I was just about ready to set out when Aurora returned from downstairs. She was laughing. “You have to come and see…” she trailed off, staring at me.
“What?” I asked, concerned. I did a quick check and confirmed that I was indeed wearing pants. Not that I minded if she saw me in my underwear, I just didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at my left arm.
I looked at where she was pointing. “Oh, right. I haven’t shown you the project I’ve been working on.” Wrapped around my wrist and looped on part of the cord around my thumb was a rosary I’d made. The beads were mostly white pearls for “Ave”, but there were black pearls as well for “Pater”. I’m not planning to go into anything about the significance of anything, just trying to give an accurate description so you can picture it. It’s constructed with a mithral chain and mithral crucifix.
Yes, I shaped that myself. I can do more than armor and weapons. In fact, if I ever return home, I could probably make a decent living as an artisan jewelry maker. Assuming the whole “shaping the fabric of reality to my whims” thing didn’t pan out as a viable career option.
I explained to Aurora what it was and she seemed pretty interested. I don’t think I’ve talked about it before, so now might be an opportune time to talk about her faith. She was raised in the faith of Abadar, god of civilization, by her father and the family servants, but it’s not like she reveres him alone. In fact, she pays reverence to almost every major deity on the “Good” axis as well as a few on the “Lawful” one. Yeah, I know, alignments being a tangible thing is absurd. But when you have this many gods, it helps to be able to classify them, and they like to be able to classify us.
I was impressed that she noticed the subtle difference in one of the Ave beads. “That’s your regeneration pearl, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I intend to enchant every one of these beads into a Pearl of Power eventually. That’s why I’m wearing it on my wrist. It’ll be easy to get to if I need it. Under my shirt might be harder to reach.” Yes, I’m aware that means that I intend to make fifty nine pearls of power. Yes, I’m also aware that ‘Pearl of Power’ is kind of a silly name. Tell that to my Wondrous Items instructor back at the academy. Yeah, don’t get me started on that name either.
“Do you think your god will object to using an article of faith as a magical aid?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything in the Bible about it.” Yeah, flimsy ground, but let’s be honest here, I’ve never been much of a model Catholic. “You know, we have a few days ahead of us on the trip to Turtleback Ferry. If you want, I don’t mind explaining to you everything I can about my religion. I mean, I’ve already bored you with a complete detailing of the plot of Babylon Five, and if you’re coming to Earth with me, a basic understanding of Christianity might serve you better than that.”
She nodded, looking grateful, probably more because that would be better than the awkward silence we had dealt with all morning after resolving our fight. Suddenly, she seemed to remember something. “Oh, yeah, the innkeeper wants you to come downstairs and deal with Lenn.” She laughed again.
I sighed. “Do I even want to know?”
“Just come downstairs. Trust me, it’s worth it.”
One day, I will have children. I do not believe that these children will ever give me as much trouble as Lenn. I had prepared a number of apologies in case Lenn managed to offend someone at the party. I was even ready if it had come to blows. I was not ready for what actually happened, though.
Upon seeing me, the innkeeper rushed into the kitchen, urging me to follow. Inside, I found Lenn and half a dozen young noblewomen. Had they been doing what I might expect in that situation, I would have shouted “Way to go stud!” and walked back out, offering to pay the innkeeper for cleaning and having breakfast for the other guests catered while the kitchen was out of commission. But that’s not what was happening.
Instead, there were six young women, in all their party finery, working in the kitchen. I would have killed for a camera and access to the Benny Hillifier app. One of the women was even churning butter. She was wearing a velvet dress and jewelry more valuable than most small homes. And what’s weird is that she and all the others seemed to be enjoying themselves. These are the type of sheltered girls who have never had to lift a finger in their lives. I suspect that they were enjoying the novelty of it all. Hell, it might even become a fad among the young aristocratic women of Magnimar to learn how to cook and clean at this rate.
Lenn saw me gawking and grinned. “Sausage!” he shouted.
“Sausage!” the women shouted back in unison as they continued working.
“Mead!” I countered weakly, my brain having checked out at the sight. One of the women, who had been stewing something at the time, grabbed me a stoppered flagon from the cupboard. I grabbed a couple clean looking tankards from the counter and walked out.
The innkeeper followed me, pleading that I do something.
“I am doing something,” I countered. “I’m not getting in their way. They look to be having fun and I don’t think you want them complaining to their parents. Trust me. Just go with it and have some carriages ready to take them home when they get tired. Right now, I need a drink. You are welcome to join me if you’re brave enough to go grab another tankard.” It was looking like we weren’t going to be traveling today. Eventually Lenn would get tired and decide to sleep. We weren’t going to be traveling with a cranky Lenn.
Aurora joined me as I sat down. We enjoyed the mead and some of the varied foods coming out of the kitchen. The other patrons seemed to be enjoying breakfast as well. Eventually, though, it was just the two of us in the dining room.
“We might as well use this time to further prepare for our journey,” Aurora said to me after hearing my reasoning on why we couldn’t leave today. “We can pick up further provisions and some more horses today and be ready to set out first thing tomorrow.”
I nodded in agreement and took a swig of mead. Suddenly, I heard a sound from above and then Paulie was hanging upside down over the table. I nearly choked on my mead. He ignored that and set a folded piece of paper in front of me. “Tell me,” he said, his voice sounding like he’d been gargling gravel, “What do you know about this symbol?”
I took a few moments to regain my composure. Paulie remained where he was, hanging upside down from the ceiling. He had thrown a grappling hook into the rafters from up on the second floor and had bungeed down, more or less. Between that and the voice, I would have sworn he was trying to be Batman if I hadn’t known that would have been a completely insane conclusion.
I picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it. I quickly recognized what was written as one of the symbols in the notes we had taken from the necromancer hiding underneath the sanatorium. “This is the Rune of Sloth,” I said. “Is there a reason you’re bringing it up now?”
“I don’t know why, but I keep seeing this symbol in fragments of memories. I don’t recall much of my past. My first full memory was waking up in a room with a bunch of dead people around me. This symbol is all I know from before, but I’m not sure how it’s significant.”
I let out a low whistle. “This can’t be a coincidence,” I said. Aurora looked like she agreed with me. “At some point when it doesn’t seem like we’re on a time crunch, we should go look into the place you woke up. Maybe we can find some clues. The fact that your only memory is the Rune of Sloth and the fact that the Rune of Greed has been showing up suggests that there’s something going on here that we need to look into. But first we’ll need to deal with Turtleback Ferry and Fort Rannick.”
Paulie looked satisfied. At least, I think he did. He was upside down, after all. He began climbing back up the rope, still upside down, until he felt he was high enough. Then he swung over to the railing, retracted his grappling hook and disappeared into the area where his room was located.
I gave Aurora a look that said, “What the heck just happened here?” and finished the last of the mead. It was turning into another one of those days. Then Geo came downstairs. He looked like he wanted to talk about something.
“No,” I said, holding up a finger. “Not with the way my day has been going. I can’t take whatever it is you want to talk about right now. The way things have gone today, you’re going to confide in me that a tentacle is growing out of your ass and I’m just going to scream. No. Aurora and I are going to go out and get some provisions for our trip. You make sure Lenn doesn’t do anything objectionable while we’re gone. If I’m feeling better tonight, then you and I can talk all about it.”
Geo nodded. “Tonight then. It can wait.”
“Good.” I began walking away, then stopped as a thought occurred. “You don’t actually have a tentacle growing out of your ass, right?”
“I have not been experimenting with animals yet.”
“Okay, good.” Wait. What? I almost stopped to ask him how that response even remotely made sense, but thought better of it.
As Aurora and I walked out of the building, she stopped me. “You sure that it’s okay not to listen to him now? What if it’s important?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “If it were urgent, Geo would have said something. Probably.”
For the next several hours, we went to several shops, buying things that we might need. I got a few scrolls, we picked up another healing wand and then purchased more horses. For me, we bought a light tan mare with a blonde mane that I named Applejack, because of course I did. Here’s hoping she fares better than Rarity did.
On our way back to the inn, we ran into someone we weren’t expecting to see. At one of the stalls, we spotted a familiar blonde elf talking with one of the merchants. “Shalelu, is that you?” Aurora called out.
Shalelu Andosana, Sandpoint’s resident goblin hunter, turned to look at us. “Thank the gods,” she said upon seeing us. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find you before you left town.”
“We had to attend a party,” Aurora said, giving me a look. “So that bought you time to catch up.”
I decided to head that conversation off before both women were berating me about the necessity of the party. “You didn’t ask Ameiko what inn we would be staying at? I left the information with her in case anyone in town needed to get ahold of us.”
“The Vinder girls were ransacking the inn looking for information on you. She had to destroy the note you left with your contact information.”
“What.” Why on earth would Katrine and Shayliss be…oh. “I think I have a throbbing pain behind my eye. Let’s return to the inn. Geo will be happy to see you,” I told Shalelu, not wanting to continue on our current subject.
She actually seemed kind of nervous about seeing him. Or, perhaps, as Pinkie Pie would say, she was nervouscited. As long as it didn’t lead to anyone from another world stealing her crown or something. I dunno, I’m mostly rambling.
As we walked back to the inn, we asked her why she had been looking for us. Turns out she had heard that we were going to check on Turtleback Ferry and Fort Rannick and wanted to go with us. Aurora and I could see no reason to deny her request, so we agreed without asking the others, sure that they too would be glad for the extra firepower.
Once we returned, Geo informed us that Lenn had gone to bed and all the noblewomen had gone home. He and Shalelu went for a walk in the garden outside the inn while Aurora and I tended to stabling our new horses. Starbrite seemed happy to meet Applejack.
As we brushed down and fed the horses, Aurora and I chatted. “So, is it always like this?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
“Paulie, Lenn and Geo all coming to you like that.”
Oh, that. “Yeah. I wish I could say I’ve gotten used to it. I’m surprised you had never noticed before.”
“I guess I just hadn’t been paying attention.” We worked in silence for a while. She seemed to be deep in thought. “It reminds me of how you helped me through my drinking problem. I was pretty awful back then, wasn’t I?”
It certainly hadn’t been easy. I had really thought that our first conversation had been the end of it. One intervention in the form of discussion and she would kick the habit. All it had really done was switch her over to better smelling booze. The depression continued for about five weeks as she clawed her way up into the light. Some days were better than others.
I hate to say it, but I think the turning point had been the pugwampis. No, I really don’t want to talk about that. I seriously hate pugwampis.
“Moderately so. Though it wasn’t all bad. You weren’t nearly as modest back then.” She looked horrified. “I’m kidding. I didn’t see anything.”
She blushed a bit. “Jerk.” If I had been watching us as anime characters, I would have either D’awwed or Squeed, she was so adorable. After a few moments, she looked me in the eyes and drew closer. “Kyle, I…”
She never completed the sentence, as that’s when we heard Shalelu scream.
We rushed out to the garden and saw Shalelu and Lenn standing there. She was glaring at him and had her back to the wall. He was standing there looking dumbfounded.
“What’s going on here?” I asked. “Where is Geo?”
Shalelu answered. “Geo and I were talking. He read me his poem, which was sweet. Then he leaned in to kiss my cheek. When I opened my eyes, this man was there. I don’t know what kind of sick game Geo is playing, but I am not amused.”
That didn’t sound like Geo at all. Then again, how long had I really known him? Maybe tricking women like this was exactly the kind of thing he got off on. I couldn’t figure out the words to diffuse the situation. Turns out I didn’t have to, because that’s when a window opened on the second floor.
“Trying to sleep!” Lenn called down to us from his room upstairs.
I looked up at Lenn upstairs, then again at Lenn down in the garden with us and it dawned on me. That’s what Geo had wanted to talk about. Of course. Now there were two of them, all because of Geo’s crazy implantation experiment. He had somehow turned himself into Lenn.
So this was what madness felt like. I could do nothing other than throw my head back and laugh.
Up on the roof, I saw Paulie just standing there, trying to look menacing with his cloak billowing in the breeze.
0 Comments