Seeker of Secrets

by Deck Davis

  It was pressure, having to be the one to come up with a plan, but that came with being the guildmaster. Eventually, he’d have a whole roster of heroes looking to him for direction. A lot of them would be older than him and most of them would be stronger, at least physically, so Joshua was going to need to be able to think quickly and act with authority.

  He hoped that his sense of purpose would be his main asset in this. Lots of heroes were mercenaries these days, and there was nothing wrong with that. But, while they might not have looked up to Joshua in the same way they would a fellow hero, he would make sure they could see how much this meant to him; that restoring the guild wasn’t just a job for him, it was a calling.

  Joshua wanted to leave his mark by restoring the heroes’ guild as a force for good. Not for the whole of Fortuna, sure. But at least for the East.

  His sense of purpose failed him at this exact moment, though, when he was faced with a line of hovering thrips with giant stingers.

  “You’re not from round here, are you?” said the orc woman.

  “How can you tell?” asked Benjen.

  “The way this one’s dressed,” she said, jerking her thumb at Joshua.

  “This? It’s a home-made wasp suit.”

  “For what?”

  “I thought I was going to have to deal with the thrips.”

  “These little fellas?” said the woman, reaching to her right and stroking a thrip’s furry body. “They’re harmless.”

  “Tell your husband that. He rushed over to the heroes’ guild looking like a swollen lump,” said Benjen.

  The orc lady crossed her arms. This made her forearm muscles pop out, and Joshua was a little perturbed to note that she had bigger muscles than him. He wasn’t skinny, but this was a reminder that a little more exercise would be a good idea.

  “C’mon, lads,” she said. “I’ll make you a brew and explain everything. Don’t worry about Harry, Lance, Georgina, Fin, Poppo, Veronica, Maecel, Fifi, Quadi, Bob, Nilmar, and Xana. They won’t bother you.”

  “Are those your kids?” said Joshua, looking around for the children whose names she’d reeled off too quick for him to remember.

  “No, the little buggers are indoors.”

  “Harry, Lance, Georgina? All those guys…they’re the names of the thrips, I take it?” said Benjen.

  “Right y’ar. Come on, they won’t cause trouble.”

  Joshua looked at the thrips with a little apprehension, but nevertheless he urged Roebuck on. The insects parted on his approach and allowed him to go past, and he and Benjen followed the orc to her house.

  The inside of the farm house was warm, and there was an oak table set in the centre of the living room. The floor was made of stone, and it was marked with various stains and spills.

  Rather than having shelves filled with books and other normal family possessions like ornamental knick-knacks, there was a long counter set aside one wall of the room. This was made from metal, and it looked like a butcher’s counter.

  There was a thrip lying on the metal surface. At first Joshua thought that it was dead, but it was shivering slightly and bending its stinger this way and that, like a dog kicking its legs in a dream.

  On the far end of the room there was a small kitchen area. Adjacent to that, next to one wall, were lots of wooden crates. They were all filled with jars, some containing a purple liquid, almost like ink, and others filled with a thick-looking crystallized syrup of some sort.

  The orc stood at the door way and crossed her arms. This made her forearms tense up again, and Joshua saw her tattoos popping out. They were tiny blocks of writing each about an inch long. He couldn’t read the language, but it was clear that the blocks of texts were ordered into bullet-pointed lists.

  Up close, he realized that he’d gotten her age wrong. Maybe he’d thought she was older because the swollen farmer had been on the older side himself, and because Joshua was so far away when he first saw her, but the orc woman couldn’t have been older than her late twenties.

  She had the usually rough orcish look; the kind that said she’d answer any trouble or foolishness with a closed fist, but there was also a prettiness to her. It was her smile, he realized. It was warm and inviting.

  Joshua had never seen an orc girl before since no orc families lived near his old village, but he knew that more and more human-orc marriages were happening. It was natural, given the numerous similarities between the two peoples, and the fact that academics in fancy colleges in the big cities believed that humans and orcs followed the same genealogical line.

  He wondered what Benjen would say if he knew Joshua found her pretty. Probably nothing, since he was the most open, welcoming person Joshua had ever met, but who knew? Maybe aspects of his racist grandpa’s personality had followed the family tree.

  Nah. Benjen wouldn’t think like that.

  “I’m Beula,” she said, and she held both her hands out toward them, one pointed at Joshua the other and Benjen.

  Beula squeezed both their hands. Joshua winced at her grip strength, but Benjen bore it with ease. Or, it looked that way, anyway. He was chewing his bottom lip, which could have meant anything.

  “I’m Joshua, and this is Benjen,” he said. “Please to meet you.”

  “You’re from the west, aren’t you?” said Beula. “Near the coast, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “It’s set away from the sea. A couple of hours walk.”

  “Well, you’ve still got it in your voices. The tone of salt and a little bit of roughness. I miss that area; I know it’s a backward place, but lots of places are in the west. Doesn’t make them less interesting.”

  “You lived in the west?”

  She shook her head. “I travelled there back when I was a loreist. You’ve come to tell me about Carlisle, haven’t you?”

  “Is that your husband’s name?” said Benjen.

  “Didn’t he tell you? Loves the sound of his own name, that man.”

  “He wasn’t much in the mood for talking, what with his tongue swollen like a slug.”

  She walked across the living room and to the kitchen, where she rummaged in a cupboard and then pulled out a brown glass bottle with a giant cork sticking out of the top.

  She walked back with the bottle and three glasses, and she set them on the metal counter, next to the sleeping thrip.

  “A drink?” she said.

  She uncorked the bottle, and a fragrance filled the room, one so pungent that it felt like breathing it in was a kind of mental scrub for inside his brain, as if all the thoughts in his head had been chased away.

  Benjen coughed at the smell. His face grew bright red.

  “Orcish liquor,” said Beula. “It’s not for everyone!”

  She poured herself some of the brown liquid and drank it in one shot. She poured another, and she sipped this one leisurely.

  “You better tell me why you’re here. Don’t tell me Carlisle has been running his mouth off in town.”

  “Well,” began Joshua.

  A trapdoor opened in the floor in the kitchen. There was the sound of something scratching on stone, and soon, something emerged from the darkness below the floors.

  It was a demon. Joshua knew that from the faint whiff of brimstone in the air, although the scent was counter-balanced by a light soapy-aroma, which the demon must have used to try and get rid of his more underworldly stench.

  It was four-feet tall with three ears on the top if its head, below which was a single square-shaped eye in the centre of its face. It’s skin, if you could call it that, looked to be made of a bark-type material, and little flecks of it cracked off when it moved.

  As creatures from the underworld went, this wasn’t as scary as he’d pictured a demon to be. In fact, in a strange way, it was something of a disappointment. It had a world-weary look on its face rather than a malicious sneer. Its expression was that of a down-trodden servant, someone who had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  Benjen got to his feet
and drew his banana-shaped sword. He instinctively stood in front of Beula and Joshua, guarding them with his bulky body. Even if there was little chance of him actually using his sword, Joshua liked that his friend’s first instinct was to protect them.

  After all, the creature didn’t know whether Benjen would use it or not, and his friend’s size made him seem intimidating.

  The demon huffed. “Your jars are stacked, ma’am,” he said, in a voice seeping with irritation. “Will you require anything else?”

  “Just for you to watch the children,” said Beula. “Are they behaving?”

  The demon was going to answer, when behind him, eight heads popped up from the trapdoor opening.

  “Mother!”

  “Mama!”

  “Modere!”

  “Mam!”

  Here, Joshua realized he was wrong about the children; they weren’t half-orcs. Well, one of them was, but there was also a little elf girl, two human twins, a goblin boy and girl who had their arms around each other’s shoulders, a gnoll toddler, a dwarf boy…and then something strange.

  Joshua almost couldn’t believe it, and he probably would have refused to accept it as truth had he not already learned that out here in the east, almost everything would come as a surprise to him.

  The eighth child was a sepuna. Boy or girl, Joshua didn’t know. In fact, probably even the child itself didn’t know. With its pure-black, marble-like skin and zero facial features, it was hard to accept it as a living thing at all. Its body was humanoid in shape and it had a little head that seemed to be looking in his direction, but without it having eyes, it was difficult to tell.

  Sepunas were among the rarest of races in Fortuna. Famed for their complete lack of fertility and utter demotivation to even test it, it was thought that there were no sepuna children around.

  In fact, rather than work to conceive a child and rear it to adulthood, the sepunas practiced necromancy, and raised deceased sepuna elders from the dead when their population counts became too low.

  Joshua’s mouth was open so wide that his jaw almost unhinged. He stared at the faceless sepuna and the way its head seemed to be directed at him, and the way it was isolated from the other children, and he felt pity stir in his heart. Since he’d been a loner before befriending Benjen, Joshua felt an affinity for anyone who was a little different. He felt like he should go and give the sepuna child a hug.

  Although he’d read about sepunas before, he’d never even imagined that he’d see one. And now that he did, wisps of text hovered in his vision.

  Binding of the Seeker updated

  You have seen a member of the sepuna [Rare] race for the first time.

  Seeker knowledge +9

  Seeker level 2 achieved!

  Seeker Knowledge Level: 2 [58/100]

  One-Use ability gained: Temporary Competency

  Your search for new truths has given you an ability.

  For one time only, you can gain the skills of a class you have not earned, to a level of 2 - Competent. This will last for an hour only.

  He was floored. Eye of the Beholder was powerful enough; some people would have paid a fortune in gold to be able to see a list of a person’s classes and skills, even for one use. It took away a person’s element of surprise, because if you knew what a person was capable of, then they couldn’t surprise you.

  But this? The potential uses for Temporary Competency left him feeling dizzy. And he could only use it once. He was going to have to think very, very carefully about this. He couldn’t waste such a thing.

  He’d ponder it later, back at the guild. He didn’t want to waste this opportunity, and for now, they needed to resolve this situation.

  “These aren’t your children, are they?” said Benjen, asking the question without tact, in his trademark speak-your-mind way.

  “Correct. Are you a scholar?” said Beula, sarcastically.

  “That’s…its… he, she, they’re a…” said Joshua, still lost in amazement.

  “A sepuna. Yes, your redheaded friend is right; these aren’t my kids. I foster children.”

  “And the demon?” said Benjen.

  “That’s Fropty.”

  “You shouldn’t have a demon in your house. They’re tricksters.”

  She nodded. “I know. I’m a loreist, or I was, anyway. There’s no secret Fropty can keep from me, and besides, he’s much, much happier here than in the underworld, even if you wouldn’t know it from his grumpy face. In fact, as scary as some people around here find him, poor Fropty was getting bullied in the underworld.”

  “I was not,” said Fropty.

  “You’re a loreist?” said Joshua. “I thought you were a-”

  “A farmer’s wife? An orc? With 1 primary class and 5 secondaries, people can be a heap of different things. Look, now that you’re all settled and we’re properly introduced, the question I have is this: who are you boys, and why did you look like you were about to throw a rock at one of my thrip nests?”

  Benjen looked at Joshua. Somehow, over the years, it had become an unsaid rule that Joshua did most of their speaking for them, except when in taverns. Taverns and inns were Benjen’s domain, and Joshua was not allowed to interfere with whatever drunken ballads he decided it was necessary to shout from his lungs. When it came to everywhere else, Joshua was their spokesman.

  “We’re from the heroes’ guild,” he said. Benjen nudged him, so Joshua corrected himself. “We are the heroes guild. An hour ago, someone banged on our door and when I answered, I saw a swollen mess of a man standing there. He said he was a farmer and that thrips had invaded his field, and he gave us directions to get here.”

  “We’re here on a quest…of sorts,” said Benjen.

  “Pah,” said a voice.

  Joshua turned around to see Fropty the three eared, one-eyed demon standing in the kitchen. He was leaning against the sink and sipping from a brandy glass. The children were gone now, having headed into whatever domicile lay below the trap door.

  “Something wrong?” said Joshua.

  Fropty gave a dismiss wave with a gangly arm, and he sipped more of his drink. “Pah.”

  “Fropty likes to act as if he’s a real demon, sometimes. That includes a hatred for heroes, quests, and anything good and righteous, really.”

  “He likes to act like a demon? So, he isn’t a real demon?”

  “Oh, he is, but he doesn’t have a demonic nature.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “He found me, actually. As a loreist I was level 5, and when it came time to choose a specialization after mastery, I chose demonic lore.”

  Joshua was awed. He’d met two class masters before, but those were a master woodcutter and a master fisherman. As useful as those classes were, he didn’t find them interesting. But Beula was something else. Loreist was enthralling enough as a class, but a demonic loreist?

  “What are you doing here if you’re a demonic loreist? Don’t they organize trips into the underworld for demonic loreists? Shouldn’t you be in a college giving lectures, or something?”

  “The underworld gets boring after a while, and the Demonic Coven have been raising their prices year on year. With the amount of your soul you have to promise after your death just to spend half an hour down there, it isn’t worth it, believe me. Here, look.”

  She pushed her shirt up above her elbow to show her left bicep, on which were two letters scratched deep into her green flesh. It looked like they’d been done with fingernails.

  “Z.T?” said Joshua.

  “Zirthrud-Tollmoss,” said Beula. “A mid-level underworld bureaucrat who said he’d get me a full day in the underworld for just a single percent of my soul.”

  “You gave him part of your soul? Why the hell would you do that?” said Benjen.

  “It’s interesting you say that, ‘hell’, because that’s the reason. Imagine if a zoologist who specialized in shark study had never seen one in his life. Imagine if he’d never even seen their habitat, that h
e’d never been on the sea. That was what it felt like as a demon loreist. I was young, back then, just a twelve-year-old girl…”

  Joshua was so surprised he jumped out of his chair. It fell back and hit the floor, and he heard Fropty’s clawed feet pad on the floor as he walked over, muttering, and then picked the chair up.

  Fropty eyed glared at Joshua. “Your chair, sir.”

  “Thanks,” said Joshua, then he looked at Beula. “You mastered a class when you were 12? Impossible.”

  “I was always a quick learner. Stuff like that was easy for me, and I loved it. It was an addiction, quite honestly. The more I learned, the more I needed to learn. I yearned for knowledge. Sometimes, I stayed up for days straight just reading, and I’d make myself ill doing it. I used to actually have to pretend I was going to sleep so that my father didn’t take my books away.”

  “And you made a deal with a demon when you were just 12? They shouldn’t even be allowed to do that,” said Benjen. “I really don’t trust those bloody demons.”

  “Pah,” said Fropty, who was back in the kitchen now, puffing on a pipe.

  “Past is past,” said Beula. “I don’t study as much now, because I know how ill I make myself, and how stupid I can get, if that makes sense. I settled here to live a simpler life.”

  “Eight children of a bunch of different races, a dozen thrips guarding your house, a demon with a bad attitude, and a trapdoor in your floor. Sounds simple, alright,” said Joshua.

  Beula smiled at him. Joshua liked her smile, and he was surprised at how pretty he found it. “I guess I can’t help myself. But, you said that Carlisle came to the heroes’ guild?”

  He nodded. “The thrips had made a mess of him.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  She nodded.

  Benjen arched an eyebrow. “He is your husband, yes?”

  “He is.”

  “Then why don’t you seem upset that your thrips have stung him so much he’s almost swelling out of his clothes?”