Come the next morning, I was ready to get some work done. Since my door wasn’t locked or lockable, I spent a little bit of woodworking time and barricading skill to hack apart an extra wooden set of drawers into some nice accoutrements for our little home. Terra now had a window seat, made out of a drawer, that was sturdy enough to hold any of her forms, though she tended to stay in a small cat form most of the time.
Woodworking +1
Barricade +1
Exp +20 (1,590/788,209)
“It’s more comfortable in my own form,” Terra had told me when I asked.
We also had a primitive lock for my door that consisted of a bar over it that could be triggered stealthily from the outside. A thief would find the door child’s play to open, but supposedly the college had no thieves. I knew better, so I kept most of my valuables in my inventory. Most of the thievery here at UNLV were crimes of opportunity. If a door posed the least obstacle, it was easier to pilfer from someone else. My other anti-theft device was that I had no intention of letting anyone into my room but me and Terra, so there would be no one to know I had anything worth concerted effort.
Skill Learned: Locksmithing
Exp +20 (1,610/13,669)
I dressed simply in the Vampire Lord’s cook’s clothes. It was a plain brown kirtle over a cream-colored underdress. I left the apron in the wardrobe that took up the rest of the space in my room. I wore my comfortable steel-toed boots, and had a dagger strapped to the outside of my thigh that I could get to thanks to my sewing skill and a slit in my underdress that looked like a side pocket. I clipped my hair up in a simple leather thong, so it would stay out of my face. Then I cast my Glamour and Disguise spells in such a way to make it look like I’d spent an hour at that vanity getting all dolled up. It was time to charm a guard.
Beauty +6
Glamour +1
Disguise +1
Exp +20 (1,630/788,209)
Terra disappeared through her window to do some recon. She remembered the college and how to get in and around things, but she hadn’t seen it before I’d burned half of it down and they’d rebuilt. I hadn’t been able to summon her for three years last time. No magic had meant no Terra. She just wanted to see what might be different.
I had to remind myself over and over that this time was different. I wasn’t locked on campus. I had magic and Terra and Dom. It wouldn’t take three years. I knew how to do it this time. I still took a shaky breath as I approached the guard. I really didn’t know the rules this time, but if I could manage to stay just within those rules, I’d have enough freedom to do what needed to be done.
“Mice!” Terra exclaimed into my mind, distracting me enough to make my smile real.
“Can I help you?” The guard was straight out of a template. He wore shiny armor, held a big sword, and the face and bearing of a rent-a-cop. No offense to anyone working security out there. I’ve done it myself. This wasn’t a rent-a-cop like you or I would be a rent-a-cop to pay the rent. This was that rent-a-cop that didn’t get into the military or police department because he was snively in some way that set people’s nose and upper lip to twitching like a bad smell had entered the room.
“I’m a new student here,” I started, stumbling over words. It wasn’t like I could get a relationship with the guy. He’d be totally different tomorrow; another template version of a guard. “I was wondering if I could pick up some supplies from the market. I don’t have any classes today and I need some girl stuff.”
Charm +1
Men everywhere flinch at that. This guy lived up to that stereotype, fumbling his look at anything but me as he answered, “Curfew is dusk. Get back by then or don’t come back.” It was supposed to be a privilege to go to this prodigious school, so that was supposed to be a threat. If I didn’t have to defeat the place, I’d have been gone without a glance behind me. I was Lot, not his wife.
“You’re a life saver,” I gushed at him as I scooted through the gate. Another guard gave a gruff look to my rent-a-cop but rent-a-cop nodded and waved me through. “Thanks,” I shot at the second guard.
I couldn’t believe that worked. I rounded a nearby corner at a brisk walk hoping they wouldn’t change their minds. I actually didn’t need to go back through the gate tonight. As long as no one came looking for me, I was clear for four days in the city. I wouldn’t take it. I didn’t know who might go looking for me or that I wouldn’t have classes tomorrow. I’d be in my little dorm room by morning at the latest.
I can’t explain why I did it at all. Maybe I just needed to prove that I could leave. Prove it to myself that it was different from last time. Three years mark you and I was feeling that mark. You don’t just shake that off.
“I’m in the city,” I told Terra in our link, another thing that was proof that I wasn’t back there. “Do you want me to summon you?”
“Really?” Terra perked up.
“No one out here is going to object to my having a familiar,” I reasoned, picking my way over toward a market where I couldn’t afford anything last time. Not only could I afford stuff, I could sell things too. I’d hung one lovely seaside painting in my room, but I could easily sell the rest to a broker here in the Capital for a hefty sum. “College staff is all working now, and I can summon you if you get into trouble anywhere.”
There were many things that I could do, but nothing I had to do right away. I’d been so driven for so long, a leisurely stroll through the Capital felt like the epitome of luxury. In this place, freedom itself was a luxury, time was an added spoonful of chocolate syrup. Which reminded me that my stomach was empty. I loved how fast my calories got eaten up in spell-work, mostly because I loved eating. I had a bunch of things preserved in my inventory, including a lovely chocolate cake, but this was the city. They had bakeries and eateries.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Finding purpose, I found a bakery and traded my cake recipe and a few baking soda potions for two dozen cinnamon rolls that would give Cinnabon a run for their money. I also bought and ate some honest-to-goodness yeasty donuts that would make your eyes water.
Bartering +1
Exp +10 (1,640/788,209)
“You come back and I’ll give you a free piece of cake once I’ve mastered it,” the buxom woman behind the counter promised. I ached to sit with her and bond over baking and recipes, but I wouldn’t know for days if she was even real.
“I’ll hold you to that,” I gave her a slightly sad smile. Whoever was here would honor that bargain.
“If it’s a good seller, I’ll see there’s a free piece of it every time you come in,” she gave a motherly grin, and I hid my wince. That kind of thing made for a good story, that was all. I hated his world. I hated how his contempt for humanity bled into every corner of it.
I’d fix it, I told myself, and headed for somewhere to pack in some protein in the form of luscious meat pies. I found a bar. What did you expect? I talked my way into the back room and fixed them a batch of chicken wings. In exchange for the recipe, the savvy tavern owner gave me free drinks for the night and all the wings I could eat. That was a lot, but the patrons of the tavern more than made up for it. Wings not only sold well, but the hot sauce made people thirsty for more ales.
Charm +1
Bartering +1
Exp +10 (1,650/788,209)
“You’ve got a free seat at the bar any night as long as you don’t drink me out of business,” the laughing tavern owner pointed his chubby finger my direction as I left, waving. I gave him the same smile I’d given the bakery owner. Maybe if I made enough friends, I’d find one I could see more than once. In any case, the goodwill was worth it.
The Capital was a bustling place that stank of sewage that ran under the streets. Cobblestone roads had little grates in them to leak away the garbage that piled up in what could be called gutters, but unless there was a good rain, most of it sat around and baked into a smell that overwhelmed the eateries and bakeries. I wanted to cast clean, a lot. I did it in the kitchens when I worked, but elsewhere was just like trying to sweep a beach. I wanted to love it, but my heart wasn’t in it. Even being able to buy some rare spices and potion ingredients at the market didn’t make me feel better. It was just the trauma of my previous trip that had settled into my shoulders and wouldn’t shake loose.
People were generally happy, dressed similar to me for the most part, at least period-wise. Some wore the higher-class stuff, but most were just making it work day to day. It was a storybook place that a person just wanted to get lost in, except that if you asked anyone an off the wall question, they would blink once and say a line out of a database, and those lines repeated.
Perception +1
“Do you have any cumin spice?” I asked the spice vender.
“I can ask the trader next time their through,” he answered after that blink.
“Do you have lavender soap?” I put to another vender with lovely eyes.
“All I got is what you see here, girl,” the woman blinked and said. “We ain’t all that fancy at the market.”
And stores. They were packed with what looked like so much variety it could spin your head, but when you asked about things or read the labels, they repeated over and over. The herb shop sold lavender, but not lye. The weapon shop sold sharpening stones, but not flint. The adventurer’s shop sold backpacks, but not fishing poles. The magic shop was owned by the college and so I didn’t go in, but the cauldron display only lacked a Nimbus 2000 to be straight out of everybody’s favorite alley.
I bought a few baubles because that’s what you do at the stores at an amusement park. I ate the overpriced food and drank the overpriced mulled wine that tasted more like root beer. I got a bushel or bunch of every herb, potion supply, or oddball spice I could find. In essence, I shopped and browsed and tried to cheer up, but the sadness in my gut wouldn’t let go. Learned helplessness wasn’t something you shook off with a bit of retail therapy.
Dusk was settling by the time I made it back to the college. I didn’t actually want to get stuck outside and the only way back in was through the sewers or if I could find a bribable guard which was totally a hit or miss prospect. Terra stayed in the city for a bit, but I kept my ear out for her just in case some stray dog or mean human got an idea that she was meat pie material. I needn’t have worried. Terra was quite adept at hiding in the shadows with that dark mottled coat of hers. At night, you’d only see her by her eyes and only if you caught a glint of lantern lights.
When I returned to the college, I made straight for my room and realized it was all I’d wanted in the first place. The joys of an inventory, excess strength, and lots of energy meant that my tiny dorm room could be anything at any given time. If I dumped the bed, vanity, wardrobe, and stool in a chest, I could pull out my cooking and potion-making supplies to make my dorm room a kitchen straight out of the Vampire Lord’s castle.
What retail therapy started to lift, baking like a madwoman tried harder to shake off. It took five dozen cupcakes with happy-face frosting, ten dozen chocolate chip cookies (not including the batch of dough I ate myself), two dozen snickerdoodles, four pies, a batch of macaroni and cheese, three loaves of crusty sourdough bread (of course I kept a starter preserved in my inventory), and a chocolate cake that tasted like ice cream only warm and gooey. I ate myself sick, cried myself to sleep and woke with a still-present pit in my stomach at the thought of having to sit through a single college class again. That is not to say that I ate ALL of that. Most of it was still preserved in my inventory.
Constitution +3
Cooking +10
Exp +100 (1,750/788,209)
“Karma,” Dom whispered in my mind, waking me from a light snooze. It wasn’t yet dawn, and I’d drunk a bit of whiskey to get myself to sleep so I was a bit groggy.
“He summoned me out of a perfectly lovely nest of mice in a wine cellar,” Terra protested, but I could tell she didn’t mean it. She could feel my distraught thoughts and the trauma I was processing in several relatively unhealthy ways.
“The Siff Underground is mine,” Dom’s tone was smug, and I found a real smile inside me, even as I cast a glamour to cover my puffy eyes. Some part of me knew he couldn’t see me, but that doesn’t matter to a dulled mind that is grasping for succor.
“You did it,” and it said something about my mental state that there was a note of despair beneath my feigned joy at the news. “Even without me.”
“Only because of you,” he replied, concern in his emotions letting me know that he could also feel the befuddlement of my mind.
“You woke me, sorry,” I told him by way of explanation and without recrimination.
“I’m on the next coach to the Capital,” he told me.
“There are two small pit stops a little bigger than Mabel’s place before you get here,” I worried at the comforter and then mended the tear my worrying made.
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s moping about having to take classes at this ridiculous place,” Terra blurted out my secret pain, making it seem like a petty thing.
“Moping,” I snapped, probably more harshly than I needed to, but she hadn’t been there for the three years of miserable classes of basic moronic platitudes, taught by pompous professors and overseen by petty dictators whose whole purpose was to brainwash you into feeling gratitude for their attention and then induct you into the cycle of demoralization. “Three years of bowing and scraping to petty dictators who wanted to crush my soul and you think my return to their den is moping?!”
“Whoa,” Dom cut in, but I hadn’t summoned Terra back, so our communication was fading fast. “No one’s saying that. I don’t know what happened and I don’t care about them. We’ll get them. You know we will. I’m coming.”
I didn’t summon Terra back. I didn’t want their condemnation or their sympathy. I slept alone, as I’d been three years ago. Only this time I slept on a comfortable bed, and soothed myself with clean spells that took the stench of the city out of my room just long enough for me to fall back asleep. Well, that and brownies. A whole freaking batch of brownies.