by Rue Vespers
Without saying thank you for the information, Phoenix threw open the door and charged into the road. “Get out of my way!” he screeched at a vendor with a drum of fruit.
One-Eyed Sue moaned and looked back to Jenner. “It’s always wizards, you know?”
“I don’t know,” Jenner admitted.
“Now you do.” She rolled her eye. “It’s always wizards. Always. I get loads of them every day having meltdowns in here. The higher up they were as a wizard, the bigger the meltdown as a human. I wonder what level he was.”
Jenner knew the answer. “He told me upstairs that he was a Level 20 high wizard and died from being used as raid bait.”
She cackled at that. “Beautiful. Just beautiful. They all get too big for their britches once they hit Level 15 or 16 or so. Just like teenagers. They think they’re invincible, so they hire themselves out for dragon raids or demon raids or dungeon raids that are too hard for them and end up here. Well, if you’d like a map, son, head over to Treasure Chest. It’s a brothel. The troll’s name is Dan and he’s a total gentleman, very intelligent. Don’t swear at him or smack him, be polite as polite can be and he’ll give you what you need. And you get three nights free at The Queen’s Crown. Every night after that, there’s a three-pence charge.”
Jenner had a scant five pennies right now, and he was going to spend some of them on food. Once he had the map, he needed to make money. Fast. If only Scrambled Lives had unicorns wandering around at random to fart gold.
More footsteps clattered down the stairs.
The angry woman from the second floor stalked over to the counter and slapped it imperiously. “I need directions to Verelayne at once!”
“Vere-what?” One-Eyed Sue asked with deliberate stupidity.
“My wizarding stronghold, House Verelayne, you half-blind human waste of code! I’m a wizard, or I should be, and I need to get back to my guild!”
“What’s a wizard? Wiz-ard? Is that how you pronounce it? I’m new around here.”
“Thank you,” Jenner called as One-Eyed Sue happily antagonized another former wizard. She waved the pipe at him in return, and he showed himself out the door.
Congrats! You have made it to Road of Royals! Visit Dan the Troll to acquire your map.
This muddy, disgusting road was called Road of Royals? It certainly fit with the shabby inn called The Queen’s Crown behind him. He started across the street, spying a Treasure Chest sign beside the door where the grayish-green creature with the black apron had emerged. So that was a troll.
“Beef! Get your beef!”
His stomach would wait no longer, rumbling ominously and clenching around its hollowness. Jenner stopped a vendor and exchanged a penny for two sticks of blackened beef. Then he ate them as he wended his way through the heavy traffic. The meat was rich and good. As good as in the outer-world? He didn’t know.
There were no trashcans and the mud was littered with sticks, so he dropped them as the door to the brothel was yanked open. Now it was Phoenix turning a vivid purple in the mighty fist of Dan the Troll, who bellowed, “Never darken this door again!” He hurled Phoenix into the mud puddle and returned inside.
Phoenix scrambled up and stalked away, pushing and shoving people with muck raining off his clothing. They pushed back, cursing at him to watch where he was going, and the last Jenner heard from Phoenix was his upraised voice amongst the crowds. “No, you watch it, dammit! I’m a Level 20 high wizard!”
“Not anymore!” dozens of voices brayed, laughter rippling up the street, and Jenner entered the brothel.
Chapter Four
The brothel wasn’t much finer than the inn, but some efforts had been taken to jazz it up a little. Crimson sheets hung over the walls, sensually rumpled; the tables were rickety but each place setting was adorned in a crisp paper mat. Scantily clad men and women were sprawled upon sectional couches in the corners to await clients. Their eyes went up and down Jenner and left him quickly: he looked like what he was, a Level 1 human player with a few pennies in his pocket. Rhythmic squeaking and lusty moans filled the air from overhead.
Dan the Troll was blocking the staircase across the room. Staring sternly down to a man with a prostitute on his arm, he boomed, “She is a lady, do you understand? A very fine lady. If you don’t treat her like a lady, we’re going to have a problem. If you pay for her front door but take a dive for her back door, acting like this is Booty Looter instead of Treasure Chest, we’re going to have a problem. If you try to sneak out of here without giving this lady what she’s due, we’re going to have a problem.”
“No problems, sir,” the guy squeaked. “No problems at all, sir.”
“Then you two have a nice time,” Dan the Troll said, stepping aside. The prostitute threw the troll a wink and headed upstairs with her client.
Jenner cut through the tables as Dan the Troll went to the bar. Picking up a small white stick, the troll drew a line on a chalkboard positioned between shelves packed with bottles of alcohol. Tally marks covered half of the board.
“Please excuse me for interrupting you at work, Dan,” Jenner said politely. He didn’t want to get thrown into that mud puddle. “My name is Jenner. I’m new here. One-Eyed Sue said I should see you for a map.”
“Well, of course you can have a map, young Jenner,” the gigantic troll said placidly, his big grayish-green ears twitching. There wasn’t a hair on his head, and his small black eyes were shadowed beneath a very pronounced brow. His jagged teeth looked extremely sharp.
The troll bent down with a huff and straightened with a folded parchment in his claws. Setting it down gently upon the bar, he said, “Unfold the parchment and put your hand flat against it. Your touch will create the map you need. It should take just a few minutes. Would you care for a drink? A meal? I can give you a menu.”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” Jenner unfolded it as bidden. The moment he touched the nubby parchment, black lines sprawled out in every direction.
The troll contemplated the chalkboard with a bemused expression.
“May I ask what the tally is for?” Jenner inquired.
“It’s how many people he throws in a day,” a prostitute volunteered, leaning against the counter beside Jenner. “He likes to keep count. The record is one hundred and seventy in the height of the dragon-wizard wars. Could I get a sewing kit, Dan? I’m dribbling beads everywhere.”
Her outfit was nothing but see-through mesh and colorful, strategically placed patches of beads, one of which popped off her bodice and rolled across the counter. Jenner slammed his free palm down upon the red bead before it fell off the side. He passed it back to the woman.
Dan the Troll likes your manners. Your reputation has increased to-
Jenner’s eyes flicked away in disinterest, the blocks disappearing at once. This game was learning him. When it came to his reputation, he didn’t care at all.
Dan the Troll looked bashful as he gave over the sewing kit. “I was struck with a spell from a malfunctioning wand in a raid some time ago. Back then, I was a simple swamp troll. The spell drastically increased my intelligence and speaking ability. But you see . . .” He spread his massive hands in a pleading gesture to Jenner. “In some ways, I am still a troll. Yes, you have very understanding eyes. The innkeepers along this block send me their . . . ah . . . how to phrase this delicately, my young friend? They send their obstreperous guests to me.”
“To call you a little bitch, pick a fight, and act a fool so you have an excuse to throw someone!” a male prostitute called from a sofa. “It never gets old for him.”
Could a troll blush? Dan the Troll’s cheeks were turning from grayish-green to bright blue. “It is always the guests from One-Eyed Sue who use the most . . . let’s call it . . . colorful language. But she is a kind lady,” he added hastily, lest Jenner assume that Dan the Troll thought any less of her for her foul mouth.
Jenner glanced down to his parchment. It was still busily mapping. The black lines grew ever outwards,
drawing roads and rivers and mountains, spelling out names. “Do you still go on raids since that spell?” he asked the troll.
“Oh, now and then.” Dan the Troll swiped a rag from the pocket of his apron to polish a spot from a cup. “But I’m not what a raiding party is seeking in a troll, am I? You hire a troll to provide thoughtless brute force and muscle. They are not accustomed to trolls being picky or ethical with their assignments, or having opinions on battle strategy, or demanding to share an equal portion of the loot. Trolls can’t count very high, you see, let alone perform more complicated mathematical calculations like division. Unless they have acquired a handy friend to count for them, they will believe twenty gold coins are fifty, and fifty are one hundred. I am afraid I have made a bad name for myself among many guilds for multiple reasons.”
“You sound like you’ve been here for a long time,” Jenner said.
“Since Opening Day!” Dan the Troll said proudly. “I was human first, scrambled to a succession of shifters, scrambled to sea monster, scrambled to human again, scrambled to incubus and vampire and a few other things and then scrambled to troll three times straight and counting. Oh, but sometimes I miss my sea monster days! It was great fun tipping ships, much more fun than anything I accomplished in the gladiator rings as a human or shifter.”
“Do you have any advice for a new player?”
Inspecting the cup in the light, which was emanating from strangely glowing glass lamps all around the room, the troll was satisfied that it was clean. He set it down and rubbed his rag over the counter vigorously. “That depends on the player. I find a cautious approach is better in Scrambled Lives, most especially when you are human. Some players die again and again because they bite off more than they can chew. Have you ever gone skiing?”
“I . . .” Jenner consulted his scraps of memories. He knew what skiing was, dimly, but not whether he had ever partaken in the sport. “I don’t know.”
“When you are a beginner, you stick to the bunny slopes. The easy ones. To get your footing, as it were. You don’t jump ahead to the most advanced course on the most treacherous mountain. Talvenor is no different. Move up a few levels, gain some skills and weapons and allies, get to know this world. The game will find you. Wherever you are, whoever you are, it will pull you in. If you want it to, that is. Don’t worry about that.”
“You don’t need another bouncer here, do you?” Jenner had to earn money, and working around pretty women in skimpy clothes didn’t seem like a hardship to him.
Dan the Troll chuckled as the door banged open. “Take yourself down to the dock and get into the scuttle pen. They’re always looking for laborers.”
That sounded awful, just awful, but Jenner thought that he should trust someone who had been in this game since it hit the market. The game will find you. He wouldn’t have to do laborer work permanently, just scare up enough cash so he wasn’t hungry and sleeping on the streets. Maybe he could save up for better clothes while he was at it. This ghastly pair of underwear he had on was making him itch in places it wasn’t decent to scratch in public.
The person who had slammed into the brothel wasn’t here for a meal or sexy time. It was the former wizard woman from The Queen’s Crown. She flounced over to the bar and jostled Jenner’s shoulder so hard that he nearly lost his hold on the map.
“See here, you stupid little bitch!” she roared over the counter to Dan the Troll. “You’re going to give me a map on the double! Do you understand me, Mr. Troll? A map. A MAP. MAP, you mindless, limp-dicked lump! I can’t believe I have to speak to a goddamned troll!”
A dangerous glint appeared in the troll’s beady black eyes. His ears twitched violently. As he reached over the counter to seize her, Jenner’s hand warmed upon the map. It was complete.
Congrats! You have added a map of Talvenor to your inventory! Tap your finger once to zoom in and twice to zoom out. The blinking dot is your current position.
Talvenor.
The blinking dot was positioned on the far west side of the sprawling city of Galadras. The sea was called the Ends, fitting since it flowed to the edges of the parchment. Like the dragon penny, this map was mobile. The black lines of the water rippled and surged, falling back as a string of five islands pushed forth only to sink again beneath the waves. Those were called the Fortune Islands.
He zoomed in and out upon the blinking dot within the city. This particular area was called the Rundown, and the Road of Royals extended clear across Galadras, where it terminated at the Palace of Light. Curiously, parts of the city were blurred no matter how he adjusted his view. Perhaps they were magical areas, which he did not have access to as a human, or else they were reserved for people playing at higher levels.
Zooming out, he scanned the rest of the country. Innumerable towns and small cities filled the swaths of forest to the north and east, both sides framed by mountains. To the south was desert, wisps of wind swirling over dunes and the occasional oasis.
Dan the Troll returned to the bar without the former wizard and made another line on his chalkboard. “My, my, my!” he mused in delight. “Fifty-three and it’s still morning! I might break my record. There must be lots of raids going on today around the world. I’ve hurled so many people into that puddle that it’s nearly evaporated.”
Jenner folded the map, which promptly vanished into his inventory. “I wonder how many were wizards.”
“At least two-thirds identified as such. I hope this doesn’t herald another big war.” Dan the Troll’s mood turned fretful. “I just got those lovely curtains hung upstairs.”
The steady moans and squeaking had not stopped once in all this time, and Jenner’s body was reacting to it. He couldn’t afford sex right now, and cast about for a distraction. Any distraction. “Do wars happen frequently, Dan?”
“Little wars happen on the daily. As for the big ones, too often for my liking, but they can’t help themselves, can they? The wizarding and demon and shifter Houses do love to vex one another, the humans too, and the demon species always have a ridiculous plot afoot that’s doomed to fail. Foolish creatures when they work in a group. But they still try.” Dan the Troll looked fond at their vain efforts. “Now, you run along, my fine friend, and don’t step out of that scuttle pen for anyone offering you less than ten pence for a day’s work!”
“Thank you,” Jenner said, and he was off.
Chapter Five
Reaching the dock took ten times as long as it should have because he was staring into each and every window along the way in amazement. Suits of armor stood behind glass, shining and intimidating; weapons gleamed behind iron bars put up to prevent theft. There were clothing stores and gambling dens and taverns aplenty, pawn shops and jewelers and even a place that sold wands.
Jenner stood at that window for quite some time, listening to people as they went in and out of the store. He had first assumed that wands were reserved for wizards alone, but within the store was a small section of wands that could be used by anyone. Spells were pre-loaded inside.
Though they were simple spells, the wands were terribly expensive. Jenner’s pennies wouldn’t buy him a microscopic splinter of a wand. He needed gold. Lots of gold. Signs around the display warned that non-wizard customers were limited to one wand purchase per visit, and that these wands could only hold a tiny number of those pre-loaded spells. Once those ran out, the player was left holding a useless stick of wood.
But Jenner would be able to do magic. A little. He wanted a wand!
Giving them one more wistful look, he moved on. Next to the wand shop was an apothecary. Smelly smoke gushed out of the open door, but nobody seemed to be excited or concerned about this so it was normal. In the gray haze within were figures clustered around a set of scales at the counter. Towering shelving units around the shop were laden with bottles of potions, heavy tomes, and baskets full of strange items. The prices were nearly as bad as in the wand shop. Signs were posted upon many of the shelves, stating no demonic potions or ot
her demonic products were sold in this establishment.
A fresh blast of smoke belched out to the road, reeking so badly that Jenner breathed through his mouth as he walked on. Coming to another brothel, almost nude women smiled and shimmied in the upper floor windows to entice people inside. Just like at Treasure Chest, their gaze went past Jenner to better dressed players.
The last store on the block was an artifact exchange, according to the sign over the closed door. Dark curtains covered the lone window. Standing upon the stoop was a hard-faced man in a leather jerkin, his hand on the hilt of the scabbarded sword upon his hip. A security guard.
“What’s this place sell?” Jenner asked.
The man gave him an appraising look. “You find something out there that you can’t use, something meant for another kind, you bring it here and trade it for something you can use. Safer than trying to sell it on your own as a human.”
“What’s something I can use?”
The fellow looked away with a sigh. “You must be new.”
Jenner bristled quietly and stayed put.
Looking back, the man sighed again to find Jenner still there. “Artifacts grant abilities,” he grunted.
Like the ability to answer questions? This guy needed one of those.
There was a profound weariness in the security guard’s tone when he went on, as if he answered the same question all day long. Maybe he did, but not to the same person, and Jenner needed this information. “For a wizard, an artifact might be a stone tablet engraved with a new spell. An ancient wand with a self-renewing core of unfathomable power; or a ring that allows them to control another player. Today we got a Ruidas bow, that’s an enchanted bow for elven kind, and it shoots arrows that can’t miss. Yesterday, it was a special rod for a dwarf that leads them to gold, and a few things for shifters and vampires. All of it would be worthless to you.”
