NOVEL NEXT Chapter 130: Tools
Valens didn't expect his new employer to have that kind of story behind her. They might not have spent too much time together for Valens to understand her character, but on second thought, she did have a certain weight to her eyes, a somberness that showed itself when she wasn't paying attention to her customers.
The question was, would it be sensible of Valens if he were to try and fork out that story from her? Likely, she wouldn't appreciate someone poking a finger into her past. Troubled memories and the loss of dear ones… Valens knew these things took time to heal. Perhaps his being pragmatic about it and asking these questions for his own benefit would have reopened those recently scabbed wounds.
I have become selfish, haven't I?
But then, perhaps there was more than meets the eye in her story. She had returned in a dire state, body broken and in need of repair, with a bloody wound through all of it. There was a chance that she had left certain things unresolved in that venture of her group. A vendetta, maybe, or a feud that might still be troubling her mind.
It's a deal, then? She will tell me her story and give me the place, and I'll help her break the last ties.
It would come across as him being quite confident about it since he would be claiming he could do what ten Proven couldn't accomplish in the past, but if that was what it would take for him to get a Void artifact, then he might as well put some weight behind his words.
Before that, though, there was a whole marketplace to course through, normal artifacts and clothes to buy. He took Selin with him as they strolled across the street with the afternoon sun keeping them company. The air had a tingy, dusty scent to it in the Broken Lands, and the sun was never the same color. Toward the side, in the distance, the buildings of the First Ring loomed high over the rest of the city, looking magnificently pompous in design.
There was, for the lack of a better word, a clear flashiness to the First Ring. It was as though the Ashen Guild wanted to make sure that their members and the guilds with which they were on friendly terms had the best view of the city, with a literal levitation upon which they could feel at ease knowing they were being cared for.
While the rest of the adventurers were just nobodies visiting this particular city as a stop in their grand journeys across the Broken Lands. The songs played in the taverns, especially in the giant hall of the Crowd House Inn, lauded these men who knew no home, never stayed in the same place for too long, and lived the haggard, but ultimately proud life of a voyager pounding across the endless acres belonging to the Shadow.
Here they fought the terrors in true glory, carried their scars like colorful ribbons fixed on a gown, and displayed the raggedness of their passing with muscled grace.
So then, Valens could understand the disconnection between them and that of their old world. The air of Haven's Reach was scarcely felt here in the Ashen City, let alone in the deserted wilds of the Broken Lands. Even he, as a passenger of Void who found himself in Haven's Reach, had trouble thinking of the day he would return to his old world, doubting whether he could get used to the old ways as a changed man. What about these people who lived a lifetime of chaos and blood? Could they once again adapt to the brick buildings and the conceited distinction of class being played in places like Belgrave?
Valens shook his head. Afraid he might be, but it was time to understand that there was a reason why the word 'past' was used for many things.
…….
Bulky armors fetched generous prices. Finding one that could fit a finely muscled, but elegantly lean Berserker proved harder than he thought. Unlike the way the Sun's Church fitted its Templars, here the armor was often prepared in darker colors, looking generally as if they were fashioned from solid steel or bronze.
The ones that carried a string of words were higher in demand, although for different reasons. Valens was fascinated to find each word carried a different meaning, whispering to him in frequencies that aligned with the feeling of his own stats.
"This one boosts one's Dexterity," he said, pointing to a set of medieval armor with a horned helm, lined with the rest of the others in front of a giant shop in which a dozen people worked in boiling heats. "That one," he said with a gesture of his chin as Selin followed his gaze with surprising excitement, "is rather heavy with its fittings."
Selin approached the second set of armor that had been laid on the ground rather than having hung on a steel pole, tapping a curious finger to its pauldrons. Smiling, she forked that finger underneath the leggings and clenched it with her right hand, pulling at it with expectation. It didn't budge even when her knuckles went white around the edges, and her face grimaced into a frown.
"Is this… normal?" she muttered, taking her hand off and rubbing her palm. "How can anyone wear this?"
"It's not for anyone, that is for sure," Valens said, smiling down at her. He then leaned closer and showed her the scripts written behind the leggings, too small to be caught by inattentive eyes. "These are for the Strength. They're filtering the ambient mana and feeding it into the different parts of the armor, granting it an unnatural weight. The balance, though, is something of a miracle. A little too much, then this whole pauldron might break into pieces."
"Those little things?" Selin's eyes widened as she caressed the little words carved upon the armor. "If they can do this to an armor, what if us—"
"I'm afraid that's a well-tried and much-failed topic of discussion in our field, miss," came a voice, thumping with a strong rhythm to it from inside the shop. Then a broad-shouldered man came bounding toward them, his face slick with sweat, supporting a rich moustache with an equally robust set of brown hair. "Tattoo work is indeed viable in the short run, but too much of it hampers one's own quality."
"Handling that sort of mana flow inside one's body can't be easy," Valens commented.
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"The flow is just a part of it," the man said. "Becoming something you actually aren't is the real trouble. That's like changing one's own core. That's why using external help is a much more preferred way. At least there are no risks unless you try to wear a thousand-pound armor with little stats."
"A thousand pounds?" Selin gasped.
"Give or take," the man nodded. "But plate armor is for the heavy folk, miss. I'd suggest leather for you. We don't often see Nursemaids here in our shop, but hey, money's money everywhere, right?"
"We're looking for one for a Berserker who's about to become a Proven," Valens said. "Something flexible that would give her freedom. She's rather quick with her punches. Never quite liked the weapon play, so to speak."
"Oh, I know those types," the man said, gesturing at them. "I have just the set for her. The name's Mark, by the way."
"Show us around, Mark," Valens said, and he followed Mark inside the shop.
From his initial impressions, the place appeared to be divided into two distinct parts. One where the real work was taking place, the other to serve as a shop. From swords and spears to different shields the variety was quite high, if a touch simple. Crude tools of war, mostly, but Valens couldn't think of anything else for a bunch that liked to poke and hack at dwellers for a job.
As they coursed through the shelves, his eyes caught on a basic, yet sharp-looking pair of daggers lying silently in their sheaths. Their frequencies were mild, almost too silent across the Resonance.
"Can I take a look at those two?" Valens paused near them.
"Quite the eye, sir," Mark said, reaching for the sheaths. He pulled one of the daggers with one fluid motion, flashing the bright steel almost lovingly. "Lightsteel weapons. They are the latest trend around here, especially for adventurers like you."
"Like me?" Valens asked.
"The magic types or the support types, mostly," Mark nodded, stretching the dagger out to Valens. "Take it. You'll know what I mean."
When Valens took the dagger's hilt and felt it in the palm of his hand, he arched an eyebrow at how little it weighed. It was like holding a wooden stick, but one that could carve the skin of a Saweye with ease.
"It's light, isn't it?" Mark smiled proudly. "After the recent matter in Haven's Reach, the dwellers seemed to have changed their approach. Word has it that they've become organized. Started acting like someone's guiding them from the shadows."
"I thought that's what they did here?" Valens asked. "That there are too many dwellers clever enough not to lunge at the first human they saw?"
"This ain't that," Mark said, voice low. "Being clever and being organized are two different things, honorable Magister. You could handle a clever bastard with enough people. But have too many clever creatures acting together, then that's a problem."
"And having these knives helps with that?" Selin asked from the side.
"You can never have too many weapons, miss," Mark said. "Say you got cornered and say your people can't help you, and you have one stubborn bastard creeping round and another one keeping you busy. Your hands are tied. Your spell's too slow. What do you do? Stick a dagger through that creeping bastard's face. It's that simple."
That simple? Sounds like you're overselling these trinkets, if you'd ask me.
"How much?" Valens asked just to satiate his curiosity.
"Not much," Mark said, smiling. "Thirty crowns for one. The best deal in town."
"That's what everyone keeps saying. How can you have the best of anything everywhere you go?" Valens shrugged. "I'll give you fifty for two. I like the feeling of them."
"You're a hard man to please," Mark said, the side of his lips twitching. "But that's what you get dealing with a Mage, eh, miss? They're higher people than us, I tell you that much. The education and the training, all that. The guards and the carriages. The wealth! Must be good serving one."
"I—"
"Wrap up those daggers, and two sets of that armor," Valens cut him shortly, pointing a measured finger to the leather sets further in the back. He liked the sound of them. Soft and flexible, but durable enough to stop these daggers with little effort. "And something for me, as well."
"Ah, I'm afraid we don't have precious things fitting to your respectable presence," Mark said, stooping under Valens's gaze. "But the other day our craftsmen delivered a robe. It's as durable as our leather armor sets, with a more elegant look. Might want to—"
"A robe?" Valens muttered. The more Mark gave him the leeway, the more he found himself slipping into the role of a rich patron, one who had a collection of guards and richness beyond logic in this town. If that was how Mages did things around here, then he had no qualms about that.
The duality of it, though. I'm working for Seris in secret, and staying in a lousy inn. Perhaps I should reconsider my approach.
"I'll check that out," Valens said, and Mark got to work right away.
…..
Blue was his color. That had been the case most of his life. Blue was also the color of life, according to Master Eldras, so when Valens saw that silken robe, sky blue through and through, he didn't mind paying a hundred crowns for it.
That left them with less than five hundred, but he would get more creatures to skin from Seris tomorrow. That, and the tale of her unfortunate venture which ended with the loss of her group.
For now? He was rather excited strolling across the Second Ring, with his newly bought robe fitted into a bag. For the leather sets, they would have to take Celme's measures to make sure it fitted her well, while Selin's had already been taken. Once that was done, they would be ready to be worn and torn.
Valens didn't buy anything for Nomad, but he was thinking of describing that thousand-pound monstrosity to him. Something told him that the undead would be charmed, and charmed beyond control to buy that thing. After all, it resembled the fit he was in when they first met inside the Necromancer's Rift.
I can get used to this. Living in a city. Buying things to my own satisfaction. Never thinking too much about anything.
Unfortunately, that came with its own limitations. No matter where they looked, they couldn't find a second Void-based artifact. Divination artifacts were basically non-existent as well. There were others that could be useful for certain things, but Valens didn't want to spend his money on things that would become useless in a few weeks.
Still, they bought a D-Grade Magical Artifact, a firemana-aligned staff for Selin for practice purposes. Valens loathed the idea of using a staff rather than pure mana for a spell, but since they were short on time, he had no other choice but to go for one to make Selin familiar with the concept.
Fire. Of all things, she's fond of fire. I can't understand why…
The time when he nearly scorched her body to cleanse the shadow taking her was still fresh in his memories. He thought Selin would be afraid of fire after that horrifying incident, but the woman seemed steely in her resolve to become a Mage, and a Fire Mage at that.
Perhaps this is her way of conquering her past. Do not run away from what scares you, huh? Run toward them to take away the pain.
A pity that they were leaving soon for Celme's Trial. If not for that, he could teach Selin the tricks of the trade, even going as far as to establish a foundation of frequencies in her mind. This way, she wouldn't have to settle for a measly Fire Mage, but instead could learn to wield all sorts of magic with her hands.
Time is one thing we can't control. Not when there are other plagues waiting to be unleashed upon this world. Not when I have to see through the truth of this whole thing.
He sighed a long breath as they turned a corner. There was a lot to do, with not remotely enough time to go about them one by one. Still, he would see if he could find any leads on the City of Magisters, after he was done skinning his dues in Seris's shop, of course.
And hearing the whole side of her story at it.
……..