by Rue Vespers
Her clothes were just as baffling: a vest atop a sweater atop several T-shirts that hung at varying lengths over her thin form, and a sweatshirt tied around her waist. Leggings were visible beneath her peasant skirt, which was far too big and accounted for the makeshift sweatshirt belt to hold it up. Her socks didn’t match, nor did her shoes, one of which was a pink sneaker with its laces double-knotted and the other a green sneaker with no laces at all and a flapping tongue.
Under normal circumstances, he never would have paid any attention to her. One customer was much like any other customer, but she created such a jarring visual scene that his brain recorded every bizarre detail. She was pissed as hell that there was no such thing as vegan cat food and wanted Jenner to know it, her fists balled up and her stance menacing even though he was a foot taller and twice her weight, not to mention forty years younger.
“Hey, kid! What the hell is the matter with you?”
“Oh.” Jenner blinked. They were within sight of the dock, the sky a pale purple overhead. “I remembered something from my outer-world life. A memory was uploaded from my job.” And strongly so; he had been there in the aisle, standing next to the display of cat brushes and combs he was supposed to reorganize with that lunatic of a woman screeching at him that her cats loved all of God’s creatures far too much to ingest them.
“That happens sometimes,” Rosy commented.
“Why such a useless memory, though?” Jenner didn’t want to remember that. He could say with certainty that that chick wasn’t his girlfriend.
“It just happens.” The teacup hopped up and down to see over the railing as the crew tossed the bumpers. “I saw that in the lab with the handful of wizards in the process of being perma-added. They suddenly remembered the name of their pet fish back in first grade, or what kind of car they drove out there. One recited pi to the hundredth digit.”
Jenner stopped himself from checking on his upload percentage. It was still leagues away from what he needed to be to avoid the fate of a soulless.
As he stood up from the table, his fingers brushed against a hard object in his trouser pocket. In surprise, he pulled out Master Tosco’s metal king-flower case.
He had completely forgotten that he was carrying it around! Opening the lid, he counted the stiff-petaled flowers within. There were eight of them, good for eight silvers, and just as fresh as if they were picked seconds ago. He lifted the case closer to his face and noticed strange insignia carved into the metal. Perhaps this was an enchanted case designed to preserve whatever was inside.
Showing the case of flowers to Rosy, he asked, “Do these lose value like the Capricorn teeth and juvenile dragon scales do?”
“Not in the same way, but it’s smarter to sell them fresh,” Rosy said. “Some spells need fresh king-flowers; some need dried. It depends on whatever orders the apothecary receives. You sell them fresh and they can either sell them fresh in turn, or dry those flowers and sell them that way.”
With this case, Jenner felt a lot better about his trip to Hard Mode. Master Tosco did his damnedest to fuck Jenner over, but he was walking away with a new dagger and some pricey little flowers instead.
Good. He needed a new slightly enchanted shirt. The scorpion stings had ripped up the one he had on.
As it turned out, he didn’t even need to go to the apothecary after he disembarked. Waiting upon the dock were representatives of the local apothecaries, as well as jewel appraisers and busboys sent from restaurants hoping for troggets. Everybody was shouting at once to the treasure hunters. “Troggets? Got any troggets?” “We do jewels, all jewels!” “Locksmith! Road of Royals locksmith! You’ve got a locked chest and we’ve got the key!” “Flowers, bark, and leaves! Flowers, bark, and leaves!” “Found something inexplicable? Let us expli-cafy it!”
“Artifacts!” It was the security guard who had been outside the artifact exchange and reluctantly answered Jenner’s questions. “Artifacts, all kinds!”
Jenner cut through the crowds to the old man who wanted flowers, bark, and leaves. “I’ve got king-flowers.”
“Let’s see,” the man replied, his eyebrow raising briefly at Rosy before he went back to business.
Jenner took off the lid. A wrinkled finger counted them out. “Nice. Excellent quality. Eight silvers and an extra ten pence for freshness.”
Thanks, Master Tosco, Jenner thought sarcastically. He hoped the man had scrambled into whatever being he liked the least in this game.
Once the exchange was done, Jenner made a motion to toss the empty case away. But why not just add it to his inventory? He had no intention of returning to Hard Mode for a long time, but a trip to the less challenging islands might not be out of reach in the near future. It was a waste of money to throw this out just to have to buy another one. Thinking inventory, the case disappeared in his fingers. Then he waved off the blocks, which wanted to tell him something about inventory weight.
He left the dock for Road of Royals. The vendors with food drums were already gone. Loads of restaurants and taverns lined the short stretch of road that he had already explored, so he would just stroll along until he found one that looked good and wasn’t packed with diners. A fat burger sounded most excellent.
Had it really only been two days since he arrived in Scrambled Lives? It felt like an eternity. A mostly enjoyable eternity. It beat organizing cat brushes while a crazy customer bellowed at him about stupid shit, or sweeping up spilled kibble. Though he was unable to recall his whole life out there, it had a gray and dreary feeling to it, like he had been walking mile after mile upon a treadmill to nowhere.
Scrambled Lives was no treadmill. Who knew where in the hell he would end up tomorrow in this bizarre game?
“Someone is following you,” Rosy whispered. “Since you left the dock.”
Jenner looked behind him.
Nothing appeared amiss at first glance. He was two blocks past The Queen’s Crown, the sign swinging in the breeze. A couple was leaving a distant tavern and stepping around the worst of the muck in the road; almost as far away was a group of men and women, who were clustered below a brothel as prostitutes in the windows pleaded with them to come inside for a good time. A wagon laden in covered baskets was turning onto the cross street, the driver calling out to the horse, “Almost home, my sweet girl, almost home!”
No one was following Jenner. No one was even looking in his direction.
Then he saw the man in the shadows.
He was only about fifteen feet off, and nearly invisible in the darkened doorway to a closed shop. The moment Jenner made eye contact, the guy started for him with a singular, ill-intentioned purpose.
“Get into a tavern!” Rosy said.
Jenner sped up. But all of the taverns and restaurants, unfortunately, were behind him. The windows were dark on both sides of this block, which had no inns. Just shops, all of which were closed.
The footsteps behind him quickened, making squishy sounds in the mud.
Jenner broke into a run. Following him since the dock . . . it was the perfect time and place for pickpockets to be lurking about, when the boats from the Fortune Islands returned for the day. He should have walked into one of the busy places he passed rather than deliver himself to this darker, unoccupied stretch of road.
Lights glowed far ahead. Too far.
A smaller, yellowish pool of light lit up an alley nearby. Jenner headed for it at once. He was relieved when he turned the corner to see a door with a bare lightbulb glowing overhead. Lights meant people, and people meant safety. Trashcans overflowed with the reeking refuse of a restaurant.
Bolting to the door, Jenner jerked at the knob.
It was locked.
As the man followed him into the alley, another figure rose from behind a trashcan. “Well, well, look who we have here!” the second man said with a mean giggle.
It was an ambush! Jenner whirled around to keep both of them in view, pressing his back to the door and slipping his dagger from its sheath.<
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The two figures closed in on him. They were dressed in the rough clothing of bottom-level human players.
“Hey, hey, hey,” said the first man. His shirt was torn from nipple to nipple. “We don’t need trouble. Just give over what you got from Hard Mode and we’re done here.”
“Fuck off, you filthy street-twats!” Rosy spat. “He earned that money fair and square!”
They came even closer. Jenner raised his dagger in warning.
“Shit! He’s armed!” the second man cried.
“No problem.” Torn Shirt produced a dagger from his pocket. “You want to fight? Then we’ll fight.”
The three of them faced off. Four of them, if Jenner counted the teacup.
Torn Shirt advanced, swinging his blade. Jenner jabbed his own dagger as a distraction and dished out a good, hard kick to the guy’s groin. Falling back with a cry, Torn Shirt scrambled upwards as Giggles grabbed Jenner’s arm with one hand while trying to slip his other hand into Jenner’s pocket for the purse.
Jenner wrenched away violently to protect his money. Yelling, Rosy jumped into Giggles’s face. The grip on Jenner disappeared.
It happened fast. Too fast to do anything.
As Giggles smacked at Rosy and Jenner straightened, Torn Shirt darted forward with his dagger and slammed it hard into Jenner’s midsection.
Except . . . it didn’t go in.
Chapter Fourteen
Jenner felt the force of the blow on his skin, but that was it. Like it was a punch from a fist rather than the deadly penetration of a sharp point of steel. Yet the punch didn’t hurt, and that was odd, too.
Torn Shirt pulled back. Equally confused at Jenner’s nonplussed reaction, they looked down. No blood was pooling on his impaled shirt, and the blade of the dagger was crumpled in all the way to the hilt rather like a metal accordion.
“Oh, fuck,” Torn Shirt said stupidly.
Jenner didn’t understand what was going on, but this was his chance. He lifted his Thimbault dagger, ready to do some damage.
Bravery fled the two thugs. Torn Shirt staggered backwards, shouting, “Leave him! He’s enchanted or has a blessing or something!” Giggles was already running for the mouth of the alley, his buddy taking off after him.
Jenner looked around for the teacup. “Rosy?”
Trash popped out of a can, the cup jerking this way and that amongst the garbage. “Get me out of here! Ugh! I’m covered in coffee grounds and fish guts.”
Jenner dug the cup out of the trash. “Are you okay?”
“Are you kidding me?” Rosy cried incredulously. “Are you okay, Gramma? Someone just stuck a blade in your gut but you’re asking if I’m okay? I thought you were scrambled!”
He had owned this shirt for less than twelve hours, but it was a wreck of sand and dirt, holes from the scorpion stings and now a split in the fabric just to the side of his navel. Hiking it up, he stared in astonishment at his unblemished skin.
Then Rosy broke into peals of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Jenner asked.
“The health potion! That fucking, cheap-ass, demon-grade health potion!”
Jenner remembered those notifications to arrive after he drank the fluid from the ampoule. “The potion restored only half of my health points because it was rather poor quality. And it was corrupted by a . . . a defensive scale charm. The game told me to use wizard-grade next time so I could be sure it was clean.”
The teacup laughed even harder. “It serves me right to cast aspersions on shitty demon-grade potions. That scale charm saved your life. Congrats, Gramma! You just became a little bit demonic.”
“What?” Jenner exclaimed. “Current status!”
Your Current Status
Name: Jenner
Age: 21 years
Race: Human
Sub-Race: Grakel demon (scales only)
Job: Janitor (former); weapons caddy (current)
Level: 3
Health: 14/14
Stamina: 8
Intelligence: 5
Agility: 4
Dexterity: 5
Perception: 4
Charisma: 3
Special Skills: Basic Sword-fighting (1); Grakel scales (25)
Advanced Options: see more
“Grakel demon?” Jenner asked. “What in the ever-loving fuck is a grakel demon?”
Rosy shook its handle. “Never heard of it. Well, let’s get the hell inside somewhere. You’ve tempted fate more than enough for one day.”
Who could Jenner ask? The answer was obvious. He could have a meal and possibly learn about grakel demons in the very same place.
Striding out of the alley, he kept his dagger out in case of need. Those two hopeful pickpockets were long gone, though. Backtracking along Road of Royals, he let himself into Treasure Chest and put his dagger away.
It was busy tonight. Though a musician was playing an upright piano in the corner, the moans and grunts, squeals and pounding from the upper floor easily overrode it. Prostitutes were scattered around on the sofas and seated at the tables, all of them charming customers. One was especially lovely, a buxom, brunette beauty who had not been here his first time in the brothel. Dressed in a form-fitting blue gown, she laughed with her hand upon her throat as two men grinned bashfully around her.
Did Jenner have enough money for a little fun? Hunger and lust and the need for information warred within him. His lust receded when the prostitutes’ eyes fell off him like always. The day’s adventures had left him a mess. Not only did he look like a poor, low-level player, but he was a filthy one.
Dan the Troll was mixing a drink at the bar. Jenner took a stool as the teacup leaped off his shoulder to the counter. Hopping over to the troll, Rosy shouted, “Hey! HEY, YOU UP THERE! YEAH, YOU! Can we get some service around here?”
“Rosy! Don’t be rude!” Jenner scolded, yanking the cup back by the handle as Dan the Troll turned with that expression of malicious glee he wore while hurling impolite visitors into the mud puddle.
“Kid, it’s just a troll!” Rosy tried to yank away from the firm pinch Jenner had on it, but he held on tight. “You’ve never met a troll before and you don’t know what they’re like. I didn’t even know they were bright enough to mix drinks!”
Jenner glared at the cup. “I didn’t trust you with Master Tosco, and you were right. Now it’s your turn to trust me. I know him.”
Rosy opened its mouth to argue, but closed it without a word.
“Hello, Dan. How are you?” Jenner asked, letting Rosy go cautiously.
“My fine young friend! It is good to see you again.” Dan the Troll slid the drink down the bar to a customer and side-stepped over to Jenner. “A talking teacup! Hello.”
“Hello,” Rosy said grumpily. “A talking troll! I thought they just pointed and grunted.”
“Ah, yes, most of them do. You are not wrong in that.” Dan the Troll chuckled knowingly. “What can I get for you, Jenner? We have some lovely ladies on duty, including a succubus as our honored guest tonight! Unless you prefer gentlemen. We have several lovely men on duty as well.”
“Not tonight,” Jenner said ruefully. “But the ladies are indeed beautiful. You wouldn’t happen to have burgers and French fries on the menu, would you? I’ll take those with an ale.”
“Of course!” Dan the Troll waved over a serving girl. “A burger and fries, please, Ajoran. That will be three pence, Jenner.”
Jenner dropped a silver into that huge grayish-green fist. “Keep the change. Could I get a bit of information from you? I need to speak to someone who’s been in the game as long as you have.”
Dan the Troll’s ears twitched in agreement as he worked the register. Rosy hopped away, yelling for the serving girl to bring back a pot of hot water.
“Have you ever heard of a grakel demon?” Jenner asked Dan the Troll.
“A grakel demon! Oh, yes.” Dan the Troll slipped the change into the pocket of his apron. “What an unusual query, my friend. G
rakel demons are a rarity in Talvenor. You cannot scramble into one; they remain solely in the province of NPCs, at least for now. Grakel demons appeared when the desert to the south did in the third year of the game. New grounds to explore, new allies and enemies and quests to rule the oases. A grakel demon is somewhat more intelligent than the common troll, and typically encountered as a bodyguard to a high-ranking player. They are fierce in combat and most difficult to kill. But you are so new to Scrambled Lives, Jenner! How is it you have become knowledgeable of the grakel of all beings?”
“I drank a demon-grade health potion today,” Jenner explained. “It was corrupted by something called a defensive scale charm. Now my character status says my sub-race is part-grakel demon, scales only.”
Dan the Troll shook his head. “Demon-grade potions are a bargain, but they come with a measure of risk. As I learned in my human lives! Yes, I gained an interesting sub-race or two as a human from drinking those corrupted spells.”
“This is normal?”
“Unfortunately so. You see, for all of their mess, when wizards make potions in a lab, they do so to an exacting standard. Three drops of essence of hazel into a sterilized beaker means three drops and a sterile beaker, not three-and-a-half drops or a splash that looks close to three into a beaker that’s rinsed out; a man’s thumbnail means a man’s thumbnail, not his pinkie nail or a woman’s thumbnail. Once they have a finished lot of potions, that lot is sent to Quality Control at the individual guild for further testing before it can be sold. You will pay through the nose for wizard-grade potions, but you can be assured that they will work as promised. Every wizarding House takes great pride in its potions, which bring in fistfuls of gold by the hour.”
Rosy hopped back to listen, steamy water splashing everywhere from the cup. “But you’re a troll,” it muttered.
“And what mischief did you get into today, my dear little cup?” Dan the Troll picked up the teacup and dipped his cleaning rag into the hot water to scrub at Rosy’s filthy exterior. Incredibly, Rosy allowed this.