The line started moving briskly after a while. More red-garbed guards collected the entrance fee: fifteen copper denars a head. Anyone who argued about paying was shoved aside and given the choice of going back to the end of the line or taking their business elsewhere. Hawke paid the money and soon found himself in a bustling city that made Orom look like the sleepy little burgh it was.
People of all races, colors and sizes thronged the streets. Most of them looked Italian or Spanish, much like the citizens of Orom, but he spotted people with Asian or African features, as well as a few Nordic types that could audition for the next season of Vikings. There was also a sizable minority of non-humans: tall Elves with inhumanly large pointy ears and slender physiques; Dwarves, usually traveling in groups and casting distrustful glances at everyone else; a couple of green-skinned humanoids that his True Sight identified as Orcs or Goblins, the former being far larger than the latter; lizard people in colorful robes; and, once, an Arachnoid, although a different variety from the Murk Arachnoids who had almost killed him on his first day in the Common Realm.
Human or not, most people were zero-level, but the proportion of Adventurers or Arcane Professionals was much higher than in Orom. Hawke’s off-the-cuff guess was that around one in every ten people he saw had a level. If, say, half the forty-key citizens were children, one tenth of the adults would total over two thousand people with special abilities or skills.
Good enough for government work, Hawke told the sword. Now, let’s do some shopping before I go looking for the Nerf Herders. He was in the big city and he had a few hundred silvers to his name, not to mention a lot of trade goods. Might as well sell them here.
Getting directions from the locals wasn’t easy. After being met with a blank stare and stony silence for the third time, Hawke started asking questions with a handful of copper denars in his hand, and that got him some answers. Saturnyx helped him out, too. She had been to Akila before, and although her map was centuries out of date, most major landmarks were still where she’d seen them last. He mentally transferred her map to his map, and was able to follow the locals’ directions easily enough, at the cost of a few silver denars. Nothing came cheap in Akila.
Most people, seeing him walk around in near-full armor (he had left the helmet in his inventory), gave him a wide berth. The exceptions figured somebody wearing Black Mithril had to be loaded and tried to sell him something or lift his purse. Since he wasn’t buying and didn’t have a purse or any money outside of his magical inventory, they went away empty-handed.
Saturnyx let him know every time somebody ‘bumped’ into him in an attempt to steal from him as he maneuvered through the crowds. He mostly ignored them, except for one guy who tried to grab one of his swords. That earned the thief a punch in the mouth that laid him out, barely conscious, on the mud-covered street; plate gauntlets worked just as well as brass knuckles, especially when you put the strength of an Olympic-level weightlifter behind them.
As soon as the would-be thief went down, a gang of children hiding in the shadows of an alley swarmed over his prone body and stole his shoes, his purse, a small dagger by his belt, the belt itself, and his shirt. They were gone while the now half-naked man cradled his jaw and moaned in pain. Nobody intervened, except for a couple passersby who gave the fallen thief a kick or two as they walked on by.
That’s life in the big city, I guess.
Ah. Everything has a price around here, doesn’t it?
After a long walk, Hawke found himself in the Crafters’ Market, a huge open plaza surrounded by three-story buildings with shops on their ground floors, and filled by dozens of stalls where all kinds of wares could be examined and bought. He walked by tables lined up with kitchen utensils, weapons, musical instruments, and other tools. Other stalls sold clothing in a variety of styles, furniture, and body armor. A few questions and another dozen copper later, he found a leatherworker’s shop. He wanted to see if someone could do something useful with the fire lizard skins he’d acquired in the Undead Lair.
The proprietor, seeing Hawke’s high-quality armor, greeted him personally. His True Sight identified him as Hasim Ibres, level seven Arcane Leather Armorer. He had a Middle Eastern look to him, with a darker complexion than most of the citizens Hawke had seen, but spoke Vulgate like a native.
“How may I help you, Your Holiness?”
“I have some fire lizard hides and was wondering what could be done with them,” Hawke replied, and summoned one of the square pieces from his inventory.
“Ah, still raw from the beast, I see,” the Armorer said after giving it a thorough examination. “Treating it will take time and will not be cheap, but the resulting product will be far sturdier than any normal leather armor, as well as highly resistant to fire attacks.” He turned back to Hawke. “How many sections do you have with you?”
“Sixteen, all the same size as that one.”
“Yes, a standard Skinner’s square. Well, noble sir, I could make a few suits of very fine armor with that many raw skins, which would be far lighter but offer much less protection than your wondrous suit of plate, and it would take a great deal of time to manufacture.”
Bummer. Well, maybe I can sell it. I could use the cash.
“However,” Hasim added before Hawke could speak. “I happen to have a couple of gambeson suits made from a fire lizard’s scaly hide. They are meant to be worn under your armor and improve its protection as well as the adding the creature’s natural fire resistance. I would be willing to trade one of them for these untreated skins.”
Thanks.
“That seems a bit unfair,” Hawke said. “I would be prepared to part with, say, five of those squares in return for the padding, and would be happy to sell you the rest for a fair wholesale price.”
“I see I am speaking to a man of trade as well as arms,” Hasim said; by his tone, he wasn’t terribly happy about that. “I am glad to exchange six squares for the armor, and offer you a gold denar for each of the remaining ten squares.”
Hawke sighed. He hated haggling. “Deal.”
“The padding is, of course, enchanted to fit anybody between the heights of four to eight feet and to adapt to the dimensions of Dwarves, Elves, Humans and Orcs, and those of mixed blood as well.”
She was probably right, and Hawke probably deserved more than a suit of padding and ten gold for the skins of the monsters that had killed him, but he was satisfied, especially after he got his under-armor suit and examined it:
Fire Lizard Padding
Item Level: 6.
Damage Absorption: Physical 8/10%; Elemental (Fire) 12/35%, (All Others) 5/10%. Agility Penalty: 0. Stealth Penalty: 0 Speed Penalty: 0. Durability 100/100. Can be worn under armor.
That suit of padding was better than his old breast plate, and even better, while wearing it under his armor it would reduce the damage of any fire attack by a total of twenty-four points, and anything beyond that would be mitigated by a hundred percent after all bonuses were taken into account.
Bring on the dragons!
Okay, hold the old dragons.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” he told Hasim after using his magic inventory to replace his normal clothing with the padded suit. It was a little itchy, and it had a leathery smell with a little extra smoky scent mixed in, but he was satisfied with it.
“It is a lucky day that brought you to my establishment, for both of us. Is there anything else I can do for you, your holiness?”
“I am looking for an Adventurers’ Guild in town. Have you heard of the Nerf Herders?”
Hasim went pale. “I may have. Are you one of them?”
“No. I just wanted to find directions to their guild house or whatever they call it.”
“I can tell you where it is, but I would avoid the place if I were you.”
Oh, crap.
Forty-Five
To go or not to go. That is the question.
As he followed the directions to the Nerf Herders’ Compound, located in “the Warrior’s Quarter, two blocks south of the Great Arena,” according to Hasim’s nervous directions, Hawke thought about avoiding them altogether and meeting up with the rest of the gang at Eagle’s Watch. If the Herders were bad news, he didn’t want anything to do with them.
Saturnyx said.
All right, but we’ll do some snooping around beforehand.
The Warrior’s Quarter seemed like a good place to start. Saturnyx had marked it in the map, a large section of the city that was surrounded by its own set of walls, making it a mini-city of its own. The walls and the gates in and out of the quarter were manned by city guards in red uniforms, and from the looks of it, the soldiers were there to keep watch on the inhabitants of the Quarter rather than people from outside it.
Sounds messy.
The gates were open, so he went right in. The Warriors’ Quarter had wide streets that ran between shops and taverns, or single houses built like miniature fortresses, often surrounded by walls that cordoned off entire blocks. Open courtyards were filled by people sparring or striking at wooden dummies. Each walled compound had a Guild coat of arms and a name. Hawke walked by the homes of such groups as the Fire Lions, the Venerable Order of Sword and Harp, the Elf Knights of Faerie, and Julius’ Company. The taverns had colorful names as well: the Bucket of Blood, Booze for Cheap, and The Legionnaire’s Rest. On the far end of the Quarter, he spotted a large coliseum: that must be the Arena.
They run gladiatorial games here? Hawke asked Saturnyx. As in slaves fighting to the death?
Guess that’s okay, then. Hawke had no interest in dealing with a slave society.
As he walked through the streets, he noticed two things: first, most of the people he passed by were Adventurers of all kinds. He spotted Warriors, Mages, Rogues, Hunters, Fighting Priests, a Paladin of Shining Father in a glowing suit of plate, Duelists in light armor with long rapiers and daggers, and so on. Levels were in the second to twelfth range, with most people at seventh or above. At his apparent sixth level, Hawke was slightly below average; his real status would move him to the top twenty percent. The other thing was that most of them belonged to a Guild, and that it was displayed next to their name on their status box, visible to any Adventurers. Interesting.
The Adventurers he saw without a Guild affiliation tended to be on the low end of the spectrum, both in levels and gear. Many were clustered near Guild houses, apparently trying to join them and looking like so many day laborers waiting outside a Home Depot. Not his kind of scene. Hawke had liked his old Guild, the Not-So-Good Knights, but that was because it had been friendly and easygoing. He didn’t know how Guilds worked in the Realms, but he didn’t like what he had seen so far.
Just as he was beginning to head for the Arena to take a look at the Nerf Herders’ compound, he heard somebody shouting in English:
“Dammit, Nadia! What do you want me to do?”
Hawke turned towards the speakers. They were a man and a woman, sitting at one of the dozen outdoor tables surrounding Booze for Cheap, an open-air tavern with a central stall where people could order food and drinks. He took a look at the status boxes floating over their heads and froze in shock. He knew them:
Desmond the Destroyer (Human, Eternal)
Level 3 Warrior
Health 50 Mana 40 Endurance 48
Nadia Morganna (Elf, Eternal)
Level 2 Sorceress
Health 20 Mana 49 Endurance 30
He didn’t recognize their faces, but he knew their names. Desmond and Nadia had been members of the Not-So-Good Knights. Nadia was one of the guild officers! Their name tags had no guild affiliation now, though, and they looked like they’d had a rough time. They were still wearing their first-level gear: a simple robe, quite a bit ragged, for Nadia, and a Worn Breast Plate for Desmond, identical to the one Hawke had started with. He saw a staff leaning by Nadia’s side, and a two-handed axe by the Warrior’s. All their stuff was of Shoddy or Poor Quality.
His former guildmates were having an argument in English. As he walked up to them, Nadia leaned forward and said something in a whisper that Hawke barely heard:
“I want you to stop treating me like a child, Desmond. Sean.”
“Stop with the IRL names, okay?” Desmond answered in a loud voice. “We have to start thinking like our characters.”
“Excuse me,” Hawke said, also in English. “I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.”
“What the…” Desmond started to say, but Nadia leaped from her seat and pounced on Hawke, hugging him like she was drowning and he was the only flotation device in sight.
“Hawke! Ohmygod! It’s you. Ben! Ben Velasco!”
“Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time,” Hawke said in his best Alec Guinness impersonation.
Nadia started to laugh, and then broke down into uncontrollable sobbing. “Oh, God, Ben. Hawke!”
Desmond remained on his seat, saying nothing, but Hawke didn’t like the way he was staring at Nadia with a betrayed expression on his face.
More YA drama, coming up, Hawke thought, his initial elation at meeting friends – well, Internet friends – from Earth beginning to dissolve away.
Forty-Six
“We have been here for six days,” Nadia said after Hawke ordered bowls of stew for everyone, as well as more wine; he noticed his old guildmates had been making do with a single chunk of bread to share, and two wooden bowls filled with thin-looking soup, probably all they could afford. “It’s been horrible!”
“We appeared in a swamp a good thirty miles away from the city,” Desmond added. “Nothing but wandering mobs everywhere.”
The Warrior was clearly trying to act friendly but also clearly not quite making it. He kept giving Nadia sidelong glances as he spoke:
“First thing that happened was, we got attacked by wild dogs. Three of them. Nearly killed both of us. We had no heals, except for a long-cooldown, self-only Health restore I got at first level. I almost didn’t pick it during character creation. Good think Nadia talked me into it,” he finished, caressing the top of her hand; he frowned wh
en she moved it away.
“We did die,” Nadia said. “Not from the dogs, but later that day.” Her eyes began tearing up again. “We were wading through this stream, and something grabbed me and pulled me under. Bit me! I felt it ripping me apart!”
“It’s not my fault!” Desmond snapped. “I jumped in after you! I chopped away at that fucker, until it turned on me and killed me.”
“It’s cool, bro,” Hawke told him. “Been there. The important thing is that we respawn afterwards, unlike most everyone else.”
“We died a second time, both of us, before we got out of that fucking swamp, bro.”
“We kept respawning on the place we arrived,” Nadia added. “Until we finally reached a village and set up a new Reincarnation site and finished our first Quest. And finally leveled up.”
“And discovered we didn’t have enough money for hardly anything,” Desmond went on. “We got a bit of loot from the swamp monsters. Barely enough to buy food. Forget about buying better gear. We did a couple of Quests on the way to the city. I hit third level when we arrived.” He focused on Hawke, his eyes narrowing. “How long have you been here?”
“Not sure,” Hawke said. “I was under some sort of spell at first. Only snapped out of it eleven, no, maybe thirteen days ago. Hard to keep track sometimes.”
“You disappeared two months before we got here,” Nadia said.
“That makes no sense. We were all playing on the day Eternal Journey Online went live.”
“The whole Guild was playing, but only you and Esmeralda went missing that day,” Desmond said. “We saw both of you drop out of group chat and we assumed something had come up, or maybe you’d lost your connection.”
“We didn’t find out about people disappearing for like a week or more,” Nadia added. “It only happened to less than one percent of the people who gamed that weekend. It took a while for everyone to put two and two together.”
Twilight Templar (The Eternal Journey Book 1) Page 27
