Lieforged Gale

70: Innocent Facade

Unlike Ghoul’s End, Grand Celestial Temple was absolutely teeming with people. The temple had three distinct wings that radiated out from a large circular area in the middle. Up and down those wings were various amenities, including cafes and bars, while the central region contained the massive cash shop for Rellithesh. It was more like a titanic circular department store than any normal ‘shop’.

You could buy anything from armour cosmetics, to infinite soap, to the crafting satchel I was here for. The sheer variety of stuff on offer was staggering, and yet somehow they'd kept the game from becoming openly pay-to-win. Unfortunately, the illusion broke down a bit once you realised the real money Rellcreds could be traded. That was probably how Silver Ridge got its damned airship.

The portal popped you out at the end of one of the spokes, where a whole gallery of shimmering blue portals stood ready to take you back later. My chunky boots clomped on the grey marble floor as I made my way inwards, weaving through milling crowds of players as I went.

God damn, it was packed in here today. It felt like a mall when some sales event was going on. As I got closer to the central shop, I realised that my guess was entirely the case. There was a Rellcred sale on—fifty percent off, for some crazy reason.

Wow. I might be able to get a lot more than just a crafting bag from this excursion. The price in normal gold must be in the floor right now—It always happened during a sale. Those with more money than they could possibly ever need would be buying Rellcreds in bulk, then undercutting the shit out of each other in the auction house.

Suddenly very eager, I made my way to a cafe that faced the shop and ordered an overpriced coffee from the AI barista. He accepted my silver coin with a nod, then began preparing the drink. Meanwhile, I chose a seat near the entrance to watch the chaos and browse the market.

The cafe had sheafs of parchment laid out on every table, and each sheet was a game window that showed the current auctions, sales, and trades being offered by other players. It was just as I'd suspected and hoped. The price of Rellcreds was deep in a trench right now.

My coffee got delivered as I watched it drop further, and I sipped from the tall ceramic mug. Normally, one Rellcred would come out to around two gold coins, but currently the lowest price was one gold and seven silvers—around one point five gold, basically.

I continued to watch it drop for about half an hour, ordering another coffee once I did so. When I saw the first price at less than one gold, I stood up and checked the listing. Going below half the price, given the 50% discount from the sale, would be about the lowest I expected it to go.

My eyes widened slightly when I saw the seller, however. Aquila. Okay… nah, fuck it. It’d be interesting, if nothing else. Maybe I could channel some of Mheitai’s energy.

The sale listing gave me an objective marker pointing off to the side of the circle, so I began to move in that direction. Weaving through the crowds was easy with the massive amount of Athleticism and Dexterity this character had, and pretty soon I caught sight of Aquila.

He wasn’t alone—Tysian and Arca were with him. My stomach began to fill with icy apprehension, but compared to the feeling of being shoved into the wrong body, it was nothing. My willpower hit the anxiety like a snow-plough train—there wasn’t anything they could do to me here other than deny the sale.

Arca saw me first, her eyes tracking me with idle interest. Her gaze dipped to glance over the rest of me, and— she was checking me out! She was eating up my skin-tight leather like the thirsty little rat she was.

Then, she focused just over my shoulder and I saw the realisation dawn on her. Very few people had the Daydream Recurve, and with the similarity in aesthetic that’d come from the character’s gender swap… Well, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Plus, my player tooltip would let them know who I was, even if the name was slightly different.

Arca nudged Tysian, and Aquila followed their gazes with curiosity, then a scowl.

“Hey,” I said, arriving at their group, looking at Aquila. “Selling Rellcreds?”

The other rogue eyed me with an entire bath-full of suspicion, but nodded anyway. “Yeah.”

All three of them were staring at me, probably trying to figure out if it really was their ex-friend inside the bombshell body. Tysian especially was staring at me with open awe. His eyes were wide enough that they might pop out entirely if he were hit in the back of the head.

I smiled at him. “How are you doing, Tysian? You’re kinda staring.”

Despite how shit he was at standing up to his monstrous girlfriend, he wasn’t actually that bad of a person. There’d been a time where we were besties, honestly. Before everything with Arca happened…

Beside him, a flash of irritation flickered over Arca’s face and she jabbed him in the ribs. He winced and looked at her, but she ignored him and fixed me with a falsely indifferent stare. “Of course he’s staring. You were kicked out of the guild for a good reason.”

“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that, because, like… it wasn’t really true. There was so much nuance to the situation that any clear cut statement like that was just not very factual.

“Why do you look like a girl?” Aquila asked, looking more amused than anything else. “Kinda cringe, dude.”

It took me a second to think, and in the end I just shrugged and told the truth. “It felt right. I didn’t actually pick the looks, but I’m happy with them.”

“It’s not cringe, Aquila,” Arca said, cutting back in, “It’s hypocritical. You run into someone’s private bedroom and throw slurs, then what, become trans? I…” she took a deep breath, glancing at her boyfriend. “It’s so disrespectful. Honestly, it feels like appropriation.”

For some reason, I had to crush the urge to laugh at her. I couldn’t really fully articulate why I thought it was funny—maybe it was the way she was trying so hard, or getting so upset, or maybe it was just how ridiculous it all seemed.

“Appropriation?” I asked, curious what she’d say. I was new in my identity, but it was a solid, foundational part of me now, and her whining wasn’t going to change that.

“I mean, isn’t it obvious?” she asked, glancing at Aquila briefly before looking up at her boyfriend.

Before she’d turned to him, there’d been the slightest frown on his face, but as soon as she was looking, he nodded. Fuckin’ typical.

The snort of amusement slipped out of me before I could catch it. “It sounds stupid.”

Her tail rose behind her, and she stared at me. “It is stupid. It’s stupid that you think it’s okay. I guess it just goes to show that we were right to kick you, if you’d double down like that. Come on, guys. Let’s not sell to her—or him, probably.”

Oof, the misgendering did actually hurt.

“Right!” Aquila said, turning a smirk on me. “Because he’s still a guy in a pod, even if he looks like a girl here.”

“I’m not sure that’s a very nice thing to say,” Tysian said quietly, surprising all three of the rest of us. He even shot Arca a look. “We should definitely leave… but being cruel isn’t okay.”

“It’s not cruel!” Arca shot back instantly, her expression becoming wounded. “It’s true, he hasn’t said anything about his pronouns or whatever it is, he’s just—”

“You’re all wrong,” I said with a laugh and a shake of my head. “You’re all wrong and it’s honestly fucking embarrassing.”

“How are we wrong?” Arca asked, looking distressed. She tugged on Tysian’s arm, pulling his hand down so she could thread her fingers possessively through his.

“For one thing,” I said, with a wide, almost victorious grin. “I’m fucking dead. You remember the Hamilton hospital terror attack? Yeah, I was there. I was forced to digitise or get shot by a bunch of masked gunmen. I heard them executing people further down the hall. I heard the SAI turning their bodies into bombs to buy the rest of us time. So yeah, I don’t have a body anymore. Not that it even matters, because if I turn up like this… respecting my appearance and gender is kinda the right thing to do. Wouldn’t want to be hypocritical like me, right?”

I said the last with a laugh and a pointed stare at Arca, whose expression began to hover alarmingly between enraged and panicked.

“Let’s go,” she whispered to Tysian, pulling him away with their joined hands.

He went quietly, although he did shoot me another inscrutable look as he did so.

Aquila went to follow, but I said, “Really, dude? You're going to run away from a trade?”

He stopped, watching the other two leave, then scowled and flicked through a series of UI windows I couldn't see. “I have two hundred Rellcreds to sell.”

“I have enough for all of them at the price you listed,” I said calmly, while inwardly I was fucking ecstatic. God it felt good to walk up to these assholes and just… shrug it all off.

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “Not doing that price with you. One gold, one cred.”

“That's fine with me,” I shrugged. It was a one-to-one fair price that aligned with the normal one and the current discount.

He opened the trade with me, and staring each other down we went through the process, waiting for the other to try something. Neither of us did.

With the trade done, I watched the three of them hurry over to where more of Silver Ridge were hanging out in a cafe including Harvest, one of the annoying DPS people who promptly pulled the finger back at me. I shook my head and turned and headed for the store.

I made a beeline for the utility section and immediately picked up the crafting satchel for eighty Rellcreds. It was expensive as hell, but totally worth it. I'd be using the thing for a long, long time.

Then, I began to wander around, looking at all the items. There were the usual things like infinite waterskins—worse than my gameplay-acquired one—or lightstones. I grabbed a few infinite waterskins because there were a million places in the inn where we could use them, but then I saw something really interesting.

It was labelled as a culture incubator and dispenser, which wasn't terribly descriptive until you realised the context it was used in. It was for baking and brewing and all that stuff. Basically, you could put some signature bacteria or fungus into it, and then it would always be able to dispense a pellet of the stuff, ready for use in making bread, alcohol, cheese, or anything else. Vesuvia's fledgling bakery would absolutely love this thing.

In the end, I had enough to buy the satchel, four waterskins, and the culture incubator. I was so happy with the haul, and immediately I transferred everything into my Account-Bound Lockbox. As I was doing so, I noticed the key I got from the same boss that dropped my sword. I figured I'd transfer it to my main along with everything else, but it turned out to be character bound. I wasn't even allowed to trade it. In the end, I didn't care enough to figure it out. It was probably something to do with the dungeon I got it from, anyway—a quest item or something. It wasn't important.

Anyway, if I hurried, I might get home before everyone went to bed, at least. No, maybe I should just store all the copper in the bag, then log out and make the trip in the morning. That seemed like a better plan.