The Merchant of Tiqpa: The Bathrobe Knight's Sequel

by Charles Dean

  “You’re a very odd one, you know that?” Sampson said, actually laughing at Locke’s terrible joke.

  “Him, odd? Speak for yourself,” Sparky said to Sampson. “There is no other girl I know who still thinks baggy cargo shorts are fashionable.”

  “Come on, Sparky,” Bianca giggled, “let’s not bring up fashion. We all know that your haircut hasn’t been in style since the last time kids thought hashtag was a form of audible punctuation.”

  “Hey! It’s just like your--” Sparky started, but was immediately interrupted by Tubal.

  “Absolutely great haircut, which is why it makes her look sharp,” he laughed, giving Bianca the evil eye as he did.

  Wait, miss knight-in-shining-armor is the type who worries about her haircut? Locke never ceased to be surprised by his new band of friends.

  Even with the occasional verbal sniping of fashion or haircuts, the whole group seemed to be laughing and in good spirits. Locke usually only laughed or smiled while people said nice things --generally about the products or merchandise he was trying to move-- and this feel-good vibe while still trading derisive jabs wasn’t something he was used to. He had gotten a taste of it while he was sitting back at the bar earlier, but it still didn’t set right with him. Part of his brain kept saying: ‘This isn’t your world. Your world is work and sales. This is the world that movie directors silence so all you see is the laughing faces, probably because they can’t ever think of good jokes to write in and fill the void, but maybe, just maybe, because it’s not something you should get too close to. This is Jess’ world, not yours.’

  A sister that I can’t even--

  Hey again! It’s your friendly neighborhood Ash! I thought I’d let you know the good news! You didn’t lose your job. Yay! Now, you might be wondering, ‘What on earth is my amazing goddess of absolute perfection talking about? My feeble mind is incapable of jumping to conclusions and using abductive reasoning like an English detective who spends far too much time trying to separate his assistant from said assistant’s wife.’

  There will be a gold market.

  That’s the news. Exciting, isn’t it? It’s not coming out for a few days, and I probably shouldn’t tell you, but I couldn’t stand to watch you mope around while staring off into space like you were posing for a Christian rock album. Smile, enjoy the conversation. You’ll be able to take all the gold you earn in the game, and sell it on the soon-to-be released forum’s gold market in about a week when the patch drops. People will be able to buy and sell in-game gold with real life currency. That means you won’t have to sell your items through sketchy black market websites!

  Now, you may be asking, ‘Why would they ban me for real life currency transactions if they were just going to release a gold auction later and encourage the exact same behavior?’ Well, long story short, the company running Tiqpa will receive 5% on both sides of all transactions made on the gold market. The new boss is a real demon. He is trying to penny pinch even with the players. Can you believe that?

  Anyway, ignore the reasoning. Look dead ahead, smile, and enjoy the victory. Your situation won’t be nearly so dire with all the money you have right now. Heck, you might even be able to knock out those student loans for you and your sister by the end of the month. Consider this information a gift for doing such a good job at keeping me entertained. Have a nice day! =D

  Locke was pumped about the possibility of being able to legitimately peddle his wares, but he froze when he reached the last line. It didn’t register immediately. After all, this legal gold market that was going to be announced soon essentially meant that he wouldn’t ever need to look for a real job. Tiqpa’s popularity was growing by leaps and bounds. Rich people who made a hundred bucks an hour would always be around and more than willing to drop twenty bucks to save themselves three hours of grinding, and people would always need potions and poisons for raids and dungeons. This was the type of cash farm he needed. He had been so enthusiastically reading the news that it took him a moment to realize exactly what Ash had said.

  Even if his conscious mind didn’t catch it, however, part of his brain must have because he read the sentence at least three times over before moving to the next one. His eyes slowly grew wider, and his mouth gradually opened into an eerie vacancy like a supreme court seat on an election year. How . . . How does she know? His conscious thoughts finally caught up to the question the subconscious was already asking. How does she know about my problem? About my loans and about my sister?

  “Shy, I can’t believe you!” Katherine laughed as she threw down her accusation.

  “I can’t either. Man, you have an amazing talent,” Reginald complimented him, shifting his position in the makeshift social circle so that he was standing next to Locke.

  “Talent? That’s like the fifth time today this pervert has zoned out while lecherously staring at some poor innocent victim’s rear end,” Sampson cried in disbelief.

  “I mean, I didn’t even notice her until I followed Shy’s eyes. He’s like a bum radar!” Reginald exclaimed.

  What, huh? Locke snapped out of the horror of his realization when he heard his name only to discover that he was once again staring at a woman’s backside. Oh, for heaven’s sake! Not again, he wanted to exclaim. “I wasn’t--”

  “Planning on telling your buddy?” More than likely trying to twist the knife than actually agreeing with Locke’s behavior, Reginald couldn’t wipe the smile off his goat’s face as he cozied up next to Locke and joined in his stare.

  “I can’t believe it’s got you even sweating. Are you that into--”

  “No,” Locke raised his hands up defensively. “It’s not that. It’s just . . . I got a message in game.”

  “Sure,” Reginald laughed. The sly troll knew he had already dug Locke’s social grave for the moment. “An in-game message. Likely excuse.”

  “Was it that bad?” Tubal asked, putting a hand on Locke’s shoulder as he did. “If there is something that has you worried, we can take care of it as a group. We still have some time before we were planning to log off for the night.”

  “Umm.” Locke gulped. No, the message itself was great, but the implication was so terrifying I kind of want to log off and burn the machine I’m using right now. “Not really. It’s just . . . I think I need to go take care of some stuff.”

  “Stuff?” Eliza’s voice broke in, and her tone was more piercing than concerned, the exact opposite of Tubal’s and Reginald’s. “What could you possibly have left to take care of?” she pressed as if Locke were on trial.

  “I have to get back to farming gold,” Locke answered honestly. He had slowly grown to hate the moments when he had been forced to cleverly reword something--or outright lie at times--to the people he actually liked. “This day has been a fun break, but I still have work to do.”

  “Oh.” Tubal frowned at Locke, a puzzled expression on his face. “You sure you don’t want to just hang out with us for the rest of the day? We’re just going to shoot some beers at the Wench’s Best Bubbly Head until tonight when we can do it in real life at the convention.”

  “What convention?” Locke kicked himself for asking. If I know, it’ll be that much harder to not attend.

  “You haven’t heard about R.E.T.Con, the Revolutionary Entertainment Technologies Convention? Aside from the latest, cutting edge game stuff, it’s supposed to be the biggest cosplay event of the year. The head of Tiqpa has hired over a hundred models to represent his part of the event alone, so there is no way in Hades we are going to miss it.”

  Ugh, I shouldn’t have asked. That sounds surprisingly tempting. Locke actually wanted to go. “Those are too expensive anyway,” he justified. After all, money was his key problem to begin with.

  “Don't be a cheapskate, Shy. Tiqpa players get in free, so all you have to do this whole week is just use your Tiqpa ID to log into the event,” Sampson explained, cutting off another one of his excuses.

  Locke sighed. Even with only one excuse left, it wa
s the only one he needed: If I goof off and play around and have fun in real life, I won’t be the best. If I’m not the best, then I won’t be able to make enough money to support the sister and cover myself. “I’m sorry. I still have to do work stuff.”

  “Shy?” Eliza asked, a full sentence and entire question wrapped into one word. Just looking at her, Locke could understand what she was trying to ask: ‘Does this mean we won’t see each other again?’ He couldn’t help but be surprised.

  “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again,” Locke said, preempting her question, knowing she would struggle to form it and get it out.

  “Uhh . . . sure,” Eliza answered. “I was just going to ask you to hold on for a moment before you left,” she added, disappearing and leaving the group in awkward silence as they waited to see what she was doing. When she came back, she was holding the bathrobe she had worn when she and Locke first met neatly folded up in front of her. “Here.”

  “Ummm?” Locke was kind of confused. Isn’t she always mad at me? Doesn’t she dislike the way I behave? Aren’t I supposed to get a lecture? It’s not like we were . . . No, to her we weren’t. To me, she was probably one of the few people I have ever even spoke in the last few years with without conducting a trade.

  “I have a feeling that you might find a use for this. I noticed from the way Tubal behaved that these are apparently pretty rare. You can be one of the few newcomers to have earned one without killing a Demon . . . or joining us.”

  Locke was pretty excited as he donned the bathrobe over his leather armor. No stat penalties to speed or power for wearing it. No wonder it’s the armor of choice for the Demon Host, he thought as he slipped his arms into each sleeve.

  “Looks like we have another bathrobe knight!” Reginald’s cheesy joke broke the moment.

  “Anyway, there are other things I need to go take care of too. Alex is going to kill me, but I think he’ll realize that this was worth it.” Eliza didn’t even wait for goodbyes as she practically vanished before their eyes.

  “That woman” --Reginald shook his head-- “is all sorts of crazy.”

  “You have a crush, don’t you?” Tubal giggled at Reginald.

  “Yep,” Reginald admitted easily.

  “Well, Shy, you can join us anytime you want,” Tubal said. “If you choose to come to the event, you’ll be able to spot us all in our all-blue attire representing the good, old Blue Phoenix Brigade. If not, well, we should definitely get together again sometime soon.”

  “Though, if you do come to the event, Sampson added, “make sure to wear the proper blue. I’ll send you an in-game message detailing the hue. We can’t have our newest member not matching!”

  “Thanks.” Locke gave a meek smile. “But I really do have work to get done. It’s been a real pleasure. Thanks again.” He felt worse than the time he had to break up with a girl after two months of not having any time off to hang out with her.

  “Stop acting like this is the last time we’ll meet. We’ll see each other again,” Sampson said.

  “Of course.” Locke nodded and then turned around and went off in the direction of the woods where he had first started his poison farming as an alchemist, feeling like he had left a part of himself behind.

  Later that day, true to her word, Sampson sent the details on how to ‘match’ with the rest of the Blue Phoenix Brigade at the event. She even sent a copy of the blue phoenix symbol that she said was ‘optional,’ but added that she would bring an extra patch if he was coming to join them. Locke just sent back a thank-you note, apologized that he wouldn’t be able to join them and kept going through the preplanned routes he had made, harvesting flowers and making potions and poisons to sell.

  Epilogue

  In fact, that’s all he did for over a week: pick flowers, make concoctions and sell them on forums. He allowed himself barely half an hour to exercise in the mornings and after lunch, but other than that, he didn’t do anything that wasn’t work related. On more than one occasion, he actually cursed the fact that Tiqpa wasn’t set up to stream music inside the game; he was certain that the right jam playlist might help alleviate the tedium.

  “Why?” a voice asked, piercing his concentration and grabbing his attention. But after becoming so mechanical with his actions, he didn’t even lose half a second in his harvesting.

  “Eliza?” Locke recognized the voice, but still thought it might be worth confirming. He could have just turned around to see who it was, but as much as he would welcome the break from the monotony of his job, he didn’t want to fall behind on his quota. He had already run late on breakfast and lunch, so he was doing everything he could to meet his normal ordering numbers for the night time sales. “Why what?”

  “Why did you leave them?” Eliza became more specific with her question. “I thought they were your friends, that you were part of their group.”

  “Perhaps I still am.” Locke did his best to shrug while bent over and picking at flowers. “I just have work to do.”

  “I know. I ran into Reginald two days back when I was looking for you. He said he didn’t know where you were, that you were too busy to swing by, but I might be able to find you in a field of flowers trying to find the perfect one to apologize to a jilted lover with. I didn’t realize you had a lover.” Her last sentence was much more terse than anything else she had said.

  My lover? Locke snorted as he tried to contain a laugh. That dog. And she didn’t realize it was a joke? “It was a joke, Eliza.” He shook his head. “He was making fun of my profession.”

  “I would have thought that the merchant part was more detestable than the alchemist part.” Eliza gave Locke one of his own patented shrugs, even going so far as to mock the way he extended his lips as she did it. “So you’ve been working.”

  “I try where I can,” he nodded.

  “No, it was a statement. I found you two days ago, about half an hour after I talked to Reginald. I’ve checked in on you morning, afternoon and evening, and you’re always doing the same thing. I was going to wait until you finished your work, but it doesn’t seem like you ever plan to.

  “Because I have to keep at it.” He yanked the flower he was grabbing up from its roots and threw it on the ground sloppily as he stood up. Fine, it looks like I’ll just have to skip an hour of sleep later tonight, he grumbled internally as he turned to face Eliza. “Is that what you came here to ask? Yes, I have to work, and yes, the hours suck. But if I don’t . . .” he trailed off. If I don’t, the world falls apart for the only person I still have, he didn’t say. Just thinking the words stung.

  “If you don’t?” Eliza leaned back against a rock and crossed her arms in a decidedly female fashion. “Then . . .?” she continued when Locke didn’t answer.

  “What brings you here?” Locke shifted the subject. “Because if it’s about ending the Holy Alliance, I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. The person that betrayed me doesn’t even work there, and he’s fled the continent since they issued a kill-on-sight order for him.”

  “No, I’m not here for that,” Eliza said, pulling out a rather large bag of gold.

  “I’m taking it by that” --Locke nodded at the gold as he sat down on the rock next to her-- “you’re not just here because you miss me?” He wasn’t exactly thrilled that she had sought him out for business --in fact it was kind of a little sad that was the reason-- but it was also a comforting enough of an idea to cause a little smile to cross his lips. He was staying on task, keeping to what he need to do and not losing sight of what mattered -- what had to matter. He was a true merchant of Tiqpa again, a man of the finest wares and growing reputation once more. Eliza’s bag of coins was a reminder of that.

  “Well, let’s just say that the general and I had more than a few words once I returned. Amongst other things, I had to help explain your part in what happened. Oh, but don't worry, I assured him that you were an avaricious, self-seeking man who wouldn’t even take five minutes out of his day for his friends unless th
ere was money to be made--much less for a stranger.”

  “Of course you did.” Locke nodded to himself and looked away from her and at the flowers around the ground. The smile that had come from knowing he had made the right decision between work and life now faded into a frown. “That’s just who I am, I suppose. That’s just how everyone sees me.”

  “I wasn’t wrong,” Eliza said. “You had a group friends, and you blew them off the first chance you got. As soon as you had what you wanted, you cut yourself off from them and went back to ignoring everyone else completely. What other conclusion is someone supposed to arrive at when you continue to choose a life of flowers over people who actually seemed to care about you?”

  “Then maybe you weren’t wrong.” Locke shrugged and then started to stand up, only to have Eliza reach out and grab his arm as soon as he began shifting his weight.

  “What’s wrong with you, Shy?” She gripped his arm hard enough that it would have left a bruise if his vitality hadn’t been enhanced by additional attribute points.