We're off to see the merchants. We're off to see the merchants. The wonderful merchants of... Cheating people? Bad deals? Hmm, maybe the Caravan wasn't the best pick.
It had grown late, the sun a wan disk pressed steadily flatter by the vast indigo sky; striated bands of gold shined their last upon fields of susurrant grass, the first breeze of evening low and swift against the ground. The cool, steady wind kicked Hunger's cloak up and around his shoulders, star-stuff dancing in false celebration of the twilight.
Surprised it took so long, but I suppose that is how these things go. And we can't move very fast carrying Gisena with only one arm. Talk about awkward!
Gisena slept fitfully still, unrecovered from her supreme exertion of magic earlier in the day, while he walked steadily towards the antechamber entrance on a road of gently-packed dirt.
Poor Gisena. She really pulled our ass out of the fire there, but she paid the price for it. ...Unfortunately this means we'll be directly interacting with people. Scary!
On the horizon he spotted the silhouettes of a pair of men also traveling that road - not the spectral knights that guarded this territory, but men of ordinary stature like him, carrying thickly-packed rucksacks that bulged and bristled with miscellany, and dragging behind them a cart piled high with parchments and bottles of dark red liquid. He paused briefly, blinking in surprise, while they sped up eagerly, approaching him.
Seedy merchants! Run! They'll try to steal your entire wallet for sure! I wonder what the parchments are. The bottles are obviously potions, probably healing potions considering where we are...
"Ho, traveler!" Said the leftmost man, raising the bare stump of an arm in greeting. Cut cleanly, an old wound, and wrapped in tailored cloth.
Not very good healing potions, apparently. Can't even restore a lost limb. ...Unless it's cursed, anyway.
"Look Graven, it's your kindred spirit!" Said the man on the right. "Only he's not even got a stump, poor sod."
Indeed, indeed. Hunger paid a heavy toll in his war against the Tyrant.
"He has got a woman though. And what a looker! Didn't know they made 'em that pretty!"
"Nah. Reckon he's stolen her." The man smiled, raising his voice to address Hunger. "Dragging her off 'ta the cave, are ye?"
Banter or not? hard to tell. I can tell I don't really like these guys though.
He continued walking steadily forward.
"If we could steal a woman like that in 'ere, what are we doin' with this crap?"
"Never said we could do it, brother. Just that he has." The man tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. "It's hope for you, right?"
Don't make Hunger hit you! He uses the sword. And it tends to be deadly. Now stopping on an unconscious Gisena.
As they neared Hunger finally stopped to speak. "Are you merchants?"
The leftmost man, called Graven, nodded amicably. "Sure are, sir. Don't find many of our like in here, do ya? Our prices ain't the fairest... but they're the best!"
They aren't the fairest but are the best? ...That doesn't make any sense. Probably just trying to forestal complaints about the obvious highway robbery.
"The best - and only!" His twin chipped in, holding out a pair of red bottles. "What'll it be, sir? Prime healing pots we've got here, good stock, one hundred percent certifiable!"
"Ya mean certified, you blithering moron."
"I mean what I said! Don't interrupt the pitch! Like pa said, the customer's confident if you are confident! I don't need ya underminin' me."
The comedy routine is an act to get people to let their guards down so they accept the ridiculous prices, isn't it? Well then, that isn't going to work on Hunger... and we have better ways to heal anyway.
Hunger frowned. The power he'd absorbed from the magus had been slow to 'digest,' and was not finished percolating out from the ring. He had the feeling it would come with some means of accelerated healing, though. Better than 'certifiable' potions, whatever those were.
You know, Hunger isn't all that well learned now that I think about it. He was stolen from his world as a kid and then had to spend years fighting the Tyrant continuously...
A nod to our... indecision with regard to the power vote. We eventually did settle on Bloodmight and the healing that gave us, though.
"Not interested. I would be willing to trade for information, however."
Indeed. Information is worth its weight in gold. ...of course information happens to not weight anything so...
"See!" The merchant threw up his hands at his brother. "It's because ya messed up the pitch."
I assure you, shady merchant, we were never going to buy anything from you we did not have to.
Clearing his throat, the man calmed, adopting a more formal tone before continuing. "Ahem. Apologies for that, sir, my brother, he's a bit of an imbecile, and it's not got anything to do with his missing hand. Now, information's what you're after, eh? I think we can come to an arrangement. What do you have to trade, my good man?"
Good thing we still carry around those items from the King fish, or this would be where we get embarrassed and then shove a sword to their throats to make them talk...
Hunger produced the King Fish's Scale. "I want to know about this Temple. And the encampment to its side."
See what I mean? The scale is obviously worth that much, at least.
"I see, I see." The man licked his lips. "That... that is somewhat privileged information, sir. Is there anything else you might be able to offer?"
Are you trying to drive a hard bargain with Hunger? That's... not going to work out in your favor at all.
"Not really." Hunger began to walk off.
See? Hunger knows how to deal with shady merchants, Tyrant or not.
"W- wait! I'm sorry, could I see that scale one more time?"
"Oh fuck, I fucked up... Uhh, get back here!"
"Fine." He handed it over, and the merchant made a show of examining it in detail.
"I already know exactly how much this is worth, now how little can I get away with telling you for it..."
"Magnificent. This could go for quite a bit to the right seller. Problem is, as you can clearly see, we're hard up for space at the moment," he gestured to their overflowing cart and bags, "so I can't give you much of a premium for it. But for two pieces of information? That sounds fair. A fair price for a fair lord and lady!"
A fair price from you? Better chance of it raining cow-dragons every third sunday and the False Moon spontaneously freeing itself from its imprisonment without aid. And that scale is not a very large item.
"Your brother just said your prices weren't fair."
"Ah!" The man turned a strained smile upon his brother. "A joke, sir. Merely a joke."
Narrator: It wasn't.
"Fine. First question. I killed a magus today. He was fairly powerful. He could teleport and summon spirits, and wore a cloak of white and blue. He called this place 'the ritual grounds.' Describe the geography of this place. Is there some civilization deeper in the Temple? If so, what is their purpose?" Hunger showed them a scrap of the Magus' robe, now stained dark red, on which the white-and-blue insignia was inscribed.
Good question. Very good question. And we kept the robe. That... may prove useful. Shame it's damaged or maybe we could play infiltrator?
"Ah," The man paled. "Y-you slew a magus, you say? I, I see."
He gulped, slowly tapping the side of his face. "Well, my esteemed lord-"
Well, that's an interesting reaction. They are either very scared of the Magus and so very scared of someone capable of killing one, or they are very afraid of someone that did so because they work with them...
They haven't earned the right.
"Yes sir, I'm sorry. Well, my fine sir, the short answer to your question is, yes. There is a society that lives within the bowels of this fine edifice, exploiting the False Moon to defend and supply their way of life, and they do not take kindly to intruders. But the Call of the False Moon brings all and sundry forward to liberate it! There's a fundamental tension here, you see. From us, who've come from all over to liberate the False Moon, and they who live by its unwilling labor. I'm sure you've felt it yourself, the Call. How irresistible it can be! The poignancy of its suffering, the allure of power and treasure beyond the reckoning or mortal men..."
And so we finally learn what the hell is actually going on. A group of mages has decided to torture the ring to augment their power, but the ring is powerful enough still to call to any that get too close. I wonder how these merchants stand it. They clearly aren't trying to free the False Moon, but they aren't showing the signs of being pulled by the Call. Did they buy freedom from the civilization inside? Presumable they can immunize people so they don't go insane.
"What is the False Moon? Can it do anything besides issue the Call? Is it responsible for the maps?"
Good questions. Also way more than we were told we could ask but... Well, if the merchant answers...
"Ah, a subject of much debate! As none of us has ever successfully liberated it, or even approached the holding chamber, we simply don't know. I personally have never ventured past these ritual grounds, and am not certain why the Inner Residents call them such! It's a competitive task, chasing the Call, and those capable of penetrating to the Middle Temple are understandably canny about its secrets. If you were able to slay an Inner Resident yourself, however, I can confidently say you are ready to plumb its secrets!"
So they probably know nothing about what the ring is. Unfortunate but not unexpected. We ended up learning more anyway by unlocking the true potential of our ring. If only a fraction of it.
"You're stationed at the encampment near the side entrance."
"That's right, sir! You may have seen us when you came in. Might I ask what brings you to the Temple in the first place, sir? Seeking fame, fortune, items of power or simple adventure?"
"Well, the people controlling me got a tiny bit cocky..."
"You can ask, if I can have the Scale back."
No Hunger! You answer the question then demand the scale back for doing so, fool! They don't have to know the price in advance to still have to pay it!
As he responded, Hunger thought carefully. Best not to let on that he hadn't come in through the encampment, which meant that line of questioning had to be dropped.
We could always feign the existence of another side entrance of some kind. Though such a lie would probably never hold up.
"Ah! Good one, sir. I didn't mean to pry."
"Any other tactically or strategically relevant information I should know about the Middle Temple? How do I get there?"
Again a useful question. At this point I doubt the merchants know anything useful they will share, they seem to either be very tight-lipped with their secrets or they are just completely ignorant as to what is really going on. Which strikes me as a bit odd for ones not consumed by the Call.
"Ah, yes. Right now the road we're traveling is on what you might call the latitudinal, or horizontal axis of the space within the Temple. If however you were to traverse the longitudinal, or vertical axis," He pointed to the side, perpendicular to the road and in the opposite direction of the antechamber, "and braved the Knights and other monstrosities along the way, you'd eventually reach the Middle Temple! You can tell because the landscape will shift rapidly, in a matter of a few miles."
Well, we know how to get there now, at least. And man this temple is utterly massive.
"Thanks. And what should I expect? Inner Residents, more automated knights, monsters of a different kind?"
The man shook his head helplessly. "I'm sorry, sir. It's as I said earlier. Those who make it that far tend to be pretty competitive. They're tight-lipped about those secrets. Only one may claim the False Moon's prize, after all."
Unfortunately if they do know anything more they aren't going to share. Unfortunate.
...And how do they know only one may claim the prize? The False Moon may just give everyone that helped free it a gift, it really wants to be freed.
"What about the monsters here? I've seen the Knights, some bird-like creatures, a stone lion and an enormous fanged wurm. Anything I should be worried about?"
They looked at each other. "Well, there is the Dreadbeast, sir. He's only in a few places at a time, though, and if you could handle a Resident then I doubt he'd be a match for you. Would depend on your specific, ah, parameters..."
...There's only one dreadbeast and it's in multiple places at once? That's... interesting.
"Well," the man looked around nervously. "Sorry I couldn't help you more, sir. Was there anything else, anything at all? Sure I can't interest you in a potion, or perhaps a night at Librero's for yourself and your fine lady?"
He gestured to the cart behind. Hunger pondered for a moment. Was there anything he needed from these men?
Yeah yeah, no potions for us. And unfortunately we voted against telling you more and getting a night at the Inn. Means we're stuck on our own for now, but it's probably okay.
911 words.
