Araedi. Day 03.
The greens surrounding Araedi’s guildhall had exploded into a massive shopping district with tents and shop stands full of wandering people, both NPCs and Guardians. People flooded the already tight paths making it even hard to move around.
Sinnamon clung to Weaver’s arm as he effortlessly parted the crowd.
A man nearly as large as Weaver held up a hand to stop him. “You better not be thinking about cutting in line.”
“No, we’re looking for—what is this line for?” Weaver asked.
Sinnamon followed his gaze. The line was rather long, ropes had been set up to tame it and the two had nearly walked into one of them, stopped only by the large man in front of them.
The man grinned. “Why, it’s our very own KFC! It ain’t quite the original secret herbs and spices, but I think the dear old Colonel would be proud of just how close we came.”
Sinnamon retraced the line back to a large white and red tent where people walked away with large bags of food.
She turned to the man. “You guys managed all this in only three days?”
“Sure did! Though we’ve been an alchemy guild forever, it wasn’t so hard to make the switch to good food. And the people of this fine city seem to love it!” He looked wistfully at the stand. “Oh, we’ll share the recipes with everyone at the big guild meeting. You can’t really blame us for making a profit while we wait for it, can you?”
“No, I guess I can’t,” Sinnamon said with a laugh. She turned to Weaver. “Guess we’ll have to make a stop here if the line ever dies down.”
“Guess so,” Weaver replied with a laugh of his own.
They left the man and continued on their way until they found an armorer’s shop named Sally’s War Goods. A tall woman with a figure not too dissimilar from Weaver’s greeted them. She was a level one hundred Sentinel who wore violet armor that transitioned to indigo near her feet. White trim accented the armor as well as the matching greatsword leaning against her stand.
The woman smiled and waved as they approached. “The name’s Sallyvation, but feel free to call me Sally. Always good to see another tank, what can I do for ya?”
Weaver set his two stone gauntlets on the counter. “Any chance you could fix these?”
She picked up the right gauntlet and inspected it. “Oh, it’s so light. Asweyr, eh? Not very strong though, it crumbles easily. Super rare though, you can really only get it from the Godsfall Mountains. I could probably find some off the marketplace, but it’ll probably be a day before I can get them back to you.”
“Yeah, they were a gift from a friend. But I actually do have some asweyr on me.” Weaver reached into his bag and set six large, greyish-white ingots on the table.
Each was wrapped in several bands of iron and the ingots themselves weren’t pure asweyr, anyway. Almost nothing was as pure asweyr floated like a helium-filled balloon.
Sally picked up one of the ingots and tossed it in the air. It descended slowly like the heaviest-looking feather Sinnamon had ever seen.
“Oh, it’s the real stuff. I can get you your gauntlets by the end of the day.”
“You can keep any extra asweyr if I can get them back in three hours.”
“You sure, mate? Just one of these is enough to repair your gauntlets.”
“I’m our party’s only tank. The sooner I can get those back, the sooner we can get back to questing.” Weaver replied. “Besides, I’ve got friends heading to the Godsfall mountains in a couple days. They can always get me more.”
Sally’s eyes went wide with greed. “Have him do the same for me, and I’ll fix your gear for free any time you bring it here!”
Weaver laughed. “You have a deal!”
The two of them chatted on for a bit about their roles as tanks before Sally handed Weaver a small white crystal.
Weaver placed it in his bag and turned to Sinnamon. “I guess that just leaves you now.”
***
Larina’s Magical Emporium was directly across from Sally’s War Goods. The mage shop had racks and displays around the simple stall. One set of robes stood out to Sinnamon. A black robe with light pink stitching and trim. It had a matching cloak and a wide-brimmed witch’s hat that completed the look. Sinnamon knew right then that she had to have it.
The shop’s owner, a level eighty-two Sorcerer named Larina, walked over to them. She had a cheerful expression as she greeted them.
“How can I help you two?”
“I need clothing I can fight in. My old set is the starting clothing and my masquerade outfit really took a beating. I’d like to get both fixed as well,” Sinnamon answered.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Were you both heavy forum users? I’ve had a lot of people coming in who leveled up only enough to use the crafting systems, but now find themselves under-geared. I can absolutely help you. Let me just look at your stats and…” Larina’s face suddenly tightened like she’d sucked on a lime.
Right, both myself and Weaver would have orange names to her. She must think we’re player killers.
“We stopped a few players who killed three NPCs north of here. Some guilds and Araedi’s Royal guard will vouch for us, if you want to check.”
“I’ll confirm with the guard later. Not like either of you can do anything inside the city. And you both really don’t strike me as the PKing type. My friend, Owlie, got PKed yesterday, too.” Larina shook her head. “Killed NPCs, though? That’s no different than murder. Good on you both for stopping them. I can fix your Masquerade outfit, though there isn’t much I can do for your starter gear. You really want to get better materials so they can hold better enchantments.”
“I’d like to do both.” Sinnamon walked back to the outfit she’d seen and pulled it from the rack, setting it down on Larina’s counter. “How much are these? Do you have any enchantments that would work for a Caster build?”
“I do. Though if you want them to scale better, you won’t be able to use them until level fifty-five. The good news is they’ll scale with you to seventy-five instead of sixty-five.”
Sinnamon glanced at her experience bar. She was actually only twenty-five XP short of level fifty-five. That, she could get almost anywhere.
“I’ll take the higher level option,” Sinnamon confirmed. “I’d like anything that can boost my spell power, and I did just start a healing subclass… Wait, can you put two enchantments on robes?”
Larina laughed good-naturedly. “You really didn’t play much, did you? My enchanting skill and profession are both maxed. Any robe I enchant can hold up to five enchantments. The hat and cloak can hold three each, and the boots and gloves can both hold two.”
Sinnamon flushed with a bit of embarrassment. No, she really didn’t know much about how enchanting worked. She mostly bought and sold masquerade items. Those were valued more for their appearance than their utility. They could be worn “over” other armor, hence the name masquerade, but they couldn’t be enchanted and had their own, often far lower, durability.
“Hm,” Larina paused, studying Sinnamon. “Caster-Cleric of Healing? I don’t take you as the min-maxing meta type, so I’d probably just do the basics: Cool down reduction, spell power boosts, heal and shield power boosting, MP regen and… do you brew potions?”
Sinnamon shook her head. She didn’t really care for the alchemy system.
“Well, then I’ll throw in some dex and willpower boosting enchants. It’ll cut down on your casting time. If you want me to max the enchantments, you’re looking at around 750,000 gold. And I’ll throw in repairing your masquerade outfit for an extra 50,000.”
Sinnamon did the math in her head. Her masquerade outfit had cost 250,000 gold and it was made from very high quality items. The fact that this outfit was three times as expensive really drilled home just how expensive proper gear was. It sounded like a fair price.
“I’ll take it. Do you have any travelling clothes I could buy in the meantime?”
“No, sorry. But there are few shops around that’ll have what you want. Just bring everything to my main shop at my guild building when you’re ready and I’ll get to it. Three blocks north and six anti-clockwise from the guildhall. Short and green with the white roof. I have a friend there who will take your stuff. We do our bulk enchanting at the end of the day.”
“We’ll do that,” Sinnamon said.
She started to turn when Lariana called her. She held up a small white crystal and tossed it to Sinnamon.
Alert! You have begun a transaction with Larina in the amount of 800,000 gold. You lack this amount of gold in your inventory. However, as treasurer of a guild, you may deduct this amount from your guild’s bank. The funds will be held safely until the transaction has been completed, refused by either party, or left to expire. Would you like to proceed with this transaction?
Sinnamon tapped yes and handed the crystal back to Larina.
A moment later, Larina returned the crystal to Sinnamon. “Keep this on you, it’s kind of like your receipt. Give it to my friend, Owlie, and she’ll know what to do.”
Sinnamon pocketed the crystal, but as she did so, she began to wonder. “With all these people around, aren’t you worried someone will steal your stuff?”
“People have tried.” Larina shrugged. “My profession counts all this stuff as part of my inventory. If someone runs off with anything, it’ll just reappear in my inventory. It does get annoying having to put the stuff back on display, but that’s a small price to pay for knowing no one can actually steal anything. It’s just like that crystal I gave you, I can’t keep your items. If we don’t complete the transaction in ten days, it’ll expire and you’ll get your stuff back.”
Sinnamon marveled at that bit of information. It was amazing how much detail had been put into whatever system seemed to govern the way players did things. What did that say about the architects behind that system? Why go to such intricate detail and care, then disappear without leaving any trace?
***
Araedi was laid out like a giant wheel with four spokes branching out in each cardinal direction. Smaller spokes and rings spread out from the guildhall in the center like the rings of a tree. It made navigating around in the city fairly easy, once one got used to the fact that the sun set in the wrong direction and the shadows were all wrong.
Sinnamon and Weaver found Larina’s guild building where a tall girl in black armor with white, lace-like patterns met them.
“Hey Sinn, check her out,” Weaver said.
The woman, Owlie, also had an orange name like Sinnamon and Weaver did.
“Ah, Sinnamon Roll and Weaver. Larina told me you were coming by.” She smiled and waved, and after looking above their own heads, added, “She also told me you stop a couple of murderers. Good on ya! I’ll put in a rush job for your stuff just for that. Come by in a couple hours, I’ll have everything enchanted for you.”
“That’s amazing! Thank you!” Sinnamon said. “We’ll be by then!”
She and Weaver actually had other business in the city. A meeting with Wisteria Leothalis, the chief person behind the meeting of the guilds that was supposed to occur in a few weeks. The main function of that larger meeting was to figure out a way home. A way that didn’t involve killing people, Sinnamon hoped.
Their meeting today was the first step in that goal. Apparently the people who’d been killed outside of Pella hadn’t been the only ones and Wisteria had somehow gotten an audience with the queen of the Serethi to see if she might be able to help either figure out how to stop the murdering players or possibly find a way home.
Sinnamon had honestly been surprised when she’d been given more information on this meeting. Wisteria had seen a connection Sinnamon hadn’t even considered. The Serethi were the caretakers of Araedi and all the other Guardian cities, as they described themselves. They’d been living in them for hundreds of years and with how closely the cities were tied to players, especially as a point of respawning, Wisteria had deduced that the Serethi must know something about the nature of their arrival here.
Sinnamon hoped that might prove true.