Intended Change: 0 –> 1
Cost Subtotaclass="underline" 375
TOTAL LIGHTHEALER SKILL XP COST: 1125
Summary
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Available XP: 1,332
Cost of Intended Changes: 1,275
Precision Training Discount (1%): 13
Total Adjusted Cost: 1,262
Total Projected Remaining: 70
Confirm?: Yes / No
∇
“It’s done,” I said. “Your first Lighthealer skill, Beam of Health, requires more action energy as it gets stronger, and I improved it one level. I also unlocked Flash of Relief, which will rid you of minor poison. That one required a few attributes raised to the third level, which thankfully you had the experience points for. You must have been casting small heal spells for quite some time.”
“Months,” she said. “I always tried to help people that were hurting, I just never realized it would be me for so long.” She closed her eyes for a second as her skin flickered with white light. Then she let out a long, satisfying sigh. Her magenta veins disappeared against her alabaster skin. She started to cry.
“Thank you,” she said. “I wish I could repay you.”
I smiled. “Just point me toward the Grippersnout,” I said.
She squinted her eyes shut. “That place is a den of thieves. You don’t belong there.”
“Be that as it may,” I said. “Cindra and I have some business to attend to.”
“It’s down this road,” Lana said, “then left, then two blocks down. Be careful.”
“Thank you, Lana,” I said. “Be well.”
“I will, thanks to you.”
Cindra and I waited a block from the Grippersnout for night to fall. One by one, we saw shady characters skulk toward the front door and disappear inside. Any one of them could have been Blade.
“That was nice, what you did back there,” Cindra said. “Aren’t you worried about the laws against that sort of thing?”
“Laws should protect people, not punish them for being poor,” I said. “There should be laws against the kinds of laws they have here.”
“It’s not just here,” she said. “The head priest told us that’s the way it works all over the human lands.”
A wideset man with a body like a barrel of ale walked into the Grippersnout. Something told me that was our man.
“Let’s go,” I said. We walked up to the front door of the place, which had no window and no knocker, just a small hole at eye level.
“Password?” came a voice from the other side.
Cindra and I looked at each other. That rogue with a knife didn’t say anything about a password.
“I’m here to see Blade,” I said.
The door creaked open. A very short man with floppy ears stood on a wooden ledge that was built into the door. He was an elf, by the look of him. An odd choice for a doorman, unless he had some hidden skill that made him a lot more powerful than he looked.
“Blade is in the back,” he said. “Big guy. But if you want to buy drinks, you’ll have to come back here and give me the password.”
“Sure thing,” I said. The room was full of men and women with scarred faces and hard stares. They had weapons showing, and I suspected they had additional weapons hidden in boots and tucked into belts. The bartender served glasses of beer and not much else.
I started to get nervous as we approached the enormous man at the back of the bar. Just sell the jewels and leave, I thought. I walked up to him and asked, “Are you Blade?”
He laughed, as did the other ugly rogues at the table with him. “Yes. You’re a scrawn of a man. Leave the woman and go.”
His words, like his body, were blunt and indelicate. He was a bludgeon more than a blade. “We’re here to make a sale,” I said.
“I’ll give you two silver for her,” he said. “Ask for more and I’ll slit your neck.”
“I’m not for sale,” Cindra said. “These are.” She opened the small sack and took the jewels out. She played with them in her palm, tumbling them gently with her fingers.
“In that case,” Blade said, “sit.”
+12
Two men in black cloaks put their hoods on and left the table so we could take their places. Cindra held her palm out for a moment, then curled her fingers around the jewels. She stared into Blade’s beady eyes. “How did you get the name Blade?” she asked. She was stalling, waiting for her negotiatrix skill to kick in. Good girl.
“It isn’t my sharp tongue,” he said. “Jewels.”
Blade wasn’t here to play cat and mouse. He wanted to get down to business, quick. Cindra put the rocks on the table one by one.
The man nearest Blade picked up the stones and inspected them while Cindra and Blade stared at each other. Each second that passed brought us closer to Cindra’s special insight into the bargain we’d need to strike.
The man leaned over and said something to Blade that I couldn’t hear. Blade took a knife from out of nowhere and slammed it into the wooden tabletop. He was angry.
“I’m going to kill Cutter,” he said. “Sending people with worthless pebbles when I deserve jewels.” He looked up at Cindra. I’d give you a few coppers. Each.”
“Sweetheart,” Cindra said, “that’s not even close.”
“You have something else in mind?” he asked.
“I’m looking to strike a hard bargain,” she said. “It’s going to take gold to get these rocks off, not just a few lousy coppers.”
She must be using Flirt too. Either that, or she was really into this guy.
“These aren’t the gems you think they are,” Blade said. “Gold isn’t on the table.”
“Then maybe I am,” she said.
“What?” I asked. This was starting to go off script.
“How about a little insider trading?” she asked.
“Tell me more,” he said. “Be explicit.”
“We need twenty thousand gold,” she said. “I’m willing to work for it. All night if I have to. Don’t tell me you’re not a little curious what it’s like inside a slime woman.”
“The thing is,” Blade said, “these stones are utterly worthless, but you I would pay for. Janson!”
Someone, presumably named Janson, brought a bag of gold coins up from under the table.
“No,” I said. “These jewels are mine, and I have the ultimate say in what we trade for them. I’m not doing this. No amount of gold is worth this. Cindra, let’s leave.”
“You came here to what, waste my time? Make a mockery of me?” Blade asked.
“No,” I said. “I came here to make a fair trade, and this isn’t it.”
Blade picked up the knife from the table and threw it across the room. It landed in someone’s cloak, pinning him to the wall. It was the same man that held a knife to my throat earlier. “Cutter!” Blade yelled.
Cutter pulled himself free and ran toward us.
“He won’t trade,” Blade said. “All he has are empty energems, and he thinks he’s too good us. What should we do with him?”
The men at the table stood, preparing to block my and Cindra’s escape.
“Nothing,” Cutter said.
“You talking back to me?” Blade asked.
“No, sir. He’s a head priest somewhere. There would be… repercussions.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Blade said. “Sit, father. I have a way for you to earn your gold. Train me.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that? I had a very valuable skill, and it would be more than enough to barter for the coins we needed.
“What would you like me to do?” I asked.
“I have one skill,” he said, “that I haven’t been able to train up. Throatcut. Use up my XP on that, and improve my Strength. Then you can have your gold.”