Know Your Roll Read online

  That wasn’t a surprise. Some of the men and women that walked the Platform were a cutthroat lot, competing amongst each other for the limited resources a tiny town like Hallow could provide. Decent drops were extremely rare, and anything good that the Heroes chanced upon was catalogued and regulated by the Vigilance Committee.

  There was an inevitable black market, but that was more dangerous ground than most of them had the stomach for.

  I checked my watch as surreptitiously as I could. It was still ticking, since Patch had recently repaired it for me. I hadn’t asked for the new modifications, but I had to admit that she’d done a good job.

  Now, not only was it the most accurate thing I owned, but she’d filled the insides with pixie dust. When I shook it, the green glow of their bones backlit the time and let me know that my lunch break was only a couple of minutes away.

  Not that it mattered. Breakfast had been a heaping helping of dust-choked air and disappointment, and unless I could pilfer some rat tails my next meal would be more of the same.

  With the line the way it was, he’d probably make me skip lunch anyway. The ogre couldn’t risk the chance of violence, and some of my prospective patrons looked irritated enough to happily storm over here and do me in. There’d be a fee if they did, but historically that didn’t keep Dregs alive for very long.

  Nothing made you more certain that life was cheap than knowing your own price tag.

  And here I am, smack in the middle of it all, my existence depending on my ability to kiss Hero butt for twelve hours a day.

  Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to reroll my dice, so I waved the next protagonist over. As soon as I did, the question mark sign over my head sputtered and dimmed as power was fitfully rerouted into the shape of the exclamation mark.

  Chapter 2

  And so it went.

  Over the course of the next few hours I dutifully collected stacks of rat tails and aimed Heroes at the ‘Beg, Borrow, and Steel’ for the next part of the quest line. A handful of them had progressed to the point where they were able to return and receive a new task from me: ‘The Welcoming Committee’. That one made me send them to register with the Vigilance Committee for one of Commandant Sanguine’s curfew patrols.

  Commandant Sanguine… Now there’s a woman with a body built to punish…

  My mind wandered away from my desk again as I ruminated on her whipcord-slender form and severe silhouette. Everything about her made me shudder, though not all of it in a good way.

  She was shrouded in rumor and mystery, and her tough talk had been ramping up as a rising tide of Heroes made Hallow more unruly by the day. Her answers to the issues were fiery diatribes, increased patrols, and a disturbing tendency for the Dregs that got sentenced to the dungeons beneath her headquarters to vanish.

  “Are you even listening to me, gutter-born?” demanded the Hero I was busy happily ignoring.

  “Sure. Hand over the tails.”

  “I’m not here for that.” The ire in his tone snapped me straight out of my reverie and I glanced up at the neon light. It was dark, which meant he was right about not needing me for the questgiver stuff.

  I blamed my absentmindedness on my ever-increasing hunger, which had progressed over the last week from a lingering irritation to a dangerous liability. “Of course I am,” I said, and then sweetened the lie with, “I was simply so enamored with the chance to speak to an elf that my mind momentarily clouded.”

  He couldn’t have gobbled that crap up faster if I’d spread it on a savory roll. “Hm. Understandable, I suppose. In any event, I need you to Identify an item for me.”

  The neon light swapped to a big, golden dollar sign. That didn’t happen often, and I could feel the big symbol reflecting brightly in my eyeballs. “Of course! The price’ll be eight silver.”

  “What if the item isn’t worth that?”

  “Then you’ll probably be annoyed and try to weasel out of paying me. Buyer beware, since life’s not fair.”

  He tucked a lock of platinum hair behind a pointed ear. The action made the honeyed scent he exuded swirl gently in my direction, setting me off on a series of desk-rattling sneezes. I wasn’t usually allergic to elves, but this guy was primo, Grade A, uncut, unfiltered tree-born branch-muncher.

  He arched an eyebrow at me, waiting for my sinus explosions to finish before placing a jeweled dirk in front of me. “Very well. With my own eyes I have seen this blade cut through Ghoulie flesh as if it were the skin on yesterday’s pudding. Swindle me, and I’ll give you a firsthand demonstration.”

  I ignored the threat and carefully placed a dirty hand on the weapon’s cold steel, letting my voice rumbled through me.

  Tried and True Mithril Dirk of Deserting

  Damage: 1d4+2

  Damage Type: Slashing or Stabbing, depending on martial style used

  Additional Effects: None

  Weight: 1 pound

  Durability: 10/10

  Description: Well-crafted and elegantly designed, this gorgeous blade negates the first two points of encountered Armor Resistance.

  Minimum Level Required to Equip: 3

  Base Resale Value: 2 gold, 32 silver

  Base Dismantle Result: 3 Iron Bars, 3 Leather Scraps, 1 Gold Ingot (Moderate Quality)

  Base Alchemical Result: 3 Iron Sigils, 1 Bismuth Sigil, 1 Gold Sigil

  Base Decantation Result: 1 Aggression Core, 2 Marks of Value, 1 Enchanted Core

  Additional Information: 80% chance that the wielder routs upon injury

  Same as before, I couldn’t alter the words or stop them from coming out. The hex attached to the weapon made me smile though, especially when I saw the look on his face as he heard them.

  “I should have known,” he moaned. “I took it from an enemy in the Werewood. The scoundrel threw it at my feet and fled as soon as my flame bolt found his shoulder. The weapon is of no use to me.”

  “Then sell it. One of the forgehounds’ll be able to melt it down until the jinx evaporates.”

  He frowned. “If not for the curse it holds, it would be worth ten times what it is.”

  “Try twenty.”

  The elf’s eyes narrowed impressively. I knew that look. It was the same one I wore when I was well and truly ready to get down to my second favorite thing in the world; wheeling and dealing. “Tell me, Gearblin. Do you want it? A blade I can’t put my faith in during the back and forth of combat is no good to me. Perhaps it will be of use to a coward, particularly one whom specializes in striking first, and from behind.”

  If anyone’s got a history of striking from behind it’d be this guy, if you know what I mean… I couldn’t help but chuckle. “And here I thought you had your head screwed on straight, elf. No Dreg can equip a weapon like this, not even one as dashing as me.”

  His frown deepened. “Why not? What level are you?”

  “Zero.”

  He flinched. “Oh...”

  I sat up on my stool, enjoying the chance to school an elf on the way the world around here worked. “And before you get any ideas, don’t bother lecturing me about grinding in the forest or farming temple rats for the Fraternity. I can no more level than I can wield the dagger, and I’ll have even more trouble selling it than you will. Besides, if the VC caught me with the thing in my possession I’d get a one-way ticket to the majestic confines of the Hallow dungeons. End of story.”

  “I see. I had no idea.”

  I shrugged. “Well, now you do. The weapon doesn’t interest me, but your coin certainly does. Speaking of which, it’s time to cross my palm with the promised currency. Now and then, just so you know, the more ‘heroic’ Heroes have been upping the price to the nice round sum of ten silver, as a way of showing me their appreciation.”

  Now that I’d made it clear that I wouldn’t be buying the blade, his bad mood had returned with a vengeance. “Nice try. Your information regarding the weapon is hardly illuminating. The dagger’s shine alone alerted me to the presence of an enchantment.”r />
  I tilted my head in Illgott’s direction. “You can take it up with him, if you don’t want to pay.”

  He glowered at the ogre before taking his time fishing through his pouches and slapping a small stack of silver coins down on the desk.

  I counted them dutifully counted. At least he hadn’t tried to shortchange me.

  “How very gracious of you,” I said, scooping them up once I was done and depositing them in the top drawer. “Before you go, I am required by the ogre to let you know that your patronage has been greatly appreciated.”

  The elf spun on his heel and left, his frustrated stare making any of the men and women waiting in line who may have offered him advice or condolence choose to give him a wide berth instead.

  Now that he was finally gone, I shouted, “Next!” without bothering to look up. My eyes were beginning to glaze over as my stomach did its best to digest my spine. I was well-versed in mere hunger, but this was worse.

  A familiar voice burst through my mental fog like a screaming banshee dual-wielding flamethrowers. “Raze!”

  “Patch?” I asked, standing up on my stool. I could hear the smaller Gearblin, but my line of sight meant that she still wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  “Hiya!” she called from somewhere down there.

  “Let me guess,” I sighed. “You’ve forgotten to drag the stepladder over again.”

  “I totally have!” She scampered over to the spot where Illgott had stashed it for her. “One sec.” The arcade filled with the resounding squeal of metal getting dragged across not-so polished floorboards.

  “Make it fast, will ya?” I muttered. Despite my disinterest, the line had been moving quickly the last few hours. Experience told me that Patch could bring all of that to a screeching halt without even trying.

  I leaned over the desk as far as I could. I’d been about to try and get her to hurry up, but now that I caught sight of her, bent over at the waist as she wrestled with the ladder, I was happy for her to take a little more time with the task.

  My annoyance vanished, completely replaced by an attempt to slow down time as I unabashedly drank her in.

  Patch was, in the local lingo, stacked to high heaven. The combination of the tight crop top she had on and my elevated perch provided a jaw-dropping vista of so much cleavage that it felt like I could see all the way down to her belly button.

  I swallowed loudly enough that there was no way she couldn’t have heard me.

  “One sec!” she called. “Almost done.”

  She was as oblivious to her own sex appeal as she was everything else. For whatever reason, Patch had never been able to develop the same thick skin I had, and her effervescent disposition didn’t even come close to preparing her for the dangerous ways of pre-Reenactment Hallow.

  I hadn’t been lying earlier when I’d cautioned that it was never a good idea to keep the Heroes waiting, and despite the show I now wished that she’d cut it short. I had a hard spot and a soft spot for her, and the two grew in parallel.

  When she acted like this I worried that the protagonists would take their resentment out on her. They hadn’t lashed out yet, but if it looked like it was getting late enough that Illgott may close the doors without them progressing their questline, aggression would boil over.

  The solution, sadly, was to get rid of her fast.

  “Patch, hurry up!”

  “I’m… trying…” she grunted prettily. I sat back down on my stool, and after another couple of seconds the top of Patch’s flame-red hair finally bobbed into sight. She’d taken to gathering her mane into two thick braids lately, one on either side of her head.

  I liked her hair this way. If I didn’t, I’d head over to the meme farms of ‘Neath and dig around for a cup from Wendy’s or an old copy of Pippi Longstocking. Once she discovered that somebody had pulled the look off before her, she’d change it in a heartbeat.

  Patch stopped halfway up the ladder and said, “Can you see me now?”

  I couldn’t help but shake my head in chagrin at the hopefulness I heard in her voice. “Just your forehead. You’re still shorter than you think you are.”

  “Bah!” The rest of her delicate, grease-smeared face appeared as she finally ascended the soaring heights of the stepladder’s fourth rung. Her left eye was covered by an eyepatch, while the other sparkled with characteristic excitement. One of her hands was fidgeting with the d20 she insisted on wearing on a thong around her neck.

  “There we go,” she announced at last, panting ever so slightly. “So, how’s my favorite executive desk accessory?”

  I jangled my ankle chain for her benefit. “How do you think? Why aren’t you at work, by the way?”

  Patch beamed a smile at me. “The Lost and Foundry is capital ‘B’ Boring, so I thought I’d head over here and see what you were up to.”

  “Well, I’m actually pretty busy right now…”

  She faked a scowl, and not too convincingly at that. “Were you busy last night too, ‘cause you were supposed to walk me back to ‘Neath at the end of my shift.”

  “Sorry about that. We were swamped, and Illgott kept the place open. The Reenactment’s more of a pain than ever.” I frowned at her. “It must be the same at the Foundry, with all of the quest reward requisitions everyone’s sending in.”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t busy. I said it was boring. I’d have more fun digging my own grave.”

  “Well, if you keep ditching your current job they’ll probably be happy to arrange that for you.”

  The eye not concealed by the path got all dreamy. “Once they saw how awesome I was at digging graves, they’d have to promote me. That’d show ‘em!”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious, and just like always as soon as I let it carry me away I immediately resented her for it. Hope was a useless commodity in Hallow. It slowed you down and considerably shortened your shelf-life. For some reason knowing that didn’t stop a sliver of the traitorous emotion from trying to convince me that maybe, just maybe, things had a chance of turning out okay in the end.

  They won’t though. They never do.

  I’d known Patch for a long, long time. Almost a month, and in all of that stretch I’d never seen her miserable or feeling sorry for herself. It was a shame really, since her eternal optimism was obviously indicative of a complete and total abandonment of reality.

  To put it simply, the chick’s crazy.

  “Is there any chance we can finish this chat later?”

  “Raze!” she shouted again, as if she’d only just begun the conversation. Somehow, every ounce of her original eagerness returned intact. “I almost forgot!”

  “What?”

  “I had a dream!”

  “Are you nuts?” I hissed. “Lower your voice!” I scanned the queue, and thankfully it didn’t look like anyone had heard her. That was just pure dumb RNG, and I didn’t want to rely on it. “I don’t want to ruin your Martin Luther King moment, but Dregs can’t dream. That’s a Hero exclusive, and joking about it isn’t going to go down well.”

  Unlike you…

  She giggled. “Go ahead and say it.”

  “Say what?” I asked, feigning ignorance.

  “I know you thought it, and it’s funny. Time to be brave enough to share it with the class.”

  “Fine.” Fighting it would only delay all of this, anyway. “‘Unlike you’. Happy now?”

  “Muchly. Now that that’s out of your system, let me tell you about my dream which, I assume, is exactly like the ones they get despite me having no knowledge of the subject matter and only a cursory interest in researching it.”

  I’d always suspected that Patch was well and truly touched in the head, and this settled it. At least she was easy on the eyes, not that her looks would blunt the protagonist’s blades if they caught her talking like this. “Stop saying that,” I whispered. “You’re nothing like these scum. Anyway, did you wait in line just to tell me about your bogus dream?”

  “Yep!”

&n
bsp; “I keep telling you, stop joining my queue if all you want to do is waste my time. That’s for Heroes.” I saw her eye light up and realized what I’d said. “Not you. Real Heroes. Aren’t you the one always saying that useless ‘be proud of who you are’ fortune cookie crap? Take your own advice before you get killed, okay?”

  Patch flashed me a double thumbs up, holding both of her fists high above her head just in case I was still having trouble seeing her. I wasn’t, but when I took only cursory notice of the way the gesture lifted her breasts, I knew for certain how worried about her I actually was.

  “Get going,” I told her. “And shut up about this.”

  “Gotcha,” she stage-whispered. “I am a Hero, though…”

  “Can we just talk about it later?”

  “Sure. When?”

  This girl couldn’t take a hint. “Later.”

  “Later when?”

  “Like, a lot later.”

  “Dinner?”

  I scoffed. “No such thing for me, tonight. Not all of us work at the Lost and Foundry. Your overseer may fall asleep from the heat of the forges, but Illgott’s not going to close up until I’ve worked my way through the line.”

  She turned around and did a quick tally of the protagonists still waiting. “Wow. You’re popular.”

  “I don’t think that’s the right word, but yes.”

  “I’ll meet you here when the Heroes go, okay? I don’t really care how late it is.”

  “Maybe.” It was the safest answer I could give to make her go away. If I told her ‘yes’, there was a chance she’d work out that I fully intended to ditch her until this ridiculous, downright dangerous ‘Hero’ notion flitted from her brain.

  Patch stood her ground, though. “Not good enough. Give me your word that you’ll escort me to ‘Neath tonight and I’ll go.” She pretended to pout, jutting out her bottom lip and angling her face so that she was looking up at me through the thick lashes of her right eye. “I mean it, Raze. This is important.”

  “So are they,” I said, pointing past her at the Heroes gnashing their teeth and making rude gestures at her back. “At least to them.”