Des grabbed an apple from the grocer’s cart, handing over the very last of his coins as payment. The crisp skin crunched beneath his teeth, the fruit juices running down his chin as he bit into it, but despite the apple’s sweetness, he felt just as hungry and fatigue-stricken as he had the past week. He chewed for a moment, trying his best to find any kind of joy in the meal. Whatever existed eluded him, and he spat the apple pieces from his mouth. The grocer scowled at him and turned to another customer, mumbling a curse in Des’s direction loudly enough that he could hear her. Since he’d found the black stone his sleep had been elusive, and now, since the Chamber of Sins, he was unable to take any pleasure from eating; yet however long he went without sleeping, despite the long days where he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy any meal, he didn’t tire. The gem was miserly with its secrets so far, but he didn’t doubt some of his supernatural vigour, as well as the two-part curse to his vitality, to be the product of the blackened virtue gem.
His head throbbed, another residue from his tangle with the stone and the thaumaturgist’s spike. Where his arm would suddenly strike him with a sharp pain, an uncommon thing that visited him without warning once or twice a day, his skull was seemingly always alive with a displeasurable dull throbbing since his sinful expedition. Almost on cue the pain in his arm flared up, causing Des to grab at it and squeeze at the sore spot where the black virtue gem was buried beneath his skin. It stung, Solaris above did it sting, but neither it nor the constant companion of his headache were any match for the pain that had followed his use of the thaumaturgist’s spike. He still recalled the hideous sensation that had rocketed around his body, the simultaneous freezing and burning that had made its home inside his veins whilst he cried in agony for all-too-long minutes, minutes which had very much seemed like hours at the time.
Des gripped his arm tightly once more, pinching at the pain with his forefinger and thumb, feeling the sting dull, to his immense satisfaction. He’d stumbled from the chamber without any further conflict from the creatures inside, almost as though they’d been avoiding him. Whilst in the grip of his agony, he was so eager to leave the chamber, to never return, that he’d barely noticed; in his flight, he’d abandoned even the thaumaturgist’s spike, discarded it somewhere on the chamber’s upper floor. The wicked tool had felt far too ill to bring outside that place. Des tried to put it out of his mind. Remembering it always seemed to aggravate the wound where the stone had entered his body, and remembering it was certainly something he didn’t feel like making a habit of. He glanced around, eager to focus on anything else. The camp was busy, much busier than usual, full of merchants come to visit with the people of Phrecia, come to trade what excess they had for useful road supplies. There had to be some distraction amongst their tables.
He ambled around the trader stalls, squeezing through the crowd and eyeing what little was on offer. The traders usually came once a month to the forest encampment, treading the road from Lioneye’s Watch to the outskirts of Sarn, but their visits were becoming rarer and rarer with the seasons. He walked straight past the camp’s seer, Yeena, and towards the gaggle of stalls where the travellers had set up their wares. A nearby merchant, peddling curios and eccentricities, caught his eye and tried to usher Des over towards the peculiar trinkets he was selling.
“Come, come look, my friend, buy something interesting yes?” the man cooed, his voice practically taking on a desperate quality. His tunic was well-worn, his face haggard, almost gaunt, and his hair was patchy, large swathes of it missing past his forehead. A thick moustache made up the majority of the hair on his face - the trader was a man who looked like tough times had set upon him long ago. Des shook his head slightly, eager to try and offload the odds and ends in his pocket, not purchase more. As he glanced down he caught a glimpse of a small wedding band on the table. The sight of the ring brought a smile to his lips, and Dena to his mind, but no sooner than Des’s bottom lip had begun to curl, the man spotted his wandering eye. “Ah you’ve fine taste sir, that is a fine band, belonged to a Redblade marauder for-”
“I’m not interested in buying,” Des said, cutting him off. The trader’s temperament shifted quickly, his shoulders dropping and a frown breaking out across his face.
“What can I do for you then?” The merchant looked past Des as he spoke, glancing around to see if anyone else in the vicinity was more worth his time.
“What would you give me for these?” Des said. He removed from his pocket a few transmuter’s shards, and a diviner’s card, all of which he had taken from the Blooddrinker’s victim. He eyed Des’s handful with a dry indifferent stare.
“That’s mostly junk,” he said. “Got anything more exotic?”
“Well actually-” As Des went to hand the man what small trinkets he had, his thoughts turned to the virtue gem in his arm. As if it was controlled by a mind of its own, Des’s bicep suddenly contracted, closing his hand on the various pieces in his grip. The skin stretched over the black stone throbbed, the gem beneath announcing its presence with sudden sharp pulses that made his arm shudder slightly. The trader raised an eyebrow as Des forced his hand open again. “No-” Des wheezed. “Nothing else”. His bicep burned, the angry bite lingering on the surface of his skin as though he’d pressed his arm up against a brazier.
“I can give you some scroll scraps, maybe an alteration orb for the card”. The moustached merchant glanced down at his table. “Perhaps we can make a trade? Your card for my band?” He smiled, an open-mouth smile than revealed his crooked teeth, several of which were so lopsided they looked likely to fall out any second.
Des frowned as he looked down at the wedding band on the trader’s table.
“Just the scraps and the orb will do”. The man let off a gruff sigh, muttering something under his breath as he began to fumble with the purse tied to his belt.
At least I can trade these bits for my own food, Des thought. Sharing Dena’s kills the past two nights had left a poor taste in his mouth. The merchant handed over a blue sphere, an alteration orb which held value to amateur thaumaturgists, and a handful of inscribed pages, likely from some kind of magic scroll. All the travellers seemed to solely barter in artefacts from either of the long-dead empires, Vaal or Eternal; it had become a de-facto currency now that the corruption had made food so scarce.
“Tell you the truth, the band’s junk,” the man said, his voice a whisper so that no-one else would hear him. “Very specific measurements, doubt it’d even be wearable for most folk,” he said. Des looked up at the man, surprised by his sudden candour. The merchant took his stare as encouragement to continue. “-been trying to flog it for years, I guess that makes you a smart man for seeing through my patter-”
The trader’s compliments were overshadowed by a loud booming voice from behind, a man disagreeing firmly and vehemently with a pleading woman.
Comments (0)
See all