by A F Kay
Bliz picked up one of the rings, set it on its side, and flicked it. The ring spun in a tight circle, moving in a slow arc around the table. “A piece of advice when it comes to Energy gear. Distribute it across your body as much as you can. Bad luck always brings friends. A Collector I know was unloading a crate of weapons from his band. The crate busted, and a sword sliced off his hand. The hand with all his Energy rings. In shock from the loss of his hand, and no longer having the Energy Regeneration to keep his Void Band open, he died three seconds later of Energy depletion.”
The ring wobbled, its path becoming erratic. Ruwen picked it up before it fell over.
Tring!
The Worker’s Lodge has loaned you…
Name: Coiled Lightning Ring
Quality: Fine
Durability: 11 of 16
Weight: 0.1 lbs.
Effect (Passive): +5 Energy per second.
Restriction: Worker Class.
Description: A trapped lightning bolt powers this ring. Ring stability is proportional to durability. Never use in water.
“This ring is amazing,” Ruwen said.
“The other four are the same. Twenty-five Energy will let you keep a six-foot circle open indefinitely. Which you're going to need when loading everyone up for this trip.”
Ruwen placed two Coiled Lightning Rings to his right and three to his left. Since his Ring of Exploding Regeneration provided Energy as well, it made sense to put it in the smaller pile. He removed the ring and placed it in the right-hand pile.
Bliz’s advice about Energy was just as valid for Health items. Since his Ring of Exploding Regeneration was already in the right-hand pile, he placed the Rock Serpent Ring of Health in the left-hand pile, bringing it to four rings. He put his Jaga Wedding Band in the right-hand pile to bring it to four as well. Satisfied, he slid all the rings on. His skin itched, and it felt like a breeze brushed the hair on his arms.
“You’ll get used to the sensation,” Bliz said.
Ruwen looked at his Profile page and marveled at the Energy Regeneration.
General
Name: Ruwen Starfield
Race: Human
Age: 16
Class: Worker
Hidden Class: Root (Observer)
Level: 5
Class Rank: Novice
Cultivation Stage: 19
Cultivation Rank: Initiate
Deaths: 2
Deity: Goddess Uru
Experience: 1,692/15,000
Marks
Black Pyramid
Bamboo Viper Clan
Pools
Health: 155/155
Mana: 190/190
Energy: 273/273
Spirit: 352,164
Attributes
Strength: 13
Stamina: 13
Dexterity: 15
Intelligence: 19
Wisdom: 12
Charisma: 12
Ratings
Knowledge: 37
Armor Class: 82
Max Encumbrance: 195
Critical Chance %: 2.50%
Power Strike %: 2.60%
Haste %: 3.00%
Dodge %: 5.00%
Persuasion %: 6.90%
Resilience %: 14.50%
Endurance %: 2.60%
Cleverness %: 39.90%
Perception %: 32.40%
Resistances
Elemental Resistance %: 16.50%
Poison Resistance %: 16.50%
Acid Resistance %: 16.50%
Mind Resistance %: 16.50%
Order Resistance %: 16.50%
Chaos Resistance %: 12.50%
Disease Resistance %: 16.50%
Light Resistance %: 16.50%
Dark Resistance %: 14.50%
Regeneration
Health Regeneration per second: 1.31
Mana Regeneration per second: 1.48
Energy Regeneration per second: 28.73
Ruwen rubbed his arms. He wondered what Bliz’s Regeneration rate was, but knew better than to ask. If people wanted you to know their stats, they made it public. Bliz’s were private, and Ruwen’s Perception would never discover them on someone forty-six levels higher like Bliz. Merchants and Priests seemed to be the only Classes that were generally open about their values.
Bliz removed a box about the size of Ruwen’s forearm from his band and set it on the table. The brown wood looked distressed, and the entire box appeared ancient. Clasped hands were etched beautifully on the box’s cover.
Bliz placed a hand on top of the box. “These are special. This will be the first time they get used on one of these adventures. It is what Big D wanted me to give you.”
“That is a lot of mystery.”
“I know. These have been in the temple’s vault for who knows how long. The City Council forced the priests to hand them over.”
“Are you prolonging this on purpose?”
Bliz smiled. “Maybe a little. I’m not supposed to tell you much about these, but I’m a firm believer in knowing exactly what I’m transporting. You should too.”
Bliz opened the box, and Ruwen saw ten necklaces, each in their own velvet depression. They didn’t look valuable. Each had a ratty brown string attached to an inch-long amulet in the shape of the clasping hands of the Worker.
“That’s a lot of buildup for what looks like something I made when I was eight,” Ruwen said.
“Never judge a judge by how much he drinks.”
“Is that even a saying?”
Bliz’s mouth twisted in thought. “Probably not.” Bliz closed the box.
“Big D didn’t tell you what they did, did she.”
“Well, I started to make a big fuss about not putting dangerous things in my band –”
“You have lava in there!”
Bliz held up his hands. “Hypothetically. Anyway, by the time she finished talking to me, I had agreed to keep this all secret. I didn’t realize until after she hadn’t really told me anything. That woman is a Mind Mage in disguise.”
“I wonder what they do.”
There were three hard knocks on the door. “You better not be sitting in there drinking, Bliz,” Big D said from outside. “We leave in two minutes.”
Bliz’s eyes widened, and he closed the lid of the box. In quick succession, he removed another five boxes from his Void Band. The new boxes only differed in color and symbol, but the ancient look of the boxes remained.
Ruwen opened the Observer box and peeked inside. These necklaces looked identical to the Worker ones except the amulet was a pair of eyes.
“The reason why you’re carrying it and not Big D is because these consume Energy and won’t go in a normal Dimensional Bag. They’ll only go in ours.”
“How much Energy?”
“Each box took one, so six Energy per second total.”
“Isn’t that odd? I thought only living things consumed Energy.”
Bliz shrugged. “Another one of Big D’s secrets. I don’t have an explanation for this, sorry.”
“I’ll figure it out and tell you when I get back.”
“That sounds great. My curiosity is killing me.”
Ruwen opened his Void Band wide, almost three feet, and his Energy bar never budged from full. He smiled as he picked up each box and stored it. It was nice not having to worry about killing himself for once.
“Okay, let’s go before Big D comes back,” Bliz said.
Ruwen put his half cup of cider in his band. Bliz let them out, and Ruwen walked around the pillar to find Big D giving directions to another Worker. Ruwen moved over to Sift and Hamma, who were both eating.
Hamma handed Ruwen a breakfast sandwich. The flatbread had been folded on three sides and was filled with eggs, sausage, and cheese.
“Thanks,” Ruwen said.
“Hamma bought them,” Sift said. “They’re delicious.”
Hamma stared at Sift and then looked at Ruwen. “You’d never know he almost died an hour ago.”
“Oh,
he gets a lot weirder. Hopefully, we don’t end up in a fire. Some things you can’t unsee,” Ruwen said.
“Don’t worry, I packed a lot of extra underwear,” Sift said. Hamma looked confused but Sift continued, waving his sandwich around. “Hamma said you caused all this.”
Ruwen looked at Hamma.
“Well, that’s what you told those Enforcement soldiers, and it’s the only thing people are talking about here,” Hamma said.
“Are there no appahs here?” Sift asked.
“City Council banned them from the middle and center rings of the city. So we won’t see any until we reach the outskirts,” Hamma said.
“Why would they do that?” Sift asked.
“People complained about the droppings and the added congestion,” Hamma said.
“And by people, she means the well-off,” Ruwen said.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Hamma said with a frown.
“I thought I saw an appah once. But then it shot a beam of light out of its horn. Burned my clothes right off. Hopefully, you don’t have…” Sift’s voice trailed off when he looked up from his sandwich to find Hamma staring at him.
“I’m sorry,” Hamma said. “A beam of light shot from its horn?”
Ruwen raised his eyebrows and shook his head at Sift.
Sift grimaced. “Sorry. Stupid secrets.”
Hamma gritted her teeth in frustration.
Big D walked up to their group.
Ruwen wiped crumbs from his mouth. “Big D, these are my friends. Hamma and Sift.”
Big D crossed her arms over her chest and bowed to Hamma. “Her blessings on you, Sister Hamma.”
Big D remained bent over.
Hamma kissed her index and middle fingers and held them up. “Her favor on your plans, her light across your path, her mercy in your heart,” Hamma said, and placed the fingers on the back of Big D’s head.
Big D stood, kissed her own two fingers, and touched her heart, mouth, and forehead. “Thank you, Sister.”
Ruwen wouldn’t have guessed Big D was the religious type.
“Are you still at the Holy Academy?” Big D asked.
Hamma shook her head. “I was placed in the temple for specialized training.”
Big D raised her eyebrows. “Impressive, you must be special.”
“Not really,” Hamma said.
“And humble, too,” Big D said with a smile.
Big D faced Sift and paused for a moment, probably inspecting him. Ruwen hoped the tattoo’s disguise held up to Big D’s seventy-one levels.
Big D held out her arm, and Sift gripped it. “Well met, Sift. We don’t see many Fighters specializing in Unarmed Combat. Everyone wants a chunk of metal to hold.”
Sift smiled and let go of Big D’s arm. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”
“Do you follow the Step tournaments?” Big D asked.
“He just recently got here,” Ruwen said.
“The Burning Scorpions will win this year,” Sift said with confidence.
Big D tilted her head. “Aren’t they third in their division?”
“Yes, but only because of bad luck and worse judges. By the time the championships arrive, they’ll have earned a spot.”
Ruwen stared at Sift in disbelief. Where had he learned all this?
“They’re a good team,” Big D said. “I like the Sand Spirits.”
Sift nodded. “Solid team. Good balance of hard and soft techniques. I could live with them winning.”
Big D faced Ruwen and pointed to two large Workers standing ten feet behind her. “That’s Wip and Qip. They’re not Step fighters, but they’re good in a fight. Their job is to keep people away from you and help out if any trouble finds us. I’ll let all my people know about your friends, so they don’t get hassled.”
“Thank you, Big D,” Ruwen said.
Big D turned to Sift. “Let’s talk later, and I’ll tell you my theory on what teams are secretly part of Clans.”
Sift grinned and nodded. Big D walked past Wip and Qip and yelled for Bliz.
“How on Uru’s last breath do you know about Step tournaments?” Ruwen asked.
“Io keeps me up-to-date,” Sift said. He looked down at his waist and the hidden sheath that contained Io. “I know. She has good taste in teams.”
“Stop that,” Ruwen whispered.
“Stop what?” Sift asked.
“Who are you talking to?” Hamma asked Sift.
Ruwen held up his hands. “Everybody stop. No more questions until I figure out how to unload all these secrets. And Sift, under no circumstances are you to talk with Big D. That woman has some sort of magic that,” Ruwen twirled a finger near his temple, “messes with your head.”
“She seemed really nice,” Hamma said. “Nothing like my mom described her.”
“Who is your mom? That officer seemed really worried after he found out who you were.”
Hamma smirked. “You just said no more questions.”
“Yeah, you did say that,” Sift agreed.
Ruwen gritted his teeth.
“Let’s get started,” Big D yelled.
Ruwen stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and followed Big D out of the Worker’s Lodge.
Chapter 6
Ruwen traveled in the middle of a moving ring of people. The center included Big D, Bliz, Sift, and Hamma. Wip and Qip, one in front and one behind, glared at everyone in the crowd. The next ring contained a handful of high-level Workers along with more muscled and serious-looking Workers. The outer ring contained twenty or so younger Workers who acted like a wedge through the early morning congestion.
“Have you given much thought to how you’re going to organize all the junk they give you?” Bliz asked.
“No,” Ruwen said as anxiety bloomed in his chest.
“Don’t worry. Your Inventory is the default twenty-five by forty grid, but you can change that with a thought. Also, you don’t have to remember exactly what is given to you since you can dump things by grid location.”
“Grid location?” Ruwen asked.
Bliz nodded. “Remembering your own things is easy, and they aren’t hard to retrieve. But when you start storing things for others, it gets complicated. Using the grid system makes it easier.”
“My time at the library exposed me to some of this,” Ruwen said. “There are as many ways to shelve books as there are librarians. Color, height, alphabetical, subject, author, age…the list is endless. But any system is better than no system. How does the grid one work?”
“Assume you keep the standard twenty-five wide by forty deep grid. If what you wanted was in the tenth row down and twenty columns over, you would think ten-twenty.”
“That’s handy.”
“It gets better. If you want to retrieve all the items from a row at once, you think of the row and then one more than the max column for that row, along with how fast you want it to come out. So if I thought, ten twenty-six one, everything in row ten would start coming out in one-second intervals.”
“That is really powerful,” Ruwen said.
“And dangerous. This is an easy way to kill yourself. If you forget how big things are and they start coming out every second, you could quickly run out of energy.”
“You can stop it, right?”
“Yes, if you realize it in time.”
Ruwen looked down at his Void Band. “I never expected storage to be so complicated.”
“The logistics of a thousand Inventory slots will soon be abundantly clear to you.”
“What would you do?”
“Since you have a lot of free space, I would give each Class their own section. Then dump it out when asked. So the first place we stop gets rows thirty-six through forty. Next Class gets thirty-one through thirty-five. With the hundreds of items you’ll be carrying, it will be easy to drop it all when you arrive.”
“That’s a good system. I’ll use it,” Ruwen said.
Bliz held up his finger. “Always remembe
r to add the time delay at the end. If you don’t, everything comes out at once. That can be really painful.”
“Hypothetically?” Ruwen added.
“Yes, hypothetically,” Bliz said and chuckled. “Inventory can be fun. After a few drinks, we sometimes play a game at the bar called Blind Bandit. There are other rules, but the basics are one person picks a location in someone else's band. Everyone bets on what’s in that grid location. The slot’s contents might be empty, lethal, edible, wearable, or if your luck is terrible, the Blind Bandit.”
“What’s the Blind Bandit?” Ruwen asked.
“It’s a small stuffed panda the bartender puts in one of our Void Bands. Only the owner knows he has it. If the slot a person picks is within twenty-five of the Bandit, they have to pay the ransom.”
“I can’t believe the games you guys play. What’s the Bandit’s ransom?”
“The loser has to drink three shots and buy everyone in the bar a drink. It’s a very popular game with customers. Everyone plays.”
“How do you not get banned from that place?”
“I know the owner,” Bliz said with a wink.
“Head’s up, we’re at the warehouse,” Big D said.
“I asked Big D to come here first so we could load something familiar the first time,” Bliz said.
“This place is huge,” Sift said.
Ruwen had passed the city’s main warehouse before but hadn’t really paid attention to it. It was just off Center Street, and while there were other warehouses throughout the city, this was the largest. The building had been created by Stone Mages and rose thirty feet into the air before arcing inward to form the roof. The building ran the entire block, and the structure had been pulled up from the ground a few feet. Rain or flood, moisture would have a difficult time entering this building. The walls were seamless, and Ruwen wondered at the power to shape some of nature’s hardest stone.
“I’ve never been inside,” Hamma said.
“Me either,” Ruwen replied.
The outer ring stopped at the stairs and fanned out. The second ring and then Ruwen’s group entered the two-story double doors.
