Chương 11: Chapter 12: Middling With Serpents

The market below The Cataract had become a river that no longer remembered where its banks belonged. Travellers pressed shoulder to shoulder beneath dripping awnings while ferrymen shouted over the grinding of wagon wheels trapped in mud thick enough to swallow boots outright. Copper patrols moved steadily through the lower roads in dark cloaks slick with rain, redirecting caravans away from the damaged crossings while local guards hurried behind them trying unsuccessfully to imitate the same calm efficiency.

Everywhere I walked, people watched the patrols carefully, not openly, while rumours moved through the crowd faster than rain. North ridge caravans had gone missing. A Bronze patrol had supposedly passed through Mossglen the week before. Something had driven the beasts south, though no one agreed on what that something was, and every version of the story seemed to grow teeth before reaching the next awning.

The words drifted around me while I crossed the market beneath my old cloak with damp coin tied tightly beneath my belt. The pouch felt heavier than any money I had carried in my life before the forests north of Dunmere began changing me, yet spending still tightened something instinctive in my chest, because coin grew easier to earn only after it had become easier to lose, and I was beginning to understand that survival did not become simpler with more copper in hand.

It merely found larger numbers to frighten a man with. CURRENT COIN Current Coin: 3 copper and 96 iron pieces. I stopped first beneath the awning of a cloth merchant's stall where rows of travelling cloaks hung swaying gently in the cold wind rolling through the market. Wet wool and treated leather scented the air while rain hissed steadily from the awning edges overhead.

The merchant smiled the moment he saw me looking, which was never a good sign in Dunmere and had become an even worse one since Appraisal started teaching me how much confidence could be stitched over weakness. He swept a silver-trimmed cloak across the counter between us as though unveiling proof of civilisation itself.

"This is proper eastern rivercloth," he declared.

"Fine weave. Waterproofed twice. Noble caravans use these on the northern roads." The thing looked expensive from ten feet away, all silver edging, decorative clasps, and dark charcoal cloth polished carefully enough to catch the lanternlight despite the rain. Pretty, which I was learning often meant a merchant had spent money hiding the parts that mattered. Appraisal judged it almost instantly.

Beneath the polished appearance, the shoulder stitching already carried uneven tension while the weatherproofing treatment had hardened the fabric too heavily, making it stiff where good travel cloth should have remained flexible. Worse still, the silver clasp dragged the entire balance awkwardly toward the neck. I touched the material once and lost interest immediately.

"How much?" I asked. The merchant brightened.

"Two copper, forty." The number almost offended me, though perhaps it was not the number itself so much as the expectation that I would mistake ornament for use.

"So does vanity," I muttered, stepping away before he could continue his sales pitch. Most of the market looked different now beneath Appraisal. Weak seams revealed themselves immediately. Poor leather curing showed through subtle discolouration near stress points. Cheap dyes bled unevenly beneath the rain.

Even the Copper patrols carried equipment quality varying noticeably beneath identical cloaks and banners, their armour marked by differences in ring tension, oiling, repair age, and weight distribution, the small signs of men issued similar things but maintaining them with unequal care. Only their weapons remained consistently excellent. That thought lingered while I moved farther beneath the awnings until another cloak caught my attention almost accidentally.

It hung farther back in shadow beneath the stall, dull green-grey beneath the lanternlight with no decorative trim or polished fittings to attract attention. The material looked older than the others, worn soft through years of weather and travel, while dark feathered patterns crossed the outer weave faintly enough to disappear unless the light struck correctly. Used should have lowered its value, but I found myself reaching toward it before fully understanding why. The merchant noticed and shrugged.

"Old marsh-tracker cloak. Good quality once. Southern make." I lifted it carefully from the rack. The weight settled differently than the others, balanced not for appearance but for movement, and the weave flexed naturally beneath my hands despite years of use. Faint warmth lingered inside the inner lining even while rain drifted cold beneath the awning, and Appraisal stirred harder the longer I held it, impressions surfacing slowly through instinct rather than language.

APPRAISAL RESULT You have identified storm-treated weave reinforced with scaled marsh-drake thread. The cloak offers strong weather retention and faint blood-affinity resonance. Item quality recognised: Refined. The last impression lingered longest. Marsh-drakes were weak things compared with true dragonkin bloodlines, little more than aggressive scaled swamp predators from the southern wetlands according to the stories I had heard growing up.

Yet while holding the cloak, warmth spread subtly through my palms in ways ordinary cloth should not have managed. A cold thought followed immediately afterward: blood affinity. The Crimson Heartwood hidden beneath the mattress at The Cataract surfaced unpleasantly through my thoughts. Ever since the ritual in the forest, strange reactions had begun threading themselves quietly through my life. Faster healing. Uneasy warmth beneath certain materials.

Red veins erupting beneath my skin when I touched the Heartwood directly. For several breaths I almost put the cloak back. Then the rain blew sharply beneath the awning and cold water struck the back of my neck hard enough to cut through hesitation.

"How much?" I asked quietly. The merchant looked at the cloak as if surprised I had not chosen the decorated one.

"One copper, sixty." The number still hurt. That had not changed despite the heavier pouch at my side. Spending copper still carried the same instinctive resistance as tearing away pieces of survival itself. Yet while holding the cloak I found myself thinking less about money and more about long freezing nights beneath cedar roots while rainwater soaked through cheap cloth and dying fires. EQUIPMENT UPDATED Cloak: Weathered Marshcloak. Rank: Iron (early). Quality: Refined. Effects: +1 SPI.

PAYMENT SPENT You spent 1 copper and 60 iron pieces on a Weathered Marshcloak. Current Coin: 2 copper and 36 iron pieces. The cloak settled across my shoulders naturally once fastened. Heavier than the old one. Warmer too. Rain striking the outer weave no longer seemed to bite through immediately toward the skin beneath.

The difference was subtle, yet enough that I found myself walking slower afterward simply adjusting to the sensation, because it was not luxury, not really, but capability, and the distinction mattered. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. I should have stopped there. Instead I drifted deeper into the market while Copper patrols continued reshaping the roads around the crossings.

Appraisal whispered constantly now without permission: cracked harness leather, poorly tempered knives, rust hidden beneath decorative polish, armour rings worn thin enough to split beneath real impact. The world had become a ledger of hidden weaknesses, and the more clearly I saw them, the harder it became to walk past anything useful. Then I noticed the coat. It hung behind a brighter display piece near the armour quarter where reinforced hunting gear crowded beneath another dripping awning.

Most of the displayed coats looked too stiff or too heavy for real forest movement. One in particular had been polished so heavily it resembled noble wear more than practical armour, beautiful and wrong in the same instant. The second coat behind it interested me immediately instead. Darker leather. No brass. No decorative stitching. The cut sat narrow through the waist while layered reinforcement strengthened the ribs and shoulders without sacrificing movement.

Faint scaled patterning crossed parts of the leather beneath the weatherproofing oils, subtle enough to disappear unless touched directly. APPRAISAL RESULT You have identified scaled river-serpent hide blended into reinforced hunter's leather. The coat carries low-grade draconic trace, strong durability, and excellent heat retention. Item quality recognised: Refined. Again the strange warmth spread faintly through my palms. Not enough to hurt. Enough to unsettle me.

I found myself thinking again about the crimson veins racing beneath my skin the night before, about Sevraeth's ritual in the forest, and about how naturally Appraisal had reacted to blood-aligned materials ever since. The merchant noticed my hesitation immediately.

"Southern hunter coat," he said.

"Older make. Excellent winter gear." I kept my hand on the scaled leather a moment longer than I should have.

"How much?" He looked me over before answering, perhaps measuring how recently I had stopped dressing like someone who could not afford to argue.

"One copper, seventy." The remaining weight of my pouch suddenly felt dangerously small. Yet while holding the coat I could not stop noticing the intelligent stitching beneath the leather reinforcement. Whoever had made it understood movement properly. The coat balanced against the body instead of hanging from it, and even the weight distribution through the shoulders reminded me faintly of Harren's axe. Survival gear. Not vanity. That difference decided it.

I hated that the decision still felt like stepping off a ledge, but poverty had taught me to fear the price of useful things almost as much as the useless ones. EQUIPMENT UPDATED Chest: Scaled Hunter's Coat. Rank: Iron (early). Quality: Refined. Effects: +1 CON. PAYMENT SPENT You spent 1 copper and 70 iron pieces on a Scaled Hunter's Coat. Current Coin: 66 iron pieces. The remaining pouch at my belt felt alarmingly light afterward.

Yet when I stepped back into the rain wearing the coat beneath the Marshcloak, the weather struck differently than before. Less sharply. Less deeply. The layered materials moved naturally against the body while warmth lingered faintly beneath the scaled leather whenever cold wind crossed the market streets. People noticed too. Not openly, but enough. Market eyes lingered differently while I moved through the crowd. Not noble recognition. Not fear. Something simpler and more practical: hunter.

The thought followed me all the way back toward The Cataract while rain rolled silver through Dunmere beneath the dark movement of Copper patrols and gathering evening mist. Merris spotted the coat immediately when I passed his stall.

"Hm," he grunted.

"Finally stopped dressing like a drowned labourer."

"You approve?" I asked. Merris's mouth twitched in a way that refused to become a smile.

"Wouldn't go that far." His eyes narrowed briefly toward the scaled leather beneath the cloak.

"Interesting material though."

"You know what it is?" I asked. Merris returned to the pelt stretched across his worktable.

"Enough to know you underpaid." That surprised me more than it should have.

"How?" Merris shrugged slightly while cutting a line through the hide with the same attention other men gave to prayer.

"You start noticing value after enough years staring at bad trades." Something shifted faintly inside me while he spoke, not words exactly, but recognition. The way his eyes tracked stitching quality before touching the leather. The instinctive way he judged balance, weathering, preservation, and utility almost immediately. Appraisal had not appeared from nowhere; men like Merris had been practicing fragments of it their entire lives without language for it.

The realisation struck hard enough that dizziness followed almost immediately afterward. The market tilted slightly beneath my feet. Sudden pressure built behind my eyes while Appraisal surged violently through my thoughts. The world sharpened all at once: wet leather, rust beneath wagon bolts, cheap iron impurities hidden inside market knives, weak grain running through support beams overhead, every flaw, every imbalance, every hidden weakness flooding inward simultaneously until my stomach turned.

"Boy?" Merris's voice sounded distant suddenly.

"I'm fine," I said, and even the word fine seemed to break apart under Appraisal, all poor joinery and false polish. The lie sharpened the pressure rather than easing it, as if the ability had begun judging not only goods and tools, but every weak thing pretending to hold. I barely remembered crossing the market toward The Cataract afterward. Rain became a thousand individual strikes against cloth, timber, awning, stone, and skin.

Wagon wheels groaned beneath loads that Appraisal now judged by axle strain and poor binding tension. A guard's spearhead carried a hairline flaw near the socket, while a merchant's purse clasp had been replaced with brass too soft to hold if pulled sharply. Too much of everything pressed inward at once, and by the time I reached the stairs my pulse hammered violently enough that each heartbeat hurt.

The Crimson Heartwood hidden beneath the mattress pulsed faintly through the room before I even touched it, reacting to something changing inside me. I slammed the door shut behind me and nearly collapsed against the bed. The pressure exploded outward. Appraisal named the change first. ABILITY ADVANCED Appraisal has advanced from Iron (early) to Iron (mid). You can now better identify hidden flaws, material traces, weak construction, concealed quality, trade imbalance, and partial affinity signatures.

When overwhelmed by too many signals at once, Appraisal may create pressure, dizziness, sensory distortion, or instinctive warnings before clean understanding forms. The words tore through my thoughts while heat flooded violently beneath my skin. Every muscle in my body tightened hard enough to shake while breath caught painfully in my chest. The room sharpened around me with unbearable clarity.

I could hear rain striking individual sections of roof above The Cataract, smell damp cedar drifting from firewood stacked somewhere below the tavern kitchens, and feel the weight of the Heartwood pulsing beneath the mattress like a second heartbeat. Then the pressure broke. Not vanished. Expanded. Strength flooded through my limbs differently than before, deeper somehow, while exhaustion and sharpness collided violently beneath my skin.

I doubled over beside the bed breathing hard while the change settled through muscle, bone, and instinct alike. RANK ADVANCED You have reached Iron (mid). STR: 8. DEX: 6. CON: 12 (+1). INT: 9. SPI: 10 (+1). WIL: 4. For several long minutes afterward I simply sat there breathing in the dim lanternlight while rain whispered softly against the tavern windows beyond the room. The old fear had not left me. The Crimson Heartwood still waited beneath the mattress.

Copper patrols still moved through the roads below, and somewhere beyond Dunmere, Bronze-ranked hunters walked forests capable of swallowing me whole. Yet beneath all that, quiet and dangerous, came a feeling I did not trust enough to name hope. I smiled anyway. Not because Iron (mid) made me powerful. It did not. It only moved me one rung farther from the helpless boy who had dragged Orven's body back through the trees. That should not have been enough to matter, but it did.

For the first time since the ritual beneath the forest stones, I felt as though the thing marking me might not only be a curse pulling me toward ruin. It might also be something I could learn to follow before it consumed me.