Viridian Gate Online: Nomad Soul: A litRPG Adventure (The Illusionist Book 1)

by D. J. Bodden

  He frowned and seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment. The clock showed 8:01. I ignored it.

  “Truth is, I’ve been thinking of closing the place and hitting the road again. I have a pension. I could visit those friends I have who are still alive.”

  He raised his chin and straightened his back as if daring me to tell him he couldn’t do it.

  “I think that sounds like a great adventure, Titus, if it’s what you decide to do.”

  Titus nodded. “That’s kind of you. And maybe I will. Now, really, what can I do for you?”

  I took the bracers, gambeson, reinforced trousers, and boots and laid them on the counter. As an afterthought, I put the knife on the pile, too. “Could you tell me what the value of these items is?”

  “I’m sorry, but no.”

  I swallowed. I liked the guy, but I’d spent a lot of my limited time listening to him if he was just going to shut me down. “Can I ask why?”

  He pointed to the dagger. “You can sell this for one silver at most. It’s similar to a Dokkalfar Sicarius’s ritual knife, and that would fetch you five gold, but as you can see the handle is made of horse bone, the blade is steel, and there’s no enchantment on it. Some assassins use them rather than the real thing because they don’t have ancestors worth carrying for protection, because it’s what they can afford, and because knives get lost or broken. But if it’s the only weapon you have in a dangerous place, you shouldn’t sell it for ten gold.”

  He picked up the boots. “These are muffled boots of evasion. You could sell these for three golds and two silvers if you owned a shop and the right customer strolled in. But you don’t, so unless you’re going to go door to door, you should be happy with five silvers and two coppers.”

  “You’re saying value is relative?”

  “For any given item, yes. Because we live in a world with thousands of items, that web of interconnected values is stable. The boots are worth five silvers and two coppers to you because that’s fair value for the effort you took to obtain and sell them. They’re worth three golds and two silvers to the merchant because he or she must pay rent, or property taxes, hire a clerk to run the store when they aren’t there, and account for spoilage and theft. Once the costs come out, you’ll find their profit is much closer to yours, depending on your luck and talent.”

  “So how would you sell something for more than its value?”

  Titus scrunched up his nose. “Well, you could... no, because then they’d be paying fair value for the service, not overpaying the item. I guess the only way to do it would be to trick your customer into believing the item was something other than what it was.”

  I grinned. “Could you tell me what price I should be happy to get for the rest of this?”

  FELIX ACILIA WAS BUFFING the glass on one of his displays when a beggar walked in. Bespoke Arms and Artifices was a treasure hoard of rare objects, but a commoner dirtying the marble with his grubby feet was rarer still. “We don’t give out alms if that’s what you’re here for,” he said, more curious than angry, at least for the moment.

  “Begging your pardon, my lord knight,” the beggar said, addressing Felix as he should. “I saw a nobleman get attacked in an alley.”

  “Then call the city watch.”

  “Oh, no, sir! No need! Your brave kinsman, he fought them off, even killed one of them. Thing is, sir, he ran off, wounded, and he left the assassin just lying there, all dead like, and I thought his gear looked, well... special.”

  The beggar looked at him hopefully, and Felix felt a flicker of interest light within his breast. A man had to embrace the chances Gaia sent his way, and a good part of his older inventory had been stripped from corpses. He sighed. “It’s probably junk, but most of my customers are still taking their ease, or have business at the palace, and I’m feeling charitable. Show me what you have.”

  Felix stood with the counter between them, ready to grab the miniature crossbow he kept below it on a shelf. He thumbed the signet ring on his middle finger, a nervous gesture he’d acquired with the ring when his father died.

  The beggar placed a dagger on the counter that looked familiar to him, but something was off about the handle. Then came some bracers with throwing spikes tucked into the lining, a soot-black gambeson that seemed a bit old if well made, some reinforced trousers good only for skulking around at night, and a pair of felt boots. None of Felix’ clients would be caught dead wearing them, but they employed people who would find them serviceable if not lavish.

  The beggar swallowed. “I was hoping to get one gold and six silver for the bracers, the metal-lined jacket, the padded pants, and the boots, sir.”

  Felix was surprised. That was probably close to fair value for something like this. “And the dagger?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I thought I’d keep that, you see? As a souvenir. It looks like one of those Dokkalfar ancestor knives.”

  “It does a bit,” Felix said, leaning forward.

  “It’s all right, your knighthood. I know that’s silly. That kind of luck doesn’t happen to people like me.”

  But it’s exactly the kind of luck that happens to people like me, Felix thought.

  “In any case, my lord, I’d be grateful if you’d be willing to do one gold and six silvers, sir. It would mean the world to me.”

  Felix bit the inside of his cheek. The more he looked, the more he was certain. “You know, we’re not that different, you and I,” he said. “I was my father’s fourth son. Sometimes, all you need is a break in life to get started.” A break, and a house fire. “Why don’t I give you two gold for the lot, including the knife?”

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  Felix smiled. “I’m certain. Just be kind to the next man you meet, and we’ll consider us even.”

  1:21

  I could have ended it there. I would have sold the armor at fair value and the knife for four times that. But there was something about the oily son of a bitch that rubbed me all the wrong ways.

  I winced and shook my head for his benefit. “You’re being so nice to me, your lordship. But, well, you know old Titus, down the street? He offered to sell my gear on consignment. Now, I know he can’t pay me now, and it will take him time to do it, but he seemed to think he could find a buyer.”

  I could see that smug bastard’s jaw working like a piston. “I’ll give you two golds and two silvers, right now.”

  I’d regained enough Spirit to goose him one more time. “Sir, that’s too much! You could sell this dagger by tomorrow, but I couldn’t take advantage of you like that.” I lifted my shirt, showing off the black belt and sheath, and reached for the dagger.

  “One gold, just for the dagger,” the merchant said.

  I paused, mid-reach. One gold was one hundred coppers, ten times what the knife was worth.

  0:39

  He swallowed. “It has sentimental value, you see? You said a nobleman was attacked?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. He had those red stripes on his tunic, just like yours.”

  “And the assassin was an elf?”

  “A Murk Elf, yes sir. Pointy ears and everything.” I scratched the back of my head. The clock was winding down. I had one last moment of indecision, not because of the price, but because of what I’d gone through to get the knife. I let it go, though; selling the knife wouldn’t rob me of the memory. “I suppose if it means that much to you, sir, it wouldn’t be right not to sell it to you. And I could take this old armor to Titus.”

  “It’s settled then,” the merchant said. He took the knife and put it below the counter, then clicked a single gold coin in its place right as the timer reached 11 seconds.

  “Thanks,” I said grabbing it. As my fingers lifted the coin from the countertop, I felt rather than saw a notification pop on my journal and character sheet. I felt the beginnings of a smile form on my lips.

  “Don’t forget your things,” the shop owner said, the warmth fled from his expression, his tone bored.

  I di
pped my head. “Thanking you kindly, your nobleness.” I gathered the armor into my inventory and bowed repeatedly on my way out.

  Once I’d closed the shop door behind me, I straightened my shoulders and let a full smile play across my lips. I checked my notifications.

  <<<>>>

  Quest Update: Smoke and Mirrors

  You successfully sold an item for more than its value. In return, as your reward, you have received 1,000 XP. This brings you one step closer to new skills and a new character class.

  Quest Class: Rare, Class-Based

  Quest Difficulty: Hard

  Success 1: Swindled a Swindler

  Success 2: ???????

  Success 3: ???????

  Failure: Fail to complete any of the objectives.

  Reward: Class Change; 6,000 EXP

  <<<>>>

  Level Up!

  You have (5) undistributed stat points! Stat points can be allocated at any time.

  You have (1) unassigned proficiency point! Proficiency points can be allocated at any time.

  <<<>>>

  Hmm. There was no mention of what my next task would be. I wondered if the system would generate a quest based on the opportunity, or if keeping me in the dark was part of the quest itself. I allocated the stat points to Spirit, raising my Spell Strength from 15 to 18 and my Spirit from 130 to 160. Since Suggestions cost me 100 Spirit each, that meant I could cast it once, and then once more twelve seconds later. After that, I’d have to wait close to thirty seconds to cast again.

  “Nice one, dude,” Jeff said.

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Thought you might lose him, at the end.”

  I chuckled. “That’s fair.” I’d played it a little cute, squeezing him that much, but so far the game had been rewarding me for being... me. A more realized, fuller version of me, for sure, but one I wouldn’t be unhappy to see in the mirror.

  “So what’s next?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m going to drop this armor off with Titus and then hang out with Horace.”

  “Cool,” Jeff said. “You mind if I step away for a minute?”

  “That’s fine,” I told him. I was feeling good. Not sublime, like when I’d been bodiless or eating the flatbread from June’s Rotisserie, but good, and I figured he’d tell me if there was anything wrong with the readouts.

  I stopped by Titus’s shop. He was surprised but happy to see me return. “They do say third time’s the charm,” he said.

  I handed him the armor, and he gave me a receipt in return. He then added me to his contact list and told me he’d send me a PM if he sold the armor, as long as I was still in New Viridia. I smiled at how normal it seemed to the NPC to be able to send a message straight into my head, as if that was a natural part of life.

  “You didn’t mention how you came to own this particular set of equipment,” Titus said.

  “Does it matter?”

  He stuck his lower lip out. “Sometimes a story sells better than the item itself, especially for class-locked gear.”

  So I told him, leaving out a few details like Provus’s name and that I’d gotten a quest. I was just in the right place at the right time. Titus listened and nodded, asking questions when appropriate.

  “It’s a shame about the knife,” he said when I was done. “It would have made a complete set.”

  “Oh, I got paid well for it,” I said, smiling.

  “Did you? Good for you.”

  I thanked him and said goodbye, then I walked back to find Horace.

  “How’d you do, boy?”

  I shrugged. “I did okay. Shall we head back to the market by June’s?”

  “Let’s,” he said, standing and reaching for my arm. “The people around here lack charity, and they make up for it with perfume.”

  JEFF LOOKED OVER THE readouts one more time, but there was nothing to see. Alan’s body was healthy and under a normal amount of stress. There were no unexplained spikes in cardiac or breathing rates, no abnormal waveforms, and no interruptions in signal. If they weren’t making history, Jeff would be bored.

  He took his headset off and rubbed his eyes. They were a little over five hours into the... what would they call it? The Session? The Dive? Would the press romanticize it and call it Traveling, or the Transition? Did he care?

  The stress he’d felt over failing was gone. Now, he just wanted to go home and see his wife and kid. He knew it was the wrong answer, the weak answer, but he wanted to see Cheryl so bad his arm ached. He grabbed his stress ball and gave it a couple squeezes, but he didn’t scratch his scars. Progress is not perfection, he reminded himself. He just needed to get himself through today.

  He stood. His left knee throbbed, and he winced. Too long in the chair. He rubbed it with both hands.

  When he’d turned forty, a year ago, he’d been racing his daughter to the end of the Santa Monica Pier. She had to run twice as fast to keep up with his long strides, and they’d both been laughing. He’d felt a twinge. He didn’t think anything of it.

  The next morning, his left knee was swollen and painful. The engineer in him knew right away. An average person weighed 150 pounds. A runner only had one foot on the ground, doubling that weight, and the impulsion required to run tripled the double—1,000 pounds of compressive force hitting the knee. And the knee, amazing joint that it was, could take all the torsion, compression, and impact a human could throw at it, on average.

  Jeff was three inches taller than average, which on a routine basis subjected the cartilage and connective tissues of his knee to six extra pounds, thirty-two on the run. The rest was cyclic loading and fatigue, because a runner didn’t take just one step.

  So now he wore a knee sleeve under his jeans. The swimming helped, according to his PT, and Jeff was a nanotech engineer living in an age of wonders. He still had hopes of not ending up with a cane, like his dad.

  He made his way out to the parking lot, favoring his leg a little; there was no cell phone reception inside Alpha Testing or the vault, and he needed the fresh air.

  “Hey, babe,” he said into his phone. “I’m sorry. Yeah, I know, I should have called.”

  SANDRA BULLARD PUSHED the bar on the fire escape door, the one that said it was alarmed but wasn’t, and left the photography store through the back. She put her sunglasses on and slung her purse over her shoulder.

  She squeezed between a gray sedan and a brown minivan that were illegally parked in the small loading area and stepped into an L-shaped side street that ran behind a church, two low-rent two-story apartment buildings, a dozen medium-to-high-income gated houses and one ten-room gray-and-white McMansion with a small but immaculate front lawn, all of which were inexplicably on the same block. She walked to the right, through a parking lot, passed the corrugated-tin paneled equipment shed maintained by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and pushed her way into the back of a two-story blue concrete building through a fire escape that she’d also left unlocked. She closed the door, put the pin back into place, and armed the security system.

  From there, she made her way to the locker room and started changing out of her clothes.

  “Second workout of the day, Sandra?” Laura Tidswell asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know how you do it.”

  Sandra laughed. “It’s the only thing that keeps me sane!”

  Laura smiled at her knowingly. Everyone at the gym knew Sandra worked for one of the most driven and eccentric men in the world, which was why she went to the gym at odd hours, and often; everyone needed an outlet.

  Sandra checked her company phone and saw that Robert was up and working. She wasn’t sure why she’d expected otherwise. He’d suffered as many setbacks as victories over the years she’d worked for him. He made good of it by cutting his losses early and without sentiment and keeping his energy and momentum focused on successful ventures.

  Viridian had seemed personal, though, like a kid’s wish fulfillment made possible through millio
ns of dollars and military technology. For a second, she thought she’d caught sight of the tin man’s heart. “How’s Julie doing?” Sandra asked, scrolling through email headers.

  “Great!” Laura said. “You know I was skeptical at first, but I think it’s been good for her. She hasn’t missed practice in weeks, and she makes eye contact with people when she talks to them. I’m so proud of her.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Linda paused. “Her yellow belt ceremony’s next Thursday. I know you can’t commit...”

  “I’ll try,” Sandra said, putting the phone back into her locker.

  “It would mean the world to her.”

  Sandra smiled. It was always nice to be needed, and she still kept in touch with the women who’d been her role models when she was younger.

  She put her hair up in a ponytail to keep it off her neck. She pulled on running shorts and a sweat-wicking tank top, put on running shoes, and put her smartwatch back on to track her workout. She never took electronics with her to the photography store.

  The front of the gym was two floors of machines and weights, with glass on three sides. There was a good mix of classes on offer, and sometimes she joined the kickboxing class or hit the mats with the Brazilian jiu-jitsu trainer. Anyone driving by would see her there several times a week.

  She chose a treadmill, put her headphones in, and started running. She thought about next week’s schedule. She thought about her mom and her two brothers. She gave a thought to Alan, but it was passing; she liked his eyes. She thought about her dinner plans. Thai food sounded good. Another few miles, and she’d have earned it.

  The gym belonged to Jim, an old friend from her Army days. He thought she was having an affair and just wanted her to be happy. As far as he was concerned, she had not been recruited by the CIA during her first enlistment. She had not been trained as an operator. She had never spent time overseas under false pretenses, and she was certainly not doing so now, on American soil, because that would be illegal. A person with a twistier mind might point out that it was not illegal to quit her job at the CIA, and that the NSA maintained paid informants, but Jim owned a gym so he could work out for free.