Chapter Sixteen

  Zora

  A hand sized sheet of paper with cramped writing held everything Freya needed to get started.

  The Bookworm - Goal: Stop H.A. Sulivar’s imperalism

  Essential Classes

  - History: An overview of the Created Realm

  - History: Pariahs of the Mind’s Mirror

  - Magic: Effective Word Manipulation

  - Magic: Page building for the Non-Author

  - Magic: Magic Items

  - Economy: Trade in the Ten Domains

  - Culture: The People of the Created Realm

  - Culture: The Eastern Continent

  - Physical: Surviving Battle

  Recommended Classes

  - History: Era 1 - The Years of Belief

  - History: Era 6 - The Years of Mythopoeia

  - History: Era 7 - The Years of Joining

  - Economy: Investments

  - Culture: The Bygone League

  - Culture: The Lords of White

  There is strength in numbers. Seek out like-minded students.

  -ST

  Before leaving, the Storyteller had penned her in for several of the essential classes. An overview of the Created Realm, Pariahs of the Mind’s Mirror, Trade in the Ten Domains, and Surviving Battle. He suggested Freya pick up one more class on top of those.

  Looking over her schedule was oddly anxiety inducing. It was far too reminiscent of her first bout of college. She stuffed the paper into her pocket, she needed to find Zora. Classes didn’t begin for another few days, and she needed to meet a few other students.

  Esselem continued to be confusing as all hell. After some more exploration she figured half of the useable doors were enchanted in the same way as the painting she had stepped through on her first night.

  The enchanted doors that didn’t have the paintings were not marked in any way. So the only way to find out if she was dealing with an enchanted door or a regular one was to step through. After about three hours Freya finally found the hall that Zora resided in. She quietly thanked the castle for finally cooperating, she was running out of creative ways to curse.

  Zora answered the door decked out in her Witcher gear. “All done?”

  “Yes!” Freya waved the sheet of paper in triumph.

  The anxiety in her chest vanished as Zora congratulated her. Though it returned again as she recounted what happened with the Storyteller and the Minister. When she finished up, Zora frowned.

  “You never told me what actually happened with those soldiers. You just said they weren’t a problem anymore.”

  “Oh.” Was all that Freya could muster.

  “We should have stayed together. It wasn’t fair to make you do that alone.”

  Freya shook her head aggressively. “We didn’t know how many there were. Getting Roman out was the right call.”

  Zora’s hands tightened on the door, she almost looked as if she was going to slam it in Freya’s face.

  “What did I say?” Freya asked.

  “You’ve been in the Harbor for only a few days. Why are you the one protecting us?” That last word punched.

  Freya began to understand. “You’re embarrassed you weren’t the one to stay behind?”

  The way Zora threw that fireball proved she was more than able to protect herself. There shouldn’t be any shame there. Freya wasn’t some helpless child that needed to be protected. She was new to the Harbor, but she was a quick study.

  “Of course I am. You barely even know how to orient your pages.”

  “If you don’t recall you right about incinerated one of those soldiers.”

  “And then I ran.”

  “And then you helped our wounded friend escape. You saw how easily I dismantled Roman while we were sparring. I’ve been sword fighting since I could walk. In spite of your pride, you left the person with the best chance of survival. That isn’t cowardice, it’s wisdom.”

  Zora didn’t seem entirely convinced, but she didn’t press the issue. Freya was just thankful that Zora hadn’t judged her for what happened. Though her eyes did linger on the toy soldiers strapped to her chest.

  “So, what’s next? We need to stop Sulivar, but how? Just last month his sales eclipsed George R.R. Martin’s. He will be too strong to take in a head on conflict.”

  “We?”

  Zora looked at Freya as if she was the biggest moron in the realm. “You saved us, I don’t know what would have happened if you weren’t there with us. Even if I didn’t hate Sulivar’s guts, which I do, passionately, I would be with you on account of that alone.”

  Pride swelled in Freya’s chest. “Alright, I’m not sure how we are going to do it just yet. I need to learn more about him. The Storyteller said there would be a whole unit on him in Pariahs of the Created Realm. But at a base level you are right, we can’t take him head on. We need to be sneaky, go after him while he is asleep, heist shit.”

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  “We will need a few more people.”

  “My thoughts exactly. Do you know anyone?”

  “I might. Though be warned, they may be less than receptive to me.”

  #

  “Kindly get the fuck out,” Castin said.

  He tried to turn away but Zora caught his arm, he yanked it out of her grip. He followed that with a glare that a waiter might give a customer who claimed they had a gluten, fish, peanut, metal, oil, and incandescent light allergy. The man was small, maybe five-three, he wasn’t wearing anything special, just a set of trousers and tunic. Extremely plain compared to everyone else.

  “Cas, just think about it,” Zora said.

  Castin turned toward Freya. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll ditch this piece of shit soon as is convenient.”

  Castin’s companion, a man of average height wearing Jedi robes, flicked his wrist. A gust of wind erupted from his hand, sending Freya and Zora flying back into the hallway. He slammed the kitchen’s door behind them. During the fall she had knocked her head against the wall, she shook the stars free from her vision, then helped Zora to her feet.

  “What was that all about? You said not receptive, not outright hostile.”

  Zora looked back at the door, it almost seemed like she was going to go storming back in. “It’s a long story.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not gonna be strung along with it’s a long story.” Freya gestured for her to get on with it.

  Now it was Freya getting the glare, she tried not to shrink before Zora’s gaze. It felt as if she was doing a decent job of it. A few long moments passed in silence. Just as Freya started chiding herself for getting too comfortable, Zora spoke.

  “Fine. It isn’t anything out of the ordinary. We dated, I killed his Gerbil, then we weren’t dating.”

  The laugh came out before Freya could stop herself. “That’s a joke. You are messing with me.”

  Zora did not look amused. “Afraid not.”

  “Aren’t there all kinds of different magical animals in the Harbor? It was just a normal Gerbil?”

  “Just a normal gerbil. His name was Sir Fuzzybuns."

  “Did you do it on purpose?”

  Zora just glared at her in response.

  “That’s kind of making me think you did.”

  “I did not do it on purpose. The damn thing just wouldn’t stay out from under my feet.”

  “Oh Zora no.”

  At that Zora did something of a speed walk down the hall. Freya had to run to catch up as she turned the corner into a large open space beyond the kitchenettes. A series of halls converged on this one room. At its center was a large wooden board. It was filled with hundred of overlapping pieces of paper broken into a dozen different sections. Another quest board? Here?

  “This is the community board. Everything is posted here from quests, to information bulletins, to invitations to join various extra curricular groups. With Cas still being…sore, our best bet is to comb through these pages and find a good group to join up with. At any given time there are twenty to thirty adventuring parties gearing up to take on some problem. That’s how I met Cas. We traveled together to clear out a group of bandits hovering too close to the Mind’s Mirror. I bet someone already is setting up something to screw with Sulivar now that he is out of the Bluffs.”

  That made a lot of sense. As much as this situation had Freya questioning herself, this part almost made her giddy. An adventuring party. This would be great. It took but a few seconds to find the ‘Questing’ part of the board. Several quests for reward were posted, just beneath many of those sheets was pinned another sheet for creating a group. That wasn’t what they were searching for though.

  What they needed were the yellow sheets. Quests thought up by Esselem’s students. They had no outright reward, so it was a roll of the dice to take one on. There were many yellow sheets for hunting down legendary artifacts, others for something called ‘Dragon watching’. Freya cocked her head at that, that was a kind of bird watching she could get behind.

  “Can I ask you something?” Freya asked.

  Zora raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

  “Is it bad form to ask where someone got their name from?”

  “No, usually people won’t shut up about it.”

  Freya nodded. That was good to know. “What about yours then? Why Zora?”

  “You’re the one wearing the Link outfit. You tell me.”

  “So you picked it yourself?”

  “Not quite.”

  Zora went back to looking at the board.

  Freya nudged her with her shoulder “And?”

  “When I first started I thought I might try an aquatic build. I gave myself gills, fins, turned blue, all of it.”

  “So you named yourself Zora, after the fish people from Zelda.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you change your name when you went into this Witcher build?”

  “I already knew a bunch of people and I didn’t want the headache of telling everyone that I had changed my name because I didn’t like being a fish anymore.”

  Freya hid her growing smile behind a quest notice. “And why didn’t you?”

  “Do you have any idea how much having gills on land sucks? Congratulations! You can breathe under water, now every cloud of dust that blows in your gills is the equivalent of hitting a cigarette filled with Asbestos and glitter. And for all that trouble do you know what I could do underwater?”

  “Swim?”

  “Swim, that’s it. There are no underwater civilizations. Not really even much for submerged ruins. Just coral and fish, and the occasional sea monster that wants to eat you. That’s great for a few hours of fun. But basing all my pages on it left me trapped in the water.”

  Freya turned back to the board. She wasn’t really sure what to say. It seemed the whole fish thing was a sensitive topic.

  Zora plucked a sheet from a far off section of the board. “Here we go.” She flipped the sheet around.

  The Unbound need you!

  The People of The Mind’s Mirror, while seeking to distance themselves from the invasive nature of our existence upon this realm, have made an error. We have shed responsibility for rogue agents that come from the Source Realm, leaving the denizens of this realm to go it alone. The Unbound are dedicated to stopping the spread of colonialism from our realm, by any means necessary. Capable combatants and magic users are especially desired, though any are welcome

  Join us at Esselem’s Crown every Thursday at sunset. We will address the encroachment of H.A. Sulivar into the unclaimed fields east of Torozom.

  At the top of the page was the symbol of The Mind’s Mirror, pens crossed over a sword. Though it had an addition, a broken chain circling the sword and pens.

  “Thursday, that’s tonight isn’t it?” Freya asked.

  Zora nodded. “And sunset is in a few hours. Let’s get dinner, then head up to the crown.” She made a show of looking Freya up and down. “You’ll want to bring your sword.”

  Freya reached a hand for where her sword usually hung just above her waist suddenly nervous about the meeting.