Hadrid’s didn’t look like much, clearly one of the older buildings in the city. Though not quite a ghetto, it was hardly a skyscraper either, barely a couple of stories tall and sporting few of the telltale lines of runic circuitry.
But, that was fine by me. With how little I knew of city customs and how roughshod my apparel, I wasn’t eager to test my luck at a swankier store. This one seemed appropriate. I tried the door, and it swung open with a jingle. Surprisingly, the place was quite clean and spacious on the inside.
And within it, a vast array of items were presented for sale.
One side of the store was clearly dedicated to mundane, if well-made, objects. Shining steel swords, spears, maces, flails and other arms were laid out in neat lines and columns, with a stack of short, round studded shields at the end. Upon the shelves opposite them stood wooden stands dressed in all manner of armor, from mails to leathers to full plate.
The other half of the shop was anything but mundane. The items on this side were far less uniform, and far, far fewer, but clearly arcane in nature. I could make out a couple choice weapons and clothes in strange and occult shapes and colors, some of which glowed with Entropic light, occasionally emitting exotic particles in the air around them.
Furthermore, whereas the purposes of the items on the first side could be easily determined at a mere glance, these were far more nebulous in nature. There were bracelets, rings, amulets, and necklaces. There were tomes, flasks, and strange-looking satchels. I had little idea what any of them did, but all appeared greatly interesting.
My immediate attention was drawn, however, to the counter at the center of the room. It was a long, glass display table, and within it were advertised row upon row of gleaming blue, multifaceted gems. Entropy crystals.
The counter was manned by an middle-aged, bald fellow with a thick black beard and bushy eyebrows, who I assumed was Hadrid himself. He seemed altogether absorbed by the book resting upon the counter’s surface beneath him. He didn’t appear to have even heard me enter.
Quietly, I strode up to the man, and cleared my throat. His eyes snapped up, and he raised one bushy brow in my direction questioningly.
“I’m here to, um, exchange?” I half-stated, half-asked, hesitantly.
He nodded, closing the book, and opening another, smaller, black notebook to his side.
“Mmmm-hmmm. No problem. Of course…,”
He paused, glancing me over briefly, curiously, before equally hesitantly finishing with, “…milord.”
Hadrid cleared his throat, jotting a couple notes down in the black book.
“Commision is five percent. We’re independent, so we don’t have the liquidity to exchange anything over Grade five, but I’m sure you already know that–”
In fact, I did not. But I nodded all the same.
“–and we reserve the right to meet market prices for buybacks. All acceptable?” He asked.
I nodded again, not knowing what else to say, how else to respond. Hadrid seemed polite enough, and I wasn’t sensing anything malicious about him in the song.
“Right, then, let’s see those crystals,” he said, whipping out and snapping open a gleaming Entropic loupe from one of the many pockets in his waistcoat.
“Just the one,” I replied, opening my bag and laying the Champion’s crystal gently down on the counter. Its glow bathed the room in cobalt, outshining even those in the display case below.
Eyes widening, Hadrid whistled in awe.
“As I live and breathe…,” he murmured. “Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”
He peered closer with the loupe.
“As I thought,” he muttered. “Grade five, no less. Good purity. Perfect condition. Priest above, I didn’t think you could get these except from monsters–”
“It came from a Champion, actually,” I cut in.
In an instant, his eyes tore themselves away from the crystal’s many facets and fixed upon me.
“You mean to tell me, milord, that you got this from the first floor?” Hadrid questioned, incredulously.
“Um, yes. I…is that unusual?”
The shop owner paused for a moment, stroking his beard whilst regarding me carefully.
“Unusual? Yes…yes, you could say that.” He paused for a moment, still eyeing me cautiously.
“Grade 5 crystals are the most valuable drops from the first floor, after all. They are, indeed, quite rare. They’re most common on the second floor.”
He paused once more, watching my reaction. I kept my face as blank as ever. Aldwyn no doubt would’ve seen right through me, but hopefully Hadrid was incapable of such a feat.
Eventually, he sighed and shook his head.
“What truly surprises me, though, is your claim that this crystal dropped from a monster. A Champion, no less. Yet, there are no signs of damage, or battle.” He chuckled.
“Why, it’s as if you killed the creature in a single blow,” he said, still chuckling good-naturedly, as if such a feat was almost beyond mentioning.
“I did,” I replied, simply. After all, I’d decapitated the thing.
Hadrid stopped laughing. He looked straight at me. I kept my face blank, still.
“Right,” he said, slowly. “Part of a party, then?”
“Just me,” I replied.
“Right,” he repeated.
“Milord,” he added, almost as an afterthought. He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table, still gazing at me consideringly.
“Well, then. You are indeed a fortunate man.” Hadrid put a slight emphasis on the last word, still watching my reaction. Still having no idea what he was looking for, I kept my face impassive as ever. His eyes widened further, like I’d done something wrong.
Suddenly, as if coming to a decision, he clapped his hands together, rubbed them, and nodded once.
“Well, then. No use sitting here, chatting. You’ve got important Aristocratic places to be, no doubt, no doubt at all!” He said, once more putting a strange emphasis on one of his words.
My eyes narrowed. Something wasn’t right here. Fang snarled enthusiastically within my soul, ready for trouble. Hadrid pulled out a sleek, dark tablet from beneath the desk. It looked like a pane of glass with a thin, black stone lining it on one side. It was about the size of his palm.
“Just let me see your tablet, and I’ll get this transferred over,” Hadrid said casually, prodding the glass object towards me.
Without thinking anything of it, I asked, “Tablet?”
“Ah HAH!” the shopkeeper exclaimed, pointing right at me with a big sausage finger. “You’re no ‘Crat.”
My pulse quickened, muscles tensing, back straightening at being discovered.
It was just as I feared. I’d been found out. Uther’s men were probably on their way here already, waiting to take me in. However, at my obvious alarm and distress, the bushy shopkeeper simply guffawed.
“Oh, relax, kid. Relax, relax. No one’s out to get you. ‘Sides, I’m no fan of the Cells, myself. Few are, who aren’t a part of them,” he added, smiling sarcastically.
I did relax, but just barely. Beneath the surface of my song, Fang pouted, dispirited by the prospect of a battle ripped away. Stiffly, I replied.
“What gave me away?”
“What gave me away?” Hadrid repeated, still chortling, patting his gut gleefully, the corners of his eyes crinkling in mirth. “Well, that, for one.” He wagged a meaty digit at me.
“Far, far, too polite. ‘What gave me away?’ I’m a mundy, kid. I’ve just insulted your status. Questioned your pedigree. A real Aristocrat would have me whipped, at least,” he snapped his fingers, “like that.”
I looked at him, shocked. “In the middle of the city?”
“In the middle of my own store, kid.” Hadrid replied, seriously.
Then he paused, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Wasn’t just your tone, though. You don’t know enough about the dungeon. Blessed never delve alone, never. Too risky. But you…,” he glanced at me once more, consideringly. “I believe you. I believe you did.”
“I didn’t go alone,” I admitted. “But I left alone. The rest of my party died inside.”
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“Ah,” Hadrid said, his face falling into an expression somewhere in between grief and pity. “You’re a trigger.”
I said nothing, simply nodding.
“My condolences, kid,” he said quietly, sadly shaking his head. “Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
I nodded once more, equally somber. The silence was awkward, for a moment. Then Hadrid raised an eyebrow at me.
“You’re from the wilds, ain’t ya? The villages?”
“Up north,” I lied. Hadrid might not be malicious, but I was far from trusting him yet.
He grunted affirmatively. “Right, that’d explain why you don’t know about tablets. Chits neither, I’d bet. Still a barter economy out there, hmmm.”
Then he sighed, tapping a palm on the table firmly.
“Well, you got a lot to learn, kid, but I’ll tell you what I can. Got a boy roundabouts your age, anyway. I’m not looking to fleece ya’.”
Hadrid flicked the tablet in his hand.
“First thing you’ve got to know is that there’s more than one way to use crystals. Now, you’ve probably heard about using them for power, yes?”
I nodded.
“Right, well, you can use ‘em like that. That’s one way, for sure. Drain the energy within ‘em into batteries to power trains, golems, ships, weapons, you name it. Remarkable versatile substance, Entropy. Provided you’ve got the appropriate runic circuitry to harness it, of course.”
Hadrid picked up the crystal in one hand and gestured towards it with the other.
“What you have to realize is, is that that’s all unattuned Entropy. That the moment you extract the Entropy from a crystal, it becomes Gradeless. Then you can use it for whatever you like. The higher the crystal’s Grade, the more Entropy you can get out of it.”
“But, if you leave it in crystalline form, then it can be used by Blessed to gain Attunement.”
I looked at the bearded shopkeeper, shocked.
“I could use this crystal to increase my Attunement right now?” I asked, elated.
This was just what I’d been looking for! I knew I was just on the cusp of reaching Attunement 10. Even if the crystal could only provide me with a small amount of Entropy, that alone would be enough to push me over the edge. I didn’t need to train, or find answers. Not at all. I could forcibly progress to the Marble stage.
Hadrid’s next words, however, dashed my hopes.
“Is your Attunement below five?”
I shook my head. He arched a bushy brow at me, impressed.
“Well, well. Good for you. Then no, you couldn’t. Blessed can’t drain crystals below their own level.”
Perhaps at my look of dejection, he hurriedly continued.
“But it wouldn’t be a smart idea, anyway. One crystal won’t get you one whole Attunement, and they become less useful the higher you go. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took you six or seven of these crystals to get from Attunement four to five.”
“Consuming crystals,” Hadrid said wryly, “is a luxury reserved for the rich.” He grinned at me. “But that’s good for you. A single Grade five crystal will go for more than ten Grade fours.”
“You see, regular Entropy crystals–that is to say, Grades one to four–can be found all across the world. Different places, different rarities. Some form in spots of high radiation. The Scorch, for example. The Deathlands. Regardless, the point is that five is where it starts. Grade five crystals and above, you can only find in the World Titan itself.”
He smirked at me again.
“Which means they go for a much higher price. This one here, well, considering the condition and all, I’d be a scammer if I priced it at anything below eighty three thousand chits.”
I looked at him blankly. Hadrid rushed to explain.
“Right, barter economy, forgot. A chit is, well, it’s a unit of currency. It’s like a coin–no, no, you wouldn’t have heard of those either. It’s like, um, well…”
“A skin? A fur?” I asked, hesitantly. They were what we exchanged most with the city traders, in the wilds. Hadrid sighed.
“Not really…but, well, I suppose that’s as good a metaphor as any. It’s like an invisible, dried, processed, animal skin that you can’t feel or smell, hundreds of thousands of which can be stored on this–”
He tapped the tablet twice with an index finger.
“–little beauty right here. This is a ciphic tablet, gen six. Tech courtesy of the Runemakers guild, no less. It’s an older model, so its storage cap isn’t quite as high as the more recent stuff, but it gets the job done. Doesn’t need maintenance, either. Tap it once here–”
He touched the tablet once more, a blue circular rune near the bottom of the thin black stone part on the side of it. In response, the tablet lit up, softly emitting a blue glow, and displaying a number on its glass surface.
267,386.
“–and it’ll tell you how many chits are stored on it. Each chit is a single unit of Entropy.”
My eyes widened in horror, remembering the events of the Dungeon months prior. An explosion of sea-green Entropy, nearly vaporizing me. Immediately, I jerked back.
“Are you insane?” I exclaimed. “What if it’s damaged? That much Entropy could annihilate everyone and everything around it!”
Hadrid gave me a flat look.
“It’s stored inertly, kid. The tablet works on the same principle as a bag of holding. The chits aren’t actually inside it, they’re in a pocket dimension keyed to the thing. I’ll admit, I don’t understand how exactly it works, myself, but I can assure you that there’s no risk of anyone annihilating. Even if it breaks, as long as a little piece of it remains, you can get it fixed and get back your money. Now…”
Hadrid reached below the counter and pulled out another tablet, identical to the first. He pressed the same button as before, but on the new one, and I saw the counter register zero.
“They’re quite cheap, as tinkertech goes, but still cost a pretty penny. That said, I’m willing to toss this one in for free–in light of the current circumstances.”
He slapped his belly again, grinning eagerly.
“Rare indeed are the occasions when I’ve an opportunity like this fall into my hands. Rarer still, the times a customer brings a Grade five crystal to me, and not a Cell-backed brokerage. And let me tell you,” Hadrid said, spreading his arms wide, “the chance to rip off whichever ‘Crat I sell this to is the rarest delicacy of them all.”
He tapped a sequence of numbers into his tablet, and then touched the edge of it to the second one, mine, making its counter climb to eighty three thousand. He slid it over towards me, and I accepted it almost reverentially.
It was a strange device, cool to the touch, feeling not at all like a magical, Entropic object. It didn’t tingle or tremble or hum as I held it. The song flowed around it smoothly, as if it was just the same as any other piece of glass. Which I supposed, in a way, it was.
“Pleasure doing business with ya, kid,” Hadrid said, still grinning, rolling the crystal between his fingers and gazing at it fondly. “You be careful with that thing. It’ll take care of everything for you, all you need to do is tap it on another tablet to transfer the money. Oh, and when it comes to money, too, well…,” he paused, humming slightly to himself.
“Well, you’re not gonna learn everything overnight, I suppose. Look, just, don’t let anyone see the amount on that thing,” he pointed to the tablet, my tablet, “and don’t spend too much of it in one place. Don’t haggle,” he added, quickly. “Ever. You don’t know enough to do it well, and the cities aren’t like the wilds–prices are mostly set in stone, here. You’ll just piss off proprietors.”
I nodded, mind whirring with information. I turned to leave, still gazing at the tablet consideringly, before Hadrid grabbed my arm.
“Oh, and about the whole pedigree thing. Look, kid, you won’t pass for a ‘Crat for a while–but that’s fine. Plenty of Blessed are independent, anyhow. Just don’t give away what you don’t know.”
“How do I do that?” I asked, confused. Hadrid snorted.
“Don’t talk.”
I looked at him, unamused.
“I’m serious,” he maintained. “don’t speak unless you have to. Can’t give away what you don’t say. No one’s bothering a Blessed for details they don’t want to give, and now that you’ve got a tablet, no one’ll be able to prove you’re not a born Blessed. Go for the strong, silent type. You’re young, but you’ll pass as the estranged son of some noble house.”
I nodded once more.
“Thank you,” I said.
And I meant it. Despite seeing through my poor attempt at deception, Hadrid had been incredibly helpful. Priest knew he hadn’t needed to be. He could have bought the crystal from me for a pittance and I wouldn’t have known a thing. Well, perhaps I’d have heard it in the song, but he didn’t know that.
I turned to leave once more, and made it a few steps, before a thought occurred to me. It might not go anywhere, but was worth a shot at least. Better to ask someone who already knew my secret than risk outing myself again.
I called back to the shop owner for one final time.
“Hadrid, um, sir, I apologize, but…might you know of anywhere I could go to learn more about Blessings? About my nature? I, no one…there isn’t really anyone who can teach me. I’m kind of at a loss.”
Hadrid looked at me with that mix of sadness and pity once more, that made me slightly uncomfortable, but then it switched to one of consideration.
“You know, kid, actually…” he bent down beneath the counter once more, emitting the sound of rustling papers and clattering sundries. “Now that you mention it…” he poked his head up for a moment and raised one finger high into the air.
“There is, as a matter of fact, one place in the world that is the absolute best to go for all manner of knowledge related to Blessings. The Bern Institute. Located in the heart of Old Europe and run by…”
Hadrid finally fished out whatever he’d been searching for. Which, as it happened, was a single paper leaflet. He brandished it before me, saying theatrically, “The Coterie.”
Peering at the missive before me, my brow furrowed.
~~~
AGOGE CXXXI
On behalf of the Runemakers, the Magnates, the Delvers, the Chroniclers and the Sons of Dainsleif, the Coterie is pleased to announce that this year’s AGOGE will be held in Talos, hosted by Cell Uther.
The theme will be dungeoneering. A new Maw has opened in the wilds of the northern Frontier, and officials from the Delvers’ guild have given it a most prestigious rating.
Only those Blessed at the Grain stage or above need apply. All participants must pass an entry examination, after which they will be grouped in parties of six and transported north to the Maw.
Participants must clear the third floor of the Dungeon and make their own way back to Talos with proof in the span of one month. As is customary, all victors will be allowed to join their chosen branch of the Coterie, as well as granted scholarships to the Bern Institute of Entropic Arts and Sciences.
The Troupemaster sees all. To those who choose to compete, may her prescience guide you.
~~~
I looked at Hadrid, doubtfully. He shrugged.
“You want answers, kid, the Coterie’s got ‘em. Hopefully. Certainly, they’re your best bet.”
He scratched his prodigious beard. “Dunno if you got what it takes to pass the Agoge, but the requirement is five Attunement and above, so you definitely qualify. Why not go and see?”
I accepted the leaflet from the shopkeeper, eyeing it thoughtfully. It didn’t seem like a bad option, in all honesty. If my guess was right, I’d be joining a bunch of other Blessed from all over the world. What better place to hide?
And besides, part of me was eager to see how I ranked up against the other Blessed. There’d no doubt be plenty of Aristocrats participating. The thought of being pitted against those who’d looked down on me all my life brought a broad grin to my face.
“Thank you, Hadrid. Truly,” I said, shaking my head. “I will not forget this.”
The bearded shopkeeper waved a hand genially. “No, no, none of that, kid. I said it before, didn’t I? I’ve a child near enough your age. And besides, you’re a good sort. If there were more Blessed like you, then perhaps…” he said, chuckling, before shaking his head.
“Ah, never mind. You don’t need to thank me any. Not at all. But hey, if you make it big out there, then maybe come back with some more of those crystals, eh?”
I absolutely would. I thanked Hadrid profusely once more. But before I left, I had one final question for him.
“Do you know where I might go for a bath?”