Meli Karga

  I was born in Karga Village - oh it is a mighty trek away from Caer Caradon I can tell ya! It's mainly a village of farmers and warriors. Mildly to moderately tan of skin, black to dark red in terms of hair, we of the Karga tribe have one more distinguishing feature: prominent hare or rabbit ears that make us look a mite taller than we actually are. That is what makes us known as beastfolk, rabbit-ear beastfolk specifically, our tribe name is rarely ever used by them humanfolk. That's fine by us, really, bless the humans' hearts, but they can't be expected to recall the name of a tribe that lives so very far away from most folk. Not that all rabbit-ears beastfolk are Karga, some are Zorpla and I reckon there's one more somewhere, oh well, regional variations, minor, we're still the same type of folk I reckon.

  The main crop in our neck of the woods is maize, a versatile crop that provides us with a staple for producin' porridge, sweet'ners, thick'ners, and of course some mighty fine hooch! Plus if ya roast it an' cover it in some lard or suet it tastes mighty good too! But we ain't by no means the only folk what grows the stuff, and it ain't by no means the only thing we grow: we also have a modest textile industry, and it is because of that that I became a tailor whenever I moved my cute lil behind to Caer Caradon. Mama taught me how t'make brightly colored scarves, and leather clothes from the skins what the menfolk brought home. We ain't had a war round here in many long years, but our boys keep sharp huntin' all manner of wild animal - some of which would kill y'all if'n it got a chance!

  But that's not important right now, sug, the point is that when I left home, long ago, I did so to seek my fortune as many of us do. I had one distinct advantage; I was born with a gift for the arcane. That's right, I was born a sorceress; didn't have to study or practice in order t'learn none of my first spells, they just came to me as I hit puberty. A sorceress is a type of mage what casts magic from her force of personality rather than the smarts or what not, and ya can only be born as one, ya can't train up into bein' one; in other words ya either have it or you ain't.

  Anyroad. I left home so I could learn more about magic and sort of find myself. Also there was always fine rich gents up in the city. What? Just cuz we's not rabbits don't mean we's not fixin' to mate like 'rabbits; some us folk'r downright insatiable, kno' whatta mean? I weren't fixin' ta become some sorta harlot like some o' my sisters had done, get yer mind outta my gutter; I was fixin' to find a rich hubby what could fund my research and satisfy my hangry poochiba?ana both! Also, rich folk need mage services, and since the biggest and best feature of being a natural born sorceress is being a damn near bottomless well of mana I could take care of a lot of customers.

  There really ain't much more of a difference between a sorceress and a regular mage, except that because our re-serves are so big we can afford to specialize to the point where some of us can use bigger and badder spells earlier on. See, most magickin folk have to pace themselves, learnin' various smaller spells of different disciplines until they have enough power - er wait - capacity to start usin' the bigguns. Sorry sug, power an' capacity's two different measures an' all. As a result most sorcerers and sorceresses, self included, usually specialize in just one discipline of magic at the expense of others. Since I was born with a natural talent for pattern magic, I was practically destined to be some sorta artificer - in this case, a tailor and armorfitter.

  Far as things go, I reckon I done pretty well for myself, sug! I had my own shop in a somewhat nice part of town in the capital city and had some really good customers from high places. For instance, that chamberlain feller was always coming in to have his suits re-fitted cuz of some new complaint or other, and whenever the royal guard had a scuff on their shields they came to me. But things was startin' to get routine as the years've gone by, a bit mundane, I weren't innovatin' the way I'd hoped to have done. I reckon I'd done got myself into a slump. I wasn't no closer to finding a husband either, if you can believe it, with my great tits and correct opinions 'bout most things and all! Am I tryin' too hard, ya reckon? Nah!

  But then I met these real fascinatin' folks - two newbody adventurers, which ain't new, a human fightin' boy with an elf mage, not unusual either come to think. They'd come to have armor made for the party leader, Victor by name, very charming, always calling the gal "madam healer"; huh come to think of it, did I get 'round to gettin' her name? Reckon I'd ask later. This customer was a customer like no other customer, he asked so many questions about pattern magic; ain't nobody else was as curious as he was. I'd teased that if he kept this up I'd just have to steal him, I didn't mean it of course, but that reaction was priceless. Oh, he's got a thick head, he reckoned I were fixin' to give him a job. Adorable, the both of 'em.

  Anyroad some of them questions he was askin' about pattern magic really got the wheels in my brain goin; overtime, kno' whatta mean? Then he pulled out this strange stone slab, no, wait, glass and something else - "smart phone". I couldn't make heads or tails of the thing, it didn't radiate magic at all - huh? What did Mister K mean by "take that, Clarke"? More important was what he showed me, and his explanation for how the thang worked what got me all sparkle-eyed.

  The way things was stored on his device sounded an awful lot like the pattern magic used by the Adventurer's Guild and he had some interestin' theories but we didn't have time to talk about that, I did have a ton of customers. Best I could do was duplicate the livery of Mister K's home country right there on his brigandine based on that nice "light writin'" he showed me- an easy trick for lil ol' me, once I memorize the pattern I can use a higher-grade spell to copy it to any fabric I desire. Who needs smelly old dyes anyway?

  I'd meet them two again, I was sure of it - and I were proven right just lil o'er a week later.

  Victor

  Welcome back to Caer Caradon, a name which forces me to hold my tongue because it sounds exactly like the word that comes before "megalodon". Oh sure, I was probably gonna break at some point and annoy the princess a little in the process - but it ain't like she gets real mad because she usually ends up smiling by the end. Yeah, I'll admit, I do enjoy that little routine we do. The queen saw us off at the adventurer's guild on the way to the palace, leaving us with some documents to present to the reception desk. Incidentally, we also checked back into Dion's Rest and left my car there - I loved that place!

  We also needed stabling for our two new party members, well not really party members; you see the crown confiscated the majority of the captured enemy horses, but Queen Arabelle let us pick two of them for ourselves. Your majesty please, you're spoiling me, but I get it, you saw how worried I was about the gas situation. Incidentally, we never told the queen about the princess' true identity; her majesty may act all bubbly, but she's a smart lady and I reckon she realizes that I'm planning something. I had also gotten her permission to enlist a certain someone's talents for the ball, oh yes, we'd also have to tell her about it so she doesn't have a heart attack when the official invitation comes.

  Speaking of lodging: since we could now afford it we actually rented out a bigger room this time. Technically it was two bedchambers adjoining a living room - in other words, it was a suite. I couldn't recollect if historical Inns had rooms like this in my old world back in the middle ages, but then again, it's never been a one-to-one type thing from Earth to wherever this was, and there were all sorts of little differences. The existence of "adventurer" as a profession probably did a lot to develop the hospitality industry in this world, or at least that was my guess.

  I'd compared the Cara Kingdom to France in the high middle ages, sure, but there were things here that you'd never have found in that part of Europe back then - I'm talking about types of food here, not the obvious stuff like magic. Like good luck finding corn-based whiskey and tomato sauce in medieval Paris. Oh yes, Cara had access to tomatoes though they weren't terribly popular there . It wasn't even that long of a voyage to get them either - across the modest-sized sea south of Cara, to a long peninsula where the alfinos live. East of that? That's where the field of dreams is at. That has culinary implications, and it made my stomach snarl with anticipation.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Once we reached the adventurer's guild we placed our chips in a little bowl and handed Juliette the queen's documents. Naturally she wore an expression that was half disbelief, and half congratulatory; we received our pay of 1004 crowns; that is two days pay for two guards, plus a thousand for quest completion measured against importance yada yada, and there was also the whole "this handsome young man saved my life" part of the whole letter - okay it said "these adventurers", but it may as well have said the other thing. I forgot to mention, the queen was checking me out the whole time and it was so obvious to both the princess and I. Like beware of cougars territory - oh sure I'd have let her steal me away back in college, and her majesty ain't a bad looking mid 40s but - oh look, the imaginary Duke is telling me off! Despite the feat we'd just pulled off, it still just counted as one iron-ranked escort quest with an unusually high payout; I mean, fair. However! We did earn ourselves some more achievement patches:

  Heroic Victory: When fighting in a grossly unbalanced field battle, help the weaker force win through clever tactics. A field battle refers to a military type engagement rather than the types of battles typical of adventurers. Me and the princess both got a copy of this one.

  Royal Guard: Protect a noble personage of king status or higher, during a field battle. Once again, we both got one - had the queen been an empress it also would have counted it seemed.

  Chargebreaker: Foul a cavalry charge in such a manner that the force shall rout shortly thereafter. This one only went to me since I was the only one attacking, and they were already practically routed before anyone fell into the trench.

  Oh but the princess did get a patch that was all hers. Horse Trapper: Catch a mounted humanoid, a mounted two-legged monster, or a horse-sized monster such as a murderpony, in a trap of your own device. What the actual hell is a murderpony and do I want to know? That was the gist of our trip to the guild that day.

  The next thing we needed to do was eat something, which ain't interesting enough to go over, so moving on, we decided to pay Miss Meli Karga a visit at her shop. Of course she hopped for joy when she saw us because why not? Well we told her about what we'd been up to and how we'd been invited to the ball, and how we didn't have a thing to wear. She of course, with a gold coin appearing in each eye, offered to help us find what we needed. Well I wasn't too picky, it just had to impress some courtly types - I'm sure things will be fine.

  What's this? Meli and the Princess wanted to handle all the clothes shopping, together, without me? In other words I was about to get a few hours of guy time! Wait, shouldn't I be there to try things on? Ah, right, she has my measurements memorized - among other things. I reckoned she must have a photographic memory or something. I would ask about that, a couple weeks later, during our next education session, but that is a story for another time. Meanwhile, Meli was showing off some serious fomo about the ball, and then I remembered what else we needed to tell her.

  I cleared my throat, "by the way, whenever we were talking to the queen we actually got you a tentative gig at the ball."

  Her eyes lit up, "really, sugar?" By the way, this world's word for sugar had also come to mean a term of endearment in their neck of the woods. So comparing love to sweet stuff was pretty much universal, I supposed.

  "Pending the success of our experiments, of course," I said, "do you have a day when you'd be clear for a long meeting?"

  It didn't take long for Meli to come back with, "in two weeks I can block out a whole day, I reckon." Right right, Henry Ford hadn't invented the weekend here.

  Another thing I'd noticed is that ever since we'd saved the queen, people's regional dialects have been coming through a bit more clearly. Had the princess' powers grown a bit? Or was I so used to northern common that southern common was starting to sound different? I guessed I'd start to notice more as I became more fluent for real. Yes, she'd sounded like a southern belle before, but now it was getting stronger. Tennessee if I had to put a regional label on it.

  I still couldn't do idioms, though, unless the two languages happened to have matching expressions - but we would talk about that more later, trust me. It also got funnier when you added elvish into the picture, three way telephone game and all that. Incidentally, Meli herself is actually bilingual - fluent in common and also in the beast-folk language, "Feral". That settled, we went about the rest of our day - just some rest and relaxation mainly, since my rear-end was killing me.

  That whole month was spent in a few good ways. Since we weren't in such a rush like the last time we grabbed a quest, we were able to go on a variety of small adventures. Most of the quests we went on weren't really worth noting about, and I guess I might refer back to them later, but there was that one quest…Long story short, there was a village a ways away that was concerned about some strange happenings in a nearby forest; I thought, oh, cool, a mystery! But by the time we'd got there the whole place was already destroyed. Men, women,children, all of 'em mercilessly slaughtered. Worst thing I ever saw.

  It may not have had anything to do with the cult we were fighting, but that shit was gonna appear in my nightmares for a while. The princess did assure me that even if we'd taken the Cadillac it would have been too late: thanks to her life-sensin' power she could tell they'd been dead for days. Well okay, so I could I, but I didn't realize it at the moment until the princess said something. Right now her life magic was about as useful as a counsellor on a starship bridge telling you the obvious. Well without going too much into it we did do some looking around and figured out what was going on - the threat was beyond our power to deal with, even with my firearms. Trust me. Let's just say that upon our return to the city, a new Gold-Ranked quest was put on the board. Oh someone took care of it, but I wouldn't find out who until much later.

  But the biggest development of all? We both made iron rank! That's right. We turned in our wood chips to collect one day, and Juliette congratulated us: we'd qualified. The old chips were placed in a tiny bowl and a new iron chip was placed in a second bowl, attached to a brick-sized block of gray stone covered in runes. The magic transferred from the old chips, into the new; that was pretty cool. With access to the next rank of quests, we could earn a bit more cash per job! Reckon we did a total of six quests all told that month, which ain't bad. I'll go over how much money we'd made and what sorts of equipment we scored a bit later, when the time comes to tell of our next mission. Incidentally, the princess and I also both learned a few new tricks with all the casting and fighting we'd been doing lately.

  Apart from going on quests I spent a great deal of time with the princess. She continued to help me learn Common, and of course we had more discussions about magical theory and various ways things worked around here. Then there was our jam-session with Meli, which is of course a story for another time. We'd explored a huge percentage of Caer Caradon, and we started going to more taverns and other gathering places; it was time for the "deep immersion" part of my language training, so occasionally we'd go without Comprehension on me and if I slipped up she'd correct me.

  There was some sort of bread, cheese, and wine festival in Middlebrook we ran into while on a job that required us to go there. That was a good time after a hard day's work. It was like, really starting to sink in just how different this world was and it was feeling more real every day. We'd also gone and seen a couple of plays, this world's own version of a double feature: Dreaming of Daisies by Malcolm Kavian and Ride of the Firelord by Peter Pence. The first one was what you might call a tragic dramedy; the humorous parts didn't translate well due to my lack of fluency but the drama parts were moving, at least.

  The second one was a bombastic action comedy about, get this, Valyrian; boy the princess sure was embarrassed, and naturally she picked apart the flagrant lack of historicity. Hmm what else had we got up to? Ah, yes, we tried several food places round town and the France comparisons deepened further. Still had no friggin' idea where coffee grew in this world and it was frustrating me, and the princess both; she was crazy about coffee by this point we were flat-ass out save for a handful of beans. Those we wanted to show to merchants in order to find out if they'd seen it before; plus I had some other thoughts on the matter.

  The time flew by, and then at last it came: the night of the biggest ball of all.