Our inspection done, we looked at each other.
“Well?” said Trayn.
“Well?” I answered. “The deal is you get to pick what you want, and I get the rest.”
“What are you going to do with your share?” the dwarf asked greedily. It’s just their nature; they can’t bear the thought of missing out on valuables.
“I’m not sure.” I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll sell it; maybe I’ll give it to my friends. We’ll see.”
“Want to sell it to me?” The dwarf’s eyes narrowed slyly. “For a good deal?”
I looked at him and, to my surprise, found myself offering him a compromise. “How about this: I take the poleyns and any three rings, you get the rest, of course, after compensating me for it.”
“How much?” The dwarf squinted even deeper.
“You’re an honorable dwarf, you’ve been fair with me, and we’ve trusted each other this far, so I doubt you’ll try to pull one over on me now,” I said forcibly. “I mean, you can give yourself a little discount, as long as it’s reasonable.”
The dwarf looked at me and grinned craftily. It was like Buddha himself was looking at me above a plump nose and full beard. He even had his hands on his stomach, his fingers twirling nervously.
“Agreed,” he said finally. “Pick your rings, and then we’ll talk money.”
“Okay,” I answered before looking through all the rings again. It was a bluff, of course I knew exactly which ones I wanted.
Two were usual, both with a bonus for strength, and the third was rare.
Ring of Temperance
+8 to stamina
+7 to agility
+7% to critical strike chance
+5% chance of getting rare and elite quests
Durability: 112/160
Minimum level for use: 32
Okay, so it wasn’t the best ring for a physical specimen like myself, but I had to be thinking beyond just strength—not to mention the fact that I still had more fingers available. Players could have a total of eight, and that put me at five. There’s still room.
“That’s it for me, sir,” I said to Trayn. “Your turn. If this works for you, just give me a number you’d pay for the rest of my share, and we’ll call us even.”
“That’s perfectly fine; I come out ahead either way. I think 3,500 gold would be a good price for the remainder.”
I thought for thirty seconds. The dwarf had obviously given himself a huge discount, and I was sure I could get three times what he was offering, but where was the auction? And, besides that, I’d given my word…
“All right, you have a deal.”
The dwarf clapped and dove under his stand. The gold clinked into my bag.
Suddenly, I heard a voice across the market. “Hold him, don’t let him go!”
“Hey, Trayn, what’s going on?” I asked the dwarf. “Why is the city guard so antsy? Are they looking for someone?”
“Yes,” he answered, tenderly caressing his goodies. “Last night, some goon broke into Locket’s house—the keeper of the library. The little runt says he was able to subdue the intruder, but not before he made off with all Locket’s valuables and deflowered his fiancée. Apparently, she’s even pregnant now. Bunch of nonsense…”
“That’s for sure,” I said thoughtfully. “What will they do to the guy if they catch him? The goon, I mean.”
“What will they do?” The dwarf pulled himself away from his valuables and looked at me intently. “Hard labor in the Sumaki Mountains. Or they’ll make him join the volunteers in the Keshank Jungle. Plus, everything he has will be split between Locket and his deflowered fiancée.”
“Where is Keshank?” I asked cautiously. Even the name was unpleasant.
“Keshank?” Trayn stroked his beard. “It’s in the South. A brutal place: clouds of insects, droves of snakes, more wild savages than you can shake a fist at, and everything is either poisonous or aggressive.”
“And what are the volunteers?” I asked, having never heard of them.
“Condemned men,” explained the dwarf. “That’s where they send criminals. If they catch this guy, it’s either hard labor or the volunteers. You have to sign up for it, apparently, but that’s a bunch of lies. Who would go there of their own free will? So, I wouldn’t stick around if I were the guy. That little winged wretch doesn’t think twice about slandering humans or dwarves. And since everyone around here knows him, he has witnesses, and the poor guy he’s after doesn’t have anyone to stick up for him, the chances of justice actually happening are slim to none.”
The dwarf looked at me meaningfully.
Well, then. I’d asked the locals about the Old Gods. I’d scouted out some new information. It was time to move on before they had me wielding a pick in the Sumaki Mountains, a place I hadn’t even heard of before that.
“Trayn, it was nice meeting you.” I hurriedly shook the dwarf’s hand.
“You, too. If you’re ever around here again, stop by,” he said sincerely.
And, why so sincerely? I’d been very beneficial to him and shown myself to be quite capable at the same time.
I checked with him to see where the port master was and quickly set off in that direction. My time was running out. It was a miracle I hadn’t already been stopped.
The port master in that particular city was nothing like old Neils. He was a soft-spoken, colorless fellow more reminiscent of an accountant than a dashing river dog. I came in to see him sitting at his desk, where he was writing on some papers.
“Where would you like to go?” he asked, his eyes never leaving his parchment.
“Selgar,” I said.
“That will be 30,000 gold,” he said emotionlessly.
“Why so expensive?” I asked, eyes wide. “Is bait more expensive these days?”
“That’s the standard price.” He still hadn’t so much as glanced at me. “It’s a four-day trip to Selgar. If there are cost overruns, you’ll have to pay the captain the extra or leave the ship.”
“Yes, I know all that. But here,” I showed him Neils’ colorless cutlass. “Also, I get special treatment in the cities on the river.”
The port master finally deigned to look up. He checked out Holgerrson’s cutlass and went back to his papers.
“Okay, so the cost for you, taking into account all your discounts, is 19,200 gold. Final price.”
“Absolutely final?”
“Yes. Though, of course, I do have one little problem you can help with. If you do, I can bring the price down a little more.”
He has a “little problem.” Oh, I know what that means; he’ll probably just send me off gallivanting through the woods again. I might have stayed to help the little worm if it weren’t for that damn pixie. He had the whole city in an uproar, and I needed to get out of there as fast as I could.
“I wouldn’t mind, but I just don’t have the time. Maybe later.”
“Then you’ll get the extra discount later as well,” said the colorless guy agreeably. “19,200 gold.”
Come on, that’s everything I got for the assault. I’d be getting to Selgar with empty pockets yet again. Maybe it was worth just walking?
I pulled up my map and realized that walking wasn’t really an option. It would have taken me two, two and a half weeks, and that could have stretched to a month if I died a couple times and tried some quests along the way. That wouldn’t have even been so bad, seeing as how I wasn’t in too much of a hurry, but I had no idea what Locket had been whispering into the city administration’s ear. He could have the guards at all the cities along the way looking for me.
“Well, what’s it going to be?” the expectant port master asked patiently.
“The river it is,” I answered. “I just need to pop over to the hotel for the money.”
Thank my lucky stars, the port and the hotel were practically next door to each other. I did my best James Bond impression as I snuck over to the hotel and back, after which, I paid and sprinted for the pier.
>
“There he is! It’s him!” I heard the voice of my pixie friend, the one I’d never so much as laid a finger on. “Stop him! Don’t let him get away!”
I leaped onto the ship and barked an order to the captain, who I recognized thanks to his peaked cap and pipe.
“Go, go, go! I need to get to Selgar. What do you say? Heave ho! Battle stations, up anchor!”
The captain looked at me, glanced back at the crowd of guards and the pixie flitting back and forth above them, laughed, and turned to his men.
“Crew!” And, you know the rest. The boat eased away from the pier with the guards not ten steps away.
“Arrest him!” screamed Locket as he shook his fist at me.
“Arrest him, arrest him!” I yelled back. “He’s getting away!”
I thumbed my nose at him and sat down next to the bulkhead. It’s true what they say: the only good pixie is a dead pixie.
“Ahem.” The captain came over to where I was and cleared his throat. “I hope you haven’t done anything you should be ashamed of or nervous about? I’m a law-abiding sailor.”
“Well, ashamed, yes, Captain…I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Captain Mariett.”
“I’m only ashamed about one thing, Captain Mariett,” I said with complete sincerity. “I tried to do business with a pixie. That little rat set me up.”
“Not a surprise,” grunted the captain. “Trusting a pixie is the height of folly. Well, not as bad as marrying a vila, but still.”
I decided not to sabotage my standing with the captain any further and nodded silently.
“This is great weather.” The captain glanced skyward. “We should be in Selgar four days from now.”
Off he walked toward the bow of the ship.
“We can only hope,” I said before logging out of the game.
For the next four days, my alter ego would be riding the waves, leaving me with nothing to do in Fayroll. I figured I should check in once in a while to make sure I hadn’t been dumped on the bank of the river like the previous time, but my gut told me I was getting all the way to my destination this time. And, since everything was simple and calm in the virtual world, I was free to address the real world. There were just two and a half days left until Thursday—not that much time.
My underlings were scurrying around the office, and I couldn’t help but notice that there was a method to their madness. I only gave myself partial credit: I’d done a good job naming Vika my assistant, while she’d done a good job getting the other three in line. With a mental note written to figure out how she’d done it and to keep a closer eye on her, I had to admit that she had promise—obviously, from a purely professional point of view. My dad always told me that office romances just lead to problems, and he was right.
“Well, how is everything?” I asked my upstanding team in a tone that was both friendly and businesslike.
“Good.”
“Fine.”
“All right.”
“Slackers,” Vika rounded out the chorus of four, who answered at the same time, if not in unison.
Checking in on each of them gave me a picture of what was going on. There was enough material for the first release, though we didn’t yet have a centerpiece. The boys were lazy, or, at least, they didn’t want to do anything. Vika was tired of ordering them around. The articles I’d assigned were all written, though nobody was sure they were what I was looking for.
And so we got down to work. I checked over their articles, made some corrections, and sent them back to be rewritten. They all shared a common problem: their language was too complex and they used too many terms that were specific to the gaming community. The latter would have put off older generations while the former would have been difficult for younger generations.
“Listen up, guys!” I clapped to grab everyone’s attention. “And you, too, Vika. We’re putting out something that needs to be universal—the ABCs of the game, if you will. Our primary goal is to build popularity, and so, our language needs to be simple and understandable. Some gamers out there might say we’re just putting out fluff or a how-to for noobs, but forget them. Middle-aged and older people will stick with us, and that’s what’s important. I hope you understand why they’re our target audience?”
“They’re the ones with money, unlike most teens,” said Vika.
“Bingo.” I nodded. “That’s reason number one why they’re who we’re after.”
“And the centerpiece?” asked Samoshnikov sullenly. “We need, I don’t know, something…something people really need.”
“You should know,” I answered. “Or, at least, you should have some options. You could have brainstormed to come up with ideas, even if they were ridiculous—Vika, that’s on you.”
“Agreed,” said Vika. “I’ll remember next time.”
“Good. Anyway, we have a centerpiece.”
Four pairs of eyes stared at me.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” I smiled, walked over to my computer, pulled up my email, found the map Diana had sent me, and opened it. “There you go.”
“But that’s a map of Fayroll,” mumbled Samoshnikov.
“Exactly.”
“But everyone can see it in the game.” His surprise continued to grow.
“Sure, in the game,” I said in agreement. “But now imagine: a big, beautiful spread in full color. It won’t do anyone much good, but it will look fantastic! Everyone will love it.”
“For sure,” said Vika. “It’ll look great.”
“Definitely.” Yushkov’s nose nodded.
“Well, now that the main dish is out of the way, let’s start working on the appetizers,” I said.
Off we went. The guys rewrote their essays, Vika collected all the news Di was sending her from the four corners of Fayroll into a stack, and I started punching out an editorial. Everyone had something to do.
Two days went by, packed to the gills with work and preciously little sleep, until we had the first Fayroll Times in our hands that Thursday.
I wouldn’t say it was perfect. There were problems I could see as I looked over the final version, and Mammoth wasn’t exactly sincere in his praise. “Nice work, old boy. Nice work. Well done.” But that was all right—there’s always room for improvement, and I knew how to get there.
“Well done, troops,” I said. “Samoshnikov, Yushkov, here’s some money, head over to the store on the corner. I don’t usually drink with my employees, but this is a special occasion. We’ll toast our success!”
“Vodka or cognac?” Yushkov was licking his lips.
“And champagne,” I answered. “I doubt Vika will want cognac.”
“No champagne!” Vika crossed herself and blushed. “I had enough at our graduation party to last me for a while. Better some white wine. Semi-dry.”
The guys had obviously spent their years of study well, as their experience buying alcohol had them back in no time with two bags that more clinked than rustled. We had barely slept in two days, and we’d eaten even less, so the end of Thursday and the beginning of Friday melted into one long string of interrupted vignettes: us drinking, us drinking more, us dancing, us waving the paper around, Vika telling everyone it was time to go home, Yushkov catching us a cab—literally, as he did his best to hang onto the back bumper—and then…that’s all I remember.
Then I woke up…
From the first edition of the Fayroll Times:
From the editor,
…our publication has one goal: we want to make the Fayroll world, one of unbridled imagination and unlimited possibility, closer to each of you, our dear readers.
Classes: which one is right for you? Mages, Part 1.
This is a great class for anyone who wants to play the role. Mages are common to all RPG games from all different eras, even including back when games were still isometric. There is a wide selection of ways you can play them, as they have enormous potential.
Excerpts from the Fayroll
Chronicle.
The Hounds of Death, with the assistance of the Thunderbirds, stormed and captured the citadel of the Wild Hearts in a routing of the once-influential clan. Read more about the attack in the second edition of the Fayroll Times.
Hew Orcs, My Axe tried once again to capture the palace of the Skeleton King in Merastia. Yet again, they failed. The trip across the Crisna was highlighted by an entertaining episode: two dwarves in a boat argued so vehemently about who would be the first to hop off on the other side that they capsized. One of them was taken onboard a neighboring craft, while the other, whose name was Partavi, drowned. Given the fact that his death occurred right in the middle of the Great River, it is considered highly unlikely that his possessions are recoverable from the riverbed. The victim was especially grieved by the loss of a bone plate attached to the seat of his pants, claiming it was what gave him the strength to continue the battle against evil.
A new restaurant opened in Montrig, and the owners, intriguingly, are players. They named it the ?ixed Breed and serve a combination of elvish and dwarven cuisine. “Our recipes have all gone through years of testing, and are therefore completely unique,” said one of them.
Another flotilla set sail for Rivenholm. This time it was made up of ships from the Doors of Light, Double Eagles, and Wind of Fortune. We will keep close tabs on the intrepid explorers and keep you filled in on all their successes and failures.
Chapter Fifteen
In which our hero both realizes that he has problems and successfully resolves them.
Oh, God. It felt like two sneaky little chipmunks wearing colorful shirts had snuck into my head, where they were banging on my brain with their little claws—one from the right and the other from the left. Bang-bang-bang. Bang-bang-bang.
I had to tame the rolling thunder in my head long enough to make a decision. Did I want to lay there and suffer a little while longer in the hopes that the pain would subside or did I want to force myself to crawl to the kitchen? Once there, I had two old friends in the form of cold, refreshing water and aspirin tablets.
The more practical alternative eventually won out, and I yanked my upper body into a sitting position. The two chipmunks in my head were joined by some mice that ran around a bit lower, adding a drumming in my ears to the cacophony. I had to do something, so I slid my shaking legs onto the floor and tried to stand up.
The Road East (Epic LitRPG Adventure - Book 2) (Fayroll) Page 18
