Mined Games chapter 5

I’d never actually been to the Ship of Fools. Poor people with little to no mana capacity have no real need of a black market. Which meant if I wanted to find the place I’d need a guide, and I knew exactly one person who might be able to do that. A person I really didn’t want to interact with if I could help it.

Sadly, I couldn’t, so I made my when down to the warehouse district, making sure my face was hidden in a hood to prevent as many people as possible from hassling me.

The place I was headed was the headquarters of the Nobody Boys. The Nobody Boys were a street gang made up of mid to low level Acolytes, and shockingly, had never been particularly brutal or cruel to me in a way others hadn’t. Sure they treated me like trash, but it was more dismissive than malicious.

My main worry here wasn’t based on personal dislike, but on their general goals and mission statement. Asking to be taken to the Ship of Fools was as good as admitting I had something on me to sell or to buy with, and there was a decent chance they would rob me. Or at least, try to, since my inventory would keep all my things safe.

When I arrived at the main warehouse I pounded on the door a few times, looking around to check if anyone was looking. They weren’t, it was safer for them that way, but more than that, the darkening street was empty as the magelight lamp posts began to glow.

A hatch at eye level snapped open as a pair of amber eyes glared out at me. “What?” Snapped a high pitched voice on the other side of the door.

“I’m here to see Riley.” The leader of the Nobody Boys was the one with the connections to help me, the rest of them were just vagabonds.

The eyes narrowed. “Why should he see you? You know him?”

“Nope.” I said calmly. “But we have a mutual friend.” I slipped a hand in my pocket and picked out a silver coin from my inventory. “Our good buddy John Silver recommended me. I’m sure Riley trusts his judgment.”

That got a snicker from the young boy on the other side. “Oh, him. He’s always sending losers to come visit. I’ll pass it on. Wait here.” The hatch slammed shut and I hear the echo of faint footsteps through the door.

Within a minute or two the kid came back, and the door popped open, revealing a smaller dark skinned boy with a mop of curly dark hair. “Riley says bring you in. But he also said that he doesn’t think John was sincere enough about his recommendation. He still needs to be convinced.”

I rolled my eyes and handed him another silver, wincing at the fortune this conversation was costing me. It was fine though. Riley was a brutal bastard, but he wasn’t in the business of accepting money and going back on his deals. Being a thief was fine, but being a traitor wasn’t a reputation anyone wanted.

The kid bit down on the coin, though I have no clue what he thought that would accomplish. Then he nodded solemnly. “Right. Come on then. I’m Andy. Keep up, if you get lost someone will probably kill you.”

He turned and strode off and I followed him with a sigh. I should probably be scared right now, but my sense of fear never really worked right about stuff like this. I found risks kind of exciting, one of the reasons I avoided gambling, because I suspected I’d picked up a penchant for it from my old man.

I followed Andy through the warehouse, eventually making it to another large metal door like the one out front, though slightly smaller and thinner. Andy rapped out a pattern on the metal, and the door popped open, revealing another small boy, a pale one with blonde hair covering one eye and the other blue one staring intently at me.

“Tyler.” Said Andy calmly. “The boss ready?” Tyler nodded, and Andy turned to me. “Alright, we’re waiting here, Riley doesn’t like us sitting in on meetings. Don’t think that means you can do anything to him though. He’s got people around to look out for him.”

I knew that. I also knew even if he didn’t and I COULD have hurt him, which I couldn’t, doing so would be stupid. Riley’s old man was Victor, who was basically the king of all the criminals in the city. It was why the nobles and the clans allowed the Nobody Boys to function when they could have easily sent some Apprentices to mop them up.

Stepping past the two of them, I headed into the room where the motioned. Andy was chattering happily to the other boy while they waited, but Tyler never said a word in response. I walked through the large room full of shelves and crates, the structures creating a mazelike set of halls.

Despite the feeling of there being so many options though, I just followed the row I was in, until I came out into a clearing in the middle. In that clearing was a large red and white rug, upon which sat a nice overstuffed leather chair, and what looked like some kind of standalone fireplace.

In the chair, sipping a warm looking amber liquid from a glass mug, sat Riley. I’d never seen the guy before, but he was a few years younger than me, maybe sixteen, and slim. Think unkempt dark hair and piercing green eyes sat atop a hawkish nose, narrowed at me in suspicion.

“Alright.” He said flatly. “Who are you and what do you want? I wouldn’t have let you in if you hadn’t overpaid. Dropping a silver for a meeting is either desperate or you’re loaded. If it’s the first I’m curious, and if it’s the latter I’m interested.”

I nodded to him, glad we’d never met, and that I was currently shrouded in this cloak. The thread of the cloak I was wearing was mana touched. Not enough for it to DO anything, but enough to make figuring out what circle of Acolyte I was basically impossible.

“I’m looking for something. Specifically, I need a better formula for mana condensation. The normal channels for that don’t have what I want, so I thought I could look elsewhere. My current formula is slow as hell. I want something faster so I can condense faster.”

That brought him up short. He gave me an interested look. “You…you don’t know how condensation formulas actually WORK, do you?”

I froze. I hadn’t had much formal education, so I just knew what everyone knew. Formulas were part of the condensation process. You could use them to make up for shitty mana sensitivity when it came to condensation speed. “I…” I floundered. What should I say? Something I’d said already was making me seem suspicious, if I doubled down without knowing what was up I’d make it worse.

Riley just chuckled. “So you’re a commoner then, and not from a clan either. It’s fine. That’s not my business. But if you’re going to be buying yourself a new formula, you might want to know what the hell you’re doing.” I stared at him, waiting, but he just laughed again. “That was your cue to offer me more money. I don’t run a charity here.”

I grimaced, fishing out another silver and flicking it to him. He caught it effortlessly. “A little light, but you seem interesting, and I get the feeling we might be working together more in the future, so I’ll cut you a break. What exactly do you know about formuli?”

“They’re…the second half of condensation. You can speed up how fast you condense if you have shitty mana sensitivity.” Even to me, my voice sounded unsure, but it was all I knew.

Riley shook his head. “That’s the shit they tell commoners because it’s less complicated. Basically, the formula is the blueprint for exactly what kind of mana crystal you condense when you hit Apprentice. Most people can figure that out, but that’s not the full story. A good formula can speed you up, but it can also slow you down.”

I cocked my head, and he sighed. “Ok, how to put this. Different formulas create different kinds of crystal. Different kinds of crystal creates different kinds of mana. Some kinds of mana are denser, some do special things that make spells easier. Making a more powerful type of crystal is more time consuming, but it puts you in a better spot long term. The type of mana you produce depends on the type of crystal you condense.”

“So…formulas can’t help you condense faster?” I said in disappointment. I’d been hoping to use that combined with the mana condenser to blitz through the early circles.

“It can.” Riley said with a shrug. “But the reason for that is usually either the mana type is extremely weak, or it’s very basic and the formula has been studied at length, which can produce strong mana, but formuli like that are extremely well understood to the public and there are usually countermeasures for those types of mana.”

Shit. That meant I was going to need to probably go with a really inefficient formula and just dump a shit ton of mana stones into the condenser to make up for it. I forced myself to move on. “Ok. Well I’m looking to find a good formula, which means I need access to a place to buy it.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I assumed you were hoping to get a ticket onboard the ship. It’s not exactly obvious where to find the place, since Edgebank is in the middle of a damn forest. There isn’t exactly a good place to dock a ship.”

That was true. It was something that had been confusing people in the city for years. If the Ship of Fools was in town, which most agreed it was, how the hell did they even get it here. “So.” I said leadingly. “Can you get me into the Ship?”

Chuckling Riley just nodded. “You know…I can. My day is usually pretty boring, but this was entertaining enough to be worth my time. I’ll help you get in, just to see what you end up getting.” He glanced at my pocket. “I hope you have more than a few silver though, because no way that buys you a decent formula.”

I obviously didn’t tell him I had ninety more, because as amusing as he found me I didn’t want to be robbed. I just smiled at him slightly, and he snorted in amusement. “Fine.” He hopped to his feet. “Come on then, let’s go.”

Surprised at how quickly this was happening, I decided to go with it. My pulse was pounding and I was having a blast right now. I followed Riley out, passing the other two, and a few more distant forms hiding around corners and behind things that I barely saw.

We headed out into the street, and he led me through the warehouse district until finally coming to an old abandoned house. We walked inside, then descended into the basement, and Riley pulled a book on an old bookshelf, waiting as the wall opened up to reveal a tunnel.

Following it down we arrived in a large cavern, and in the center of it, floating in a small lake, was a large black ship, with a series of planks leading from the shore to the deck. On the mast hung a large sail, with a picture of a smiley face with X’s for eyes and a triangle drawn on top.

We stopped as I stared at the imposing vessel. Once again, I wondered how they got the thing down here, but more than that, I wondered who had made it. The ship was incredibly well crafted, and the material felt powerful and dangerous. “Well.” Said Riley with an expansive gesture. “Welcome to the Ship of Fools. Watch your back.” Then he stepped past me and strode over to one of the planks. I guessed we were going in.