Sam
“Artie made it sound like Laborers are pretty sought after,” Sam said as she followed in Will’s footsteps, keeping her eyes on the ground so she wouldn't cut her bare feet on any sharp rocks or thorny underbrush.
“They are,” Will replied over his shoulder. And what shoulders they were. “Laborer is the rarest Profession by a good margin. As you might imagine, there aren’t exactly any decent census records in a place like this, but it’s estimated that less than half a percent of lifers—people reborn into the Frontier—pick Laborer.”
“So it’s rare—why does that matter, though?”
“There are a few reasons. You level up based on your participation and personal achievement in the activity associated with your Profession. Laborer is the only Profession that can level up from pure physical exertion—such as fighting, for instance. That makes them by far the best option for soldiers, guards, mercenaries, you name it.
“They also have several powerful abilities that help boost their performance in this role. Like the skill called Strike, which is technically the only pure offensive ability provided by the Concord, originally made for fighting off aggressive wildlife and such. High demand for Laborers combined with low supply means that local warlords are always jumping at the chance to recruit more of them.”
“Right. And what are you supposed to be, exactly?”
“I’m a Cook-Explorer synergist.” Looking over his shoulder, he grinned at the querying look on her face. “That means I started out as a Cook, then branched into Explorer when I got the chance to specialize at Level 10, giving me access to abilities from both Professions.”
“Sounds complicated.”
Will jumped over a root that stuck out of the earth like a bent knee. “Only until you get the hang of it. Don’t worry, this stuff will become second nature eventually.”
Sure. I don’t think this dream is going to last that long, but whatever.
“Artie said Explorers were bad,” Sam pointed out. “Why’d you pick that as your second option?”
“Well, our dear Artie was half right. Explorers actually get some really nice features, especially for traversal and navigation, but it’s held back by the fact that you need to, well, explore to get anywhere with it. Traveling outside the walled cities isn’t exactly conducive to a long life. It doesn’t help that about a third of all lifers are Explorers. That’s on account of the fact that most people don’t have any idea what they’re getting into when they have to pick their Profession, and ‘Explorer’ sounds a lot cooler than ‘Physician’ for example, meaning it’s the opposite situation from Laborer—high supply, low demand. Explorers are often consigned to drudgery in mines and sawmills and such, on account of the fact that as long as you keep them penned up in one place, you don’t have to worry about them ever outleveling their captors and overthrowing them, meaning you have a constant supply of menial labor without much fuss.
“That being said, Explorer can be a nice branch-out pick for lifers who have already got enough levels under their belt that they can reasonably travel around a bit, given the fact that synergists can level up from the activity of the Profession they branch into, as well as the one they started with.”
“I guess that makes sense.” It sort of did. A little bit.
The sky was beginning to purple when they abruptly stepped out of the woods and into a field of short grass with colorful bunches of wildflowers in blue and red and yellow.
At the head of a shallow hill maybe a hundred feet in the distance, there stood a cluster of buildings with warm light shining out of several. Shifting silhouettes suggested people moving about within.
Sam tensed up, fearing another run-in with some friendly neighborhood flesh dealers.
“Here we are,” Will said, sounding tiredly triumphant. “The farm. If there’s anyplace in the Frontier where you can let your guard down, it’s here.”
Sam felt her muscles slowly unbunch as she followed Will up the gently sloping ground. They walked past stumps of trees cut down to clear more arable land, and several crop fields extending out to their right.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
A dark figure came pounding toward them from the buildings, moving with an odd, shambling, hunch-backed gait, and Sam’s hackles immediately rose again. Whatever that was, it certainly did not look human.
It took her brain several moments to process that it was, in fact, a chimp in human clothing—an open-front vest adorned with wooden toggles and embroidered with the number ‘1’ at the breast.
For some reason, Will did not appear alarmed, stopping and directing several unfamiliar hand signs at the chimp, who replied in kind with thick but surprisingly nimble fingers before knuckling on past the man, headed straight for Sam.
She found herself unable to speak as the chimp stopped before her, its wide lips peeling back in a gummy grimace, showing yellow canines that would easily rend flesh.
“Uh…” Sam stammered, holding her pile of chains protectively in front of her chest. “Hello? Nice to meet you?”
“That’s Number One,” Will said, looking inordinately amused by her discomfort. The withering glare she shot his way did not seem to have any effect. The chimp made another round of signs with both hands, and Will added: “He says it’s nice to meet you, too. He wants you to bend down a little.”
Reluctantly, Sam did as she was asked. The chimp—Number One—reached up with one over-long arm and touched the collar around her neck with two fingers, signing with the other hand.
At the chimp’s touch, the solid metal confining Sam’s neck suddenly came apart with a series of snapping sounds, little bits of iron tumbling over her shoulders and disappearing into the grass.
Sam gaped. Letting the chain—which was no longer attached to anything—drop to the ground with a hissing rattle, she felt at her neck with both hands, finding nothing except a bit of chafed skin to remind her that there had in fact been a collar there a moment prior.
“That skill is called ‘Demolish’,” Will explained. “It destroys non-living matter. Convenient, right?”
“Convenient,” Sam agreed numbly.
Number One gave her another frightening grimace. Smiling, she realized, feeling a little foolish. He was probably trying to put her at ease. “Good monkey,” she said, and patted him on his graying, wispy-haired head.
Smile widening, Number One offered out his hand, and Sam took it. The skin was rough and hard, feeling almost like grainy wood, but his grip was surprisingly gentle.
“He’s a kind soul,” Will said as the chimp began leading them up the slope.
“I’m noticing that.”
“The others can be a little rowdier.”
“The others? There’s more than one chimp?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I’ll let that be a surprise.”
Five. Not a minute later she had five clothed chimps gathered around her, chattering and hooting and making insistent hand signs both at her and each other, wrestling for space. Two of them were nursing cigarettes, and a third used the ember from one of his compatriots’ rolls to light up one of his own.
“What are they saying?” Sam asked over the wave of simian commotion.
“You don’t want to know,” Sam replied, coughing into his fist.
She frowned. “Why?”
“Uh…”
“Will.”
“Look, there are no sexual harassment laws on the Frontier.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it. They’ll keep their hands to themselves, I'm sure.”
Suddenly, the chimps’ grinning faces looked a lot sketchier than they had a few moments ago, especially with the cigarettes pinched between their lips. She could almost imagine them sitting outside a cafe somewhere, rudely catcalling at passing women. Dear god, where have I ended up?
Muffled bleating from a stables to her left suggested that there were even more animals she hadn’t seen. She just hoped the goats weren’t wearing pants.
“Hey! Leave the poor thing alone, you brutes!” came a hoarse voice. Looking up, Sam saw a man standing on the raised wooden porch of the main farmhouse, leaning against a rough-hewn support pillar with his arms crossed over his chest. He was terribly ugly in a ‘weird uncle’ sort of way—half bald, with the rest of his hair sticking out in a chaotic, greasy shock.
At his command, the chimps reluctantly backed away, giving Sam some space. With a few more verbal prods, he eventually got them to disperse, three of them piling into a smaller building while the remaining two fetched shortbows and bristling quivers and ventured off into the woods.
“That’s Matt,” Will explained, nodding toward the ugly fellow. “He goes by Mongrel. Don’t ever play cards with him. Or dice. Actually, just don’t gamble with him at all. He’s the worst sort of bastard in just about every way you could imagine.”
Pushing himself off the pillar, Mongrel sketched out an exaggerated bow. His arms were seemingly too long for his body, hanging awkwardly down the sides of his body. “Guilty as charged. And you must be the Samantha I’ve heard so many wistful fireside tales about.”
“That’s meee,” Sam said with a smile and an awkward shuffle that she immediately regretted.
“You’re prettier than I thought you’d be.”
“Mongrel,” Will said in a warning tone.
“I just mean that I expected any woman desperate enough to get with this loser,” he pointed at Will with a scuffed boot, “to be on the frumpier end of the bell curve. No offense, kid. And frankly, from what he told me about your wrestling days, I was expecting something more like a bear in a dress.”
Will groaned softly.
“O-Oh,” Sam said, her face going hot. “Um, we weren’t actually, uh, together. We were just friends.”
“Good friends,” Will agreed.
“Right, of course,” Mongrel said, looking between the two of them with a smirk that was altogether too knowing. “Well, now that I’ve said my hellos, I think maybe I should give you good friends some privacy, eh?” With that, he spun dramatically on his heel and sauntered inside the house, his coarse laughter echoing out into the yard until the door swung shut behind him.
And then it was just the two of them again, and it got quiet except for the scream of an unseen goat.
Me too, goat, Sam thought, swallowing a lump of nerves. Me too.