The difference between so-called adepts and the real sorcerer is obvious when you’ve seen both.

Erlang Dong Ye, Wood Sorcerer

“You are sure you saw something?” Peter asked as they slurped the bowl of soup that made the entrée of the meal.

The so-called premium meal of the inn turned out to be a large and copious five-course meal, probably larger than anything short of a full marriage banquet or some feast for a solstice festival or Christmas. Thick soup, cold cuts, hot stews, a variety of cheeses, candied desserts. After travel cooking, that was an unexpected and not unwelcome improvement. And they definitively intended to make the most of it.

“I’m pretty sure, yes. That was exactly like what I saw around the skeleton back after we got knocked out. Well, not exactly… it was much more subdued,” Johanna said.

“Should have checked with the healer…” her boyfriend said.

“Once again, Tom. It’s not a concussion or something. It’s very specific, very local. It’s… like the rest. One special ability. I’m guessing here, but I’m seeing magic. Probably because I can do it.”

“But why would there be magic in the caravan?” Peter asked back.

“Who knows. But there was really something specific, and that… Dwarf person immediately blocked me. There were locals trying to see what happened all over, but he definitively did not want me around that wagon.”

She dropped the bowl – empty – on the table, adding.

“I know I’m right.”

Johanna looked at Tom, who shrugged before replying.

“You see what you see. Been three days already? If you really had a nasty concussion, 't would have been getting better anyway. Wouldn’t have made it otherwise.”

Johanna smiled.

“But I probably should have asked Laura to give you head massages,” he added.

“What?” the other woman blurted.

“If your touch can heal… it could work on concussions, maybe?”

“I did not think about that,” Laura admitted.

“Me neither. Anyway, Jo was good, no real need to have that idea before,” he replied.

Johanna shook her head in disbelief, then raised her mead tankard to hide her expression.

“Boss, I see a girl with an exotic neckerchief at the table to the rear,” Boris said.

Dominik Piturca checked discreetly. Boris was right, one of the women in the group of four at the rear did match more or less the description from Nirvar. He couldn’t verify eyes and face as she had her back to him, but the general style… and one of the men roughly matched also what he’d described of the man with her.

“So, she’s got enough money to dine here, eh,” the other guard commented.

Piturca went with two of the caravan’s guards everywhere since he’d been jumped five years ago, in a smaller town south of there. Usually, the same ones, as members of trading caravans tended to form stable configurations and become a large extended temporary family over time spent on the roads.

“We’re lucky I decided to stay this time. Or maybe it’s not luck? Todor, can you find more about that group from the innkeeper?”

“On it.”

Piturca kept checking from the side the group that went over the meal, large one-liter tankards of the local brew at their sides. He didn’t have to wait too long before Todor Morales came back.

“Group of four, not citizens. Apparently, scavengers from some of the small villages nearby. They got sent here by the local furbisher.”

“Really?”

“Yea. Apparently, the man’s sister is married to the innkeeper’s son.”

“So, he gets a kickback for helping his sister’s business. Good sense. Grievar is it? The man always buys out all of the Alium we can bring from the south.”

“The same.”

“What do you want to do, boss?” Boris asked.

“I don’t know. But I think I would like to ask some questions. After they’re finished.”

Johanna was nursing the last drops of her free mead when she noticed a man coming to her table. Peter and Laura had already left, Laura probably headed immediately to bed. Tom was checking the huge bookshelf that the inn sported. He threw a look her way quickly before looking back at the book spines, appearing unperturbed.

“Miss?”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Hello?” she said, trying not to encourage the man. Although the first thing she’d noticed was his shirt. An obvious antique, salvage from an Ancient site, and well preserved.

“Can I sit here? I’d like to ask a few questions.”

“Uh, why?”

“Well, I’m Dominik Piturca. Of the Piturca Trading Company.”

“Oh. Oh. Please sit down, then,” Johanna blurted.

The man bowed slightly and sat on one of the vacant chairs. Tom was still engrossed with the books and didn’t pay attention, at least obviously, so Johanna was left fretting internally about the caravan master.

“Did your man… dwarf… man…”

Piturca laughed lightly.

“Either work. Dwarves are people, despite anything you’d hear some people tell you. Nirvar’s been with us for over a decade. But yes, he talked to me.”

Johanna grimaced slightly.

“May I inquire why you were interested in our caravan?”

“Well, I knew there are trade routes and all that stuff, and all that fish stuff coming from the west, but I’ve never seen real traders.”

“Just that?”

Johanna was about to reply when she spotted a sudden shift in the light. There was some kind of liquid light pooling around the man’s eyes suddenly as if he had used some strange cosmetic. Then she realized what kind of light she’d just seen. On a Canid. Or around a wagon.

Magic? What’s happening here?

“Yes. I mean, I don’t live in Valetta most of the time. Never seen your caravan before. Or, well, mister… Toigsson??? Do I get that right?”

Dominik was used to watching people carefully for all kinds of telltales, so he instantly noticed the almost repressed start that the salvager had when he decided to check her answer for truthfulness.

That was his ace, in any serious negotiations. Maybe it wasn’t one-hundred percent reliable and he couldn’t use it all the time, but it was there in case of need and he’d learned to trust his sense of right vs. wrong. When he pushed for it, he simply knew of any dissembling attempt.

“Yes, that’s the right name. I guess if you’ve never heard of us, you might have been surprised by him. And I guess he’s a little rough. So, you thought you’d check what, how we live?”

“Well, I’m curious, it’s natural. Not that I think I’d ever take up trading or something.”

“What’s your trade then?” he asked, probing again.

“I’m salvaging. Fifth child, so, well, there’s that.”

“Ah yes. Limited opportunities, I see. Well, if you’re interested in selling salvage, we do go through Grievar, which I assume you know well.”

“Yea. We left newer salvage earlier if you’re interested.”

“I’m sure the man will show me the good stuff tomorrow. You’re thinking of staying in that job long term?”

“Mostly, yes. The western ruins have been looted for over a century, but they’re extensive enough we find good stuff all the time.”

They kept making small chitchat, as Piturca tried delicately to probe for her designs on his caravan. She did not have the slight startle of his first probe again, but he could notice she took slightly longer to answer whenever he decided to specifically check the veracity of a specific answer.

Most intriguing.

“You’re pretty brave to risk yourself in those places. Down south, the Angel basin still spills out more unique monstrous Changed beasts than even the worst mana-rich wilderness here ever does.”

Piturca noted the slight shuddering at that.

“We’ve been careful to avoid anything. We’ve got the experience now. Avoiding the danger, … trying to guess where there might be too much mana? There are not enough pickings in the ruins that serious predators remain for long,” she said.

“Well, for us, we stick to the safe roads. Life is hazardous enough. Are the others that were there along with you?”

She pointed to the side, where Dominik had noticed one of the men going. The guy, who was watching them from the side, raised his hand slightly, before turning back his attention – apparently – to the book he’d picked on the reading shelves.

“That’s Tom. My fiancé. The other two are probably already asleep. We four go together.”

The picture Piturca managed to build before he had to space a bit his probing looked consistent enough. A band of local kids, willing to risk magic and wilderness with childhood friends rather than be a farmhand barely better than a serf. Or at least, that’s what he thought. The one thing that bothered him was that she seemed aware of his probes somehow. No one he’d ever met, even that Asian-born expatriate Erlang had ever suspected anything. You’d think someone with three eyes would be the one who noticed things, but no, not really.

Finally, he decided he wouldn’t be able to get anything else. Maybe Grievar would have something. He’d have to probe carefully, making sure it wasn’t a move by the salvage trader.

“Well, it’s been nice meeting you, and knowing you’re not trying to get hired or something, since we don’t recruit at the moment anyway. So, yes, don’t expect an invitation or anything else.”

Johanna stood up and shook Piturca’s hand as a goodbye.

Dominik Piturca

Male human, 47 years, 7 months

No specialization (trader)

Level: 5 (8000 XP needed)

Mana: 1/5 (+18 per hour)

4 unallocated skill points

XP: 16185

STR: 15 (2000XP needed)

AUT: 15

AGI: 15

PER: 18 (1327XP needed)

Detect Lies (5)

DEX: 14

EMP: 16

The first thing Moore noticed was the skill.

So, that’s what he was using.

Detect Lies

Requires: Perception 16/ Empathy 16/Level 4

Effective: N × Perception + Level (adds mana)

Passive: Enhance your effective Perception by up to (Eff/10) for skill checks

Active: Notice any attempt to dissemble. 5% × (EMP vs AUT) chance of failure, reduced by (Eff)%.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds.

Fixer

EMP 16/Lvl 1

N=2

That was a hell of a complicated skill. He did quickly the math in his non-head. The skill was probably hard to escape, and if the “skill check” described was what he thought it was, he had just enough to guarantee his success. Well, the System classified him as a trader. Not that he could find the actual specialization if it existed, or how it differed from the ‘merchant’ version that the other man had, but he thought the skill was appropriate. And he obviously got good practice with it, given the XP accumulated.

Which brought the question of how mister Piturca had gotten it. And why he’d picked a Strength point. The few character sheets he’d seen all looked like people mashing buttons at random.

He also got another data point on the experience curve. 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000, 8000, that was easy now for a veteran of all kinds of RPGs. A Fibonacci sequence, close to quadratic. If he could find a level 6 descriptor to check with, he’d be able to verify if it required 13k XP. But at least that was consistent with the levels he’d seen sported by all the people in the town, with no one above 8. If each level took as long as the previous two combined…

Of course, he had no idea whatsoever the two had discussed. But he could have sworn it was related to their encounter with the Dwarf. The trader indication obviously meant he could be associated with that caravan Milton had checked earlier. Was she trying to negotiate some deal?

Then, Moore realized he hadn’t paid real attention to the rest of the team, and what one of the other views, in particular, was showing.