by Harry Nix
Scarlet dropped back beside me and touched me on the arm.
“Light demons,” she said, nodding back at the cart.
“Those sparks are actual demons?”
“Their spawn at least. The demons just, you know, into the jar.”
She made a shluck-shluck noise with her mouth and a hand movement.
“And people know about this?”
“That it’s demon sperm? Yeah. No one cares. You just ignore stuff that upsets you, right? Don’t ask how the sausage is made. Besides, sometimes the jars break and maybe one out of thousands spawns a full light demon. So it’s win-win.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking back over my shoulder. The kid grinned and waved the jar at me, the glow lighting up his face.
I’m down for grimdark sometimes. Funny too. I’ve played everything from the ultraserious high-fantasy stuff to games with farting orcs. Maybe that’s why Lucy was throwing all kinds of stuff in different tones at me. If I liked the depressing story of Mancer and William suddenly this would be all Game of Thrones. If I laughed at Light Demon sperm I’d be in an eighties fart and sex comedy.
It was the end of dusk, about to slip into night by the time we approached the enormous gates. They were wood, strengthened with iron. There were only two guards though, letting people in and out of a smaller door built into the larger one. They must have closed it to cart traffic at the sunset.
I saw one guard hit the other on the arm when he saw Scarlet. They had a quick argument and then played a game that wasn’t quite rock paper scissors. The one that lost skulked away to stand on the other side of the road. The winner sauntered towards us, his gaze on Scarlet.
“I’ll handle this,” she whispered to me.
“Sure,” I said. My mind had been elsewhere, specifically on my stomach. I was starting to feel hungry, which was astonishing. The fidelity of the game was incredible.
“Gates are closed right now and won’t open until the morning,” the guard said. I could see he was setting us up for a bribe. Behind him the other guard was letting a man out the gate so his story was clearly bs.
“Oh, really?” Scarlet said.
I felt something wash by me, catching only the faintest edge of whatever she’d done. Maybe it was entrance or Pure Desire. It hit the guard like a tsunami and his face went slack.
“What’s your name?” Scarlet cooed.
“Daniel.” He was looking flushed and drunk, all at once.
“I’m looking for Bron,” Scarlet cooed.
“You’re here,” Daniel replied with a dopey expression and a wave of his hand.
“No, Bron, old man, white beard, lives alone? He’s a hermit.”
Daniel frowned at her. Whatever seductive charm she was using on him was wearing out with her questions.
“This is Bron. The city. I’m sure if you search enough you’ll probably find some hermits down from the mountains for a good time.”
He reached out a hand and clasped her wrist.
“I’ll get someone to cover for me. Let’s go to the barracks. I know a place.”
She carefully removed his hand and gave him a smile.
“Can you let us in now?” she said.
Daniel nodded but it was clear he was coming back to himself. Scarlet must have realized the same because she nodded to me and hustled Ori along. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the other guard frowning at us like what the hell?
At the smaller door, Daniel opened it but paused, before shaking his head.
With a look of alarm, Scarlet danced forward and pretended to trip, throwing her body against him. The kid was buried in cleavage. I grabbed Ori and went through the door as Scarlet disengaged herself. Daniel was babbling about the barracks but Scarlet nimbly slipped away from him and through the door.
“Go, go!” she said as soon as she was through. We bolted down the street and around the corner and not a moment too soon, Daniel yelling out something from behind us.
There were plenty of people about but in the rush to get away from the guards that might come down on us, I didn’t realize we strayed away from the main thoroughfares. We’d barely gone one block from lively and full streets with families walking about, to dark and grim ones with unfriendly faces looking back at us. My brain soon caught up but when I went to turn back, I saw a group of men had gathered in the alleyway we’d come down, blocking our escape.
Well, mostly men. One of them stepped out of the shadows. He had hooves and two small spiked horns on his head. His face was halfway between goat and human. Another was pale, like the dead and as he came closer I realized he might actually be undead. His neck had an odd angle to it, as though it had been snapped. He was shuffling more than walking.
I glanced around but suddenly every alleyway out seemed crowded or blocked. Two skinny teenagers pulled some barrels and boxes into place in one of them before vanishing.
Thinking back to Mancer and William, I wondered if there was a way to talk out of here.
“Let’s make a deal,” I said as the leader of the group walked towards us. He was bald and not as skinny as the rest. Red swirled tattoos streaked up his neck and on to his scalp.
“Fuck your deal,” he grunted, whipping out a short knife with a green crystalline blade.
Before he could reach us, I grabbed Ori and tossed him right at the leader.
“Ori, choke him!” I yelled, hoping he could do it without the magical buildup he required the first time.
Thankfully I was right—Ori transformed into black ink as he flew through the air in a perfect line. It was nothing but net as he went straight down the leader’s throat.
Critical!
The leader dropped his knife, which bounced over to us. Scarlet plucked it up from the ground, brandishing it along with her graveyard spike. The leader was flailing at his throat, trying to get his hands in his mouth but it was no use. Ori had scored a critical hit and was down in his throat, choking him to death.
The spectacle stopped his goons advancing on us but I knew that wouldn’t last long.
“Follow me,” I said to Scarlet, heading for the boxes and barrels the teenagers had left behind. I ran up to them and kicked at a barrel, thinking it couldn’t be that heavy, given two skinny kids had lifted it. The shock and pain running up my leg damn near crippled me. The barrel moved a little and as I recovered, Scarlet put her shoulder to it and shoved, managing to topple it over and making a space.
Behind us, the leader had fallen to his knees, his face a shade of purple I’d never seen before. His eyes were bugging out, his lips splattered in black ink. He then crashed to the ground, dead and a moment later black ink spilled from his mouth like a river.
“Fireball,” I yelled to Scarlet as I ran as well as I could back to the dead body. Ori was forming up again. I grabbed him, my fingers going halfway into his body just as Scarlet flung a fireball, hitting the undead guy in the chest.
I thought it might stir them all up to fight but instead they broke in a panic, bolting back the way they came. The undead guy started flailing at his chest as the flames took hold of his clothes.
With a still reforming Ori in my hand, I bolted back to where Scarlet was waiting and slipped through the gap between boxes. The alleyway it led to was dark and narrow but otherwise empty. She followed and together we ran down it and around a corner before I slid to a stop, quickly pulling up my map.
It had read my desires and was now a map of the city rather than the entire continent. I could see the gate and the streets that had looked safer than where we were.
“You can put me down now,” squeaked Ori as he properly solidified. I let go and like a cat he jumped from my hands, landing on the cobblestones.
“Over here,” I said, keeping the map open in my vision as I took us away from the fight.
It wasn’t long before we came out on a much nicer street. There were streetlights down it, with flames burning behind glass. There was even a park bench sitting near a patch of lawn.
“
Dedicated to my wife Esmeralda,” Scarlet said, reading the plaque on it.
I glanced at it, thinking it would be nice to rest for a moment but then my stomach reminded me that hunger was real and I could feel it. Down the street was a tavern, The Glove, and I figured that was a good a place as any to get some food. Knowing games, it would probably help us along our path with a quest.
It was only when we were halfway down the street that I finally got a proper look at Ori. He was only about a foot tall now, half his original size.
“Why are you so small?”
“You pulled me away from my ink before I was ready,” he squeaked. His voice was noticeably higher in pitch.
Damn, I had, in the rush to get away.
“Should we go back?”
“It’s dead ink now. No use to any ink demon. I’ll regrow overnight.”
“Sorry,” I said but the demon just shrugged like whattayagonnado?
“This knife is way too fancy for some back-alley robber,” Scarlet said, passing it to me.
Echo Knife
Stab once and get the second stab on the house... sometimes!
I paused for a moment under one of the streetlights to get a closer look at the blade. It was made of green crystal but inside it was a branching network of what could only be veins.
“So you stab someone with this and it causes two wounds?” I asked Scarlet.
“Sometimes. Random location on the body, could be same size as the original wound or down to a small nick. Echo crystal is temperamental.”
“It looks like it has veins in it.”
“That’s because it comes from the body of an Echo giant... or baby. Or a child. It’s not extremely rare, but still... what was that guy doing with it?”
I gave it back to Scarlet, and she slipped it into her cleavage, where it disappeared along with her graveyard spike.
I glanced down at my experience and saw the bar had filled more... except I hadn’t seen any golden sparks rising up from the dead bandit Ori choked. Was this another adaptive change from Lucy?
“I’d like to see when experience is earned, please,” I said to the air.
A passing couple frowned at me as they went by.
“Talking to yourself wins friends,” Scarlet said.
Nothing happened. No notification on my screen. I’d just have to see what happened next time a fight or opportunity to earn experience came up.
We continued on down to The Glove. There was a small hand-painted Under New Management across the bottom of the sign. I pushed open the door and went inside.
If you’ve seen one fantasy bar, you’ve seen them all. No one gasped or went silent as we entered, but I could definitely feel attention on us as we were examined and then ignored. There was a scarred wooden bar running down one side of the room with patrons of all shapes and sizes sitting down it, working their way through foaming mugs or bowls of unidentifiable brown goop. About the room were tables and chairs with pretty much the same deal. Steps led up to a darker area filled with more tables and various mysterious figures. Maybe Lucy had plucked it right out of my brain, but up the back was a guy who looked a lot like Aragorn, hood, pipe and all. I looked around for four hobbits out of their depth but didn’t see any. There were some goblins at a table drinking like fish and playing some complicated board game that looked like chess but had cards they were using, too.
The only thing out of place in Standard Fantasy Bar #6 was the bartender. He was humanoid...ish but that’s where the resemblance ended. Imagine a praying mantis but bright yellow, maybe seven feet tall and clearly hunching to not scare the fuck out of everyone. He had hands at least and not hooks and was dressed in a grubby apron over a shirt and pants that had seen better days. His face was insectile and with his multiple bug eyes I’m sure he could see everything going on in his bar.
Although he looked as alien as alien could be, he was chatting amicably with a red-faced dwarf who was bitching about mining pay rates.
We edged up to the bar and he came ambling down to meet us. Standing there I could smell the brown goop in the bowls. It looked bad but smelt damn good and my stomach rumbled.
“Howdy,” said the bartender, in an accent that was pure Texas. It threw me off my stride for a moment.
“Uh, yeah. Hi,” I mumbled.
“Name’s Ahab. What can I do ya folks for?” he said.
“I’m hungry—how much for stew and beer?”
He pointed with a bright yellow hand to a sign stuck up on the wall.
Stew—1cp
Beer—2cp
Room—8cp
Bath—8cp
Other items by request
I had a net worth of five coppers, so not enough for food and drink for everyone. But did they need to eat?
“Are you hungry?” I asked Ori.
The demon was standing close to my legs to avoid being stepped on by other patrons. He nodded. I looked at Scarlet.
“I’m famished,” she said to me in a throaty whisper. She wasn’t using an ability on me but still, it was effective. I felt myself spacing out for a moment.
“Threw stews and one beer,” I said, once I came to my senses, handing over five coppers.
Ahab slipped the money away, which is when I noticed something weird about his hands. They looked... rubbery, for lack of a better word. He went down the other end of the bar where there were a few larges covered pots and started filling bowls. As I watched, I saw his hands weren’t quite working like normal hands. By the time he dropped the bowls and spoons off in front of us, I was convinced they were fake. They were bending the way an oven mitt does.
The seat next to us was free, so I lifted Ori up so he could eat. My stew looked lumpy and had an oily iridescent sheen across it, but when I tasted it... oh yeah. It was like beef stew with hints of thyme and rosemary. A chunk of potato dissolved in my mouth, and I felt a tickling at the back of my throat, almost like it was carbonated.
“Do you know what species Ahab is?” I whispered to Scarlet, who was digging into her stew.
“Never seen one before. Definitely don’t want to screw with him, though. He has sharp hooks under those fake hands.”
Ahab returned with a foaming mug of beer, which he placed down in front of me.
“Hopper, they call us. Insect race, often involved in business. Colors denote racial groups. I’m yellow which is—”
He made a noise like a cat throwing up a chainsaw.
“We have unnaturally good hearing, too,” he said.
I think at that point he smiled. It was kind of hard to know with the shape of his mouth. I caught a flash of rows of sharpened teeth and then he wandered back up the bar to the dwarf who carried on bitching about the mine.
Ori sniggered into his stew beside me.
I picked up the beer and sniffed it. Smelt like beer so I took a gulp. It was like a pale ale but with a light fruit undertone. Although I wanted to gulp the lot down, I drank only a third and then passed the mug to Ori. With his new reduced size he had a little trouble lifting it, but managed to get his drink. Then I handed it to Scarlet who finished it off.
My bowl was soon empty but I was wanting more. Too bad I had zero money.
I nodded to Ahab next time he looked my way and soon he came ambling down. I couldn’t help but to wonder if how he moved was due to his insect legs he must have had hidden under his dirty bartender pants and apron.
“We’re looking to sell some things for money. Plus we’re looking for work,” I said.
Ahab started clearing the bowls away.
“What kind of things you looking to sell?”
I saw my inventory open up on my HUD, faintly overlaying the bar. All I had was ruined armor, a rusty sword and a dead rabbit with missing feet. Oh, and the Echo Knife I’d given to Scarlet.
“Some old armor we don’t need anymore.”
Ahab looked over our graveyard rags. He was far away from being human but still human enough that I could feel him virtually raising his eye
brows at us.
“Lady Trang will buy most things... including old armor that the former owner is no longer using. Her shop is around the corner. Look for the octopus sign. As for work, there are guild boards around the city. Take a job, do the job, get paid. Just don’t take on time-limited jobs without reading the fine print.”
He cleared the mug away before I could ask more. Down in the corner of my vision I saw the map icon winking at me. Focusing on it, the city map opened up. There was a purple octopus icon a block away, around the corner. Dotted over the city were tiny notice-board icons.
“Thanks,” I called down to him and left the bar, Scarlet and Ori following after me.
I was barely half a block away before I realized I’d left my staff behind, leaning up against the bar.
“Damn, I left my staff,” I said, turning around.
“So? Just summon it,” Scarlet said.
“I can do that?”
“It’s your bonded magical weapon, of course you can do that. Just, you know, invisible world it,” she said, pretending she was typing on an invisible typewriter.
I hit the icon for my staff, expecting to have it appear in my hand but nothing happened. The image went grey with red writing across it. Summoned. A moment later the front door of The Glove burst open and the staff came hurtling down the street, a screaming goblin riding it like a broom.
I held up my hand and the staff snapped into it. I was expecting it to sting like hell but there was no pain. The sudden halt flung the goblin off, who bounced a few times before winding up in the gutter, half-submerged in brown liquid that didn’t smell great. As we watched, he sank down into it.
