10
It turns out sleeping with antlers is a serious pain in the ass, but I did get there eventually. I don’t remember dreaming, and the next morning brought with it a quick, simple breakfast of bread and bacon. I hate eggs. Don’t judge me. I drank tea instead of my usual fanatical intake of coffee, but one can only expect so much from a rural mediaeval-style fantasy town. Maybe they had magic coffee in one of the larger settlements. I would take what comforts I could get wherever I could get them. I expected that comfort would be rare, and only the drama-starved gods knew what kind of crazy shit I was in for in the coming days.
The tavern sat on the southern side of the town’s main square, and I had arranged to meet Gerard at the small market at the ‘tenth bell’ which felt like it roughly translated to ten o’clock, though I had to rely on Pamela the zombie bar wench to keep me apprised of the time. I had an hour to spare, so I spent the time seated on the stairs of the Fleet Fox, watching the townsfolk go about their business. The morning was warm and bright, and chatter and the voices of hawkers sprang up from the modest marketplace that occupied the square. No one seemed to share my simmering anxiety over the coming raid, ignorant as they yet were. I wondered when we’d have to break the news to them. Surely some of them would be needed in the defence of the town. The vast majority of the residents seemed to be humans of all ages, including children. I saw a gnomish woman younger than Quicklily selling fruit and vegetables at a market stall across the way, and a chubby humanoid cat-guy tidying up out front of what appeared to be a tailor’s shop. He was a classic long-haired ginger, and looked just like a fat, upright version of my childhood cat, Niko, only clad in fine dark trousers and a god-damned frilly doublet. It was like that Puss’n’Boots cat hit middle age and retired to sell jackets and dresses.
I received more than one odd look, still clad in my ragged clothes. I idly plucked a leaf from one of my antler-branches and studied it with a sigh. It was a damned red maple, just like the one I’d climbed a thousand times in my backyard as a kid. I had to laugh. I wondered if I’d start dropping maple keys in spring, and I imagined the little things spinning away as I strolled down the street. Abi would laugh her ass off at me. I smiled at the thought,
I looked up to see a small gnomish girl peering at me from a stall across the way. She had dark chestnut hair and big brown eyes. Her mother was a short distance away looking over the day’s fruits and vegetables. The girl couldn’t have been very old, perhaps five or six, and her look was dubious, but intrigued.
“Hello,” I said with a smile and a small wave. Her eyes widened a bit in surprise, but she quickly regained her composure and edged a little closer.
“What happened to your head?” she asked, looking up at my leafy rack. I laughed. Nice and direct. I tilted my head.
“My name’s Luck. What’s yours?” She eyed me a moment, weighing her options.
“Adeline,” she offered, lifting her chin.
“Well, Adeline,” I said, considering. “I bet your mom told you not to go out into the forest by yourself. I was silly enough to go out for a walk by myself, and I met a really, really big deer.” I gestured, emphasizing how much bigger his antlers were than mine. “I then made another poor choice and tried to pet him. Don’t pet wild animals, Adeline,” I said sagely.
“I already knew that,” she said, unimpressed.
“Okay, good. We’re on the same page. Now, because he didn’t like me a whole lot, he let me know by hitting me. Really, really hard. It’s not a great way to solve your problems, but he got the message across. I woke up, and found out I had these antlers. I can’t say I’m super impressed by the situation, Adeline.” I gave her a sardonic smile, then I reached up to pluck another leaf from my crown and offered it to her. She regarded me for a long moment, then reached out to take it.
“They’re pretty,” she said, eyeing the little red leaf. I laughed.
“Why thank you. You’re the first one to say that. Probably the last, too,” I said thoughtfully. I looked up to see her mother had turned from the stall and was surprised to find her daughter in conversation with me. The gnomish woman was pretty, and she looked young for a gnome. She mother walked over, and reached to lay a hand on Adeline’s shoulder. She looked at me for a moment, not outright suspicious but wary in the way all good mothers are, then murmured in her daughter’s ear. Adeline frowned a little, but took her mother’s hand and moved away towards the other market stalls. As she did, she turned and said, “Bye Luck.”
I watched the pair leave. She was a cute kid. I smiled, remembering Abi at that age.
God, I missed that kid. I looked up then, to see Gerard strolling towards me, accompanied by none other than Prick Richard, who was stumbling and gently moaning as he trailed a few feet behind the necromancer. The zombie carried what appeared to be different coloured lengths of fabric that were strewn all over his arms and shoulders, which stuck out straight to the sides. It was like an undead scarecrow had been hit by a laundry tornado.
As the pair moved closer, I could see that they were clothes; trousers and shirts of various shades and fabrics. Gerard himself was clad in a suit that was equally as impressive as the one from the previous night. It was stormcloud grey and appeared to be tweed, beneath which he wore a matching vest, a cream coloured collared shirt and a black silk tie. He had another bowler hat, this one also grey with a black hatband. He had a curious cane with what appeared to be a silver hound’s head as its handle. I raised a brow at him, impressed. The dude looked pretty slick.
“Clothes make the man?” I asked with a wry smile as he approached at a naturally languid pace. He looked me over critically, notably eyeing my slashed and torn t-shirt and jeans.
“Are you quite sure you want me to answer that?” he asked in dubious tones. “Lucky for you,” he smirked then, giving me a look of feigned innocence as he blatantly abused my name. “I came prepared to rectify your crimes against decency and taste.”
“Ouch. Shots fired.” I said affably. “You know, it’s kinda rich being lectured on crimes against decency by a Necromancer. You resurrect people's dead grandmothers and get them jobs.”
“Everyone needs work, Luck,” he said, without missing a beat. He gestured back to the tavern. “More to the point, it is…fortunate…for you that I am well-supplied with a diverse array of garb suitable for a myriad of professions, and I am happy to lend you a few items, if only to spare myself the sight of your current…composition.” He clearly thought little of my Star Wars shirt. Nerd-chique didn’t appear to play well in Spade’s Rest. I gestured to Prick Richard and his…drapery. One of the shirts whipped up in the wind and plastered itself across the zombie’s face, completely obscuring it. He moaned softly, but otherwise didn’t seem to mind. He just left it fluttering there.
“So, these are zombie costumes?” I said. It was really more of a statement than a question. “Not that I’m complaining,” I added quickly. Almost anything was better than a ripped, blood-stained t-shirt and dirt-smeared jeans. Almost. A frilly doublet or anything called pantaloons would be a tough sell.
Fortunately for me, Gerard had nothing of the sort in mind. We briefly adjourned to my room in the tavern, where he very efficiently selected several combinations of tunics, vests, doublets and trousers and had me try them on in sequence. He eyed each critically and rearranged a few things before he was finally satisfied. I was moderately impressed. I didn’t look nearly as ridiculous as I’d thought I would. Everything was pretty neutral, and I still felt a little like I was about to go to a renaissance fair, but it wasn’t too bad. When I offered Gerard gold for the clothing, he refused, saying “You’ll be paying me back in little green corpses, my friend. Now that my reputation won’t be tarnished merely by walking beside you, let’s go get you something more suitable for goblin-slaying.” And so it was off to the one armourer/leatherworker/blacksmith shop that occupied the town of Spade’s Rest, known simply as Willy’s.
Willy, it turned out, was a thick-set woman in her mid thirties with rusty red hair and light freckles dotting her rosy red cheeks. She was also one of the friendliest people I’d ever met. It was like meeting that one sales rep at the mall who is so chill and low-pressure that you actually wanted to buy more of whatever they were selling. She didn’t even blink at my antlers, but helpfully informed me that for an extra fee, she could customise any headwear I purchased to accommodate my leafy rack.
As it turned out, my gold would only go so far. New armour was very expensive. Luckily, Willy was in possession of a few ragtag bits of used armour she’d collected from passing adventurers who came through the area over the years. She had repaired and refurbished a few sets of armour as best she could, and they looked pretty reasonable to my untrained eye.
After some consultation on my needs and proposed fighting style, we chose a black leather jerkin that was faded, but only slightly scarred. The breastplate was layered in leather scale-type things that overlapped and offered a surprising amount of resistance when I tested it. After some adjustments it fit snugly under my arms and around my sides. My movement was slightly stiffer, but not by much. As a close-in fighter relying on speed, I would always be trading protection for mobility when it came to armour. The jerkin had matching black leather pauldrons and hard leather vambraces. A sort of split armoured skirt hung down to cover my upper thighs. I also picked out a pair of sturdy gloves. I pulled up my equipment screen to see that my armour rating had risen to four, which Sage said was still on the lower side, but was a vast improvement on zero. We moved on to weapons.
Willy had a small collection of various weapons including a few swords of various shapes and sizes, a nasty looking mace with four ridges on its head that came to points, a simple but intimidating looking single-bladed axe, a worn but sturdy spear, and a small collection of daggers of different sizes.
I was instantly reminded of a Flea Market in Florida my parents had taken me to when I was 12. We were on vacation, and naturally my preteen self was mesmerised by the sheer volume and variety of deadly weapons. I remembered I convinced my parents to buy me some of those crappy ‘shurikens’ you find in such wondrous places. The kind no self-respecting, historical ninja would ever use. Ever. One of them literally broke the first time I threw it at a tree. There was a life lesson in there somewhere, but I don’t know what it is. This was how childhood dreams died, I thought sadly.
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The blades here at Willy’s were not nearly so numerous as a Floridian flea market, but they were variously long or short, broad or thin, and in different stages of wear. As I examined them, the HUD gave them names that would have been culturally derived on Earth, but I figured whatever language software was running in my brain was giving me Earth-equivalent names. They all had the same weight and damage classifications, but they were clearly more high quality, durable and better cared for than the weapons I’d taken from the goblin.
One was called a Rondel, and was intended for piercing chain mail or striking between the joints of heavier armour. I didn’t think I would be facing heavily armour opponents any time soon, but I still hesitated before passing it up for a longer dagger that was just shy of a short sword, called a Baselard. It had an I-shaped handle and a long pointed blade that would be suitable for stabbing and cutting. Simple and versatile. I was sold. I tried to trade my goblin weapons in for a second dagger, but Willy gently told me they were trash, and she wouldn’t be caught dead with them in her shop.
I needed to keep some gold in reserve for some basics and two last items, and my purchases at Willy’s cost me 63 gold, leaving me with 30 even. I didn’t even try to haggle. My charisma wasn’t going to be pulling any weight yet. I equipped my new dagger in my main hand slot and, more reluctantly, the goblin short sword in the offhand. I would need to replace the goblin weapon as soon as possible, but for now, it would have to do the trick.
My last purchases were a sturdy pair of brown leather boots that rose to about mid-calf, and a simple well-made cloak. I figured my beat-up skate shoes weren’t going to cut it if I was going to be stalking goblins through the forest. In an attempt to provide myself with some basic camouflage, I chose dark green as the colour of my soon-to-be billowing rogue cloak. It turned out, to my great relief, that the antlers weren’t actually much of a problem when it came to the cloak; the hood covered my head, and its edge fell about even with my hairline and draped across my twin leafy protrusions, which were thankfully positioned more to the front of my head than the side.
Charles de Santrasai, the ginger cat tailor guy, seemed about as impressed as you would expect from a cat, and had gestured for me to use his mirror. It wasn’t as bad as I was dreading. I didn’t look ridiculous, but when you included the antlers, it was kind of like a low-rent guard you’d see at the outer edges of some ancient pagan ritual. It was, all in all, more like a scout’s garb than a rogue’s, but it suited my environment well. As I stood there before Charles’ mirror, taking in the whole of my new adventuring gear, three quick notifications flashed in the centre of my screen. They appeared one after another and disappeared quickly, small and golden. They read:
+2 Cunning
+2 Wisdom
+1 Luck
Huh. I guess that was supposed to reflect my change in gear? Maybe I received small bonuses for tactical choices. That would be interesting, and I wondered how the emergent statistics would affect the game. When I quizzed Sage, she said they had small effects on a myriad of skills, and on even more abstract factors like problem-solving or rapid decision making. I thought that was pretty cool, kind of like levelling up my brain.
Gerard had chatted amicably with Charles as I garbed myself. Apparently the feline tailor greatly appreciated the necromancer’s taste in apparel, because he disregarded me completely as I silently paid for my items, talking right over my head to Gerard. Just like I was beneath his notice. Just like my old long-haired ginger cat Niko used to do. Sorry, cats, I thought, but you’re dicks. You’re all dicks. I sighed and as I exited the tailor’s shop, I was happy to be done with my shopping episode. Now, finally, it was time to visit the Shrine of Elaris. It was time to open some loot.
“Elaris is called The Silent Daughter,” Gerard was saying as he led me out the east gate and down an out of the way overgrown path that may have once been a road. It was marked by what looked like ancient Celtic pylons, carved with reliefs of swirls and spirals that were worn and weathered. Grass and weeds grew across the path and up around the markers, giving the whole place a decidedly abandoned look. Gerard stepped carefully, clearly wishing to avoid unnecessary damage to his spotless shoes and suit pants. “She’s said to stand vigil at the Veil of Vedict’Atohl. Some clerics call it the Curtain of Worlds. It’s Elaris who decides what does or doesn’t pass through the veil,” he continued as we walked down the sunlit path. “She’s said to be completely silent and absolutely neutral in carrying out her duty, which is to ensure nothing passes through the veil that might harm the gods, and that the gifts of the gods make their way to their mortal recipients…unmolested.”
“She sounds decidedly like a Customs Agent,” I said wryly as we walked. “Except for the silent and neutral part. Our customs people are fucking scary.”
“Depending on where you’re going, or where you’re coming from,” said Gerard ruefully, “so are ours.”
I looked around, realising we were missing someone. “Hey, where’s Richard?” I asked Gerard curiously. I hadn’t noticed when we lost our zombie companion.
“I sent him back to the Fleet Fox to reflect. I didn’t appreciate his attitude earlier,” said the necromancer matter-of-factly. I furrowed my brow, trying to think of anything offensive the zombie had done, but I came up with nothing - other than just being an animated corpse, which I’m pretty sure generally offends most people to a certain degree. I shrugged inwardly and let it go. Maybe it was a necromancer thing.
“What’s with his name, anyway?” I asked curiously as we wound our way through the overgrowth that covered the old road.
Gerard adjusted his hat as he stepped gingerly over a knee-high patch of weeds. He remained silent for a long moment, then spoke as though recounting an unpleasant memory. “My family is from the south, the city of Trayst. It’s the capital of Antellion - that’s the kingdom we currently inhabit,” He said helpfully. When he continued, it was in a subdued tone. “We’re a noble family; high nobility. One of our rivals is House Reventall, a family known for their magical aptitude. Both my own father and Lord Reventall very much encouraged rivalries between the children of our houses. Occasionally insults spilled over into duels; duels that sometimes resulted in death. One of my rivals specifically was the second son of House Reventall. His name was Richard,” he said, turning to look at me flatly. “And he was a priick.”
“So, you named a zombie after the guy?” I asked, mildly puzzled.
“No,” Gerard said. The word hung between us.
I blinked. I stopped walking, then I blinked again as realisation dawned. “Holy shit, Gerard,” I blurted incredulously. “You raised your nemesis from the dead and made him your fucking zombie manservant?”
“It’s a long story. Suffice it to say you would have had to meet him,” he said, as though that explained it. He looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. Instead of elaborating, he gestured grandly, sticking his hounds head walking cane into the foliage and pushing it aside to reveal a narrow path leading into the forest. “We’re here,” he said simply. I just stared at him for a long moment.
“Jesus Christ, dude. That takes ‘vengeance is a dish best served cold’ to a whole other level. Remind me not to piss you off,” I said as I stepped past him onto the path.
The canopy above us glowed a vibrant green, backlit by noonday sun, with leaves swaying slowly in a lazy breeze. Insects buzzed in the heat of the afternoon, and I had long since stowed my cloak away in my inventory and rolled up the sleeves of my simple shirt. We didn’t have to go far before the path became a curiously pristine cobbled walkway that led towards what appeared to be a large clearing. The path was likewise marked by the same Celtic-looking stones, though they were in nearly perfect condition, the swirls and spiral reliefs plainly visible and unmarred by age. I looked behind me to see a somewhat bewildered Gerard staring down at the cobblestones.
“This isn’t supposed to be here..” he said, trailing after me slowly with furrowed brows. “No one comes here, Luck. It’s just an old ruin.” He didn’t sound so sure. I rounded a curve that wound around a large tree and stepped out into the clearing, where I found a rather strange sight. The clearing itself was a simple, straight-edged square cut from the forest. It was about forty feet across, and mostly featureless, marked only by stone obelisks, about ten feet tall, that stood at each corner of the square. They were marked by the same swirling patterns as the guidestones. The entire space was covered in cobblestones, just like the path, but at the centre of the square of cobbles was a large ornate stone doorway. Like, just the frame. It went nowhere. There was no temple; no ruin whatsoever. There was only the open space and the strange doorway, with no door to speak of.
“Some temple,” I said, bemused.
“It was just a ruin,” Gerard said softly, his eyes darting around. “A small temple, but it was only rubble. Too much rubble to easily clear away, and covered in vines besides. I came here exploring when we first arrived and scouted out the town,” He said as he stood, plainly confused. “There was only broken stone and overgrowth. It looked like it had been that way for years. That was one week ago,” he said, mystified. I pursed my lips as I regarded the doorway.
“I’m pretty sure this is because of me. Of us,” I said, then added, “the Unproven.” I walked to stand before the empty doorway, staring through it curiously. “I think this happened when the World Spell thing was cast. My bitchy god-liaison-Karen told me to come here, but I expected something a little more…elaborate.” Gerard joined me in front of the stone doorway, glancing over as I scratched my stubbled chin.
“What do you want with a place like this?” he asked.
“It sounded like it’s supposed to be a sanctuary for my kind, I guess. The gods reward us for completing their quests, and supposedly this is where we receive their…gifts.” I looked around. “I’m supposed to have some godly gifts waiting for me, but no one explained much about these shrines, other than to say I could find them in most settlements.”
“It reminds me of something Lily said you can find in the Dungeons,” Gerard said thoughtfully, absently tapping his cane on the cobbles. “Magical doorways that sometimes separate the floors. Only, they are usually unlocked by a key one acquires in the dungeon itself. Usually in the possession of a powerful enemy.”
“Well, no one gave me a key,” I said absently as I approached the door. When I stood before it, perhaps two feet away, the rich, sultry tones of the stalker-god filled the clearing, grandiose and dramatic.
“To those who have pierced the Veil, welcome.” From nowhere, a curtain of translucent blue light shimmered into existence, filling the doorway and forming a wall of what looked like pure energy. I looked back at Gerard, and found him staring at the door intently.
“Seems you are the key, Luck. I suspect I am not able to follow you, as I’m fairly certain I’ve never…pierced…any type of veil. Neither am I willing to walk into a strange portal in what was previously the middle of nowhere.” He gestured past me to the door. “I wouldn’t dream of stopping you, of course.” I smirked.
“I expect when they kill me, it won’t be with a door,” I said in wry amusement. I stared into the translucent light, and I was able to see the cobblestones of the square and the backdrop of the forest through the doorway. “I have no idea how long this will take. If I don’t return soon, then I’ll find my way back to the Fleet Fox when I do.” I looked back at Gerard and gave him a wry smile. “If I don’t come back, tell Lily I said ‘I’m dead. You’re welcome.’” I looked back at the energy door and took a deep breath before stepping into the light.