“I’m adding that to your bill,” Colette said, still a bit woozy from the SP expenditure.
Scattered wisps of acrid smoke drifted lazily across the room, rising up from the charred hole I’d put in the table with my new weapon. I very nearly activated it again to hear that delightful sound again. A withering glare from Colette nixed that idea.
“Okay, we’ll head back to the Guild, see if we can’t pick up a quest. To do tomorrow,” I wasn’t as bad off as Colette, but my head was still swimming just the same. Hopefully a walk would sober me up enough to not make a fool of myself by the time I got there.
Sheathing my curiously cool sword on my hip, I awkwardly nodded my farewell to the cat girl with a new hole in her workroom table and made for the door.
“Well that was an improvement at least!” I said as soon a we made it into the square proper.
“Improvement? We nearly jumped Colette!”
“She was the one that nearly jumped us.”
“Is that another thing that happens regularly with your Magitech?” I asked.
“That one’s.a first. I’ve seen community usage and aggregation of SP, but never a person to person transfer. The mechanics of it are fascinating.”
“What about the side effects? Those seem more important to note than the mechanics!” The market was back in full swing, I didn’t fear getting picked out of the crowd for talking to myself, but some of that confidence likely originated from the remnant euphoria I was still coming down from.
“My theory is that it affected us as strong as it did because of our shared emotional connections with Colette, combined with the stress of our situation.”
“So she likes us. That doesn’t explain why she was affected so much more strongly though.”
“She was actively transmuting her SP into a form we could use. We were just the recipient. At a horrendously inefficient rate too I believe. Would like to know what level she’s actually at.”
“So she tried to match our soul? Is that what I’m hearing?”
“And succeeded. Ours tried to adapt to hers as well to accept the transfer.”
“That sounds really invasive and a bit scary. What if someone tried to do harm? I don’t like the idea of my soul being screwed up any more than it already is.”
“Don’t see that being a problem.”
“Why...?”
“We asked for help and wanted it, actively took part in receiving it. The soul is a remarkably resilient construct. Actively damaging it is far more difficult than physically overpowering someone. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s not something I’m going to stay up at night worrying about.”
“Fair enough, we have plenty of other things to worry about.”
“That’s for sure.”
Picking up a shish-kebob from a vendor, I bit into it as my own SP reserves trickled upward. Taking the last bite of succulent grilled squash, I discarded the wooden skewer in a waste bin outside the guild.
“Hey there kid! Back to give away more money?” The grizzled orc guild master called as I walked in. This time in the afternoon the place was nearly empty. Only a few scribes scurrying about with armfuls of paperwork.
“Going to try and keep it this time,” I answered with a good natured grin.
“Ha, right you are boy. We’re pretty picked over right now. Might have better luck if you come back in the morning,” Crelk shrugged.
“Hope to be out there first thing rather than standing in line again. Still need to get back to a decent sleep schedule after that night job.”
“Your choice, the bounty should be up for another couple days at least. May be able to squeeze two in even, get your Rank 9 badge.”
“Rank 9?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about the test. At low ranks it’s usually something minor. I have a few ideas but we’ll see how many others are trying to rank up too, make it fair of course.”
Thoroughly confused, I made my way back to the postings and looked at what was available. As Crelk had indicated, it was picked nearly bare. The collection quests were lackluster as usual. A handful of gilder for some kind of tree root, a trip to the swamp and back for another few pieces.
The sewer clean out and Ms. Mildred’s cats were the only two remaining that even briefly caught my eye. Nobody had taken either of them. Again I sighed, the slime extermination was the most profitable one left on there. I picked it up, edges worn from me and likely dozens of others picking it up then setting it back again.
***
Title: Sewer Cleaning Requisition #563
North sewers require cleaning due to excessive buildup of hostile slimes. Independent subcontractors are invited to perform this duty for the good of Oxdale and a solid pile of gilder.
Task: Cleanse the north sewers of slimes
Reward: 300 gilder, 30 XP
***
With a 50% boost to the payout due to the rebuilding bounty, that one quest would take care of the debt I still owed Colette. I took it over to Crelk to log.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“So you’re actually going to take that one then? Do me a favor though and clean up before you come in my Guild. You’ll be paying for the cleaning otherwise.”
“Noted, I don’t think you’ll have to remind me of that.”
“You did get something to kill them with, right? Last time you checked you just had that measly sword,” Crelk nodded towards my belt.
“Just had something made up, I’m pretty sure it’ll be effective.”
“I hope so for your sake. Be careful with them. I’ve seen too many go after them and not return,” Crelk said with an uncharacteristic degree of genuine concern.
Quest accepted, I left the Guild and pondered what to do with my day. It was late afternoon but still too early to turn in for the night.
Walking around the town that was my temporary home, I looked at the kin who were out and about their lives. Most of them steered clear of me, a fully armed man walking down your street doesn’t tend to draw out conversations with strangers.
A group of children kicked a ball, nearly colliding with my head.
“Sorry mister!” A young lizard kin yelled from across the street.
“No problem,” I jogged over to where the ball had landed beside a house and punted the return. A quick wave and the youth was back to playing with his friends.
“You know, we haven’t really done anything for fun since we’ve arrived,” I quietly said.
“Haven’t had the opportunity to. It’s been a whirlwind,” I acknowledged.
“That it has. You know, there’s a good chance that we’re going to be stuck this way for the rest of our lives.”
“I know. It’s quite a bit to accept.”
“It really is. We still can do a lot of good here though. I know you don’t have the connection to this place that I do.”
“It’s where I’m at, and who I’m sharing it with. Even back home I was in it to try and change the world. Bring light to the darkness, make things better for the greatest number of people possible. I wasn’t quite sure if I’d be able to achieve that.”
“And now that you’re here?”
“It isn’t my world, and these aren’t my people. At least not yet. The alchemist is the most real to me, but with you here it might be possible to make a difference.”
“By delving into the sewers to take care of our backups?”
“Everyone gets hit with latrine duty eventually.”
“Except the latrines can now hit back.”
“There’s that detail. The things you... we have made. They are beyond what I could have dreamed possible. This body seems so much more than what I knew, but I can feel like it’s holding you back.”
“We didn’t have levels when I was here, so it’s hard to tell where I would have fallen. But I definitely would have been able to create the runes on our armor and sword without breaking a sweat. Probably could have ran them one after another till I fell asleep from boredom.”
“That’s quite the fall.”
“That it is. We’ve got a long ways to go until I have the strength to run my experiments again. Till then though, I think we should make the most of it. Do some fun.”
“You mean Colette?” I smirked and brought a hand up to my face at my own terrible joke.
“Among other things,” I sighed. Arguing with myself was an experience all its own. Would recommend.
“She seems plenty content to take the lead, I’m inclined to let her.”
“Likewise. New territory for me, but definitely worth exploring.”
We continued our uneventful walk around town a while longer. The peaceful streets were a far cry from the riotous mess they had been a few days back. It was good to see life returned to normal.
“So what were those people wearing? The ones we saw shooting.”
“Ablative armor. Meant to take energy blasts from conventional weaponry. Though I haven’t seen anything like that in the hands of even the adventurers around here. Seems odd to call it conventional under those circumstances.”
“Is it something we could use?”
“Oh absolutely if it has shielding built into it. The ablative portion is for after the runes are overloaded. That’s what I was hoping to figure out from that orb we disassembled. I’m on the fence though if it actually had active shields. Probably just a display piece more than anything. It would take a hit or two though before we could get through with this sword even without shields.”
“It’s really difficult to follow your explanation when I think of this,” I lifted my shield, “as a shield.”
“The orb was a crude approximation of a proper...let’s just refer to it as a barrier. If you have a good one set up, you will be able to interact with the world without fear of setting it on fire,” I looked down at our sword.
“So it’ll absorb any attack that hits the body but give you full range of motion?
“Only energy based attacks. Physical can still get through with ease. It might shave off a little of the kinetic force, but if something is swinging a claw at you, you’re going to feel it. With a barrier, you wouldn’t catch on fire if the monster had flaming claws.”
“Please tell me that’s not a thing.”
“That’s a thing. Good news is that all the monsters we’ve seen so far have been a lot weaker than their counterparts from my time!”
The words did little to assuage my concerns about being mauled by a flaming bear, but there was no sense worrying. The sun was starting to dip behind the tallest of buildings, so I began making my way back to Harry’s tavern.
The evening crowd was just starting to filter in by the time I arrived and sat down.
“Chili salmon and roasted king tuft mushrooms?” Harry called as I found a seat.
“Sure, sounds good to me!” If I had to be living out of a tavern, one with good food would be my first choice.
Settling in, I started to recognize some of the other faces around me. I wasn’t one of them yet, but I was starting to be accepted. My reverie was disrupted by Harry approaching with a couple tankards of ale. He seated himself at my table.
“Just wanted to thank you for going out there to find my idiot boy. This one’s on the house.”
“Thanks,” I took the offered drink.
“Don’t know what’s worse. Those goons toting around artifacts like they own the place or the looters that tried to take advantage of the situation. At least one set were acting on orders,” Harry complained.
“I’d say they both have blame to share. Are things that volatile around here?”
“A week ago I’d have said no. But now? There’s some strange winds blowing. I don’t know what it means. A couple of the dead were my customers. Tried to break into the smithy with the forge master still in it. Had to haul them away. They weren’t bad,just did something dumb and suffered the consequences. You’re not from around here, what’s it like where you’re from?”
“Honestly, not that much different. Kin are the same everywhere. It’s one of the few things that stay the same.”
“That it is. Hey, I didn’t mean to come over here to ruin your evening. That girl you rescued, Bella? Her dad dropped this off for you. Said he had to leave town, that was right before the riot. Not sure what’s in there but he was insistent that you got it,” Harry passed me a small, plain looking wooden box. I tucked it away to open in my room later.
“Where’s that Jacob at anyway?” I asked.
“Mucking out the stables. It’s needed doing for a few months now, this was the perfect opportunity to get it done,” Harry grinned his wolfish grin then stood up to attend the rest of his clientele.
A feather kin server brought out my dinner, Harry’s daughter Nancy was nowhere to be seen. I idly fiddled with the outside of the box while waiting for my food to cool down enough to enjoy. Something was definitely in there, but I couldn’t tell what it was from the outside.
It would have to wait until after my dinner was finished. I dug into the meal with gusto. The sweet-heat from the salmon contrasted with the earthy mushrooms, lightly salted and grilled to perfection
Truly, the best part of this world was the cooking.
Stomach rapidly running out of space, I finished off the last of my dish and went up to Harry to get a key to a room for the evening.
“This one’s on Jacob, you just enjoy your evening,” Harry said as I approached and handed me a key.
“Tell him I appreciate it,” I replied slightly bemused.
“Can do, same room I had you in before. Third one on your right.”
Unlocking the heavy door, I stepped in then pulled out the box. A simple latch mechanism was all that held it closed. A soft crack of wax appeared as I slid it open.
“Tamper evident? Well that’s interesting as all get out.”
I slowly opened the container away from my face. It was highly unlikely that the original giver was trying to kill me, but something about the whole thing definitely felt off.
Successfully opening the box without incident, I turned it around to reveal a fine piece of heavy linen paper folded in half.
Opening it, I read the message within.
***
To the honorable savior of Bella,
Please accept my regret at my inability to properly thank you in person for her safe return. She is her mother’s child as much as my own. Our travels must continue ever forward as surely as the sun rises and falls on the Southern Kingdom.
You have done me a greater honor than you may realize, however never let it be said that I refuse to pay my debts. Enclosed you will find a number of items to aid you on your journey. If you find your way to my homeland in your travels, show the token of my esteem and be welcomed as family.
May your travels be ever flowing,
Patriarch Eriko Hysu
***
Well packed within the box, I pulled out a pair of coins I hadn’t seen before. The denomination on them was clearly visible on the intricately detailed face, 100 gilder each. I was shocked at the bounty, but what truly caught my eye was the sigil. It looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. A ring inlaid with gold and silver...no, Cephlyx.
“Samara, what is this?” I asked.
“I believe...we’ve been given an activation key.”
“Key? What kind of lock does it fit into?”
“Not anything from this time. This is...beyond my understanding.”
“So it’s something from your time?” I asked.
“No, at least, not anything that I recognize. This key... is more advanced than anything else I have ever encountered. Even theoretically. It had to of come after my experiment failed. Don’t you see? I wasn’t the cause of the Cataclysm! This is proof of it! Magitech DID advance after me!”
I looked over the design. While unimaginably beautiful to behold, I noticed upon inspection the places where the lines terminated. As if waiting for a contact to meet them. I pressed a trickle of SP into it, watching the enchantment glow a soft green hue. After a moment, the glow faded and the ring returned to its inert state.
“Fabius, this is worth so much more than the man that gave it understood. I don’t know what would be secured by this, but it is something we need to find. Just look at the filaments buried in the ring. So clear, so precise.”
Sure enough, upon closer inspection I could see that the lines of silver Cephlyx weren’t just individual lines, but bundles of them. Five or six strands in parallel only making up the width of a human hair. The ring was covered in them, the strands delving within the structure as well as over its surface. I’d been impressed by our work, but now I saw what Samara had been talking about. We were building mud huts while she had built a Coliseum.
“It’s amazing.”
“It is. We need to find where this came from and what it goes to. The Laroth might be our best bet, but I wonder what else is hidden in plain sight?”