Chapter Seven

Finally seeing the tall walls of Rockmarsh was like a miracle for the small group of travellers. It had only taken a few days to reach the city but the bog they had to travel through made that journey as unpleasant as possible. They were constantly attacked by all manor of insects and struggled to find a dry spot of land to camp out each night, but they finally made it. The large city was certainly hard to miss. It was built at the base of the only mountain in the bog and had large stone walls. There were several plumes of smoke emanating rising from the city, coming from unseen forges. As they were approaching on their horses Ralisdor leaned over to Shuka to speak with her.

“This journey has been a little more dangerous than I would like. Xorvos is well armed and I can get by with my magic, but you do not have a good close-range option, do you?”

“Well, I have my knife but its not really meant for combat.”

“In that case I recommend you buy a sword in Rockmarsh. Some of the best smiths in the Celestial Empire live here so you should be able to find something decent.”

“Best smiths in the Empire? I don’t even have enough gold to buy a crappy sword let alone a masterpiece from one of them.”

“You don’t need to find the best sword in the city just something that won’t break after a month. I will give you twenty gold which should be enough as long as you do not get scammed.”

Ralisdor took out a small pouch and gave it to Shuka. Looking inside she found that it had more gold than she had ever had in her life.

Do I really want to accept this much gold for a sword I probably won’t even use much? Then again, Ralisdor has plenty to spare.

“Thanks. I’ll make sure to give you back any gold I don’t use.”

“Keep the gold. I have enough that I will not miss a few extra coins.”

Shuka was all for being polite and insisting Ralisdor takes his money back but she also knew that a few spare coins mattered a lot more to her than to him, so she just accepted it. With the matter of funding out of the way Shuka was ready and excited to enter her first city.

*

Several hours after entering Rockmarsh Shuka found that cities were a lot less exciting than she was led to believe.

No wonder Ralisdor moved to Rainsburg if this is what cities are like. Everything is so load and annoying and I can’t find where anything is, it’s like it’s designed to be irritating. All of the dirty looks I’m getting from the residents isn’t helping either. I don’t know if it’s because of my curse or if they wouldn’t like me anyway but knowing my luck it’s probably both.

Shuka thought buying a sword would be easy in a place known for it’s blacksmiths but she was having more difficulties then she expected. First, she went to the forges by following the plumes of smoke in the sky and talking to a blacksmith but apparently you can’t actually by swords from them. Instead, she was told to go by their weapons in a shop in the merchants district which she had already gone through to get to the blacksmiths. Then she got kicked out of the first shop she entered for being a ‘dirty vagrant’ and ‘scaring away the real customers.’ This time she decided to go to one of the shabbier looking shops in hopes they wouldn’t be so picky. Right as she was about to enter the store a child bumped into her and she felt a small tug on her coin purse.

“I’m terribly sorry miss, I didn’t mean to bump into ya.”

Shuka wasn’t fooled so when the child tried to leave after apologising to her, she grabbed his arm.

“Hold up buddy. If you really want to apologise why don’t you give me back my money.”

The kid didn’t look to happy about that but he quickly turned into one of childish fear and pain as he started yelling.

“Owww! Miss you’re hurting me!”

Shuka wasn’t grabbing him that hard but he was crying out as if she had him in a death grip. The streets were far from empty though and she was getting a lot of bad looks from passerby’s who just saw her hurting a kid.

Shit, they are going to call the guards at this rate, I’ve got to let go.

The moment she was no longer touching the child he ran into a back alley with surprising speed. Shuka immediately gave chase but found that he still had a sizable head start.

Good thing he ran into one of the less crowded area’s, now there’s less of a chance of a misunderstanding. But why is he so fast? I can barely keep up.

It took everything Shuka had just to follow the thief through the winding alleys but when he ran into one long side street with no turns in it, she saw her chance. Shuka slowed down to a jog as she weaved an illusion at the end of the alley. Between chasing after her target and the difficulty of the spell Shuka just barely managed to bring her illusion into existence. Right as the thief was about to leave the alley a rough looking guardsman with a mean look on his face appeared in front of the kid. He had enough time to curse and skid to a halt before the guardsman flickered out of existence and his following moment of confusion was enough for Shuka to catch up and tackle him to the ground.

“Now give me back my money you little shit.”

“Okay, okay just leave me alone.”

The thief quickly took out Shuka’s coin pouch and presented it to her much to Shuka’s surprise. One look at his face told her the reason for his expediency.

He’s absolutely terrified. He probably thinks I’m going to kill him or something.

Shuka took her money back and let the child go, trying not to scare him more than she already had. The kid ran as soon as he could and was soon around a corner and out of sight. Now that the kid was gone Shuka decided it was time to retrace her steps back to the marketplace. Walking back down the alley Shuka noticed it wasn’t quit as empty as she first assumed. While there were no people around several of the buildings in the alleyway actually had faded signs hanging from them. She even saw one sign with a drawing of a dagger on it and the words ‘The Vagrants Blade.’

Well with a name like that at least I probably wont get kicked out like last time.

The interior of the Vagrants Blade was just as shabby as the outside with half rotted wood and a scarred dwarf with one eye standing behind a counter. There weren’t any weapons on display so Shuka went up to the shopkeeper and placed her newly reacquired coin pouch on the counter in front of him. The Shopkeeper was a stone faced dwarf whose expression had yet to change in the short time Shuka had been in his presence.

“I want to buy the best sword you have for twenty gold or less.”

The dwarf opened up the pouch, took out a coin and inspected it closely. After making sure it wasn’t a counterfeit, he put the coin back and went into the back room. A moment later he came back with a sheathed sword in his hands and placed it down on the counter right in front of the coin pouch.

“19 gold.”

Shuka picked up the sword and slid the blade out of the sheath a few inches. It looked like it was in good condition, but she didn’t really know much about swords, so it was hard to be sure. Testing the blade on her finger she found it was still sharp. She would have tested its balance too if she knew what a balanced was supposed to feel like, but this was the first sword she had ever held.

I should have brought Xorvos with me, I have no idea what I’m doing. Even Ralisdor could tell a good blade from a bad one better than me. But Ralisdor’s busy and things are still rough between me and Xorvos so I wanted to give him some space. Oh well, this sword doesn’t look bad so if I’m getting scammed it probably wont be by much.

Shuka fully sheathed the blade again and took a single gold coin out of the coin pouch.

“I’ll take it.”

The dwarf took the gold without a word and gave Shuka a look. After a moments pause he decided to speak up.

“Oi, you come from up north? I’ve never seen you around here before.”

The question took Shuka by surprise, but she had no reason not to answer it.

“No, I’m from the south. I’m just passing through though, so I won’t be here long.”

“Well Rockmarsh is under guild protection so if you’re looking for a job before you leave it has to be through them.”

Guild? Ah, he’s probably talking about the adventurer’s guild. I guess I must look like an adventurer gearing up for a job right now. Actually, I could use some extra gold. It would be nice to repay Ralisdor and I don’t want to have to rely on him too much for money. It couldn’t hurt to at least take a look.

“Were can I find the guild then? I would like to make some extra money and I don’t want to get in anyone’s way.”

“Just go to the mining district and look for a building called ‘Ashrock Bellows’ and ask for work.”

“Thanks.”

It’s a bit weird that the adventurer’s guild is in the mining district but then again, where else would they put it? without an adventuring district there isn’t really a good place to put it is there?

With her business here done Shuka left and made her way back to the marketplace she was in before. It took her a bit of wandering because she didn’t remember the exact path she took but eventually she made it back without anything bad happening. Since Shuka still had some money left over she decided to see if there was anything cheap she could buy in the various stalls set up in the market square. The marketplace was loud and bustling and seemed even more crowded now than before she was robbed. Every stall had some man or woman barking at passerby’s yelling at them to buy their wares. Whether it was simple food or fancy jewelry you could find someone screaming at you that theirs was the best.

All of this noise is starting to give me a headache. Why cant everyone just be as quiet as the dwarf from before.

Shuka was just about to give up on buying something when one stall in particular caught her eye. The man running it was calmly and quietly sitting behind his stall and no one was crowding around him to buy his wares. It was a dream come true for Shuka who hated noise and crowds in equal amounts. When she walked up to the stall, she found it had the perfect thing to buy too. It was within her price range and if everything went well it could even help fix her relationship with Xorvos. Looks like coming back to the market was a good idea after all.

*

Xorvos was bored. Shuka was looking for a sword and Ralisdor had gone of to do something in the city so Xorvos was just sitting in the room Ralisdor rented for them. Normally he would train but the room he was in was too small for it and nowhere else was private enough. Besides, his fighting style trained best when he had a sparring partner. The fact that he hadn’t had a good sparring partner for several years had caused him to get a little rusty.

Perhaps I could go the local guardhouse and see if there are any fellow Quanso there. After all, I cant be the only Quanso in the city can I? Would they even help me train though? What if they say no or kick me out? And I wasn’t exactly a master fighter before I went three years without anyone to spar with. I don’t want to get made fun of because I’m rusty.

Xorvos had been pacing his room all morning thinking about what to do and he still didn’t know. It had been so long since he had left Rainsburg that he had almost forgotten what it was like to travel and interact with new people.

If I don’t get stronger than how am I going to protect Shuka? But how am I going to get strong enough to fight the Grand Paladin of the Celestial Empire? I could barely do anything against him last time and a bit of sparring isn’t going to change that. but I can’t just do nothing can I?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of door to his room opening. Shuka walked in with three new swords on her, two were wooden and the last was steel. She walked over to her bed and dropped her steel sword onto it and then held out one of the wooden swords in front of Xorvos.

“Please teach me how to fight.”

One look into her eyes told Xorvos that she was serious. Her words came of as sarcastic and mocking but her eyes told a different story.

“Why are you coming to me for this? I’m not a swordsman and I’m not even that great of a fighter.”

“Bullshit, you’re the best fighter I know. And I want to prove to you that I am taking this seriously.”

“But where are we going to train? We cant just start swinging swords around in public, even if their wooden.”

“Then we will just go outside the city. I’m sure we can find a dry piece of ground around here.”

Xorvos was conflicted. He really didn’t know anything about being a teacher and he hadn’t picked up anything even remotely similar to a sword in years. But looking into Shuka’s eyes he knew he couldn’t let her down.

Father always did tell me that you learned the most from a challenge and if this isn’t a challenge then I don’t know what is.

Xorvos took the wooden sword being held out in front of him and gave Shuka a look just as serious as the one she was giving him.

“Lets go find a training area.”