Apocalypse: Fairy System

by Macronomicon

  “This man claimed the five bulbs held in escrow for the rescue of my daughter at the Hunter’s Association,” Garland said, “only minutes before he met me to offer to return her for fifty times the original reward. He attempted to defraud me by charging again for a bounty that had already been completed and claimed.”

  “Mr. Trapper, is that true?”

  “Which part?” Jeb asked.

  “All of it.”

  “No.”

  “Truth.”

  “What? You said you would kill all the pirates and return her! That was already done! What else could it be other than fraud!?”

  Vresh glanced at Jeb and nodded. “Make your case.”

  “If you recall correctly, I said that after your daughter was returned, the pirates would no longer be drawing breath, not that I would kill them. In this way, I was not defrauding you by charging multiple times for the same rescue; I was charging you two hundred and fifty bulbs to walk her back to your office. The fact the pirates wouldn’t draw breath afterwards was simply a statement that was true.”

  “Truth.”

  “That’s kidnapping!” Garland shouted, earning a miffed glare from the enforcer. “He held my daughter for ransom!”

  “Mr. Trapper, did you have any intention to retain Ms. Grenore, should her father refuse to pay?”

  “No.”

  “Truth.”

  Jeb found the way the tycoon ground his teeth amusing.

  “It’s not illegal for a street vendor to charge two hundred and fifty bulbs for their product, is it?” Jeb asked. “I don’t see any reason why I could not charge that for the armed escort of a young girl.”

  “The disputed payment is two hundred and fifty bulbs? That’s fifty times the original reward?” Vresh asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Grenore. The original reward for the rescue of Ms. Grenore was five bulbs?” Vresh asked, her expression souring as she glanced at the keegan.

  “Yes. What of it?” he asked, missing the frown blooming on his daughter’s face as she sat right next to him.

  “Nothing actionable,” Vresh said, glancing back at Jeb. “Am I correct in assuming the agreement you had with Mr. Grenore was entirely verbal?”

  “Yes. And a handshake.”

  Vresh massaged her temples for a moment. “From what I have observed, Jebediah Trapper committed no actionable offenses against Mr. Grenore beyond being staggeringly misleading, which isn’t a crime.”

  “But—”

  “By that same token, imperial law does not enforce verbal contracts below the value of two silver. By Mr. Trapper’s admission, the service provided was a two-block escort to Mr. Garland’s place of business. The fair value of such a service falls well below small claims. Without a written contract, there is no legal impetus to enforce the outrageously inflated price.”

  “Hah!” Garland said, clenching a fist.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Jeb said. “You have no intention of paying me?”

  “You should have gotten it in writing,” the keegan said, radiating smug superiority.

  “You should’ve thought twice about fucking me over,” Jeb said. “I won’t be accepting apologies, Mr. Grenore.”

  “Fine by me. Now that our business is settled, get out of my office.”

  Now to get my payment through other means.

  In order to raise his Myst, Jeb needed to take something from the businessman that packed a lot of emotional energy and intangible value. Something painful, which would diminish his Impact over the course of his lifetime.

  Jeb had just the thing in mind.

  “Just a moment. Zlesk, I’m still working on picking up your written language. Do you think you could read this aloud for me?” Jeb asked, offering Zlesk the first letter.

  “Now? Can’t it wa—”

  Jeb shoved it into the sheriff’s hand. “Just read it.”

  He turned to Garland. “I find a lot of people don’t consider the value of trust as much as they should. It’s a valuable currency, you know. Hard to earn, easy to lose.”

  “Is this real?” Zlesk asked, glancing at Jeb.

  “Oh yeah.” Jeb grinned.

  Zlesk cleared his throat. “Grenore. I do not care about your mewling protestations. The situation favors us. The Stitch has dropped a veritable fortress in the form of the Split Mountains between you and your beloved mines. A fortress I own.”

  “BLACKMAIL!” Garland shouted at the top of his lungs, leaping to his feet.

  “Blackmail is the threat of exposing damaging information in exchange for money. I never threatened to release this information,” Jeb said. “Not blackmail. Punishment.”

  “YOU!”

  “Sit your ass down,” Vresh said, shoving the keegan back into his seat. “I want to see where this goes.”

  Zlesk glanced nervously at the imperial enforcer and kept going.

  “I know how far you’ve overreached with your new mine. I heard it straight from your foreman’s mouth before I broke his jaw. I have you by the balls, and you can do nothing to change it short of paying us our due. If you want your shiny new lenses back, you will give us no less than two thousand bulbs in imperial marks…

  “However, I’m nothing if not understanding and generous. If you can convince me to accept collateral of equal value, we will allow your workers to return to the mines, such that you can gather the money needed to appease us.”

  “That’s stolen! He stole that from me!” the keegan shouted, growing desperate. “He made it up! It means nothing!”

  Jeb caught it when Vresh’s ear twitched.

  Jeb adopted a playful voice. “You know, I’m pretty sure I saw your men hauling lenses into the warehouse under the office a week ago, the day I returned your daughter…. What’s the round trip to and from your land? Three, five days?” Jeb gasped. “That must mean that a couple days before, they got past Svek’s men somehow! Did they already have the collateral? Hmm…”

  “Don’t! I’ll pay! I’ll pay you, just stop!” Grenore said, struggling to reach Jeb as the imperial enforcer held him in place with an iron grip. Beside him, Seraine Grenore’s eyes were slowly growing wider, and Jeb could see the connections slowly forming in her mind.

  Jeb felt a deep pang of guilt for pulling the rug out from under a nice girl, but she wanted control over her fate, not blissful ignorance. So, painful or not, Jeb was going to deliver.

  “Oh, look at this other letter I found in Svek Pederson’s personal effects!” Jeb said, pulling out the second letter.

  He handed it to Zlesk.

  Zlesk read over it once, and glanced at Seraine. “Do you think perhaps we should read this some—”

  “Read it,” Seraine said. The keegan girl was standing now, trembling like a leaf, but her voice was resolute.

  Vresh nodded.

  “No! Don’t re—”

  The enforcer clapped a hand over Grenore’s mouth, silencing him. “Read it,” she said.

  “Okay then.” Zlesk cleared his throat.

  “The collateral will be visiting the Ironseed property on the edge of town on the fourteenth. I’ll make sure her guard is otherwise occupied. If I find any harm has come to her, I will rain down such destruction upon you that your ancestors will feel it.”

  “You realize they were probably gonna harm her, then blackmail you with this letter, right?” Jeb asked.

  Vresh removed her hand from the guy’s face.

  “It wasn’t me!” he said, causing the Truthseeker in Vresh’s ear to twitch. “Someone else could have done it!”

  Jeb and the imperial enforcer shared a glance, the same thought going through their heads: This guy’s lost it.

  Jeb spotted a stack of papers on Grenore’s desk, and sent out a thin thread of Myst, snatching one up and bringing it to his hands. Vresh tensed up for a moment, watching the strand of Myst.

  She can see Myst. Good to know.

  “It kinda looks like your handwriting,” Jeb said, scanning
the paper. “I mean, I can’t read but… Zlesk, does this look like the same handwriting?”

  “I think you’ve made your point,” Zlesk said, folding the two letters and putting them in his pocket.

  “Nah, I got one more thing,” Jeb said, glancing at the bodyguard trying to remain inconspicuous in the corner.

  “Hey, Mr. Bodyguard. Were you the one who was supposed to watch Seraine that day? If so, what exactly happened that separated you from her?”

  The hulking melas turned a lighter shade of orange and glanced at Vresh before pressing himself farther back into the corner, seemingly unwilling to say anything at all.

  “Enough,” Vresh said, drawing the attention of everyone.

  “I am the law here, not you,” she said. “I will sort this out, and you will leave. Your role here is over.”

  “Sure.” Jeb shrugged. “I got what I needed.” He glanced over at Seraine. “Ms. Grenore, you chose a painful truth, but I believe you’ll come out stronger for it. I wish you luck in taking the reins of your destiny, and if you ever need help, visit me. I will hear you out.”

  Jeb nodded before spinning on his peg and heading out the door. A moment later, Zlesk caught up with him as Jeb exited the doors of the first floor and burst into the dry air of the desert city.

  “What in the Roil was that?” Zlesk demanded. The sheriff’s jaw dropped as they passed a poster glued to the nearest wall.

  It had Garland Grenore’s name and likeness on it. Underneath the picture was a short and sweet blurb, reading: ‘I gave my only daughter to pirates. Imagine what I’ll do to you.’

  Every ten feet or so, there was another poster. Same picture, same message.

  Jeb nodded in satisfaction as the ice pick headache began to build between his temples, scanning the poster-studded streets. Fifty bulbs well spent.

  “Eck-ban,” Zlesk muttered, stopping in his tracks. “You really went for it.”

  “Had to make sure it stuck,” Jeb said as he clomped along.

  “But this is just…overkill.”

  “Fucker shouldn’t have stolen my silver coin,” Jeb muttered.

  “Is that why you did this?” Zlesk asked. “Ruined that man and his daughter?”

  “The vast majority of it is because he gave his daughter to pirates,” Jeb said. “I’m not that petty. But I have to admit there’s a certain satisfaction that wouldn’t be there if he hadn’t stolen my silver coin.”

  The headache kept growing until Jeb felt like someone was stomping on the back of his eyeballs with cleated shoes.

  Just gotta get back to the inn. Then I can suffer through the Myst sickness in peace, he thought to himself. Before he realized it, Jeb was toppling forward, the only thing stopping his descent the sheriff’s palm. He could barely hear the keegan’s words through the throbbing in his brain.

  “Uuugh,” Jeb said in response, hoping it was the right answer. His eyes were both crossed and unfocused, making it extremely difficult to see.

  The sheriff responded with some more words lost in the pounding of Jeb’s skull, then began to haul him away.

  When Jeb’s senses began to return to normal, he found himself sitting in a booth at the local bar, fingers clenched in a death grip around an iron beer stein.

  “Why?”

  “Because you stood me up last week,” Zlesk said, glaring at him from the booth.

  “I told you it would be different,” Jeb said with a half-hearted smile.

  Zlesk gave him a flat stare.

  “You’re lucky you got away with that stunt you pulled with Grenore,” Zlesk said, shaking his head. “You were in front of an imperial enforcer. There were so many ways that could have ended with you dead. If you hadn’t baited her with Garland…”

  “Pfft. At no point in there did I tell a lie.”

  “Yeah, and you admitted to some very borderline criminal activities.”

  “They’ll never stick.”

  “You know I could have you executed for forgery any time I want?” the lawman asked, raising a brow. “I’ve still got you dead to rights on that one, you slippery bastard.”

  “Why are so many things punishable by death!?” Jeb demanded.

  “Because it’s difficult and expensive to imprison people with Classes.”

  “Wow, didn’t expect a straight answer,” Jeb said. “Anyway, I’m sorry. That day ran long, the stab wound made me sleepier than I thought, and I forgot the beer.”

  Zlesk grunted. “Don’t worry, I’m saving arresting you for something more egregious than forgery. I want you to get famous first so I can get promoted.”

  “Don’t call it forgery,” Jeb said, opening a tab with the barmaid with a silver. “Call it ‘correcting your embarrassing underestimation of what Jeb Trapper is capable of’.”

  “You were right, and I was wrong, alright?” Zlesk said with a scowl. “That’s the only reason I’m not stuffing you in a cell right now.”

  Jeb shifted in his seat to grab his pitcher, his pegleg bumping against the leg of the table as he did.

  That gives me an idea.

  “Change of subject,” Jeb said, filling his first mug. “How much would a fancy prosthetic run me?”

  “You could get a nice one with a false foot and a couple heavy-duty springs to smooth out your gait for a bulb or so. If you wanted something better than that, with magical support, tricks and some kind of spell imbued into it, it could run you as much as, oh…fifty to a hundred bulbs.

  “You couldn’t get that one made in Kalfath, though,” Zlesk said. “A little city like this one isn’t gonna cut it.”

  “What if I wanted someone to regrow it?” Jeb asked.

  “Good luck,” Zlesk said with a chuckle. “That’s a matter of having a powerful healer owe you a big favor. They’re in extremely high demand, and getting access to one is more a factor of being a powerful aristocrat than simply having enough money to throw at the problem.”

  Bzzt.

  Jeb blinked as the table in front of him flickered and resolved into a video feed.

  “Still getting used to those,” Jeb muttered, moving his beer out of the way. The way the empire could push video to everyone inside its borders whether they wanted it or not felt very dystopian.

  “Hi there!” Jeb blinked as Amanda’s cheery face showed up in front of the camera, followed by Brett’s chiseled good looks. “I’m Amanda Courvar!”

  “And I’m Brett Courvar,” Brett said, smiling at Jeb with his stupid perfect teeth.

  “Speak of the devil,” Jeb muttered, taking a sip of his beer.

  The camera zoomed out to show the fitness model couple standing in front of a stack of paperwork.

  “We’re here today to kick off a series about how to get along in this wild new world! Welcome to the first episode! I hope it helps as many people as possible!” Amanda said.

  “Today’s episode is about how you can register a homestead and apply for a three-year tax exemption,” Brett said.

  “Three years?” Amanda asked, eyes widening in surprise. “That’s a long time!”

  “Long enough to get on your feet, anyway,” Brett said, nodding.

  “The registration is free for humans! All you have to do is—”

  With a wave of his hand, Zlesk dismissed the screen in front of Jeb.

  “…How?”

  “I’m a Citizen,” Zlesk said with a shrug.

  “Fucking traitors,” Jeb heard a human mutter across the room, where the scruffy man was watching the Courvars trying to give him vital information.

  Sure, they were slutty sellouts, but they weren’t bad people. Jeb didn’t really expect anything less from them than whoring themselves out for massive success. There were certainly more insidious things they could be doing than public service announcements.

  “That man owes me a night with his wife,” Jeb grumbled, turning his attention back to Zlesk. The sheriff was watching him with a cocked brow. Smartass was looking at Jeb with a similar disapproving look from atop
the keegan’s hat.

  “What? It’s the truth.”

  “And when did you meet two of the humans who survived the Impossible Tutorial?”

  “Where do you think?” Jeb asked.

  “You know, lying on your census information is—”

  “Punishable by death?” Jeb asked.

  “A serious offense,” the keegan said, eyes narrowed to slits.

  “I didn’t lie. You just came to the wrong assumptions.”

  “You’re gonna have to visit me and sort out that paperwork.”

  “I don’t wanna.”

  “Jeb…”

  “Look. I’m safer if I’m a nobody on paper,” Jeb said. “Due to reasons I don’t really wanna get into, I came out of the Impossible Tutorial actually weaker than I went in. I don’t want the government knowing about me just yet.”

  Zlesk flickered in front of him, and the table jumped in place a bit, making their beer slosh around in their mugs.

  Jeb blinked.

  “I guess you’re telling the truth,” Zlesk said, taking a sip of his beer.

  “Did you just reflex test me?” Jeb demanded as he felt a sting on his cheek, a drop of blood rolling down his face from where the sheriff had nicked him faster than he could see.

  “Maybe.”

  “Fucker.”

  “Murder Hobo.”

  Zlesk eyed him for a solid minute before speaking again. “Alright. I’m willing to leave your census as is if you tell me how you beat Svek Pederson and his crew.”

  “Do you know what a cleansing wand is?” Jeb said, leaning forward.

  At the end of Jeb’s description of the Beautiful Revenge, Zlesk waved off Jeb’s explanation of how it had turned the pirates into burger, saying he got the idea.

  “That magic item hasn’t been added to the list of prohibited weapons yet, but I’m gonna make an executive decision as the sheriff of Kalfath and say this: I don’t want to see it inside city limits, understood?”

  “Yessir.” Jeb saluted.

  The two of them drank in companionable silence for a couple minutes, mulling over the events of the day.

  “I think you should leave,” Zlesk finally said.

  “Eh?”

  “You might have bloodied his nose pretty good, but even like this, Garland Grenore’s got more money and influence than you do. The only reason you pulled that off is because he didn’t see it coming. You can bet your ass he’s paying more attention to you now. If I were you…I’d probably lay low for a couple years. Avoid dark alleys.”