Dream Read Free Page B

how tough the enemy is. Jeff mentioned having moral reservations about being an assassin, well, that’s a valid point, but its moot if it turns out we’ve got five baddies homing in with hostile intent. I’m not really interested in killing any more people than I have already, but I will make an exception for anyone trying to kill me. My point is we need to take stock, ruck up, and get moving. After that, we need information. When we have information, then we can sort out a real plan. Everybody on board?”
    Everyone was.
    “All right, first thing is, who are we now? The basic soldier skills Uncle Sam taught us are useless without the goodies that go with them. My ability to manage a security systems company isn’t any use, either, any more than any of your jobs. But it turns out that now we have new skills. Me, I’m a Jinxman, level one. I’m not very good with a sword, but I’m better than I was back home. My main gig is I can make charms out of junk, and these charms will do useful stuff like healing, protection, all sorts of stuff. Think of them as on-call spells. Later on, I can do stuff with runes, but I’m not sure what. I also know a lot more about primitive medicine and medical stuff than I used to. Derek?”
    “OK,” he frowned, concentrating. “I’m a Shadowmancer. I can’t fight for squat, although like Shad I know more than I used to about hand-to-hand stuff. Quarterstaff and dagger. I can cast spells, but as you can guess, just low-level stuff. I get my title from how I gather power: I harvest darkness into magical energy. Night is best, but even shadows will work. Once I’ve harvested power, I use it to make spells. As I go up, I can store more power, harvest it more efficiently, and get access to more spells. Right now I can do a couple magic bolts and that’s about it.”
    “OK, good. No more light spells,” Shad gestured towards the ball of light that was still hovering over Derek. “Fred?”
    “I’m a Bear-warder, it’s a barbarian warrior type. Basic fighter with the ability to channel the Bear spirit for extra power. Looks like I’ve got tracking and outdoors skills, a lot more than I used to, anyway.”
    “Jeff?”
    “Night-grifter. Looks like a combatant thief type. I feel comfortable with my weapons, seem to know a lot about traps and locks. No pocket-picking or wall-climbing, some advanced stealth so far as I can tell, but pretty good palm object skill and apparently I can use poisons at higher levels. Say light combatant with entry skills.”
    “OK, now we’re cooking,” Shad nodded. “We seem to have all the bases covered, skill-wise, as much as low-levels can. Main thing we lack is knowledge about what is here and what we are facing. Still, we’ll do that as we go along, I guess. OK, get your packs, and let’s get an inventory of resources.”
     
    “Looks like we got the tools of our trades,” Shad observed. “OK, we’ve got basic field gear, a total of about six man-days of food between us, and everyone but Derek has a canteen or waterskin. Derek, why are you always a shit-bird?”
    “Hey, I remembered to buy rope and spikes.”
    “Whatever. What we don’t have is much missile fire or money,” Shad gestured to the small pile of coins on the stump. “One gold coin, seven silver coins, and nine brass coins. Marks, shillings, pence. Twenty shillings to the Mark, twenty pence to the shilling, so we’ve got less than one and a half Marks. Anyone remember what the price list looked like? That might tell us what this is worth.”
    No one did.
    “OK. Derek, you hold on to the dossiers. Fred, divide up the food-that’s a day and a half per man, so make it count. Everyone take two pennies for pocket money, and Derek you hold the rest. Put it someplace very safe.”
    “Pouch around my neck,” Derek shoveled the coins into a small velvet drawstring pouch. “Found it in my pack- for a second I thought it was a dice bag.”
    “Good. Now, this is just a strip map,