A copper for your thoughts.

A copper for your thoughts!

Is this dumb saying why basic mind reading spells use copper coins as their material components!?

- Findings of founding archmage Vexington Larezuz, recorded hours before his death.

“We might have run into a little bit of trouble.” Jevi commented with crossed arms as she stood and surveyed the mess before her. A mess that I was still working to sort through. Whatever observation Jevi had made was lost to me, because she didn’t say anything more after that.

“You going to share what this ‘little bit of trouble’ is?” I demanded.

We had already run into a pretty big spot of trouble when it came to looting the dead guy in Ratmaker’s cellar- or perhaps den was more appropriate. The problem was that even decayed, the guy was way too heavy for me to lift. In my mind, that was fine. Jevi could do the lifting, and I’d doff the armour for the dead guy, only she disagreed.

Apparently I wouldn’t respect the armour and didn’t know how to properly take it off.

I also disagreed. My dad had lost a few bets that wound up with me helping Taranath into and out of his ornamental set of plate armour, which was probably a hundred times more complex that this guy’s cheap metal. It almost made my fingers freeze off too, and that had to get regenerated via magic, but I wasn’t about to boast that to Jevi just yet.

So we’d bickered and eventually decided to just loot the rest of the den, which turned out to be three rooms. One being the rat room, another containing fresh organic fertilizer with a smell to match, and finally the place where Ratmaker rested and performed his experiments. I was halfway through figuring out his honestly impressive alchemy set up when Jevi announced the trouble.

“I can’t see, the spell ended.” Jevi concluded her announcement. A glance over told me that the telltale glimmer of darkvision had faded from her eyes.

Oh. “That’s not trouble.” I told her. “Just cast your spell again and get a move on.” I was surprised she’d let her own spell end so soon. I personally was holding the magic in my eyes hostage, if only to see how long I could make it last. So far only a sliver of Jevi’s magic had escaped me, and that had happened during the fight with Ratmaker.

“Uh…” Jevi looked unconvinced. “Magic doesn’t work like that. I need to rest before I can cast it again.”

“Bullshit, you cast the spell twice in succession.”

“By sacrificing my zinger!”

“If the spell ended, then you can cast it again. Am I wrong?”

“You’re-” Jevis stamped her foot in impotent anger. Her boot clanged against the metal armour of the dead guy. Thankfully the smell of his rot was difficult to make out through the stench of dire rat. Everything down here smelled disgusting, but it wasn’t really bothering me yet. “If that was true then we would’ve conquered Eiar two hundred years ago!”

She had a point. If any spell could be cast again immediately after a casting resolves, then spellcasters would rule the world. They didn’t, kings and queens did, and only a few of them cast spells, but she was clearly missing something and I knew what it was.

I could’ve pointed out that what I claimed only applied to long lasting spells with durations longer than fifteen minutes that did not require constant maintenance, but that would’ve outed my education.

Jevi now considered me a prize jewel after failing to mug me and seeing a deer show up for no good reason. I didn’t want to give her a reason to become even more obsessed.

“Well, you’re the blind one.” I shrugged, not that she could see it. This was better, actually. This way she wouldn’t interrupt my looting.

I shouldn’t have thought that.

Fire briefly blinded me as Jevi cast her fire catrip into the ceiling. The impact dislodged a fair chunk of dirt that fell on the girl, causing her appearance to return to how it was when I first met her.

“Stop that!” I hissed. “The crazy guy was doing fucking alchemy down here!”

“What makes you so sure?” Jevi said testily. She was being belligerent again.

“The fucking alchemy set that you almost blew up!” I shouted. “Or how about the dire fucking rats! Didn’t you wonder how they became so fucking dire!”

Silence. I saw Jevi fidget.

“But-”

“Get the fuck out if you’re going to be a fucking brat!” I kicked her. Lightly, of course. I was still weaker than a paper bird, so she barely moved. “Use magic and clean the rat pelts if you can. Bury the stuff we can’t sell. Greet the old woman when she gets back or something! Just stop fucking annoying me!”

“Jeez.” Jevi muttered. “What crawled up your-”

“You are blind and I have a dagger.” I growled. “Choose your next words carefully.”

“I’ll make you eat those words when you get blind too.” Jevi muttered quietly, but clearly intending for me to hear it.

“Then do that when the spell ends.” Which was going to be never at this rate. “Fuck off.”

Still grumbling, Jevi turned and walked off, almost walking out the exit tunnel. She missed though, and instead confidently walked face first into the dirt wall next to it.

Quietly laughing at the sight of it, I told her, “To your right.” And she felt her way out of the basement.

That meant I was left to peruse Ratmaker’s surprisingly complex setup. I thought I had the theory down, even though the incomprehensible scratchings were incomprehensible. Everything fed into a cage, and there were actually three different setups that could be switched between. Of course, switching involved moving everything around, I could see that from the markings on the desk he’d been using, but everything ended in something feeding that theoretical rat in the cage.

It wasn’t theoretical, actually. The rat had still been alive when we got down here. It was still alive, too. We released it since it wasn’t dire yet.

Anyway, what had clued me in were the reagents he kept in a satchel that I had quietly appropriated when Jevi could still see but was distracted, as well as the alchemical process Jevi and I must have interrupted. There were leftover smells from various tools that had freshly been used, and his beakers still had unidentified liquids in them. That last thing was what I was using to figure out the whole thing.

Unfortunately, when I looked back to the beaker, the once light orange concoction was a deep black. Some dirt had fallen in and ruined it.

My fingers curled tight around the handle of my dagger. I really wanted to stab that girl.

\V/

“I think we can get about four hundred gold for all this.” Jevi commented while nursing a few new scratches on her face. “Shame about what we left behind, though.”

“Hm.” I agreed.

It turned out old lady Saphir had been a grandmother once. Past tense because her only surviving grandson had died. The odd thing about that was how she thought he had died half a decade ago, when in reality he’d just died today.

Jevi and I had been sorting through our loot when the old lady had joined us in the basement, and had spent a few minutes making old person small talk, commenting on the dire number of rat hides Jevi had prepared and the like. Until she recognised Ratmaker, that is. Or Karbnuckel as his name turned out to be.

Somehow, she recognised him despite the fact that the man hadn’t washed in weeks and was sporting a beard that he definitely wouldn’t have maintained at the age of eighteen. Somehow, she peered straight past five odd years of ageing, as well as the burn marks Jevi’s repeated cantrips had inflicted on his face, and came to the conclusion that we had murdered her grandson and ended her line.

The fact that she wasn’t wrong and was withholding the prize for fulfilling the request because of it didn’t make me feel any better. She’d even demanded that we leave everything of his behind, and both Jevi and I had felt too bad to really argue about it.

I still took the alchemy set and all his reagents, along with his notes. Old lady Saphir wasn’t the type of person to make use of that stuff anyway.

Jevi wasn’t much different, if her new walking stick was any indication. At least she’d taken the rat skull off of it.

“I’m still surprised you packed the armour properly.” Jevi commented. She, I was coming to find, was the kind of person who could tell when you were thinking about them and used it as an excuse to talk to you. Avien had been one such person until I’d left him behind.

“Did you think I got this good with my blade without learning about armour too?” I demanded haughtily. The thing that bothered me most about the armour was that I didn’t have anyone to help prop it up when I was doffing it from the corpse. That made it take ages, and I winded myself three times pushing the dead guy over.

Jevi pondered the question. “Hm. I suppose it makes sense.”

I smirked. Joke’s on her because I did learn everything about my blade without any consideration for armour. Brynn had instead placed an immense focus on training my evasion.

“Who taught you, anyway?”

I thought about how to answer. “Dad was in the army. Silver’s reach, not…” I waved my hand dismissively. Was there a name for the conscription army? Was it even a standing army? Or just one with high turnover? “I was lucky enough to be the one that helped him put armour on and off...”

… Of Taranath. The first time at least. Dad had helped me figure it out with his own armour before we moved on to the ridiculous ornamental set. He and I had both needed regenerations for our fingers after that one.

Jevi was giving me a confused look, so I made belated air quotes with my free hand. The other dedicated to sharing the burden with the mysteriously irritating girl, and was quickly joined by its pair before the package destabilized.

“Your dad taught you how to handle that?” Jevi asked, eyeing my dagger.

“No, that was someone else.”

“What’s your dad’s name, anyway? And who taught you to fight?”

I almost answered automatically, but was taken by a petty impulse instead.

“Dad’s dad. And I was taught by a dying man, then a guy with one thousand, four hundred and twenty six life partners, who also has a clingy ex he hasn’t gotten over.”

Jevi didn’t have the necessary privileges to get to know me yet. From the way she arched her eyebrow and chose to remain quiet, I got the feeling she figured that. For once, she didn’t push it. She looked straight ahead in an uncharacteristic show of restraint, and my petty grin faltered when I felt like something wrong had just happened. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up to further the effect.

I frowned. That wasn’t Jevi, as far as I could tell. Or maybe it was. Looking around, nobody seemed to have noticed anything and everyone was going about their day. It wasn’t Avien, that feeling was different. He would’ve made me abandon my new friend and skip all the way back home.

No. This was different.

I just couldn’t tell what it was.

\V/

Rockwell was a fat man and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. He was just… so fat. I had never seen anyone fat before. Most Chosen Ones got trapped by endless adventures and few were the ones who reached the end without trimming down or at least building muscle by the time they got to Veliki.

It might’ve been prudent to say that I’d never seen anyone who was just fat before. There were one or two people back home who almost reached this specimen’s girth, but I didn’t know the names to put to the faces, or they stayed inside most of the time. Or they spent all day in Chooze your Booze, thus avoiding me.

I’ve also caught a glimpse of a fat man crossing the span of my vision in less than a second. Never learned his name, and I only saw him the once, but the memory stuck stark in my mind. I didn’t see fat people as lazy or incapable, just indulgent. But this guy was all three.

Jevi was arguing with Rockwell, and was making his face glow red with what she was saying. I only caught every few words, but it seemed my self-proclaimed companion believed Rockwell was cheating us. It seemed she was using the names she gave to Saphir earlier today, Emer and Rubes, to describe us. The fact that the client for the job we did was withholding pay had come up at some point, along with accusations about misleading something or rathers, but again...

Rockwell was fat.

I had no idea why this simple fact was so distracting.

Simple fact…

Simply fat…

How?

The next thing I knew, Jevi had her hand wrapped around my upper arm and was pulling me out of the room, back out into the main hall of the Pierced Portcullis Guild of Merchant. Only when the door closed and my line of sight was broken did my wits return to me.

“You alright there, Rubes?” Jevi leaned in close, peering into my eyes.

I blinked and waved her away. “What? Yeah, I’m alright.” I glanced back at the door as I leaned against the balcony railing opposite. I needed a moment. “Just- How?”

Jevi shrugged and leaned against the railing next to me, close enough that our shoulders were basically touching. The building we were in was three floors tall, but the middle of the building had the floor knocked out, so entering had seemed like entering a grand hall or something. The merchants had permanent stalls for things I didn’t care about on the ground floor, and had a lot of foot traffic, while various merchants had offices on either side of the building, and two sets of staircases allowed for access to the various levels. Rockwell’s office had been on the middle left of the third floor.

Which again, struck me as strange. He used those stairs… right? Up and down at least once every day. Twice if he went out to buy lunch.

Though that was unlikely if he had servants to bring him food.

So still at least once. This didn’t make any sense.

Rockwell aside, this building wasn’t even that impressive. Though I suppose living in a town where the weekly market day was a constant back and forth of druids, wizards, and all manner of casters with creation and fabrication magics one-upping each other to build the most extravagant stalls had spoiled me a little. It had become this whole thing where there were two teams of casters alternating between being the artist, then the demolition party.

The word ‘party’ fit in more ways than one.

“If we’re being candid, can you please tell me what exactly has come over you this time?” Jevi asked, rolling her head around to end the motion, as well as the question, staring right at me. It brought me back to the moment, and the important question at hand. “I can’t have my bodyguard get charmed like this every time something is happening.”

“How is he so fat?” I asked bluntly.

Jevi blinked. “Wait, really? That's it?”

I pointed at what let us reach the height we were at. “He has to walk up those stairs, or am I missing something?”

“Is that why you went all misty eyed? I mean, it let me get a better deal, using your blank face to guilt him out of more coin, but really?”

“His fingers didn’t match the size of his palms!” I exclaimed. “He’d move them and-” I shivered at the memory. That wasn’t a sight I was soon going to forget, unfortunately. “And then when he tried to shift his seating, it looked like he was undergoing a Choosing event. I’ve never seen anyone put so much effort into doing so little!”

“Strange choice of metaphor.” Jevi commented, and I waved a hand dismissively. It wasn’t like I had much of a frame of reference, having lived in the same place, relatively cut off from the larger world for fifteen years. “But if that sight disturbs you, you’re gonna have a hell of a time if you ever visit the courts of, well… anywhere. Nobles are in a league of their own. And noble merchants, let me tell you...” She trailed off, looking somewhere into the middle distance.

It was my turn to give her a suspicious look. “So how much coin did we make anyway?”

Jevi snapped into a grin as she turned and pressed a small sack of coin into my hand. “That’s the original pay, plus the coin I guilted Rockwell into giving your braindead face. Fifteen gold in total.”

I cut the back of her hand for that, but she took it in stride and didn’t stop talking. Going by the reaction, I supposed that I had been using the same trick for a while now. The only question was, how would I reprimand Jevi if cutting her relentlessly wasn’t on the table?

Come to think of it, why was I allowing myself to stay with this girl? I definitely didn’t like her that much, and I couldn’t afford to stay here much longer.

Jevi continued, heedless of my thoughts. “These are the results of the rat harvest, which includes the armour sale. One hundred and thirty gold for you, and one hundred and thirty five for me. I get the extra five from being the only one talking.” She produced two much larger sacks, and went on to complain how she got shortchanged for the armour because of its smell, which shouldn’t have even been a point of consideration according to her.

I wasn’t following because I got distracted by a flash of silver hair in the crowd below.

Hissing involuntarily, I immediately moved away from the balcony. There was no way he wouldn’t recognise the back of my head. He’d called after me too many times not to. Instead, I pressed myself against the wall and slid down just a little. From there I couldn’t see the crowd below, which freed me to grit my teeth in frustration.

This was too soon! Avien should’ve only been twelve hours behind me, but I hadn’t been in Breach for twelve hours yet! Not to mention that there was no reasonable way that he’d know I’d be here, unless Mary had scried on me in the short time I’d held the notice that started this gods damned sequence of events.

There were limits to how much bullshit power Mary had! There had to be. To find me so quickly she would’ve-

Wait. I was being stupid. The feeling I had when we were walking to this place, that would’ve been Mary scrying on me. I don’t know why that was the first time I realised someone was scrying me, but it clearly gave her enough information to let Avien know where I was headed. A bundle of ruined armour and rat hide was more than enough information for someone as smart as Mary.

Even as dumb as she was when it came to everything not directly related to spellcasting. She probably summoned him an artificial horse, too.

Jevi was still chattering away, so I stepped up to the balcony next to her and looked down. Five seconds of searching didn’t help me locate my nemesis, and he wasn’t on the opposite balconies. That meant he was either in an office with one merchant or another, or he was ascending the stairs to where I was through sheer dumb luck.

It would fit, considering everything I knew about him and me. Thoughts on that could wait, we needed to move. Fortunately, I knew this place had a backdoor. Between Jevi and me, we could charm our way out through there, or I could go myself. Either way, Avien would get fucked.

I touched the back of my hand to Jevi’s shoulder and started walking to the back of the guild hall. She understood my intent, even if she had somehow missed my sudden outburst, and quickly fell in step. We almost made it around the corner before another feeling overcame me, this one different to the one I’d had less than an hour before. It was much more familiar.

Something was putting their hand on my strings.

Then I stepped around the corner and the hand retreated. It took my breath with it, and I had to stop, lest I fall down the stairs.

“Amber. What’s wrong this time?” Jevi demanded, finally ending her rant about the shitty exchange she got for the armour. Apparently it’s original price would’ve been in the realm of seven hundred gold. That was literally the only thing I remembered her saying.

It occurred to me that taking away my breath could just be a stalling tactic to let Avien catch up to me, so I forced myself to keep walking. Jevi needed placating, so I gestured a finger to indicate her to wait a minute, then tried to gesture a more complicated message.

“What?” Jevi asked.

“We’re leaving through the back.” I announced, still half out of breath. “Service entrance. The place we had the rats counted.”

“Why?”

“Same reason you didn’t let me call the guards.”

Jevi opened her mouth to rebuke, then clicked it shut. I suppose that was the second time I had successfully shut her up. I only wished it was as satisfying as the first, but now wasn’t the time.

We reached the bottom of the stairs without issue, and passed through a door leading behind the main hall. From there I could see the way out, and made a few polite waves that said ‘I have somewhere to be’ to keep people from stopping us. Then I contradicted myself by stopping by the last guy in our way, a teenager a few years my senior that had elected to tear the arms of his shirt off.

“Point me to a tailor?” I asked abruptly.

“Huh?” He asked, making me itch to find a way of literally stabbing stupidity. He’d fucking watched me walk right up to him, and I waited a second before speaking.

Next thing I knew Jevi’s hand was on my upper arm again, and she was practically draping herself against my side. “Don’t mind her, we were just looking for somewhere to replace these. They got incredibly dirty when we were wrestling earlier.”

If anything, that just made the guy’s mind sputter out all over again. And we were in a public place with people close by, so I couldn’t stab her for misbehaving.

“Uhh…” By the gods, he sounded exactly as smart as he looked. Wait, I already knew that from the first time he spoke. The only difference was that now I knew his condition was permanent. Thankfully, after another five seconds of him putting his mind back together he raised one well muscled arm and pointed down the road. “There’s a tailor down that way.”

“Thank you!” Jevi gushed before I could say anything. “Are there any corners or anything? My friend here,” she shoved me playfully and I almost fell over, “has some trouble with directions. Especially when a hunk like you is giving them.”

I had no idea what was going through either of their minds, but I wanted to stab the both of them.

“Nah…” The guy said, his face bright red. “But there’s a sign.”

“Thank you.” I said shortly, then stalked away with an annoying girl still clinging to me.

“So why the tailor?” Jevi asked when it was just us again. She didn’t let go, not even when I tried wrenching my arm free.

It had come to me when I was looking over the throng of people in the merchant guild hall, walking about the various stalls and making payments for whatever was sold in a stall in a guild hall. Honestly, it galled me that I hadn’t thought of it earlier, and that it took me seeing an example for my brain to catch up.

I simply said, “Cloaks.”

\V/