“Ever heard of a square table?”
We were sitting in Tabetha Inn - the one that held Crookbag behind the closed wooden doors swarming with guards. What a strange place for me to tell everything to Kaya.
“No,” I said. “How do you know about it?”
She grabbed the edge of the spoon and started craving on the table surface. “I have been having this thing for more than a year now, and I’ve taken the time to study it. It took me a long search and buying some very illegal books, but our skills are organized in a two dimensional table. Then what I did was to map the skill tree to the table, and I was surprised how everything fitted so well. The values we map fit exactly to each column of the table. Get it?”
Her eyes were sparkling. Mine weren’t.
“Do you receive brainpower every time you sleep with someone?”
Kaya growled. “Maybe not. You maybe losing your brainpower each time you slept with the fat cu-” she stopped, then sighed. “Look at this.”
I looked at it. It was a table. Eight rows and eight columns. Top seven columns to the right each held a name of our class, and the seven columns down the first row had the same names.
“Your skill…what did you call it? Break?” she moved the spoon to the column that was in [Lust, Wrath]. “And my skill [Charm], lies here.”
She tapped [Lust, Lust].
I looked at the table again, trying to pinpoint the values.
Pride
Greed
Wrath
Envy
Lust
Gluttony
Sloth
Pride
Greed
Wrath
Envy
Lust
[Break]
[Charm]
Gluttony
Sloth
I started to understand what she meant.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“So each skill is a subset of one of the other six skill, or its own,” I traced my fingers. “So my power is a combination of Lust and Wrath.”
It made sense. You need wrath to twist someone’s neck.
“What about the others?”
Kaya grimaced. “I don’t know. All I know is that once we use a skill the material points we have increase. Once you gain enough material points you can acquire another skill. Each of these columns,” she tapped one column. “Can have up to three skills. I guess the final goal is to acquire all twenty one skills…or maybe just the seven skills available for you. But if we do acquire them, we’ll be pretty powerful.”
“How many have you unlocked?”
“Two,” she looked at me. “I’ll only tell what my other skill is if you let me in on your plan.”
I gave a chuckle, although it came like someone was strangling me. “I don’t have a plan.”
She leaned towards me over the table, her voice coming in a whisper. “You killed the pirate queen, and here you are, in the place where her enemies gather. I’m to believe this is all a coincidence?”
“Could be.”
She slouched on her seat. “Ah, what a pity. I have so much information about the System in store. If only one idiot boy let me on his plan-”
“I don’t want to danger any of you,” I said, rising up. I got what I wanted from her. I had a basic idea of how the System operates. I just need to get material points. “You go back to Masha’s inn and go to sleep like nothing happened. If Masha asks what happened you say nothing. Even if you say it, I’ll be long gone by then. Thank you for everything Kaya, and I lied, the sex was great too.”
She frowned. “Well, I wasn’t lying. It was bad.”
I patted her shoulder. “That wasn’t what you said when you wanted to go for a second time.”
*
I approached the barman with a grin.
“Hello sir, tough day?”
The broad man who was rubbing a glass gave a sideways glance at me. “It’s always a tough day you weird looking stranger.”
I squinted my eyes to read the man’s information.
Arshel Bevin
Class: [Sloth]
Sub-Class: [Innkeepr]
Ordeal: Rashel
“Never seen you here before,” he kept the glass, then flexed his muscles. “And people who I never seen before always start some fucking trouble before leaving this place.”
“I’m just here to talk.”
“That’s how they start.”
“With our infamous pirate Crookbag.”
“That’s where they go. And you know what I say,” he brought his face close with a heavy sent of gin. “Fuck off.”
Two hands slammed the table before me. Kaya probed her head in. “It will be quick.”
Arshel looked at her, then back at me. “You know her?”
“No,” I looked at Kaya. “Do I know you stranger?”
“Shut up Jorg,” she smiled Arshel, and her eyes seemed to sparkle. “Mr. Arshel. It’s a nice place you have here. Don’t you remember we were the young crewmen who were supposed to join Lord Crookbag tonight?”
Arshel blinked. He stared at us for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Ah! Of course I remember. Hah! Me and my old brain. How could I forget? He’s right past that door,” he searched something on the counter and gave us a wooden seal. “Take this. The guards will let you in then.”
Kaya gave a sweet smile. “That’s so nice of you Mr. Arshel.”
She gave a wry glance at me, grabbed the seal and started to walk.
I cursed myself, then fell after her. “How did you do that?”
“My ability. [Charm]. I can create artificial memories.”
I looked back at the barman who was whistling a tune with a smile.
“Soon he’ll forget about us,” Kaya said, looking at me. “And he’ll always wonder where the seal went.”
“Damn, that’s some nice ability to have for your clients. You could have stolen their purses right under their noses.”
She glared at me. “I did better. I never slept with them in the first place.”
I stared. “Huh?”
Kaya puffed up her chest. “Those bastards step into my room thinking they are going to sleep with me but I don’t let any of their filthy hands even touch me. I just manipulate their memories to think that they slept with me, and they leave off with gold. Pretty good business if you ask me.”
I gawked my mouth open. “Does Masha know?”
“No one does.”
“Wait a bloody moment,” I grabbed her as it suddenly dawned on me. “So…you know…that night…the two of us…were you manipulating my mind too?”
She gave a sly smile. “I’ll keep the answer for that myself.”
Damn, if she actually used artificial memories on me then it was very strong. I actually recalled those memories well. How she wrapped her hands around me. How the smell of pie actually smelled sweet. How she nibbled at my ear-
I shrugged my thoughts.
“I don’t care,” I lied. I really cared. “Give me the seal. Thank you for your-”
She hid in behind her back. “I’m tired of repeating myself Jorg, but I’m not leaving. The world can turn upside down but I’m coming with you. I want to get out of this damned rotting town as much as you do.”
“Really?” I grumbled. “Then why didn’t you leave? Even when you had this power?”
“I didn’t have the means,” she muttered. “I can charm a man or two but not an entire force that will come after me. But with you…” she looked at the ring. “I saw you affiliation. You are a royal aren’t you?”
I paled.
“Don’t worry,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t plan to use it against you. I just want to see what your plan is. And wherever you go, I’ll go, and when I’m far away from this town I’ll stop, settle down, and live my life in peace. I’m not your enemy Jorg. So please.”
She dragged the last word like it was poison, but her eyes meant it. At least I saw they did.
I wanted to do some trick. Wanted to grab the seal and start running. But damn, I couldn’t say no to those eyes.
“I can’t be responsible for your life,” I said, even though I knew I would. “I’m on a journey to kill someone, and it won’t be pretty. Heck, things won’t even be pretty once we walk inside that room.”
“I’m not a child. I know what I’m heading into.”
Then that was that. At least I tried to warn her.
“Fine then,” I sighed. “You’ll come with me. We’ll need to meet Crookbag first.”
She gave a thin smile. “At your service.”
She walked to the doors muttering a tune. I fell behind her.
“So, now that we are partners in a long journey will you tell me if we slept together or not?”
She grinned. “That wasn’t a part of the agreement.”
“Dammit."