Chapter 86: Party (2) (Patreon)

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***

Stole led us to the central marketplace.

“Stick next to me like hair on a monster’s ass.”  She muttered then slipped into the crowd.

Skaris and I followed her, bumbling like an awkward teenage boy at his first dance recital about to ask for his crush’s hand.  Whever I looked, I saw traces of Stole.  Turning a corner, slipping behind a particularly large orc and sometimes even blending in with the crowd by staring at a shopstall.  Skaris and I followed her through this living, changing maze.

The Marketplace was a living, breathing beehive made up of stalls, yelling shopkeepers and the intoxicating scent of various meats and sweets.  A cacophony of colors decorated the square to a dizzying effect, each shop trying to outdo the other in terms of flashiness.  There was no order that I could see, except for guards patrolling the outskirts.  Not even they dared to step foot into the crowd lest they be split up and be the target of unsavory sorts.

Eventually, we managed to catch up to Stole who was descending the stairs into an unassuming alley. Her form quickly disapeared, swallowed by the shadows.  I looked down and had no idea of how far down the stairs descended.

“Ssshe’s toying with usss.”  Skaris growled.

“Because you kept calling her on the way here.”  

Silently wishing I had the boost to my Sight from the Lucky Beckoning Cat, I descended the stairs first only to bump into Stole.

“Took you long enough.”  She murmured.

“We thought you’d gone ahead.”

“Nah.  I know you two can’t see as well as me.  Come on then.”

Stole took the lead and I could faintly make out her outline in the dark.  The stairs stretched on and with each step, I could feel the air growing colder.  I could feel the dampness on my skill and the slight shift in scent as fresh air disappeared, replaced by the moldy smell of cave moss and basements.  Being careful not to misstep on the stairs, we followed behind our guide.

5 minutes.  10 minutes.

Finally after about twenty minutes, we reached the bottom of the stairs which opened up into a small room lit by a single torch hung on the wall.  There was a door on the other end which Stole knocked on.

“Password.”

“The slum lord slumbers still.”  Stole said with a grin.

With a creak, the door opened up.

“Be careful not to get lost.”  Stole waved us on and we followed her in.

Into the Black Market.

Finally, I’d been waiting for this.

Immediately, the first thing I noticed was the yelling.

Even before we reached the end of the small corridor, distant raucous voices, no doubt stirring trouble, reached my ears.  The cadence and rhythm of it was similar to the marketplace above ground, but here it was much more harsh.  More authoritative and challenging, a hint of aggressiveness that hadn’t been present under the sun.  I felt my steps pause for a beat, and resumed walking only to find that I was walking much slower.

It was an impulse, the ‘Han’ side of me that still remained.  If it was a monster screaming that I’d heard from the other side, I might have felt fear but grim determination.  But a different type of violence reigned here, one of cloaks, daggers and belligerent attitudes.  For me, it reminded me of school, bullies and cliques.  A sort of trauma that still lingered under my skin that had nothing to do with MSS and everything to do with the memories of my real world.

Skaris shoved me, not unkindly.  “Sssslaveborn.  I wisssh to ssee this placsse.”  

Right.  It was different now.  I wasn’t alone.

Hurrying my steps, Skaris and I exited the corridor and into the Black Market underneath the grounds of Jayu State.

I had been expecting a network of underground tunnels but what greeted me was a huge cavern system, large enough to fit a castle.

The entire place was in the shape of a dome, lined with staircases and ropes on the edges.  I saw people using the stairs and ropes to climb up and down, reaching one of the many holes embedded in the walls.  The said walls had a variety of light sources which gave the place the afterglow of the setting sun or a lone torch in the rain.  Placed strategically among the walls were large holes, some big enough for a man to slip through and others much, much larger.

Upon a closer look, these holes were openings into passages and I realized that the Black Market was modeled after an ant’s nest.  This place we were in must’ve been the central room, with passages to every corner of the Black Market.  Speaking of the market, this place was filled with stalls, even more so than the one above.  If I had to pick out a difference it was that the yelling was even louder and I saw a few fights breaking out between customers, vendors and passersby with no law enforcement nearby to keep order.

By the gods, this place was large enough to play football and loud enough to believe that it was the NFL playoffs and every inch of it was filled with people.  Beastman, Orcs, Elves, Humans, Dwarves, every race was represented here.

And all of them stank of blood and sweat.

“Are you two done gawking?”

I turned to find that Stole had changed out of her clothes and into roguish armor she had on when I first met her.  She started walking down the path that had strings of shops on either side.  Still staring wide-eyed, I followed.

“This here is where they usually sell weapons.  I wouldn’t trust it though, that geezer dwarf gouges for every last copper coin you have in your purse.  Has a better nose for coins than a beastman I swear.”  Stole took us around the stores, giving us a brisque tour of the stores within the Black Market.  “And this place here-, hey, keep up!”

Skaris paused at an armor shop, eyeing a pair of greaves.  Behind him a pair of two elven children began to creep towards him.

“Oh, the fucking little buggering pickpockets.  Stay put, Mister!”  Stole rushed off to help Skaris.

Leaving the two to their devices, I looked around the Black Market.

Weapons.  Armor.  Rare Alchemic Ingredients and Monster Parts; not to mention the actual monsters themselves (though nothing higher than grade-10).  Looking around like this, I realized that the place was crowded but not particularly impressive.  The awe I had felt when first entering this place faded as I realized the stalls were little more than trinket stores, selling things that were a little socially unacceptable.  Nothing of real value and definitely nothing really illegal was here.

It was like this in the game too.  You had to make it a habit to visit the Black Market, else you’d never realize its true value.  As you got stronger, you garnered more reputation and that made it easier to make relationships with the shopkeepers and vendors whose exotic goods were outright illegal and impossible to obtain elsewhere.  It was entirely possible I was just too weak to be invited to any of the closed-curtain events, such as the Black Auction and other esoteric markets.

I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.  

I turned to go and find Skaris and Stole.

“Hey, you there.”

I froze and turned around, trying my damndest not to get my hopes up.

A dwarf so hairy that I mistook him for a beastman sat in front of a stall.  Unlike others, his stall was attached to an actual building –a small forge, barely large enough to fit him.  He sat on a rocking chair, smoking a pipe as long as his torso and blew out a ring of smoke.  I saw through the haziness that he wore a pair of goggles on his forehead.

He stroked his red beard.  “I know you from somewhere, sonny.”

Ignoring my beating heart, I strode forward.  With a quick glance, I looked at his wares.

Gems.  Jewelries and accessories.  Trinkets that were no bigger than my hand.  No weapons or armors that I could see.

“You’re an Alchemist.”  I said.

The man’s bushy red brows climbed half an inch, touching the bottom rim of his goggles.  “Aye… of a sort.  And yer?”

“Lock.”

The dwarf grunted.  “Bilgrun Blazecopper at your service.”

“You’re a Blazecopper?”  I blurted without thinking.

He sniffed and said bitterly.  “One of many.”

Nothing could beat a Dwarf at smithing.  The weapons they sharpened, the armors they made, it wasn’t a stretch to say that many of the Artifacts and Legendaries they forged could rival Pluralities.  Actually, if it wasn’t for the fact that Pluralities could only be dropped from monsters, I was of the mind that dwarven weapons could be classified as such.

The reason why I was shocked was because the Blazecoppers were one such Clan from Drake Fortress –the homeland of the dwarves.  They were renown for their craftmanship, especially when it came to creating weapons with the Fire element imbued into it.  Any weapon shop that prided themselves on having ‘quality’ goods used Dwarven Arms, and I’d bet a good coin that I didn’t have that more than half had the Blazecopper brand on it.

So what the hell was a Blazecopper doing here? In the Black Market? In Jayu nonetheless?

Not to mention none of his goods were weapons…

“Garbage.”  I told myself immediately.  

A trap set my MSS to waste my hard-earned coin.

I turned to leave.

“How’s yer eye?”  The dwarf called out.

“...!!”

“Aye.  Saw your fight in the Colosseum.  Was a good fight too.  But everytime, you favor your blindeside.  You take an extra step when turning which gives it away that yer completely blind in that eye, not just hard of seeing.”  He took a drag on his pipe.  “Must be difficult, adventuring and what not with only one eye.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know me.”

“Yer gait gave it away.”  He had a smirk on his face and patted his belly.  “I remember ye cause I thought to myself ‘what a pity.  If not for the eye, he could give those Scions a run for their coin.  Put them in their rightful place, he could.’”

“I already defeated a Scion.  My first opponent was-”

“Aye, I know that sonny.  But because I worked you up and got your panties in a bunch, ye forgot to deny being blind, didn’t ya?”

Shit.

Instead of saying something back, I just glared at him.

“Bah, don’t tangle yer panties up further.  I’m not the type to say a word to anyone.”  He got up from his chair, standing to his rather impressive height of four feet and then some.

With a shocking realization, I realized that what I thought was a mixture of smoke and fire was actually his hair.  His hair shot straight up into the air in a sort of wavy pattern ending in a singular point, defying gravity and adding an entire foot to his height.

“Stay right there for a moment, sonny.”  He went into his tent-sized forge.  “I left it here somewhere… now, where’d I live that damned thing… can’t remember for the life of me…”

Sound of things falling over and small scrap metal being throwing out of his forge accompanied his muttering.

“Am I getting scammed?”  

Briefly, I wondered if I was being scammed but decided against it.  Even if he charged an arm and a leg for something, I couldn’t afford it because I had no money.

“But this is the Black Market… he could always ask for something else in exchange.” 

As I debated just walking away, the orange-haired dwarf emerged holding a small flat gem.

“Come here.”  He motioned.

I hesitated.

“I’m not grifting you sonny.”  When I still didn’t move, he just chucked the gem towards me.

Catching it out of reflex, I studied it.  It was a flat octagon with the edges sharpened to look like a gem.  It was a little smaller than the palm of my hand with a dark blue-purple sheen to it.  Yet depending on the angle, it refracted the light into an array of different colors; mostly light blue, white and yellow.  A stark contract with the actual material itself.  I wasn’t well versed in Inorganic Chemistry or study of Optics, but was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to do that.\

“Hold it up to yer blind eye.”  While I had been pondering the dwarf had approached silently.  He stood waiting in front of me, his face impatient.  

My face must have been incredulous.

“Humor me, sonny.”

“...Fine.”  Then I proceeded to put the gem to my face.

And my blind eye could see again.

“...!!”  I was surprised for the second time today.

“Heheheheh.”  Bilgrun Blazecopper held out a hand and I placed the gem into it.  He started flipping it end over end, showing me the different angles.  

I closed my good eye and saw that my bad eye could see through the gem.

“What the hell is this?”  I finally asked.

“This,”  He walked over to his table of trinkets and put the gem down, “is one of my creations.  I took a Seeing Crystal and added my own additions to it.”  He finished proudly.  “Not only can you see through it, it gives sight in darkness and ye won’t be hindered by things like blinking when blood or water gets into yer eyes.”

Seeing Crystal, the item I had been searching for to replace my eye.

And this guy took it and modified it?

I reached out a hesitant hand towards the gem and Bilgrun put his palm over it, smiling as a shark would when it found a school of fish.

Fuck.  This was a Scam.  Albeit, a legitimate one.

How could a blind man not want to see again after having seen what it’s like to… to see?

When I had held up the gem to my blind eye, I saw how much I’d been missing.  My peripheral vision nearly doubled and had the sensation of a fog being lifted from my brain.  It was a wonder how much we humans depended on sight to make sense of information.  The yelling I’d been hearing but unable to pinpoint immediately became apparent, an orc shopkeep was in an argument with an elf.  The scent of manure that had been assaulting my nose was coming from behind me; a stall with potted herbs.

Bilgrun held out a hand.  “Give me yer headpiece, sonny.”  

“This is the only thing I have.”  I handed him the Bevor from my Dimension Ring.

“Hmmm… this won’t do.  Go and get a helmet from a nearby stall.  Any cheap one would do.  Best if it’s a visor sonny.”

I swallowed.  Bilgrun was treating this like a done sale but I couldn’t.

I didn’t have any coin.

“Well? What’re you waiting for? Get a move on then.”  He cackled.

I should have told him the truth that I didn’t have any money on me.  But  Bilgrun’s hands were moving so fast and I knew that whatever helmet I chose would be combined with the gem rather quickly.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be too late to let him know of my coin situation after he had finished making it…

My conscience pricking me the entire time, I turned around and started looking at the nearby stalls trying to find a helmet to my liking.

***

Arrosh Bloodedge held his breath.

As the seed must bide its time through the cold breath of Mother Winter, as the Mother Bear must stay in Hibernation to stave off the freezing winds of Father North.

Arrosh Bloodedge waited.

Sometimes his consciousness surfaced from the pain.

So much pain.

They flayed his skin in strips until he knew that his arms and chest were nothing more than hanging sacks of meat.  They brought angry, hot, white iron and burned him over and over and over.  When that didn’t work, they resorted to his hands; always starting by pulling his nails out first.  Then they moved onto his feet, leaving his toes hanging on his foot by a flap of skin.

So much pain.

And so much yelling.

“How do you know Lock Slaveborn?”

“What is the secret to Aura?”

“We know you’re the Sword Saint’s Disciple.  Where are the other Disciples?”

“What did you teach Lock Slaveborn?"

“Tell me everything you know about Lock Slaveborn.”

Arrosh remained silent.

Never a word.  He’d not give his disciple away.

They’d hardly known each other, less than a season.  Perhaps to Lock, his disciple –young twig, wingless bird, cub-but-not-so-weak-cub– he was but a strange, deranged psychotic orc who babbled nonsense.

But to Arrosh, Lock was the one person who’d listened to his age-old story.

The one person who’d believed in a time immemorial, a time that lived on in the memories of Arrosh Bloodedge, when he was a young orc on a journey with Nearnigh, his dear Master and the Sword Saint in one.

And just as Nearnigh protected Arrosh with his life, Arrosh would protect Lock.

No matter cost.

So when they flayed his skin, when they plucked his sightless eyeballs and when they left him without arms or legs he said nothing.  When they bore holes into his ribs and inserted slithering hateful little things, he fought not to scream.

He still said nothing when they healed him and repeated the process.

His guts ran through their hands like like the strings of fate, splitting his stomach open like a bloody butcher.

But Arrosh did not dream of vengeance.

He was sated.

He had never protected anyone before.  Even having failed to protect his people.  He knew what he was called by the other orcs: Failed Protector, one who failed to do his duty.  But this time... this time.

Lock had protected his people in his stead.

So Arrosh dreamed of himself, fulfilling his duties as the master, and hoping that Lock and his people, though not of his tribe, were safe.

“Do you think he even remembers you?"

“Tell us what you need and we’ll let you go.  Heal you up.  A bed.  A meal.  No more sleepless torture, hanging on a hook by your wrists.  If not… I’ll string you up upside down starting tomorrow.”

Arrosh Bloodedge smiled.

It mattered not if Lock remembered him or not.  It wasn’t the disciple’s duty to remember the Master.

Arrosh remembered him just fine.