Speaker 1: Hey, their friend C. D. Corrigan here? How you doing?
August is convention month for us here at Houndsong Games,
and as a result of travel and preparation and the
million other things on my to do list, I have
not had time to sit down and record with the
Lovely Ladies or finish editing all of the episodes that
we've already got recorded. So rather than staying up until
four am and then doing a bad job at everything
else that I'm supposed to be doing this month, I'm
going to be nice to myself and we're going to
take a bye week for episode seven that'll come out
next Monday instead of this Monday. Whatever you're actually listening
to this, And as a consolation prize, we of course
are going to dip back into the audiobook for Tattered Ponds,
my first novel. We will resumed where we left off
on our last by week with chapter three, narrated by
the excellent mister Nick Mercer.
Speaker 2: Enjoy Chapter three, The Morning's Sun, cheeky bastard, that it
was beamed down out of a cloudless sky. I rose
the last after images of whatever nightmare had chosen to
haunt me that night, already dissolving in a wash of
inputs from the waking world. In seconds, all that remained
was a half remembered glimpse of dark eyes, rimmed and violet.
Those always stayed after all the rest had faded. I
blinked and shook my head, rubbing my face and willing
myself awake, though every muscle protested that course of action.
After my panics run through the night, I had stumbled
into an inn across town and been promptly ejected again.
I don't think the proprietors were even sure why, but
it wasn't unheard of. Just being around an endim age
was enough to put people off. In hindsight, I suppose
it was understandable. I had burst in from the storm,
out of breath, covered in mud, shivering, in desperate need
of a roof and a fire, so no, on balance,
screw those guys. I'd make it a point to snink
back there and wreak some kind of mayhem on them
if I had time. I rolled out of the meager
sh helter i'd managed to construct in an alley way
and stretched. It had been a miserable night, but I'd
survived worse. A wicked grin spread across my face as
I popped my spine back into alignment. It was an
excellent day for a bit of burglary. I wandered to
the nearest market, a ramshackle affair of questionable legitimacy, but
some of the carts had food, so that was a
win in my view. The fruit pedler flinched as I
handed him a few copper rods for my breakfast. I
doubt he had any idea I was the cause of
his discomfort. Ends mages are so rare that anyone without
an academy education has probably never heard the term. He
might have started to associate my presence with unpleasantness if
I lingered, though, so I thanked him and moved off
with my meal as fast as I could. I munched
on an apple as I hurried down the street, avoiding
any crowds that looked too dense. A single street merchant
would dismiss the moment of weirdness he experienced standing next
to me. But if I walked through a larger group
of people and they all recoiled at once, someone was
going to notice, and too much of that. Let the
torches and pitchforks pitchfork suck this worthless heap of accountship,
aligned through some convoluted family history to the much larger
Cardinal Kingdom of Eastland. Wasn't much to look at, mostly
low buildings ringing a single large hill for a few
miles in every direction, getting more ramshackle as they fell
farther from the peak. Posh Stone and marble structures squatted
around the hilltop, but were a rarity in the outskirts
replaced with wood, plaster and thatched roofs and disrepair. The
main avenues were coppled, but the majority of the side
streets were just muck and filth, kept soggy and stinking
by the region's relentless rain. I listened as I walked.
You can learn a surprising amount about a place through
slices and snippets of passing conversations, news, moods, rumors, all
sorts of things that might guide the next steps of
a professional nomad like myself. The fall of the Magus
was the talk of the town that morning. Most people
were still spreading gossip and outright falsehoods, though those could
be fun too. I rolled a strange gem around in
my pocket like a worry stone, contemplating it as I
went It was a mystery, but that was more than
I'd had a few days before. The local arcaneum wasn't
going to be of any use now, the scholars there
weren't likely to fart without the Count's express approval. I
wouldn't even make it in the door, not that I'd
had high expectations as to their competence to begin with,
Not in the backwater like this. As I dodged around
another gaggle of city folk, I made a critical mistake.
I wandered near an old woman who was using some
minor magic to help sweep the entrance to her home.
I took one step too close, and the two brooms
that had been operating themselves clattered lifelessly to the ground. Frowning,
she muttered something and gestured at them. Nothing happened. Alarmed,
she repeated the incantation and gesture. Still nothing. Panic was
written prominent on her face. Now. She tried again and again,
but I couldn't slip through the crowd fast enough to
get away from her at that distance. A more powerful
caster wouldn't have no any impact on their capabilities. But
this little old lady had probably never managed anything more
spectacular than lighting a cooking fire, and such a tenuous
connection to the ether was completely annihilated in my presence.
She cried out in confusion and terror, drawing the attention
of several passers by, who began to gather around us
fantastic blackened furies, I cursed, seeking an escape. There was
nowhere I could go that wouldn't bring me closer to
another cluster of people, and it was only getting worse
as more stopped to investigate the commotion. And then they
were going to start having problems, and it was going
to be a real mess. Screw it, I muttered and bolted,
ramming my way through the thinnest part of the crowd.
I could see annoyed exclamations of rudeness turned into gasps
and sobs whenever I came too close. I've been told
that if someone is actively using a spell when they
come under my influence, it's akin to having a limb
abruptly disappear. I'm in no position to validate the claim,
having never lost a limb or cast even the smallest
spell myself, but I've seen enough outrageous reactions to know
it isn't pleasant. I doubted this crowd was working anything impressive,
but it wouldn't have surprised me if several were holding
on to a small effort for warmth against the damp,
enough that a brush with me would have knocked their
world off kilter for a moment. I ran to the
nearest corner and turned down another street. I took the
next corner at random, and the next before I slowed
to a walk, again, trying to look as innocent and
uninteresting as possible. The crowd was thinner there, and people
passing by unconsciously kept their distance from me, which I
was content with. I pulled my water skin from my
pack and took a deep swig. By necessity, I'm a
strong runner, but it never failed to leave me parched.
A glint of marble white caught my eye. Bright in
the morning sun. Count Grendisian's manner was visible in the distance,
squatting atop the hill. This wretched little city was built around.
I put the skin in my bag and started walking.
I pushed all the big questions I had to the
back of my mind tonight. There was only one task
at hand. I ric policy about contract fulfillment. You give
me what I'm owed, or I come and take it.
Sometimes it even works