The moment the [Serpentor] struck, Kaden leaped, not away, but toward it. His hand struck the Beast’s tongue as the jaws clamped down.
You have tamed a Beast [3/3].
The [Serpentor] began to thrash back and forth. Normally it didn’t spit prey out. The Serpentor’s only solution to any problem was to swallow and if swallowing didn’t work, swallow harder. Even now, [Beast Soul] warned Kaden it was contemplating if swallowing was an act of friendship or not.
Kaden grabbed the front fangs and pulled himself out, at the same time giving it the idea that swallowing was not something anyone should do. Tamed beasts or lover, the polite thing to do would be to spit. At the same time, he borrowed [Water Born] so he wouldn’t die when it submerged below the river surface, which it took forever to do. As it sank down, Erris landed on the river bank and spotted him.
“Help! Help! It’s got me! It’s dragging me under!” Kaden shouted.
He didn’t mean to invoke [Beast Speech.] Maybe Serpentors were smarter than anyone cared. It was entirely possible that had one of the mules struck up a polite conversation instead of braying in terror as it was dragged under, Kaden would have known it understood.
Instead, it helpfully popped back up above the water, dragging Kaden by a heel.
Some men had suspicions when Fate turned their way and Luck handed them a target. Erris did not appear to be such a man. He drew an overly complicated wand from Inventory, aimed at Kaden, and began to shoot misiles of sharpened stone. “Stop wiggling!”
Kaden was less wiggling and more trying to separate himself from a [Serpentor] trying to help.
It let out a wild squeal that [Beast Soul] struggled to interpret.
Serpentors were usually known for moves like ‘drag to the bottom of the river,’ and this one had been practicing dragging prey for decades. Generally speaking, it was fairly proud of its dragging, and its drowning wasn’t half bad, either. It had never needed to rescue someone, and now the someone it was dearly trying to learn to rescue was attempting to fall back into the river.
Another growl and groan Kaden understood as *See a mule, drag a mule, drown a mule, eat a mule. Mules are so much easier to deal with.*
[Split Second] activated, but Kaden’s options for dodging while hanging from a [Serpentor] mouth were so few he had no choice but to yank his legs up. This time, he was careful to not use [Beast Soul]. “Would you just let me drown?”
“This is so much more fun!” Erris said, shooting again and again. He kept getting closer, every shot better. The amount of Mana he had to be expending was ridiculous.
Kaden finally pulled his arms loose and leaped to the Serpenter’s neck, hiding behind the beast. Let Erris pick a fight with a level seventy five Beast.
Erris was picking a fight with a level seventy five Beast, continuing to shoot at Kaden and hitting the [Serpentor], which had moved further across the channel to hide lower in the water. “Stop that! Come back over where I can shoot you!
[Honeyed Words] or not, Kaden had [Resist Suicide], which meant that wasn’t happening. “You are a terrible shot. Did you never train with that?”
“Never needed it. You’re not drownining very much,” Erris shouted.
“Turns out, I’m really bad at drowning, but ok at [Taming]!”
A trio of shots just barely missed Kaden as Erris darted to the side. “So, you plan on killing me with your tamed [Serpentor?] Why haven’t you done it?”
“Can’t command them. This one won’t eat me, but that’s about the extent of what I can make it do.” Kaden sank deep into the water, letting the [Water Born] handle his need for breathe. He wouldn’t risk the [Serpentor] getting hurt just to possibly kill Erris. All he had to do was swim down-river to the port, find the Guild hall, and—
The entire river froze, two inches thick.
Kaden’s head bumped ice, and his [Serpentor] roared in pain as Erris strolled across the frozen river, blasting the beast, which screamed every time. Kaden let go, letting the river sweep him away. Straight into a Portal that flung him out into mid air, but Kaden had no intention of using [Glide]. He plunged downward, drawing Remembrance as he fell.
Below him, the dot that was Erris and the waving form of the Ice-trapped Serpentor grew closer and closer. At the last moment, Kaden unleashed [Moment of Speed]. Downward.
Perhaps Erris had [Sixth Sense], but while he twisted, Remembrance’s hammer head impacted his shoulder, crunching bones.
Brutal Blows has inflicted a crippling injury.
More imprtantly, the blow sent Erris straight through the ice—and Kaden followed, using Remembrance’s Axe head to haul himself upward. Twenty feet away, the ice exploded, and Erris flew upward to land. “No corpse cube for you. I’ll pack up the business and move, of course, but you—”
He pitched sideways as a Serpentor burst through the ice behind him.
And another.
And another.
For the first time, the [Rogue] showed fear, but with Kaden’s attention locked on him, [Stealth] couldn’t activate, something Erris realized just a moment too late, as one mouth and then another, and another whipped down.
The first, Erris stabbed deep in the eye.
The second got a stone wand blast through the neck.
The third caught Erris’s maimed arm, and the fourth his knees.
They pulled, working against each other until the one and then the other ripped limbs loose.
Kaden crawled toward the shore, not even trying to escape, just trying to reach shore. His [Serpentor] followed, nudging him to make sure Kaden reached solid ground. This time, Kaden meant to use [Beast Soul]. “I can heal your friends.”
He drew a Healing Frogun from Inventory. The translucent green frog-shaped growth didn’t move while Kaden held it, and Kaden held on to it until four more [Serpentors] loomed over him. They weren’t tame, but they were intelligent. “Get close, it will heal some of what he did.”
He crunched the frogun, letting a wave of healing rush out that sealed the weeping wound in one’s neck, but didn’t repair the eye of the other. “I’m sorry. I can’t fix everything. On the plus side, with Erris dead, there will be more caravans with mules. Some of them are bound to be stupid.”
Time to take a chance. Kaden freed the one he’d tamed. “I’m sorry you were hurt.”
The serpentor gagged and spat something out on the bank.
The silver wand.
Kaden took it and limped back to the crystal wall. Only after he’d crossed it did he truly feel safe from the Serpentors, which were, after all, wild. But intelligent. Perhaps they could be bought with offerings, and cattle had to be cheaper than an entire caravan.
With care, he activate [Stealth Aura], making sure it took, and then made his way back to the original ambush site. With care, he searched the rocks, and found one place where half his brain said he was touching rock and the other half said it was open.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Kaden closed his eyes and stepped forward.
Into the darkness of a cave.
A very large cave, where dozens of men worked hard unloading the wagons. No doubt they’d drive the mules off into the river, which was why the [Serpentors] gathered here. Even in good health, Kaden would have hesitated to attack. Many of these men had Classes, most were level twenty or higher, and Kaden was at a quarter health and steadily dropping mana.
Two things Kaden was certain of: any man who considered himself a “businessman” didn’t live in a cave, they lived in luxury. The second thing was that Erris wouldn’t be needing any of his luxuries anymore. Kaden summoned the FalCrow and dispatched it to Sara with a description of where he was and what he’d seen. The monstrous bird wasn’t exactly a messenger bird but messages were one of its abilities.
A flash of mana at the back of the cave caught Kaden’s attention. They had a FarPortal. With thousands of them in the System, it was impossible to know where every one of them went, and some well paying thief had bought one to make thieving easier.
If Kaden got close enough, he could obtain the location of the portal. Which gave him an entirely different idea. These were working men, whose pay depended on hard labor. There was a better form of [Stealth].
His Needful Cloak became heavy and brown and stained like the men who worked here in the chill of the cave, and he tromped straight toward the group of men heaving crates in a line, picking up one. The effort here was to pretend it was heavy, but Kaden joined a line hauling crates to the side of the Far Portal, where they stacked on a sliding rail. He couldn’t help being impressed at how easy it would be to move cargo this way.
And there, the tingle that said the System had granted him coordinates. It was easy enough to pretend to relieve himself in the shadows, and send the [FalCrow] to Sara, who would know what to do.
[Stealth Aura] let him slink further and further back into the cave, not wandering, but searching. Somewhere, there would be a place fit for Erris. Storerooms, sleeping bunks where a handful of men slept—there.
The magic lock on the door gave it away. Kaden knew this kind, it would shock anyone who touched it. It was less prevention and more deterrent, and given that Erris had twenty levels on all of these men, more than enough.
Kaden checked on Rocky, safely asleep in his soul, and grabbed the handle, letting [Fortress of Stone] and [Sole Survivor] mitigate the damage. His hair smoked, his nerves jangled, but the spell only had so much mana stored up, and Kaden took it all. Then ripped the door out of the wall and put it into Inventory. The space inside screamed ‘Man running a business in the desert who missed the city.’
Posh bed, fairy lights, stone floors, so many trinkets.
Kaden took them all.
Then stopped.
On one endtable sat a grey tube of paste. Mana Dust, produced from ore, condensed and liquified. He stored it gingerly in Inventory, careful not to get a speck on him. What did the sword on the wall do? The same thing the lamp did. Take up a slot in Inventory. By the time Kaden was done, the cave was filled with shouts and screams of terror.
Which meant his message had been received.
Kaden strolled out, willing his cloak to match the off white of his armor, and called to the first Centurion he saw. “Took you long enough.”
The Centurion was an [Axeman], carrying short hand hatchets on his thighs, and he looked Kaden up and down. “Your Quest was to find out what was happening to the Caravan. Pepper, he’s safe after all.”
Pepper was a woman Centurion, a [Merchant] wearing the dark gray robes of the Merchant’s council, and Kaden gave her a short bow. “Erris Karn was taking some caravans, using an illusion to make it look like a [Serpentor] was attacking them. Not that they won’t attack, just that they didn’t.”
“And where is Erris Karn?” Pepper asked.
Kaden pointed out to the river. “There’s five or six [Serpentors] out there, and he’s in all of them. Also, they’ve been trained to hang out here and get fed mules. I figure that after he was done taking cargo, he’d actually run the caravans off into the river.”
Time for the final piece of the puzzle, the only loot he’d paid attention to. “Fifteen Corpse Inventories. No telling who all he has in here.”
“Kill everything?” the Axeman asked.
The Mercari woman gave him a warm grin. “That’s what I love about you. Young man, are you in the mood for some XP?”
“Not much of a ‘Mercari’ move, if you ask me,” Kaden answered. “Seriously, kill them? Hire them. These are men who know how to work in the desert. Erris built a shipping station. Why send your cargo by ship when you can offload some of it straight to where it’s going?”
He didn’t owe these men anything, but if someone fifty levels higher said work, you worked. Well, that’s how it was supposed to go. “Let me bring my Business partner in to explain how it will work.”
The Mercari woman began to laugh. “I had heard stories about you from Flavius. He says you’re a lost cause. Gold doesn’t mean enough to you, but we can still profit by association. But by all means. Bring in this partner of yours. She’s still worth talking to.”
Kaden sent an annoyed [FalCrow] on its last mission of the day and waited, while the axeman lined up all of Erris’s fellow thieves. When the [FarPortal] at last blossomed and Sara stepped through, he let her hug him for a moment. *She’s going to kill all the men who worked for Erris.*
*Kill them? Why not hire them?* Sara sent back.
And with that she stalked off to deal with it.
Ashi stood, hands on her hips, studying him. “You were supposed to run.”
“I did run. And I got to [Tame] a new beast. I’m seven short.” Kaden checked his logs. Mr. Dervish’s suggestion had been to pursue it like a Quest. For normal taming skills, the System granted Quests to tame different creatures. At a hundred and a thousand, normal [Tamers] would gain additional slots.
The theory was that the underlying skill was the same, and it was worth a chance.
Eve, for once, wasn’t critical of him. “Thank you for letting us escape. His [Honeyed Words] skill is like [Authority]. I will be learning a Resistance for it.”
Further away, Sara was no longer speaking, she was shouting. “And if you had the brains of a [Quillophant] you’d be paying an [Inquisitor] to know where this Portal last went. There’s another half, maybe more, of Erris’s network. Opportunity doesn’t knock, it beckons. If you won’t do it, I will.”
“I didn’t say no. I said convince me. You’re not convincing yet.” The Merchant woman sat on a wagon and folded her arms. “If you want to convince me, don’t talk about what’s right, explain the advantages. Tell me how I’d profit. Start again.”
Kaden Summoned Vip, who stretched and yawned and rolled on her back, wriggling before leaping up into Eve’s arms to lick her. *Love?*
[Beast Soul] translated that as ‘What can I do for you, Eve?’
Kaden cleared his throat. “I need a small, fast, smart dog who can search and make sure we didn’t miss anyone in this cave. But this dog needs to be smart enough to avoid traps, and if there is anyone, just tell me. Slow dogs who attack people should just stay here.”
*Fast!* Vip leaped down out of Eve’s arms and dashed away.
“You had to do that, didn’t you?” Eve asked.
Kaden couldn’t help smiling. “She’s not like Rocky. If I never took Rocky out of my soul, he’d be happy. He might be happier. Vip likes to do things. The other day she begged to go into the city just because there’s more rats there.”
Vip’s excited barking revealed…a stack of boxes.
“You, come out,” Eve commanded so loudly it echoed. “Come out or I’ll have the axe brute pull you out.”
“I’m not a brute,” the [Axeman] said as he shouldered past Eve. “But I’ll second what the [Transfusionist] said. Except about the pulling. I’ll cut pieces off and toss them into the line with the others.”
“I was talking about Kaden.” Eve pointed to the center. “The crate in the center is an illusion, and [Plague] registers it as a valid target. Therefore, we have someone hiding.”
“I’m coming out.” A level fifteen [Rogue] emerged as the illusion dissolved. As he joined the other prisoners, he pleaded. “I need my hands. I really need them.”
“Ashi, can you light this place up?” Kaden asked.
Ashi wasn’t paying attention. She was listening to a Messenger Dragon which perched on her wrist.
Kaden’s heart sank. Any time the Kingdom of Vichor reached out, it meant trouble.
“I must go. Mother summons me. If I am not back by the first snow, send a Dragon,” Ashi said. “Do not go taking stupid chances. Ask yourself, ‘Would Ashi slap me for this?’ and if the answer is yes, do not do so.”
“I’ll ask myself. I promise.” Kaden accompanied her to the FarPortal. “What should I tell your date?” Kaden had been working on finding Ashi a long term relationship.
“Tell him something kind, like ‘I did not want to go to dinner with him because he is weak and knows no magic I do not.’” Ashi activated the FarPortal with the Messenger Dragon, which tuned the portal so she could enter Vichor and stepped through.
Sara argued forever before she returned to Kaden and Eve. “You two shouldn’t wait for me. I’m going to do a presentation to the Mercari over dinner. Is there loot? If so, sell it, trade it. I trust you.”
Kaden produced a whole set of Corpse Inventories. “Could be caravan people. Could be thieves who upset Erris. Could be ransom targets. What do I do, dump them at the temple?”
Pepper’s scoff could be heard from a dozen feet away. “Talk to Flavius. He’s having dinner at BirchHome. He’s always having dinner at BirchHome. I swear he invested in it just so he could go eat a different meal every night.”
Kaden avoided Birchhome, despite it having his name, because he didn’t like the attention. But diner would be nice. “Eve, you’re welcome to join me.”
“I’ll check the guest list. I don’t associate with royalty, but otherwise, I would be happy to.” Eve powered up the FarPortal. “Ready when you are.”
Kaden stepped through into BirchHome’s greating area.
Mr Kella, the BirchHome manager, wasn’t present, but Kaden wasn’t going to make a pest of himself. “Kaden Birch here to see Flavius Marcus. If Mistress Scylla is present, I’d like to talk to her later.”
The reception woman looked him up and down like he was some kind of mythical [Beast]. “Mr. Marcus is dining in the caverns tonight. Will you be having the BloodWorm special?”
Kaden waited for Eve, who looked over the registry and shook her head. She wouldn’t be staying. “I’ll be having scorpion steak. Eve, see you at the Holding?”
“May I?” Eve asked.
Kaden summoned Vip and let her go with Eve, then strolled across the way to the dome building that housed the cave system’s entrance. Where stairs once rose up, now they descended down to a lower level, where tables stood among floating pixie lights, and Centurions dined.
“Kaden Birch!” Falvius called. The Master [Thief] didn’t dress the part, wearing a black silk suit and tie. “I was expecting you. Sit down, we need to talk.”