"Right! Let''s have a look at those blades!" Tor said. They''d rounded off for the evening. One round had turned into one each, and Ana was starting to suspect that the beer wasn''t as weak as she''d thought that morning. Omda had begged off and returned to his own room, but Kaira and Tor had joined Ana, crowding into the small space.
Ana dug the two weapons out from under the bed, where she''d stashed them. It kept them both close and out of the way when she slept. Tor immediately fixated on the long, narrow blade that she had taken from the Summoner.
"This is nice," he said without even removing it from its scabbard. "Scabbard''s a bit flashy, but it’s made of good materials. And look at this hilt! See how even and smooth the wrapping is? Careful work went into that. Stand up straight, would you, Ana?"
She did, and Tor held the sheathed sword vertical next to her. "Too long for you," he decreed. "You should sell it."
Then he unsheathed it, and took a slow breath. "Look at this, Kaira! What do you think?"
Kaira drew her finger along the intricate designs on the blade. Ana hadn''t thought much of them, assuming that they were just decorative.
"Definitely sucking mana. Most of it is etched, not engraved, but still. Decent bit of work, I''d guess. You should ask the experts."
"Yeah," Tor agreed. "Ana, do you mind if I show this to my parents?"
"Why?"
"They could tell you what the engraving adds to the value. And I''m sure that they''d do it for free if I tell them that it''s for a friend. An assessment from them carries a lot of weight for something like this."
"But if it''s so valuable, doesn''t that mean that it''s a good weapon? Couldn''t I use it?"
"Yeah and nah," Kaira said. "I could channel heat or lightning through it, but for you it''s just a pretty good rapier. Unless you’ve got some magic skills you haven’t told us about?”
Kaira’s tone was hopeful, but Ana shook her head.
“Oh well. But if Tor says it''s too long for you, it''s too long. He''s good with that. And, I don''t see you being the duelist type, all Thrust! Riposte! Fancy footwork! You''re more hack, slash, bash-your-teeth-out-with-my-shield. Am I right, Tor?"
"You''re clearly not afraid of close work, that''s clear enough," Tor said to Ana. "So what do you say?"
"All right," Ana said. "If you think it might let me sell it at a better price, please. Have your parents look at it."
"I can take it with me tonight and give it back to you tomorrow, if that''s all right?"
"Yeah, fine. What about the other sword?"
"Much more your style, I think. And the length is better." Tor drew the sword Ana had taken from the Ranger who''d attacked her. "Slight curve, single edge with four inches of false edge — that’s the sharp bit on the back of the blade, at the tip. Decent materials and competent workmanship. Nothing fancy, but solid. A good starter, I''d say, but not one you''d keep forever. Rankan, the guy I’m assuming you took it from, he was… what, level 12? 13? He was probably feeling like he’d outgrown this. Would have wanted something heavier. Speaking of him… I know you don''t have much right now, but you shouldn''t wear those clothes around town if you can avoid it. Same for the armor. He didn''t have a lot of friends from what I know, but the ones he had are some of our less upstanding members. He''s officially out on a Delve, not even missing as of right now, but if someone recognizes his things… I don''t know. Better not to provoke them."
Great. More expenses.
"Don''t worry," Kaira said, much more softly than her usual exuberance. "You need properly fitted armor anyway, and you should be able to trade the suit you have for something at the Exchange. And once you sell the rapier you''ll have money for new clothes and a shield and all!"
"Honestly, even without the engraving this rapier would probably get you a couple of gold," Tor said. "As it is you should be able to get enough to live, not just survive, for at least a month."
"So I don''t need to worry so much about selling Crystals? I can just use them?"
"Yeah!" Kaira said. "Let''s get you some levels!"
That was a pretty massive relief, honestly. Ana had been on-the-street destitute before. If avoiding that meant staying comparatively weak, that was a price she''d been prepared to pay. But not needing to make the choice made her feel just a little lighter.
"Got some other shit, too," she said. "Most of it is basic stuff but this…" she got out the black book she''d taken, "I got this from the Summoner, too. Think it might be worth anything?"
“What’s in it?” Kaira asked.
“Not a clue. I can’t read it. I was hoping one of you could tell me.”
Ana sat on the bed and opened the book on her lap, turning it for the others to see.
“I can’t even guess,” Tor said. “Nothing looks familiar at all. Kaira?”
Kaira was slowly flipping pages, stopping every so often to look at an illustration. “I can’t read a word of it, but I’m pretty sure that some of these diagrams are ritual circles. Makes sense, I guess. But we’ll need someone else to take a look. Maybe Touanne could make sense of it?”
“Oh, right,” Ana said. She should have thought of that, but the beer was getting to her head a little. “I’m seeing her tomorrow. I could ask then.”
“You should!” Kaira said, suddenly excited. “Even if it’s not valuable it might help you find out what that Summoner was trying to do!”
That was a good point. With everything going on, where she was and what to do about it, Ana hadn’t really spared a thought as to why she was there. The old guy had been really damn satisfied with himself that he’d got poor little Nicky. By his reaction to Ana, she had just been unlucky. Along for the ride.
It felt like there should be something else, too, but that last beer was really kicking in. She’d drunk that one fast.
“All right,” she said. “Thanks for your help. Hope you don’t mind, but I need to sleep. I’ll see you both tomorrow, after lunch, right?”
“Aw, already?” Kaira whined, but Tor took her gently by the shoulders and steered her towards the door.
“The sword,” Ana said, grabbing the rapier from where it was leaning against the wall and offering it to Tor, who took it.
“Oh, right. Tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow,” Ana confirmed. She was getting really sleepy. “Hey, guys?” she called after them as they stepped out through the door. “Thanks. For today.”
“Oh, you don’t even know!” Kaira said happily. “You have no idea. You don’t—”
“You’re very welcome, Ana,” Tor said, smiling as he closed the door on Kaira’s excited declarations.
That night Ana actually managed to get her clothes off before she fell asleep.
<hr>
Morning. Four beers needed out immediately, then calisthenics, then porridge and tea with Omda. Basically no conversation, but that was fine. She tried her new toothbrush at the indoor sink. It was uncomfortable and fiddly to use but infinitely better than nothing — at least her teeth felt mostly clean afterwards. After that, back to the tailor Lanpellia who sold her another tunic and pair of trousers. It cost her seven silver, which was most of her money, and Lanpellia insisted that was with a discount. Back to Petra’s to drop off the clothes. The dead Ranger’s tunic made a makeshift bag for the book, and then she was off to Touanne’s.
Ana wasn’t excited, exactly. She very rarely got excited about anything. But she was looking forward to speaking with Touanne again. She had questions, and talking to Touanne felt good. She felt like she could tell the woman anything, like with her therapist back home. It felt strange to trust anyone like that so quickly. It had taken months before she really felt that she could open up to Dr. Salman, but Ana trusted her gut, and her gut told her that Touanne could be trusted.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The streets were nearly empty and Ana wondered if she’d gotten out too early, but Touanne had said any time. The door to the shop — clinic? practice? — was locked, but there was a chain with a small sign that said ‘Please ring,’ so Ana pulled the chain and a bell chimed somewhere inside.
It took a minute, but then steps approached inside and the door unlocked, opening to reveal Touanne, with her hair up in a messy bun and wearing a heavy leather apron. A smile spread across her face. “Oh, good morning, Anastasia!” she said, moving out of the way. “Welcome! Come in, come in!”
“Thank you,” Ana said, stepping inside. “And call me Ana, please.”
“Sure, Ana. I’m just Touanne, I’m afraid. Some people tried ‘Tou’ for a while, but it never felt like me, you know? And now I suppose that ‘Anne’ would be confusing,” she laughed. “But you’re not here to talk about me. Come with me, please. I still have work to do, but you’re very welcome to join me while we talk.”
Ana followed Touanne through the door that led into the back of the shop into a short hallway, then through another door on the right into a room that looked like a cross between a fairytale witch’s cottage and a chemistry lab. Dried plants hung from every inch of the rafters, bottles and jars and bowls and boxes lined the many shelves containing who knew what, and the large table that dominated one wall was covered in strange glass apparatuses that Ana couldn’t guess the purposes of other than “chemistry.” A round glass bottle that was connected to a series of spiraling tubes bubbled above a blue flame coming out of a stone plate with no obvious source of fuel. The liquid inside had a strange metallic sheen.
That might be normal in a chemistry lab, but Ana doubted it.
“So, Ana, what did you want to talk about?” Touanne asked as she turned up the flame with a touch, then busied herself grinding some kind of dried purple flower into fine powder in a large mortar.
“First,“ Ana said, and this had been bothering her. Or rather, the fact that it hadn’t been bothering her, had been bothering her. “Everyone here seems to love and trust you. I trusted you enough to show you how ignorant I am after knowing you for all of a minute. That should make me suspicious as hell, but it doesn’t. I realize that expecting you to be honest about this also assumes that I can trust you, but… why?”
“Well,” Touanne said, “the obvious answer as to why I’m well liked and trusted here is that I’ve helped a lot of people, and shown that I’m trustworthy. But I know that will not satisfy you. So, I’m going to, ironically, ask you to trust me and tell me something. How high is your Connection?”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s a rude question?”
“Because it is. It’s a little like asking someone to show you their bum: you shouldn’t ask unless you’re sure that they’ll do it. Have I offended you?”
“No. I have… let me check. My Connection is 13.”
“I thought so. Well, not the number, but I had a feeling that it would be higher than average. You see, your Connection doesn’t just connect you to the World Soul, it also connects you to other people. If you have a higher than average Connection you can get a feeling for others who have a very high Connection. Think of it as an aura — people often speak of it as such. It lets you sense what their personality is like, how they’re feeling… if you can trust them or not. Since you told me, I will let you know that my Connection is well into the 40s. To someone like you, I am a bit of an open book.” Touanne smiled, then tipped the lavender powder in her mortar into a small bowl. “Most people don’t bother increasing their Connection. They start with a 7 or 8, and getting your base up is a slow and, to most people, boring process. And nobody wants to raise their multiplier for an Attribute they barely notice that they have. Only dedicated mages like myself, or your friend Kaira, for example, need their Connection to be high to be effective at what we do.”
“So I trust you because I can tell that you can be trusted?”
“Pretty much, yes. And the reason that I can be trusted is that magically I am almost completely dedicated to the Craft of Life. It changes you, you understand. With a strong Connection you have a much higher potential in your Crafts, but your Crafts also influence you more as a person. And to qualify for the Healer Class, like I have, you must be so dedicated to the Craft of Life, and specifically to the path that deals with Healing, that empathy and caring for others become essential parts of who you are. You can trust me, Ana, because I can’t imagine much that would be more painful to me than betraying your trust. And because of our respective Connections, you can feel that, even if you don’t know why.”
That was a lot to take in. Magic changed your personality? You could read people’s… what, souls, because you had one of your Attributes high enough? Other people could…
“All my Attributes go up with my level.” She didn’t quite blurt it, but this seemed like the kind of thing she should keep secret from almost everyone. “I’m not a Companion. I have a hidden Class that sounds really strong, and it makes all my Attributes higher. Does this mean that everyone will be able to read me in a couple of levels?”
Touanne stared. She seemed actually speechless for a moment, the only sound being the bubbling of the liquid in the bottle and the dripping from the tubes. “All your Attributes?” she said after a few seconds.
“Yeah, all of them.”
“They increase with your level. As in, they all go up by one, every time you level? Base? Before your multipliers?”
“Right.”
“That’s amazing. Some Classes get a bonus to an Attribute. A few, to two,” Touanne’s voice was soft and full of wonder. “In ten levels… twenty… that’s amazing!” The stunned look on Touanne’s face slowly turned to one of open, genuine delight. “I am so happy for you, Ana! But you can’t tell anyone else. Please be very careful who you tell. Promise me?”
“Yeah, I get that already, thank you,” Ana said, “I had to do one of those records when I joined the Guild, so they know. Or at least that Drisa woman does. But I haven’t told anyone else. I wasn’t even planning to tell you until you told me about the Connection thing.”
“Yes, right. Your question. Well, even if… rather, even when your Connection gets into the 20s most people won’t be able to get much from you. A vague sense, not much different from reading someone’s body language. Mages, though, they’ll see a lot about you unless you learn to mask yourself very well. Of course by then all your other Attributes will be so high… and that’s just the base! The multipliers… what I’m saying is, by the time your Connection is high enough to really worry about, you’ll be so strong and perceptive and everything else that you may not need to worry about… anything! Though we really should teach you to suppress your aura before then, for everyone’s sake.”
“Huh.” That was a good point. Why worry about hiding anything if no one could use it against you?
“And that’s only level 3,” Touanne whispered, seemingly to herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so excited for you. You could be anything, with a Class like that! Have you found out what kind of Class it is? Combat, non-combat, magic or melee…?”
“Drisa didn’t recognize it,” Ana said. “And if she can be trusted, no one else should know about it. But from the… descriptions, it’s focused on protecting other people.”
“Oh!” Touanne’s voice was just a tiny whisper. “I love that.”
“I actually wanted to ask about magic, too. How you learn it, how you use it. It seems like too strong a tool to ignore. But… it messes with your head? I’m not so sure any more.”
“Oh, no! No!” Touanne said, her voice rising again with excitement. “Don’t think like that! Think of it like… well, let’s start from the beginning. You asked how to learn. Well, the first thing is to see what you have an aptitude for, if anything. Not everyone has a strong aptitude for any Craft, and most people who don’t have a strong aptitude don’t bother. But your aptitude generally depends on which Craft you’re already closest to, you see? I was already an apprentice alchemist and healer when I found my aptitude for the Craft of Life. I’m sure that Kaira was energetic, excitable and hot-tempered long before she learned the first thing about Evocation. So if you’re interested, then you should think, really think, about who you are, and then see if that aligns with any of the Crafts. Then you can take it from there, and see how difficult it is for you to perform the simplest principles of that Craft.”
“Soul-searching, huh?”
“You could call it that. Though, if you’ve qualified for a powerful Class focused on protecting others I would suggest starting with Life or Earth. Although…” Touanne smiled sadly. ”Life most strongly aligns with empathy. And that’s not really you, is it?”
Empathy? No. Though Ana hadn’t truly understood that until fairly recently. After all, she understood what others felt, and how it affected them. She took it into consideration when she acted. She tried to avoid hurting others. But it was all intellectual. Finding out that most people were actually, personally, emotionally affected by the feelings of others had been a revelation, and something of a shock. When someone Ana liked was sad, that was unfortunate, and Ana wanted to help them. When they were happy, that was good. People were a lot more enjoyable to be around when they were happy. Actually sharing in that pain or that joy, though, was an entirely foreign concept to Ana, and one that she was still learning to emulate.
“Did you get that through the Connection?” she asked, and Touanne, shrugged noncommittally.
“Partially. But also from simply observing you. You wear emotions on your face and in your body language, but I don’t feel them from you. And when I speak with someone there are usually certain emotions that accompany their words that are absent with you. Things like that. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re unempathetic, but I’ve met and known a few people similar to you, so it seemed like a safe guess.”
“Other mages?”
“Yes, most of them. Most non-mages do not bother raising their connection high enough where I could have read them to that degree.”
“What kind of magic do they learn? Which Craft?”
Touanne went silent, and didn’t seem to want to meet Ana’s eyes.
“You won’t tell me?” Ana asked.
“I’d prefer not to, no.” Touanne sighed. “But it would be unfair, I suppose. And you will find out sooner or later. Death, Ana. They tended towards the Craft of Death.”