The open courtyard around the Rook had changed drastically. What was once wide-open space had been replaced with various colors and sizes of tents. Some were canopy poles, tied together to make walkways to shield people from the encroaching bad weather. Others were enclosed, ranging from sleeping quarters to storage.
After visiting the tower’s armory to pick up some patchwork chain mail and my ruined Lamia, Lyissa insisted I take one of the spare Winterfield bolt action rifles. They hit harder and were better at a distance from the front, emphasis on the latter. We had already established the range to share rewards was generous, especially if Maekita and Cordo managed to keep pace during the firefight.
Still, even if it was nearly cloven in half, I wanted to keep my handcannon close. If I was to fix something, I wasn’t going to risk someone else’s equipment. And, well, I wanted my gun back. As soon as possible. Not that I felt naked without it, but I was feeling attached to this particular tool. It had a good service record and deserved a second chance. Supposedly like I did.
I’d held it width-wise to protect against the Arcanotech Vorpal blade. The barrel was fractured, the cylinder cracked, moving pieces welded together from where the vicious strike was turned. The Rune for Durability was mostly illegible where it sat, overloaded, while Aim was smudged.
Shaking my head, I hope that I didn’t make a terrible mistake by choosing this over Surgeon.
Lyissa took me to the Greenharbor City Hall. It was converted into a fortified position, windows boarded up, sentries patrolling the roof, spotted a pair of Sentients in a uniform similar to ours patrolling down the avenue. We decided to make sure my Reclamation tattoo was thoroughly covered under thin wrappings that made my sleeve a little stiffer than I would’ve liked.
The fact that I didn’t recognize any of the new members, and conversely them me, didn’t bode well. The machinegun death wagons had cordoned off the Administratum right as most of us were getting ready to retire home, likewise the other city functionaries and business leaders that occupied offices around the tower grounds’ clearing.
“Has anyone else come back other than me?” I asked quietly on our approach to the steps preceding City Hall. Citizens were filtering in and out of the three large archways sporting double doors that served as entry. “Do they know-?”
“No. And we want to keep it quiet, but I imagine as soon as someone is off duty they will let slip the wondrous occurrence in the Rook lobby,” she whispered back, scratching behind an ear. “Although, perhaps your comment about the dubiously sacred truck could throw off the story. New Otherworlders could be better news than, well, only one person coming back to life.”
“Well, here is something odd. I remember sinking. The way I died.”
Lyissa stopped, turning me towards her.
“No one else was there. Wait, no, I think-.” My eyes shut, ignoring the frostbite licking at the scar across my chest. “Violet and orange. A net. I was alone. Alone with the Vorpal wound. And then it hurt-, nhng!”
There it was. Sparks of pain. I had to check my chest was still put back into one piece. Flesh that had been cut by magic that twisted the fibers of one’s body beyond recognition, scouring away the memory of being whole. A wound that wasn’t supposed to heal because it forgot how to, even after being brought back. Death assured by grievous blow, or the final string of life snipped by the Vorpal enchantment if it was staved off for too long.
“Jericho?”
I heard her say my name. It sounded far away, an echo sent across too many tunnels converging in one place. I had died. Cut in half. Halfway. Alone, sinking away from a tiny mote of light. Caught in the embrace of something else. Alone, all alone, no one else to join me in the fall nor to be saved.
Unimaginable pain as something sought to undo reality. From outside of it.
“Ah, Jericho!”
Footfalls grew closer, the jangling of something metal against hollow bone or wood on their belt. Each tiny note drew me out of the fall.
“I knew that you wanted to hit the ground running, my friend, but I would have thought our mutual acquaintance possessed an increased charisma to oppose your familiar resolve to charge into the fray!” Cordo called out in that odd theatrical extravagance of his. He had prided his, what did he call it, verbal panache? “Were you that easy to persuade, Lyissa? Do tell me the trick to ‘twisting her arm,’ Jericho, I have been searching for one for years.”
With a shuddering breath, blinking, I teased out a smile. Looking up, the Elf’s concerned sapphires met mine before I noticed the Orc Specialist coming to join us.
“C-Cordo, did you need something?” I asked, straightening my back. My fingers twitched. If he saw, he didn’t react. “I wanted to see the Fabricator.”
“Oh, the young winged savior of the city, rescuing us from the certain damnation that is famine? Yes, the fair dame who risks her sanity to provide for a hopeless Greenharbor!” the rusty dusted Orc replied, carelessly casting his arms about and waving to an invisible audience. “If you had but waited or sent word, I could have accompanied you.”
“The main reason, Cordo, was that we were trying to be discreet,” Lyissa grumbled, gently nudging me up the next step into the City Hall.
“Discreet is hardly the way to let the poor man slide back into the World, my dear,” he dropped his voice, leaning in conspiratorially as he matched us lockstep. “Especially when hush-hush is just more of the same dreary gray we have endured.”
Unsure of what to add to his soliloquy, I passed through the doors with an unconvinced nod.
The three-story building had a wide ground floor, offices above before opening to the roof. In saner times, half of the first story was reserved solely for the banking exchange, the other for adventuring and Dungeoneer job boards and information desk. The exchange would have had access to a pocket dimension every person within the System had reserved for items, equipment, money, trophies – typically via a station that in hindsight bore an uncanny design resemblance to the Control Nexus.
Its contemporary condition left much to be desired.
Each of the six terminals against the far wall were in various states of disrepair synonymous with unrecognizable slag, melted down the walls. All that was left was the sacred posts of the waiting queue line and the walled-off reception booths a person used to converse with an agent to handle other services the exchange handled.
No, wait, there was only one teller window open. It had a large sign above it reading ‘QUARTERMASTER’ while the others were thoroughly barricaded. For some odd reason, it had the word ‘MISTRESS’ crossed out below on a sign hanging with one nail – someone unable to fully remove it as if pressed for time.
“For. The. Last. Time. I can only accept things which can be broken down into raw materials, and even then they need to be the proper category!” an exasperated voice leaked through the boarded up window’s singular slat. The glass that would have been exposed was painted black, further obscuring the occupant. “Nothing else can get you more, mechanically, logically, economically! Find someone to help you determine that, you dimwitted nimrod!”
A Human man was attempting to push what seemed like a lot of junk toward the security shutters attempting to come down, blocking it from being shut completely.
“But my goddess, it is worth so much – but, but nothing compared to gazing upon your face or touching your luscious fingers!” he bemoaned, half sliding his detritus forward and half clawing at the barrier between him and the speaker. “Please! I need you!”
A hand managed to slip through a cleverly hidden hole in a wooden crate, the man sinking himself up to the shoulder and waving about in determination.
“Oh, I love this part,” Cordo grinned, nodding approvingly.
CRUNCH.
“OW! DAMMIT, MY HAND! MY GODDESS, WHY?!”
“Ugh, men.” Lyissa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why is the universal humor across all beings, no matter the birthplace or kind, hallmarked with physical violence?”
“It’s less the violence. Watching the consequences of someone’s actions,” I offered, resisting the urge to rub at my old wound, “and laughing helps remember not to do the same thing. At least for me.”
“Really? Then perhaps your constant pushing of Ana’s buttons, so an Otherworlder remarks, is not an intellectual defect,” Cordo sniped, “and more an attempt at comedy for our benefit? Jericho, you thoughtful soul.”
A loud slam from the teller interrupted my scathing retort, the solitary supplicant reluctantly shoveling his garbage into a crate as the shutter denied him further conversation with his mysterious goddess of the Quartermaster Exchange.
“Alright, alright, they’re finishing up, we had best be moving before anyone else arrives,” Lyissa shoved both of us in front of her toward the center of the lobby. Towards the stairs, we passed two doors before knocking on a third that would lead to the backroom of the section.
“Out of curiosity, did any other Class have an Aura like yours as a Heavy?” I asked over my shoulder as Cordo knocked.
“Actually, yes. Assaults provide something called Vanguard, Specialists provide Focus. The former improves movement, defense. The latter, concentration and accuracy,” the Elf responded. Snapping her finger, she rooted around her breast pocket to produce a little black slate.
“The SysTablet,” I murmured, turning it around in my hand as she offered it. “Wait, the crack is in the wrong place. Did you-?”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Hello? Oh, goddess of the Exchange, would you mind granting us passage?” Cordo whispered loudly at the door.
“Jake has proven himself to be a… I… the Terran has a good heart,” she said, choosing her words slowly. “He has been nothing but sincere in his efforts in your absence. Zealous, even. He took your death hardest, even more than Kolia.”
“He barely knew me for ten minutes. Hard to believe,” I replied incredulously. “It must have been the Lycan compulsion, the Recruit relationship.”
“No, no. I was able to make him a full Member through some condition met after sunrise. It may have started with the Infection, but he joined of his own free will.”
“Then why hesitate over praising him?”
“He-,” Lyissa started.
“Alright, alright, I apologize. It’s Cordo and Lyissa, there’s an introductions in order between you and a friend of ours,” Cordo sighed, gently rapping a knuckle on the wood this time.
“He reached Level 9 within two nights. Perez was barely able to keep Jake’s Bloodlust in check until he unlocked Resuscitate, at which point he relented.”
“What-,” I started, throat dry, licking my lips, “what does it do?”
The slat of the door’s viewer grill scraped to the side, revealing a pair of smooth golden orbs and the annoyed furrow of their owner.
“Someone Fatally Injured? They get back up. Both get a Debt taken,” the person on the other side snarled tepidly. “Now who in the blazes is this pers-, oh, bollocks, is it a man? Please tell me you’re not a male, please, pretty please?!”
“I believe if he is with me, it should be fine,” Cordo clapped his hands together lightly. “Now, would you be so kind as to-?”
“Sniff test!”
“I don’t think that should be necessary, he hasn’t-,” the Orc scoffed with a slight smirk. His eye twitched.
“Narp! Sniff test first! You’re the ones all about testing this, trying out that, while I have to be cooped up in this fragging prison, slaving away at making sure everyone has their bits and bobs and sorry excuses for continental breakfasts!”
Checking the other two’s expressions – stunned silence – I wasn’t sure what to make of the situation.
“You! New git! Put your face next to the hole, here, and sit tight,” the exasperated woman on the other side commanded. “Please and thank you.”
“I can accommodate, I suppose,” I said while planting myself firmly next to the door. I could feel the pent-up maelstrom through it, even as she pulled away from the grill’s opening.
A gentle flap of something soft. Annoyed sigh. Grumbling.
Breeze lightly wafted through the tiny slot, lazily hitting my nose. It smelled like a modestly priced perfume. Tropical. Citrus and sweet notes.
Then curdled instantly. Worse than a fishing skiff’s spoiled cargo hold. Felt like it singed my nostrils, reminded me of rotten eggs, acrid, sulfur.
I coughed and held in my lunch, moving away from the door. Hunched over, dropping to a knee, my eyes teared up from the hacking and coughing. It was bad enough going down, probably worse coming back up.
“That-, that‘s a first,” Cordo noted with rare brevity.
“Huh. Intriguing. Fine!”
After the peeping window grill slammed back into place, the door began to rattle and shake. I vaguely understood the various locks and bolts being undone, surprised as not one but two heavy bars clattered against the other side of the wall I braced myself against. Finally it swung inward, revealing the exchange’s tenant.
Lyissa helped me stand and amble into the backroom. Barely a second passed once Cordo cleared the threshold that the melodic orchestra designed to prevent unwanted entry were put back into place.
Casting my gaze around, the other two doors we had passed were blocked off with heavy furniture upon which a wide assembly of items and equipment were stacked upon. There was a method to the organized madness of the place. Storage space. Two giant spaces had been made by arranging boxes in a rectangle, separated in the middle by other containers. One side had a heaping pile of miniature metal ingots the size of my little finger, the other was noticeably empty save for weird smears that might have been produce and meat at one point.
Further toward the front of the building, articles were stacked nicer on old desks and shelves. I recognized Food Ration tins, crude drawings of bullets, few other things unintelligible. Hopefully it was because I had never bothered to take up a profession myself and not the fact that the artist perhaps needed an assistant to delegate this process.
“Crafting supplies. Disassembled,” I remarked. “And full items, MagiTek, instruments, tools, other things.”
“Yes, brilliant, y’have eyes. Congratulations.”
Turning around with my own exhausted nettles born of frustration, the scowl quickly turned to professional curiosity.
She was a little shorter than I was. Smooth horns the color of ivory, one capped with gold and the other wrapped in a necklace with three carved crosses on the loop, extended upward from her head. They accentuated her figure in that there was no question of her heritage, a slender tail ending in a heart-shaped tip that gleamed with an envenomed edge, dainty hooves for feet while a bony growth jutted out to resemble a high heeled shoe. Stiletto came to mind, especially since it had about the right sharpness. The only odd thing was her wings were made up of cerulean feathers with yellow tips instead of the typical leathery ones.
I attempted – I really tried – to not survey the rest of her body after examining the appendages which flicked outward for a moment with some cross between shyness and exasperation.
“Yes, I am a Succubus. No, I haven’t drained the life out of anyone,” she began with a sigh and counting with her fingers. “Yes, I’ve been living in here for 10, now 11 days. Yes, before Recursion, I was a model citizen for 30 levels. No, I’m not a sleazy piece of slag that needed constant part-“
“You seem to be providing answers to none of the questions I would like to ask,” I decisively interrupted, louder than I meant, managing to make her jump. “For instance, what is your name? Why are you boarded up in here? Did you make the Food Rations?”
“Well, ah, I guess that would be a better way to start. More polite, in the least,” she timidly replied, wiping her hands off on her apron. “Sorry. My name’s Sonnie Arcadia. Just Sonnie, if you please. Otherworlder, from Britain, came here like this. Stuck here because of-, oh what do you call it?”
“Recursion,” Lyissa added, beginning to look up and down the rows of collected junk. No, broken items.
“Right, that. So, apparently, all the late nights doing all this blasted reading and what-not to manage my unique, shall we say, talents and abilities is all for naught because of that. I’m not so lucky as your Alpha wolf soldier that holds his own leash,” Sonnie recounted, tapping her foot on the floor. A figurative vein popped at the side of her temple. “So all of my Racial Features? Oh, they are so wonderful to have during this apocalypse. I’m not a good little convent girl, but I have standards, damn it, and I also happen to be the lucky girl who chose the job that required being in close contact with everyone!”
“And I will continue to remind you, it is not your fault,” Cordo said quietly, arms crossed as he leaned against a shelf. “After the effects wear off, even those that learn about the Quartermistress-”
“Don’t,” she snapped, tail lashing out with a surprisingly loud crack. Retreating, batting her eyes at me with what I think was some sort of apology, she leveled a withering gaze at the Orc. “Do. Not. Use that title.”
“Apologies,” he winced. Cordo was oddly well-mannered around the woman, as difficult as her situation was. No attempts at levity, so soft-spoken. “It slipped out.”
“I’ve almost… I’ve… There-,” Sonnie started strong. Bit her lip. Looked down, clearing her hair from obscuring those golden eyes of hers without irises and shifting her weight in a peculiar way. Looked away from me. “Bloody hell, there it goes again. You probably think I’m some sort of sensual deviant right now, correct? Rolling my hips, facing away from you, munching on my lip like a piece of jerky to attract your attention?”
There was silence. Lyissa paused, surveying the scene. Cordo fixed me with a glower. Even Sonnie scoffed, hugging herself – admittedly this time accentuating her chest.
“Well? Is my compelled, voluptuous nature doing anything for you?” she barked, leaning towards me.
My response was simple.
Turned my head, averted my eyes, wondering what in the Reaper’s shroud was going on.
“I know you to be rather bull-headed my friend, but this is hardly a time to be rude,” Cordo jabbed, standing to his full height. When the Orc did not carry himself around in that strange gait their bodies usually traveled, much like a Troll he could easily tower over even a tall Human like me.
“Please forgive me if I have provided insult, but I am being honest,” I began slowly, looking at the other three. “Those remarks were directed at me?”
“Who else would be inclined to check out a lass who was trying to seduce a new man that’d walk through that door, right after a full blast of pheromones?!” Sonnie blurted out, now plainly confused. Maybe ecstatic. “Are you saying you’re not affected? At all? By my fragging Lustful Presence, a Passive that always activates by itself that makes men – some women – completely stupid and start calling me things like ‘goddess’ and ‘mistress’ and wasting my time with absolute trash like that bloke earlier thought was a bunch of flowers?!”
“Uhm… yes?” I stated flatly. “I thought you had doused me with perfume earlier until it smelled like a fishing barge that went bad, blended with acid and rotten eggs.”
The strange Succubus looked between my friends rapidly.
“Rotten eggs and sulfur?” Cordo suppressed a cough, glancing at the resident Elf. “Really?”
“That overpowered a spoiled shipment of fish?” Lyissa commented, scratching her nose and hiding her mouth.
“Oh, oh, I think I might like you,” Sonnie beamed, coming over to me with her hand out. That same scent followed her, thankfully not as strong, though I did have to focus on something else to not have my stomach churn more than it already did after breakfast. “What’s your name? What do you do? I’m so, so glad to meet you what’s-yer-name!”
“Jericho Amontillado, pleasure, Sonnie. Though, well, pleasure’s not the reason-,” I started, fumbling to finish with some tact. “Support Arcanotechnician. I believe you and I are going to try and put the city ba-“
“Amo-, Amon-?”
Her face paled. Wings folded into the small of her back, tail lowering to quiver at her feet.
“Y-you’re the one who died?” she said silently, almost mouthing the words.
Grimly, I loosened a few straps on my breastplate, peeled the pauldron to the side and showed the beginning of the scar from that terrible blow.
My arm started shaking, fingers of my left arm trembling.
Closing my eyes, breathing in evenly, Lyissa’s faint steps came closer to me near immediately.
“That would be me, yes. I think as some Otherworlders say, ‘ten out of ten, would not recommend.’ Something to that effect,” I smiled, opening my eyes to Sonnie’s tear-filled gaze, hands over her mouth.
“Oh. Oh god. I’m so sorry. If I would’ve known, I wouldn’t have been so-,” she tried to apologize, shaking her head.
“Please. Don’t. It’s not necessary,” I urged, letting the armor fall back into place and immediately working the bindings. “What’s most important is working together to make sure no one else goes through the same thing. Tears won’t help, unless there’s some kind of property yours have that might’ve been applied by Recursion.”
“Jericho, that’s hardly appropriate!” Lyissa chided, beginning to ease me away from the Succubus.
Sonnie chuckled. Tried to hold it in with a hand. Failed, started laughing in earnest.
“Oh, pope on a pogo stick, I hope not,” she said between snorts. Ah, the fabled ‘ugly laugh’ that tipped off someone discovered something extremely humorous. “I-, I’m sorry, it’s just-, I’m half tempted to try and find out!”
“It appears the tears of joy could be of great help in these dark days,” Cordo chimed in with melodramatic solemnity. “I would be lying if I was not also curious as to the properties of Succubus tears, considering their other propert-“
“No, no, a thousand times, no. None of that talk,” Lyissa growled venomously.
“Well, ah-, oh, god-, well, if you managed to see the gentleman I had to use the horny bat on,” Sonnie attempted to recover, waving towards the single teller window. A very large metal club sat next to her chair. “He tried trading off random garbage he’d found. Pawn it for something useful.”
“As scrap?” I asked, taking the opportunity to start walking around the makeshift workshop. “If I remember correctly, Disassemble is part of your Assemble then as a Fabricator. It doesn’t work on everything?”
“That’d be correct, yeah. Problem is, people don’t have a fragging clue what is Scrap, big S, and what is just garbage. Common, vendor junk, actual crafting materials, sure,” she continued, wiping at her face. “But they don’t have SysTablets. Or Supports that can run around on salvage runs with them. It’s not like I don’t want to help them, but I’m only one person!”
“I believe this shall be our cue to attend to other pressing matters while you Supports enjoy some quality time together,” Cordo cleared this throat, moving to the door. “Perhaps design a courtship dance for others to follow in your st-, ouch!”
“That will be enough of that,” Lyissa grinned with mischievous satisfaction while Cordo tried slapping off itchy Arcane residue from an Aegis sprinkling its broken pieces over him. “Jericho, join us on the third floor after you two have concluded, if you please?”
“Of course,” I nodded, beginning to look at the exchange in a completely different light.
Maybe this was what it felt like for a Draco to admire her hoard and desire more.