()error: WϪRL0CҞ
Class Compatible!
Options: Bind item? Yes/No
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Without a second thought, Roark selected Yes. A sound like chains being wrapped around a treasure chest clanked in his ears, and his palm tingled against the softened leather of the book.
[Initiate’s Spell Book is now soulbound to you! Soulbound items cannot be stolen, given away, or dropped at death.]
He wondered idly if the World Stone was soulbound as well as he dismissed that notice. It was immediately replaced by another.
[Congratulations, you can inscribe (3) Level One spells!]
Success burned in Roark’s gut, more satisfying than any meal he’d ever eaten. A wide grin stretched across his face; he closed the spell book and turned to find Kaz.
The Thursr was in the corner, tracing a claw along the black metal joints of a stained-glass window.
“Kaz, you haven’t come across any pen or ink yet, have you?”
Kaz jumped a little as if realizing he had become immersed in a daydream in the midst of an important task.
“Not yet,” he admitted sheepishly. “Kaz was looking, but not finding.” He sighed heavily. “The books and papers are such dull colors, and the Infernal lights are so bright and beautiful. Kaz is sorry, Roark.”
“Don’t worry about it, mate. Help me toss this place for a pen, then I promise we’ll go somewhere more lively.”
At the sound of that, Kaz perked up, his floppy ears fluttering and twitching. The Thursr abandoned the stained-glass windows and threw his bulky body into the search. Roark joined in, clutching the spell book to his side while he rifled through debris and ashes.
In a matter of minutes, the two of them had found not just a quill, but an inkpot as well. Telling himself he knew better than to get his hopes up, yet unable to avoid it, Roark warily unscrewed the cap. He just barely managed to stifle a whoop of satisfaction when he looked inside. Against all odds, the long-abandoned ink hadn’t dried out over the years.
Roark opened up his Initiate’s Spell Book. Every page was blank but for the reddish-brown foxing along their weathered edges. The palm of his left hand tingled as if it had fallen asleep, and he looked down to find the spell book levitating just above his upturned palm. Unable to contain himself with such an opportunity for experimentation literally in the palm of his hand, Roark dipped the quill into the ink, then began to write A portal opens before me, leading to—
But he’d scarcely put pen to paper when a notice appeared.
[You cannot perform that action! You haven’t learned the Calligraphy Skill!]
As soon as he dismissed that notice, another one took its place.
[You cannot perform that action! The ()error: Portal Spell is a 9th Level spell!]
Roark cursed under his breath and slammed the spell book shut. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and forced himself to push down the anger and frustration. A quick check told him they had little more than an hour before PwnrBwner_007’s party respawned.
“There’s nothing for it,” Roark said. He looked up at Kaz. “We’ll have to go to the bazaar now. We can make it back in time if we hurry.”
He avoided adding that this was also assuming the portal spells in Hearthworld were more trustworthy than the ones where he came from, and instead pulled out the Town Portal scroll he’d looted from the corpses.
“But Roark and Kaz are Infernal chimeras,” Kaz insisted, a look of worry etched into the lines of his rough face. “Monsters to be slain, not heroes to go walking around the marketplace in broad daylight. The heroes in the city will kill us.”
Wouldn’t be the first time Roark had strolled through unfriendly streets with the threat of death upon discovery hanging over his head. Solutions raced through his mind. Disguises. Heavy armor. A face-covering helm. He paused, eyeing Kaz’s hulking new form.
It was a dangerous play. But then they all were, weren’t they?
“Not if they don’t know it’s us,” he said, pulling up his Inventory.
FOURTEEN:
The Averi Marketplace
Though Roark was too small in this Changeling body to pass for a human or other free race of Hearthworld, Kaz was not. Dressed in the boxy Wooden O-Rigiri Armor and wearing the suit’s Kabuto Helm with the menpō facial armor covering everything from his nose down, the Thursr could easily pass for an extra-burly rog. As long as no one questioned why a rog’s skin was blue-tinged and coated in coarse white hair rather than smooth and green, they would be fine.
Once Kaz was dressed in the rog armor, Roark opened the Town Portal Scroll. The scroll itself vanished in a flash of violet light and puff of smoke. As designated in the spell’s contents, a shimmering violet tear in space opened in the decrepit library.
Roark approached the portal warily. Being written on paper, this one must be more stable than the one he’d carved into his arm. But suppose this time it dumped him out in the center of an ocean to swim endless miles until exhaustion and creatures of the deep dragged him under? Or it took him apart and didn’t put him back together—Changeling or otherwise?
But going to the marketplace was their only option. Without the Calligraphy skill, he would be worthless, locked away from his best spells, and the bound Initiate’s Spell Book completely unusable. All this time spent searching the library would go to waste.
“Well, nothing ventured,” Roark said, affecting a nonchalant shrug.
He took a deep breath, pressed his eyes shut, and stepped into the portal.
Rather than the pain of being taken apart piece by piece and rebuilt over endless eons, Roark felt an icy breeze blow over his entire body. If he’d had hair, it would’ve been ruffled slightly, but other than a case of goosebumps prickling down his back and arms, he felt no ill effects. Not so much as a headache or a twinge of nausea, which were common even with the simplest portals of his home world. Fascinating.
A moment later, Roark felt solid cobblestones beneath his bare feet. The milling sounds of human movement, talking, laughing, shouting, and splashing water surrounded him. Through the air wafted the scents of roasting meat, fresh fruit, and sweet pastries, making his empty stomach snarl like a rabid wolf. He had come out in a fountain court, his portal only one of dozens scattered around the cobblestoned plaza. As he watched, heroes in an assortment of armor and mages’ robes stepped out of the shimmering portals, some laughing and talking with comrades, others looking as if they were at death’s door and had only just managed to escape.
The click and tock of wooden armor drew Roark’s mind to the portal behind him. Kaz had made it through as well. Roark gave Kaz’s armored form a quick inspection. Nothing seemed to be amiss.
“How are you, mate?” Roark whispered.
“So many heroes,” Kaz said, his voice radiating fearful awe. The wooden armor rattled slightly as the Thursr quaked.
“And you’re one of them,” Roark said sternly. “Remember that.”
Hunching over like a mindless familiar, Roark pasted a vacant expression on his face and set off in a trot toward the din and smell of the marketplace. As he’d hoped, Kaz quickly seemed to realize that if he didn’t follow, he would be left alone. The Thursr hurried to catch up, then fell into step beside Roark.
Once Kaz’s legs started moving, he loosened up a bit, swinging his arms a little more zealously than the other heroes around him. Roark kept pace beside him, trying his best to look subservient. It wasn’t a mien he was accustomed to.
A few people faltered and stared as they passed, but none made a move to stop them.
They soon found themselves at the outskirts of a sprawling bazaar. Wooden stalls and brightly colored tarps made up a patchwork of bustling businesses, with more permanent shops housed in the stone and mortar buildings at the edges. From all sides, an orchestra of shouts hawked quality goods at unheard of prices and claimed they knew a shrewd shopper when they saw one. The fountain court had been busy with incoming traffic, but the bazaar was positively over
run with people. Nameplates filled the air like a low cloud, so dense in some places that it obscured the faces of the tallest heroes.
Even the alleyways were alive with commerce, though of a shadier sort. As Roark passed one, he caught sight of a pale elf arguing with a hollow-jawed olm and emaciated human in the shadows. The elf quickly turned away as if to hide his face, and the olm and human tried to look inconspicuous, leaning casually against the wall and scratching bleeding sores in their cheeks and arms.
Roark left them to it and began searching the marketplace for any hint of a bookseller. Unfortunately, the number of customers crowding the marketplace combined with Roark’s Changeling height put him at a distinct disadvantage.
“Can’t see a bloody thing but knees and codpieces,” he grumbled. “Are there any bookshops here, Kaz?”
The Thursr’s boxy helm swiveled left then right, the menpō faceplate clacking against its sides.
“Kaz thinks he sees one,” Kaz said, pointing.
“Lead away.”
They hadn’t made it more than five paces when a wooden stall filled with racks of armor and weapons caught Roark’s eye. In Traisbin, even the meanest scrap of parchment could set a man’s purse back. Though he had no idea what books cost in Hearthworld, he doubted several books filled with arcane knowledge would come cheap.
“Hang on just a moment,” he said, catching Kaz’s arm. “Let’s see if we can sell the spoils we took off our friends.”
With a thought, Roark opened his Inventory page on the left, then focused on Kaz. On the right, Kaz’s Inventory appeared. He quickly loaded Kaz down with everything they didn’t need.
“Sell everything but your Khopesh and the armor you’re wearing,” Roark instructed.
Kaz gave a jerky nod and walked up to the armor seller, beefy arms swinging conspicuously hard.
The seller saw the Thursr coming and erupted in a wide grin.
“Ah, my friend! You have come to upgrade your armor! Never fear, Variok has just the mail for you!”
“N-no, my friend,” Kaz stuttered. In the thin swatch of space between the top of his helmet and the faceplate, Roark could see nervous sweat roll down the Thursr’s temple, dampening the coarse white hair.
“Your weapons, then! What providence, for I just received a Rare Three-Headed Cerberus you cannot pass up!” From the table behind him, the seller grabbed a three-headed flail radiating an aura of scarlet-veined orange light. “And the price! I must be crazy to sell for so close to nothing!”
“Wanttosellyou,” Kaz blurted all in one breath.
“Why did you not say so!” the seller crowed, tossing the flail over his shoulder. It landed on the wooden table with three near-simultaneous thuds. The spiked balls gouged out bits of wood on impact. “Let us make a deal! Though, I warn you, I am not a good haggler. I can already see you will get the better of me!”
The transaction took a nerve-rackingly long time and frayed Roark’s patience to within an inch of his self-control, but when Kaz exchanged the final dagger for the last handful of gold pieces, they were 102 pounds lighter and 178 gold richer.
“I cannot believe how you clean me out!” the seller claimed through the wide smile on his face. “I am beggared, my friend! You come back to Variok anytime you are in Averi City!”
Roark had just pulled Kaz away from the armor stall and back into the crowd toward the bookseller the Thursr had spotted when a voice wondered aloud, “Hey, what’s a goblin doing here?”
Roark cringed. Kaz froze on the spot.
“That’s a Troll, wingus,” another voice said.
“Either way, what’s a mob doing in the marketplace?”
Kaz’s menpō faceplate emitted a soft whine.
“You’re a hero,” Roark hissed to the Thursr out the side of his mouth. “Same as any of them.” But he closed one fist around the hilt of his dagger just in case. “You just sold our gear and now you’re on to do some shopping. Nothing strange about that.”
A rog mage in a jade silk kimono and a female elf in oiled leathers caught up to them. The mage knocked on Kaz’s square wooden spaulder.
The huge Thursr flinched, but thankfully didn’t scream.
“Dude, what’s with the Troll?” the mage asked.
Kaz mumbled a garbled answer that was more breath than voice.
“Who now?” The mage leaned in closer, cocking his ragged green ear at Kaz’s mouth. “Where’d you get him?”
“Quest reward,” Kaz croaked, leaning backward as if repelled by a shield spell. “D-dude.”
“Aw, no frakkin’ way,” the mage returned. “What quest?”
Kaz’s black eyes grew wide, staring back at the mage in bewildered terror. Roark saw the Thursr’s hands twitch upward and felt certain in that moment that Kaz was fighting not to rake his wicked black claws down the sides of his face in a panic.
“Was it that Christmas day event?” the elfess asked. “I heard they were handing out unique familiars.”
“Yes!” Kaz shouted suddenly. “Christmas! I was given a unique familiar. This familiar. His name is Roark. My familiar from Christmas.”
“Oookay,” said the mage, exchanging a meaningful glance with the elfess. “Cool familiar, bud.”
“Yes, dude!” Kaz agreed, still too loudly. Roark cringed. “Good Christmas familiar. Unique event. Pwned it.”
“Good for you,” the elfess said, patting Kaz on the arm affectionately. “You keep on getting down with your bad self.”
“No, not bad,” Kaz rushed to assure her. “Kaz is a hero.”
The elfess gave Kaz an encouraging smile. “Of course you are, champ.”
At the somewhat patronizing tone in her voice, Roark’s hand slipped away from the dagger. They thought Kaz was simple. That might be a touch insulting, but it wouldn’t get them killed.
The rog mage turned to go, but didn’t make it a step before snorting loudly into his hand. The elfess elbowed him hard as they disappeared into the crowd.
Kaz looked down at Roark, eyes still wide and terrified over the helmet’s wooden faceplate.
“Bookshop,” Roark said. “The sooner we find it, the sooner we can get out of here.”
After that pronouncement, Kaz practically barreled through the press of bodies. Roark heard at least one other hero question loudly whether he’d just seen a Troll, but Kaz didn’t even slow, just bellowed, “Unique Christmas familiar event!” as he continued to push through the crowd.
Finally, near the edge of the market, Roark caught a glimpse of a hanging wooden sign between the sea of shoulders.
Mogrifa & Mogrifa
Arcane Booksellers
Just outside the bookshop sat a stall displaying a variety of roasted meats and vegetables on wooden skewers. Kaz’s head-down bull rush slowed to a stop as he reached the vendor. He turned to Roark, eyes wide and pleading, a trail of drool dripping from the bottom edge of the faceplate.
The smell hit Roark, smoky and spicy at once. His mouth watered.
“No.” He shook his head, mercilessly forcing down the gnawing hunger in his own stomach. “We don’t know how much these books are going to cost, and we’ve already wasted too much time.”
Impossibly, Kaz’s eyes grew wider and glittered as if he were near tears. He looked more like a stray puppy begging for scraps than the level-four Thursr who could toss heavy metal coffin lids over his head and make dents in stone walls with nothing but his fists.
“But Kaz has never eaten before, Roark,” he pleaded in a near whisper.
That was when the vendor spotted them. She put on a bright smile and picked up a skewer in each hand, holding them invitingly close to her low-cut bodice.
“Looking for a taste of something wonderful, adventurer?” she asked in a voice more suited to a bedroom than a marketplace. “Only two gold apiece, big guy. You’ll not find better prices than that in all Averi City.”
“So cheap, Roark,” Kaz cooed.
“Big strapping fellow like you’s got to eat,�
�� the vendor purred. She giggled. “You’re not going to stand there and tell me you’re not even a little tempted, are you?”
Kaz nodded emphatically. “Kaz is so hungry!”
“Well, what’re you waiting for?” She waved the skewers under Kaz’s nose, inadvertently bombarding Roark with the scent as well.
The aroma of the spices curled inside Roark’s nostrils, demanding his attention, and a sheen of juicy grease shined on the meat. The empty hole at his center roared. He swallowed hard and cursed himself. He pulled four gold coins out and pressed them stealthily into Kaz’s huge fist, telling himself he was giving in just to end this incessant delay and get back to the business at hand.
“But if we can’t pay for even one of the books we need, I’m trading in your new armor to get it,” he mumbled.
As Roark expected, the vendor’s seductive manner wore off as soon as the money changed hands. Neither he nor Kaz cared. They were too busy devouring their meat and vegetable skewers. The meat had a thin crust of warming spices protecting its exterior, and when Roark crunched through to the meat below, savory juices flooded his mouth. The vegetables, likewise, had been seasoned and flame-kissed, but they were still crisp and succulent. Roark couldn’t remember a time he’d eaten such luxurious fare. Maybe not since his family had still inhabited Graf Manor.
That thought functioned like a kick in the ribs. His family wasn’t in Graf Manor anymore because the Tyrant King had killed them along with countless other nobles and commoners who wouldn’t bow to him, and the only way Roark was going to make the bastard pay for his crimes was by leveling himself up enough to open a portal home and kill him. The only way to do that was by killing those players once again, and to do that, he needed to unlock his magick. He couldn’t unlock his magick standing out in the street eating.
“Bookshop,” Roark growled, wiping the grease from his fingers onto his dirty loincloth and tossing the empty skewer aside. He strode forward and pulled open the shop door, jerking his head at Kaz to precede him inside.
The Thursr went, sucking the last of the grease from his fingers contentedly.
Rogue Dungeon Page 10