The shopkeeper was a tall, elegant woman with her hair shaved to a tight crop of black curls. She drifted up as Jasper was examining the silk-and-leather jacket.

“An excellent creation. Our hunters have to harvest the silk at the dead of night, when the Suncatchers slip into torpor. But it’s very dangerous. Their young spawn are still alert, and can swarm a grown man in seconds…”

“And the leather?”

“Regent lizards very large and ornery, but nowhere near as dangerous. They can be farmed with minimal casualties. That said there’s really no equal to their leather. Remarkably strong and light-weight.”

So in a word… Expensive.

“How much?”

“Forty wrens should do.” The answer in cool tones, her eyes fixed on Jasper, studying him for his reaction.

“That’s ridiculous!” Teysa cut in. “Don’t think we’re rubes you can fleece. If you won’t give us a fair price, we will go elsewhere.”

“I would never cheat my customers, that’s a fair price for the craftsmanship and care. But admittedly, there aren’t many buyers here in Saltboon, so I could offer twenty-five...”

Jasper blanched, despite his attempts to keep his face steady. Did she somehow know precisely the contents of his purse? Was that a Skill people had?

For that matter, what other social Skills existed? Were there people who were just hypnotically persuasive, or impossible to catch out in a lie? He hoped not– and if anything, he would’ve expected the lying skill to have appeared for him by now.

But for a moment when he’d seen the shopkeeper stride in, wearing a thin blue dress that clung to her frame, Jasper had been stupified.

That was either magic or the lack of porn starting to wear on the edges of his mind.

One of the two.

“Fifteen.” He cut in. “That’s what I’m willing to pay.”

“Twenty-five. You have a full purse and no armor. That’s a recipe to end up dead, with your coin lining someone else’s pocket.”

“So I should let you rob me first?”

Her smile curdled. “Twenty.”

“Twenty. Done.”

— — —

The Great God Aphon Blesses You

Skill ‘Negotiation' is now Level 1.

Every man has a price.

Ten minutes later, after awkwardly fumbling his way through the leather and brass straps, Jasper stepped out of the shop’s changing room with his arms held wide, doing a little spin for Teysa’s benefit.

“Not bad.”

“You wear it like an ape wears pearls. Now, get out of my shop, and never darken my doorstep with your ill manners again. You have all but beggared me and stolen the best of my works.” The shopkeep said with cold fury, pointing to the door.

Which seemed a bit… Harsh… to Jasper.

But as they stepped back out into the streets, which were beginning to fry up in the high heat of midday, Teysa nudged him in the ribs. “You did good.”

“Did I? She seemed furious– I’m not sure why she sold to me at all.”

“Oh that’s a compliment. Around here, if they don’t kick you out, the shopkeeper getting mad…” She waved a hand. “It means you drove a good deal. That was actually pretty restrained. If you’d been haggling with a street merchant, they would’ve cried and dropped to their knees.”

“I–” Jasper paused. “And people like that?”

“How else would you know you got a good deal?” Teysa gave him a quizzical look.

“Y’know, I think I’m going to hire a guide.” He looked at the five remaining silver wrens glittering in the palm of his hand. Easily enough to cover a tour and a place to sleep, with some street food on the side.

“Sounds like a plan. Hey, what Blessings do you have?”

“Oh, uh–” He hesitated a moment, and left off the Child Blessing. That one seemed linked to the fact his age was technically zero– a malfunction of the system. “The Forefather and the Knucklebones.”

“No, I meant–” She gave him an odd look. “Oh no. Oh don’t tell me. You don’t have any Shards slotted, do you? You spent all that money on armor that gives you mana, and you don’t have any magic.”

“Alright, I won’t tell you…”

“Idiot!” She clapped a hand against her head.

“Don’t worry, I’ll grow into it. I intend to learn some magic.” And now, Jasper knew it was linked to his Blessings and ‘Shards’.

“Uh-huh.” She was giving him a sincerely doubting look.

“Anyway, uh, how much do you think it would cost to buy a Shard, around here?”

“In the capital, a least Shard doesn’t go for less than five wrens. Out here? You’re looking at eight, nine, ten…” She shook her head. “You couldn’t afford it even if you went without food for the week.”

Well damn. Now I wish I had spent less on the armor.

But between magic and keeping his skin intact, Jasper had to admit he preferred the latter.

“Right, well– Don’t lose the rest of your money and don’t let any street-merchants cry you into submission. I’ve got to visit the local doctor and trade for more healing reagents.” She said.

“Hey. Thanks for looking out for me.” Despite his best efforts, somehow she’d seen that Jasper was floundering, and she’d come through to help him. It was hard not to appreciate that.

“No worries. We should all look out for each other.” She said, as she darted down the street.

— — —

Jasper had already received advice on which guide to hire from the guards at the jail. He stopped by an old, worn-down hut at the edge of town, the stucco walls rough and showing the thatch-haired mudbrick below.

He knocked on the door, and when nobody answered, pushed inside.

Flies buzzed above empty bottles. A crooked, wiry old man lay in a hammock, fanning himself with a scrap of palm leaf. His hair was tied back into a ponytail that broke into crooked strands of wiry black hair. His nose was broken. He only had one hand.

And according to the guards, he used to be the best adventurer and sellsword this town ever had.

“Merran?” Jasper asked.

The man straightened his head and croaked… “I don’t know you.”

“I’m here to hire a guide. If you’re not Merran…” Jasper was already stepping back, towards the door.

“Oh, oh! Well, one second…” With a long, deep breath, the man steadied himself, and rolled out of the hammock onto his bare feet. “Sorry for the mess, I… Well, I drink too much and I gamble too much to live any better, and that’s the truth.”

Merran offered Jasper a hand, which Jasper shook.

Honestly, he hadn’t lived much better back on Earth. Who was he to judge?

“So boy, you want a tour of Saltboon? Well, you came to the right place– I’ve been here since it was built, in the old days of Midlund. How’bout half a wren?”

Jasper nodded, digging into his pockets, and took out a whole silver piece. Glancing at Merran to make sure he wasn’t doing something monumentally foolish, he snapped it in two at the thin part of the hourglass.

Merran bit into the silver and grinned. “Aye, that’s good Ardish money.”

It was also probably overpaying but– Jasper got the impression this man needed it more than him.

“C’mon, I’ll show the sights. Get you down in the dirt where the fun things happen– you’ve seen a cockfight, sure, but have you seen a snakefight? A regent lizard against a pack of blade herons? Oh, we have fun ‘round here.”

Stepping past him, Merran led the way out onto the streets.

And, as things turned out, he was an excellent guide. Everyone seemed to know him, and everyone seemed to owe him a bit of good will. Jasper suspected the old creature survived on that good reputation, in between visitors arriving and overpaying him for a walk through the city.

They stopped at an enormous clay oven like a kiln, and feasted on thin, savory flatbreads with chunks of tender-roasted lizard meat– not quite like chicken, a little closer to fish– drizzled in a sauce that tasted of peanuts with a smoky, almost fruit-tart aftertaste. Jasper traded one of his silver wrens for a bronze ring, which was a disk-shaped coin divided into eight segments. The cook neatly broke the coin lengthways and horizontal, then took two of the wedges.

Jasper watched a pair of king cobras fight in a wicker pit– and they were unlike any snakes he’d ever seen. They had long, brittle claws that ended in scythe-like blades, a bit like a mantis, and carried scintillating patterns shaped like eyes on the underside of their cobra hoods. They hissed and moved across the ring, sizing each other up, swaying hypnotically– and then their deadly mouths unfolded fully, revealing that the lower half of their jaws was split into two pieces, each with a single tooth.

They tangled, darted and struck out with their claws, feeling for weakness, until one suddenly surged forward. Haste didn’t serve it well. Its upraised claw was seized by a sudden bite from its opponent, who twisted, throwing its whole body into a brutal rolling motion that severed the limb. From there, it was all over. The dominant snake wrapped itself over its weakened rival and crushed its remaining blade-arm into uselessness, stabbing again and again with its own twin claws.

“Ahhh…” Merran sighed happily. “I fought one bigger than a horse, once.”

They drove by the pyramids in a rented spider, feeling the eight-legged beast’s smooth walk underneath them as they rode on a blanket cast over its hairy back.

Jasper realized he was wrong. They weren’t pyramids at all; they had six walls instead of four. Each of those walls was only a skeleton, an open frame. Where the walls stopped, golden light cascaded down, creating a translucent barrier…

It reminded Jasper of the edges of the hex he’d traveled through.

And that suspicion was confirmed as he saw what was inside. It was an entirely different biome; huge flowering fruit trees and massive rows of crops filled the space, a jungle contained within each of the three hexagonal structures.

They were artificial hexes.

Merran caught him staring. “Never seen a Vault before? Can’t blame you. Secret was lost, as many such things were, when the old pantheon met its end…” He sighed. “I’d offer to take you in, but we’d be stuck there ‘till dawn.”

“Why?” Jasper asked.

“Because a man-made hex is still a hex. Same rules apply.”

Jasper paused, processing that…

Of course. Midlund used to work on wargame logic, so hexes must have been used to limit movement. You probably can’t move more than one hex a day– but I’d bet anything there’s ways to break that rule.

Sitting between the three massive structures was a wide, beautiful house of marble columns and green lawns, which sat at the far side of the river and had its own bridge made of azure stone. Each of the columns was carved in the shape of a white-winged owl, with a brass mask over its face.

A temple to Owl…

They rode past, approaching the very edge of town, past the walls. There were farms that continued on towards the horizon, hugging the sides of the river– but this lonely little tower wasn’t a farmhouse.

It was where the sorcerer lived.

Merran waved goodbye as Jasper climbed down. “If you survive your hunt tonight, come back, we’ll have a good time.”

Jasper nodded, and turned towards the door.

It was hanging open. He knocked anyway, and a deep, somber voice called, “Come inside. I have long been expecting you.”

Jasper felt a shiver roll down his spine– now this was proper magic.

He stepped into a space of treasures. In the center of the room was a massive table with a map carved across its mahogany surface, and strange arcane bric-a-brac laden high across the edges, skulls and brass instruments and hourglasses. Leather-bound books sat in shelves along the wall. The walls themselves had been inlaid with thousands of pitch black ammonite fossils, their polished surfaces reflecting the light like the armor of a centipede, the twisting patterns hypnotic and flecked with bits of snow-white glass.

It was beautiful. He regarded the map for a second before ascending up the stairs, stepping through a rounded door–

And a bolt of sizzling fire shot through the air, piercing through the door just a fraction of an inch from his head. The wood smoked and dissolved, and through the hole, Jasper could see that the fire had cut its way out through the stairwell too, piercing a single straight beam through the whole of the house. His cheek was blistering up red just from being close, pain searing across his face like he’d pressed it to a hot blazing hot pan.

“What the fuck.” He gasped out.

“Ah, I–” The sorcerer flicked their hands, extinguishing flames that clung to their fingertip. “I may have mistaken you for Death.”

A pause.

“You’re not Death, are you?”

“At the risk of being set on fire again? Fuck you, no.”