Chapter 20: High-Noon and Beyond, Part One

As the sun travelled across the sky, we too travelled across the market plazas. Our next target was a weaponsmith, where Nora'd be getting her dagger-shortsword things fixed up and where I'd be appraising my weapon. Flurry had told me it was a low-level loot item, but I figured it was probably a good idea to get it checked anyways. I'd also be looking for something which could effect Health Points rather than Body Points (limbs), but... meh, we'd splurged already. And the euphoria of the bargain was wearing off quickly.

The weaponsmith wasn't hard to find. We'd found their shop — a small, hole in the wall place near some bigger buildings — and a woman no older than 23 greeted us at the desk. By her body language (and the fact that there appeared to be nobody else in the store), I assumed she was the owner. Odd, but not uncommon.

"Welcome! Look around, figure out what you like, bring it over if you have nothing else," she proclaimed jovially, and Nora nodded to her before wandering off to try and find some more weapons. I imagined, at least.

While she did that, I walked up to the counter. "Hey. Need a sword appraised. Cost?"

The owner shrugged. "Depends on the sword. Start at twenty-five silver and a smile, stranger?"

Hm. I suddenly felt a little bit warm under the collar. I'd need to check that out later. In any case, I wordlessly equipped my katana and placed it on the table. I'd kinda be stuck with the thing, considering Moira had given me a sheath shaped exactly for it. "My name is, uh, Cyl. How serious are you about the smile?"

"Wendy," the swordsmith said, "and I'm serious as a Maine Coon in a tropical storm. Let me take a looksie, eh?" She picked the sword up, little windows popping into view in her vision as she closely looked at the sword's blade and hilt from all angles.

Something inside me stirred, some kind of warning instinct, but I pushed it down in the name of appearing at least cordial. "So, uh... thoughts?"

"Hm! Well, it's sort of a long katana. Based on the type of blade, I imagine it's not just a shortened tachi? Probably made as a katana. Though, considering this, um. Well, this game isn't exactly the most accurate all the time. I bet you're not looking for random facts on your sword, though, um. That's on the house. So, stats. 

"You've got, hmm... I'd estimate this as an earlygame weapon, somewhere around level three to five? Definitely usable later on, it's got a bonus to enchants and resmithing. Plus, the blade looks like it's got a decent amount of sharpness — though there's weird nicks here and there, and it's blunted to all hell. Dunno what you were doing with this that it's so damn blunt, but good on you for still kicking even with it. I'd need more details for build ideas, but I can definitely say this thing would do well in combat. That should unlock the stats window for you, by the way."

With every word, my brain kicks more and more into overdrive. I mean, this was a player. Someone who was real, more than me and more than Nora and Flurry and everyone else I'd met. Uh, assuming AI were less real? It was all very complicated. But this would be my first encounter with a human since goddamn three weeks ago, I think. Fuck. 

Apparently, my silence hadn't been unnoticed. "You alright there?" Wendy asked, violet hair almost sparkling in the ambient light. "You, um, went quiet."

"Oh. Yes. I'm fine. Just been a while since I saw another, uh... yeah" Moira wanted me to pretend to be a player, right? So I'd just do that. "Took me aback for a second. Anyways. I had one more thing to ask."

This changed nothing, I reminded myself. The real thing I wanted to appraise was the scabbard for my weapon. With any luck, Wendy would be able to discern what kind of enchantment or blessing or some shit the sheath had — which would take a lot of the issues out of using it, since I didn't wanna get blown up. Tentatively, I placed the black and electric-blue scabbard on the appraisal table, detaching it from my suit and cloak as I did so.

Wendy gave it an appreciative whistle and a lean-in, so I figured it looked at least pretty good. "Well now! Your sheath being more expensive than the sword it's paired with is certainly a... decision on your part! And, er... huh. I'm not really getting any sensible..."

She picked it up, eyes tracing the scabbard's lines closely as hundreds of windows popped into view around the edges of where I imagined she could see. "Cyl this thing is twice my own level and it's got at least a hundred different garbage enchantments on it. How the fuck did you get it?"

Now that is an awkward question. I twiddled my fingers a bit, avoiding eye contact as I tried to figure out a suitable answer — I couldn't damn well say "Yeah, it was from a sentient AI controlling all of the worldbuilding in this game," could I?

I heard a scoff, and Wendy started to tell me off for lying. Which meant two things. Firstly, I'd said that out loud; if it were possible, I would have turned pale from fright. Thankfully, I was already nearly perfectly white due to being made of, uh, not human materials. Secondly, it was a stupid enough story for people to not believe it. I probably should have seen that one coming sooner.

"Seriously, where'd you get this? I don't think I could appraise this fully if I tried, I just want to know."

"Can't say," I said, with the most serious expression I could muster. "Uh, it's... secret test stuff. Anyways, if you can't appraise it that's fine. Just, er, give it back?"

Wendy rolled her eyes. "Fine. Can I at least add you on Pidgin or something?" said the appraiser, right before moving to sheath the sword in its scabbard — sending me into a panic. Apparently, something was supposed to happen if I'd sheathed the sword, and I didn't want to accidentally blow up the fucking shopping district, so I leaned across the counter and grabbed both the scabbard and sword where she was holding them as quick as a flash.

Only after I'd done this did I then notice I was holding her on the hands and we were probably close enough to kiss. Fuck! My face heated up, as did hers, and I started to stammer out something related to why I'd suddenly grabbed her hands right before Nora walked back from the shop's internals with a few shortswords bundled in her arms. Thank god for that, because I could use the moment of distraction to slip the sword and scabbard back into my inventory. "Nora, uh, hi!"

"Hey. What's going on?" Oh shit. I was holding Wendy's hands now, just like, normally. I quickly unhooked myself from her and leaned back, face still burning and heart still racing. "You, uh... getting up to something or?"

"No!" — "Not at all!" we both said, at the same time. After a brief glance at the other, I continued. "I was just, uh, grabbing my stuff back."

Nora shrugged, jostling the shortswords around. "Well, sure. Get your stuff done with and I'd like to inquire about these swords." She sidled up to the counter, dropping all the swords down there with a loud crash.

"Alright, uh... For all of them that'll probably be, um, eighty marks? Also, Cyl, here. Add me when you can." Wendy slipped me a paper with what looked to be a username on it, while taking Nora's silver coins smoothly with the other hand. Shit, I'd probably need to reverse engineer whatever Pidgin was. I'd probably need to take a partition of my mind and dedicate it to just doing that. Didn't wanna be a buzzkill...

Nora nodded, then inventoried all the swords in a pile. "Great. I'm gonna head out to meet up with Flurry and buy potions. We'll be going back to the inn when the sun's two hours from sunset at the latest, okay? Be back by then or I'll knock your head off." With that, the rogue-inclined NPC walked out the door, giving me a smile on her way out. A dinging of bells sounded her departure.

Wendy sighed, sitting down on a chair behind the counter and resting her head on her arm. "Whew, that's a tough NPC. You havin' trouble finding anyone who wants to party with you?" she asked.

I did a double take. "What— no! I, uh, am fine with the friends I've got. Why?"

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"Cuz' you seem like someone I'd be down to adventure with. Most of the others are all macho men in here or they're ultra-professional, nobody seems too interested in actually having fun and interacting with the world. It's why I got a shop instead of some adventuring party." She scoffs. "Nobody's interested in treating the healer well."

"Oh." It was difficult to figure out what to say to that. "I'm sorry?"

Wendy waved my sentiment off. "Nah, it's fine. Just, y'know? Want to team up? I am a healer, after all. Running a combination ranged-support and cleric build, which could be helpful?" Her voice was strong, but she couldn't seem to make eye contact. Still, I mean... what could I do? Again, I didn't wanna be a buzzkill.

"Uh," I said, griping for more time. "Sure! How do parties work again? I wasn't uh. Paying attention." 

"Cool!" Wendy said, doing a little fist pump and spinning in her chair. Odd feelings tightened my chest. "Parties are really player-only, most of the time. Unless it's with a quest I think? Anyways, just go to your social tab and we'll seal it with a handshake."

Huh. That was simpler than I'd thought. But — wait, shit. My menus were auto-organized. It'd give me off as a weird player at minimum, and... that wasn't... dammit. Wendy's excited eyes convinced me anyways. I needed to do something about my resilience to puppy-dog eyes. "Um, alright. Don't, uh, tell anyone about what you're about to see." 

Opening my menus (and ignoring my party member-to-be's confused expressions), I navigated to the social tab and clicked the button labelled "[INVITE TO PARTY]". My hand glowed an odd rainbow color, and I offered it to Wendy, who shook it without hesitation. A little dialog box saying "[CREATED PARTY!]" popped up, which I quickly dismissed while also closing my menu.

"Cool, so, ignoring the... actually no, what the hell did you do to your menus?" Wendy looked at me with those eyes again, but I'd learned from before. "You're gonna tell me, right?"

"Maybe later," I compromised. "Anyways. Are you just gonna like, close down your shop? I imagine it's most of your income."

"No fun. Anyways, yeah, but adventuring pays well. Also, I've still got all my battle-cleric stuff, so it won't be too bad! And we're all probably around the same level, so it's not a huge deal. Also also, I'm in this for fun. Aren't you?"

"Something like that. We were just stopping by this city for supplies, got a quest to head out... east, I think. We'll be going across the entire map and away from civilization, probably going to be a good three or so months."

I paused. "You in for that? I figure it'd be a lot to ask, a lot of time invested."

"Yeah, sure. Power leveling sounds fun! Um, real time or in-game? For the months."

Wait, was there time dilation in this system? I'd need to check that out. But my only comparison right now was in-game time, so... "...in-game?"

Wendy considered that for a moment, squinting as she calculated stuff in her head. "Right, that'd be a month real-time?" She nodded decisively. "I'd be totally down, that sounds like a lot of fun!"

Hm. So a 3:1 time dilation ratio. Interesting — for this to be fully simulated on technology, that'd mean a clockspeed three times faster than normal, maintaining full simulation reliability. "Right, okay. We're gonna leave in two days, is that enough time to prepare?"

"Yup! It's a date, then." She winked. Everyone was calling meet-ups dates now. The world had gone mad, and I was left to simply wash adrift in its wake. Dammit.

I sighed, gathering my thoughts. "Yeah, I've heard that one before. We'll swing by here in two days and pick you up."

"Cool, have a nice day!" Wendy waved to me as I left the store, and I quickly pulled up my mental map of the shopping district. I headed over to an enchantment shop, something tickling the back of my mind as I did so. The store-owner was an NPC, and not a particularly talkative one at that; I made my way through the motions of buying a sharpening and piercing enchantment without much thought given to the process.

As the enchanter took my sword and applied an oil to it (apparently the first step to any melee enchantment), I pondered what was bothering me. The fountain I'd seen earlier was very present in my mind. Not only as a beautiful example of hydroengineering, but also because... the glyph — or rather, glyph — at the bottom seemed like it was more than just a simple decorative piece or a seal of some ruling family.

No, it felt magical. Or at least shared traditional parts with magic. The swooshy inscribing meant something probably connected to air — all the spells I'd learned beyond the simple light and air spell had been maximalist, with ink strokes and decorative bits giving everything a lot of noise. Flurry'd given me some brutalist stuff, but that was mostly because she wrote them down with the explicit intent of being functional over traditionally made.

It made it easy to tell what spell was what, at the cost of those spells being hard to decipher into their "code" form. In this case, all I needed to know was that it was related to air — and that assessment was only based on a single part of the sigil, not covered by all the goddamn coins in the fountain basin.

(Somehow, the game hadn't encountered hyperinflation yet. I figured they might have tied in the cost of a few NPC vendors to be a maximum of like, five coppers, maybe, and then player shops had to adapt and either increase quality or quantity to make a profit while keeping customers. This still meant everyone could spare at least a coin for a fountain, and it wouldn't be a huge detriment to their actual bank accounts, so the fountain was a decent portion copper.)

I wanted to know more about that fountain. More than that, I felt like there was... something there. Not a physical something, not a temporal something — a narrative something. The game was pointing me in this direction, and since the game itself was mostly written by my good friend Moira...

What was the harm in checking? I picked my sword back up (noting the new auto-sharpening and resistance-piercing enchantments, along with the updated stats window), thanked the vendor, and made my way out of the shop 60 marks and half a day poorer.

The sun was near sunset on the horizon. It'd only been a quick jog back to our inn, and a bit of catching-up with Nora and Flurry — who had gotten a decent amount of materials and useful potions — before everyone was asleep.

Quiet as a mouse, I slipped my way out of the window. My black bodysuit and cloak-scarf-cape hid my identity even as the full moon shone down on the cobblestoned streets.

Fountain, here I come.