Cutter came awake suddenly.
He leapt to his feet, one sensation of the poison remaining in his veins. As he rose, his fingers gripped around the sword. He’d been on fire with it. The Leohom had been faltering, if not for that fucking assassin…
Huntress took a quick step back from him as he leapt up. His eyes darted around and confusion settled on him before melting into understanding.
The Leohom and the goblin assassin lay dead.
Cutter said, “Ah… fuck. I wanted a piece.”
Huntress stood with arms folded. “I’ve got to admit, you didn’t do half bad.”
“What are you talking about? I got laid out.”
She shrugged, “You were handling the big hairy brute all on your own. You were going to win that. You might have taken a poisoned dagger to the ribs, but it took two shots to bring you down. And you held them both so distracted that me and your little stone construct were able to finish them off before they could recover.”
“So… what you’re saying is… I really won the fight. Like the quarterback who keeps driving the ball 80 yards and gives it to the RB on the 1 yard line… hmmm…”
She dropped her arms to her side. “I… don’t know what those things are… anyway, I think you have something for me…”
“Do I ever?” his brows danced.
“The sword. My sword.”
Cutter looked at the weapon with reluctance. It was only a very little sword, but it had made him feel so strong.
Sighing, he handed it over.
Huntress said, “Now for the fun part. Dividing the loot!”
They gathered the dropped gear and the sigils. Four of the six enemies had dropped sigils. Cutter was getting used to the RNG in that. There were times when almost every enemy seemed to drop one, others when almost none. Four out of six was pretty good going.
They stood over the collection of weapons, armor, artifacts and sigils. Huntress said, “I suppose you’ll want that glaive. It’s not a sword, but it’s still an upgrade on your axe. That’s blue steel, from the Plegian Realm. It’s worth a bit more than normal steel, cuts better too.”
Cutter picked up the weapon. The loop he dropped it into shifted, changing size to accommodate the wide blade.
The four sigils were an ash stealth, ash strength, ash speed and a cinder spell weaving sigil.
Cutter tapped his chin. “Hmmm… okay, I guess if any of these are any good to anyone here we should let that decide dibs? Like… honestly, I don’t think I could use any of them, except the stealth sigil maaayyybe…”
He looked at his own wrist. His strength, sword and berserker sigils were all cinder. His dodge and fighting sigil were ash. He’d removed, but not sold, his night sight sigil to make room for the berserker sigil.
He said, “I didn’t use the berserker sigil at all… I wasn’t sure about it.”
She said, “They’re a mixed bag. It makes you a lot more dangerous, but a lot more prone to doing stupid things. I think you made the right choice in holding off. You could have fired it up after the poison got into you, it would have kept you on your feet longer, but then you’d have been harder to administer to afterwards, stomping around all berserky.”
Cutter’s voice went high. “Oh yeah. How’d I get fixed up so fast?”
Lita said, “She used an antidote and a healing potion on you dude.”
Cutter returned his attention to Huntress, head cocked to the side, brows again raised. “See… you do care.”
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She said, “You could have died.”
He said, “And then you’d have had all this loot to yourself and Leets. You didn’t have to go doing all that…”
She folded her arms again. “I’ll take back the value of those potions from the bounty. It doesn’t cost me anything.”
“Okay, fair enough I guess. I suppose I am happy to not be dead.”
Cutter looked down at Lita’s band. They’d filled the slots and replaced the baking sigil on their monster hunts. Lita now bore five ash sigils, spin, reassemble, dodge, strength, night sight.
Cutter mused, “I guess you could use the speed sigil. If nothing else it might get us around faster. I could keep the ash stealth sigil in my bag, for just in case scenarios… hmmm…”
Huntress picked up the cinder spell weaving sigil. “To buy this would probably cost 1000 gold coins. Shopkeepers will give you 500, maybe 600 for it. We didn’t really formalize what we’d do with loot, but I propose we sell what we’re not keeping and divide it, just like the bounties.”
Cutter yelped. “600 bucks for one sigil! Holy hell! So I could have sold one of mine for that kind of cash?”
She said, “Yes, but for less than they’re worth. I’m only proposing we sell this one because none of us have a path that can take advantage of it.”
Cutter said, “Still… 500 smackers, that’s almost the value of all the heads. Oh, speaking of… step back, this is going to get messy.”
Spinner’s tavern was especially rowdy. It was the time of night when adventurers had returned to Medley with the loot and bounties and purses were heavy, which meant the pints were full.
Cutter watched Huntress raise a pint of ale to the steel helm and drink, right through the grill. “How the heck do you do that? Shouldn’t it be dribbling everywhere? Why don’t you just take it off.”
She planted the half empty tankard on the table. “It doesn’t come off! So it’s a blessing I can drink through it!”
Cutter said, “Doesn’t come off? Like a chastity belt for your face?”
She said, “It’s a long story. One I’m not getting into now.”
Feeling the mood dip Cutter waved on. “Fine, fine. I don’t wanna sound like a greedy Gretta, especially with how well we did, but I still think that prick could have given us more than 500 for the cinder sigil.”
She shrugged, “We did okay.”
They had given Lita the speed sigil, dropping his night sight sigil. Cutter had pocketed the stealth sigil as Huntress already had one. Their excursion to the stores had earned them 600 gold from the sale of sigils, another 300 from the sales of gear, and 600 coins for the six heads. Cutter always enjoyed pulling heads out of his bag of holding.
That made a total of 1500 coin. Going with the 60:40 split that would have netted them 900 gold. But, as Cutter and Lita had retained the glaive and two sigils, and Huntress had to be reimbursed for using up two 100 gold potions, that left them with 600 gold after some dickering.
Cutter chuckled, “Yeah we did. Tiller’s going to be getting his composter after all!”
Huntress said, “Tiller?”
Cutter said, “Friend of mine, lives out of town. Well, I dunno if friend is right… we did do a murder together so we must be pretty close. He’s running a farm and needs a grand to buy a composter from that creepy little goblin shopkeeper.”
Huntress said, “And you’re just giving it to him?”
Cutter said, “No! It’s a loan… even though I could afford a sword of my own soon, if I did a couple more jobs… still, a promise is a promise. He went to the bank, I think, so maybe he got a loan and won’t need the cash. Eh, I’ve made it this long without a sword, I’ll get one when he pays me back.”
Huntress said, “Farmers can make a lot of money.”
Cutter said, “Phhht, not cash like this babe.”
“I’ve told you to stop calling me that. And they don’t make it early, but if they run a good operation they can outstrip people like us in earning pretty fast.”
Cutter paused, “Is that so? He seems pretty skint.”
She said, “If they keep reinvesting they can literally grow money. Early on in our paths the adventure friendly classes, fighter, rogue, assassin, can make more easily. But later on it’s the crafting and farming and other trade paths that really rake it in.”
Cutter’s eyes were distant, as though he was doing maths. He took a long slow pull on his pint. Because that would make the mental maths go better.
After a moment, he said, “Hey… how long would it take someone in our line of work to make, say, 10 mil?”
She laughed into her tankard, “Ten million? I… don’t think you could do that in a lifetime… maybe if you were one of the best in the world, platinum rank… maybe… there’s only so much people will pay to have something killed. Ten million?” she continued to laugh at the idea.
He said, “What about a farmer? Could a farmer make ten mil?”
She settled a little, “I still can’t imagine it… but it would be easier if they had enough land, a big enough farm. There are probably farmers and craftsmen out there with something like that kind of money. It’s still hard to imagine it. Well, yes, if it’s possible or not, it would definitely be easier.”
Cutter tapped his chin.
He said, “So what’s your plan? Going huntressing again tomorrow?”
She shifted a little in her seat. “Well… I was thinking… today didn’t work out that badly. Rogue path is a great path, very versatile, but I could use a heavy hitter to back me up sometimes…”
Cutter guffawed, “You want to form a party?”
She squirmed, “Just to see how it works… it probably won’t pan out, what with you being so… you and all. But we could try it.”
Cutter opened his mouth with a huge enthusiastic grin plastered on his face. But then he paused before saying anything. The huge grin folded into the creased line of firmly pressed lips.
“Shit. I can’t. I mean I can, form a party that is. But not tomorrow. I gotta go out to the farm, drop off the money. I’m meeting someone out there too. But the day after sounds cool. A party… nice.”
