“Or she lied.”
“She wouldn’t have done that,” Clive said. “Lying is one of the core sins of her religion.”
“She isn’t a member of the religion,” Jason said. “She’s the object of it.”
“Maybe she just told you what you were ready to hear,” Clive suggested.
“You’re telling me that I died,” Jason said, pulling things back on topic.
“I suppose you did.”
“Then how am I here?”
“Well, the body died, but the soul isn’t physical. It’s magical. Do you know how summoning a familiar works?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well,” Clive said, “summoning a familiar is like deliberately creating a monster. A chunk of magic is brought into our world and forms a body. What makes it different from a monster is that it also summons a creature from the deep astral. Such entities are purely magical, like a soul. They normally can’t exist in physical reality, any more than we can exist in the astral. But they inhabit the body you’ve made. Give it a mind, and stability. So it doesn’t break down and go berserk.”
“You’re saying that I’m basically a familiar?”
“Exactly,” Clive said, with academic fascination. “Your soul came into this world, and like any other chunk of magic, constructed a physical manifestation for itself.”
“So, my body is the same thing as a monster’s, just with a soul to stop it from breaking down.”
“Yes,” Clive said. “You’re picking this up very well.”
Clive’s enthusiasm had blinded him to the growing horror on Jason’s face. Jason leaned forwards in his chair, head in his hands.
“Jason?”
“Give me a minute, Clive. You kind of dropped a bomb on me.”
“Oh,” Clive said, realisation suddenly hitting. “Sorry about, you know, dying.”
Jason sat head bowed, mind reeling.
“Is this why I didn’t have hair?”
“Uh, Jason?”
“I said give me a minute, Clive!”
“Not sure you have a minute,” Clive said. “I just sensed the monster’s aura.”
70
Rewards
The village was located right on the water. The monster sensed a potential meal out in the open and burst from the water to scramble in the direction of Clive and Jason. It looked like a large, six-legged crocodile. Clive, still sitting on the tortoise, pointed at the ground in the path of the rushing monster. He quickly chanted a spell.
“Emplace the mark of power.”
A rune appeared on the ground, glowing red. The monster ran straight over it and Clive snapped his fingers. The rune exploded, sending ruptured gobbets of monster raining through the village. Jason’s cloak appeared to shield him from the monster remains.
“Mind if I loot?” Jason asked.
Clive looked at the liberal spattering of monster on his clothes, wiping it off his face.
“Sure,” he said, grimacing at the mess.
Jason poked at a chunk of flesh.
Would you like to loot [Mangrove Snatcher]?
Jason held his nose as the flesh dissolved off his cloak and off of Clive, who was coughing and spluttering.
“I can’t believe you,” Jason asked, giving Clive a flat look.
“You mean the mess?” Clive asked. “It was coming right at us.”
“No, I don’t mean the mess,” Jason said and pointing at the small crater left by Clive’s spell. “If you can do that, why don’t you hunt monsters?”
“I’m really more of a scholar.”
“I hate to break it to you, Clive, but whatever you call someone with magic land mines, it isn’t a scholar.”
“Land mines?” Clive asked.
Jason groaned.
“Let’s just go to the next village.”
Quest: [Contract: Mangrove Snatcher]
Objective complete: Eliminate the mangrove snatcher threat to the four villages 1/1.
Quest Complete.
100 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
“That was the last one,” Jason said.
In the end, Jason was the one who ended up playing bait. When not triggered immediately, Clive’s rune trap faded away until only special senses could locate it. This made the enthusiastically predatory monsters easy to handle. Jason just stood there as they charged at him, only to die at a snap of Clive’s fingers.
“It only goes off when you trigger it?” Jason asked.
“I can set it to trigger when something steps on it, too,” Clive said. “That seems like it could be dangerous, though.”
“You’re worried about stumbling onto it yourself?”
“My vision power lets me see magic,” Clive said. “I can spot it even when it’s hidden. The same doesn’t go for anyone I’m working with, though.”
“It’s a good power.”
“It has its weaknesses,” Clive said. “It takes a few moments to activate and glows bright red when I cast it. Anything other than dumb monsters know to get out of the way.”
“Good news,” Jason said. “Fighting dumb monsters is most of what adventurers do.”
“I will admit to not having a terrible time,” Clive said, “the smell of dissolving monsters, aside. I’m hardly going to start making regular trips to the jobs hall, but if you need a ride out here again, then come find me.”
“I just might do that,” Jason said. “Do you have a bag or something?”
“What for?”
“I was rewarded a hundred coins for the quest,” Jason said. “You did all the work, so you should get the pay.”
“That’s your ability,” Clive said. “You keep it.”
“No dice, mate,” Jason said. “You do the work, you get the pay.”
“Half then,” Clive said, taking a money pouch from his dimensional space. “Use the rest to restock your potion supply.”
“Sounds fair,” Jason said. He withdrew seventy coins from his inventory and dropped them into Clive’s bag.
“I put in half of what I took from the monsters, too.”
Their task complete, they used the airboat to notify the villages that the threat had passed. Clive then directed the boat back in the direction of Greenstone.
“Hey,” Jason called out over the noise of the airboat. “Didn’t you say something about knowing a good place for dumpling soup?”
“Yes,” Clive called back. “Yes, I did.”
The airboat emerged from the delta waterways in the late afternoon, approaching the Old City Water Gate. A distributary running out of the delta led into Old City’s canal district, through a massive, portcullised arch. The canal docking area was a bustle of activity. Clive drove their airboat right into a building, which was set up like a submarine dock. It belonged to the Magic Society and was quiet compared to the brisk goings-on of the canal docks outside.
“I need to get back to the Magic Society campus,” Clive said. “I’m going to have so much to do.”
Their trip had involved navigating deep into the delta, checking on all the villages, going through them to kill the monsters, going around again to give the all-clear, then finally come back. By the time they arrived back in Greenstone, they had been gone for more than half a week. When he first decided to drag Clive along, Jason had expected him to baulk at the rough delta accommodations. He hadn’t expected Clive to have grown up in such conditions.
“I’ll go make the report to the Adventure Society,” Jason said. “You should be able to drop by the jobs hall anytime and collect your share of the reward.”
Clive requisitioned a small, magic-driven carriage from the Magic Society to take them back to the Island, stopping at the Magic Society campus.
“Lunch tomorrow?” Jason asked as they parted ways.
“Dumpling soup,” Clive said with a wave.