Sam

The dock workers got the strange creature out of the water and into a giant suspended harness so they could begin cutting away its parts. Purple viscera sprayed from pale tissues until it coated the men and their tools and everything surface in a good radius around them, even staining the water below the pier dark with drippings that trickled between the planks. A few parts were saved for some indeterminate use, the less valuable ones thrown wholesale into large tubs while delicate components were secured individually in fluid-filled glass jars.

Sam eventually managed to pull herself away from the morbid sight when prodded by Will, and they continued their aimless amble through the Seaside market. She stopped in front of a stall that sold weapons, a number of display pieces laid out on a velvet-draped table. The sharp-eyed vendor nudged his goods with a pair of tongs to bring them back into perfect order after some careless shopper had upset their alignment.

While Sam was not particularly interested in actually using them, she had to admit that some of the swords and maces and axes and daggers looked pretty sweet, the steel all buffed to a shine.

“You have a good eye, miss,” the vendor said conspiratorially, a man bearing the balance scales symbol of a Trader. His gaze slid from the two crystals on her arm to the fourteen on Will’s without ever touching their faces. “These are Enchanted goods—imbued with powerful skills. I’m sure we could find one that would be perfect for a Laborer like you, if the gentleman would like to make a present of it…?” He had correctly surmised that Will was the one holding the purse strings, but clearly assumed that a low-level target would be more susceptible to his sales pitch.

“Sam,” Will said warningly.

Sam, not listening, bent to pick up an axe with a crescent-moon head laid out on the velvet. Will had talked about cutting a man in half at one point—this thing looked heavy enough to actually do the job.

Will caught her by the wrist in a white-knuckled grip, and she stopped short, her fingers inches from the axe handle. Looking up, she found him staring at her with a wide-eyed intensity.

“Don’t touch that,” he said firmly.

“Why, sir—” the vendor cut in, dry-washing spidery hands.

Will shot him a hard glance. “Stop talking.”

Sam allowed herself to be pulled back from the display table, not sure what was wrong but understanding that Will thought it important.

“Those weapons are cursed,” he explained. The vendor opened his mouth to protest, and was silenced with a dismissive wave in parting. “Picking one up, even for a short while, would probably not be good for your health.”

“Cursed?” They didn’t look particularly cursed.

They continued along the line of stalls. “Yes,” he said once they'd put some distance between them and the object of his displeasure. “Artisans are able to enchant items, imbuing them with skill effects, but it’s a very tricky art. Even high-level Artisans struggle to create stable enchantments.”

“Okay?” She assumed he was going somewhere with this.

“Well, there is a passive called Soulbind, a rough equivalent of the Create Familiar ability that Mongrel used to bind his chimps, except for inanimate objects. With Soulbind, a person can bind a piece of themselves to an item. Aside from becoming naturally more powerful, that item gains a free enchantment slot, meaning that any skill can be inserted into it without fear of the effect being rejected, and allowing particularly talented Artisans to slot one additional skill effect into the object aside from the one granted by Soulbind.

“Slaves in the more dismal pits of the world—Sheerhome’s own iron mine, for instance—are sometimes forced by their taskmasters to take Soulbind as they level up. Their Soulbound items are then Enchanted, and when they die, those items keep their power. They can then be sold on for a mark-up, like what our good Trader friend over there was doing.

“Except a sliver of the deceased owner’s soul will remain within the item. And given the invariably cruel nature of their deaths, they will do everything in their power to cause pain and misfortune for anyone unlucky enough to pick up one of these cursed items.” He spread his hands. “Frontier capitalism at its finest.”

“Jesus,” Sam breathed. It seemed that every new thing she learned about this place was more horrifying than the last.

With that mood dampener, they called it quits at the docks and headed back along the switchbacks. Will was badly winded before they had climbed all the way up, forced to stop and rest almost every time they came out onto a platform as the stone-cut stair turned back on itself. He complained of his lost ribs, explaining that the lack of them made it harder to breathe sometimes.

Sam offered a hand to steady him, but he insisted on walking by himself. She worried about his health—he looked so tired all the time, and she wasn’t quite sure yet how all the sacrifices he had made to the demoness were affecting him. But he didn’t want to talk about it, so she let him have his way, not wanting to get him even more worked up by arguing.

She had now seen all five districts of Sheerhome—Outside, Topside, Darkside, Cliffside, and Seaside, and was in truth already sick of the place. She was eager to get back to the farm and air the rotten stench out of her clothes, but Will had another suggestion.

“We could take into an inn for the night if you want,” he said. “Don’t worry, I know a nice one. I wanted to get you a proper wardrobe, but if we stay at an inn you can rest for tonight and we’ll hit up a Tailor in the morning. You look a little peaky.”

You’re one to talk.

It did sound sort of nice, though. And the prospect of being alone with Will for a whole night, without any chimps or demonesses or perverted old men to bother them, was exciting. She agreed to the plan, and Will led them east, back over one of the bridges to the other side of the river. He took them to a place called The Rosy Drake in a slightly less rowdy part of town, a three-story establishment with a main building enclosed by a walled courtyard on three sides. In keeping with the name, the building was painted a pale pink. A weathervane depicting a winged beast in flight spun around and around at the top of the tall roof.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The wide gates stood open, and a porter met them as soon as they entered the courtyard. He accepted Will’s money before ushering them through into the main building, which had a spacious and well-lit common room where a few patrons diced or drank or read books. There was an Entertainer sitting on a bench near the center of the room, strumming at a guitar and accepting tips in his open instrument case. A bar at one end of the room had a well-stocked liquor shelf and a stack of ale kegs.

“This is pretty cozy,” Sam hummed approvingly as she looked around. “Not bad at all!”

They spent some time lounging in the common room to recharge after the rather strenuous city tour. Will picked out a book from one of the well-stocked bookshelves, and Sam settled onto a couch by the fireplace to nap. The whisper of pages being turned soon lulled her to sleep, and she awoke feeling good and rested when it was time for dinner, which consisted of salmon and potatoes and some kind of chunky sweetish sauce. It was not as tasty as the stuff Will made, but her nap had brought back a fearsome appetite. She consumed the big portion in minutes, then scraped the plate clean with a piece of bread.

After dinner they lazed around a bit more. Once evening set in and the inn closed its gates for the nightly curfew they went outside into the courtyard, where a theater performance was being put on for the patrons. A crowd of perhaps two dozen gathered to watch, seated in chairs or propped against walls or leaning out of balconies from courtyard-facing rooms.

“Don’t expect a masterpiece or anything,” Will whispered to her with a wry grin, “but it might be good for a laugh anyway.”

The all-Entertainer troupe, which consisted of four men and one woman, put on a performance called ‘The War of the Stars’, seemingly with full sincerity. They flipped around and shot lights from their hands and wielded painted sticks dressed up as magic swords against each other—with slightly mistimed sound effects and too-loud fake thunder sounding at the climactic bits, probably produced by some skill Sam did not know about. At the end, the protagonist murdered the black-clad villain by cutting all of his limbs off, then married his sister and lived happily ever after, explained by one of the sweaty performers during a post-climax narration.

“Um,” Sam said as they were leaving, headed for their room to retire for the night, “did that seem a little derivative to you?”

“Why?” Will asked.

“I don’t know, I feel like I’ve… seen a story just like that before.”

“Which one?”

“I can’t remember. It really feels like I should, but… I can’t think of it.”

“Well, that’s not surprising. For whatever reason, people start losing their memories of Earth the moment they arrive here in the Frontier. Only the most important stuff sticks with you, while everything else fades away into a sort of blur. People around here aren’t all that creative, so the plays they put on are usually just badly misremembered stories from Earth.”

“That sounds kinda scary—losing all your memories like that…” She had no idea what to do with that knowledge.

Will shrugged. “You get used to it.”

They entered their room, a big loft with a charmingly slanted ceiling on the top floor. A large, round window set into the middle of the back wall overlooked the river. The room had some chairs, a dresser, a wash basin, a mirror, and even a wall clock that ticked contentedly to itself. Sam noted with satisfaction that the bed taking up the back center of the room was a good bit wider than the one they shared at the farm.

“So,” Sam said innocently, letting the word hang. She sat down on the springy mattress and began pulling off her boots, which were hot with trapped sweat, her feet swollen and throbbing on account of her footwear being slightly too small. “I guess I was one of your important memories, huh?”

“Yes, Sam,” Will said in a dull voice. “That goes without saying, doesn’t it?” He removed his bandage, then unlaced his tunic and threw it off, and Sam made sure to look away respectfully every few moments so it wouldn’t seem like she was staring at his toned physique. Well, she was staring, but she didn’t want it to look like she was.

“Maybe. Still nice to hear it, though. Makes a girl feel special.”

“All right. The only part of my past life that I remember with any clarity at all is the time I spent with you. Not everything, mind you. There are… gaps. Hazy parts. But the big stuff is still there. How’s that for you?”

Sam flopped onto her back and let her legs dangle over the edge of the bed. “Feels niiice,” she sang, grinning big.

Sam quickly realized that it was still a little bit too early to sleep, only about 8:30 according to the clock, and neither of them could find anything else to talk about to fill the time as Will sat down on the other end of the bed, both turned slightly away from each other. Sam was way too aware of his presence just beside her, could almost feel the warmth of his skin even though they were sitting a foot or two apart.

Sure, they'd been sleeping in the same bed for days now, but for most of them she had been too exhausted to feel much about it one way or another. She was exhausted now, too, but somehow this felt completely different. Something about being in this room together, just the two of them. In the same room. Alone. With no one to bother them.

And, besides… a lot of people would get a hotel room to hook up with someone—that was a thing people did, right?

Is it weird that this is the first thing on my mind? I wonder if he’s thinking about it, too. She glanced his way, and found that he was glancing back, and they both looked away at the same time. Sam felt her cheeks go hot. Is that why he brought me here? Part of her hoped that was the case. An equal part of her was terrified.

The clock on the wall was painfully loud, its ticking having taken on a distinctly mocking edge.

After some time, Will cleared his throat. “Um…” he said, managing to stutter over a two-letter word. “Do you think that we should officially—”

“Doyouwanttohavesex?” Sam blurted, everything tumbling out at once.

Will produced an odd, strangled croak, then fell silent.

Sam stared at the wall ahead of her, studying the imperfections of the white plaster with intense determination. She felt like her face was going to self-combust. Slowly, she forced herself to look over, and found that Will had his one dark eye fixed intently on her face.

“Do you want to have sex?” Sam repeated, more hesitantly. “With me, I mean. I’ve never had it before, so I thought maybe you… and me… we could… fuuuck?” The last bit trailed off into a squeak.

“Yes,” Will replied, sounding almost comically serious. “I’d like that.”

“Wait, shit,” Sam hissed.

“What?”

“Fucking condoms, dude. Have you got some in your… medieval wallet, or whatever?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.”

“I’m not letting you raw-dog me. And I don’t trust you to pull out, either.”

“Shut up and listen, stupid. It’s not a problem, because everyone in the Frontier is one hundred percent sterile.”

“What.”

“Yeah. It’s in the contract you signed to gain access to the Concord. I guess Era didn’t trust a bunch of barely reformed convicts to run around getting each other pregnant. And no one under eighteen gets sent to the Frontier, so that’s why you haven’t seen any kids around, in case you picked up on that.”

“Oh.”

“It also means you won’t get your period, so I reckon that’s a plus.”

“That’s neat, I guess.” Sam shook her head firmly. “This place is so weird.”

Will pressed his lips flat in a noncommittal expression. “You won’t hear me arguing. But the bottom line is, protection is not an issue.”

“Okay. Then… should we…?”

Will leaned over and kissed her, holding the back of her neck to keep her in place, catching a handful of her hair. His breath on her skin was electric, making her whole body prickle with gooseflesh.

The rest of their clothes were awkwardly discarded one article at a time as they tried to undress without letting their lips come apart from each other. Blankets were thrown aside, pillows hastily rearranged…

[And then, a girl and a boy engage in the passion of youth. But you don’t need to read about that.]

Afterward, Sam and Will lay side by side, panting and sweaty, hands intertwined, as they both stared up at the slanted ceiling.

“That was…” Will murmured, trailing off.

“Terrible,” Sam finished.

“Right? What the fuck happened?”

“I think maybe we’re bad at this, Will.”

“Damn.”