Book 2, Chapter 3: The Cava'tal

[Alen]

A young man with black hair covered in white streaks sat by a table beside the window. Unlike his usual attire of leather armor over his black robe, he was wearing a more casual outfit of a white tunic over brown pants. Beside him was an elf wearing something like a peach-colored sweater, and in front of them sat an orange-haired young man wearing a comfortable looking loose button shirt. They talked idly, waiting for their food as waiters and waitresses busied about around them.

“See, you guys don’t understand. That waiter over there has objectively the best ass. Gender plays no role, Roland, this is a purely objective evaluation of an individual’s level glute-related attributes,” Alen defiantly said, pointing at a waiter that was giving their table a weird look.

Roland shook his head. “I still stand by my point. Isn’t it a little, well, gay to be pointing at another man’s ass in public and calling it nice? Look at that waitress instead. In what way does she lose to that guy?”

The necromancer in front of him scoffed. “It isn’t gay, Roland. I’m purely heterosexual. I’m just saying that man right there has an ass better than the waitresses he works with,” His scrutinizing gaze followed Roland’s finger and scanned a waitress from far away, who was currently paying them no attention as she took another customer’s order. He shook his head disappointedly. “It isn’t mere size that determines quality, Roland. Does that thing look firm? Does it have a perfect curvature? I don’t think so. It’ll sag Roland. It will flop.”

“Can we stop harassing the staff now?” Lynn laughed, then pointed her finger at a man who just entered the restaurant. “Anyways, I win, because he has the best ass.”

The two people sharing the table decided to look and lapsed into silence as they stared at the man. His pants were especially tight and made of smooth, black leather. It hugged his entire lower body like a vice. There was a weird sway to his hips when he walked that caused Roland’s eye to twitch as he pulled his eyes away and looked at the two in front of him pleadingly.

“Can we just stop this now?”

“Roland, just say it. That man right there, no matter how suggestively gay his hip movements are, has a nice ass,” Alen said.

“You should consider buying those pants, Roland. They’d suit you,” Lynn added.

“No,” The warrior said flatly.

“Filthy homophobe,” Alen spat.

The three of them looked to the side and upon seeing the slightly horrified look of the waiter who was holding their food in front of them, Alen and Lynn burst into laughter as Roland sunk lower into his seat. “I don’t know these two,” He said quite tiredly. “Please don’t give me that look.”

The waiter hurriedly set down their food and left, paying no mind to what Roland said and taking a detour around the restaurant so that they didn’t have a clear view of his behind. Roland sighed and dug into his meal, a lobster-looking creature with meat the texture of string cheese.

“I don’t think I can show my face in this restaurant again,” He muttered.

“I understand, Roland. You’re still confused,” Alen nodded understandingly. “Not all of us are comfortable enough with our sexualities to the point of liberated speech. I get it.”

Lynn saw the chance and took it, nodding seriously and looking the warrior straight in the eye. “If it makes you feel better, I think your ass ranks as high as that barmaid over there. Be proud, Roland.”

Roland gave the two of them a look. Was this what monsters felt when they were being attacked by all three of them? And why did he feel like Lynn was getting worse by the day? He shuddered and looked at Alen. “Spare me the experience of hearing you call my ass nice please,” He said.

Alen frowned. “What? Ew. Your ass is fucking flaccid because of your armor. It’s like beating a tomato against a sheet of metal. Rather, it’s exactly like it. Lynn has skewed standards because elves have good asses by default. A book in the library even said so. It’s like that thing where you’re so used to seeing good shit that the bad stuff has its own appeal, you know?”

“Aw, thanks,” Lynn laughed, taking a bite off her meal.

Roland shook his head. “I’m not even going to ask about the kind of stuff you read about in the library, or what kind of author would put that line in his book.”

The necromancer nodded. “You’re right, that is a good idea,” He said. “I want to meet that guy actually. He seems to be well-versed in the ways of the world.”

“Definitely not the kind of ‘ways’ I want to learn.”

From there, the banter only continued as the three of them enjoyed their first good meal in a week and a half. Roland’s armor was set to be picked up right after lunch, so while he was getting things settled, Lynn decided to go and buy some materials for herself. Alen shrugged and tagged along.

They paid for the meal and left, the relieved sighs of a single waiter ringing out from behind them as Roland headed into the opposite side of the town’s market.

The rest of the day was as eventful as going around and shopping for supplies. Which to say, was exactly what they did, and was frankly quite dull. After buying things like preserved food, water, spare clothing, and thank god—toiletries, Lynn went around browsing the two magic stores present in the town to look for some magic stones, which according to the books Alen read, were basically smooth rocks formed within area of the environment which had a high concentration of mana, produced artificially by magical infusion, or in rare cases, within the bodies of powerful monsters; acting as a sort of conduit for magic that made the monsters stronger in the same way that staves and other magical items like Lynn’s Waterwood Bow improved a mage’s magic and spellcasting.

Apparently, she had a hard time creating arrows and casting magic from certain elements and planned on socketing the little stones into her bracer to compensate. It involved a lot of crap about creating the mana-equivalent of circuits, which she’d ask Roland to help her with as his specialty was in close-combat fighting and Enchantment. Lynn herself was good at Evocation, bits of Conjuration, and she apparently wanted to learn Mental magic as well.

The whole thing did cost a lot though. Alen watched large amounts of silver coins leaving Lynn’s pockets to buy magic stones in a quality that he identified as somewhere between ‘pretty meh’ and ‘somewhat above meh’.

He figured that the things were expensive due to their versatility, but he was kind of surprised at seeing their actual prices, even after reading about how pricey they were in general within Draenys’s Public Library.

Most staves would have a magic stone inside of them, but Alen’s staff was an exception, as the wood itself acted in the same way that a magic stone would. If course, it was only for magic that had a good relationship with necrotic mana. If he tried casting just the variant of the bone-regenerating spell through his staff without spinning his necrotic mana into the mix, it would be making use of a purely life-oriented mana type, which would not only cost him more mana, but could also cause a violent reaction within the staff.

Mana was like water, and mana types flavored versions of it. The mana within his body was pure and could be flavored according to his wishes, but it could be said that while he had a price discount towards the ‘necrotic’ flavor, his budget wouldn’t hold up if he tried to buy different types of flavors. Mana-Mix, essentially.

And while his mana was like that, it didn’t hold true for other materials, and sometimes, creatures. Trying to cast a conventional Restoration School spell through his staff was like trying to make juice come out of a coffee maker.

Alen considered it for a moment. While his mana type was necrotic, he’d read about weird, unconventional mana types as well. Rare things like Light, Sound, and surprisingly, Phantasmal mana types. So far, it seemed any kind of mana type could exist and could only be verified if someone with a certain affinity showed up with a new kind of flavoring. If that was the case, could he make his own type of Mana-Mix? If he created a new mana type, could it possibly override his affinity with Necrotic mana, or would it still be hard to use? There was so much to learn about, and so much to experiment with. He needed to—

A hand flashed into his vision, waving in front of his face. “Alen?”

He blinked, returning to reality as he looked at Lynn who was blocking his way and tilting her head at him. “Are you okay? You almost bumped into a mother and her kid.”

Alen looked at the mother and son pair that was now a good distance from them and lowered his head apologetically and their direction. Looking back at the elf, he shook his head and shrugged. “I was just dying off in my head thinking about some random shit. Where are we headed next?”

Eilynn tilted her head in thought. “Um, we have... food, clothes, basic living essentials, and all of the things I needed to buy. I think we’re done. Do you need to buy anything?”

“Hm, well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to buy a book I can read while we travel about. We can’t always be relying on Roland to know about the Sandsea for us, and there’s bound to be things he doesn’t know,” Alen said, before nodding to himself. “Yeah. Let’s head to that bookstore we passed a while ago.”

She grinned. “Books are expensive, you know. You sure you have that kind of money? I’d have to warn you that my interest rates are higher than the Commissions House’s.”

“What. I’m filthy rich. I’ve been saving all the money I’ve earned since Draenys.”

“Filthy rich minus the pay for that one caravan escort commission.”

“Fuck you, alright?” Alen laughed, pushing her along as they headed to the book store. As with most of the bad things that’d happened to him, he’d chosen to make that experience a joke as well, and it looked like his party member liked to poke fun at his misfortune as well. He didn’t notice how much he’d missed having a friend joke about his mistakes actually, which sounded weirder now that he’d thought about it, but Alen just shrugged it off as they approached the small structure that was the bookstore.

With most of the books in the human territories being handwritten, there wasn’t much to see in the store. Just a few shelves’ worth of writing, which really just went to show how great Draenys’s library was. Lynn followed him inside as he browsed the shelves.

“What’s a good book to get?” He asked.

“Hmm…” The elf crossed her arms and tilted her head before looking back at Alen in deadpan and shrugging. “Dunno.”

“The Extensive Guide to a Sandswimmer’s Mating Habits it is. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but depending on anatomy, I’d bet these Sandswimmers take a lot of those too,” Alen said, actually plucking a book from the shelf that had the exact title.

Who the hell wrote these books?

Lynn laughed and picked a book of her own. She surprisingly understood his jokes immediately, which slowly started to make his image of the elf in front of him more concrete. “What about Gold-Scaled Snake Holes? Surprisingly enough, it’s about a snake’s hole.”

The two of them laughed and joked a bit more until Alen finally chose a book about the region’s danger zones, which had a somewhat detailed description of the Sandsea’s monsters at the back. They continued to make fun of book titles as they turned from a shelf towards the counter, but their laughs were cut short with a thump as Alen bumped into someone who looked to be urgently moving out of the store, the speed of that person’s movement knocking Alen and the book in his hand down.

The person’s features were indistinguishable from the clothes they wore, which covered their face with the exception of their sandy yellow eyes and the brass-colored scales that covered the skin around them. The unknown individual glanced at him coldly and left, a book clutched tightly to the figure’s chest.

“Uh, sorry?” Alen called out, though it was a bit late, as the figure had already left the store.

“Here,” Lynn said, offering him a hand. Alen took it and stood up with a grunt. He really forgot how much stronger Lynn was compared to him. Her Strength stat was definitely higher than his, especially after passing her sixth threshold. She apparently didn’t even set it as a priority stat either.

“Thanks,” Alen said, nodding at her and picking up his book from the ground. A few pages, the binding weakened by age, had fallen off completely. Alen was glad he was going to pay for this book anyways, so the damage was still something he could deal with. “Who was that guy, anyways? He had scales on his face.”

“I don’t know. There are a lot of lizard races in the continent, but judging from the place we’re in, he’s probably part of the Ra’tik or Cava’tal,” She said.

“I’m just going to go ahead and assume those are their races. Anyways, I thought you didn’t know much about this place? What’s with the obligatory information dump?”

“What? I read books too. And no, those aren’t their races. Their society’s a bit complicated, the only reason I know about it is because I had a few of them as friends back home,” She said simply.

Alen pursed his lips and shrugged. “Well, let’s just go pay for this book I guess. Roland said we’d leave tomorrow, so I wanna get in that inn for the last time and enjoy an actual bed as soon as possible.”

Eilynn smiled. “True, though I have to say that the Galeboat is plenty comfortable on its own.”

The necromancer shook his head. “For the past two months or so that I’ve known you, I have not seen a single place you haven't been able to fall asleep in. Is that one of the god-given gifts elves have as well?”

“Nope,” She grinned. “It’s god-given to me specifically.”

She trailed beside him as Alen paid for the book. Eventually, after walking about the town idly, they reached the inn and retired to their rooms. Now that Alen could afford the luxury of staying at a decent in and actually paying for a room himself, he made sure to enjoy the soft bed thoroughly. Their rooms were adjacent to each other, and although the walls were thick, they could send voice messages through Lynn’s chat anyways, so it could only be interpreted as an added plus to privacy.

Alen opened up his book and began to read. Well, at least, he wanted to. He had to put the pages that had fallen off back in their proper places first. He spent a good ten minutes arranging about two dozen pages until he encountered something strange.

It was a piece of paper, and it didn’t belong to any part of the book. It was worn and seemed even older than the paper within the book he bought, and smelled of ash and smoke.

He frowned as he read the few lines that were written on the crumpled and folded parchment.

The Crawling Canyon, the mountain of shells, where the sun strikes the back of the God of the Eternal Sands and fails to shine upon the world he scorns in his final breath. Here, my children lie hidden; the fruit of my legacy the key to unlocking what I have never wished to find.

884 17 32 – 784 92 9925 – 11 32 68 32 1 884 17 – 884 17 32 – 784 32 1

“Yup,” Alen recalled the lizard that bumped into him. “Fucker dropped a treasure riddle.”

He looked at it for a moment. The Crawling Canyon did not seem like a safe place. That lizard would probably come look for him tomorrow. If he spotted the lizard, he’d return the map. He wasn’t out to steal legacies like a pretentious con artist wearing a bashful smile, no. Alen was a good guy. Yes. And well, if the lizard didn’t come find him…

He’d just keep it and come back to check out whatever was there when he got stronger. After all, the thing would go to waste if he just kept it in his bag, and hey, that lizard looked like an ass anyways, so Alen wouldn’t spare the effort of scouring the Sandsea just to give him back a piece of paper.

Alen stored the paper safely behind his phone’s plastic cover. If there was anything that he guaranteed would stay safe as long as he was alive, it would be his phone. The parchment would be safe there.

With that settled, he assembled the rest of the pages and began to read. The words flowed like water. Outside, he heard his two companions talking and the sound of Roland similarly retiring to his room reached his ears, but he was too busy reading to pay any attention. The Maelstrom of Dust, the Valley of Ash, the outlaw city of Verana… Finally, his eyes stopped at a certain location detailed within the book.

The Crawling Canyon.

Inside the pages, a paragraph summarized what the valley was, it read:

“There is a legend told within the Sandsea. A legend that the dunes of the desert were not carved by wind nor god, but the passage of a creature fabled to be older than the continent itself. Resting upon the back of an ancient centipede the size of Kaervis’s notable thousand-kilometer mountain range Wyvern’s Maw, the fittingly named Crawling Canyon is home to many beasts and monsters, which are predominantly insect types that fly out of the canyon on an annual basis to utterly decimate the surrounding area through a terrifying display of violence and gluttony. During this time, it is highly recommended for any traveler to steer clear of the location, which is difficult due to the incessant relocation of the centipede carrying the gigantic canyon. As for any towns or cities that the giant centipede Ortena nears within this time span… flee. Flee, and pray to the gods that ruin does not fly your way.”

Alen sat down on his bed, leaning on the wall as his eyes shined brightly. He let the description sink in. Within his mind, he saw a gargantuan centipede crawling through the Sandsea, avoided by travelers and Galeboats as it created entire valleys of sand in its horrible wake. Surrounding it was a cloud of insects, insects like the terrifying scarabs they had encountered just the day before. This black cloud would surround the centipede like a deathly mist, spelling doom to any who drew near.

As dangerous as it sounded, Alen dreamed of one day standing in front of the giant centipede, an army of dead by his side as his friends looked up in challenge at the crawling impossibility before them.

He grinned widely at the thought and closed the book, yawning as he stood up and stretched. Alen sat down on a table beside his bed and opened up his friends’ chat room.

Egg Chat Room

Alen: You guys down to attack a giant centipede the size of James’s dick with me in the future?

Bernard: if its anything near as large as James’s dick, count me in

James: When the fuck are you guys going to stop talking about my dick.

Bernard: shhhhh. Anne, what’s the current length counter of James’s dick?

Anne: Sixteen thousand kilometers. It increases in length by a hundred kilometers with every mention, so make sure you add that in.

Alen: Whoa, it increased by that much? It was just nine thousand meters before we got here.

Adam: it got a two thousand kilometers bigger when James called a girl hot in chat and said he would smash. also, whats this about a centipede?

James: you’d think the dick jokes would die after we left junior high, but they’ve only gotten worse. why am i friends with any of you again?

Bernard: stfu James. we’re only friends with you because of your dick size. don’t try to rise above your station

Alen: Well, James’s throbbing sixteen thousand kilometer dick aside, the centipede’s apparently the size of a thousand-kilometer mountain range, so that’s something to look forward to.

Bernard: just a thousand kilometers? how dare you compare it to James’s dick, you filthy pagan

Anne: I mean, when I get a bigger hammer to hit it with, I’d be down.

Sam: Whoa man, you mean the Wyvern’s Maw?

Alen: Yeah. Why?

Sam: That’s where I’m at dude. I don’t know where my team is tho.

Adam: that’s what i’ve been saying, hello? team? wait. sam, are you down to meet up.

Sam: Yeah man. Hmu.

Anne: This is gay, honestly.

Bernard: you realize this now?

Adam: u realize this now?

Bernard: ayyy

Adam: AHAHAHA ayyy

They talked for a bit more, with Alen closing the chat room an hour later to go get some dinner downstairs. His stomach was growling, and it needed to be soothed with copious amounts of rice, meat, and juice. A stomach will not give ulcers to the human that feeds it, after all. The bottom part of the inn was busy, even after it being so late into the night. Not wanting to hang around such a huge crowd by himself, Alen got his food on a plate and retreated into his room.

He started eating and sat on his bed. Just before he brought up his system-programmed notepad to start programming spells and messing around with magic, he heard a few knocks on the wall behind him. It was Lynn’s room. He looked at the wall questioningly and opened up their voice chat.

“Alen?” A voice rang out in his mind. Even after using the voice chat a lot, it still felt weird to be hearing a voice directly inside his head instead of through his ears.

He idly began to sketch on a piece of paper instead, absentmindedly drawing the beetle they had encountered just the day before. “Yeah? What’s happening?” He responded, darkening the lines around the beetle’s horns.

“Not much. I’ve been sitting in my room playing around with the magic stones I got, but I’m taking a break.”

“Well, since we’re idly talking anyways, how did you end up in Draenys in the first place? From what I recall, Snow Elves are more common in the south. Why’d you come such a long way?” Alen asked, shading the beetle’s beady black eyes and drawing a cloud of insects surrounding it using the flat of his pencil’s lead.

“It’s a long story,” He could almost see Lynn’s smile through her voice. “You wanna hear it?”

“Staying up late to talk to a girl? I can almost hear my older brother cheering for me,” he laughed to himself. “Go right ahead.”

“That’s right, take this chance Alen. It’s not every day a stunning elf like me would want to talk to you voluntarily,” She coughed. “Ahem. Anyways, let’s start when I set out from my village.”

“I’ve seen human men in tight leather pants with better asses honestly,” He grinned. It was great to have someone to talk to like this. “Wait, you’re nineteen now, so how old were you then?”

“Well, you’re generally considered an adult in Talaria when you hit fifteen, so I was able to set out by seventeen years old.”

“Wait, then why are you still the same threshold as I am?”

“I set out with a group of merchants from my home town. They dropped me off around the border, and from there, I just earned money to travel to Draenys by tagging along to civilian transport caravans and acting as a herbalist,” She said. “They earn a surprising lot, let me tell you. A whole seven silver a week. Not too bad.”

“I mean, I was earning ten silver a week in my second week here.”

“Hmph, it’s Draenys. Employers are rich in Draenys, and your magic’s a cheat in that forest.”

Alen laughed. Fair enough. “Well, what happened next?”

“I traveled around for about a month doing just that, but the group I was with was attacked by bandits when we passed a road that didn’t receive regular patrols from the country’s military.”

“Did you die in the attack?”

She paused, then he heard her laugh. “Yes. It was very scary, and because of the post-mortem trauma I gained, I now spend my days haunting lonely boys that spend their days reading and soaking in their anti-social tendencies.”

“I’m not… Fuck. Fine,” Alen shook his head. “Let’s just keep going. We have eight hours to burn ‘til morning.”

“Oh my, you aren’t letting me sleep?” He could hear the grin in her voice.

He grinned back. “Ghosts should be committed to their jobs. Sleep is for the weak.”

Lynn laughed and continued. Like that, the two of them spent the night yawning and idly sharing stories, something Alen hadn’t done since that time he slept over at Adam’s house just before they were taken into this world. Meanwhile, in another part of the city…

Inside a dark warehouse, a group of people crowded over a lizard-man from the Ra’tik tribe was being held by the neck, his feet suspended off the ground as he choked on the hand grasping his throat. In front of him was another lizard, one with crimson scales the color of blood that had an expression of unprecedented fury on his face.

“You lost it?” the lizard growled. “You have the gall to come here and tell me you lost the inheritance my uncle left behind in your tribe?”

“I…It was stolen!” The brass-scaled lizard choked out, gasping for breath as the hand around his throat tightened its grip.

“Who? Who stole it?” The lizard man hissed. “Tell me. Now! I hope you know what I’ll do to you if lies are what’s dripping from that tongue of yours. I’ll make sure you lose it in a puddle of blood before my knife slashes through your fucking jugular!”

“It could only be that person that bumped into me at the pickup point! He was right there as I took the book the representative stored the letter in, and he still managed to pull it out of the pocket inside of the parchment and make it seem like it was one of the papers that fell around him! He was a master thief!” The lizard explained in a panic, trembling at the lack of oxygen his brain was receiving.

“Your tribe’s branch in the Sandsea will no longer receive the protection of the Cava’tal!” The crimson-scaled lizard threw him to the ground roughly, walking away as the group followed behind him.

“Boss, what are we going to do now? Without that inheritance, we’ll never find the treasure your uncle stole from the Fera’til tribe!”

The lizard glared at his subordinate, before waving his arm to the side. “Question that fool from the Ra’tik about this thief’s appearance and set a perimeter around the town. I’ll send people to search the streets and all the areas under my influence. If we don’t find this person in the city, we’ll kill him when he leaves. If the thief doesn’t show up in a month…”

The lizard glanced at its brass-scaled kin on the ground. “We’ll make that man experience two hells; one in life, another in death. Now go, leave me. I have things to attend to and people to contact.”

His subordinate nodded reliably and left, the large group of fellow crimson-scaled lizards from the Cava’tal tribe following behind him. The lizard man was then left alone in the large town as he pulled up his hood to cover his features, especially the large scar that ran along his neck, and looked up at the street ahead, his eyes burning with a strange intensity.

“That treasure is mine to inherit, and mine alone. Brace for death, thief,” He murmured, walking down the stone road and passing a sign board. On it, was an assortment of papers and notices. On a particular piece of paper, the visage of a crimson-scaled lizard was displayed, a powerful look to his eyes as he traced the scar on his neck with his thumb. Below the picture, the poster read:

Alexandrius Cava’tal, Leader of the Cava’tal Raiding Party. Wanted.

Reward: 720 Gold Coins.