Chapter 18: A Cat, A Couple, and Kabobs

  Today, I was adopted by a cat. There was this stray I occasionally tossed scraps to; on the rare occasion we had any leftovers. Other than porridge, that is. The cat wouldn’t touch the stuff, and I don’t blame him. I could barely tolerate it myself. It was bearable if I put enough milk and sugar—mostly sugar—in it.

  As I walked home from the shop, my robes surreptitiously laden with scroll-making supplies, I noticed a shadow join me as I reached the downstairs door to our apartment. I glimpsed and dismissed it as the little patch of darkness followed me up the steps. I passed a handful of interior doors, entrances for the other apartments in our building, as I made my way home. The structure used to be a warehouse for some defunct company. Faint traces of some lettering could be seen on the outside where some of the bricks were less weathered than the others. I could make out ‘M-smudge-smudge-smudge-smudge-smudge-T-I-L-E. Mercantile? Whatever.

  I unlocked the door to our humble abode, and something weaved between my legs just in front of me. “Mother fuggit,” I cursed, almost falling on my face. I danced a hop and a small jump, keeping my balance by a hair. “What…?”

  A quick scan spotted the culprit. A black cat sat imperiously on the couch, cleaning behind one leg. It had sleek, sable fur of pure midnight. Cats here on Elfhome—I was going with that until a better name cropped up—were mostly the same as I knew. The big difference was in their paws, they were huge! Eight toes, with corresponding claws. Thinking of the damage a rake of those things could do made my skin itch.

  “Well, make yourself at home, Stormy.” That was what Tess had called the stray the first time they crossed paths. It fitted, so the name had stuck. Stormy paused in his obsessive act of cleaning and met my eyes. His eyes were a golden green, piercing into my dark blues. A handful of heartbeats passed, and he was back at it, not a care in the world.

  “OK, then.” I shrugged and walked to our small kitchen table. I pulled a dozen rolled parchments from my left sleeve. At first, I hated the voluminous sleeves, but they sure came in handy at times like this. Next came two vials of [ink; common] out of an inner pocket, then a quill I had tucked behind my belt. I had only absconded with low-quality supplies, thinking Master Alric would miss them the least. But with his mind for details, he had to know anyway. The long-standing tradition of the ‘Blind Eye’ was afoot.

  I checked the time on my HUD. It was roughly two hours until sunset when Tess would be home. Plenty of time to get started on a few scrolls. I arranged everything on the table to my liking. Blank parchments of a low grade went in a stack to my left and ink pots were next to the quill on the right. ‘Deep breath and center’. I pulled a single piece of parchment off the stack and set it in front of me. I interlocked my hands, left over right, and placed them in the center of the sheet. I delved into my inner self, connecting with my [mana] reservoir. The blue [mana] bar along the top of my vision had been a little less than half full when I had left the shop. The ten-minute walk home had ticked it up a bit, but nothing significant. I could fill it quicker, sitting and willing the [mana] into the artificial organ—now I knew I could entice it with a bribe to speed things along. Basically, like every cliched fantasy trope, it was meditation. Still, only using up half of my reserves in a full day’s work was a testament to my larger-than-normal pool. I let the release of energy flow along metaphorical pathways and pour out through my hands. The unprimed parchment greedily drank it up. I felt the pores swell to their breaking point, then cut the flow. The low-quality parchment had thin cell linings, easily bursting. I lost too many individual cells on this first attempt, and a cascade of micro explosions tore the sheet into shreds.

  Fwwooomp!

  The smell of burning hair permeated my nostrils, a scent I was becoming way too familiar with. This time it was the fine hairs festooning the back of my hands curling up and smoking off. Whew, my eyebrows were safe for now, thank the Mother and Bless Her Roots.

  “Well, damn. That cuts into my profit margin." Crap.

  I had eleven sheets of parchment left, eleven more attempts to prime them with [mana]. Master Alric said that this part could be trickier than the actual inking, which was why he had primed and I inked for that Guild contract.

  “Better get to it,” I told myself, Stormy giving me an inquisitive yowl. “Thanks for the pep talk, buddy.” We were becoming thick as thieves. That black-cat magic and I, bound for the peak of excellence.

  I pulled the next sheet in front of me and placed my interlocked hands in the center. My [mana] bar had run down to about an eighth of it left, and I counted my success in single digits. Almost two full hours passed in a flash, ha! Five potential scrolls had gone up in my face, each tearing apart in a burst of heat and smoke. Seven parchments were good to go, ready for the next stage. I was better at this part, especially with the [torchlight] ones. I had a [Skill], you see, so I didn’t have to rely on just my own skill. Get it? Ha? Moving on, I planned to do five of those, leaving a pair of parchments to try my hand at making [heat] scrolls. I didn’t have a shortcut for [heat] yet, sadly, but here’s crossing my fingers.

  I did so and glanced at my new cat. Stormy yawned. I picked up the quill I had ‘liberated’ and went to dip it in the [ink; common]. I should have tried to pilfer some of the ‘good’ stuff, but was afraid of pushing my luck (//Brawk-bawk//). Next time. Then I had a thought; 'Could ink be refined a second time? Or was it like trying to re-[enchant] an object, turning it into sludge?’ Although similar, it was a different process, so something to chew on later.

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  Before the broad-tipped quill clenched between my fingers, neither too firmly nor too loose, touched down, a familiar hurricane blew in through the door. Tess, right on time. [Courier]s did pride themselves on punctuality.

  “Tess!” I cried out. My hand spasmed, a drop of silvery ink streaking across the page. Another one bites the dust. *Sigh* I almost tore it up in annoyance but hesitated. With a shrug, I set it to the side. It would be a shame to waste its potential, and I could experiment with it. Surely all those restoration and junkyard finds reality shows can’t be wrong, right?

  “Book!” she echoed my distress with enthusiasm. Where did she get the energy?! Running from dusk til dawn, then charging in as fresh as she began. Disgusting.

  “What ’cha doing?” Tess trotted up and peered over my shoulder.

  “Working my side hustle, hoping to earn a few coins. I owe somebody some gold.”

  ‘Now, you know I don’t care about that. We’re all good.”

  I hated it, but I knew I’d take it. I always did, which is another habit following me across the galaxy. But only for a while as I intended to make a better person of myself—and it wasn’t even New Year’s Eve. “Fine, but I’ll try to pick up a few more dinners, whittle it down a bit.”

  “Sure thing,” she said, then spun back to answer the door at a double knock. “Speaking of, tonight we have kabobs!” She pulled open the door, showing Kolin balancing a stack of takeout cartons. The smell was enticing, the sight not so much.

  “Hi, Book. I come bearing food,” the new adventurer declared with vigor and stepped into the apartment. He was getting a little more comfortable here than I liked.

  Kolin brought the food to the table, careless of my work spread out on it.

  “Wait! Wait,” I admonished him.

  He stopped cold, the top container threatening to topple. With a quick snatch, Tess saved the dinner. Before the next domino could tumble, I quickly capped the ink pot and gathered it all close. The couple pulled out the other two chairs—we’d had to buy a third one, with Tess footing the bill and me grudgingly having no say—and I managed to place my work on the kitchen counter without fully leaving my own chair.

  Kolin dealt out the cardboard boxes, one to each of us. I opened mine, letting the enticing vapors envelop me. Cubes of alternating meat and vegetables, heavy on the mushrooms—yay! —were skewered on a wooden stick and rested on a bed of seasoned rice. A couple of triangles of flatbread accompanied it. We dug in, the only sounds were those of chewing and swallowing. Food was serious business for [mana] users, as I may have mentioned before (//redundant//). I wiped up the last traces of juicy drippings and the remaining grains of rice with a hoarded corner of flatbread.

  “Mm mm…hmmm, that was good.”

  “Should ‘a grabbed a couple of extras,” Tess said. “Next time.”

  “Next time,” Kolin repeated, and I followed with my own “Next time.” Wonderful dinner conversationalists, weren't we? The three of us shared a grin. I guess I could tolerate this guy.

  “I worked on my [sprurt] today, Book. I’m finally ‘good’ at it.”

  Mother of Trees, Bless her roots, Tess had a... unique...naming sense. The dainty—not! —cheerleader athlete had a mouth like a sailor and the perverted humor of a fifteen-year-old boy.

  “You have always been good, babe.”

  Yeah, Kolin, that ‘good’ was for me, and let’s lay off the ‘babe’. Too many bad memories. The word was code for upgrading her [Skill]. Did we need to speak in code? We had no idea. Elves spoke of [Skill]s and attached a quality qualifier to them. We did not think they could see them, at least not in the manner we did. That would take a [Mark .07]. And we could not just come out and ask about something we should have known basically from birth. So, we’d come up with a way to let each other know in front of others (//The CIA would be…what’s the opposite of proud?//).

  “Nice, Tess,” I told her. “I have been practicing, too.”

  “Why are you two being so weird?” The confused look on Kolin’s face told me that our subtlety is what needed more practice. “We are all practicing [Skill]s, pretty much all the time, aren't we? That’s how we advance, so no big deal. No need to be odd about it.”

  “Sorry, dude, just ignore us. Our little hometown is something of a backwater, and we picked up some strange habits.”

  Smooth covering, Tess. That was how we played off any inconsistencies. Kolin shrugged it off as little matter.

  “So, Kolin,” I said, trying to turn the conversation. “Does your team need any basic scrolls? I don’t have much yet, but I’m working on it.”

  “Depends,” the adventurer said. He leaned forward, sensing a deal in the making. “What do you have?”

  “Right now, I could do six of either [torchlight] or [heat]. Mix and match.” As I hadn’t actually finished any of them yet, it would not hurt to get a potential customer’s wants. Not that I had a long list to choose from. The original plan had been to target—um, offer—last-minute scrolls to Teams at the boards, but if we could go straight to the source, all the better. I didn't like the idea of peddling on the streets, anyway. There was the risk of getting caught without a vendor license if we were too public about selling.

  “I mean, torches are always needed,” Kolin said, echoing my thinking. “But they are pretty basic and easy to find.”

  I interpreted that as ‘cheap’. And he was right. They normally went for around ten coppers apiece for ‘common’ ones. Master Alric charged twelve coppers each, but his ‘common’ was closer to everyone else's ‘good’. I hoped mine would rate ‘common’ since I was imbuing the parchments myself. The sheets were low-grade to begin with, though not officially rated. Only items with [mana] invested in them gave off a qualifier. The materials were still graded, of course. Not everything was created equal. In fact, it was suspicious for Master Alric to even have such low-quality material in his shop. More credence to the ‘Blind Eye.’

  “I could do the [torchlight]s for seven coppers (//lucky 7!//), and the [heat] for ten. That’s a savings of three coppers each on both the types.” A deeep discount for a start-up.

  “Hmm, don’t need the [heat],” Damn, I wanted to practice on those. “But I could probably convince my team leader, Rolf, on…” he paused, and made a show of leaning back in thought. “…forty coppers for six scrolls.”

  That robbed me of two coppers. I could accept that, I figured. I had to start somewhere, and I’m sure financial empires had been built on less.

  A hundred coppers made one silver, and a hundred silvers made one gold. This would put me on the road to paying Tess the two gold I owed her. I leaned forward to close the distance and said “Deal.”

  “’Common’ quality, of course,” he said before accepting.

  “Naturally, Kolin. I wouldn’t sell anything less.” I sure hope so.

  Tess watched the two of us, happy her ‘guys’ were getting along.

  “Meow?”

  Tess noticed Stormy for the first time. He had been curled up, asleep, another shadow on the couch.

  “Book? When did we get a cat?”