My arrival at the Castle where Lord Charles Darville of Tidewarren and his family made their home was not as quick as I expected it to be. Initially, I had only doubled the travel it took from the hillside chapel to the town itself but here I was almost an hour and a half after I left portside. This is why now that I was at the portcullis, I was sitting cross-legged on the cobblestone path leading towards the castle’s drawbridge, and I was rubbing my feet.
I had forgotten how uncomfortable running around in sandals could be after doing it all day, and now I was regretting it. My feet were sore, despite my body’s relative youth and I was focused on this when one of the castle guards strode towards me.
“Sir, what is your purpose here?”
“I’m here to see Lord Darville.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re Wade. You’ll have to wait here until I get him or someone who can escort you, and you’ll probably also need to wait until after he’s done having dinner with his family.”
I shrugged. “I can wait.”
***
I found myself looking over the bone-carved reliquary that had appeared in my backpack. It was a hexahedron or six-sided die, and despite being made of bone its slight imperfections made it one instead of a cube. The symbol for fire was at one facing, the symbol for earth the next, then wind, and finally water. I couldn’t understand for the life of me what the order of the runic digits was for but I took the time to muse it.
When Lord Darville sent Edbert for me instead of meeting me himself I wasn’t entirely surprised and I simply shoved the baseball-sized triangle back in the net-like mesh sling backpack I had been provided with up until this point.
“Outworlder, come.” were the only words he provided in greeting. “
“Howdy, Edbert.” The words came out terse but I was trying to be polite and not dwell on the attitude he had displayed and continued to display in front of me.
“You should give me that scrimshaw uncommon reliquary, outworlder. You aren’t qualified to use it; you’ve not even evolved a basic reliquary into a common one. Who let you have it? How many experience points did they charge you for it?”
“None, because I got it as a quest reward. But people charge experience points for that sort of thing?”
“Of course they do; not only does it cost experience points to build a reliquary, as you know - you are also taking a person’s time, and experience points are the greatest currency one can provide. You really are lost if you haven’t pieced that together, didn’t Archpriestess Marlie tell you?”
Maybe she had and I had not heard it. “Not that I know of, but there was a buzzing in my ears when I woke up here.”
“Excuses. Next, you’ll tell me you don’t know that one hundred copper pieces equate to an experience point, with ten silver pieces or four gold pieces equating to one.”
“Nope,” I responded.
“Idiot.” berated the teenage noble guardsman.
***
He led me to a bare room with a desk, and a set of chairs and end tables. Tapestries which looked to be too precise to be woven by the standards of medieval artisans decorated the room alongside a thick and luxurious rug and several portraits of people. Alongside the handbound books, leather journals, loose-leaf papers, pens, and inkwells there was a beautifully carved wooden model of a big rig truck with a trailer.
From behind me as I sat at one of the chairs arrayed in the front of the desk I heard the voice of Charles Darville.
“I’ve heard that you were a help about town and unfortunately met Jose Porter before I was planning on introducing you. I’d stay away from him, he has unorthodox and generally bad ideas. But good job helping the people of Strongbridge. That’s one of our duties as Outworlders, especially if you plan to move up in the world.”
There was a gentle sigh before the Lord of Tidewarren walked with me.
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“Don’t take it as a reprimand though. I really meant for you to relax and didn’t know at the time you did not even have knowledge of currency in Hekatondrona or I would’ve told you myself. Here, let me show you to your room. You have an early morning ahead of you.”
We made our way down the dark stone halls of Lord Darville’s castle and I found it much like his office. Covered with well-made carpets and tapestries, murals, and other art which made it feel less like an ominous fortress and more like a home.
“You drove trucks back in your first life?” I asked as we went.
“Sure did. Always wanted to, had dreams of making it big and carving my own life through hard work; and trucking was one of the best ways to do that I thought.”
Before I could ask another question he stopped and turned at a thick wooden door. He pointed at it, and it had two plaques upon it. One was in the native script of the region, which I had no idea how to read. The other said, “Wade.”
Charles gave me a nod. “Sorry it took so long to get ready for you, but we weren’t sure of the specifics of things and frankly I was serious about what I said. I’ve got some food and drink coming your way, and there’s already fresh clothes for you and a bath. Enjoy the rest of your night, but be ready - tomorrow we begin your schooling.”
He opened the door for me and after I stepped in to look he was gone with the door shut. The room itself was dominated primarily by blank walls and blank picture frames; a comfortable four-poster bed with black and grey colored bedding and curtains upon it. In addition to this, there was a door that said ‘bathroom and toilet’ about 90 degrees from the door to the hallway. A plain desk, wardrobe, and a storage shelf were the only other furniture of note aside from a mirror and the massive checkered black and grey rug with simplified polyhedral dice shapes in red, yellow, green, and blue stitched into each square which dominated the majority of the room’s floor.
There was also a stained glass window with a simplified octahedron upon it and each face of the die which was visible to me featured a different human face with one of the elemental symbols beneath it.
I only glanced at it until after I had bathed, eaten the food brought to me - a beef and vegetable stew with brown broth and bread -, brushed my teeth changed, and changed into the woolen tunic and loose-fit pants they had provided.
As I wondered to myself about the events to come and the sheer loneliness I currently felt; I found myself looking for any to keep my mind going until I fell to sleep. My conscious mind predicted that my subconscious would fill my mind with emotional torture thinking of my family despite their being so far from me.
I struggled to find a comfortable place for myself in the far too big bed, even with Baloo the Cerbearus and Bagheera the Ossicarn alongside me. As I lay there, I stared at the stained glass in its moons-lit form.
As I stared at it and slowly drifted to sleep a familiar LCD green system prompt appeared.
“New topics discovered: The Eight Saints and the Eight Saints Reliquary.”
I was out before I had read it fully.
***
When I woke, it was to a too-light knock and a chorus of voices from the other side of my door.
“Brother!” came the first, light and likely from a toddler.
“Brother Wade!” came another, more clear in its tone and diction.
“Wade! It is time to wake up!” came the third, much clearer than the other to demanding rather than asking me to wake up.
Another LCD green system window prompt floated in front of me, flickering angrily. It wasn’t enough to have Lord Darville’s kids interrupt my sleep I had to have the system doing something. I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, and ignore the prompt that I cynically assumed was a quest to ‘wake up and begin your first day of schooling!’ as I lay there.
Grouchiness wouldn’t do if I wanted to make allies and gain strength. I had to put a happy face on and force myself to move forward. So as I rubbed my eyes groggily, I rolled out of bed with a thud. Coming up from the crouch that led me into I stood and began to trudge to the bathroom to throw water on my face to wake up. My heavy footfalls broadcast my presence in the land of the waking much more clearly than my sleepily grumbled “I’m awake, I’m awake. Give me a few minutes to get presentable.”
As the task of washing was finished, I saw the system prompt clearly.
“Congratulations on doing something creative, eating a good meal, fighting in a battle, and getting a good night’s sleep! Your previous day’s experience gains have been successfully given a multiplier of an additional twenty percent.”
It hovered, showing I had gained a five percent bonus for each action. I dismissed it and another window popped into view with my total experience points.
“Experience Points Total: 121. This represents cumulative rewards and multipliers from the inquisitive trait and good living bonuses.”
I had more than doubled my total in a day but didn’t know what that actually meant. Was I rich or did that equate to something like having a twenty dollar bill in your pocket at a fancy store?
I willed the window close and before the next, “Additionally you have unlocked more classes” completed I willed it shut too. Classes were exciting but I had to find out more information before I ended up picking the wrong one.
I dressed myself in the slate grey pants, black socks, black leather boots, and green and yellow tunic that had been left hung up in the wardrobe. I stretched and then walked towards the door and the surprises that waited.