“Then Anisa and I will go track down our little friend,” Farrah said. “Don’t want him spotting us and running off.”

Anisa nodded her assent.

“Will he still be in town after selling you out?” Jason asked.

“Should be,” Farrah said. “He wasn’t expecting us to ever come back.”

“Do you need any money?” Gary asked Jason.

“I have some gold spirit coins left,” Jason said. “The rest are lower ranked, but I have a lot of them. Will that be enough?”

Gary and Farrah started laughing, even Anisa had an amused look on her face.

“Jason,” Gary said, “A gold spirit coin would buy the nicest building in this village, and I doubt there’s enough currency in it to give you the change. Unless you’re buying magic items or bulk trade goods, most people use lesser spirit coins, iron-rank at the most.”

“What’s the exchange rate between coins?” Jason asked. “Actually, I’ll figure it out myself. That’s part of the fun in coming to a new place, right?”

“That’s the spirit,” Gary said.

25. Blasphemy is Kind of My Thing

25

Blasphemy is Kind of My Thing

After handling the string of heidels, Rufus made his way into the village. He knew from their previous visit that the inns were all clustered together, so he had no concerns about finding the rest of the group. The sky was turning a rich blue, with orange and gold encroaching as twilight came over the desert. Along the ring road of the village, magic lamps were lighting up and some kind of night market was setting up. He came into the village along with a good many quarry workers who had finished up as they lost the light. Moving amongst the gathering people, he saw a familiar face.

“Jason?”

“Oh, g’day, Rufus,” Jason said with a wave. He was behind a stall selling skewered meat, helping what Rufus assumed was the stall owner to fry meat.

“What are you doing?” Rufus asked.

“Dan here is teaching me to cook… what was it called again?”

“Bruschard,” Dan said.

“It’s a giant worm!” Jason said. “Luckily I tried it before I found that out.”

“You seem to be adjusting well,” Rufus said.

“Yeah, no worries,” Jason said. “You go get your revenge, or whatever. I’m good here. Gary picked the inn on the end with the big livery, by the way. There’s a sign with a little house and a cart on it.”

“Thanks,” Rufus said.

“Now,” Jason said, turning back to Dan. “Give me those sauce ingredients again. I haven’t heard of any of them, so I’ll have to write them all down. Which means I’m going to need some paper…”

* * *