“Well, that satisfies me. If you were on some type of mission for Tob you wouldn’t be standing there looking so stupid right now.” She laughed to herself. “What happened between you and Tob boy?” She looked up at Adam, her arms leaning on the long strip of wood that made up her little shop window.
“It’s a little complicated, but I don’t trust him and I got the impression he didn’t trust me all that much.”
“That’s for the best with these city patrol bunch” She glared into the distance.
“So you believe us, just like that?” Brian asked, Matilda giving him a glare for interrupting her.
“You come to trust your gut after 113 years in the same district of the same city, I’ve seen hikers come and go for a long time after all.” She noticed the way Adam’s face changed when she dropped the number. “Oh don’t look so shocked, you didn’t think I was a. Oh never mind you wouldn’t understand the saying anyway since you aren’t from around here. Yes I’m old.” Adam nervously laughed.
“Well of course I didn’t think you were young, but I think that number still surprises me.” He muttered, trying not to dig himself into a hole.
“How sweet, anyway, you’re asking for help, let’s get to that.” The three leaned in closer, Adam glanced to the side to see Matilda was quite distracted with some of the goods stuck to the back of the shops wall.
“You’ll want to go to The Foxbox, it’s not too far from here, a few streets south of here.” She said, pointing further down the way they were already going down the alley.
“They will take anyone, even those with your features, your complexions, your wrist screens.”
“You know about those?” Matilda turned from staring at the wall to ask.
“Of course she does.” Adam quickly interjected. “It’s not like we can do a good job of hiding them, they pop out whenever they want after all.”
The old lady coughed, a deep cough that brought up something nasty. “He’s right, in fact it’s usually because of this same store we are all standing at right now, the hiker wants to look at something and their screen pops out to tell them something or other about it. Girl, you see something you like?” She questioned Matilda, turning their back to them to show off her wares. Adam remembered seeing most of it from last time, the same miniature crystalline skull that she tried to sell him, his hiker menu hadn’t popped out at that time when he held it.
“Can we see the little skull?” He said, pointing, he wanted to test if anything was up with the hiker menu or if the item really wasn’t anything special enough. They each took turns holding it, feeling a bit creeped out at the fact that it was the skull, she repeated her lecture on how it was apparently found inside Oak but had a lot of rumour and mystery behind it. Adam wondered if it was a complete scam or fake considering their menus didn’t seem to care for it. Well that was good he thought, it wasn’t some weird, hard to explain inconsistency in the menu and it’s function, this item was just a dud.
“Even if the item were something good, we can’t really afford thirty raka for it. I don’t think now is the time for shopping.” Matilda insisted. “We don’t know how long we have to hide out for, this is pretty limited funds to live on.”
Brian egged Histo on “Can we please see that necklace you have at the top corner?” Matilda tried to give her trademark glare to judge Brian. He shrugged his shoulders “If we need more money, we can always find some work, we have spare time, for now.”.
“What about the cave, the experiment?” Adam pushed, they didn’t have time for career-building and socialising they had a tree to save. He felt a pang of guilt at the fact he more worried about the tree as an objective, as a means to an end rather than as the landmark and life source for this entire city and its people.
Matilda gave him a more panicked stare with forcibly widened eyes, attempting to cut him off. Right, he thought, best not to talk about the fact that Oak is being leeched by big worm creatures as they speak.
Brian took the necklace out of the hands of the elderly woman’s hands, her skin like leather. His menu popped out immediately.
Talisman of Rendez
+20 Strength
Your physical attacks have a 5% chance to create a shock wave, hitting all enemies in the surrounding area for half of the effect.
They all read his pop up together, after looking up and down the street to make sure no one was watching, while they already stood out and while people seemed to know about hikers here, they still didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention. Brian asked loudly and nervously “How much for this?”
The old lady cackled before getting down to business “Boy, you’re not much of a negotiator are you? To a random shopper I was going to sell this for anywhere between 20 and 40 Raka. But, now I have confirmation this item is valuable, at least to hikers. So I feel like I should ask for at least 80.”
Brian slammed his fists down on the shop window. “Guys, you both have cool items I’m the only one without one and this one was literally made for me and my build, it’s perfect.”
“Well I know you are strength based but is the shockwave thing a big deal? Can’t really rely on a five per cent chance right?” Adam questioned him, it was understandable that he wanted an item of his own but why the rage, was he just that childish?
“Hammy mentioned the side of the tree that I had started going down so far, the right side of the tree, had a few different shockwave abilities and enhancements, he mentioned there were powerful barbarians that used shockwave effects and really fast hitting attacks to trigger them, this just sounds amazing to me. But I know spending 80 Raka is just silly.” He said dejected.
“Well if Hammy mentioned it and you could actually plan into it, it could really pay off in the future, maybe it’s what you said, we can just work a bit to make it back, I don’t know how much we can get paid but surely enough to earn ourselves a meal and a room to stay in. That’s like, what a wage is right?”
Matilda walked a few steps away from the shop, brushing her hands through her hair and rubbing her temples, she come walking back. “What’s wro-“ Adam asked before she cut him off very quickly.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“You are both horrible negotiators, wow. Old lady, Histo was it? You seem nice and all but eighty raka is robbery. You were probably going to sell this for ten Raka at most before. It’s not like you are going to wait around another generation for more hikers to show up right? Look at how much stuff you have back here, you need to get rid of it. We will give you fifteen and be on our way.”
Adam was surprised “Matilda, I don’t think we should annoy her like that.”
“Leave it to me, please.” She said, turning away from him, making eye contact with Histo. “Am I wrong?”
“Not really, you’re a smart girl, but you still want it much more than I need the money. Forty Raka.”
“Oh please, if you’re still working a shop at 113 years old you’re broke. We can do twenty, it’s still more than we should spend but whatever.”
“Yeah yeah, hand it over.” She muttered. Matilda dropped two coins down on the ledge that made up the shop window, large 10’s pressed into them both. Adam and Brian both stood there stunned, she had got it for a quarter of the price.
“Thanks Maddy.” Brian said nervously, putting the necklace over his head.
Strength- 44
Stamina- 22
Agility- 22
Intelligence- 14
“No worries, sometimes you two just need a woman in your life, be glad this hiker team wasn’t made up of three men.” Matilda started heading off down the way Histo had pointed earlier.
“Thank you!” Adam and Brian called out to Histo as they left for The Foxbox she had directed them to earlier.
“We are probably going to have to bargain for everything on this side of the city, don’t pay more than half of the first price they give you, didn’t you guys ever travel?” She said as she fell behind from leading the group in her shining confidence to the back of the line with her slower speed.
They continued down the alley, at the end of the alley they could keep going straight, south if she had pointed them accurately or another road cut through where the alley ended, so they could go left or right down that road. They continued south into a new alley, getting deeper into that alley they could hear a rhythmic beating, as they approached closer they saw a man hitting various metal discs like drums while another man spoke, also in rhythm. He was speaking about praising oak, weaving in rhymes as he went on, referencing the elite south side and the city patrol and how they repressed the east side. He was getting very political, they had stopped to listen as the man’s voice was captivating. Adam found it interesting how much culture the one city had, he hadn’t thought of it much in the past, even on Earth really.
He pointed them down one more side street to find The Foxbox. It was much less grand, much smaller than The Cats Cradle, it did look quite run down, with some damage evident on the exterior, both closer to the ground near the foundation itself and on the roof. It had several cracks in both locations as well as some holes in the roof. It was getting pretty late at this point, it was dinner service when they first went to The Cats Cradle and spoke with Maureen, the city was still somewhat active at this time of night but things were definitely beginning to die down. They headed inside the dimly lit tavern, compared to the bright, chirpy atmosphere they were used to, this place was dark and filled with sadness. They walked in and a few people looked at them over their drinks, but they quickly went back to what they were doing, which wasn’t much as far as Adam could tell.
Strolling into the tavern they approached the bar, looking for some type of worker to ask about lodging. They found a man, who was very odd, mainly by the fact that he wore two completely separate eye patches. Adam wondered if he could just wear some kind of sleeping mask, maybe the two eye patch look was better actually. The man wiped a glass with a dirty cloth.
“What can I do you lot for?” He grumbled as he put the glass down on a table, face down.
“What do you have?” Brian asked before Adam could ask about a room to stay in.
“Outsiders huh? How cute to come here. We have yuul, it’s..” He stumbled over his words trying to find a way to describe it. “It’ll make you dizzy, is that good enough?”
“Definitely, we’ll all take one.”
“How many is that? I can’t see if you didn’t notice, your friends haven’t introduced themselves yet.”
Adam spoke up “Three, sorry about that. He doesn’t always think things through.”
“You could say that again.” Matilda joined in to announce her presence.
“Very well, three yuul’s coming up.”
Matilda asked abruptly as her glass was served in front of her, the three of them now sitting on stools at the bar. “Could I get a clean glass?”
He grabbed her drink, rotating the end of the cloth he was holding and wiping the rim quickly before putting the glass down again “Sure. It’s hard to tell, being blind and all. Unless you didn’t notice that part.” Matilda held the glass up to her face, sipping slowly.
Adam took a sip, it burned his throat, it tasted like straight alcohol back on Earth but this was a full sized glass, how could someone even finish more than one or two glasses? Brian seemed happy enough and was almost halfway through his glass already.
“You wanting to get drunk Brian?” Adam asked casually, taking another sip of the terribly strong liquid. It was foamy, had a licorice aftertaste and burned like cheap vodka.
“Sure, you should too, after what you did to those Acolytes. Forget it all man.”
“Not my style, besides, I didn’t have to watch it happen.”
“Maybe even worse, you had to really think hard to get it done, you weren’t just mindlessly swinging a blade at them. You had to focus on it. Rough man. Not the way I would do it.” He continued chugging away.
“Well if you hadn’t noticed we aren’t all that similar.” Adam retorted.
“I suppose not.” He said with a tipsy grin. It was hitting him hard, Adam wondered how long until Brian’s face started turning red, though he realised he had been sipping at his own at a decent pace too, he should be worried about his own easily prone to reddening face.
Matilda organised lodging with the man while Adam and Brian chatted away, finishing their drinks and getting another soon after.
“You know, Adam. Every morning when I have woken up, since we got here. I think I’m home, I think I’m waking up to my village, to my family. Then I open my eyes, come to reality, and realise I’m here, on this random planet in this random universe.”
“Same. Every time I wake up, I think I’m gonna get out of bed and walk over to my computer in my bedroom, keep researching the Refined. It was my daily schedule for so long.”
“You weren’t working or anything?” Brian asked, curiously.
“Dropped out of college to just research The Refined as hard as I could.” Adam laughed to himself. “For all the good it did, there was no mention of psychokinesis or massive purple trees.”
“Yeah, why the obsession? A lot of people moved on with their lives right? I was curious but life kind of just went back to normal for my family.”
“Yeah, for most people they just went back to what they were used to. I don’t know, for me it was like, I wanted meaning you know, I had nothing in my life, no passion, whatever. This felt like a calling for a greater purpose or something like that.” Adam was slurring and finding it harder to put his thoughts into words as he elaborated.
“How is that going so far?” Matilda chimed in, quite sober after drinking barely half of her first drink. She sat with her arms crossed watching them chat away, only occasionally making commentary.
“Good, I mean this place is scary, and almost dying sucks it turns out! But, you guys are amazing team mates, more importantly, amazing friends.” Adam threw his arms around Brian’s shoulder.
“Okay, I think that’s the sign we go to bed now. Up we get. Our room is the first on the left once we get upstairs, if you guys can make it upstairs, be ready to catch yourself with your powers Adam.” Matilda lectured them as she moved their glasses away from them. “For what it’s worth, I think you are a good friend too, both of you are.” She smiled.
Most people had left the bar by this time of night after a couple hours of chatting and drinking had passed. Adam was just beginning to climb the stairs when a large, burly man entered through the main doorway, wearing an oversized coat. He smashed a glass on the floor of the tavern hard. He looked around, walking forward quickly towards the stairs, straight for Adam.