Duskbound

Chapter 8

There were only three people on the streets of Beldrit when Velik reached the edge of town. He usually avoided this place, but his unwelcome guest the night before had disrupted his whole schedule. Between that and his failed hunt, he was basically out of food and in a foul mood. The only close options to resupply were Beldrit and Deshir, and there was no way he was setting foot in Deshir.

The sun had just crested the horizon half an hour ago, leaving Velik feeling weak again. He was looking forward to the errand being done as quickly as possible and getting back to his home. It would only be a few more days to level 29, and maybe a week or two to level 30 if the monsters kept arriving in greater numbers with higher levels. Maybe I'll go straight north this time. Seems like there's a lot of movement coming from that direction.

He slipped past one of the men on the street, a lumberjack by the look of him, though not one Velik recognized. The man sneered at him through his beard, a reaction Velik was more than used to and barely even thought about anymore. As long as the axe hanging from the jack's hip stayed sheathed, he could sneer at whatever he wanted.

"You're not dead, yet?" the jack almost spat out. "That's a shame."

Velik ignored him, having long since heard all the possible variations of this conversation. It was pointless to argue, only made things worse when he tried. A lot of people had decided he was the cause of all their problems, and that his death was the only thing that would stop the monsters from coming. For all Velik knew, they might be right.

His path didn't take him past the other two people, thankfully. As inured as he'd grown to the treatment, he certainly didn't enjoy it. There was a reason he didn't go to any of the towns unless he had to anymore, though it had been years since anyone had gone so far as to actually attack him. He'd disabused them of that idea immediately and painfully.

The ones who hated his guts were bad enough, but Velik understood how to deal with them. It was the other kind, the people who revered him, that creeped him out. He wasn't any sort of savior or hero. He just had a class well suited to hunting monsters out in the wilds, so he did. Unlike the people who thought he was some sort of fraud or con artist, he couldn't shut down adoration just by being intimidating.

Oh, he was sure that beating someone with the shaft of his spear would work equally well, but it felt wrong to turn a weapon on them when they weren't offering him any harm. So, he did his best to ignore them while he was here and then disappeared back into the forest as soon as possible. Occasionally, someone tried to follow him, but once he was back in the trees, they had no chance.

Although that hunter had come close. If he'd sent his apprentice off an hour or two earlier, Velik probably wouldn't have gotten away clean. It was unsettling to see someone else moving through the woods the same way he did, at least during daylight hours, and he had an uncomfortable suspicion that he'd be seeing the man again, probably sooner than he'd like.

Beldrit's general store was actually one of the better ones for two very simple reasons: it was near the edge of town and it opened early. If not for the fact that it was so close to Deshir, and thus constantly had people from that town there, it would have been Velik's preferred resupply stop.

He slipped in through the front door, the little bell attached to the top ringing only because he deliberately shook the door to set it off. The owner, a portly man whose shirt strained to hold back his belly, was standing with his back to the door, a wooden crate balanced on one hip while he pulled little glass bottles out and placed them with deceptive care onto custom shelving racks designed to hold them.

"One second," he called out without looking over his shoulder. "Almost finished up here. Annnnnd... done. There we go."

The box, now empty, hit the floor and its bearer spun in place. He froze for an almost imperceptible moment when he saw who was standing in his shop, but then unstuck and said, "Ah, my most famous customer. I haven't seen you in so long. What do you need today?"

"Food," Velik told him.

"Just food? Surely, you've got some decarmas to spend. I just got in a whole stock of potions from an alchemy lab down south. Each one is guaranteed to be made by a level 30 or higher alchemist. I'd wager a fit young lad like you could really pull the maximum benefit out of each and every one."

"Just food," Velik said firmly. "Stuff that'll last a while, and a bag of salt if you've got it."

His supply wasn't completely out, but preserving meat took a lot of it and he was already here anyway. It wasn't like salt itself would go bad if it took him more than a month or two to use it up.

"I'll be right out," the shopkeeper called from the back room. The creak of a lid closing followed that declaration, and he appeared in the doorway. "Ah, Fender. What can I do for you?"

"Boss needs another three kegs," the big man said.

"Already? He's going through my entire winter stock and the snow's not even here yet."

"Got some client who drinks like a fish."

The shopkeeper snorted. "I'm going to have to raise my rates."

"My money," Velik said, not wanting to spend any more time in Beldrit than he had to.

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Here you are," the shopkeeper said. He handed close to three dozen small silver coins, each about a third the size of a decarma and lacking its mystical glow, to Velik, who pocketed them and hefted the food sack. "Pleasure doing business with you."

"Have a good day, Mr. Black Fang," Fender said.

"Er... Yes. Thank you."

Velik walked out the door and paused to look around. Behind him, he heard Fender say, "Don't see him too often. What'd he want?"

"Just the usual. Food that'd keep for a while and a bag of salt. Couldn't upsell him on a single thing."

"What? Someone was able to resist your charms? No."

"Hey, watch it or I'll be increasing the price on that beer."

"Easy now," Fender said. "I was just joking."

A vestige of a smile crept onto Velik's face. This was a surprisingly good trip.

"Hey! You! What the fuck do you think you're doing here!" a voice bellowed from a block away.

The smile vanished. He glanced over and saw a familiar figure rushing toward him. I guess I spoke too soon.