“Sorry about that.”
“Tell you what. Since I’ve been my usual charming self all day, why don’t you let me make up for it by buying you a drink or two using your money,” she said, holding out her hand.
Jandar grinned as he began counting out the coins.
She arched her eyebrows and gave him an appreciative nod. “You didn’t even try to short-change me on the mail links. That’s uncommon around these parts. I might have to retract my joke and try to make a dishonest man of you after all.”
“As fun and educational as that sounds, I’d like to finish up my gear.”
“Polishing and strap affixing is for lesser beings. Hammond!” She shouted over her shoulder.
A clatter of metal sounded from deeper inside the smithy followed by a young man bustling into the forge area. “Yes, Smith!”
“Polish these up and affix some straps and buckles to the buckler. Don’t forget to pad the inside properly this time! I don’t need any more pissed off men with broken shield arms coming in here cursing me out.” She faced Jandar. “I’ve lost a couple of customers like that.”
“They didn’t come back?”
“No, because I broke their other fucking arm for taking the wrong tone with me. Come on. The beer ain’t coming to us.”
Jandar hastened after the smith. “I thought you didn’t take apprentices?”
She glanced over her shoulder toward the smithy. “You mean Hammond? That halfwit isn’t an apprentice. He’s barely smart enough to be my lackey, but he’s a good kid. Works hard, cheap, and can take a lot of verbal abuse. That’s pretty much my three employment requirements. Let me tell you, good help isn’t hard to find, but keeping it can be a real bitch.”
The two were approaching a tavern when the doors burst open and a pair of burly men hurled a much smaller man a respectable distance into the street. The human projectile scrambled to his feet and was about to unleash a verbal tirade, but he had to dive to catch the musical instrument that flew out after him.
“I’ve met trolls with more musical appreciation than you lot!” the man shouted as he cradled his instrument. “You’ll regret your foul treatment of a master musician. I’m Lexon the Lyrical!”
“You call that music?” one of the bouncers shouted back. “I’ve heard better pitch and tone from a bloke I just kneed in the balls. Lexon the Liar is who you are and everybody knows it.”
Lexon gripped his harp or lyre and shook his free hand. “I’ll show you what happens when you manhandle a maestro from the Piersym Bardic Academy!”
Before he could touch fingers to strings, the two bouncers ran at him with clubs raised. The self-proclaimed bard squeaked and sprinted down the street far too fast for most anyone to catch had they the mind to chase him.
Jandar and Smokey followed the two bouncers into the tavern and found a table. A serving girl brought them two mugs of beer without prompting. Smokey was clearly well known here.
“So what brings you to Crag Cross?” The smith asked over the top of her mug.
Jandar took a long pull from his cup as he tried to figure out how to answer her. “I’m looking for work.”
“I’d hire you on at the smithy for a bit, but with the borders being closed, I just don’t have enough orders.”
“Not the kind of work I’m looking for anymore.”
Smokey glanced down at the table. “Seeing your current choice of hammers, I figured as much. I suppose it has something to do with your family?”
Jandar nodded once. “Yeah.”
“Well, Crag Cross can be a good place to look for that kind of work, under normal circumstances. There’s always a need for strong fighters in Capria. Again, the border issue is sure to upset that as well.”
“If the past few days are any indication of the future, I don’t think I’ll have a problem finding work, or it finding me.”
“Given the condition of that chain shirt, I’d have to agree with you. Let me go get these cups topped off,” Smokey said when they had drained their mugs.
Jandar reached for the purse on his belt. “I’ll pay for this round.”
Smokey waved him off and grabbed his empty tankard. “Don’t worry about it. I’m flush. I fleeced some young fool earlier today. Charged him three times my usual rates for everything, and he didn’t even try to haggle. I almost feel bad for taking advantage of the simple-minded. Almost.”
Jandar chuckled as the surly smith walked to the bar. He locked eyes with a man approaching his table and let his hand slip down toward his hammer before remembering it wasn’t there. Jandar had never needed to carry a weapon his entire life living in Whitbell. It was strange how quickly he had become accustomed to it to the point he felt a little naked without it. The man did not look like a threat, but those kinds were often the most dangerous.
“Jandar, I need to speak with you,” the man said.
“I think you have the wrong man. The name’s Jansen.”
The man grimaced and nodded. “Sure, I get it. I still need to talk to you.”
Jandar narrowed his eyes and tried to place him. “Do I know you?”
“You should. You killed me just the other day.”
Jandar bolted from his chair, clearly ready to murder him a second time. “For a god, you must be crazy or stupid.”
Edison took a step back and raised his hands. “I know. I made a mistake, but it doesn’t change what’s happening. Please, let me talk. I can help you.”
Jandar sat back down before they drew more attention. “I told you before; I’ll not dance to anyone’s tune.”
Edison helped himself to the chair Smokey had vacated. “I’m not here to tell you what to do. The fact is you’ll be helping me do what I want just by following the path you’ve chosen.”
“I feel the strings being tied to me already.”
“We’ve all got strings, Jandar. You, me, Matrice. All of us. Some are just more aware of them than others. All we can do is try to choose the tune we dance to.”
“Tell me what you want then get the hell away from me. And call me Jansen before someone overhears you.”
“You want to kill Matrice, but to do that you have to become a lot stronger than you are now.”
“You told me that last time just before I turned your skull into a soup bowl.”
Edison unconsciously touched the top of his head. “Yes, that was an unpleasant experience. Anyway, I want to help you with that.”
“Why?”
“Like I said, helping you helps me. You see that dusky-skinned man against the wall behind me wearing robes and a turban?”
Jandar glanced over Edison’s shoulder. “That big hat is a turban?”
“Yes. He’s looking for strong fighters to help him. He’ll offer you what is called a quest.”
“I got one of those earlier. Gained me some good materials and experience points.”
“He will offer similar rewards, only his quest will create what’s called a chain quest. You have to accept it. You should accept it,” Edison hastily amended when Jandar glared at him. “The chain quest will help you find friends who might become strong enough to aid you. You’ll also want to find a safe place to build some kind of stronghold.”
“A stronghold? Why?”
“Because you’re not going to be able to do this overnight. It is going to take time, planning, resources, and people around you to help you do all that. There’s a third element that may well be the most difficult. You’ll have to acquire at least one eternity stone from each of the five elements.”
Jandar’s face darkened. “I don’t care about coming back from the dead as long as I destroy Matrice.”
“That is only one purpose of the stones. They are also a source of power, and more importantly, the key to even reaching Matrice.”
“The key?”
“Matrice will manifest in the highest level of the Celestial Tower in Staria. Just getting to the tower is a challenge even for a powerful group, but you can’t get inside it w
ithout the key. The key is placing one eternity stone from each element into a socket on the door. It’s the only way to get inside.”
Jandar pondered Edison’s words for a full minute. “Tell me truly; am I on a fool’s errand? Is there any way for me to actually defeat a being capable of creating entire worlds. What’s to stop her from simply snapping her fingers and destroying me as if I never existed?”
“Matrice has two prime directives, player safety and game integrity. She will likely manifest as a very powerful but mortal creature. You vowing to destroy her made her part of a self-generated quest. Erasing you would be like erasing the mortality buff I created. It would violate what she sees as the integrity of the game. She won’t make it easy for you, but I think she will make it possible.”
“But I can’t really kill her, can I? She’s not going to choose to cease to exist just because I complete my quest.”
Edison thought a moment. “No. She is vital to this world, but for all appearances, she will be dead. The world may change to reflect the death of its goddess, but even that will be a creation of hers.”
Jandar sighed and looked down at the table. “Just another scene in an unending play with unwilling actors. What’s even the point then?”
“I don’t know. Personal satisfaction knowing you changed the world? You will change it. You already are. Defeating Matrice will break every scripted loop around the world in an instant, allowing everyone to live their lives and choose their own destiny. Beyond that, what else have you got to do?”
He looked past Jandar and stood up. “Looks like they figured out how to find me. If you want to succeed, take the quest.”
Edison sprinted for a back exit with four cloaked figures giving chase. Chairs and tables scraped across the floor as the tavern patrons got out of the way. Smokey returned with two more tankards of beer as soon as the table cleared.
“Who was your friend?” she asked as she set a mug before Jandar.
“He’s not a friend.”
“Your conversation with your not friend looked pretty serious, so I stayed back. What’d he want?”
Jandar looked past Smokey at the man Edison had pointed out to him. The man caught his eye and stood.
“He was informing me of a job opportunity.”
“The way he lit out of here with four sentinels on his tail tells me that offer might not be good for long.”
Jandar furrowed his brow. “Sentinels?”
“Matrice’s personal heralds. They come down from the Celestial Tower on occasion to deal with problems beyond the ken of us mortal folk. Can’t imagine what he did to get their attention. My advice, stay the hell away from him. You don’t want anything to do with sentinels.”
“Advice noted and taken.”
The man reached their table with a woman wearing dark garb following just behind him. Jandar had not seen her at his table, but it was in a shadowy corner and she could have been lost in the background.
“I was wondering if my companion and I might join you,” he said in a deep, accented voice.
Jandar motioned to the two empty chairs sitting across from each other and the two sat down.
“My name is Saefa. My companion is known as Nyx.”
“Jansen.” He inclined his head toward Smokey. “Blanch.”
Saefa gave Smokey a polite smile. “Yes, the town’s most excellent smith.”
“What is it we can do for you?” Jandar asked.
“I have been looking for men and women of sufficient strength and talent to assist me in performing a most vital task.”
“What kind of task?”
Saefa tilted his head and grimaced. “One that requires a certain amount of secrecy.”
Smokey drank her beer as if she were pouring it down a drain. “I guess that’s my cue to vamoose. Come by the shop in the morning for your stuff.”
“Thank you, Smokey,” Jandar called after her then turned back to Saefa. “What’s the job?”
“Do you know what an eternity stone is?”
“It’s supposed to bring someone back to life.”
“That is what most people think. Nyx has told me it can do a great many other things as well.”
Jandar crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “So that’s the job; you want me to help you get one of these stones?”
Saefa shook his head. “No. The khan who rules over my people claims to have discovered the location of an eternity stone. He is travelling to the towns within his dominion to conscript men to help him retrieve it. The stone is rumored to be hidden in an ancient city buried by sand and time and is said to be well guarded. I believe he is using my people as fodder to clear the way to the creature guarding it.”
“But not to fight the guardian itself? Why?”
Nyx said, “He has a party of adventurers with him. I think he hired them to kill the boss and give him the stone, which makes him not only an asshole but also an idiot. They’ll just keep the stone for themselves and probably kill him afterwards.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s what I would do. You know as well as I that there is nothing more valuable in this world, at least in Truale thanks to our new mortality debuff, than eternity stones. No one is going to trade those stones for anything other than real, hard currency back in our world.”
Jandar nodded. “But you don’t want us to get you the stone?”
“As Nyx said, you would never part with it, and since I have very little to offer in return, the stone is part of your reward should you beat Khan Eoselm and his adventurers to it.”
“But there’s only one stone, right?”
“How you divide the spoils is up to you. Khan Eoselm will have a good deal of gold on him to pay his soldiers. Anything you find is yours. I only wish to free my people. There is no doubt the khan wants the stone to help him usurp the king. I imagine King Aelim would reward anyone who prevented that quite handsomely, but I cannot guarantee such a thing.”
“Why doesn’t the king send his soldiers to deal with Eoselm?” Jandar asked.
“I imagine he is, but with so many already guarding the border, it will take time to gather enough men to challenge him. Time I do not think he has. Time my people definitely do not have. Will you help us?”
You have been offered the primary quest: Free the People. Difficulty: Hard. Reward: 5,000 XP and a share of all loot. Success: Free all prisoners in the Khan’s camp.
Secondary Quest: Serpent Slayer. Difficulty: Dangerous. Reward: A chance of obtaining an eternity stone, XP, and a share of all loot. Success: Kill the Shahmaran, Khan Eoselm, and anyone who opposes you.
Do you except? Yes/No
Jandar selected Yes.
“So it’s just us three against the khan, his soldiers, and a group of adventurers?”
“I have others who will join us once we are in Capria.”
Nyx said, “I don’t like to brag, but I bet I’m worth two of their adventurers. If you’re half as good as that Seraphim guy said you were, we should be as strong as them. Stronger if we can surprise them. Here, we can exchange our information and see how well we stack up against your average noob.”
Jandar acknowledged the message alert and a window opened.
Name: Nyx Bloodmoon
Race: Human
Level: 9
Experience: 17,732/33,480
Base Class: Rogue
Subclass: Dark Mistress
Fame: 10. Never heard of you.
Infamy: 150. You don’t scare me.
Attributes: As a Dark Mistress, you gain +1 dexterity and one attribute point to use on the attribute of your choice every level. As a human, you may use your secondary attribute point you receive at every other level where you like. Must have a minimum of 10 in the primary attribute or attributes to attain a subclass. You incur a penalty for every point below ten to related skills and abilities and a bonus for every point above 10.
Unalloted Attribute Points: 0
Health: 103
(As a Dark Mistress, you gain 12 HP + base Body bonus per level.) Health regen: 1 HP + your Body bonus every minute out of combat. Current base health regeneration: +2.3 HP every minute.
Stamina: 130 (As a Dark Mistress, your stamina is 10 x Body score. Stamina regen: 2 SP + Body bonus every five seconds out of combat, ½ rate in combat. Current stamina regeneration: 3.3 SP every five seconds.
Mana: 180 (As a Dark Mistress, your Base Mana amount is 10 x your Mind score.) Mana regeneration: 2 MP + Mind bonus every five seconds. Current mana regeneration: 3.8 MP every five seconds.
Strength: 11
Agility: 17
Body: 13
Mind: 18
Charisma: 6
Luck: 7
Physical Attack: +10.7% small blades.
Ranged Attack: +13.5% thrown weapons.
Magical Attack: +16.3%
Basic Combat Skills:
Small Blades: Level 9 Grade 7. You gain a 9.7% bonus to attack and damage while using small blades. Rank: Initiate.
Dual Wield: Level 8 Grade 1. Become a dervish of death by equipping a weapon in each hand. Increases rate of attack based on your dual wield skill and Agility. Decreases damage and chance to hit with off-hand by 20% and main hand by 10%. (Modified by dual wield skill. Higher skill can negate the penalty.) Dual wield has its own skill tree. Increase your dual wield skill to unlock special attacks. Current Dual Wield -12% attack with off-hand weapon. No Main-hand penalty. Rank: Initiate.
Knife throw: Level 6 Grade 5. Throw knives, daggers, or other thrown weapons at a foe up to your Strength attribute plus skill level in feet away. Chance to hit your target is based on your Agility attribute and skill. Rank: Initiate.
Assassin's Blade: Level 7 Grade 4: Sneak attack bonus damage increased by skill rank. Current modified damage: 2.7 x base weapon damage against unsuspecting target. Melee weapon only. Rank: Initiate.
Light Armor: Level 11 Grade 3. Improves armor rating and encumbrance penalties by 11.3%. Rank: Novice. (Improves armor rating and encumbrance penalties by an additional 10%)
Advanced Combat Skills:
Flurry Strike (Dual Wield, Tier 1): Attack an opponent with your melee weapons in rapid succession. Each strike after the first two incurs a cumulative -10% attack penalty and a +10% damage bonus. Current number of strikes: 4. Cost: 40 stamina. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Increase Dual Wield to gain more attacks.
Chaos Unchained- The Mad Smith Page 17