I awoke some time later staring up at the ceiling of my townhouse. Clio was rising and falling on top of my chest, and the cold tile was underneath me. I glanced around: my broken nose felt better, but there was still a lot of pain radiating through my body. I glanced down and noticed that my left leg was tied p in a makeshift splint of a pair of belts, and two broken spear shafts. Gauze bandages wrapped around my torso.
Clio glanced up at me when I lifted my chin. It was still hard to breathe through my nose. She licked my face and hopped up off of me, and I hissed as I pushed myself to a sitting position. A piece of paper slid off my chest with a phone number with the name, “Shawn,” written on it and a brief note:
“You’re awesome, man. Would love to work with you again. Treated your wounds once I woke up and dunked myself in water. Hope you get better – Shawn.
PS
Filled your bag with a bunch of crap from the dive.”
I glanced over to the door where my bulging bag sat. The shattered remains of my staff sat by the staircase underneath my chain mail and torn jacket. I hissed as I pushed myself up to a sitting position. How long was I out? I pulled my jacket toward me dug through the sand-filled pocket, and pulled out my phone. December 26th, 12:32 AM it read. Fuck. I was out for a long time. Zero notifications. Oh well, I wasn’t expecting much. I grabbed hold of the banister and pulled myself up.
Surprisingly, putting pressure on my leg wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be. As if my bone had already begun to heal. Was this a result of leveling up? I grabbed hold of my bag and hobbled up the stairs.
Is Master okay now? Clio asked as she walked up with me.
“I am. Sorry, Clio.”
I pulled myself up the stairs with the railings as my primary support. Once I was in my room, I undid the splint and pulled off my pants before collapsing on my bed. I was still exhausted. Clio crawled into the bed beside me, and I heard Shadow scratching at the walls and felt as she slipped into the bed next to me.
Once more, I awoke sometime later, from the light of the sun bleeding in through the spaces between the blinds of my eastward-facing window. My body was feeling a lot better at the time. I pulled Clio off of my chest and set her back as I pushed myself up to a sitting position and felt around the leg that had been broken. There was still a bit of pain as I put pressure on it with prodding touches of my fingertips, but other than that: the swelling that I was expecting hadn’t appeared, and the bone felt as if it had been set and had begun the healing process.
I leaned over and pulled up my backpack. It jingled with the movements as I set it beside me, and unzipped it. Golden talon guards poured out from the top, as I dug through them to find the Shard.
Looter II Finished
+5 Perception, +1 Strength.
Is that why I noticed Shadow the night before? Interesting. Now, how much money do I have? The Shard’s screen changes. I had about 8,000 more dollars: nearly 25k saved up. What am I going to do with this money? Buy a truck? I turned on my phone. Still no new messages, but a few notifications from war-efra.com. The golden dagger had sold, and one of the kopesh had sold. I would need another weapon:, so I canceled the order on the other so I could use it with my wand.
There was a confirmation about the items that needed to be delivered. I groaned as I pushed myself up off the bed, and limped out of the room, and down the stairs. I opened up the backdoor and made a list of everything that I needed to do today in my mind. One: buy a truck. I should do that now.
I opened up Facebook, navigated over to the marketplace, and searched for, ‘trucks,’ There were a couple for sale. There was a Ford Ranger for sale for 15k…unlike most of the trucks, this one could actually fit in my garage. There was a phone number for me to call. It was late enough in the day, right? I took a deep breath put the number into the phone and called.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
It rang three times before someone answered.
“Hello?”A woman’s voice spoke over the phone.
“Hi, is the truck still available?”
“Oh, yes. 14k good?”
“Are you willing to do 12? I have the cash.”
“12…let me ask my husband. Hey, Seth!”
“What, Laura?” A man’s voice called from somewhere beyond the phone.
“Man on the phone asks if 12k upfront would be good for the truck.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Tell him to come up.”
“You still there?” The woman asked into the phone.,
“Yeah,” I said.
“Alright, I’ll text you the address. Come over and knock on the door when you’re here.”
With that, she hung up. As I was getting in the car, with the Shard in hand, the text message came. I put it in my GPS, and I set off. It was across town. Rain pelted the roof of my car as I pulled out, and headed to the destination. Few people were out, so at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the eyes of others watching over me. I turned on the radio.
“I have with me one of the world’s leading researchers of atmospheric science Dr. Genford to talk about the strange things the world has been all abuzz with. So what do you think about these ‘doors’ that have been appearing in the fog?”
Hm. I turned it up. I wonder how they would explain it. Perhaps this was a part of the way the governments of the world were going to go about disclosure.
“I think it’s a result of atmospheric distortions - a mirage, due to the warming surface temperatures due to global warming, and the storms we’ve been seeing crop up all around the world, also due to global warming and the changing climates brought about by said global warming. It really is just a mixture of coincidences.”
“There are talks that these might be, ‘interdimensional portals,’ and reports of people walking into them.”
“Simple mirages.”
Perhaps not. How could someone be so confident in something so wrong? I suppose I was doing that my entire life with my now disproved atheism and materialism when the reality of the world was so vastly different than what I had thought. If I hadn’t been chosen, would my first thought be, ‘interdimensional portals,’ or would it be to agree with the scientist spouting nonsense?
“Simple mirages, huh? Well, that’s interesting. There are these images circling the web about some…rat things that someone claims came from the other side of these, ‘doors,’ what do you think about that? Hold that thought, we have to hear a word from our sponsors: Noble Go-”
I was halfway through town, and I stopped to get a box of donuts. 15? Ridiculous. By the time I was back in, there were still commercials playing for some product or another that no one had ever used. I was at the next stoplight by the time they ended.
“Now, where were we?”
“You were saying something about pictures.”
“Right! There are these pictures that some on the internet are claiming to be photographs of wererat-like creatures from the other side of these, ‘doors,’” the host chuckled, “What are your thoughts on that?”
“Some digital artists are trying to get their name out, no doubt.”
Again. How many people are going to believe these words, even though they were spoken out of ignorance? I turned off the radio. How would you go about convincing the world what’s going on when people like this were actively spreading falsehoods from positions of authority? It made me anxious.
I drove across the bridge - doors sat up and down the dried banks of the river, and clustered in the woods near. I made the next right. Olive groves grew on one side of the road, and orange groves on the other. The aroma of rotting fruit whistled in through the gap in my window. I continued to drive until the road climbed into the nearby hills and through an orange grove. What was I going to do about my current car? I had no clue. Was I even going the right way? I hadn’t seen any signs of a house in tens of minutes. There was at least a road here: gravel, mainly. A service road for the orange pickers, perhaps, so that they didn’t have to hike all the way up.
The GPS continued to climb toward the peak and then evened out as it neared a gate beneath a wooden awning. A man was standing there: blond curls pouring out from the sides of his drawn-up hood, and gray eyes illuminated by the slow orange drag of a cigarette. As I pulled up to the gate he stepped forward, pulled the cigarette from his mouth, and let out a slow puff as I rolled down my window. He stepped up: his boots splashing in the mud pouring down the road in little rivulets,.
“Howdy, you the one that called about the Ford?”
“I am, does it run?”
He chuckled as he leaned in. The air seemed to grow colder as he neared.
“Like a gazelle.” He said. “Got the money?”
I reached over into the Shard hidden beneath a piece of cloth. 12 thousand, I thought. The thing glowed slightly, and I worried that he might see it. I glanced back, and sure enough his eyes were resting on the light in the chair beside me.
“What you got there?” He asked.
The cloth caught on my knuckle and pulled it up, revealing the shimmering stone, and the pile of cash sitting in my hands. I glanced back to the man whose eyes were on the stone. He reached in his pocket and pulled something out: something I didn’t really think I’d see in town: A stone that caught the light of the gray sky and reflected it into a prism of different colors: A Shard. He looked at me and shook his head.
“Seth Raulief.” He said, “Didn’t expect there to be another one ‘round here.”