Chapter 84: The Feeling is Mutual

So she did want to murder me! That bitch. That fucking bitch!

Wait, Hecate, hold on. Don’t jump to conclusions. She probably just wants to murder Pieruś. I bet she put out that quest so she could kill him herself. I glanced at the cat, but he didn’t appear concerned. In fact, he was looking a bit smug. Did he look more smug than usual? Was she actually going to kill me?

Jagoda geriatrically shuffled forward and slowly raised the knife. I turned to Kasia, who was observing with wide eyes. “Kasia,” I whispered. “Are you seeing this?”

Kasia nodded.

“Is grandma going to kill us? Am I going to have to retire her?” I asked. What if she got all over the pierogi? The meat ones were delicious, it would be a total bummer. I really didn’t want to waste good pierogi.

“What did you say, Anna?” Jagoda asked, knife raised high above her head, still creeping towards us.

“Um—um, Jagoda, what a big knife you have.” I stammered.

“All the better to kill you with, my dear!”

“W-what?”

“The cupboard gets stuck sometimes, so I use this big knife to pry it open,” she said with a chuckle.

I turned back to Kasia and narrowed my eyes. “Did she just say ‘all the better to kill you with?’”

“What?” Kasia asked.

“Nothing,” I said. Maybe I misheard her. Maybe my paranoia got the better of me.

“Fucking psycho,” Pieruś said.

Jagoda stuck the knife in the offending drawer and wiggled it until it came loose. She then opened it and pulled out a small cloth bag. She held the bag up and shook it. It sounded like there could be multiple runestones inside. Would be a shame if those fell into the wrong hands. Clearly those things weren’t safe with Pieruś around. Maybe he had stolen the chaos seed from poor old Jagoda as well.

She set the bag on the table and put the knife next to it. She opened it and rummaged around until she found what she was looking for. Slowly, she pushed a small round runestone towards me. I cast [Artifact Index] on it just to be sure.

[Vortex  Runestone]

Weapons: Steal a percentage of Mana per hit

Gear: Regenerate a percentage of maximum Mana every second

She wasn’t lying. It really was a Vortex rune.

“Go ahead, take it,” Jagoda said, hand hovering over the knife. Was I going crazy? My eyes flicked to Kasia, she didn’t look alarmed. Then I remembered I had [Quickdraw] and I was actually fast as heck. Why would I be scared of an old lady? I could probably shoot her twenty times before she could fart. Hell, I probably could shoot her and Pieruś twenty times before either of them could even blink.

I tossed the runestone in my satchel and grabbed another meat pierog. I took a bite and took the time to really savor the flavor. The meat ones were crazy good. Possibly one of the best things I’d ever eaten. Why anyone would ruin such perfection with impossibly sour cabbage was beyond me.

“We should make these back at our place,” I told Kasia with my mouth full.

“I can make them,” she said. “If we get the right ingredients. It requires flour, so… we’d need someone to carry that.”

“That’s unfortunate. Maybe we should take Kuba along next time… or expand our storage.”

I eyed the open bag that was still sitting on the table. I couldn’t see inside but if my ears had not deceived me there could be even more runestones in there. I gestured to the bag. “Got any more where that came from?”

Jagoda grabbed the bag, held it up, and gave it a rattle. “Oh yes, I was lucky to collect a bunch of them during my lifetime.”

I tried to give her an innocent smile. “You wouldn’t happen to be willing to part with any more of them? For a price or a job, of course?”

She looked contemplative for a moment, but then shook her head. “Sorry, dearie, but I don’t have any more jobs, and these runestones are worth more to me than coin.”

Understandable, but it was worth a shot. Unfortunately it also appeared that she had no intention of killing me, so shooting her in the face and taking them would be rude. Not shooting her in the face and still taking them would be less rude, but still quite a bit ruder than I imagined myself to be. I was no thief after all, and generally an agreeable person.

That one cloak didn’t count, because I was planning to return it. That it now lay in tatters somewhere in Berava was no fault of mine—I had always treated it with the utmost care and respect. No one could have anticipated those bandits popping out of nowhere and riddling me with holes. Obviously I couldn’t return the cloak in its current state, which is why I’d left it behind.

I should really look into getting a new cloak. For myself, of course. I’m sure the guy whose cloak I took had replaced it by now and wouldn’t need a new one. He’d also reported me to the Church, so he was also an asshole and didn’t deserve me buying him a new cloak. Anyway, somehow I got sidetracked, but I wasn’t done here.

“Do you know any runestone combinations with Vortex?” I asked.

She nodded thoughtfully. “I do. Two of them.” She hesitated for a moment. “They are not commonly known, but they have been passed down in my family.” She gave me a once over. “They are for weapons only, though, and you don’t seem to be carrying any.”

“That’s alright,” I said. “Maybe one day I’ll get some. Wouldn’t hurt to know a runeword or two then. Would make the Vortex a lot more useful.” I nodded towards Pieruś. “I think he’d want me to know them. For saving him, of course.”

“Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?” Pieruś said.

Jagoda smiled. “Sounds like he agrees. I suppose you’ve earned it. I can tell he likes you.”

“What the fuck,” Pieruś said, scowling. “I don’t like her.”

Jagoda chuckled. I also chuckled. Clearly she couldn’t understand what he was saying, and I was very thankful for that. “The feeling is mutual,” I said, which earned me another smile from Jagoda.

She moved back to the cupboard and pulled out an old scrap of paper, unfolded it, and placed it in front of me. “Now, don’t go telling anyone you know these. They don’t exactly fall under the list of Church approved combinations. They may not even know of their existence, and I think it would be better if we kept it that way. Do you understand, Anna?”

I nodded. “I understand. I will keep your secret safe.”

Well that was interesting. Seemed like old Jagoda had some secrets of her own. For her to share this she must really trust me. Then again, she did have some kind of chaos cat. Maybe she also dabbled in it, or had during her younger years. Would explain how she was able to acquire so many runestones.

I looked her up and down. What kind of class could she have? Should I just cast [Soul Index] and find out? The cat had noticed when I did it, and I hadn’t been able to see its class. Somehow it had blocked or disguised it from my spell. What if Jagoda also had some type of blocking ability? Or what if she noticed I was trying to identify her class and got offended? I couldn’t risk pissing her off when she just shared not one but two secret family combinations. And I hadn’t even checked them out yet.

I resolved to keep being a good guest. Probably some type of magic user, I thought, so she would definitely notice if I cast [Soul Index]. Probably one on the edge of legality in Silesia, considering the cat. I was pretty sure at this point that the chaos seed had also been hers, and it made me wonder what other goodies she might have. A sack of runestones. A chaos seed. This unassuming hut was basically a treasure trove. If anyone knew all this stuff was here they’d probably kill her for it. Unless Jagoda had some tricks up her sleeve, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she did. Maybe Pieruś too.

There had to be a way to convince her to give me something else. She was old as hell, so she was probably going to die any day now, and I’m sure she also wouldn’t want all these powerful items falling into the wrong hands. Especially not Church hands. I’d be doing her a favor if she gave them to me. I wasn’t doing this out of selfishness or greed, I was thinking about what was best for her.

“Anna?” she asked, shocking me out of my thoughts.

“Uh, yes?”

She gestured at the paper. “You haven’t even looked at it.”

“Right,” I said, pulling the paper closer to see what these runewords were all about.

When I read the paper my jaw dropped on the table and my eyes popped out of their sockets. Figuratively, of course.