For a moment, I stared at the innkeeper before looking over to Simon. Nobody seemed quite sure what to say, so the guy reiterated: “That kid′s a Rolander?” Had it just been Robin or Nico finding out that would have been one thing, but a total stranger? What to do now?

  For a fraction of a moment, I imagined myself sitting at the table with my friends back home playing Tabletop RPG′s.

  What would I have my character do?

  I clasped my hands before my face and said, in the most teary voice I could muster. “I told you to stop making fun of me like that, Simon.”

  The first to catch on was Rebecca, who put an arm around me. I pressed back against her in return, pushing the spot the axe had hit me before against her rib, driving myself into more pain to sound more pathetic. “You- you keep doing that.”, I said in a half sob.

  I let my voice get higher as I pushed my face into Rebecca's shoulder and the unidentified painful spot into her elbow. “So what? Yes, my family is from way out in nowhere, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid.”

  Simon caught on and let out an annoyed sigh. “You keep talking big kid, but that's not what-”

  Finally, I had managed to drive myself to tears. I would have tried to do it emotionally as I had for crying on command back home for roleplay purposes, but [New World Mental Block] would have most likely prevented that, so I had to use these alternative measures.

  Rebecca stroked over my back. “Still, he did ask you to stop with that, Simon. Just cause he called himself that once while drunk-”

  The Innkeeper looked between us and stood up. “Uhm. I- I don't think I should be here for this.”, he quickly said and fled the scene.

  I continued my crocodile tears until twenty seconds after I could hear the steps vanish fully. Then I let out a sigh.

  “You think he bought it?”, I asked into the room.

  “Had I not seen your “snobby noble” act when you rescued Simon, before, I maybe would have.”, Rebecca said.

  I sat up a bit straighter and wiped off what tears remained on my face. Her arm was still around me and i made no effort to remove it.

  “There is still a good chance he didn't buy my act.”, I thought to myself. But I did not say that. What I did say was: “So what do we do next?“

  “I have the scents of six people.”, Rebecca said. “Who were near the spot during the last two days. But I don't have any names attached, so I'd have to walk around town a bit, check where the scents belong to, who they belong to if they don't come back here.”

  “What′s new on the poison?”, Simon asked.

  “I scanned the town with Nico, we tried to find something, but we didn't find an alchemist or medic or apothecary or-”

  “What DID you find?”, he interrupted again.

  “Nico got a book on what I assume are poisons. I think he′s hoping that if we know the name, then the [Emperors Gaze] skill will work on whatever poisons in that weird vomit gem.” Nico gave a feathery thumbs up.

  “Please dont call it that again.”, Rebecca gagged.

  Simon leaned to the side in hopes of grabbing his cigars, but Nico was faster than him. The Leporid sighed and said: “So our next step is bringing back the body to the Necromancers Guild?”

  “Yeah. And that's probably gonna be a huge danger factor if we do it now.”, I said. “The streets are still full, and I don't wanna risk us stumbling into more of these undercover guards.”

  “So, we′ll do that tomorrow? Tonight?”, Rebecca asked.

  “No clue.”, I admitted. “How about…” I hesitated. “We gotta get him out before he starts stinking.”, I finally said.

  We attempted to make a further plan. I would have liked to say that we were hatching a plan on what to do. But that would be a lie. There was little we could do in here but wait for the riot outside to die down enough not get slain by an undercover guard. Simon usually just travelled through the place, so he never stayed long enough to be able to tell us where we could get information, and neither could Emily, even if she wasn't sleeping. Robin and Nico hadn't been here at all before, same for Rebecca. And, well…. did I need to say why I didn't know? On top of that nobody here was a big planner.

  So instead, we kinda sat around, none of us were sure what to say or do until Rebecca sort of just left. Simon requested we leave, too, so he could sleep if we werent gonna make a plan, and Robin and Nico followed me, carrying Nico′s new book.

  As soon as we were back in our room, the twins began studying the book, and I rummaged through the bag of clothes for one specific piece of fabric. The shirt I had worn when I had pretended to be Henry Vide once more. It was already ruined, and I didn't want to pretend to be him again, not after how it had gone the last time. So I had washed it yesterday evening so it wouldn't get anything else dirty, and now that it was dry, I could give it a new purpose.. Lucky me.

  After a bit more rummaging, I also found a small sewing kit in the bag. I didn't remember when we had packed it, but I certainly was glad to have it now. I picked up some black string, some scissors, and a needle.

  Flipping through the pages of “The Five Core Types”, in the latter half I found what I was looking for once more. The stitching pattern for the training mask. I cut the shirt's fabric into pieces. I had sewn before, years ago, in arts and crafts in primary school. Once or twice in later years. When I tried making a facemask for a cosplay for example. How many years ago had that been now? Two? Three? I could've been pretty proficient in sewing by now had I continued with it.

  But that thought wasn't helpful, so I pushed it aside as I continued. The pattern to stitch into the mask was quite complex, but I felt like I could manage it. Rebecca was reading one of the books she had gotten herself on our…. Was it a date? I felt a blush coming onto my face at that word so I tried my best and suppressed that as well. Outing. On our outing, when we still thought Emily and Simon had just drunk too much.

  I stitched the necessary runes into the fabric and wondered what Henry's brother, the mage, would be saying about them, considering all the other Rites he had shown me could be broken down into a much simpler version each. But I did recognize something. The [Trigger] rune appeared multiple times in the stitching. That did give me a thought. What if I took the stitch pattern and broke it apart at those trigger runes to figure out what the individual parts did otherwise? There were probably books on Rites out there, but that seemed interesting to play around with.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Why did I get this idea only when I had more important things to work on?

  What felt like a good hour and two tries later, I finished two face masks. I turned to Rebecca, who had her legs and arms tucked under her, loafing on the bed as her tail wagged, reading her book. The look of this gigantic woman lying on the bed, loafing like an actual dog was… .

  Seeing her like this, I felt the urge to pet her head. Maybe rub her ears. How would she feel about that? Last I checked, my grace said our disposition was two out of seven. That number meant very little to me. It measured our disposition, yes, but what did the numbers represent? We got along pretty well at this point, and that counted as a two- no three. We were at stage two because I didnt like myself enough. Which, honestly, was not part of how the skill was supposed to work now that I thought about it. But if I brought it up with the gods, they′d probably talk about stabbing me in the kidneys or something, and asking anybody else was just as good as revealing that I was a Rolander.

  “Deep in thought?”, Rebecca asked. She had stopped reading, though she was still a loaf.

  “Yeah.”, I admitted, playing with the mask between my fingers.

  “Nervous cause Robin and Nico aren't here tonight?”, she asked.

  “What do you mean by that? They′re here, read-” But they weren't. The book was closed, lying on the bedside table, with a huge number of bookmarks between the pages. At some point during my reading and sewing, it had turned dark outside. How long had I been at this?

  “They left for the Necromancers Guild after the sun set.”

  “They just left just like that?”, I asked. Then I thought back to Nico easily taking care of the guard that attacked us before, and Robin was, according to him, even stronger. So I doubted I'd need to worry about them very much. It was a bit of a shame, to be honest. I had been curious about the guild. Part of me had hoped to take a look. I shrugged at the thought, pushing the disappointment away. There′d be other chances to visit, and maybe coming with a body over my shoulder wasnt the ideal time to look around.

  Rebecca nodded.

  “Yep. They left. Just the two of us here. They might be gone for a few more hours, who knows?”, she said. “You′re not worried about what might happen, are you?”

  “No.”, I responded. “They′re capable enough; I doubt they′ll get into trouble.”

  “I meant more about-”, she sheepishly broke eye contact. “Nevermind.”

  I tossed her a mask. “I made those with the book's instructions. They're supposed to help with the breathing part of the core techniques. They′ll block your mouth for three seconds if you don't keep up the right breathing.”

  Rebecca looked over the mask. “You got one for yourself too?”, she asked.

  “Yeah, of course.”, I said.

  “What quality does your Grace assign them?”, she asked and tossed the mask back.

  I hadnt even known I could check for that, but, to my surprise, when I opened it, a screen opened.

  The gods are considering finding a priest to stab you in the kidney for them.

  The usual threats. At this point it would have been stranger not to have one. There was a reason I didnt open this as much as I probably could have.

  Analyzing items….

  Analyzing….

  Analyzing…

  Complete.

  Training Mask

  Grade Good

  A training mask for core breathing, created by Henry Vide.

  It has “Good” Quality.

  Training Mask

  Grade Ok

  A training mask for core breathing, created by Henry Vide.

  It has “Ok” Quality.

  Rebecca stretched. “Hand me the one with Ok Quality.”, she said. “You′ll use the Good Quality one.”

  “Are you sure?”, I asked. “You′ve been trying really hard to get better at this.”

  “You′ve also been working hard, and you've got more on your plate than just the core breathing, right? You′re working on magic, too. Not to mention the [Emperors Gaze].

  “But you- I can't.”

  “Yes, you can.”, she insisted. “Tell you what. If you really think I should have it, then all you need to do is finish the basic core before I can. Then I can use it for the rest of my training. How′s that sound?”, she asked.

  After some deliberation I said. “Like a plan.” I still hesitated a moment to give her the worse mask.

  A small part of me wanted to add: “As if we didn't have enough of those already.” But something in the way Rebecca looked at me froze the entirety of my brain, and I couldn't bring myself to do that.

  I really needed to find out what the number next to my skill meant. Among a million other things that I needed to figure out.

  With a slight sigh, I walked over to the bed and laid down. Tomorrow, we′d try to figure out more about the poison, where to get the info regarding the fake riot out, and so on. I pulled up the blanket and closed my eyes as the happenings of the day played through my head-

  I sat up. “I forgot about the Innkeeper. The fake truth test and all that. I said Id check in on that again. Not to mention, he could probably tell us who was there in those seats. And where to let people know about the fake riot, how did I forget that?”

  _________________________________________________________________________

  Current Status:

  Stats:

  Power: 2

  Agility: 1

  Toughness: 3

  Mental: 2

  Perception: 3

  Mana: N/A

  Effects:

  Night Vision  Lvl. 1

  Overlapping Protection  Lvl. 1

  Skills:

  [Basic Core Technique]  Lvl. 1

  [Behind every great person, there's their spouse] Lvl. 2

  [Emperors Gaze]  Lvl. 2

  [New World Mental Block]  Lvl. N/A

  Known Ritual Spells:

  [Basic Healing Magic]

  [Determine Value]

  [Filth to Food]

  [Ignite]

  [Liquid Equilibrium]

  [Rite of True Death]

  [Simple Transportation Magic]

  [Trigger]

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