Memoirs 497 - Wares & Idols (Patreon)

Scarlett stepped to the side as the bisected body of a Briarclaw landed to her right with a heavy thud, the two halves rolling apart to reveal frost-encrusted insides.

Thankfully, there wasn’t much in the way of actual gore. The creature was mostly made up of twisted roots and dense bundles of bloodless fibres, all slick with a faintly glowing yellow ichor.

Not that Scarlett hadn’t grown used to seeing much worse by now. You were inevitably exposed to some fairly gruesome sights when you spent as much time in dungeons as she had, regularly burning monsters to a crisp or watching her companions cut them apart.

That didn’t mean she would ever start to enjoy looking at it.

A guttural roar sounded from across the clearing, and Scarlett turned her attention towards Dame Iyana.

The knight was surrounded by a large pack of the Briarclaws, which were very similar to tigers if they had grown straight from the surrounding forest. Her sword cut through their wooden limbs with about the same amount of difficulty an axe might have had with kindling.

She seemed to have a pretty good handle on things.

Scarlett took the opportunity to make her way towards the edge of the clearing, where a bed of colourful flowers grew among the underbrush. With the sounds of fighting continuing behind her, she knelt and began searching through them, quietly humming one of Rosa’s tunes to herself.

She picked a few species that she recognised from previous experience as useful alchemical ingredients. Allyssa would probably appreciate those. Beyond that, Scarlett also searched for a more specific kind of flower. Its petals were a dull white, but at the centre grew a flat silver disc that looked almost like a small coin. Whenever she found one, she carefully plucked it and placed it inside a separate pocket at her side.

A sharp roar was cut off behind her, followed by something hitting the ground.

Scarlett glanced over her shoulder.

A Briarclaw lay only a few metres away, its head separated from the rest of its body. Judging by the direction it had fallen, it had probably been trying to reach her.

Its mouth still hung open, exposing rows of thin root-like teeth, while the yellow glow behind its eyes slowly faded.

Scarlett looked at it for another moment, then went back to the flowers.

A few minutes later, she had gathered everything she thought was worth taking. Brushing some dirt from her knees, she stood and returned to the clearing just as Dame Iyana dealt with the last creature. The woman stood among a mess of broken wooden bodies, patches of frost covering the ground around her. There wasn’t so much as a visible scratch on her armour.

“Impressive,” Scarlett said, surveying the result. “I see why people say you may one day replace the First Sword.”

Dame Iyana looked towards her and flicked her sword through the air. A thin layer of rime spread across the blade, freezing the yellow ichor clinging to it before breaking away in small flakes.

“It would probably have been easier and quicker had you not provoked that Idol.”

Scarlett smiled faintly. “I have the utmost faith that this remains well within your capabilities. You have done an exemplary job of protecting me so far. It will be worth the additional trouble in the end.”

It was true that the trial had become more difficult because of Scarlett.

She wouldn’t deny that, even if it hadn’t been intentional.

Pellin had added that particular condition after she proposed their wager, and the Idol had refused to budge on that point.

“You could choose to look at the bright side,” Scarlett said. “By my estimate, we have already completed nearly half the trial.”

They had only been here for two or three hours and had already made it this far. That was a great pace, as far as she was concerned.

“How can you know?” Dame Iyana asked.

Scarlett pointed ahead.

Beyond the clearing, the forest grew dense enough that almost no light made it through the trees. Yet somewhere deeper between the trunks, a faint warm glow was visible.

Dame Iyana narrowed her eyes. “What is that?”

“Why not find out?”

Scarlett headed towards the treeline, picking her way carefully around the thicker roots and undergrowth. Dame Iyana followed soon after, and together they moved towards the distant light.

Eventually, the trees opened onto another, smaller clearing.

Above it stretched a dark night sky that bore no resemblance to the purple-blue sky that had followed them through this place until now.

A fire crackled at the centre of the clearing, surrounded by four thick logs.

Sitting on one of them, lit by the shifting orange glow, was Pellin. His crooked walking stick stood upright beside him, and the Idol looked much the same as when they’d last seen him.

Except for the enormous pack strapped to his back.

It rose almost twice his height above him and bulged awkwardly at the sides, covered in pockets, dangling bottles, rolls of cloth, tiny boxes, and several things Scarlett couldn’t even identify.

Dame Iyana tensed at the sight of him, her sword lifting slightly.

Scarlett simply walked past her and sat down on the log beside Pellin’s, holding her hands towards the fire.

“We meet once more,” she said.

Pellin bobbed his head eagerly, tapping the little golden caps on his fingertips against the wood beneath him. “Oooonce more, indeed! Pleasure! Always! Fair ladieees, joy to see.”

“I am glad to hear that.”

Scarlett looked up at the absurd pack looming over him.

“Do you have any wares to sell?”

She had known about both this rest stop and Pellin’s appearance here from the game. There, it marked roughly the halfway point of the quest, where the Idol appeared in the guise of a travelling merchant and offered the player a chance to buy a handful of unusual items before continuing.

The player wasn’t supposed to know that the strange merchant was actually the Idol responsible for the entire place, but since Scarlett had already thoroughly ruined that part of the act, there wasn’t much point pretending otherwise.

Pellin didn’t seem to mind.

“Waaares?”

He cocked his head, a slightly too-wide smile spreading across his not-quite-real face. Then he reached both hands behind himself and started wrestling the enormous pack off his back. It took nearly half a minute. By the end, Pellin was twisting from side to side while the pack seemed intent on remaining where it was. Eventually, it came free and hit the ground beside the log with a thud, followed by the clatter of metal, the knock of wood, several glassy chimes, and a few more that left Scarlett guessing.

The Idol immediately started emptying it onto the forest floor.

Scarlett watched with a mixture of fascination and bemusement as the pile grew.

Out came a bundle of peacock-blue feathers tied with red string, a chipped porcelain mask, three brass spoons of different sizes, a coil of translucent rope, a little box full of teeth, an empty birdcage the size of her fist, two mismatched gloves, several cloudy gemstones…

Well, the list went on. For quite some time.

There didn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to any of it, honestly. Maybe these were simply things that had caught Pellin’s eye over the years. Or maybe they were whatever bits of junk happened to find their way into this place.

Either way, it took him well over five minutes to finish. When he finally did, he turned towards Scarlett with both arms spread wide and what she assumed was meant to be a proud expression on his face.

“Many waaaaares, for the damsel and dashing heroooo!”

Scarlett looked over the sprawling collection.

It covered a few square metres of forest floor, and much of it was piled together badly enough that she couldn’t even tell what some of the objects were.

“What can I get for this?” she asked, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the small silver discs she had been collecting. Her palm was almost overflowing with them.

The previous clearing hadn’t been the only place they appeared. Scarlett remembered from the game that they could be found throughout the challenge, so she’d made a point of gathering as many as she could whenever they passed some.

It wasn’t like she had much else to do while Dame Iyana handled all the monsters.

Pellin shuffled closer and rose onto his toes to inspect what she was holding.

He scooped up as many of the discs as he could, dropping several in the process, and hurried over to stuff them into a small pocket on the side of his pack. It was already mostly full, and he had to push the last few inside with one finger before turning back towards his wares.

He folded his arms and stared down at the mess.

Then he started picking things out.

A narrow bottle filled with pearly liquid. A thumb-sized lump of red crystal. A bundle of black thread that seemed to move just slightly on its own. Three pale seeds inside a stoppered glass tube. And, finally, a small brass clasp shaped like a moth.

Pellin gathered the lot into his arms and hurried back to Scarlett.

“Fair trade, nooo?”

Scarlett considered the collection for a few seconds, then nodded.

“Fair.”

She opened her [Pouch of Holding] and put the items away one at a time.

Admittedly, she wasn’t entirely sure what some of those were really for, but that didn’t matter much. She knew some of them could be useful, including the draught and crystal. Besides, this had only ever been a small bonus along the way.

Once she was done, Scarlett bent down and picked up the silver discs Pellin had dropped. She added the few he hadn’t taken from her earlier and held them out again.

“Would this suffice for that as well?”

She pointed towards one of the objects half-buried beneath the rest of the pile.

It was a wooden crank about half the length of her hand, made from dark reddish wood and capped with an ivory knob. Fine grooves ran around the shaft, while one end had a hole where it had been attached to something larger.

Pellin looked at it.

Then at the silver discs.

For a moment, his mouth pulled just slightly too far to one side. Finally, though, he nodded and moved to dig the crank free before handing it to Scarlett in exchange for the remaining discs.

Scarlett turned the piece over in her hand.

[Crank of the Teller’s Tune (Rare)]{A broken piece of something that once played songs for roads with no end. It still remembers how to turn}

This would make a good gift.

Satisfied with her haul, Scarlett looked back at Dame Iyana. The knight had finally come closer to the fire and was standing a short distance away, watching Pellin as he moved over and tried to force the last of the silver discs into the already bulging pocket on his pack.

“Have a seat, Dame Iyana,” Scarlett said. “We may as well use the opportunity to rest.”

The woman gave her a mildly dubious look, but after a couple of seconds, she sat down on the log beside Scarlett’s.

Pellin eventually managed to cram the coins inside and immediately set about gathering up the rest of his wares, tossing them back into his pack with noticeably less care than he had shown taking them out.

As he did, Dame Iyana turned her attention fully towards Scarlett.

“Is there something you wish to say?” Scarlett asked.

The woman was quiet for several seconds.

“How do you know these things?”

The corner of Scarlett’s lips rose.

“It took you some time to ask that question. I was beginning to think you simply were not interested. You have yet to press me on anything concerning Eidolon or His Majesty either.”

“It is not my place.”

“You do not think you have the right?”

“No. I simply don’t think I am the right person.” Dame Iyana ran a hand along the flat of the sword which she had rested across her lap. “My talent lies in this.”

“I see.” Scarlett considered her. “I admit, that is somewhat surprising. I did not realise you were that wholeheartedly devoted to the sword.”

“I am.”

“As you say.”

Scarlett chuckled and turned back towards the fire.

“There is much in this world that works differently from what you would think,” she said after a while. “I have had the misfortune of ending up near the centre of a fair amount of it. You do not stand at the eye of a storm without learning how to tell which way the winds turn.”

“That…is a very vague answer.”

“Indeed. I have been told I am exceedingly talented at providing those.”

“Ah!” Pellin chimed in from the side. “Mysteriouuus! Enigmatic! Inscrutable! Fascinating lady!”

Scarlett glanced over.

The Idol was trying to force what looked like an entire brass kettle into one of his pack’s side pockets despite the opening being considerably smaller than the kettle.

She looked back to the fire.

A comfortable silence settled between her and Dame Iyana, filled mostly by the crackling flames and Pellin’s continued struggles nearby.

“That sounds lonely,” Dame Iyana eventually said.

Lonely? Why—?

The world lost its colour.

Amy went still.

Just as she was about to move, she noticed the woman sitting on the other side of the fire.

Her hair had been drained to the same muted grey as everything around them, and a marbled mask covered most of her face.

Behind it, colourless irises fixed steadily on Amy’s own.

“—Baroness?”

Dame Iyana’s voice pulled her out of it.

Colour returned.

The fire was orange again. Pellin was still making noise beside his pack.

The masked woman was gone.

“Baroness?” Dame Iyana repeated.

“What is it?”

Scarlett turned towards her.

The knight’s brow had furrowed slightly as she studied Scarlett.

Scarlett blinked once, then collected herself and looked back at the fire.

“What was it you said? Lonely?” She frowned. “It might sound that way, I suppose, but I have many people around me whom I trust. If anything, the opposite is usually the problem. Finding a quiet moment to myself has become something of a luxury.”

Her eyes lingered on the place where the masked woman had been.

That feeling was back.

The listlessness.

Apathy.

It sat at the edge of Scarlett’s thoughts like a thin fog, making everything feel just a little more distant.

This wasn’t the first time she had seen that woman. She had appeared once before, in a dream. Until now, Scarlett hadn’t been entirely sure that had actually happened, but now she knew.

Was the listlessness connected to her?

Why had she appeared now?

Scarlett’s first thought went to Eidolon’s book, but she didn’t have it with her. Fynn had it back at Dawnlight Palace.

“Are you trying to run from something?”

Dame Iyana’s question interrupted her thoughts again.

Scarlett looked at her, one brow rising slightly. “And what makes you think that is the case?”

“You remind me of someone.”

“Who?”

“His Majesty.”

Scarlett’s eyes widened.

She stayed quiet for several seconds.

“You believe he was trying to run from something?”

Dame Iyana lowered her head.

“I do.”

Scarlett pressed her lips together and looked back at the fire.

She wasn’t really sure what to do with that.

As the flames shifted in front of her, she noticed that the noise from Pellin’s direction had stopped.

Scarlett turned her head.

The Idol stood completely still beside his pack, watching them with his eyes narrowed almost to slits and an expression of complete fascination on his strange face.

“Having fun?” Scarlett asked.

His expression immediately collapsed into something almost disappointed.

“Intriguing talk, now goneee…”

He shook his head a little too vigorously.

Scarlett could have sworn he genuinely sounded upset about it.

Pellin turned away and picked up the last few objects scattered across the ground, forcing them into his pack before dragging the flap closed. Several bits of cloth and the end of something metallic still stuck out from underneath it, but he didn’t seem to care. With a considerable heave, he swung the pack onto his shoulders and spent the next few seconds wriggling beneath its weight and tugging at the straps until it sat somewhat evenly, then raised one many-jointed hand and waved at them.

“Wares sooold, so adieu I bid! Fair ladies, fair luck! Byeee!”

With that, he grabbed his stick and trotted off to disappear between the trees.

Scarlett and Dame Iyana were left alone in the clearing.

“How long do we have to stay here?” the knight asked after a while.

The brief sombre mood that had settled around the fire was already fading, and Scarlett managed to push the last traces of that strange listlessness aside as she gave a small chuckle.

“Let us give it a few more minutes. It would be rather unfortunate if Pellin decided we had not taken a proper rest after all.” She shifted one foot slightly. “My legs certainly have no complaints about the delay.”

They had taken several breaks on the way here to account for Scarlett’s condition, but she was still starting to test the limits of how far Allyssa’s potions could carry her.

A few more minutes went by.

Eventually, Dame Iyana picked up her sword and stood.

“Ten minutes have passed. Baroness, if you are able, I think we should continue.”

“I suppose you are right.”

Scarlett suppressed the urge to groan as she got to her feet, pulling out another of Allyssa’s potions and drinking it.

“Incidentally,” she said, turning towards the knight, “you do not need to keep calling me ‘Baroness’ if you would rather not. I generally prefer some degree of formality in most settings, but I see little need for it here. You may simply call me Scarlett.”

Dame Iyana seemed to consider that. “Is that appropriate? We’re not particularly close.”

“Why would it not be? Sir Leon has never hesitated to address me by name, and our relationship has hardly been cordial.” Scarlett gestured lightly towards her. “Go ahead. Try it.”

The woman was quiet for a moment.

“Very well, Scarlett. In that case, I would prefer if you simply called me Iyana.”

Scarlett nodded. “If that is more comfortable for you, Iyana.”

They regarded each other for another second before starting towards the trees. As they neared the edge of the clearing, Iyana glanced over.

“Do you dislike Sir Leon?” she asked.

Scarlett cocked an eyebrow. “No, not particularly. I have simply never felt any particular attraction to him. What about you?”

“He’s not my type.”

“I see. Well, I am glad we have established that.”

They disappeared back among the trees and kept going.

The rest of the forest put up more resistance than the first stretch had, with Pellin’s added difficulty becoming increasingly obvious as they went. More and more strange creatures appeared to block their path, and several sections of the woods seemed almost determined to lead them in circles.

None of it slowed Iyana down all that much, though.

By the time they finally left the trees behind, Scarlett had lost count of how many monsters the woman had cut apart or frozen solid.

They passed through a few more unusual stretches of terrain after that, but most went by much faster than the forest had. Eventually, they found themselves following a narrow ravine between two rising walls of stone, and what waited beyond it was a wide basin enclosed on all sides by steep cliffs.

A clear lake filled most of its centre, fed by a waterfall spilling from a narrow break in the rock face opposite them. Silver flowers grew along the shoreline, and several small islands of moss-covered stone broke the otherwise smooth surface of the water.

Iyana stopped beside Scarlett and looked around. “There is no path forward.”

“That does appear to be the case.”

“A dead end, then? Do we turn back?”

Scarlett’s attention settled on the waterfall.

Curiously enough, it wasn’t spilling from the rock face. It was spilling towards it.

Although that wasn’t what she was paying most attention to right now.

“I do not think that will be necessary,” she said.

Almost as if on cue, a dark shape shifted behind the falling water.

Iyana’s sword was ready immediately.

The shape lingered there for a moment, warped by the rushing water, before a broad, many-coloured head pushed through. White, orange, and black markings covered its face and spread across the wide cobra-like hood flaring around it. Long whisker-like tendrils hung from either side of its jaw, swaying with each heavy movement as the creature forced more of itself into view.

Its body followed on four short, powerful legs, low and spread like some enormous salamander. Water rolled from its back as it waded into the lake, a thick tail dragging behind it before lifting free of the surface. At its end, the tail widened into a broad, fin-like fan.

The creature stopped.

Its dark eyes narrowed, vertical pupils settling on the two of them. A long, forked tongue slipped between its jaws and tasted the air.

“Now then, my champion,” Scarlett said. “I wish you the best of luck.”