Ch: 86 Silver In My Pocket
A steady trickle of direct requests and jobs were flowing in and out of the compound now. A number of semi-formal businesses had taken root in the Adventure compound, as Wheatford’s orphans found new confidence in their hustles.
The chocolate scam had spawned more than just a sweet tooth epidemic and a guild conflict. A courier service with orphans on skates and boards had sprung up overnight, doing a little casual delivery of groceries and carrying messages for a few bits here and there is not employment… Abusing the local laws and pavement for fun and profit was a solid idea that was already making waves locally.
A few of the kids in Gary and Becky’s sewing circle had taken up piece work with some of the local seamstresses and tailors, skirting the law by simply trading cloth and supplies for finished, or nearly finished goods.
Any ‘excess’ materials simply vanished, along with anything that might accidentally be included in the supplies, like small amounts of coin.
They, like the couriers, took their pay in small coins or trade, bartering for things they wanted or materials Gary would buy for coin, like ingots of metal or lumber. They were not being paid fairly… but something is better than nothing.
The result was an Adventure compound bustling with life and activity, from the market to the uplands, the formerly invisible children were making impressions.
In the bright spring sunshine, a mixed group of notables, newcomers and nobodies mingled freely. Nara was in her festival dress and chatting with Naomi, Sonja the chiropractress and Streeka the otter shaman.
The lithe aquatic creature had slipped from the river and made her stealthy way in the predawn hours. Only old Fillemon at the Adventure gate saw her on the way through town. He had cracked open the shiny new portal, just wide enough for her to pass, without questions or remarks, just a smile and a doff of his cap.
A drum roll and cymbal crash brought conversation to a sudden halt, as the mad boy took the stage. Ivy stilled her cymbal with a touch and shot a sharp whistle into the sky, just a single sustained note, ending abruptly.
Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
The ceremony is about to begin…
He whispered the words solemnly, while grinning a foolish, crooked smile. Gary swept his eyes over the witnesses and spoke again, unleashing a strange incantation.
Are you… experienced?
Have you ever been… Ex… perienced?
Well I have….
#
“Mad wizards…” Celeste grumbled softly as the strange song ended, leaving the adults in the audience uncomfortable and confused.
“You are here to witness an interrogation, there may be a little light torture and some distressing truths revealed. Please do not interrupt once I begin. Clerics in the audience, please consult with your deities before we start. I am not responsible for any existential crises that may arise.”
He winked at them all and took a seat on a stool, near the low platform with the arcane runes and terracotta tablet. He paused for a long moment to allow for any departures or second thoughts.
“Everybody stays… that says some things about this town.” He said with a smile, as a small bronze knife appeared in his hand. The musician winced a bit as he cut a small furrow in his forearm, beside a mostly healed identical wound. He dipped a small brush tipped with his own hair in the tiny pool of blood and drew the last mark on the platform with a slow exhalation.
Nothing stirred in the quiet garden, even the birds silenced their springtime performance as something gathered slowly, on the tiny stage.
Directly over the clay tile, a whirling vortex of semi gaseous, almost liquid, spun in a slow and lazy cyclone. Ropey strands of a more viscous substance rose from the tile, tendrils of muddy red ichor branched like a liquid tree in the mass.
On each vascular, pulsing limb, a bronze mask of a face in torment slowly waved and swirled. Several of the horrid things appeared and disappeared in the substance, each one unique and mostly human, or humanoid.
Their silent screams of agony, terror and despair shook the pleasant garden on a profound, if indefinable level.
“Hear me spirit, hear my voice, hear my commands. In this place my word is law, you will resist or disobey, to your sorrow…” The thing made no reply, it simply swirled in a sticky, impossible tornado.
He turned to the assembled crew of horrified witnesses. Only Becky and Shai seemed unsurprised, they looked more disgusted. “This is what my friends from out of town call a Hollow One… I don’t think one has ever been captured before, so this is exciting.” He rubbed his hands together in glee.
“I imprisoned it in this tile using natural magic and the unholy ritual they had planned to use on us. Now, it belongs to me in some very awkward and disgusting ways. This is where you all object.”
After the expected hubbub died down he sighed and spun around on his stool. “Regardless, this thing belongs to me and I will dispose of it as I see fit. Much as you plan to do to me and my family… except we didn't do any human sacrifices… that you know of.”
He grinned at them all again. “Consider that, while it explains what it had planned for the lovely town of Wheatford…” Gary addressed the entity spinning over the tile, speaking sharply.
“Speak your purpose here.” He snapped coldly.
From a myriad throats and uncounted tongues, a voice whispered from all around, slithering and hissing syllables poured like toxic oil over the sunlit garden.
“We are to use our mortal tools to summon Slyugutheryointhias, the demon of mortal flesh, to consume this valley. We will need new mortal tools, at least six must be expended to summon the entity.”
Gary smiled at the gathered company. “Dannyl is circulating his rendering of the creature. Please note how many penis tentacles per square yard of scrotum and compare that to the scrotal sack acreage estimate noted in the margin…” He continued, smiling and speaking blandly.
“That is about twenty six rapacious, carnivorous, blood sucking, dicktentacles for every man, woman, child and animal in Wheatford and the surrounding area. If I know my hentai monsters…”
That settled most of the complaints rather nicely. “Thank you, now we will continue. This entity knows neither pity, nor mercy. It neither deserves nor expects us to behave humanely, because it sees us as simply objects to be used. Any moral complaints or ethical objections, please submit them to Becky, high priestess of Knowledge.” Gary indicated her, seated with Streeka and Nara, in her full priestess regalia.
Becky’s dark robes were decorated with branches, almost barren, but just barely breaking into bloom, right at the cusp of spring. Snow and ice still clung to her hem, as dark, withered vines wound around her garments. Her all concealing hood cast its writhing shadows over her face in ominous and disturbing ways.
“Yeah, whatever…” She sneered, as is ancient teenage tradition.
“There you go.” Gary said with satisfaction. He turned back to the entity. “Did you have other instructions?” He demanded.
“We are to assure the capture or destruction of any anomalous entities in the region, as well as all entities designated ‘Belen’.” It said in the voice of a madman’s fever dreams. “Several target entities are present, both anomalies and ‘Belens’, we must destroy them.”
“Interesting, calling people anomalies… you are a fine one to talk there, buddy. Who is your master, who commands you?” He barked at the thing. Only silence answered him.
After a long moment he reached over and grabbed the most prominent mask, within the circle of swirling murk.
He plucked a woman’s face, wracked in fear and agony from the nightmare being and pulled it out into the garden with the soft sound of a scream, abruptly silenced.
Gary held the mask out for the witnesses and watched. Slowly, the expression softened, easing into the repose of a peaceful sleeper or tranquil deathmask.
“Because the being is currently feeding on me, rather than its usual diet, I can try…” He stood from his stool and placed himself in front of the whispering, horrified crowd.
With a deep breath in, he slipped the mask of a sleeping woman over his face and stepped to the left… out of his shadow.
There was a soft, tearing sound and a quiet gasp of pain from the musician, as he sank back onto his stool. Slowly, ever so slowly, a new shadow grew from his feet outward, oozing like a blood pool across the lawn.
“That was w-weird.” He murmured, looking wan and pale.
The shadow, wearing a bronze mask stood in front of the group, wavering softly, like heat haze, over a dark figure drawn in ink. “Sarafina… Hassan… my children…” A soft whisper from the figure silenced the witnesses, cutting through as sharp as broken glass.
Gary addressed the shade, barely audible in his exhaustion. “You are already on your way to join them, in the embrace of a friend of mine… they are very nice despite their name. Run along, the Devourer is waiting for you.”
The shadow entity made a soft gasp of fear, followed by a sigh of wonder, before vanishing.
“That’s one…” The exhausted musician said, looking rumpled and worn. “Each mask is a sentient soul, trapped in a magical construct, forced to execute its creator’s commands mindlessly. The construct uses the mortal souls to empower its Animus and uses them as its own brain… a disgusting idea… coming from me, that’s legit.”
He sipped from a big mug of tea and perked up a little. “Maybe she was a cultist, maybe a sacrificial victim… I suspect victims mostly. Either way, she is moving on to what’s next, through the Devourer of Souls.” He turned back to the swirling mask monster.
“Eventually, I will pluck this rancid thing bare and get to the heart of the matter, but for now, it's about information. I tricked it into my demon trap, inscribed with a detailed description of the creature itself. I wrote the creature's details as I perceived them in a spiraling, looping endless formation. It got lost in the passages and twists of its own existence, fascinated by itself… trapped between id and ego forever.”
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“What of the people you say are trapped inside?” Celeste demanded, cutting off Streeka, Tawny and Naomi, mid demand.
“Since the creature is cut off from its home in the beyond, I am feeding it. That means the souls inside are stuck until I get them out, but they are no longer being slowly consumed as they eternally regenerate.” He smiled smugly and gave a thumbs up. “I’m the good guy!”
“Weren't you saying, just a few days ago, how you tortured an entire species and didn’t feel bad about it?” Tawny snapped in disgust.
“The Skrigg? Those guys, err… that guy sucks. In their natural state they are just animals, only when separated into small groups and organized by an outside force are they ‘intelligent’. I suspect they won’t come anywhere near this reality after last time… that’s why our nameless enemy sent this thing, his loyal dog.” He said with disgust.
“They have been haunting my dreams for a while now. My friend the spider god kept destroying them, until they stopped coming. Makes me think there are only so many of these.” He swept a toe through the blood, wax and chalk markings, banishing the creature back into its tablet.
He tucked the foul thing away and smiled wanly. “I need a bath and a nap. Wake me when my kids get back.”
The boy staggered off, leaning on his bronze headed cane and trailing a ragged, incomplete shadow behind himself. Scraps and stains of shadow tore off and faded away with a warm scent of exotic spices as he slowly staggered off, with Shai helping him along.
Becky strode over to the vacant stool and settled onto it with a spectral and ephemeral sigh. Her hood caused strange and distorted echoes in her voice, giving it an ageless and mysterious sound.
“Any questions or comments?” She asked calmly, while the adults clamored for her attention.
#
Finally, Becky broke free, landing on a couch by the fire with tea and a cinnamon roll. Streeka danced over and curled up close, resting her chin on Becky’s lap.
“You do your god’s work diligently Becky my dear, remember that they do not perceive time as we do and mortal limitations typically elude them. Slow down, you need not exhaust yourself here.” She cooed softly.
“If these fools would still indenture you, we will take you in. Life beyond what you call ‘the fringe’ is not so different. We face our own pressures and trials from outsider incursio…” Her dark eyes widened in surprise.
“Becky, my sweet… you never said this was just a human problem… are we also being…?”
Becky’s tight lipped and solemn nod left Streeka fuming. “The dryads and spirits too, not just us humans and you guys. We have all been chasing our own tails while someone watches us struggle. All of us, I take that personally.” The young priestess said calmly, her eyes flashing dangerously.
“Gary isn’t the only one in danger of indentured servitude, he and Liam are just next in line.”
A radiant smile broke like sunrise over her face, as Wilford toddled up, holding Amy’s hand. “Naptime.” He said firmly.
“Wilf, you’re a genius, let’s go.” She scooped the tiny girl into her arms and staggered for the stairs, with the boy following after.
#
Twice each day, Gary summoned the entity, demanded the identity of its master and tore a mask free, before ripping a portion of his shadow loose in the process of dismissing the captive soul. On the third evening he asked Marduk about it.
“Should I be worried that it’s getting easier to tear my shadow off? It still feels… Uhgh?” He shuddered wordlessly at the end.
Marduk shook his head and smiled serenely. “If your Contract with Joy were complete, you might find it even easier. Her gift will touch your shadow and animus when active.”
He waved away Gary’s incoming questions with divine arrogance. “Mortals must discover their gifts after Contracting, no peeking at the unfinished goods.” He raised a pale eyebrow archly.
“My sister has been awaiting you for so very long. Even now, just beyond your gate, she lingers. Shai will not speak of it with you, she fears that you are more stubborn than wise.” He smiled again, gentle and fond.
“I am under no illusions, your stubbornness is the main reason you still exist. Wisdom… far less so. I will say this and no more. The sooner you contract with my sister, the better for everyone. Beast too, is concerned, lest you draw farther from the world of men.”
“What does that mean, Ducky? ‘Farther from the world of men’... is he afraid I’ll go wildman in the hills? Shai will have some things to say before that happens.”
“It means, you are currently almost human… but you are also not entirely of this world, nor entirely alive, in the strictest sense.” He looked over to DJ NotGary, laying it down in his soundproof booth, as though lives were in the balance of his spinning wheels.
“That one is in charge of keeping your autonomous biological functions going, your heartbeat and such. Others are managing your various higher and lower functions. In many ways, you are more like a Hollow one, than a true living being.” Marduk patted Gary on the knee in consolation.
“The difference is, you feed on your own soul, shattering it into recursive variations of itself, then regenerating those fragments as they are consumed. Frankly, most entities find your existence very challenging and upsetting.”
He cast his gaze up to the Devourer, beyond the dome of bubbles and ribbons of shadow and light. The nebula flashed a pale red, shifting to violet in response to the god’s silent query.
“Each of these pieces of yourself, they are dedicated to holding you together in a careless and turbulent ether. This talent you have discovered might easily overtake your humanity, plunging you into darkness.” The godling spoke earnestly, holding the musician’s gaze.
“You could, with a few different choices… become a threat to this world. A nightmare demon of unlife, calling the dead from the grave and ruling with a mad demigod’s fury.”
“That is tempting… Shai is not going to be down with the whole ‘bride of the lich king’ vibe…” His grin faltered as Marduk’s message got through.
“We had best make certain that where my family goes, I go along with them.” He said coldly. “I don’t think I would like myself very much if it were otherwise.”
Marduk shook his white blonde head in frustration. “You are operating far outside the normal human limits for magical infusion, perfusion, transmission and exchange… but all unconsciously.” He reached out and tapped his young host on the forehead gently.
“At your rank, the amount of raw magic cranking through your body should incinerate you into a fine dust within an instant. If any element of this delicate balancing act fails, you might vanish, or be subsumed into a persona summoned for the needs of the moment, whatever such a creature might become.”
He took the boy by the hand and gently dragged him into the garden. “A completed Contract with Joy, my sweet sister Cowl, would firm your connections to humanity and life, while increasing your margin of safety… With regard to your possible evaporation into random magical elements.”
“Ok, I’ll talk to her, I’m not Contracting though, I’m firm on that.” Gary nodded twice, firmly affirming his stance.
Out in the garden, Velvet rope NotGary was hanging out by the gate as usual, chatting with someone… thing…else…? It was a swirling kelp forest in miniature, hovering in the near distance. They communicated with the colorful fish flashing through their leafy fronds.
“Hey boss, Swash, the elemental ocean spirit of Orgilith’s plane is here to check in, she got home just fine, there was some temporal displacement, I guess. It seems she was gone for a year, in her local time. Their pantheon is satisfied with the outcome but deeply unhappy with the event itself.”
“All I can say is I’m sorry and we are working on the problem. It’s not much, but it’s what I have to give.” Gary grumbled. “Lilith is as much a victim as the people of the town she was pulled into…” He shrugged helplessly.
The aquatic spirit burbled unhappily and slowly faded from view, leaving the fresh scent of an ocean breeze behind.
“I’m just gonna slip outside for a moment, I guess Joy insists on speaking to me directly…” He said quietly to himself, as he slipped past the velvet rope, into the outer yard, at the edge of his island.
#
Shai was sitting on a toadstool seat, when he came prancing back in, looking remarkably Joyful. “She hae a persuasive way about her, does she not, our Lady Joy?” She smirked and preened at her boy, gloating smugly and unashamed.
“Wow… I feel…” He drifted off, smiling foolishly. “More solid?” He asked wistfully, a few moments later.
“Show me yer list boy, I would see yer new Contract.” She shook him gently to rattle his brains back into motion. He slipped her the note with a goofy grin and sank into a puffball mushroom that appeared for him to land on.
Might:Normal Homebody
Resilience:Plus, Secret, divine Contract, Fractured Soul, Quietus Moon
Agility:Plus, spear Wanderer's Legacy, Pockets!
Will:Normal Artisan
Mind:Normal Interface
Animus:Plus, Joy, Divine Contract, Familiar Stranger, Entrainment
“Gary, I do see your new Contract… What be ‘Quietus Moon, under yer Contract wi Secret?” She asked gently.
“Mm? Something with my shadow, sacrificing parts of myself to give form to the spirits of the dead… I’m sure it’s fine.” He held out a finger for one of the enormous bees to land. “These guys are part of it… I think…” He gently waved the insect on its way, smiling happily.
“Ducky and Thirp have the kids in the house watching cartoons…” He winked at her and eyed her cottage, sitting nearby on its private island. “Tickle your bottom with a feather?”
#
Down in the workshop before dawn, Gary pulled out the pouch the duke delivered. He cracked the wax seal on the ties and it flopped open.
A half dozen palm sized silver coins, weighing about six ounces each, chimed dully as they landed on the bench. They were minted with the balanced scales of Order on one side and the open palm and all seeing eye of Healer on the other. A scattering of one ounce gold coins bounced and rolled along with a few silvers the size of dimes.
Each tenth ounce silver coin had a small hole pierced through over the design of a regal woman’s head in profile. A cubic throne sat empty on the reverse.
The golds held a pair of crossed shields behind a buckler on one face and a stooping hawk on the other.
“Six silver talents…” Tallum said from behind him. “That is a fortune by any measure. Whatever the duke has planned for you, he is willing to pay for it”
“I’ve been meaning to ask… where I come from, Gold is the big thing, or platinum. Here, silver is the high end metal… is it a rarity thing? Or is it the magical utility that silver brings?” Gary asked, while adding the giant coins to his significantly diminished sack. He hefted the bag and smiled.
“It’s both, silver and gold appear in similar quantities on the commodities market, but silver commands ten times the price of gold because of its occult and magical properties.”
“So the silver I used in those rings…” He scrubbed at his face in mild frustration. “I could have used gold just as easily, oil quenched bronze would probably even last longer…” The musician went to work on one of the projects on his bench, quietly humming about;
Money, It’s a gas…
“I did wonder at that… the silver bells on Shai’s… whatever, they attract a lot of attention… I’m done talking about my sister’s hips.” Tallum turned some very interesting shades of red, while Gary finished wrenching on a bicycle and humming his song.
After a quiet hour working beside Tallum, before sunrise, a workout, with Liam Shai and the kids at dawn, Gary got up to his new normal. An early morning summoning of unclean energies from beyond.
He finished his ritual and faced his amorphous prisoner again. “Who commands you, what is their name?” He demanded again, still only silence answered. With a sigh he reached in and grabbed another mask, bracing for the unpleasant wrenching at his shadow.
Instead, he slipped the mask of a shrieking asiatic man in late middle age over his face and smiled. His shadow stepped aside with the mask over its darkling face and slipped into the shade of a tree, vanishing with a pleasant sigh.
A moment later, shadow Gary came back, whistling a happy tune. He stepped from under the tree and slipped back into place, reattaching itself to his feet.
Slowly, he reached back in and plucked another mask from the foul being, a young girl, lost in abject despair and fear. He slipped her features over his own and let out a gasp and a giggle.
Once more, his shadow took a stroll, wandering under the nearby arbor of duskmoon flowers. As he strolled he whistled a cheerful tune, the mask gained a patina of verdigris, darkening to a deep sea green as it crumbled into errant flecks of dust on the breeze.
Shadow Gary came skipping back, holding a duskmoon made of shadow stuff and pantomiming taking enormous sniffs from the flower. He slipped back into place and took a long moment composing himself into Gary’s shape… mostly. He was still holding that shadow flower.
Shai and Becky, watching from the patio, came rushing over. “What was that?” Becky demanded, before Shai could get it out.
“I Contracted Joy last night, my new gift has some… specialized utility. I can let ghosts haunt my shadow temporarily, I feed them power, they can advise or assist us with things… ghost things mostly.” He said, looking shifty and sly.
“So ye do say… what kind of ‘ghost things’ boy?” Shai had a suspicious look in her eye. “Ye dabble in necromancy?”
“Maybe… just a little. I need some alone time to practice with it…” He rolled his shoulders to settle shadow Gary back into place fully. “I’m gonna take a bike prototype out for a spin and work this out. I’ll be back before fourth bell love.” He reached for his filthy tile and Shai brought him up short.
“Nae, ye leave that thing here, I would nae hae ye mucking wi that, out of sight of home.” She hugged him close and spun him to the gate. “Off ye go, dinnae do aught too mad… I will see ye at fourth. I will nae hae ye spooking the children wi yer ghost shadows.”
#
Gary strolled out of the market gate and into the orchards. Once he was out of sight he mounted up on the mark two prototype and pedaled off, up the lane. Shai’s torsion bar suspension, combined with a clever captured spring device of Tallum’s were almost as good as real, inflated tires.
At a leisurely pace, he cranked along whistling ‘Ode to Joy’ in two part harmony somehow.
Gary kicked on the compact sandwich motor mounted in the frame and felt a gentle surge. Not too much, just a boost. He gave it a trickle more, using his own mana to fuel it with a thin strand of magic.
He breezed up the road in near silence, only the soft sound of his hard rubber tires on the compacted gravel surface and the soft rattle of his gear accompanied his happy, whistling passage.
He passed a trio of strangers, walking their horses towards Wheatford, with a smile and a wave. They watched him roll by in silent confusion. They stood by the side of the road, watching his slowly retreating form, until the music faded away.
The bike surged forward in a steady burst of acceleration. He got up to a respectable jogging pace with little magical assist, taking the slight incline with minimal effort.
Feeling emboldened, Gary gave it a bit more, taking a steady stream off the top. He fed it about a quarter of his regular regeneration rate and nearly got bucked off. The bike groaned and lurched, subtly deforming under the stresses from the motor.
He cut the magic and rolled to a stop to assess the damage. Two motor mounts were twisted free of their housings, taking bites out of the laminate hardwood of the frame. The drive shaft was twisted a half revolution, with obvious deformations in its length. At least he could still ride it home.
Gary squatted down to set about removing the damaged motor when an unfamiliar voice spoke behind him.
“That’s the one, take him alive…”