9
Sylvarin had one last stop to make. She dismounted her horse at the street corner and looked down the street of pretty gabled storefronts and workshops. Noblehearth’s artisan quarter looked its best as the light began to die and the lanterns were first lit. Towards the heart of the city, most people were heading to the Tavern for the nightly checking of the quest NPCs and the chance to earn a few social XP. Here, those who remained still worked.
The few people on the streets were Commoners on errands or heading towards the Tavern. Sylvarin looked a lot like them, but with enough differences to be significant to those who knew to look for them. She wore a set of simple leather armour with its panels cut into the shape of leaves, with a wooden staff in her hand that could have been a mundane walking stick were it not for the image of a crouching cat carved into its tip. Over her shoulder was a leather pack and around her waist hung small bags and pouches which the educated knew contained various spell components.
Sylvarin spotted the sign she was looking for. It was the image of a hand with a leaf on the palm, painted in white on a board hanging above a doorway. Lantern light shone from inside.
‘Stay,’ she said to her horse, Pumpkin. The horse huffed as if a little indignant at the idea he might wander off. Sylvarin patted him on the flank and headed for the shop.
She pushed open the front door and looked into the small front room, where a middle-aged and grey-bearded man sat at a table with a pestle and mortar. He was grinding bunches of herbs and decanting the powder he obtained into tiny glass vials. Past him was a doorway into a larger room with several beds, and a young man quietly moving between the beds to tend to the few people lying there.
The man turned around in his seat and put a small pair of spectacles on his nose to regard her. ‘Good evening!’ he said.
‘Hello, Mr Ablewright,’ said Sylvarin. ‘I don’t suppose you remember me.’
‘Of course I do,’ replied Fodrish. ‘I have an eye for faces. Sylvarin, yes? You had a broken leg, if memory serves.’
‘I did. You granted me a great kindness.’
‘I am glad I was able to help.’ Fodrish put down the pestle and brushed some stray scraps of leaf and stalk off his lap. ‘So, how may I help you, Sylvarin? I trust you haven’t broken the other one?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing like that,’ said Sylvarin. ‘I wanted to come by before I left the city. I’ve finally hit my first class level.’
Fodrish raised his eyebrows, which had become bushy with age. ‘Congratulations! What did you choose?’
‘Druid.’
‘An excellent choice. There are never enough Druids. Swords and fireballs are all very well until you need someone who can turn into an octopus.’
‘And I have a lot of utility spells that are more useful if you have an imagination. Plant Growth gets interesting if your enemy just ate an apple seed.’
Fodrish chuckled. ‘The girl I healed was barely just out of the Meadows and I don’t think all that much time has gone by since then. You must have got your levels quickly.’
‘I had a lot of luck,’ said Sylvarin. ‘I caught a couple of good quests.’
‘Giant rats?’
‘No, rogue elementals in the forest outside. And another one to bring back Filth Stalker eyes from the sewers.’
‘Keep on like that and you’ll be over the Glacier in no time.’
‘Over the what?’
Fodrish smiled. ‘Figure of speech.’
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Sylvarin shrugged her pack off her shoulder. ‘I wanted to do something for you, just as you did for me, Mr Ablewright.’
‘I don’t accept payment,’ said Fodrish. ‘But I thank you for the thought.’
‘This isn’t payment,’ said Sylvarin. ‘I knew you would say that so I got you something else.’ She brought out a small wooden box and placed it on the table. Fodrish opened it hesitatingly, to reveal a set of intricate tools made of steel and brass. There were tiny needles and blades, and a couple of sets of gripping tools.
‘They dropped in the Daemonologist’s Shrine beneath the palace,’ said Sylvarin as Fodrish examined the implements. ‘There’s a rare quest to clear it out. I bartered a cart full of marble and ingots for them. They’re magic healer’s tools.’
Fodrish turned over one of the scalpels so it caught the light. Its handle had ornate carvings, too small to be by a mortal hand. ‘I didn’t know they could exist.’
‘It’s a low percentage drop,’ said Sylvarin. ‘I was lucky to find them. Most of them go to low-level Clerics but I knew they would be more useful to you.’
‘You could sell them for a lot of gold.’
‘I don’t want a lot of gold.’
Fodrish replaced the scalpel and closed the box. ‘Thank you, Sylvarin. This is very kind.’
‘There aren’t many doing what you are. I wanted to help you help people, the way you helped me. And if you should happen to have any advice for a newly-minted adventurer, I’m all ears.’
‘Because I am very old and hence must be wise?’
Sylvarin flushed. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. And you’re not that old.’
‘I’m joking. I don’t know much about adventuring so any advice I have is rather vague, I’m afraid. The only lesson I ever learned is, compassion is the only thing that really changes anything for the better.’
‘Compassion?’
‘I had a friend who showed me compassion once. That was a long time ago now. All he did was accept me and my flaws. I must have been quite the frustrating friend but he accepted all that, which I realised much later was a great act of kindness. So I try to do the same thing. It came rather more naturally to him, so I made this little enterprise to show it in my own way.’
Sylvarin looked through the doorway to the small ward room. It had eight beds, three of which were occupied by sleeping Commoners. The nurse, who wore a simple floor-length white robe, was gently sponging the faces and hands of the sleepers and checking their temperatures and pulses. ‘I remember him, too,’ she said.
‘Three points in Leadership lets me summon a single NPC with one proficiency,’ said Fodrish. ‘He can take on the work I don’t have time for, but I’m afraid he’s not much of a conversationalist. Neither am I, for that matter.’
Sylvarin turned back to him. ‘You said the same thing when I first came to you. I think you did fine.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I must have learned a little bedside manner over the years.’
‘I wondered back then why you healed people for nothing.’
Fodrish let out a soft laugh. ‘It wasn’t for nothing. Believe me, all this is purely selfish. I get as much out of it as anyone who gets their leg splinted.’
Sylvarin looked momentarily confused about what he meant, but the expression passed. ‘I can’t stay long,’ she said. ‘There’s a party of us that are heading out of the city soon and I have to make sure I’ve foraged enough rations before we leave.’
‘Where are you headed?’
‘The Thrice-Accursed Tomb. Quest to kill Lord Farrenbrook the Wight Lord. Not a lot to do for a Druid but I’m sure I can root snare a few skeletons.’
‘There are always skeletons. Just remember what I told you. It’s not the kind of thing they tell you in the Meadows and it’s an easy lesson for an adventurer to forget.’
‘I will. Keep… keep doing what you’re doing. Mr Ablewright. Maybe more people will do the same.’
‘Perhaps. Good bye, Sylvarin. May you be fortunate and kind.’
‘Same to you,’ said Sylvarin with a smile.
The room was bathed in a soft pinkish glow as words appeared in the air between the two. SOCIAL ENCOUNTER COMPLETE. XP: 5.
‘Well, fancy that,’ said Fodrish.
‘See? You’re not so bad at conversation after all.’ Sylvarin opened the door, and left Fodrish’s tiny hospital with a final wave.
Pumpkin still waited for her at the end of the street. Sylvarin would need to ride him out of the city gates and forage for a good few hours if her party was to set off on time. She mounted up and trotted along the cobbles, wondering what Fodrish had meant about being over the Glacier.
She let the thought die away. She had enough worries about the upcoming quest to occupy her. Whatever the Glacier was, it couldn’t have been important.
FODRISH ABLEWRIGHT
COMMONER 5
XP: 33,405. XP to next level: 2,595
XP UNSPENT: 5
STRENGTH 2
DEXTERITY 3
TOUGHNESS 3
PERCEPTION 3
INTELLIGENCE 4
SPIRIT 4
PROFICIENCIES: Alchemist’s Tools, Healer’s Tools, Basic Weapon (Club), Basic Armour (Cloth)
SKILLS: Leadership 3, Herbology 2