Chapter

Thirty

The solstice dance was surprisingly complex, like a wandering riverdance but while holding the hand of a partner at arm’s distance. The partners switched as the dancers moved in rotating circles, and you had to keep track of the steps because the circles would suddenly switch direction. Hogg magicked up a couple dozen figures for him to dance with. They were sort of blurry and low definition, but good enough for him to keep track of his place.

He did all that while also playing the music on his lute, and Hogg provided backup music to make sure he would never miss a beat. His hands were full with the music, but the girls in the dance still held their hands up to him and acted as if he were holding them.

They used the grassy clearing outside the house, which added another layer because the ground wasn’t exactly flat. He didn’t actually know where the real dance would take place; there wasn’t a dance hall or anything. It would probably be in the town square.

It was noon by the time Brin got another point in Mental Control. They had plenty of time to keep going, but he was done. He didn’t think he could tie his shoes, much less try to recite the alphabet backwards while doing a handstand under a waterfall or whatever psychotic thing Hogg would dream up next.

“Good time for a break anyhow. Look alive, we got company,” said Hogg.

Brin dragged himself off the ground and over to the chair on the deck, just in time for Prefit Elmon to appear on the road leading from town.

Like the merchant earlier, the large man wore a traveling cloak and a wide-brimmed hat and had a sword at his side. Unlike the merchant, the metal of a full suit of armor peeked out from under the heavy clothes, which Elmon wore with the same casual ease as Galan had. Instead of only looking like a soldier, this was a real [Warrior].

He approached Hogg first. “I was present with Tawna for every moment she spent outside of her house for the last two and a half days. However, I must now hurry to catch up to the merchants if I am to uphold my agreement with them. I trust this fulfills your requirements?”

Hogg thought it over, scratching at the stubble on his neck. “We’re square.”

“May I speak to your son?”

“Of course, Prefit,” said Hogg.

Brin stood up and approached, while Hogg went inside, although there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that Hogg would hear every word that was said.

Prefit Elmon folded his arms and looked down at Brin. “First, I need to make it clear that you were absolutely guilty of the crime I charged you with. You did spread those rumors, and a few hours or even a few days at the pillory would not have been too much.”

Another time, Brin might have argued, but after a night robbing the town he didn’t feel all that innocent, and after a night robbing the town and then half the day training Mental Control, he was too drained to summon up the energy to argue about anything.

“I understand,” he said neutrally.

“That being said, I was too hasty in passing judgment. After spending two days with Tawna… suffice it to say I learned that she was far from blameless in this matter.”

It surprised Brin a little bit that Tawna hadn’t stopped her usual shenanigans even with the Prefit following along beside her. But maybe it shouldn’t surprise him; she wasn’t the type to be ashamed for anything she did. He nodded. “Thank you for saying so.”

Elmon searched his eyes, and apparently didn’t find what he was looking for, because he frowned and said, “I’m sure you felt at the time that justice was being applied unevenly. Do you still feel the same way?”

Brin didn’t have any reason to lie. “Yes.”

“Then think on this: I’ve not visited everywhere or seen everything, but to my knowledge there’s never been a [Witch]-burning of a pre-System child. Perhaps, somewhere, it’s been done, but for all intents and purposes, it simply doesn’t happen.

“On the other hand, where friendless, unpopular [Weavers] are concerned, I’ve personally seen it happen twice. Not here, thank Solia, but there’s nothing different in our makeup that makes us immune to human foibles. Only with diligence and caution have we avoided it so far. You might think a [Witch]-hunt is a surgical procedure, a knife in the dark to remove an unpopular neighbor. You haven’t seen it, so you don’t understand the madness. The sheer chaos that’s unleashed upon a town when fear and paranoia are stoked into an inferno. For however dangerous [Witches] are, the fear of [Witches] is even worse.

“Do you think I could stop it if a mob came for Tawna? Hogg aside, I could easily defeat any two men or women in this town. But what about ten? What about a hundred? Impossible. To prevent a tragedy, I must stop it before it gets that far. I can’t let that happen here.”

“For the record, I don’t want that either,” said Brin.

“Good. Officially speaking, your rumors against her were damaging and illegal. Her rumors against you were not. As Prefit, that’s my only interest in the matter. On a personal note, however, I’ve warned Tawna and Myra against continuing such rumors, and I have asked them both to be nicer to you.”

Even through the weary haze, that last part shocked Brin. He hadn’t expected a red cent from Prefit Elmon. After the browbeating and public humiliation Hogg had given him, Brin expected to have an enemy for life. Instead, the Prefit was trying to fix things. It wasn’t exactly some grand gesture, and he really doubted Tawna and Myra would change their attitude, but it was still something.

“Thank you,” said Brin.

The Prefit finally must’ve found what he was looking for in Brin’s expression, because he smiled and thumped Brin on the shoulder. “Good lad.”

The Prefit left, and Brin didn’t even remember stumbling off to bed.

He awoke at dawn the next morning, having slept away half the day. Just like that, his three-day exile was over.

His mind was a lot clearer after a good night’s rest, even though he was a little irked that he’d slept so long. Yesterday might have been exhausting, but it had been worth it. He’d gotten four whole points of Mental Control in one day, which meant that he only had three left for the first threshold. That was looking entirely possible.

Not to mention all the other gains. The 10% increase to Dexterity, the improved vision, the value sense. He’d totally forgotten about that one, but now that he remembered it, he wanted to try it out.

Why had he not noticed a change last night? He’d noticed his night vision get better, but he hadn’t seen the value of things. He looked at his blanket, and… five silver. Oh, that was all; it wasn’t automatic, but only needed a little bit of intentionality.

The lute in the corner, four silver. The dresser with his clothes cost six silver. There wasn’t much else to look at in here; he was pretty spartan with his personal space. Not by choice so much as by omission.

The door cost another five silver, but he couldn’t really get a feel for what the walls were worth. Until he thought of the house while looking at them, and two hundred fifty gold came to mind. It was strange how the Skill operated. It worked the same way as how he knew what was real or fake. There was no pop-up or line of text in his mind. He just… knew. The information just arrived as part of his perception. The same way he knew that the door was brown, he knew that the doorknob cost two silver, eight copper, four bits, give or take.

Outside, he saw Hogg and was relieved when the Skill didn’t give the man a price tag. That would be uncomfortable. Marksi, on Hogg’s shoulder, cost a whopping eighty-five gold. No. Marksi is not for sale.

The Skill didn’t change its assessment. Was that on him? Did he think of Marksi as an object? Well, whatever the Skill said, Marksi was family. End of story.

It was rare to see Hogg up at that hour, and not only was he up, he was making breakfast. Good stuff, too. Bacon, eggs, and fried bread. No weird Hammon’s Bog stuff like mato mash or barf yogurt. Although, the marshmallow yogurt hadn’t been half bad.

“This new value sense is pretty crazy. It’s going to take a minute to get used to,” said Brin. “Does everyone with the Thief achievement have it?”

“No. You have a pretty advanced version,” said Hogg. “The value sense part is hard to earn.”

Brin looked around the room, putting a price to everything. The beautiful reclining lounge chair–twelve gold. The finely carved end table next to it–twenty silver. The carpet was fourteen gold. It almost cheapened the experience to see exactly how much everything cost. The real value of the room was how everything worked together to give a feeling of civilized comfort.

The plush yellow love seat… Brin’s eyes bulged out. Two hundred gold. What in the world could make a couch cost two hundred gold?

“Food’s up,” said Hogg.

Still looking at the love seat, Brin took a seat at the table. “Can the value of an item increase based on what’s inside it?” Maybe Hogg was hiding something in there? It was the only thing Brin could think of.

“Nope, if you see a chest, you’ll see the value of the chest itself. That’s one of the key loopholes,” said Hogg.

“Then why⁠—”

“It’s not like I meant to keep it a secret forever,” said Hogg, noticing Brin’s eyes glued on the couch. “But why don’t you eat first and then figure it out.”

“Fine,” said Brin.

He looked back down, and saw that the meal was worth twenty silver. “What in the world? The Skill must be buggy. No offense, but you’re not that good a cook.”

“It’s taking the value of my time into account,” said Hogg. “Another way you’ll get swindled if you’re not careful.”

“Every merchant needs this. They’d be stupid not to have it. Are they all thieves, then?” asked Brin.

“Nah, there’s a slow, honest way to get the value sense. I thought you’d appreciate the quick way,” said Hogg.

“I do.”

He took a bite, still watching that yellow love seat. Could it fly or something?

The bacon was pretty good, though, and for a moment that was enough to distract him. “Thanks for breakfast. This is good. Didn’t expect to see you up this early,” said Brin.

“Yeah, well, you’re up. Besides, it’s the day of the solstice festival and all. Plus I wanted to be here when you figured out that love seat.”

Brin shoved the rest of his eggs into his mouth and walked over, poking at the couch. He pulled off the pillows, searched around for a button. Anything. He tried lifting it to look underneath and found that he couldn’t. It was too heavy, or maybe bolted to the floor.

He ran his hands along the bottom of the couch and felt a little catch. A lever. He pulled, and the seat flipped open. He’d been right; there was something inside it.

Looking inside, he saw a warehouse for faeries. Little swords and spears, tiny suits of armor, a pile of black weapons like the sword he’d taken from the undead except toy-sized, a little shelf full of potions, some glowing, and all sorts of other random trinkets.

One little table in the corner had a suit of leather armor, two swords, and a little black potion. He recognized that stuff! That was the stuff he’d bought from Perris, except mini.

The love seat was some kind of chest of holding. He reached inside, and met a firm wall of electricity that zapped his hand.

“Ow!”

Hogg laughed.

“That’s my stuff!” said Brin.

“Yeah, Perris brought it over last week. Hold on, it’s set to only accept me,” said Hogg. He reached inside, then brought out Brin’s items, one by one. It looked sort of like he was reaching into water, except his arm got really small when it passed that lightning barrier and seemed to detach and float around like a mouse cursor. “Put all this in your room; you won’t need any of it today.”

When Brin was finished securing his awesome adventuring gear in his room, he asked, “I assume you had a good reason for hiding my stuff from me?”

“For reasons I’ve half explained, I need to pretend not to know what you’re planning on doing with it. But whatever it is, I knew you’d need every attribute you could get first. I planned on giving it to you two days before your System Day.”

“You could’ve just told me,” said Brin.

“Yeah. I promised to do better, and giving this to you now is part of that. We good?”

Brin rubbed his temples, then dropped his hands. “Fine, yeah, we’re good.”

Marksi had been sneaking up in pounce mode. He leapt, and Hogg snatched him out of the air before he could get electrocuted by the defensive barrier.

“No,” said Hogg. Marksi looked at him with wide eyes. Hogg never told him no. The snake chirped sadly, and Hogg stroked his back but didn’t relent.

“What is this thing? How did it get past my [Know What’s Real]?” asked Brin.

Hogg’s eyes lit up. He was clearly excited to talk about his cool toy. “Well, I didn’t buy it to fool your Skill specifically, but I did want something that would fool someone who could see through illusions. It’s not an illusion, see? It really is a couch. I had to build the whole living room around it, to make it so it wouldn’t look out of place.”

“So that’s why everything here is so nice! I knew you weren’t the type to care so much about color coordinating your furniture,” said Brin.

Hogg looked offended. “No, I do. What’s the point of having all this money if I can’t live well? I had the storage sofa custom built. Oh, but maybe I’m traveling?”

He kicked the sofa, and it turned itself inside out. The walls inside the storage space were now plush yellow. The outside was an old wooden crate, with the lid off. Hogg kicked it again, and it went back to a partially dismantled sofa.

“How is it doing that without magic?” asked Brin.

“It’s magic, just not illusion magic. And the magic is all on the inside, holding it together, holding itself contained. Nothing leaks out, no sign that anything magical is going on from the outside,” said Hogg.

“That’s really neat. Do they make these travel sized? Like a backpack?” asked Brin.

“Well, yeah. We’ll get you set up with one sometime,” said Hogg.

Brin thought back to when the Heroes had rescued him. Hogg had carried a big black hiking backpack. “Let me guess, you carry your bag of holding in a much larger backpack so that no one will be able to identify it.”

“That’s right,” said Hogg.

“Clever,” said Brin.

He gave a glance back at his room. There was nothing stopping him from going through with his plans to go kill a monster in the forest. Well, nothing except the festival. Tomorrow, he promised himself.

“Time to go?” asked Brin.

“One last thing,” said Hogg.

He walked into his room and came back out with a bundle of fabric draped over his arms. “The harvest festival is a day when everyone trots out their best dress. You can’t go like that. Put this on. It’s supposed to look like this.”

Hogg threw up an illusion of Brin, standing in the clothes that Hogg was apparently holding. There was a paper-white collared shirt underneath a navy blue overcoat. The overcoat had glistening gold trim, and as the model rotated, he could see a stylized rainbow dragon, like an adult Marksi, flying across the back. There were tassels coming off the sleeves, a vibrant red sash to tie across the middle, and matching blue trousers. The illusion wore shiny leather boots, and Hogg carried a matching pair in his hands.

“For me? But… who would sell to you? The merchants? How did you order it?”

“Think. There was a solution. Who’s the only other person in town who makes clothes that Tawna never touches?” asked Hogg.

Even now that Hogg had agreed to treat him like an adult, he could never simply answer a question. Everything had to be a puzzle or a test. Looking closer, Brin noticed how thick the cloth was. No, not cloth.

The answer came with a memory of the first time he’d ever met Perris, and noticed that the man’s black and white clothes were made from leather, cleverly disguised to look like fabric. Natural, for a [Leatherworker].

“Perris did this?” asked Brin.

“I had to twist his arm and pay way too much,” said Hogg. “He definitely didn’t tell me to say that. He definitely didn’t come up with the idea and then insist on doing it for free as a gift.”

Brin laughed. “That sounds like him.” He mockingly raised his fist. “Curse that greedy salesman! We’ve been had!”

Hogg smiled. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

Brin put it on in his room and did his best to hide how good it made him feel to look this good. He eyed himself in the mirror in the living room, and it took every ounce of willpower to not strike a pose. They fit perfectly, and he looked good. The style was the same as what the villagers wore, but elevated. For once, he’d stand out because he looked better than everyone instead of worse.

Brin picked up Marksi, who slithered around to the normal spot around his neck. “No outfit is complete without you, Marksi!” said Brin. The snake acted a little put out that there wasn’t a hood, but the leather was soft and felt pretty nice, and it wasn’t too long before Marksi was settled in and purring.

Hogg wore his normal black leathers. Well, the old guy was clearly capable of getting clothes if he wanted them. Brin only gave him a little bit of teasing for it, but Hogg was incapable of self-consciousness. He wore what he wanted, end of story.

The trip into town went quickly, and as soon as they crossed the gates, Brin started looking for his friends or really anyone he recognized so he could show off. The first person he saw wasn’t Davi or Zilly, or even Myra.

It was a figure in immaculate white robes and a tall headdress. The priest, Ellion.

Brin turned around. “Time to go.”

“Ah, Brin. I was wondering if we could have a word,” said Ellion.

“Uh, sure,” said Brin. “We can talk about whatever you want here. Right here.”

“Perhaps you would be more comfortable if we retired to the temple,” said Ellion, a twinkle in his eye.

“That’s… that’s fine, but it’s just you, right? We’re not going to meet anyone else there, are we? No, um, statues?”

“The gods will do as they will,” said Ellion with a world-class poker face. “I am only their messenger.” He was teasing him, right? He had to be.

“You’re coming with me, right, Hogg? Hey, where’d Hogg go?” The treacherous old [Illusionist] had abandoned him. Even [Know What’s Real] wasn’t spotting anything.

“Come along,” said Ellion.

Maybe Brin was being a little melodramatic about being terrified of the temple, but that was only to cover up the real, actual terror he felt at the idea that a goddess would want to speak to him again. She’d imprinted all sorts of knowledge into Ellion, so she wouldn’t have to do that again, right? Brin gulped and followed Ellion down the street.