“So what you’re saying is that we’re headed back into the same dungeon where you two became best friends?” Peter asked, flipping through a rack of leather armours on hangars.
“Well, I wouldn’t say BESTIES”, Pham said. He was sitting on the counter swinging his legs and watching everyone else shop. “I mean, we got off to a rocky start. Woz came into my starter town all “hurr durr, chop chop” with this sabre or something. I was set up at the local smithy grinding my skillz, cos I wasn’t 31337 back then. It was, like day one? Two?”
“Day one,” Warren’s voice sounded echoey and tinny, as he was trying on a new helm. “And it was a katana. I’ve still got it somewhere. Besides, you weren’t IN the smithy, you had tools spread halfway across the road. I nearly broke my neck tripping over one. Pfha, do they even wash these out before they put them on the shelf? This one still smells of sweat and dragon ass.”
“Should I ask how you know what dragon ass smells like?” Dani’s voice floated over the racks and shelves in the store.
“No.” Warren and Pham said in unison.
“It was an Ant-Man versus Thanos plan, wasn’t it?” Peter grinned.
“Shut up, don’t want to talk about it.” Warren lobbed the helmet at Peter. “Worry more about what we’re getting into. You’re going to need armour with more elemental resistances, the traps in that place are nasty and not even Pham can disable them all.”
“Speaking of armour, I remember you lost your entire wardrobe that day we first met. Walking into town buck nekkid, wang swinging in the breeze all pixelated like a cheap hentai. The “one point oh my god” version was the Wild West.” Dani chuckled, a hint of pink in his dead white cheeks. “It took the pearl clutchers less than twelve hours to “someone think of the children” a patch out.”
Warren sighed and stomped out the door. “It wasn’t all my clothes, it was just the seat of my pants. There was no wang,” he called over his shoulder. “Come on, this is low tier vendor trash. I know a place, but it’ll cost me a favour.”
Peter and the other two followed Warren deeper into the gloom as the road led away from the water and under the overhang of the upper level. Here the gas lamps never went out and condensation dripped from the roof to form rivulets in the gutter. The buildings were grimier, soot from the fireplaces adhered to everything damp, which was everything. Light shone through smoky windows streaked where the drips had carved tiny tracks in the grime. Even the people looked grittier. There was no way to tell NPC from Traveller, all were equally worn down and coated in black.
Hard up against the back wall was a building even blacker than the rest. Iron walled and imposing, with red rust patches like a rash over the frontage. No windows on the front, just three stairs up to an iron door inset with a sliding hatch at eye height. There wasn’t even a handle on the outside. If you weren’t let in, you weren’t getting in.
Warren ascended the stairs and rapped his knuckles on the door in a rhythm that Peter found familiar but couldn’t put his finger on. Da ta-da da da.
The hatch slid open and a pair of beady eyes examined Warren. “How much?”
“Two bits.”
The hatch slammed shut and they were left standing in the street, listening to the sigh of gently escaping steam from a nearby valve. The nearby lamp flickered and went out, and a horrible rotten egg smell wafted over them before it reignited with a whumph. Peter was just opening his mouth to suggest this trip had been in vain when the door clanked as the locks inside were released and it opened with a screech.
The owner of the beady eyes stood in the gap and beckoned them in. “Yer mates better be on their best behaviour MacGregor. You’re on thin ice with the boss as it is.”
“He’ll get what I promised on time,” Warren rumbled, reminiscent of when Peter had first met him. “I still have several days and for now I have bigger issues.”
The beady-eyed bloke huffed noncommittally and led them deeper into the building. The iron theme continued inside, with metal bound glass light fittings illuminating the halls with riveted iron walls, though these were at least painted to prevent rusting. It was an even institutional grey that reminded Peter of pictures of warships from the late 1900s that he had seen in History class. It was not a colour choice that inspired hope, joy or faith in humanity. In fact, after the fourth or fifth bland hallway separated by a bulkhead style door he was beginning to feel like they’d stepped into the domain of a happiness sucking demon.
The waiting room they were eventually deposited in did nothing to relieve that feeling. The seats were bare metal benches the same colour as the walls and attached by a hinge at the base and a chain at the edge. There were no windows at all and the only entrances and exits were the same metal doors with a wheel in the centre. Without the lights and paint, Peter could have mistaken this room for the labyrinth under Averton.
“Wait ‘ere”, Mr Beady-eye grunted and left by the same door they’d entered. The locks clanked when the door closed.
“Woz, what have you gotten us into?” Pham asked, flopping down onto one of the benches and lacing his fingers behind his head. “Peter might not care about respawns, but you know my stance on them.”
Dani had her ear against the door they’d come through and was trying to see if she could insert some sort of probe in the gap between the door and the jamb. “Yeah, mate. This is kinda unpickable. I’m guessing there’s two ways out of this, Peter’s and that door over there.”
“I’m standing right here, you know?” Peter felt a bit put upon. “I don’t ALWAYS die. Besides, I’m sure Woz has a plan. You DO have a plan, don’t you?”
“Wheest yersel. I dun need a plan. This is just a weekly quest. I just… hannae done it in a while and my rep has dropped with tha faction ye ken?” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “They’re going to make us wait for a mite, just to flex that they have all the power. Which, in this town the kinda do.”
“Izzat all?” Pham responded. “What kind of faction are we talking though? Cos there’s a big difference between a reputation drop from the Mechanists Guild and a reputation drop with the mob. One means you lose access to the good materials and one gets you concrete shoes.”
“Uh,” Warren looked uncomfortable. “What’s your shoe size again?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
All eyes snapped to him.
“Kidding. Mostly,” he held up his hands in surrender. “I’m still liked, but if I don’t get them the stuff they’ve asked for by Friday I drop back to neutral and have to start again. It’s just posturing, we’ll be fine. We’ve been busy and I haven’t had time to turn in my dailies, weeklies or monthlies cos, you know, taking on a Geas was a big deal.”
“I knew it!” Part of the wall detached itself and became a formless humanoid shape, as though a puddle had delusions of grandeur. “I knew you’d have something to do with the Geas. You can’t help yourself, can you Mister MacGregor?” As the humanoid spoke it rapidly assumed the form of a green skinned, scaly creature in an admiral’s uniform and hat. “Always chasing the bigger fish.”
“Goober, you wee scunner. I KNEW you’d be listening. I’m just surprised you hadn’t shown one of your faces already,” Warren loomed over the diminutive naval officer. “This is a new low, though, even for you.” He picked up the creature by the neck and slammed it into the wall. “The real Captain would have you keelhauled for stealing his image like this.”
“Hey, he’s just a lil’ guy,” Dani protested. “Is that really necessary?”
“Yes, it is,” Warren growled over his shoulder. “Goober, show the nice people your real body.”
“It’s Gruber, and you know it,” Gruber hissed. Seeing no support from the others in the room his form melted again and reformed into a child sized being in a robe and hat. The hat had the word “wizzzard” stitched into the band, multiple z’s stretching the word to wrap entirely around it.
“Bloody wizards,” Pham spat.
Peter held up a finger. “Um, how does this help us?”
Warren shook Gruber like a dog shakes a toy. “Goober here is a Traveller like us. He makes bank by eavesdropping and selling secrets to the highest bidder. I’m betting he slipped Benny Blue-Eyes out the front a handful of silver to let him loiter in here until we’d dropped something juicy. Isn’t that right, Goober?”
“Damnit Warren, put me down. That bloody hurts.” Gruber’s real form as a gnomish spellcaster was even smaller than the kobold body he’d worn as a disguise. “How did you know it was me?”
“Captain Krunch hates spellslingers more than Pham does,” Warren harrumphed, dropping Gruber to the floor. “You’d know that if you’d done your homework instead of just bribing the doorman. Now get out of here before I send you for a respawn.”
Gruber gathered himself up to his full unimpressive height. “You haven’t heard the last of this,” he insisted in his high-pitched voice.
“Peter, do your eye thing please.”
Peter let the cold of the Paragon state flood his body. He was getting more proficient with it every day, even though it scared him in equal measure. He still didn’t know what they meant about his eyes, they always looked normal to him when he checked the mirror, but the way Gruber wet himself when he looked at Peter’s face told him he was doing something right.
“Ok, you’ve heard the last of this,” Gruber pressed himself against the cold metal as he hurriedly rapped out a code on the door.
Benny cracked the door, looking entirely unrepentant as the tiny Gruber pushed past him. “The Captain will see you now.” He pressed a something on his side of the wall and a buzzer sounded. The door on the other side of the room opened and swung wide. “Best not keep him waiting.”
On the far side of the final door a completely different room awaited them. A massive bay window stretching from wall to wall allowed a view out over the waters unimpeded by the town. How that was possible, Peter was unsure. The trip through the winding halls had left him disoriented but he felt sure they should have been able to see at least the lower tiers’ tallest buildings. A problem for another time, he thought, suppressing the memory of the walk in. There was no sign of the soul-sucking grey walls here though. The whole room was wood panelled, with shining brass fittings and artfully lit by primitive electric lamps. No gas appliances were visible at all, nor were any suggestions of magic. It was the most technologically advanced scene he had experienced in the game.
Dominating the room was an ornately carved mahogany desk. Spread across the glossy surface were maps of the world and its various regions. Exquisite cartography tools littered the desktop, finely made pens, protractors and compasses scattered seemingly willy-nilly at first but a closer inspection there was a sense of a greater organisation in the chaos. There were also, for some reason, footprints.
Behind the desk, in a red velvet lined swivelling chair that dwarfed its occupant, or maybe koballed it, was a doppelganger of the first form Gruber had taken. Small, green, scaly and in possession of a marvellous admiral’s hat, Captain Krunch lounged in the opulence of his domain. “Well, Mister MacGregor, we meet again.” Where Gruber’s voice had been reedy and hesitant, the Captain’s was deep, confident and resonant. Not at all what one would expect from a diminutive, dragon-runt like creature – no matter how impressive his headgear. “I am a busy man, Mr MacGregor. State your case and be quick about it.”
“We do indeed, Captain,” Warren knelt before the desk, waving to the others to do the same. “I come bearing gifts, in the hope of obtaining a meeting with… the armourer.”
The Captain waved a clawed hand disinterestedly. Warren stood and placed a small chest on the desk, facing the captain, and opened the lid. Peter couldn’t see what was in it, but from the way that the kobolds’ eyes widened he must have been very impressed. The reaction was only fleeting, however, and the captain schooled his features back into an impassive poker face. “This will do for now, but I trust you are aware of your obligations?”
“Captain, I assure you that you will have your tribute, as agreed, by the end of the week.” Warren’s voice was the most subdued Peter had ever heard it as he returned to where he had been kneeling.
The Captain stood on his chair and stepped up onto the desk, picking his footfalls carefully so as to not disturb . He closed the chest and picked it up gently, almost reverentially while maintaining an impressive air of impassiveness. “Then I will send word that you are on your way. I expect you still know where to go.”
“Aye, I do.”
“Then see yourself out. And send Benjamin in as you go. I feel I need a word with my doorkeeper.”
Warren waved them all to follow him and exited the room as quickly as manners would allow. In the antechamber he leaned in close to Benjamin in passing and whispered a few words that Peter couldn’t make out. Benjamin paled, looking decidedly less smug as the Travellers left the room.
When the crew were what Peter deemed a safe distance away from the imposing iron building, he burst into laughter. “Do you think he knows? About the cereal?”
Warren harrumphed. “Aye, he knows. NPCs regard our world as a sort of mirror dimension to theirs, in case you hadn’t noticed.” He waited for acknowledgment from Peter before continuing. “So the captain regards it as a point of honour they’ve named a food after him. He says it puts him on the same standing as Lord Wellington and the Earl of Sandwich.”
“For cereals?” Peter punned. He couldn’t help it. Everyone groaned and Dani punched him in the arm. “Ow! I know, I deserve it, but ow!”
“So, what’s with this armourer dude?” Pham asked. “I’ve never heard you mention them before.”
“Well, we don’t come here often,” Warren explained. “He’s a secret shopkeep you get to meet at the end of the local guild questline. You never did the quests, you never got to meet him. Besides, he specialises in heavy armour and you wear,” he waved generally in Pham’s direction, “that.”
“It’s called fashion, sweetie. Look it up!” Pham twirled on the spot, showing off his blood, oil and soot stained overalls. “I don’t need armour if I don’t get hit.”
“But, you DO get hit,” Dani pointed out helpfully.
“Yeah, that’s where the plan falls apart.”
“Come on,” Warren urged. “It’s not far and at least two of us need better protection if we’re going back into… well. There. You,” he looked pointedly at Pham, “we’re just going to cover you in bubble wrap and hope for the best.”