Location: Greenborough

  Description: One of the oldest cities in Vestor, population three thousand plus, wherein most trade goods from across western reaches of the province are gathered before being shipped on the main road route to Castle Astarda

  “We’re actually going in there?” Nick asked as the trio stood before the entrance to the city of Greenborough.

  “Why wouldn’t we?” Violette asked. The tiny woman was practically vibrating with excitement. “I need to stock up on food, and you look like you could use a lot of supplies yourself, Nick. Supplies, and other things.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’ve got little more to your name than the clothes on your back,” Frost said, and she nudged him with her elbow. “I do think it’ll be nice to get you properly set for travel. Plus, we can buy you a nice bedroll so you stop complaining about your bed.”

  “But what about…you know. The whole ‘demon’ thing?”

  Frost’s look was far too amused for Nick’s liking.

  “Go on ahead,” she told Violette. “Me and Nick need to discuss something really quick.”

  “Sure,” Violette said. “I’ll be waiting for you at the gate.”

  “Cataloger,” Frost said once Violette was out of earshot. “Hide Nick’s visitor status while we’re in Greenborough.”

  “My what?”

  Visitor status is now hidden

  Nick’s mind raced, and given Frost’s twisted grin, it did not take long to figure out what was going on.

  “The people in Meadowtint,” he said. “That’s why they thought I was a demon? Because Cataloger had me marked somehow?”

  “He’s learning!” she shouted playfully, and started after Violette. Nick was too angry to immediately follow.

  “Cataloger,” he said, and he felt like he was addressing a misbehaving puppy. “Why did you flag me as different from everyone on Yensere?”

  Visitor status is given so inhabitants of Yensere may recognize visitors and grant them unique treatment and privileges during their stay

  “That’s not exactly what happened, is it?”

  Unique treatment was indeed given

  “Unique? They were trying to kill me! Why didn’t you remove it?”

  I am not allowed to deviate from established operating procedures without sufficient reason

  Nick had to choke down an exasperated scream.

  “Cataloger,” he said as he caught up to Frost. “You’re great and all, but please, please, please, if you know why someone is trying to kill me, let me know?”

  Request noted

  Are you often under threat of death? Sorrow suddenly interjected, his cold, deep voice a stark contrast to Cataloger’s more smooth, feminine sound.

  “More than I’d like,” he muttered.

  Have you considered it is deserved?

  Nick grumbled instead of responding.

  There are too many voices in my head, he thought as he stood awkwardly at Frost’s side. Violette was ahead of them, arguing with the soldier barring their way at one of the wide gates that gave entrance through the wood palisade that surrounded Greenborough.

  “Something wrong?” he whispered.

  “There’s apparently been a warning put out for a demon traveling these lands,” Frost said, looking pointedly at Nick. “Might you know anything about that?”

  Nick paled.

  “We need to leave, now,” he said. Instead Frost grabbed his elbow.

  “Stay calm,” she said. “They have only a basic description, and the clothes do not match what you stole from Hulh Manse. No one giving you a glance over will think anything of you. Just let Violette offer the requisite bribes to smooth things along.”

  Sure enough, Violette shifted so her body was between her and the others in line seeking entrance and then reached into her pocket. After a moment, she said something to the guard and then pointed to where Nick and Frost waited nearby. The soldier nodded, the bribe already vanished into his pocket before Nick saw it in his hands.

  “We’re good,” Violette said, hurrying over. “Just stay with me and pretend to be my guards.”

  “Your guards?” Nick asked.

  “Of course,” she said, and grinned at him. “A helpless scholar like myself traveling into dangerous parts unknown surely needs a pair of guards to keep her safe. Well, one guard, and one servant. You can guess who is which between the two of you.”

  “Oh, I can’t imagine,” Frost said, patting her sword as the trio passed through the gate. Pretending not to notice Frost’s sarcasm, Nick shifted his attention to the bribed guard. He was only level 6, as were most others in the vicinity. The fact made him feel surprisingly relieved. If things turned south, he could hold his own against them. A far cry from when he first fled the villagers in Meadowtint, barely able to defend himself.

  And now you possess the means to murder soldiers and civilians, Sorrow added. I pray you do not plan to force me to join in such bloodthirsty indulgences.

  As if the Sinifel were strangers to slaughter, Nick mentally shot back.

  You know nothing, pillager.

  “Hey, Cataloger,” Nick whispered. “Is there a way to silence this evil sword of mine?”

  Ownership of Item: Sorrow grants a link with the weapon’s personality—to disrupt the link would require forfeiture of ownership

  If you want to silence me, you’ll need to surrender me to another, Sorrow said, unaware of Cataloger’s answer. So toss me in a gutter somewhere. I am sure to find a better owner there.

  At this point I’m going to keep you out of spite, Nick thought, and he flicked the hilt with his fingers. He highly doubted the sword could feel pain, but the disrespectful act most certainly annoyed the blade.

  As they entered through the gate into the city proper, they passed a dozen men and women sitting on either side of the street. Their skin was unnaturally pale, and they looked sickly and frail. Though their clothes varied, they all shared a similar sign hanging from their necks, a wooden placard with a single black line smeared across it with ash. The dozen held out containers for alms, some cups, some buckets, some little wooden trays. Violette seemingly picked one at random to give a copper coin, and Frost did likewise.

  “Who are they?” Nick asked.

  “People afflicted by the blight,” Frost explained, keeping her voice low. “They’re forbidden from working jobs, and shunned because of the signs they have to wear. No one knows how the blight spreads, or how it chooses who to afflict, so people have grown paranoid.”

  “No one wore those signs back at Meadowtint,” Nick said.

  “A small village on the outskirts of Vestor, with nearly half the populace affected at some level?” she said. “No, they wouldn’t.”

  It seemed so cruel to have these people cast from society in such a way, especially for reasons beyond their own control.

  “What about Cataloger?” he asked. “Does she know the cause?”

  Frost shrugged. “Didn’t seem to when I asked.”

  “Give me a moment, then. I want to see what she says.”

  Nick stood near one of the blight-afflicted beggars, trying not to seem too conspicuous. The man looked similar in age to Nick, his unkempt hair a mixture of white and faded red. His eyes bore faint gray markings, and his skin was much too pale given how often he sat in the sun. When he thanked a passerby for offering him a coin, Nick caught sight of flecks of black upon his tongue.

  What’s wrong with him, he silently asked Cataloger.

  Query not recognized—please rephrase

  The beggar before me, the one with the blight. What is the nature of his sickness?

  He is not affected by any cataloged disease or affliction

  That certainly went against the evidence before Nick’s eyes. But why would Cataloger not be able to notice? Though she could be cagey with answers, she seemed to be aware of most everything within Yensere. Granted, she’d not exactly known what was going on in the buried city of Abylon, either.

  He seems sick to me. Could you, I don’t know, look again?

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  By now the beggar had noticed Nick was lurking nearby, and though he did not say anything, he turned Nick’s way, trying to capture his attention while reaching for the little straw bowl before him. His hand froze upon touching it, and a dazed look crossed the man’s face.

  Cataloger? Nick asked, eyes widening as the change began.

  Color flushed the man’s skin. The white left his hair, the whole of it blossoming into a vibrant shade of red. The gray left his eyes, and when he spoke, his tongue was a healthy pink.

  “Sir?” he said, suddenly looking at his bowl in confusion. “I meant to…ask you something…”

  I detect nothing abnormal with this individual

  “What is going on?” Frost whispered beside him. She’d watched in silence until the change hit, quickly going from disinterest to fascination. “Did Cataloger cure him?”

  Cataloger was quick to answer them both.

  Even if there were something to cure, I cannot influence the material world

  As she said this, the beggar slumped back onto his heels. The color drained from his skin. The white returned to his hair. Whatever clarity had come to his eyes, it faded away as he stared down at his bowl and slowly, gently shook the few coins within.

  “Coin for a troubled soul?” he said, not even looking up anymore.

  Frost reached into her pocket and pulled out a coin that flashed silver in the light.

  “Here,” she said, depositing the coin into the bowl and then grabbing Nick by the arm. “Sorry to bother you.”

  They hurried off, to where Violette was patiently waiting for them at the first crossroad.

  “Everything all right?” she asked, sensing their worsened mood.

  “Fine, it’s all fine,” Nick lied.

  “All right…” Violette said, glancing between the two of them before shrugging. “So, back to the matter at hand! I’m not exactly poor, but I should be careful with my budgeting. Before we gear up, I suppose I should know where we plan to head next so I can purchase appropriately.”

  “We are going to Castle Astarda,” Frost said. “I’ve scoured the far west more than enough to know Irina’s no longer here. She has to be east of the Frostbound Mountains, maybe somewhere in Inner Emden.”

  “Oh.” Violette frowned. “That’s going to be a bit trickier to bribe our way through. Lord Frey’s soldiers are…more fanatical than most. But that means we shouldn’t need any gear to handle the mountains out here, and we’ll have plenty of food to forage. I’ll focus on some basic hiking and camping supplies, and a pack to carry it all in. Have either of you any money?”

  “Not a…” Nick paused. He was about to reference a chit, the least valuable currency in all OPC worlds. Obviously that’d be meaningless here. As for paying for the supplies…

  All currency for barter and trade must be acquired manually by visitors

  Thanks, Cataloger, I couldn’t have figured that out myself.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m dirt poor.”

  “Then I’ll buy you what you need,” Violette said. “No companion of mine is going to travel unprepared!”

  “Thank you,” Nick said, smiling at her. “You’re a real lifesaver.”

  She smiled at him in return. “And don’t you forget it.”

  “All right, while she shops, you’re coming with me,” Frost said, beckoning for him to follow. “Given all the fun that’s happened since your arrival in Yensere, you need something resembling proper armor.”

  “You mean like yours?”

  Frost laughed. “I don’t think they make anything like mine, at least not in this backwater portion of Yensere. Even if they did, I couldn’t afford it. Some basic kit will have to do.”

  Nick tried not to feel disappointed. Nice as it would be to have better clothes, he couldn’t help but feel jealous of her silver chain mail and the protection it provided.

  The two hooked a right while Violette traveled the main road. Nick absorbed his surroundings with wide eyes that most certainly marked him as a newcomer to the city.

  “This is all surreal,” he said as he observed the many shops they passed. Grocers, drapers, butchers, millers, tailors, brewers, and so many more he did not recognize. Shops for candles, for buckets, tools for farms and repairs to wagons. “I’ve read about this sort of ancient life, but to see it before me, made real…”

  “It’s not real,” Frost interrupted. “It’s all just a joke created by the Artifact.” She paused before a shop with a sign hanging over it containing the rough shape of a man and a shield. “Come on, I think we can find you something useful here.”

  The interior smelled of a mixture of leather, wool, and a pungent aroma that came from the oils stacked on a shelf. For caring for both leather and the few weapons hanging on a rack, he suspected. The man running the shop, burly in the arms and wide around the waist, nodded at them from a stool behind a counter full of knives, but he otherwise let them browse unbothered.

  “What is Castle Astarda?” Nick asked as he joined Frost in walking through the sets of leather. “And why is it our next destination?”

  “The Frostbound Mountains effectively seal off Vestor from the rest of Yensere,” she said, pausing before a chestpiece of leather covered with metal studs. “Going over is dangerous, and around, nearly impossible. The only pass is guarded by Castle Astarda, though it’s more a walled city than a castle.” She pulled the studded leather off the wood pedestal and shoved it against his chest. “Here, see if this fits.”

  Nick wrapped his arms around it. “Just over my clothes?”

  “It’ll be more comfortable than on bare skin,” Frost said. “We’ll get you something thicker to wear underneath so you don’t ruin your fancy shirt, don’t you worry.”

  Nick held the armor up, Cataloger helpfully flashing its statistics.

  Item: Studded Leather

  Quality: Tier 3 (Good)

  Classification: Armor (Chest)

  Layers of leather given additional structural integrity by way of fastened metal plates, whose studs give the armor its namesake

  “Far better than nothing,” he muttered. “So long as someone hits me in the chest and nowhere else.” He fiddled with the three buckles across the front. “How do I put this on?”

  Frost took the armor piece back from him.

  “You’re hopeless,” she said, showing off a playful grin as she undid the buckles and helped him put his arms through. Afterward, she tightened the straps until they were nice and snug, then playfully batted at the long length of extra leather hanging down from the buckles.

  “I think this was made with someone a bit bigger in mind,” she said.

  “It’s not my fault Cataloger stuck me with a physicality of five,” Nick said. “But there’s a thought. If that number keeps increasing, will I get all muscled and bulky?”

  “Doubtful. Our appearance in Yensere seems to be heavily tied to our appearance in reality, or at least, how we perceive ourselves. The numbers, and what you can accomplish, will change, but how you look will mostly stay the same. If it changes, it will happen slowly, over long periods of time.”

  “Not sure if I prefer that or not,” he said.

  “I prefer it. It means no one expects me to hit them as hard as I do before a fight starts. Now go ask the nice man at the counter to trim the extra length from those straps while I browse for some gloves and armlets.”

  Nick did as asked, trying not to be awkward in making his request and failing spectacularly.

  “I, uh, need these cut,” he said, patting at the straps when the man arched an eyebrow his way. “The leather, it fits nice, but it’s too long. The straps, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” the man said, sliding off his stool and grabbing one of the knives. “I pray you have the coin to pay for that piece before I start hacking at it?”

  Nick gestured toward Frost at the other side of the shop.

  “She does,” he said.

  “Let’s hope so,” he said. “Now, stand up straight, no slouching, and I’ll make sure you got this thing on right before I do any tweaking.”

  It seemed Frost had buckled it correctly, and when the man was satisfied, he grabbed the thickest pair of scissors Nick had seen in his life and went to cutting. Once he’d pocketed the three extra bits, he put the scissors away and withdrew a thick needle and some thread.

  “It won’t be the prettiest,” he said as he folded the ends of the leather straps and began sewing them to form little loops. “But they’ll stay out of your hair.”

  “Have you any armor made of iron or steel?” Frost asked from the back. “Or maybe some helmets?”

  “You’ll need to visit Leeroy’s for that,” the man said. “But look down at your feet, there, in that shelf. I got some leather helmets you can take your pick from.”

  Finished, he stepped back to observe his handiwork with his arms crossed. As he looked Nick over, his eyes settled on Sorrow tucked into Nick’s waist belt.

  “That sword,” the smith said. He licked his lips. “How much for that sword?”

  I am not an object to be bartered and sold, Sorrow seethed. I am one of the Sinifel judgment blades, the last valiant defense against the heresy of Vaan the false god-king.

  Nick drew the sword and held it aloft. He had no intention of selling it, but perhaps he could learn what Sorrow and Cataloger refused to tell.

  “Do you know what it is made of?” he asked, setting it on the smith’s counter.

  You could ask me, pillager.

  And would you answer?

  The brooding silence was exactly what Nick expected. The smith pulled off his thick gloves and set them aside.

  “This isn’t steel,” he said, gently running his hands along the flat edge. He grabbed one of his smaller hammers and struck its side so the metal rang out. “And I don’t say that just because of the color. The sound is wrong, as is the texture. I suspect it is stronger than steel, and yet far more pliable. How else could it maintain such a unique hollowed corkscrew shape just above the hilt?” The smith shook his head. “If I were to wager a guess, it’s made of obsidian, though I’ve never heard of a weapon crafted from that as a base. Whoever made this blade must have been an absolute master.”

  In that, he is correct.

  Nick flipped the sword over and pointed to the writing carved onto the blade in crimson letters.

  “Can you read this?” he asked.

  Still you seek to deny me privacy, grumbled Sorrow.

  The smith leaned closer, his brow furrowing and his left hand stroking the thick stubble growing in the center of his chin. All at once, he stepped back and dropped his jaw open.

  “This is Sinifel work,” he said. “Where did you find this?”

  The query sounded less like a question and more like an accusation.

  “I found it…in some ruins,” Nick said, realizing he had no idea how such knowledge might be taken, nor what people in Greenborough might think of the bizarre landscape that was the Swallowed City.

  “Sinifel ruins, no doubt,” the smith said. He pointed at the door. “Pay for my leather and then get out. I’ll have no heretical objects in my workshop. We are loyal to the god-king here in Greenborough, yes, we are.”

  By this point, Frost had heard the commotion and joined them, a pair of long pale yellow gloves and a helmet in hand. Seeing them, the man shook his head.

  “Put those down. You get just what I already fixed. Seventeen silver, young miss.”

  “If you insist,” Frost said, dropping both objects on the counter with the knives and then reaching into her pocket. There was no hiding her frustrated glance Nick’s way, and it made him want to crawl into himself and hide. He tucked Sorrow back into his waistband as she dropped the coins in the smith’s extended palm, the silver clattering.

  “I pray you know what kind of man you’re traveling with,” he said as he pocketed them.

  “I’m well aware,” she said, smiling through clenched teeth. “Pleasant days to you, sir.”

  Nick and Frost exited the shop, and for the first time, he was keenly aware of Sorrow’s presence, as well as its unique look. He had no sheath to hide it in, and at best, he could turn the blade about to hide the lettering on its side.

  This condemnable world birthed by the heretic is frightened by all that I am, and all that we were. If you fear it, too, then you are unworthy to carry me at your side, pillager.

  “So quick to judge,” he whispered as he and Frost walked the streets of Greenborough.

  Judgment is easy when you amount to so little.

  If only your blade was as sharp as your tongue, he mentally snapped back.

  Sorrow did not respond, but Nick swore he could feel the sword smirking.

  The pair stopped at a stall run by an elderly woman whose head was wrapped in a yellow bonnet, where Frost bought him a slice of bread and a slender wedge of pale yellow cheese marked with several little holes throughout. Nick bit into the cheese first, and his eyes bulged at the flavor.

  “Incredible,” he said. “It’s almost…fruity in its taste. I’ve never had anything like it.”

  “Enjoy it while you can,” Frost said. “We need to leave. I’d blame you for showing Sorrow to the smith, but it’s my fault for not thinking of it, either. Never guessed a shopkeeper would recognize Sinifel writings.”

  The meal reminded Nick just how long he’d been inside Yensere, enough that he’d lost track. Two days? Three?

  “I should probably leave some time to eat for real,” he said, scarfing down the food. “But that can wait until we’ve left Greenborough, at least. So where’s Violette?”

  “Main trade runs through Fairview Street,” she said. She pointed to a crossroad. “There, to the left. Hurry.”

  They only made it around the turn before trouble found them. A group of three blocked the street, two soldiers with weapons drawn flanking a third, a young woman with reddish-blond hair. She wore long white robes that covered her down to her ankles, the sleeves and waist both tied firmly to her body with blue sashes. A gold fist clutching a black half-circle was sewn across her chest. A gold chain wrapped about her forehead, little threads of it dangling amid her hair like spider silk. Studded into her lower lip was a gold labret inset with a polished sapphire. In her left hand she held a scepter, its top modeled into a hand holding an hourglass whose sands were fixed.

  The woman stepped closer, and she raised her scepter high overhead.

  “In the name of the god-king, you both are to surrender your weapons and come with me.”