A simple door shimmers into being a foot away from my face. It’s one of those wooden ones that looks like it’s been around for decades, with a window taking up the upper half and an ‘open’ sign hanging from a suction cup. At the moment it doesn’t look like there’s anything beyond it–just the rest of the cavern I’m in–but I’ve got a feeling that’ll change the second I pull the handle.
I reach down, grasp the handle, and pull. Nothing happens. For all of two seconds I’m confused, but a piece of paper over the handle tells me exactly what I’ve done wrong.
“Push.” I sigh as I do exactly that. “I can’t be missing obvious stuff like that.”
Metal bells tinkling announce my arrival into a simple-looking store that appears out of nowhere. It’s got that antique shop vibe, with incandescent lighting and hardwood shelving that matches nearly perfectly with the floor itself. The entire place smells like peppermint cinnamon tea, and a steaming red and white striped mug on what looks like the checkout counter seems to be the source of the smell.
A man–who might be young, and might be old, doesn’t look up from his book as I take my first steps into the store. He pushes up small round glasses with one finger, then raises that hand a little further to brush shoulder-length orange hair out of his eyes.
“Welcome to Threshold Clearance.” He says in a bored but professional voice. “Before you ask any questions, I’ll get them out of the way; no, you can’t bring your friends in here unless they’ve passed a threshold too. Yes, this place actually exists. No, you can’t stay here forever. And I can’t–I repeat, I can’t leave here and help with whatever problems you’re having. Not unless you’ve got Worth coming out of your ears.”
I roll my eyes and look for somewhere to sit down. Or a… health potion of some kind. There’s no obvious red liquids in clear bottles, but there most definitely is an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair with a deep indigo cushion. I beeline for it and collapse with a sigh of relief that turns into a gasp of pain.
The guy behind the counter rolls his eyes and sighs. “Please don’t damage any of the merchandise. It’ll hurt you so much more than it…”
He pauses as he finally looks over his book. A frown knits his eyebrows together, and he leans over the counter to get a look outside the front window.
Which is there, now, I guess.
“Where am I?”
Hey, that’s what I’m wondering too.
“Good question, buddy.” I snort as my mind tries to wander off into what could just as easily be sleep or death. “The system told me it was the seasky shores, but beyond that, I don’t have a clue. Are you here to sell me stuff? Because I need a healing potion something fierce.”
The guy raises an eyebrow, then gestures at a small table with four different flasks on it.
“You can trade your clearance ticket for everything on that table. Or you can buy a healing potion from one of the shelves, which’ll cost you at least twenty five Worth.”
“Steep.” I chuckle weakly as I wave my hand and try to summon the clearance… thing. A small red ticket with a stylized ‘1’ appears between my fingers. “I’ll use this thing.”
It disappears the second I speak my desire into being, and the table flickers from where it had been to right beside me. Holographic displays appear over each of the metal flasks, labeling one as a healing potion, another ‘bottled sleep’, the third a mana potion–which doesn’t look like it serves a use for me–and the last as a meal replacement.
I grab the healing potion and down a quarter of it. My throat closes up at that point, and I come away coughing fiercely.
“Yeah, your body won’t let you overdose on any kind of potion. There’s some backlash later, but you don’t look like you’re in any condition to worry about that.” The guy chuckles. “I’m guessing your starter kit didn’t come with one of them?”
“No, it did not.” I say between coughs. “Just some clothes, a water bottle, and some energy bars. Not much of a starter kit, if you ask me.”
“They’re usually a lot more… robust than yours. But the system always gives out equal opportunities, unless you’re like me, so you must’ve gotten something else. Wait, where are my manners?” He taps his cheek with two fingers. “You can call me Gil.”
“Shelby.” I reply with a sigh as liquid relief fills my bones. “God, this stuff feels like heaven. Knowing it’d cost a third of my Worth on its own somehow makes it taste a shitton better, too.”
Gil seems… confused by that.
“You’re only Worth seventy-five? And you survived an encounter with whatever did that to your legs? What kind of absurd skills did the system give you?”
I grin and bend down to start scraping the crud off my legs. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Gil-boy. Hey, do you buy stuff here too? Because I’ve got a corpse taking up an inventory space I could really use for something else.”
“I… do.” He says slowly. “But aren’t you even a little curious as to why I’m here?”
“I leveled up and the system brought you here.” I say with a shrug. “It’s no weirder than anything else I’ve seen so far.”
“No, not like that. I mean me–a human–working for the system. Doesn’t that go against everything the tutorial taught you?”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but I didn’t get much of a tutorial. I appeared on a beach, walked for a while, got attacked, learned some spells, and… eh, don’t really want to tell you everything.” I decide halfway through my sentence. The guy literally just told me he was suspicious, after all. “So what was the tutorial supposed to tell me?”
Gil stares at me with a frown that slowly turns into understanding.
“You’re a Worth Class just like me. That’s the only thing that makes sense.” He says eagerly, and as if by magic, his entire demeanor changes. “I haven’t seen another one of us for… wow, it’s really been over three years. Who kicked the bucket and gave up their coin? Was it the Banker? He always gave off ‘corny villain that dies stupidly’ energy to me. …Ah, who am I kidding, that guy’s going to live to be two hundred somehow.”
“I don’t want to tell you.” I say bluntly.
He nods at that. “Completely understandable. Here–maybe if I offer you some info first you’ll be a little more trusting. I’m the Merchant, and I get a cut of everything I sell here. Except for the stuff the system generates on its own, like those potions you just bought–I don’t get squat for that. Oh, and anything I buy from you comes from my own pocket, not the system’s stash.”
“So… you’re ripping me off?”
“Pretty much.” He admits readily. “But everything here I’ve acquired on my own–no system help needed. Some of it’s cheaper than you’ll find anywhere else, some you won’t find anywhere else, and some’s just daylight robbery. Here’s a hint–don’t buy anything you can easily find on your own. Doesn’t just go for my store–it goes for literally every shop.”
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Gil vaults over his counter, snatches his cup of tea along the way, and beelines for the door. He flips the sign to ‘closed’, then summons a comfortable-looking armchair from his inventory right across from me. I glance over at the door, unsure if I want to give this guy the time of day, but a twinge in my legs reminds me that I’m still not in walking shape.
“Oh, if you think I’m hitting on you, don’t be worried. I’m not interested in humans.” Gil offers a little too easily. “All the other races are so much more… exotic, if you pick up what I’m putting down.”
Other races? I almost reach up to pat Pearl out of some weird protective instinct, but I stop myself before I can. She hasn’t spoken a word since we got here, and there’s gotta be a reason for the silence.
“Wait–you’re telling me I could’ve been shopping from an… elf or something like that? And instead I’m stuck here with…” I gesture generally at Gil. “You?”
“Don’t sound too disappointed.” He laughs. “But I totally get it. If my first shop had been manned by a boring vanilla human instead of the beautiful merisian it was, I might not have had the will to go on.”
He leans back and takes a sip of his drink. “Still haven’t managed to find their homeland, which is a huge bummer.”
The wistfulness in his voice and the raw desire in his eyes do not match in the slightest. But, somehow, it makes me feel a little safer with the dude. He has his own priorities. They’re not… great, but it probably means he isn’t going to randomly murder me.
I look over my options, and unfortunately, one of them stands out. I’ve got a veteran here, who seems to be willing to talk, and who doesn’t want anything from me. That’s probably the best I’m going to get. But to get him to talk about the shit I need to know, I’ll need to trail him down the right path.
“I’m a gambler.”
He narrows his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
Okay, that’s not what I was expecting. “Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because the last Gambler that made it out of the starting area did it before the system started isolating Worth classes. And he barely made it to clearance ten before he turned Worthless.” Gil explains. “I don’t even know what the Gamber’s starting area is, or if it got randomized like the rest of us Worthies, but it has to be…”
He looks down at my shellraiser casts and pauses.
“Pretty dangerous?” I finish for him with a smirk.
“Took the words right out of my mouth.” He mumbles in thought, then snaps his fingers. A small credit card terminal appears in his hand, which he proceeds to fiddle with for a few seconds, then hands to me. “Tap your Class Card on that. If you’re actually the Gambler, it’ll transfer you twenty-five Worth. If you’re not, it’ll decline your card and you won’t be able to buy or sell anything until your next threshold. Do we–”
I tap my card on the terminal before he can finish speaking and change his mind. A confirmatory beep causes a grin to spread across his face, even though he’s now twenty-five Worth poorer.
“Is that enough confirmation for you?”
He sends the terminal away and nods. “More than enough. If you’ve got anything you want to sell just drop them on the floor. I’ll give you an offer on anything purchasable.”
Cool. I withdraw the shark-dog, which reopens the prompt from before informing me of all the stuff I can gain from the mass risen grave. A few attempts to swipe it aside end uselessly, so I just set the open card down and pull an everdriftwood sapling from my inventory.
Gil leans forward and grabs my arm before I can put it down.
“Whoah, I’m going to stop you there.” Gil says seriously. “Do not sell those to me. They’re extremely rare investments, and I can’t give you even a fraction of what they’ll really be worth. I’ll be happy to take some lumber, leaves, and sap off your hand when you get them growing, though.”
I raise an eyebrow. “But I don’t have enough inventory space.”
“How many of them do you have?”
“Eight.”
He looks at me like I’ve got two heads. “O-kay. Still can’t buy them from you thanks to the clearance limits, but I think I’ve got an inventory expansion coin here somewhere. It shouldn’t be too expensive if you haven’t upgraded yours at all.”
With a motion like opening a book, he summons his own Class Card. Unlike mine, his projects a royal purple two-fold screen that opens like a huge book. He physically flips through it a few times, taps it a bunch, then slides his finger up and off it. A single coin emerges into the world, marked with a square made out of four squares on one side and four tally marks on the other.
“Here.” he says as he tosses the coin to me. “That’s fifteen Worth, and it only works if you’ve got less than ten inventory slots. Completely worthless to me, but a smoking deal for you. Unless your class gave you more than ten to start with?”
I shake my head as I eye the coin. My skill can’t work with these things, can it? Well… it can’t hurt to try.
“What are you doing?” Gil asks as I palm the coin and flip it sky-high.
My right arm still isn’t in good enough condition to catch anything, so I snag the coin with my left hand and feel the tally marks against my palm. A twinge in my brain gives me way too much hope for this.
“Tails.”
A gasp rips free from my lungs as it feels like my very essence is being drawn out of me. I grit my teeth and strain to stay conscious against whatever the hell is happening, all the while my Class Card grows brighter and brighter by the second.
Skill Discovery: High Stakes
Anything in Coin form can be wagered on a High Stakes bet, as long as that coin has Worth.
Doing so locks this skill entirely for 2 hours and exhausts you.
…Oh, shit, I didn’t double any of the Worth I got from killing the mass grave. That’s a huge damn loss.
“Looks like using your skill takes a lot out of you.” Gil notes.
“Ya think?” I chuckle weakly.
But it can’t stop the grin from spreading across my face. I deposit the empowered inventory expansion coin without letting him see it, then take out fifteen glass lones to pay for the thing I’ve already used.
He reluctantly accepts them. “Just because I don’t know what your skill does, it doesn’t mean I can’t take a guess at it.”
I pick up my Class Card and smile at the screen filled with eight new gold-bordered inventory spaces. Five of them are already filled with the rewards from the mass grave, which leaves space for four more saplings when I include the one the shark-dog’s corpse made.
“All Worth classes have a skill that lets them do something with… well… Worth.” Gil continues unprompted. “Since I’m the more powerful one here, I’ll divulge mine first. Tap your card to mine and I’ll transfer the description over.”
He closes his book into a purple card with dark, chocolate-coloured accents and holds it out to me. I obviously don’t reciprocate.
“Making a transaction’s one thing, but this could brick my brain, you know.” I say slowly. “I’ve seen what it feels like to learn info way beyond what my Mind stat allows.”
“Which is why I’m sending you the default description–minus any evolutions or revealed details I might’ve gained over the years. Come on.” He flicks his card with his fingernail while waggling his eyebrows at me. “Aren’t you even a little curious?”
I roll my eyes, but yeah. I’m damn curious. He’s talking about ‘Worth’ classes like we’re a different species than non-Worth classes, and if I can get his curiosity piqued, then maybe I can score some even better deals here.
“Fine.” I sigh dramatically and tap my card against his. “But if this gives me some kind of magical malware, I’m kicking your ass.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” He agrees seriously.
With a few swipes I find his skill under my information tab, then tap on it to enlarge the pitifully small text.
Active Skill: Wandering Merchant.
You can set up shops wherever you want, and can sell anything you’ve obtained at them.
Unmanned shops are protected from being stolen from as long as the thief’s clearance is lower than yours.
I stare at the short description for a second. Then I look around the fairly large system-approved shop that Gil somehow managed to get for himself. And finally, my eyes fall on the man while realization dawns on me.
“Skills are so vague, aren’t they?” He says with a wolfish grin. “It makes you want to exploit every little loophole you can think of. Us Worth classes? We’re the ones who stand to gain by far the most.”
A shiver runs down my spine. Not from fear, though–from excitement and anticipation. If Gil can turn his simple skill into a system-approved shop, then how much can I do with mine?
“I see that smile. It’s the same one I had when I found out I can put a little kiosk in a system-approved shop.” He says proudly. “It’s the smile of someone who sees opportunities. The smile of someone I want to invest in.”