Chapter 9: Local Culture, Friendly Wildlife (Patreon)

“Shit!” Jeb stopped, dropped and rolled, lumps of armor plating flying above him. He rolled under the lifted Jeep, heart hammering in his ears.

Jeb whipped his forty-four out of the holster. He was too busy to feel the pain of the asphalt scalding his skin, or where the sudden jerk had banged his elbow against the metal underside of the car.

He was focused on Brav.

From his position under the car, Jeb could hear the creatures rebounding off the metal hood of the car, clattering softly onto the ground on either side, he could see the wagon driver’s plight, framed by the underside of the jeep.

The basketball-sized creature attached to his chest was pulsing in a way that couldn’t possibly be good for him as the wagoneer tried to pry it off.

Jeb aimed as carefully as he could with the shit going on around him and put two bullets into the monster attached to Brav. He was rewarded with the creature flying off in a spray of blood, devastated by the human weapon.

Jeb was about to give himself the old mental back-pat when three more monsters hit the amiable wagoneer, pinning him to the ground and greedily sucking the moisture out of the man’s femur, gut and neck.

Jeb’s eyes narrowed. One was survivable, but three…Jeb needed to take care of his own shit before trying to help a dead man.

Goddamnit.

Can’t stay here forever, Jeb thought, mind racing. He needed to find a place to shelter and think, and these things were numerous.

There were at least a dozen on the open asphalt between him and Brav, and who knew how many behind him.

Well, no time like the present.

He’d already been under the Jeep for a couple seconds, and the unattached creatures were unfolding into evil proboscis armadillos with thicc thighs. That’s where I draw the line.

In a couple more seconds, they were going to sniff him out, and Jeb didn’t want to get into a fight under a car. It just sounded like a losing proposition.

Jeb dropped the gun and reached up, snagging the guts of the jeep and hauling himself in the opposite direction of the creature’s origin. If there was a clear spot to stand it would be just behind the jeep, where they physically couldn’t have landed.

Moving light and quick like a teenager was barely enough to stay ahead of the death balls crawling under the jeep, looking for something to suck on. Jeb came to a stand behind the car in a little wedge of empty space. Everywhere else was filled with unrolling blood suckers.

Jeb took a quick breath and channeled a strand of Myst out, whipping it forward and tugging on the handle of the closest car, a rusty station wagon.

The door was locked.

Jeb broke into a limping sprint, focusing on the old vehicle’s peg-locks in the window, pulling them up before yanking on the door handle with everything he had.

The last week or so of dedicated Myst gathering had raised Jeb’s Myst capacity substantially, and yanking open the door of a nineteen ninety-two Buick Roadmaster fell within Jeb’s mind-bending supernatural powers.

Jeb put his head down and dove, jumping head-first into the front seat. The gear-shift punching him in the liver almost distracted him from closing the door, but he managed to curl his legs out of the way and tug the door closed with his mind.

Clank!

The escape only took about three seconds, and he’d only stayed ahead of the creatures by a hair. The succadillo bouncing off the car door was pretty good evidence of that.

“Ugh,” Jeb groaned, rubbing his gut and sitting up in the bucket seat and peering out the window, careful not to put his face too close to the window. No telling if these sonsabitches could pierce glass.

Jeb momentarily contemplated the horror cliché of getting trapped inside your car by a monster, your only means of defence tantalizingly outside of reach. In this case Jeb’s gun.

He rolled his eyes and formed a telekinetic hand.

Jeb’s ability to move things telekinetically fell into two different categories. He could either imbue something with his Myst and move it around directly, but he couldn’t bend the object itself, it was held rigid.

Good for bulk and immobile weapons.

Or, he could create exterior force and use that to act on an object, with allowed for more delicate and complicated maneuvering. In this case, pulling a trigger.

Jeb telekinetically reached under the jeep and grabbed his revolver before he blew away the closest four succadillos harassing his wagon, sending bits and pieces of keratin armor and blood scattering around the sizzling hot pavement.

Crap, empty. There were still thirty or so. This could take a few minutes.

Jeb glanced into the back of the station wagon as he was rummaging around the jeep for his box of bullets. The station wagon must have been some teen’s hand-me-down car from a parent or an older brother, because the supplies in the back spoke to a teen road trip.

Jeb snagged some Cheetos, red-vines, and a box of root beer, shoving one of the cheesy confections in his mouth while he watched what his telekinetic hand was doing.

It was hard to lift a backpack up with one mental hand, place it where he could see it, then rummage around in the pockets for his bullets, but Jeb was managing, slinging the strap on the back of the headrest then working his way to the pockets.

Smartass waved from the backpack, pointing to Jeb’s left.

Jeb glanced over and saw a group of melas and keegan ‘adventurers’ carving their way through the succadillos, using gear that looked specifically designed to penetrate the armor: short hafted picks with wicked sharp spikes at the end designed to ignore the armor.

They almost looked like those people picking up trash on the sidewalk, minus the reflective jackets...and a fair amount more acrobatics. They moved superhumanly fast, but not so much that Jeb couldn’t follow.

Presuming no  points in Myst, they’re probably clocking in…high teens, low twenties?

Jeb reached into the twelve pack and snagged a root beer, wincing when the hundred and thirty degree can scalded his skin. He reloaded his gun, setting it on the hood of the station wagon, then settled in to watch the caravan guards do their job.

All it took was a creative application of mountain river water flowing around the soda can, and within minutes, Jeb was kicking his feet up on the dash and indulging in a bitingly cold can of some of the last root beer produced in the U.S.

Tap tap. There was one of the Keegan adventurers standing outside the window, his face outside Jeb’s field of view.

Jeb worked the ancient window, rolling it down with the squeaky winch.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Trapper. The sand fleas are taken care of. It’s safe.”

“Damn, I kinda liked succadillo.” Jeb muttered, stepping out of the car.

He glanced out across the road and saw the caravaneers were taking stock of the situation, figuring out who needed help and who needed burning. Brav, unfortunately, was in the latter category. The hornless melas lay still along with two others on the side of the road.

The caravaneers were practical people, and the deceased were cremated quickly, placed atop a rather small pyre and burned, surrounded by their family, who seemed to take comfort in watching their loved ones reduced to ashes. There were tears, but they were quick to dry.

From what Jeb could glean, it was because people dying on a long trip was par for the course. Everyone threw in together expecting that some people would die. They were already mentally prepared to say goodbye to the people they travelled with.

The thing that Jeb didn’t get was why there was a general resentful look in the caravaneer’s eyes when they looked at him. As if he was personally responsible for the three deaths somehow?

Am I the albatross, perhaps?

The caravan guards explained it to him when he inquired about it.

“The caravaneers thought you might guarantee a safe journey. They believed you were a rather high level individual traveling in secrecy. They are simply disappointed that their expectations were unfounded. It’s no fault of yours.” The guard spoke while roasting a sand flea leg, waiting for the caravaneers to finish burning their dead.

“They feel lied to. Damn, people have gotten lynched for less. How do I manage this?”

“Clear things up?”

Jeb glanced at his jeep. He could ditch them here, but that was a last resort. As long as he didn’t get lynched, he had food, water and wheels, so he didn’t exactly fear for his life.

He sure as hell wouldn’t want to be alone through another monster attack, though. If he’d been standing where Braz had been standing…

Jeb shook his head.

“I’ll see what I can do. Thanks.”

Jeb approached Brav’s pyre, where his family were, sitting around the burning corpse, ignoring the desert heat. They almost seemed as if they were bathing in the thick smoke rising off the body.

“I’m sorry,” Jeb said without preamble.

“Sorry for what, human?” the nearest one asked, glancing over at him.

“Sorry I couldn’t have done more to help. I really would have liked to have saved Brav. He was easy to get along with.”

“I thought you had Myst. You said you had Myst. Myst users are supposed to be powerful!”  A small melas protested.

“I do have Myst, but it’s not good at dealing with sudden ambushes,” Jeb said, lowering his head in the universal sign of contrition. “I’ll help, but I’m not omnipotent. Please don’t blame me for this.”

“You took us to the road!” one of the younger melas said, standing. He was maybe twenty, with good musculature and an angry look in his eyes, but his horns were underdeveloped, speaking to his youth.

“Relax Los, the road had nothing to do with it, the caravan has profited greatly from the human’s knowledge.” The oldest melas present spoke.

He was near seven feet tall, not including the towering horns, with streaks of grey through his hair. He put his palm on the youth’s shoulder and pushed him back to a sitting position.

“It was not this human’s obligation to defend us. He is a paying passenger, not a hired guard, and yet he killed five sand-fleas singlehandedly, the first of which being the one attacking Brav. We cannot ask anything more from him. Come to terms with it and redirect your anger.”

An olive branch. Older minds saw the value in not lynching people.

“Thank you.” Jeb said, nodding.

“Thank you for trying to save my son.”

Ouch. The caravan master had some serious self-control.

“If you’ve nothing more to say, you should leave. The smoke is poisonous to those who aren’t related to Brav.”

Jeb blinked. “Of course.” He backed away and left them to their business.

“We’re born in fire, and we die in fire. It’s a fitting way to bring a life to an end, am I right?” A melas guard spoke, shoving a bottle of some murky substance into Jeb’s hand.

“Melas babies come out the pussy on fire?” Jeb asked.

“Of course, how else would we protect newborns and their mothers from Enoch’cheen? We saw how you took care of those sand fleas. Five is a bit of a low number, but it’s more than enough to earn you a drink.”

Jeb glanced down at the drink that looked something like an oil slick.

“Ah, what the hell.” He shrugged and took a swallow before his body immediately rejected it. It tasted like some kind of cross between motor oil and whisky, and it was not meant for human consumption, and Jeb fell to the ground, barely able to keep the bottle straight as he retched out the sip of nightmare fuel.

“Guess humans don’t like moros either.” Jeb felt the bottle lifted out of his hands, and he turned on his side, trying not to suffocate.

“I told you.” The keegan guard said.

“Shut up. One day a species will be Stitched on that properly appreciates fine drink.”

“My body is literally incapable of processing that.” Jeb said, groaning.

“See?”

“Bah.”

It took Jeb another half an hour or so to wash the taste out of his mouth, with a combination of bile and whisky.

During that time he sat around and chatted with the guards. Most of them were as he expected, somewhere between level twelve and level twenty. Their leader was the only one with a Class, but he wasn’t wealthy enough to be a Citizen.

“I wanna be a baker,” one of them said proudly when Jeb asked him what class he was planning on taking.

“What are you doing out here, then?” Jeb asked. “How does getting your ass killed by desert monsters translate to baking?”

“How else am I going to get to level twenty and get the class? It’s not like you can gain levels by staying in town and baking all day. Gotta do your part in protecting the people from the monsters of Pharos.”

“That’s dumb.” Jeb muttered, before doing a double-take at the people scowling at him. “Not protecting people from monsters. The fact that you can’t get levels for doing the thing you want to do. You’re making sure to bake a lot on the side, right?”

“Of course.”

Jeb tapped his fingers on the whisky bottle he’d scavenged out of the back of a dirty SUV. “So why baker?”

“You can be a baker without a Class in a small town, but I want to open a pastry shop in the city. A Class is just the kind of edge I would need to make it big.”

“Ah. So How many of the rest of you are here on your college thesis?”

More than half of the guard’s hands went up. The younger, more starry-eyed guards. Now that Jeb was alerted to it, he could easily tell the difference between the people who had chosen risking their lives as a career and the ones who were doing it to get their Class.

Going adventuring was almost exactly like going to college, with the exception of possible death. All Jeb had to do was look for the ones who seemed like they belonged in frat houses or sororities.

“What about you?” Jeb asked, glancing at the oldest guard, a wrinkled keegan.

“Caravan guard, level twenty-four. My class, and I quote, ‘Has a passive effect that negates the adverse effect of constant travel on my mind, body, and equipment.’”

“So the road feels like a relaxing cruise?”

“Basically.” The keegan shrugged. “When I set out, I was just like them. I wanted the levels to take over my dad’s smithy, but after I got a taste of the road…I guess I got wanderlust. Don’t worry about my dad’s smithy, I got seven brothers.”

“How about you? You ever get a class?” all eyes turned to Jeb.

“Oh sure, it’s Mystic Trapsmith,” Jeb said with a shrug. “Going through the tutorial, I wasn’t really concerned about picking what I wanted to do for a living, just living, you know what I mean?”

“Sucks.” One of the girls said.

“What’s it do?” a melas guard asked, perking up.

“A mystic trapsmith has something called Myst triggers,” Jeb said. “For example, if I  wanted to make a trap that would squeeze the trigger on this gun, all I would have to do would be to make a myst trigger and specify an event and a response. When the event happens, the response is that my myst squeezes this trigger.” Jeb said, pointing at his pistol.

“Your class lets you pull triggers on guns?”

“No, you can have it do pretty much anything you could normally do with Myst, but it has to be predetermined, it can’t think.”

“What kinds of events?” a keegan girl asked, cocking her head.

Jeb sighed. This is going to be a long night.

He was about an hour into explaining the concept of a chain of if/then logic, when the older guard shot to his feet, staring off into the distance.

“Keensha bra gosh!” the rail-thin keegan growled an expletive the System was too polite to translate. “Sand pirates! They’ve seen the funeral smoke! I told those fat fiery bastards this might happen! Everyone! Unless you’ve got rich parents or a boatload of money, I suggest hiding.”

There was a general cry of dismay among the college kids as they leapt to their feet, scrambling this way and that while their leader unsheathed his sword.

Way to inspire confidence.

Heart hammering, Jeb came to his feet and peered out into the distance. He could make out a tiny puff of sand in the distance, kicked up by something that was rapidly approaching.

“How much time do we have?” Jeb asked.

“Fifteen minutes, perhaps.” The keegan said. “Then they will kill all the male guards, sell or ransom the female guards, steal a large portion of the cargo, and let the caravaneers go unharmed.”

“Unharmed?” Jeb asked as that last phrase landed in his mind.

“Why fleece a breek only once?”

“Ah.”

The keegan glanced over at Jeb’s jeep. “Your wagon moves fast enough to outrun them, if you wish. I’ve seen you take it off the road.”

Jeb glanced at his Jeep. “We’ll call that plan B. In the meantime, I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. I’ve got an idea for how to get rid of them, and it shouldn’t take longer than a couple minutes.”

“That would be appreciated, Mr. Trapper.”

Jeb broke into a sprint, aiming for his car. He jumped over the door, landing in the open top and began searching through the backseat for his backpack…where Smartass had turned the footspace into a swimming pool.

“It’s sooo hot out here,” She groaned, splashing her feet in the water, likely summoned from Jeb’s smooth river rock. “I had to plug up a few holes with the clay lens, but I made the perfect place to cool off. c’mon, dip your toes.”

“Goddamnit Smartass, there’s rustable shit in here, and those holes are ventilation,” Jeb said, yanking the backpack out of the water and rummaging through until he came out with the fireball wand, still looking like a german pistol from the forties.

“You try to do something nice for people,” Smartass said, shaking her head as Jeb jumped back out, peg leg clacking on the ground as he landed.

He’d hidden the Myst Engine under the frame of the car with a strong hide-a-key magnet, as Jeb was fairly sure it was contraband.

The glass tube was gritty and wet.

I am so kicking her ass when this is over, Jeb thought, watching the dust clouds grow larger as he carefully, carefully cleaned and dried the Myst engine.

Jeb was able to see the distant figures well enough to make out individual bodies by the time he finished cleaning the engine. They were mostly beefy Melas, ranging from orange, to an almost reddish color. The one in the lead had some pretty epic horns, visible even from this distance.

They were riding a large flat ship that skimmed across the surface of the rocky desert, navigating the rocks seemingly without issue. Jeb wasn’t sure if it was decorative or an engine of some sort, but he spotted jets of flame shooting out either side of the boats, perhaps acting as propellant.

Man, I hope this works, Jeb thought, blowing imaginary dust out of the wand. He opened the panel and clicked the engine into place, making absolutely sure the fiber optics made contact and there was no grit between them and the engine.

Once Jeb was done, he rolled up a scrap of cloth and shoved it in his ear, covering the other with his palm.

“You might wanna cover your ears!” Jeb shouted, holding the wand above his head.

“What’s that supposed to –“

BOOM!

A gigantic flower of bright flaming explosion appeared above them, the impact rattling their bones and setting off a few of the honking car alarms.

Inspired, Jeb adjusted the range and pulled the trigger again, exploding the air above a dense patch of cars.

Any car that still had battery left immediately began crying bloody murder, assuming someone was trying to break into them.

“Gods!” The lead guard shouted, slapping his palms over his ears.

Now that everyone was sufficiently spooked, Jeb jumped into the Jeep and turned the engine, which turned over with a victorious roar.

Oh thank god Smartass didn’t ruin everything.

“What’s that awful racket?” Smartass demanded, hauling herself out of the water by the cup-holder.

Jeb glanced over his shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for wha –AIII!”

Jeb gunned it.

The fairy and all the water surrounding her was violently sloshed into the back as Jeb charged the pirates, finally able to open up the engine now that he was off road.

Kinda like a metaphor for my life.

Jeb stuck the wand out the open top and began pulling the trigger non-stop, creating a string of explosions above him, marching straight toward the approaching pirates at roughly sixty miles an hour.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

Jeb laid on the horn with his thumb as he approached, filling the space between the explosions with the Jeep’s piercing wail.

BOOMEEEEBOOMEEEBOOMEEEBOOMBOOMEEEEBOOMEEEBOOMEEEBOOM BOOMEEEEBOOMEEEBOOMEEEBOOMBOOMEEEEBOOMEEEBOOMEEEBOOM BOOMEEEEBOOMEEEBOOMEEEBOOM

***Krag the Unswerving, Warrior level 32***

“Alright, payday, gentlemen,” Krag said, lowering the spyglass from his eye. “We’ve got a caravan loaded down with artifacts from the Stitching, and a new place to pick over. They’ve got so much loot we may not have space for prisoners.”

“We’ve always got space for the right prisoners, captain!” one of the sleazier crew shouted, eliciting a roar of approval.

Morale is always a factor, Krag thought, eyeing the bastard. “Aye, that we do.” Krag said with a smirk.

The cheering redoubled as they turned the jets on.

The ‘jets’ were Myst engines stolen from the military strapped to oil lenses, the resulting spray was then atomized as it shot through a spinning grate.

The resulting black mist was lit on fire, and they were off, cruising over the bushy surface of the alien desert fast enough to drive the wind through their hair, tugging at their loose clothes. Stones and other large impediments got shoved under by the faradan stone coating on the bottom of the boat.

Krag was hoping they had a gold lens the size of his thumb. With the right application of a Myst engine, they could live like kings.

Well, not all of us, he thought, eyeing the rest of his crew. If he found a gold lens of sufficient size, they would start dropping like flies. Less shares to split. They would die and he would become Mr. Krag, Legitimate Businessman.

Krag was contemplating murder when there was a flash of light above the caravan, followed by a rumble they heard above the sound of the jets.

What in the Roil was that? Krag thought. If he didn’t know any better, Krag would have guessed it was a light anti-infantry weapon straight from the Empire’s military.

Those were only wielded by powerful aristocrats who showed up simply to flick their wrist and cause mass destruction amongst the rank and file.

He should know, because he’d spent nearly a decade working for the bastards.

A moment later there was another flash and another rumble, elsewhere above the caravan, a moment before he thought he heard something.

“Hold! Kill the jets!”

The pirate manning the steering wheel pulled the oily lever with a clunk, stalling out the ship as the stream of burning oil stopped. The boat slid to a gentle stop, their ears adjusting to the sudden silence.

“What is it, captain?”

“SHH!”

Krag cocked his head, pointing his good ear toward the caravan.

Eoeoooeooaoaooeoa!

The cacophony of noise sounded like eerie wailing from this distance, making the thick hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“What in the Roil is going on over there?” Krag muttered, bringing up his spyglass.

The eyes of the strange human wagons on the road were blinking open and closed like living things while giving off terrifying wails, and one of them was moving.

The boxy thing pulled off the road and turned to face them before it began moving toward them. It began moving toward them fast. Another flash and rumble sounded as the box wagon charged toward them, at speeds that rivaled their expensive faradan-clad boats.

“I don’t like the look of that,” one of the men, Smer, said, shaking his head.

“Who-

BoomeeeboomeeeboomeeeBOOMEEEBOOOM!

The rumbles began getting louder as the strange contraption flew toward them, creating its own cloud of dust as it flew over the rough terrain.

Krag had a decision to make. He had to decide right here and now whether the value they would get out of the caravan was worth the damage to his boat and crew.

“Turn the ship around. We’ll go after easier prey.”

***Jeb Trapper***

“And that,” Jeb said as he came to a lurching halt in front of the caravan. “Is how you perform a threat display.” Jeb craned his neck to study the retreating cloud of dust.

“Much appreciated.” Brav’s dad said, nodding.

“We should get the fuck outta here before they realize it.”

“Agreed.”