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by Ryan Rimmel


  “They live better here than they would in HarCharles’ kingdom,” she said directly. “What did you expect, a magical village where everyone had their own homes and barns? We aren’t in Grebthar’s land. This is the real world.” Julia said that with some conviction, as if daring me to challenge her.

  I didn’t say anything else on the matter. I decided to use Remote Administration to check in with Mar. I wanted to make sure Windfall’s farmers all had decent housing and barns. It turned out that I didn’t need to.

  “I already did that,” said Mar. “Blots thought it was a waste of resources, but I knew you’d want to make sure your people were protected.”

  I thought about that. I was devoting resources to people who were farming in generally mild climates. The town really needed to concentrate on more important matters, like killing Charles. I put oversupplied farmers out of my mind, for now. The current farmers could have their luxuries, but I’d have to cut back in the future.

  Was O’Really even suited to be mayor? Having a base of operations was useful, but being mayor meant concerning myself with a bunch of little problems that didn’t do anything for my primary quest: Killing Charles. I might have to resign as the mayor of Windfall and do all that leveling up Shart wanted me to.

  “Yes,” hissed Shart, “Give in to your dark side. Use your anger, fear, and aggression.”

  “Dude, that’s kind of evil,” I replied.

  “I’m just telling you what you are already thinking about doing, O’Really,” replied Shart. “I’m being supportive.”

  I didn’t say anything to that. The little shit couldn’t lie.

  “Boat,” Julia smiled. It was a small fishing boat, the sort of thing that only fit one or two people. I searched the shoreline and spotted a few shapes that could only be buildings through the trees.

  “Well, what’s the plan?” I asked. “You wouldn’t let me steal any clothes.” My secondary reason for circling that hamlet had been to steal clothes. I would have gotten away with it, too, except for the pesky princess.

  “Well, I’m sure there is a temple in town. I’ll perform temple duties for a few silver. You can do whatever it is you do, and we’ll meet up after the second bell to figure out a strategy.”

  “Make a bit of money and see how it goes?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Aren’t there any monsters to kill out here?” I asked, looking around.

  “Nope,” said Shart, “This area is pretty much tamed.”

  “In the heartlands of Falcon? Hardly,” harrumphed Julia.

  “We are in rags,” I said.

  “I am a Zealot, so I can get in anyway. I’ll just tell them it's part of my Cause,” stated Julia.

  “I thought you hated temples,” I said.

  “I do, but I like sleeping in beds more than I hate temples. I’m willing to compromise,” she said.

  “Are you really going to walk around town in that,” I gestured. Julia’s current outfit was mostly made of fur scraps and left nothing to the imagination. It was typically the high point of walking with her, given how boring the local area was. Of course, my own attire wasn’t much better.

  “I’ve got nothing to worry about,” she grinned lasciviously. “Besides, I’m sure they will give me clothes.”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “I don’t think there is a temple to Logan there,” she replied with a small smile. “You are screwed. I’ll see if I can find you something, though. We can split whatever we make and get more supplies.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” I said.

  “Well, I am a princess. I know how to act in a town. I’m just hoping I don’t have to bail you out of jail,” she said with a shrug.

  We continued on in companionable silence. We passed some very non-noteworthy trees and some very forgettable bushes. We were within a couple miles of the town when we passed another hamlet. “I’ll meet you in the town. I’m going to see if they have any work.” I lied, gesturing toward the hamlet. Julia frowned at me.

  “No stealing,” she said before marching toward the town, her dignity and pride intact.

  “I say we steal everything,” stated Shart.

  “Do you think they have anything worth stealing?” I replied.

  “First off, loving the new you,” smiled Shart. “Second off, no. The most valuable thing they have is a large pile of garbage.”

  The hamlet didn’t even merit having a name. It was basically where the serfs lived to tend their farms. My Administration skill kicked off, flagging the poorly laid out farms and low efficiency of the area. It wasn’t my problem, though, so I snuck into what was intended to be the front gate. Compared to the dungeon, or even the goblins, sneaking into a small hamlet full of unmotivated serfs was trivial work.

  “So, you going to steal clothes?” asked Shart, as I crept through the heart of the hamlet. I figured if I could get past the main fortification, everything else would be easy. They had a wooden stockade up, but no guards.

  “No, I have a simpler idea,” I stated. Getting in between the huts, I found several people doing their washing. I was surprised to see that the washers were almost exclusively women. In Windfall, most tasks I commonly associated with gender were pretty fluid. There was no strength difference between men and women on Ordinal. Men tended to be taller, which did grant a slight boost in effective Strength, but it was an accepted fact that men and women were equal in terms of physicality. If a six-foot-tall man and a six foot, two inches tall woman with identical Strength stats got into a tug of war, the taller person would win, due to leverage.

  However, washing wasn’t why I was here. After a quick search, I found what I wanted. Shart had, of course, been telling the truth. The hamlet’s most significant treasure was its trash heap. Even the garbage pile was disappointing, as far as piles of garbage went. It was nothing like Windfall’s. Windfall’s garbage was top notch, grade A refuse. Still, there was enough stuff that I could make use of my Salvage skill.

  Armed with my knife and a slightly improved hiding spot, I got to work. Within twenty minutes, I had crafted a few items. Now, I was ready for the next stage of my plan.

  “Hey, neighbor,” I called from my hiding spot behind a very pregnant young woman’s house. I had Wilson’ed myself, hiding all but the top of my head from her vision. She found me quickly enough, and her eyes narrowed.

  “You aren’t any neighbor of mine,” she said, stepping toward her door. I could tell she had not entirely made up her mind about what she was going to do.

  “I need clothes, and I’m willing to trade this for them,” I said, putting a train on her wobbly fence. She looked like she was about to scream when I mentioned clothes, but the toy diverted her attention. She stared at the train in wonder. It was just like the ones I’d made for Badger’s Night, the ones that HankAlvin assured me were worth several gold coins.

  “What clothes?” she asked, eyeing her own outfit suspiciously.

  “No, your husband’s clothes. Just a shirt and some pants,” I said.

  She stared at the train. “That’s his good set. He’d be furious at me for giving it away for a toy.”

  “You can sell the toy,” I said. The expectant mother deflated slightly. Some part of her had wanted to give the toy to her new child, I was sure. Well, she was in luck, because I didn’t have time to waste on this. I pulled out a second train.

  “This is my last one,” I said. “I’ll give you both toys for a shirt and pants. You can sell one and keep the other.”

  I left the village after getting dressed. The clothes were acceptable, especially considering that I wasn’t wandering around with my junk flapping under a loincloth anymore. That young woman had lucked out. She was going to make several gold coins on our deal, and I doubted these clothes would have cost me more than a few silver.

  Reaching the village was a breeze. I encountered no enemies and no excitement whatsoever.

  “So, this is what we are wast
ing our time on right now,” stated Shart, as I walked on my merry little way.

  “I’m not brimming with options here. If there were monsters, I would fight them. As it sits, I need gold,” I said. “I don’t suppose you can just pull some out of your rosy, red rump?”

  “Fine, but seriously, this is pointless. You need to be training your skills,” argued the demon. I opened my mouth to say something, but he viciously cut me off. “Not toy making!”

  “It's a noble profession,” I said, offended.

  “I hate it when you do this crap,” replied the demon.

  Walking past the temple in town, I spotted Julia on her knees in a frumpy dress. It looked like she was washing the floor. Princess or not, she was willing to work when it was required. I couldn’t do any less. Besides, I was hungry.

  My Administration skill allowed me to find the Town Hall quickly enough. I promptly got a job sweeping up garbage that paid a few copper. In less than two hours, I’d earned enough copper to buy a market license for selling small, handcrafted items in the town marketplace.

  “And what is this?” asked the tallish man who was carefully examining my wares.

  “It's called a train. It’s the last one I have,” I said piteously.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he replied. “I’ll pay you fifty silver for it.”

  “I need to sell it for two gold to feed my starving family,” I replied.

  He considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “I’ll give you one gold, nothing more.”

  ● Merchant skill check, successful: You have found his highest price.

  “Well, okay,” I said sadly. The man grinned before snatching it up. I pocketed the gold as he wandered away, whistling about his great deal. I sighed as he rounded the corner, reached into my pocket, pulled out another train, and sat it on my small table.

  “One of a kind item, last one I have!” I barked.

  ***

  Julia groaned, rubbing her knees as the town bell started to peel. Despite several healing spells, her legs still felt abused. “Those jerks didn’t even give me proper supplies,” she grumped, but she had earned twenty silver. Her healing skills were not of much use in a temple of Grebthar, which was full of healers. Instead, the elders had her scrub floors. Once she had finished, they promptly took twelve of her twenty silver right back, to pay for the frumpy clothes she did not even want. Julia tried to ask for her old furs back, but they had been burned. She was left with nothing but sore knees, ugly clothes, and eight silver. The cheapest inn in town cost thirty silver a night.

  This never happened in the stories, the heroine always got just what she needed from the church before continuing her adventure. Julia sighed. She hadn’t really expected that to happen, but she hoped that maybe she would get a pleasant surprise for once.

  Maybe Not O’Really would surprise her, though. Not was obviously a fake name. Using a phony name wasn’t a bad idea when people like those adventurers were chasing you. Julia had gone by Angela in the temple. It was perhaps not the most creative, but Angela was such a common name that she should be able to pass without notice. Her Disguise skill was just high enough for her to get away with it. Hopefully.

  Since she didn’t have even close to enough coin to get a room, Julia bought two meat pies from a vendor at the front of the temple. She was starving after all that work. If she was being honest, she was also anxious to eat something not prepared with her mediocre Cooking skills. Careful of her sore legs, she gingerly set on the steps to wait for her traveling companion and admired the sights. An attractive man smiled broadly at her and started walking over.

  ***

  I wandered right up to Julia before she recognized me. I was wearing new traveling clothes and smelled of cigar smoke.

  “Oh, is that pie for me?” I asked, grabbing the second meat pie out of her startled hand and chowing down on it.

  “I have five silver,” Julia said dumbly.

  “Good, we both made some money then,” I replied

  Julia sighed and looked around. Lowering her voice, she asked, “Did you steal?”

  “Perish the thought,” I ribbed, looking mildly affronted. “I just crafted a few high-value items.”

  Julia adopted a look my wife had whenever she knew I’d done something improper but lacked sufficient evidence to call me on it. I gave Julia a look like butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth as she ran through her options. Finally, she frowned, unable to determine what I’d done wrong but keenly knowing I was guilty of something.

  She would eventually figure it out, and until then I would be in trouble.

  “I’ll try to get the silver broken into copper,” Julia began.

  “No worries, here is your half,” I stated, discreetly dropping five gold coins into her palm.

  Julia tried not to stare at the coin and failed. She was smart enough to know the problem instantly. This poor town was not big enough to allow a stranger earning five gold to escape notice. Never mind the fact that I’d only given her about half the money I earned.

  “I had some silver too, but I used it to get us a room in the inn by the pier. We can leave town tomorrow morning, as soon as my new gear is ready. If you hurry, you might be able to get some supplies as well,” I said.

  The Inn was a quick jaunt away. The town was a large village, according to my Administration skill, and was not built on the same scale as Windfall. I was rapidly recognizing that Windfall would be a mid-sized City if we actually had the population for it.

  She had gotten considerably less chatty as we walked over to the inn. When she saw the guards, and the security precautions she finally broke down.

  “How did you earn so much gold?” she asked.

  “I can be quite crafty when I need to be,” I replied, handing her the oddly shaped tile that served as the key to our room.

  I shrugged and left her in the common room. Her fists were clamped at her side and she was quite obviously counting to herself as I walked to the cigar lounge and dropped 10 silver on a particularly good smelling one. I could tell she wanted to scream at me if the money was stolen, but I’d already told her it wasn’t. Waving at her, I left the inn and started to wander.

  Chuckling to myself, I puffed gently on my cigar as I strolled down the pier by the inn. I took a short moment to look at all the fishing boats. The sun was down now, and, while I wasn’t concerned about thugs, I’d prefer any mischief happen here than in my supposedly secure room at the inn.

  I had earned ten gold, but I made it very obvious that I spent most of it locally. I was hoping the area’s cutthroats would get the hint, but I hadn’t been confident of that at the inn and I was less confident now. I really wanted to get a decent night’s sleep on a bed, so I was going to have to resolve that problem.

  I spent most of my money at the local Blacksmith. His shop was just off the pier, presumably to reduce the risk of fires. While he was not a specialized sword smith, he knew his craft and had offered to make me a perfectly serviceable sword. I would have preferred to have HankAlvin do it, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. What had sealed the deal was that he promised it would be ready first thing tomorrow morning.

  Cutting through the only alley I could find, I activated Stealth and waited. A man cautiously stepped past me, searching very carefully as he did. I tossed a rock at the far wall, causing the thug to turn and face it. When he did, I slammed my other stone on the back of his skull, knocking him out cold.

  “Seriously,” I grumbled to Shart, “That’s the third one. You’d figure they would get the hint.” I glanced at the man for a second before turning away. He was at least bigger than the other ones had been. He also had a skill that blocked his identity from displaying. I wanted to investigate that, but the local reeve was walking toward me. The thug had not gone down silently, and I wasn’t sure that the local thieves’ guild wasn’t bribing the reeve.

  Grumbling, I left the alley. I decided to head back to the inn, confident that I’d finally shaken
all my pursuers.

  “We are positive that no one else is looking for us, right?” I asked Shart, as I briskly walked toward our lodging.

  “Sure,” replied the demon. He did not sound nearly as confident as I would have liked.

  “You can’t figure out if someone is following us?” I asked.

  “There are over four hundred meat bags in that village. I don’t have time to even glance at the log before the entire thing is updated. My best guess is probably not,” stated Shart.

  Shart in Limbo was next to useless right now, as far as I was concerned. He had different access to the in Limbo, not better access. His different access was fecking useless if we were in a town. The just threw so much data at him that it was impossible to filter it down to a practical level. If we were in the woods, he could have found nearby adventurers. In town, he was forced to make massive guesses. I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with that.

  The Oak and Boar was large and impressive, as far as inns in this town went. Now that Julia wasn’t giving me the side eye, I took a moment to appreciate the structure. The inn was three stories tall and mostly built from local wood. The place was clean, and the kitchen smelled good. It cost seventy silver a night, if you knew how to ask, and my Merchant skill had been up to the task. I’d only gotten one room, but that room was what an American would call a suite. It had a smaller, attached sitting room and a couch.

  I was going to have to sleep on that couch. Hopefully, it was somewhat comfortable.

  The other reason I had chosen the place were the two burly men standing guard at the door. They both eyed me, until I held up the small tile I had been told not to lose. Without it, I wouldn’t be allowed in after dark. One guard still stood rigid, but the other gave a barely perceptible nod. I walked in.

  Strolling past the kitchen, I picked up another parcel of food for a late-night snack. I also took a moment to warm my hands at the massive fire pit in the middle of the room. From there, I walked up the stairs to the balcony over the common room. The structure had a gigantic common room in the middle, with all three floors’ rooms for rent circling it. If the place had been less classy, the echoing sounds from the rooms would have been overwhelming. As it was, the common room had multiple people sitting around reading or murmuring to each other. As I got to the stairwell to the second floor, the sound died out significantly. I used my Arcane Lore skill and figured out that some sort of sound warding spell dampened the noise.

 

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