Demonic Magician

I could see the apprehension on his face, clear as day. He didn’t want to let me in on what he had holstered to his side, yet knew that he had to if he wanted to accompany us. He’d rather make friends rather than enemies at this stage, knowing what we were capable of.

On the other hand, I was rather cool on the idea. Starter island Max would have been bending over backwards to accommodate the man and I’d have tried my best to make him a fan of my work. Nowadays my work involved a lot more loss of life, which anyone with a healthy mind shouldn’t be a fan of. I glanced back at the other two members of my party, both of them in quiet conversation.

“This is my Class skill,” he informed me, popping a clasp on the leather holster. “I have told few of its capability, and even fewer have seen it in action.” He paused, about to lift the flap up. “Possibly the other way around.”

I narrowed my eyes, ready to see a flintlock pistol or something similar. That would be a step up over the more medieval weaponry we had come across so far. If you discounted the guy with twin chainswords. What I hadn’t been prepared for was it to actually be something so visually basic.

From within, he took out what appeared to be a small boomerang. Polished light wood, lacquered and smooth.

“Oh,” I said, politely. “I wasn’t expecting that.” It didn’t seem exactly what a fencer or musketeer looking fellow would have been carrying around in his old world.

“When I throw it at something,” he continued, “at my command, it will explode.”

“Oh,” I said, some confusion now on my face. Something else I did not expect, and even less likely for a duelist to wield. Perhaps this was the ‘arcane’ part of his class, and he was essentially showing me a magical grenade.

“It only works once per day.” He shrugged and placed it back away. “The kidnappers took my good sword, but thought my class weapon to be something more banal. A shame I couldn’t show them its true purpose first hand.” With a glum smile, he gave me a brief bow to signal his duty to fulfill my request was complete.

I held out my hand to shake. “Glad to have you on board, Quinn.” Although I smiled, I mostly wanted to see the weapon in action and possibly involve it in my act somehow. Our pyrotechnics were few and far between - a once a day big bang could be just what we really needed to… blow up the Crimson Shadow?

He took my hand with both of his and we shook, a warm smile across his face.

“One last thing,” I added. “No adventuring if you have the Trauma status.”

“It is mild at present, Max. The doctor assured me rest would cure it in no time at all.”

“That was before you came to fight me, yeah?” I raised an eyebrow.

His one eye took a glance over at Ren before he nodded sheepishly. “I tend to act brash and follow every spark of passion that erupts within me. Part of the reason I decided to hide myself away was to limit how much danger I would get myself into.”

Otherwise, he’d be with the Shadows or broken underneath their boots, no doubt. A stroke of bad luck to have been picked up by the marketeers. Traveling solo seemed like a large risk - another thing I couldn’t help but feel bad about. My brow furrowed as thoughts and questions started to bubble within my mind.

I took a glance in the direction of the camp before gesturing to the fencer. “Come sit with us while we await our fate. Knowledge is power, and perhaps we can drag you up to our level.”

Although the pair didn’t look too pleased as I brought him over, it was wise to be wary of a new face. We had agreed to travel with him, so some amount of acceptance was required - and as we sat in a loose circle, the tension slowly melted away as I began to speak.

I told him our history, what Ren and I had accomplished back on the island. The Lady and her effect on the first area. Meeting Wolf and fighting off the various ambushes. Despite it being in my nature, I didn’t embellish the facts. Told him all, everything up to the small village here and meeting Fiona and her group.

He sat in patient silence, an enraptured audience if ever I saw one. Hie eye widened at certain parts, and his expression changed slightly between disbelief and awe, but by the end he seemed rather mellow compared to his usual self.

“Incredible,” he said, deflating in his chair. “It is… almost beyond belief, yet I do - wholeheartedly.”

I nodded, glad that he was now caught up to speed. “If you want to back out now, that is an option.”

“No judgements,” Ren added.

He shook his head. “No.. I… I thank the stars to have crossed paths with such a fated couple.” His eye went down to the bored bear. “Trio. It surely cannot be chance we have met. I feel invigorated and honored to be part of your journey against the dark forces that plague this world.”

“Great,” Ren murmured, “now there’s two of you.”

An unfair jab, I felt. While I certainly had my moments of drab introspection or labored them with a weighty phrase about our situation - I wasn’t unnecessarily poetic about it. I hoped, anyway. Was his showmanship clashing with my own?

I narrowed my eyes as he smiled warmly at us. No. The difference was he didn’t need to impress or draw acceptance from people. He was just outwardly this insufferable because he was already so sure about himself. Nauseating.

“The plan is,” I began, “to rest for the remainder of today and head out tomorrow. While there are plenty of hours left in the day, I am one bad incident away from having a mental break.”

“That makes a change,” Wolf added. The elf shuffled slightly, probably to hide the amusement in her expression.

“Instead,” I continued, ignoring the pair, “I have some questions to open up to the group.” Dramatic pause to ensure I had their attention. “First up, who were the marketeers selling stuff to? It can’t be the groups at the camp, right?”

“Unless they are part of it,” Wolf grumbled. “A honey pot to draw wayward Players in.” He licked his lips.

His fixation on food aside, it was a reasonable point to bring up. I deferred to Ren for her views on the idea.

“It’s…” she wrinkled her face up. “You need to remember I didn’t know Fiona for that long. It doesn’t seem like something she’d do… but then, look at us.”

A stage magician with more blood on my hands than tricks as I slowly lost sight of myself to what? A demon? There was something I was keen to avoid addressing at this stage. Perhaps I would take a leaf out of Ren’s book and allow my internal thoughts out once we had some privacy under the night’s sky.

“Could be any of them in there,” Quinn added. “Not to cast any aspersions on the fine folk who nursed me to health, but there are a lot of unknowns.”

I nodded. “We’ll put a big question mark over the camp for now until we know how they feel about us. If not them, then who? My kidnapper didn’t seem keen on the Crimson Shadows, but coin is coin, right?”

“What do they even need gold for?” Ren scowled at the grass. “It’s not like the System requires us to spend it on much.”

“Shame the adventuring taxes are so high,” Quinn said, before sighing.

“Taxes?” I grimaced. The uncomfortable word had me wanting to call for Reggie.

“Yeah… what, you haven’t been paying them?” He leveled a blank expression at us both, before his poker face cracked away and a wide grin crossed his face - before we even had a chance to buy it. “Sorry! Just a little joke, ha! The fair Ren is correct, however. There isn’t much opportunity to spend gold unless you head to one of the main towns.”

I brought up the map. “There’s what… four towns?”

“Three smaller and then the main hub,” he said with a nod. “Although I have not made it all that way myself.”

The closest was down on the southern coast, back to the east a little. If only we had gone that route rather than be distracted by the village taken over by the gang. In fact, the towns were almost placed in each corner of the area. Assuming north of the road was controlled by the Crimson Shadow, then that left the southwest one our safest bet - with the central hub just before the third area up in contention.

“Why are the Players camping here instead of staying in the town?” I raised an eyebrow, the question more just my out-loud thoughts than a shovel digging for answers.

Quinn shrugged, his time with them just as short - if not more so - than our own. Perhaps a question I could jab them with should they decide not to turn us away. Looking over, I could see that Wolf had fallen into a nap. Under this pleasant shade, I couldn’t blame him. We’d had an active day and definitely deserved some downtime.

Even thinking and knowing this, I craved to continue. At my personal detriment, I felt the need to level more. Gather skills and tokens, and… my brow furrowed.

“How powerful is your class ability, Quinn?” My head tilted to arrange my thoughts into one useful pile rather than be spread out.

He screwed his mouth up and his eye went between each of us. “If I set it off where we currently sit… all would die. Except maybe the venerable Wolf.”

My eyebrows raised. I had tried not to consider myself becoming more of an assassin with my teleportation, invisibility, and penchant to survive any odds… but he had a throwable satchel of C4. The things I could do with that. The damage. The death.

Licking my lips, I gave him a wry grin. “I have a job for you then, should you have no current use of your ability today?”

We stood back out in the field, a little further from the camp so as not to worry them. Ren didn’t seem too enamored with my explanation that Quinn had a magical grenade, even if the System translated that into something she could understand. Wolf had been grumpy at being awoken, but had soon fallen back asleep on arrival at our destination. Shame it wouldn’t last.

I walked a good fifty feet away from the elf and bear, with the fencer by my side.

“What stats does your class require, Quinn?”

“Agility and Intelligence main, Strength minor.”

Shame, but that made sense. We’d be competing on Int gear, perhaps - but it was interesting he didn’t have Dexterity as a main Stat considering his fencing background. Then again, we hadn’t seen him fight properly yet.

I stopped and withdrew the safe from my Inventory to place on the grass. Tilted it on its back so the locked face looked up at the sky. Up at its reckoning.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

He rubbed at his goatee. “Ah… it is not impossible. You have piqued my curiosity, Max.”

“Twenty-five percent of the contents.” I shot him a smile. “We are all equal here.” Although I hadn’t run this past Ren yet, I’m sure she wouldn’t disagree. If he was going to risk life and limb to assist us, it seemed fair to treat him as we did each other.

Plus, I wasn’t going to waste any more brain cells on trying to open the thing. It could be useless junk.

From his pouch, he withdrew the small wooden boomerang and placed it gently atop the face of the safe. We both turned and walked back toward the pair who were uninterested in whatever we were getting up to. I had to admit that Quinn was growing on me. Where Ren was too closed off and trying to crawl out of her shell, the man was too overt with his feelings and needed to dial it in.

Wolf was quiet and considerate, but very plain and forthright when asked. And me… well, I was pretty sure I was slowly going insane - but I put a good show on, at the least. I was entertaining, for those not being crushed beneath my heel.

I shook those thoughts away as I caught Ren’s blue eyes. Quinn and I stopped, his face a slight grimace as we looked back toward the otherwise inconspicuous item atop the metal cube.

With his hand extended, he whispered out a word that the System did not translate.