“I’ll help carry,” Speranza offered.
“Not you.” Cagna slapped the table, and the pale woman jumped at the sound. “No offense but I don’t trust you yet. I might not ever. Also, who’s he?”
“Nee how,” Yubai waved. He’d been quietly following the group.
“Knees? What?”
“Forget it,” Dijornos told her. “Unless you know Cantonese, you might as well save your breath.”
“Oh, is that the problem?” Speranza asked. “That’s easy enough to solve. Knack for Languages.”
Chase blinked at her. “You can do that?”
“I was a Bard before I was a Siren. We get to pick up all sorts of fun tricks.”
“Effing broken,” Dijornos rumbled. “If you get someone who doesn’t try to cover all the bases, you can focus for some pretty epic stuff, but every one I know is an idiot... was an idiot about it, so there you go.”
“Just because you don’t have an artistic bone in your body doesn’t mean we have to follow your munchkin ways,” Speranza told him. “Now hush. I need to try talking with him to make this work.”
“Talk as we go,” Cagna said. “We’ve got a problem, and you need to see it, Chase.”
“You know halvens don’t like drama, right? Can’t you tell me now?” Chase hurried to keep up as Cagna tossed files to Bastien, then stalked out of the room.
“Yeah, and they also don’t like adventure or fighting werewolves or any of the other things you love. So don’t try to pull that wool over my eyes, I’m more wolf than sheep, kid.”
“Sorry,” Chase offered.
The way up to the surface led through a dark tunnel, with dark-stained murderholes all through it. Several newly-made holes in the ruined wall revealed broken mechanisms that looked in far better repair than the rest of the construction.
“I had to break several of the traps to get through,” Cagna said. “Fortunately I’m a passable Tinker.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t unlocked Burglar,” Renny piped up.
Cagna snorted. “I have. I’m not a criminal though, so I’m not taking the damned job. Besides, that one has less to do with traps than you’d think. Mostly about stealing, lockpicking, and sneaking, and I’m already a Scout and Tinker so whatever.”
Finally, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
Chase halted, feeling apprehensive. “Is someone waiting for us out there?”
“No. The exit is clear. I’ll go ahead to make sure, but the light is from... well, you’d better see it. Camouflage,” Cagna said, and disappeared. A shimmer in the faint light, and she was gone.
Chase gave her a minute, then followed.
And as she emerged from the side of a hill, among fallen stones and faded statues, she looked to the south and gasped at the light that rose to the sky.
Miles away lay the great city of Gnome. The capital of the land that called itself ‘The Reaches,’ the capital of the old, fallen empire. The famed city-state which even now still held some of its glory, and the seat of no less than seven popes.
Tonight, Gnome burned.
The flames rose on the horizon, throwing light even this far, and Chase thought she could smell smoke on the wind.
She heard the rest of the group moving up to stand next to her, moving in silence, save for a few muttered oaths and moans of sorrow.
“What happened?” Chase asked.
And Cagna spoke a single word, that filled the halven’s heart with ice.
“Dragon.”
CHAPTER 5: FORTUNE AND FATE
“All right, gods bless!” Bastien waved his cane at the departing caravan, before turning back to the group. A few ash-covered faces smiled back at him, and a child clutched a loaf of bread tight to his chest while spewing gap-toothed thanks.
Chase watched the loaf of bread go with a sigh. Dinner was going to be on short rations tonight. Still, the refugees had needed the supplies more, and Chase knew that food wouldn’t be a problem where they were going.
But they had to get there fast, and Chase knew that she couldn’t afford to hold their progress up any longer. Even if this involved the part she hated most. With a sigh, she motioned to Bastien. “Could you?”
“I can take a turn,” Dijornos offered.
“Are you sure?” She looked at him with surprise... and maybe a bit of suspicion. He’d been quiet once they’d gotten away from the Oubliette. Three days they’d been on the road since then, and he’d spoken perhaps six times that she could think of.
“You don’t weigh more than my little sister. No big deal.”
“All right. If you would, please?”
The big man knelt, and Chase climbed up his back. Under his traveler’s cloaks the broken edges of his armor provided easy, if somewhat risky footholds. But she was nimble, and nothing tore or got sliced. Once she was on, he grabbed her ankles and straightened up.
As she rose, she saw Bastien shuffling up to stand beside them, eyes wary under his spectacles. He nodded to her once, pointed hat wobbling, as he rapped his cane on the worn cobblestones.
He’s letting me know he’s there in case Dijornos tries something, Chase knew. But the pragmatic part of her knew that there wasn’t much risk. If the player decided he wanted her dead, it wouldn’t matter if she was on the ground or on his back.
They set off down the road, and Chase hung on. At least his hair was clean now, that was something.
It was necessary, really. Halven, alone among the civilized races, had no real endurance to speak of. Not a single point. Endurance prevented stamina loss, and it scaled. The higher your endurance, the more you could ignore minor physical exertions.
But to a halven every physical exertion is major. Which was why they have such a need for frequent meals and rests. To humans it was pure gluttony and sloth... but then humans had endurance, and were bad at seeing things from different perspectives on the whole.
She wondered if that was true among players as well. Four of the ones she’d met had been human. Only two had been non-human. One had been a dwarf, and she had made of herself a monster. The other...
Chase looked back to where Yubai was pacing alongside Speranza, talking animatedly and waving his hands. She still couldn’t understand what he was saying.
The Bard looked up, caught her gaze, and said a few words to Yubai. A minute later she moved up to walk just behind Chase and Dijornos, smiling just a touch too widely, her hands twisting against each other like pale spiders fighting.
“Did you want something?”
“I was just wondering how it was going with the language lessons,” Chase said, looking down from a perspective she rarely got to use.
“It’s moving along. I still wouldn’t trust my ability to translate when my buff is down, but it’s cheap enough that I can keep it going without much effort right now. Is there something you would like to know about our panda friend?”
“I’d like your assessment, first.” Chase said, looking back to him. He was picking plants from the side of the road as they went, lagging behind a little but catching up with hurried strides whenever he fell too far behind. It reminded Chase of her sister, Greta. She’d get distracted while doing chores and have to scramble at the last minute. And thinking about that made her throat feel swollen, so Chase looked back to Speranza. “Is he dangerous? Why was he in the Oubliette? Why didn’t he break out long ago, if he could tunnel through walls like that?”
Dijornos laughed. “He’s only dangerous if you have access to the trade channel, then he’ll spam you to death.”
“What?” Chase pulled on his hair to keep her balance as he shook a bit from the laughter. She didn’t see anything particularly funny or even really understandable, with his sentence.
“He’s being an idiot, ignore him,” Speranza lost a good amount of her nervous tension, as she glared at the big man’s back. “Yubai was... a broker, more or less. He sold things in this world for money paid in our world.”
“What sort of thi
ngs? Tokens?”
“No, tokens were through the cash shop,” Speranza said. “Things like... bodies for new players to inhabit that already had a lot of levels and experience and treasure on them. Magical items. Oh, and gold of course.”
“He’s a gold seller, of course he’d have gold,” Dijornos added. “These guys are pathetic gamers. They’re the parasites that noobs pay when they can’t handle the challenge.”
“The noob? That’s a fortuna card. It’s come up for me before,” Chase mused. “I’m not sure you’re using it in the way I know, though. What do you think a noob is?”
“It’s—” Dijornos started, but Speranza hushed him.
“What is fortuna?” the woman asked, squinting up at Chase.
“It’s a set of cards that can tell the future, or predict things. I use them for divination, and have skills built around them. Well, just one so far,” Chase said, then realized that she was getting distracted. “But my questions haven’t been answered yet. Is he dangerous? Why didn’t he escape?”
“His highest job is Miner.” Speranza shrugged. “He’s also a level six Merchant and a level eight Blacksmith. He might have more jobs beyond that, but I couldn’t say.”
“I doubt it,” Dijornos rumbled. “Gold sellers don’t care much about getting more powerful in-game. They’re only there to make money in the real world. Uh, our world, I mean. The game’s just a job to them, they don’t care about adventure.”
Speranza ignored him and kept talking. “He’s a little confused by all of this. I get the feeling he was very young when everything went wrong. He doesn’t remember much of our world. Some of the things he says are quite frankly impossible or nonsensical. Other statements indicate he was working with another person or some other people, who didn’t make it through.”
“Make it through what?” Chase asked.
Speranza traded a look with Dijornos. It was fast, and Chase might have missed it if she hadn’t been sitting on Dijornos’ shoulders.
“We’re going to help you so long as you stick to your end of the bargain,” Chase reminded them. “Telling us this might help us later.”
“It’s a bit of a long story,” Speranza said, biting her lip. “And Cagna’s hurrying back, so I expect you’ll want to talk with her. At any rate, no, Yubai is not dangerous and he’s not likely to turn on us, and I expect that’s what you want to know.”
“Mostly,” Chase nodded. She spared him another glance. If things had been going even remotely to plan, they would have covered him up heavily, disguised him as much as possible before heading south.
But as improvisations went, this wasn’t so bad. Especially if Cagna’s ruse worked.
“Well?” Chase asked as the dog-woman caught up with Dijornos.
“I made sure they know we’re heading west.”
“Good,” Chase nodded. In a half-league they’d disguise up the more memorable faces in their party, and head south. It added hours to their journey, but it was worth it to lay a false trail. With this many refugees on the road, it was necessary to throw in that extra level of misdirection. That settled, her mind flitted to the next order of business. “So did any of them know anything about... er...”
“Nothing,” Cagna shook her head. “It came out of the night, and set the city ablaze. Nobody’s sure how much is left, or which parts were burning. These people are the ones who either lost everything, or deemed it wise to go stay with family elsewhere until this blows over. If it does.”
“They don’t know what it wanted?”
“No, but there’s one more thing,” Cagna gave Dijornos a look, and ignored the sneer he shot her way. “Unless something’s changed from yesterday, the dragon’s still there. He landed in the city, and nobody saw him leave. Two days he’s been there.”
“And nobody’s doing anything about it!” A muffled voice piped up from inside Cagna’s traveling cloak. She opened it, revealed Renny sitting in a pocket. “The dragon flamed the Duke’s palace, and all the popes are quiet or arguing. People are saying the Duke’s dead or run away. Nobody’s really sure who’s in charge.”
“This might be good for us,” Chase gnawed her lip. “Wait. Did our house get burned?”
“I don’t know,” Renny shrugged. “The people in that group were mostly from the eastern end of the city.”
“All right. I guess we’ll find out when we get there. Tomorrow, I think. Tonight we’ll stay outside the walls. What’s the name of that village again?”
Hours later, with the moon high in the night sky, they made their way into the humble village of Setsofbaggage. An ancient farming village that had long supplied gnome with both grain and tanned leather suitcases, it was a good enough place to plan their expedition into the unexpectedly dragon-cursed city.
The common room of the inn they fetched up in was empty, and the innkeeper was happy for the custom. “Everyone who was fleeing the dragon is long gone,” he explained, setting out trenchers full of soup. “And the usual travelers, they ain’t coming through until the dragon’s gone. So here we are, eh?”
A few silver persuaded him to retire early and shut his door tightly, and the group hunkered down to plan. That took a few more hours, and by the end of it, Chase was yawning.
They said their goodnights, and Chase decided to employ one of her more convenient skills to help the innkeeper. If he thought more kindly of them, he might be less inclined to report them to whatever authorities came looking for her, anyway.
“Dishwasher,” Chase said, holding plates under an open tap in the kitchen and watching the remnants of the night’s meal wash away. She had to balance on the top of a chair to get up to the sink, but her agility was up to the task.
At least until the door opened, and Speranza peeked in. Chase stared, flailed, and almost ended up dropping a tureen.
“Sorry! Sorry. I just wanted to ask you some questions,” Speranza answered.
“Renny?” Chase asked.
“I’m here,” said the little fox, from Speranza’s side of the door. “Keeping my eyes on her, like we agreed. She said it wouldn’t take long.”
“Okay then...” Chase put down the last plate and sat on the counter. “Ask away.”
“You mentioned fortuna, earlier. You said it was a set of divining cards? That sounds like something from our world. Can you tell me more about it?”
Chase considered the request. “I don’t see the harm in it. All right. But only for a bit, then we’d best be off to sleep.” She hopped down from the counter, and led the way back to the common room.
There she laid out the fortuna cards and showed Speranza the book she’d gotten from her god. Hoon himself had given her his personal copy of “Mysterees of ye Fortuna fore thee addlepated.” And she explained how despite its many, many flaws, and the various grammatical crimes of its author, one Madame Silver-ravven Wind-wolfe, it had turned her into a decent diviner.
“This is fascinating. I didn’t even know this was in the game!” Speranza’s eyes were alight with happiness as she lifted the cards and considered them. “I... dabbled in things like this. Back in my world. Finding them here is a bit of a surprise.”
“Once this is all done...” Chase checked her words. She had been going to offer to teach her, but fortunately her brain managed to catch up with her mouth. She didn’t want to make a promise like that. Speranza was a dangerous and temporary ally. Who knew what would happen if Chase prolonged her exposure to the player?
But for a second, just a second, Speranza’s charisma had overcome Chase’s common sense. That was troubling.
At any rate it was best to play it safe. “Well, no matter,” she finished, lamely. “Does it work the same way in your world?”
“Sort of.” Speranza was laying out the cards, and looking back and forth between them and the book. “There are four suits, and there are four character classes... cups are clerics, that lines up. Rogues are pentacles... coins? Yes, coins makes more sense. But the major arcana are off. You’ve got thr
ee cards more than you should. Let’s see, the Dungeon is the tower, that much is obvious. The Guildmaster is the Emperor, seems pretty clear...”
Even though she was tired, Chase enjoyed helping Speranza chase down the cards, and map them to something she called the tarot. And in the end, the three that remained were the lag, the elemental, and the dragon.
“Going by the book, the lag seems to share quite a bit with the hanged man... who is the griefer, in fortuna terms,” Speranza said, considering the pasteboard. It showed a fight on a glacier, with icicles hanging off the arm of the warrior, and his hairy, ape-like opponent manifesting shadowy, multiple arms. “Both are about being stuck in an unhappy situation. The difference seems to be that the hanged man is singular. The lag is plural. It shows a misfortune or hesitation that affects everyone, a general slowness, something like that.”
“That one hasn’t come up for me so often,” Chase shrugged. “But the elemental I’m more familiar with. That’s a dangerous force or situation, an impersonal one that can sweep you up into it, if you’re not careful. An obvious fight or flight situation.” She considered the raging flames consuming the woods, and the glaring eyes that almost seemed to burn out from the card. “So... pretty much my life since I became an adventurer.”
“And the dragon?” Speranza said, staring at the big, scaly red face framing an enormous, slitted eye. It loomed there, menace and power and glory, all in one.
“That’s a weird one because it means something different than the opposite of itself when it’s reversed. I’ve drawn it once or twice. You can’t ignore it when it comes up,” Chase said. “When it’s reversed it represents an implacable, smart, and powerful enemy. Someone or something almost unstoppable. But when it’s right side up...” she flipped the card so it faced her. “It represents a powerful and wise entity. Something with hidden knowledge and treasures that has much to offer. But you should never, ever bargain with it lightly.”
Speranza nodded, her eyes glittering in the light of the last candle in the room as it burned down. From the corner Renny watched, patient and wary.
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