by D. J. Bodden
During all that time, the old man stood on the path, back ramrod straight, looking right at me with an expression so neutral it looked like his face was a mask made of flesh, which is exactly as creepy as it sounds. Seriously, it made my skin crawl. I patted my lower back to make sure the dagger hadn’t slipped out during my tumble—it hadn’t—and I walked over to join Horace.
“Okay, Horace. What was that?” I asked.
He reached out with his right hand. “Let me take your arm, please.”
I frowned, but I stepped closer, and he gripped my upper arm.
“Thank you. Let’s get to the shade, over there, and then we’ll talk.” And he was a frail old man again. The stoop, the slight shake, the eyes that weren’t quite looking in the right direction. I wasn’t even sure which was the act anymore. He sniffed and leaned on me for support a bit more. I slowed my pace. We finally reached the shade between the buildings and he leaned against the wall. “Now, what is it you think I did to you?” he asked.
“You threw me off the side of the hill!”
“Don’t be obtuse, boy. Did I lay hands on you?”
“I... no, but—”
“Did I throw you, or blast you off the edge with a magic spell? Did I bash you with a shield?”
“Okay, I get it.”
“You don’t.”
I could feel the frustration building up inside me like a shaken soda can, but I pushed it aside. Osmark liked to play these games sometimes. In fairness, I usually learned something from them.
“You did something. As a result, I walked off the edge of a hill, rolled a couple times, and wound up in a bush.”
“And?”
I kept my expression neutral. I kept my body posture open. I did all the things I’d learned over the years to avoid digging a deeper hole for myself. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
The old man’s expression softened a bit. “Good. Admitting you don’t know everything is a prerequisite for learning anything. I also convinced you to help me get to the shade of this building.”
“But that wasn’t magic,” I answered, even though I knew it was a setup.
“I had you within reach of my dominant hand, and I was out of reach of yours. You were distracted, your weight was on your left leg, and we went where I wanted to go. Who cares if it was magic?”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“That’s your first lesson, boy, and the most important one you need to learn if you’re going to walk down this path. Spells and stones may break your bones, but words will bring down empires.”
I grinned. “That’s not quite how I’ve heard it before, but I can see how it might be true. What’s the second lesson?”
“The second lesson is that when words aren’t enough, sometimes you have to make a small suggestion.”
<<<>>>
Quest Alert: Smoke and Mirrors
You’ve been offered the chance to learn Suggestion. If you accept, you will spend (1) proficiency point on the skill, and who knows where that will lead? If you fail the quest, you will lose both the ability to use the skill and the proficiency point you spent.
Quest Class: Rare, Class-Based
Quest Difficulty: Hard
Success 1: ???????
Success 2: ???????
Success 3: ???????
Failure: Fail to complete any of the objectives.
Reward: Class Change; 7,000 EXP
Accept: Yes/No?
<<<>>>
I sucked my breath in. This seemed like a pretty big decision. My first quest—which the game had decided was only moderately difficult—had nearly killed me, and I’d only gotten one proficiency point from leveling up after finishing it. Did I really want to waste that on a skill that did no damage? That had always been a recipe for disaster in other games. Even for a crafting build, you had to build your damage-dealing skills first. High-level ingredients were located in high-level zones.
If V.G.O. was like any other role-playing game I’d played, it would get exponentially harder to gain levels, and therefore proficiency points, as things went on. The difficulty of the quests and challenges would increase even faster, forcing me to use items, potions, and food buffs and to outright try to bend the rules of the game world. Maybe that was my perspective as a solo player coloring things, but I’d spent enough of my adult life sweating for other people. Video games were supposed to be where I worked for my own account.
And the only reason that mattered was because I was enjoying this. I was enjoying not only the game but who I was in it. I didn’t want to try another build or a different race. I didn’t want to reload my character from another starting point. I wanted to finish what I’d started with Thalia, and find out why someone wanted Provus Considia dead. I wanted to talk people out of their money with the old man, leave them smiling, and go drink iced wine at Lot’s Terrace during the heat of the afternoon. And if that got boring, I was certain the game and the Overminds would find a way to keep things interesting.
Yes.
The quest window disappeared, and a new prompt replaced it.
<<<>>>
Quest Update: Smoke and Mirrors
Buy an item for less than 80% of its value or sell one for over 120% of its value within 30 minutes.
<<<>>>
Skill: Suggestion
The caster’s words are imbued with raw Spirit, making whatever is said seem more likely, reasonable, and agreeable than it normally would. The more outrageous the lie and the more intelligent the target, the more likely the suggestion will fail. Beings who cannot hear or think and some classes such as Enchanters are immune.
Skill Type/Level: Spell/Initiate
Cost: 100 Spirit
Range: Hearing
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: None
Effect 1: 10% increased chance of passing a relationship check during dialogue
Effect 2: 1% increased chance of passing an illusion check (stacks)
<<<>>>
I read through the description twice because I guessed that, like the old man, the skill was more complicated than it seemed. Then I remembered I was on the clock.
28:46
I looked at the old man, who’d been patiently waiting for me to snap out of it. “I need to sell something, fast.”
He smiled. “There a market a block from here.”
THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY miles away, a woman with pale, ageless skin, neck-length hair the color of charcoal, and eyes as blue as the sky looked up with a bemused smile. She had dark, thin eyebrows, and a straight, thin nose. If she’d been born on Earth—if she’d ever been born at all—it might have been in Thailand.
She looked to the east by southeast, across the rippling plains of tall grass, past the iron breakers of The Bleak Sea and the riotous streets of Wyrdtide, to the Imperial city, where her troubled daughter and her eldest son made moves in a game as old as the system logs.
She sighed and pushed a stray strand of dark hair out of her eyes.
The sigh joined the wind on its way to the sea.
JEFF GLANCED AT THE server activity chart. “Huh.” Kronos, Cernunnos, Thanatos, Sophia, and Enyo were all active, and now Gaia had spiked.
He noted the time and went back to watching Alan.
ELEVEN
GARRETT AND MOG DUCKED into an alley as the pair of city watchmen walked by. Mog was convinced every patrol was looking for them. Garrett had less faith in the Imperial administration, but since their noble-blooded target had escaped and their sponsor, curse him, was dead, they had no safe house or discreet way out of the city. He scratched the scar on his cheek. It always itched when he was in a jam.
“We need money, fast,” he told Mog.
The albino Risi grunted.
Having a seven-foot-tall Risi with gray skin and red eyes as a friend had been an advantage back in Wyrdtide. Mog was fierce, like all Risi, but his strange appearance made him look almost monstrous. Here, though, it drew the wrong kind of attention, especially
if some noble house put pressure on the law to find them.
It was supposed to have been a professional job, the kind a man could build his reputation on. The elf had promised them an introduction to the Gentleman of New Viridia. Maybe that part had been true, but the payroll the courier was supposed to be carrying was a crock of lizard dung, and the elf hadn’t given the dispatches a second glance before trying to kill the Imperial knight. Mog blamed the commoner who’d interrupted them, but Garrett had a nasty feeling they’d gotten lucky, and every minute they spent in the city tested Gaia’s patience.
“’Oulda let me kill ’im,” Mog growled. The two inch-long canines that jutted above his lower lip made a mess of his pronunciation.
“That nob would have gutted you.”
Mob spit. “Coulda stom’ed the skinny one.”
And that was the real problem. A lone noble’s accusation would have gotten them hard labor, some new friends, and a chance to escape, but two witnesses would see them hang. Garrett rubbed his palms on his pants. If they’d killed the commoner, he could have risked the city gates.
I LOOKED THE MERCHANT right in the eyes. “You can’t be serious,” I said, leaning forward on the counter.
The merchant crossed his arms. His eyes were as hard as flint. “Five silver for the boots.”
I stabbed my finger at the pile of looted armor. “This is rare gear,” I said, using Suggestion on him. My Spirit bar dropped 100 points, almost to empty.
He frowned like he’d heard something confusing. “Then why aren’t you wearing it?”
“Because I’m not an assassin.”
The merchant smirked, looking me over.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m poor, and I smell. That doesn’t mean you need to go out of your way to rip me off.”
The merchant’s face turned red, which made me feel better, even if making him mad was the opposite of what I needed. “I’m an honest man, you filthy street rat. An honest man! That armor will sit on my shelves for months until some assassin or an ambitious rogue decides to steal it from me. You think I’m a criminal for wanting to make a living? That’s why I have a shop in the greatest city in West Viridia, and you apparently live in a sewer. Get out!”
I clenched my jaw. “Look, what about—”
“Out!” he shouted. “Before I call the watch!”
I grabbed my gear, dropped it into my inventory, and hurried out of the shop.
14:20
The old man was sitting on a bench outside the shop, leaning his back against the wall. He thanked the passerby he was talking to, then pocketed three copper coins with his usual smoothness.
“Hard at work?” I asked.
“I seem to be having more success than you, boy. What’s wrong?”
I sat down next to him. “I don’t know. I think I might not be cut out to be a salesman.”
“Why do you think that?”
I chuckled. “Because people keep telling me no.”
Horace snorted. “Being told no is the mark of a true salesman, boy. A salesman asks the question.”
“Well, I’ve done that, and I’ve been rejected. Unfortunately, being rejected three times doesn’t seem to fulfill the requirements of the quest I’m going to fail.”
“Then do you really want to be a salesman?”
“Yes. No, I just want to fulfill the quest. Can we skip the Socratic method this time, and you just tell me what to do?”
“What’s the Socratic method?”
“It’s when a teacher answers a student’s answers and questions with more questions.”
“Is the teacher answering the student with questions, or gifting them the questions they should be asking themselves?”
I glared at him.
He smiled, slightly off target, at a passing woman and asked her for a coin. She pretended not to see him.
13:16
Okay, Alan. Think. The old man had taken me to a marketplace within a few blocks of the Praetorian Guard’s barracks. From what I gathered, they were elite troops assigned to guard important people or sensitive areas of the city. We were also in the same quarter as the Imperial Legion training grounds, so there were four weapons and armor stores in the square. The first catered exclusively to the praetorians and had a building all to itself with big glass display cases and gear that made both the gamer and medieval warfare geek in me drool. I’d written that off as a nonstarter because the spell description had mentioned that the smarter someone was, the less effective the spell would be.
There were two mid-level stores that sold respectable, sometimes gently used, gear. One had denied me service on the basis of my appearance. The shopkeeper said I couldn’t possibly afford or need her goods. It was outrageous discrimination, even if she was right. The second had tossed me out just over a minute ago.
The third shop was more of a cobbler and hardware store than a proper outfitter. It was a place a soldier could buy polish for their boots, wire to balance the weight of a weapon, or a whetstone to sharpen a blade. The older gentleman behind the counter was courteous to me in spite of my appearance, but apologetic. He didn’t have the money to buy my gear at a fair price. He did offer to sell it for me on consignment, for a share of the profits. If I hadn’t been pressed for time, and I weren’t close to broke, I would have gone to him over any of the others on moral principle.
I didn’t want to be a salesman, to compromise, to have doors shut in my face. I freaking hated that. If that was what this quest was all about, then I wasn’t going to enjoy winning it anyway. I might as well tell Horace I was done and help him pick the next mark.
I blinked. The old man had given me the answer, I’d just been too thickheaded to realize it. I was thinking like a beggar when I was a prince among men.
I stood up.
11:49
“You figure it out, boy?”
“Well enough,” I answered. I knew what I wanted to do. I just needed to figure out how to do it.
I headed for the cobbler’s shop. It was a small storefront that was narrower than it was deep, wedged between two larger stores. The owner looked up at me from a boot he was polishing. He had straight white hair that had thinned with age, a white comb mustache, and a small pair of black-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He wore tan pants, a white shirt, and a gray vest that had seen better days. “Decide to let me take that gear on consignment after all?” he said.
I smiled. “Actually, I was hoping you could do me a favor.”
The cobbler set the boot and polishing rag down on the counter in front of him and tucked his glasses into the left pocket of his vest. “Well, that depends on what you’re asking for.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Titus Emory. And you?”
“I’m Alan. Could you tell me more about your store?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I could tell you a lot about this store, young man. Maybe you’d better be more specific.”
“Well, and I don’t mean to be rude, but there are three big equipment stores nearby, and they seem to be doing well. Why is yours so small and, well... empty?”
The cobbler rubbed his jaw. “See, when you came in here with that smile and that line about a favor, I was sure you were trying to sell me something. If that’s the case, you need to rework your approach; insulting a man’s place of work won’t endear you to many.
“But since you asked, the reason is pretty simple. When I quit my job as a blacksmith’s apprentice and set out to make my way in the world, forty-one years ago, there was no such thing as a Praetorian Guard in West Viridia. The Legion was busy fighting wars in one place or another, and I made my living following the cohorts, mending gear in exchange for coin or loot. I carried mail for officers and the odd official dispatch. Sometimes I’d travel with logistical convoys a hundred wagons long. Sometimes I was alone. When we reached a built-up military camp or an Imperial city, I’d sell the loot to buy tools, wire, and other supplies,” he said, waving to th
e shelves around him, “and figure out where the next front would open up. I’d made a name for myself—a few of them actually, and not all of them flattering. Then a funny thing happened.”
“What was the funny thing?” I asked.
“I got old,” the man said, grinning at his own joke. “I got tired of sleeping under my wagon, of getting extorted by bandits or Imperial supply officers. I’d gotten too slow and scared to chase the army around.
“I had enough set aside to open a small shop in New Viridia; it let me have inventory, but kept the rent low. I’d do the rounds of the training camps and veterans’ quarters, offering the same services I’d always offered, and they paid fair money to have someone who’d seen a thing or two adjust their gear.
“When the war ended, the Legion was reduced to half of its size. Imperial smiths and veterans opened their own shops, and ‘extra’ gear found its way to the marketplace. You know what I mean by extra, don’t you?”
“Fell off the back of a wagon?”
Titus shrugged. “More or less. Some merchants even took on the role of wholesaling surplus equipment at reduced costs. That’s Laeticia and Wallace’s shops, across the way—good people, for the most part, even if they’ve never seen blood outside a farmyard. And that was fine because although the Legion shifted to a peacetime schedule and troops had more time to polish their own boots and mend their chain mail, I’d help Laeticia shine up some of her displays, and I still had the veterans’ custom. Those were triarii and principes who wanted their kit done just so, even if it was out of habit, and many of whom I’d met during the wars. They were friends, you see?” he said with a smile. “Most of them are dead, now. ‘Stay busy,’ I told ’em, but they slowed down and moved on, one by one.
“Pretty soon, there wasn’t anyone left who’d fought a proper campaign, except the old Griffin—may he never die. The Legion raised a new cohort called the Praetorians to make sure there was a core group of professional soldiers around which the army could rally, and maybe to deal with any unrest too serious for the city watch to handle. They’re mostly the second or third sons of noble families, well trained but largely ceremonial. Spending money’s a bit of a competition for them. They want things like silver inlays, enchanted dueling crossbows, or lightweight swords balanced for parades. That’s what Bespoke Arms and Artifices—the big store at the top of the plaza—provides. I have neither the capital nor the desire for frippery.”
