At Large

by Andrew Seiple

  “No, actually. I thought it would help with the illusions as well. I wanted to put solid air behind them, so that they were kind of real. For example, you could touch one, without me having to add in a fake sense of touch. Or worrying about the illusion failing entirely against someone who disbelieves it.”

  “Oh…” Chase thought, as she scrubbed. “You could put up a fake wall, then put a wall of solid air behind it. Stuff like that, right?”

  “Right. But the problem is that it takes a lot of skill. Air doesn’t want to be still or solid. Air wants to move. I’m a level ten elementalist, my skill is up in the forties, and I still have trouble getting it to stay inside the lines of the illusion, more or less. Throw in a moving illusion and it’s really, really tricky. It’s like trying to sew up a pair of socks while you’re reading a book at the same time. It takes a lot of focus.”

  “Well, what attributes do you use for your illusion spells?”

  “Charisma.”

  “Then you should definitely go Grifter! Charisma, dexterity, and luck; those are the attributes it boosts. And more luck is always good.”

  “Dexterity would help with my knifework,” Renny mused. “And it would be nice not to have to say spells to activate them. But…”

  “But?”

  “I don’t like lying to people.”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Chase said, putting the soap aside, and rinsing herself. “How many jobs can you have, total? Adventuring jobs, I mean?”

  “Six. I’ve got two so far.”

  “If you take it and never lie to anyone, then you’ll still get Silent Activation and Master of Disguise. You can stay at level one in it forever, if you really want to avoid lying to people. Though I wonder why you went into illusions if you’re so against deception.”

  “It’s because I like dreams. And I wanted to help people see the ones that I used to have.”

  “What?” Chase sat up in the bath, propping her arms over the edge, staring at the screen. “I thought you didn’t sleep?”

  “We don’t. Not normally. But there’s a Shaman spell that lets them put people to sleep and gives visions. I think it’s like what happens when you dream. I really liked the dreams I had, and I could never get anyone to tell me what they meant. So when I went to the teacher she pointed me toward this job. I liked it, and it helped me get a lot more sociable. I was pretty gruff and shy before. But it worked out, and here I am.”

  “Here you are,” Chase agreed, climbing back out of the tub, and swathing herself in a human sized towel. Then another one, just for her hair. “Where are my clothes?”

  “I cleaned them.” Renny paused, then tossed them over the screen. With an audible splat, her blouse ended up in the water. “Oops.”

  Chase sighed and chucked it back over. “Once more, with feeling, if you please.”

  “Clean and Press. You really think I can be a Grifter and not lie?”

  “I think that’s up to you. It’s better to have a weapon and not have to use it than it is to not have one and need it. When I swore to myself that I’d take every adventuring job that I could, life got… immeasurably… better.” Chase froze. “I’m an idiot.”

  “What? Why?” The blouse came sailing over again, and Chase snagged it before it could go into the tub.

  “I completely forgot! Today’s been such a bustle… during all the excitement with the Don, I unlocked a new job. It’s called Medium.”

  “Medium? Spirit Medium?” Renny sounded eager. “That’s a great one! You can talk to ghosts, and manipulate soulstones, and… wait. I thought you needed Necromancer to get that one.”

  “Not Spirit Medium. Just Medium. Status. Help Medium.”

  It displayed what she’d seen before. And no matter how she tried, the same information came up regardless.

  Congratulations, by combining skillful lies with actual oracular vision, you have unlocked the Medium job! You may not have told the actual fortune, but the customer got the one he needed to hear!

  Would you like to become a Medium at this time? Y/N?

  “I don’t know about this,” Chase said, biting her lip. She read it aloud to Renny. “It looks like it’s to do with fake fortune telling.”

  “Wouldn’t it be called Fortune Teller if it was? The fact that Oracle is in there means that there’s something beyond that. And besides, wasn’t a fake fortune what placated the Don, and got you out of trouble with him?”

  “Out of trouble’s a subjective term, this is a different sort of trouble,” Chase muttered. “And the fortune wasn’t fake, I just had some help, and maybe left out a few things about how horrible a leader he was.” She shrugged into her clothes as she spoke, leaving the towel in place around her hair.

  “And hey, what was that you were just telling me?” Renny asked, staring up at her as she came out from behind the screen. “Better to have a weapon, isn’t that right? And this is a Tier Two job you’ve unlocked! If it works out that’s probably going to be a pretty big weapon.”

  Chase had a number of arguments she could bring to bear, but the more she thought about it, the more her curiosity grew. And what had Cagna said, earlier? That if you unlocked a Tier Two job, it was usually a good idea because it meant you were doing something it could help with anyway?

  Still, the little fox did look a bit smug to turn her words back on her. “I’ll make you a deal,” she decided. “You take Grifter, and I’ll take Medium. Does that sound fair?”

  “It does,” Renny put up his paw, and they shook on it.

  Chase ignored how cutesy he was when he did that sort of thing and said “Status. Help Medium.” And then, with only the barest hesitation, she said “Yes.”

  You are now a level 1 Medium!

  CHA+5

  LUCK+5

  You have learned the Bad Fortune skill!

  Your Bad Fortune skill is now level 1!

  You have learned the Crystal Ball skill!

  Your Crystal Ball skill is now level 1!

  You have learned the Good Fortune skill!

  Your Good Fortune skill is now level 1!

  You have learned the Séance skill!

  You have learned the Stack Deck skill!

  Chase felt her toes curl as she felt pleasure, her pools of energy filling completely up, all the aches and pains that had been soothed from the bath now gone entirely. The fact that she was a better person now was just icing on top of it, and as the glow of leveling faded the halven felt sorrow as she was left herself once more.

  It really feels like I’m tapping into something bigger, she mused. Like that time Hoon showed me the world. Like the only thing holding me back is the notion that I should be held back. That if I tried just a bit more, I could...

  She could what?

  But the thoughts faded like the dreams she’d discussed with Renny, so she busied herself by checking in on her new skills, one help command at a time.

  And at the fourth skill, she paused. “Renny?” She whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “I think I know how we’re going to find those werewolves…”

  CHAPTER 7: A POUND OF FLESH

  “That’s a great idea, except for the part where it’ll get you killed for necromancy,” Cagna told Chase.

  Chase frowned, took another sip of tea, and reached for a fifth cookie. The cook of this estate had risen to the challenge of a halven appetite and prepared a nice after-lunch service for the family’s guest.

  “Séance isn’t necromancy,” Chase said, waving the thin wafer around to punctuate her argument. “It just calls up the memory of the departed to answer a few questions. It can’t be used to bind ghosts or anything like that, the skill description is very clear.”

  The Doberman-headed woman scratched between her own ears. “See, that distinction won’t matter to the people whose departed you’re going to be calling up. And the law is pretty clear that any unauthorized messing about with the dead in any way is necromancy. We had quite enough of that sort of thing
back during the guild wars. The Doge is a fair man, but even he’s got his limits, and breaking the law like that would get his attention in a very bad way.”

  “You work for a criminal, and you’re worried about such distinctions?”

  Cagna’s mouth snapped shut. She glanced around, and leaned in. “Be careful what you say. You can do that inside these walls, while nobody’s around. Outside is another matter.”

  Chase kept her gaze steady on Cagna’s almond-colored eyes. “I’m no fool. I wouldn’t have said that if anyone was around. But my point stands. Why can’t we break the law? What’s the point of being a criminal if you have to worry about such things? Bad laws aren’t worth keeping.”

  Cagna sighed. “Look. I’m pretty sure Don Coltello called in a Necromancer for the deaths that happened in the outskirts. I’m also pretty sure nothing came of it. Na na na, hold on.” She held up a hand to forestall Chase as the halven girl started to protest. “He did that because that happened in his territory, and the guards that watch there are paid well to look away. He did that because he could get away with it and there would be no proof. Here? In the city? There are guards we can’t buy. What’s worse, two of the deaths involved noble houses, and one of them was a guild official. You do something they see as necromancy to one of their own, they won’t call in the guard. It’ll be an Assassin with a strangling cord and a midnight burial out in the lime pits.”

  Chase closed her eyes. It didn’t seem fair… but then the world wasn’t fair. Still, it was a very good investigative skill, and this was just the sort of situation for it. There were victims, they might have seen something, and only some hurt feelings and bad laws were in the way of her using it.

  She munched on the cookie she’d taken, finishing it off. With her energy full from her recent level choice, she couldn’t even get satisfaction from the food. But she ate anyway, because she was used to it. And while she ate, she thought.

  “How many murders inside the city, total?” Chase finally asked.

  “Four.”

  “Two in noble houses. One from a guild. Who was the last?”

  “The last one was the first killed, actually. A leatherworker’s daughter, in the quartiere carne.”

  Chase ran the phrase through her knowledge of the old tongue. “The meat district?”

  “I guess so.” Cagna shrugged. “More like the flesh district.”

  “That’s kind of gruesome.”

  “Not really. It’s… ah, why should I try and explain it? Better to show you. You’ll see.”

  “I will?”

  “Judging by your line of questioning, you’ll obviously want to talk to the victim’s father. He is in the quartiere carne. So your fuzzy little feet are going to end up walking those cobblestones, and mine will be right alongside yours.” She shrugged. “Honestly I wouldn’t mind. They have some good eats out that way, and the smells are divine. The place is fun, too. Got all sorts of shows and spectacles.”

  “Shows and spectacles? In a meat market? What, do the butchers juggle knives or something?”

  Cagna laughed, and leaned back in her chair, scratching under one arm without a care for the vulgarity of it. “Something like that. You’ll see, you’ll see.”

  “We’ll see,” Chase nodded in agreement, then scooped up her pack. Renny’s head peeked out of the top of it, and he was completely still. This arrangement let him keep an eye on things, and if need be, he could now silently activate his illusions and slip out to do whatever golemy stuff he needed to accomplish.

  The trek across the city seemed easier now. With everyone at home or off to a taverna or ristorante for lunch, the streets were a little less crowded.

  Less crowded by city standards was still an absurd amount of people by rural halven village standards though, and Chase found herself studying people as they passed. She was careful to keep from staring, and her much-enhanced charisma seemed helpful there. Her height was a bonus as well, and for the most part nobody seemed to take offense.

  And what she noticed, after studying so many people, was a common thread.

  They looked agitated.

  They traveled in groups, their eyes picked out the dark places between buildings and they walked quickly, speaking little. There were few smiles, and the even rarer laughter that she heard now and again had a bit of an edge to it.

  But it was the way they looked at Cagna, keeping eyes on her like she’d go mad and start cutting throats at any moment, was the final hint that Chase needed. “They’ve got this whole town on edge, don’t they? The wer—” she cut off her words as a group passed near. “The, uh, killers, I mean.”

  “Oh yeah,” Cagna said, locking her face straight ahead, keeping her hands in sight at all times. “Normally we don’t get hostility here. Dog beastkin, I mean. But this is… bad for business. Scared people start suspecting anything that looks canine. It doesn’t help that I’ve only been in town a few months. I’m a stranger, and that’s dangerous now.”

  “You’re not local?”

  “No. I get around. Me and Lachina, we both came here looking for work and found it.”

  “Has it been good?”

  “Mostly.” Cagna tilted her head, thinking. She scratched behind one ear as she did so, and Chase stifled a chuckle. She was glad she’d done so, as the dog-woman looked back at her. “Just so you know, I’ve got a code I have to follow. There’s things I can’t do or it weakens me. So you don’t command me to do something, and you don’t ask it without running it by me first.”

  “Is your code the reason you helped me, back when I was telling the Don’s fortune?”

  Cagna considered that, then shook her head and looked away. “Yep. You guessed it.”

  But Chase looked at the way she set her shoulders and heard the faintness of her voice. Cagna was lying.

  Then they reached the end of the last street, and her concern over that fell away.

  The plaza before them was a riot of color and crowded with cheering onlookers. In the middle among some large statues, a group of barely-clad acrobats flipped and swung from ropes attached to the weathered stone structures. They perched on outstretched hands, dove between the legs of stone horses, and flipped over the empty space between standing stone warriors, making the crowd gasp as they dared a three or four-story drop.

  “Oh!” Chase gasped, slowing to watch the show.

  “Come on,” Cagna said, after a minute. “I forgot we had a troupe through. This works in our favor, actually, the leatherworker’s shop won’t be as crowded.”

  “Do performances happen often, here?” Chase asked as she followed Cagna, trying not to shove her way through the forest of legs that made up the gawking onlookers.

  “If they’re naked enough.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “This is the quartiere carne, the district of flesh. It’s where meat, skin, and hides are displayed and traded, and the guild that runs this part of the city made some really loosely worded laws that people have been taking advantage of. So any business here pays lower taxes if they’re putting flesh on display and able to make the case that it’s involved with their business. Really it’s meant for butchers and the like, but once the bordellos started getting in on the action, well…” Cagna gestured up, and the crowd parted just long enough for Chase to see a high-balconied villa, with some very pretty, very under-dressed women calling down to the passers-by below.

  As Chase watched with shocked eyes someone called back up, and the woman put her hands to her bodice and started to tug it down.

  But then the crowd closed back up again, and Chase, her face feeling like it was on fire, hurried to catch up with her guide. Cagna hadn’t even broken her stride.

  It took quite a long time to pass through the crowd, and the halven girl focused on navigation, sneaking glances at the performers as she went. To her surprise, once they were around some of the larger statues, she saw circus wagons at their base. Gaudy and golden and green, they seemed to match the city’s colors.
A sign on the side proclaimed them to be the ‘FABULUS FLYING ACROCATS!’

  Fascinated, Chase tried to drift over that way without losing sight of Cagna. For her troubles she got a glimpse of a pair of performers walking into one of the wagons, and one of them did indeed have catlike ears and a tail… and six small breasts, hidden by a triple bikini. Her companion was human though, and he laughed as he gestured up at the rigging they’d just descended from.

  “Hey!” Cagna literally barked.

  The performers whipped around and the catgirl’s hair literally puffed up like an angry cat’s fur.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Chase apologized, knowing her words were lost in the noise of the crowd, and ran back to the irritated enforcer.

  “You will be, if you don’t stick close to me,” Cagna growled. “These bordellos, and the other places? They don’t always have willing people working in them. Plenty of sickos who’d pay good money to do horrible things to a little woman who looks like a kid if her ears get trimmed back.”

  Chase’s ears flicked in shock, and she cupped them protectively.

  Cagna’s scowl turned into a chuckle. “Relax. You’re with me, and all you’d have to do is mention the Don’s name. That would probably make them hesitate until it got resolved.”

  “Oh. Does he, uh, does he run the… those houses, then?”

  “No. That’s another family. But they’re on pretty good terms. Your ‘Nonno’ finds them stolen or desperate women in the outskirts when they need new stock. You remember that the next time you sit at his table.”

  The crowd thinned at that point. They’d come to the far edge of the plaza, where it broke off into twisty little streets and alleys. Cagna picked one of the dirtier-looking ways and strode downhill.

  Chase followed but hesitated when the smell hit her. “Oh, oh that’s foul.”

  “We’re in the tanner’s row now. The components they use aren’t pleasant. Did you know that one of the lower level skills you get from that profession protects your nose against unpleasant smells?”