Meat Points: Gold For XP

  

Artaud turned the empty flask over in his ungloved hand and slurped the dregs from his own beard. He must have looked like a bear, muzzle slick with carrion from a magical carcass left to rot on the llano by hunters interested only in tusks and beaks and strange glands. Potion Addict passed every bottle of Cure Wounds through a shining lantern that imbued it with an inner light, so it would glow red even in total darkness. In case of total blindness the glass was embossed with raised lettering. Even illiterates quickly learned to recognize the phrase DRINK ME under their fingers. 

Rakia stared at him under the brim of her visorless kettle, affectless but clearly incensed that he had cuckolded her with a prepackaged commercial product.

They were back at the entrance to the tomb. A foyer of heaped sarcophagi and the gnawed remains of their former occupants. A pack of Gnolls had ambushed them on the way out. They were smart and they thought the adventurers would be helpless after exhausting themselves on the lower levels. It wasn’t something Artaud had ever done but he knew Hipolito indulged in the early years of his career. Hipolito who had since graduated to scalphunting. There was a bounty on Gnolls and he quickly took over collection of receipts from Rakia, sparing them her clumsy sawing as he neatly severed the hands with his date for the night - his plus one. He was a Deodand by blood, as he never hesitated to remind everyone. One of the White Forest tribes whose tenure in the neverending tangle of thorns had outlasted the Ancient Empire and the Monarchy, if their claim to prehistoric habitation of the site could be believed. This type of gory work suited him.

It was important they leave soon. By day Hogman’s Plain grew so hot that the act of breathing damaged the lungs through convection. By night the earth grew thick with Ghouls and Crocottas who mobbed travelers in such numbers that they were frequently forced to burrow beneath heaps of their slain cohorts to reach their prey. Crepuscular travel created the impression of perpetual twilight, a land always red. Through the door this was already visible.

If they left now they’d make it back to the trading post within a week. They’d pawn their treasure and load up on potions and drink the rest of their wages on the covered porch of the bar at the top of the old mastaba. Rakia would buy melons to feed the hippos at the river’s edge. Pharnobal would read the news out loud for Hipolito, who would pretend he wasn’t paying attention. Artaud would sip his horchata and turn his remaining money over his fingers. Fever River stamped on the silver, gimpsuited with their twin blades raised high. On the obverse, three Blink Dogs. He had never seen a Blink Dog. It was a hanging offense to kill one but this was no defense against poachers. Their little bodies yielded too many reagents.

The glass cracked under Artaud’s hand where he squeezed, but didn’t shatter. Potion Addict’s glaziers knew their trade. Pharnobal made an animal sound. A chirp indicating she had finished sorting the Gnoll scrimshaw into precious ivory and worthless trash. This signal for departure was a welcome distraction from the rush of intrusive thoughts that nearly compelled him to drive a hunting knife into the back of his hand and start over.

He wasn’t sure the potion had got it right.