Augmentations
After years of honing and hiding her craft, a semi-retired artificer is thrust back into the world of adventure and intrigue; but when it's impossible to tell allies from foes, she must follow her broken heart to the truth before the world is swallowed by darkness.
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~3.1k words
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Market days always grate against Renshet’s nerves- the noise of performers and screaming children, the close quarters, the clashing smells of cheese and meat and sweeties - but this sticky summer morning is especially horrid, even for drake-kin. The jeweler’s leg aches like that of a much older woman, and she hopes the storm that’s been brewing near the coast will finally come ashore. But that’s a long ways away, if it comes at all. For now, she huddles in what little shade her booth offers before the sun is high and glares at passers-by whose fingers drift too close to the wares.
Watching humans jump when they suddenly realize the stall is not unattended is one of the few true joys of her day. Most drake-kin in the city flash, layering their bright green and yellow scales in bright fabrics and paints and adorning their horns with chains and rings and jewels. But Ren’s people are from the marshlands, and she has never made a habit of decorating the dark brown of her hide. She can be dark and still as mangrove roots, hidden in plain sight to those who don’t know to look.
Of course, she sighs to herself as a shadow falls over her booth, there is always someone looking.
“How do you ever expect to sell anything with such a sour face?” Lieutenant Brygwyn, half-elven and handsome, cruel and stupid, makes a show of sneering down at a garnet amulet. His armor gleams, full plate that he must already regret, if the sweat that drips from his temple is anything to go by. He’s early to harass her, this week, and a quick glance across the walkway at the frowning fruit vendor confirms that the anomaly isn’t just her imagination.
Ren’s eyes flick longingly to the knife hidden under the edge of her booth, but this isn’t that kind of fight. Her bad leg aches, so she doesn’t bother to stand as she replies, “No one’s buying my face.”
“You’d have to pay them,” Brygwyn barks, throwing his head back and laughing loud enough to call attention. A woman who might have approached Renshet’s booth hurries past, giving the guard a wide berth. The blacksmith at the next booth rolls her eyes, before calling out about her wares. Renshet huffs quietly to herself when Brygwyn’s laughter tapers away, and whatever he tries to say next is drowned out by the woman’s booming voice.
He is forced to raise his voice as he lifts a sheaf of fraying papyrus and shakes it at Ren. “There are new notices. Every vendor in the market is obliged by city law to notify the Guard if they have any information on the criminals.”
“Of course,” she agrees, not bothering to speak any louder than usual.
Brygwyn narrows his eyes at her, and she looks back at him without blinking. They both know the city has no authority to force merchants to do much of anything, nor the manpower to enforce it. But he could make her life difficult, if he wanted. But perhaps today he is too busy to waste any more time with her. After a long moment, he turns to leave and flings a page in her direction with a sneer, aiming for her bad side. She rolls her eyes as it flutters to the ground, then uses her cane to spear a corner and lift it so she can read.
The notices are a formality, of course, a way to remind the denizens of Luthain that they owe their sense of safety to the City Guard. Ren’s lived in enough cities and been on the wrong end of of the law enough to know it’s all so much sea scurf. The Guard has caused her nothing but grief since she was begrudgingly forced to make the city her home.
She reads as she waits for customers to decide it’s safe to approach. The first names are ones she’s gotten used to seeing. Zidru the Brawler. Sichar Fairfoot the poisoner. Verok Mad Mace. Murderers who probably fled the city long ago. Idly, a part of her wonders, if any copies of the notice that had her dragged to the palace four years ago exist. But then she sees a name that makes her pause.
Finally went and got yourself caught, Kapral? She scans the rest of the page, but the enigmatic vampire is the only one of her old friends listed. There’s not even a specified crime, just a note that he is too dangerous to approach, and instructions to notify the Guard of his whereabouts.
The notice also says he’s a redhead, she notes with a snort. There’s probably not much to worry about.
Now that the lieutenant has moved on, thoughts of treasure hunting companions past are pushed to the side by sales. An elven noble woman seeks a gift for her lady in waiting, and she haggles like a fishmonger. A young drake-kin, shivering with giddiness, stutters his way through requesting a custom pair of rings for his sweetheart’s braided beard. A sticky-handed child leaves jam on a pair of earrings. The day proceeds in such a fashion, with little regard to the sweltering heat.
Even with the heat, the stall sees a lot of traffic. Her purse is significantly heavier and her notebook has three new order sketches by the time her apprentices arrive to take over the evening market. And right on time - her knee aches something fierce after standing for so much of the day. Threvan immediately begins stocking inventory for the evening buyers. Zoc, of course, tries to insist that Renshet eat something, but she waves him off and ducks into an alley to avoid the crowds.
The alleys are, at least, a little quieter, though she finds herself having to sidestep other vendors bringing their wares to the main thoroughfare. The sun is set by the time she gets to the truly quiet roads. She considers taking a moment to rest her leg when the ring around her left little finger begins to thrum She frowns around at the empty doorways and slowly keeps walking. The alert only gets stronger. If she was still close to the market, the burr of it could be a false alarm, but she is well outside of range for a construct simply passing through to the palace. Something - or someone - approaches.
She grumbles, pivoting on her cane to change her trajectory. Her second favorite tavern is closer than her shop, and a few regular patrons owe her favors besides. If there is a threat, she would rather have allies that can face it head on while she takes control of the battlefield.
Battlefield, she snorts to herself. The earlier reminder of her old life must have affected her more than she thought. It’s been years since she’s seen true combat. She’s as likely to walk into a pickpocket as she is to take control of anything.
Of course, the gods have never hesitated to laugh at her. When she rounds the next corner, she nearly slams her entire body into a construct. She rocks back on her good heel and prepares to defend herself, but it quickly becomes apparent that no attack is coming. The figure is smaller than she had expected, a crane cobbled together with rudimentary magics that glow faintly blue through gaps in the stones and driftwood that make up its body.
After a moment of unnatural stillness, it walks toward her, awkward on uneven legs. It extends it’s neck to hold out what looks like a scroll. There is no trick to it that Renshet can detect, so she opens her palm to take it, dispelling the construct’s magic with a flick of her fingers to activate one of her rings.
As the thing crumbles into a small pile of debris, a familiar, deep voice chuckles. “The Renshet I knew would have dispelled something like that as soon as she laid her eyes on it.”
“The Renshet you knew didn’t live in a city,” she snorts as she stuffs the scroll into her satchel.
Kapral is chuckling when she finally turns to see him emerge from the shadows. His narrow face is just as she remembers it, genial crows feet and smile lines frozen in time. His dark hair is cropped short, and he’s clean shaven in the current fashion of the region. The silvery linen tunic and dark trousers are nothing like the heavier garments he prefers, but she isn’t surprised. He had always told her that the undead need their pastimes, and attention to his appearance has always been his.
“You have always been the same viscious wretch,” he says, clasping her forearm in greeting before pulling her into a loose embrace. “No matter how you protest.”
His clothes smell like sun and flowers and grave dirt. She lets herself breathe him in, for just a moment, before stepping back. “It’s been five years, my friend. A lot has changed.”
“Not you,” he says, pressing cool lips to her brow. “There is naught in this world that can change that which is itself.”
“Pah,” she chuckles. “I know one of Underlake’s overdone platitudes when I hear it. Come. My leg hurts. Let’s go for a drink.”
“City life is dangerous, eh?” He walks at an unhurried pace beside her. “How did you become injured?”
Renshet sighs, tries to think of words to encapsulate half a decade of life and death, growth and loss. Where to even begin? The weight of the day settles back on her shoulders, and her leg throbs with pain. “Drinks, first. You’re paying.”
~~~
The Laughing Tern is loud when they enter, but there is a small table open near the cold fireplace. Renshet takes the chair that lets her splay her right leg without knocking the brace into the wall. Kapral settles into the seat across from her, slipping a knob of what looks to be bloodroot between his lips. He and the others must be doing very well for themselves, then, if he’s indulging for something as trivial as half-decent ale.
“Two of the Spring Twilight,” she calls as the serving girl passes by with a full tray. The grunt she receives in reply is about as good as it gets at the Tern, so she gives her old friend a lopsided smile. “Where have you all been? How have you been?”
“Took a couple of contracts along the east coast, after you decided to stay for your apprenticeship,” Kap sighs, crossing his arms. “Gne dragged us up a volcano, if you can believe it. Well… He’ll tell you himself, one of these days. The others are a few days behind. We tried to come back sooner, but…”
“The Mountain War,” Renshet finishes with a nod.
The dwarves under the Gammeuse Peaks had been almost calm before the death of Queen Bomnaela Flintsunder. She, herself, had never been peaceful - she had killed many challengers for her throne - but she’d at least maintained the uneasy truce between all of the clans. And as soon as she’d died, the question of succession had destroyed all hope of peace as certainly as bomb powder.
“It’s hardly a threshing war. The Basalt King has no claim, and no popular support,” the vampire grumbles. “Regardless, the passes were… well. We were forced to spent a couple of years in Ablaria. Plenty of treasure hunting in the northern ruins, plenty of coin to be had. We made our way back this way as soon as we could.”
“But you ran into trouble.”
“Am I so transparent?”
“City Guard passed out notices in the market today. Supposedly, they’re looking for a vampire with red hair.”
“Vibrant dyes are all the rage in Ablaria.”
“I’m sure they are,” Renshet chuckles as two mugs are plopped on the table. She watches Kap take a tentative sip, then a deeper, pleased swallow.
With a sigh that comes from his belly, the vampire smiles at her. “Now, tell me about you. I thought you would have left the city long ago. What life have you made for yourself, waiting for us?”
What life indeed? She’d just begun to consider taking up silver smithing when she’d broken her leg on that last contract with the group. Clearing a gnoll camp that had settled too close to trade routes should have been easy, the injury a temporary setback. A few months of convalescence and learning to craft jewelry to enchant and sell, perhaps, after which she would take a job with a caravan headed east and meet up with Kapral and Gnezig and the others. But…
She takes a fortifying gulp of ale, then asks, “What do you know about Fisherman’s Warping?”
As realization, horror, and deep sadness play out across his face, Renshet is a little bit glad that word of the illness had spread beyond the borders of Wostraria. The infection had settled into the healing fractures below her knee, had eaten the muscle and bone so much that the healers had considered amputation. Would have, if scholars hadn’t found their cure the next day. Still, the damage had been extensive. Her leg would never be what it had been.
“Things are different for me, now,” she states with a shrug. “Digging through ruins is behind me, but I’ve been very successful with silver and gold smithing. Not many people… specialize… the way I have.” She slips off one of her rings, silver, inlaid with crushed covellite, and flips it over her knuckles before passing it over. Even Kapral, with his abysmal sense for magic, should be able to feel the power of the spell she’s stored in it.
“This is incredible.” He examines the silver with a thief’s skilled eyes, turning it over and over between deft fingers before handing it back to her. “You must be in high demand.”
“The majority of what I sell is more ordinary,” she says with a shrug. Quieter, she mutters, “The city has very strict policies regarding magical items. I can sell protections. But more than that… well, it’s dangerous in the wrong hands. As you well know.”
“Mm. And whose hands are the right ones?”
“Oh, the City Guard, of course.” Renshet can’t help the low growl that spills into her tankard. “The bastards.”
“I sense a story.”
The Guard is the least of the story, but she won’t get into that in public. Instead she shrugs. “It’s the same one we’ve both heard time and again. They demanded, I refused, they raided my shop and took anything they cared to. That was… four years ago. I had to start anew, find a new house altogether. They still harass me, every now and again. Market days, mostly. My apprentices… well, the two I have now are stubborn as asses. The ones before them… not so much.”
“Gods below,” the vampire swears. “How are you supposed to do business?”
“I make my commissions. Sell to travelers passing through,” She shrugs familiar rage from her shoulders, practiced now. “I make enough, Zoc and Threvan make enough. It’s… enough.”
He shakes his head. “That’s no way to live.”
“It is my life.” Heat boils in her belly, and through her teeth she growls, “I built it myself. I rebuilt it. There is nothing else.”
Silence stretches for a long while after that. They each sip their ale as they avoid each other’s eyes, and Renshet bites back a frustrated sigh. The serving girl comes around, offering soup, and Kap orders two bowls without asking what’s in it. Ren tries to accept it as the peace offering it is, instead of the pity her mind wants to make it. But it’s difficult. She used to be someone who would fight as a matter of course by his side. And now she sells baubles at the mercy of the City Guard. How can her friend even see her hard-won life as something worth being proud of?
Is she proud of it?
Her thoughts are interrupted by bowls of mud crab stew placed on the table, alongside a knob of crusty bread. She can’t help but give a contented rumble at the first taste, reminds herself to be glad that Kapral can taste it with her tonight. Sharing the meal thaws them both, eventually, and he ventures a story of the latest job with their friends who are still making their way west. She offers her own tales from her apprenticeship days, learning to infuse magics in stone without the metal around it reacting poorly. She shows him her burns, and he shows her a wanted notice with a horrible likeness of himself and Xalvador, accused of rustling livestock of all things. They laugh into the last of their bowls before he sits back in his chair with a contented sigh.
“So. The construct,” Lazily, he gestures to her satchel. “An expected missive?”
Renshet hums with curiosity as she retrieves the message. “No. It was directed to me, I’m sure, but anyone could have approached me at the market.”
“Unless they were avoiding the Guard.”
She grunts her agreement as she opens the scroll, gently, to find that it’s actually two pieces of vellum, supple between her fingers. The first is a letter, a commission request in flowery script that she has little patience to do more than skim for the vague promise of payment. The second page has what she cares about, a sketched schematic for a pendant. An amulet, gold and amber, with some kind of inclusion. The more she examines it, the more she realizes why the message was delivered so mysteriously.
“Gods and rot,” she hisses, quickly rolling everything up again, eyes darting around. Something clacks onto the table from between the pages, and she snatches it up before she can think.
Power burns through her veins, locking every muscle in place as something else observes the world through her eyes. The magic is old, old as time, terrible, inevitable. She knows, more certainly than breathing, that she could level the entire tavern if she wished. Across from her, Kapral’s life force flickers orange and white, there for her to consume, snuff out, turn to dust, return to the sun. Every person in the tavern wavers with energy, and through the walls she can see the bright, fragile glow of the city, beyond.
With a gasp, she forces her hand back open. The dragon scale clatters back to the table.
Kapral sucks in a breath when he sees it. “Fuck.”
Fuck, indeed. Read Chapter 2 on Patreon
I'm so excited to share this original fiction project! I genuinely can't find the words to convey how much I appreciate each and every person who's ever read, liked, commented on, and shared my work. Writing has been a very vulnerable and healing process, and I'm finally taking the leap to share original work.
This isn't the end of my fanfiction career! I have so many projects to to finish and even more to start posting. Patreon support for original works will just help me to continue to have the space and time to write - if you're able to become a paid member, I greatly appreciate it! If not, please consider becoming a free member so you can get announcements about public posts.
Augmentations is a Patreon-First project. The next chapters will be available for Early Access to paid members on the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month. Public access will be granted a month after the chapter is published. Once the book is finished, I will make it available for purchase as an e-book.
R. B. D. Lewis
A special thank you to my husband, Mr Dragon, and my boyfriend Cedar (@sentientcave) for encouraging and bullying me into taking this leap. I've been nervous and full of doubt, but they've reminded me every step of the way that I can do this and that I'm more than capable of following my dreams.
