Once inside the inn, Lyria told me to wait at a table and headed to the counter to speak with the guy who looked like he ran the place.
I put my hands on my hips and turned slowly, taking in the sight of the building. Cozy as hell. I liked it. There was a fire, several long wooden bench-style tables, and a scattering of people. Some looked like adventurers, and others just looked like regular townspeople hanging out for a drink or catching their breath during a long journey.
I saw two younger kids playing a game by the wall and wandered over to watch.
One of them made a frustrated sound just as I approached, pushing his chair back with a dejected look on his face. “I concede.”
The boy who lost was curly-haired and flat-featured. He looked like a farmer’s son or something of that sort. The one across from him was more bookish, with a long neck and bent posture.
The bookish one looked up at me, sticking out a hand. “I’m Mattias. Care to give me an actual challenge?”
I eyed the game board. “I’ve never played, sorry. I don’t even know what the game is called.”
“Ah. Maybe you can play Thom, then. He hasn’t won a match in months.”
I glanced at Lyria. She was at the bar with a drink in one hand, paying me almost no attention. “Alright, then,” I said, perking up a little at the idea. Playing a board game with some younger guys felt like a nice diversion and a little dose of humanity. I could use that after what I’d been through.
Back on Earth, I looked forward to the occasional weekend when a few of the guys and girls from work could get together to play board games. There was something about the calm focus of sitting around a game as a group that I found therapeutic.
And holy hell did I need a little bit of therapy right now.
I spent the next hour learning the rules of a game called Vice. The rules were simple, but the depth was surprisingly satisfying. I could imagine a game like this having a skill ceiling that would take years or a lifetime to master. As it was, my experience playing RTS games and board games made me a pretty quick learner.
I beat Thom on our third match, much to his annoyance. Mattias was a tougher opponent, though.
We gathered a small crowd of locals and even a few adventurers as we played. Lyria seemed to be making a point of ignoring me and the growing group of onlookers, so I simply enjoyed the diversion. The reward tokens were burning a hole in my pocket at this point, but I knew they weren’t going anywhere. Once we finished getting my room and maybe cleaning up a bit, I’d drag Lyria to the furnisher, turn in my bed tokens, and then figure out how to claim my remaining tokens.
“Huh,” Mattias said, fingers hovering over one of the smooth stone play pieces.
I’d gone for a greedy strategy, setting up an early economic powerhouse that would kick in if he didn’t catch and punish me for it. We were halfway through the game, and he was only just noticing.
I grinned up at him. He’s seeing it now. He’s in trouble.
Mattias lowered his hand, frowning at the board.
Some of the viewing crowd made sounds of appreciation. I noticed a few of them were even exchanging money and taking bets.
The game crawled on, with Mattias using a series of clever tricks to dig himself out of trouble. Eventually, it was close, but he managed to squeeze out a victory over me, partly because of an obscure rule in the game he hadn’t thought he would need to explain.
“Ah, damn,” I said, frustrated but smiling because I’d enjoyed the match, loss or not. “Good game.”
“You’re really quite good,” he admitted. His greasy black hair was plastered to his forehead, so he swiped it away. “Come play any time.”
The onlookers were grumbling, and some were beaming as they collected their winnings from the bets.
“Well played, boy,” one of the adventurer-looking types said, clapping me on the shoulder.
I got up from my chair and noticed Lyria was standing just behind the crowd, watching me with crossed arms. “Are you about done?” she asked.
“Just finished. That game is really fun, do you play?”
“The guards in the barracks like to play at night. It’s alright.”
“We should play sometime.”
“We should get you in your personal space.”
I frowned, noticed I was standing a little close to her, and stepped back. “Sorry. Back in my personal space.”
She looked confused and held up a key. “Come on.”
I followed her up the stairs, down a narrow hallway, and to what looked like the only door on the second floor. She handed me the key and waited behind me.
I slid it into the lock and felt a strange sensation like static electricity suddenly charging the air. I opened the door and sarcastically whistled. “Roomy,” I said. The space was roughly the size of a janitor’s closet. There was a floor, four walls, and no window.
Lyria stuck her head inside. “What the hell have you been doing with your life? This is your personal space?”
I looked around the small space. “I told you. I’m from very far away. Things are entirely different where I come from.”
She appeared skeptical. “Everybody has a personal space.”
“You’ve been to every corner of Eros, then?” I asked.
“No, but—”
“We don’t have these. So, nope. This is my first time seeing it.”
With a sigh, she shook her head. “Well, this room is called your personal space. You can upgrade it at the furnisher. Most people at least invest in a little bit of a size increase. Or a bed. It’s really not that expensive to get common rarity pieces like beds and desks. If you’ve got money to burn, you can take it further and upgrade them, of course. You can also upgrade things like the size, layout, features, and just about anything you can imagine within the personal space. Really, the only limit is the skill and stock of the furnisher where you’re shopping.”
“Don’t people have houses?”
“If they’re wealthy. But the average person just pays to access their personal space like this. It’s simpler and lets you have what you need when you’re traveling. You can access this from inns all over Eros. Well, some very wealthy people have personal space access in their homes. The magic is expensive to maintain because it requires a naidu’s expertise. That means constantly paying a naidu to do regular, magical maintenance.”
“Let’s see your personal space, then,” I say, spinning the key on my fingertip and holding it out toward her.
“What? No. You’re not coming into my room.”
“And yet here you are, in mine. If you don’t show me yours, I will assume you like being stuffed in a broom closet with me.”
“You smell like you rolled in the forest for days,” she said. “So, no, I really don’t.”
I leaned forward, sniffing. “Speaking of smells. Why do you smell like flowers?”
Her cheeks went a light shade of pink as she stepped back into the hallway, putting some more distance between us. “I have a bath in my personal space, and I happen to use soap. Now stop smelling me.”
“Could I borrow it?” I asked. “You said it yourself. I smell terrible. I’ve also got a stab wound and some cuts I wouldn’t mind properly cleaning. I don’t want them to get infected.”
“You were stabbed?” she asked, chin dipping downward. “And you’re just now mentioning this?”
“It was a very small knife.”
Lyria’s nostrils flared, but she jerked her hand, motioning for me to leave the room. “For the record, I’m only letting you do this because the public washroom is notoriously dirty. You really shouldn’t use it with open wounds.”
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Public washroom?
Lyria plucked the key from my fingers, pulled the door shut once we were outside, and turned her key in the lock.
I felt a static charge build in the air again. When she opened the door, it led to a much larger room that had been decorated with a surprisingly feminine touch.
The same door that opened to my broom closet of a personal space moments ago now was this?
“Wow,” I said, nodding approvingly as I waltzed in after her. “Rugs, a nice little bed, a dresser, and…” I spread my arms like I was greeting an old friend. “And a bathtub,” I whispered reverently.
Lyria moved around, tidying little things here and there or tucking things in drawers.
I turned a knob on the bathtub and steaming water immediately poured out. I knelt, looking around the tub and frowning with bemusement. There was a faucet and a drain, but the tub was just sitting there on little clawed legs, not attached to anything. It looked like draining the water would make it splash on the floor.
I didn’t bother asking how it worked, because I assumed the answer was going to be “magic.” Of course it was magic.
“So…” I said, watching the water slowly fill the tub. “I usually take baths alone, if that’s alright.”
“I’m not leaving you in my room alone. I’ll just…” She looked suddenly awkward and moved to a desk by the wall. “I’ll work on something. With my back to you.”
“Suit yourself,” I said. Even if this new body was a little more impressive than my old one, I wasn’t exactly the type of guy to strip naked in front of strangers. But I also religiously took a shower every morning and every night back on Earth. Being this dirty was killing me.
I checked to be sure she wasn’t looking, undressed—which was a bit of a process because it involved untying tiny tomte clothes I’d used to cover myself, and slipped into the water.
Once I was submerged and comfortable, I looked her way. She was sitting at a small desk, scribbling on some paper. I wondered if she was doing something important or just drawing pictures because she felt awkward.
“So,” I said. “Can I turn in my reward tokens in someone else’s personal space?”
“Yes,” she said, still keeping her back to me. “But please don’t start claiming your loot while you’re naked in my bathtub.”
“There’s something else I wanted to do. I actually don’t have a class corestone yet. Do you know where I could get one of those?”
“Of course, you don’t,” she sighed, as if this was just one more list of odd things about me. “You can buy one. They cost about a gold for a base class. That’s one hundred silver pieces,” she added, anticipating my question.
“Right,” I said.
“If you were to join the town guard in another city, they would provide you with a class corestone. The adventurer’s guild will also give you a base class corestone for signing up.”
“What do you mean by ‘base’ class?” I asked. I ran my hands across my filthy body, watching dirt, caked-on blood, and spider ichor I’d missed in the river float away. Little drains on the side of the tub seemed to magically circulate the water, siphoning out the muck and keeping the water clear. There was a glass of some nice-smelling soap on the tub's edge. I poured some in my hands and lathered up. It smelled like Lyria, which I supposed wasn’t a shock.
“What’s that smell? Are you using my soap?”
“Yes, I use soap when I bathe. I’m not a barbarian.”
I didn’t look, but I could almost picture her pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “A base class is the infant stage of a class corestone. It’ll grant you two active abilities and two passive abilities. The more you master those, whether practicing or testing them in combat, the more your stone grows in power. A basic stone can grant up to four actives and four passives at the common stage. If you spent a lifetime or two at Wood rank training with it, the stone could eventually evolve to a rare class stone.”
“Define a lifetime,” I asked carefully.
“Depends on your rank, doesn’t it?”
I decided that was answer enough. If I got higher rank, I could increase my lifespan? I hardly needed a reason to crave power, but that alone was a compelling one.
“What happens when the stone evolves to a rare class?” I asked. I had to admit this information made me even more excited. After all, one of my prestige benefits was something about growing my corestones more quickly.
From the sounds of it, I’d be able to evolve my corestone much faster than normal, among other things. I just had to find a way to get my hands on one. But joining an adventurer’s guild sounded amazing. It was the sort of thing I would’ve done if I was in a video game, at least. Becoming a guard sounded boring as hell.
“It changes based on how you’ve used it. That’s just the nature of mana. It forms an affinity with us as we form one with it.”
“So if I was a mage and I spent my time in Wood sneaking up on people and trying to ambush them with magic, my evolution might lean toward some kind of assassin mage or stealth mage?”
“Sort of,” Lyria said. “Some powerful families have their class evolutions down to a science. They create strict training regimens and entire disciplines dedicated to reaching an exact class. There are whole schools devoted to it. And a higher ranked adventurer could theoretically push a stone to evolve faster with hard combat and training.”
“You said we form an affinity with mana? How so?”
“It’s complicated, and I won’t pretend to understand. I just know that your reward tokens will tend to steer themselves toward your qualities. You’ll tend to earn the things that suit your strengths or cover your weaknesses if you claim tokens, which is why I suggested using yours instead of selling them. You’ll likely be happier with what you get.”
“Hmm. I think I need to join the adventurer’s guild then and get myself a basic class corestone. Should I do that before I claim my tokens? You said the rewards will try to lean in the direction I’m headed. It would probably make the most sense to pick a class before I claim my items, right?”
“It would…”
“What?” I asked.
“The adventurer’s guild requires you to sign a contract. If you don’t complete at least two guild commissions annually, you’re signing over your rights to the house of Thalion.”
“Which means…”
“It means being conscripted to the military. And before you ask, no. That’s not something you want. Conscripts are the lowest-level soldiers and regularly sent out to the wastelands—just fresh meat for the rifts.”
“One other thing,” I said. “What exactly does gaining levels do for me, anyway?”
It seemed like she was beyond questioning why I knew so little. Answering my questions was probably easier than constantly pushing me to explain, anyway.
“It all has to do with your class corestone,” she said. “The higher the level, the more you can tap into it. A level 1 Wood with a fire-based class might be able to light a candle. A level 50 Wood could probably do some serious damage to you with the same corestone. Then a level 50 Gold could probably light a whole city on fire with a snap of their fingers.”
“Level 50 is the highest?” I asked. I guessed I understood now why I hadn’t felt much different from leveling. I didn’t have a corestone to benefit from my increased power.
“For each rank. You’ll start back at one after each ascension.”
I blinked. I was practically drowning with questions, but the fatigue of everything was finally starting to catch up with me. My aching body felt so good in the warm water. My head felt heavy, and my thoughts were slow.
I realized I was drifting off when Lyria clapped her hands suddenly, making me jump with a splash.
“Hey,” she snapped. “Surely you’re clean enough by now. So get your ass out of my bathtub.”
“Any chance you have a towel I can borrow?”
Lyria finally looked in my direction. She paused, frowning at the collection of tiny tomte clothes strewn on the floor beside my robe in front of the bath. “Part of me wants to ask… but I’m not going to ask.” She got up, carefully keeping her eyes averted, pulled open a drawer, and tossed me a scratchy white towel. “Get dried off and dressed. If I’m going to have to drag you to the adventurer’s guild and the furnisher, I’d like to do it before sundown.”
#
Circa
I pulled my hood tighter over my head as I made my way through the busy streets. I studied the eager faces of the people. None of them knew what sort of abomination may have taken up residence outside their town.
And how could they?
Two years of following its trail had led me here, and I was almost certain I had her this time. No more running. No more slipping away.
No more innocent deaths to fuel her ever-increasing hunger for power.
Two years ago, an expedition of 35 Woods and five Irons had gone into an Iron level infestation and only two came out alive. They spoke of necromancy and dark magic.
Six months later, a group of 20 Woods and three Irons were wiped out in an Iron level infestation. No survivors. But the nearby town reported the same kind of issues as the first case.
Unusual numbers of children reported missing.
Hunters going out together and never returning to their families.
Crops wilting in the fields with no other explanation.
Now, just three months ago, a group of five experienced Irons were killed in an infestation they should have been capable of handling only a few days’ ride away from Riverwell.
A tip had brought me here. He was a source I trusted deeply—a tomte named Rock. When I was still an Iron, I had run a few guild commissions with him and found him quite capable.
Now a large force was gathering in Riverwell to clear an infestation, but all the signs told me she was here—the Forsaken, who I suspected was moving from infestation to infestation, luring adventurers to their deaths.
I knew what my mother would say if she could see me now. She would chide me for forgetting my true purpose. The one true purpose, as she liked to call it.
But what good was waiting around for a dead god who might never return? What use were my talents and power? To merely sit around and watch? To prepare for a moment that may never come in my lifetime or even that of my descendants?
I let out a slow, calming breath. I needed to find peace.
These were old, tired thoughts. Well-worn paths I’d walked for so long I could scarcely see the world from their depths.
I knew the threat this Forsaken posed. That was real. That was now. And if the signs were true, then it had found its way into the infestation outside Riverwell.
An Iron Rank Forsaken. With the twisted power she gained from consuming corrupted mana, her Iron Rank might be a match for me, even as a Silver. And she was a necromancer, no less. It was a powerful class evolution of Forsaken magic. Not a trifling matter, in other words.
Then again, neither was I.
I found a place in the back of the adventurer’s guild, ignoring the stares my Silver Rank badge drew. I plucked a map from the wall and set it before me to study. I also collected a few written reports of recent excursions and commissions in the area.
As I suspected, the details only made me more certain she was here.
The confrontation two years in the making was finally near.