“You travelled Mundus, didn’t you?” the guy asked with a grin on his face, before shaking his head as the grin turned wry. He preempted my response by continuing, “But where are my manners, you may call Joshua, forrly known as Kelrig,” he introduced himself. The way he formulated his introduction made think that Joshua was his original and currently used first na. In contrast, Kelrig used to be his character-na.
“Well t, Joshua, you may call Jade, forrly known as Morgana,” I decided to go with complete honesty, the promise on Frigga’s na making confident enough to be truthful. This way, if I was recognised, I couldn’t be accused of entering under false pretences or with malicious deception and, sadly, recognition wasn’t impossible. By now, what little difference there had been between the face of Morgana and my original face had been washed away, leaving only the height and muscle I had gained after crossing the first divide to differentiate my current form from the form of Morgana.
“I thought I recognised you,” his smile didn’t fade, confusing just a little as a great deal of coverage about my antics on Mundus had painted as sothing of a villain. Quite a bit of that had been deliberate, sure, but that didn’t change the fact that I had pushed the boundaries of what I had considered a ga quite a bit and had been impressed by how far they could be pushed. Now, with the benefits of hindsight, I knew that there hadn’t been any artificial boundaries outside of those placed in regards to resurrection, making wonder just how that part had functioned. Maybe sothing to do with the thod used to create the Avatar bodies in the first place and project the Traveller’s mind into them, but unless and until I understood that original thod, I couldn’t even begin to speculate. Anyway, if I was confident in one thing, it was that the thod relied on Divine Magic, so not sothing I could access anyway.
“Just rember, this isn’t a ga any longer, so don’t go all evuuuuuul on us,” he grinned, waving his hands around as he stretched the word far beyond what was reasonable. His obvious amusent did a great deal to ease the trepidation I had felt, knowing that he recognised and knew what I had done.
“What are you talking about?” the guy who had approached originally asked, looking equally confused and worried.
“Well, et Jade, a forr Traveller of Mundus and holder of a Legacy, just like . Only, where my legacy is that of a decently powerful cleric who focused on helping a fairly small village, hers is likely the legacy of the strongest spellcaster, so make of that what you will,” Joshua explained and I noticed that the worry only beca more pronounced on the other guy’s face.
“And Jade, this is Garry, not a traveller but a decently skilled farr now. But you ntioned trade earlier, didn’t you? What did you have in mind, both when it cos to things you are offering and things you would like to have in trade?” he asked, returning his focus to .
“Well t, Garry,” I gave the guy a nod, hiding my amusent at his discomfort, “You said it, I most likely was the most powerful Spellcaster amongst us Travellers and I’d like to believe that I have been able to regain so of that power. A part of it is focused on the incredibly useful skill of Enchantnt, allowing to create magical items with beneficial effects, especially if you don’t have access to a dungeon or so other ready source of such items,” I explained, noticing that even more people in the vicinity suddenly seed to perk up with interest.
“Permanent enchantnts? What sort of things can you do?” Joshua imdiately asked, not even trying to hide his interest.
“Depends, obviously. Generally, I’d argue that the most interesting are the classical attribute increases, especially on jewellery, and a nifty enchantnt for bladed weapons, causing the wounds caused by them to bleed a lot more than normal and beco more difficult to heal. I might be able to fit that particular enchantnt on an arrowhead, too, but I doubt it would work all that well, arrows are difficult to enchant permanently. So, yeah, bladed weapons that cause deadly wounds and jewellery that increases attributes,” I shrugged, not explaining about my Shadow Bags. Sure, those were incredibly useful and interesting, but they also needed sobody to have Darkness Magic and a decent understanding of its use, aning it wasn’t sothing I wanted to just hand out.
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“I can tell you, that does sound like sothing we’d be interested in. The weapon-enchantnt, do you think that it’d work on a spearhead?” he prodded, trying to get a better idea of the utility they’d get out of my skills.
“It should, but I’d have to experint. Depends on materials and a few other things. In turn, I need supplies, grains and such, tea, if you have it,” I explained, looking around the area and letting my gaze linger on the various well-tended fields. Unless they were utterly incompetent, they should have a decent supply of food, aning they’d hopefully trade so for enchanted items.
“That does sound doable. We’ll have to discuss amounts and such, it’s the first ti anybody has co to ask for trade like this, especially as you have no plans to remain here if I understand you correctly,” Joshua nodded, before looking over to the various buildings set up in the valley.
“We’ll have to figure out how to house you while you are here, too. So far, we don’t have an inn or guesthouse or anything like that,” he continued, his mind obviously considering the logistics of this and not finding an easy or obvious answer.
“Do you have a quarry or sothing like that, a rocky area or even just a large stockpile of stone sowhere? Even a fieldstone wall would do, if you don’t mind the wall being destroyed,” I asked, thinking back to the gingerstone house I had built when eting the dryads. Setting one up here would work quite well and the others didn’t expect back for the next few days, though I had promised to send word if I needed more than three days.
“There’s a bunch of random stones we discarded when preparing the fields, yes,” Garry confird, looking quite confused at the question, “What are you going to do with them?”
“As I said, I hold the legacy of the magically most powerful Traveller. Since I have taken it on, I have learned a lot and my power now is far greater than it has been at this level while on Mundus,” I explained, my lips twisting into a grin, “While I could conjure stone outright or pull it from the Earth with nothing but a flexing of my mind, I would prefer to keep the disturbance to the foundation of your village to a minimum. So, I would prefer to make use of stone that is already here and not in use.”
By now, I had managed to make even Joshua’s relaxed grin falter, though it wasn’t gone just yet, he just looked like he was holding the smile with nothing but his will and maybe force of habit.
“If you say so, sure, you can use those stones. It’d make things easier and maybe give you sothing to do while I ask around and try to figure out how we can do that trading you are interested in,” Joshua suggested, driving ho just how much he was doing this by the seat of his pants. But then, these people were living deliberately separate from the ruins of our forr world, making it no surprise that I’d likely been the first to stumble upon them. Their groups had likely collected all the survivors in the general area, but coming across sobody who was deliberately travelling and not in need of rescue? I had a feeling there were few people like this, like , wandering around the ruins of our world.
“That is acceptable, yes,” I nodded, turning to Garry, who looked still a little confused, making think he was regretting that he hadn’t excused himself at the start of the conversation. Alas, he had been curious and now he had been dragged into the situation. Luckily, it had not beco a ss just yet and, thanks to Joshua’s promise, I doubted it would turn into one.
“Garry, why don’t you show her the way? I’ll have to talk to the others, we’ll figure out how to do this. Jade, we’ll talk later,” he bowed his head just a little before moving off, back towards the other houses, leaving with a slightly apprehensive Garry.
“If you would?” I prodded the guy, “And maybe tell sothing about this place, I just stumbled across it and thought I’d check it out. He ntioned legacies, so are there others around or just him?”
My prodding was enough to get Garry going and as he walked, he also started to talk, apparently without even considering to censor himself.
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