Siege State

Chapter Twenty-Six: A Day at the Market

Tom stood outside a large noble compound, three floors and sprawling in width, all marble and oak and glass lording over carefully cultivated gardens and curated lawns. It was the picture perfect noble house - exactly how Toms house used to be.

He had been standing in front of it for some time. Trying to think of the right words to say. Trying to decide whether he should go in at all. He knew he had to; it was the right thing to do. And yet he couldnt make himself move.

In the end, the decision was taken out of his hands.

Tom..? a voice said from behind him.

He turned to find Ella Courser standing behind him, an unreadable expression on her face. Toms brain spun like a cartwheel in a rut as he tried to come up with something to say to her.

Mother said you killed Gad. You didnt did you? I mean, you couldnt have. I know you hated him, but she trailed off, her face crumpling.

Ella, I Tom began, then stopped as he guided her into the alcove in the wall by their gate, wary of the stares of passersby. She visibly wrestled with herself, trying to stem her tears.

Tom had thought at great length about how he would approach this. His time spent hunted in the Deep had begun to shear away a lot of the uglier facets of his personality. Him standing up to his father had tapped a wellspring of new confidence. And, ironically enough, Ellas words to him on the Reaping had started him down this journey.

Tom was done hating himself for things that werent his fault. It seemed The World was bent on making his life a peculiar kind of trial; there was no need for him to make it any harder than it had to be.

And so he told her. He told her everything. How he and Gad had fled together. How theyd survived together in the wild. How theyd been captured and dragged away. And how, eventually, on a night like any other, far and away into the Deep, her little brother had been killed by orcs.

Ella had disbelief written all over her face, but as Tom talked, her face underwent a slow metamorphosis. Darkening, like the city as the sun slowly set behind its walls.

Our poor Gad she said, wiping away the last of her tears. I know he was a shit, but I think most of us were at his age. He was only sixteen She gave herself a small shake, and heaved a shaky breath.

Nobles were more pampered than your average citizen, but to live in this world was to live with the knowledge that anyone you knew could die by monster at any time. Ella Courser was the opposite of Gad in many ways - she was usually the epitome of composure, even if she came off stony.

Its true then? she asked him. Theres orcs in the Deep? Goddess what do we do..?

Tom felt a warming in his soul, and the tears Ella had just routed threatened to ambush him. He hadnt expected Ella to believe he hadnt killed Gad, especially when spun a fanciful tale of orcs. He knew he must sound like a child telling tales about the dragon that ate the cookies, when they had crumbs all over their chin.

Its true, Ella. Theyre out there, he said. And if the legends are even halfway true, then were in deep shit.

Once the swarm broke our unit a group of twenty of us managed to escape together to the south. For a few days we were shadowed by something. Or somethings. It had us all on edge. There arent many predators in the Green with enough intelligence to stalk for days and then just give up. It almost must have been

It certainly could have, Tom said, finishing her thought. The orcs we ran into, one of them had Markharts hammer. And we found a soldier wandering the Deep days after the swarm attack, ranting and raving. I think she had escaped an orc attack.

Goddess, they were picking us off. Ella shuddered. I wonder if they were tracking us even before the swarm. The legends say they commune with beasts, I wonder

Wondering what if wont help us much now, Tom said. Im sorry about Gad, Ella, I wish there was more I couldve done.

She gave him a long, assessing look.

Two months ago you wouldve said this was all your fault - that I should hate you for it, she said, not quite a question.

He shuffled awkwardly. Yeah, well, someone told me to stop being such a sulky fuck, he said sheepsihly.

Good, because I dont blame you for his death. If youre getting exiled to the Green then its up to you to avenge him. You cant do that sulking, she told him firmly.

He looked in her eyes briefly, saw all her pain and hurt, but that she was being genuine. She really didnt hold Gads death against him. He thought, briefly, about telling her about the torture and abuse he had suffered over the years, thought about trying to explain to her why exactly he had been molded into that person. Then he let it go. It didnt matter to him, anymore. He nodded to her, slowly.

I might not see you again, Tom. With Gad gone, I'm the sole heir. A lot of responsibilities are going to fall on me. Take care. And dont beat yourself up - the Green will do enough of that for you.

He didnt know what to say. It was strange and unexpected to hear this coming from Gads sister. He was prepared for a more similar reaction to Lady Coursers in the Chambers.

Thank you, Ella. Be safe, he told her, and she nodded once and walked inside.

Tom left, wandering out of the noble district, and reevaluated his opinion of Ella. She wasnt so bad afterall.

~~~~~

Tom had a few things he wanted to do before he had to meet Val at the Hunters Hall in the morning, and he had the entire rest of the day to get them done. He had rarely had so much time to himself. Hed need to rent a room at an inn for a night, but there were plenty around, and he had plenty of coin. For now, he was going shopping.

He headed towards Market Square. You could buy anything you could imagine there, and more besides. It was where all the best merchants in Wayrest set up shop, and where all the foreigners passing down the trade roads came to sell any goods from far away lands.

Any time Tom got the chance he would loiter around the Square, revelling in the foreign accents and sights and smells. He had rarely actually bought anything while he was there - he had no need to, but today was different.

If heading into the Deep with no weapons was suicide, then going with two skills unable to be used wasnt much better. And he had two ritual tattoos that required essence before he could use them.

Ideal Three

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Skill One (Classic): Survival of the Fittest (Ritual (Familiar)).

Mana cost: Extreme.

Cooldown: Extreme.

Requirements: Fifty life essence, five hunger essence, five sleep essence, five cold essence, five blood essence and one wild essence. Five aspect essence.

When summoned: Familiar can make extreme or heavy damage physical attacks. Familiars physical attacks have a minor damage bleed over time effect. Familiar has an attack that deals moderate magic damage up to short range and low damage up to moderate range. Moderate cooldown on ranged attack.

When subsumed: Caster gains increased toughness, strength, and their physical attacks gain a trivial bleed over time effect. Extreme buff to casters sense of smell.

Ideal One (Complete):Suffering.

Skill Four (Complete):Wings of Grief (Ritual (Familiar)).

Mana cost: Extreme.Cooldown: Extreme.

Requirements: Thirty life essence, thirty wind essence, five pain essence, one song and one swarm essence.

When summoned: Familiar can make trivial damage physical attacks or trivial damage short ranged magic attacks. Familiar can sacrifice themselves for a low physical damage attack.

When subsumed: Caster has increased speed, agility, and reflexes. Caster gains slow fall.

Toms second ritual skill had manifested as hed left his house for the final time, after saying his goodbye to his mother. He was glad he got something useful out of the experience other than a sore heart. Hed done a brief check of his limbs for the new tattoo once hed realised, but he couldnt find it and couldnt strip down on the street. It would have to wait until he had some privacy.

To empower a ritual tattoo, the Idealist was required to feed it a range of different essences related to the weapon or familiar or spell effect it created. Once that was done, it could be summoned from, or subsumed back into, the tattoo.

Thirty life essence was more or less standard for any ritual familiar. Some smaller familiars needed less, and the particularly large ones took more. Tom had heard rumours that things like dragon familiars took several hundred, although they were so rare no one could say if they were fact or fiction. The good news was that life essence was relatively cheap, as it manifested anywhere there were large concentrations of life. It was by far the most common essence to come out of the Deep, and it even coalesced regularly throughout Wayrest itself.

Tom had no idea what his first familiar could be, but the blood and hunger essences it needed were common requirements for predators.

Aspect essences were able to be filled with any essence type or combination thereof, aspects lending the resulting ritual familiar or weapon with abilities coloured by that essence. Only certain ritual skills came with an aspecting requirement, and no one had been able to determine any rhyme or reason to it.

The second skill was obviously some kind of bird, but interestingly, it required a swarm essence. They were an extremely rare essence, and only collective familiars or weapons required them for their tattoos. Tom would be lucky if he could even find a swarm essence for sale, let alone afford it.

All in all Tom was happy with how his skills were coming along. With Wings of Grief, Suffering had finally stepped from Classic to Complete. Now he could begin tiering up Suffering, and making the skills even stronger, in earnest.

Tom was an outlier now that he had two ritual skills. Familiar skills werent necessarily uncommon though, with about one in ten skills manifested being a ritual skill. He also had a larger balance of passive skills than usual too.

He didnt care. Hed always been unusual, and he was just happy to have manifested at all.

Fuck The World, he thought, defiant and happy.

By now he had merged with the growing foot traffic. He shuffled along, in no hurry, and soon enough he had rounded the corner into Market Square.

Noise assaulted him. The good natured staccato shouts of all kinds of buying and selling and advertising assaulted him. It was all underpinned by the thrum of footsteps and conversation, and made into a dizzying harmony by myriad smells floating from food vendors.

And the colour! The citizens of Wayrest loved it, dye being a primary export, but here it was displayed in all kinds of exotic forms.

Tom saw some monks down from the Monastery of the Bloody Dawn above Horizon, dressed in robes so red they looked like they washed them in blood. Knowing their reputation, they very well might do. They carried all manner of exotic weapons on them, no two the same, and a younger acolyte in eye-searing yellow trailed after them with a mule.

A high elf gazed about imperiously over the heads of the crowd, and a small whirlpool formed about them as passersby twisted their necks to stare. It was not often they left Sanctum, half the continent away, far in the north beyond the Green, and the Nails, and the Rust Seas, and the White Forest and the Waste. Tom couldnt imagine what would bring someone of such a notoriously reclusive race so far. Their ashen skin seemed pinched, and they strode suddenly away through the crowd, scattering the slightly shorter humans like a school of fish.

Tom worked his way round the square until he found an armourers stand, and chatted with the goodwife a while. He left five swords lighter with a fat purse of coin and a grin on his face.

He meandered around the market again for a while. Hecklers called at him, trying to lure them closer to their stalls. Tom let himself be drawn over by a tall, dark man with a huge long forked moustache.

My friend! My friend! You look like a man of fine tastes! he called to Tom. Then, seeing hed actually gotten Toms attention he said, What is your pleasure? Olufemi has everything among his wares!

Tom smiled at the man and gestured at the trays of assorted gemstones arranged in front him. The man seemed to sell jewellery, which was what had caught Toms eye. Essence stones were often used in the trade. They were cheaper than precious minerals, and often had unique sheens or soft glows to them. Some even produced effects without expensive enchantments: a necklace set with cold or heat essence would produce a small aura, for example.

There would certainly be merchants who specialised in essences in the square, but Tom had plenty of time, and you never knew what you could find just browsing. He ended up leaving with a handful of tiny emerald life essences after some good natured haggling. The merchant had bought them here in Wayrest, planning to sell them off abroad, but the man seemed like more of a bird in the hand kind of merchant.

Tom got the rest of the life essences he needed from another merchant just down the way, whose tables were laden with all kinds of materials for enchanting and enchanted goods. He also managed to find some cold essences, which were cheap enough, and a song essence, which was decidedly not. The merchant threw in a few extra colds, at least. They were almost in season again, she explained, and shed be hard pressed to sell the ones she had when they were. Tom tucked the stones, like little shards of ice, into a pouch hed bought for them.

So far he hadnt even really put a dent in his funds, which was good, and he would have little need for coin in future. Hunters hadnt much time for buying things, and most of their needs could be easily met by the valuables they found in the Green.

Tom asked the woman if shed seen any of the other essences he needed, and got a shrug for a reply, but she pointed him in the direction of another essence merchant nonetheless.

That merchant had nothing he needed, but he purchased some more life essences anyway and a handful of other random common ones besides. If a familiar was killed the tattoo would need its requirements met before you could resummon it. Familiars would heal when they were subsumed, or could be healed when summoned, and so them dying wasnt common, but Tom thought it better to be safe.

You never knew what could happen, especially where he was going.

Tom grabbed some lunch then, Wayrest mutton all smothered in gravy, wrapped in a flatbread, with spices that were definitely not local. As he ate under the awning of a tailors shop, he spied a few stones sitting in a display on a nearby stall. Wiping his hands on his breeches, he wandered over.

This one seemed to be some kind of huntsman's stall, with pelts draped all around the awning, and one of the essences the surly man had turned out to be a wild essence. Tom had it from the man for a reasonable price, who seemed to want to be away from all the hubbub sooner rather than later, and even got a terse clue as to where to find hunger and blood essence.

Butchers, the man grunted at him, and Tom needed no further explanation.

After another short tour and some more rubbernecking, Tom found a stall sheltered from the sun by a big white awning, and behind it, a huge woman slowly circulating a fan to keep the flys at bay. Cuts of meat lay on pristine steel trays, and a few dressed carcasses hung from hooks behind her.

The woman raised an eyebrow at his query, but explained that any blood or hunger essences that coalesced round her shop she sold to a particular alchemist with whom she had a long standing agreement. Tom thanked her for her time and left in search of him.

He actually had to leave the square, and head a few hundred feet down a side street, to find the alchemists shop. As Tom pushed open the door he was smothered by an earthy, acrid scent, and he had to resist rubbing his nose.

The shop was dim, on account of the dusty windows to the street, and every wall was packed, floor to ceiling, with neatly labelled bottles and tins and jars. He felt lost until he spied a silver bell on the counter, and gave it a polite ring.

Oof! Sorry! came a muffled voice from an open doorway behind the counter. Wont be long!

A tiny old man emerged from the back, a stained apron stretched over a portly belly, and thick glasses perched on a blunt little nose.

Hello! he said. What can I get for you, son?

Tom explained why hed sought the man out.

Ah! Youre in luck, young sir! One moment, and he bustled away out back again.

Tom smiled to himself, the little old man was a curious fellow, but he seemed nice.

Here we are, here we are! he declared, spreading a double handful of essences on his countertop. Half were deep red, and the others, dark brown.

Now, I use the hunger essence in a tonic for indigestion - and it works a treat I tell you! the man gestured to the red essences. The blood essence I refine and sell to St. Aloes. They must use an awful lot in all those gadgets of theirs, I wager, he finished, gesturing to the pile of brown stones.

He saw Toms small frown and chortled to himself. Its counterintuitive, hmmm? he waggled thick white eyebrows. Blood is brown and hunger is red. Remind me not to let you make the indigestion tonic!

Tom laughed politely, though there was a hint of real mirth in it. The man was friendly, but he couldnt quite align himself with the unusual little mans energy enough for true enjoyment.

Was that all you need now, young sir? Nothing else? he enquired.

Tom listed all the other essences he needed on the off chance the alchemist had any of those. As it happened, he had the sleep essence in stock too, and was willing to part with it.

Tom was just about to leave, having paid and thanked the man, and tucked away all the stones, when a thought occurred to him.

Sorry to be a pain, but could I ask you your opinion on something? Tom said, not sure whether he was barking up the wrong tree or not.

Why, of course! Go on, sir, go on! said the alchemist, and watched him attentively.

Tom took a moment to twist his idea into the shape of a query. Well, I have a skill that negates any poison or debuff, and gives me an equal and opposite positive buff instead. In your opinion, are there any ways you see that I could make use of such a thing?

The alchemist stared at him with the same smile on his face. And kept staring. It seemed like hed frozen, and Tom was just about to prompt the man when he blinked and said, What?

Tom got halfway through his explanation again before the man cut him off.

No, I understand perfectly, Im sure. Well, not really at all, to be honest, I mean, how would such a thing even work? I mean he paused, his mind clearly spinning out implications faster than a spider that had been dropped in coffee grounds.

Goddess, what I wouldnt do..! the little man turned to Tom with what looked like almost tears in his eyes. You must tell me everything about how this works! Everything!

Tom hesitated, he only had so much time left in the day, and he didnt feel like being poked and prodded all afternoon.

Im only curious, young sir! Please, I'll make sure its worth your while. I dont think you understand just how lucky you are! he implored.

Tom relented, and allowed himself to be drawn away into the back room and steered onto a stool.

What followed was one of the most bizarre conversations of his life. The tiny alchemist asked him everything. He wrote in a giant book faster than Tom had ever seen a person move. And he had trained with Idealists all his life, and even seen a Guard with Speed fight.

The alchemist seemed to be using Tom almost as a thought experiment, and by the time an hour was through hed made all sorts of interesting observations about the skill that had never crossed Toms mind.

The only use hed thought of for it was to see if things were safe to eat for others, or potentially to save a bit of money on healing by eating poisonous things. But this little alchemist had vision.

He pottered around, muttering under his breath excitedly, and returned to Tom with a small rucksack that was clearly too full for its size.

You must come back and see me next time you can, young sir! You will, wont you? I need to know how everything goes. Make sure you take notes! I included a notepad and pencils in there, you see? he patted the rucksack.

During their session Tom had divulged that he was being exiled to the Hunters. Hed expected him to immediately become distrustful and wary but, if anything, hed only gotten more worked up. The old man was practically vibrating.

Tom assured him that he would come see him next time his week in Wayrest came around. And that he would try and get word as to what village he was based in, for correspondence purposes. And further assured him he would try all of the alchemists recommendations. And that he would look for particular rare herbs and ingredients he needed for his clients. And that he would take notes. Lots of notes.

With all said and done the alchemist thrust a wizened hand at him. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, young sir! Harvey Bubbles! and he gave Tom a short bow.

Tom grinned, having been dosed with enough of Harveys bizarre manner to become endeared to it. Tom Cutter, or just Tom, now, I guess. Pleased to meet you too, Harvey.

I anxiously await our next visit, Just Tom! See you!

And with that Tom left the dim little shop and stepped into the late afternoon sun. He took a second to compose himself, blinking against the light after so long in the musty interior of the shop. He needed to find an inn soon, the sun wouldnt be up for much longer, this far through autumn, and hed well and truly had his fill of human interaction for the day.

The detour to Harveys shop had been well worth it though. Aside from the rucksack, and ideas on how to better utilise Sweet Suffering, the old man had dredged up enough pain essence for his Wings of Grief, more blood and hunger essence, and a double handful of other rare and esoteric essences.

The pain essence, he explained, was exceedingly useful to alchemists, and accordingly very expensive, but he gave it to Tom without a second thought. The rest he barely used, or hadnt found a use for at all, and so gave them freely too. One of the notebooks stuffed in the pack had a list of what each was, he told him. The little old fellow was truly taken with him.

Before he went off in search of lodgings, he swept back through Market Square with a purpose. Now later in the day, the traffic wasnt quite so claustrophobic, and he quickly found the wind essence he needed. He also purchased an assortment of other common essences, figuring he had little use for so much coin in the Deep. After several more perusals of likely stalls he gave up on finding a swarm essence. It would have to be another day.

The sun slowly faded behind the city walls, and candles began to flicker on here and there in windows. The smells of roasting meat and vegetables, the strange kind of merriment that only comes from families around dinner tables, began to leak from houses.

The ever-present pigeons flew home to roost for the night, and soon enough the moon was peeking above the enchanted brick encircling the city, casting its own kind of enchantment over it - mundane, but no less beautiful.

It found Tom, perched in a room on the second floor of an inn near the Hunters Hall, gazing out the window and over the city hed called home all his life. The common room below him was rowdy, and the streets outside were quiet. A cool breeze teased his hair about his forehead.

Wayrest. Once home, and home no longer. He thought about when he had manifested Survival, and found he was strangely excited. The Deep Green had its own allure - self-reliance, independence, freedom. And yet he loved Wayrest still. For all it was a prison, it was the only one hed known. Even if it no longer seemed so comfortable. Even if it never had been.

Tom, ten times the fool, still wanted to save it. Not for himself, or for his family, or for the Council, but for the city itself. He still felt this beautiful, ugly, prison deserved saving. Hed just have to do it himself. It wouldnt be the first time hed beaten impossible odds.

As he pondered, his emotions rushed on, a grand river, and he let them flow.

His wisp, bobbing gently just outside the window, happy-looking and pink, strobed deep black.

Tom thought his heart must look the same.