You are now a level 3 Oracle!

CHA+3

LUCK+3

WIS+3

Chase shuddered as she felt her energy refill once more. It had taken quite a lot of foresight to get to this point... literally. Her skill in that was at a sturdy ten now, though it had taken six castings to reach that point from level 9. Renny had explained that was just how skills worked... the higher level they got, the more you had to use them to raise them. Unless you were up against something very deadly.

Chase had no desire to go up against something very deadly. Or even moderately deadly, or just sort-of-deadly. It was rapidly nearing dinner time, she was sure, but she hadn't eaten a thing since that last half a roll. In fact, thanks to leveling so quickly, she didn't feel the need to eat food to replenish herself.

Which in itself was disturbing to the halven girl. She'd been raised to respect mealtimes, and the thought of so cavalierly disregarding them was somehow almost as bad as the guards that would try to kill her in a heartbeat if she failed to properly sneak around them, or her disguise proved insufficient.

“We're having an adventure,” she whispered to herself, for about the fifth time. “This is what you wanted.”

“What was that?” Renny asked, poking his head out of her jacket.

Chase shot a look back down the hallway. They were well past the last barricade, and the single guard who'd been manning it. Fortunately the bars had been wide enough for a halven to squirm through... after Renny had dulled the guard's senses, to make sure he wouldn't hear her moving behind him.

She thought he was far enough away to reply safely. “Nothing,” Chase told Renny. “Have you leveled up yet?”

“No. Once you hit level 6 or so it starts taking a while. Unless you're in way over your head, and we aren't yet.”

“I'm not so sure about that, really. This whole day's been over my head.” She stopped, and shot him a look. “Don't laugh at the height joke.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I'm a halven. And humans like joking about our heights.”

“I'm not human. And I never met any halvens before.”

Chase shot a look ahead. A flight of stairs, descending into the mountain. Deep, but well-lit, and no one guarding them that she could see. It would probably take a lot of foresight to clear them for traps, and she wasn't looking forward to that so Chase decided to put off the inevitable with some conversation. “Are there no halvens where you come from? That silly-vania place?”

“Cylvania. And there's some, but they all live together in one village and I've never been there. It's one of the farming villages that the wars missed. They stayed out of it and farmed and paid their taxes.”

“That sounds like halvens, all right,” Chase nodded. “We like our peace and quiet. Well, most of us.”

“This must be rough for you, then. I'm sorry,” Renny said.

“Not your fault. Well, not much. Well, you didn't know how it would work out,” Chase clarified. “And no, it's okay. If I survive this... if I survive this, I think I needed this. I needed something big to get me out of the hole I'd been planted into.”

“We're kind of in a hole right now,” Renny said, looking around at the carved corridors, still striated with places where the masons had left the natural stone alone. The few lanterns down this way guttered and flickered, leaving large pools of shadow. Somewhere water dripped... they were well away from the river; it was somewhere back and above a level, but the entire place was stone, after all. And where there was stone, water found a way through.

“No. More of a metaphorical hole. A personal hole.” She frowned. “No, that just sounds dirty. It's like... I didn't choose to be where I was, my parents decided it for me, and they chose this because their parents decided it for them, and so on, and so back. Who decided it first? Why should I have to live up to what they chose? I didn't have any say in it then. Why should I follow their lead now?”

Renny put his muzzle down, and seemed to be pondering the point. “I'm not disagreeing with you,” he said, finally. “But if I were, I'd make the argument that those old people managed to have offspring that survived until today by taking the path that they took. So that's something to consider.”

“Sure, if I wanted to marry young, pop out babies, and die in the same village I was born in. I don't want to follow their path. Their path is babies. Babies are yuck.”

“Could you follow that path without babies?”

“Not without a lot of people having serious talks with me, and every one of my relatives getting sterner and sterner about it. Their path means that everyone has their nose in everyone else's business, and tries to get everyone else to be like they are. Which doesn't work if you're a man who likes men, or a woman who wants to do something that isn't the usual women's stuff.” Chase sighed. “They'd find little ways to make my life hell until I gave in and popped out a few brats. That I'd have to take care of for decades, or more. And a husband. I don't want a husband.”

Renny considered it, and nodded. “Okay.”

“Look, I don't have to get married if I don't want—” she stopped. “You don't care, do you?”

“Sorry.”

“No, no, I mean it in a good way. You say 'okay' like it's none of your business. And it isn't, is it?” She smiled. It was such a relief! She'd become the queen teen gossipmonger of Bothernot out of self-defense, mainly. Because the system the halven had built wouldn't leave you alone, so you were best off taking it on by any means necessary.

“No, it's not really my business. My friends are my business, and they're alive now, so I'm a lot happier about that.” Chase felt Renny's tail wag, just a bit, where it was curled around her side. “But they're charmed or something and I'm trying to figure out what to do about that. And so far I'm not coming up with much.”

“I can help with that, when I see them,” Chase said. “I've got a skill that's perfect for figuring out what's happening there. And maybe a skill that'll fix that, depending on what it is. But...” she sighed, and glanced down the steps. “First we need to get past this. Foresight,” Chase intoned, and sent her ghostly self running down the stairs.

Ghostly Chase reached the bottom unharmed, turned, and shrugged.

Chase stared for a moment in disbelief, until the tight band in her chest became too much to ignore. She ran down the stairs, fighting to keep her balance, and got to the bottom of them, puffing and panting. It's a good thing I just refilled my stamina. That was tiring.

Then she straightened up, and stared what was before her. A large wooden door stood open at the end of the short corridor, its bar lying to the side.

The plaque on it was gold on black enamel, and declared two words to the world;

IL CIARLATANO

“The Charlatan,” Chase said, staring up at the plaque, then over to the darkness beyond the door.

“I wonder if they're still in there,” Renny whispered through the hole in the jacket.

“I'm not sure. The door's open, and I'm pretty sure this is a prisoner's cell, so I don't see why he... or she would be. Though there were six guards along this route for a reason...” Chase rubbed the side of her head in indecision. “Honestly if we're this close and talking with the door open, and this Charlatan's as dangerous as Dijornos, then they probably know we're here. We might as well go in and see if anyone's home.”

But just to make sure, she chanted “Foresight.”

Ghostly Chase walked in. Seconds passed, then she strolled out again, shrugging.

“Probably clear,” Chase said, and picked her way around the door, with as much caution as she could give the task.

She was not prepared for what she found inside.

Lush furnishings filled the circular room, which had red-and-white vertically-striped walls. The floor was covered with soft, silvery carpet, so deep that Chase's feet literally disappeared into it. The softest-looking bed that Chase had ever seen sat against one wall, curved to fit the curvature of the room. A writing desk loomed nearby, covered with neatly arranged ink bottles, books, and stacks of papers neatly arrayed to either side.

Across from the bed, a velvet-padded bench stood in front of something Chase had only seen in pictures; an enormous pipe organ, with pipes feeding back into the wall, and keys worn from obvious use.

And on the wall were racks full of tall hats, red jackets, and white trousers. All familiar looking clothes, Chase realized.

“This is Thomasi's room!” She blurted. “He's the Charlatan. Ah, okay. That makes sense. He's a Grifter, so they'd call him a fancy word for a liar.”

“I wonder what Vaffanculo was called?” Renny said, then squirmed free of her jacket. Chase covered her mouth to keep from laughing. He was tickling her!

Then she remembered the corpses they'd passed at the start of this, and why they were down here in the first place. And she managed to keep silent, as Renny dropped to the ground, and stood up on his hind legs. His fuzzy head trained left and right. “Do you think there's something here to help us?”

“Maybe.” Chase rubbed her scalp. “There's got to be a reason why they were guarding this side of things. It's not him because we know he's gone, out in the woods. So there's got to be something else. Maybe in here, or maybe one of those doors we passed.”

“I'll search under the bed.”

“Dibs on the desk, then,” Chase said. She eyed the books with a greedy gaze, sighing internally. There was never enough time to read interesting books! Climbing up onto the chair, she stood on it, pulling down the books first and flipping through them.

“An atlas of Western Disland,” she muttered, flipping through it. It seemed old. She couldn't find Laraggiungere in it. Nor Bothernot. As she turned pages ancient glue gave way, and the old maps pulled loose from the spine.

Cylvania DID get a mention, on one of the larger maps. The text below the name listed it as the gateway to the east, and the only safe path through some nasty mountains. No mention of golems anywhere.

“Not useful,” Chase decided with a sigh, and replaced it. Then she reconsidered, staring at the jumble of pages, sitting crookedly on the unglued binding. She couldn't use it, but Renny might be able to use this to go home, Chase thought, and put it to the side as she replaced the book.

The rest of the books turned out to be full of songs and musical, and Chase shook her head as she put them back. She'd never learned to read music, and she'd never unlocked bard, so these seemed of little use to her. “Jinkies might be able to get some use from them, but not me.”

“What's that?” Renny said from right behind her, and Chase managed to keep from falling out of the chair, barely. She did knock most of the papers to the ground as she scrambled, and cursed under her breath as she watched them go.

“Sorry,” Renny said, and started to gather them up, scampering around, swiping them out of the air with his little black paws. “Did you find anything?”

“No.” Chase took one of the papers from Renny's paws, and looked it over. “Names. Just names. Some of them are pretty weird, but they all look like names.”

Renny flipped through a pawful of papers, glass eyes winking in the light as he scanned them. “Oh! Here's Dijornos' name. And a bunch of other people The top of the sheet says... Warring Pizzas?”

“What? Let me see that.”

It actually said 'Warring Pizzas', and Chase had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

About a third of the sheets shared similar styles... they all had a word or some combination of words up top, and a list of names beside them. A few of the words said things like “Fairy Godfathers” and “Holy Sea,” but others were titled nonsensical things like “Guineapiggers,” or “Roamin Around.”

“Oh!” Chase said, spotting one particular name in the lists.

Speranza, the woman who planned to enslave her father, was on one of them. The name of her list was “DameVincis.”

“Here,” Chase said, putting all the lists in her pack, along with the map. “What about the other papers?”

“Music, it looks like.” Renny showed her more notes, and those line things that they sat on. “I'm not a bard, sorry.”

“Eh, it looks more like that was his hobby.” Chase considered. “There are a lot of them and I don't know if any of them are important, so we should probably leave them here.”

“What about the books?”

Chase shrugged, and touched them one by one. “An old atlas. Music, music... more music.”

“What about the one under the shelf?”

“Music.” Chase tapped it again.

“No, I mean the small one above your hand.”

“What?” Chase bent over, and squinted. “Well I'll be...”

There was a tiny black book, big enough to fit in her dress pocket, back in a little nook that kept it out of sight. “You have sharp eyes,” Chase complimented Renny as she fished it out.

“It's at the right angle for me to see it.” But Renny smiled a bit, probably from the compliment.

Chase opened it and frowned, then hauled it over to where the light was brightest. “This one is all handwritten. And the letters are absolutely tiny.”

“I can help with that. Phantasm.” Renny pulled out, of all things, a magnifying glass.

“Where did you get that?”

“You don't want to know. I'll hold it. You read.”

Chase shrugged and did as he said.

And after a minute, the enormity of what they'd found struck her. “This is his diary!”

“I think if it's a man's book they call it a journal. Or possibly memoirs.”

“Do they? What's the difference?”

“A man is writing it?” Renny shrugged. “I never really understood why it needs to be different. That gender stuff is hard for most golems to get. There's a lot of little weird things to remember.”

“I wouldn't mind being a golem,” Chase said, tugging his paw over so the magnifying glass lined up again. “Then I could worry less about how girls are supposed to act and more about being me. Now let's see here...”

Day 1466

“What? No, this can't be right. This is the first entry.”

Then she read on, and understood a bit more clearly.

Day 1466

I have consumed my previous journal. Lacking fire of a natural sort, and with no desire to raise suspicion among my watchers, I have picked the small book to pieces and eaten it, bit by bit. The upside is that Generica Online has no indigestion debuff. The downside is that after a particular point, it substituted the nausea debuff instead. I do not enjoy vomiting, but the consequences are less dire than letting my true thoughts be found by my captors.

I've finally been forced to eat my own words, and my, were they ever disgusting. Some divine force is definitely screwing with me.

On the upside, constantly writing for days on end has unlocked the scribe job, which allows me to use smaller calligraphy. I should be able to make this journal last much, much longer than the last.

Which is fortunate, because I do not know when I may receive a replacement. My friend, who shall remain nameless, will have difficulty bringing anything to my cell after the last escape attempt. I fear that my impatience only served to increase my hardship. For now I must appear mournful, and give every sign of cooperation. I shall write out more of my experiences and turn them over to my captors. Where they shall go from there, I do not know. I expect that witch Zenobia to pass them on to my true enemy.

To OUR true enemy. I must remember that I am not alone in this.

In any case, I will make use of this journal more sparingly, to try and make it last. I shall not be writing down individual days anymore, unless they are marked by significant matters.

Day 1471...

Chase looked up from the magnifying glass. “There's a lot to unpack, here,” she told Renny. “But I'm not sure how much of it is useful right now.”

“He ate a book.”

“And there's someone called Zenobia who's important here.”

“Yeah, a Witch. Aren't they supposed to eat babies?”

“I think... I think he might have just been cursing her. He wrote 'witch' in lower case. Job titles are capitalized. That's what I learned from Mother Bloom, anyway.”

Chase flipped through the rest of the book as she spoke. Every page for the first three quarters of the tiny book was jam-packed with letters. But then she hit empty space. “He didn't finish all of it out. Which means...” she strove to recall the detective books she'd read. There had been one or two in the trunk, less interesting than Jinkies' adventures. “Which means that the last entry might have something useful. That's how it worked in Snog Groggerson: Orc detective.”

Day 6290

Dijornos has done the impossible and captured some adventurers. Speranza is charming the poor bastards as I write this. Then, if all goes to plan, they'll fight their way to us and let us out.

Hopefully from that point on I'll have a clear shot at walking out of here. Otherwise I'll have to pray that the secret cache is where my friend says it is... and that the keys to the confiscation room are there.

She's stopped singing. The charm has taken.

Time to prepare.

“Thank you Snog,” Chase whispered.

“This sounds useful,” Renny said. “But where is this secret cache?”

Chase blinked, as she realized the problem. “Oh. Oh no. He probably talks about it somewhere back here.” She riffled the pages back to the start of the journal. Crabbed handwriting filled every inch of paper. “We'd have to read until we found it.”

“Well, we'd better get started then,” Renny said, holding the magnifying glass closer.

“No. No, that won't work,” Chase said, feeling her heart sink. “We'd need to read through the whole book page by page until we found it, and that could take anywhere from the first page to the last. This... we need to be smart about this.”

Then a faint hope rose. “Unless... well, it's worth a shot.” She cleared her throat. “I'm an Oracle of a god, chosen by him, and my luck is really, REALLY good. So world, I should be able to open this book exactly to the page I need, and learn where this secret cache is!”

She opened the book.

Renny leaned over with the magnifying glass.

“Okay so I'm not THAT lucky,” Chase said with a sigh.

“It's okay,” Renny patted her hand with his free paw. “Do we need the magnifying glass any more?”

The halven girl shook her head, slowly. “No. As much as I hate it, we just don't have time to read through every entry. Even if he's only putting one every few days, the numbers are too far apart. That's... years. They have to be. Vaffanculo's going to attack in a matter of hours, at best. And I'm not sure how long Dad really has.” Chase thumped her hand on the ground. “If only we had a way to search this book quickly!”

“I wish Dracosnack was here.”

“Who?”

Renny stuck his paw behind his back, and when he pulled it out again the magnifying glass was gone. “My friend. I grew up with him. He was an animated toy once, and fought for Princess Cecelia. She tracked him down and rebuilt him, and made him a golem. Well, Threadbare did, anyway.”

“And this makes him able to search books more efficiently?”

“No. But he loved books. We were friends because of that... I mean we were friends anyway because it was right to be good to our classmates, but we both loved reading. He took the librarian job because of it, and one of the skills let him skim books very quickly.”

“That is precisely what we need here. It's a pity you didn't follow in his footsteps.”

“Well...” Renny hesitated. “I do have that job unlocked.”

“Ah, that's a pity. If only—” she stopped, and whipped her head around to stare at him so quickly that she almost hurt her neck. “You have it available? Take it!”

“I'm not sure if I should. Jobs are a big commitment, and until I get back to my guild master I can't change them around.”

“Renny,” Chase started, hearing her own voice rise in frustration and anger. She got ahold of herself, and shook her head. “Renny,” she said in a calmer voice, “do you want to save your friends?”

“Well, yes! Of course.”

“So which is more important? One of your crafting job slots, or your friends?”

The little fox looked down, chagrined. “You''re right, of course. Okay, here.” He shut his cloth lids over his glass eyes, then opened them after a few seconds. “Status,” he commanded, then spoke the commands he needed to say.

For her part, Chase forced herself to be still, and wait as patiently as she could.

But Renny's ears drooped, and Chase felt her hopes go with them. “No?” she asked.

“No. The skill that let him skim books quickly must have been a higher level skill. I can only scribe and catalogue written works.”

Chase felt like grinding her teeth. She could feel that this clue was important, knew it was important, but the universe was thwarting her in little ways every time she tried to follow up with it. But... she wasn't quite done yet.

“Tell me about scribe and catalogue.”

“Scribe lets me copy written works.”

“Could you say something like; 'I want to scribe out the information about the secret cache?' Fool the skill into finding it for you?”

Renny grabbed some paper and one of the pens, and tried it. After a second he shook his head. “It was good for a skill up, but no, sorry. It just copied what I was looking at.”

“All right, all right. Tell me about catalogue.”

“It lets me sort written works into a new order. Any new order I want, including subjects... so maybe...” Renny studied the air, probably looking at his status. “So this might work, if the information were spread out among different books. It would narrow it down, at least.”

Chase stared at the book, her mind churning.

And after a few seconds, an audacious idea came to her. It was a drastic one, though, and it might not work.

But I have a skill that helps with checking that sort of thing, don't I?

INT+1

Chase looked at the crossbow she'd set on the desk while they were checking the room, then at the quiver of bolts slung at her side. She pulled one out. Then she picked up the little book.

“Chase?”

“Renny, in a second I'll raise one of my hands. If I raise the left one, use that catalogue trick to sort them, try to find that secret cache. Do it quickly. You can do it within ten seconds, all right?”

“Yes. It's instant. Says it is, anyway.”

“If I raise my right one, don't do it. Oh, and get that magnifying glass up right now, okay?”

“All right. Phantasm.” Renny pulled the glass out again.

“Foresight,” Chase intoned, and studied the results of her plan. Then, with a pang of remorse, she ran the sharp head of the crossbow bolt down the book's spine, and tore the pages out in one smooth motion.

Renny gasped in horror, eyes wide, and Chase knew the feeling. It was a book! You don't destroy books! But she put her feelings aside and threw her left hand skyward, shouting “Now! Do it now!”

“Catalogue by mentions of secret cache!” Renny said, touching the pages in her hand.

They shifted, and squirmed, and it was all the halven girl could do to keep ahold of the suddenly relocating pages. They blurred, tickling her fingers, and counting the seconds, she shoved them under the magnifying glass.

Seven seconds... eight... nine...

And her eyes lit on the words that she needed to see. Chase smiled, and gave a double thumbs up to her past self. Just as she'd seen her ghost-form do not too long ago.

Your foresight skill is now level 11!

“What just happened?” Renny asked.

“It worked, is what happened. By taking the pages out, we turned one book into lots of notes. Your skill functions for any written works, so the catalogue did its thing. I figured what I was going to try would either render the book useless or make it work with your skill, so I used foresight to check it out beforehand. We're good. Now let's see what we have...”

Five minutes and some careful research later, Chase and Renny retraced their steps up the stairs, counting the lantern sconces as they went. Under the fifth one, they found the loose block in the wall, and it slid open silently, revealing oiled hinges and a ring of keys on a hook.

Several more slow minutes later, Chase and Renny snuck past the guards, burning Renny's sanity and Chase's fortune to get through the withered-looking men they'd painstakingly bypassed the first time.

Slowly, they approached the last bend, and Chase dared a peek around...

But her luck held true. No suspicions had been raised yet. The door to the confiscation room remained unguarded.

“Foresight,” Chase whispered as she raised her newly-acquired keys to the lock, and tried one. Two more shots of the skill and two skill ups later, Chase felt herself dragging, her fortune trickling away like water. But it was necessary. The third key was the right key, and unlike how things had faired with her ghost self the first couple of times, this time the alarm did NOT sound. This time the door opened silently, and Chase closed it just as carefully once they were both inside.

The halven girl felt her breath leave her in a whoosh, as she stared around the cluttered room. Great piles of gear and goods and things she couldn't name filled sagging shelves. Suits of armor sat next to racks of clothing, swords taller than Chase leaned next to staves made of bone, wood, and in one case taxidermied snakes. Piles of seemingly mundane objects spilled out of boxes next to glowing, clearly-magical crystals. Multicolored vials of dust, liquid, and stranger things shed a rainbow light through the room.

“I have absolutely no idea what most of this is,” Chase whispered to Renny. “Do you?”

Renny's glass eyes glinted in the rainbow light as he shook his head back and forth. “No. I'm regretting that I never took those Enchanter lessons when I had the chance. That would make this easy.”

“It would,” Chase said glumly, staring at a nicer crossbow than the one she was carrying over her shoulder. It had crystals at the ends of the bow, and a quiver full of bolts with heads shaped like crossed angel wings. It glowed the brightest aura of any item in the room, and for a second she was tempted to grab it and trust to her luck to keep her safe.

But only a second.

Halven common sense reasserted itself at that point, and she shook her head, turning away... and staring right at something absolutely fascinating.

“Renny?” She whispered, “do those look like a miniature set of circus wagons to you?”

“What's a circus?” He asked, hopping up on the shelf, and investigating the brightly-colored wagons sitting in a display box, each neatly tagged, each about the size of Chase's palm.

“It's like a traveling festival. It's what Mister Thomasi said he was in charge of.” She narrowed her eyes. “He would probably want these back, don't you think?”

“I do think. But I also think we don't know what they do, and they might be dangerous.”

Chase chewed on the inside of her cheek. I could use foresight, but I've only got enough fortune left for five shots of it. And what harm could a bunch of circus toys do?

The answer, as she scooped them up before she lost her nerve, was nothing. Nothing at all. Chase smiled, shucked her pack off, and put them in. They filled up the rest of the open space, and she took care to tie the strings around the torn patch.

“That was a pretty big risk,” Renny said, hopping to the ground.

“Yeah. But they'll be useful if we run into him again.” Chase put her pack back on, and shouldered the crossbow again. “Now let's—”

An alarm wailed, and she jumped back, staring wildly around. Bells rang and clamored, and for a split second she thought it was because of what she'd done...

...but no, the bells weren't coming from inside the room. Something was going on outside.

Just as she realized that, a door on the opposite end of the room slammed open, spilling lantern-light into the chamber as two uniformed guards, shrunken like the others, rushed in. They paused, and for a wild-moment, Chase stared at them, and they back at her.

“It wasn't me!” Chase said, spreading her hands to the side.

Only when she saw their eyes snap to the crossbow, did she realize that she'd just waved it in their direction. Without a word, the guards drew their swords and charged.

CHASE'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Chase Berrymore

Age: 15 Years

Jobs:

Halven level 8, Cook level 4, Archer level 1, Grifter level 2, Oracle level 3

Attributes Pools Defenses

Strength: 44 Constitution: 28 / Hit Points: 72 / Armor: 0

Intelligence: 47 Wisdom: 64 / Sanity: 111 / Mental Fortitude: 25

Dexterity: 69 Agility: 53 / Stamina: 122 / Endurance: 0

Charisma: 86 Willpower: 37 / Moxie: 123 / Cool: 25

Perception: 47 Luck: 86 / Fortune: 133 / Fate: 19

Generic Skills

Brawling – Level 7

Climb – Level 15

Dagger – Level 2

Dodge – Level 9

Fishing – Level 14

Ride – Level 10

Stealth – Level 14

Swim – Level 7

Throwing – Level 19

Halven Skills

Fate's Friend – Level N/A

Small in a Good Way – Level N/A

Cook Skills

Cooking - Level 14

Freshen - Level 10

Archer Skills

Aim – Level 1

Missile Mastery – Level N/A

Quickdraw – Level N/A

Rapid Fire – Level N/A

Ricochet Shot – Level 1

Grifter Skills

Fools Gold – Level 1

Master of Disguise – Level 3

Silent Activation – Level 2

Silver Tongue – Level 3

Size Up – Level 1

Oracle Skills

Absorb Condition – Level N/A

Diagnose – Level N/A

Divine Pawn – Level N/A

Foresight – Level 11

Lesser Healing – Level 3

Unlocked Jobs

Farmer, Herbalist, Teacher