Chapter 3: The Merchant's Wisdom
The golden guidance of Grace led Gara through fields that seemed painted by a god with too much time and not enough sense of realism. Every blade of grass caught sunlight like it was personally blessed, every stone looked placed by a landscape architect with divine backing. It was beautiful in the way that made his programmer brain itch—too perfect, too calculated, like someone had cranked the saturation slider too far to the right.
Smoke rose from ruins ahead, and with it came the sound of music. Not the orchestral swells he'd expected from a fantasy world, but something raw and mournful—a stringed instrument played by someone who understood loss. The melody drifted through the air like a prayer for the dead.
"Safe zone," he muttered, quickening his pace. "Please be a safe zone. Just once, let the game mechanics work in my—"
The words died as he crested a small hill and saw the merchant.
Kale sat cross-legged beside a crackling fire, his massive frame hunched over an instrument that looked like a banjo's philosophical cousin. The melody he coaxed from its strings told stories of roads walked alone and horizons that promised nothing but more walking. His eyes—sharp despite the weathered face—tracked Gara's approach with the wariness of someone who'd learned to measure threats by how they moved.
Those eyes widened as they took in Gara's appearance. The cargo shorts were probably doing it—or maybe the polo shirt with its cheerful corporate logo, so utterly wrong in a world of armor and desperation.
"Merchant immunity," Gara breathed, slowing his approach. "Thank God. I mean, thank Grace. Or whoever's running this place."
He caught himself muttering and tried to look normal—which was difficult when 'normal' was apparently extinct in the Lands Between. Kale's stare followed him like a physical weight, cataloging every detail of his impossible outfit and modern mannerisms.
"Strange clothes for a Tarnished," Kale said, his voice carrying the gravel of someone who'd swallowed too much road dust. The music stopped, but his fingers remained poised over the strings. "Strange words, too. You speak in riddles."
"Sorry," Gara said, then immediately winced. Apologizing to NPCs was probably not normal Tarnished behavior. "I mean... greetings, merchant. I've come to... trade?"
He pulled out the runes he'd absorbed from the Grafted Scion, watching them materialize as golden coins in his palm. Video game logic made manifest—kill boss, get currency, spend currency on better gear to kill bigger boss. Except the runes felt warm against his skin, pulsing with residual life that made his stomach turn.
"These came from something that used to be alive," he realized. "People. The runes are made from people."
Kale's expression shifted to something closer to sympathy. "Aye. Death gives meaning to the golden order. That troubles you?"
"It should trouble everyone."
"Perhaps. But troubled folk don't survive long in these lands. Better to accept and adapt."
Gara looked at the merchant's wares spread on a blanket beside the fire. Weapons, armor, consumables—everything a growing Tarnished needed to not die quite so often. His gamer brain kicked into overdrive, calculating optimal purchases and build paths while his conscience wrestled with spending dead people's essence on better ways to kill.
The gamer brain won.
"I'll take everything," he said.
Kale blinked. "Everything?"
"Everything. The whole stock. Whatever it costs."
He started grabbing items—a wooden shield that felt substantial despite its crude appearance, leather armor that smelled like honest sweat and careful maintenance, arrows fletched with what looked like real bird feathers. Each piece was clearly handmade, bearing the subtle imperfections that marked genuine craftsmanship.
"Hold up, friend," Kale said, raising a hand. "You don't even know what half this does. This here's a crossbow—"
"I know what a crossbow is," Gara said, then paused. He was examining the shield like it was alien technology, searching for menu buttons that didn't exist. "I mean... how do I check its stats? Its defense rating? There should be a screen that shows—"
He stopped, realizing how insane he sounded. Kale was watching him with the expression of someone trying to determine if they were dealing with a madman or just a very eccentric customer.
"Stats?" Kale repeated slowly.
"You know... numbers. Numbers that tell you how strong something is, how much damage it does, what stats you need to equip it properly." Gara turned the shield over in his hands, frustrated. "There's got to be some way to see the interface. Some way to access my character sheet."
"Character... sheet?"
Gara closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and wished desperately that he could just see his stats. Just once. Just to understand what was happening to—
Golden numbers exploded across his vision like a spreadsheet from heaven.
VIGOR: 9 MIND: 11 ENDURANCE: 8STRENGTH: 7 DEXTERITY: 12 INTELLIGENCE: 14FAITH: 8 ARCANE: 6
He yelped, stumbled backward, and fell flat on his ass while equations rewrote themselves behind his eyelids. The numbers weren't just displayed—they were alive, flowing like molten gold, responsive to his thoughts.
What if I moved points from Intelligence to Vigor?
The numbers shifted. Intelligence dropped to 12, Vigor climbed to 11. The change felt physical—his head grew slightly foggier while his chest expanded with new vitality.
Holy shit. Put it back. Put it back!
The stats reversed, leaving him dizzy but amazed. He could redistribute his points. He could actually customize his build in real time, like the world's most visceral character creator.
"Are you having a vision?" Kale asked, concern replacing wariness in his voice. "The Grace speaks to some Tarnished more clearly than others. Shows them truths hidden from normal sight."
"A vision," Gara repeated, latching onto the excuse like a life preserver. "Yes. Exactly. A vision from Grace. About... numbers. And... meditation techniques my family used to practice."
It wasn't entirely a lie. His family had practiced meditation—in the sense that his mother had dragged him to a yoga class once when he was sixteen, and he'd spent the entire hour thinking about video games instead of achieving inner peace.
Kale nodded sagely. "The old ways return to those who need them most. Your family must have been wise in the arts of war."
"Something like that."
Gara picked himself up, dusting off his cargo shorts while his mind raced. Stat manipulation. Real, honest-to-god stat manipulation, available on demand. He could become a tank when he needed defense, a berserker when he needed offense, a scholar when he needed to solve puzzles. The possibilities were—
The Tree Sentinel's horn echoed across Limgrave like the world's most terrifying alarm clock.
Gara's head snapped toward the sound, spotting the golden knight in the distance. Still patrolling. Still guarding the main path like a boss-sized roadblock.
"I could take him now," he murmured. "Max out Strength and Vigor, grab that spear, go full berserker mode."
"That's the Tree Sentinel," Kale said, following his gaze. "Been guarding that path since the Shattering. Killed more Tarnished than plague and starvation combined."
"But with the right strategy..."
"No strategy fixes a twenty-foot lance through your chest, friend. That's a lesson learned by walking around, not walking through."
But Gara was already moving, drawn by the prospect of testing his new abilities against a real challenge. He redistributed his stats on the fly—dumping Intelligence and Faith into Strength and Vigor until his muscles swelled and his step became a swagger.
"Wait!" Kale called after him. "Where are you—"
The Tree Sentinel spotted him at fifty meters. The massive knight wheeled his equally massive horse around with ponderous grace, lance lowering to point directly at Gara's chest.
"Come on then," Gara growled, his voice deeper now with artificial Strength. "Let's see what forty-three deaths taught me."
The Sentinel charged.
Gara stood his ground until the last possible second, then dove to the side—
The lance caught him anyway. Twenty feet of divine retribution punched through his sternum like he was made of tissue paper.
Death #44: Tree Sentinel. Lance through chest. 1/10 - overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
He respawned at Kale's fire, the merchant's eyes wide with shock.
"You went after the Sentinel? Are you mad?"
"Apparently," Gara muttered, checking his stats. Something was wrong. His Strength had dropped from 7 to 6, though he couldn't figure out why. "Round two."
He charged again. The horse trampled him into paste.
Death #45: Tree Sentinel. Trampling damage. 2/10 - death by hoof is surprisingly quick.
Respawn. Kale staring. Another charge.
Death #46: Kicked in the head. Death #47: Lance through liver. Death #48: Thrown from bridge. Death #49: Lightning spear through spine. Death #50: Trampled again. Death #51: Lance through skull. Death #52: Beaten to death with shield.
Each death was a lesson. Each lesson cost him something he didn't understand yet. But by the eighth attempt, he was starting to see the pattern—the Sentinel's attacks, his range, the timing of his charges.
By the tenth attempt, he was getting closer to landing hits.
By the twelfth attempt, he was dying before he even reached the knight.
"This isn't working," he panted after death #52, his body whole but his pride thoroughly shattered. The Tree Sentinel waited in the distance, implacable as a force of nature.
Kale said nothing, just watched him with eyes that had seen too many warriors break themselves against impossible odds.
"I'M GOING AROUND!" Gara finally screamed at the distant knight. "YOU WIN, OKAY? I'M TAKING THE LONG WAY!"
The Tree Sentinel didn't respond—probably didn't even hear him. But Kale nodded slowly, approval replacing pity in his weathered features.
"Wisdom begins with knowing when to retreat," the merchant said. "Your family taught you well, eventually."
That night, they camped together beside Kale's fire. The merchant shared bread and stories while Gara filled his notebook with increasingly detailed observations about optimal stat distributions. He'd discovered he could create mental shortcuts—preset configurations he could shift to instantly.
Preset #1: Tank Mode - Max Vigor/Endurance, minimal everything else. Preset #2: Berserker Mode - Max Strength, enough Vigor to survive.
Preset #3: Please Don't Die Mode - Balanced spread, no glaring weaknesses.
He scribbled the numbers with the intensity of someone writing holy scripture. Because in a way, he was—these were the commandments that might keep him alive in a world determined to kill him.
Kale watched the process with the fascination of someone observing an alien ritual.
"You write like a scholar," the merchant observed. "But fight like a berserker. Strange combination."
"Strange times make for strange people."
"Aye. That they do." Kale plucked a contemplative note on his instrument. "Perhaps madness and wisdom aren't so different after all. Both require seeing the world as it truly is, not as we wish it to be."
Gara looked up from his notes. "And how do you see the world?"
"Broken. Beautiful. Worth preserving, despite the cost." The merchant's fingers found a gentle melody, something that sounded like hope wearing armor. "What about you, strange Tarnished? What do you see when you look at these lands?"
Gara considered the question while watching sparks from the fire drift toward stars that seemed too bright, too close, too perfectly arranged. Everything here was wrong in the way that made it right—hyperreal and impossible and absolutely sincere.
"A game," he said finally. "A game someone forgot to tell me how to play."
Kale nodded as if this made perfect sense. "Then we learn by playing. And try not to lose all our pieces before we understand the rules."
The fire crackled between them, two strangers finding common ground in confusion. In the distance, the Tree Sentinel continued his eternal patrol, guardian of a path Gara would eventually have to take.
But not tonight. Tonight was for learning, for planning, and for discovering that even in impossible worlds, some comforts remained universal—firelight, music, and the company of someone who'd chosen kindness over suspicion.
"Thank you," Gara said, meaning it more than he'd meant anything in a long time.
Kale smiled, the expression transforming his weathered face. "We merchants survive by helping travelers find what they need. Sometimes that's goods. Sometimes it's wisdom. Sometimes it's just a fire to sit by and a song to remember home."
The melody drifted into the night, carrying stories of roads not yet traveled and horizons still worth reaching.
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