Jake tensed.

Were they discovered?

Of course, his tensing would do no good. He needed to command them. He would—

Emily grabbed his arm, clinging to him. This was unusual. “Master,” she breathed, loud enough for the guards to hear but quiet enough that they might think it wasn’t meant for them. “Surely they don’t mistake us for those cowardly runaways I heard about. Please don’t punish me for being so bold, but I told you that traveling while those criminal were loose would be a mistake.”

He lept into Emily’s body so he could communicate with her silently.

What the hell are you doing?

** Getting us in, idiot. Now reprimand me, as harshly as you can, and don’t worry about any physical pain you might inflict.

Oh. Of course.

He hopped back to his own body and pretended that his anger was growing. He shoved her away roughly, the slapped her across the face. It only did 1 HP damage, but the sound was shockingly loud. “Never speak to me like that, woman. You don’t get a pass just because you’re dying.”

The level 9 Guard laughed. “Still think they’re the runaways?”

“The reward is up to three hundred gold pieces, and they’re going to publicize the search to civilians eventually. You don’t want to risk that.”

“They’ve all got collars.”

“They’re owned by a northerner!” The level 4 guard pointed to Jake, as if that proved they were criminals. “A northerner!”

“There are exceptions. If this man owns this many slaves at such a low level, he is clearly the son of an important ally. Perhaps you’d like to hold him up for days while you fetch an updated list of approved northerner slaveholders? While his slave dies from scorpidog poison? I wonder what the consequences of that would be?”

The level 4 guard grimaced, pouted. “I wonder what the consequences of three hundred gold pieces would be.”

“None, if you’re in jail for political crimes.”

This level 9 guard was awesome.

They got waved through, and the level 9 pointed them to the apothecary.

There they found a wide array of salves and medicines. The herbalist recognized Emily’s condition immediately and whipped up a fresh batch of scorpidog antidote. Emily drank it in the shop, and her status effect disappeared. She laughed in relief as it lifted.

“That’s fourty-five copper, out of our total of one seventy,” said Clawdia. “We should be sparing in how we spend the rest of it.”

The shopkeeper eyed them suspiciously.

Jake jumped into Emily’s body. She seemed to have the best overall idea of how these interactions were supposed to go.

Why’s he looking at us funny? Do you think he has our descriptions? Or is it because Clawdia is acting like she’s in charge?

** The guard said they hadn’t told civilians yet, so it’s not that. For Clawdia, some slaves are assigned the purse. It is uncommon, but not rare. The most suspicious part is that she’s a Neko. Act like she’s a well-behaved servant, treat her politely but dismissively, and the shopkeeper will assume you asked her for this advice.

He jumped back to his own body. He’d have to cover for the seconds that he'd spent communicating with Emily.

“Repeat the situation, please,” he said high-handedly. “I was immersed in important thoughts.”

Clawdia grimaced, then suppressed her displeasure. She knew the game, however badly she played it. “If it pleases my Master, I would like to report that we have one hundred and twenty five copper left. We have yet to visit the grocery, which we need, and the armory, which you have indicated is where you would like to spend most of your day’s coin.”

“Thank you.” He patted Clawdia’s head, then scratched her behind the ears. Her eyes got big and indignant, but she said nothing. “You are a most cherished pet.”

Clawdia held a fake smile until they exited the shop, and then turned on Jake. “I am going to kill you.”

“People have to believe I own you, and scratching behind the ears is what we do to pet cats in our world.”

“That is a very intimate gesture.”

“Fine, fine. I won’t do it again.”

He sighed in relief once they rejoined the bustle of the street. Emily was healed, and they were out of the wilderness. Their descriptions hadn’t made it past the guards, and as long as they weren’t isolated from the crowd, like at the gates, they probably wouldn’t be recognized.

He could finally take a moment to appreciate the city. The town didn’t have much tech, but it was solidly built. The mud-brick houses had clean lines, and the large town square, though crowded with merchants hawking their wares and farmers trying to sell of produce, had a vibrant quality to it.

Or perhaps the city wasn’t that great, objectively… he was just relieved to have Emily safe. He’d never cared for someone in trouble like that before, never watched over them as their life slipped away, saving them anew every few minutes.

Sometime during the day’s walk, their Connection Rating had stabilized at 27.

They stopped at several farmer’s stalls and grabbed food. It was mostly stuff that could stay at the bottom of their bags, but they bought some fruit and fresh meat that they gobbled up as quick as they could. They hadn’t thought about it much while running for their lives and tending to Emily, but they’d needed food badly. Not badly enough to get a status effect, though… that was nice, that the rules here were lenient about that sort of thing. Back home he would have been completely useless after a day without eating, although he’d heard of people (crazy people) that went three days with little problem. He must be a crazy person now.

That was fine, if being crazy got him laid like this.

They tore into the food. Clawdia preferred meat, Emily favored bread that was slathered in butter, while Ayla would eat anything she laid her hands on. Within five minutes Ayla’s face was completely covered with sauce, and the second Jake noticed she turned red and started hurriedly wiping it away.

It was cute.

The second he thought that her wiping slowed, and she went to nuzzle him.

Not that cute! Wipe the face first!

She laughed and wiped her mouth, then kissed him briefly before going back to her food — slightly more carefully now.

“I will get that Connection Rating,” said Emily. She’d waited to speak until she had chewed and swallowed her bread properly. “I want to know what you two are laughing at.”

“It’s probably idiotic,” said Clawdia, mouth full of meat. “You’re jealous of the stupidest things.”

They finished eating and Clawdia updated them on the money situation. “We’ve got food for five days and ninety-five copper left. I recommend we start going towards the armorer. They’re a more permanent shop, so they won’t be in this courtyard.”

“No enchanted food?” asked Ayla in disappointment. Some food gave special stat bonuses for a few hours after eating it, and it was supposed to taste especially good.

“Getting magical equipment is a priority. Permanent gains are preferable to short-term boosts.”

“I agree,” said Jake. “Let’s get some equipment, and if we have money left over then we can buy some enchanted food.”

Everyone seemed happy with that arrangement, so they set off.

Clawdia prowled down the street, Ayla skipped merrily, and Emily walked, dignified, with a straight back. How had they decided to run away together? They were so different.

Ayla grabbed his arm and kissed his cheek. “They chose me because I’m such a good judge of character.”

Emily glared at them.

“He wanted to know why we escaped together.”

“We were put in the same training cell block,” said Emily. “Eight of us total. After Clawdia slipped her collar, she tried to free everyone, but the other five were too scared to come along.”

Was it weird that Ayla had just casually lied like that?

She laughed nervously and stroked his cheek while grabbing his crotch. “It’s just for fun. In all the important matters I am one hundred percent yours.”

“You two are irredeemable,” complained Clawdia. “You’re going to fuck in the streets, we’ll get arrested for indecency, and then we’ll all get tortured to death all because you couldn’t wait until we got to the inn.”

The inn! Of course. “Yes, let’s wait,” said Jake.

While walking, he snuck a peak at their accumulated AP.

He had 170 AP in Priest, and that could buy either Dispel or Group Heal and Holy Fire, a move that did Special-Holy damage.

He was the one with the Priest job sphere activated right now, but Ayla and Clawdia had both taken turns healing Emily. Clawdia’s AP stats were hidden from him, but Ayla had even more available for Priest; she’d accumulated some before their latest ordeal — or maybe it was because of females’ ability to earn AP faster — so she had 268. She could buy the spells available to Jake, but she could also buy Renew, a heal-over-time spell, or Awe, a spell that made it near-impossible for those within range to attack her for ten seconds.

Ayla also had 151 AP in Mage, so she could buy Electric Blast or Arcane blast. Electric Blast was a lightning-element spell that did high damage and could jump to any enemies that were near the target; in tightly grouped enemies it was a highly effective attack, but it would also jump to any allies that were near the target, and if interrupted it would explode in the caster’s face. Arcane Blast was a channeled multi-shot spell that sent five consecutive blasts at the opponent, interrupting whatever they were trying to do — a tactic that was especially effective against other spell-casters.

Emily had 110 AP in Rogue. It made sense that her available AP was lower than Ayla’s, because she’d already bought the 300-AP Shadow Flash. Of the unbought moves available, she could only get Sticky Trap.

Which should he buy? On the one hand, he could always buy them during battle, when he needed a specific new move for the situation. Saving them up for that flexibility could be valuable. On the other hand, practicing a move made it stronger and more accurate, especially for the first dozen uses or so.

He decided to wait until they were in a situation where they could practice; that could be the inn for some of the Priest spells, or maybe even Sticky Trap for Emily, but the Mage spells would have to wait until the woods. Maybe he’d consult the girls and see what threats they expected to face.

They reached the armory and they spread out to ooh and aaah at the equipment available.

He didn’t know what was good, so he decided to sit back and jump between Ayla and Emily and see what they were looking at.

Ayla went straight to a staff whose tip glowed red, and he jumped into her head to see what she was seeing.

Blaze Staff

Attack Power: 5

Stat changes:

-- Power-Element +2

-- Power-Element-Fire +10

Effect: Use Power-Elemental-Fire to for melee attacks instead of Power-Physical-Impact

Price: 1.57 gold

Wow. That was a good staff.

The power was only okay, but the Effect was amazing. For an average Mage it would multiply their melee attack by 2.5 before taking into account the increases in Power-Element-Fire. For Ayla, because of her base stat change, it would multiply it by 3. If they matched it with even more equipment that increased Power-Element-Fire it would be even more powerful.

Not to mention the fact that it would immediately make her fireball more powerful. Depending on whether the Connection Multiplier and Class Multiplier worked on equipment bonuses, it could be anything from a 17% to a 150% increase in her fireball’s power.

** Oh hey, are you in here?

What? How did you know?

** You stopped thinking for too long. So… you see this staff? Can I have it?

We have 95 copper left. Is that more than 1.57 gold?

** Maaaaybe not.

That’s what I thought. We’ll save up.

He jumped to Emily’s head. She was looking at some bracers with vicious spikes sticking out from them. The tips of the spikes looked covered in constantly-smoking oil.

Slick Revenge

Stat changes:

-- Dex-Dodge-Melee +10

-- Dex-Dodge-Melee x1.5

Effect: Dodges have a chance (base: 50%) to trigger a Power-Special-Shadow attack that will slow the attacker.

Price: 2.81 gold

This one was amazing. In a close-quarters situation, which was where Rogues excelled, this would both massively reduce damage taken and increase damage given and slow the attack rate.

Unfortunately, the price.

Sorry, too expensive.

** A woman can dream. And hey, you know… I am a Rogue. Kind of shocking there’s no theft prevention on these things.

I bet there is. If the shop had stuff like this just sitting around, you could bet it had some sort of protection that would summon Guards… especially on stuff meant to be worn by the make-theft-easy job. Probably an AOE stealth-cancelling device or something. Don’t risk it.

He couldn’t see into Clawdia’s head, so he switched to his own body and walked over to her. He was distracted by Ayla: “How about this?” she asked. “Can I have this?”

It was some sort of glowing ball.

“No single-use items,” said Clawdia.

“But it explodes and paralyzes them!”

A magical grenade? Cool, but Clawdia was right. “Put it back,” said Jake. “Maybe we can do that sort of thing once we have a bunch of money.”

Finally he got to Clawdia and saw what she was trying on.

It was some sort of leather vest with runes inscribed upon it.

Ancient Vest (counterfeit)

Stat changes:

-- Defense 1.1x

-- Defense-Physical +10

Effect: None

Price: 55 copper

“Glad to see someone’s being sensible,” he said.

Clawdia looked at him, surprised at the praise. Then she narrowed her eyes, and started tracking something behind him.

It was a Guard, holding a sheet of paper. “Three hundred gold,” he said to the shopkeeper. “If at least one of them’s alive, that is. One hundred if they’re all dead.”

The shop-keeper pointed to them, and the Guard — level 13 — laughed and pulled his weapon. “That was easy.”

“I changed my mind,” said Jake. “We can afford anything you can carry.”