by Sarah Lin
"Let's just get back to the city safely," Bloodwraith said. The old man nodded and moved to the others, getting the terrified horses calmed down and moving once again.
All of them stayed on edge as they left the rocky area, but there was no more sign of bandits. And honestly, how could there be? If the groups were too close together, there would be endless conflicts. Bloodwraith kept alert, but allowed himself to relax.
His body regenerated much more slowly than in the Forest of Beginnings, enough that he almost considered drinking one of his potions. But no, he was the master of pain, it did not master him. Since he was now an adventurer scrabbling for coppers, he couldn't waste resources. Though his regeneration might not be as fast as before, he could feel that it exceeded natural healing.
Instead he willed his box back into being and distributed the new points he had been given. Though he continued to place points in "Might" and "Vitality" he placed three of them into "Quickness" - he had not neglected speed before, but with a clumsy weapon like a greatsword, what he had was clearly inadequate.
"You did a good job back there!" Danniah appeared beside him, smiling as usual. Bloodwraith resisted rolling his eyes, since she had proved herself not incompetent.
"As did you. Thank you for defending me."
"Oh, I was just helping a little because the one you were fighting looked so scary!" She looked up at him, eyes peering out shyly from within her helm. "Do you really think I did a good job? Rhil'lahan and Herena said I did so many things wrong..."
"Bah! None of us fought perfectly, but you did your job." He nearly began insulting the others before realizing that might be going too far. Danniah made a happy noise and it looked like she might be blushing beneath her helm.
[Affection +5!
Danniah Affection: 46/100]
Bloodwraith nearly cursed at the boxes aloud but restrained himself and merely willed the box away. Besides, Danniah was shaped like an iron barrel. Though his new body might have excessive appetites, it had limits. Besides, there were more important issues.
Specifically, he found himself wondering about the question marks on her box. "Danniah... what exactly are you?"
She blinked at him.
"I mean your race."
"I'm a human! I'm just short!" Her answer came entirely too quickly and too loudly. Obviously a lie, but Bloodwraith wasn't sure if it was worth pressing her on the subject. But a moment later he got his answer from another source as Herena called from the wagon.
"She's half-dwarf! Doesn't want to admit it, because her father ran off. But what would you expect from a dwarf?"
There was some kind of tension there, but Bloodwraith didn't care: all that mattered was that Danniah's box became filled in with [Half-Human/Half-Dwarf.]. That confirmed his theory that the boxes had limited powers of observation, tied to his own. He had suspected that the girl wasn't fully human when he saw her, so the boxes had reflected that until he resolved the mystery.
Danniah was sniffling now, trying to hold it back. Bloodwraith observed this fact with mild irritation until he realized that he should probably not just ignore her. Kindness did not exactly come easily to him, so he rummaged around in his brain for a while to come up with something vaguely appropriate.
"Don't listen to her." He put a hand on Danniah's shoulder while they walked. "All I care about in combat is if someone can defend my back."
"Really?" She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes and he did his best to smile. It must have been good enough, because Danniah beamed at him. "Thank you! It's not that I want to lie about it, but everyone always treats me differently once they learn. It's nice to be just... normal..."
Then it was fortunate that she had interrupted him before he went on to talk about how dwarven blood made her a more useful warrior. But Danniah had started talking, so his involvement was no longer necessary.
"I actually know a little about my father! He might not have stayed with my mother, but I think he did like her, in a way. When he left, he left behind this huge hammer - the end is bigger than my head!"
[Affection +5!
Danniah Affection: 51/100
Relationship level increased!]
Bloodwraith stared at the box in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
"Completely serious!" Danniah beamed. "You should see it! Now, I'm not from Cresthaven originally, so it's not like I can just show you, but really, the hammer is huge..."
She kept talking happily and Bloodwraith decided that he would just need to put up with it. From her babbling he managed to extract a few useful pieces of information: adventurers in Cresthaven needed to be officially registered at a guild, and their group would be headed there next. It was unclear if he would get any share of the reward, but if he wanted a chance at it, he would need to pursue the subject there.
Eventually they emerged from the rocky crags and for a time even Danniah went silent. The plains flowed out, the road winding between farms as it drew closer to the gates. At last, the grand walls of Cresthaven rose before them.
Once, Bloodwraith had planned to raze Cresthaven to the ground as an afterthought in a much larger campaign. His actual first visit would be much less interesting.
Chapter 6
As soon as they reached Cresthaven, Bloodwraith split from the others. More accurately, he left as soon as he received the death energy for completing the quest - 212 "EXP," which struck him as obnoxiously random. Certainly worth doing compared to Meara's herbs, but he doubted he could bully the farmers into letting him repeat the escort.
After that, he left both peasants and adventurers behind. Being around them clouded his mind, presented too many thoughts that were Raigar's, not his. Better to explore the city for himself and see if he couldn't clear his head.
Like most cities that attracted adventurers, Cresthaven was diverse, crowded, and filthy. Unwashed masses from many races and countries milled about in the streets, many of them armed. The local humans wore the best clothes and occasionally went past on palanquins, so apparently they ruled the city. Such prejudice had always struck Bloodwraith as absurd - a country over and it might be elves or dwarves who thought too much of themselves.
To him, they were all just sacks of blood and EXP. While stabbing people wildly in the streets would get him killed by the guards, he wondered just how much power he could gain with a murder spree. Bloodwraith realized that his mouth was watering - it had been a long time since his body had enough moisture for that to happen.
As he searched for stores that sold equipment, Bloodwraith realized that he was thinking too small. Cities like Cresthaven always feared fires - if he set a fire that killed hundreds of people, would the boxes grant him EXP for their deaths? What about poisoning one of the city's wells? While walking he tried to interrogate the boxes for more information, but nothing useful emerged.
Ultimately, he couldn't overcome the adventurous instincts of this body. Temporarily abandoning such murderous schemes, he dedicated himself to lesser concerns. The city could still be useful to him, after all, and he had a great many tasks to do.
The first thing he needed to do was get rid of some of the junk filling his Extra-dimensional Bag. Judging from the numbers on his inventory box, it did have a limit, and he was approaching it.
Mainly due to the 44 wolf pelts he was carrying around.
Eventually he spotted a shop that a great many adventurers were moving through, many of them carrying plants, pieces of animals, and monster trophies. He joined them easily enough, most staying out of the way of someone of his size carrying a greatsword. When he arrived, the man at the front desk saw his Extra-dimensional Bag and gestured for him to enter a side room instead of the noisy main chamber.
There, Bloodwraith was glad to find things quieter. Only a thin man in a robe sat behind a desk, examining a ledger. A pile of unusual goods lay on one side of him, and he could see more in the chamber beyond, but there were heavily armed guards posted there.
"Well?" The thin man looke
d up at him curiously. "You have items in bulk, then?"
"I have been killing wolves in the forests. I can sell their pelts here?"
"Certainly. The price will vary depending on the quality, but we're willing to take them. We don't see many wolves in these parts, this time of year."
It had not occurred to him that they might not accept his goods, but it made sense. With so many adventurers running around the countryside, the market must be flooded with certain products. And he was about to flood one more.
"Here is one of the pelts." Bloodwraith pulled it from his sack and dropped it down onto the table. "I have 43 more."
"My, you really did come to sell in bulk. You're lucky we deal in high volumes here, or you'd be given a terrible deal in most places." The thin man rose to his feet, fingers lightly running over the fur and skin before he nodded to himself. "We won't negotiate a price until I can ensure that all the pelts have the same quality as this one. Can we begin examining them?"
Bloodwraith grunted and began pulling out more pelts, piling them one upon another. The man behind the desk examined each carefully, but he began to move faster and faster as he moved the pelts onto a pile behind the desk.
"These pelts... how odd..."
"Is something wrong with them?" Bloodwraith folded his arms and scowled, prepared to bargain. But the man only shook his head with a strange expression.
"No, not wrong... in fact, the pelts are all very fine. That's the odd thing, actually. They're all free from damage in exactly the same way." The man looked up at him and chuckled. "Are you sure you want to be an adventurer? With precision like yours, you could make a good living collecting wolf pelts."
"Never!"
The man flinched back at his outburst, raising his hands defensively. "Alright, suit yourself. I'm willing to offer you a silver piece for each of the pelts."
Bloodwraith realized furiously that he had been tricked: the man had already moved all the pelts over to the other side, where the guards had begun to collect them. He had removed the possibility of walking away before the negotiations had even begun. Scheming little worm.
Of course, Bloodwraith had no idea what a wolf pelt was worth. But it was a safe assumption that this merchant would not give him a generous deal. He slammed a fist down on the desk.
"This is robbery! I should burn this place down to the ground!"
"My, my..." The merchant chuckled, unconcerned by his display of anger. "Perhaps I could manage one silver and ten coppers."
"You're worse bandits than the ones I gutted outside the city!"
"Come now, that's an additional four silvers for the whole order, it's very generous..."
They traded threats and bargains until eventually Bloodwraith's wrath cooled and he accepted a price of one silver and seventeen coppers. He had no idea if that was a good deal or not, but it was 17% better than he had been offered. One of the guards unlocked a chest and gave him 51 silvers and 48 coppers, which went straight into his bag. That gave him nearly two gold pieces, which was... a quantity of money, anyway. Why did Cresthaven use such an odd system?
As he received his payment, the merchant watched him with an odd smile. "If I could advise you... I would not recommend such aggressive negotiation tactics elsewhere. In Cresthaven, and especially in our establishment, we are used to the behavior of adventurers. But you will find that in other places, even joking threats are not taken so lightly."
Bloodwraith still wanted to burn the place to the ground, but he nodded as if it had all been just a ploy. Thinking about the whole issue irritated him, but he wasn't finished yet. "I have two more things as well." He pulled the Alpha Pelt and the Iron Golem Ore from his bag and set them down on the table. The thin man's eyebrows rose.
"These are... hmm, somewhat uncommon. The best price we could offer you for them... well, let's just say your threats of arson would seem more justified. We can't accept these at the price you'd want."
"What? Why not?"
"We make our money by reselling goods to local craftsmen. Your wolf pelts can be made into winter furs, and there's always more need for those in a city of this size. But these items are finer, and even if local craftsmen could use them, what they made would be yet more valuable... by the time the end of the chain is reached, the product will be too valuable to be easily sold. There'd be profit in it, yes, but for an establishment like ours, it is too much trouble."
There was logic in that, at least, so Bloodwraith grunted acceptance and snatched them back. "Where could I sell them, then?"
"You might try a specialist craftsman of some sort, at a high end smithy or one of the guilds. And of course, there is more room for such things in a city like Edsdam or Manascas. And since you seem new at this... I wouldn't show anything like that in places smaller than Cresthaven. It'd mark you for bandits."
"Huh. I'll consider your advice."
Bloodwraith left the building, technically lighter but feeling no different. Time to finally make use of this money he had been collecting.
As he searched for stores that sold equipment, he spent more time examining the people around him. It took a bit to remember what he had done with the bandits, but soon he was able to examine everyone around him, seeing only what the boxes declared about their "level" and "statistics." That would finally let him attach some real meaning to the arbitrary numbers being thrown at him.
Most of the people on the streets were declared Level 0, regardless of whether the boxes called them peasants, farmers, or merchants. When he focused more on them, he was surprised at how low the boxes listed their statistics. His had begun around 10, but 5 seemed to be more average for peasants.
Those who were armed and looked like adventurers were usually Level 2-4. Curiously, the city guard members were all in the 7-9 range, but that made sense given that they had to keep order in a city like this. Beyond Level 10, advancement seemed to slow, as he saw only a few people who were rated 11 or 12.
Bloodwraith wondered just what he would have merited in his old life, though he wasn't sure he'd have been given a rating at all. More importantly, he wondered what level Raigar had been when he defeated the Master Lich. If more dangerous parts of the world attracted more dangerous adventurers, the numbers might go up significantly more.
For now, however, he understood how far he needed to go. Before he could accomplish anything or think about new goals, he needed to make sure that he could not be threatened by swarms of lowly adventurers like these.
Next he needed equipment. But as Bloodwraith began to identify potential shops by what kinds of adventurers visited them, he felt a strange discomfort. Not just pain in his core, but a degree of weakness in his body. It had been growing in him... had he been poisoned? Was he the target of a malicious spell? His eyes began to flicker around him, searching for an enemy.
A sound emerged from his stomach. After a moment, Bloodwraith realized that he was just hungry.
It had been a long time since he'd needed to eat anything. Obviously he needed nothing as an undead, and he suspected that the Forest of Beginnings had sustained him in its timelessness. But he had been traveling for two days since then, so of course his body was growing hungry.
Such a petty irritant. Since he had no choice but to accept the limitations of a fleshly body for now, Bloodwraith decided to search for food instead. There were stalls selling food on most streets, but the smells turned his stomach. He searched instead for a small shop that looked inexpensive.
Fortunately, it seemed that beer and heavy bread were quite cheap, just a few coppers each. Bloodwraith turned up his nose at first, but once he started to eat and drink, his body's needs took over. Very well, he could fulfill such needs.
As he ate, Bloodwraith located another armed adventurer and sat down next to him. "I just got to Cresthaven. Where's work lately?"
The man gave him a skeptical look, hands on the knives at his sides, but eventually answered. "The guards don't leave the city these days, so there's lots of work if you
don't mind bandits or lesser monsters. But the pay is shit."
"Yeah, I ran into some of that on my way. Anything better?"
"You want a real assignment, you either need to bring valuable materials to a guild, or work for Daek the Knife. Actually, unless the guild work is difficult adventurer stuff, you probably need to go through Daek anyway. This is pretty much his city, now."
"Hmm." He'd already been given a quest box about that by Meara, so it seemed likely that he would need to pursue it. "Heard something about him having a problem he wants adventurers to help solve?"
"Aye, he does. You interested?" The man gave him an appraising look, then smiled. "Some friends of mine and me are actually looking to take it on, but we need another. You interested?"
"Sorry, got some stuff to do."
"No problem, I understand. Take a few days to get your feet under you - Cresthaven can be a rough city for the unwary."
"Thanks for the help."
Bloodwraith smiled cheerfully at the man and watched him go, wondering when the man was going to ambush him. If he knew one thing in life, it was slimy bastards with ill intentions. The man's offer had rung entirely false and his warning was a bit too smug. No, Bloodwraith had just marked himself as an amateur in a city that was not kind to amateurs.
He'd deal with that soon enough. For now, he wanted more to eat.
The bread had tasted a lot better than he'd expected, rough as it was. Perhaps just his body insisting that he eat, but he'd take the pleasure this body offered while he kept it. Since he had a great deal to do, Bloodwraith ordered more bread and even a sausage. He had enough money that splurging on one item wouldn't meaningfully change his situation.
When Bloodwraith bit into the sausage and tasted the savory juices, he found himself taken aback. Was it this body, or had eating always been this pleasurable? He had tasted only dust for so long, he wasn't sure. Bloodwraith wolfed down the sausage eagerly and could have eaten a dozen more, but he held himself back.
More would be a waste. He needed to put himself in a position that he could order whatever he wanted in the future, and that meant using his money carefully. Perhaps later he would turn aside from the flesh and pursue raw power again, but for now, there was no harm in indulging.