Chapter 10: Debts

Renith looked on from behind the counter with a mixture of awe and anger and caught Hima’s eye as the ice mage stood up. With a circling wave of her arm, Hima made all the ice in the room, save for what was holding the iron mage affixed to the wall of the Deep End of the Bottle, disintegrate into snowflakes and disappear into her fingertips. The great fish flopped onto the floor next to Bagsil.

Hima adjusted the clasp on her cloak and raised her hands to grasp the sides of her hood. Before she put it up over her head, she looked behind her shoulder in Miro’s direction.

“You coming?”

“Me?”

“Well he’s going to wake up at some point, and I don’t think you want to be around when he does.” She motioned with her head in the direction of the mage lying unconscious on the floor, then put on her hood and headed for the door.

There was a lot about Miro that hurt, which was a state of affairs he was generally getting accustomed to, but he had a feeling that having Hima around was his best bet to ensure that the situation would occur less often. He picked himself up from the floor, rubbing his hip where it hit the wall and followed with no additional argument.

When she got to the door, Hima pointed a finger at the icy clamp over the mouth of the iron mage still suspended a foot off the floor of the tavern and dissolved it.

“Are we okay here?” She asked.

“You rotten witch. As soon as I get out of here I’ll –” He never got to complete his threat. More ice grew out from the wall, this time encasing his entire face. Renith let out a faint gasp behind them and the fisherfolk cleared their throats uncomfortably. Miro hadn’t realized he was holding his own breath until he felt tightness in his chest. A few moments later, the enraged iron mage was hungrily gulping for air as snowflakes dissolved into Hima’s fingers.

“Like I said, are we okay here?”

The mage nodded dumbly.

“Good,” she said and let him drop to the floor before stepping out of the Deep End of the Bottle. Miro ran after her.

“Wait, wait, wait!” He called, but she kept walking. “Stop.”

“What? What is it?” She whirled around with a look of annoyance on her face that made Miro think that she was considering freezing him into a block of ice and sliding him wherever it was she wanted him to go.

“I forgot to pay for the soup.”

“Are you serious?”

He nodded.

“Fine, go,” Hima said with a groan, but he hesitated.

“Now what?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“So how were you supposed to pay for your soup without me?”

“I had not thought that far.”

“A pattern, to be sure,” she said, putting her hand into her cloak and pulling out a coin to place in his hand. He was about to run off when it was her turn to say, “Wait.” She took out another couple of coins, in slightly higher denominations. “I suppose we should also cover the table.”

One thing Miro had not considered in his plan to remedy his neglected payment was that he actually had to show his face again inside the Deep End of the Bottle. Bagsil was on the floor groaning, while the rest of his crew, their life bars in various states of depletion, glared at Miro as he made his way from the door towards Renith.

“Uh, yeah, just so we’re clear,” Miro said, “My friend is standing right outside, so, uh, keep that in mind.”

He placed the coins on the bar in front of Renith and said, “For what it’s worth, this is the best fish soup that I’ve ever had. I’ll make sure to tell all my friends … if I ever make any.” He reached out to the depths of his Charisma stat but Renith’s face remained implacable. “Alright then, I best be going. Again, friend waiting outside,” he scanned the rest of the room, “It’s been an experience, but let’s never do this again.” He was right, he realized, in a way that he wasn’t expecting. Checking in on his experience bar, despite feeling that he was pretty useless during the whole incident, he found that it had grown substantially.

Stepping back out into the night, Miro found the street empty, and felt both relief and disappointment at seeing Hima gone. On the one hand, she’d make it less likely for anyone to punch his ribs in with an iron fist. On the other hand, she struck him as absolutely terrifying.

“C’mon let’s go,” Hima’s even voice spoke from behind him and nearly made him jump out of his own skin.

His hand flared into flame, and after giving it a pitying look, she blew on it to put it out, leaving a light chilly tingle in its place. “Oh don’t be so overdramatic,” she said.

She had been standing against the wall of the Deep End of the Bottle and then walked ahead of him in the direction leading out of town. Seeing no choice but to follow, he did.

“Do you mind telling me where we’re going?” Miro asked. “If it’s actually ‘we’ that are going? I don’t know, I’m not quite clear on what’s happening here.”

“I’m taking you to see the others.”

“Ah, that’s a bit better than what the others guys gave me but I still need a bit more to work with here.”

“I’m not the tour guide,” she said, her tone hardly changing, always a little disinterested, bored and irritated rolled into one. “That’s more Nydra’s area.”

“And Nydra is …”

Only silence came in return.

“I see.”

Weighing the options, following her was still probably the best one. Then again, he was using the entirety of his single Intellect point to make this decision, so in the end, hoping for the best was what it had come down to.

Miro followed Hima back over the bridge and along the river road, past the last houses of the town and towards the woods from which he’d emerged earlier.

“Really? In there?” He stopped just as the road was about to take him out of view of the last house and its comforting lamplight. “Listen, if all this was just to kill me, can you at least do it out on the road instead of the woods? I always thought I would leave a handsome corpse and I don’t want to deny the villagers the privilege of that sight.”

She turned around and took a few steps towards him until they were standing face to face. He had almost a foot of height on her but at that moment he was feeling very small.

“Look, I know you’re trying to be cute with your, what, two Charisma points? And that might have served you well in whatever forgotten backwater you grew up in. But I don’t do ‘cute’, and your big mouth without anything behind it could have gotten you killed tonight.”

“I’m sure they would have –”

“I’m sure they would have underestimated your ability to not die.”

“Hey, I’ve survived just fine without you.” ‘Just fine’ was a bit generous and he knew that but the charred bandit weighed too heavily on him to simply brush aside.

“Oh yeah, swell job you were doing of that.” Even in the moonlight, he could see that she rolled her eyes. “Now come on, at least don’t be completely useless and give us a light.”

Hima stood there, and it took Miro a few moments to realize she’d been waiting for him to do something.

“Uh … I’m not sure how to …” he stammered.

She let out something that was between a sigh and a growl. “All you do is you start your fireball spell and then just don’t release it.”

He held up his hand and did as she told him. First his fingertips lit up, and then his whole hand; burning brighter and hotter until, unbidden, the fireball shot up into the sky and he watched his mana bar drop by three.

“Next time, try not to freak out. You’re a fire mage. Your own fire can’t hurt you. Regular fire of course will melt your face off, but no sense in worrying about that now.”

“Thanks …”

Despite her questionable assurances, he did manage to get it right on the second try. The fire would eventually slide from his fingers towards his wrist, and rest as a six-inch tall flame in the palm of his hand. She was right, though it did warm him, at no point did it feel too hot.

“Good, not entirely useless then,” Hima said when the flame had stabilized.

“Yeah, we’ll just see about that.” He heard himself, but it was too late.

“A bit of friendly advice – next time you level up, throw at least something into Intellect.”