Ch. 87 - Silent Mindreader

Congratulations! For duping a [Holy Knight] using the sweet saccharin power of chocolate, the class [Con Artist] has been upgraded to level 2.

Your personal skill [Con Artist] has become a class skill, and upgraded into [Silent Mindreader]. This upgraded skill can be cast silently, meaning you can simply think it, and it will cast. [Silent Mindreader] has all the same mechanics of [Con Artist] – unearth a deep desire or fear from your target – but can be done silently, so they don’t stab you when they realize the trickery!

You have also gained the additional skill [White Lie Detection]. [White Lie Detection] is a passive skill which gives you a 25% chance to tell if someone is fibbing.

“It’s rude to look over the shoulder of someone receiving a courier,” Teddy – still posing as Lord Gunther – reminded Roland, who was peering over Momo with barely disguised interest. The knight startled, tearing his eyes away. Momo startled just as much, immediately willing the parchment into non-existence.

“I was doing nothing of the sort,” Roland grumbled, cheeks flushed. He gave Momo an annoyed look before moving on. He sat at one of the many booths inside the Pickpocket’s Kettle, a tavern in the city’s Old Town. It had been the closest place for food and drink that Momo came across, so she had quickly ushered the knights into it before they could ask any more troublesome questions.

A piggish snort drew Momo out of her thoughts. It originated from Sumire, whose head was laying facedown on the bar. The woman had briefly woken up to enjoy a single beer, another of Momo’s chocolates, and then fallen into a narcoleptic slumber almost instantly.

“She’s so much less scary when she’s asleep,” Teddy whispered to her. He was sitting at the barstool to the left of her, enjoying his fifth beer since they arrived thirty minutes ago. Momo would have wondered if his nerves were getting the best of him, but she knew five beers was a normal amount of consumption for the man.

“Can I get you anything, Ms…” the bartender, an Eldergoat with a name tag that read Meeples, trailed off as she stared at Momo’s helmeted face. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Coco,” Momo said, grateful for the disguise. It prevented the average townsfolk from comitting any accidental, potentially life-ending slip ups. “Do you have any apple juice?”

“We got cabbage lemonade.”

Momo felt suddenly nauseous. Kalendale’s cabbage beer had been barely stomacheable, but that sounded like an unholy combination.

“Do you have anything with fruit in it?”

Meeples considered this, turning to look at the kegs behind him.

“Is pork a fruit?”

“Nevermind.”

Sumire snorted loudly again, apparently so loudly that she shocked even herself, her eyes popping open abruptly.

“What kinda drink has pork in it?” she mumbled.

Momo jumped in her seat, nearly flying off the barstool. She can hear things while sleeping? Teddy had come to the same frightening conclusion, giving Momo a wide-eyed glare. He quickly made a bee-line towards one of the booths, not wanting to risk another confrontation.

“Porkchop Martini,” Meeples answered, shaking a canteen. Momo noticed an active grill to his right, sparkling with heat. It was built into the bar, as natural as a sink or a mini-fridge. “Gin, vermouth, amethyst cider, and a delicious cut of Lesser Demon Boar.”

Red smoke began to ripple around the canteen. The harder he shook it, the more engulfed in red it became. Momo wrinkled her nose. The red fumes smelled of magic. She had come to be familiar with the odor. Each type of magic had a distinct variation, but the core smell was the same – an old library book, nostalgic, warm, and a bit sweet.

“It’s an old Nam’Dal delicacy,” he said, and Momo could tell instinctively that he was lying. Must be that new skill. He poured the contents of the canteen into a martini glass. Dripping the froth of it like latte art, he drew the foamed face of a pig on the bubbly surface.

Sumire reached for it, but Meeples waved her off. “It’s still missin’ the chop.”

With the grace of a ballerina, he danced a pork chop off the grill and onto a small plate. He cut an incision into the meat, and placed it on the side of the martini glass like a drink accessory. It reminded Momo of those cute umbrellas they’d sometimes top drinks with, only this one was adorned with red pork belly.

“You done now?” Sumire said, eyes not quite open. Momo admired her ability to see without looking.

“Enjoy.”

She graciously took the drink, swallowed the porkchop in one swoop, and then downed about half of the glittering, red liquid. She ate like a drunkard, her drowsiness dampening her movements. She wiped her lips, passing the glass to Momo.

“Best drink I’ve had in a decade,” she mumbled. Within a breath, her eyes were closed again, and she was asleep.

Looking at her, Momo laughed. She couldn’t help but be charmed by her weird form of narcolepsy. There was something so endearing about someone who only came awake to stab, threaten, or eat. Well – maybe endearing to Momo, and probably no one else.

Still, she had to remember that Sumire wasn’t a friend. It was hard for Momo to keep that straight. She was never good at keeping enemies. She was so forgetful with grudges. Katherine W. bullied her through grades 2 to 11, and even then Momo signed her graduation yearbook with ‘going to miss you!’

It had been completely genuine. At least Katherine had paid enough attention to her to come up with a different degrading nickname every Tuesday.

But times were different now. She had actual friends, and only two thirds of them were animals. Valerica was still more of an insane workplace manager than a friend, but she was sweet in her own way. Radu was kind of a frenemy, but a loyal one. And Salvo was technically a bird – but a talking one. So she counted that.

Staring at Sumire’s head, Momo decided it was time to get the upper hand. She looked around, making sure no one was watching her. Wordlessly, she cast [Silent Mindreader].

It worked just as it did with the Earl. It was as if someone walked into her brain, yelled a few pieces of choice information, then slammed the door on their way out.

She’s afraid of Roland. It was the clearest fear of the bunch, sticking out like a green weed in a patch of dead grass. She didn’t give a rat’s ass about the rest of her crew, but there was something murky going on with the dense, blonde ringleader. It didn’t feel like loyalty, or fierce allegiance, or primal, physical fear. It was mental. It felt bad.

Momo instantly hated the guy.

She looked over to find him playing a round of billiards with Radu and fake Lord Gunther. By the greedy look on Teddy’s face, Roland had to be losing terribly. Momo couldn’t imagine someone like Sumire being afraid of him. He was all arrogance and hair.

Momo turned back to the half-consumed drink. She sloshed it around experimentally, her ravenous curiosity forcing her to tip it into her mouth. The liquid sizzled in her mouth like Pop Rocks.

“Oh, wow,” Momo said, feeling everything at once. “She was not lying.”

She finished the drink in one swoop, then shoved the glass back towards Meeples.

“I’ll have three more.”

—

Momo was smashed.

She smiled giddily as she twirled around on her barstool. She felt like she was in an old-timey movie, her vision clouded like film from an antiquated camera. Everything was high contrast and low-detail, fuzzy and overly bright. It was fun.

“You look happy,” Sumire smirked, poking at Momo’s shoulder. Momo jumped, actually falling out of her seat this time. She crumpled into a jumble of limbs, taking at least a full minute before she stumbled back upwards.

“Sorry,” Sumire chuckled. “Didn’t realize you were so structurally unsound.”

“My brain doesn’t really control my limbs. They do their own thing,” Momo giggled, sliding back into her seat. The dozing knight was fully awake now, or at least as awake as she got. She was staring at Momo with an amused smirk, bordering on flirtatious.

Oh God.

Momo had to be hallucinating. This was what alcohol did to people, right? It made them see things that weren’t there. Under no circumstances would a beautiful pirate-knight be flirting with her, especially while she was wearing a full suit of armor, helmet included.

Momo paused, raising her hands to her head. There was no helmet.

“Missing something?” Sumire laughed. She gestured to Momo’s discarded knight helmet, which she had somehow managed to throw across the bar in a spontaneous game of helmet-basketball. The hoop had been an open beer keg, and she had successfully gotten a three point shot inside, much to Meeples’ chagrin.

“I don’t remember doing that,” Momo mumbled stupidly. “Alcohol is very bad.”

“I’m guessing you don’t drink often.”

“Once or twice,” Momo said, and then realized she had to clarify. “A decade.”

Sumire did that odd grin of hers.

“That doesn’t surprise me. You look like one or two drinks could kill you.”

Momo frowned. “I’m sturdier than I look.”

“Says the girl who fell to the floor after I poked her.”

“It was a surprise poke.”

Sumire’s grin widened. Well rested as she was now, it looked much more human.

“Can I ask you a question?” Momo slurred, accidentally leaning towards the other woman. “How does your cloak work? Are you always sleepy? Or just most of the time?”

“Well aren’t you nosy?”

Momo’s cheeks reddened, and she swayed backwards. She waved her hands around apologetically.

“M’sorry. Curiosity. I have too much of it now,” she frowned. “Intelligence points are so unhelpful.”

Sumire narrowed her eyes.

“Intelligence points? And what is a Knight doing with those?”

Shit. Momo swallowed. Stupid mouth.

“I like to read books,” she said, her biggest lie of the entire day.

“Is that so,” Sumire said, tipping her head with curiosity. “What kind of books do you read?”

“Lots.”

“That’s hardly a genre.”

“Fiction,” Momo clarified, speaking a bit louder than intended. “Um, stories. About people.”

Sumire leaned in close to her. Momo’s heart picked up as the knight scoured her face. It was as if she was searching for something – a mole or a freckle that would whisper some kind of secret.

“You’re a pretty bad liar,” she frowned. “But I like that. Good liars are the worst lot there is.”

She looked like she was going to say something else, but Roland interrupted them. Shoving his way through the packed tavern, he jabbed his arm between the two of them, staring daggers at Sumire.

“I’m done losing to these cheating lowlifes,” he spat. “Nothing to see in this city except for another badly run shanty in the King’s domain. I say we leave now, before the others leave for the Quest.”

“I quite like this badly run shanty,” Sumire said, giving Momo a small, winking smile. “And I have no interest in your Quest.”

Roland’s scowl deepened, his hand turning into a fist. For the way he looked at Sumire, Momo had the deep desire to smack him.

“Well, I have no interest in your interests. You’re a part of this brigade, whether you like it or not. We’re going,” he commanded, receding from the bar and stepping backwards. He straightened his armor, and hollered for the rest of the knights, pulling them from their games and gambles.

Finally, he turned to Sumire. His next words felt venomous.

“Unless you want the King to hear about this.”