“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Pigeon pursed her lips in noncommittal disinterest. “Very well, how about this? I have no plans of doing anything beyond what I set out to do, which is help kill the wretcher. Neither do I have any plans of doing something melodramatic like betraying you and your friends.” She looked up into the solid wood ceiling for a few moments, thinking. “Does killing bother you?”

“Yes. What’s the secret for reaching Level 30?”

“There isn’t one, as far as I know. Nothing you don’t already know. Pick a goal that’s beyond your reach and strive for it. Then, once you get there, pick a new one.”

He’d expected as much. He wasn’t confident that Pigeon was being truthful, but he didn’t get any real feeling of dishonesty from her either. At least it was an extra data point to go off of.

“Do you consider yourself a good person?” she asked, sighing while she spoke as though supremely bored.

Will shook his head. “No. What was your goal?”

It was the first time he’d seen her smile. A secretive little smirk. Laughing to herself at some joke he couldn’t possibly understand. “To have fun,” she said. With that, she made a dismissive wave in his direction. “I think I’ve heard enough now, thank you. Quite a productive conversation. I hope you got something out of it too, William Dahl.”

Why do I always get the feeling that she’s making fun of me somehow?

Will stood and left without another word. Regardless of what she had done for them, there was something about her he couldn’t stand. Her smugness, maybe.

<> Bee suggested.

It’s not that. Stop listening in.

<>

Shut up.

<>

Will toured the town in search of the curio shop. While he found himself queasy with the knowledge that he was far too high up for his little monkey brain to handle, he had to admit that the view was special. Without anything to obscure the horizon, he could see the sun light the sky on fire as it danced on the rounded shoulders of the distant fells. Already, Kalamere’s emerald crescent hung high. The moon had begun shifting to red in spots as its winter season approached.

Will stood and admired it for a few minutes, leaning on a railing so he could take some weight off his road-weary stump. Then he kept moving with all the more haste, well aware that most establishments would be closing up around this time.

He found the curio shop tucked away at the very outskirts of Talltop, a small building squeezed up against the side of a longfather tree between two residentials. The flaking signboard above the door read ‘CONTRAPTIONS, CURIOS, AND SUNDRIES’. He figured that had to be what he was looking for.

The owner—a Level 12 Artificer—was on his way to lock the place up when Will walked in. The man was clearly tired after a long day, circles under his eyes and apron covered in grease, but he let Will in when he explained that he only needed something Identified.

“It’ll be two hundred,” he said while he wandered over to the counter, laden with all sorts of half-finished mechanical junk. Some pieces sparked with failing or incomplete enchantments.

Two hundred was extortionate for what would be about ten seconds of work for the Artificer. But Will was in no mood to haggle, and he had already come to terms with the fact that Talltop was going to put a sizable dent in his travel funds.

Honest folk, she says, Will thought bitterly.

He placed the strongbox on the counter and opened it for the Artificer to examine the bottled elixir inside.

“Well, well,” the man cooed. “An elixir, eh? Lucky you. Make this yourself?”

“Uh, yeah.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Not bad.”

“Thanks.”

Will looked around the place while he waited. There was a rifle on the wall behind the man. Of decent make, too. He considered asking if there were any others he could look at, but decided against it. It would be better to hire Bogleg for a custom job back in Sheerhome if he was going to spring for something as expensive as a firearm.

Ammo was a similar situation. He was running low, with only a magazine and a half left for Kindness, but buying more wasn’t so much an option. There weren’t any established standards for bullet calibers yet, so the ones he used for his pistol were just as custom as the weapon itself.

A rifle might not be a bad idea, though. I could use the range.

The Artificer held up the glass vial to a sparkling enchanted ceiling light. A vague halo appeared around the Artificer’s head as he used Identify, then faded. His face stiffened.

“Well?” Will asked. “What kind is it?”

The Artificer cleared his throat, gingerly placing the elixir back in its padded strongbox. “It’s, ah… um...”

Will raised his eyebrows with pointed urgency. “Yes?”

He became aware that the man was reaching for something under the counter. He doubted it was the loyalty punch card.

“Construct,” Will said as he was midway leaping across the countertop, erecting a hardlight bubble around the strongbox. He bore into the Artificer, and the two of them tumbled to the floor together, the other man hitting the back of his head off a shelf.

As Will fumbled for his belt knife, the Artificer bucked him off, and a blow to the face sent him onto his back, left ear ringing.

While they were of similar size, Will felt sluggish in his actions, all the strength wrung out of his limbs.

The Artificer got up, swearing under his breath, and went for a shotgun mounted under the counter. Will managed to get his blade out, and jabbed at the man without aiming. Steel slid through his ankle, slicing through tendon, and the man fell to one knee with a scream.

Will dragged himself up by his opponent’s apron. The man caught him by the hair with one hand, yanking him down, while he made another attempt at the gun with the other hand.

Will stabbed blindly and found the softness of the man’s side. He plunged it in again and again, poked him full of holes until they were both covered in his blood. The man fell back, and Will went on top of him, teeth bared.

His vision doubled, and he felt his stomach flip. His fingers tingled with numbness, and he had to look down at the knife to make sure he was still holding it.

Stay on top of him. Stay on top of him.

Will braced himself against the man’s neck with his free hand, finding his balance and choking his opponent at once.

“Please…” the Artificer croaked, panic showing in his wide eyes. “Please, please…”

“What was the elixir?” Will asked. The man was done whatever he did now, blood oozing out of a dozen punctures, but he put the knife against his belly anyway. In Will’s experience, dying men rarely knew they were dying, and would do just about anything to protect what they had already lost.

But the Artificer was already too far gone. He kept pleading with Will to spare his life, growing increasingly incoherent until his eyes went unfocused and his head tipped back, hitting the floor with a thump.

“Fuck!”

Will staggered to his feet, pulling himself up by a shelf handle, and kicked the dead man for good measure.

That could have gone better. Not only did he not know what the elixir was, he had just killed a man in a town Pigeon had described as ‘half a step from functional anarchy’.

All he knew was that the elixir had to be something good, for the Artificer to try and kill him like that after what had seemed like only a few moments of deliberation.

Will released the shield around the strongbox and retrieved the vial. He held it up to the light like the other guy had, regarding the crystalline liquid with one eye pinched shut.

What are you?

Bee was through the door less than a minute later, nearly tearing it off the hinges. Finding him standing and more or less unharmed, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don't looks so comfortable yet,” Will said, showing her the body and giving it another kick. “Depending on who this guy was friends with, we might have have aproblem.”

Bee frowned down at it, scratching her scarred cheek. “Shit. What do we do with him? Throw him off the platform or something?”

“No. If we try to hide it, I’m sure it won’t take people long to figure out that I was the last person in this place. It’s not that big a town.”

“Then what?”

“Go get Pigeon for me, please. Quickly.”

As much as he disliked relying on the Jeweler, she was the only one he knew with any reasonable knowledge of Talltop. If anyone knew what to do, it would be her.

Bee set off immediately to do as he said. Meanwhile, Will picked over the shop. There were numerous items he would have liked to take for himself, firearms included, but now was not the time to be robbing the dead. He figured he needed to look as innocent as possible if he wanted any chance of claiming self-defense.

Bee returned with Pigeon a short while later. The latter did not seem overly concerned, eyes half-lidded as though she’d been sleeping.

There was a third man with them—a Level 18 Explorer, a mustachioed gentleman in a baggy suit with greasy, receding hair.

“This is the town marshal,” Pigeon explained, motioning to the man. “You’re going to explain to him what happened here.”

Will had no idea how fucked he was, but he wasn’t loving his chances.