by Stone Thomas
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said, starting to leave.
“Tell me.”
She took a deep breath and turned back around.
“You have no intention of raising children with me, do you?” she asked.
“Why would you say something like that?” I asked. “It’s all I want.”
“If you want to live long enough to call your children by name,” she said, “you’ll take Nola’s premonition seriously. Gods, I don’t know how you turn it off! The image of your bloody, lifeless body keeps replaying in my mind. Do you know why I keep sleeping in the recovery beds? Because it’s hard to have nightmares when you only sleep for ten minutes at a time. Yurip was right. Those visions are traumatic.”
“I turn it off because I have to,” I said. “I can’t sit around thinking about how to keep myself safe, not when there’s a village full of people at risk, and when all of the people I care about most — when you — are in danger. Duul is coming. Kāya is coming. If I lose focus on that, they’ll hurt you. I can’t live with that.”
“I can’t live with just doing nothing,” Vix said. “If you’d just let me slice off an ear. Even half an ear so you don’t end up with the earring we saw in the premonition. Any small change could make the difference, Arden, and you won’t even do that?”
“Nola’s premonition is wrong,” I said. “I saw Hinnabee’s Meat Shoppe in Valleyvale. Not only is it unknowably far away now, but it wasn’t the Sweet shop Nola’s premonition showed us. It just doesn’t add up.”
I pulled her close and pressed my hand against the back of her head, grazing her soft, red-brown hair. “I’m not going anywhere. I wouldn’t do that to you, or to little Dixette. My parents gave up on me. I won’t repeat their mistake.”
Vix nuzzled against my cheek, then she started to nibble my ear. My hands trailed down her back before I realized this wasn’t the pregnancy hormones. This was what I liked to call “too much teeth.”
“Are you trying to bite my ear off?” I asked.
“Busted,” she said. “I’m not done trying to change the future. But for now, I’ll go get started on this shrine and relieve you of those gnarly skin flaps some other time.”
“Fine, but I’m going to start wearing earmuffs to bed,” I replied. “And here!” I tossed two of the anibomb energems to Vix. She caught them and gave me a puzzled look. “For the cannon towers. I have a funny feeling you’ll know exactly what to do with them.”
Now, I had one more person to visit. Brion. And my boon of premonition told me I could find him in Halcyon’s new prison. Also, I saw him from across the way, sitting behind bars in a small, sad building set further apart from everything else.
I walked the dirt roads on our hilltop past the commercial and industrial areas. The whole front of the prison was a door made of iron bars, with a heavy lock keeping it bolted to the stone wall beside it. I suspected Vix planned to build the rest of the prison around it, to provide additional holding cells and better shelter from the rain.
Brion the lionkin sat on the floor. He seemed oddly zen for someone whose brain was a thick mash of half-digested sudoku puzzles and abacus beads.
“I suppose you’ll want a trial,” I said, keeping my distance from the metal bars. Something gave off a pungent urine smell, and I didn’t want to get any closer to its source. “I’m sure our chief administrator would love to play judge.”
“The Great Mother has already tried me,” he replied. “I await her holy pardon.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“She came to me,” Brion said. “In a vision. She had an army of 104 angels, with a combined weight of 12,887 pounds four ounces of angel power, hovering in the air, waiting for me to accept my penance.”
“I was there,” I said. “I heard you say that you pledged yourself to Nola in the hope that she would cleanse your mind of Kāya’s chaos magic. Did you mean that?”
“Yes,” Brion said. “My pledge to Nola was sincere, but ineffective. I remained bound to Kāya, and thus forced to do her bidding so that she would take pity on my jumbled mind. I spent 144,563 of her XP improving her attributes, but she has yet to assist me. I know now that she never will.”
“She was after more than just the temple,” I said. “There were powerful books in the Mayor’s study. One might even control the undead. Proper Elimination of Needlessly Idle Spouses. Or something like that.”
“In all my days as an archivist,” he said, “I never saw books like the ones in the Mayor’s office. He must have collected for decades, 983 tomes, a total of 65,098,401 words. Twelve of those tomes contained magic, including the book of which you speak. Physical Emanations of Necromancy and Invocation of Spirits. It is bound in red with a lot of blue veiny lettering on the cover.”
“One look and you memorized the whole title,” I said. Show off. “Where is it now?”
“Gone,” Brion said. “A man in a black silk robe appeared. He cleared the magic tomes from the library and left.”
“At least Kāya doesn’t have it,” I said. “She has some kind of plan to hurt Nola. If you really want the Great Mother’s forgiveness, tell me what it is so we can stop it.”
“The plan is variable,” he said. “Right now it stands at 894, plus 55, at a rate of 13 per second.”
“You’re not making any sense,” I said.
“It is as precise as I know how to be,” he said. “At a rate of 13 per second, it would take one minute and thirteen seconds to destroy Nola’s heavenly soul.”
+29
That night, with a boon of premonition coursing through my body and mind, I had a dream. About Duul and Hinnabee’s Sweet Shoppe. About a pierced ear, black rings under my eyes, and a red mark like three parallel lines burned onto my neck. About dying.
Nothing had changed. I decided to keep that to myself for now, but Vix was right. I couldn’t just wish this away. I had work to do.
+30
I woke up in the infirmary feeling energized, but with a splitting headache. My vest was still in tatters thanks to Brion’s claws, but my body felt good. Strong.
“Thank you for letting me sleep here last night,” I said. Lana stripped the sheets off a vacant bed and threw them into the corner.
“You’re awake already?” she asked. There were only two other patients using recovery beds now, and both were snoring.
“How long was I out?” I asked.
Lana pulled my vest open, which wasn’t hard given its tattered state. “Four hours,” she said. “Your old wounds have healed nicely. I’ve been healing you while you slept, but it’s the beds that did the real work.”
“The beds don’t change themselves,” I said, “or cast healing spells, or clean up after bleeding puking sweaty snotty moaning wounded bodies. You did the real work here. What are all of those bottles on the floor?”
“Potions,” Lana said. “You remember how cold Rinka was toward me at first?”
“I do,” I said. “I gather the ‘Meadheads’ and ‘Valleyfails’ are still self-segregating.”
“Not Rinka,” Lana said. “One of the folks you sent back here from Valleyvale was a man, originally from Meadowdale. It was Rinka’s husband Parmo. I had no way to know that, and I’ve been treating everyone first-come first-serve regardless of who they are. I patched him up while a few Valleyvale folks waited their turn, and just like that Rinka changed her tune. She brought me a handful of minor healing potions, and a few experimental potions that she thought could help.”
Lana reached down toward the series of glass bottles that lined the floor, lifting one closer to the faint orange light cast by the room’s only torch. Small flecks of red floated and swirled inside a thick gray mixture. “She called this one pseudomortis. It wraps a person in the pallor of death. I’d be grateful if you’d get it out of here, actually. I don’t want anyone accidentally drinking it here, where playing dead might be mistaken for the real thing.
“She said once a potion lik
e this wears off, the body is immune to another dose for a full week, so if you do try it, you might as well drink the whole bottle and get the full effect.”
I took the potion and tucked it into my pocket. “Thanks.”
“Before you go,” Lana said. “If it’s not too much to ask, would you mind skillmeistering me? It’s just that I have so much work left to—”
“Of course I don’t mind,” I said.
Δ
Skillmeister View of:
Lana Fayven
Base Attrib. / XP to Next / Intended Change / Cost
-
5 Constitution / 125 XP to Next / 5 –> 7 / Total XP Cost: 275
-
8 Vivacity / 200 XP to Next / 8 –> 9 / Total XP Cost: 200
-
3 Strength / 75 XP to Next / none / Total XP Cost: 0
-
3 Hardiness / 75 XP to Next / 3 –> 7 / Total XP Cost: 450
-
10 Focus / 250 XP to Next / 10 –> 12 / Total XP Cost: 525
-
9 Resolve / 225 XP to Next / 9 –> 12 / Total XP Cost: 750
-
TOTAL BASE ATTRIBUTE XP COST: 2,200
Stats Affected by Change
-
[Constitution] Health Points (HP): 500/500 –> 700/700
-
[Vivacity] Action Points (AP): 22/160 –> 42/180
-
[Strength] Phys. Damage Inflict Range: 30-37
-
[Hardiness] Phys. Damage Block Range: 16-23 –> 38-53
-
[Focus] Mag. Damage Inflict Range: 100-122 –> 120-146
-
[Resolve] Mag. Damage Block Range: 49-68 –> 65-91
Skills For Weapon Class: None [expand]
Skills for Special Class: Lighthealer
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Beam of Health 4. Heal target’s health points equal to 1.8 times your own Focus. [20 AP to cast] [Requires: Focus 8, Resolve 8].
Improve to Beam of Health 5 to increase Focus multiplier to 2.0. [26 AP to cast] [Requires: Focus 12, Resolve 12] [1,875 XP to improve].
Intended Change: 4 –> 5
Cost Subtotal: 1,875
-
Flash of Relief 2. Remove the following status ailments from target: minor poison; partial paralysis. [20 AP to cast] [Requires: Constitution 5, Resolve 5].
Improve to Flash of Relief 3 to add confusion to ailments removed. [25 AP to cast] [Requires: Constitution 7, Resolve 7] [1,125 XP to improve].
Intended Change: 2 –> 3
Cost Subtotal: 1,125
-
Locked. Flicker of Mercy 1. Alleviate your target’s pain and other symptoms for a one-minute interval. [10 AP to cast] [Requires: Hardiness 6, Vivacity 6] [375 XP to unlock].
Improve to Flicker of Mercy 2 to increase interval to five minutes. [12 AP to cast] [Requires: Hardiness 7, Vivacity 9] [750 XP to improve].
Intended Change: 0 –> 2
Cost Subtotal: 1,125
-
TOTAL LIGHTHEALER SKILL XP COST: 4,125
Summary
-
Available XP: 5,898
Cost of Intended Changes: 6,325
Precision Training Discount (7%): 443
Total Adjusted Cost: 5,882
Total Projected Remaining: 16
Confirm?: Yes / No
∇
“All done,” I said. “And just like that, you have a new skill. Flicker of Mercy. Alleviating patients’ pain will come in handy for all sorts of things. Like, for instance, child birth.”
“Duly noted,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll work my way up to Flesh Light soon too.”
“Sounds totally innocent,” I said. “What will it do?”
“It casts a beam of light that regrows lost flesh.”
“That makes sense.” I hopped up from the bed and walked through the open doorway into Nola’s sanctuary. The goddess floated inside her crystal cocoon as usual.
After a few steps toward her, she huffed and opened her eyes.
“Still?” she asked.
“Still what?”
“I’m worried about you, Arden,” Nola said. “The recovery beds didn’t heal that black spot in your mind. Your psychic light started to dim when you got back from the netherworld and it never came back all the way. They say hell changes a person…”
“I don’t suppose that dark spot is blocking my brain’s constant ow ow ow ow ow, is it?”
“Headache,” Nola asked. “You were high on divine energy yesterday, and today you’re crashing. It’s a boon hangover.”
“It’s a boondoggle,” I said. “I need to be at the top of my game for this trip. Gorinor won’t be an easy man to negotiate with.”
“He’s the gypsy you fought with,” Nola said. “Why would you put yourself in his path again?”
“Kāya said she has a hell of a plan for you,” I said. “That’s the one thing that’s still a mystery, and Brion’s in no position to explain it. The gypsies have a psycholowitch with experience altering skillmeisters’ minds. They threatened to have her hypnotize me last time. I’m hoping she’ll fix Brion so we can get a straight answer out of him, so I’m making a quick stop before Mournglory.”
“So you’re going to calm his mind and return him to normal?” Nola asked.
“Because it may save your life,” I said, “Yes. You haven’t had any visions of Duul invading Halcyon soon, have you?”
“No,” Nola said. “And that’s no guarantee, but we’ve agreed that you need to go regardless. If we don’t have that magic slime to contain the lumentors before the next full moon, there won’t be enough exorcists in all the land to save us.”
“I feel good about this trip,” I said. “We’ll find a way to save Valona, get help from the elves, and keep Kāya at bay. If you can get those shrines powered up while we’re gone, everything will fall into place.”
“Here they come,” Nola said.
I held my Vile Lance firm while Cindra approached the temple’s entrance. Her stride was confident, powerful. Her hips swayed with each step, forcing her large green breasts to bounce from side to side. Her hip quiver gave the impression that her hips were even wider, and her waist more narrow by comparison. She rested a delicate purple parasol on her shoulder, a perfect match for the Radiance Gown she wore.
“For the sun,” she said, giving a slight shrug. “Kāya is a wicked one, but her giant umbrella was worth replicating.”
Mamba ran behind her to close the gap between the two. She had no trouble sprinting in her battle heels, which was no surprise. With her sharp sense of balance and need to stay in constant motion, I didn’t think anything could slow her down.
Trailing behind them both, and walking in short, shuffling steps, was a woman with thick round glasses, a pencil-thin frame, and a long, tight black dress that hugged her legs all the way down to her flat, black shoes. “I’m Vee. Am I late? You wanted a portal mage, right?”
“Are you the mage that set up our portal arch?” I asked.
“That’s me,” she said. She jammed a thumb into her bony chest and smiled, then frowned as she rubbed the spot she had poked too hard.
“Cindra and I were in Landondowns while you were working on that,” I said. “I never did get to thank you, but I really am grateful.”
“No problem,” she said. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“It’s perfect,” I said. “The enchanted statuette of Avelle that powered the arch in Valleyvale broke off, and I wondered if you could use it to build a new arch somewhere else.”
I handed the small, green statue to her. It was battered and scratched, but still had a slight green glow.
“This should be fine,” she said. “Where do you want it?”
“Barren Moon,” I said. “We have business with the gypsies and I’ll want a way to travel onward from there quickly.”
“Okay,” Vee said. “Just lead the way.”
We walked toward the front gates that sealed off Halcyon�
��s entry. Yurip was already there, escorting the last member of our little party: Brion.
Our chief administrator had taken the liberty of casting a scofflaw’s curse on Halcyon’s number one prisoner, so the lionkin’s forearms were solid blue from his wrists to his elbows.
“I need to know if he’s returning after this,” Yurip said. “It affects the census.”
“That all depends on what happens with the gypsies,” I said.
Yurip’s forehead vein throbbed. “I’m going to fill out an emigration form, and if he returns, we’ll do an immigration card. That should work…” He kept mumbling boring things to himself as he walked away.
I locked eyes with Brion. “If you run—”
“I would do nothing to risk the Great Mother’s ire,” he said. “She’s going to forgive me and heal me. This journey is just part of her divine plan.”
I glanced at Cindra. The slime woman gave a slight shrug. I thought she felt bad for misleading Brion, but we couldn’t tell him the truth, not yet.
Mamba looped her arm through mine as I led our small group away from Halcyon’s hill. “The sour wine in Brion’s eyes is gone,” she said. “Is he our friend now?”
“Far from it,” I said. “We’re going to ask the gypsies to let the psycholowitch have a crack at him, to clear the numerical gibberish out of his mind so he can tell us what Kāya is up to.”
Her body tensed as she pulled her arm away from mine. “Have you ever tried to give the twilight to a riverbed?”
“That doesn’t sound like something I’d be very good at,” I replied.
“Nor would it be fair to punish you when the river rejects your gift,” Mamba said. “That’s the psycholowitch’s specialty. She’s the river, and she nearly drowned me.