I still hadn’t received any word from Panda by the next morning. I woke up, caught Bell up on the previous evening’s events, ate a hearty breakfast, and with literally nothing else to do, the two of us headed out.

Sally had disappeared early on, leaving me a system message to say she was handing in the quest and then spending the day patching up her broken ship.

I had no need to visit the local society branch so I left her too it.

Kaleb: I had no idea you had crafting skills.

Sally: Do you really think I’d sail the high seas without the ability to fix my own vessel?

Kaleb: You mean high skies.

Sally has muted the chat.

It was a beautiful, sunny day as Bell and I wandered the cobbled streets in the picturesque little town. Not long after leaving the inn we decided to stop at a small juice stand.

After the drinks I’d shared with Clive the previous night, I was craving some more of the delectable island juice they served.

“I’ll take two green juices please,” I said, approaching a well-dressed man wearing sunglasses and a bowler hat.

“Right away sir!” He replied chirpily, “if you’ll just fill out this form, I’ll get your beverages lickety-split.”

“Why does he need to fill in a form to buy juice?” Bell asked, placing her hand on the cart.

“He doesn’t need to fill out the form,” the man replied, “but if he doesn’t he’ll be charged the blasphemer’s tax and it’s a hefty sum indeed. I wouldn’t wish that on any man.”

“How much tax are we talking here?” I asked.

“These juices cost one gold a piece,” he replied as his eyes unfocused and he began counting on his fingers, “… carry the two, plus forty-eight… the total would come to a little over 2,000 gold pieces.”

“2,000?!” I gasped. Snatching the piece of parchment from his hand and I reading it over quickly.

I [insert name here] do hereby declare my unwavering faith and loyalty to The System and the holy church who profess its will.

Signature:………….

“Is this a religious sign-up sheet?” I asked incredulously as Bell snatched the parchment from my hands and scanned it herself.

“Why of course,” the man said happily.

Shaking my head, I dropped the sheet back onto his cart and walked away. What a farce, having to pledge to a religion just to buy a damned drink. They were starting to seem more like a cult.

One gold per drink was already a rip off, the so-called blasphemer’s tax was just taking the piss. I hadn’t even said anything blasphemous… yet.

“I bet if you had signed that form,” Bell began, “they’d be trying to convince you to give away all of your worldly possessions to the church. That happened to my uncle once. The family wasn’t very happy when he tried to sign over the company. Luckily, my father was the managing director at the time though so there was no legal ground for the cult to stand on.”

“Yeah that…” I began absently, “wait… your family owned a company?”

“Ooh, a spell shop!” She said, completely ignoring my question, “let’s browse their wares.”

Taking me by the hand, she led me into a small shop filled with stacks of scrolls. I didn’t even know you could buy spells; I thought all magic was skill based.

I wondered if you could use any of them without having any mana.

“Good morning!” Bell chimed as she approached the counter with a devilish grin. “What kind of fireball spells do you have.”

Resisting the urge to facepalm, I moved next to her and nodded at the shopkeeper. She was a svartalf with midnight purple skin and a surprisingly friendly smile. Nothing like Wendy back in Havar.

“Blessed greetings young ones,” she said, bowing slightly, “we have all kinds of fireball magic here. There are acidic fireballs, noxious fireballs and a few types of fireball enhancements, as well as the basic stuff. What exactly are you in the market for?”

“Kaleb!” Bell squealed, “they have noxious fireballs. I can burn people and poison them… all at the same time.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“That would certainly be… something,” I replied dryly, “do you need to have mana to use these scrolls?” I asked the shopkeeper.

“Yes, but not very much,” she replied casually, “these are single use items gifted by the system. The mana requirement is so low that even a child could cast at least one of them.”

Shame I don’t even have the mana pools of a child, I thought, glancing down at the shopfloor and shuffling my feet slightly.

Bell patted my back, likely in consolidation. Though it came across as a little patronising and I felt myself glaring at her. She was too busy to notice.

“I’ll take all of them,” Bell stated, slapping the table for effect.

“All of them?” The svartalf replied incredulously, her eyes lighting at the prospect.

“All of them,” Bell affirmed confidently.

“That… that’s great!” The woman said, “if you’ll just sign here I’ll start gathering them all up for you. Gavin! We’re going to eat like royalty this winter!” She called happily into the back of the shop.

“Really sweetheart? That’s incredible, I was worried we’d have to brave the weather to hunt again. System’s blessings, what a miracle.”

“I know!” She replied in a shrill, excited voice, “we might even have enough left over to pay the healer to fix Timmy’s chronic mana sickness.” She turned her head towards us and explained, “our boy has this terrible condition that makes him turn practically paraplegic when he casts spells. It’s no way to live, but thanks to this generous purchase I can pay the healer to perform mana conversion therapy on him.”

I had no idea who Gavin was, but I guessed it was the shopkeeper’s husband. They both seemed ecstatic at the prospect of such a large sale, I guessed that spell scrolls weren’t in high demand in such a quaint little seaside town. I wondered how Bell had saved enough gold to afford so much.

The svartalf woman passed Bell a piece of parchment and a pen and began excitedly gathering scrolls by the armful. Without looking, Bell picked up the pen and began writing her name.

Then I slapped it out of her hand.

“What was that for?” She asked in a hurt voice, rubbing her wrist.

“Read it.”

“Oh for god’s sake!” She exclaimed as she scanned the paper, “not again.”

“Is there a problem miss?” The svartalf asked, looking worriedly up from her scroll gathering.

“She doesn’t want to join your cult,” I replied dryly, “she just wants to buy some scrolls.”

“Cult?!” The woman replied in an unnaturally high-pitched voice. “The religion of the one true god is not a cult young man and I’ll thank you not to persecute our religion again. Besides… it’s law in this town that magic scrolls cannot be purchased by non-believers.” She looked a little disheartened as she spoke.

“Why not?” Bell said, her eyes glistening.

“I’m sorry deary, but those are the rules,” the shopkeeper replied sadly, refusing to look her in the eyes, “I can’t sell these to you if you don’t sign the form.”

“Kaleb, I really want those scrolls.” Bell said pleadingly, as if I was her keeper or something.

“I won’t stop you if that’s what you want,” I began, “but my dragon’s eye is showing some pretty weird colours around that thing so I’d be careful if I was you.”

It wasn’t a lie. The parchment lit up with a strange purple hue. I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but I had a funny feeling that it wouldn’t be anything good.

“Fine,” Bell said sadly as she turned to leave the shop.

I promptly followed her, hearing the woman’s downtrodden words as we left.

“Sorry Gavin, they’re non-believers. I guess we’ll have to go hungry again.”

“Poor Timmy,” he replied with a sniffle.

***

The rest of the day passed the same way. Everywhere we went people shoved signup sheets in our faces demanding we join their church or be subject to outrageous taxes or outright refusal of sale.

With slumped shoulders, as the sun began to set, the two of us walked drearily back towards the inn. At least there we could eat and sleep without selling our souls.

As we trapsed down the cobbled street, a small catonid girl skipped towards us holding a basket of glass bottles. She looked pretty chipper in her ratty pink sundress and straw hat. Her clothes looked old and well-worn but from her intoxicating smile, I barely noticed.

I wondered if my child had been a girl. I’d always kind of wanted a daughter. Of course, I’d have just been happy with any healthy kid, but secretly, all prospective parents tend to lean one way or the other.

As we passed the happy girl, I noticed her shoelace was undone. I’d been levelling my perception skill recently and was beginning to spot little things like that.

Breaking me from my reverie, the girl tripped. I instinctually activated perception of the apex predator and halted time for about a second to catch her.

I knelt down, looking into her adorable, wide-eyed face as she stared up at me with a trembling lip.

“Thanks mister,” she said shyly, “I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d have broken these bottles. I’ve been collecting them all day from the tourists. I should get a warm meal tonight if I sell these to the bottle bank.”

My heart could have melted.

“Aren’t you cute,” Bell said sweetly, standing above me. “Here, this should see you fed for a few days.” She flicked the girl a gold coin which she caught clumsily, holding it tightly with both hands.

“Wow, thank you so much!” She said, tail wagging behind her. “This will mean me and big brother can have a full meal each, normally we have to share.”

“Don’t mention it,” Bell replied with a warm smile of her own.

“Please, could you tell me your names?” She asked, grasping my hand, “I want to be able to tell my brother of the kind strangers who helped me today.”

“… Sure,” I began, “I’m Kaleb and this is Bell.”

“Ka-lib… and Bell,” She sounded my name out phonetically, it must have been one she hadn’t heard before. “Thank you, could you write them out for me? I’m still new to reading and writing and I’m trying to learn more words.”

“Why not?” I replied lightly with a shrug.

“Yay!” She sang, summoning a piece of parchment and a pen from her inventory, “you can use this.”

I took the scrunched up, off-white parchment and began writing my name.

“Kaleb no!” Bell shouted, kicking me in the ribs.

I fell sideways and looked back at her, grimacing, and then to the parchment.

I [insert name here] do hereby declare my unwavering faith and loyalty to The System and the holy church who profess its will.

Signature:………….

“God damn it!” I screamed, standing up and ripping the parchment in two, “I hate this fucking island!”

“Y-y-you tore my paper,” the girl sobbed, staring up at me in terror. “You’re not a kind stranger at all, you’re a meany. Y-y-you… blaspheming infidel!”

With that she barged past me, covering her eyes in the crook of her elbow as she sobbed.

This time I hoped she really did trip over.

“This place is weird Kaleb,” Bell said with a light shake of her head, “I hope Sally fixes the ship soon.”

“So do I.”

We continued our walk back to the inn feeling even more downcast than before. That was, until we both got pinged by a new message in the group chat.

Panda: Kaleb help! S.O.S! They’re trying to sacrifice me!

“You know, I’m not even surprised at this point,” I said absently to Bell before thinking out my reply.

Kaleb: Where are you?

Panda: The big church thingy. These people are crazy. HELP!!!!!

Bell: We’re on our way, try not to die before we get there.