Chapter 23: The Water of Life

I had to admit, I hadn’t seen that coming. Damien had always come across as fairly strait-laced, focused on physical training and with a love of old heroic ballads, a bit of a himbo, even. To have him blatantly admit to involvement in some kind of organised crime? That was a surprise, especially because historically, smugglers of legal substances almost inevitably began to dabble in the illegal, too. The temptation was always too much, because whereas they might make a slim profit via arbitrage, risking prison or worse to dodge a few tariffs or tolls, for maybe a fifty to a hundred percent profit margin over doing things legally, they could instead traffick drugs for a profit margin in the thousands. Just looking at those numbers, sooner or later, even the most oddly moralistic smugglers inevitably turn to the powder, of that I was certain. Still, was it a bad idea?

I rose from the table we were both sat around, fetching a lukewarm jug of water from my desk. A gaudy pink decanter, it served its own purpose well enough, as I returned to my seat, pouring a glass to replace my long-finished cup of tea. I wasn’t particularly thirsty, but this bought me time to think, as did one exploratory sip, before I gave him my answer.

“I’m surprised you’re willing to tell me this much,” Nothing definitive, but given the subject matter, probing Damien for weakness or stupidity seemed prudent. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll turn you in? There’s a standing bounty on smugglers at the magistrate’s office, as you well know; our teachers reminded us at least once a year, what it meant to be caught engaging in villainy.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” was Damien’s confident response, and again, I was taken aback.

He sounded far too confident for a man confessing his crimes, and it took me a moment to understand why. He still thought I was the old Will, the one who shied away from him and always lost in the sparring arena. Whilst he was apologetic for how our most recent bout ended, Damien still seemed incapable of registering me as a threat, which was simply intolerable. Even if I was leaning towards hearing him out, approaching negotiations from such a position of weakness would end in a farcical outcome; I’d be lucky to get a job as a chore boy, if that.

“I wouldn’t dare?” I huffed, throwing Damien’s words back at him while tipping my glass ever so slightly towards him, the water inside it running to the edge, just short of spilling over.

“Of course not,” Damien concurred wholeheartedly. “You know crossing me and the boys wouldn’t end well, not unless you wanted to leave town earlier than planned.”

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“So you say,” I held my glass with one hand, and leaned forward, offering my other hand to him.

Damien made a quizzical expression at that, but he had been raised properly; when someone offered you a handshake, you took it. His eyes locked on our handshake, he missed my glass emptying by itself, vanishing into my pocket dimension, as befit my property.

One second later, I placed the empty glass on the table and brought the water back out, right into his airway. Damien shuddered, beginning to cough violently. It wasn’t that dangerous, to be fair, he had most of the water back out and on the floor after just a little bit of retching. Three seconds at the most, no time at all in the grand scheme of things, and an eternity on the battlefield: it only took me two seconds, after all, to summon my knife and place the serrated edge against his throat, close enough to brush against him as he inhaled.

“I wouldn’t dare?” I repeated, and this time, silence was his reply.

I let Damien cough out what remained of his surprise drink, by which point his face had gone three shades paler, and only then did I lean back into my seat, my knife gone again, in what must have seemed to him like an impressive feat of prestidigitation. Damien was staring at me, now mouth bobbing open and closed like the goldfish that once decorated my office aquarium. Pumpkin yowled from his place on my bed, an unmistakable glint of amusement in his bright amber eyes as he watched the show.

“You, what, how?” Not very intelligible, though I got the gist of his questioning.

“That’s the funny thing with a Class,” I replied, giving him the technical truth, the best kind of truth. “Even if it sounds harmless on the tin, it always comes with something extra, something that sets you apart from everyone else. You’ll learn that on your own Class day, six months from now. If you’re alive, that is.”

Damien looked gratifyingly afraid, at this point, something I’d rarely ever seen in my past life. I’d ruined many over the negotiating table, but most such deals had been between businesses, where the consequences of defeat were simply a smaller piece of the pie, or opening the chequebook. Amusing, yes, but nowhere near the visceral satisfaction I felt at that moment, as Damien’s will crumbled and he recognised me as his superior.

[20 XP gained for intimidating your first victim.]

The System even agreed with me, showing that I was undisputedly on the right track in life.

“I’m not against meeting with your contact,” I continued, my lip twitching as Damien flinched. “But do make it clear to them that I’ll be expecting good compensation for bringing my talents onto their payroll. If I take the time to meet them, and the best they offer me is a job stacking crates? I’m going to be very unhappy with you, do I make myself clear?”

“Very,” Damien agreed, nodding his head with vigour.

“Good,” I declared. “I’ll be staying at this inn for one more day, I expect you’ll have a meeting place arranged for me, by tomorrow’s end?”

More nodding; at this point, Damien’s neck had to be feeling the strain, between his impromptu drowning and the latter.

“Then you may go.”

I have to say, despite all the times we attended Physical Education together, I’d never seen Damien run quite that fast before. How nice.