Charles considered what was ostensibly a sales pitch before deciding there was some merit to the Baker’s words. He promised himself he wouldn’t go back empty handed, and although he might’ve failed to purchase the requested bread, he could at least return with something.
“Very well,” the Steward agreed, reaching into his purse. “I’ll take a half dozen of your finest scones.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Tiny Black Spheres of Pure Malevolent Poison
WERE IT NOT for Eve’s nose generously hinting at its contents, the Defiant might’ve burned with curiosity as she arrived back at her suite to find a wrapped parcel waiting for her. Instead, her stomach grumbled.
“Charles dropped these off for you,” Wes explained from where he reclined on one of the plush chairs by the fireplace. “Wouldn’t stop apologizing about the bread, so I told him you’d like these better.”
She’d seen the hapless Steward scurrying across the palace courtyard as she’d spoken with the guards to give them Roric’s description. Eve was lucky he’d missed her, otherwise she’d have to come up with another way to avoid doing actual Emissary work. Negotiating a defensive treaty sounded like a dismally boring way to spend her time.
Eve practically ran across the room to the breakfast table, tearing through the paper wrapping to reveal the variety of scones stacked on top of each other. She stuffed the top one into her mouth.
For a solid, precious second all was bliss as the sour tang of lemon waltzed across her tongue with its ever-present partner, sugar, the tried and true flavor combination at the center of many a pastry. It was heavenly. Until, that is, another flavor, as dominant as it was vile, crept in. It spread throughout her mouth, its bitter and rotten taste sparking a wave of nausea deep in her belly.
Eve spat it out. “What in the nine assfucking hells is that?” She gagged. “It’s gross.”
Wes raised an eyebrow at the partially-eaten scone still in Eve’s hand. “Um… poppyseeds?”
“Nope.” Eve shook her head, scraping her tongue against her teeth to try and rid herself of the sickening aftertaste. “I’ve had poppyseeds before. I like poppyseeds.” She waved the scone in the air. “These aren’t poppyseeds. These are tiny black spheres of pure malevolent poison.”
Wes paled. “You think Charles tried to poison you?”
Preston sighed, closing the leather-bound copy of Your Draconid and You he’d been reading. “Did you get a notification?”
“No.” Eve furrowed her brow. “Maybe it’s a poison designed to trick my Ethereal Metabolism.”
“Eve, you’re the only person in all of Leshk that has Ethereal Metabolism,” the healer argued. “How would Charles of all people come up with a poison that counteracts it?”
“Maybe it’s a prank?” Wes offered. “Maybe he’s pissed you sent him on an impossible task?”
Preston leveled a flat expression at the bulky fire mage. “You think Charles would play a prank on a foreign Emissary?”
Wes pushed himself to his feet, crossing the room to join Eve at the breakfast table. “Let me try.”
“We’re trying to decide if the scone is poisoned or tastes horrible because of a strange joke and your first instinct is to taste it?” Preston asked.
Eve pulled the scone away from him. “Is that a good idea?”
Wes shrugged. “You would’ve gotten a notification if it were poisoned, right?” Without waiting for a reply, he reached his longer arms around her to snatch the partially eaten pastry from her hand. He took a bite.
Eve and Preston stared in silent anticipation as the Disciple carefully chewed the baked morsel.
Wes swallowed. “Tastes fine to me.” He took another bite. “Yeah, they’re just normal poppyseeds.”
Eve shook her head. “No way. They taste like a cross between rotting meat and the way Lynthia smells, maybe with a bit of tannery chemicals in the aftertaste.”
Wes turned up his palms. “Maybe you just don’t like poppyseeds? I think it tastes great.”
“I know what poppyseeds taste like,” Eve said flatly. “I used to eat Mrs. Yir’s poppyseed muffins all the time.”
With a sigh, Preston stepped up to join them. “Alright, alright, I’ll be the final judge,” he offered, despite no one having asked.
Somewhat begrudgingly Wes handed off the remains of the scone.
Unlike Wes’s bold first bite, Preston gingerly nibbled at the lemony sweet before licking his lips and promptly devouring the few bites Wes had left him. “Yeah, I’m with Wes,” he said. “Tastes great.”
“You’re crazy,” Eve protested. “They taste like death.”
Preston shrugged. “Maybe it has something to do with your race change. Have you had poppyseeds since becoming a manaheart?”
Eve scowled. “No, but… ugh, I don’t know. Why poppyseeds? I can digest poison for fuck’s sake.”
“You wouldn’t be the first race with weird dietary restrictions,” Wes said. “Like how kobolds can’t have cooked meat or dwarves refuse to eat without a mug of ale to wash it down.”
“I’m pretty sure that latter’s because dwarves know how to have a good time,” Eve replied. “But why poppyseeds?”
“Hells if I know,” Preston said. “Maybe an Alchemist would be able to tell you.”
“Seems fair,” Wes added, counting on his fingers. “You’re immune to poison, you hardly ever sleep, rest, or go to the bathroom, you have glowing eyes to see in the dark, not to even mention the whole insane Mana regeneration thing, and the tradeoff is… you can’t eat poppyseeds.”
“Exactly!” Eve agreed. “It’s a travesty.”
Preston scanned over the pile of remaining scones. “At least they aren’t all lemon poppyseed,” he offered in the way of comfort.
The words pulled Eve from the dark cloud of misery that had overcome her, prompting her to pull a particularly delicious-looking blueberry scone from the assortment. After taking a moment to inspect it and wipe away any errant poppyseeds that had fallen onto it, she took a bite.
“Nope, nope, nope.” Eve shook her head, holding back a gag.
Wes furrowed his brow. “This one bad too?”
“Not bad,” Eve said through deep exhales, “tainted. I can still taste the poppyseeds that were on it.”
Preston frowned. “But it was just a few.”
“Tell that to my stomach.” Eve swallowed back bile. “Guess this one’s for you too,” she added, putting the blueberry scone back into the pile.
With the others looking over her shoulder, Eve quickly searched through the remaining pastries for any that had avoided contamination. None had. Either by bad luck or design, the assortment had been artfully packed in an alternating pattern that left every scone either beneath or adjacent to a source of the foul seeds. Eve cursed.
Preston patronizingly patted her on the back. “This is what you get for sending that poor Steward running all over town for a loaf of bread. Consider it justice.”
“I hate it,” Eve despaired. “I have to just… stare at them.”
“Not for long,” Wes said, reaching in to pick up another scone. He took a bite, continuing his thought through a full mouth. “This is the best justice I’ve ever seen. We should get free pastries every time Eve does something bad.”
“I’ll second that,” Preston added, snatching up a strawberry scone for himself. “Free scones are my favorite kind of scones.”
Eve groaned, collapsing to the ornate chair behind her. “Dear Ayla, great goddess of mercy, please forgive me my transgressions and allow me the glory of scones once more.”
Preston snorted. “Nice try, but that’s not how Ayla works. She’s more of a… show remorse by accepting your penance kind of goddess.”
“And my penance is watching you two eat all my scones?”
“Yep,” Preston chimed.
“Fuck that then.” Eve stood, crossing the suite to where her club and armor sat haphazardly on the floor.
“Going to go figh
t Ayla until you can eat poppyseeds again?” Wes joked.
“Not quite,” Eve answered, “but that’s a good idea. I’ll keep that in mind.” She went about strapping on the various pieces of hardened leather. “For now I’m just going to get some more practice in. Round two starts in four days, remember?”
“Pretty sure you can crush anyone who steps into the ring with you, but knock yourself out,” the mage replied. “Oh, and if you run into Charles out there, make sure to thank him for the scones. They’re really tasty.”
“If I run into Charles out there, I have other problems.” Finishing with her armor and grabbing her griffin-bone from the floor, Eve made for the exit. “Enjoy your scones,” she spat, shutting the door behind her.
As Eve traveled the twisting halls of the royal palace on her way to the practice yard, her thoughts wandered toward coming up with a new excuse to give Charles should he try to make her engage in actual diplomacy. She wondered if it would be too cruel to tell him manahearts hated poppyseeds and refuse to deal with him over the accidental slight. It probably would.
Besides, if sending him to get bread had left her with a pile of scones she couldn’t eat, Eve could only balk at what might happen to her should she take further advantage of the Steward’s enthusiasm. What would be next, strawberries? Eve shuddered.
No. From now on, Eve decided, she would at least be nice to Charles, and if that wound up with her sitting across a table from some royal advisor, then so be it. She could always evade questions about her made-up kingdom or reject alliances and trade deals as they were offered, or at least make up some excuse about needing to send a missive home before signing anything.
Eve smiled to herself as she finally arrived at the training field, sparing a glance for the castle guards sparring in their usual corner. It was a good plan. With any luck, she’d fight through the entire tournament, get recruited to the Dragonwrought, and get the hells out of Pyrindel before anyone suspected a thing.
Of course, Eve had never known herself to be particularly lucky, but there was a first time for everything.
For the time being, Eve allowed her concern over her tenuous position to fade away as she devoted her focus to Jetting about the courtyard, feinting and dodging phantom attacks from imagined opponents. She’d worry about Charles when he actually came to schedule an appointment or introduce some important noble.
Either way, she had another bout coming up, and even if her opponent wouldn’t be decided until the other round-one fights were finished, more training would always be useful.
After all, she didn’t want to be out of practice when Roric showed up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Reenter the Arena
“AGAIN,” RORIC SNARLED, climbing back to his feet and dusting the sand off his bulky practice-padding.
Eve twirled her club in her hand. “You know, I’m starting to think I’m the one training you.”
Roric ran a hand over the thick leather that covered the blades of his axes. “Your technique is terrible.”
“But I keep winning.” Eve smirked.
“Because you are fast and strong,” the berserker put it simply, “not because you are a skilled warrior. Your footwork is uneven, your eyes broadcast your every move, you do not even hold your weapon properly. Who taught you to fight?”
Eve shrugged. “I did. A friend helped a little, but um…” Eve trailed off before deciding against telling that particular story. “Yeah it was mostly me.”
Roric spat. “Terrible. If you practice alone, you only reinforce the wrong way of doing things.”
“It’s worked out so far.”
“Because you are lucky. And you have balls. You have found a good class and taken the risks you needed to make it better.”
Eve raised an eyebrow. “What do you know about my class?”
“I know you are no Emissary,” he answered. “If you were an Emissary trained in combat, you would be using skill and good technique to overcome a lack of stats. Instead, it is the inverse.” Roric spoke with a weird stiltedness to his words, as if he were not yet fully accustomed to speaking the common tongue. “No. It is clear you have been depending on your class to do the work for you.”
“I’ve been doing lots of work, thank you very much,” Eve protested.
“The wrong work.”
“I think I’ve done pretty well on my own. I haven’t exactly had access to a combat instructor my entire life.”
“Why not?” Roric looked around the palace training yard. “You clearly have resources, and every city has warriors happy to earn a few silver without risking their lives.”
Eve paused. Shit, she thought. He’s right. Why haven’t I hired an instructor? She had, after all, been sitting around bored out of her mind for over a week in Ilvia with a bunch of gold burning a hole in her pocket. “I guess I never knew my technique was that bad.”
Roric blinked. “Really? Watching you fight, I would think you would be constantly losing your weapon or falling on your face.”
“What? No, that doesn’t…” Eve scratched the back of her head, her mind flashing through a slideshow of all the times not even Surefooted had kept her on her feet. “Okay so maybe my technique isn’t great. Can you help?”
“You are lucky. Your style is similar to what every child of the Salfdir clan learns.”
“Great,” Eve chimed, brandishing her club. “What’s first?”
“First you put that down,” Roric spoke with an awful lot of authority for a man who still had sand in his hair. “You are not ready to be holding a weapon.”
“Tell that to all the things I’ve killed.”
Roric glared.
“Alright, alright,” Eve conceded, stepping away to lean her club against one of the pillars of the arcade surrounding the practice field. “So now what?”
“Now do as I do,” the axeman said, depositing his own weapons on the ground next to him. “Before you can learn to run, you first must learn to walk, and before you can walk, you must learn to stand.”
What followed was definitively the most boring day Eve had ever spent. Even after Roric had poked and prodded at her stance and posture to his satisfaction, he wouldn’t even let her walk. It took two hours of practice before Eve could take a single step forward without the berserker groaning and insisting she do it again with some minuscule adjustment. Even then she wasn’t allowed to walk—first she had to learn to take a step backwards.
It was grueling. As Roric explained, unlearning bad habits required far more work than learning good ones. It wasn’t just about learning how to stand or walk properly, but about overwriting her default movement with the proper form. To that end, even as Roric eventually left for the evening, Eve spent the entire night walking circles around the training yard, ever mindful of the little corrections he’d made to her natural posture.
The next morning, Roric addressed all the issues that had crept their way into her practice while he’d been sleeping.
All in all, it made for a remarkably frustrating experience that Eve was all too eager to get over with. If only she were that lucky.
In three straight days of continuous training and practice, Eve only just managed to walk to Roric’s satisfaction, leaving her with a scarce few hours to learn how to run before her next day at the arena. Roric didn’t even bother.
“In normal circumstances,” he said, “I would not let you fight so soon. It will be easy to return to your old habits, and we would lose much progress.”
“I’m not missing the tournament,” Eve stated plainly. “That would defeat the entire purpose of you training me.”
Roric nodded. “We arrive at my point. I cannot stop you from fighting, so I will ask you to keep a mind towards your posture and footing. You are strong enough to win regardless, so afford some thought towards maintaining our work.”
Eve flashed a grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to end it quick.”
“Don’t ‘end it quick,’” Roric snapped bac
k. “End it correctly. At least with correct footing. Maybe by the finals you will be learning how to swing that club of yours.”
“Alright, alright,” Eve said, gathering up her belongings to finally leave the training yard. Confident as she was, she still wanted to get a night’s sleep before her bout. “I’ll see you at the arena.”
“Good,” Roric grunted. “I will be watching.” Before turning to make his exit, he stopped to place a hand on Eve’s shoulder. “You are a hard worker. We’ll make a formidable warrior of you yet. Good luck tomorrow. Fight well.”
Eve grinned as he quoted the dungeon-entrance notification. “Goodnight, Roric.”
He neither nodded nor smiled in response, simply maintaining the same stern expression. With a softly uttered “goodnight,” he left.
As Eve made her own way to her bed, she reflected on the progress of the prior days. It had been slower than she’d hoped, much slower, but she had to admit she did feel somewhat sturdier on her feet, more stable. It likely wouldn’t make a difference tomorrow, but as she faced stronger and stronger enemies, it might someday make all the difference.
The Man of the Mists was right. There were other ways to gain strength besides leveling up, and Eve hadn’t even needed to win the tournament to find one.
* * *
“Contestants! You may begin!”
“Shit,” Eve cursed, lowering the hand she’d been waving in the air. “Damn bookie didn’t see me.”
“Who’s your pick?” Preston asked without looking her way, his eyes fixed on the coliseum floor where a hooded figure threw knives at a man with a giant floating crystal. “My money’s on crystal guy.”
Eve nodded. “Same. Hard for a rogue to accomplish much in an open arena on a sunny day.”
“Damn,” Wes muttered, “I want a giant floating crystal.”
A thunderous crack echoed through the arena as a bolt of lightning arced through the air to strike the roguish competitor. With a flash of golden light, the bout was over.
This Class is Bonkers! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Comedy Litrpg Adventure) Book 2) Page 22
