The day had flown by as people swapped stories, food and praise. I kept the version of my trip to the Nexus short, as I wasn’t too sure how much I could share. Of course Rolada asked several times about the angel from the sun, asking me to recount it in keen detail as she and Sten tried to sketch him onto paper. But as evening came it turned to a new game. Who was the best at making drinks in the dungeon?
I raised the suspicious drink up to my nose, the scent of cinnamon and other unknown spices assaulting my sinuses. A floating island of multicoloured dunes swirled on the surface, a sign there was far too much to dissolve. The drink was warm in my hand too, and the strong alcohol was making my eyes water. I looked at the two other empty drinks on the table.
“Well?” Yara asked with her arms crossed. “Try it.”
I set the cup down and sniffed at the empty ones again. “Burn your drink was very smooth and just a little too sweet for my liking.”
“I liked it!” Rolada said beside me, affectionately placing Burn’s entry at the front, a sign it was first place. “Sten your drink was like boot polish.”
“That beverage kept generations of miners warm in the mountains while they dug the mountain home,” Sten said, rising from his seat. He stumbled back and Bent reached out a hand to steady him. “I’m fine! What kind of dwarf would I be if I couldn’t handle a few pints?”
I cautiously raised Yara’s entry and tipped my head back.
Constitution Check : Failure!
I coughed and sputtered as a cloud of spice dust leapt from my mouth. I heard Rolada giggle and call me a ‘spice dragon’ which caused quite the uproar from Lin. Yara leered down at me, and I brought the drink back up to finish it. The rest of the drink was actually quite good, a spiced rum mixed with a variety of flavours.
“That’s a-acutally…” I hacked out a cough and struck my fist into my chest a few times. “Pretty damn good. Yara’s spiced spear point shot is first, followed by Burn’s sweet berry colada, and Sten’s miner’s lamp oil is last.”
The other two judges, Sliva and Rolada rated their choices. Sliva matched me, while Rolada placed them with Burn first, then Sten followed by Yara. She apologetically shrugged to Yara. “Your’s is still really good, but when I want to get kicked in the mouth by a drink, I’d just get a dwarven offering.”
“Then we have our winner,” Sliva said, clapping her hands together, setting off applause. “Yara is the head of party time.”
The minions cheered and ran over to a side table where the contestants had placed more samples for others to try. The minions sipped on their drinks while Lin had two cups of Burn’s drink in hand as she sauntered over to Rolada. Sliva seemed quite interested in trying more of Yara’s creation, while the demoness in question happily raised the prize, a golden goblet adorned with a few gems in its sides. Looted from one of my expeditions.
Yara poured some red wine into the goblet and held it between two fingers as she eloquently sipped on it. She faced her competition and dipped her head. “A good match, better luck next holiday.”
“Oh yeah,” Burn said. He was already tearing into another toasted jam sandwich and mumbled around a mouthful of food. He held out a sticky berry covered hand. “You're quite handy with a mixer, want to help at my shop?”
Yara’s lip curled into a polite sneer and she grabbed a napkin before shaking Burn’s hand. “I have a few blessings stacked up at the shrine, I can probably make you some holy water for a reagent.”
As Yara and Sten shared a handshake I waved to get Yara’s attention. “Blessings? What do you mean by that Yara?”
Yara pulled up a chair and sat across from me. She waved a hand and a dense, gold lined text pop up appeared. I reached out and found I could flip through it like a book with a mental wave of my hand or tapping at the sides. It had listings with ‘defaulted area’ beside it.
Sliva joined us and Yara showed her as well. The arch priestess set down her drink as she looked intrigued. “Some of the other shrines to Ishaka must have been taken down, and your’s is the only one around. With Yara being the only priestess in the area they must have decided to hand all the paperwork over to your shrine.”
I looked more carefully at the list. It was like a monthly balance sheet, a record of donations, tithes and that odd term again, banked experience. Of course the record showed very minimal investment, just Yara giving the shrine a few silvers after some of our encounters.
Yara grunted and ran her fingers through her hair. “Great, this is probably some cryptic warning about future trouble.”
Sliva laughed and walked behind Yara, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Welcome to being a priestess. Honestly this is a rather normal sized list that you would find in a decent sized town.”
“But why now?” I asked. “Did you have this before?”
Yara shook her head. “Before, the shrine room just gave me a small bonus to the amount I healed while in your town or dungeon. There was no record list, but after we got back it said it was part of a township.”
“Do the gods…usually do stuff like this?” I asked, slouching back in my chair. “I feel like they have meddled a lot with what I do.”
Yara and Sliva exchanged a look before glancing back at me. Yara leaned forward to get my attention. “Josh I get you are new to Ewyernar, but anyone willing to charge into mouldy old dungeons tends to get a lot of dream visits.” She pointed a nail towards the ceiling, then the ground. “They can be up there, or down there, but if you're willing to do crazy things, then gods are all too happy to chat you up. They are basically bored housewives and you're the cute lawncare boy they can tease and push around.”
Sliva coughed into her fist. “As I’m on vacation I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. But Yara has a point, as a keeper you're fairly easy to contact for them. Minor gods don’t have much to do so they are bored and often cause trouble instead. I assume our dear Ishaka is trying to make your shrine a place of stability.”
It was a power struggle then, and I had simply caught the gods attention because I was easy to call on. I frowned as I followed the dungeon line in the walls, and followed it down to the shrine. There the lines had a slightly different colour and sheen to them, perhaps as an influence from the golden goddess.
Stability did sound nice, and maybe it was a sign Ishaka knew about my little ambition. She could be pushing me to bring people in and make a safe little spot in the wilderness for her followers.
Rolada dragged a stool over to the Christmas tree and stood on top to get everyone's attention. She had a huge smile plastered on her face, and in her hand was a small box with a white cartoon cat plastered on it.
Lin’s ears perked up and she turned from the snack table with a look of horror on her face. “Rolada, no-”
“It’s Lin’s birthday!” Rolada cheerfully shouted. “I hope everyone remembered an extra gift!”
“I did!” Sten said, rising from his seat. “I have prepared a poem for our dear friend.”
Lin pulled at her hair, and closed her eyes. She let out a long sigh. “Sten, you don’t have to-”
A white feline, nimble and quick,
A lucky cat girl, with a smile so slick,
Together we plot, and with her we can never fail,
With her the loot we find could fill a fantastical tale,
Too bad we can never keep track of her trail,
Leaving those with empty bags to wail.
Sten’s poem ended with him smiling, and holding up an open scroll. He walked up to the wall and Mason ran ahead to jump onto one of the shelves. He held onto the boards with two hands, and used his other two to use a hammer and nail, putting it into the wall. Sten then hung the poem on it, so it would be in the game room for everyone to read. At the very bottom of it was a charcoal drawing of Lin running away with sack full of trinkets on her shoulder. After a light round of applause Rolada popped up behind Lin, scaring her.
“Me next!’ Rolada said, holding out her present to Lin.
“Thank you for the poem Sten,” Lin blushed as she took the box. “Really guys, the festival is for everyone. I don’t really care about my birthday, you guys don’t have to give me anything.” She opened the small box and took out what looked like a small bottle of perfume. She inspected something off to the side, probably a prompt. Lin’s face brightened as she looked at it, then Rolada. She leapt up to squeeze the fox girl in a fierce hug. “I love it!”
Sliva winked at me and sent me the prompt.
Rolada’s Foxy Bottle of Tricks!
Spraying this perfume bottle around a creature causes it to be the target of a Tier 1 Illusionary Copy spell. Placing a finger on the heart symbol consumes one charge and casts the spell. The illusion will perform silent actions of your choosing.
Charges 3 out of 3 remaining
“I helped her add her spell to it. The scent is one Lin really likes,” Sliva whispered.
Lin sprayed her neck with it and smiled with joy. She turned to us and held out a hand. “That’s all the gifts I need, really.”
“And miss the opportunity to see you turn as red as me?” Yara asked. She reached into a pocket to take out a silver metal clip. It looked like a little pin with a tiny star shaped gem set in it. “The stone here is part of a broken earring I had before. It’s harder than steel, so you could use it to cut glass.”
Lin was all too happy to take it and put it on her jacket. I had one of the minions fetch my backpack as Bent gave Lin a weighted vest she could wear while at the gym if she wanted to push herself, and Burn gave her several bottles of pink bubble bath.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Extra bubbles and peppermint, just how you like it,” Burn said.
“Thank you all so much,” Lin said, a tear coming to her eye.
One of the new scout minions held my battered backpack and I took out the leather tool bag. Lin was instantly at my side and I put it on a table as I showed her how it worked. The others were quite interested in it too, and I could see Burn eye the bag, mumbling how he should get his own.
“Where did you get this?” Lin asked in awe, holding up several of the tools. “These are from my homeland.”
“At the Nexus there was that weird shop I mentioned. I’m pretty sure that guy was some kind of high level thief, and he had a message for you,” I said. “Tell your girl the ‘Shadowed Feather’ says hi.”
Both me and Lin were startled when a pop up appeared mere inches from our faces.
Quest Complete!
+5 XP to Josh
+Known as being a good friend!
+???
+1 Skill Point to Lin
Lin’s eyes lit up and she bit her lip. “Hey guys it’s getting a little late.” Lin grabbed my arm and let out a long, obviously fake yawn. “I think it’s a good time to rest.”
Insight Check : Success!
+1 XP gained.
Everyone seemed now in a sudden hurry to either leave the room or to excuse themselves in other distracting matters. Sten, Bent and Yara seemingly unanimously organized a surprise arm-wrestling competition, and Burn excused himself to the kitchen. The only person who had missed Lin’s obvious hint, to have some alone time with me, was Rolada who cheerfully strode towards us.
Sliva saw Rolada and downed the rest of her drink. “Rolada, can you help me back to my room downstairs? I think I forgot my limits.”
Rolada hurried to her mother’s side and Sliva put on a show of being uneasy on her feet. A squad of minions grabbed the most comfortable chair they could find in the room and had Sliva sit on it. They lifted it into the air and carried her out, with Rolada telling us goodnight, and following with a jug of water.
After saying goodnight I led the way back to the bedroom with Lin on my arm, seeing she was in good spirits. We parted the curtain and navigated through the messy office to reach the bedroom and we sat down on the couch, side by side. Lin rested her head on my shoulder and tapped my knee.
“Anything I want right?” I asked.
Lin purred. “Just say it, and it’s yours.”
I reached up and Lin bowed her head so I could pet her ears. I thought back to all the adventures we had, and all the little things Lin and mentioned here and there. Ultimately I didn’t really know that much about her, and that curiosity stuck with me.
“I want to know your story Lin,” I said, “I want to know who you are.”
Lin seemed stunned at first. She sat up straight and grabbed my chin, turning my head as she inspected the faint bruise I had on my cheek from the goblin robot punching me in the face.
“Did you get hit harder in the head then you or Yara let on?” Lin asked. “Do I need to fetch Sliva?”
I laughed off her concern. “I’m fine Lin, and I really mean it. I want to know more about you.”
Lin looked hesitant, and she took off her jacket. She grabbed the blanket and wrapped herself up in it, cocooning herself in warmth. “Are you really sure? We could have a bit of fun here.” After seeing my levelled gaze she let out a long audible sigh. “Well first off I’m a princess with the royal family-”
“What?” I sat up in shock.
“See what I mean!” Lin groaned. “Also It’s not really that impressive. The queen has three wives and four husbands, five if one of them isn’t trying to dethrone her, and the beast-kin have big families in my home country. My father and his two wives have some land and wine fields so we might have some wealth, but our family is somewhere around the seventeenth in line to the throne.”
I was a little shocked. The fun, roughhousing cat girl never struck me as royalty. She usually lived by the seat of her pants, grabbed whatever was shiny and loved to poke fun at me, with me teasing her back. As I thought about it her love of treasure might have some merit to it after all.
“Huh, I never thought I could say I was sleeping with a princess,” I said. I spied Lin’s tail poking out of the blanket and I gave it a little tug. “Come on, what's your story?”
Lin stuck her tongue out and grumbled. I gave her a minute to compose herself and she wiggled over to me, and offered me some of the blanket. “It’s a long story, but I’ll give you the quick version. Also I really don’t see myself as a princess. A few thousand people would have to suddenly kick the can before my family got anywhere close to the throne. I’m just a noble, a family who bought their way in.”
Lin reached into her jacket and took out a battered white journal with crude sketches on the cover. I could see lines like ‘Sister Astra sucks!’ and a cartoon rendition of a cat girl sticking out her tongue.
“So a long time ago when my mother was a little girl, she and a friend were playing by a river. My mom slipped and broke her leg, they were far from town and her friend panicked. They prayed and pleaded with Heinekia, and what do you know, her friend had winter white hair like the girl in the story, so Heinekia at that moment made her an avatar, gave her healing powers to save my mom, then left,” Lin said, snapping her fingers. “Her friend became a priestess, but my mom? She was jealous, extremely jealous. She lived her whole life trying to move up the social ladder, got every book about how to get the favours of the gods and more. She never caught Heinekia’s eye, but when she had me and I too had white hair? She saw her chance. Have a guess as to what happened next?”
I winced. “Yeah I had a few friends in school that had moms that basically controlled them for years. Pageants and dance schools because they couldn’t do it anymore. They tried to live their life through their kids.”
“Exactly. She read that Heinekia typically chose girls that had high dexterity and charisma, so she had me trained that way. I blame her that I could never be a wizard like you,” Lin said. Her sour expression brightened as she laughed to herself. “Imagine you being the sneaky one and me chucking fire at people. But yeah, she had me put in all the special church schools with the other girls like me.”
“There were more of you?” I asked.
Lin rolled her eyes. “Being winter blessed might be uncommon, but I went to a school with a thousand other girls just like me. White haired, with mothers who thought their special little kid would be the one. I hated the idea of it, I hated being controlled, I hated the idea of someone else being in my body. I also hate that no one else seemed to get it.”
There was a long pause and I reached out to pet Lin. She rested her head on me and I stroked her ears, chasing them with my fingers as she wiggled them away. I glanced at the floor, mentally following where the crystal hummed down below, making sure it was still the same as usual. I saw for a moment where one of the lines slithered towards the goblin tower, the darker, smokier flow of power that usually did something weird. But it vanished soon after.
“I guess you do get it though,” Lin said, tapping me on the nose. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”
“That’s one way to put it,” I said. I reached down and pulled her into a tight hug, putting her in a better mood. However, my mind raced, perhaps Lin knew a few things that could help me. “What is that avatar thing about?”
“Sometimes it’s not enough for the gods to give you quests, or get their clergy to stick their nose into your business,” Lin said. She huffed and flipped off her journal before cracking it open, and ran through the entries, finding a loose page that had been torn out of a book. “If you meet their criteria they give you a little bit of their divine power, a boost to your level, your powers and a few unique talents. Of course you usually agree to something, and the gods can take it away or possess you if you try to double cross them.”
Lin held up the page and I read the text, it was out a text book and seemed filled with mad ramblings. It was from a scholar and several entries about them talking to people who had temporarily been avatars. Most of them were from priests defending a church in a small town that got raided by bandits, gaining extra magical powers to blast the bad guys before they collapsed. Most of them described a presence in their head guiding them, and even moving their hands to cast the spells that were out of their reach.
The researcher did note many of the people were quite similar in terms of stats, skills and occupation, as if the gods had a preference for who they offered it to. Heinekia favoured white haired cat girls, Borros the dwarven god preferred dwarven craftsmen and Ishaka typically only ever did so to people with some amount of fiendish blood in their family line.
“See? Terrifying,” Lin said. “I tried to run off a few times, and always got dragged back to the school. But over time I started picking up levels in stealth, perception and acrobatics. I got better at avoiding patrols, and one day when I was hiding in a shop attic a man appeared in the shadows offering me a job.”
“The Shadowed Feather?” I asked.
“The same one,” Lin said, turning the page to show me a sketch of a man in plain clothes with a hood holding a feather. “He told me if I could hide in a barrel the shop was shipping out on a wagon he would take me to a far away city where I could join the thieves guild. I figured a rogue was the furthest thing from any cleric type of class, and it would lessen the chance Heinekia would try to make me an avatar. I remember the wagon getting jostled and I had this weird feeling in my stomach that made me sick, but I hid in the barrel till we arrived in Dastow which is really far from the city I met him in.”
“He must have transported you to the Nexus then,” I said. Lin showed me more of her journal, she recounted heists, and friends she made in the guild, plus a few adventures she went on. She was embarrassed about the sketches in the margins, pictures of her as a sword wielding badass slaying a black dragon, or her having a hot elf girlfriend with a large ‘personality’. “What’s this, Lin’s plan to avoid being a puppet?”
“Oh, that,” Lin said, tugging at the end of her hair. She held up the book so I could see and she dragged her jacket closer to her. “I figured if I did the opposite of what Heinekia was like then she would never pick me. She’s generous and shares, and she tries to be nice. So I figured if I was greedy and stole stuff, then shared a little bit I would cancel it out. Sorry Josh, I feel like I’ve been a jerk to you on our adventures.”
In the blink of an eye I could see Lin’s composure break, she went from the adventurous confident rogue to a tired, terrified young woman who looked like she was losing control. I thought back to all the times she had swiped whatever she could reach, and when it came time to divide the haul she tried her hardest to get the majority. Over time I had the sense she might have been saving up for something big, or just looking out for herself, but as I checked her journal I could see it was all part of her plan. She was in the crosshairs of a goddess, and she had a plan to avoid as much attention as she could.
“It’s kind of funny, when I escaped Dastow it was the first time I had prayed to Heinekia for real in a long time. I asked her for someone to help keep me safe, to be fun and could help me get stronger,” Lin said, smiling at me. “I guess Heinekia had been helping me the whole time.”
“What about the feather guy?” I asked, turning back to his page. “Thinking back on it, the way he acted he seemed to know more than he let on.”
Lin tapped her nose. “He taught me a talent that gives me a sharp nose. With a good sense of smell I can tell a lot, like if you talk to someone I know I can smell it on you. It’s helped me a lot to find poison traps, but it’s a double edged sword, bad smells are even worse, ugh.”
“So he smelled you on me,” I said. I looked at the sketch of the man, wondering who he really was. “A little odd. Also I think I understand you being a treasure hog now.”
There was a thump on the couch and Lin looked at me sheepishly. Her worry had ebbed away, and she was more of her usual self. She undid the laces on a sack and revealed a massive pile of trinkets, coins and gemstones.
“You have done a lot for me Josh, and I still feel bad for using your help so much,” she said. She dropped the pile between us, it was so much, some of the pile slid off the blanket and struck the floor. “This is your share from all our adventures.”
Current Value : 667 Gold, 81 Silver, 56 Copper
I held up the ruby bracelet from our dive into the catacombs. I smiled and nudged Lin with my elbow. “Since you're so good at holding onto treasure, do you want to be my royal treasurer?”
Lin snorted. “A rogue in the treasury? You're asking for embezzlement at that point, but sure.”
She reached out and we jokingly shook hands. I eyed the journal in the corner of my eye, Lin had helped me a lot if she knew it or not. In my head I added a few reading assignments to myself to figure out some more about these meddling gods.
A flash of light appeared between us, turning into a pop up window. Lin and I jumped back, and the treasure pile exploded, coins and trinkets going everywhere, under the bed, the couch and the dresser. We looked at each other, just as confused.
Lin has been added as a worker for the dungeon as the Royal Treasurer!
Lin requires an office of moderate quality!
Lin requires a vault!
Lin requires…
Lin’s ears perked up. “Hey, what’s this minion work order queue?”
I checked, and sure enough Lin was now on the list.