Chương 33: Curmudgeon

In retrospect I should have expected them to expect me. I had kind of made a mess of things, a month ago. I had made enough noise demanding information on the Glorious Curmudgeon and its arrival at Port Laci, and then easily traced to Port Noit. So the people who are interested in me would know that this is a priority for me. And even if they didn't expect me to escape from the inescapable citadel, it just makes sense to assign a little extra security. A lot of extra security.

I stepped out of the portal still dressed in the simple unflattering garb from the Hearstcliff prison. My slipper-shod feet landed on the weathered wooden dock, and I started looking around for a specific ship. I'd gotten the profile of it, the masts and draw and rig, so I could identify it even at night. I started my way down the dockway, and then I got attacked by three sorcerers. A certain arrogant part of my nature wants to scoff at them and feel superior.

They each only controlled two or three essences apiece, nothing like my breadth of mastery. On the other hand, they were [Level 9 Sorcerer], [Level 11 Sorceress], and a [Level 6 Sorcerer]. Check my level? Still 3. Outnumbered, outmaneuvered, outgunned, and badly outclassed. They saw me before I saw them. I was stepping out of a portal that was so bright that it catches attention even in midday, let alone the deep end of evening. And I was blinded by that same light.

I uncovered my eyes and saw them already drawing down on me, pulling water, fire and some kind of rocks together. Shit. I didn't have time for a new spell but I was already connected to curve stone, and so I ripped a wall straight up out of the ground while I started casting out another portal. The ground morphed for me, thrusting up a sheet of stone as a barrier between us. The stone exploded beside me almost immediately, the wall came apart in superheated shards, exploding in glowing-orange pieces.

I hit the ground skidding, leaving my portal behind. My escape, hovering in the air while I ragdolled away helplessly. I channeled steel by reflex, and my hardened body was able to bounce over the cobblestones of the jetty without more than bruises, scrapes, and shallow cuts. I didn't get hit- I was nearby to a stone wall that did get hit. As soon as I stopped turning and had my balance I was throwing up stone walls, covering myself, I couldn't even tell which direction the sorcerers were coming from.

I could hear walls cracking around me, but which ones? Impacts like earthquakes rocked me, getting harder, louder, closer. The blows against my walls were strong enough that I could feel them in the ground. I looked between my screen of stone walls and could see a growing light, the fire sorcerer coming my way. I was still catching my breath, and suddenly the barriers I was trusting my life to started to glow a bright, bitter red-orange. I rolled away before they melted, and built more walls.

They smashed one after another, I could hear a sizzling sound and booms, the roar of fire. Shards of broken stone, fast as bullets and sharp-edged, sprayed out right next to me, slashing my cheek and arm. I threw myself away, into the ocean. I could see the firelight up above me, I only had a second. The harsh white light swallowed me and about a hundred gallons of water. The return portal spat me out onto gritty sandy ground, and I heaved for breath.

I felt like I'd been in a car crash, everything moving so fast, loud noises and no time to react. I was still dizzy, and my ears rang. Half my clothes were shredded, and I had so many small cuts on myself that everything stung. And the lumpy, powdery ground beneath me was sticking to everything. I looked around- familiar but not. Trees that I knew, from the wrong angle. Land that held memories, but something was missing. Oh. I had come home.

I knelt, on my hands and knees, wrist-deep in packed ashes dampened to mud. This was where I came for safety, the family home, the house I was raised in. Or the ruins left behind. I was only at that pier for about ten seconds, and almost died four times. So damn fast. Overwhelming. The same kind of force that Sir Chomas had commanded, but this time shooting to kill. Somehow there were tears on my cheeks again, and I stood up and walked to the outbuildings. Most of them still stood.

Most empty- the stables were cleared out and only the metallic smell of the place remained. I stumbled along, staggered. I found the cottage, and saw that the potted plants were still there on the stoop. I stopped, braced a hand against the door frame for balance, and knocked on the door. No voice from inside, just rustling, bumping, a door creaking inside. And then, in her own sweet time, she opened the door. Fwatta glared down at me.

"Oh for fuck's sake," she said.

"Come inside, I guess." After I was restored, she put me at the kitchen table with a mug of tea.

"Everyone else is gone you know," she said.

"They've moved. The original ducal home, the castle. Meadwhite's old place; your family technically has always owned it but never moved in. They're restoring it as they go, opening rooms and setting up a home. The servants, the family, the survivors. They're all there. You've never even been. Doubt you could find it. Nobody left here at the old house except me, the only person you actually need."

"For healing?"

"For drubbing an ounce of sense into your fool head!" Fwatta exclaimed, slamming the kettle down.

"I've fixed ever scabbed knee you've ever had, heard about every accident and every mistake. Your whole life I've heard everyone marvel about how damn smart you are and I've never seen it. Can't you think ahead? Can't you think things through? Never seen such a one for just deciding to want something and running straight at it! You've told me your story, now let me tell you your own story back to you." She fumed as she stomped back and forth, gesturing vividly. I've never gotten more than a dozen words out of her.

"You've gotten famous for having two tricks: a vanishing doorway that you cannot hide and that you always use to bring you right where you want to be, and a vortex of air that explodes when you release it. If someone hired guards to protect against you, they'd tell them to watch out for those two maneuvers. And they'd be right! You survived because of every other ability you have, including the ability to swim!

You're going through life with two big hammers, and you're trying to turn every problem into a nail for one of them! Now, think. You're trying to surprise them. What is the one trick you've got that they would never, ever expect at all?" I checked my listing, all my essence affinities.

"Well," I said.

"I know which one they would never expect, but that's for good reason, it can't possibly be used as a weapon."

"If you think that, they think that," she barked at me.

"Now, sit in that chair until you think of a way to prove them wrong!" I looked at my tea. I glanced at the kettle, hanging on the firespit over the coals, handle dangling from the cast-iron poker that was mostly used for tea, but had been intended-"No," i said. The realization settled over me. I knew. And apparently it showed on my face. Fwatta facepalmed.

"Did you literally figure it out with just ten seconds of thinking?" She sounded disgusted with me.

"Yes."

"You mean you've gotten this far and you haven't even stopped to think for ten seconds about a better way to do this?!"

"It wouldn't kill you to call me by my title just once."

"See if you take that tone with me and I'll undo every healing I've ever given you, all at the same time."

"Yes ma'am. Sorry ma'am. But... why didn't you move to the castle with the rest of the staff?"

"I'm not staff. I've got my cottage and I like it."

"So you're not moving to stay near the duke?"

"Girl: the old duke moved to be near me. He built his big estate manor next door to me so his kin'd have the best healer." I stayed with Fwatta overnight. And I left in the morning. So she was right of course. Instead of just busting in like an avenging angel and expecting my powers to fix everything, I made a plan. If they know me, they'll never expect that. Another thing they'll expect: a twelve-year-old girl with cloud-white hair. So, in the morning I teleported back to Port Noit, and I disguised myself.

But after conjuring some oak galls, I was able to manipulate out a rich brown hair dye, and curved it to apply it evenly over my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Most magic is of the basic elements, hardly anyone builds affinity to anything with the ordinary utility of a tree- and I can use any part of the tree, at will. And I don't think most sorcerers know enough 'natural philosophy' to even know where hair dye comes from.

And after that, essence of flax and sheep to conjure linen and wool, alternately oaken-brown and rust-orange, with some fun accents of hydrangea-blue on the stitching of the small darns and repairs at the shoulders. Leather for a belt and sandals, well-broken-in, and a scarf that covered my ears and the expensive earrings mother had given me. Ta-da.

Unremarkable peasant girl, hand-me-down clothes, specks of personality in the clothing, maybe a little sickly from the skin tone- a noble can be pale, but a pale peasant is doing poorly. A good disguise does not look like you picked up a new outfit to become a disguise, a good disguise looks like a person. Nathan taught me that. But, just to be safe, I allocated my spare Skill Point: I spent it on Disguise. Just in case game mechanics got involved, I wanted to have any advantage I could get.

I whipped up a scarf and a bag that I carried over my shoulder. A bag means I'm on an errand, and have a reason to be walking around. Down the hill, and over onto the road, and I walked down into town. I merged into the foot traffic, workers from the outskirts traveling to their jobs in the city.

Port Noit might be a valuable source of income for the region, but the majority of folks that served tables and mended nets did not want to live within a drunken stumble from the dockside taverns, let alone the salt spray corroding wood and metal alike, and the smell of fish. The closer we got, the stronger it got. I was tempted to curve air just to screen out the smell. It wasn't bad, but it was strong.

I picked a woman walking a little ways in front of me and practiced her walk, consciously finding her movements and mannerisms. I probably did not do very well, but at least it was not Princess Natalie Dressed As A Peasant. Every little bit counts, and if people are not looking for a deception only a thin veneer should do the trick. All very simple right? Hah. Between the conjures and the curves, that is eight spells I'm holding at this point, eight mana spent of my total eleven.

But that mana is taking the place of dozens of hours of prep and effort, spending money and interacting with the people here, all of whom share stories and rumors and some of whom report back to the underworld influences that pervade the city. Spending two or three days here to set up my move would end with the Curmudgeon's crew finding me and coming after me in my sleep with three high-level sorcerers. I don't have a menu screen, no saves to load. Iron-man gameplay, gotta get this right on the first try.

So to get in and out without getting caught requires some special efforts. Step one: I walked down to the jetty where the Curmudgeon was docked, and looked through my ring. Then I walked away, about a quarter-mile, and sat on a park bench watching for anyone that might have been following me. Especially sorcerers. Familiar faces. I took off my ring again, and I watched through. Watched people enter and leave, marked the directions, and conditions.

Then after a while, I walked back a quarter mile, and turned up the street, walked a hundred yards, and fixed a new surveillance point with the Signet of the Seer. Then I picked a different direction and wandered a quarter-mile away. I could really use some breakfast right about now. But I still don't have any money, and with the legal trouble I'm in I do not want reports getting back that I'm passing conjured coins as counterfeit. Massacres are one thing, devaluing currency is dangerous to a kingdom.

And stealing something to eat could absolutely doom the entire mission- of all the people in this town I may have the lowest score for any theft-related skills. I steal cookies because my chef who can't hide her smile turns her back for a couple of minutes and pretends not to hear the jar opening up.

So, all I need is to get caught stealing an apple, and then flee the guards, run into a dashing but poverty-stricken youth with a heart of gold and his pet monkey, and just like that word gets back to the pirate ship that I'm in town and their sorcerers nuke me from orbit before we're past our second musical number. I get weird when I'm hungry, sorry. It took me two more missions to find the right address and confirm it. Late morning, approaching lunch time. Perfect.

I walked around to the back door, the delivery entrance, and I started conjuring. It took a few minutes. When I knocked, the man who opened the door was shifty and suspicious. That was not ideal for me. He was tall and long-jawed, with homespun tunic and breeches, and a bandolier-style baldric over his shoulder with various corkscrews, spits, keyrings, bunghammers, carving knives and a pair of glasses hanging from it.

"Ya want?" he croaked at me. I dropped a shy curtsey, and spoke with an overly-formal register, spacing my words like I was remembering lines I'd been coached in.

"Is this the Swooning Spear?" I asked.

"I have brought provisions for their upkeep so as not to stress your stores. I am to deliver this, for your kitchen, provided that the crew of the Glorious Curmudgeon, and only that crew, are fed from these supplies. The cost of the provisions is not being deducted from your tab." He glared down at me. Suspicious. Paranoid.

"At's a fine ah gen'rous offer," he stated, accusingly. I squirmed under his gaze. It was easy for me.

"Um, I really can't say any more about it. But, ah, I can't take this stuff back." He leaned out the door and looked into the alley behind his shop. A large oaken wagon, fitted and mortised without nails, with a thick canvas cover. He walked over, and flung the top back. Leg after leg and rack after rack of mutton was lined up, wedged in tightly, cool and dry. Sacks of acorn-flour, and large plucked game-bird carcasses were packed in between, filling the wagon.

"No fruits, no greens," he said, glaring at me.

"I believe they're expected to pay for those of their own pockets," I said, blushing. I am a really bad liar. But maybe he would chalk up my mannerisms to me being a young girl who's out of her depth with this assignment? He snorted.

"Pfah. Ah I'm ta cook ah this in ah k'tchen tah sarve tu-um fah free, jah ta catch ma profit ah drink eh limmons?" I couldn't meet his eyes.

"Nobody told me anything about that. Sorry, it's my first time doing this."

"Obviahsly. Yuh donno shit about hah ta make deliv'ry. Least yuh din'nt keep ah horses tied up while yuh was offloading, summin taught yuh that mah. Must've bin hard fah 'em." This guy's accent was the worst thing I'd ever heard.

"M-maybe you still charge by the plate? Nobody told me so I can't tell you," I said. He rolled his eyes.

"Fuck. Whah they senn yah ennyweh? Yer mah shudda donnit."

"My parents don't like being around here," I said carefully. My story was shady and I know it. Full of holes. Why wasn't he told? Why are the instructions so vague? Why is the twelve-year-old making a deliver to a neighborhood that her parents are scared to go to? Honestly, I'm a shabby liar. But this much mutton and game was worth at least five silver coats, half a crown. And even if he just served it on the tab and did not double-charge the sailors, he would still earn a half-crown for this exchange.

And the advantage of very suspicious people, is that sometimes they think they've figured out what you're lying about, and after that they trust everything else. He pulled up his glasses, and peered through them.

"Hmm. Verr fresh. No spahl, no wumms. Nah pahsen. En, no sahl." He glared at me. He seemed to think I was running a scam. But he seemed to know exactly what scam I was running. I have no idea, but he seemed convinced. Even if you're no good at lying, here's some good life advice. if you hand people an unusual situation and pretend to have no idea what to do about it, most of them will come up with their own explanation and assume that's correct. They'll use their own information to fill in what you don't.

It's because people like to feel smart and like to believe they know what's going on. It doesn't always work, but my only other option is to go back to implosions and shockwaves.

"An ah spose ah ca'n arreh settled fah goods, an ah ahh fah deliv'ry?" he glared down at me. He was suspicious, and maybe angry. But there was a clear right answer here.

"Yes?" He reached into a pocket of his baldric and pulled out five copper coops, and passed them to me.

"Fayeh prahc fah deliv'ry. Nah mahrn thah. Nah git." I ran ten steps, and paused, and looked back.

"Um. Again at supper?" His eyebrow arched high, and hie smirked.

"Yuh. Supper." I scampered off, and spent one of my first five pennies ever to buy a turkey leg from a street vendor. Looking through the Signet, I watched various members of the pirate crew eating the mutton. He was selling to them at a discount off a reduced menu. They had bought out his taproom for the next two days, by the look of it, and the crew filtered in and out, eating and drinking at the Swooning Spear, then leaving to enjoy their shore leave an sleep aboard the ship.

I would have just gone after their water, but like most ships in Hearstwhile this one used a script to pull fresh water from saltwater while at sea; they were not reliant on stored water to keep themselves watered, washed and working. So, with no way to affect their water supplies from afar, I used mutton. At supper I refilled the wagon, mutton and birds and flour, and he paid me five more pennies for all this food that he was sure was stolen.

His kitchen stayed busy finding every preparation of mutton they could, hacking the birds into quarters for roasting, and baked the flour up into nutty toasted loaves and patties. I reminded him, urgently, that my deal with the ship's crew was that only they eat the delivered food. He was smirking, and he humored me to my face. Even then, I could guarantee that he was feeding himself, his family and his staff with the food I was bringing. Oh well, he was warned. Unavoidable collateral damage, I did try to avoid it.

For breakfast, brunch, lunch, teatime, supper, dinner and snacktime I brought him more deliveries to the back of the alley. I made a joke about second breakfast. He was not amused. I had enough coins to buy a room at an inn, and tried some different local foods to sample. He was ripping me off big time, but he was the least of the criminals involved here. Morning of the third day, the ship cast off and caught the winds. I waited until they were over the horizon before I killed them all.

Then I went back to the Swooning Spear to watch. Within a half-hour, the owner with the terrible accent was sweating, clutching his stomach. His face was red, and he couldn't catch his breath. Other people tumbled out of the back, whimpering that they were sick. They staggered, they couldn't seem to get their balance.

"Yuh!" he croaked, pointing at me with a shaking finger. I sat at a table in his taproom, still dressed as the peasant girl. My hands folded in front of me, I sat with a loaf of bread and a slab of cheese that had come from a regular store. I ate them delicately, and watched the people of the tavern sicken, slump. They could barely move. Their color started to pale, and gray. When everyone started losing bowel control I teleported out. I did not need to see them finish dying.

My early experiments in sorcerously conjured food were one of Fwatta's least-favorite memories. She had been called in to see if she could keep my test rats from dying. If care was given quickly, yes. There was no healer on board the Glorious Curmudgeon. For the past days, I had maintained my spells. During the day and the night- with my Untethered Essence I could hold concentration on an existing spell, far longer than anyone normally ever could.

My brain could sleep but the soul had its own mind and its own connection to my mana. So the sheep-meat, and the owl-meat, and the oak-flour all stayed conjured until I released them all at once. Nine wagonloads' worth. Right now, every morsel from two days had vanished from their bodies. Neurotransmitters had interruption, molecules vanished out of protein chains. Blood cells replenish the most often so they were most vulnerable to this attack. Cell walls developed gaps and ruptured, plasm spilled.

The effects were basically sudden-onset anemia, with loss of perfusion. Oh, and their mitochondria. Their poor mitochondria. Terrible what happened there. Every molecule of conjured mutton vanished away, no matter where they were or what they were joined to. This, of course, is the reason that I could not just solve world hunger. Eventually I'd have to release the spells, even I can't maintain indefinitely. Very few sorcerers work in sheep or owl or oak. Or, really, any living creatures.

The ones that do, master the essence of eagles, wolves, horses, things like that. The essence temples for those were in high demand, but because of that they were in high visibility. If a single generation of sorcerers neglect to maintain the temple of the three-toed ground sloth, that temple may never be recovered. Everyone wanted to learn earth and stone and water and fire, steel and ice and light and shadow. Even glass and crystal. But cotton? Sheep? Kiwis, or brass, or hydrangea?

People got used to sorcerers being narrowly-focused and coming in just a few major types. Most of them did not bother to build a new affinity but once every few levels. Basically, I'm weird. So weird that nobody would expect me to have the ability to summon food. And to dispel it. I curved the void, and stepped into the warped space. I had a trial to return to.