Andrew Thompson
Stories
8
Chapters
3,542
Words
1.4 M
Comments
0
Reading
4 d, 23 h
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Getting back to the inn was much easier than getting out. To Dallion’s relief, no one had noticed that had gone anywhere. Harp had failed to get Jiroh’s attention, which meant he didn’t have to worry about grumpiness. On the flip side, there was no chance of finding anything more about the mage as well. According to Nil, it all had to be an elaborate hoax. Mages—as he claimed—never bothered threatening people. When they wanted to send a message, they did so openly with exceeding force and…-
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Seconds after Dallion returned to the real world, the fury’s smile waned. She already knew what had happened, and what was to follow, but the show had to go on—for the sake of the customers, she had to be both surprised and thrilled by Dallion’s success. “Done,” Dallion said as he placed the dagger in its place on the table. Pleased with himself, Dallion then stepped back. He could feel a flash of annoyance flicker through the fury. His winning wasn’t such a big deal looking at it logically,…
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“Only one left, valued customers!” the fury announced, beaming with joy. Of course, Dallion could tell it was all fake. She wasn’t particularly pleased with Dallion’s performance or even with the amount of money the Drum was taking in. If anything, she was bored with the whole thing. Considering the fact that she was a fury, and possibly awakened, Dallion could empathize a bit. His attention, however, remained on the staircase. The mage who had given Dallion the warning and attempted to get him to…
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“Damn it!” Dallion said beneath his breath. Of all the times he could have used advice from Nil, he had to have a blocker ring. “Done, Lux?” The firebird let out a sad chirp. Having to act as a portable flamethrower and burn the coat of tar off every inch of the brooch’s domain wasn’t his idea of fun. Curled up on the floor, Nox meowed, indicating a spot the firebird had missed. Since his level up, the crackling had taken on a more supervisory role, especially when Lux was around. Less than…
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“He’s gonna lose,” someone whispered in the dimly lit room. So far Dallion had gone through four items in total: a corroded silver goblet, a rust knife, a nearly shattered crystal earring, and a wooden jewelry box full of woodworms. Each of these items seemed deceptively easy to fix. However, in each case, the effort involved became greater and greater. In the case of the jewelry box, Dallion had had to fight with the actual creatures in the mending labyrinth itself. That was an unexpected turn of…
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Betting on a gamble was a gamble in itself, but there was one consistent thing among gamblers: it was difficult for them to pull away from a score. The mirror pool aristocrat clearly wasn’t a gambler, but he had built his fortune on taking advantage of people who were. After a few moments of consideration he had agreed to Dallion’s proposal, but adding a new twist: win-or-lose Dallion wasn’t to get any cut of the profits. What was more, if he ended up losing, he’d owe the mirror pool a “minor…
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Evening shift came and went. Several times Dallion checked his tournament ring to see whether there was any news on his next phase. The echo—which was far more polite than the bureaucrat in person—calmly explained that applications were still underway and it will be a while before the combat rounds began. Even so, he did share that Dallion was in the top twenty candidates. Familiar with leaderboards and game rankings, Dallion took that as a plus, although he would have also preferred to get a glance at…
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“You know, you look pretty stupid,” a large man said, looking at Dallion in the lake. There was no denying he had a point. After close to half an hour of hesitation, Dallion had finally entered the shallow part of the lake, and was attempting to keep afloat in a spot where ducks couldn’t swim without their feet touching the bottom. The amount of pressure on Dallion’s face would make anyone think that he had been swimming through an ocean with a pair of anvils on his back. Losing his…
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“Yeah, yeah.” Dallion shattered the rectangle as he entered the room. Unlike before, he didn’t seem particularly worried. If anything, he was impatient to get this over with so he could focus on his real worries, namely the copyette in the city. While there was no evidence, his gut told him that there was a connection between it and the Star. What that connection was, he could only speculate. Having a talk with the mirror pool would be nice… although he knew quite a few people would disapprove.…
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All but four members of the Icepicker guild passed the initial trial. As it turned out, anyone who managed to improve three or more of the presented items was allowed to continue to the next round. In fact, a large number had failed to fully mend the rusty item, making Dallion and a few others the exceptions to the rule. Ironically, that only made things more difficult for him. According to Bel, who had relatives pass through this, the overachievers were always pitted against each other in the preliminary…
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