Mage Tank

Chapter 197: What’re Ya Buyin’?

Avarice’s soul cut into mine like a precision scalpel. At first, I thought she’d gone back on her word, that she was planning to turn me into some kind of Dread Star Q&A slave, but the soul connection didn’t feel like an attack. It was closer to what Grotto and I shared, or how I connected to others using Reveal, although the way Avarice formed the bridge was a lot rougher. The pain was sharp and bright, but brief.

Avarice ignored anything she might find through the soul bond, using it only for the transcendental communication it granted. She delivered a look behind her mask, inviting me to see what she was, without the prejudice of anthropomorphism. The pareidolia that she encouraged was stripped away.

Avarice’s features were painted on, a presentation for my benefit, an act at being bound by the weakness of flesh. She had human senses, but only because it served her to know how we experienced the world. Her tongue could taste but had no desire for flavor, her nose could smell but found no comfort in a familiar scent, her eyes processed light but it was the least of the ways she could see. Her body was an inanimate thing, a doll created to trick and deceive, puppeted by something unearthly, piloted toward a singular goal.

Her pupils dilated, and through them, I beheld a squirming mass of desire. Avarice was an insatiable need, the compulsion to own more tomorrow than she did today. Even that was too weak a description. She was a function, an inevitable product of divine physics, executing its own program through an intelligence that held no concept of empathy or remorse.

Mortal principles meant nothing to her. She could not be anticipated through morality or emotion. She was strange and unknowable, and yet she was more predictable than any person. She sought one thing, and all else was subordinate, every decision a step toward satisfying her craving.

She let go of my shoulder and straightened. I took a shaky breath. Between the Dread Star’s name and the sight of Avarice unmasked, it felt like a nest of hornets had made their home inside my skull. But Avarice wasn’t finished. The tendrils of her soul remained, exposing the logic of her physicality.

Avarice ran the fingers of one hand through her hair, where it shifted from black to candy apple red at her touch. The casual action evoked a sense of humanity, drawing me back into her simulation of mortality. It was also a contradiction, an impossible action for anyone mundane. It signaled her power, her ability to adapt, the ineffability of what she was, the ease with which she invented rules to bind her and then violated them all the same.

She watched me as she made the motion, reading my reaction to it, monitoring my response to the different shades, finding my preference, and learning to exploit what I favored to draw out the performance she needed from me. I was a puzzle box, with hidden riches inside, a windup soldier she could send out to seize the spoils she wanted. She showed me all of this, knowing that I detested manipulation, and that the transparency was itself a manipulation. Every inch of her bipedal form was deception, and she couldn’t have been more honest about it.

When she stepped, each muscle and bone moved with intention. A tuft of her hair fluttered, caught by her breath. But there was no air, no true exhalation. She directed the strands individually, willing them to act in concert with her body, drawing my eyes toward them and distracting me from her shadow.

Her control was absolute, her body without reflex or muscle memory. The tendon along her neck, the pores on her wrist, they were each a decision, made to appeal to me, constantly shifting to stimulate a response, then shifting when new data was gathered. Even the sway of her dress–

“You can stop now,” I said. “Pull the wool back over my eyes, please.”

Avarice withdrew her soul from my own, moving so gently that it was soothing. Her hair transitioned back to black, and she shrank down to become a woman of average height. Anything unnatural disappeared, and she became the picture of an average, ordinary human.

“What the fuck was the point of that?” I asked.

“An attempt to improve our communication,” she said. “And something that may marginally increase your chances of survival in the future. My persona is a convenience to facilitate our interaction, and your casual treatment of me is acceptable, but you tread deadly waters when you threaten what is mine. Part of your future belongs to me.

“To oppose an avatar’s nature is like standing in the path of a landslide, arguing for it to ignore gravity. Your words are meaningless, and the safest course is to move out of its path. However, if you still wish to influence the disaster, you must work with the forces that govern it. I am uniquely suited to tolerating your flippancy since there is much you might provide me, but most avatars are not driven by goals that allow for effective future planning.

“Fortune and I are perhaps the most extreme examples of an avatar willing to delay gratification, or ignore an immediate inconvenience for a better outcome in the future. Most that I have met would grind you into paste the moment you posed the barest obstacle to their needs.”

I chewed over the ways Avarice served her own interests by giving me that advice. My instinct was to distrust the guidance. Certainly, she’d love for me to believe that working alongside her was the only way to affect her actions. That didn’t mean it wasn’t true, though, and it conformed with what I already knew of avatars.

If I understood things correctly, Avarice valued the Dread Star questions, but she valued an ongoing partnership more. She was willing to let me leave, but only to enable a potential future where I agreed to profitable trades. If she didn’t believe that was likely, she’d chain me to the wall and keep me as a pet until she’d asked her questions, then let me fuck off on my merry way.

It also changed how I thought about our interactions, which was her goal. Either I expressed a preference for a future where Avarice got more shit, in which case she would be helpful, or I expressed a preference for neutrality, in which case she was ambivalent. If my preference was for her to have less, then I was dead. All communication led to one of these three roads, and anything that didn’t advance us down one of those paths was meaningless.

“Thanks,” I said. There was no reason to say anything more.

Avarice moved out of my way, and I walked slowly toward my bedroom. Fortune stood to the side of the door and made no move to stop me. I paused and looked him over. How would I even work with the forces that governed him? Fortune was only a moniker. I didn’t actually know what he was the avatar of.

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Although, did it matter? It seemed like his entire purpose was to force events in the direction he favored, and that the subjects of his manipulation know as little about it as possible. Really, the best move was probably not to think about him too hard.

“You mentioned you were here for three reasons,” I said. “What was the third?”

Fortune’s smile widened until all three mouths were separated by a centimeter of skin.

“I want you to reconsider what is available to you,” he said. “Not all tools are meant to be brandished as weapons.”

My agitation grew with his delivery of cryptic ‘wisdom’. It was generic life coach shit. I half expected him to start reading my horoscope. Maybe he was the avatar of the Zodiac.

I tempered myself, trying to imagine that I was dealing with an automated system. A computer didn’t care if you were mad at it. In the same vein, neither of these entities was socially coded to receive my irritation and respond to placate me. If anything, getting frustrated could only cause damage to how they perceived me. Unless it was Fortune’s goal that I get angry.

It probably was.

I tried to keep my tone level. “Is there a reason that you’re both being so vague?”

“I have a conditional agreement with Avarice,” said Fortune. “When I will it, she must keep her observations to herself. She is skirting the edge of that agreement with what she has told you, but the rules were written with some ambiguity to allow for such a thing.”

“Then really it’s only you that’s being vague.”

“If I shone a light into the dark, it might help you to find your way,” he said. “But when I left, you would be blinded.”

I didn’t buy the ‘teach a man to fish’ argument Fortune was making, but at least it was something. Perhaps he benefited by having information that others didn’t. The avatar of Secrets? If I took him at face value, he might be the avatar of Growth. Improvement, maybe?

I stopped thinking about it, since I didn’t have the time, and paid attention to his first answer. He wanted me to think of a tool I’d misused, but I felt pretty confident about my loadout. Of course, what Fortune considered a tool may not be something that I thought of as a tool. I glanced back at Avarice.

If I needed a weapon, I wouldn’t go into a smithy and ask the smith to fight my battle. If I needed floor cleaner, I wouldn’t demand that the shopkeeper at the general store come by with a mop and do the work for me.

I’d buy what I needed.

“Say, Avarice. Got anything interesting for sale?”

Avarice smiled and spread her hands.

“Only anything and everything,” she said. “The question is, what do you need, and what do you have to trade?”

I thought over what I knew about my situation. There was some mental mischief happening, as evidenced by Leon. I expected some mind magic was necessary to get the king into such a vulnerable position as well. Beyond that, the enemy’s runes had been craftily hidden. I was well-equipped to handle stealth and illusion, but it obviously hadn’t been enough.

I was about as lethal as I could get for my level, so I didn’t think a new weapon was the right call. I also didn’t want to spend too much time shopping, when I’d already been delayed for so long.

“Something for mental attacks,” I said. “Possibly illusions as well. As for what I have to trade…” I thought it over. I had some guesses as to what Avarice valued, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions. Might as well go down the list. “To start, I’ve got chips.”

“As do I,” she said. “It’s not nothing, but you wouldn’t like my conversion rate.”

“Poison essences?”

“Better,” she said. “Not a terrible essence, but not particularly rare, either. How many?”

“I have 500 for trade.”

“That is more than I expected,” she said. “I’m mildly tempted, but not excited.”

I listed off some other essences we had sitting around. Her reaction to those was similar. She perked up when I mentioned the metal essence, but deflated when I told her we only had one. Our excess gear had been sent with Varrin to Hiward for auction, and she was only interested in unique pieces anyway.

“I have a Reality Anchor, but I’m very attached to it.”

“I might have some ideas for that. Anything else?”

I kept perusing my inventory, then stopped and brought up my status screen.

“Not sure if I can trade it,” I said. “But I have some System Rep.”

Avarice chuckled. “A Delver with System Rep, how absurd. You would be able to trade it to me if I so desired, but System Core 2 would not be happy. My relationship with Number 2 is more important than whatever the Rep might get me.”

“Then you have heard all that I have on offer.”

“I see,” she said, then held out a hand. An orb filled with shimmering liquid appeared hovering over her palm, and six vials formed a ring slowly orbiting it. “For your inspection.”

I focused on the objects and pulled up their descriptions, starting with the orb.

Tears of Tyranny

Tyranny sees all, but none can see Tyranny.

Six ounces of the gathered tears of the avatar of Tyranny, painstakingly collected by his enthusiastic citizens. The tears boil when exposed to air, creating a rapidly expanding cloud of invisible gas that allows Tyranny to pierce all illusions and reveal all that is hidden within its area of effect.

The glass orb containing these tears was crafted by Tyranny’s own hand, and will temporarily extend the tears’ benefits to the last person who held it.

This is a Deific effect, and cannot be countered, negated, redirected, resisted, prevented, or otherwise foiled or manipulated by any non-Deific effect.

Take care when using this item, for the eyes of Tyranny are ever searching for its next subjects.

“Well, gosh,” I said. “You’re not messing around with this stuff.” I moved on to the vials.

Holy Water of Yara’s Redemption

Gods are not normally known to bottle their sacraments, but an exceptionally pious and persuasive worshiper can work miracles.

When consuming the contents of this vial, you acquire 5 stacks of Blessed and gain the benefits of the Sacrament of Redemption for 1 hour.

Sacrament of Redemption

You gain bonus Spiritual and Divine defense equal to the number Blessed stacks you possess.

Whenever you have at least 5 Blessed and would become Mesmerized, Dominated, Feared, Berserk, Paranoid, or Psychotic, you lose half of your Blessed stacks and counter the status. If you counter the Berserk status in this way, your current Rage stacks are reduced to half your threshold. (Current threshold: 40)

As I reviewed the text of the Holy Water, the description glitched and disappeared. New text appeared in its place.

Holy Water of Yara’s Favor

Gods are not normally known to bottle their Favor, but for those who show great wisdom and mercy, miracles are known to happen.

After consuming the contents of this vial, you become immune to all detrimental mind-affecting statuses and abilities for a number of minutes equal to your Delver level.

This is a Deific effect, and cannot be countered, negated, redirected, resisted, prevented, or otherwise foiled or manipulated by any non-Deific effect.

Make an offering at my temple in Connas, and if I am pleased, you will receive the Sacrament of Redemption for so long as you refrain from actions I find profane.

The greedy one has curated an extensive collection of exotic plants. Perhaps you should offer her a cutting or two.

I rubbed my eyes and re-read the text. We were apparently at the point in my isekai career where the endgame merchant’s items were being directly upgraded by the gods themselves, complete with cheeky divine wisdom in the flavor text.

Also, would Avarice even want cuttings from a dead Dominion Ivy Plant of the Endless?

It was dead, right?