Solo Time To Evolve

[Konrad Venger]

19th Day of Spring, 516AV - Twenty-One Days East of Kenash

The Zith may have been left roasted and cleaved like overcooked bats behind them, bit Konrad thought he'd never get the smell out of his nose. Even days later, riding in a middle wagon surrounded by the stink of brandy in casks, he could still feel the prickling, cloying stench tugging at his nostrils.

Yet... he smiled. He'd survived, and many hadn't. Old Fangor had come out of it a few fingers fewer, but the grizzled bastard had stubbornly refused to die. A clutch of other sellswords had been whipped away like pigeons by hawks, but not Konrad. He chuckled around his scarred lips and dug around in his pocket for his pipe. Wouldn't be the first time he'd beaten the odds...

"Somethin' funny?"

He froze. Didn't mean to, but he did. Three days ago, he wouldn't have. The humble, quiet man with a scruffy beard was just one of the carters. Konrad barely remembered his name, just knew that he did his job and ate his rations and snored like a dying bear some nights. He'd have shut him up with his trademark glare a few days ago, gone back to his triumphant thoughts and forgotten he existed.

Not today. Not after what he'd seen the man do.

The air was filled with those daemons. Swooping and screeching and throwing their spears and we were all dead. Just a matter of time. Then he... he made Syna, in the middle of the night. So fast and bright that it brought them all to the ground, and then he-

Konrad's nostrils twitched. He swore he'd never get that burning, roasting stench out of them.

He turned to Trevin (oh, he knew his name now) and saw not a jot of fear in the man's face. Just a bored curiosity that men wore when they were bells in to a tedious job. The oxen were tromping their way along the road and didn't need much care, but that didn't mean they needed none. Trevin still had to gee them up now and then, keep them at pace with the rest, stop them from straying into the grass for a munch.

He swallowed and thumbed over his shoulder.

"Close one, few nights ago, aye?"

"Can't imagine that's a rare thing for you."

Konrad chuckled again. He knew he should take offence, and part of him did, but it was a thing made fleeting by his knowledge-no, his understanding. The man could make flame belch from his hands. He was a-

Mage.

Mage. Sorcerer. Wizard. Djed-slinger. All the words that a good Sunberth lad would spit with venom and a curse into a gutter. One of "those bastards" that had to hide at all times what they did, for a city of thousands was ingrained with centuries of hatred for them. Konrad was no different. In fact, he knew better than most how dangerous he could be.

His chest still hurt in the Winters. Phantom claws still pinched at the ugly, badly-stitched wound just to the left of his heart.

"True enough."

Silence returned between the two, but not in Konrad's mind. He knew what Trevin was, what he could do. He could be riding on another cart, but no. There he sat, swaying lightly as the wagon slumped over potholes and uneven ground, barely an arm's length from the mage.

His hands focused on his pipe while his thoughts collected. There was a reason for that decision. It was instinctive and without form, but Konrad had time all morning to order them. A couple of days, actually.

Much had changed on the road to Kenash. He'd learned things. Seen things. Monsters and daemons. The world was greater and grander than that grimy city he'd been spawned in and clawed at all his life. There was an ocean of wealth beyond it, not confined by alley ways and warring gangs on every street. Knowledge, too.

And power. Power beyond steel and fists. Power that he'd seen in Fangor's commands, and the wyrd of Coryn... and the hands of Trevin.

"You mind?"

Trevin glanced over at the proffered and dry pipe. He had no need to hide it anymore, and they both knew it. He took one hand off his reins and Konrad watched as his hand seemed to... pulse... undulate as if a second Trevin was squirming under his skin, for just a moment...

Then a ball of green light was at the end of his fingers. Wan and pale under the glare of Syna, but definitely there. Hovering like a tiny planet, until the mage snapped his fingers-

-and it was flaming. Burning. He moved his hand towards the pipe as Konrad gripped it between his teeth... and sucked down as the flame ignited the pipeweed packed inside it. He watched the flame without tinder, without a lamp, just from the man's hand.

His eyes snapped up and found Trevin looking back. He nodded. Trevin nodded.

"What's that called?"

"Fire."

"How you do it, smartarse."'

"S'called 'Rei-man-cy'," the carter said slowly. "Means I can use my djed to make fire. And air."

"Your djed?"

Trevin gave the smile of a man who knew much talking to one who knew little, and yet wanted to learn. It wasn't quite indulgent; just smug enough to tell Konrad he wasn't like the noble mages of his mother's stories. The man sold his skills, after all. He was a sellsword as much as Konrad. His weapons were just different-

No. Better.

"My wyrd. Magic. Power. Whatever y'wanna call it. Everyone has it. Even you." The carter turned and saw that familiar indignation flash over the Sunberth mercenary. He snorted softly and shrugged. "I know y'don't like that idea, bein' from The Berth an' all. But it's true. S'what my teacher told me."

"I thought magic... djed, came from... I dunno-"

"What? We just waved it out of the air?"

"... yes."

Now the bastard was laughing at him. So long and loud he was wiping away tears and nearly spooking the oxen, but not quite. He was good at being a carter, too, after all. Konrad swallowed it. Like he swallowed shyke from Fangor, and the Elder Drykas, and other men with more power than him. Because they were still useful.

Because they had something he wanted. He just had to work out how to get it.

"No... heh, no, don't work like that. It's all from in here-" he patted his chest, then rubbed up and down "-all of it. 'course, when I use it around flame, like torches, they get swept into it, too. Had to be careful wi' that, when I was startin' out."

Konrad nodded, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. Trevin rambled for a little but Konrad wasn't really listening anymore. He picked out words here and there, but his eyes were glazed as he looked back to the front of the caravan, grinding its way closer to the horizon.

It was in him. That power. Light and fire and death. And it could be taught.

Better. That had been his thought. Konrad returned to it and tried to dredge up some real, honest, Sunberth self-disgust for even thinking such a thing. But he could not find it in him.

He looked up and checked Syna's position. Past midday. Another few bells and Fangor would send the canteens down the line, keep everyone with water in their bellies. Few more, and they'd find somewhere fit for the night.

Plenty of time for him to think.

[Konrad Venger]

Konrad thought he knew all about the persuasion game. But as he pondered the ways he could persuade Trevin, he came to a rather unpleasant realization: he didn't know shyke about it.

Fear, intimidation, force of threat and coercion through torture, sure, he was a dab hand at those things. But where did that leave you against a man who didn't fear your steel, or your fists? Who could snap his fingers and conjure flame to burn you alive? Who could clap and send a gust to send you flying?

Konrad spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the mud and let his mood become just as poisoned. He was at a separate cart now, riding along with the moustached crtein he'd first started talking to when they'd left Sunberth, one season and a hundred years ago.

And what are you? He wondered, drawing some humor into his mood, tinged with bitterness as it was. Another mage? A daemon in a hat? A monster with a petching day job?

What did Trevin want? That was the key to it. He couldn't force him to teach him, give him that gift to make and control fire. Even if he could, would Konrad trust a power given under such conditions? The bastard could make it so that the first time Konrad tried, he'd be the one bursting into flames, not the cunt he was fighting.

Heh. That's what I'd do.

He sucked on his pipe until the bowel was naught but ashes, and realized with a sigh that he had not the wit nor complexity of some men he knew. Men who could wrangle the wills of others with schemes and words and a whole fairground of deception. They'd be able to twist Trevin here and there until he'd willingly hand over his gift. Konrad didn't have those skills.

But what you do have, he thought slowly, words coming together after bells of contemplation. Is power of a different sort, and understanding.

Understanding of what?

The question that brings everyone together...

"How much?"

Trevin nearly flinched when that raspy voice snarled a few feet away from his ear later that night. He turned and flinched again, at least until he realized who the gargoyle staring at him was.

"How much for what?"

"To..." The brutish sellsword frowned as he sat on the log opposite the carter-cum-mage, pot of bubbling stew over the fire between them. "... in-ish-ee-ate. That's the word, right?"

Trevin blinked a few times and tried to imagine Konrad Venger with the power of flame and air in his hands. It wasn't pleasant. He was never much to care too deeply about the morality of how he used his own djed, but reawakening that gift in another? That was different. He shook his head and rooted for a bowl in his backpack.

"More than you could afford, lad."

"I have mizas, y'know. Be getting quite a purseful when-"

"And so will I, lad," Trevin cut him off, unable to resist a half-smile and a modest barb. "More'n you, too, I reckon. Caravans pay well for a mage on their side."

Konrad didn't glare; he smiled. He believed it. The very fact he believed it was why he was asking, after all. He watched the carter scoop up a bowl of soup, replayed the way he'd answered. It wasn't a "no". It was a matter of affordability. Well, then it was just naming the right price.

All right, he said with a deep mental breath, steeling himself against his pocket getting a thorough beating. Let's see how high it is.

"Look," he said lowly, leaning forward a touch. "M'gettin' seven hundred gold pieces for this season. I'd give you-"

"I'm gettin' twice that, Kon," Trevin said abruptly, already getting tired of this talk, but hey, at least there was a familiar 'Kon' in the sentence. "Ten gold a day, just for being there when somethin' comes along that you sellswords can't hack to death. Those Zith were one example. Don't need your gold, lad. Best keep-"

"Half." Konrad's offer slid in like a dagger between ribs, one finger shooting up. "An' whatever else I can scrounge along the way. C'mon, Trevin. Yer out here for the gold and the income. Y'make good scratch, I'd wager. More'n just good, yeah? Saving up to retire, maybe? Smart man. Lemme speed that along for yeh."

"Y'ain't got the cash, boy." The older man sounded almost sad, shaking his head and massaging his temples. Long damn day. Konrad was making it longer. "And initiation ain't like... shakin' hands, y'know."

He held up his own and Konrad studied the palms. The deep wounds there, scars like crosses living among the lines and calluses.

"The man I knew in Riverfall, he did that t'me. Saved his life one night, back when I was barely a man. In exchange, big blue sod offered to give me "his greatest treasure", as he put it." The wrinkled mage chuckled and stared into the fire, past alive before his eyes, and Konrad let him talk. OId 'uns always liked to bang on about the past. Made 'em more amenable, too. "Hurt like you wouldn't believe. He cut my palms and held 'em and... just..."

He shook his head. Gods, he still couldn't believe it, even after all those years and all he'd done across them. Whenever he remembered it, he was that boy against. Twenty Summers in the world and green as the grass around him now. Unknowing and unsuspecting that pain, that sight, that rush of primal power.

"He poured his own djed into me. Like it was... water. Into the wounds, my eyes, my mouth... everywhere. I was drowning on it. Came close, I reckon." Steam drifted lazily off the soup and even that reminded him. How it looked wafting off the Akalak, then pouring into him like it had mind, will, intent, desire to smother him. "Then it was over and he showed me what to do. Tell me what to think. I held out my hand and..."

Konrad watched as the man did as he remembered and without even a frown or a strain of his muscles, made flame from his hand like he was carrying matches. Trevin smiled wanly at the burning orange ball then closed his hand around it. Smoke puffed for an instant, then was gone.

"Not gonna risk killin' my boss before I get paid-"

"I can wait 'til Kenash, that ain't-"

"An' like I said, you ain't got the money."

"You call three hundred and fifty gold pieces not-"

"I said... 'no'." Steel in his voice now. The verbal cousin of a sword's hilt being caressed openly, blatantly, awash with warning. "You ain't got the money."

You ain't got the money, Konrad's mind repeated, and he believed it. He braced his hands on his knees to get up, determined to find some other way.

Trevin was about to take his first good slurp after Konrad's leaving when the bastard froze in mid-rise. He looked up... and slowly... the man settled again.

"Five hundred," he said, words slow and smile gone. Just the granite face of a man determined to get what he wanted, and Trevin knew it well. "Five hundred mizas, in your pocket, for half a night a' your time..."

[Konrad Venger]

It was simple, once you stripped away the moral considerations. Trevin latched onto the number, the amount, the vision of that many hundreds of gold coins raining down into his purse, and Konrad knew he had him. He didn't have subtlety yet, true, but Sunberth had taught him well the golden rule. The less popular one, anyway.

Every man has a price. You just have to find it, and prove you can pay it.

"Even better,"[/b] Konrad said, seizing the titbit like a starving dog would a bone. "I'm owed my five a day, seven 'undred. Five 'undred a' that'll be yours, plus..."

He held out his closed hand and Trevin extended his own. They shook and Trevin frowned, feeling small, cold, edged things in there. When Konrad withdrew he opened his hand.. and found a pair of gleaming little gems inside them. Konrad watched the sparkle, both from the jewels and Trevin's eyes. His own carried the same the night he'd won those, and all it had taken was a traitorous carter betrayed in return, and a couple of stupid she-slaves shown their fucking place.

"Think a' that as yer down-payment," he said, voice as smooth and coaxing as he could get it, sealing the deal, edging closer to the words he wanted to hear from the mage. "The gold, an' them, that's easily over five hundred. 'arf again what yer gonna be making. A season on this fucking road, riskin' everythin' fer ten gold a day... and could get half of that for... what, ten chimes of work with yer djed, when we get to Kenash."

Trevin turned the jewels this way and that as his hand tipped and righted. The fire cast orange fractals from them, dancing and skittering around his palm like they were counterfeit flames of his own. Trevin knew good stones, and these were as such. Not a royal sum, but fifty mizas, maybe more.

Konrad handed them over with a twinge he kept in control. It was all a matter of exchange: you gave much to gain much, and if Trevin was amenable, oh, what a muchness he would be gaining. He studied the mage as the fire crackled and the camp made sleepy noises around them both, sellsword and slave alike snoring in their respective beds.

"Why d'you want this, boy?" Trevin said, voice set apart from dealing and warning, eyes hard as those stones as they bored into Konrad. "I know yer a Sunberth man. Don' like mages. Probably woulda' killed me back home just fer lighting yer pipe like I did. So why now?"

Konrad smiled thinly. He hadn't exactly been expecting the question, but he still knew the answer. He reached up and plucked his hat off his head, raking his fingers through the mass of blond hair, dirty in color as it was its general state. He inhaled deep and looked at the stars, choosing his moment.

"First off, we're not in The Berth. We're well away from that shyke-hole, an' the world duz fings different out 'ere, don' it? Second..." He patted the sword at his hip, smile turned fond as only a man who lived by it could be. "You've seen me use this. Use it well, aye? Been swinging it well over fifteen Summers, I bloody well should be. But youse saw me a few nights ago, too. All that skill, useless against things that could fly. But you? You threw up your hand and whoosh! You made fire and those fuckin' bat-bastards hit the ground and we butchered 'em. I want to be able t'do that. Have that power. Not just rely on me steel an' me fists."

Konrad spread his hands wide, as if he were a man with nothing to hide. As if.

"Evolve. Y'know that word? S'what the lettered types call it when y'change, get better. I wanna evolve, an' youse got the power. You can help me. But y'don't get shyke fer free in this sodding world, so I know I gotta make it worth yer while. Well, I'm gunna. Youse hold up yer end when yer purse is so heavy it makes ya walk funny, and in return..."

He left the rest unsaid. Trevin pursed his lips and reviewed his options, his life, the deal itself. He told Marion this was his second-to-last trip. They'd plenty saved up, but never quite enough to make retirement comfortable, not just bearable. But this trip, with Konrad's promise added to his pay... he could invest in a business. Syliras, maybe, or Riverfall. He'd have the money to ship him and Marion and the boys far from fucking Sunberth. Have his lads grow up on cleaner streets, grow old with his wife sucking down clean air.

You know you can do it, he told himself, years of experience proving it. Like he said: ten chimes, five hundred mizas. You'd be a fool not to.

"... when we get to Kenash," the carter said, and Konrad grinned as he pocketed the jewels. "And after I get the rest. Deal?"

Two hands met, and shook.

"Aye."

Inventory:-two gems of modest value

[Ssezzkero]

SKILLS

❖ Socialization +3
❖ Observation +2
❖ Leadership +2
❖ Planning +3
❖ Philosophy +1
❖ Negotiation +2
❖ Persuasion +2
❖ Storytelling +1

LORES

❖ Expectations are not always as they seem
❖ Hastus: Wants to kill you
❖ Trevin: A Reimancy Mage
❖ Djed: Magic or Power
❖ The benefits or persuasion instead of intimidation
❖ Negotiation: Pay for learning magic
❖ Persuasion vs. Negotiation
❖ Reimancy Initiation: How it works
❖ Every man has a price
❖ Securing a deal

RECIEPTS

- 2x Gemstones of moderate value (Note: Gemstones were acquired in this thread)