We move along at a good clip.
I see a few fishing boats out at sea and I wonder briefly whatever happened to Walrus Man and Scar Cheek, the two fishermen who provided my passage to Stater. This gets me thinking of coincidence and circumstance, and what Governor Talonas would have done if I hadn’t shown up to do his dirty work.
There’s no telling.
“Faster, Wolf!” I shout as Sam Raid’s image comes to me. My heart tells me I’ll see her again, but my brain knows that my heart, like that of most humans, is easy to sway under the right conditions.
Maybe I won’t see her; maybe our one night together was the final thrill of our relationship.
Who knows?
Some burn bush catches my eye and I tell Wolf to slow down. I take one of my throwing knives out and cut at the bush, stacking it until I have several bundles’ worth.
This gives me an idea. I pull up my herb inventory and give it a quick scroll:
Mandrake Flower (6)
Sunset Root (1)
Jatla Root (1)
Wizardous (1)
Karuna Seaweed (11)
Yellow Bonnet (4)
Cinnamon Flower (3)
Aramis Weed (3)
Burn Bush (3)
I place the Aramis weed on the ground next to the burn bush and equip one of the magnolia-pine-cone smoke bombs I made a few days back.
Using my knife, I cut a slit into the burn bush I’ve already wrapped around the pine cone and from there, I cut into the center of the pine cone, boring out a small hole.
I take some of the Aramis weed and stuff it in the hole, then rewrap the entire cone with more burn bush. I make sure to leave a six-inch fuse sticking out the end so I have something to light, and once it’s ready, I turn to the east.
“Stay back,” I tell Wolf.
He moves away from me and keeps sniffing at the ground until he finds a good place to piss. I light the fuse with my fire-starter kit and once it’s going, I throw the wrapped pine cone as far as I can and run back a little, my fingers in my ears.
I wait, Wolf looks at me funny, and I wait some more.
When I’m just about convinced the Aramis weed isn’t as explosive as the merchant led me to believe, a loud explosion sends debris into the air.
“Shit!”
Wolf yelps. We both feel the concussion in our chest, and even though the explosion is over, I hit the deck.
Sand and rocks rain onto the soil as a large cloud of smoke moves from us towards the water.
Subclass level up!
You are now a level 4 Herbalist. Your knowledge of the plants of Unigaea and their properties have improved. Your ability to improvise and create new combinations has grown, and will grow even faster if you seek out a mentor or take an herbalist course at one of the many academies across the continent.
“Fuck yeah!” I grin at Wolf. The look on his face is a lot less enthusiastic than I hoped it would be. “Trust me, boy, explosives are a good thing to have around.”
While I wait for the blast site to clear, I crouch in front of the other two pine-cone smoke bombs I have and hollow them out as well. I stuff even more Aramis weed inside and this time, I look around for sharp rocks to add to the outer layer.
Once I’ve found some rocks, I place them as best I can into the burn bush already wrapped around the pine cone, just to hold them in place. I then wrap the entire thing in fresh burn bush, and give them each a long fuse.
“That’ll do.” I throw my new magnolia pine cone IEDs into my list and move over to the blast site.
Never thought of myself as a ballistics guy, but something tells me these will come in handy, and I’d be stupid not to make more. Maybe I can find some bigger pine cones, or maybe I can make an IED with two pine cones and pieces of metal inside.
The sky’s the limit when it comes to humans finding clever ways to kill each other.
“Ready to go?” I ask Wolf as I approach him.
After about forty or fifty minutes of riding north, we ride in front of a makeshift fishery and I know Tin Ingot won’t be far off.
A man in a big apron covered in fish guts and a bandana pulled tightly around his head eyes us warily as we pass.
While we may be “heroes” in the south, whatever the hell that means in context of what I witnessed yesterday, news of what the Player Killer and his big, bad wolf did hasn’t reached Tin Ingot. This is evident in the faces of the family we pass, who have brought along a picnic basket for a day at the beach.
The kids gawk and the father steers them away; the mother, the boldest of the bunch, gives me a dirty look and practically hisses as we pass. Wolf stops, turns his head to her, and lowers his ears.
“Keep moving,” I tell him as we approach a cluster of merchants outside the southern entrance to the city. Not wanting to pay city taxes to set up shop in Tin Ingot proper, merchants from all over Unigaea have shops just outside the city gates.
As one would imagine, it’s a free-for-all regarding quality and the rarity of the items sold there. There are also food stands set up for the same reason. No one likes paying taxes.
Wolf stops, sniffs the air, and licks his lips repeatedly.
“I see him too,” I say as I dismount. We walk over to a guy with a roadside rotisserie chicken stand called Kenny’s. The man cowers when he sees me and quickly changes his tune when I pull out a bit of lira.
Shit, I think as I hand the lira over, I should have checked Sam’s pants for cash. This thought triggers another, of how angry she would be if she found out I looted her corpse. So maybe I did the right thing.
“Fuck if I know,” I mumble.
“What was that?” the chicken man asks.
“Private conversation with a friend of mine I like to call Eric. No need to put that second chicken on a tray. Just toss it to him.”
The man starts to say something but thinks otherwise when I lower my eyebrows at him. “Is there a problem?”
“No.” He tosses Wolf’s chicken to the ground. Wolf grabs it and greedily runs off.
“Thanks.” I take my tray and move to the seating area, which consists of a single picnic table, the wood surface of which has been so stained with oily chicken fat it looks like it’s wet. A burly NPC twice my size with beardtails sits across from me, eating noisily.
The big man takes one look at me, curls his lips, and spits a bone onto his plate. “No funny business,” he growls.
“Shut the fuck up and eat your fucking chicken. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so when I approached you from behind. Eat your chicken, let me eat mine, and keep your slobber to your side of the table. We clear?”
He harrumphs.
“Well?”
“You’re a Player Killer.”
“And you probably find it difficult to write your own name. Look, we all have problems.” I set my tray down and sit across from him. “Now…” I nod to the condiments on the table. “Pass me the pepper.”
(^_^)
No telling how difficult it’ll be to get into Tin Ingot, especially after my botched kidnapping of the Rial Resort Town’s governor. Then again, my Stater armor may help me, but if the last few interactions with the locals are any indication, it may not give me the pass I need to go through without any trouble.
Cloak it is, I think as I approach a jovial merchant in head-to-toe purple leather. The sides of his head are shaved and his long black hair on top has been braided and tucked into the collar of his purple leather jacket.
“How can I help you, Player Killer?” he asks.
Wolf is beside me now, still licking his teeth with the hope of getting any leftover bits of chicken out.
“The name is Lavender, by the way,” he says with a bow.
“Hi, Lavender.”
“What will it be, then? Or are you looking for information?” He darts his eyes left and right and I sense a quest coming on.
“Nope, I’m well-informed – too well-informed, actually. I’m looking for a cloak.”
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He claps his hands together and Wolf jumps back. “Then you’ve come to the right place! I just got a shipment in.” He grabs a wooden crate from under a table, sets it on the table before him, and starts taking out folded cloaks.
“What size, what size … ?” he mumbles as he works.
“Do you have another color?” I ask once he’s unloaded the entire crate. Sitting before me are no less than a dozen lavender cloaks of varying size and length.
His smile shatters. “Is there something wrong with lavender?”
“As a scent, no. As a color, not really, but, um … ”
“Too much of a tough guy to wear lavender, eh?” He thumbs the front of his purple leather vest. “Are you suggesting I’m not so good looking in this color?”
“No, I was just hoping for another color.”
“I’m the only guy out here with cloaks, so it’s lavender or it’s the highway.” He raises his nose at me.
“Fine, I’ll take lavender. And don’t you say anything,” I tell Wolf, who now carries a comical grin on his face. “What’ll it cost?”
“Two thousand lira,” he says with a grin.
Wolf growls and we both look to him.
The purple-clad merchant gasps. “He … he understands me?”
“Yep, and if you don’t give me the cloak at a reasonable price, he’ll understand when I tell him to rip your fucking arm off.”
Wolf snaps his teeth and the merchant jumps back.
“Okay, five hundred; that’s the cloak at cost.” I hand him the lira and he quickly tosses me the cloak. “Now beat it,” he says, “before I call the guards.”
Chapter Nine: Know Thy Customer
Wolf and I stick to the cover of the horse-drawn merchant carts heading towards the Tin Ingot Flea Market. The guards at the city gate, both clad in Samurai-ish armor that looks incredibly bulky, assume we are part of the group of merchants and wave us through with the carts.
Each large city in Unigaea has its own characteristics and rules governing who can come in and what they can come in on. Some cities, like Solidus, have a strict ban on large animals, which everyone knows means Tagvornin wolves and Shire Horses.
Others, like Tin Ingot, let just about anyone they can into the city, mostly for financial reasons. After all, marauders need somewhere to spend their hard-stolen lira, and with all the city guards, they know better than to cause trouble.
I keep my head down, the hood of my lavender cloak casting a shadow on my face.
“Look at the fag boy!” a burly man with a cane calls out to me. “Lavender brings out the pussy in you, mate!”
I shake him off and continue. I really have no idea why people jeer at others in public places. If I had wanted to, I could have taken the man’s head off with a single gesture.
Hell, I could have just sicced Wolf on him.
“Low profile,” I remind myself, which is laughable considering how much I stand out. I’m not a giant, but I am pretty muscled up. This with the pony-sized wolf moving next to me is already an attention grabber, never mind the lavender cloak.
Maybe I should have gotten Wolf a matching one …
I take the stone stairs and think about stopping at the apothecary for a moment to grab some potions. A fat man selling metal toy soldiers in front of an armor shop catches my eye. The little soldiers, each about an inch high, would make great shrapnel for my pine-cone IEDs.
“How much for a sack?” I ask the fat man.
“I’ll give you a sack!” he chortles. “Just playing, Player Killer. Like your cloak, by the way. Damn, if lavender isn’t in season this year. My wife is into high fashion, you know, all that shit they sell in Solidus that’s the same as the shit in other cities but twice the price. It’s all bullshit if you ask me. Anyway, yeah, that color, it’s definitely on trend.”
“Um, thanks.”
“So, you want some soldiers, huh?” he asks as he picks up one of the little metal guys with his sausage fingers. “These are made of scraps from the local blacksmiths. No one soldier is alike.”
Wolf snaps his jaw at a passing fly and for once, he catches it. This surprises him some. His eyes go wide as he swallows the fly down.
The fat man chortles. “That was funny! He’s a cute Taggy, yes he is. Can I pet him?”
I glance from the man’s pudgy hand to Wolf’s snout. “Better not.”
He gulps. “Very well. Okay, so a bag of soldiers. Here’s what I have.” With the wave of his hand, he drops three small leather bags onto the table. “The big one is 1,000 lira and it has between 50 and 60 soldiers inside; the medium is 500 and it has about 25 to 30; the small one is 100 and it has 10.”
“Give me the big one.”
“I’ll give you the big one!” he chortles again. “Never mind, I’ve got a sick mind. Need to get laid more often. What can I say? You know, people say all sorts of sexual-laced things every day. I think it’s great. We don’t use the word ‘salacious’ enough in Unigaea, go figure.”
Once we’ve exchanged lira, Wolf and I continue along to the Tin Ingot Flea Market. People go wide to avoid Wolf, even though there isn’t a lot of walking space. A few city guards give us the hairy eyeball, but we keep a low enough profile and soon, we arrive at the entrance to the flea market.
A vampiric mermaid statue at the entrance to the flea market has become a common meeting point in Tin Ingot. Crowds huddle around the buxom statue, waiting for their friends and recruiting people to join them on their quests. Moving amidst the crowd are snake oil salesmen with all sorts of potions and trinkets.
Seeing them sell potions gets me thinking more about my herbalist subclass. I really need to play with it more, aside from creating IEDs. An herbalist who doesn’t make poisons? A purist would shake their head at me.
“But you’re trying to save the world,” I whisper, which sounds just about as stupid coming out of my mouth as I thought it would.
As I take a position at the front of the statue, I relax into the lavender cloak and cross my arms over my chest. Feeling like I’m looking too much like, well, a Player Killer, I drop my arms to my sides and start scanning the crowd for Deathdale or Sam – not that either of them will be hard to find.
“Easy,” I tell Wolf as an orange cat tears through the crowd, chasing a tiny mouse.
Wolf tracks the cat, his big blue-green eyes locked on the feline as he licks his lips. This naturally gets me wondering why dogs and cats don’t get along, which somehow morphs into a philosophical discussion between the left and right side of my brain about why certain groups of people can’t get along, both in the Proxima Galaxy and the real world.
“Chill,” I whisper as my brain continues to form links between things that seemingly have no connection.
The crowd morphs around me – orcs, elves, drow, half-giants, you name it. I stand beneath the statue looking for a familiar face, and I’m surprised when I see a short gnome in a cone hat marching my way.
“Player Killer,” he says as he reaches me. “Remember me? The name’s Arun.”
“From Mohar,” I say, recalling how I met this gnome and his wife in Mohar and how they were the only people in the market who were kind to me. “What are you doing here?”
“Chantrea and I got sick of Mohar. You know, those caverns can get really stuffy, especially when people light candles at night. Phew! So we’re here now, just over there. You waiting for someone?”
“I think. Actually, I have no idea if they’ll show up or not.”
“Well there’s no sense in standing here in a lavender cloak sticking out like a sore, purple thumb!” He waves me towards his booth. “Follow me.”
(^_^)
“I remember you,” Arun’s gnome wife says as we approach. “What was your name again?”
“I never told you, or at least I don’t think I did,” I say as Arun presses past me. “But the name is Oric, Oric Rune.”
“Chantrea, in case you’ve forgotten.” The older female gnome has an agreeable face
and a soft smile. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes make her seem wise beyond her years. Her modest, long-sleeved dress covers almost every part of her body aside from her hands, neck, and face.
I follow Arun to the other side of the booth, which is much more spacious than the front. The booksellers in the booth next to them gawk as they see me take a seat on a wooden crate. Wolf joins me, and to get out of the way he rests at the back corner of their rented booth, as far away from the bustling crowd out front as he can get.
I don’t blame him.
There aren’t many places Wolf can go where he isn’t gawked at. Before I can say anything else, Chantrea approaches and hands me a small glass of piping-hot milk tea. With no stem, I’m forced to hold the glass by its lip to drink the hot liquid.
“Gnome’s tea,” she says. “It’s good for the heart.”
Arun sits on a stool in front of me and stares at me fondly. “So … ”
“So?” I ask as I take a sip of the tea. “Damn, that’s some stuff!” I place the tea on the table and out of the way.
“What’s been happening for you? I see you have Stater armor now.”
“I do, which is something I’d like to talk to you about.”
“You want to trade it?”
“No, nothing like that,” I say as I start to unhook the chest plate. “I want to mod it. Can you remove any insignia on the armor that shows it’s from Stater? I’m talking about this griffin here, and the one on the back as well.”
Arun raises a bushy eyebrow at me. “Is it stolen?”
“Actually, Governor Talonas himself gave this to me.”
“Did he?” He takes the armor from me and runs his finger along the griffin. “In that case, I believe there’s something I can do about it. It may take the rest of the afternoon, though.”
“That’s fine. I don’t want any affiliation with Stater.” I lower my voice. “Not after what I saw.”
“Go on,” Arun says as his wife hands him a glass of tea. As he sips his tea, I proceed to explain to him everything that has happened over the last few days, from the meteor shower to the battle of Tangka, from Sam’s death to my discovery last night.
The Last Warrior of Unigaea Box Set: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure Page 27
