— CHAPTER TWELVE —

A Couple of Boys Get Paid

  -Fritz-

 We came trooping over the crest of a hill - me followed by our gaggle of villagers (even Oliver and that woman's sick father were up and walking), then Percy brought up the rear leading the grumbling Torglax by a short leash. Before us spread the little hill town we passed through yesterday. At the sight of it, the NPCs couldn't contain themselves - they rushed forward through the gates, hooting and hollering with joy. One of the men fell to his knees, arms spread as he looked to the sky.

 "I never thought I'd see civilization again!"

 Titus X came wandering over to see what was happening. "Hey guys! What's all this?" He waved at us, then saw the woman. He immediately shrank into his very tasteful shirt like a turtle. Doing his best to keep his back to her, he backed toward me. "O-oh, hey. I'm glad everything worked out for you!" The poor guy looked like he wanted to melt into the cobblestones.

 "How's it going, man?" I laughed.

 The woman paid him no mind, her attention wholly fixed on Percy. She grabbed his hands. "Oh, thank you, adventurers! I know we don't have much, but please, take these! This is what I foraged from the fields around our village." Then she ran off to catch up to her father. "Let's see if Uncle Theodore still lives here!"

 The old man grumbled, "I gotta put up with that codswalloper again?"

 A whole stack of notifications popped up in front of both me and Percy.

 'Quest Complete: What Remains. View log >'

 'You have advanced to Level 4! Congratulations!'

 And last was a list of the fruits and vegetables the woman had given us. Some of them were quite pricey in the Faustenburg markets - she'd even found a bunch of bananas! Still, it was nothing too exciting.

 "Wow, they really load the good stuff into the bonus rewards." I said.

 Percy shrugged. "Exp is exp. That's me halfway to 5."

 As our rescued NPCs dispersed throughout the town, I pulled Titus aside for a quick word. "Hey man, sorry they're not human, but I hope they can change things up around here for you."

 He said, "Don't worry about it. If they were people, she'd recognize me as the guy that left her village for dead."

 "True." I nodded. "But listen, could you do me a favor and keep an eye on them for me? The scenario we found was completely different than yours. We want to see how long these dynamic event chains can go - is this a permanent resettlement, or will they rebuild their village and restart the chain?"

 "Oh, yeah, sure! I'll message you if they start moving out or something!"

 "Thanks, man." I accepted his friend request.

 Returning to Percy, who was still keeping a close hold of Torglax's chain, and asked, "Anything we need to take care of here?"

 "Not me." he replied.

 We both looked at Torglax. He'd been in a pouty, grumbly mood all morning and stubbornly ignored us.

 I clapped my hands together. "Then on to Faustenburg!"

  (Percival)

 Later, by early afternoon, the three of us were stood outside the drawbridge of Faustenburg Keep. Set into the northern segment of the city wall, it was an impressive stone fortress surrounded by a moat diverted from the river running out of the lake to the north.

 Fritz, who couldn't enter on account of being a neutral player, said, "I'm gonna go shopping for brownie mix - you want anything?"

 "No, thank you."

 "Alright. See you on the other side." He wandered off.

 I pushed Torglax forward. The guards in rose-colored armor flanking the entrance watched us as we entered the darkness of the gatehouse. The inside was actually quite nice. The dense stone architecture was softened by wood paneling and torchlight. It almost felt like a reading den.

 In the lobby, a foppish man with an absurdly poofy hairstyle was shuffling files behind a directory desk. I approached him and held up Torglax's journal. "I've got a Royalist Lieutenant pretending to be Resistance stirring up trouble here. You handle that sort of thing?"

 The fop clapped his hands in delight. "Do we now? Isn't that an exciting little twist!" He leaned forward over the desk, fixing Torglax with a smug grin. "Well, Mr. 'Resistance Freedom Fighter', why don't we put you with the rest of your friends, hm?"

 Torglax swallowed hard, glaring and growling at the both of us.

 The fop snapped his fingers sharply. "Guards! Take this one to the Resistance wing - and make it a popular cell! But do make sure they don't kill him; I'm certain the Lieutenant will have use for him in negotiations!"

 One of the guards with a short halberd grabbed Torglax by the arm and dragged him down a side hallway. "A new dawn is coming!" Torglax shouted as he struggled against the guard's grip. "And you'll wish you'd died before it rises!" The clattering of his chains echoed off the walls as he disappeared from view.

 The fop reached under his desk. "Excellent work, Squire! You are a crrredit to the Loyalty!" He set a pouch of coins on the desk and picked up the journal. "Now, your bounty! One officer, plus I'll make sure this evidence gets to the Lieutenant post-haste."

 I picked up the pouch, and it absorbed into my inventory. 2 kingsmarks and 20 pfennigs. You'd think a human life would be worth more, but hey, money's money. That's a nice lunch right there. Honestly, I was surprised there was even an interaction like that. I was expecting either, one, the guards would shoot Torglax as soon we tried to enter the city because he was a hostile mob, or two, no one would acknowledge his presence. The marketing said that your actions would have an impact, but nothing to that degree of reactive AI - I wasn't giving the game enough credit.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

 I kind of wanted to go visit the dungeons and see what was going to happen to Torglax - was he going to despawn once he was out of the way in a cell? Was someone else going to stumble on those 'negotiations' the fop mentioned? Questions for another day; I had more important business to take care of.

 Crossing the city, I headed toward the orphanage. The yard was quiet when I got there, the children all inside for class. At the front of the classroom, Pascal was at the board teaching them... I don't know, what do elementary school kids learn? How to compute a partial derivative.

 Elie, serving as teaching assistant, saw me come in and headed over to the lore desk to help me.

 "I have some notes on the Stonehearth Plains here." I said.

 "Oh, how'd everything go out there?"

 "Fine." I pulled up my map and scrolled it around so she could get pictures of my notes. Then, opening my screenshot album, I showed her images I'd taken of Torglax's journal - just in case we lost the original.

 "Clever thinking!" Elie said. "Could you attach those to a message and send them to me?"

 I did, then thought. "Let's see... was there anything else? Oh! Have you seen any items with effects like this one?" I drew the magic-neutralizing dagger and showed it to her.

 "I don't usually handle quests, so I haven't read all the files myself." she admitted. "But it's the first time I've seen anything quite like that. Is it one of the optional rewards?"

 "Yeah."

 "I'll make a note to have someone follow up - see if the item is reproducible by following the same steps."

 "One more thing. Me and my friend, we were kind of sent on this whole journey because he's indebted to the mob, and they want this information. Could you, I don't know, wait a few days before showing anyone? Then pretend you didn't get it from us?"

 She nodded. "I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I'll have one of our other adventurers 'independently discover' it."

 "Thanks."

 "Anytime! Thank you for your contribution! Oh! Your reward!" She picked up the dish of caramels and offered it to me.

 I took one and turned to leave just as Fritz was coming in the door. We both froze awkwardly.

 Rubbing the back of his neck, he asked, "Hey man, you, uh... give them your notes?"

 "Yep."

 "Good, good. Yours are way more thorough than mine."

 "Were you going to tell them what we found?"

 "Yeah, why not?"

 "What are you going to give to the mob, then?"

 "Ah, you let me worry about that." We left the orphanage and started walking down the street. "Did you grab my chain?"

 I stopped and slapped my forehead. "I forgot the chain!"

 "Ah well; it served its purpose. At least I've still got his bad boy!" He drew his mini crossbow and aimed dramatically at a stack of nearby barrels.

 "You're not going to give that to the mob, are you?"

 "Are you kidding me?! I may be a debaucherous rapscallion in deep with forces I can't contend with, but I still have a civil conscience! Plus, this baby's our ticket to breezing through the low level zones!"

 "How much are you in for, anyway? With these guys?"

 Fritz sighed and despawned the crossbow. "I got cold feet once it hit 100 marks, but they talked me into a double-or-nothing, so... 200 marks."

 "And how much are they knocking off for this job?"

 "I didn't ask - I was too busy looking at the swords they were pointing at me."

  -Fritz-

 The casino was as lovely as always - a dark, damp basement warehouse renovated into a smoke-filled parlor with tables for cards and dice. The air hung thick with the stench of desperation and stale beer. Tarnished brass fixtures cast a sickly glow over the sea of unwashed faces hunched over games of chance, puffing on cheap cigars. Yep, this joint was filled with the skeeviest, most desperate bastards in the city - people like me.

 I headed toward the back, where a bouncer stood watch, arms crossed over his barrel chest. The dude was wearing a full suit of armor with exposed rivets holding together the patchwork steel plates. He looked like Frankenstein's monster - and was built like him, too. I wondered if he'd recustomized his avatar to get that ridiculous bulk or if he was just naturally the size of a sedan.

 I pulled out a loyalty mark - one of the orange poker chips - and flashed it at Goliath. He gave a menacing grunt, eyeing me up and down, then turned to lead the way. I followed him into the bowels of the casino.

 In the back, through a mildewed hallway, was what had once been a storeroom full of rotting grain. It'd been gussied up into a halfway decent office, complete with a plush velvet carpet, shelves crammed with tacky knick-knacks, and a finely polished mahogany desk. Behind that desk sat Garbage Gary, a slovenly grease ball with a wispy pencil mustache and the most aggressively garish velvet suit I'd ever laid eyes on. He had to be wearing it as a statement - 'I'm above taste.'

 Behind Gary, the other boss, Eagle, was pacing impatiently. He was the one to watch out for. Gary? Predictable - he was in it for the cash, nothing else. But Eagle, he'd stumbled into this power trip and was riding it to the end of the line.

 Gary dragged his gaze up from picking at his nails. "You are... one of the debtors we sent out, yes?" He waved a hand vaguely. "What was his task again?"

 "The plains rumor," Eagle said, still pacing. "So, what've you got?"

 I cleared my throat and opened my inventory. "Well, I went up to the Stonehearth Plains to poke around, and wouldn't ya know it - I struck gold!" I spilled a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables across Gary's desk. "You find some rando village under attack, beat back the bandits, and they shower you with all this good stuff!"

 Gary wrinkled his nose at the produce rolling around.

 "But that's not all! If you save all the villagers, they throw in one of these bad boys!" I whipped out a box of brownie mix. "Local specialty! ... Allegedly. Looks just like the stuff in the store to me though."

 An orange escaped the pile and plopped into Gary's lap. He tossed it back on the desk and made a shooing motion. "Get this... refuse off my workspace."

 Eagle huffed out an exasperated sigh. "Well, they can't all be winners."

 I started scooping the fruits and veggies back into my inventory. "So... we square then?"

 Eagle stopped his pacing and pinned me with a hard look. "Oh no. You did a piss-poor job." He stepped forward, looming. "You're here until we say otherwise."

 Gary leaned back, nose in the air. "Do we really need a... bungling fool like this? We should focus on growth - curate some actual talent."

 Eagle slammed a fist on the desk, sending another orange rolling into Gary's lap. "This is about principle! In fact..." A nasty smirk spread across his face. "I think you need a reminder that we aren't running some kind of... vegetable farm!"

 He snapped his fingers at Frankenstein's monster and pointed my way. I gritted my teeth as a pinching sensation tore through my knees. My legs vanished in a flurry of glowing motes and I pitched forward -

 Only to be caught under the arms by Percival. The kid propped my stumps on the floor and held my torso upright against him.

 Eagle quirked a brow as if he was just noticing the kid. "Who's the squirt?"

 "Uh... this is Fritz Carlton." Percy said, holding my torso up. "... One of the guys that owes you money."

 "Don't get smart with me, brat." Eagle jabbed a finger at me. "You're working for his sake now, too. Mess this up again, and the kid pays the price. You're part of this now, kid. Get me?"

 Percival blinked slowly, showing no emotion. Then, "... Mother-!"

---

Next Time:

 It's a newspaper. The players set up an in-game newspaper.

Intermission 1 - Celestial Daily Issue No. 31