Hunger: A LitRPG Adventure (Unbound Book 3), page 9
Quiet dominated the street, save for the cries and moans of his opponents. The crowd had fled, but not all too far. Felix could see them hiding around corners and in open doorways. Watching. He turned toward Mehren, who held his sword up to Thangle's throat.
"I don't know who you are, but you'll regret it. No one crosses the Blades!" He pressed the sword a little tighter against the Gnome's skin, drawing a rivulet of blood. "If you run now, I'll promise you'll die quick. If not..."
Mehren's arm flexed, but instead of slicing the Gnome's throat, it flew outward toward Felix. It was faster than it had any right to be, and likely a Skill of some sort. It blurred toward him.
Reign of Vellus!
Azure lightning exploded from Felix's body and collided with the spinning short sword, quickly and brutally smashing it into the cobbles.
"Wha—?"
Relentless Charge!
Felix struck Mehren in the gut, throwing his entire body into the brick building behind them. He hit with an unpleasant thud and was still.
You Have Defeated Mehren, Javyn, Poul, and Jasim!
XP Earned!
"Shit. That was harder than I intended." He forgot about the inertia from his Charge, added on top of his increased weight and density. He looked down at the Gnome. "Sorry. You okay?"
The Gnome flapped his mouth like a fish as he stared at Felix. The faintest of wheezes were coming from him, but nothing close to words. Felix reached down and helped him to his feet. The elder Gnome wheezed in a huge breath and started a hacking cough. Felix took a measured step back from him until he'd finished.
A flare of concern lit up his bond, and Felix sent a vague reassurance back at Pit. I’m okay. Stay where you are.
Pit’s distant concern faded to muted wariness but never went completely away.
"You all right?" Felix asked again, worried at the amount of purple in the Gnome's face. He Eyed him and felt a familiar resistance. He didn't push, letting the magician keep his secrets.
Name: Thadeus Thangle
Race: Gnome
Level: 33
HP: ???/???
SP: ???/???
MP: ???/???
Lore: Gnomes are small, generally nimble, and are typically predisposed to Mana Skills.
Strength: ???
Weakness: ???
"Yes yes. I'm fine," he croaked before blinking at Felix again. "You saved my life, young man! Thank you! Thank you, thank you!"
The back of Felix’s neck heated up and prickled as a few scattered people began to applaud. More folk than he'd originally noticed had stuck around at the edges of the conflict, including several children. Felix smiled tightly and nodded at them before turning back to the mage. "If you're good, then I'll be uh, I'll be going."
"Young man! Wait!"
Felix turned to see the diminutive magician shove the various objects and doodads on his collapsed stand into a pack he'd pulled from… somewhere. "You cannot leave without a boon! For the savior of Thadeus Thangle, a boon is necessary!"
Felix smiled and waved his hand, ready to decline… when he spied a book the Gnome was wrangling into his pack. The cover was decorated with an excess of floral embossing, but around the edges of it were a series of symbols he found extremely familiar. Sigils!
"Do-do you know magic?" Felix stepped closer and lowered his voice, aware of the eyes on them. "I'm looking to learn, if you're willing to teach."
"Like Mana Skills?" Thangle tilted his head before resuming his normal tone. "But of course! I know my fair share, though mostly in the realm of Illusion. Not a very popular realm of the arts." He looked around himself, noticing the limp and groaning forms of his assailants. He flashed Felix a grin behind his wispy white beard.
"Hm. If you come see me at my home, I could offer you some lessons, if you like. It would be the least I could do for my savior!"
Felix agreed and suddenly found himself in the possession of a small pasteboard card, embossed with various squiggles. "Ah, this is, ah great. Could you give me directions? I'm new to the city."
"Of course! Seek the Deathly Rooster, and find upon it a hallowed hall. Within will be your prize!" Thangle snapped his fingers, and a poof of purple smoke rose up in place around him. Felix backed up a step in alarm, and as it cleared, he found no trace of the Gnome.
What was—?
Felix's head swiveled until his Perception caught on something. Approximately fifteen feet away he saw a small form in purple and green dash around a corner. Felix laughed, a little confused.
This city is full of strange old men.
Seeing that the would-be bandits were slowly rousing, and the crowd was filling in once more, Felix quickened his steps. He had places to be.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fifteen minutes later, Felix found the smithy. A wide, squat building built of dark, heavy stones. It was unlike the rest of the mostly wooden buildings around them. The roof was tiled with red clay, and a lacquered sign hung from a peg above the door. It featured a series of squiggles below a huge furnace filled with a blazing white flame.
Obvious enough. Felix smiled. If it weren't, the plume of dark smoke rising from a large chimney would have been.
The door opened on well greased hinges, and immediately, Felix was hit with a wall of sound, of crashes and bangs. Inside, the air was filled with the scent of char and hot metal, an odd mineral note that Felix couldn't quite place. The one and only room of the smithy was divided into three sections. The first was what Felix would call the customer area, where people like him waited or browsed through a selection of arms and armor along the walls. And there were plenty of those. The left wall had suits of chainmail and scalemail, even a fully articulated set of plate, all made of shiny steel. The right wall was covered in swords, hammers, spears, halberds, and many others that Felix could not name.
Two counters divided the room, one on the left and one on the right, each seemingly dedicated to armor or weapons. Beyond them was the real show, where several Dwarves labored over anvils and steaming barrels of liquid. Perhaps six or seven of them were packed into the work area, each focused on some portion of the smithing process. A Dwarven woman, perhaps five feet tall with brilliant red hair, shouted as she lifted a piece of steel from her anvil and stuck it into the large forge in the back. Said forge dominated the entire back of the building. A white fire blazed in its depths, and from the front of the shop, he all but froze in fear. Yet the expected pain never came.
What?
His Heat Resistance, among other Skills, had been broken by the Maw during their first encounter. Now, each time they were activated, they caused him immense physical pain. Felix lifted his hand and flexed it, not feeling a tingle or spasm, but also not feeling much in the way of heat either. He looked at the white flame again, curiously. Is it enchanted to keep out the heat?
"What can I help you with?"
Felix started, caught staring at the flames. The red-haired woman had set down her hammer and moved closer to the counter, smiling at him. He smiled in turn and nodded. "I couldn't help noticing your forge. The fire is… beautiful."
The Dwarf paused and quirked her head to the side. "That's different than the usual lines I get."
Felix blinked and immediately blushed as he suddenly noticed the smith's fully covered but curvy figure. "What? Oh, no. I'm-uh—"
"You Humans, always so easy to crank up," the Dwarven woman laughed. She waved at him. "Don't worry about it. I could tell you actually appreciate the forge itself, not the sweaty Dwarven gal heaving around hot metal."
She winked at him, and Felix decided he wanted to die, just a little. Clearing his throat, he focused on looking anywhere but at her. "I uh, Jacinda sent me to see you. Said you could help me get some armor."
"Jacinda, eh?" A rougher voice came from behind him, and Felix turned to see another Dwarven woman walk into the smithy with a heavy burlap sack. She had dark brown hair and darker eyes, and was even shorter than the redhead. "You got money, right? That old softy is always sendin' us charity cases!"
The burlap sack hit the ground with a muffled thump Felix could feel from six feet away. The dark-haired Dwarf eyed him up and down, clearly not impressed. Felix smiled at her.
"Yes. I have money. Plenty of crowns. I'm—"
"Crowns?" The dark-haired Dwarf grinned, and Felix felt a twang of apprehension over his bond. She eyed him and his clothes up and down, though she frowned a bit at his canvas jacket. "You've money to spare, right? Or did you spend it all on your fancy clothes and satchel?"
"I have—" he narrowed his eyes. "I have enough."
The dark-haired Dwarf laughed, not unkindly. Then she paused. Her eyes were arrested by his feet, and Felix realized she was looking at his Far-Afield Boots. "That metal… how'd a boy barely past level 15 end up with those boots?"
Felix fought hard not to show his surprise. What did she see when she looked at him? He Eyed himself, something he hadn't considered doing before. He felt a strong resistance and naturally didn't push past it.
Name: Felix Nevarre
Race: Human
Level: 15
HP: 194/194
SP: 153/188
MP: 220/220
Lore: Humans are multitudinous on the Continent. They are statistically weaker than most Races, especially at lower levels.
Strength: More Data Required
Weakness: More Data Required
The amulet doesn't just hide, it gives me a fake ID! That's cool. He was annoyed that he hadn't thought to check before. When he realized the Dwarf was still waiting for an answer, he cleared his throat and thought fast.
"These old things? A dead aunt left them to me. She was crazy, but she had some nice things." He smiled and, distantly, thought he could hear a muffled scream of rage. It only made his smile more genuine, especially when a dim sense of amusement followed after.
"Crazy huh?" The Dwarven smith straightened up and narrowed her eyes at Felix. "She didn't tell you what those were?"
"No? Are they valuable?" Felix played it as dumb as he could. Of course, he had no idea of the boots' value, but as a reward for defeating the Maw? They had to be special, somehow. "They're quite comfortable, which is all I care about. Any armor I have I'd like to tailor it around them, if that's possible. Though if you have something better, then..."
Deception is level 12!
"Better?" The smith sputtered before obviously mastering herself. She pursed her mouth and looked to her side, at the redhead, who nodded. "We can figure something out."
"Indeed we can!" Said the redhead brightly, before putting out her hand. Felix shook it, surprised at the gentleness of her grip. "I'm Eldrunna, and this hag is Rafny."
The dark-haired Dwarf spit to the side, still eyeing his boots.
Felix smiled and looked around at the room. "Nice to meet you both. You own this place? It's amazing." He pointed to the armor and weapons on the walls. "You made all of this?"
"Oh yes, with our own two hands. I work on armor, while Rafny does the weapons shaping." Eldrunna beamed, clearly pleased at his compliments. She gestured to him and pursed her lips. "Do you have an armor Skill? Light Armor Mastery, Medium, like that?"
"Oh, no. Never worn the stuff. Figured I'd change that." Felix shrugged. "Dangerous world out there."
"Never worn—" Rafny raised an eyebrow. "You a mage?"
Felix opened his mouth, paused, and then nodded. "Yeah. More Mana Skills than anything else."
Eldrunna frowned, eyeing his shoulders and torso. "Hold still, I just have to..."
She grabbed a handful of air in front of Felix, tightened her fist, and threw it to the ground. In his Manasight, a purple haze mixed with orange and white-green burst from her palm Gate, a combination he'd not seen before. On the visible spectrum, a shaky image formed from heat haze and smoke, slowly steadying into a holographic replica. Felix gawked in surprise, and his replica did the same thing. It's like a mirror spell.
"Illusion magic?" He looked to Eldrunna, who nodded with a smirk.
"Just a bit. Armorsmithing Mana Skill called Smoke and Mirrors. Quite useful for figuring out a customer's needs without all that measuring and changing." She flicked her hands to the side, and suddenly illusory Felix was wearing a set of chainmail. "No, that's no good. Metal doesn't quite suit you."
She flicked again, her hands moving through options so fast his double appeared to be wreathed in smoke and flame. Ringmail, scalemail, splintmail, even half-plate and a full set of articulated plate armor. Nothing seemed to satisfy Eldrunna's eye. She pelted him with a series of questions ranging from his favorite foods to his flexibility to whether he'd achieved Apprentice Tier yet. Each question was clearly of some importance to her, though Felix couldn't tell how. Eventually, the questions blurred as much as the illusory options, the late afternoon sunlight filtering in through a high window and distracting him. It reflected off something metal and flashed golden across his eyes, leaving a deep blue afterimage that persisted no matter how he blinked.
He suddenly felt… uneasy, for some reason. As if something were brushing gently against him, something he couldn't see or even really sense. He tried to put it out of his mind, steady himself and listen, but it continued. Lingering. Like a—
"You look strapping, fer a Human. You a Guilder?"
"Hm? What?" He blinked the blue and gold flashes from his eyes and played back what Rafny was asking. "Uh no. I'm not."
"Tch. Shame. Coulda used a Guilder to get us some supplies from the Domain." A steady rasp came from her hands, busy as she was guiding a whetstone along a short sword.
Felix blinked, coming back into the conversation completely. "The Domain? There's one here?"
"Is there one—Guild's built atop it, isn't it?" Rafny gave him a lopsided smile. "Big fuck-off lair beneath the city, and you didn't know? This your first day here?"
"Ease off, Rafny. He seems like a nice boy. Nicer than the usual riff-raff that old Half-Elf sends our way." Eldrunna turned back toward Felix and dismissed her illusion. "She's right, though. From what I can tell, if you want a great set of armor—great mind you!—you'll need better raw materials than we have now. Our supplies are tragically low right now, what with the… issues at both gates."
Felix made an “ah” sound and nodded.
"See? Even the new boy has run afoul of the bastards!" Rafny snarled, drawing sparks from her blade. "Yyero blight the Inquisition."
"Watch it, Raf," warned Eldrunna in a sharp tone. "The walls have ears."
Rafny snorted in reply, but she didn't say any more.
Eldrunna turned back to Felix. "If you do join the Guild and can go into the Domain, make sure to collect any metal or monster cores you find. We'll pay you very well for them."
"Failin' that," Rafny said as she tested her short sword's edge against a leather strap. It sliced a thin piece of it, like butter. "We should have some better metals in a week or so. Somethin' in your price range, yeah?"
Eldrunna smiled. "Come back in a week. We're waiting on resupply from the Verdant Pass. It should, hopefully, be here by then."
As Felix left, he spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about illusion magic. The Skills he'd seen on display, Eldrunna's Smoke and Mirrors, and Thangle's serpent mirage both seeded within him a sense of wonder. Something he hadn't felt in a while now. He'd spent so much time surviving that even the miraculous things he could do himself had come to feel… not drab, exactly. Common. Everyday. Whether that was true or not.
But illusions… Felix found himself yearning for more magic, more secrets. More Skills that he could explore, despite his earlier conviction to simply improve what he already possessed. Thangle's offer was more tempting than ever, and he resolved to visit the Gnome soon. Felix was sure someone knew what “the Deathly Rooster” was, after all.
He walked through the late afternoon crowds with an anticipatory smile on his face. His next destination was the bookstore, called the Elder Crown by Jacinda. It was located deeper into the Wall Quarter, where the foot traffic decreased by a large margin. However, the amount of wagons and carriages that moved through the streets only rose. From what he'd been overhearing, the Wall Quarter and the southernmost section, the Crafter's Quarter, were the busiest in terms of traffic. Which made sense, as he'd been told most of the businesses were in those two quarters. The Dust and Sunrise Quarters were more residential, though of significantly different social climates. Jacinda had described the Sunrise as "upstart noble bootlickers," but that just sounded like upper middle class to Felix. He'd known a few suburbanites who'd fit that description.
Haarwatch was a tiered city, rising up and up toward the center. At the peak was the Eyrie, the Guild Hall, and home of the Elder Council as well as the Governor. Surrounding them, in elaborate mansions, were the nobility and higher-ranked Guilders. The difference, apparently, was moot. So even within a Quarter, the closer to the center you traveled, the higher your social standing became. Or because it was higher, you could move further inward. Either way, it had everything to do with money.
Haves, thought Felix as a dark green coach rattled by him. Inside were a number of well-to-do figures, dressed in silks and lace. Only paces away were three homeless folk, begging for coin. And have-nots. Same as everywhere else.
Felix frowned and, quick as he could, tossed a silver into each of the beggar's raggedy hats. He was fast enough that his hands were just a blur. By the time they noticed it, he was already gone. It wasn't much to Felix, but he'd been through rough times before and knew any amount could help.
Despite the crowds and ever-present dust, Felix found the bookstore easily enough. It was small like many of the Dust-side shops. Still, it had a certain charm. Brick and exposed wooden beams proliferated, and it was one of the only shops with a large glass window. Through it, he could see a bevy of bound tomes and scrolls. It was small, quaint, and almost cozy. There was no sign for the business, but a nine-pointed star was carved from stone and placed above the lintel of the doorway.
