1
Fodrish’s first swing went wide, so he kicked the giant rat instead. His foot made a meaty impact in the creature’s side and it skittered across the slick flagstones of the sewer tunnel, chittering angrily as it thumped into the slimy wall.
Fodrish gripped his club in both hands. It was a simple splintery length of wood, the only weapon he had, but it was marginally better than nothing. He held it in front of him as if it would ward off the snarling, spitting creature that faced him across the tunnel junction.
He was suddenly aware of how exhausted he was. A couple of hours wandering the sewers of Noblehearth, then twenty seconds or fighting the first giant rat he had come across, had drained him so utterly the club felt almost too heavy to hold. He forced himself to draw in a deep breath, tighten his grip and tense ready for the rat to strike back.
Let it attack. Dodge and counter-strike. Fight smart, Fodrish.
Smart was his only option. His Strength was 2, the same as the rat, and his Dexterity of 3 was undoubtedly worse. The rat had a worrying glint of intelligence in its tiny black eyes, as if it was sizing up in Fodrish the same way. Fodrish wasn’t a very impressive sight, he knew, even compared to another Commoner 1. Slight, tall but stooped, with the fringe of his light brown hair clinging to his forehead with exertion. A slender face and narrow shoulders, all clad in the Commoner’s garb which afforded barely any more armour than fighting naked.
The rat was huge, the top of its head level with Fodrish’s thigh, and the greasy black hair covering its long body bristled with fury. Its front teeth were grisly yellow fangs and foam flecked the pinkish flesh around its mouth. It spat out a high shriek of anger.
‘Same to you,’ said Fodrish, but any bravado in the words vanished as he said them.
The rat bunched up on its haunches and leapt at him, propelling itself fang-first across the junction. Fodrish ducked back and tripped on the uneven flagstones, stumbling back to splash in the shin-deep water of the central channel. He fell onto his rump in the water as the rat missed, thudded to the floor and squirmed around to lunge at him.
More by instinct than skill, Fodrish stuck the club out in front of him. The rat’s fangs clamped down on the wood and he felt the creature trying to wrench it out of his hands. He got unsteadily to his feet, putting all his Strength 2 into keeping his grip on the club, then heaved it around as if he was swinging an axe at a tree trunk.
The swing was enough to impact the giant rat against the corner where the tunnel made a sharp turn. From the sound, the rat hit hard enough to break a rib or crush an organ, and its jaws let go of the club as it slid down the wall to the floor. The sudden absence of weight on the end of the club made Fodrish fall back, splashing again into the water.
The red number ‘2’ appeared briefly over the rat as it bucked and writhed, getting its clawed feet under it again.
Two damage. How many hit points did a giant rat have?
Fodrish was intensely aware of his own five hit points. The rat’s fangs looked like they could chew through that in a couple of bites.
Press the advantage! Go for the kill!
With a yell even he hadn’t expected, Fodrish pushed himself up out of the rank water and swung the club down onto the rat. It squirmed out of the way, but Fodrish raised the weapon and swung down again. It was an inelegant downward blow, relying on gravity to do what his muscles couldn’t. He guessed with his Strength and the rat’s Dexterity, he might have a fifty-fifty chance at best of scoring a hit. Volume counted, not technique.
Hit it again, and again, until it’s dead.
The second swing hit. The number ‘1’ blinked in the air. The giant rat was still moving.
More than three hit points, then.
The rat’s jaws snapped forward and a hot pain lanced through one of Fodrish’s shins. He felt the awful scrape of its teeth against bone, and he kicked out instinctively.
A vivid red ‘2’ appeared over his vision.
A desperation drove him now. He had opened up enough of a gap between himself and the rat to get another good swing in. As he brought the club down again, he saw the events unrolling in his head, a gallery of scenes flashing by in the split second before the weapon connected or missed.
The swing going wide, the rat leaping on me, sinking its teeth in. The last hit points gone. Me falling to the floor, limbs paralysed by the Unconscious state, then waking up at the sewer entrance with the words ‘Quest Failed’ above me like a banner proclaiming my weakness…
The club crunched into the rat’s back with such an impact it jarred up Fodrish’s arms and almost made him drop the weapon.
‘A red ‘2’ appeared over the rat.
The creature keeled over onto its side. From its furry corpse a sliver of yellow bone clattered onto the flagstones. A translucent grey skull and crossbones appeared over the corpse, denoting the thing was dead.
Fodrish felt all the weight of his exhaustion slamming down on him again. He stumbled out of the water channel and leaned against the wall, letting the club’s tip touch the floor to take its weight. His throat was raw and his chest hurt with his heavy breaths. The pain in his leg was a dull throb, with the promise of becoming sharper as the rush of the fight died down.
Taking stock of his surroundings, Fodrish could appreciate how the sewer was hardly built for function. The shallow channel running down the centre of its wide, high tunnels carried no more than a sluggish stream of water. They were built to serve as a labyrinth to be explored and navigated, not to actually move water around. In spite of this, the sewers were certainly filthy enough. The wall against his back was cold and slimy with mould and the place stank of stagnation and decay. The sewer water soaking his clothes was particularly pungent.
Fodrish limped to the rat’s body and picked the piece of bone up off the floor. He slipped it into his pocket, and imagined a series of compartments holding the items in his possession. In response, the familiar inventory appeared in the air in front of him. A human-shaped image with six boxes indicated his torso, legs and feet wore the three-part set of Commoner’s tunic, trousers and boots. A pair of boxes alongside the human shape each contained the image of the club, indicating Fodrish was wielding it with both hands. The lines of boxes for miscellaneous inventory were empty aside from one containing the piece of bone, which was labelled ‘Giant Rat Fang’.
It was his first ever quest item. He felt an odd mixture of relief and fear. It was such a strange thing to have gone through so much for, a grimy piece of stained bone.
His thoughts were broken by the sound of claws on stone. He spun around and peered down the gloomy sewer tunnel past the corner where he had defeated the rat. In the shadows, winking like shards of glass, were two pairs of narrow, malevolent eyes.
Two more giant rats, creeping along the tunnel towards him.
Two more Giant Rat Fangs to turn in for the quest. And two more sets of filthy, disease-dripping jaws to sink into his flesh.
He had three hit points left. He had to do at least eight damage in return.
The club in his hand felt so utterly inadequate to that job he almost dropped it right there. And his Commoner’s garb might not soak up a single point of the damage the two creatures could do.
A very familiar feeling sank down on Fodrish’s shoulders. Of course he couldn’t do it. Who was he to think he could venture into the sewers of Noblehearth and return with an inventory full of quest items, to rocket his way towards the next level? That was for people with skill and talent, with the luck or tenacity to begin the escalation up the experience ladder. Not for him.
Fodrish backed down along the tunnel behind him, keeping the giant rats in sight. They reached the intersection and snapped at him, hissing and spitting as if uttering wordless curses in return for the death of their friend. When he reached another bend in the tunnel, Fodrish hurried as fast as he could along the slippery flagstones towards the sewer entrance. The gloom became less oppressive as the wall-mounted torches got more frequent, and even the smell seemed less gruesome.
‘Fodrish!’ called a voice from a side tunnel. Fodrish span in alarm before he recognised the voice of his friend. Melagorn emerged from the tunnel swinging his sword idly by his side like a walking stick. ‘Ready to call it a day?
‘Running low on HP,’ said Fodrish, gathering himself.
‘How many do you have left?’
‘Three.’
‘That’s plenty! All you need is a point and a prayer!’
‘I know, but there were two of the things. No way I could out-damage them.’
‘Oh, bad pull. But it happens to the best of us! At least tell me you have something to show for it.’
‘I got one of them.’
‘Well… well that’s something!’
‘Yes, it’s something.’
Melagorn clapped Fodrish on the shoulder and gave him a smile. Melagorn was the bigger man, with a ruddy face that broke easily into a grin and a mop of black hair. He was naturally strong and Fodrish stumbled half a step.
‘How many did you bag?’ asked Fodrish.
‘A few,’ said Melagorn. ‘But I’ve been down here before. Plus this makes things a lot easier.’ He held up his sword, which was still grimy with what was presumably rat blood. ‘Longsword proficiency was the best investment I ever made.’
‘How many, Mel?’ said Fodrish.
‘Five,’ said Melagorn.
‘Nice going.’
‘Believe me, if I could share a couple I would. But those are the rules.’
‘Those are the rules.’
‘Hey, I saw a Filth Stalker!’ said Melagorn with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. ‘Back near where it turns to level five and above. There are quests to bring back their eyes. It’s not much further past them you get to the cultist warrens!’
‘A Filth Stalker?’
‘Like big spiders with human heads. What about you?’
‘Just the rats.’
The sewer entrance was visible up ahead, a rectangle of sunlight framing the half-timbered buildings of Noblehearth’s Merchant Quarter. It was a relief to step beyond the boundary of the sewers and into the relatively fresh air of the street. The large brick arch of the sewer entrance was flanked by tall, leaning tenement buildings lining the rutted roadway. Beyond them were the spires of the Elders’ Bastion and the towers of the Cathedral of the Primes, reaching into the blue of the sky like the branches of leafless trees.
Even in this run-down end of the quarter, the city had colour. The roofs were tiled in deep red or faded blue, and the ground floor workshops had awnings of patterned cloth and fanciful painted signs advertising their wares. The people made the most of their Commoner’s garb, dyeing them bright colours and augmenting them with trinkets from minor quest rewards or made by hand from random scraps. A couple of them glanced at the two men walking out of the sewer, or at the small group of Noblehearthers gathered around the sewer entrance’s quest board to see if another opportunity would be coming available to delve into the rat-infested tunnels. The giant rat quest wasn’t much to get excited about, but everyone had to start somewhere.
The words QUEST COMPLETE flashed in the air above the street. Fodrish paused to see the text scroll across his field of vision: GIANT RAT FANGS: 1. TOTAL XP: 5.
Fodrish felt the weight of his clothing shift as the fang vanished from his inventory.
Five experience points. Automatically, Fodrish envisioned his character sheet, and it appeared in translucent letters and figures in front of him.
FODRISH ABLEWRIGHT
COMMONER 1
XP: 1264. XP TO NEXT LEVEL: 2731
XP UNSPENT: 5
Almost a third of the way to 4000XP, and the strange, unexplored land of level two.
Fodrish heard the jingle of metal and turned to see Melagorn holding a hefty leather pouch, the kind that always contained coins. ‘Time bonus,’ said Melagorn sheepishly. ‘Five rats in under an hour.’
‘I’d better head back,’ said Fodrish. ‘I don’t want to miss a whole day at the forge. I’ll see you, though.’
‘Of course! How about tonight? We could head to the Tavern.’
‘Sure.’
Melagorn jingled the bag again. ‘Grub’s on me!’
The forge wouldn’t work itself. Some magical ones did, of course, but not this one. Fodrish sat down and pressed the bellows down with his foot, feeling the familiar heat as the forge rose up to sufficient heat.
The work was monotonous, but that was to his benefit. It became a mechanical action to slide the flattened steel sheet into the crucible, withdraw it glowing hot, and with a heavy metal hammer pound it methodically against the mould into the curve of a broad torso. The process took hours and thousands of hammer strikes, during which Fodrish’s mind would wander to the incessant music of metal on metal.
He had imagined, for years now, what he would do with the skill point. Each Commoner level would grant him a single such point and he had put his first into Leadership. The second would go there, too. It would give him bonuses for influencing Non-Player Characters and when haggling for goods. It wasn’t as useful as Smithing would be, but it still had its benefits since Fodrish could buy a few more raw materials than most of Noblehearth’s artisans. What really mattered, however, was when he reached Commoner 5. With that fifth point of Leadership, things would change.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Hours later, the time truncated by letting the thoughts run their course, Fodrish stopped hammering. The breastplate taking form on his anvil was plain but solid, a functional piece of armour that might lack the ornamentation of a more splendid item but which he could turn out as quickly as possible. He took a handful of thaumerium dust, by far the most expensive component in the forge, and cast it into the crucible. The flames flared a deep, vivid mauve, bathing the workshop in a caged twilight.
The dust was gathered by low-level Player Characters on their early quests, and sold in Noblehearth for the gold and silver coins needed to upgrade their starting PC gear. One of the city’s buyers was Fodrish, who every few months came back from the city bazaar with a new bag of the glowing dust. The next component was a bright green gemstone, an Elemental Pearl, which those Player Characters might fish up while gathering ingredients from the Wanderwine River. Fodrish dropped the stone into the forge and it burned green for a moment, before the colour settled into a swirl of blue-green with wisps of red.
Fodrish slid the breastplate into the crucible. The magical heat turned the breastplate a deep bronze-like colour with whorls of darker banding, like marble. He gauged when the moment was just right, when the edges of the metal were glowing and ready to subtly deform and ruin the shape. He drew the breastplate out and plunged it into the trough beside the anvil, letting a dense billow of vapour hiss out of the water to fill the workshop.
The breastplate was quenched and Fodrish took it back out of the water. The flames in the crucible turned back to their orange glow. In the light of the fire, Fodrish turned the armour over with his tongs, seeing how the light played across the metal. Even after so many forgings, there was a satisfaction in the way the pattern flowed across the surface, like the ripples of a sand dune or the writhing of a stream across rocky ground. Tiny flecks of emerald green caught the light.
With a sound like a small bell ringing, the characters EXCEPTIONAL BONUS: 1XP appeared over the breastplate.
The armour was Exceptional quality, a +1 Breastplate of Protection. The random Exceptional chance had kicked in and had earned Fodrish his single experience point. It would sell for more, too, but that wasn’t the important thing. Some artisans aimed to make more and more gold pieces until they could buy a Starfire Forge or a Thaumerium Anvil and make ever more useful items, so when they reached their first Player Character level they were sitting on a substantial enough pile of cash to buy the best possible starting gear. Not Fodrish. He was after the XP alone.
The Exceptional bonus meant Fodrish had earned six XP since dawn. It was the most he had ever managed in a single day. That fact was accompanied not by the flicker of triumph he had expected, but a sudden sadness he could not quite grasp. This was the best he had ever done. He might never do it again. This might be his peak, reached alone in his starting-level workshop, making an item that may or may not sell to someone who had scraped together enough gp to make the lowest level of upgrade.
1265XP down. 2735 to go.
Noblehearth had one of the biggest taverns in the Known Realms. It was four storeys high and fronted by seven columns holding up a pediment sculpted with images of common folk taking up arms against vicious monsters. The many doorways were surrounded by posters put up by Noblehearthers looking for craftspeople or low-level adventuring companions, or offering their services as artisans and brewers of lesser potions. The place was always busy, with a constant flow of Commoners in and out of its several entrances, and around it had sprung up the stalls of clothiers and trinket-makers like mushrooms around a fallen log.
Fodrish ached from the day at the forge so his steps were laboured as he walked up to the eastern doorway. He entered to the rumble, like the sound of the sea, that came from hundreds of voices echoing around the lofty main chambers. The Tavern was divided into several spaces, each with the trappings of a drinking den but multiplied many times. The areas were divided by false internal walls so the vaulted, shadowy ceiling, covered with dark soot from pipes and cooking fires, rolled overhead unbroken. The smell was of bodies and tobacco smoke, with the tang of cheap ale and roasted meat.
In one corner of the eastern hall, surrounded by a small crowd of hopeful commoners, was a man dressed in long tattered back robes with a hood that almost hid his face. Fodrish patiently rotated through the onlookers until he got to the front of the crowd, face to face with the man. The figure sat at a small table, idly playing with a pair of dice in one hand.
‘Anything?’ asked Fodrish.
The man’s sole reply was a slow shake of his head. Up close only the lower part of his face could be seen, pale with thin and scarred lips. It was an NPC, a non-player character. An artificial person, one of countless inhabitants of the Known Realms who served a particular purpose. This one sat there and never moved or spoke, save for very occasionally whispering the details of a quest to a Commoner who spoke to him. Fodrish had never received anything but a shake of the head from him, though he had been there on occasion when someone had whooped and cheered to be given a precious quest and the promise of XP at its end.
Fodrish pushed his way back out of the crowd, glancing at the similarly well-patronised Quest Board to one side of the bar. The board was for low-level Player Characters, offering riches and experience for hunting down rabid wolves or marauding bandits just outside Noblehearth’s walls. Visible through the archway to the south was the Guild Hall, where most of the PCs from Noblehearth first entered brotherhoods of adventurers to pool their efforts in completing quests. Sometimes the outlandishly-dressed NPCs of middle and higher levels would be seen there, about some guild business or other. Fodrish ignored most of the bustle and made his way to the bar where an innkeeper was pouring tankards for the evening’s customers.
‘Two ales,’ said Fodrish.
‘Right you are,’ said the barkeep. He was a Commoner, too, offered precious employment by the city’s Elders, earning his nightly XP by pouring out hundreds of mugs of weak alcohol. ‘Nothing from the Hooded Stranger, then?’
‘Not this time. He plays me hard to get. One day I’ll catch his eye.’
‘’Course you will. Here.’ The barkeep, a heavy and moustachioed man with large gnarled hands, pushed two pewter tankards across the bar.
‘Killed a rat, though,’ said Fodrish.
‘A rat?’ the barkeep raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘They still doing that? Thought the sewers were cleared out.’
‘Must have respawned.’
‘Did you get many?’
‘Just the one. The furry little sods are more cagey than the hooded guy.’
‘Had a lady in here once got twelve of them in one run.’
‘I wish I had what she had.’
‘They rebalanced it after that. Never heard of that many since. Six copper, mate.’
Fodrish handed over the coins and took the tankards, looking across the east hall. Scores of commoners were sitting around the dozens of tables, breaking into laughter, arguing vociferously or breaking into song. Near their usual corner he spotted Melagorn, who was already working on a plate of roasted meat and potatoes.
‘Fod!’ exclaimed Melagorn with a smile as Fodrish approached. ‘Good man! I’m parched!’
‘Got an Artisan proc earlier,’ said Fodrish as he sat down.
‘See? Trending positively! You’ll beat me to PC at this rate.’
‘Only if you spend the next couple of decades asleep.’
‘Ha! Don’t tempt me. Artisans have a better proc chance than hunters, you know. I only bagged two Perfect Quality deer hides in the last fortnight.’
‘At least it gets you outside.’
‘True. But you don’t have to run around in the woods with a bow when it’s pissing it down.’
Fodrish began on the plate of food Melagorn had ordered for him. It was hot and plentiful, which was all he needed.
‘Thought much of your first PC level?’ asked Melagorn through a mouthful of meat.
‘I try not to,’ said Fodrish. ‘There’s not much point daydreaming if I’m never going to get there.’
‘It’s worth doing. When you start racking up those skill points you’ll need a plan for where to put them.’
‘I have a plan.’
‘Which is?’
‘I just have a plan.’
‘I’m thinking Ranger for me,’ said Melagorn. ‘Makes sense for a hunter. I’ve already got the bow proficiency and the longsword. You could repair your own armour if you went Fighter, you know.’
‘Sure.’ Fodrish took another mouthful of potatoes.
‘Come on, Fod,’ said Melagorn, putting down his fork. ‘Don’t start this again.’
‘I just don’t think there’s any point wasting skill points to set myself up for a PC level I’m never going to get.’
‘Anyone can get there!’ said Melagorn.
‘Plenty don’t.’
‘So you’ve decided you’re going to be one of them?’
‘It’s not a decision. It’s just the way it is.’
‘Look, Fod, you can do it. The only thing that’ll stop you is if you’ve made up your mind that you can’t. If you believe it’s all pointless, it’ll become that way. Believe you can do it, and you will. It’s not nice to hear, but this all comes from inside. You’ve decided how the story’s going to go. You can change it if you want.’
‘None of us can change anything!’ retorted Fodrish, and the words were louder than he expected. ‘Sorry. But the Core Manual’s made all these decisions, not me. I’ve done the sums, you have any idea how long it’s going to take me to grind one level? People die every day without making more than a level or two. There’s no magic rule that says I’m not going to be one of them.’
‘Well if that’s what you believe, that’s what you believe,’ sighed Melagorn. ‘So what’s the plan? I’ve known you for a long time, Fod, and you never told me. I didn’t push it, but… you know.’
‘Know what?’
‘I worry.’
Fodrish sat back in his chair. ‘Worry?’
‘Like you said, lots of people fall behind and can’t catch up. I worry about you being one of them.’
‘Look, there’s nothing to worry about, okay?’
‘So you have proficiency in Artisan’s Tools and one point in Leadership, right? Why didn’t you put it into Smithing?’
Fodrish looked at his friend, who for the first time he could remember wasn’t smiling. ‘I got a plan,’ said Fodrish. ‘Just… that’s it. A plan.’
‘This plan involve getting to Leadership five?’
‘Come on, Mel. Conversation’s done.’
Melagorn held his hands up as if in surrender. ‘Fine. You don’t want me to go there, fine. But I’m asking because I worry. That’s all.’
‘There’s enough for you to worry about with adding me in there. I heard the talk of the Elders regulating the Bazaar. Taxes, permits, all that. Player-driven economy, they call it. So they can spend it on a proper police force, they say, not just the NPC guards.’
‘Think the Core Manual will go for it?’
‘I think we’re gonna have some new Elders soon.’
Melagorn wolfed down the last potatoes on his plate and drank down the gravy. ‘Time to tick up those numbers,’ he said. ‘Get your mingle on, Fod. Get some incidental XP. You got six today, right? Bet you can push it further.’
‘Sure. I’ll finish this first.’
Melagorn slapped the table as if to indicate the finality of finishing the meal, then got up and moved through the growing crowd in the hall. Within a few seconds he was clapping someone on the back, with the accompanying raised voices and laughter. He sat down and, though Fodrish couldn’t hear the words, he could hear the familiar tone of new friends being made.
At Commoner levels, incidental XP from social encounters could add up. The huge size and popularity of the Noblehearth’s Tavern facilitated the city’s Commoners making those encounters and earning the chance to tick up another XP or two. Each social encounter had a chance to earn XP, but after a few triggers from encounters with the same person the chance vanished. Diminishing returns was one of the principles of the whole XP system, so finding a new person to engage with was the city’s favourite pastime.
Fodrish finished his meal and got up to join the throng. He had stopped getting any XP from hanging out with Melagorn long ago. There were hundreds of people in the Tavern by then, and he looked through the candlelight and tobacco smoke to find a spare seat or a gap in a knot of people that he could make his.
Just walk up to them and say hello.
Three Commoners were chatting around one of the small round tables, two women and a man. The man looked like a woodsman, with brawny shoulders and scarred knuckles. One of the women wore the garb of a priest from the Cathedral of the Primes, long ivory and gold robes and a single lock of hair on her otherwise shaved head. The second was a hunter with clothes of stitched deer hide and the quiver still slung over her back.
‘Hi,’ said Fodrish.
They didn’t hear him. ‘Hey,’ he said, louder, and the hunter looked up.
‘Hey there,’ she said. She had solid, strong features and broad shoulders, and three tankards already drained and lined up in front of her.
‘Room for one more?’ he asked.
‘We’re kind of waiting on someone,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Fine,’ said Fodrish hurriedly. ‘Fine.’
Melagorn would have just sat down. Said something that made them laugh. Put them at ease.
But what would make them laugh? How do I know? What would put them at ease? How can anyone know, without talking to them? And you can’t talk to them, because you didn’t know.
Fodrish drifted away, putting a decent distance between him and the hunter’s table. Another group was standing by the back wall, four of them, all smiths or woodworkers by the look of their smoke-stained leather aprons and rolled-up sleeves. Two men and two women.
‘Proc anything today?’ he said, walking up to the group. ‘My anvil’s stingier with XP than this place is with seasoning.’
‘Not today,’ said one of the women, whose hair was tied up in a sensible braid. ‘Hey Talaya, did you get any Exceptionals?’
‘Two this week,’ said the other woman, whose slight frame was evidence that a person’s physical strength had nothing to do with the results the Core Manual assigned even to the most strenuous professions. ‘Since I put the point into Smithing they’ve gone up way more than five percent. Must be an algorithm going on.’
‘Gotta make ‘em to make ‘em,’ said a third of the group, a man with violent red hair and two fingers missing on his left hand. ‘Always the way.’
‘Ain’t that true,’ said the fourth, who had wound metal trinkets into his thick black hair. ‘Should’ve been a priest. Only profession that gets more customers the worse shit gets.’
‘Or gravedigger,’ said the slender woman, and the others chuckled.
‘You chosen a god?’ asked Fodrish falteringly.
But they were already off on a tangent, debating which the best profession was, wishing they had been assigned as something else when they left the Meadows.
Just say something. Anything. Make them pay attention.
But he could feel the old, familiar bubble forming around them, the invisible wall.
What if they told him to get lost? There were a million ways he could annoy them, and the way he could make that connection seemed an arcane combination he didn’t know.
How dare you act like our friend? What makes you think you can demand our attention out of nowhere? Who are you to offer an opinion we haven’t asked for?
Melagorn knew. Fodrish had asked him what the combination was, once, but he hadn’t understood the reply. Confidence, he had said. Be yourself. Stop worrying. It had either meant nothing, or seemed impossible. Be confident about something he wasn’t good at, be himself when he had never knowingly been anyone else. Stop worrying about something he worried about, as if he could turn it on and off at will.
The bubble was impenetrable now. The very thought of trying to break through it was paralysing. Fodrish couldn’t speak. He could barely move unless it was to melt away, making himself as invisible as the force that kept him from breaking into the tiny clique of gossiping artisans.
That was what he did, this time towards the bar again, just to give himself something to do.
Fodrish had Charisma 3, the starting average. With his point in Leadership, he had a slightly above average chance of swaying NPCs or haggling down their prices. But when dealing with people, real people who weren’t creations of the Core Manual, there was no underlying algorithm to make up for what he naturally lacked.
Fodrish was suddenly aware of a change in the normal hubbub of the Tavern. At the back of the hall, near the archway to the guild hall, the patrons were crowding to get a look. He could see a spray of feathers visible past the crowd, bobbing around as the wearer of the plumage walked to the noticeboard detailing guild business. A few of the Commoners nearby were throwing on their coats and heading purposefully for the ways out. Fodrish held off ordering another tankard and followed the commotion, sidling his way between the bodies until he could see properly.
A female figure dressed in red and yellow velvet, wearing a hat surmounted by the green and gold feathers, was affixing notices to the board. Fodrish could tell she was an NPC by the blandly handsome cast of her face and the way she ignored everything around her except for her assigned task.
‘Some high-level commander type must have summoned her,’ said the patron next to him. It was a heftily-built man with the leather gauntlets and tool belt of a mason.
‘Or a Wizard,’ replied Fodrish.
‘Hope not,’ said the mason. ‘I hate bloody Wizards. Either way it’s a cheek sending a herald. Showing off what they can do. Could’ve chucked one of us a gold to do it, not like they’re short.’
Fodrish recognised the symbols of one of the Known Realms’ largest guilds, the Free And Honourable League of Adventuring, Pathfinding and Exploration. Its hand-and-sword logo adorned several of the parchment pages now affixed to the noticeboard. The Free and Honourable had dozens of adventuring parties under its aegis and received applications from most newly-minted Player Characters coming out of Noblehearth. Fodrish recognised other sigils, too, those of the Whetstone Confederates and the Goblin Slayers’ Union.
The herald finished her work and headed back out of the Tavern. The patrons surged forward to get a look at what she had posted.
“The Brotherhood of the Cowl seeks able potioners and victuallers…”
“Any providers of mid- to high-level enchantments are invited to attend upon the Moonlight Raiders…”
“The South Doomgrad Avengers require weaponsmiths and fletchers capable of working in thaumerium and fire ebony…”
‘PCs are heading here,’ said Fodrish. ‘A lot of them.’
‘Good business if you can get it,’ said the mason. ‘Not much use to me unless they want an aqueduct.’ He cast an eye over Fodrish’s guard. ‘You make weapons?’
‘Armour.’
‘Huh. Good for you.’
The excitement of the announcements was spreading through the Tavern. Patrons were leaving to spend the remainder of the evening preparing for the good business about to come. Fodrish spotted Melagorn leaving with a band of new friends, all laughing and joking as they headed through the eastern door. Melagorn glanced back and waved at Fodrish, who returned the wave.
Fodrish had a stock of breastplates, greaves and gorgets to load ready to haul to the bazaar. It would be another heavy task after a day already taken up first with adventuring, then labouring at the anvil. But it would keep his mind busy, and for that Fodrish was grateful.
He glanced behind him as he descended the steps from the main entrance. Beneath the pediment, carved in letters three metres high, was the slogan echoed all across the Known Realms.
ONCE, THERE WAS CHAOS.