§116 Shopping (Patreon)

The day's next appointments were in Moyalwande and Okujuni. Moyalwande reminded Taylor of pictures he'd seen of Venice. Ancient, ornate buildings rose from the water in decrepit white stone, ready to be washed away by one strong wave. From a well-timed entry into a small satellite town, they boarded a fast carriage that took them directly into the city's Arctown, where they met with an tauran woman who looked too young to be a master jeweler.

There was a complicated history surrounding the artisan that Ophelia didn't fully explain. Her talent was so great that it made her contemporaries jealous, and her guild refused to acknowledge her skill. Stuck at a low journeyman rank, her workshop was a third-story walk-up in the city's lagoon, in a building that looked like it would be the first to surrender to the next good storm.

Taylor had commissioned a ring in antiqued gold, designed around a leaf motif, mounted with a lozenge-cut alexandrite gem of such perfect and startling quality, even the jeweler was impressed. The finished piece wasn't opulent, at least not by imperial standards, but it grabbed attention. The longer Taylor examined it, the more details revealed themselves. Each vine was delicately etched. Every leaf was unique. The alloyed gold complemented the gemstone's shifting colors. Taylor had seen plenty of impressive jewelry, but he rarely held anything quite as fine.

"Didn't I tell you she's good?"

"Ulla's better than good. I'm impressed. That's twice in one day." Taylor slid a small paper packet across the counter. The jeweler wanted her payment in trade instead of coin. "Will this be sufficient?"

The tauran woman unfolded the packet and bent over it with a jeweler's loupe to examine six rough stones, smaller than the one mounted on the ring, but of equal quality. After she had gazed at each one and turned them against the light, she leaned her big frame against her chair. The wood groaned in protest.

"It's what we agreed on." Ulla folded the packet and tucked it into her vest pocket.

Taylor shut the small ringbox and slid it into his satchel.

"If I need other gems, would you sell them to me?"

As Taylor could make any type of gem in existence, the easy answer was yes. But if he flooded the market with stones, people would notice. On the other hand, a journeyman without a master probably had a hard time accessing good gems. He had half a mind to help, but he didn't want to stick his neck out. He didn't want to make pointless enemies.

"I'm not interested in green emeralds or colorless diamonds," he told the jeweler, miming his indifference to such pedestrian rocks. "If you have a need for something interesting, I'd consider sourcing it for you. I do enjoy the feat of acquisition." He reached forward and placed a business card for Donbrook and Pearl, his merchants in Celosia, on the desk between them. "You may reach me through these gentlemen. But I make no promises."

That evening, they rode Daisy through the vast grassland of central Okujuni, past occasional green mounds topped with rock formations. Some were old burial mounds disguised as hills. Others were hills decorated with towers of stone in imitation of burial mounds. A few were entirely natural formations. According to the locals, every tor had its own character, and a well-traveled elf could traverse the entirety of that great plain without a compass or stars to guide them, so long as they could see the tors.

But Taylor could barely notice the natural beauty of the place, because Ophelia was in the saddle behind him, her hands on his hips, moving as he moved. That she was beautiful was only half the problem. When she was his tutor, she was the first person ever to spend significant time with him, and his starved heart had latched onto her sudden presence in his life. Taylor understood the emotional mechanics at play, but that didn't help him much. Riding together was still bliss.

She was a risk, but one with a tangible reward. Her connections to arcaic society were undeniable. A couple of weeks and a purse of money for expenses had opened doors and organized meetings. She seemed to know everyone important to a first or second degree.

She also had an agenda. Her interest in him had less to do with him as a person than the promise of regaining her homeland. He reminded himself that, if he weren't strange and powerful, she wouldn't be riding with him. But that didn't make the sunset in her hair any less amazing.

Near dark, they dismounted outside the remote town of Atsumiu. Taylor stopped Daisy in a field where she lay on her belly, put her head down to the ground, and went still like a statue. He charged the construct with mana and left her there, confident she wouldn't move unless he commanded her.

“That ring is not in my size,” she teased him on the way into town. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“The princess who tipped me off that someone in the imperial family was making a move. She didn’t just tell me, she also told her father and turned in her sister. It was probably not an easy choice.”

“And you think you can reward an imperial princess with jewelry? It’s a beautiful piece, I’ll grant you that. And the gemstone is rare enough. But, Taylor, she’s a princess. She’s surrounded by luxury.”

“That’s true, but I have it on good authority that none of her jewels belong to her. She’s one of the emperor’s unintended offspring you read about. They took her into the palace because she showed some talent, but she doesn't own much herself. The ring will mean a lot to her. Or so I've been assured by her summoned spirit."

“You couldn’t come up with something more practical? You know she could take it the wrong way.”

“I’m also giving her some decent mana stones, on behalf of her summoned spirit. That’s practical.”

“Look, Taylor. It’s smart to reward the people who help you, especially when they’re outsiders who don’t owe you anything. But you have to be extra careful around the imperial family. Any contact with them could blow up in your face.”

“I know. And I think Emperor Osmund knows that, too. I was in the mirror room when the governor talked to him about the kidnapping, and he didn't ask if I was there, even though there were hints. I think he's avoiding me, and I'm content with that.”

An emperor would not tolerate someone they could not order around, and it was expected that Taylor’s highest loyalty would be to the gods rather than any earthly power. That led to a weird kind of relationship, where the best way to get along was to never deal directly with each other. That way, Taylor could never offer an accidental insult, and the emperor could never make accidental demands.

“That sounds like Osmund. He learned early not to get into unnecessary situations.”

Taylor came to a dead stop. “You know him!?”

“I knew him, when he was young,” explained the arc. “I tutored the imperial household for a couple of years.”

“So how did an imperial tutor …”

“Former imperial tutor,” she interrupted.

He resumed walking. “How did a former imperial tutor end up teaching a legate’s cursed son?”

“Your curator put up a job posting, and it ended up on the Dwergbank network. It said there were special circumstances, so I inquired further. When she said you could do magic before you could read and write, it sounded interesting enough to try.”

"I didn't know she was aware I was practicing magic that soon."

"Curator Jane? She knew."

“And you didn't mind the curse?”

She laughed. “That only made you more interesting.”

“You’re an odd one.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Pop question: if you could have a class, any class, what would you choose?”

“Explorer,” she said without taking a breath. “What‘s your class?”

“Undeclared.”

“Fine, keep your secrets. But if you want my help, you’re going to have to start telling me things.”

“I am! That’s actually my class. Undeclared. I didn’t want Knexenk trying to plan my future, and that’s what I came up with. I can learn any skill, acquire any title, and invent my own quests. But I don’t get the guidance most people do, and I don’t have a set path.”

“Can I ask what level you are?”

“Fifty-nine.” He felt a savage pride as Ophelia stopped to look at him, to check if he was joking. He wasn’t. At the age of twelve, when most people were just getting their classes and climbing partway through the first level, Taylor was blocked at the threshold to the fourth tier. “And I have superior skills that are over sixty.”

It was harmless, telling her these things. She had signed a contract to keep his secrets, sealed by an offering to Chowgami, the god of contracts.  But that didn’t mean it was a good idea to tell her a bunch of things she didn’t need to know. That was the unique danger she posed: he did things around her that were illogical.

Their goal was an old elven healer, but his shop was closed when they arrived. They took dinner at a small inn and showed their travel documents to rent rooms.

Okujuni was the elven homeland and a client state of the empire. The governed themselves under their own laws and traditions, and paid tribute to the Dorian emperor. Non-citizens needed permission just to enter the country. The papers were imprinted with the bearer's likeness, home country, expiration date, and other information, but the innkeeper barely looked at them.

Taylor had read that elves didn't like hosting other races in their homeland, but he hadn't seen much evidence of that during his limited contact with the country. It was just as well the innkeeper didn't care. Taylor's papers said he could "travel freely," but they hadn't entered through an assigned border crossing. They had come through a portal tree that Taylor secretly planted. It was undoubtedly more freedom than the consulate had in mind.

That night, Taylor warded his door and windows, as he always did when he was in a strange place, and had no trouble falling asleep.

The first thought in his head when he woke up was that elves must be stupid. Unable to bypass his wards, several elves had broken through a wall and charged into the room where he was sleeping. Two more were attempting to enter through the window. Maybe the noise had woken him up. Maybe their mild bloodlust had interrupted his sleep. Taylor didn't concern himself with the why of the matter. 

He was on his feet and had the first intruder in his Unseen Hand while he was mostly asleep. He tossed the elf through the window (it was only warded from intrusion, not a rapid exit), knocking away the two who were trying to break into the second-storey window. More streamed in through the opening, one after another, and Taylor flicked them out the open window, one, two, three, and so on up to seven. One unfortunate fellow missed the window and smashed against the wall instead, but Taylor corrected the situation by throwing him a second time, with greater force and accuracy, sending him into a building across the street.

The elves weren't giving up. He could feel more of them through his bare feet, entering the ground floor in a rush.

"Idiots." Taylor checked his mask and his beads and his pajama bottoms to make sure everything was in place, the same automatic motions he went through when answering the door. He threw himself out the window and landed in the semi-darkened street as the last of his attackers (those who were still conscious and not too broken to stand) pressed into the inn. Taylor followed behind the last one, through the ground floor, and onto the stairs.

"Where is he?" asked someone ahead of him.

"You don't think the piggy escaped, do you?"

"Maybe he jumped."

Taylor spoke up in arcaic. "Who are we after, again?"

"Valuable slaves, you dimwit!"

Taylor touched the elf in front of him, a woman with greenish skin and wheat-blonde hair, whose pointed ears stuck out almost perpendicular to her head. He put her into a ten-hour sleep and tossed her down the stairs behind him. He did the same to two more on the stairs, while the party ahead of him searched his room.

"We found a magic bag!"

"What's in it?"

"It won't move!"

"Pull harder!"

Taylor's satchel would keep them distracted for a while. It couldn't be opened by anyone but him, and it took on the full weight of its contents if a stranger tried to lift it. Taylor forced another elf to sleep and pried a short sword from his hand as he fell, so he wouldn't hurt himself. That put him at the top of the stairs, at the end of a hallway full of elves all looking the wrong way.

He knew he should be angry. That was the appropriate response to waking up in a fight, but he wasn't even roused yet. It was hard to take such weak specimens seriously. It was no more serious than a random brawl: uncalled for, yet not terribly serious.

"We got one!"

Four bleeding elves dragged Ophelia from her room, hands and mouth bound. She kicked one in the knee and brought him down with a scream, then headbutted another in the sternum, hard enough to double him over. A tall elf near her, another one with green-and-wheat coloring, drew a dagger.

That changed things. From down the hall, Taylor layered several enhancements on Ophelia. They might not be able to hurt him, but they could and would harm Ophelia. After the kidnapping incident with Kasper, he was losing his patience with fools. It was long past time for people to learn not to take what belonged to him.

Taylor Flared the narrow hallway with enough force to blind and deafen everyone and bust open the inn's doors. The building rocked. Other patrons woke with a shout. Glass broke. Voices cried out, louder and louder, straining to reach deafened ears.

He waded into the corridor of screams in a dance of steel and magic, through clumsy counters, deflecting blows and taking limbs. A hand from one, a leg from another, five fingers from a third. He cursed the wounds as he worked, made their flesh forget having hands, arms, legs, toes, and fingers. What he cut could not grow back without superior levels of healing.

He reached the end of the hall, where Ophelia had freed herself and was occupied with punching the dagger-bearing man. As she was well-enhanced, and her fighting form was better than he expected, Taylor decided not to interfere further with her situation. He turned and entered his rented room. Three elven men were so intent on lifting his satchel that they didn't see him. They had managed to slide it a foot from where they started, but couldn't lift it up to get it out the window.

The three thieves were shouting advice at each other at the top of their lungs, despite their mutual deafness. Bored with dismemberment, Taylor wrapped each one in bands of light that seared their flesh and ensured the marks were permanent. He pushed them aside and stood at the window, looking down at the street. Most of the initial entry team were still down there, unable to run on their broken legs. He stunned the elves and wrapped them in scarring bands of light. Then he stunned those near him. He didn't care if they were in pain, but he tired of the screaming. 

Taylor shouldered his bag and pulled his greatsword from inventory. Then, he stunned every conscious elf on the upper floor. Ophelia had left the dagger-wielding elf on the floor with his own weapon in his throat. She came out of her room shaken but dressed, her overnight bag in one hand.