Last Words chapter 46 (Patreon)

After Bran settled in, he clicked with my friends surprisingly well. The groom was just an affable and charismatic guy, and it was clear he had a vested interest in being friendly. So as he worked, I slipped off to meet with my cousin.

Deke was posted up in a huge tent he’d requisitioned from Jacob (tents not being technology, they could be carried across directly), seated at a sturdy foldable table and reading his alchemy book by the light of what looked like an oil lamp. “Hey cousin,” I said as I plopped down across from him. “How goes the studying? You master alchemy yet?”

He snickered. “I wish. No. I’m learning a lot, but this book is DENSE. Not to mention, I’ve started getting to the point where I need to learn to imbue mana into my mixtures. I’m pretty sure there’s a pattern for mixing potions, so we might need to look into that.”

I hadn’t considered that, but it did make sense. I was sure that even if you needed a pattern for some potions though, you didn’t need one for all of them. The Scribes made their own reagents, after all, and they were hardly dedicated alchemists. I filled him in on what I’d learned about this new world we lived in, and he nodded along with interest, not missing a detail.

Honestly, it was…strange to see Deke like this. I’d spent so long thinking of him as my airhead stoner cousin, seeing him sober and focused was almost inconceivable. Beyond that, up until recently I hadn’t known about his incredible intelligence, and seeing him like this, in his element, was kind of blowing my mind. He didn’t seem to notice or care much about my reaction, just checking his book for information about the reagents used.

“I take it you have a reason to come see me?” he asked idly. “Not that it’s not lovely to see you, but I’ve got things going on so…”

“Not a social call,” I assured him. “I’m planning to test a few things in regards to my powers now that I have this pattern. Figured you want to sit in for moral support. Also I’m worried I might pass out or something and choke to death on my own tongue. But mostly that other thing.”

He chuckled at that, but nodded along as I stripped off my shirt. Looking over my shoulder, I studied the Barkskin pattern. It was gorgeous, even with minimal mana built up. I really hoped this would work the way I expected it too. Having to get the tattoo reapplied would be excruciating, and I really didn’t want to go through it again.

Taking a long, slow breath, I reached for my ability.

Sell: Barkskin Pattern, minimal charge. Price- 12,000$ USD

My lips peeled back in a wild grin. That was excellent. It told me quite a few things. First that I could sell my pattern, second that the charge would alter the price. Which meant I SHOULD be able to buy it back fully charged at a markup. I wouldn’t obviously, since I could recharge naturally by waiting a few hours, but still. It was nice to know for future reference.

I took a long, slow breath. Next experiment, sell the pattern and hope it didn’t cause me to implode or something. Closing my eyes, I focused on the tattoo, then…boom, it was gone. I twitched a bit, because the sudden lack of power in my skin felt kind of weird, but I adjusted quickly. I looked over my shoulder, confirming the sale had been successful. It hadn’t been painful or had any obvious consequences. In fact, the opposite was true, I’d received a notification that Sell had reached level nine, only one away from a perk.

Taking a moment to process, I took another breath. This time, I focused on something a little different. I had already experienced a fully charged Barkskin spell, I should just be able to focus and-

Purchase: Barkskin Patter, full charge. Price- 25,000$ USD

I winced. That was a steep markup. Twelve thousand dollars more, over twice as much. I made a mental note not to use this particular trick in battle unless I absolutely had to. I’d go broke trying to hot swap patterns. And that was assuming I COULD do that. Assuming I could buy a pattern without having to experience that same agony again. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for what was to come…and bought.

Part of me expected agony. I braced for it, waited for the waves of excruciating pain, but to my surprise and delight, nothing came. No pain, not even a tingle. Just the sudden return of the weight in my skin that I had barely noticed vanishing earlier.

Looking back, I confirmed that yes, my tattoo had returned, and yes, it was completely full of mana now.

I shared my results with my cousin, and Deke looked intrigued. “How about me? Can you buy one for me?” He sounded eager to experience the spell for himself. I focused on him, attempting to purchase another tattoo…and grimaced as the attempt failed.

Because it was my back, or my beard, or my brain I was implanting knowledge in when I learned the language, I was able to buy those things. But I couldn’t purchase a pattern for my cousin. His back wasn’t my back. When I explained that to him, he stopped to consider something, then asked me for a piece of paper.

He drew up a contract, outlining some terms, and I raised an eyebrow as I read over it. “You’re renting me your skin?” I asked in disbelief.

“It’s not as crazy as it sounds,” he said with a shrug. “People back on earth do it all the time. They rent out space on their bodies for advertisements and special marketing tattoos. I paid a pretty fair price, I think, and since I’ll be benefiting from the pattern, it seems like a win-win.”

I read over the terms. Ten thousand dollars, but he’d deferred the payment towards the tattoo itself, so it was mostly just going to be at cost. I signed it, feeling the contract take effect as the transaction was established. Once I knew it would work, I went ahead and purchased the tattoo immediately. I winced as my funds took a nosedive, plummeting to twenty nine thousand three hundred twenty eight dollars. Between rebuying mine and buying his I’d blown a lot of cash today, but it had been worth it.

Deke froze as soon as I completed the purchase. He didn’t scream, which was a good sign, I thought, but he did lock up, eyes going wide with shock. “That feels…weird. Like someone is poking me in the brain.” He stripped off his shirt, looking over his shoulder at his back. “Huh. That’s cool looking.”

“Yup,” I told him cheerfully. “So, I have good and bad news. Good news is, that’s full and you can use it. Bad news is that since you don’t have a fully established mana body, you can only use it once. You don’t have the capability to charge it, which means it’s a one shot trump card until your mana body reaches level ten.” Realistically, I probably should have considered what would happen if his body hadn’t accepted the pattern, since you weren’t supposed to give them to initiates.

I hadn’t even considered the potential consequences until after I’d done it, and now I felt like a moron. On the upside, I had confirmed that it could be done, and that the reason people didn’t get patterns as initiates was because they couldn’t charge them and they would essentially be pointless.

Well, it was also highly probable that the human body wasn’t designed for the intense and agonizing process of mana tattooing, but if that was the case my power was a workaround. Either way, it meant that we had a secret weapon. Single use or not, I could put patterns on my friends before they reached Beginner, patterns they could actually employ. It was a trump card no one else could use.

Just to be sure we had a handle on all the details, I then tried to sell the pattern I’d just placed, reclaiming all the money. I could have added another with the same cash, since it would have been full in both cases. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan. Most of the stuff we’d tried had worked, but this definitely didn’t. I could add patterns to other people, but I couldn’t remove them. If he wanted the mixing pattern or whatever it was called, Deke would have to either wait until the next rank or have it removed the hard way.

When I told him that though, he just hummed in consideration. “Maybe,” he said slowly. “You can’t sell my tattoo. But can you BUY it?”

I blinked. I hadn’t considered that. I knew I could buy pretty much anything, but in the past I had just bought things from my power itself, or a nebulous third party. I’d never tried to buy something FROM someone. A quick check of my purchase power (also level nine now), showed me that yes, I could. I could buy the pattern from him. Which meant I could buy a pattern from someone ELSE most likely too. That established a method of gathering new patterns aside from having them agonizingly branded onto my skin over the course of an hour, which sounded like a pretty nice bonus to me.

“I can,” I told him slowly. “But not right now. I only have a bit less than thirty thousand left, and if I buy yours I’ll be down under five grand.” I grimaced. “I really need to swing by and talk to the Cromwells. I bet I could sell them a few of the items I can buy now at a huge markup. Like the Stoneskin potion. Or hell, I might be able to sell them a pattern. Bet they would pay through the nose for Barkskin, even if it was only single use.”

Assuming a normal person could trigger the pattern. I hadn’t actually considered that. Deke had mana, so I was betting we could figure something out, but Alistair and the others didn’t. Either way, it was something to look into. I was running low on cash and it had been a while since I’d made a sale. I could toss them a few more mushrooms.

Actually, the bloodfire mushrooms might bear looking into again. Now that I knew stamina was its own thing that ran parallel to mana, and how it interacted with the resource to allow for techniques, the bloodfire mushroom was much more interesting to me as a concept.

For the moment, I was finished buying what I needed. I wasn’t broke yet, but I was coming up on it. I’d need to head back through the door tonight rather than returning to the inn. I should probably check on my apartment in any case. Once I was back, I could set up my meeting with The Silent Pond. Whatever they needed, I’d get them, and when I did, I’d look into possibly getting one of the riper fruits to speed up our progress.

I filled Deke in on the plans, and he agreed that the fruit was a priority. He ALSO requested a meeting with Bran. I grimaced, because Deke hadn’t been here as long as the others, and so he hadn’t been working on the lessons in the local language with the professor. Bran didn’t speak english, and that meant I’d need to translate, which sounded annoying and time consuming.

Still, I agreed. Deke had accepted his job here with enthusiasm, and the least I could do was help out how I could. But that would need to happen another night, because I was heading back to Earth after this meeting. Once I confirmed that, I said my goodbyes to both Deke and my other friends and made my way through the door. Then I went home to sleep. In the morning, it would be time to re-up my accounts. And I couldn’t wait.