DTK 43 (Patreon)

Valjean left with Sandy to take apart the monster they brought with them. I hadn’t seen it when we circled around the wagons.

Without mending, I couldn’t help my mom repair Valjean’s spare outfit. I wasn’t emotionally ready to continue working on the Houndsmaster set yet… and thinking about it was still giving me a headache. I was starting to worry that I broke the pattern somehow and that the pain would be permanent.

So instead, I just watched my mom work. She pulled Valjean’s outfit — all boiled leather and enchanted linen — and set it on a mannequin before inspecting it. She touched it with some kind of skill, seemingly pulling more of the outfit out of midair and revealing dozens of stitches. Looking at it made my head hurt.

The crisscrossing patterns of thread looked almost like circuitry rolling away along an axis I struggled to perceive. I followed along as mom snipped away damaged threads and pulled them out one by one before patching the rents in the material, stitching them back together, and sewing the threads back in. Whatever cut through that armor must have cut directly into Valjean.

He had looked like he had healed fine.

Eventually, just watching my mom work was giving me a headache as well. But it was deep into the night now.

I headed out of the workshop and across town. The rain was pouring now; I ran to avoid staying out longer, the ground already squelching underneath my feet. I almost crashed into the Noble that walked into the street, one of my feet sliding as I came to a stop underneath the edge of his umbrella.

He smiled around a lit cigarette.

“Hey.” He said, holding the umbrella out.

His eyes were glowing bright red. Not like an enchantment; like he was using a class vision skill. A powerful one.

He was wearing a cloak, but his hood was back. His hair was cut short. The lamp light from a window reflected on the rings on his fingers.

The bow over his back glowed in the dark.

It hit me that his entire outfit looked like the Hunter pattern I had. Just better in every way.

This was a tracker. Valjean brought a tracker. His eyes flicked over my shoulder, still glowing red, and his smile started to turn into a frown. I panicked as I realized I hadn’t replied.

“Hi!” I said.

His expression turned back to a smile, the red fading from his eyes. With a snap, a magelight appeared in front of him. With the skill dismissed, I could see the rich brown of his eyes. The light caught on perfect teeth. I wondered if raising your constitution helped with dental health. I hadn’t met a [Dentist.]

“Going for a walk in the rain?” He asked.

“I’m heading to the butcher’s.” I said, pushing past him.

He followed me, holding the umbrella over me.

“In the middle of the night?” He asked, catching up and walking alongside me. He stood more than a head over me. “What for?”

“I heard she was cutting up something cool.”

“Hardly.” He frowned. “Damn thing tore up one of the wagons, though. Tried to eat one of the horses. What’s your name?”

“Gwen.” I said.

“I’m Olivier.” He said.

I kept walking. Olivier frowned.

“My house is Briarthorn.” He said.

I didn’t know if it was meant to be impressive. He frowned deeper.

“Do you know who has been clearing the dungeon?” He asked.

“If I knew, would I tell you?” I asked, turning to face him. He had walked with me all the way to Sandy’s house, standing outside in the rain.

“I’d hope so. You’ve a civic duty.” Olivier said, his face scrunched up like he had tasted something sour. “Well. Do let me know if you see anything suspicious.”

Olivier turned and left. I watched him go, standing in the rain despite the door being a step away. When his magelight grew dim, I swung the door open and stepped inside.

The room was packed.

Sandy threw a glance at me before turning back to her work.

She had broken the monster into pieces — probably to get it through the door. It would have been as large as one of Valjean’s wagons, if it was in one piece.

It was a spider the size of a tank. Each of its legs was a different color, and each one must’ve been a foot thick. They glittered iridescently. The main body was shimmering white. It looked like a much, much more ramped up version of the tiny spiders we were fighting.

Cinnamon curled up in one corner of the room, an imprint of mud in the ground around him. He gnawed on one of the massive legs.

“Is it okay to let him have that? Isn’t it valuable?” I asked.

“Can’t keep most of the damn thing anyway.” Sandy said.

“What do you mean?” I stepped toward her, over piles of limbs and huge chunks of bug meat.

Sandy pulled out a knife to demonstrate, popping out a single plate of the monster. She cut into the plate and smoke hissed out. The plate started to dissolve, falling to the ground as a piece of white goop.

“Entire things like a puzzle box. Even following my butcher skill its like its designed to sabotage me as it comes apart.” Sandy said, her voice rising with frustration.

“We’ve done plenty for today.” I said. “Have you… told your dad?” I asked.

Sandy set her knife down and rubbed her eyes.

“Yeah. Can you meet us tomorrow? Early.”

I nodded.

“Just like Valjean to gift us a corpse we can’t use.” I said, looking over the pile of monster parts. “How much do you think you’ll be able to pull out of it?”

Sandy paused.

“Maybe enough for just one outfit.” She said.

I stared at the corpse, hungry. Not for the spider — there was no way I was eating any of that. Not even if it gave me mana. But for the skills.

If the little spiders gave me [Thread Manipulation II,] what would an outfit made from this do?

Sandy stepped around the pile of monster parts and picked up a tiny rusted knife from her bedstand. She plopped into her bed and rolled it over in her hands.

“Did you bring it with you?” She asked.

“Yes.” I replied, fetching a destroyed set of clothing from my [Wardrobe.]

They were basically scraps of fabric and leather at this point, destroyed by wear and saltwater.

Sandy held them like they were precious.

***

The morning was somber. I had to double back in the rain to sleep. Olivier didn’t bother accosting me this time, though, and I fell into my bed and immediately spent what felt like an hour staring at the ceiling.

Every muscle in my body was tense. The next view days would be all or nothing. We had our town to lose or gain on the results of a single quest. I stared at the clock as it started ticking down in the middle of the night when the gate of the dungeon shut.

I couldn’t remember falling asleep.

I did remember waking up, though, staring at the count down that moved from seventy something hours left to sixty something, ticking down like a doomsday clock.

Mom asked where I was going in the morning. I told her where and why.

She joined me. We couldn’t invite too many people, gathering in one place while the nobility was here. But we could gather a few. It was a small, somber occasion. I met Henri out back behind his house. He was smoking and holding a shovel.

There was a tiny hole in the ground, a pile of scrap leather inside of it beneath a rusty knife.

Sandy was sitting in a chair outside, staring blankly into the forest and scratching behind Cinnamon’s ears.

Henri held the shovel out to me. I took it, ceremonially taking a single shovel of dirt and dumping it into the hole. He nodded, and I passed it off to Sandy, who shoveled once as well.

Henri said a few words about his wife. I didn’t know her. He told us how they met; their first date, their favorite activities, how they had moved out to the frontier town. It had been bigger back then. He wiped tears out of his eyes and sat down.

A few other adults from the village came over of the course of the day, each one ceremonially shoveling their own dirt. There was a tension any time another person approached. Henri sent everyone away with a bag of food. The nobles never investigated.

Every person had a hand in burying what remained. It wasn’t so much covering over the past as celebrating what was and what is. This was our town. Every single person had as many memories as Henri and Sandy did, entire lives here, simple as they were.

I couldn’t let them take this town from us. Not from any of us.