Ar'Kendrithyst

Erick and Al went to the orcol bathhouse in the beginning of the day.

The less said about that experience, the better.

But there are a few things to say! The whole place took up a whole city block. The architecture was amazing. Huge waterfalls, deep pools, tile everywhere and almost all of it was artistic, or tasteful, and most of the time both. Public pools cooled the weary under huge almost-oak trees, interior spaces were reserved for those desiring simple gym-type baths. This place was fit for a sultan, or a king, but it was filled with normal people.

‘Normal people’. Ha!

When the predominant people were literally blessed by the Goddess of Beauty and Brutality, ‘normal’ was relative. Sure, there were some dragonkin and incani, and even one wrought, but they only accented the people who made this place what it was.

Don’t focus on the people. You’d only stare and make a fool out of yourself.

…Okay. Maybe you can stare at them just a lit—

NOPE. That guy saw you looking.

To not gaze upon perfection? Impossible! Water glistened on perfect skin, like diamonds in the sun.

Don’t look down don’t look down don’t look dow—

Fuck. He’s looking at you. She’s looking at you, too. And you’re looking at them. Everyone is looking at everyone else. This is uncomfortable. That old adage ‘don’t look down in the gym showers’ is as true at 15 as it is at 50. But come on! It’s really hard to ‘not look down’ when the Perfect People are 8 to 9 feet tall, and their ‘looking down’ is your eye level and no one is allowed in the pool areas while wearing clothes.

Okay. Just. Look at…

Look at that architecture… over there? It’s just so… perfectly distracting!

Don’t mind Erick, he’s just dying in the pool. Falling under until no one can see. He was embarrassed for so many reasons, not the least of which was that he was almost fifty years old and skinny dipping in the public pool was supposed to be culturally completely normal. He wasn’t some kid out to get his rocks off! That was just an unfortunate side effect to a communal swim. At least there was no obvious sign that he was enjoying the experience. He wasn’t 15 anymore, thank god.

… The less said about that, the better.

But Al seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, the whole way through. Afterward, he even had some words of encouragement, “We shall go again another day! We must rid you of this embarrassment.”

“Thanks, Buddy.”

And knowing what Al was packing under his clothes? The less said about that, the better.

There will be no elaboration on that front.

- - - -

Erick walked into the Mage’s Guildhouse feeling a lot better than he had in the previous days. [Cleanse] was no substitute for a nice relaxing time in a lot of hot water and a brisk swim in a deep, cool pool. His clothes were [Mend]ed to perfection, his shoes felt good. His jeans fit him better than they had in years. Maybe all the walking around town was good for him. He might not have been 25 anymore, but he was moving around more these days.

Maybe, one day soon, he could use the public pools and not feel completely inadequate.

Ah, but that day was not today. Today was a day for work!

Erick walked over to the Mend-Cleanse-Light Job Board, with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. He waved to Anhelia at the receptionist desk, and she waved back. The guild was busy today, and the board was full, like it was most days. How did it stay so full? Why weren’t these jobs all gone? This was basically free money.

“Hey, Stranger.”

Erick turned. Anhelia was standing beside him. He greeted her, “Hello, Anhelia. How are you today?”

“I’m doing great. I hoped to see you yesterday but you were absent, and wow, has the rumor mill been active about you.” She smiled. “Planar, huh?”

Erick almost frowned. His good mood took a hit, but he had been through rougher situations than… an entire town talking about him and his daughter? Ah. No. He had never been in a situation like this. Was this going to be a problem? No one had given him weird looks on the street.

Okay. Well. Not many people had given him weird looks on the street. About the same number of people as usual, actually.

“As far as I know, I’m human.”

“Well yeah.” Anhelia laughed. “But not one of our humans.” She must have noticed his concerned face, because she tried to wave off his concern. “There’s nothing to worry about with a tiny secret like that. Honestly, I should have known by your clothes alone; it’s not like you ever tried to hide yourself. But there is someone here who would like to apologize to you, if you’d let her.” She pointed back toward the receptionist area. The incani from the other day was hiding behind the door behind the desk. “Her name is Sizzi Zago. She’s the daughter of the Guildmaster, Master Zago. I don’t think you’ve met her yet?”

Ah. The daughter of the guildmaster? He should go accept that apology. He was going to anyway, but that last bit of information made his decision for him. He relaxed and walked over toward the receptionist desk. Sizzi stepped out from behind the door, her face a perfect mask. She walked forward.

Erick held out his hand. “Sorry for getting off on the wrong—”

Sizzi shook his hand one quick time then ran off in the other direction.

Erick stood there, his hand still held out to no one. He slowly retreated, saying, “Uh. Okay?” He turned toward Anhelia. “That was weird.”

She nodded, not smiling. “The incani messed up big time. I only know the barest bit of the vein you struck by coming to Spur, but I’m no rumor mill.” She looked over to the job board. “You should know: ‘destruction’ has been added to the Esoteric Board. Limited time, big pay from the city if you’re good. Nothing if you’re not. If you are good, though, you might be invited back tomorrow. They’re clearing out the human district one building at a time.”

“Clearing the district? Like… leveling the buildings? To the ground?”

“And also digging up the sewer system from below.”

“What spells?”

“Many different ones. And before I forget: we couldn’t figure out how you did that ‘blacklight’ orb, as you called it. So no payout. Sorry.” Her eyes turned hard. “But if you catch wind of wardlight like that in the city, you let me know and we’ll track down whoever might have lied about not knowing how they’re made.” She turned bubbly again, smiling as she sat down at the receptionist’s desk. “You might get a payout then.”

- - - -

Erick did not take a ‘destruction’ job. He had no relevant skills for that.

Though he thought about [Stoneshape] again…

But no. Not today.

- - - -

Two Mend-Cleanse jobs done and two signatures obtained, one of those signatures from the beleaguered Redalia at the Atriz household, Erick arrived at his last job for the day. The day’s last job was at an enchanter’s shop. Erick was expected to spend over a thousand mana mending various things that the owner couldn’t spend the time, or mana, to [Mend]. It had to be done individually, too. No Aurify and Mana Shaping 10 here, not that Erick was capable of that feat anyway, because that might mess up the delicate enchanting on unfinished items.

‘Ulrick’s Unusuals’ was writ in gold upon the air outside of a nice looking, but not too extravagant, shop at the end of Merchant Street, a block from the towering city walls. The shadows were deeper here, but the light orbs were much more plentiful. Erick entered through the front door. A chime announced his entrance.

A voice called out from the back room. “One minute!”

Erick waited, and looked around. The walls of the display room were lined with glass display cases. A double set of waist-high display cases occupied the center of the room. Items occupied those cases, each of the items separated from the next by a foot of space. It was a very repetitive space. This was Erick’s very first ‘magic item shoppe’ and it was almost exactly what he had expected. And yes, the extra ‘pe’ of ‘shoppe’ was entirely necessary, for every single item in this place looked high class and homemade.

There were daggers, chiefly. A lot of daggers. Each of them etched with script, or more accurately, Ancient Script. Erick couldn’t read the Ancient Script, but little plaques in front of each dagger, written in common Ecks, described each dagger’s purpose. A lot of them were simple cutting implements enchanted to never dull, as long as the rad in the hilt remained. A few were firestarting knives; others lit with white light when activated. An array of throwing knives were enchanted to [Blink] back into their provided sheaths. Several of the daggers were casting aids, made to apply specific Mana Alterings to whatever spell was cast using the dagger. A Decay Dagger was priced at 1500 gold, and it was ‘rated up to 50 MP spells, ~50-500 uses’.

That seemed pretty useful. Erick didn’t know about the pricing, though.

Besides daggers, there were wands, all of them made of the same metal and of the same shape. A lot of them were meant as teaching aids; the wands let people play with a spell to see if they liked it, before they bought it with an ability point. Other wands looked like they were more than teaching aids. The wands for [Conjure Armor], [Healing Beacon], and [Treat Wounds], were ornate things, made of thick steel twirled with a lighter material. While the script on those were not visible, the prices were visible.

The prices for everything were printed right there on the plaques, and Erick was beginning to see a pattern.

100G or 200G for a sharp knife, a fire knife, or a light knife. 500G or 1000G for a [Blink] knife. The [Conjure Armor] rod was 1000G; there was only one price on that rod. [Healing Beacon] was 500G. Erick didn’t know about the spell used for the first knives, or why the [Blink] knives were one of two prices, but he looked up [Conjure Armor] and [Healing Beacon] in the Script. 50MP for the first, 25 for the second.

Were the item prices just MP cost x 20? Erick would have to go to other shops to see if that was true, and that formula was obviously untrue for the Decay Dagger. There were probably some market forces at work behind the scenes, too; flat costs for magical items seemed… off, somehow.

But, wow! Money, money, money!

“Sorry about— Ah! A human!” A tealscale dragonkin appeared from the back room wearing comfortable clothes, brown leather gloves, a brown leather apron, and brown leather boots. “Pardon the appearance, my curator is out killing shadowolves so I’m running both sides today. How can I help you?”

Erick held his mage guild badge out at the man. “I’m here about a mending job. I understand it’s a thousand expected mana.”

“Ah. Yes.” Tealscale said, “I’m Ulrick Ulrick, and there’s lots to be done. Come with me.”

Ulrick led the way into the back—

The air popped in the middle of the room. An orcol appeared, covered in wounds. She eyed Erick, then saw Ulrick. In a millisecond, she grabbed a pair of huge rads out of a bag at her side, saying, “I need the [Healing Beacon] and [Treat Wounds] rods, right now!” She slammed the fist-sized glittering rads on the cashier counter, then stuck her hand through the [Healing Beacon] and [Treat Wounds] display case, shattering glass, grabbing the rods in a quick second. “Sorry about your shoppe!”

She vanished as fast as she appeared.

Ulrick pointed to the destroyed display case, “[Mend] that first, please.”

Erick was slow to start. As he moved toward the broken glass case, he asked, “Is that normal?”

Ulrick had already gone into the back and returned, carrying two magic rods with him. “Oh? Hmm? That? Yeah. Too often, but she’s a good customer and the adventuring community takes good care of me. If I was actually robbed there’d be hell to pay and I wouldn’t be footing the bill.”

[Mend].

Thick tendrils of air flowed from broken wood and glass on the floor, dissolving them, as the spell flowed mass and structure back into its original position. After the glass case finalized its repaired form, Ulrick opened the case and replaced the two rods that the orcol had taken.

Ulrick grabbed the two glittering mega-rads from the front counter, muttering about ‘needing to add credit to her account’, and walked into the back. Erick waited for him to return, but Ulrick called out, “The job is back here.”

So Erick went behind the cashier counter.

The backroom was a large workshop, twice as big as the front. There were three well-lit wooden desk-like spaces and one entire wall full of what looked like metal filing cabinets. The rest of the space was open walkway, but not much of it, because almost all of the room was occupied by bins and bins of weapons and scraps. Shredded metal and twisted blades. Bent wands and chips of steel. And several bins of metal cubes, nearer to the desks than the scrap bins.

Ulrick stepped up to the only two empty bins in the room. He said, “No [Cleanse] in this room. Pick any of the filled bins, and [Mend] one item at a time. If it turns into a dagger or a wand— anything besides a block of metal, put it in one bin. If it turns into a metal cube, put it in the other. No Aurify [Mend], because I’m always in the middle of making new items and I don’t want you to mess up my work.” He looked around. He said, “I think that’s it. Got any questions?”

Erick moved to a bin. [Mend]. A bent wand turned into a steel cube. He said, “This is the job? I don’t know much about enchanting… How is all this—” He gestured to the room. “How is this the outcome of writing Ancient Script?”

“What you write often contorts the base material, but sometimes it’s salvageable.” He shrugged. “I don’t expect many non-cubes. The job ends after a thousand mana, but if you do more then I’ll pay more, in thousand mana increments.”

It was then that Erick realized he might have a problem.