Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 74

Dante placed Melisandre’s letter back down on his nightstand. Because of his grogginess, he had to read it twice before he was convinced that he fully understood it.

Next to the letter was the bag of coins that he was supposed to ‘occupy himself with’. Dante picked it up and drew open the drawstrings. All the coins were gold.

Apparently, Melisandre was off stabilizing Warlord Auron’s position. For some reason, there seemed to be a bit of discontent among his mercenary groups. The letter said he could do whatever he wanted, but had to be back and ready by the time the sun went down. They were going to start his ‘training’ tonight, but he would believe that when it happened.

It was also slightly worrying that Melisandre had been in his room at some point throughout the night without him knowing…

Unsure of how to spend his day, he decided to see what Olivia was doing.

After getting dressed, Dante groggily walked out into the hallway. He paused outside of Olivia’s room, hesitant, but decided to knock anyways.

No answer.

He waited outside of her door for almost a full minute, but didn’t knock again. He didn’t want to wake her up or bother her if she wanted to be left alone.

Dante let out a sigh, it seemed that he would be alone for the day.

He walked down the stairway and made fleeting eye contact with the innkeeper, only to be completely ignored. He thought it to be a bit rude, but somewhat understandable. His only real contact with the innkeeper was when the man offered him and Victoria a room, and the forceful shutdown from Victoria that followed. After that, Melisandre and Olivia had dealt with the innkeeper for him.

It wasn’t as though he and the innkeeper had a bad relationship, or at least he didn’t think that was the case, it was just the lack of relationship at all. He hadn’t really considered it before, but he had been almost completely isolated in Desas. The only people he had really talked to other than Melisandre and Olivia were Charlotte and Evelyn from the banquet, and Ezra, if you could even count him.

That line of thought actually gave him a rather good idea. He knew someone who ran an Artificers shop, and he had a lot of time, and money.

Dante walked up to the innkeeper - who was busy wiping down the top of the bar - and cleared his throat.

The innkeeper looked up from his task, and seemed somewhat surprised to see him. “How can I help you sir?”

“I’m looking for an Artificer’s shop. Do you know where I can find one?” It was unlikely that there was more than one Artificer’s shop in Desas, which made finding Charlotte’s all the easier.

The innkeeper shrugged and began to wipe down the bar again. “There is probably one in the Merchant’s District.”

Dante looked at the innkeeper silently, doing his best to hold in his smartass retort.

He took a few moments, and after calming himself, he realized that the innkeeper’s reply might have been fair.

One look around the inn – and its patrons – and anyone could tell that wasn’t exactly the nicest establishment. The innkeeper likely didn’t make enough to bother with the wealthy Merchant’s District. Still, the man could have at least made an effort.

He really couldn’t see what possessed Melisandre to stay in such a place. Letting out a sigh, Dante walked out of the inn and began heading down the street.

It only took him a few minutes to make it the guarded gate that led to the Merchant’s District, where he was stopped.

Dante looked at the spear shaft that was barring his way in surprise, he had never been stopped when entering the Merchant’s District before.

“State your business, boy.”

Dante’s eyes followed the spear shaft until they came to the person who was holding it. The guard was young, and couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than him, which made him somewhat indignant about the derisive way he was called ‘boy’.

Dante glanced at the second guard, who was leaning against a wall to the side. The guard was gruff, old, and looked lazy. From his experience in Alazel, that was definitely the preferable guard to deal with. Upon locking eyes with him, that guard looked at his current predicament and gave a helpless shrug.

He looked back at the young guard. “I came to do some shopping.”

The only reply he got was a derisive snort.

Dante looked down at himself. He didn’t think that he looked that bad. He was even wearing some of the linen clothes that Olivia bought him. True, they were the ones that were meant for sleeping, but the others were far too uncomfortable for casual use.

The lingering grogginess of the early morning mixed with the annoyance of the guard was making him thoroughly irritated.

Dante dug into his pocket and opened up the sack inside, then flicked a gold coin at the lazy looking guard.

When the gold coin caught the sunlight, the lazy guard was immediately wide awake and alert. He glanced back at to the first guard, and watched contently as the younger guard gaped at him.

“I’m looking for an Artificer’s shop, do you happen to know where I can find one?”

The guard caught the coin with a practiced hand and nodded happily with a massive grin on his face. “Of course, sir. I would be happy to escort you there myself.” The guard glanced over at the younger guard with a smirk, as if emphasizing the mistake.

The younger guard cleared his throat, he looked almost sick. “My apologies, sir. I hope that your shopping trip is fruitful.”

Dante nodded, then allowed the older guard to lead him to Charlotte’s shop. He found the guards behavior to be slightly peculiar, but that was because he was comparing him to the ones he grew up around in Alazel, or the ones at the academy. If those guards thoroughly offended someone they thought was a noble, it wouldn’t have been uncommon for them to beg for forgiveness. It seemed that the guards had a much higher position in the wastelands. That, or the disparity of power between social classes in the wastelands wasn’t as extreme.

The guard was practically skipping with joy as they walked down the street. It wasn’t a surprise, he had probably just given the man a year’s pay at the very least. He would have given the guard a silver coin, but Melisandre hadn’t given him any. Still, it was a gold coin well spent.

“Here you are, sir.”

They stopped, and Dante looked around in surprise. “Where is it?”

The guard politely motioned to one side of the road. The building he motioned to was enormous, but had no windows, and definitely didn’t look like much of a shop. It didn’t even have a sign.

“That’s the Artificer’s shop?”

The guard nodded. “Yes sir. It doesn’t look like much, but they usually don’t sell to individual customers. The man who runs the shop has a deal with Warlord Auron, so almost everything they create immediately goes to the front lines.”

Dante gave an uncertain nod.

The guard saluted. “If that’s all then, I’ll be going sir.”

After dismissing the guard, he walked into the ‘Artificer’s Shop’.

The inside of the shop was strange. He walked into a small room with a single work desk-near the wall in the back that was sitting next to a large door. There was a strange spherical object on the desk, and there seemed to be over a dozen pieces of scrap metal sitting next to it. His eyes were drawn to a familiar figure though. Charlotte was sitting behind the desk. Her long red hair completely covering her features as she massaged her forehead, and she seemed to be completely ignoring the spherical object.

Charlotte didn’t seem to notice that he had walked into the shop, so he cleared her throat.

Charlotte looked up. Her eyes were completely red and she looked haggard. She looked at him for a few seconds, expression completely dead. Then, she seemed to realize who she was looking at and jumped up from her chair, pressing herself against the wall behind her.

Slightly taken aback by Charlotte’s reaction, Dante cleared his throat a second time. “Hey Charlotte, I had some free time and decided to stop by and see what you had for sale.”

Charlotte’s eyes danced between him, the door at her side, and the door he just came through. “Oh, hey Dante. I, uh, didn’t see you there. Where is your sister?”

“I think she is back at our inn.”

Charlotte let out a rough breath and sat back down at her desk and continued to massage her forehead.

Dante walked up to her desk slowly. “What was that about?”

Charlotte looked up at him like he was insane. “Are you kidding? Your aunt is terrifying, and your sister is the one who sets her off.”

Come to think of it, that was a rather fair point. “So, um, I came to check out your shop.”

Charlotte didn’t even stop massaging her forehead, she just used her other arm to gesture to the entirety of the small room.

“Uh, rough night?”

He had meant it to be a lighthearted joke, but judging by Charlotte’s glare, it wasn’t funny. “Yes. But comparatively, I suppose I have nothing to complain about. Some of the others still can’t even sit up because their headaches.”

His lingering grogginess now made sense. Melisandre was even stronger than he had thought, which he didn’t think was possible. She was like a bipolar force of nature.

“So, do you have anything for sale?”

Charlotte gave a slight nod, then released a large breath as she stood. “Follow me.”

She stepped through the door that was next to the desk, and he followed. The new room seemed to make up the vast majority of the building, it was practically a warehouse. It was divided into three separate sections, and each section seemed to have its own variety of materials and similar projects that were in various stages of assembly.

He was surprised by Charlotte’s sudden vigor, as soon as they stepped into the large room she began to walk quicker and even talk faster. It was like all of her exhaustion from only moments ago was gone. “Unfortunately, father rarely lets me make anything other than what the warlord orders. The parts are too expensive, and the rate of failure is far too high. And even when I do make those, I sell them almost immediately to the warlord anyways. Fortunately, we have three different large orders right now and father always orders more than enough parts.” Charlotte gestured to the three different sections.

“Unfortunately, one of the items would be completely useless to you, it’s a short-range communication device.”

That didn’t sound useless at all. “A communication device?”

Charlotte nodded. “They transmit sound to each other. They aren’t useful because the range is only around a mile. Still good for transmitting orders on a battlefield though.” She walked over to one of the sections and picked up and orb like object. It was the same thing as the item on the desk outside, but completely assembled.

She handed it to him, and he carefully inspected it. It didn’t look too strange, just an orb that was made of different types of metals. The only thing that he found to be of interest was the etched lines on the surface. They looked almost like enchantment lines, but instead of being added by a new material, they were engraved into the object. “How does it work?”

“Similar to enchantments, just feed mana into it instead of world essence. This one isn’t paired though, so it won’t do much.”

Dante placed the orb down. “Okay then.” He actually really wanted to try out the orb, but didn’t want to use his mana to power it. His mana’s dark blue color was a bit too strange to randomly reveal.

Charlotte seemed surprised that he didn’t at least try it, but shrugged and kept moving. The second section seemed to have a far more intricate item than the first. It was tiny flat square made of overlapping strands of etched metal. The completed ones had a small chain connected to it, likely so it could be kept as a necklace. “This is pretty much what you asked for at the feast, but you may not want it because of Warlord Auron’s specifications.”

“Specifications?”

Charlotte nodded. “He uses these to hide his strongest combatants in the groups of weaker ones. It allows them to take an enemy off-guard. That normally wouldn’t mean much, but because they often send the strong combatants in small groups, he asked me to make them so that they can’t be deactivated. It stops a single combatant from giving away his group.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

Charlotte gestured to the necklace. “When it touches your skin, there is a constant mana drain of half of a mana per second. That usually doesn’t mean much, but to a combatant in a drawn out fight, that bit of mana could easily be the difference between life and death. Especially for those with low Wisdom.”

He examined the necklace closer. “Couldn’t they just take the necklace off?”

Charlotte shrugged. “I’m sure they have ways to prevent that. I don’t worry about it. But the chain detaches, so I’m sure a slight adjustment to a piece of armor that is hard to remove would stop them from taking it off.”

Dante rubbed his chin. A half mana per second drain was inconvenient, but keeping his strength hidden was very convenient. “How much?”

Again, Charlotte shrugged. “I sell them to Warlord Auron for 10 gold coins a piece, but we will have leftover parts anyways. I’ll sell you one for 7, which is just above the price of the parts.”

He could feel his chest tighten. Charlotte was insinuating that the small square in front of him was worth around 5 gold just from the parts. He couldn’t understand what could make it so valuable. “I’ll take one.”

He took out 7 gold coins from the small back Melisandre had given him, which left him with well over a dozen left, and exchanged them for one of the necklaces. Charlotte handed it to him, and he was careful to only touch it by the chain as he slipped it into his pocket.

“I saved the best for last!” It seemed that the third item was what her excitement was building towards, because she looked even happier. He couldn’t help but be curious about what might drive away her exhaustion.

They walked over to the third section, and he looked intently for the item, but there only seemed to be parts lying about. Charlotte walked over to a large box and careful opened it, then pulled out a glove. Well, more of a gauntlet. It was made of separate pieces of conjoined metal, but it didn’t seem like it would restrict his hand’s mobility.

He was slightly disappointed to see the gauntlet. It was for the left hand, which might have worked, but the guild’s glove with the dagger catch was already taking over that part of his body.

“You’re in luck! Warlord Auron asked for this item personally, and I was successful on my second attempt. I actually had a buyer lined up for the spare, but your aunt killed him last night. I’m really happy that you are going to buy it, because I would have lost a lot of money if you hadn’t!” She smiled, but in a way that made her seem slightly crazed with her exhausted features.

It seemed that Charlotte’s fear of bothering Olivia didn’t extend to him at all, because he definitely felt like he was being extorted. “What does it do?”

“While activated, you will be able to perfectly sense everything within a 5-foot radius of the gauntlet.”

Charlotte seemed quite proud of the glove, but he didn’t see why that would be such a big deal. “Couldn’t anyone just release mana to sense objects around them, or even just use a ranged skill’s awareness to do it?” He could easily use his blink skill to vaguely sense what is around him.

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Of course. But try to stop an incoming arrow that was shot with the aid of a skill by doing that and see how it goes. With this gauntlet, you could easily count the number of hairs on your own head.”

That definitely made him reconsider. As someone who didn’t often fight with someone watching his back, he couldn’t deny how useful the item could be. “What’s the mana drain like?”

“One and a half mana per second while activated.” She practically shoved the gauntlet at him as though he had already bought it.

“Cost?”

“14 gold coins.”

Dante let out a sigh and dug for the coins. He would have bought the gauntlet anyways, it was too useful not to buy, and was pretty much free since Melisandre was just handing out bags of gold coins. After counting out the 14 coins, he was left with a single gold coin.

Charlotte grabbed the coins in surprise. “You aren’t going to test it first?”

Now that it was in his hands, Dante examined his new gauntlet. “No. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just send my aunt over to request a refund.”

He was pleased to see Charlotte freeze in what seemed to be horror.