8: Contract Make and Break
“The job is quite easy once you get a handle on things around here,” Nina explained fluently, as if it was already a done deal.
But Aidan still had hope. It looked like she knew everything on his status page, but how far did she really know? According to her words, it sounded like she leaned on the idea that Aidan has a mysterious past that he didn’t want anyone to know.
The truth was–he was just some dude chucked into a fantasy world when his own world died out. He was practically a bum with nothing to own and had nowhere to go.
So it wasn’t like her contract was a total death sentence–he just needed to know exactly what the limits were. He paid closer attention as she explained, particularly to her soul where he could sense whether she was lying or not.
“I want you to be my eyes and ears around this area. This district is under the control of a gang known as the Red Riot. I’m trying to find out where they’re getting their contraband enchanted items, but I’m hitting a wall there. In fact, the two guards that you killed? They were supposedly in cahoots with Red Riot, which explains their rotten habit of accosting foreigners and getting away with it. I’ve been trying to tail them for a while, trying to gather dirt on them to use against the Red Riot. Then you went and made things worse.”
Aidan didn’t know how to feel about that, considering his life was on the line when he did that. However, it didn’t look like Nina had any issues with him regarding that, as she just continued.
“I didn’t put my all into this, so don’t worry about it. The thing is, there are other groups I’m keeping my eyes on, and I can’t be everywhere at once. That’s where you come in.”
She tapped the paper underneath, showing off her splendidly manicured fingernails. How that was a thing in a medieval world like this was beyond him.
“I don’t know what you can do, but I heard that spirits have special powers. And seeing your status, I can tell that you can make some unique magic. I want you to keep an eye on things around here under the pretense of running a shop selling items. I’ll provide you with supplies and materials for you to work with, just as I saw how you made the earth spikes and even transformed that spear that guard had.”
Her face leaned in, and he hated the fact that he really liked how it looked. Even her scent was taking over his mind, a pleasant aroma that seemed to draw his attention towards her alone.
“That’s what you can do, right? Change or alter the shape? I’ll have you run a general store where you sell different types of wares to different people. That’s sure to get the attention of some of the members of Red Riot.”
He was starting to understand the gist of it, though it sounded like they were about to run an illegal front. Then again, hearing about a gang controlling this district was enough to prove that Nina was playing hardball. He just didn’t know why.
“Why do you want to know about where they get their stuff?” Aidan asked.
“Don’t worry, that’s none of your concern,” she answered noncommittally, waving her hand. “The only thing you need to know are my orders. Is that understood?”
He bristled at that, but he contained his ire into his chest and soul. It was clear that she was just seeing him as a pawn and nothing else.
“I see we’re in agreement then,” Nina said, her smile returning in full force. “Now I need you to sign here, and I’ll have everything you need to run a store. It will be called ‘Raining Treasure’, and I hope you’ll make the store run smoothly enough to match the name. I want you to make treasures for me.”
He scoffed at that, not caring at all as to how he might get in trouble with her. She still smiled, knowing full well that he would have to sign.
It wasn’t as if it completely denied his freedom, as she also explained that he’d have days off and could make money as long as he made enough business to pay her the monthly rent. Seeing that, he picked up the pen she handed to him and signed on the dotted line.
Then he noticed a little square near the dotted line, and when he asked her about it, she tilted her head.
“What else? You need to put in your blood print to make the contract official.”
Oh, fuck that.
He showed as much with his eyes, but seeing her resolute stare as if daring him to say otherwise, he blew out air as he looked at his thumb. She handed him a knife, seemingly again out of nowhere, and he promptly pushed the edge of the sharp knife deep into his thumb.
Blood trickled as pain shot through his thumb, quickly pushing it onto the square, signing away his very soul.
And it was as if he did exactly that. The words on the paper started to glow. Small sparks of energy flew off of the paper and surrounded Aidan. His jaw dropped at what he saw, noticing the sparks around him spinning about faster and faster before eventually hitting him at all sides, the sparks dispersing into tiny motes that disappeared into the air.
The notification hit him before he could even process what happened.
You have signed a contract with Nina Alcatroz. According to the contract, you are to follow every demand listed on it.
If you do not follow any of these demands depicted within the written contract, you are charged with a penalty of loss of levels and a degradation of ranks in your abilities and attributes.
…..
You have gained a title!
“Contracted”
You have signed your first ever contract. Don’t forget to read the fine print before signing away!
+1 Wisdom
+1 Perception
+1 Charisma
“What the fuck was that?!” Aidan gasped, shouting at her. Nina picked up the papers and stood back up.
“It’s a Soul-based contract. From here onward, you are to follow the contract under my bidding and follow it exactly to the letter. It’s not exactly easy to get this kind of contract, but it’s decent to have someone under your employ with less-than-good intentions.”
“What the fuck?!” Aidan snapped, pushing the chair off and leaving it to fall. He slammed on the table. “You never told me about any of that!”
“Wasn’t that obvious? It’s just like you said–you could do something to harm me, or just run away and leave me with nothing. It’s always important to have countermeasures no matter what you’re dealing with.”
“What about all that bullshit you said about making my life a living hell then? Was that just a lie?”
“Oh, it’s very much true,” Nina said with a smirk. The papers in her hands suddenly disappeared into her coat as if they never existed. It messed with his senses when she did that as well, as though something churned in the air, like a small ping of vibration that was hard to notice. “But like I said, you can’t calculate behavior from a total stranger. Especially from a dangerous stranger capable of murdering two guards on his own. And at such a low level at that… oh, by the way–congratulations on receiving a new title just now. As a shop owner, you’re gonna have to raise that Charisma stat quite a bit, so every bit counts.”
His chest became flooded in anger, his fingers gripping tight against his palms. Who does she think she is?
“Now then,” Nina said promptly, putting her hood back over her head, covering her striking features. “I’ll be heading off now. I’ll be sending people here to deliver some items for you to sell and you will be cleaning up the place to make it presentable. I expect it to be clean and spotless in three days when I return, and you better expect that I will see how you have turned out in profits–just to see if you need any help on that front. You know, it’s not every day that you get a job as soon as you arrive in town, and you might even get some titles while you’re here. I would consider that very generous.”
Nina said all this as she walked towards the door out of the building, and before Aidan could say anything else, such as to ask where she was going and whatnot, she slammed the door shut and left him hanging there.
For a while, he waited until the vibrations of her soul were far enough away to ensure that she wouldn’t listen when he roared and threw the chair across the room, landing against a wall with a loud thud.
He breathed heavily, wondering if that was enough to get her attention. But perhaps she was too far away or just didn't give a shit as nobody came by to give him shit for it. For all he knew, she might have even enjoyed it using some weird ass magic.
Aidan knelt down to the floor, squashing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He was fucked, no two ways about it.
“This is so unfair… All I did was try to survive. How the hell did I end up in this situation?”
He grabbed his hair and yanked out a few strands, uncaring about the sharp pain that shot through his cranium. He stood up, noticing the bucket and mop hanging on the wall, reminding him once again that if he didn’t do exactly as she said, he’d end up losing all the stats he gained so far and the spells he worked hard to create for his survival.
There was no way in hell that was gonna happen. But the contract said otherwise. The title said to make sure to read the fine print, and the fine print was that every demand is to be met, including doing tasks that he may not be a big fan of.
If she was alright with forcing a murderer to be under her thumb, what sort of demands would she make of him? That idea alone got him to want to curl up into a ball and lay there, pretending that none of it ever happened.
“...No. This can’t be it. There’s gotta be a way.”
He settled himself as he sat on the floor, his knees under him as he delved deep into his thoughts. He had magic now, and according to what he knew so far, he could make up any kind of magic as long as he puts some thought into it.
Could he make some kind of spell that could get rid of the contract? The idea was possible, and there was one reason why he thought he could get away with it.
The contract is Soul-based, that’s what Nina said. But his powers let him see into the soul of a person using vibrations, and vibrations are the stuff that exists everywhere, as Sense Vibrations could still sense things such as how many people were walking past his building and across several miles in a short radius.
But what can he do? He churned in his mind, trying to formulate a plan to get out of this mess. He could just ignore all of this and just do as he asked, but it didn’t sit right with him. It was as if the moment he got binded with that contract from that little magic show, there was that sense of urgency, like he was stepping on hot coals with his naked feet, constantly trying to get away but couldn’t find a safe path out of here.
Then he paused. This sense of urgency was something he could practically feel with his body. What if…
He straightened his back, got into a good position to sit, and closed his eyes. He retracted all of his senses in a matter of minutes, mostly focusing inwardly onto himself.
Now that he was in a safe place, inside of a building by himself, there was no need to be aware of any monsters or attackers aiming for him. That allowed him enough time to focus inward and truly feel the vibrations around him.
At first, all he could feel was just muffled shifts, but as he kept focusing on those same shifts, he sensed them moving in strange patterns. They were oscillating, he could tell, moving in changeable intervals that moved according to specific patterns he couldn’t quite understand.
His breathing steadied, and his heart slowed to a crawl. The vibrations became clearer with every breath he took, as if his Sense Vibrations skill was a muscle to use rather than some intangible ability he could press from the main menu in a video game.
He sensed multiple vibrations coming and going from the outside of his periphery, beyond the building. He decided to ignore all of that and focused only on the inside of the building, to the only single set of vibrations that he recognized–his own.
He kept diving deeper into those sets of vibrations, and as soon as his vision cleared, he saw himself sitting on the floor, right above his own head.
Holy shit…
It wasn’t quite a clear picture, but it was so strange how he could see himself in the darkness. If he focused harder, he could see the surrounding floor and the walls that surrounded him, though he could only see it as a square rather than the room he was currently in.
He decided to leave it at that, the vibrations going on in the room too stale and still for him to recognize. He only focused on his own body, and the set of vibrations going on within. That’s where he noticed another set of vibrations interposed on top of his own, moving at its own steady rhythm.
I bet that’s the contract magic.
He could recognize the vibrations, the forced upon set of notes that hung on his soul like a clog in a drain. It surrounded him, keeping him afloat and forced to stay within.
That’s probably why he felt so antsy–he could practically feel his soul being stifled under the contract.
I don’t know if this might actually be considered going against the contract, but I can’t do anything with this stupid thing hanging over my head. I’m going for it.
He reached out, not using his hands per se, but with his will. It was like using Rend on the wolf, and using Craft to alter the shape of the materials around him. He forced his mana onto the set of vibrations cloying at him, restricting him.
His hands pulled at the chains surrounding his soul, and he pulled. Steadily, he pulled with increasing force to the point where his chest felt constricted, wrapped like a snake ready to devour him at any point.
His breathing grew rapidly, sweat beading on his forehead. He kept pulling, not caring at all at how it could damage him. He wanted to be free.
He will not be denied.
The chains, the set of vibrations constricting him, were ripped apart and scattered to the breeze. They were erased from the fabric of existence, no longer capable of being in the physical realm.
He was free.
Fuck–
“Yeah!”
Aidan screamed aloud, taking in gulps of air in the physical world. His head was pounding, and his chest ached as if someone kept smacking him with a fist over and over.
He looked down to see small pools of sweat underneath him, and his vision blurred, becoming warbled. But he had never felt so alive, so thrilled to be free.
There were a bunch of notifications demanding his attention, and for a second his thrill of being free dimmed, thinking that perhaps he had lost his powers due to literally breaking the contract on his own terms.
But when he opened them up, his lips split into a wide grin.
You have successfully ripped the contract bound to your soul. As such, the contract between yourself and Nina Alcatroz is null and void.
…..
You have gained a title!
“Contract Breaker”
You have broken your first contract! How much do you have to suck for that to happen?
+1 Vigor
He didn’t care how bad this title sounded, nor the fact that the title only gave him one stinking stat point. He was exhilarated to find that nothing of importance vanished thanks to his little stunt.
In fact, he gained a lot more than just that single stat point.
You have gained a new skill!
Soul Meditation (Copper)
Allows you to retract your physical senses and enter into your deep subconscious, enabling your soul to exit the body as a projection for a time. You cannot do anything with your physical body while Soul Meditation is active. Increases your Health and Mana regeneration rate passively as you use Soul Meditation.
…..
Spell Upgraded! Rend (Copper) became Rend (Iron)!
He was surprised to see Rend of all things getting upgraded, and twice according to his estimates. He supposed using a spell during his Soul Meditation to rip apart a contract bound to his soul would’ve made a lot of changes to its original conception, that being twisting that wolf into smithereens.
Then he recognized a problem. A big one.
He just received a title for breaking his contract. Wouldn’t that mean that others could see it if they scanned it?
Wouldn’t Nina be able to see it with ease thanks to her talent?
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…”
He was starting to realize how foolish his actions were, tearing the contract up without thinking just because it hampered his soul. He didn’t know why he felt so stifled about it, but now that his mind was calm, he was starting to see a lot of downsides to this.
What’s going to happen if Nina came back and found out that her contract was null and void thanks to his own spell?