Chapter 14: World’s Tensest Picnic (Patreon)

“Wow, she’s cute,” Colt said, his stance shifting upon spotting Casey.

“She’s three years older than you.” Jeb said.

“No shit?”

“She’s also got a kid.”

“Not a dealbreaker.”

"Why am I talking about –“ Jeb shook his head and glared at Colt. “Just keep your head out of your pants for the next fifteen minutes or so, okay?”

“Sure, pops, sure…” Colt said, not paying an iota of attention as Casey trudged up the mountainside.

Kids are annoying but teens are the worst, Jeb thought to himself. If Colt was too busy staring at a pretty face, he’d probably miss the start of hostilities, were they to start, making him as useless as if he wasn’t there.

Finally, the sindio, his butler and the assassin made it to the top of the mountain. The butler had a loose grip on Casey’s arms which were twisted behind her, the assassin was wearing his traditional gun and sword combo.

The most dangerous one had nothing in hand, but Jeb knew he could take any one of them out with a simple wave of his hand. He approached them with his skull-like grin, leading the party of four with an energetic stride.

“Good evening Jebediah…Nancy.” He said, looking down at the eight-year-old girl before giving Jeb a raised eyebrow.

“Hi, Mr. Vex.” She said, waving a hand. Her other hand was busy with one of Mrs. Everett’s sandwiches from the picnic basket they’d brought with them…Nancy and her guardians at the orphanage might not have been told the full context of the picnic they were out on.

“Someone told me you put a lot of care into Nancy’s opinion of you.” Jeb said, subtly moving Nancy in front of him to serve as a social meatshield. If Vex wanted to be friends with the girl fifty years from now, best not to kill her favorite guardians.

Let’s see you light us on fire with Nancy here. Jeb understood bringing Nance was a risk, but it was a calculated one. The sindio could’ve kidnapped her and the other immortals from the beginning, but he chose not to. He likely intended any encounters with the immortal children to be entirely natural. If he kidnapped them or magically manipulated their emotions in his favor, that could become a huge bomb ready to go off in his face in the future.

“Well played.” Vex said with a keegan smile. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“Jeb saved us from bad guys and made an orphanage,” Nancy said, nodding. “He doesn’t actually run it though, that’s Mrs. Lang and Mrs. Everett. Everyone just does what they tell them to. He doesn’t own it either, that’s Zlesk. He’s the keegan you met on the hill. He doesn’t really do much, but he’s fun to tease. Jeb doesn’t really help out or anything, but Mrs. Lang says we can’t get rid of him because he’s ‘handy in emergencies,’ and a ‘good meat shield’.”

“I see.” Vex said, rubbing his chin at Nancy’s childish over-sharing.

Jeb shot Mrs. Lang an eyebrow, but the older woman glanced at the four ‘guests’ in return, her expression thunderous.

“Hi Jeb,” Casey said, her face flushed with humiliation, bringing Jeb’s attention back to the matter at hand.

“Hi Casey. How you feeling?”

“Like maybe the universe is telling me I should’ve just chosen the Damsel class.”

“I’m Colt. I’m fifteen.”

They ignored him.

“I mean physically. Are you all in one piece?”

She shrugged. “I feel Like I was just subjected to dozens of experiments that bordered on torture, but never quite crossed the line of deliberate cruelty.”

“Like a bad day at the dentist.” Jeb supplied.

“Try a bad week at the dentist,” she grumbled.

“If Lien lets you go, you’re not going to attack anyone are you?” Vex asked.

“No.” Casey answered testily.

“Alright then,” Vex nodded at the horned butler, who released Casey’s wrists.

“The plans?”

Jeb took the baggie of thumb drives out of his pocket, watching the sindio closely for any malfeasance as he handed them over. Jeb didn’t think he could catch it if the guy really didn’t want him to, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Much appreciated.”

“Are you staying for the picnic, Mr. Vex?” Nancy asked.

“Alas, young lady, I’m going to go home and play around on my new computer. I just installed a CAD program and I’m eager to try it out.” Vex said.

“My mom said being on your computer all the time is bad for you.”

“I’d be remiss to ignore the wisdom of your mother. I’ll stay for a bite,” Vex said, crossing his legs and sitting down across from the little girl and Mrs. Lang, who was giving Jeb a horrifying glare.

Jeb averted his eyes. My bad, Mrs. Lang. Jeb hadn’t planned on it becoming an actual picnic.

“Do you have any iced C’lackcha?” Vex asked.

“We’ve got lemonade and sandwiches,” Nancy said, serving Vex a sandwich in the deliberate manner of someone who was playing pretend.

Jeb shrugged and sat down beside Nance, but away from Mrs. Lang.

Casey took a position behind Jeb, keeping him between her and Vex.

Colt sat beside Casey.

Lien knelt beside the basket and helped Nancy serve the sandwiches. The assassin walked over to a better vantage point and watched them, his fingers twitching toward the rifle over his shoulder every now and then.

“Are you guys mind-controlled?” Eddie spoke into Jeb’s earpiece. “It looks like you’re all sitting down for some reason. Should I fire the bunker-buster? Give me the code if you’re still okay.”

“Fennel Underwear.” Jeb said aloud, garnering some questioning looks.

“Roger, holding the artillery. Save me some of the lemonade, would you?” Eddie said.

And thus began the most nerve-wracking picnic of the Post-stitching era.

***Later***

“I’m not entirely comfortable with this,” Casey said, eyeing the bulky scanner in Eddie’s hands. It was a cross between a proton pack and a giant listening device.

“We need to make sure he didn’t leave you with any surprises,” Jeb said with a shrug.

“I just spent most of a week getting poked and prodded, and I’m just about done with it!” Casey said, her voice rising as she backed away from Eddie.

“Oh,” Eddie said, his bushy white eyebrows rising.

“This scary contraption doesn’t actually do anything to you.” He said, “This dish here concentrates Davis decay that Myst emits to this receiver here, which is a Myst resistor sensitive to Davis decay. If the Davis decay is above normal values, it’ll make the resistor stop resisting, allowing an electrical current to flow to this light and these speakers. So really, it just lights up if you’ve got a spell on or inside you. That’s all.”

“Davis decay? You mean Chugoth decay?”

“Tomato tomahto.” Eddie Davis said with a shrug.

“I don’t care, you guys aren’t poking me with that thing.”

“We’re not poking you with anything, we’re just gonna pass it over you.” Jeb said gently, trying to calm Casey down. They needed to make sure she wasn’t being subtly controlled or used to spy on them. The fact that Casey was resisting so hard pointed to either actually being controlled, or a mild case of PTSD about being scanned.

“MM-MM, nope, not happening.” Casey put hands on the desk behind her, bringing it and half a dozen other things to life with a single pulse of her Ability.

“We just wanna make sure you’re not in danger,” Jeb said. “Just let us see if you’re clean.”

“I don’t care, you’re not getting that thing anywhere near me!” Casey said, sidling towards the door. Jeb didn’t want to escalate things by getting in her way, but it was starting to look like he might have to –“

“EEK!” Casey shrieked when the objects she’d brought to life began to clamp down on her, holding her in place.

“Now!” Jeb shouted, adding his Myst to their grip, making sure Casey couldn’t move.

“You…bastards!” Casey shouted, struggling in the grip of her own minions.

“Focus on the head and spine first,” Jeb said, feeling pretty darn guilty about manhandling a teenage girl.

Eddie nodded, putting the receiver near her skull and flipping the switch. With a few quick scans and no beeping from the machine, her minions let her go, and Jeb was forced to do so as well, not strong enough to keep her down on his own.

“She’s clean, as far as this thing can tell,” Eddie said, hefting the bulky dish.

Casey glared at them, panting and shaking with adrenaline.

“You want some ice-cream from upstairs?” Jeb asked fairly sure it would take a lot more than ice-cream to mend that bridge.

“I’ve got places to be,” Casey muttered, her breathing slowly coming back down to normal. “Thanks for saving me.” She turned and trotted up the stairs, unfolding her leather jacket and throwing it on.

“Wait, I still want to ask you about – Ah, dangit,” Jeb muttered as she fled the room, presumably the entire orphanage. He still wanted to know more details about why she’d decided to become an Enforcer and kill people for a living.

A few hours later, three udium and solid steel mannequins arrived bearing six hundred bulbs. They delivered the money to Eddie and Jeb before turning on their heels and marching back out, drawing attention wherever they went.

Those must be a gift from the emperor to allow her Ability to shine, Jeb thought.

On to the next order of business.

Figuring out what the hell to do about the wizard with nukes who’s planning on using them in a month…

Jeb scratched his head, the answer not coming as quickly and easily as he’d become accustomed to. There was no ‘catching up’ to someone who presumably had a lead of a millennia, at minimum. Especially not in a month.

Should I just build a bigass bomb shelter under the orphanage? I could probably swing that in a month, with Myst.

That was planning for failure. Jeb hated planning for failure. It was the worst kind of planning. After a nuclear explosion, what were his kids supposed to do? Slowly succumb to radiation poisoning?

Bomb shelters always were kind of a wash, Jeb thought, his stomach clenching from helpless anxiety.

Jeb was considering broaching the subject with the rest of the adults that night when he got a messenger from Vresh.

Oh, great, we’re all gonna die, Jeb thought sourly as he scanned the letter detailing what the empire thought the sindio was up to, and the request for Jeb to join a joint effort with several other Enforcers to stop the ancient wizard from wiping out all Impact on the western seaboard.

Impact was what the System used as fuel, ignorant humans called it XP. It was a manifestation of how much change someone could possibly exert in their lifetime, a constantly fluctuating measure of someone’s total size in the intangible Fate dimension, inextricably linked to time. If someone unnaturally diminished your Impact, then you would experience some extremely bad luck until your reality matched the new size of your potential influence over the future.

If someone scoured your Impact from existence, then Jeb could only assume you would immediately have an aneurysm, or choke to death, or get hit by a meteor.

Maybe all of the above.

If a nuke wiped out the Impact of an entire city…maybe an asteroid would strike the planet, or a 100% lethal virus would pop out of nowhere.

And bomb shelters didn’t quite extend into the fifth dimension, so Jeb and his people would be about as naked as…something that was really naked.

Goddamnit, the shit just keeps coming, Jeb thought with a scowl, scanning the letter.

Still, the fact that at least six other Enforcers were going to be converging on Solmnath before the month was out meant that they might have a chance.

If half a dozen Enforcers can keep him busy, maybe I can slip in and…I don’t know, paint graffiti on the walls. Still a better plan than a bomb shelter. I’m so weak compared to those monsters, I don’t know what they would need…me…for. Hmm…maybe not.

In the face of the end of the world, certain moral boundaries became more…flexible.

Jeb glanced down at the letter in his hand, realizing he still needed to RSVP to the sindio-hunting party invite.

Jeb gave the messenger a couple copper to hang around while he wrote back.

Quills are a pain in the ass, Jeb thought as he scribbled a response. It was nowhere near as elegant as Vresh’s handwriting, but Jeb thought it did the trick.

To Vresh Tekalis. I’m going to be out of town on a shopping trip over the next three weeks, but I would be happy to join your little suicide mission. If you or anyone else would be interested in helping me save the world, you may will me your status, family lands and fortune in exchange for these twigs and lint I found in my pocket. If you need me, I’ll be in the desert.

That was a mistake. Now Jeb couldn’t bring himself to get rid of the twigs and lint in his pocket until he was sure no nobles were willing to trade their entire lives for them.

Damnit.

Jeb signed off, a little miffed about that.

-                      Jebediah Trapper.

Jeb swiftly folded the letter, enveloped and sealed it before handing it to the messenger. Once the man was gone, he headed for Eddie in the basement. The old man was working on the guts of some machine while muttering to himself. That was fairly par for the course, but somehow he’d trained the part-pooping gremlin to hold a flashlight. When he got close, he saw the creature gave the electronics a hungry stare, the tiny light attached to its head. Not trained, then, taken advantage of.

“I’m going pirate-hunting,” Jeb said without preamble. “I’d like to borrow Legolas.”

“You got him shot and left out in the Roil. I’m afraid you simply don’t have the proper appreciation for his value.”

“He saved my life a couple times already, and I’m hoping he’ll do it again, what more appreciation do I need?” Jeb asked.

Eddie glanced at the stack of gold coins on the table beside him, wiggling his brows meaningfully.

“You son of a –“ Jeb cut himself off before he said something not technically true. His ‘sticky Impact’ was on the line.

As long as Jeb continued telling the truth and nothing but the truth, his Impact in the fifth dimension became able to draw off other Impact through Deals. As long as he stuck to his word no matter what.

Right now that was on the line because he still hadn’t fulfilled his agreement with Vresh to eliminate the threat of Nellis Nukes.

He felt it like a muscle in his diaphragm that had been stretched until it was about to snap. It was a muted sensation, but he could still feel it. Thank god I didn’t put a time limit on it.

“Alright you dirty old man, what is it gonna take to get Legolas’s backup?”

“Hundred bulbs.”

“Done. I’ll tell Mrs. Lang on the way out.”

Eddie grunted, a tiny plume of smoke billowing up from where he soldered something down.

“What are you making anyway?”

“I’m making a crude quantum CPU using a Myst Uncertainty lens to provide ‘maybe’ as an option.”

“Are those expensive?” Jeb asked.

“Not really,” Eddie said, hitting the electronics with a puff of air from a bit of canned air, then inspecting it with a magnifying glass. “Nobody really wants things that work some of the time. I actually had to pay someone not to throw them in a landfill.”

“Huh. Carry on then,” Jeb said, nodding.

Eddie grunted.

With a motion to the former package delivery drone, Jeb had a second party member, including Smartass.

Now to do something she’s not gonna like.

Jeb went over to Mrs. Lang and told her he gave Eddie a one hundred bulb IOU, then asked where Nancy was. The little girl was taking part in Zlesks’ Adventurer Training Seminars. They were mostly informal groups of teens who had taken to listening to Zlesk’s stories about the Pharosian wilderness and the occasional fighting lesson.

When Jeb approached, the former sheriff was explaining the importance of small-scale tactics to the young men and women of the orphanage.

“Now the most important thing in every fight, is to give yourself the advantage, or take away your enemy’s advantage. For example, if they have a sword and you don’t, what do you do?”

“Pull a gun! A kid yelled.

“Take it away from them!” another suggested.

“Run away!” Nancy shouted.

“Those are all good suggestions, except taking a weapon away from a person who is wielding it is rather difficult without changing the circumstances of the fight, and this is assuming you have no weapons at all,” he said, pointing at the ‘gun’ suggester. “So if they have a sword and you don’t, your first, and primary tactic should always be to run away.”

“That’s dumb!” One of the older teens shouted, his clique of friends nodding in agreement.

“I tell you what, Isaiah, why don’t you take my sword, and I’ll demonstrate how to run away?” Zlesk asked, holding his sword out pommel-first.

“Cool.” The young man said, stepping forward and taking the keegan blade. It was far too long for a human, but it was still a razor-sharp bladed weapon, and Jeb found himself a little concerned about Zlesk’s teaching method.

“Good, now try to kill me with the sword. I’ll use tactics.” Zlesk said, putting his hands on his hips.

“…For real?”

“Sure. I’ll be fine. You’re too much of a pussy to actually hurt me.” the former sheriff said with a shrug.

There was a chorus of ‘ooohs’ from the surrounding children, accompanied by catcalls and ‘you gonna take that’s.

Isaiah turned beet red and lunged forward, swinging the sword wildly. Zlesk leaned way back to get out of the way and scrambled backward on all fours when his hands touched the dirt. He lunged further back and started sprinting away, Isaiah and the circle of children following along.

Zlesk led Isaiah on a merry chase around the makeshift playground, deliberately avoiding any place where the smaller children were at play. He finally jumped over a seesaw and spun on his heel just as Isaiah was vaulting after him.

Zlesk tossed the handful of dirt he’d grabbed at the beginning of the fight directly into Isaiah’s eyes. The teen was in the middle of flying through the air, so he was unable to dodge, simply flinching and closing his eyes.

Zlesk took the opportunity to kick him in the face.

The teen’s body ragdolled backward, Zlesk’s sword clattering to the ground. He leaned down and picked it up.

“Is it just me, or does Zlesk seem really happy teaching kids?” Jeb asked Smartass. The fairy on his shoulder gave him a thumbs-up.

“And that, children, is a demonstration of tactics and how to properly run away.” Zlesk said, sheathing his blade.

“That’s just fighting dirty!” one of the kids shouted.

“Yeah, no fair!”

Feeling the moment was right to step in, Jeb strode forward and raised his voice. “I’m going to spend the next couple weeks hunting pirates who make a living of murder, kidnapping, robbery and rape, does anyone wanna come with and challenge them to ‘a fair fight’?” Jeb asked.

The group was silent.

“Nancy, can I talk with Ari?” Jeb said, once he had the group’s attention. Smartass pinched him in the sensitive area around his neck, but Jeb choked back a shriek, since he was expecting some form of retribution for two-timing.

Nancy picked the fairy off of her head and nodded to her. A moment later Ari flew over, settling on the back of Jeb’s hand, keeping an eye on Smartass, who glared at her jealously.

Jeb swallowed back a sigh and got to the point.

“Ari, I’d like to discuss what kind of scams fairies run on people, when they’re not tricking them into killing themselves.”

“Why are you asking this rock-licker?” Smartass said. “I’m way better at tricking humans!”

“In your dreams!” Ari shouted.

“Calm down, both of you,” Jeb said, prodding them both with Telekinetic Myst. “I’m interested in mountain fairy and desert fairy scams in particular.”

“Desert fairies have a cushy job.” Ari said, crossing her arms and scowling. “All they have to do is trade water for firstborns and stuff. Freakin’ water! Mountain fairies are way tougher and smarter, because we have to struggle and think hard to get that sweet, sweet Impact. Mostly it involves leading baby bears to wander away from their mothers.”

She cackled maliciously, rubbing her hands together.

Jeb sat and thought about it. If he were to simply go out into the desert and take away pirate’s water, then sell it back to them for their Abilities…something inside told him it wouldn’t work. The way fairy deals worked had some unspoken rules that guided the way they took shape.

If Jeb was the direct, primary cause of their lack of water, then he felt selling the water back to them wouldn’t quite have the same juice. He’d stolen the water. It wasn’t his to sell back. And new water wasn’t that much better. They had to have been put in that position by a third party.

It was the same with duress. A Deal made while he was torturing someone to say ‘yes’ to it had no…fairy juice to it. They had to be about to die of thirst as a consequence of their own actions.

That’s why Jeb was going to take the pirate’s bounties at the Hunter’s Association. If Jeb was acting as the personified consequences of the social network the pirates had broken, that meant any action he took against them fell under the umbrella as ‘consequences of their actions’.

Sort of.

And if Jeb happened to be just slow enough at capturing them to let them scatter into the desert without their water, then that was their own damn fault, wasn’t it? As far as jeb’s gut instinct was concerned, that was enough degrees of separation to be totally fairy-kosher.

Jeb couldn’t think of better people to steal Ability books from than sand-pirates. He still remembered his eventful trip to Solmnath last summer, how his caravan had almost been raided. It was something the caravaneers dealt with on a daily basis.

They’d been nice folk.

Jeb figured he might as well pay it forward...with violence.

That makes sense, right? Jeb thought, heading for his jeep.

***Abigail Meyers, Level 62 Ace***

Abbie was mad at Jebediah Trapper, sure, but the damage he’d done was tolerable. she was furious at Vex. He’d cost her everything.

The heat of the sun beat down on Abbie’s skin, but she ignored it. She was too busy staring at the monolith in the center of the base. All around her, skeletal alien scavengers were picking the bones of her base clean, talking and laughing with each other as they stripped faradan off the paved streets.

They’d given up trying to talk to her after the first couple hours.

Everything she’d worked for had become a fart in the wind.

With the base no longer offering high-caliber assistance, their settlement near the Colorado river was overrun by raiders in a matter of days.

Abbie took a deep breath and channeled the white-hot anger into more fuel.

Vex had guaranteed the monolith’s ability to repel the Roil, and it had functioned exactly as intended. Until it hadn’t.

He must’ve reversed the polarity as a form of retribution. He hadn’t struck her as the type. A goofy professor, maybe. A rich man with more money than sense, probably. An autist deeply obsessed with technology, definitely.

But she hadn’t read cold-blooded killer.

That made everything that happened afterward her responsibility.

And I’ll fix it.

In the empire, the technology and infrastructure for creating faradan walls was heavily linked to the government, who would regulate the size and aid in construction.

It was a bit like the way the federal government was responsible for creating and maintaining roads in America. It was a burden but it also gave the federal government a way to lean on states by denying them functioning roads, thereby crippling their economy.

Abbie’s people could ask for help creating a faradan wall to protect a settlement, but that would involve accepting the empire’s jurisdiction. As a group, you can’t accept someone else’s rule then turn around and spit in their face. Some percentage of people would think to themselves that living under the heel of an alien empire wasn’t so bad, and that couldn’t be tolerated.

Simply using shelters under their houses wasn’t a good option either. It was much more dangerous and The Roil warped plants or buried them under faradan, meaning people would lose entire harvests to the wandering storm.

No, they needed that monolith. At least long enough to build their own walls. But as long as the alien could flip its polarity whenever he wanted, it was more of a liability than not.

There’s a simple solution for that. All I have to do is kill Vex and destroy whatever he used to control the monolith. Keep the monolith itself inside a box under heavy guard and nobody should be able to dick with it again. At least long enough to make their own faradan wall technology.

“Whoah, Check this out!” she heard one of the pasty aliens shout from her former office. “Gold!” The twig-thin Roil chaser emerged from the building, grunting as he held the massive Dungeon Core above his head. With the gold wrapped around it, it was almost as big as a basketball, and crazy-heavy.

Abbie turned and started walking, moving for the first time in hours.

“Why do you think it’s in a sphere?” Another one asked, looking at the rough gold sphere in his partner’s hands.

“I don’t know. Look at these seams. It looks like it was wrapped around something.”

“You think we should open it?”

“I don’t know, could be dangerous. I think we should report it to-“

The boney glanced up as he noticed Abbie approaching, his teeth clattering in surprise at seeing the silver-haired statue moving.

“You’re finally moving. Do you need help or-“

“You two are trespassing on federal property, drop the thing and leave or I will remove you with lethal force.”

The two glanced at each other.

“Seriously?” The one holding the core asked.

The Myst jet-engine inside her chest spooled up, and Abbie reached out and poked the boney in the chest, sending a pulse of it’s output through her finger.

His back exploded outward, and the bloody mess collapsed on top of the golden sphere.

“Seriously.” Abbie said.