by Macronomicon
“Well, if there’s one thing I’ve accomplished today, it’s that I’ve found some at-risk children to kidna—er, preemptively rescue.”
After a bit of hopping around and some advice from concerned onlookers, Jeb found a prosthesis shop where he ordered a custom-built, spring-aided piece of wood to walk on. Since he put five bulbs toward the down payment, they let him walk out with a simple loaner. The height was a little off compared to what he was used to, but Jeb had plenty of time to get used to it on the way to the Working Stiff temp agency.
******
“Oh man, that was a lot of children…and I’m pretty sure that big one could see me. Children usually have a bit more Myst when they’re younger. You should have made some Deals with those kids. Something as small as a little girl’s stuffed teddy bear could’ve gotten us some serious juice.”
“I didn’t think of it while they were pointing guns at me,” Jeb said dryly.
Smartass perked up for a moment. “Did I ever tell you why we fairies like children so much?”
“I don’t think you did,” Jeb said, carefully clomping along the cobbled street, trying not to stumble on his loaner leg and cane.
“Then get ready for another Wizard Lesson. I don’t know what the official word for the phenomena of children having more Impact is, but I like to call it ‘time value’,” she said.
“Lifespan?”
“Exactly. When you’re young, you have tons of Impact simply based on the sheer amount of potential lifespan you’ve got remaining, barring violent or untimely death. If you take away a piece of a girl’s innocence by trading her dolly for food, that experience echoes throughout her entire life. Boom, huge amounts of Impact for the price of a loaf of bread.”
Smartass grinned maliciously, rubbing her hands together.
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with taking a child’s innocence,” Jeb said, glancing at her askance.
“Oh come on, they’re losing it by themselves all over the place. Why not take a piece of the pie?” Smartass waved her hand dismissively. “Childhood innocence has tons of Myst and is great for the skin. Why else do you think so many lady wizards use it?”
“I’m starting to understand why Pharos society labeled you as a menace.”
“Who, me?” Smartass asked, her cheeks dimpled.
“Fae in general.”
“Pfft. They just haven’t adapted to us. Not like humans have.”
“Oh?”
“You humans are innoculated. You’ve got cautionary tales about making Deals with strange forces in the woods passed down from mother to child for thousands of years in every culture. Thus, when a stranger comes up and offers you a Faustian Deal, you’ve long since been conditioned to nope right out of there. Pharosian natives don’t have that kind of deep history with us. Not yet, anyway.
“Did I use ‘nope’ as a verb correctly? I’m still absorbing modern human vernacular.”
“You used it right….” Jeb fell silent as he thought for a moment while he walked.
“Are you implying fairies existed on Earth?”
“Wizards, too, as recently as four hundred years ago,” Smartass said, perching atop his head. “Then we came to Pharos.”
“Why?”
“Idunno,” Smartass said, kicking her heels against Jeb’s eyebrows. “You’d have to ask an older fae than me. Good luck with that. They tend to be mean and not as awesome as me.”
Smartass slapped her hands on her cheeks, nearly outside Jeb’s field of view. “Ohmygosh, does that mean I’m about to stop being awesome?”
“I think you’ll be fine,” Jeb said, considering the ramifications of Smartass’s words. Humans and fae coexisted as recently as four hundred years ago, and fae have only been on Pharos for a short while? One more mystery to ponder. Icing on the Weirdness Cake.
Jeb stored that information away for later perusal and focused on finding the human with magical gear for sale.
The Working Stiff temp agency was a new business, just started a month ago by an upstart human who’d bought a vast section of land off the northwestern edge of the city. It was reputed to be a farm/shop/labor rental service, run by a single human proprietor.
Jeb made out the shop nearly a quarter mile off, as the dense city died away to reveal row upon row of brilliant green vegetables sprouting in the beating sun.
How does he water all these? Jeb wondered to himself. Was there some kind of aquifer or irrigation he wasn’t aware of? He couldn’t see anything to that effect.
Gradually the scene became clear as distant dots resolved into strange figures carrying oversized buckets of water. Closer to fifty-five gallon drums, he thought, studying the creatures. They had to be bigger than he’d thought originally.
They definitely weren’t human, but Jeb honestly didn’t know what they were. From their silhouettes in the distance, they looked like driders from D&D, with a human upper torso, and eight long legs with knobbly knees.
Except they definitely weren’t driders.
As Jeb got closer, he could make out the strange creatures using the tools that were seemingly welded into their flesh to hoe, weed and shovel dirt, replacing the occasional unhealthy crop with a new one.
What horror is this?
They did say this guy was human, didn’t they? Jeb was starting to understand the general sense of unease people had when referring to this place.
When Jeb got close enough to see the whites of their eyes, he saw there was nothing but whites. The creatures’ eyes were glazed over with death, their skin slowly desiccating.
They were monstrous amalgams of body parts harvested from half a dozen different sources, fused together to make these makeshift all-purpose tractor creatures, then animated by foul magic.
One of the creatures reached down with a slender leg and tapped the single two-legged figure working in the field on the shoulder, gaining its attention.
It was a tall, slender man bearing a dusty hoe, wearing a woven straw hat over tufts of curly ginger hair, with a wet towel over his shoulders to help with the heat. He wore denim overalls over a white T-shirt, and some obvious signs of repeated sunburn on his forearms.
More specifically, it was Ron the Necromancer.
***Nancy, 8 years old***
“Did we have to try to steal that old man’s money? Stealing is bad.” Nancy didn’t really have the words to describe how bad making other people sad felt, so she put the feeling into the word itself.
“Maybe we didn’t,” Colt said, flicking the shiny coin the old man had thrown at them between his knuckles. “But we didn’t know that he’d actually pay us until after we attacked him.” The leader of the orphans chuckled.
Nancy frowned, trying to make sense of Colt’s logic. Sure, a few people had walked off with books without paying, and a few others had gotten answers, then left without paying, then…
Oh, I get it.
“Still, that was mean.”
“Gotta be mean to get by sometimes,” Colt said, pushing himself to his feet. “I’m going to go buy food with this. You guys lock the door after me, and don’t open it until I get back, okay?”
“Because of Slenderman?” Nancy asked.
“Pretty sure Slenderman doesn’t actually exist,” Darius said. The older boy with plastic gold chains around his neck was reading a novel with a flashlight.
“Jake said he saw him before he vanished. A tall, skinny man in a suit. With white skin!”
“That was a keegan.”
“But he was wearing a suit!”
“Keegan in a suit.” Darius shrugged.
“Hey.” Colt snapped his fingers and drew their attention back to himself. “Doesn’t matter who or what is taking us, only that it needs to stop. Lock the door until I get back, okay?”
“What kind of food are you buying?” Nancy gasped with sudden realization. “Can I get some Reese’s Cups?”
Colt frowned at her, an expression that Nancy couldn’t quite read. Sad…or angry? Both
?
“…I’ll try.”
“Yay!” Nancy did a double fist pump, like she’d seen her dad do whenever he beat a game. It felt good.
“No guarantees. Reese’s are getting…hard to come by.”
“Aw.”
“What else are you getting? They’re not charging gold for candy nowadays, are they?”
“Rice.”
“Booo!” Catcalls echoed from every corner of the bookstore as the children heaped disdain upon their leader’s plans.
“Deal with it,” Colt growled. “Rice will last the longest. Any idea when the next rich guy is gonna wander through looking for a book or a map?”
They felt silent.
“Didn’t think so.” Colt pocketed the coin and headed out into the dim hallway. It was dim now, but things started to get really dark inside the mall when the sun went down. The shadows looked deep and hungry during the day, with plenty of room for wicked things to hide.
At night, it was much worse, bad enough that Nancy couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Night wasn’t very far away, either. Colt would have to travel back through the dark.
Colt will be fine. He made it through the Hard Tutorial and can see in the dark. He’s practically a superhero, Nancy thought to herself before Colt turned and looked her in the eye.
“Lock. The door,” he said, poking her in the snoot.
“You don’t have to be mean,” Nancy said, sliding the door closed and flipping the knob with a click.
The painting on the door obscured Colt as she listened to his sneakers softly scuff away.
Darius stifled a yawn. “I’m gonna hit the sack.”
“Okay, good night,” Nancy said absently as she picked up a flashlight and began searching for something by Dr. Seuss.
Or whatever this is, she thought as she pulled out a book from the shelf. It had a pretty cover with weird, blurry ink on the front. Lots of blues and purples.
Purple is the best.
Nancy took the book to her bean bag and shook the flashlight until it was bright again, sounding out the words on the cover.
“The wait-chus…hand.” Nancy looked up for confirmation on her pronunciation before realizing that Darius had already left to take a nap. Or play with Bess. Those two had been playing a lot together recently. Nancy wasn’t dumb.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G. It was the biggest word she knew, mostly thanks to the song about it. Gross. Nancy rolled her eyes, copying mommy.
The story, from what Nancy could tell, was about when a witch crept into a kid’s bedroom, dripping snakes and spiders, breathing smoke, and the daddy…
Nancy felt the tears begin to take hold as she watched the evil witch menace the fuzzy-haired daddy with a snake-knife.
Just like my daddy.
But this daddy won, because mommy was there to help get daddy’s witch sword.
“Nancy.” A whisper came from the front door.
“What?” Nancy’s head came up, glancing at the paint-covered windows. There was a faint shadow against the glass, all distorted from the flickering firelight from the bazaar outside. It was about the right shape, though.
“Nancy, open the door. I left something here,” Colt whispered.
“Oh, okay.” Colt forgot stuff sometimes. It seemed like keeping track of all of them was a lot to remember, so he was a bit frazzled sometimes. That made sense.
I wish I could help more, Nancy thought as she set the book aside, walking over to the door and clicking the lock open. She put her whole body into opening the stubborn door, grunting as she tugged.
Once that was taken care of, she peeked out into the darkness.
“Colt?”
A pale white hand snaked out of the shadows and wrapped around Nancy’s mouth, dragging her into the dark.
Chapter 13: Networking
Ron glanced over at Jeb clomping down the road, patting his forehead with the damp towel. Then the Mystic Taxidermist did a double-take.
“Holy shit!” Ron dropped his hoe and leaped over the waist-high fence, landing on the dirt path outside his land and sprinting toward Jeb at a decidedly inhuman pace. Maybe not car speed, but definitely as fast as a four wheeler.
“Ron, hold up, I’m not—”
Ron tackled Jeb’s chest, sending both of them careening to the ground. The necromancer’s arms were like living iron, squeezing Jeb with no regard for the sanctity of his bones.
“We thought you were imprisoned by the empire or dead or something! What happened!?”
“If you don’t let go,” Jeb gasped, staring up at the sky, “I might be.”
“Oh.” Ron released Jeb’s waist and stood up, peering down at him quizzically.
Jeb decided to stay down a little longer, poking his ribs to make sure they were whole.
“So what’s up, man?” Ron’s eyes flickered to Smartass hovering above Jeb. “Smartass.”
“Ron,” Smartass said, arms crossed.
“You want the long story or the short one?” Jeb said, taking Ron’s hand and pulling himself to his foot.
“Let’s go with the long story. I got time.” Ron crooked his finger, and the nearby tractor-zombie lumbered closer.
“Tell Tony to bring the good juice from the bottom shelf, along with some ice, and a bunch of wood for a gazebo. Yeah, bring Jack and Jesus.”
“UUUurgh.” The zombie lumbered off.
“Semi-autonomous,” Ron said, motioning to the zombie with a flourish. “Figured it out a few days after we got out.”
“So what happened to everyone?” Jeb asked. “I’m very curious.”
“That makes two of us,” Ron said, motioning for Jeb to follow. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine?”
“Gross. But acceptable.”
Ron chuckled.
Ron led him to a gate leading to the inside of the property and together they followed a little dirt path until they came to an artesian well where water simply squirted out into the air on its own, and zombies lined up to fill water barrels.
There was a refreshing mist of water in the air, and Ron motioned for the rotting corpses to wander off while they sat down next to the splashing fountain.
Jesus and Jack were codenames for Ron’s lumber-based zombies, with saws, hammers, planers and more fused to their insectoid limbs. In a matter of minutes, they constructed shelter from the sun around the two of them while they spoke.
Jeb told Ron everything he could about the last couple months. He left out fairy Impact harvesting techniques and his suspicions about the lump on his head, but for the most part, he told the necromancer everything.
“That’s total bullshit,” Ron said, shaking his head.
“To be fair, option number one was killing me,” Jeb said.
“So you’re supposed to kiss the ground they walk on? Assholes.”
“I don’t think they’re universally assholes, or even evil,” Jeb said, rubbing the ring on his finger.
“Well, whatever. I’m sure you’ll be fine. You got a knack for being the underdog. What are you planning to do without a Class, though?”
“Ah ah.” Jeb held up a finger. “I told you what happened to me. Now you have to tell me what happened to everyone else.”
“Let’s see…” Ron said, setting his mug of fruit juice on his knee. “Well, when we got there, they congratulated us and threw this huge party.”
He stared into Jeb’s eyes. “I’m talking a huge party. And there was every kind of entertainment you could possibly ask for. I mean it. There were these melas dancers who—”
“How about we focus on the survivors.”
“Ahem.” Ron cleared his throat. “Right. So there we were at this party, and after the festivities had wound down, the emperor gathered us all together in the same room and he gave us this amazing speech about how we should all consider working together with the empire to ease the transition. Politics-type stuff, you know. He offered us citizenship for free as well as jobs to the ones who were interested.”
&nbs
p; “He said all this in the speech?” Jeb asked.
Ron frowned. “You know what? I don’t really remember the specifics of the speech.”
“You don’t remember, but it was amazing?” Jeb asked, little alarm bells going off in his head. “What’s your Nerve?”
“Twenty-seven,” Ron said, staring out into his farm, idly thumbing the handle of his drink. “Anyway, a lot of us took him up on the citizenship thing, but only a few people wanted to actually work for the empire.”
Let’s not poke at the gaps in his memory, Jeb thought. As far as he knew, twenty-seven was enough Nerve to remember nearly everything in crystal-clear detail. The specifics of a speech fell well inside that category. The fact Ron couldn’t remember the speech word-for-word implied Myst or a Class Ability.
“Who all did what?” Jeb asked.
“Well, Freeman retired to the remains of Louisiana, looking for family. Brett and Amanda jumped onto the empire train in exchange for land and titles. They’re technically the highest-ranked human aristocracy, now.”
“Those whores,” Jeb said with a grin.
“Yeah.” Ron chuckled. “Jess… She broke up with me.”
Jeb struggled to keep a straight face as the young necromancer tried to drown his sorrows in juice. A relationship that started with a fling spurred on by the certainty of imminent death wasn’t exactly the bedrock that you build a life on.
“She took an enforcer job. She’s off who-knows-where…killing people.”
“She did get the Assassin Class to start with,” Jeb said with a shrug. “That has to imply she was at least willing to kill people before.”
“I know, I know,” Ron grumbled.
“Casey and Mike, they didn’t take the empire job. They sold a bit of their share and opened a living restaurant. I was aimless for a while, then I realized if Casey can capitalize on free labor, why can’t I? So I decided to buy a farm. More of a plantation, really. In a couple more weeks, I’ll have my first crop!
“These boys are just smart enough to lend out, so I get a little extra spending money that way,” Ron said, patting Jesus the zombie carpenter on the leg.
“Why not take the empire up on the job thing?” Jeb asked, but he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.