by Macronomicon
Jeb sat there and thought it through. If a bulb was roughly approximate to a thousand dollars, then an assassination would probably cost anywhere between ten and a couple hundred bulbs. If the keegan expected he could pay the pirates two thousand for the return of his daughter, then there was no reason to think he wouldn’t be able to afford to sic people on Jeb’s ass.
Becoming scarce was starting to sound like a good idea.
“What’s the enforcer gonna do to him?” Jeb asked, faintly hoping that would solve his pissed-off rich guy problems.
“Slap on the wrist. He’s a Citizen. The laws are far more lenient for us.”
Jeb frowned, glancing at Zlesk. “You’re a Citizen too, right? How do you go about becoming one?”
“A hundred bulbs and a Class above level thirty, or reach officer rank in the military.”
“So, what, you buy your way in?”
“My family bought my brother and I citizenship when we hit level thirty,” Zlesk said, nodding.
“Rich boy.”
“Philistine.”
“Well,” Jeb said, standing and dropping a few coins on the table as a tip. “Thanks for the advice. I think I’ll get started on it. I liked your town and I hope to see you again.”
Zlesk waved dismissively as Jeb left the bar.
******
Jeb was in his room at the inn, packing up his shit while Smartass gushed. She’d been hiding in his collar the entire time, unable to speak for fear of someone—especially the enforcer—noticing her existence.
“That was so awesome! You pulled that off like a true fae! I mean, taking his daughter’s trust as payment? That was… I mean…”
Smartass gripped her skull before making explosion noises and spreading her hands outward. “B’CHEW!
“A stroke of brilliance. It was like watching one of the ancients at work,” she babbled while Jeb stuffed a backpack with all his goodies. Lenses, a change of clothes, a box of .44 ammo, and some dried food.
“I see you liked it,” Jeb said.
“Liked it? Liked it!? Do you have any idea how long it takes for typical mortal wizards to get the hang of procuring Myst through Bargains? And the sheer amount!” she said, holding out her arms and wiggling her fingers.
“I can feel the power flowing through my veins! Kneel before me!”
Smartass cackled and zoomed around the ceiling, insect wings humming as she did.
Jeb glanced down at the ring. He hadn’t bothered to check the profit from the Grenore job yet, but Smartass seemed pretty pleased with it, which made him curious.
If the headache was any indication, it had been pretty decent.
He took off the ring and used it to appraise himself.
Jebediah Trapper
Mystic Trapsmith, Level 39
Accolades: Krusker’s Brawn, Siren’s Cunning, R-R-RubU’s Mysteries, Gresh’s Subtlety, Innovator, Lagross’s Power
Body 21 (9)
Myst 71 (16)
Nerve 26 (10)
Abilities: Mystic Trigger
Accolade Pending: Lagross’s Power suspended due to multiple instances. Awaiting resolution.
Attention, this User has been flagged for exclusion from The System by executive order.
Nine points in Myst and a single point in Nerve. The equivalent of ten levels.
Not a bad start.
Give Jeb a couple months to grow his Myst Core to the new limits, and he’d be moving a few hundred pounds, easy.
That, in turn, would make it easier to engage in more high-stakes Deals, and raise his survivability.
Hold on, Jeb thought, slipping the ring back onto his finger. He had to consider why he was doing what he did. Power for the sake of power never ended well.
He had to find a niche for himself.
Maybe open a business where I rescue children for exorbitant prices. Jeb chuckled at the thought.
Another thought: Jeb didn’t have to follow the same path as before.
He glanced at the immaterial insects wading through the Myst settling near the floor of the inn. One of them was about the size of a large rat with a gaping maw that seemed to strain the Myst like a whale’s filter feeder. It passed through Jeb’s foot without a care, leaving a wake of slightly off-color, blue-tinted Myst behind it.
Can’t say I missed the hallucinations.
Jeb had chosen to raise his Myst exclusively during the Tutorial because he felt that magic would be the way to break the game, and that had been the right instinct.
Now his instincts were telling him…
Don’t overspecialize.
When he had no clue what kind of trials would be heading his way, a more well-rounded approach would likely offer more ways to survive.
Well, payment is typically material in nature, anyway. I don’t think I’ll have any problem getting Body, as long as I continue making Deals.
That settled, Jeb got back to work packing to skip town, idly itching his scalp as he did.
There was a lump on his head.
The fuck? Jeb thought, standing straight and searching for the lump with his fingers.
Nothing? He probed, poked and prodded his scalp with his fingers, not finding anything.
That was weird. Jeb sighed, running his whole hand over his head to dispel the heebie-jeebies.
There was a lump.
Ice settling in his stomach, Jeb reviewed his short-term memory, prodding exactly where he had felt the strange thing. Nothing. He pulled his hand down and looked at it.
The Appraiser sat there on his right ring finger, looking innocent.
Oh, you son of a bitch, Jeb thought, folding back his index and middle finger, using only his ring finger to prod his skull.
There it is. To his ring finger, it felt like something was attached to his skull. Some kind of zipper-like object just above the skin, seemingly welded in…. Needless to say, his other fingers couldn’t feel a thing.
Jeb switched the ring onto another finger and probed with that one.
Still there. Definitely the ring’s doing, then.
What the ever-loving hell is going on here? Jeb thought, poking the lump some more.
It twitched.
The lump on his head twitched.
Okay. There’s something alive in or on my skull that only exists when touched through the Appraiser. I only have one question: Is this the appropriate time to panic!?
Knock knock.
Jeb’s gaze darted to the door.
“Not a great time,” Jeb said, his voice a little higher than he might’ve liked.
“Jebediah Trapper?” The enforcer’s voice came through the wood. “I’d like to speak to you about kidnapping and capital punishment.”
Chapter 8: Getting Out of Dodge
Jeb eyed the window, a bit of cold sweat forming on the back of his neck. He could try to make a run for it, but he was fairly sure this lady would take that as an admission of guilt. Not to mention, Jeb didn’t see himself winning any kind of footrace, the inch of hardwood between them notwithstanding.
Jeb took his magic finger off the magic lump and reoriented his attention. It probably wasn’t going anywhere, and he had prettier fish to fry at the moment.
“Yeah?” Jeb called, motioning for Smartass to hide. The fairy tucked herself behind Jeb’s backpack while he clomped his way to the door.
He opened the door and found himself tilting his head up slightly to meet the melas woman’s gaze. She had pale eyes with dark striations through the irises.
“I half expected you to run.” She gave a faint smile.
“Me too,” Jeb said, crossing his arms and straightening his shoulders. “So did I kidnap Ms. Grenore by some technicality and you’re here to deliver the punishment?”
“Well, yes and no. May I come in?”
“Of course,” Jeb said, moving aside and leaning against the cabinet beside his bed. He really didn’t have to worry about tactics or placement when the woman in front of him had enough strength to make t
hem pointless.
“So—ow.” She bumped her horns in the doorframe on the way through, and Jeb decided not to say anything.
“So yes, technically you did kidnap Ms. Grenore, in the strictest sense of the word, and no, I won’t be punishing you for it. The girl is better off with strangers than her conniving Veek of a father, so I figured she was in less danger during a few hours spent with you. No harm, no execution.”
“Are you allowed to bend the rules like that?”
“We exercise our best judgement.”
Damn, it’s kinda like Judge Dredd up in here. Kinda.
“Then what’s this about capital punishment?” Jeb asked.
“I actually wanted to talk about other kidnappings,” she said, idly rubbing the base of her horns.
“Other kidnappings?” Jeb asked. “Which have what to do with me?”
“You’ve shown a talent for dealing with Impossible situations, and a fondness for rescuing children. I thought you would like to put your natural inclinations to work.”
“To work how?” Jeb asked, his nerves settling down now that he knew he wasn’t going to get beheaded on national TV. The mention of Impossible situations didn’t escape his notice, though.
“Many miles to the south, the city of Solmnath is home to a rather large population of human refugees left destitute after the Stitching.”
“California had a lot of people, yeah,” Jeb said with a shrug.
“It’s a dense population crammed full of non-Citizens with little to no trust in the empire. It’s a breeding ground of discontent and also…”
She glanced at him meaningfully.
“It’s a perfect hunting ground for a reaper,” Jeb filled in for her.
Packed in like sardines, limited food, no ability to interact with local government, no help from, nor trust in the law. That was a recipe for some absolutely awful conditions.
“Couldn’t you find them?” Jeb asked.
“I probably could,” Vresh said, nodding. “But there are different kinds of reapers. Some of them subtly pick off a child here and there, growing like a slow cancer. Others try to race to the finish line before they can be stopped.”
“What about the third kind?” Jeb asked, crossing his arms.
Vresh’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“The ones who hunt other reapers for the government. You’ve gotta be gaining a lot of power from this job.”
Pow!
Jeb’s vision filled with stars for a moment, his cheek stinging from where Vresh had slapped him.
The melas stared at him, her body giving off waves of heat that nearly made Jeb take a step back. He felt his arm hairs curl up.
“Those kinds of reapers exist. I am not one of them. I was born into a house that views service to the people as noblesse oblige. That includes hunting reapers. I take no joy in this duty.”
“Noted,” Jeb said, massaging his cheek. Looks like implying someone is a reaper is a good way to get slapped. Good to know.
“Let me guess. The slow reapers are on the bottom of your to-do list,” Jeb said.
“Indeed. I could spend several days hunting down the man behind vanishing children in ones and twos, but during that time, a few more villages on the outskirts might disappear.”
She met his gaze. “I can’t be everywhere at once.”
Harsh logic.
“I do, however, have the authority to deputize individuals for specific tasks,” she said, reaching into her pocket and producing a dull metal plate. It was about two inches from edge to edge, and fit easily in the palm of Jeb’s hand.
The front was emblazoned with what appeared to be the bust of a melas woman.
“Show that to the right people, and it’ll open doors,” she said.
“And the wrong people will get me lynched, I assume?” Jeb asked.
“Yep. It has one additional function: If the plate is broken, I will know it, along with exactly where it was broken.”
“Interesting,” Jeb muttered, staring down at the burnished token.
What we’ve got here is some kind of magical Bat-Signal.
The art was sort of a stylized painting of the enforcer, all solid black lines depicting the melas. The simplicity of the design drew more attention to her shape, which was, in a word…curvy.
“And if I wasn’t interested?” Jeb asked, glancing back up.
“I wouldn’t do anything to you,” Vresh said with a shrug. “I may have to mention you to my superiors though.
“You know, when the Impossible Tutorial reported the examinees had broken out, I missed the culprits due to the time dilation, but I remember the description of their leader.”
Vresh tapped her lips in thought.
“A one-legged man with brown hair growing out of his face. Telekinetic Myst Core. Mystic Trapsmith Class. Odd then, that when the humans who completed the Impossible Tutorial were teleported to the emperor’s palace, nobody by that description arrived. The humans themselves seemed pretty confused and distraught.
“Jebediah Trapper,” she said, wiggling her fingers ominously. “The one that slipped away. I wonder what my superiors would do if I were to give them your location. I’m sure they’d have a lot of questions.”
“Relax,” Jeb said, his voice flat. “I never said I wasn’t interested.”
“Oh.” She straightened, ominous voice—and fingers—falling away. “Good.”
Jeb seemed to only be able to keep his shit together for extended periods of time if he was under a ridiculous amount of life-threatening stress.
Why not save kids while he was at it? That was killing two birds with one stone.
“How far away is Solmnath from here?”
“About three weeks’ journey to the south. Follow the coast, and you’ll eventually come across it.”
And a decent place to get lost in.
“When you find the one vanishing children, deal with it yourself if you can. The Mark should only be broken for emergencies that threaten the lives of hundreds, not you specifically. I’d prefer you save it for a rampaging Leviathan or something.”
“Alright,” Jeb said, pocketing the Mark. “Then I’ll make you a Deal: I stop this reaper from killing children, probably via murder. In exchange, you don’t tell anyone about me.” He hoisted his backpack up and onto his shoulder. There was a tiny grunt from where Smartass was hiding in one of the pockets.
“Sounds good to me. Agreed,” Vresh said, folding her arms across her chest.
Click. Jeb felt the Deal settle into place and a sudden urge to travel to the south.
“Then if that’s all, I’ve got a destination in mind, and something to do when I get there.”
Vresh nodded and moved out of the way, allowing Jeb to leave the room without any further discussion.
******
Jeb closed his account at the inn and asked for directions to the nearest caravan heading south.
Kalfath’s major export had been crude oil lenses that got shipped south and east to major cities to be refined and used for lamp fuel, lubricant, firestarter, what have you. They were also shipped up north to be used to heat homes.
Garland Grenore was an oil baron in every sense of the word, except he lacked a title.
More recently though, the desert town had experienced a boom of prospectors and had begun shipping lenses of everything from lumber to gold and fish.
It was with one of these caravans hauling the bounty of Oregon that Jeb bought himself passage south to Solmnath for a cool five bulbs.
Long-distance travel in the empire wasn’t as easy or as safe as it was on Earth. The caravan wasn’t interested in giving a human passage at first, but when he made the coins dance over his palm, they were willing to compromise. Myst Cores made people dangerous.
Jeb spent a lot of the time riding in the back of a wagon, just watching the dusty desert roll by. It was almost as hot in the shade as it was in the sun. Jeb felt for the melas in the driver’s seat, the hot sun b
eating down on him as he guided the draft animals.
The draft animals seemed used to it. They were some kind of dark brown, thin-haired ungulates with proto-elephant noses. Like those fat pygmy…things you see on the Discovery Channel every now and then.
The comparison stopped there.
The draft animals’ noses were covered with teeth at the end and they seemed pretty adept at biting holes in cactus before suckling as much moisture out of them as they could. The noses were always looking for something to latch onto, and more than once, he’d witnessed an irritated melas driver boop a snoot for being too inquisitive.
The caravans were still figuring out their trade routes again, what with the Stitching of large swaths of land into the strange quilt that was Pharos. Roads and trails that had existed previously now ended abruptly, forcing them to forge new roads. Sometimes, they ended with a towering slice of mountain, and they had no choice but find another way around.
The most distinct thing was all the withering west Oregon landscape interlaced with the arid desert it’d been stitched with. Already, Jeb could see that most of the vegetation was dying, if not all the way dead, and the desert was slowly encroaching on the formerly human territory.
Owing to the unrelenting heat, Jeb bit the bullet and figured out what a ‘mountain river’ lens could do: ice cold water, with only the occasional grit and algae. A real man doesn’t filter his mountain water. He gets lockjaw and he likes it.
Owing either to pure mountain spring water, or simply Jeb’s improved tolerance to disease, Jeb didn’t feel any effect, and kept drinking/spraying himself with river water whenever the heat became intolerable…which was often.
Much of the rest of his time he spent messing around with his new gold lenses. Jeb had disassembled the fireball Luger for more legal transportation, keeping the Myst engine and the wand itself as far away from each other as was practical.
He popped the Myst regulator out of the Beautiful Revenge and rewired it to one of his gold lenses. The gold lenses were about the size of a dime, and they looked like a chip of white quartz streaked with a bit of gold in the center.