, my order took vows of silence except in extreme necessity, and I was having a hard time respecting that, especially since I was feeling almost human again. I had a full belly, clothes that fit, real shoes, and I wasn’t locked away or fighting for my life.

Remember where you are, Ryan.

I looked down and smiled at my guide apologetically, but he was too busy dodging another pair of boots to notice. His tail was particularly susceptible to accidental crushing, and, more than once, he’d had to make a heroic leap to avert tragedy.

The eastern gate market was absolutely packed with people, so much the press obscured the surface of the street itself. The sides of the road were mostly pedestrian traffic that flowed in a river that you had to fight against if you wanted to break off and climb one of the stoops like the one where we stood. So many faces, so many eyes moving over me. How long would it take for them to notice the stranger in their midst?

Thank Constance I had pockets now, not for their usual utility, but for obfuscation. Transferring coins to and from my spatial storage and the light show it tended to put on were conspicuous to say the least, and I’d had to do it behind my back when I had to show the tailor I had something to pay with. Now, though, it was just a matter of reaching inside a pocket and summoning whatever I needed. It was one less thing to worry about, and I could focus that much more on living my cover. Plus, I couldn’t be pickpocketed.

The sheer variety of sentient species and how they lived together was astounding and surprisingly natural. Short folk with broad faces and pointed eyebrows rolled their litter of boisterous kids in padded carts through a gaggle of what I could only describe as burly, walking mushrooms with bright yellow caps atop squint-eyed faces. Tall, spindly-legged creatures wrapped in bandages waded through the throng, gingerly stepping over others at times, patiently waiting for the crowd to surge forward at others. An eight foot tall pile of gravel rumbled down the street under its own power, and, though most of the people gave it the appropriate amount of space, the amorphous creature stopped to form a thick pseudopod to gently nudge its way through the crowd every once in a while.

The majority of the traffic, however, was made up of the horned folk with sharp features like Jassin. They all had the look of merchants or middle class to them judging by the quality of their clothes and the way they walked, as if they were always on their way to somewhere. Serious. Purposeful.

I held out my hand and allowed Trix to clamber up onto my shoulder. He’d protested about this at first, earlier in the day, insisting that he just follow in my wake as we fought the crowds and went about our business, but when I’d pointed out that he needed to guide me everywhere, he relented and allowed for a semi-dignified ride on my shoulder.

Once he was next to my ear, Trix was a little more talkative, as long as I didn’t raise my voice and flaunt my vows.

“I just feel like covering the thing that singles you out as a member of such a prestigious order of the church militant would make your mission harder, Brother. The sleeves on your shirt also mask your dominion sign, so no one will know you are a practitioner either,” Trix whispered.

“You think I’m inviting more trouble by trying to blend in?” I asked quietly, stepping down off the stoop and merging with the crowd, the part of it streaming deeper into the city.

“Yes, Brother. I’m afraid we might attract the wrong sort of attention if we go around asking questions without some sign of office, and those we do question will not appreciate the deception.”

“You may be right,” I admitted, but I left it at that. The thing was, I didn’t want to be singled out by anyone, even if it made my life easier. I wanted to blend in and tackle the city on my terms, not throw my cover story in people’s faces. People tended to believe something more readily if they discovered it on their own, and I wanted to use that to my advantage. Let them believe my status as a Rising Sun was my only secret. Plus, if I were to wear the label proudly, the order’s reputation would taint every interaction I had with people, and I required a much lower profile, especially if I was using my own money to buy metal.

It turned out that the amount of gold I had wasn’t a particularly hefty sum. Sure, it was enough to buy a set of local clothes and shoes, but after that, I needed to watch my spending. The people the goblins killed weren’t wealthy, and the coins the mockvine left me upon its untimely death weren’t legal tender. The tailor hadn’t even recognized the thick, stamped ovals until Trix started ‘oo-ing’ and ‘ah-ing’ over them. Apparently, they were coins minted ages ago, right after the Purge. The reference for everything seemed to be framed around the Purge, so much so that I was afraid to ask for clarification on what it was. It sounded like something that was so common knowledge, I’d out myself if I asked the wrong questions. Better to pick it up from context clues.

“If you wanted to look for a collector that would take those coins off your hands, we will need to go more toward the center of the city,” Trix ventured. “I think that will make it easier to get the rest of the items on your list.”

“Okay, do I just head toward the observatory then?” I asked. Eclipse, the walled parts of it anyway, were built in a half-circle around the observatory. It was the oldest structure in the city, there in the beginning when the Dark Lord built it and still there even after the city’s newest occupants made themselves at home. No matter where you were in the city, you could spot the observatory, even through the riot of color and motion that was the sky within the market districts, a black tower of glossy stone that stabbed up into the sky higher than even the tallest Mendau, its smooth surface unbroken for hundreds of feet until it terminated suddenly in a jagged diagonal slash like someone had forgotten to finish construction or a giant had hacked at it with an ax.

Of course, if you were looking up it would be impossible to miss the backdrop of the moon. It loomed overhead, brilliant white shot through with spiderwebs of gray while clouds of glowing gas flowed around its edges and shifted slowly from one color to the next. I never saw the sun, of course, but the sky was a vibrant teal broken up by feathery wisps of cloud.

“No, Brother. That way butts up against Riverside, and trouble may find us if we venture too close, not that someone like you would be worried about that, of course.”

Riverside was supposedly one of the rougher parts of town, best avoided unless you had business there and only around noon. It was, unsurprisingly, the part of the city that dealt with trade coming in from the river, but it also had the misfortune of being the part of town that sank down below water level a few more inches a year.

As Trix told it, when the Dark Lord had originally built his city, the Shenau River wasn’t quite so far south or quite so wide. Now, a thousand some odd years later, the river was a constant headache for city planners and architects, claiming more of the northernmost part of Eclipse year by year. A couple centuries ago, a huge swath of Riverside suddenly collapsed upon itself, sinking below the waterline in a matter of seconds, entire neighborhoods vanishing beneath dark, muddy waters and into the depths below.

Now, the place was the home for folks down on their luck, treasure seekers of dubious moral character, leather skinned boatmen on shore leave, or criminals, and one did not need to pick just one category to belong to.

I nodded in agreement. “I did say we’re trying to not attract attention. Getting robbed qualifies. Good thinking.”

Trix’s full body shudders were even more disturbing when he was riding on my shoulder. It was almost contagious. I had to fight not to give in to the tingle as well.

“Where should we go then?” I asked.

“That way,” he said, pointing leftward. “This route will take us past the Plague Ward. I assumed you would want to see it before the day is out.”

Ah, yes. The supposed scene of my future massacre of innocent people. A must see, for sure.

“Right. I’ll… definitely need to see that. Lead on then,” I told my guide. I kept my face neutral, but, inside, I felt queasy. Obviously, I didn't’ plan on gunning down a bunch of sick folks, ever, but something inside me recoiled at even being in proximity with my hypothetical victims, as if by entertaining the idea I was betraying myself. The System decided to kick me while I was down as well.

Deception is now level 5.

Upgrade paths available:

Cloak of Vaguery

Compartmentalize

Charming Presence

Splendid. Can’t wait to choose the most effective lying power.

“So, the Plague Ward is near the center of the city? Doesn’t that put people at risk if they stumble into the wrong part of town or if there’s a breakout?” I asked.

Trix’s head tilted to the side, and he leaned over to look me in the eyes like he was trying to determine whether I was messing with him. “No, Brother Ryan, not at all. Our route takes us deep into the Undercity. No one gets there by accident.”