Chloe hit Reply, hoping her message would help her achieve what she was looking for somehow.
Chloe made her way around the village as stealthily as she could. It was a strange feeling, having felt so welcome in this village before and then watching as the town waved her and her friends back into the forest.
Now, as Chloe snuck around, dodging behind huts and blending into the darkness, she wondered what would happen if Mantari or Mukkah discovered she was back in the village. Surely word of her return would have spread. Would they welcome her back with open arms? Provide her with more equipment?
Or would they nudge her back into the wilds without another thought?
Chloe weighed the two options. In the real world, she imagined they would be kind, welcoming, and open. But given Chloe’s experience of NPCs so far in this game, they were unpredictable, turning on a dime and changing their stances. If there was one thing she’d learned thus far, it was not to trust everything she saw and believed. The last thing she wanted to do was get booted out by the leaders before she had a chance to cover up properly.
Not only that, but with every exaggerated effort to duck out of the way of passing tribespeople, Chloe felt the experience boost hit her Sneak skill.
Skill increased: Sneak (Lv 4)
Whether hiding from friend or foe, you’re becoming one with the shadows. Keep hopping across darkness puddles, and soon you’re sure to be as invisible as...well, an invisible person.
Bonuses: +4 dexterity
(NOTE: Increases in skill override any previous bonuses gained from the skill).
Chloe silently pumped her fist, quickly ducking behind a stack of boxes as a woman carrying a vase filled with water on her head turned her way.
She blinked a few times, then stole across the street, waiting for a moment when the foot traffic dissipated. It was growing dark now, the shadows stretching across the ground. Chloe used this to her advantage, slipping quietly around the last hut and starting when she found the entrance to the weaver’s hut.
A stocky woman with a stern face Chloe recognized from her days spent learning to whittle and craft sat cross-legged, sewing fabric together as she quietly hummed to herself. There was a small fire, and the edges of the hut were surrounded by boxes and lengths of cloth.
Chloe contemplated sneaking around the boxes and just finding some clothing for herself, the idea of just taking what she wanted and disappearing a little bit tempting.
After studying the woman for a little bit longer, she realized that was something she could not do. They had been good to her not so long ago. She owed them that at least—to be fair and offer coin for their services.
Chloe’s form appeared from the shadows. She stood, waiting a long moment before realizing that the woman was so focused on her work that she hadn’t noticed.
Chloe coughed.
The woman looked up, her eyes widening as she saw who was standing in front of her.
“You? The blessed one has returned?”
Chloe nodded.
The woman took a deep breath, held her head up, and screamed. “The blessed one has—”
Her voice cut off as, guided by KieraFreya, Chloe’s arms wrapped around the woman’s head. Her bracers covered the woman’s mouth as she struggled beneath her.
How come every time I try to be civil to these people you end up attacking them? she asked in her thoughts.
Because you’re never willing to do the things that will help you survive in this world.
Chloe considered this, shushing the woman as she stopped struggling and stared up at her with scared eyes.
“Please,” Chloe urged. “Despite...this, I’m not here to make trouble. Look, if I lower my arms, will you promise not to cry out again?”
The woman nodded.
Cautiously, Chloe removed her hands from the woman’s face. The woman took a deep breath, and Chloe was certain that another scream would follow. Instead, she waited patiently, watching Chloe blankly.
“Thank you,” Chloe said softly. “I realize how this may look, but I’m really not here to cause trouble. The truth is that I...well, I died and found my way back here. There’s literally nothing I could have done about it, but now, as you can see, I have something of a problem.”
Chloe waited for the woman to act in the way any sane person might in the real world. For the eyes to hook down to her exposed breasts, all thought gone as the blood traveled from the brain to the southern regions of sexy-time land.
Instead, the woman studied Chloe with a quick flicker of recognition.
Of course, idiot, Chloe chided herself, seeing the woman’s own exposed body. That’s just the norm here.
Chloe shook her head. “Anyway, if you could please just sell me something to wear on my top half that might also offer some kind of protection, I’d be most grateful.”
The woman continued to stare.
“I have coin.” Chloe pulled several gleaming gold coins out of her satchel.
And there it was. The woman’s eyes grew so wide that Chloe was certain her eyeballs might pop out and start rolling on the floor. A second later, Chloe received a message.
Junita has offered you a trade!
Accept: Y/N
Chloe hit Y and a window popped up, not dissimilar to her own inventory window except the left half housed a list of Junita’s items and the right half was her sad excuse for stock.
Chloe perused the items while Junita waited patiently. She had an interesting selection. Tunics, jackets, cuirasses, gloves, trousers, and more. Nothing of the quality or protection level that Chloe’s Oakston leather cuirass had offered, but she knew the risk she had taken by forcing her death.
Chloe purchased a cotton tunic and a leather waistcoat that boasted additional pocket slots. She wasn’t sure what she’d use these for but figured they might come in handy to stick her small dagger or other items she might need to reach for in an instant.
She also purchased a waterskin and a pouch of dried berries, the sight of which reminded Chloe that there was a chance she might not get a warm meal from the town tonight.
When she was finished, she blinked away the trade menu and handed over two of her eight gold coins.
Junita’s breath caught, her hands unable to lift to accept the payment.
“What’s the matter?” Chloe said, studying the coins in her hand. “Oh! Sorry, too much? Here.”
She took Junita’s hands in hers and pried them open, dropping one gold coin into her palm and closing them tight.
“Keep the change.”
Junita nodded enthusiastically. Chloe was sure she didn’t stop for a long while after she ducked out of the hut and melted back into the darkness.
Chloe edged along the borders of the village, passing few tribespeople along her way. At one point, she saw Mantari through a gap between buildings, standing by an open fire and having a desperate discussion with two of the chief’s sentries. The beast of a man searching around, his eyes finding hers for a second.
Chloe dissolved back into shadow and headed toward her next destination. She had one more person she wanted to pay a visit to before she set off on the road once more.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The forest was deadly quiet as Chloe approached the shaman’s hut. It was as if, just in stepping over the borders where the trees gave the house peace, her head had submerged underwater and now all that she was aware of was her own breathing.
Not a single light was on inside the house, though Chloe now knew that that didn’t mean anything. The shaman’s house was a maze of trickery and deceit, a bona fide house of mirrors. Sure, it might look abandoned and empty on to the casual observer, but Chloe’s stomach tossed as she remembered the queasy feeling of falling through the portal she had experienced the last time she was here.
The door was unlocked.
Of course, it was.
Chloe took a deep breath, preparing for whatever test the shaman had concocted this time. Another poison flower attack
? How about some quicksand? Perhaps even the possibility that she was walking into a sentient house that spurted stomach juices through the doors and digested her without chewing?
Chloe stepped inside. The minute the door closed, the walls melted away, the filth on the floor making way for that same familiar white she had experienced before. The light was so blinding that it was hard to believe it was the middle of the night.
In the center of the room, the shaman sat. He was cross-legged once more, puffing on that familiar hookah.
“It’s not often that I get repeat custom,” he crooned, voice as silky and soft as the purple smoke that ribboned from his mouth.
“I’m not surprised. My last visit left me almost staining this floor with my vomit.”
The shaman grinned. Chloe realized that he was floating an inch or two off the floor.
“You’re floating?”
“Everyone can float,” the shaman replied.
“Not really.”
“Floating is nothing more than an illusion of the mind, a state of perception that results from your own biases and experiences clouding your vision. What you perceive as floating, I know to be sitting comfortably on the ground, deep in my thoughts.”
Chloe studied the shaman suspiciously, dropping to the ground so she could get a better look. Sure enough, she could see straight through to the other side of the room.
“You are floating.”
The shaman chuckled. “Or is that you?”
Run, KieraFreya thought. The dude’s bat-shit crazy. Get out of here while you can!
Chloe snorted derisively and looked down, her face falling as she realized that she too was now cross-legged and floating several feet off the floor.
“Argh! Put me down,” she complained.
Chloe felt the ground meet her ass as she smacked into the floor. She bent her back and reached behind, rubbing her backside. “What did you do that for?”
But the shaman wasn’t there anymore. Now when he spoke, Chloe heard his words inside her head.
You got what you asked for. Isn’t that what you are hoping for here? For me to grant you the boons you seek?
“I mean, yes, but that hurt,” Chloe complained.
Not all requests result in positive feelings. Some require the injection of punishment and pain to create the action one desires.
KieraFreya snorted. Get a load of this guy. Smokes the special herb and suddenly thinks he’s a prophet. Come on, Chloe. Get out of here before he poisons you again or sends you on a kamikaze mission.
What do you mean? Chloe thought.
Who do you think made the shrine crumble after we were granted the map? Don’t you think it’s a little suspect that a hermit out in the middle of the woods, shunned by the townsfolk, sends you on a trip to a shrine through a croc-infested bogland and when we finally reach our goal, the rocks topple and get us lost and stuck in an ancient passageway?
Oh, come on, “hermit” is a bit too far. I like to think of myself as a social pariah.
Silence followed. Chloe’s spine chilled. “You can hear her?”
The shaman reappeared, once more sitting upside-down on the ceiling. Chloe prepared herself for another fall to the floor, but this time, he floated down to meet her. “I hear a great many things. Many don’t tune their ears to the calls and whispers of the ancient world, but when one sees a girl at your level with armor like that, it is obvious to those who are aware that there is great magic here.”
Chloe wasn’t sure how to take that. She had been so careful not to let anyone know about the goddess within her armor, but here a shaman had just known. If that was the case, what was the likelihood other people throughout her journey would discover the truth of what she was searching for?
“Don’t overthink it, child,” he reassured Chloe. “Your secret will be kept from the world around you...for now.”
Chloe took the offered hookah and inhaled deeply.
The world spun beneath her. She was floating now. Really floating, the soft plushness of a purple cloud under her as she stared up at the backlit figure of a woman who stood at least twenty feet tall. There was a bright light behind her, and her ponytail blew triumphantly in the breeze.
Chloe gasped as the figure came into clarity. She was staring at herself as she was now. Emerald and gold bracers, tunic and waistcoat. Although, the longer she stared, the more the image changed. Pieces of armor appeared as if from the mist like jigsaw pieces clicking their way onto her body.
“As your journey continues, your strength will grow,” the shaman’s voice boomed from nowhere at all. “Each piece of armor will bring with it talents and skills straight from the gods. Two, then three, then four, and you will be well on your way to protection and strength unknown by anyone here in Obsidian. You will find a great many friends and citizens prepared to follow you. You will make a great many enemies.”
Chloe watched in awe as more pieces clicked onto the giant. Gauntlets, greaves, the breastplate, all gleaming and decorated with ornate markings that sparkled and glowed with a powerful aura.
“With this great power will come great danger as you learn to wield and harness the powers of the goddess you have inherited.”
Chloe glanced at her bracers, expecting some kind of quip or retort from KieraFreya. When nothing came, she saw something move out of the corner of her eye.
A small distance away, the clouds beneath her blacker than the deepest shadows, a woman sat in chains, mouth covered with a black bandana. Chloe wasn’t sure how she knew, but she called her name almost involuntarily, panic rising in her: “KieraFreya?”
“She cannot hear you right now. She cannot speak. Heed this warning, child, for it will serve you well to learn caution along your journey.”
The bandana multiplied, a segment of the cloth tearing off and flying through the air like an eel. It found its way beneath the giant Chloe’s clothes and snaked its way around her mouth, neatly tying itself into a knot behind her head.
“You have greatness locked within you, Chloe. Great strength and power that could wield the truest strengths of Obsidian.” The shaman’s voice turned dark. “Do not let the voice of retribution cloud the good inside you.”
Chloe turned once more to look for KieraFreya, but she was gone. She studied the giant version of herself who was standing as triumphant as a champion on Olympus. Then she heard a click, and the vision dissolved.
When Chloe opened her eyes, she was sitting on the tangles and vines that populated the facade of the shaman’s hut. Her head was covered in sweat. She stood up sharply, wobbled slightly from the head rush, and tapped her bracers. “Kiera? KieraFreya?”
“Hey! What the hell?” came KieraFreya’s response.
Chloe smiled, her heart still beating double-time. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” She looked around the room. “Where did the shaman go?”
KieraFreya moved Chloe’s hand, pointing to the corner of the room where a wisp floated lazily. Chloe approached the ball of light, reaching out to touch it.
The wisp flew behind her, erupting into light as the shape of the shaman appeared once more.
Chloe gasped. “It was you? The wisp was you?”
The shaman laughed, a strange sound like fingers dragging over gravel. “Indeed. Help can take many forms in this world. It honored me to be able to accompany a fine adventurer on her road to greater things.” The shaman’s smile faded as he turned to the window. “You came to me to ask me to perform a magic that is greater than you know. Is this not true?”
Chloe blinked stupidly, the remnants of the shaman’s vision still very clear in her mind. His words sizzled in her thoughts as she wondered what he had meant by them.
“Come on, girl. We haven’t got all night,” KieraFreya said, losing all pretense of keeping quiet now that she knew of the shaman’s awareness of her.
Chloe nodded. “I wanted to know if there was a fast way to reunite with my friends Gideon, Ben, and Tag. They may have journeyed far already. What their
destination is, I do not know. I only know they are alive and navigating the dungeons somewhere in the surrounding hills.”
“This will take strong magic,” the shaman said. “And I see that you are a pupil of the etheric arts yourself now. Tell me, would you be willing to learn the ways of the shaman in exchange for a small request?”
Don’t trust him—
“Shut up,” Chloe interjected, holding her hand out to the shaman. “Not you. I mean Her. You’re fine. What do you ask in return?”
“To accompany you once more on your travels. I have spent a good portion of my years on the outskirts of this village, waiting for a blessed one such as yourself to roam the world with. There are great magicks to be learned, far beyond my capabilities, and it is these I seek to embrace.”
“Join us in our company? Is that really all I have to do?”
The shaman nodded. “I will accompany you as far as I wish. It may not be far at all, it may be to the ends of the universe. I will adopt wisp form, and you will speak of me to no one. Those are my only terms.”
Chloe’s heart sank. Another secret to carry? What with her enchanted armor and a wisp floating around her all the time, what would people think? Could she keep her silence on both of those fronts, juggling responsibility for two people?
Chloe let out a breath. “And in return, you will grant me my wish?”
“I will reunite you with your friends, yes.”
The deal was a no-brainer. Without outside help, there was no telling how long it would take to find the others. What if they’d located a new respawn point out in the wilds already? Would they ever make their way back to Oakston to find her? Probably not. If it meant having a tag-along as Chloe went on her journey, surely there were far worse things that could happen.
And besides, what harm would it do to have an extra (competent) magic user around, someone who could teach her and advise along the way?
Shaman Decaru has asked to join your party.
Accept: Y/N
Chloe sighed, selected Y, and shook the shaman’s hand.
KieraFreya grumbled, “I don’t trust him.”
Collecting The Goddess (Chronicles Of KieraFreya Book 1) Page 19