Chapter 76: Merchant Rakash, Buying The Arc Bell
The door opened without resistance.
The chamber beyond was exactly as King had left it, small, dense, every available surface claimed by artifacts arranged in a system that looked chaotic but probably wasn’t.
Rakash still sat at the center of it, hunched over her worn map, one gnarled finger tracing a route across its surface. She didn’t look up when King entered, typical NPC behaviour.
"You," she said. "You’re not an Arcbearer, are you."
Same words. Same flat delivery. King had the medallion ready before she finished the sentence.
He produced it and held it toward her.
Rakash looked up. The hood shifted back from her weathered face in the same exact manner as it had before. She reached out and took it, and the artifact vanished into her cloak as smoothly as the first time.
"Ah." Her posture shifted, the hunched rigidity softening into something more animated. "Back again. mmm. The same one who recognized worth before and came back for more. mmm mm." She gestured broadly with both arms. "Then let us not waste time."
The interface windows materialized around King in a wide arc, dozens of panels assembling themselves in the air and filling the small chamber with glowing displays. Every item in Rakash’s hidden inventory catalogued itself before him, and the breadth of it hit differently now that he wasn’t overwhelmed by the initial discovery.
King started from the left and worked methodically through the panels.
Arc-related consumables came first, vials and concentrates that enhanced Arcbearers, extended medallion effects, amplified the output of Arc-sourced abilities decently. Their prices were modest by comparison to the rest of the inventory, most sitting between two and eight medallions. King noted their positions and kept moving.
Weapons followed. An axe with a dark blade etched in Arc script, a spear with a haft wrapped in the same material as Arc bearer straps, a set of throwing knives that flickered at their edges with a contained Arc energy.
The weapons ranged from fifteen medallions to forty, their grades varying across Rare and Epic classifications. Substantial, but as a perfectionist in matters like this, he kept searching.
Clothing next. An arc cloak, a set of bracers, a half-mask that Rakash’s description panel listed as capable of partially concealing a player’s status from enemy identification spells.
That one gave him pause, he hovered over it, read the full description, and filed it away for a future visit when his medallion count could absorb the cost more comfortably.
Skill moves. King slowed here and read every entry. Most were augmented physical techniques, strikes, footwork patterns, defensive forms developed and used by Arcbearers across their long and separate histories. A handful were support-oriented, buff applications and enhancement channels that drew on Arc energy as their source rather than standard mana pools.
One stopped him.
Arc-Bearer False Step. The description was brief: a movement technique that generated a displacement effect, projecting a false position ahead of the user’s actual location for a fraction of a second, enough to break an opponent’s target lock, slip a committed strike, or cover ground without telegraphing direction. The panel listed it as a fixed skill move, learnable through a single use tome contained in the purchase.
Ten Arcbearer medallions.
King purchased it without deliberating. The tome materialized in his inventory and he set it aside for the training room.
He continued through the remaining panels and reached the far end of the display. He was nearly ready to close the interface and compile a list for his next visit when one item in the bottom row caught his attention and held it.
A bell.
Small, dark metal, its surface etched with fine Arc script that circled the body of the instrument in continuous lines from the rim to the crown. The clapper inside was visible through the open base, shaped from a material that looked different from the bell itself, but denser. The item panel identified it simply.
Arc Call Bell.
King opened the description.
[ARC CALL BELL — INSTRUMENT]
[EFFECT: Each ring of the bell summons a lesser untamed Arc spirit to the field. Spirits summoned through this method are unbound, they follow no master and target all hostile entities within range. Number of spirits per ring scales with Arc affinity. Bell charges: 2 at a time, 24 hours last time, 24 hours cooldown after charges are complete]
King read it, fully grasping the information.
Untamed. No master. Target all hostile entities within range.
He considered the implications carefully. Every Arcbearer summon he’d made through the medallions involved a direct alliance.
Barlan came as a partner, a specific personality with his own judgment and fighting style. These spirits were different. Untamed Arc spirits were raw expressions of their respective Arcs, no negotiation, no relationship management, no limitations imposed by an Arcbearer’s individual will.
Pure effect, aimed at whatever counted as an enemy.
The versatility was significant. In dense combat environments, in zone control situations, in any fight where he needed to flood a space with hostile presence without committing his own MP to sustain it, the bell covered all of it. Two charges meant two deployments that lasted 24 hours.
He checked the price.
Forty medallions.
King exhaled through his nose. He ran the count, his current medallion inventory minus the medallions he was going to use to exit, and then the price for this, it math wasn’t a comfortable one.
He stared at the item panel for a few seconds longer.
Heaved a sigh, then he purchased it.
The bell materialized in his inventory with a soft chime that rang once on its own, as if acknowledging the transaction. King added it to his equipped.
He was preparing to work back through the consumables panel and make a secondary selection when his interface pulsed.
A message from Vi.
[Vi: Come back now. It’s urgent.]
No elaboration. No context. Just those five words, and the particular directness of them communicated everything the words themselves left out , Vi did not send messages like that unless there was no time to explain.
King closed every panel simultaneously and turned away from Rakash’s display without purchasing anything further. Rakash settled back over her map without comment, her animation draining the instant the transaction concluded, King ceasing to exist in her awareness as completely as a candle going out.
He left the chamber, pulling the door shut behind him, and moved through the narrow passage at pace. The main hall opened up around him as he emerged, and he crossed it directly, equipping his medallion and activating it without breaking stride.
The Tablehold disappeared.
The Victorian estate’s common area assembled around him, and King registered the scene in the first second of arrival. Vi was on the floor beside the low table, both hands pressed over Maya, a healing energy already extended from her palms and washing across the child’s still form. Maya was unconscious, her small body unmoving, her breathing visible but shallow.
Eli sat against the far wall. He was damaged across the torso, his clothing torn in multiple places, and the wounds beneath it were real, not superficial, but the kind of damage that came from a fight that had gone badly in a direction no one had planned for.
He met King’s eyes when King looked at him.
"She okay?" King asked. His voice was controlled but the effort behind that control was visible.
"She’s breathing," Vi said without looking up, her full concentration on Maya.
King looked at both of them and understood immediately. The quest they had taken out had not gone the way they expected. And the damage in front of him told the story clearly enough.
Their plan had fallen apart out there.
