Hoard

The Past

"Skills may only be equipped and unequipped while sleeping." -from Kumhail's Principles of Elementary Sourcery

Wick waited until he was well past the high stone walls of Outlast to let a toothy grin slide on his face.

It was two bells past high noon, and the light of the sun felt good and warm on the back of his neck. The weight of the square iron coins in his grip put a bounce in his step he had been afraid to show in the orphan-riddled streets of the city. After enjoying their pleasant feel, he put them in one of his many secured jacket pockets.

Luckily, he had been able to lay low and leave the city without Pebbles and her crew finding him, let alone all of the others who saw what happened.

He felt like it should have been more difficult to lose the tails placed on him, but luck seemed to be on his side. Wick wasn't about to argue with the strings of fate.

A wonderful shiver ran up his spine as the cool summer wind breezed down the side of Grey Mountain, pushing aside its blanket of fog and brushing against his cheeks. Like all Sprawlers, the wilds were where he belonged. Cities like Outlast stank to high heavens and reminded him even more that people weren't to be trusted.

"The only sure thing in this world is money and death," Wick murmured to himself, citing a passage from one of the many books he had read countless times. From the stories about powerful sorcerers who can extend their lifespans, death might even be less of a sure thing than money.

His steps took him closer to the base of Grey Mountain, which sat only a quarter mile away from Outlast. He had been careful to not leave the city right away, and made sure none of the orphan groups had followed him.

What Wick had done was risky. Ripping the naive young sailor off from his coins with a simple performance wasn't what put Wick on the edge of his toes. All that took was a few lies, a well-placed truth, and patience.

But the move had tipped his hand. He had not only cheated the strongest group of orphans from their payday, but also made a show of it. Wick put himself on the map in a way that he couldn't be ignored. Now, he wasn't just another shade in the alley anymore.

For the past six months, he had just been another orphan kid with a dead dad dropped into the dregs of Outlast. Boo hoo. Old story.

Of course, he had heard whispers about him, how the new kid with curly hair the color of charcoal was a little weird. Like how his clothes were too nice, and not like those nobles or merchants with their soft clothes. The new kid wore an oiled leather jacket that smelled of dampberries. Some even saw him parading a shovel like it was a walking stick outside the city walls.

They also whispered that he was a fool.

He had turned down all the big kids who tried to fold him into their group. They offered him a sleeping nook that was mostly dry, shares of their spoils from scams or begging, and what little safety they could forage.

Some even promised him a handshake with Graves, the local crime lord. If Wick hadn't had a good thing going, he would have been swayed by the last offer. The last thing he wanted was to get tied up in Outlast.

They had come to him because he was big for an orphan, and not just tall. He had the kind of meat on him only kids with parents and a roof over their heads had. Big meant strong, and strong meant safe.

When he turned them down one by one, they had all told him in every impolite way that he was cursing himself. "Don't go crying to us when you can start seeing your ribs," they sneered.

But they didn't have what Wick had, and what he had was knowledge.

Unlike the other kids, Wick knew he could get out. That knowledge fueled him, turned his despair into hope, his hope into anger, and his anger into action.

He needed to leave Outlast. He didn't have time to be here. He had plans.

In order to make those things happen, he needed enough money for the wormhole so he could portal away from this place and never see it again. Glimmerrest was only a few more iron pieces away.

Wick neared the forest at the bottom of Grey Mountain, which the locals with their collective intelligence had named Grey Forest. Its eerie fog blanketed the mountain, top to bottom.

He and his dad had seen similar fog in different wild lands around Vandia. They were what the Guild called 'amnestic zones', or 'forgetting places'. Some people had the combined stupidity and luck to walk into a fog-infested land and barely get out with their lives.

But the trick was, they couldn't remember anything that happened while they were in the forgetting places.

Of course, no one knew exactly what happened. Maybe you kept your memory when you walked in only to forget what happened when you left. Or maybe you just walked around the zones without the ability to recall even your own name.

Some of the most powerful sorcerers from the Skillia had tried to solve the old riddle of the forgetting places. Most never came out. Those who did only did so with less limbs and blood than when they entered, still without any memory of what happened. What they did keep was sleepless nights for the rest of their lives.

Amnestic zones were more of a curiosity simply because it was too dangerous to consider them anything more.

Despite walking toward such an unsafe place, Wick's breath strengthened as it was filled with cool air. He noticed a slight but pleasant pressure in his veins only years of assisting his dad in dungeon-dives helped him understand.

His manna absorption was rising.

He blinked, and summoned a blue, translucent screen only he could see.

Name: Wick

Title: None

Trait: ??? (Locked)

Skill Slots: 1 - 0 - 0

Skills Equipped: Cut (1)

Skills Unequipped: 1

Source: Manna

Source Points: 45

Wick kept the screen open, his eyes steady on his Source Points, or SP. A few more steps closer to Grey Forest, and he felt a slight pressure build up, then release. The screen changed, and he grinned.

Source Points: 46

Almost everyone absorbed manna, all at different rates. Wick's absorption rate could be considered average. Besides their body, how much manna a person absorbed depended on how dense the area was with the stuff.

The dungeons Wick traveled to with his dad were low-risk. But at least they were filled with ten times the manna density than that of Outlast. It was another reason why Wick hated the city. The manna density there was so poor that most of its people probably weren't able to afford to unlock their first skill slot until they were sixteen, maybe even older.

Why would anyone want to live in a place like that?

But out here, near the amnestic Grey Forest, the manna density was closer to that of a high-level dungeon in the Sprawl. He couldn't imagine how thick the manna was in the lower, more dangerous dungeons.

Wick's eyebrows lifted in delight as he saw a single stick nearly twice his height stand perfectly erect only about a hundred paces from Grey Forest. A few minutes later, he was close enough to pull the stick out with both hands.

What he pulled out wasn't a very tall stick. It was a spade. But to the people of Outlast who had never seen a Sprawler before, it would have just looked like an odd shovel, albeit a very sharp one.

To Wick, the sight of the spade gave him comfort. He would have had to suppress the urge to spit in anyone's face who dared to call it a simple shovel.

He knew every groove of the pluminwood's soft grains, stains stretched across it.

Wick recalled fondly the times he had to dig so hard and so fast that his hands bled, seeping into the wood. The spade itself didn't have the grey sheen of metal because it wasn't metal. It was matte black, chiseled and heated from the bones of a divali spider, the unpleasant descendants of the Arachs.

One of the few times Wick had ever seen his dad hold a single bronze penny in his hand was the day he used it to buy the spade. His dad had probably saved up for an entire year. It had been Wick's present, a sign that he was allowed to accompany his dad in the Sprawl, the dungeons beneath the land, not just as his son, but as his apprentice.

Wick tightened his grip around his spade and pressed his boots in the earth below him. The low, unruly grass of the land between the city and Grey Forest seemed to cut off in a perfect circle beneath where he stood, hinting that the earth was loose.

He got to work and dug.

In less than ten minutes, he completely dug out a hole large enough for him to walk into, dirt steps leading him down into a wide area. Had an adult seen it, they would have barely believed a ten-year-old could do what he did. But Wick had two years’ experience as a Spade with his dad, who had been a Pick. Wick's hands and back learned things books could never teach you.

They started Sprawlers young, and unlike the sword-wielding, glory-seeking adventurers who accompanied some of their journeys, Sprawlers tended to live long enough to enjoy retirement. Glory never did the dead any favors. He was pretty certain it was just as useless to the living.

Wick walked down a few steps into the temporary home he had dug for himself after his dad died. His fingers fished around one of the pockets in his jacket and pulled the Sprawler's badge. He squeezed its edges twice in his palms and it glowed a brilliant light.

A single, large fur sat flat on the dirt floor. It was his bed and more comfortable to him than the ones they kept at inns. Those were filled with too many feathers or clouds or whatever they put in them. Soft beds made soft backs, and Sprawlers needed soft backs like smiths needed cold forges.

Wick tilted the badge to the wall adjacent to his bed and felt the edge of his lips tug into a greedy smile. On top of a large, tanned bear skin was a small mountain of food, organized in groups by how fast they'd rot.

Five loaves of bread. Ten wheels of different cheeses. Meats wrapped in oiled skins. Fruits. Vegetables.

It was enough food that a group of orphans could ration off the pile for a few months if they were careful. But it's not for the orphans, Wick reminded himself giddily. It's for me. It's mine. My hoard.

Unlike the other orphans, he never worried about going hungry. While they spent their miserable days begging, stealing, and cheating for scraps and coppers, Wick walked the edges of Grey Forest and plucked alchemical plants for Outlast's apothecaries and alchemists. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and Wick liked his roads forked.

Of course, it wasn't an official job, and the misers paid him coppers on the silver for what he brought in, if they paid him in money at all. Wick found some joy when he surprised them with his ability to match their haggling. Most of the time, they handed him food. Sometimes, he came away with money, but those were rare days.

Wick walked to the edge of his hoard and picked up an apple. He wiped it on his denim overalls before taking a bite.

The sight of his hoard sparked a fire in him like nothing else ever had. Could he have shared the food with the other orphans and made friends? Sure, if he was an idiot.

This food wasn't theirs. It was his. All his.

He frowned at the apple in his hand, a little sad at the thought that by eating it, he had lessened the height of his hoard.

The money in his jacket pockets was also a part of his hoard, but he kept that to himself at all times. So far, his makeshift home and hoard had been safe. No one came out this far from Outlast, especially this close to Grey Forest.

Howls, hoots, and gargantuan growls that came from the mountain scared everyone away. Everyone except Wick. The folks here were superstitious and foolish. No one had ever heard of beasts leaving amnestic zones. He had seen the real dangers of what even the safer, high levels of the Sprawl had to offer.

A measly forgetting zone didn't frighten him. All he had to do was not enter it.

Wick pressed the Sprawler's badge to its socket on his leather jacket, and it clicked into place. He didn't like wearing it out in the open. Its light filled wherever he faced.

He finished the apple, even the core. Wasting was for fools.

His eyes scanned the contents of his hoard lovingly. I'll have to eat the bananas and vegetables next before they go bad. After I get done with herb picking tonight, I'll treat myself to some meat and cheese.

Then he thought about the iron pennies he had pocketed. Just a few more irons and he'd be able to afford the wormhole to Glimmerrest. Finally, he'd get away from this city.

"I should look into drying the meat before I enter the wormhole," Wick planned.

He let himself feel the excitement at finally seeing his plans come to fruition. And this was just the beginning. Next, he would be a full member of the Sprawler's Guild. Then he'd own his own stores. Finally, he'd become the richest man in the country.

As he looked longingly at the height of his hoard, he imagined it reaching as high as the height of Grey Mountain. Wick smiled. Why settle for the country? One day, he would be the richest man in the world.

Wick snapped his finger, alerting himself back into reality. Before, his dad had been the one to do it. But Wick was alone now, and he could only rely on himself to stay alert and keep straight.

He grabbed his spade that he had left at the edge of the hole's opening, pulling the dirt dug into a nice pile over the hole until the light of the afternoon sun winked out overhead.

His badge's light guided him back to his bed, and he laid himself down on his back. Wick kept his hand on his spade, the pluminwood comforting him.

Soon, he would start his future. He was so close. All he had to do was make a few more iron pennies. Luckily, he had spotted a few herbs near the forest. But he couldn't pick them in the light of day.

Even though he was far out from the city and no one came near the forest, Wick had to make sure he wasn't seen. That meant picking herbs at night.

He also couldn't use the light of his badge. It would attract too much attention from Outlast's city guards who manned the walls. His hand squeezed his badge twice in the socket of his jacket, and the light winked out.

In the dark of his hollowed home, Wick felt sleep slowly taking over. Before it did, he willed his skill status open.

Skill Slots: 1 - 0 - 0

Skills Equipped: Cut (1)

Skills Unequipped: 1

After a quick look, he willed the blue screen away.

He didn't need his father's skill for herb picking. Besides, he hadn't grown accustomed to it yet. The last time he used Cut, he had leaked so much manna that the skill used up twice as much SP than what the skill actually cost to use. It would take decades, but he'd eventually get Cut's manna leak down to zero.

As the familiar warmth of sleep pulled at his mind, he had one thought. It was time to change skills.