The two boys had jumped off the front of the Serenity and were investigating the ‘weather station’. It consisted of a singular scale of some monster, they guessed the diamond rank Bahamut. It was triangular, taller than James was and wider than his outstretched arms at the base. Next to it was a sign:
Lake Shawnahakswee Diving Town 212 weather station.
Scale is wet: Raining
Scale is dry: Cloudy
Scale makes a shadow: Sunny
Scale is white: Snowy
Scale is Jumping: Earthquake (or monster attack)
More than one scale: Run! Bahamut has risen.
Have a good day.
“This makes me miss my phone.” James said. “This is hilarious, this needs to go on instagram.”
“Wait a second.” Teddy said. Grabbed James by the elbow and spun him round so his back was to the ‘weather station’. He threw up a recording crystal and stepped to the side so the sign and scale was between them then they both gave a cheesy grin and thumbs up towards the crystal.
“What on Pallimustus are you two doing?” Kyra asked, standing on the top deck with Lucy looking on.
“Taking a selfie, what does it look like?” Teddy replied.
“Yeah, thats exactly what it looks like. Have you two got those bracelets on?” Lucy said.
When Firenze left he explained that essence users weren’t allowed in the villages near the water. They especially would not be allowed to touch the water. The people that made a living at the edges were all normal rank, having the lowest detectable magical signature. Just to be allowed near the lake they were required to wear magical aura suppression bracelets no matter how fine their control of their auras.
“C’mon down, he said the Serenity should be safe, there’s no way a normal person can break in and essence users aren’t allowed around here.” James called.
The girls hesitated, they wanted to stay with the dangerous cargo, it felt unwise to leave it parked in the open but even a powerful silver ranker would struggle a little to get in through the highly defensible fourth stage crystal. After a glance at each other they acquiesced and jumped down.
The team walked into the small village past the weather station. There were small huts made out of bricks of lake clay and hay mixed together then baked hard. They saw lots of drying racks outside every hut covered in diving swimwear. The centre of the village had a large circle that had market stalls. They subtly waited at the edge, taking a shadow of a hut each to watch and see what was going on.
They saw an interesting dynamic. The residents of the village were going from stall to stall taking items they wanted, food and materials, but none offered or demanded payment. The next thing they noticed was all the residents were men.
[Oh bloody hell.] Kyra said then pulled a hood up, tucking in her braid.
There were no women and no children, all the men were friendly with each other and everyone knew everyone. They watched as a group of six came up from the waters edge, they each had a small net bag but they were clapping the youngest of them, a teenager, on the back as they made their way to the village centre.
The lead man walked up to a post that had a bell hung on it. He gave the bell two rings, the clapper was muffled so it wasn’t too loud but got everyone’s attention.
“Young Dexter has found his first essence!!” The man called out loudly.
There was a resounding cheer and everyone came near, they clapped the young man on the back or shook his hand. An older man stayed with him throughout, his hand on the teenagers shoulder in a fatherly gesture, a very proud look on his face.
“Had to dive down to the red line to get it didn’t he! Four minute breath hold!” The older man boasted. The younger man looking embarrassed.
“What is it? What did you get?” Someone called.
“We don’t know, we haven’t seen this one here before.” The older man called back.
Teddy moved forward into the crowd.
“Hello there. My names Theodore, I’m an adventurer passing through with my family, I have an ability that can tell you which essence that is?”
“You’ve been through the gold rankers?”
Teddy held up his arm, the tell-tale bracelet obvious to all.
“Then yes please!” The older man nudged the teenage boy and he shyly held out the cube.
It was smooth eggshell white, completely uniform in colour and matte. Teddy placed a finger against it, not taking it out the other man’s hand.
Item: [Laical Essence] (unranked, rare)
Manifested essence of non-Holy forces (consumable, essence).
Requirements: Less than 4 absorbed essences
Effect: Imbues 1 awakened non-Holy essence ability and 4 unawakened non-Holy essence abilities.
You have absorbed 4/4 essences. Once absorbed, an essence cannot be relinquished or replaced.
You are unable to absorb [Laical Essence]
“What you have there is an interesting essence.” Teddy said, pulling out the magic society record tablet.
The men hissed at him using an essence power and he froze gripped with fear. Firenze had explained they received extensive training in using their essence powers so close to the lake without giving off magical waves of energy. The short rift power usage wouldn’t be enough to disturb the Bahamut but it wasn’t worth the risk.
They all paused and looked towards the lake but there wasn’t even a ripple on the water.
“Sorry.” Teddy said through gritted teeth. “The essence is Laical.” Seeing confused faces he continued. “I had to look it up myself, it means non-Holy.”
“Throw it back!” A few men cried.
“Do not condemn us all with un-holy folly!”
“Do not anger the gods.”
Teddy raised one and asking for silence, the other still holding the magic society tablet. “Wait please, I said non-holy. The essence is known for giving powers that directly combat both Holy and Unholy. It’s a secular power set.”
“What does that mean?” The older man still holding the teenagers shoulder said. “Surely any work that is against the gods is unholy and should be destroyed.”
“No, it doesn’t work against them, just neutralises them. Unholy magic is the opposite of Holy and has some restricted combinations, this essence is rare but produces powers which enable resistance to holy and unholy effects, its seen as a fair balance against those who would use holy powers for nefarious reasons.”
He had calmed the men down, the teenager looked less thrilled about his find but was not about to throw it back in the lake.
“I can help you with a ritual for that?” Teddy said trying to make the man feel better.
The men laughed.
“Come.” The older man said and took Teddy over to a storeroom, bigger than the rest of the huts. The teenager ducked inside followed by the man who must be his father and Teddy.
When Teddy stood up his jaw almost dropped in surprise. The room was full of expensive magical items. Quintessence was stored by the literal pile, slightly spilling into each other as the ceiling high piles met. The teenage boy had gone to the back of the room, winding between piles and stacked the cube on a pyramid of essences. They reached the ceiling a while ago and were being spread back towards the front door.
“Wow, this is incredible. This is a fortune!” He exclaimed.
The old man chuckled then motioned Teddy outside. The men had already dispersed, the centre of the village almost back to normal except for a few men watching Teddy and the newly discovered other members of his team with arms crossed and scowls. Teddy motioned them over and they joined them.
“Mr…?”
“Call me Bill.”
“Bill, I’m Theodore, call me Teddy, this is my brother James and mine and his wives respectively Kyra and Lucy.”
The old man looked around quickly to see who was within earshot and quickly motioned them into a nearby large hut.
“Now see here, don’t get the wrong idea, we’re by and large a big fan of women, and while they’re not necessarily banned from the village... But this here is dangerous work, and women make boys, and men, do stupid things. Most of the men have wives back home and travel here for the work. We’re at the end of six months here and they’re desperate to get home, the young’ns have less brains then most in some cases choosing to come and do this job, that amount of thinking power decreases dramatically with ladies around and they’re liable to make a mistake which might cost the surrounding area for hundreds of miles.”
“You think one of them would try to impress a lady by waking a diamond rank monster?” Lucy asked sceptically.
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“No, he’s saying that one of them might be silly enough to try and absorb some of these magical items this close to a diamond rank monster to impress someone and unthinkingly awake the beast.” Kyra cut in.
“Just so miss. It’s not a problem but I’ll have to introduce the fact that there are two married couples of adventurers visiting on their way through like. Make it plain and obvious like that theres bronze rank adventurers and they’re married you see.”
“Very reasonable, we really don’t want any trouble, if anything we’d like to negotiate for some magic materials you’ve got there. The gold ranker Firenze mentioned we might be able to buy them off you for pre-merchant prices?” Teddy said.
“Aye we can put coin to palm not a problem.” He pulled out a list from his pocket and added ‘Laical essence’ to it before passing it over. “This is a list of everything in that storeroom, you have a little look over and I’ll just tell the men what’s going on.” He got up and left the room.
The Mitchells all crowded round the list, Lucy had a notebook out and was scribbling down what took her fancy, Teddy was calling items out that he wanted as well. There was quintessence in every flavour going, mirage, potent, water and dragon being the most plentiful. There was a good variety of essences, they were used in some high end rituals and crafting, the more powerful items needed both essences and quintessence long with the drawn ritual and spirit coins. Even though Lucy could power her own rituals with her vast mana store she still required spirit coins when doing grand rituals or crafting. Teddy was interested in the dragon scales which had washed up, when he had touched the one by the weather station it had listed itself.
Bahamut scale]. (diamond rank, legendary)
The shed scale of Bahamut, finding one of these is rumoured to bring great fortune …unless it falls on your head as it flies over.
Crafting material.
He was interested in what he could make of the scale, apparently they had plenty of them and they were listed for very cheap as the merchants that bought from the village were only interested in the magical quintessence and essences.
They were interrupted from their perusal by a commotion outside. They rolled up the list and Lucy kept it with her notebook. They stepped through the reed door to see that they weren’t the only visitors to the town. A man and woman had arrived with a cart the man had obviously been pulling it by hand and he was exhausted, the woman was clutching a baby to her bosom protectively.
The reason she was being so protective was evident, two men were hassling the couple. One man was leering at the woman while the other was pushing on the mans chest keeping him away. The team were uncertain whether or not they should intervene or let the village elder deal with it until it escalated. The bully pushing on the mans chest suddenly grabbed him, wrapping an arm around his neck. The team moved to stop it.
Lucy and Kyra moved behind the woman, Lucy had a pair of knuckle dusters on her belt and she slipped them on, Kyra rolled her silk traveler’s robe up to her elbows showing armoured arms and the leering man backed off. He backed straight into Teddy who held a leg out and he tripped.
James went on the side to help the man being held, he towered over everyone present, almost eight foot tall with Koda subsumed. He made his way to the woman who had relaxed now there was the obvious backup. She lowered the baby and seeing that James wanted to see she nervously moved the cloth off the babies head. James leant over and so very gently held out a finger, the finger was as large as one of the baby’s pudgy legs then he booped it on the nose.
“Boop.” He whispered.
“Oh come on, we got here first, if you wanna try make a move on her get in line.” The bully said who was holding the father.
Quick as a snake James whirled, his huge fist crashing into the mans nose knocking him out.
He looked down contemplatively “Boop, shithead.”
The father rushed to his wife, wrapping an arm around her and placing a hand on the child.
The village elder had just arrived to see what was going on. He saw one man on the floor from being tripped and the other out cold. Kyra had taken a healing potion from her belt and was casually pouring it on his face from shoulder height, the potion splashing and washing away the blood. James could have easily killed the man with a simple punch and even thought it looked dramatic he had really pulled the punch. He slumped his shoulders slightly looking at the scene.
“This is what we try to avoid. I’m sorry.” He motioned to a group of the men to pull away the two guys from the scene.
“We’ll sort these good folk out and be right back.” Kyra said.
James grabbed the cart and headed towards the Serenity, the mother had Kyra and Lucy cooing over the baby while Teddy got the mans story.
“We’re travelling south see? We lost everything up north and thought we would try somewhere new. We met them gold rankers, thought I was gonna wet me’self. But they check us over and said we could get food and the like from these villages, didn’t say nothing about them not being friendly like.”
“Oh I think they are, you happened to run into two bad apples there. No excusing it though. We can sort you out with what you need from our stores.” Teddy said.
They led them on board and they let them into Kyra and Teddy’s cabin to shower and change. James had the baby in one massive hand in the seating area on the middle deck while they got cleaned up, he was gently soothing it with his aura while its tiny hand in his beard. They had a box in the kitchen that was effectively a washer-dryer. A clever device that cleaned clothes in minutes with added crystal wash for freshness. They had offered to do all the clothes the couple had with them.
Lucy was busy putting together a large box of food from the pantry. They had vast amounts of food as the built in dimensional storage kept it all fresh. She even added a flask of normal rank coffee for them, Gerald had made them a whole range.
Teddy came upstairs from the workshop, holding a tough canvas bag of weapons he had personally made.
“It’s not much but you can see they don’t have anything, he can even sell a few when he gets wherever their going.” He shrugged. Kyra smiled and put a hand on his arm and a peck on his cheek.
Lucy added a few extra items to the stores, magic tents they no longer used that had aura suppression to hide from wild monsters, glow stones for the night, warmer sleeping bags and cots as the travelling couple had been sleeping in extra clothes on the back of their little wagon. Kyra added a comprehensive medical kit to the stores so the couple could take care of anything from a blister to being gored by a monster.
When the couple came back upstairs they didn’t know what to say, they were blown away by the grandeur of the magical vehicle and the normalcy and generosity of the bronze rank couples. The team refused to take any coin from the couples and Lucy failed to mention she left a sizeable stack of lesser and iron coins in the bottom of the box.
The couple didn’t want to hang around after what happened in the village and so they said their goodbyes, they waved them off. They said they would be forever in their debt, the Mitchell’s had changed a dangerous journey into only an arduous one.
Having seen them safely away the team decided they should head back into the village and clear things up with Bill the village elder.
They met him on the outskirts of town, flanked by the two trouble makers looking thoroughly chastised.
“What’s the word Bill?” Teddy greeted him.
“Well Mr Theodore, I do believe the word is sorry.” Bill said looking either side of him.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Whab a mithtake” the second man said thickly around the bruising on his face.
“We were hoping to see the young couple again?” Bill said. “These two have realised that maybe fifty per cent of their takings for this trip is fair recompense to learn a valuable lesson.”
To be fair to the men they had the decency to look ashamed rather than spiteful at the loss of their earnings.
“Well not to worry, they’ve been sent on their way well provisioned and stand a much better chance of getting where ever it is they’re going now.” Lucy said.
“Thankee kindly, that was a duty that should of been ours, we’re not brigands and theres no reason not to be friendly and help out travellers.”
“Ick was shtuupid.” The beaten man said quietly.
“Oh come on.” Kyra said and grabbed the mans arm.
Lucy grabbed a bag of salt from her waist she had grabbed from the Serenity. She quickly made a ritual circle around Kyra and the man.
“Whab you doin to be?!” The man asked slightly panicked but didn’t try and fight the bronze rank strength.
“Yes…” Bill said hesitantly. “It looks like you’re about to do something magical which is ill advised.”
“This is a circle of containment, meant for dangerous workings that could hurt others or damage sensitive equipment, it also completely masks auras within. It burns out quick but it’ll last long enough.”
“Long enub bor what?”
The circle gave a faint pop and Kyra knew it was working, she raised an arm and the man flinched. She grabbed his nose and there was a flash of green as she pulled and shot a life bolt at the same time. She lowered her hand and the man felt his face. The bruising was near enough gone and his mushed nose had been reset.
“Oh thankyou! I don’t deserve this!” They stepped out of the circle.
“This is your second chance, don’t waste it.” She said clapping him on the back, maybe slightly harder than she needed to.
They made their way into the village centre, they pulled out Lucy’s notebook and the list they still had and started negotiating. They struggled at first, not knowing the value for the items at non-merchant rates. They saw nods and winces around the men watching on and got a handle for the value. They did very well and got a selection of quintessence at different ranks and half a dozen essences. The value of the scales was something else. It was a gamble for the men as to whether or not they’d be able to shift them quickly once they left the lake and they were incredibly bulky to transport.
In the end the Mitchells cleared out all of their coins once more, it was becoming a habit to go all in without regret and so it was becoming less scary. They had even bartered with a unique item or two of their own. Teddy had drawn out plans for a pump system he had read about back on earth, with his new knowledge on artifice it was a workable and more importantly it was a safe system. It would stop the divers having to rely on breath holds and with the few parts he had knocked up on the Serenity they could manufacture the rest. The second item they bartered with was a dimensional flask. Expensive in its own right it was he contents that made it even more valuable. Over a hundred cups of Geralds normal rank coffee was stored within.
They shook hands and made their way back to the Serenity. The men had promised to deliver the goods by nightfall. They had cleared up what had happened earlier and there was some true remorse in the men but there was still a bad taste around the village, figuratively speaking.
The men came out with five hand pulled carts. The first held a wooden crate, with the essence cubes resting on top, when they lifted the lid they saw it was full to the brim of quintessence, the colours all spilling into one another. The men had been apologetic and said they didn’t hold smaller boxes for each type but the team allayed their fears by explaining that their storage system will sort the gems anyway. The other four carts each held four of the massive scales each. The team led them to the side of the Serenity, they swiped a panel on the outside and a long empty panel opened. They fed the crate in its entirety into the gap then James and Kyra impressed the men by lifting a scale each and one after the other fed them into the gap.
Once they were done the bulk of the men took the carts back to the village leaving just Bill and the two men from the altercation again.
“Tally and Simmo would like a word if you’re amenable?” Bill asked.
The team looked at the men waiting for them to talk.
“Well err you see this is a community. An well, we let it down today and so there should be consequences like. We all pitch in together and we share the rewards. Makes it fair see? And we all pull our weight because we help each other.”
The other man picked up from the rambling explanation.
“We’re all allowed to keep one item from our dives for ourselves. A treat if we find something unique. We were willing to give half our share to the family but they’ve already gone. But we need to be punished, especially if front of everyone else. We’d like to give you our unique items in apology?”
[What do we think? The family needed it more than us but they make sense.] Teddy asked.
“We’ll accept.” Kyra said before they discussed it further.
The two men reached into their satchels at their waists. They orientated towards Kyra as she was the one who said they would take it. The first man, the one who hadn’t been tripped pulled out a crystal claw with three fingers.
Item: [Claw of Containment] (bronze rank, epic)
The manifestation of Bahamut’s grip.
Effect: When used on another person it will subdue their souls. Essence abilities and racial gifts will be contained and the will of the person limited. May be removed and used again.
“Thankyou, this is very valuable, it’s a big gesture.” Kyra said kindly.
The second man, the one that Kyra had healed held out his item.
Item: [Amulet of the Sleeping Dragon] (unranked, epic)
An amulet to wear on the day for when you wake up and choose violence.
Effect: When used this amulet drives the power of an essence user to their next major threshold. Essence abilities will not have the unique abilities provided by the next major advancement but will imbue the strength. The duration varies depending on the amount of power channelled.
Uses remaining: 1/1
“And this is equally as big a gesture. Thankyou.”
“No thankyou, we’ll both feel better holdin our heads up around the other men if we’ve met justice.”
The team held their tongues about what the men were doing versus whether or not they had justice but it had not come to any unfortunate end, the two men had a scare and the items were priceless.
The team said goodbye to the three of them and boarded the Serenity. They set off with the setting sun, eager to be on their way again.
Just after morning found all four Mitchells on the top deck having breakfast while Teddy drove. They had finished and were relaxing on the front seating with empty plates on their laps when Teddy rolled to a stop as a familiar figure stood in the middle of the road.