“Let’s throw it back to Mr. Kalmár for one final question, y’all. Mr. Kalmár, is there any truth to the rumor that your family is involved with organized crime, specifically that you run one of the Syndicates?”
“I’m afraid that’s merely slander from those jealous of our success, Mr. Kerner. Why, if we were involved, it would surely be spelled Syndi-kate, no?” (laughs loudly by himself)
“That’s all we have time for today, thanks for coming on the show Mr. Kalmár! Time to get back to the tunes! We’ll let it rip with a soon-to-be-classic, !”
- DJ Demophon Kerner, with guest Konrád Kalmár on K-RAD LA, April 5th, System Year 453
“Hmm, this town is small enough that they might not even have a barbershop, and if they do, it’s probably closed. But I think we can find someone who can help at least clean it up…”
Once Zaire and Raylan returned, in their regular clothes and looking noticeably cleaner, we explored the rest of the building, but Keys and his squad were gone. Block led us out into the small square, where we found a few soldiers we hadn’t met before doing basic weapons drills under the watchful eyes of Captain Rivers and another, younger, woman.
“Captain,” Block greeted Rivers with a sketched salute, "perhaps you can help me out here. Is there someone in your detachment that cuts hair? Who might be able to, ah, help with this?” He gestured to my hair and I definitely didn’t stick out my tongue at him in response.
“PFC Kane is who you’re looking for, I understand he’s feeling much better and probably itching for something to do. You can find him on the 2nd floor, last room on the right.” Rivers pointed at the building behind her, across from the one we were staying in.
Kane turned out to be wiry and tall, with crimson hair neatly cut to regulation length, and oddly intense matching eyes. He was wearing Army fatigues. Identify.
Name: PFC Kane
Class: ArbalistStolen from RoyalRoad. Support AzureInk by reading the original.
Tier: 1
He seemed quite surprised to find the five of us knocking on his door, but he was willing to help once I’d explained why I was there.
“Hmm, I can give it a shot – can hardly make it worse, I suppose – but I’m used to dealing with, well, this,” he pointed at his own crew cut. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Can you just, uh, make it a bit neater for now?”
Kane’s single room had a small desk and chair. He pulled a small tarp from his Inventory, put it under the chair, and shooed everyone else out. Using a pair of scissors and a comb, he did his best to even out the longer, left side of my hair first. When he got to the very short, very ragged right side, he was at a bit of a loss. Running the comb experimentally through the mess, he gave me a shrug.
“I can try to trim this, but it’s so many different lengths that it’s all going to end up really short. Are you sure you don’t want me to just cut it all off? At least it can all grow out together like that.”
I said no, changing into my armor and showing him the fit of my helmet. “I want it to naturally fit under this, but I’m not ready to just cut it all short.”
“What an interesting design, I’ve never seen a helm like this before…”
I pulled out my shotgun and when I tucked the butt into my shoulder his eyes widened in realization. Apparently he had problems with his crossbow’s stock bumping into his own helmet all the time and declared that he was going to see if he could get something made with a design similar to mine. Before we could get into a detailed discussion of the finer points of armor/weapon compatibility, an annoyed Block popped into the room and asked if we were done yet.
Unable to come up with other ideas, I let Kane cut the right side of my hair super short, until it was less than a finger’s width long. The left side of my hair ended up cut just above my jaw, with a similar length in the back. I stood, brushing hair off my clothes and onto his tarp, and thanked him. When I offered to pay, he turned me down with a smile, saying he was happy to help out the Delvers that had gone into the dungeon. I thanked him and rejoined the group that was waiting around in the hallway looking bored.
Raylan gave me a smile. “Looks good, Az. Makes you look more dangerous, and less like a crazy person.”
I laughed and punched him in the shoulder as we walked out into town. Zaire offered his own compliments but I was pretty sure he really didn’t understand hairstyles, not having one himself. I wondered if all of his people were bald or if some of them had hair. Hopefully I’ll get him to open up more about his past eventually.
We ended up wandering aimlessly around the town for a while, taking in the very limited sights. I learned that East Bank was quite a bit smaller than Sunland in terms of area, though it made up for it somewhat with the taller buildings. Eventually and perhaps inevitably, Block led us to the saloon, which was quite obviously open from the noise.
The inside wasn’t that different from the one in Sunland. It was dimly lit with mana lamps in the back, while the open shutters admitted light and fresh air into the front of the single, large room. Someone was strumming a guitar in one corner on a small stage, but the music struggled to break through the din of conversation in the room. It was packed with townsfolk enjoying their holiday.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Most of the people in the place were wearing some combination of jeans and t-shirts, though a few of the women had on skirts and the Barmaids had blouses cut low enough to show some cleavage. More than half of them had a gun belt strapped around their waist, with a pistol on one side and usually a couple of spare mags on the other side. I assumed they were non-combat Classes, and wondered how many of them could actually hit anything smaller than a trihorn in an actual emergency. I guess it depends on if they’ve trained enough to get some Skill points in Pistols…
As we looked around for any open seats, I was fascinated to see that not everyone in the room was human. One man – person? – had distinctly pointed ears. He was seated at a small table across from a woman whose left arm seemed to be made of gleaming metal. Is that corruption? A cyborg? I can’t tell. Identify was useless, since it didn’t show someone’s race, at least not at my Level.
Finally, I spotted some familiar faces – a group of soldiers were sitting at one of the long tables, the same platoon that we’d been marching behind all day. One of them waved us over, and they shifted a bit to make room for the four of us on the long wooden benches. We managed to squeeze ourselves in at one end of the table, and one of the soldiers waved down a passing Barmaid.
“We need four more glasses,” she said, only for Block to appear at the end of the table, holding a chair he’d liberated from somewhere and putting it down backwards. He sat, folding his arms over the back of the chair, and grinned.
“Make that five,” he ordered, and the Barmaid hurried off. He’s back to his disappearing act again… I am going to figure out what’s going on with that!
We started introducing ourselves to the soldiers, which I always thought was a bit odd since once you had the System you could just Identify people. I guess it was a custom that had survived all these years. By the time we’d gone around the table, the waitress had returned with our glasses and the soldier next to me, a pale, dark haired woman named Madzi, grabbed one of the several pitchers of beer on the table and started to pour for us.
“Just a minute,” Block interrupted her politely, and she paused. He looked at Elin, then me, with an uncharacteristically serious expression. “Is this your first time out drinking in mixed company?” he asked.
“It's my first time out drinking in any company,” I responded cheerfully, and he laughed along with several of the soldiers.
“Whenever you’re drinking, especially if there are a bunch of pitchers on the table like this, always Identify before you drink. There are a lot of different strength alcohols out there, doesn’t matter if it’s beer, whiskey, or even wine. You don’t want to end up drinking an E20 by mistake – half a glass of that would knock you on your ass. Half a glass of E40 would probably kill you, though I’d be a bit surprised if a shithole like this even serves something that strong.”
“Don’t worry, we’re sticking to E0 tonight!,” the soldier sitting across from Madzi chimed in. I’d already forgotten his name and had to use Identify to remind me that it was Laier. “Captain wants us on the road early tomorrow.”
“He’s right,” Madzi agreed, “but your friend made a good point. I normally drink E30, E40 if I really want to feel it. It’s a good habit to have. Even if you’re in the same Tier as your drinking buddies, there’s a good chance that a Mage and a Barbarian are not drinking the same booze.”
Nodding agreeably, I Identified the pitcher she’d been about to pour from.
Item: Bald Trihorn LagerStolen from RoyalRoad. Support AzureInk by reading the original.
Brewer: Bad Mother Fucker Brewing
Strength: E0
I frowned, the Identify results felt… off. Also, that was a stupid name for a brewery!
“It feels wrong,” Raylan commented before I could, and the entire group around us started cracking up.
“Fuuuck, that’s a poor knock-off if a Level 4 can see through it!” Madzi pounded a fist on the table in amusement, making the glasses jump. Similar comments echoed from the others.
“Don’t worry,” Block said, “the E0 part is accurate. It's just not really an BMF beer, probably brewed by someone here in town who’s trying – very poorly – to pass it off as BMF.”
“It’s kind of a running joke here in town, actually,” the Barmaid chimed in. “Can I get y’all anything to eat?”
We all passed on food – for now – as the beer was finally poured. We clinked glasses and toasted.
“To the Army!” Block said with a smile, and the rest of us echoed him. “To the Delvers!” came the response as the soldiers raised their glasses and drank with us.
I was… unimpressed by the flavor of the beer. I’d been looking forward to the first time I could drink alcohol officially, without having to sneak a taste from an unfinished pitcher back when I’d been helping clean tables at the saloon in Sunland. I’d assumed it would somehow magically taste better once I had a Class, otherwise why was everyone so interested in drinking it?
It still tasted, well, bad. Actually I was pretty sure it was worse than what they served in Sunland. Raylan, sitting next to Laier, laughed at my expression and I blushed slightly.
“It’s not you, it’s the beer!” added Laier with a smile. “It sucks!”
I groaned. “Then why are we drinking it?”
“What else is there to do around here?” seemed to be the unanimous sentiment. Conversations started flowing around the table, and fresh pitchers appeared regularly and were emptied in turn. I barely made it through a single glass before people started ordering food.
Zaire turned towards Block and asked if the food was covered by the Guild. Block said it would be – but not the drinks – as long as we didn’t go overboard, whatever that meant. Over the bar there was a board with a list of food on it, though it didn’t have any prices. I stopped reading after I saw ‘burger & fries’ at the top of the list, and just ordered that. Raylan copied me while Elin asked for the fried chicken. Zaire, waiting patiently for his turn, requested a ‘pizza’, which I’d never heard of before.
“It’ll cost ya an eagle,” the Barmaid warned him, and my jaw dropped. What the…?
“Too much, Zaire, pick something else,” Block said firmly. Zaire’s shoulders slumped, and he settled for a bowl of stew and a side of fries. As the Barmaid moved down the table, I turned to Zaire in confusion.
“Mage Zaire, what is a pizza exactly, and why is it so expensive?”
His eyes widened and his mouth fell open in one of the most dramatic expressions I’d seen on his normally stoic face. He proceeded to launch into a lecture about the wonders of ‘pizza’, which I struggled to follow. It’s pasta sauce on bread with some kind of… hardened milk on top? Sounds awful…
