Condition Evolution 2: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Sinclair, Kevin (black female authors txt) 📗

“How many arlars to a senlar?” Ember asked.

“Ten,” he said.

She looked at him doubtfully for a long second then spun around and walked over to a table where a beige alien sat. He looked smaller than most humans and very thin, yet the muscles on show on his arms bulged like steel cords.

“Ere mate. How much is that body worth?” she asked him.

He raised one side of his thick monobrow at Ember before he answered, “I don’t know. Maybe eleven, or twelve senlar.”

“Where can I sell it?”

“Information ain’t free, lady.”

“Show us, and I’ll give you ten percent. That’s a senlar and two arlars for easy work. If, he’s worth twelve.”

The alien jumped up, “Sounds good to me. Come on. I’ll lead you.” He drained his drink, then loped off on all fours.

Ember turned to the barman. “Fucking cheat.” She scowled. He just shrugged.

Ember turned back to me, “I’ll use telekinesis to carry the body, but you’ll have to hold my hand and guide me.”

“Sure thing. Though, I can carry him?”

“I’ve no doubt you can. Even so, I need to practice, and you’ve already done everything else. I’m starting to feel beholden to you and you know how I don’t like that. I need to show my worth. You nearly killed a whole town of fighters for me.”

“Well, me and Havok did.”

She smirked, “Thank Havok too.”

“I can’t believe you're giving me credit, and Ember’s thanking me. I fucking love you guys.”

“We love you too Havok,” I said, then looked to Ember and said, “I just want you to know, I still have no idea how to fly our rust-bucket. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t even be here, so quit your whiny shit and let’s keep doing this, together. If you need a load of people killing, here I am. For everything else there is you.” I took Ember’s hand and led her out the bar, followed by the disbelieving eyes of the patrons. Arguing with your girlfriend, while she casually levitated a dead body mustn’t be a thing here.

Once outside, we found our guide standing erect and leaning against the wall like a regular… uhm, alien. He had a really dishonest look to him, but I tried to shrug that off. Maybe I was just being racist. It wasn’t his fault he looked that way, or it could be his monobrow. Once he saw us he took off on all fours again. We followed hand in hand with ‘big blue’ floating carefree behind us.

We arrived outside of a non-descript doorway. There was no indication that it was a shop of any kind. “You’re not trying to pull a fast one here are you, dude?” I said, suspiciously.

He looked shocked, “No! I want the money you offered.”

Shrugging and taking him at his word, we entered the shop of the body dealer. Inside wasn’t actually too bad; It was clean and didn’t smell of death at all. A slender, blue alien with a tall forehead that was home to an extra pair of eyes stood behind the counter. He spoke as Ember floated the body in, “Ooh, nice specimen. A Grobar! Put him up here please,” he said, indicating a trolly bed next to his front desk.

Ember plonked him on top of it unceremoniously, and the dead alien farted. I couldn’t help but snigger. I was alone in this.

The body buying alien pulled khuout a pair of super spectacles. Yes, the full four lenses. We all waited silently as the body was examined. “How was the sternum broken?” they asked.

“I did it. I wasn’t expecting his sternum to be so long?”

He seemed to ignore my answer as he continued his inspection. “Hmm. The neck break is clean. Very nice work indeed. No blood loss. I pay extra for that. Very good,” he muttered half to himself, as he rustled under the counter. He counted out twenty senlars and slid them over. The little creep who brought us here was practically salivating.

“If you make any more cadavers, please do come back.”

“Oh, we will,” Ember said happily.

We left the shop and Ember handed over two senlar coins to the creep.

“You’re a good, tough fighter. If you want to make more corpses I’ll show you a good bar for fighting,” said the creep.

“No thanks,” I said, and Ember nodded her agreement with me.

“I don’t actually like killing, despite everything,” I said to Ember.

“I know you don’t, Shaun,” she said soothingly, then looked to our guide.

“Do you know any good pilots?” she asked him.

“For another senlar I do.”

“You just got two for next to nothing.”

“Give me another senlar and I’ll tell you,” he grinned. “If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone I meet that you’re carrying at least eighteen senlar around.”

I was a little surprised, and massively annoyed that the little shit had tried to blackmail us. Quick as a flash I grabbed him by the neck. “Do not threaten and blackma…”

He pulled a knife in a smooth motion, going straight to stab me. I was quicker, straightening my arm to hold him at distance. The knife stabbed into my arm, but the sudden jerking move somehow, completely accidently I might add, broke his neck.

I was momentarily stunned. “Shit, not again,” I groaned. “I’m going to have to start being really careful with my Strength.”

Ember patted me on the back. “Still glad you’re on my side, you damn brute,” she chuckled, which made me feel worse.

Taking the two senlar back out of his pocket, plus the few arlars the dangling corpse already had on him, Ember then nodded for me to go back into the corpse-collectors shop.

Five minutes later we were back out with another twelve senlar coins. Apparently, that was not quite so impressive a specimen. Nevertheless, yay for no blood loss!

“How's your arm?” Ember asked.

“I totally forgot about that,” I said, as I lifted my arm to inspect the wound.

“Don’t worry, it's healed Shaun. I did it straight away,” Havok said.

“Thanks Havok,” I replied, but still wiped the blood away