Solo The Bargain

[Konrad Venger]

43rd Day of Spring, 516AV - The Traveler's Complex

[Continued from here]

"I was starting to think you wouldn't be coming back."

"I doubt that."

Trevin snorted and favored the scarred man with a half-smile. For a Sunberth scally, Konrad had some brains. Read him well enough, anyway. Truth be told he'd spent a couple of nights quietly and rather enjoyably under a roof, for a change, eating meals at a table and not wondering if the next bell would herald a Drykas assault, or a Zith raid, or Yukmen, or bandits, Glassbeaks, wolves...

Gotta admit, shykehole that it is, Kenash has its benefits.

"Come in."

Konrad did, head craning around the spare, simple room as if looking for differences to his own. As far as he could tell... no, there were none. Trevin checked the hallways and heard footsteps but saw no bodies. Good. He didn't want this getting too soon. He closed the door and rammed home the bolt and-

-when he looked back Konrad had a hand on his sword, arm cocked ready to draw it. Trevin remembered who this man was. The precautions he would need to take.

"Don't need us to be disturbed, boy," he said, deciding to go with a fatherly tone tonight. If he'd known Konrad's father, he would have realized what a mistake that was. "It won't take long, but just in case."

"Aye..." The sword slid a couple of inches back into the scabbard to rest. "Fair 'nuff."

"So...?"

He left just a hint of a question at the end of the sentence. Trevin knew he could have pushed harder - Konrad came to him, after all - but... no... not someone like Konrad. He'd been talking, since they'd creaked and crunched along the Kabrin into Kenash and unloaded their wares, spirituous and human alike. Asking, too. Sellswords and carters from Sunberth, describing the man calling himself "Konrad Venger" and finding it curious he had few others names.

Just "Black Hat", apparently. Hardly imaginative but, then again, it wasn't one Konrad came up with.

They all told him the same thing. Watch yourself. Even talking with the man was like dancing on quicksand, and one slip...

Konrad grinned and pulled a purse fulsome and fat from his pocket and shook it. Trevin's eyebrows shot up his weathered head. Gods, there was so much gold in there he could barely make out the jingles: it was like a bag of ball bearings being dropped to the ground.

"Course."

He tossed it over and Trevin pulled it open, face turned to gold by the reflected light from the ocean of coins inside. But he was not so stunned that he didn't ask-

"How much?"

A pause. Damn.

"Five hundred. As agreed."

"Aye... true enough."

Konrad chuckled. After a stunned, still moment, so did Trevin. A shuddering thing, like an engine struggling to get to full steam, but it took only ticks and they were both chuckling, Konrad circling back to the window, taking off his hat and scratching at his head. Lice, probably. Rooms were crawling with them.

"So, how'd we do this?"

For an instant, Trevin wavered. To give his power to one like Konrad... it was such a gamble. More than that, it was a risk. A child could tell the man's nature, and yet... five hundred mizas. Weighing down his hand as he spoke.

He couldn't argue with the arithmetic. A few hundred of the purse in his hand would buy his passage to Syliras, then he could hire on with another caravan back to Sunberth... or just leave on the next one from Kenash, hired mage, his oldest profession. Save the money. Add it to the rest.

Just one more year... petch it... Marion and the boys are worth some Sunberth scumbag being able to light candles with his fingers.

"Come over 'ere."

Konrad did as he was told and Trevin found his pocket knife. The sellsword stiffened out of instinct, hands balling into fists, before Trevin held up a hand.

"Remember what I-"

"Yeah... Yeah..." Konrad said, head shaking as if chiding himself. "Y'gotta cut me 'ands. Like yers. I remember."

He flexed his own and turned them up to the ceiling. Trevin could make out the fresh but healing Freeborn brand, cocked an eyebrow at it. Looked like Konrad was sticking around. Part of him was glad; the man was dangerous to be around for long period. Useful, though.

"Keep still."

Konrad did exactly what he was told. Worryingly well. Trevin wondered for a moment what pain he must have endured to so stoically endure his palms behind cut open, then decided he didn't want to know.

Ain't gonna matter, he thought idly, and with a little tug of satisfaction, as he cleaned the blade and rolled up his sleeves. What's comin' next... ain't nothin' like that.

"A'right, on yer knees." Konrad frowned. Trevin rolled his eyes. "Look, who's the petchin' mage, 'ere? This is how I was initiated, so we're doin' the same for you. I ain't gettin' creative and riskin' killing you. Tempting you it is..."

Konrad snorted, but there was no humor in his eyes. His body acquiesced, but his eyes shot the mage a warning... as his body sunk down... palms up... and Trevin held the sides of his own hands ... and closed his eyes...

I feel you... I see you... I bring you from me...

Words old and oft-repeated. So familiar to him he knew them before he did his children. He felt something uncoil inside him, yawn and sniff the space inside his body, his being, spread out and stretch into his limbs.

Come out... come out... now.

He opened his eyes and a green gas flecked with gold was pouring from his arms like steaming sweat, but thicker, wetter. Konrad was staring, eyes wide as eggs, lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. Forcing back his fear and decades of hatred for Trevin's kind. But the bargain was struck, the deal upheld, and now Trevin had his end...

"Don't move," Trevin said, voice already distant from his body as he concentrated. The liquid gas was crawling down his hands now, soaking into Konrad's skin, racing up it, around it... into the wounds. "Or try not to. Just hang on until we're-"

His body, or mayhap his thoughtless mind that truly wielded djed, acted before he finished speaking. Like some second skin evaporating off his body, the cloud of djed burst forward, too clear and purposeful to be a breeze-

-and slammed into Konrad Venger's body. The snarling, grinning sellsword that had so terrified the slaves on the caravan vanished, that visage destroyed and one of a wide-eyed, gaping child replaced it. Mutilated and hideous, but... innocent.

No, Trevin thought, as the res started to pulse across his skin and race into Konrad's wounds. Ignorant. But now he ain't.

[Konrad Venger]

He was in the sewer again. Effluence filling his mouth, his nose, his lungs. Stinging his eyes and deafening him. Only now he could see what was killing him. See through it. A green gas that flowed like water, washing over him like liquid lightning, pouring into holes he didn't know he had.

He tried to breath and it was that wet, burning, sizzling thing that was like nothing he'd ever experienced. He'd come close to Dira a hundred times, close enough to smell her hair and feel her hand brush his chest, but nothing like this.

Fucking mages.

He tried to rise but his limbs weren't listening. They were lead, stone, granite, dead things he couldn't control. But still, through the pain and the fear he couldn't look at, he could feel... it.

It was every cup of grog and mouthful of meat. Roast duck and fluffy white rice. A scented, willing woman and that high of sheer, brutal survival he'd felt every time he'd lived and the other bastard had died. It was all of these sensations and all those from when he was a child, warm and pure in ways he'd forgotten how to understand.

It was these and more. It was inside him. It had always been inside him.

This is magic. This is djed.

He looked beyond his body and saw Trevin gasping and straining, sweating staining his shirt and blood oozing from one corner of his mouth. Gods, how long had it been? Ticks? Chimes? Bells? The pain made it all one, time bleeding together like candle wax until it meant nothing. All that mattered was that he held on, stayed awake, didn't let his eyes close even as the gas filled them until-

"Th... There!"

Trevin threw back his hands and the green gas flew back to him like a pet to its master. Konrad felt some massive tug in every pore, every opening, even his burning wounds, and then the gas was... gone. He could breath. He sucked air deep and-

Fell down to all fours like a beast, choking and retching but nothing was coming up. His limbs were just shaking bags of meat and his heart pounded in his ears, then slowed, still, skipped, pounded again.

"Easy... Easy..."

A hand on his shoulder and he shook it off with a feral snarl. He stared at the floor and saw nothing. His gaze was turned inward, because now... he could feel it. Fresh veins that were there but were new, pumping some strange feeling across him, around him, through him. He breathed... and felt that second Konrad swell and rise as he straightened.

Trevin was panting on his bed, wiping the blood off his sleeve... and grinning. He nodded at Konrad's hands.

"See?"

Konrad looked down and saw the mouths. No, he saw scars... when he looked longer. But to a glance, it was like two skeletal maws, set to open and devour, frozen in that moment of avarice. Konrad's lips twitched, quirked, and then he looked up and matched Trevin's grin.

"I can... I can feel it."

[Konrad Venger]

"I should bloody well hope so."

It could have been just the sheer, unnatural exhaustion, but for the first couple of ticks, he saw himself in Konrad. Kneeling there, chest heaving, wanting to purge his guts but not quite able to. Candlelight streaming over him in fluttering waves as he stared at his hands, not quite believing.

Oh, but you will. I did.

"Here," he said with a croak, pouring a cup of water and handing it over. "Takes a lot outta ya."

Konrad tried to drink and choked on most of it. After his fit was over he managed to reel back and sit on his arse, hands on the floor behind him, remembering how to stand up. Trevin looked already recovered, breathing easily, studying the man twenty-odd years younger than him like he was a child.

"Feel anything else?"

"Like what?"

"Any pain? Numbness? Things not working?"

Konrad decided to answer by action. Slowly, carefully, he got up to one foot... okay, that side seemed to work... then launched himself upward-

-head swimming, vision going blurry for a second like the world was a painting crudely smeared-

-but then it passed, save for a faint pounding in his head that would be a tapping in a few bells. He clutched his skull and groaned. Trevin's laughter made him want to cut his throat but the thought faded fast. He had so much more to think about.

"Like a night sunk in the grog, aye?"

"A... Aye." He fumbled around behind him until he found a chair and lowered himself into it. Already his eyes were focused again. And not just in terms of what he could see. "I can do it now? What you do?"

"Well, not quite what I can do-"

"So how do I start? Do I just-"

"Wait!"

Trevin bolted like Konrad was about to summon a petching daemon from his hand, and the sellsword that had ended lives since he was ten years old froze like a little boy in the middle of stealing an apple. The older mage sighed with one, long "urgh" and gestured for him to lower his hand.

"You can't just dive into it. It's not that easy. You'll overgive."

"Over what?"

"Overgive. The Akalak that initiated me, first thing he said after we were done was, "Understand you are initiated, but only just. The power must be built gradually, on solid foundations.""

"He said that?"

"Aye, just imagine it deeper and... purple."

"What?"

[b]"Forget it, just... look, put your hand out." Konrad did as he was told, palm up. "Okay, now, you need to focus. Don't do too much, too fast. The res is what comes first. That's the gas you saw come outta me, yeah? Now... focus on the image of pulling that out of your hand and making a little ball. Like... the size of a marble."[/b]

Konrad frowned and peered at his hand... then under it... then closer at the scar.

"Where's the gas come out?"

"Out of you."

"Like... making a hole?"

Oh, for the love of-

"No no no, it just... does. Comes up right out of your skin. The, wadayacalit, the source is the scar, but it's not like your skin will split open or anything. Anyway, look at your hand. Focus on it. I know you can feel the flow in your now. So just relax... and focus... and make that marble."

Konrad was not a man used to stillness... or was he? How many nights had he stood outside a warehouse or a boozer back home and just watched? Cleared his mind and just done the job? Hells, there'd been dozens of nights in the Winter where all he'd done all day had been watch. On the wagons, in the camp, just staring and waiting. He could focus then. This was no different.

No, he reminded himself as he stared at his palm and felt something bubbling under his skin. This is very fucking different.

He proved that a moment later, when the gas started to rise. No, not the gas. The res.

"Easy," Trevin said, five feet and ten miles away, voice like he was coaxing a foal from its mother. "Just let it happen. Once it starts, it's easy, but that doesn't mean you should-"

Konrad was barely listening. He was entranced as from his very being smoky green rose and formed into a spinning ball above his scar. Green like the swamp but flecked with purest black, skittering across the green like carrion flies. Within ticks it was as big as Trevin instructed, gaining form and substance. A ball of liquid spinning like a sickly Syna in his grasp.

"Now what?"

His voice was a whisper. Honestly, he was afraid he'd scare it away.

"You can't have a fire without fuel. The res is the fuel. Then you just need a spark, which is your mind. Focus again... closely, now... and set it on fire."

"How?"

"Same way you made the ball. Think about it. Have it go from liquid-"

Whoosh

Konrad gasped as that thought became real. Literally. He looked at the little green-black blob and as he pictured it turning, nearly barked the word "Burn!" in his own skull, it burst into flames from the inside. Konrad didn't know how else to describe it. No taper, no match, no coal... he didn't even see the spark, the ball just transformed before his eyes and he felt heat, the glow seemed to grow and throb and-

"Kon, wait-"

It was growing. Gorging on the air. The flames from the candles were leaning towards it as if blown, pulled, drawn-

"Konrad, that's enough-"

No, it wasn't. Not nearly. It was barely even tingling. The sellsword grinned and the green flame painted his face in sickly shadows as it touched his hand and-

"Shyke!"

Burned. Of course.

The pain seared his palm and shot up his arm but it was more than just a hot thing on his flesh. He felt the tremors up his arm, in places beyond meat and bone. He reared back, clutching his hand and fuck, he smelled burning meat. Looked down and the flaming ball was sputtering on the floor, spreading across it like a burst fruit and Konrad couldn't-

A tornado touched down in the room. The candles weren't just blown out, they were blown off the table, along with everything else. Konrad covered his face as the wind lashed his eyes. The last thing he saw was Trevin's arm shooting out, hand a blur as he thrust it forward-

-obliterating his first foray into Reimancy.

That's when it started to hurt.

"F... Fuck!"

"Tolja, lad. Overgiving. You don't want to mess with it."

Konrad was too busy not trying to vomit to fire something back at him. It was like a Jamoura had sat on his arm for a week then thrown acid on it. Dead numbness blended with daggers lashing away and it wouldn't go away. He was almost afraid to look at it, imagining the roiling flesh and his skin bleeding, burnt down to his bone...

No. Just his palm. A black and red burn that was no worse than others he'd got, but still, that pain.

"I... may need..." He managed to get out between breaths, taking a soaked towel from Trevin after he'd lit the candles again. And found them. "Some lessons."

"Cost ya extra."

"That much I expected. Leavin' soon?"

The carter-turned-mage (though he was as good at both, in his opinion) pointed to the chart that every room had. A simple grid, six rows of five, leading down to a red square in the bottom right corner. The first three blocks had been crossed.

"No more than that chart. I get something, a caravan back home, maybe, I'll take it. Until then... we'll call it ten gold a lesson?"

"We'll call it five," Konrad shot back, mind not quite so addled that he'd forgotten how to petching negotiate. "Y'get ten a day just t'ride a cart and maybe use that power a' yours, an' I saw that once in a hundred n' forty days. So five for a bell of yer time don't seem too bad."

Trevin mulled it over then extended his hand... realized Konrad couldn't really use that one, and offered the other instead. Konrad took it, smile warm and welcoming... at least that was what Trevin would see.

Konrad saw that bag of mizas, stuffed carefully away somewhere. He saw more learning, more teachings, things he needed to know and at the end of it... that purse, back in his pocket.

He smiled wider as he pictured Tanroa turning over a great hourglass with "Trevin" etched on the side. Sand already running, hissing down to oblivion.

Twenty-seven days. Use them well.

Ledger-500gm

[Cocoon]

Well, well...

Konrad is finally ready to enter the world of personal magic. This was a very interesting thread, short yet still very complete. A prime example of a proper initiation into Reimancy-

Let's see what you've won with your writing...

 

Konrad Venger

XP

• Observation +3
  
• Endurance +3
  
• Socialization +3
  
• Reimancy +2
  
• Negotiation +2
  
• Acting +2
  
• Subterfuge +1

Lores

• The paranoia from magic
  
• The feeling of Djed
  
• Res: Manifestation of Djed
• Overgiving: Going over the limit
• Morals and how to lack them

Miscellaneous

• New magic discipline: Konrad has now been initiated into Reimancy.
• Competent Observation: Konrad has gained enough experience to be more conscious about his surroundings.

Penalties

• Due to his lack of moderation in his Reimancy initiation, Konrad will experience increased hunger and thirst for three days. Furthermore, he is likely to gain little to no rest in his sleep, and possibly be haunted by bad dreams. [Effect will be gone the 46th of Spring or with the help from a herbalist.]

 

Notes

Amazing thread. This is the first one I grade for you, and hopefully the one of many. I enjoy your writing, and Konrad's somewhat bizarre presence makes it very amusing to read. Konrad's cussing amuses me, and he's overall a very interesting character to follow around thread-wise.

[..] Konrad circling back to the window, taking off his hat and scratching at his head. Lice, probably. Rooms were crawling with them.

Lines like those really make it pleasant to read through.


As far as critique goes, I can only comment on two things.

• Golden Mizas in Mizahar are not small coins like pennies. They are gold rimmed stones that weight a lot. It is unlikely for Konrad to be able to carry them around in a pouch and on his own. For more information, please head to the Money wiki page. Don't worry, this is a picky detail that most players ignore.
  
  
  
• Although I like your character and I'm fine with his cussing, I must point out that once in a while a word like fucking slips into your writing. Try to get used to the idea of using petching, shyke, dek licker... etc from now on. Its hard to get used to, but it is sort of necessary in Mizahar.

Please let me know if I've missed something, or if you have any doubts as to why I awarded you a certain skill point. Happy writing!