25- The Assassin and the Romancer

7/1/5/4353 M.A.C - Niwut - Afternoon

"Hey! Tom!"

Tom turned around to look for Dhruvah, recognizing his deep timber and friendly tone.

"Ah there you a-"

The bright golden armor that his friend was now wearing caused his line of thought to falter.

"Uh, Dhruvah? Correct me If I am erring, but wasn't your purse rather light, if not outright empty?"

Dhruvah nodded in confirmation, causing the afternoon sun to reflect on his helm and dazzle Tom. After blinking a handful of times, Tom continued speaking.

"Then, pray tell, how did you get yourself a golden armor? Also, isn't gold too soft for armor?"

"Check again. It's the same armor you left me wearing. Doro, the kid we helped yesterday, turned out to have a couple tricks up his sleeves, and his father was a refiner at the peak of the mortal realm with some interesting products. They gave my armor the works and then coated it with something. The color is a result of that."

Tom thoroughly studied his friend's armor and found a few dented spots where he remembered Dhruvah taking some rather big hits.

It would seem the young one is not wasting any time, but this is a bit too flashy. Might need to go have a chat with him before we leave Niwut after all.

"Well it would seem fortune has favored you. You were due some luck after that rough turn of events. I am aware that wealth has its importance, but it would be nice to find some new recruits who won't forsake us over such mundane matters."

"Alright Tom, give them a break. Not everyone has a rich family to fall back on, also a couple of the guys were sending their pay home. They could have been nicer about it, but yeah, to them it was a job. I sorted everything down at the HQ while waiting for you. For now, it's just the two of us, just like old times."

"It was fine back in the day because you were still leveling and putting your first full set of armor together, but I don't think there is much left on the mainland that poses you a threat. If it is just the two of us, I would feel rather unneeded. Unless you want to take on the Sutai Mountains, but count me out of such an endeavor. At least when training new recruits, my services as a physician are required every now and then. If we enter a battle with just the two of us, I'm basically just throwing knives and watching your fists reach our targets faster than they fly..."

"Let me shine in combat, won't you? Fighting and lifting heavy things are probably the only two things I can outdo you in. You do realize no one is good at everything in every situation right? We'll see if the others didn't tank my reputation here too badly. We might be able to recruit a few squadmates before we leave."

"Well, it is true that your skillset, outside of combat, is rather limited, but you more than make up for it with how skillful you are at setting up camp, and with your recovery Abilities. If we don't want to be late, we should really get going. You know how Percy is with punctuality."

"Yeah, well, time is his business after all."

The pair arrived at their destination ten minutes later. In front of them stood a large walled complex comprised of five buildings. The public entrance led into one of those buildings, a very large store with the word "Chronos" displayed in bold letters above the doorframe.

"Well, Percy seems to have been busy! Look at all those clocks and pocket watches. Lucky for us they don't seem to have been wound up, can you imagine the ticking?"

"Don't complain, you are not the one encased in a metal shell, I'd also have to deal with the echo."

A pained expression appeared on Tom's face as he thought over his friend's situation.

"That would be quite horrendous, wouldn't it? We still have a short while before our appointment, we may as well entertain ourselves by perusing the goods on display."

"You go ahead and do that. Reckon it won't be much fun for me considering I'm tapped out on funds. If we don't find a job soon, I might need to rely on you for a few meals."

"Makes sense. At least you have tonight's dinner covered, and there might be a few surprises. Let's just say that I came across a bit of information that, I believe, may motivate Percy one more time. Even if it doesn't, I need to make some new plans around it. I'll have to tell Percy all about it as well, so wait until dinner if you want an explanation. "

"I'll go outside for some fresh air, I'll come back when I hear the bells."

As Dhruvah headed back out the door through which they had entered, Tom went around to take a look at the timepieces.

Oh? These don't look like Percy's work. They look well-made, but not quite at his level. An apprentice's work maybe?

After looking around a bit more, Tom noticed that only a handful of the most expensive pieces appeared to have been the work of his old friend.

Seems he has been busy. Busy training the next generation that is. I still pocess the pocket watch he crafted as a farewell gift before leaving us, twenty years ago, so I don't really require a new one. I'll beseech him to give it a tune-up while we are here. Still, I can barely believe it finally happened. It would appear that the world is about to get hectic once more.

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Tom looked around and saw that the shop was decently busy for a place that dealt in luxury goods. Timepieces were useful, but most people didn't require knowing what minute it was. Most people in Niwut would make do with the bell system and a one-hour hourglass with markings that they would flip every hour if they needed more precise information. Taking that into account, Niwut might appear to be the worst place to open up a clock shop. While all that was true of the populace, who tended to be active during daylight and didn't have a large amount of income to burn through, matters were different when it came to people of means. The lords and ladies of Manzat, as well as other wealthy citizens, would socialize after sundown. That particular crowd found timepieces very useful when it came to getting to gatherings on time, as well as being yet another fancy trinket they could show off. Taking into account that new technologies and custom pieces were always in fashion in Niwut, there probably rarely was day that went by without a noble, or wealthy patron, ordering a custom mantle clock or pocket watch. Niwut's large pool of skilled workers, as well as the access to varied materials in the local markets, made it an extremely convenient place for manufacturing.

It seems Percy is doing quite well for himself. I rather want to give him a good kick in the arse to get him motivated again though. If I have not erred in my calculations, he should only have a handful of years left at the most. Honestly, I am apprehensive. To see what state he is in after twenty years of aging. He was the first of our merry band to pass the level 50 threshold. No one would have foreseen he would stay stuck at level 59 so long that he would capitulate and retire. I know Dhruvah said he went out for some fresh air but, knowing him, I reckon he doesn't know how to face Percy. The protector in him can defend us from a lot of things, but every time one of his friends dies from something like aging, it really hurts him. Hopefully, once I tell Percy abou-

Twelth bell began to ring, ushering the end of the day and distracting Tom. Dhruvah came back into the shop and followed Tom to the counter.

"Excuse me, but twelth bell has just rung, so we are going to be closing the store. If you haven't made your choices yet, may I kindly ask you to come back another day, during our business hours?"

"My apologies, we are not here as customers. We are acquainted with your patriarch and are scheduled for a dinner with him. Could I ask you to take this to the private estate, and to relay that "Thomas and Dhruvah have arrived as requested", please?"

Tom presented his pocketwatch and popped its cover open. The bespectacled man behind the counter inspected the pocket watch before nodding.

"I will send someone right now. I apologize for not going personally, but it is my responsibility to close the store."

The man turned around and opened a door, behind the counter, that led into an adjoining room.

"Rana! Take a break from the repairs for a minute. I need you to pop into the estate and check something with Grandpa."

A young girl stepped out of the repair room, an annoyed look on her face, as she untied her curly hair and removed what appeared to be a pair of magnifying glasses from atop her nose.

"I was in the middle of a repair...Couldn't this have waited Uncle?"

The bespectacled man handed Rana the pocket watch, seeming unaffected by her complaints, and relayed the message. The girl's eyes shot wide open as all previous traces of annoyance left her face. She turned towards the visiting pair with a large smile adorning her youthful face.

"Are you Dhruvah and Tom!? Grandpa's old adventuring buddies? You look like he described you in the stories, but I thought you would be a lot bigger mister Dhruvah."

Rana had a mischievous grin on her face as she looked at Tom.

"My apologies young lady, but I happen to be Thomas. Although I imagine you already guessed that."

"Way to go Tom...Jokes are always funnier when they are explained, aren't they?"

Dhruvah gave Tom's back a small slap. A small slap according to Dhruvah's definition. Tom lurched forward while trying to regain his balance and glared at his big friend.

"Yup. Uncle, they match the descriptions Grandpa gave in his stories, and they have one of his watches, so I'll just lead them to the estate. Should be fine. Alright, please follow me."

Did he have to slap me that hard? His gauntlet is tough...Might as well move on. I wonder what matter of stories Percy told her about us.

As the two followed Rana to the estate, Tom decided to find out what his old friend had blabbed about.

"So...You said your Grandfather told you some stories about us?"

Rana looked thoughtful for a moment and then giggled.

"Yes, he told me quite a bit. Like how you are secretly a ruthless assassin who knows how to kill a man in a thousand different ways. Also, that you are a master of torture who never travels without a bunch of small knives and other sharp implements, that you use to cut into people. Finally, he also said that you were great at using and making strong poisons that could cause all manners of ailments."

Tom stared at the young girl, dumbfounded, his mouth agape.

"Hahahaha! Funny thing is that all of that is kind of true! Tom the Assassin, I like it."

Tom did not find it funny and rebuked his friend.

"What do you mean by "kind of true"? I tend to save lives rather than take them. You know that the few times I'm caught up in the fights I aim at incapacitating, unless there is no alternative. Also what torture devices and poisons? These are my surgical tools and medicine!"

"Exactly! You really need to stop explaining jokes or little Rana here will really start to find you boring. So what did he say about me?"

"He told me that you were the reason why he and his friends were able to survive despite all the dangers you had to face. That you would not back down in front of any threat, as long as the others were in danger. Also that you ate enough to increase travelling cargo by a lot, but made up for it by pulling your weight. Literally."

"See, he was a lot kinder with you. Could he not have said something about me bringing you all back from the brink of death more times than I care to count?"

"Wait mister Tom, I wasn't finished. He also said that despite saving them from danger, Mister Dhruvah was often the cause of it. That he could get tricked into having his candy stolen by a baby, and that he had a taste for flirting with the wrong women. Is it true that Mister Druvah got you chased out of a region of Brihon because he got caught romancing a warlord's fiance, the day before her wedding? He said that he probably still had a bounty in that region, because of that incident, and that at the time, you had to ride through the night to escape the warlord's bannermen."

Dhruvah went silent as Tom started smirking in vindication.

"Ok, fair is fair. We'll just have to drown out our pain with Percy's expensive liquor, won't we? He cannot stop both of us at once."

Rana chuckled as she opened the door to the large residential building they had arrived at, and proceeded to lead the pair up the main staircase.

"The bottom floor is where the employees live and where we have the communal dining room, the second floor is the family quarters, and the third is split between grandfather's quarters and the guest quarters. That is where you will be sleeping if you stay the night. There is a large communal Thermaen-style bath in the basement, the left door is for the men. Mister Dhruvah please make sure not to "accidentally" walk into the wrong one."

Dhruvah, who had not spoken since his romantic exploits had been discussed, decided to defend himself.

"I am not a peeper...Sure, my resolve is weak when it comes to beautiful women, but I think your grandfather did me a disservice if you really think that about me. Also, should he really be telling stories of such nature to such a young lady?"

"I was just joking...geez. Also, I may be short but I'm thirteen. I'll be an adult in less than two years."

"Alright, I may have overreacted. Thirteen, huh? What do you think Tom, isn't she about the same height as Doro?"

"I'd say that's about right, why?"

"Well, his Choice Day was only three days ago. That makes him nine."

Dhruvah looked Rana up and down and continued in a mocking tone.

"Don't worry. You are only thirteen, there is still hope for growth."

"Stop acting like a child Dhruvah...Not everyone desires to be too tall for standard doors... Or too wide"

"Hey! Low blow tiny man!"

"Six feet is only considered tiny by you, you lumbering monolith."

Rana laughed at the exchange between the two and they both smiled back at her.

"Alright, please wait here for a moment, I will get Grandpa."