by Erik Colombe
“Ay. You’d need to find a merchant that could split that for you.” Saarka said, and John noticed immediately her shoulder’s tensed as she realized what was coming next.
“Well, isn’t it just my luck that I get picked up by a merchant. Are you able to split it for me?”
Saarka let the reins rest against her legs, leaving her hands free.
“May I inspect the coin?”
“Sure thing,” John said, flicking it in the air towards her, and grimaced internally as he realized that a man who only had one coin to his name wouldn’t throw it haphazardly. She caught it without a word and looked it over for several seconds.
“I can only give you half its worth.”
“I’ll take it,” John said.
Saarka raised an eyebrow at him, and he realized he hadn’t haggled. It was almost a minigame in the digital version of the world. Level up your charisma and bartering skills until you could get things practically for free. He had found it boring and so had always paid full price. He could see how it made him appear. A mysterious stranger, who didn’t know anything about the world, obviously in a hurry to get somewhere and willing to take a loss on a treasure.
“It’s not hot. I promise.”
“Coin is always cold. But are there people who will want it back once it’s sold?”
“Not a soul still living,” John said solemnly, which seemed enough to satiate Saarka.
“We’ll make the trade after we reach Fort Trellis,” she said, handing the coin back to John.
John felt a little better. He had money, meaning he wouldn’t have to sleep in the streets, but he still didn’t know if his game was a digital representation of this world. He needed a touching stone that would help ground the differences between his new world and the game.
“Do you know anything about the Demon Lord?”
“No,” she said.
John felt his heart sink a little.
“I do know of King Nechomit, also known as the Demon King. I suppose he could have had the title of Demon Lord.”
“That may be. What kingdom does he rule?”
“None, he’s dead.”
“Who killed him?”
Saarka looked at John, surprise painted over her face.
“No one. He died a thousand years ago, or that’s how the tale goes. When I heard it from my mother, it was a thousand years, and I’m sure her mother told her a thousand, so who knows the actual time, but it’s a story everyone knows.”
“Please tell it to me.”
“It’s a fairy tale. Why do you want to know?”
“I’ve never heard it.”
“I don’t understand. How could you not have heard it?”
“I’m from a place that wouldn’t have known of him.”
“That’s not possible. He ruled the entire world.”
“Tell me the story,” he said, enunciating each word.
She sighed heavily.
“Once upon a time, before the seven kingdoms, there was one king who wanted to rule all the land. Anyone who dared oppose him was killed without mercy. Many people and cities prayed for a hero to come, but no such hero arrived. Instead, he became all powerful and the King of all kingdoms. Monsters, demi-humans, and beasts were brought high, while humans were brought low. Warriors and mages died as he hunted any who would or could challenge his power. Then he died of old age, and others tried to take his place. They could not wield his power, and the one Kingdom shattered, creating the seven.”
John listened, amazed. A thousand years had passed from his game to this one. It didn’t make sense. How could the god have been locked away for a thousand years, feeding on all those souls? John thought about how many graves there had been, but it wasn’t a thousand years’ worth of three square gamers a day. How often did the god eat? Did time move faster or slower here? Could the god have pulled people from different time periods in his world? Questions he had no way of answering, because the bitch that knew them was decaying on a stone slab miles behind him. This world worked like the one in his game, but his knowledge was 1,000 years out of date.
“Can you tell me about the kingdoms?” John asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t been there, and we’ve almost reached the city,” Saarka said, pointing forward.
They had come to the main road while John wasn’t paying attention. He looked forward and saw the open gates to a large walled city. The city looked like the entrance to a castle: there was a draw bridge, a high tower for archers, and a wide imposing base that slanted inward to dissuade sieges. It had come a long way from the village with just five houses, but at the same time, John could see how far it had fallen. The chains to hoist the draw bridge were rusted and ready to break. The walls were in disrepair, and one section of the wall was even torn down, leaving a big gaping hole.
There was no guard to welcome them into the city, and the dirt streets were covered in mud and horse shit. John wanted to gag at the smell. Once they were inside the city, Saarka parked the cart in a side street near some abandoned shops. Traffic continued to move behind them without a care. She rummaged underneath the tarp before she found a small pouch and brought it out for John to inspect. He found there were a few copper and silver pieces in the bag, but he had no idea of their worth.
John used his Analyze skill on the bag.
Bag of money. No special effects. Value 0.482.
John took out his gold coin and used Analyze on it.
A single gold coin. Value 1.
It was slightly under what Saarka had promised him. He doubted she expected him to go through it in front of her, and she had no way of knowing he had the ability to guess the true value of something. Of course, it still had the conversion rate of 1000 years ago, but he could work with it.
“Thanks for the lift, Saarka. Where can I grab something to eat?”
Saarka had already finished hiding the coin somewhere on her person and was getting the reins ready to go wherever it was she could exchange it.
“I would try the adventurer’s guild. It’s in the middle of town. Sword and shield on the sign, you can’t miss it.”
“There’s an adventurer’s guild?” John asked, trying to hold in his excitement.
“It’s mostly a bar, but can still function as one if an adventurer shows up for work.”
John walked down the street trying not to step in the brown puddles that littered his way. Most of the people he passed refused to look up towards him. They scuttled by like he didn’t exist. Faces were covered like Saarka’s had been when they had first met. A few kids bumped into him trying to pickpocket him, but they found nothing; can’t pick pocket an inventory, apparently. He let them be. There was an adventurer’s guild ahead, and he needed to enroll.
He stopped when he saw the sign with the sword and shields. The guild had abandoned businesses on each side. The buildings looked like they were leaning against the guild, pressing the building inward. He walked into the dimly lit guild. Saarka wasn’t lying when she said it was mostly a bar. There were tables scattered in the room, with people nursing their beers. There was never more than two people at the same table, and the lighting was kept to a minimum. John walked to the front of the bar. He felt everyone’s eyes studying him and his strange clothes. The girl behind the counter was young, but her face was lined with wrinkles, and her skin was tanned to a leathery color from hard work out in the sun. She didn’t seem impressed or suspicious of John, not like the others who stared and glared at him as he walked past. No, she had seen it all before and wasn’t impressed the first time.
John sat at the bar, trying not to be intimidated by the room around him.
“I need something to eat, drink, and I want to enroll in the adventurer’s guild.”
John heard chuckles from behind him, and he hoped they weren’t about the food.
“We got stew left over from lunch,” she said, pouring him a pint in a dirty mug. He hoped whatever it was
had enough alcohol to kill anything swimming in it. She set the tin mug down in front of him.
“It’s six copper for the drink and the meal and another two for the guild fee.”
John laid his money on the counter for her. In the game, there had been a quest to become an adventurer; you had to prove your worth. He wasn’t surprised it was now just a fee, like joining a gym. He probably could have haggled her down to one copper, but it would have broken his heart if she accepted.
She went behind the counter and got him some stew. He started to eat while he waited for whatever passed for a guild card now, maybe an easy to lose coin or a bottle cap. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was a piece of paper with ‘Adventurer’s Guild’ scribbled on it.
The stew was burnt, and the beer tasted like rubbing alcohol mixed with flat soda. John choked down just enough to settle his stomach and hoped it wouldn’t come back up. The bartender came back quickly holding a scroll and set it on the table for John. It was a large patchwork of paper with a wax seal holding it rolled together. The seal was the same as the one that hung over the bar. The edges were frayed, and it looked like it had been in storage for years.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Prove your worth,” she said, like she was reading from a script. She didn’t look at him as she cleared his mug and bowl from the counter.
“How?” John asked, confused.
She looked up at him, annoyed at such a simple question.
“Take the scroll, and if you have worth, it will rank you; if not, you are forbidden from entering any adventures guild,” she said like it was the most obvious fact there was.
John looked down at the scroll. So instead of a quest, they turned it into bureaucracy. He used Analyze on the scroll.
Scroll of Adventurer’s Guild. Used in times of war to find candidates to fill the front lines quickly.
Special Effects: Capable of telling the wielder’s level…duh.
John stared in shock at the scroll. Did his skill just sass him? He saw the bartender getting impatient with him and decided to come back to his skills later. He picked up the scroll and felt it immediately tug at his mana supply. His eyes flicked to the mana bar and his health bar. He saw they were being drained by 20 points every second. The amount was so small, he didn’t even feel it.
We’ll be here all goddamn day if this keeps going at this rate. John gathered mana into his hand like he was going to cast a spell and saw half of his mana bar drain by 20,000. The scroll exploded. All eyes turned to the display. A cloud of smoke was hovering in the air. His stats were written in the smoke for all to see.
Hero Rank: S
Title: Dragon Slayer
HP: 10,000
MP: 20,000
Skills: True Hunter, Analyze, Animal Tamer…
It started to fill in more titles and skills. John quickly flicked his fingers in the air.
“Wind Gust,” he whispered, and the smoke quickly dissipated before anyone could read any more of the stats.
He turned and saw that all eyes were on him. Men larger than him with scars from work, play, and fights displayed proudly on their bodies had their jaws hanging open. There was a sense of awe and fear that was palpable on every face there.
Crap!
John thought quickly about what he could do. He picked the first idea that came to his mind and threw his arms in the air, like a magician who just did the best trick of his life.
“That’s right, everyone. I am the Dragon slayer, the hero of heroes. No man is my equal for I am a god made flesh on this mortal coil to rid the world of all evil.”
As soon as it looked like every person in the bar was going to shit themselves, he burst into the haughtiest laughter he could convincingly muster and even pretended to wipe away a tear.
“Or the scroll is broken.” He turned to the bartender.
“How old was that thing? Please fetch me another that isn’t from before my grandfather’s time.”
The bartender stammered a bit, but when she heard a roar of laughter erupt from the patrons, the shocked expression faded, and she left to go get another scroll, and the patrons went back to their own conversations, but John still felt eyes cautiously dart to his back while he was turned.
The bartender came back out with another scroll. This one did look newer. The edges of the paper weren’t tattered and frayed. She kept her hands on it, not offering it to John.
“That’s still two copper for the scroll,” she said.
John was feeling a little weary of this.
“One copper,” he said.
“Deal,” she said.
“Good, since they’re only worth one copper, you can take it out of the two I gave you earlier for the defective one.”
The bartender opened her mouth, about to argue. John held out his hand.
“Or this can be known as an adventurers guild with faulty scrolls that can’t recruit adventurers. I wonder how long you’ll stay in business.”
She huffed and handed over the scroll.
John took it immediately and watched his mana gauge go down again by 20 points per second. He gathered mana in his hand, but only the amount he had used to summon the gust of wind. The scroll did not explode this time. Instead, it uncurled and listed a lower rank.
Hero Rank: E
Title: None
HP: 80
MP: 200
Skills: None
New Skill acquired: “Deceiver”; level 1.
Effects: Increase chances that a lie, act, or subterfuge will succeed.
Just great, I really hope I don’t have a morality meter, or I am going straight to the bad ending.
The bartender placed a thick card on the scroll, and the information copied itself along with a drawing of John.
“Your Guild Card, unable to be copied, stolen, or lost. Accepted as a form of identification across all kingdoms where the Adventurer’s guild resides. Upon completing quests approved by the Adventurer’s guild, points are added, and your ranking is increased automatically.” The bartender read from the back of the card before handing it to John.
“Cool!” John said, taking the card.
“Is there a motel around here I can stay at for the night?”
“The Adventurer’s Guild offers lodgings for all members,” she said, handing John a key. Before John could snatch it from her, she pulled it back.
“For the discounted cost of two coppers,” she said, smiling.
Chapter 2
John looked over his room with a callous eye. There was one large room with wooden furniture. A bed sat near the only window in the room, a table, chair, and dresser. There was another room for the bathroom, which held a large bowl of water, a toilet, and a stack of hay. The toilet was a bench with a hole cut into it, leading to a pit. He sighed at his living quarters and headed out to gather a few essentials.
He spent a few hours in exhaustion, harvesting sand from the road outside the town. Then he found one general store and bought soap, cloth, as much rope as he could carry, and the only nightshade plant they had in stock. It was part of a half dying flower bouquet. John threw away the other worthless flowers as soon as he left the shop.
It took an hour of preparation before he could sleep, but when he was done, he slept like a baby for four hours before he heard a loud ringing in his ears. He opened his eyes to see his radar was blinking rapidly in alarm as three red dots were coming his way. John put his travel bed back in his inventory and rushed to the corner of the room. He hid himself in the darkest corner he could find and imagined he was like stone, a trick he had used in his previous life to stay hidden.
Notification: new skill obtained
Skill: Thief’s Blessing
Effect: Cloak yourself in shadows. Only available at night. Makes you harder to see when staying out of the light.
He waited in the corner of the room, keeping his eyes on the radar. At first, they just stayed outside his room for a few seconds, talking in hushed tones, before
moving again.
The window to his room silently opened. Three dark hooded figures entered his room. One went straight to his bed and stabbed through the lump of sheets John had arranged to look like a person. At the same time, the second went to the dresser to rummage around his luggage, while the third went for the bag of money he traded with Saarka.
The assassin that had stabbed him knew something was wrong when the short blade he stuck into John’s blanket dummy didn’t shed blood, but the thieves were already opening the dresser drawers and money bag, both of which held sleeping powder John had made from nightshade and sand. In the game, there had been a crafting station, but since he didn’t have that here, he had ground the flower until he had a paste that mixed well with the sand. It should have just been a mess of sand and ground flower bits, but in this world, the magic in the items fused together. John saw the two thieves, who had gotten a face full of sleeping powder, go down like logs; the crafting system was still in play. John grabbed his sword and pointed it at the last still-conscious thief. Before John could get out a word, there was a knock on the door. John motioned the thief into a corner of the room, never letting his sword leave the thief’s skin. He held the thief in the corner, a sword at his throat, and opened the door a crack. He saw it was the landlord still in her night dress. Her face was dour with circles under her eyes.
“What can I do for you Ms.…”
“Reka. What was the racket I heard from this room?”
John pretended to look around the room.
“Nothing in here.”
Reka made to push the door open, but John caught it with his foot.
“There really is nothing in my room. I’m tired,” he said with a fake yawn. “How about we get to sleep,” he said, grabbing a silver piece out of his inventory and holding it out for her.
“You’re right,” she said, taking the coin and looking it over. “Must have just been the wind... Don’t make a mess.”
“On my honor,” he said, closing the door.
John closed the door and turned his attention to the thief.
“Let’s talk,” he said to the thief. “Why did you come for me? What were you after?”