[Omen of the Witchblade] Chapter 145 – Life After Death

In short order, Mel had Elian chartering another carriage and whisking them out of the Starling Tower. The Magi had gotten used to the publicity by then.

The walk from the Rook to the tower had been filled with shouted questions and flashes of whatever camera-like things they had here. It was annoying, but easily tuned out.

Besides, traveling in such a large group made it difficult for the newshogs to single anybody out. There were so many of them that the newshogs didn’t dramatically outnumber them for once.

Still, the Magi kept the healers and those with familiars protectively in the middle. Mel found it a delicious sort of irony that their undead orc friends were dressed in fancy black suits.

Once inside the capacious interior of the carriage, Elian sighed in relief. He still insisted on using his privacy umbrella to repel the newshogs, but it was clear he rarely had to extend it to so many people.

“Oh, I feel just like a movie star!” Maddie said excitedly. She leaned over to Mel. “Do you feel like this all the time, dear?”

Mel laughed. “Hardly. Usually, I’m the one trying to make sure my face isn’t seen clearly. Y’know, on account of all the crime I love doing.”

It didn’t slip Mel’s notice that Elian perked up considerably at that. The man practically leaned over to hear her better.

Charlie stared at Elian with an unfriendly, piercing gaze.

Elian caught her eye and cleared his throat. “Shopping is such a broad category. I think you’ll want to be more specific,” he said.

“Firstly, we need to get Gwen a permit,” Mel said. “Then we need to go shopping.”

Elian swallowed hard. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news–”

“But you’ll just soldier on anyway,” Mel said, too brightly.

“–but permits are very expensive. I don’t know what kind of funds you’re looking at, especially now that you don’t have access to complimentary room and board, but a permit is prohibitively expensive. Many people save up for years just to purchase one.”

“Wow,” Gwen said, realizing how much more generous of a gift it was that Mel’s team was funding the permit.

“And it gets worse,” Elian added. “As people purchase the same permit, subsequent permits get more expensive. I recently saw a [Novice Blacksmith Permit] go for a thousand [Iron Rune Coins] just the other day.”

The High Clerk sighed. “Of course, that leads to speculative purchasing. The magistrate is trying to curb such illicit activities, but there is only so much he can do. Competitors don’t exactly advertise through official channels that they’re breaking the law.”

Charlie laced her fingers in her lap. “Is this pricing structure somehow linked and synchronized across all businesses that sell these permits? Or is it a government-based thing?”

“Local,” Elian explained. “The prices are for the Seabrim Crater. The Emerald Isles, our neighbor, would have different prices for their permits.”

“Better prices?”

“Different prices.”

“So you don’t know.”

Elian gave her a dry look. “That is, I am afraid, Second Champion, rather the point. Security through obfuscation or some such nonsense. You could charter a train there if you like. It’d take a few days, and the market could change entirely, but I could look into it if you like.”

“Meh,” Mel said. “We don’t have the time for that junk. Do you know the prices for the permits here?”

Elian shook his head. “It’s local only. When I say local, I mean local. You have to visit the office, or know somebody who has visited it, to know the price. They don’t advertise it except on the viewscreens, and even then that’s just the base price.”

Mel looked at Heath, then slowly turned to Elian. “Are you telling me that…if I had in my possession say a [Novice Alchemist Permit] and it was currently going for five thousand [Iron Rune Coins]...”

“Oh gods,” Charlie whispered. “That’s wickedly delicious.”

“While I must strongly advise against selling it as it is highly illegal…you could, in theory, sell that permit. There are also daily limits, so it’s possible you could command an even higher price. You don’t happen to have a permit you wish to sell, do you?”

There was an unfamiliar tightness to Elian’s eyes. As if he was both pleased and displeased at the same time. Mel had already made her choice, but she was curious why he was so interested in illicit activities.

“Dude, are you trying to implicate Mel Harper in a crime?” Charlie asked, using a similar tone she had when arguing with Adam. “You just stated it was illegal.”

Elian put his hands up in surrender. “I did and thus advised that she not sell it.” He looked around the carriage nervously. “However…not all rules are equal, are they?” He gestured to Mel. “A Rook found its way into your possession after all. I had to go to the stacks in order to learn what that was. The magistrate thought you had used illegal magic!”

Mel wasn’t sure how much of that was true, but Elian looked perturbed enough to sell the lie.

It wasn’t like Mel was going to go to a bureaucrat to commit a crime. Crime and her were old friends. She knew where to find the criminal element (aka, the fun people) no matter which Shard she was on.

She didn’t need anybody’s help to have a good time. Unfortunately, she already made her bed.

“Take us to the permit office,” Mel said.

“Already on it,” Elian replied. “I hear that cooking permits are fairly underutilized.”

“People don’t like food or something?” Gwen asked hotly. “What else are you going to put in your face? Dicks? You need more than just dicks.”

“I-I think it’s more that competitors–especially competitors with a new trial locked and loaded–are likely seeking some sort of advantage. People see cooking as food, not the key to advancement a lot of smarter people know it to be. Everybody knows alchemy can make potions. With healers in such short supply, a potion at the right time can save your life. A sandwich at the right time…” He shrugged.

“Bunch of dumbasses,” Mel said.

“The directly useful professions are the ones bought up in droves,” Elian continued. He nodded to Mel. “Alchemy for classes that use poisons and afflictions provides a very synergistic benefit.” He looked at Heath and Logan. “Archers get great value out of both alchemy and woodworking. One for crafting magical arrows and the other for…well, advanced munitions, traps, and the like.” He turned to Jacob. “Then there is the tried-and-true blacksmith profession. Everything from swords to heavy armor and all that lies between.”

“You certainly know a lot about our classes,” Jacob said slowly.

Elian tapped his temple. “It is a benefit of being a High Clerk. I hope I did not offend. It was not my intention. I have a portfolio on just about every competitor, especially the winners of a Convocation trial.”

“I have a question about that,” Sabrina said, raising her hand. “Hi. I’m Sabrina.”

Elian blinked. “Hello, Sabrina. Pleased to meet you. What is your question?”

Sabrina wrinkled her nose in thought. “I think it’s fairly obvious that you can ‘win’ just about anything by finishing first, but that would be…such a small number of winners. I’ve seen the way the Magi are treated. All of them are considered winners, right?”

Elian kept his gaze away from Logan’s piercing stare. “For…the most part, yes.”

Sylvie and Komachi, unsurprisingly, pointed and laughed at Logan. “Hah! You suck!”

Logan rolled his eyes. “It’s always the simplest jabs that cut deepest.” His somewhat brooding, deep cowboyish accent drew the attention of a number of women.

Mel watched Charlie out of the corner of her eye. Not for any particular reason. Not like I really care what her reaction is, she told herself.

Charlie didn’t even seem to notice Logan.

“Technically,” Elian jumped in, “Logan is also considered a winner. To answer your question, the System as a whole counts ‘winners’ as people who place high enough in the rankings. Some rankings are straightforward, like the survival trial you just undertook. Others are more…nebulous. Sometimes you can have a person do incredibly well, but technically ‘fail’ in the eyes of the System.”

“Did any of the Magi fail?” Mel asked.

“No, Mel. None of the Magi failed.” He turned back to Sabrina. “You see, at the lower levels of Authority and the lower Leagues, things are much more simplistic. Place in the top hundred, sometimes top fifty, and you win. It’s once you climb the Leagues or increase your Authority level that it gets…complicated. I trust you’ve seen the message from your first Convocation trial?”

Thomas nodded. “That Battle Points are not just the culmination of monster or competitor kills, but are also modified by Deeds and other things we do.”

Elian looked at each of them in turn. “That’s just the beginning. The Convocation trials aren’t as simple as getting the top spot. Some trials don’t even have rankings for you to win. Some are as simple as surviving, defending a location, finding an amount of loot, or reaching a location. Once you achieve the objective, you’re done. The Convocation is about more than…” Elian licked his lips and seemed to change what he was going to say. “Ranking with black-and-white point systems. It…evaluates you. Each and every one of you. Every second of every day you’re inside the trial, you are being judged.”

“Komachi does not like being perceived!” the pobul wailed.

“This is not too dissimilar to what a Shardrune System already does,” Charlie pointed out, trying to soothe Mel’s normie friends who were getting overwhelmed. “It is an omnipresent force woven into the fabric of reality long, long ago.”

“Like God?” Sabrina asked nervously.

“Something like that.”

Maddie raised a hand.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Yeah?”

“You said ‘something like that’ and I’ve heard Mel and a few of the Magi curse…you all say gods.” She really stressed the s until it resembled a z. “Are…there literal gods? Do our souls go somewhere? Is there life after death?”

Charlie studied Mel’s friends, her gaze softening. “Yes, there is life after death. The Elysium Fields are not the only place of rest. There are as many afterlifes as there are beliefs.” She gave them a moment for that to sink in. “Reincarnation is possible as well. Just the same as immortality through advancement.”

Mel snorted. “You don’t get much reincarnation on Earth Shards.”

Some of the Magi laughed at that, including Charlie, Camilla, and Thomas.

Maddie looked at Mel curiously. “Why not?”

“You serious?” Mel gestured vaguely. “You’ve seen how Earth is. Would you want another go around? Yeah, exactly. Most souls prefer to move on to another realm. All those shows about ‘waking up in another world’ or getting hit by a truck? Yeah, they’re based on reality.” Mel didn’t have it in her to explain the Hero Delivery Service (HDS) or their counterpart, the Villain Delivery Service (VDS). “There’s a reason Earths are so infrequently uplifted compared to other Shards with proper magic.”

“Wait, are you saying there aren’t more Earths in this multiverse?” Maddie asked.

“That’s precisely what I’m saying. Uplifting requires building enough energy in a Shard to advance it. It’s not too dissimilar from a person going from Copper to Iron or from level five to level ten. Easier to do when you get souls continuously reincarnating. It’s a bit like using the air recycler in your car to cool it down faster.”

“Is that what the ‘max air’ thing does?!” Shane asked. “I always wanted to know.

Mel pinched the bridge of her nose.

Adam eyed Mel suspiciously. “Don’t you have amnesia?”

Still pinching her nose, she opened one eye and looked at Adam. “I lost my memories, not my brain. I can still wipe my own ass too, wanna see?”

“Mel’s lack of memories doesn’t blunt her brilliance,” Charlie said tightly to Adam.

Gwen switched places in the carriage. With a threatening grin, the Viking put an arm across Adam’s shoulders, who was smaller than her. “Hey. You and me? We’re sparring later.”

“So that’s why you wanted us to fight,” Sabrina said, giving Mel a sly look. She was clearly trying to switch the subject. “You wanted us to stick around! You do like us!”

Mel folded her arms. “I never said that. You can’t prove anything!”

Maddie chortled. “Come now, Mel. I think we’re all friends here. It’s only natural to want those you...care about to be with you forever.” She sniffled a little and Sabrina put her arm around her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Maddie told Sabrina. She dried her eyes and looked at Charlie. “Thank you for giving a mother some peace. I don’t know what Travis believed, but…at least I know he’s found somewhere to rest instead of just being…gone.”

Charlie nodded. “It is an immensely comforting truth.”

“Mistress,” Sose, the oppa, whispered to Miranda, “Should I take this man down a peg?”

The vampyr stroked her familiar soothingly. “Not yet.”

There was a tense, drawn out silence for the rest of the carriage ride.

It still was somewhat of a surprise to Mel that Heath’s base class was Archer. She could have examined him closer at any point during the trial, or since then with her [Eye for Talent] title, but she was lazy.

In hindsight, it was kind of obvious. He used throwing daggers all the time. Most of his aspect skills, while hilariously edgy, attacked at range.

The auspicious result was that Mel now had a balanced party. She was just lacking a Defender. She figured that Gwen, as a hardy Berserker, and Mel as a swift Witchblade, could handle that role between them. Their Necromancer had sturdy orcs that carried around shields. So those minions could also soak up some damage as well.

Normal monsters wouldn’t be too much of a problem. It was elites, bosses, and plateau beasts that were always the greatest threat.

And provided the largest rewards.

With a support class in their party, they were better equipped to take on high risk, high reward encounters and fight those more challenging enemies. The exact thing that had gotten Mel to High Copper and to the number one spot in the last trial.

How much stronger would I be now if I had done that from the beginning? Mel was eager to find out.

A health potion didn’t give two shits about the difference between a hole in the gut and a thorn in the foot. A healer, however, could isolate the greatest wound and pull you back from the brink.

Hell, I watched her pull Heath from certain death.

Mel had seen what Charlie could do firsthand already. She wasn’t sure a [Small Health Potion] could have restored anyone’s arm pulverized into the equivalent of soggy hamburger meat.

Her bones were like tic tacs suspended in Jell-O.

Though, Mel wasn’t too sure what it would be like facing higher ranked monsters. The trial didn’t state relative monster power, only the Authority level of the trial itself.

The leap from Mundane monsters to Copper was significant. The strength of a single Iron orc would have been enough to wipe dozens of Coppers out in the last trial.

You know that’s what we’re going to find. Both monsters and other competitors that are already Iron. We’ll have some major catching up to do.

With a healer, serious wounds were recoverable rather than death sentences. You could afford to be more reckless. Which was good, because if they wanted to have any hope of completing the next trial, they would need to be reckless.

And nobody was more irresponsibly reckless than Mel.