NOVEL NEXT Chapter 131 - Deal
After accompanying Selin back to the inn, Valens returned to Seris's shop to do some afternoon work. Later today they would be visiting the First Ring for Selin's Class Change, but before that Valens wanted to use his time to learn more about that odd story about Seris's old group.
She was attending the shop with a tight frown on her face, as usual, alone with no one to bother her in this somber silence. Newly cleaned skins were packed and made ready to be delivered to the craftsmen to be fixed into a variety of Magical Artifacts for different purposes. To the side, placed in glass jars, were the inner organs of dwellers, each being kept fresh by a mixture of water and ice.
In a way, the place looked like a butcher's shop, but Valens admired the fact that Seris was handling everything on her own rather than buying the parts from other sources. Then, once the Magical Artifacts were made ready, she sold them for a hefty profit to keep the circle going round and round.
But now that Valens heard of her past, he could see parts of the woman that didn't quite fit the interior of this dark shop. She had an air about her, a certain weight to her movements, lacking the flexible attendance that of a true shopkeeper. He couldn't imagine her in a bargaining match with some customer. She would likely dismiss them rather than bothering herself with the effort of it.
"Got new hides for me?" Valens announced himself as he parted the curtains and entered the shop, plastering an innocent smile on his face. "Never thought life here in the Broken Lands would be this expensive."
"You'll get used to it," Seris said with a wave of her hand, then turned and stretched a thumb to the backside of the shop. "Got a few fresh ones delivered this morning. Might want to take a look at them."
"Good." Valens strode inside and through the multiple boxes and jars scattered across the shop, pausing before he arched an eyebrow down at her. "Can't be that you're trying a new method to bring more customers, can you? If so, I don't think having this busy look is going to help with that."
"The courier is late," Seris said, voice stiff. "And until he comes and takes these damn things to be processed, these boxes are staying here."
"I can help you with that," Valens said, questing for Gale in the back of his mind. A little push would be enough to tidy the things up a little.
"Don't bother," Seris muttered. "I'm not paying you to keep the shop clean. Get your creatures and start on the job."
"Cold." Valens shook his head as he moved over to the backside of the shop.
Two different corpses laid across the floor welcomed him right away, bodies gone cold and both already relieved of their blood. They looked like an ungodly mixture of wolves and lions, with a rich, robust mane of gleaming green that gave way to an elastic membrane of the same color, although much less bright.
You could make good furs from those manes, but the rest of the hide has a lot of spots. You weren't pretty at all before they killed you off in who knows where, were you?
He found himself a stool, and dragged it closer to one of the creatures. Never in all his life he'd thought he'd become a butcher, but the more he worked on the job the more he started seeing the similarities it shared with his real profession, and he had to admit Life Magi make for great butchers.
First, they could get a hold on the anatomy of any creature with ease. And, they carried out the job with a certain delicacy and care that kept them from damaging the parts of the body. It also had similarities with the burial work after a patient died, but on that front, Valens didn't like to think too much about it.
As he began working on the elastic skin, he tried to come up with a way to break through what seemed like a literal wall Seris built around her after all these years. How could anyone get this woman to talking when she preferred the silence of her shop to the busy life outside?
He couldn't just ask her about that venture, could he? That would be quite rude of him. To the point, yes, but rude, no doubt. He could try to work more on their new relationship as an employer and an employee, but he didn't know how long that would take. That left him with only one option.
Making a deal out of it.
Yes. Rather than coming off as a curious fool who had no business asking deep questions to a woman he recently met, he could just be honest about it and present it to her as a part of a deal, assuming she had any interest in striking a deal, of course. If she did, and Valens surely hoped she would, then the rest was easy. They would deal with the ones who killed her group, or deliver her a good that would make it worthy for her to share the information.
Do I have to go that far for a Void-based artifact?
He didn't, if he was being honest. He could try to gain more insights in the Void field by studying the Hexsurge in his repertoire. The problem with that was the Hexsurge was way too complicated of a spell to work with. Though it had Void-based qualities, the spell itself was more insidious and abstract than even a skill granting one the ability to blink through space.
And while Valens liked the idea of venturing in the Broken Lands for the adventure side of it, he also believed, or rather knew, that Void was intricately related to the Surgemasters' legacy. If not, why would the First of the Magi seal that source back in the Empire? Why would he, being the great Magus himself, go this far to keep the other Mages trapped in a world that was aggressively hostile toward them?
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
More than that, how could anyone seal such a concept? Valens couldn't even think of a scenario in which he sealed the other fields of magic. What would that look like, exactly, were someone to have sealed Fire off with a trick? Would that alone take the fire away from all humanity?
It sounded foolish, but the First of the Magi did just that. Granted, the ancient ritual that sent Valens off into this world worked, so clearly there were other things at play there, but that still didn't help with the fact that Void was like the forbidden fruit for a Mage like Valens.
He wanted to take it. Taste it. Learn more about it.
So be it.
He removed the outer layer of the elastic skin, placed it near the creature, and pulled himself off to his feet, trudging with purpose back to the front side of the shop. There he found Seris in the same position, working on the boxes, radiating a bored and angry air about her.
She looks pissed. Well, not much I can do about it.
"Earlier today I visited an interesting shop," Valens started when Seris gave him a tight frown, making her eyes work rather than asking about why he left the creatures alone and instead came back here. "One that dealt in Cursed Artifacts, precisely. I believe the name was something along the lines of 'Broken Teeth.' Ominous, I have to admit, but suits well to the general feeling of the place."
"You've met that old bastard?" Seris asked, her frown deepening, a trickle of doubt creeping into her gaze. "You're a curious one, aren't you?"
"Comes with the job," Valens shrugged. "I found a few interesting artifacts, but I'm afraid they're rather costly here."
"Nothing's cheap in Broken Lands."
"Indeed. That's a lesson well learned, I'd say," Valens nodded. "But while at it, that old man told me an interesting story. It's related to a broken artifact in his shop, one that I've grown quite fond of."
Seris clenched the fingers of her right hand as she rose from beside the boxes, glaring out into Valens's eyes. "What do you want?"
"It's not my intention to remind you of a troubled past," Valens said. "But I do believe we can help each other."
"Help each other?" Seris scoffed as she weighed him down. "You think too highly of yourself, little Mage."
"Quite the contrary, I'm used to being underestimated," Valens said, feeling the hair on the back of his neck standing. This was good. This was what he wanted. "And do know that I take matters like these seriously. As I've said, I'm not trying to poke something I shouldn't, but—"
"But your greed muddles your brain into thinking you can do it on your own, is it?" Seris said. "I'll tell you what greed gets you here, Mage. It relieves you of that head over your shoulders, that's it. If you're keen on carrying over its weight, I suggest you leave this matter alone. Go skin your creatures and keep to yourself. Enough people died in that place already."
"That, I can't do," Valens said, frowning. "And I'm not alone, either. I'll be leaving with my group in a few days, and if I can, I'd like to check that place out for personal reasons. Finding Void-based artifacts is not easy, as you should be well aware of."
"There's a good reason for that," Seris said heavily. "But no Cursed Artifact is precious enough to risk one's life. That broken wristband… belonged to a Ghoul, one that was nearing its Third Trial."
Third Trial? That doesn't sound too bad. So it's somewhere around level 200–300?
"It calls itself the Mourning King, some minion of a Terror cast off after killing its own kin. Slippery bastard who can warp through the air thanks to those wristbands. And it's got more. We'd thought we'd be dealing with a horde of mindless creatures. Easy work for a C-Grade Quest. Just empty numbers. But someone didn't do their work. Nobody knew there was a creature like that hiding amongst them."
"So you weren't after this Mourning King?" Valens asked.
Seris gave him a dead look. "You think a Level 175 Warrior like me would go out hunting a late-stage Ghoul? You think I'd risk my men if I knew that monster was waiting for us?"
"I guess not."
"No, we didn't even know what hit us. That creature caught us like mice in a trap. Blasted through my group until only a few of us were standing. Stopped and gave us time to breathe. Even offered some water for our troubles, can you believe that?" Seris shook her head, the knuckles of her hand painfully white. "It wasn't anything like I've seen before. That beast talked like a human. Asked us a bunch of questions. About us. About our life. The life in a city. The culture. You would think it wanted to become more human, but blood doesn't lie."
"What did you do?" Valens muttered. He tried to imagine a creature of Shadow talking and asking a bunch of questions to him after murdering a group of people, and oddly enough, he found it quite easy to picture that.
The Weeping Horror had its similarities with humans, after all, even if it was more close to being an abandoned child than an adult who could think for himself. And in the Midnight Assembly, it was Baht who told them that all the dwellers were once humans.
I'd like to have a talk with this Mourning King.
"We entertained its questions as much as we could," Seris said through clenched teeth. "But we had to try. Do something other than standing there, speaking with a beast that killed without blinking an eye. It didn't go our way. I've lost my brothers and sisters, and got a broken wristband in return."
"I'm sorry to hear the loss of your group members, but it wasn't your fault." Valens arched an eyebrow at her. "That you've managed to get out of that place is itself a miracle—"
"It let me go," Seris said, looking down at her hands. "It could've killed me anytime, but after I wrenched that broken wristband out of its hands, it said that I've earned my right to leave. That I've proven myself in its eyes like it was proud of me. I was nothing but a toy to it. A temporary tool in a wicked game it devised for its own pleasure that served its purpose until it was over. Got my pay and walked off from that cave. My friends remained there, and I couldn't do anything for them. Couldn't even bring back their corpses, you see?"
Those eyes. They don't look like they're over this matter at all.
Valens could feel the rage and the sorrow underneath Seris's cold gaze. Her trembling fingers clenched tight around the hem of her shirt, the sinews around her neck bulging in red. This wasn't a woman who retired to live a quieter life. She was broken through and through, and this shop here was her shell that kept her from the outside world.
You can't live like this forever. This shell… is not doing any good to you.
"Then it's settled," Valens said a moment after. "You give me the place of this creature, and I'll deal with the rest."
"You…" Seris turned with her eyes scathing and her face trembling in cold fury. "You didn't hear me? That creature killed my men with the back of its hand. We were nothing. You are nothing! You can't deal—"
"I'll have you stop right there, Seris," Valens said, scowling at her. "If I said it's settled, then you can be sure of it. I've dealt with worse. You see, I've a rather twisted relationship with the creatures of the Shadow. They all want a piece of me, and I like to bury them in batches. It's that simple a matter. I'll let you know when it's over. Now, where can I find this creature? It's in a cave or what?"
Seris paused, eyes widening as she blanked at Valens's face. Her tight fists loosened, the tension drained from her posture. She blinked once, as if to make sure she was seeing it right.
Valens just stood there and gave her his best smile.