Chapter 3: Hype Man

“Pleaaase let me go with you,” Jason begged for the umpteenth time as Will unwound the bandages, revealing the fresh scabs. The scrawny twelve year old was on his knees, palms clasped together.

“This look like fun to you?” Will asked, motioning to himself.

“It looks like a way out of this craphole,” Jason said without missing a beat. “I could do anything you want me to do. I’ll dig latrines, I’ll set up the tent. I’ll take night watch, I’ll taste food for poison. You can’t leave me here, man. When you’re gone, I’ll be the only boy here.”

“Hey!” Thomas, an eight-year-old boy protested.

“The oldest boy,” Jason hastily corrected.

“Come on, man, I’ll do anything. I’ll…I’ll be your hype man.”

“My what?”

“You know, hype man. When you talk about how great someone is whenever they’re not around so that they have an easier time conning the target or scoring with ladies.”

“Where’d you learn that?!” Will demanded.

“My dad.”

“Was this before he dropped you in an orphanage because he was being chased by the mob, or after?”

“Before, obviously.”

Will thought about it for a moment. “Alright, here’s what I’m going to do,” he said. “Everyone has to go through The Trial by themselves before they can start Climbing. They don’t let twelve year olds in there because it’s pretty dangerous. They don’t let scrawny thirteen year olds in either.”

He could see Jason’s lip trembling in that calculated half-cry meant to evoke pity.

“And you are scrawny as shit,” Will said, poking Jason’s ribs. “So here’s the deal.”

Will flashed his remaining five silver coins, causing Jason’s eyes to glitter with awe.

“You are going to make an investment in yourself. You are going to go to town and order the ‘Will Special’ at Brenda’s.”

“What’s the Will Special?”

“Stew scraped off the bottom of the inn’s cookpot at the end of the night.”

Jason’s face lit up with understanding.

“You are going to pay for a year in advance. You are going to stuff yourself every night, and dedicate yourself to adding as much height and muscle as you possibly can to your frame in the next year.”

“Is that what you did?” Jason asked.

“Why you think they call it the ‘Will Special’?” Will asked with a shrug, holding out the coins.

Jason lunged for them.

“Ah ah,” Will said, pulling the silver back out of the boy’s grasp. “I wanna see five inches of extra height by the next Hunt, and you better talk me up to anyone who’ll listen. That’s your job until you join my party next year. If you do that, I’ll help you get your Sacrifices.”

Jason’s eyes widened with awe as Will pressed the coins into his hand.

Will lowered his voice. “And if I find out you spent them on something stupid like toys, fancy clothes, or candy, I will fong you into a paste.”

Jason nodded enthusiastically. Or perhaps he was simply terrified.

“Alright, get outta here.” Will dismissed him, and Jason sprinted out of the room, nearly hyperventilating.

He gave it a 20% chance that Jason would actually follow through and spend the money on growing up big and strong, but that was a 20% chance of finding a reliable team member.

Plus, who couldn’t use a good hype man? Jason was good with words. He’d gotten five silver out of his fellow orphan, after all. Hopefully he didn’t take too strongly after his father and simply disappear.

A week had gone by and Will’s wounds were still stiff, but it was manageable. He wanted to get back out there, and Ben was already a week ahead of him. The boy might’ve decided to do his Trial already, which would put Will on the back foot, with the lack of a hunting partner.

I might have to rebandage, in case some of the deeper scratches ooze blood while we’re hunting, Will thought, wincing as he poked some of the scabs.

The satchel that bore the Uru Drake scale caught his attention as the candle in his bedroom flickered.

The leather appeared as new as the day it had arrived at the orphanage bearing the Uru Drake scale, with nothing but his name and address on it. Whoever had created it knew what they were doing. The satchel itself was unassuming and plain, but Will had long suspected a subtle enchantment bound into the leather, as it always fit, was never off-balance, and seemed to weigh just a tiny bit less than it should.

And inside the satchel…

Will reached inside and pulled out the glittering scale, holding it up to the candlelight.

Uru Drake

Adds Spacetime abilities to an Aspirant’s Class, and modifies the abilities offered by other Sacrifices. Adds a staggering 5 points of Growth. Favored by…everyone.

2 resistance, 1 focus, 1 acuity, 1 strength

There were subtle variations in the reflection off the polished grey scale, as the natural powers caused the light to bend and shift around it. It caused a faint rainbow to spawn wherever the light hit it.

The Uru Drake, like many other dragon-spawn, had a breath weapon. Many drakes breathed fire, or acid, or poison, or a choking necrotic miasma, but the Uru Drake’s was particularly nasty.

It would warp the space inside and around its victim, crumpling and twisting them up into ghoulish statues before they succumbed to their wounds.

The scale was about as big as his two palms held together, and weighed several pounds. Will’s breath hitched as he imagined his parents fighting something with scales that big. Something that could wring you out like a dirty dishrag with its breath.

Will shook the daydreams off and bent to return the scale to its home.

A jolt of pain through his wounds caused him to hiss and wince. Definitely gotta rebandage. Hopefully wounds become few and far between. With the spirit turtle and the drake, I’ll be quite the tank, huh? Like the guy said, you gotta be alive to be a Lord.

He glanced down at the scale in his hand, a thought occurring to him.

…Paranoia serves a Climber well, does it?

Will finished getting ready for The Hunt, put his ragged, ill-fitting clothes back on and headed out the door, satchel slung over his shoulder.

If everything goes well, I’ll have all the Sacrifices I need by the end of the day.

“Good luck, William!” Gertrude said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Why’re you being so nice?” Will asked. “You sound like you think I’m gonna die.”

“You will, if you don’t come back and tell me before you take The Trial,” Gertrude promised with a wrinkly smile.

“…I love you too,” Will muttered, giving the ancient priestess a hug before setting out for his second day of Hunting.

Maybe since I’m injured I should just do wheat gremlins, save up some cash and buy that Dreamcatcher Vine, Will thought as he walked.

It would take dozens of the gremlins to pay for the Dreamcatcher, but the little creatures were too slow and stupid to add to Will’s wounds, and that was important because he wanted to be in top shape when he took The Trial.

Will hadn’t considered that aiming high and getting injured might slow him down more than playing it safe. Old people knowing what they’re talking about… Who would’ve thought?

There has to be a middle ground between fast and steady. I just have to find it. That was when Will’s thoughts turned back to the Wetlands Gulper.

With the right bait, those things were mind-bogglingly easy to hunt, and lucrative.

I’ll talk with Ben about it. Maybe we can find a good spawn point and set up a method to farm them that doesn’t involve breaking my ribs. A dummy or something.

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Will refined the plan and half a dozen others as he walked out to the town, aiming for Leon’s General, their usual meet-up spot.

Ben wasn’t there when he arrived, so he went inside Leon’s.

It was much less crowded after the crowd of Climbers had died down, and the inventory had swelled drastically as Leon had been fleecing the out-of-town merchants for everything he could, buying up unsold inventory from merchants making the trip back home for coppers on the silver.

“Hey, Leon, you still got those six copper?”

“Nope,” Leon said. The black-haired shopkeep leaned against his countertop. “Spent it.”

Will blinked. “What did you spend it on?”

Leon smiled and leaned under the counter and came back with a pair of fine boots that couldn’t have cost less than a couple silver.

“A kid got an unarmed Class and a Relic to go with it: boots that increase fall damage. Turned out he didn’t need his old boots anymore, so he liquidated them.”

“For six copper?” Will asked, approaching the boots and breathing in their scent. Smelled like luxury and foot odor.

“I didn’t say he was very bright. Thought you’d like a new pair of boots more than six measly copper.”

“You thought correctly,” Will said, taking them off the counter and angling to put his feet in them.

“Socks!” Leon said, tossing them over. “Unless you want rot-foot. No charge.”

“You are a saint among mortals,” Will said, slipping on the socks and then the boots.

They were the tiniest bit too big, but the socks helped with that, and Will figured his feet would grow a bit over the next few years anyway.

“I feel like a human,” Will said, wiggling his toes inside the hardened leather boots.

“Almost look like one too. Just gotta do something about…” Leon gestured to Will’s ragged clothes and face. “All of that.”

“Thanks, Leon.”

“Anytime, Will. Tell Gertrude ‘hi’ for me. I can tell that woman’s falling for my charms. She’s ripe for the—”

“Not listening!” Will said, clapping his hands over his ears and marching out of the general store, his new boots making satisfying ‘clunk’s he could hear even through his palms.