Chương 21: The City - MADEON (3:53)

Z3ke (Original Poster) Has Grave finished setting up the Round Robin thing? Do I have a primary advisor for the day? SignalLoss Not yet. Give him some time, he's still fiddling with it. The list is up to a pretty decent size number of names, but most everyone is still more interested in giving secondary advice than taking on the responsibility of "primary." Z3ke (Original Poster) Okay.

Then while we're waiting for Grave to do whatever he needs to do, I guess this would be a good time to check in and let you all know what I've been up to since I logged off last night. A ton of you tossed advice my way yesterday, telling me to sell my junk items and test out different skills and explore the city and try not to get myself killed. So I thought, "hey, why not do all of that?" After logging out of the forum I made my way back to the Roaring Drake for some rest and food.

It was actually pretty nice walking through the city and having a place to come back to. It felt… normal. Something that had been seriously missing for me over the past couple days. Patch was propped up against the bar, laughing a little too loudly and hanging with the regulars. There were some people playing a dice game at one of the tables, but I'd learned my lesson to not gamble with those sharks. Instead, I made my way over to Patch and pulled out the two tokens that I'd looted off those desert bandits.

He gave them an interested look, all squinty and appraising, and when he was finished he offered me 10 credits for one of the tokens and 12 for the other. The higher price for the second token was because its sigil was still intact. I don't know if he ripped me off or not (can someone weigh in here) but honestly, it felt like a decent deal and I wasn't in the mood to haggle with someone who'd helped me out so much recently.

With a bit of money in my pockets and a whole bunch of stuff in my storage space needing to be sold, Patch suggested a few spots that I might find what I needed. He pointed me to a store called the Wire & Salvage. It's run by a guy named Kurst and it's tucked out in the southern reaches of the Guts. That meant a solid twenty-minute walk through a section of the city I'd never visited. The shop was… it's kinda hard to describe. Imagine a hardware store has been swallowed up by a junkyard and then blown to pieces.

Then, someone swept up all that wreckage into a single giant mount and slapped a sign over it and called it a business. That's the Wire & Salvage. My uncle always gave me grief whenever we'd talk and I'd tell him something was "interesting." He'd ask me what I thought about a book or a movie or a tv show or something, and I'd tell him that it was "interesting." Then he'd complain that "interesting" is what you call the bearded lady at the circus. Use your words. Why is it interesting?

Which is why, the moment I laid eyes on the owner of the Wire & Salvage and felt the word interesting leap to the front of my mind, I could practically hear my uncle groaning in the background. Kurst was an older guy wearing patched-over, oil-stained coveralls that looked like they'd never been washed. Every part of him seemed made for surviving in his scrapyard. He had scarred hands and at least three prosthetics - an arm, a leg, and something mechanical that had replaced one of his eyes.

When he smiled a greeting at me it was with a mouth filled with mismatched metal teeth. The man looked like someone who'd lived a life filled with explosions and bad decisions. He guided me over to a wonky workbench in his store and I dumped out all the random junk I'd collected during my time in the Deadlands. Somehow, either through instinct or skill or sorcery or sheer familiarity with all sorts of trash, he was able to identify everything without hesitation and rattle off prices for everything he wanted to buy.

Hand-cranked flashlight: 3 credits Pair of mismatched socks (why the hell was I even carrying these?): 1 credit Canvas pants (too small, maybe meant for a child): 1 credit Cracked desert goggles: 2 credits Folding Knife: 5 credits Flare Gun (with one round): 12 credits. I sold everything but the flare gun. That felt like the sort of item you'd regret giving up, you know? I can imagine being stuck out in the wilderness, calling for help, wishing I hadn't traded my emergency signal for pocket change.

With that junk gone and having sold those two coins to Patch, I now had 34 credits to my name. I don't know how good that is or if I failed at haggling, but it was nice having a bit of walking around money. After that was done I realized that I needed to start thinking beyond "don't immediately die." Patch told me he'd give me one more free night at the Drake before I needed to start paying. It would come out to either 7 credits per night or 40 credits for the week if I paid.

Not only did I not have enough money to pay for a week, but the room I'm in is a storage closet with a blanket and a bed that folds into itself. The air smells musty and the noise from the bar leaks in through paper-thin walls. There are cheaper options nearby including a couple old prefab row houses a few blocks from the Drake.

They're basically duct-taped together boxes with cracked windows and the best thing that can be said about them is that they're safe in the "no one is gonna rob me because I clearly have nothing worth stealing" kind of way. Rent in those houses is 25 credits a week, also paid upfront to an elderly woman with one eye and a permanent scowl on her face. It's quieter in the row houses than at the Drake. Also, there's much less fights per square foot there. Not no fights because that would be asking too much.

But it's less fights. I haven't rented anything yet though. I'm keeping all my credits handy until whoever is my first advisor gives me marching orders. The first question they're gonna have to answer is: do I bunker down in The MIZ? Or should I try and keep everything mobile and use all my money for travel expenses? RustMagnet Good call on keeping the flare gun. You'd be amazed at how many of life's problems can be solved with "flammable gas + flare round." It's basically a discount fireball.

101610166 You could have probably got 15 credits each for the two tokens. But it doesn't really seem like he scammed you. To get that price you would have had to find a trustworthy pawn shop owner, and that's rarer than a unicorn in The MIZ. Westluvr12 Alright, I'm tapping out. This fic was fun when it was about running from Eaters and venturing into puzzle houses. But now we're talking about rent and currency like Z3ke's in an accounting sim. What's worse is that his numbers don't even make sense.

A flare gun is worth half a week's worth of rent? 7 credits a night but somehow it's 40 for the week? And how is the row house so much cheaper? It's wild. He's not making any sense. If you want to make an economic sim, then at least do some homework and make sure the prices are accurate. He's making it so that money doesn't mean anything. 3/5 stars. I'm going back to reading Queen of the Void Labyrinth. At least that fic knows what genre it wants to be in. Z3ke (Original Poster) Okay…

not really understanding your criticism. You're saying that the rent numbers are off? Are you complaining that 7 credits per day would amount to more than 40 credits per week? Is that your problem with it? Have you never paid rent in your life? Have you never stayed in a hotel? Hotels are always going to be more expensive because they're temporary. They're for wanderers and traders and whatever the hell I qualify as. It's day to day. High turnover, no lease, pay-by-the-night convenience.

You're paying for the security and the location and the flexibility and the ability to leave whenever you want. That's literally how hotels work. Rent is cheaper than a hotel because you're committing to something. That's how rent works EVERYWHERE. A hotel could come to $100 a night which, for a month's stay would work out to around $3k. Rent is gonna be much cheaper. Something like $1000-1500. Are you fucking kidding me with the whole "numbers don't make sense?"

As for why the row houses are cheaper than the Drake, it's because the row houses aren't a bar. If I'm staying at the Drake it's because I'm paying for the location, the security, the easy access to booze, and the slight promise that the people around me aren't going to knife me in my sleep. And as for the flare gun, it's a vital piece of equipment. It's a rare signal device in a wasteland filled with things that want to eat me. Of course it's going to be worth more than everything else.

I've never played these games and even I can figure that shit out. Do you want me to break out a spreadsheet and explain rent and finance to you? Because I will. Z3ke (Original Poster) [Post Deleted by Moderator] GravemindLegacy (MOD) Z3ke, consider this your first warning. We have rules here on the forum. No personal attacks. I get that criticism stings, especially when someone comes at you sideways, but keep it civil or you will be giving a temporary ban.

GrognarTheGreen The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. HAAA. Who knew that hotel management was one of Z3ke's berserk buttons? Z3ke (Original Poster) Sorry about that. Don't know why that set me off so hard. Just got irrationally pissed about that. I'm good now. Flare gun economy discourse officially tabled. FeralMnemonic You know, I wouldn't mind a post delving deep into the economics of The MIZ.

Most fanfics treat towns like they're straight out of a JRPG - swords are 20 gold, inn is 5, nobody pays rent unless the plot demands it. A chapter on The MIZ's economy could be refreshing and I'm sure there are a bunch of people on this forum who'd find it interesting. ThreadedMercy FWIW, 7 a night v. 40 a week is something I'd expect to see at a bar. You're paying extra for the location at a bar. And you're getting a discount for the week by locking it in. The row houses being cheaper also makes sense.

They're less convenient and probably in a shittier area and don't have an ogre standing outside pulling security duty. Z3ke (Original Poster) Alright, I've cooled off. I promise I'm not gonna start screaming at someone who questions the prices. Deep breath. Serenity now. Moving on. Someone posted a map on the forum earlier and I pulled it up to plan a city loop. My idea was to walk a few blocks to get a feel for the neighborhoods. Maybe I'd stumble across a skill trainer or someone who could teach me a class.

You all have been harping on me about getting a class, and I have been listening. Everyone keeps telling me I'll fade into nonexistence or be disappeared or something like that if I don't get a move on. My motivation for getting a class is extremely high right now since I don't want any of that to happen to me. Mushroom mentioned earlier that, since classes determine which skills you can push past level seven, it might be a good idea to test out what I'm interested in.

It would be useful for me to know which skills I'm good at or what feels fun before committing my entire existence to a skill tree that ends with "oops, I hate this." So that was my mission for the day. I was heading out into the city to sample the buffet of skills this world had to offer. The top of my list of skills to develop was self-defense. The only weapon that I've got is that dull utility knife I used to shank the desert bandits back on the train.

It's great for piercing cardboard, not so much if I actually need to defend myself in the future. If I found myself in a combat situation or, what's more likely, you all pressure me into heading into a dungeon, then I'm gonna need a better option than a dull knife and flailing wildly at my target and hoping for the best. Which is why I ended up considering guns as my starting weapon. I mean, guns are pretty simple, right? You point and click.

That's how it works in every single video game I've ever played, from Oregon Trail to Call of Duty. Hell, guns are so easy to use that literal kids in war-torn nations carry them around. My problem is that I've lived most of my life in New York and we don't really have gun ranges on every corner. I actually can't think of where I would be able to find one. Maybe out in Queens? Still, I'd seen a ton of action movies and figured that I could at least pull a trigger without embarrassing myself.

The city map had a few spots labeled "ballistics range." I picked one and headed towards it. When I got there I realized that calling the place a ballistics range was being generous. The place was basically just a fenced-in alleyway with corrugated metal walls, some sandbags scattered about, and a bunch of targets nailed onto a row of wooden mannequins. The owner of the place was slumped against a crate, looking bored and tired and permanently unimpressed with everyone who stopped by.

Behind him was a wall of guns that were, in the kindest phrasing possible, excessively rusty. I asked if I could try one or two of the guns before I committed to buying them and he rattled off, "Pistol, carbine, scatterer, or repeater?" The only word he said that I recognized was pistol, so I pointed to the least tetanus-threatening one he had. He handed it over with a box of ammo and a single target sheet before waving me towards an open booth. I stepped up to the booth and tried to summon my inner action hero.

I squared my stance, held the pistol like I'd seen in basically every movie ever, and then squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. No click. No bang. I didn't even get the courtesy of the gun jamming. I squeezed the trigger harder and started wondering if maybe the firing mechanism was stuck or perhaps there was a gun skill that I didn't have and that locked me out of even using the pistol. I kept fiddling with the gun, trying not to look confused while absolutely being confused.

When I still couldn't get the gun to shoot I tilted it sideways. Not gangster-style sideways like you see in movies. It was more "I'm trying to read the instructions printed nowhere on this weapon" sideways. The gun was loaded, that much I was sure of. I couldn't find a safety switch anywhere. Did I need to cock back the hammer? I knew that some old-timey guns needed that. My thumb brushed against something and then - CRACK.

My ears exploded with ringing and I stared in horror at the fresh bullet hole punched clean through the corrugated metal wall to my left. My heart was slamming into my chest as I realized what I'd just done. The instructor teleported to my side (literally, I think) and snatched the pistol from my hands.

"You're done," he said. And that was the end of my gun training. He safetied the gun, gave me a firm look that left me emotionally crippled, and pointed to the exit. Whoever is my primary advisor coming up, I'm not saying that guns are off the table forever, but maybe we should put a pin in the idea until I'm a little less hazardous to everyone in a thirty-foot radius.

After my spectacular one-shot performance, I didn't want the day to end with a ringing in my ears and a bruise on my ego, so I decided to try out a few more options. Maybe I'd find a skill that, when I trained it up, wouldn't see me slinking away in shame. There was a training yard near the Roaring Drake that I'd passed earlier in the day. It was tucked behind a half-collapsed brick building with a sign out front that read "Blades and Bludgeons."

Underneath it, in a messily written script, was All Skill Levels Welcome. I perked up at that, realizing that my zero in weaponry was a skill level and that the sign was welcoming me, and I felt like the place had exactly the kind of friendly nonjudgemental atmosphere that my dignity needed. Around a dozen people were milling around the place. A couple of the students had paired off together, enthusiastically swinging wooden swords at each other.

Other students were practicing with staves or other blunt weapons, moving through what looked like complicated drills. One of the students, a guy with a shaved head and a shit ton of muscles, was carving arcs through the air around a bunch of practice dummies. He moved like a gymnast or a dancer, smooth and controlled, and I got the feeling that he was more dangerous with a sword than most people would be with a gun.

A little further away, another man was effortlessly fending off three students at once with a staff, smacking their weapons aside like he'd done it thousands of times before. The place had a sort of "do what you want" feel about it. There wasn't any pressure to do anything you weren't comfortable with, and there wasn't any ceremony about the place. It felt like the instructors were fine if you just picked up a weapon and started swinging away. I didn't exactly know what to do.

A few years back I tried to join a gym. On my first day there I showed up in my gym clothes, ready to get buff. All the machines and weights intimidated the hell out of me. I didn't know the proper way to go about working out and the entire place was filled with people who knew all about protein and reps and resistance training and all that stuff. Everyone was incredibly unapproachable and I ended up just running on the treadmill for a few minutes before eventually calling it quits.

This training yard reminded me of that. I eventually drifted over to a battered barrel filled with cheap practice weapons. I grabbed one of the swords which was a chipped to hell piece of shit. It wasn't too heavy, but it definitely felt wrong in my hands. I gave it a couple test swings and, by the third one, my forearms were burning. A few minutes of me swinging the sword around and an instructor wandered over. She was a stocky woman with a faded scar running down one cheek.

She watched me swing exactly one more time before a look of pure disgust crossed her face and she stepped in to correct me.

"Stance," she barked out. I looked around and tried copying what the other students were doing. Feet shoulder-width apart, sword held in two hands out in front of me. Apparently that was enough for her to get fed up and start rearranging me. She showed me how to square my hips, bend my knees, and adjust my grip. Everything seemed straightforward and she shouted out a "swing." I swung. And promptly fell over. Like… full-on toppled sideways.

How the hell someone can fall over by simply swinging a sword, I have no clue. But I did it with verve and panache. She blinked at me, huffed, and then hauled me upright and reset my stance.

"Again," she said as she stepped back. She didn't bother hiding the look of disgust on her face. We repeated that cycle about six more times. I dropped the sword twice and somehow managed to clip my own ankle once. By the fourth attempt the rest of the class started side-eyeing me, wondering if this was some sort of performance art piece or a comedy routine. But no… I really was that inept.

Finally, after one last attempt that ended with me wobbling around like a baby deer wearing roller skates, the woman stared at me with the weariness of someone who'd reached the limits of both her patience and compassion.

"Are you fucking around," she asked, "or are you actually this hopeless?" I didn't have a good answer to that. Hell, I didn't have an answer to that. I just sat there in silent shame until she sighed and waved for me to step to the side. She told me I should just "watch for a while," which I translated to mean: please stop making the swords sad. I left shortly after that, realizing that I'm obviously not gonna be a physical combatant.

My thoughts turned to something that was suggested yesterday, that I might be more interested in alchemy or tinkering or the more scholarly arts. Maybe I could be a robe-guy. Long beard. Staff. Pipe. Gandalf vibes. I could totally be like that guy that yells at Mickey for screwing up his lab in Fantasia. I once more turned to the map and it pointed me to a place called Coil of Thought. It was a wizard's library that advertised "Intro to Arcana" classes.

It was the perfect place for me to start on my journey into magic. I'd sit in, take some notes, feel that spark of destiny, unlock a magic class, and start myself on the path of flinging fire around. The classroom was a dim, vaulted room lit by drifting crystal lamps. At the front were some chalkboards covered in what I can only assume were spell diagrams. They were so complicated that they made calculus look like tic-tac-toe.

The lecturer for the class was an ancient guy who was wearing four pairs of glasses stacked together like optical nesting dolls. Apparently each layer allowed him to see "different magical flows." Fifteen minutes into the lecture and I was lost Twenty minutes into the lecture and I was asleep. I only woke up when the guy seated next to me elbowed me in the ribs. Apparently I'd been snoring loud enough to earn stares from everyone in the room.

In my defense, I obviously wasn't in top shape after having spent most of my time in this world running for my life or camping out in the wilderness. A warm classroom with a guy droning on about a topic I couldn't follow along with was the perfect recipe for me drooling in my sleep. I fought to stay awake until the end of the lecture and, when everyone else packed up to leave, I shuffled my way to the front to speak with the lecturer.

I wanted to ask him the most basic question in the universe, the one he failed to actually address in class.

"So… how do spells work?" He launched into a monologue about astral modulation and cognitive anchor threading and internalized intent matrices and my brain just… quit. It checked out. Went on strike. I nodded politely as the man spoke and my mind curled up into the fetal position and begged me to make it all stop. By the time I stumbled my way back to the Drake, I was running on fumes and embarrassment. I hadn't unlocked a class. I hadn't gained any new skills.

And I wasn't any closer to figuring out my path in this strange new world. Patch was behind the bar with Garrick, pouring drinks for a small crowd of travelers who'd stopped in. When he saw me enter, something in his expression shifted. He waved me over and leaned on the bar.

"What's up kid?" he asked.

"Ughh," I groaned as I slid into one of the bar stools.

"Went out today to try out some skills and maybe earn myself a class. Basically I was just trying to get a sense of what I'm good at or might fight interesting." He raised an eyebrow at that, already pouring me a glass of something from behind the bar.

"And?"

"And," I sighed.

"I suck at everything." That got a short, sharp laugh out of Garrick, but I couldn't tell if he was laughing at me or with me. Actually, no, he was definitely laughing at me. Patch handed me the drink and worked on finishing up the orders for the other travelers. A few minutes later he came back over to me.

"So, this hunting for a class…is it because you're an outsider or because you're unanchored?" I looked up at him with surprise clearly evident on my face. He returned it with a grin.

"Pathfinder. I told you this."

"Yea," I mumbled.

"I was told by a couple…friends, that if I didn't get a class within the next two weeks, I'd just disappear. Poof. Gone." He nodded, a look of concern crossing his face. Then he reached under the bar and pulled out another glass and placed it down before pouring himself something green.

"Forcin' a class doesn't always work. Some folks get theirs from training halls. Others need to head out on the road before they get one." I looked at him, wondering what he was getting at. He smiled and jerked his chin towards the end of the bar where a guy in a long coat was nursing a beer. The man looked like the quintessential graduate student. Poor, haggard, glancing around nervously, eyes trying to take in everything all at once, and wearing a canvas bag that looked like it held a library's worth of books.

"That's Cole," said Patch.

"Archaeologist. Or at least, he claims to be. Just got certified by the Institute and everything. He's heading out in a few days to investigate a valley out in the Deadlands. Rumor has it that it's an old battlefield. Probably a few hundred years old. He says that it's haunted or cursed or something like that." I glanced over at the man and was not impressed by what I saw. Having been in the city for around two days, I'd come across plenty of adventurers who all looked talented and skilled and battle-hardened.

This guy was weedy and looked more like the type to run from danger rather than towards it. In short, he looked like me.

"He's trying to get some volunteers," said Patch.

"Been asking around all day for anyone interested. Trying to round up a crew. He seems desperate enough that you, without any skills or a class, might qualify. And who knows…maybe you head out and then come back with a better idea of what works for you." So…that's where I'm at right now. Whoever is lucky enough to get the first crack at being my advisor, that's what you're working with.