Seeker of Secrets

by Deck Davis

  “There’s nothing you can do?” said Joshua.

  “I’m afraid not. Only to give you some food and clothes for the child. Perhaps you could try Blueden? It’s a hundred miles to the north west, I believe. I’m told their facilities are excellent, and believe me, I wouldn’t recommend somewhere that wasn’t suitable.”

  Joshua thought about using the one-use blessing of luck he’d received for helping the goblin in the first place, but this wasn’t the time. This wasn’t a matter of luck, after all; if Kordrude couldn’t take the baby from them, then another town would. And a blessing of luck surely had to be saved for a situation where their need for luck was a little more…desperate.

  He put his finger to his chin. “Hmm. Blueden is a little off course for us. Anywhere else?”

  “Do you have a map?”

  “We did, but it got ruined in the storm.”

  “Let me get you a new one and mark down a few places you might try. And really, I can give you plenty for food suitable for a growing goblin, and we have lots of spare blankets and loin cloths for it.”

  Kordrude fetched them a new map and a sack full of provisions for the baby. Joshua took them and put the bag by his feet. He held the map in his hands.

  “Do you have any candles going spare?” he said.

  “I’m sure we do, somewhere. Why?”

  “I’m going to melt a little wax and rub it on the map. It should stop this one getting ruined by the rain.”

  “Certainly,” said Kordrude, and he opened the drawers of his desk one by one until he found an unused wax candle.

  Joshua stood up. “Thank you, Kordrude. We’ve taken up too much of your time, and we better hit the road.”

  He stuck out his hand to shake his hand. Kordrude, in the custom of his race, leaned forward and pinched his index finger slightly with his beak. Joshua forced himself not to make a sudden movement at the strange gesture, not wanting to offend the crow.

  Benjen, however, offered his finger to the crow willingly, and grinned a little as Kordrude nibbled his skin. “Good to meet ya, Kordrude,” he said. “And thanks for the food and blankets.”

  You have learned a new greeting; that of the crowsie people.

  Seeker knowledge +1

  Seeker Knowledge Level: 0 [16/25]

  ~

  When the two boys left his office, Kordrude settled in his chair. He looked at the bottle of beer in front of him, and thought about tasting it again, but decided against it. He hadn’t wanted to upset the lad, but it really did taste foul.

  He stood up and fed a grasshopper to his pet furb, and through the window to his right he caught sight of the boys crossing town, with their rain-soaked coats and the oddly-shaped swords on their backs.

  It was good to meet young people with some drive about them, ones who weren’t content to waste their days in inns. He hoped they were successful with their guild and in finding a home for their goblin.

  That thought cast a little gloom upon him, because he knew all too well how difficult it was to find somewhere for an orphaned goblin now, and even the places he had suggested would be a long-shot. And the guild? Well, it was a worthy cause, to be sure. The world would always need heroes, and to Kordrude’s mind, heroism didn’t go hand in hand with the capitalism of the guild franchises.

  But…if the guildhouse they had bought was the one he’d heard about, then the boys were in for a shock.

  Still, he wished them well, and who knew? Maybe he’d go and visit them someday. It had been years since he’d travelled, and after his wife, Justona, died, he’d always promised himself he’d live a little. The problem was, there was always more people in need of help, and he’d never found the time. Maybe someday.

  ~

  Their main business in the town was a failure, but they still needed supplies. The merchants of Dyrewood were happy to sell dried beef and some vegetables and other foodstuffs, but they did it with a glint in their eyes, a glint that said, ‘we know that you are strangers.’ Strangers, it seemed, paid a premium on their goods.

  With no choice, they’d had to do it, and their rapidly-dwindling purse shrunk a little further. Joshua checked their joint coin purse; he had 6 gold, 14 silvers, and the 52 bronze coins his father had given him.

  Wow. He knew that money would be tight, but he hadn’t expected to spend so much, so early.

  They left Dyrewood tired, poorer, and still with little Gobber in his basket. They left town, reluctantly accepting that they’d have to be surrogate parents for a little longer, and Joshua half-wondered if he should train for the nursemaid class.

  After travelling another fifty miles, a storm hit. It was the worst Joshua had ever seen, the kind where the wind was like a whip, and the rain penetrated through his coat and seeped deep into his skin until he thought he must have more water in his body than a jellyfish.

  Benjen drank beer and sang through the storm, he raised toasts to the gods, and he ran his wet hands through his wet hair and swept it back, looking like a drunk warrior with a banana-shaped sword. He opened his coat and let the storm pummel him with its fury, soaking up the minor damage to add resistance to his breastplate.

  They passed another little village, Keld, after seventy-five miles. No luck there, either. Their orphanage was full; two troll parents had been crushed under a falling boulder, and their brood of eight little rock trolls were the responsibility of the village until a home could be found.

  At least he added 3 points to his seeker knowledge through seeing the village for the first time. This put him just 6 points away from reaching level 1 and getting his first binding ability or skill.

  As much as it disappointed him that the village orphanage was full, he was glad, too. It was nice that a human village would take care of troll children. He’d been right about the attitudes in this part of Fortuna.

  The people – though not the merchants - were charitable, and it spoke a lot about how times had progressed that a small village like that would take care of homeless rock troll children. It reinforced his belief that starting a guild was the right thing to do, because the world was a good place worth protecting, and the heroes who protected it needed a place to call home.

  So, they rode on with little Gobber, who if Joshua was honest, weathered the travelling and the storm better than either of them, and even laughed in his shrill little voice at Benjen and his songs about buxom barmaids.

  Despite everything, despite the cold and the wet and Joshua’s aching ass from too much time in the saddle, despite all that, it was a happy time. Because he was with his best friend, and this was their dream, and it was taking focus, drawing closer with every step of loyal Roebuck’s hooves.

  They rode like that for the last few miles until finally – finally! – the guildhouse loomed in sight, like an oasis in a desert.

  Joshua could hardly believe their journey was over. They gone over 100 miles since leaving Dyrewood, and his control skill had reached novice 8/10, with burst of speed getting to 5/10. The main improvement, and the one that made him happiest, was that travelling so far had boosted his animal bond all the way from Novice 4/10 to 9/10. Yes; he and Roebuck were good friends now.

  He was so close to horserider level 2 now; he just needed to increased control twice and animal bond once. It would be the first time he’d gotten a skill to level 2, since even through his apprenticeship he’d never gotten accountancy to level 2, and now he’d dropped that class in favor of negotiator.

  But he pushed skills and classes to the back of his mind now, and he focused on the building in the distance. Seeing the guildhouse meant their journey was at an end, but not their adventure. The hard part was only beginning.

  They stopped their horses when they first saw the guildhouse. A glow spread through Joshua. There it was, that grand old building, the thing that was theirs, that had once been great, and that they’d make great again. There it was, in all its decrepit glory.

  “Holy hells,” said Benjen. “We’ve got a job on our han
ds here, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, we bloody well have,” said Joshua.

  He imagined the hard work and the sweat and the nights without sleep that were sure to come, and he was happy.

  “Wait,” said Benjen. “Why’s there a dragon outside of the door?”

  Chapter Five

  “Well,” said Benjen, “You’re our creature-lore-guy. How do we shoo a dragon from our doorstep?”

  “Zoologist, it’s called,” said Joshua.

  It was one of his secondary classes, and it was a complex one. Like a lot of classes, it intertwined with others. A beast-tamer, for instance, needed to learn zoology in order to earn his class, as did a hunter or trapper.

  As a class on its own, though, zoologist was more on the academic side, and it had involved hours of studying from a book called Erkwert’s Guide to Beasts of Land and Field. It was a giant tome of a book with hundreds of animal species listed on their own pages. Gaining just the first level of zoologist had involved memorizing a quarter of the book, as well as spotting each corresponding creature in the flesh. It wasn’t enough just to read about them.

  That meant he’d had to choose his memorization carefully. It was no good memorizing the entry for hydra-snakes when it was impossible to find one near the village, or impossible to get close to one without certain death, as a matter of fact. As such, Joshua had earned level 1 of zoologist by memorizing dozens of species of field mice and other assorted vermin, as well as a myriad of insects that could be found in their peaceful part of Fortuna.

  Strictly speaking, of course, the study of insects was entomology, but again, this was where classes intertwined. A person who’d decided to dedicate all their class slots to creature study would research all of the different branches of zoology, and thus gain benefits for each.

  As for Joshua, attaining level 1 of zoologist meant that everything he’d memorized stayed organized in his mind, stored there for the kind of instantaneous recall a human brain wasn’t usually capable of. It meant that when he stepped into a new territory he could sense the presence of certain creatures. He quickly checked his zoologist class.

  Zoologist – Level 1 [Novice]

  Calm Animals: Novice 6/10

  Natural Awareness: Novice 3/10

  Creature Sense: Novice 4/10

  There was a reason that his calm animals skill was higher than his others; it was a shared skill. Not only was it levelled using his horserider class, but also zoologist, and this boosted his skill in it. Classes were most powerful when you learned complementary ones, like a hunter who also learned the trapper class. A sensible person would plan their future classes to suit.

  Individual skills in a class would level up as you practiced using them. Level them up enough and your overall class would upgrade, and with that every skill you had would be boosted to suit. When Joshua became a level 2 – competent – zoologist, all his skills would increase to match.

  His calm animals skill was 6 out of 10, so soon it would upgrade to the competent rank, and then start afresh at 1/10. When it upgraded, he’d be able to calm animals quickly and more effectively, and probably use it on tougher and more naturally-hostile creatures.

  His natural awareness and creature sense skills were more passive ones than active; creature sense would give him an idea of an animal’s strengths and weaknesses, though at novice level the information would be scant. Awareness would alert him to the presence of any animals in the area that he’d already learned about through studying zoology.

  Now, for instance, sitting on Roebuck and staring across the fields toward the guildhouse, he noted that three-dozen voles were scampering among the grass, even though he couldn’t actually see them.

  Forget the voles, though. What really bothered him was the dragon slumbering in front of the old guildhouse doors.

  This should have been a triumphant moment. He’d pictured it for years, catching his first sight of their own guildhouse, seeing the grand structure and its old wooden walls and its dusty windows.

  In his mind he’d always leapt ahead in time to one or two years later when it was restored in all its glory, where the wood was new and stained brown so that the color soaked up the sun, where the windows were arched and they gleamed, where a sign hung above a set of gigantic double doors, proclaiming to the world that this was a heroes guild and that no quest big or small would be turned down.

  Now, it was hard to skip forward because a giant, scaly obstacle was in the way.

  Here was the problem. He’d never studied dragons. What had been the point? There were no dragons within a thousand miles of his village, or so he thought. People said that dragons made their nests in the caves cut into the cliffsides over in the far, far east of Fortuna, where they snuggled in dark alcoves above the raging sea. They didn’t stray near land except to swoop over it and steal a sheep or two, and they didn’t dwell long for fear of armor-piercing arrows getting fired at them. They certainly didn’t lounge in front of old abandoned buildings.

  As he stared at the beast, wisps of writing formed in front of him.

  Binding of the Seeker updated

  You have seen a dragon for the first time.

  Seeker knowledge +10

  Seeker level 1 achieved!

  Seeker Knowledge Level: 1 [29/50]

  One-Use ability gained: Eye of the Beholder

  Your search for new truths has given you a skill. For one time only, you can look at a person – be they human, goblin or any other race – and see their classes and skills.

  Binding Use Unlocked: Store of Secrets

  When you discover the beginnings of a secret, your seeker binding will store it and any clues or information for later reference. When the secret is fully learned, you will receive a bonus to seeker knowledge.

  Secrets are ranked minor, major, or rare.

  Joshua felt a burst of warmth flow through him. In his head, he thanked his father for his gift and he felt an excitement for what was to come. Seeing the classes and skills of someone, even if he could only do it once, would be amazingly valuable. It meant that if he was in trouble – in a fight or an argument – he’d wouldn’t get blind-sided about what powers his foe had.

  This was a great ability indeed. And given that he could only use it once, he needed to use it wisely. No point squandering it on some minor aggressive creature in the wilds.

  Store of Secrets, on the other hand, he wasn’t sure about. People kept secrets for a reason, and he wasn’t certain he wanted to become a snoop. Then again, secrets didn’t just mean personal secrets, did it?

  It could mean dungeons, loot, secret passageways…

  Maybe learning secrets would be fun.

  “Please tell me that you know what to do,” said Benjen, looking at him.

  “Well, we can’t fight it.”

  “We agree on that, my friend. That right hook of yours might be mean, but I wouldn’t put you one on one with that.”

  Joshua couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You want to know the stupid thing?” he said.

  “What?”

  “The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about dealing with a dragon, is that we need to go to the heroes’ guild.”

  “Maybe that’s why it’s there. It knows what the guild is and what we plan to do, and it isn’t very happy.”

  “Dragons have reptile brains. They fly, they hunt, they breed. They don’t go looking for vengeance.”

  “Maybe we’ll offer Gobber as a sacrifice. A little nibble in exchange for it leaving.”

  “We’ll do no such thing.”

  Benjen leaned over his horse and squeezed Joshua’s shoulder. “I’m kidding. Lighten up. At least we’re here! Who said it was going to be easy?”

  “Hard work, I’m happy to do. But this is a little more than that. We can’t fight it, and we can’t reason with it…so maybe we’ll just have to find a way to lead it away from the guildhouse.”

  “What are you thinking?” said Benjen.

  “
The first thing that comes to mind is we bait it with a sheep or something, but that just seems cruel.”

  “We could buy sheep meat,” said Benjen.

  “No - dragons like the thrill of the hunt. They don’t actually need to eat often, I heard. Once a month at most. The only way it’ll care enough to move is if the sheep is alive, and they can hunt it.”

  “What sort of hunt is that? A dragon versus a sheep? Talk about an unfair advantage. Not only are they slow as hell, but I can’t think of anything more flammable than wool.”

  “It sounds stupid, but I don’t want to go buy a sheep from a farmer just to lead it on a cruel hunt. We need something else. Jewels, maybe? Don’t dragons love treasure?”

  “That sounds like one of those things people believe and say but isn’t really true. Like how people always used to say that elves live forever.”

  “Maybe. Your horse-riding is level 3, right?” said Joshua.

  “Yes…”

  “But Firemane isn’t too quick. Let’s say you had a stallion. If we coupled that with your horse-riding, think you’d be fast enough to outrun it?”

  “So, you won’t use a sheep as bait, but you’ll use me?”

  “If you don’t think you can do it, we’ll forget it. I don’t want you to get hurt, so this’ll only work if you could outride it. I know this sounds crazy, and maybe I’m not thinking straight. It’s just, you know, getting here and stuff…this was supposed to be a big moment.”

  “I know, pal. I’ve never tried to race a dragon, in honesty, and I’m not inclined to try. But maybe ask me again after a few more beers. Anyhow, even if I agreed this wasn’t crazy, where are we going to find a stallion?”

  “The estate manager said there’s a town near the guild,” said Joshua. “I haven’t seen it yet, but I remember him saying it was a few miles north. They’ll have a stable, and maybe they will rent us a stallion.”