Duskbound

He slipped past one of the men on the street, a lumberjack by the look of him, though not one Velik recognized. The man sneered at him through his beard, a reaction Velik was more than used to and barely even thought about anymore. As long as the axe hanging from the jack's hip stayed sheathed, he could sneer at whatever he wanted.

"You're not dead, yet?" the jack almost spat out. "That's a shame."

Velik ignored him, having long since heard all the possible variations of this conversation. It was pointless to argue, only made things worse when he tried. A lot of people had decided he was the cause of all their problems, and that his death was the only thing that would stop the monsters from coming. For all Velik knew, they might be right.

His path didn't take him past the other two people, thankfully. As inured as he'd grown to the treatment, he certainly didn't enjoy it. There was a reason he didn't go to any of the towns unless he had to anymore, though it had been years since anyone had gone so far as to actually attack him. He'd disabused them of that idea immediately and painfully.

The ones who hated his guts were bad enough, but Velik understood how to deal with them. It was the other kind, the people who revered him, that creeped him out. He wasn't any sort of savior or hero. He just had a class well suited to hunting monsters out in the wilds, so he did. Unlike the people who thought he was some sort of fraud or con artist, he couldn't shut down adoration just by being intimidating.

Oh, he was sure that beating someone with the shaft of his spear would work equally well, but it felt wrong to turn a weapon on them when they weren't offering him any harm. So, he did his best to ignore them while he was here and then disappeared back into the forest as soon as possible. Occasionally, someone tried to follow him, but once he was back in the trees, they had no chance.

Although that hunter had come close. If he'd sent his apprentice off an hour or two earlier, Velik probably wouldn't have gotten away clean. It was unsettling to see someone else moving through the woods the same way he did, at least during daylight hours, and he had an uncomfortable suspicion that he'd be seeing the man again, probably sooner than he'd like.

Beldrit's general store was actually one of the better ones for two very simple reasons: it was near the edge of town and it opened early. If not for the fact that it was so close to Deshir, and thus constantly had people from that town there, it would have been Velik's preferred resupply stop.

He slipped in through the front door, the little bell attached to the top ringing only because he deliberately shook the door to set it off. The owner, a portly man whose shirt strained to hold back his belly, was standing with his back to the door, a wooden crate balanced on one hip while he pulled little glass bottles out and placed them with deceptive care onto custom shelving racks designed to hold them.

"One second," he called out without looking over his shoulder. "Almost finished up here. Annnnnd… done. There we go."

The box, now empty, hit the floor and its bearer spun in place. He froze for an almost imperceptible moment when he saw who was standing in his shop, but then unstuck and said, "Ah, my most famous customer. I haven't seen you in so long. What do you need today?"

"Food," Velik told him.

"Just food? Surely, you've got some decarmas to spend. I just got in a whole stock of potions from an alchemy lab down south. Each one is guaranteed to be made by a level 30 or higher alchemist. I'd wager a fit young lad like you could really pull the maximum benefit out of each and every one."

"Just food," Velik said firmly. "Stuff that'll last a while, and a bag of salt if you've got it."

His supply wasn't completely out, but preserving meat took a lot of it and he was already here anyway. It wasn't like salt itself would go bad if it took him more than a month or two to use it up.

"Nothing else? Rope, perhaps, or a new wineskin? Maybe a nice tunic?"

"No, thank you."

"How about a brush for your current outfit? Something to clean the dirt and muck off it?" the shopkeeper pressed, giving Velik's pants a significant look. Unlike his self-cleaning boots, his left pant leg was caked in mud from ducking under a frenzied lunge from a worg a few hours earlier.

"Just food," Velik repeated again.

The routine went on for another five minutes while the shopkeeper filled a sack with dried meat, a few apples, a wedge of cheese, and a bag of nuts. "I've got some flatbread here. It'll go stale, but it'll still be edible. You want it?"

"No, this will be fine," Velik said. "How much?"

"Two vitrunes for the lot."

"I've only got decarmas."

"Of course you do," the shopkeeper said with a sigh. "Look, Black Fang, we go through this every time. You come in here, spend a bit of money, and then try to pay with something way too big. And you don't want change. What am I supposed to do in this situation?"

A bag of metal coins clinked. Velik had tried just accepting them, but he found the sound annoying at best, and potentially deadly if it gave away his position at worst. Even just carrying them for the trip into town necessitated that the trip be directly to town, which he didn't like doing. On the other hand, I have been trying to get [Stealth] to rank up. Maybe a handicap would help.

"I'll take change this time," he said, his mind made up.

"You will? Oh, well, alright then. Let me just step into the back and get it out of the lockbox."

Velik materialized a single decarma, sometimes known as systilver due to its resemblance to real silver. It was impossibly clean and almost glowed in the light, two qualities that couldn't be copied by counterfeiters. Even if they could manage it, it wouldn't matter, since decarmas would be made to vanish or appear at will.

The shopkeeper accepted it and it disappeared to become part of a number on his status screen. "I'll be right back," he said.

Velik took his sack of food and glanced around the general store while he waited. Outside, Beldrit was starting to come to life. More people were on the streets, and there was even a wagon being pulled by what sounded like a pair of horses rolling on by. With any luck, Velik wouldn't have to deal with any of those people.

The wagon came to a stop right in front of the general store. Damn. So much for that. Sometimes people, thinking him unarmed, got a little too bold for their own good. The shop didn't have a lot of open floor space, so if it came down to a fight, the place was liable to be trashed. Please let it be someone who doesn't hate me.

The front door opened again, this time with the bell jingling loudly, and a tall man wearing clothes that were more patches and stitches than anything else stepped in. He blinked in surprise when he spotted Velik, but did nothing more than nod his head.

"I'll be right out," the shopkeeper called from the back room. The creak of a lid closing followed that declaration, and he appeared in the doorway. "Ah, Fender. What can I do for you?"

"Boss needs another three kegs," the big man said.

"Already? He's going through my entire winter stock and the snow's not even here yet."

"Got some client who drinks like a fish."

The shopkeeper snorted. "I'm going to have to raise my rates."

"My money," Velik said, not wanting to spend any more time in Beldrit than he had to.

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Here you are," the shopkeeper said. He handed close to three dozen small silver coins, each about a third the size of a decarma and lacking its mystical glow, to Velik, who pocketed them and hefted the food sack. "Pleasure doing business with you."

"Have a good day, Mr. Black Fang," Fender said.

"Er… Yes. Thank you."

Velik walked out the door and paused to look around. Behind him, he heard Fender say, "Don't see him too often. What'd he want?"

"Just the usual. Food that'd keep for a while and a bag of salt. Couldn't upsell him on a single thing."

"What? Someone was able to resist your charms? No."

"Hey, watch it or I'll be increasing the price on that beer."

"Easy now," Fender said. "I was just joking."

A vestige of a smile crept onto Velik's face. This was a surprisingly good trip.

"Hey! You! What the fuck do you think you're doing here!" a voice bellowed from a block away.

The smile vanished. He glanced over and saw a familiar figure rushing toward him. I guess I spoke too soon.