1 Soul Bound
1.1 Finding her Feet
1.1.7 An Extreme Response
1.1.7.4 Games with men of iron
On the 1st Day
8 bells of the morning watch, Zerday Wain, the 21st day in the month of KrevinBelember.
Kafana: {Minion, how’s Vessel-Kafana doing?}
[Tomsk is with her. He did an interview with her down at Mud Gate for the launch recording, where she met your body being escorted home by all those soldiers. Wellington had set it up, and Tomsk had explained to her that if enough adventurers get inspired by your example, it will improve the odds of recovering the sword and re-uniting her with you. I think she’s picked up more of your skill set and personality than anyone realised, because she rose to the occasion magnificently. Do you want to see Tomsk’s recording of what happened?]
{Yes, I really really do. But as you can see, I can’t. This is one of the few times of year we actually get tourists and make a profit. So save it for me to watch later, and summarise for now. Make it dramatic, not factual.}
[She talked about you, about how you’d saved the people of Basso from the plague, what that meant to them, how it had been a privilege to have been your vessel, and she’d been uniquely positioned to know that you really cared, that you were genuine, brave, funny, just an amazing person. There were tears in her eyes. And then her emotions switched. She talked about those who robbed her of you, of your death and your last thoughts and what they meant to her. She was furious. Sophroni, the stone mason was nearby, weeping at her words. Vessel mentioned the quest to pave the Mud Road that you’d been about to do on your return, not for the experience but because it would help so many people, and brought up your words calling upon the other adventurers to stand with her and reject the PKers. Then she delivered a pile of stones to Sophroni, and staggered to the road and laid down one herself. She demanded the Athame from Wellington, and used it to write her name down in stone. Of course Tomsk and Wellington did the same, laying a stone from the pile and putting their name on their stone. Then Fra Gamal did the same.]
[To cut a long story short, laying a stone and putting your name on it has been added as an event quest, an easy way to earn some event points. Players have been turning up in increasing numbers, listening to Vessel sing and asking her questions as they wait their turn to lay a stone. Herberto sent down a load of workmen to join Sophroni in preparing the road ahead of the players, and they’re only just keeping up with the demand. They’re talking about inscribing “We Stand With Kafana” over the arch of the gate, to turn the whole road into a petition. They’ve been there ever since, though they’re due to meet up with Mary-Lynn at the orphanage in half an hour, to record the orphans receiving some baby goats to train with, have Nicolo sing and say how your risked your sanity for him, and have Pierrot and Vittoria reunite and talk about what it means to them.]
{Wow, Alderney and Mary-Lynn fight dirty. Cute kids, cute animals, and tear-jerker stories? They’re going to break the internet.}
[Yes, I believe that’s the intention. Mary-Lynn’s a pro at getting ratings, and Alderney is as good at creative editing of recordings as she is at everything else creative. Mary-Lynn tried to hire Alderney for Mary-Lynn’s arlife business.]
{Alderney turned her down?}
[Alderney made the tiara that is my current focus. I do have curiosity. It is needed to anticipate your desires and so be more helpful to you. So I have known for months how many patents are registered in Alderney’s name. She could buy Mary-Lynn’s business and this whole village out of pocket change.]
{Good for her. Unfortunately, singing isn’t lucrative anymore. I need to keep my customers happy, which means that no matter how much I want to see Pierrot alive and free, I can’t make any time until 5pm, and probably then only for 10 minutes. Explain that to Alderney for me please, and ask Tomsk to look after Vessel and make sure she gets some food and sleep.}
Over the next hour and a half she didn’t have time for any more updates. She spent 10 minutes talking with Muhamed the poacher, who brought her the occasional deer. 20 minutes listening to young Vedad talking about his soccer training. He’d never been employed and probably never would be, but he still hoped. She was appropriately admiring.
She spent 15 minutes consoling Tarik, who had yet to come to terms with the fact the whole accountancy profession was now effectively dead, and another 15 listening to Harun brag that everyone as wise as he was had already known the writing was on the wall, then moderate the argument as others joined in. Every break in the conversation she got hit with an increasingly frantic Alderney demanding she abandon the bar and go log in, and sent back a curt “Sorry, no can do. Customers.” Eventually she took the earrings off.
She had just about finished catching up on gossip with the bearded and black coated David, and was about to head over to Daris and Omar when Alderney burst into the room.
Heather: “Please gather around, I have an important question for you.”
The regulars looked a little perplexed at having their normal routine disrupted, but having been thoroughly threatened by Bahrudin on the perils of offending this visiting dignitary, they obediently left their seats and came over to where she was standing. Heather produced a long roll of paper on which had been written all the repair requests from the village.
“Elder Bahrudin thoughtfully passed this list of opportunities to me, in case I grew bored. But it lacks challenge. It offends my dignity. You’ve been so hospitable that I want to provide you with something truly unique, truly Bosnian, that will improve your lives and the lives of all who live here for generations to come. But to do this, I need a baseline, a sample of people who represent the heart of what it means to be a Bosnian today. People who have stayed true to their roots, not been seduced by outside fripperies. Men of iron.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Heather looked around. Omar and Jasic were puffing out their chests. Harun was positively beaming. Even Tarik looked a little less glum, and Muhamed edged a large worn bag further under a bench, that may or may not have contained several rabbits of dubious provenance.
Heather tapped her chin, as though a thought had only just occurred to her.
“Would it be ok, if I used my observations of you all? I warn you, there’s a distinct danger that when this great project succeeds, you may be looked upon by others with envy, so this is only for the courageous.”
Vedad took a step forward, just to make sure that nobody suspected him of retreating.
Harun: “Look no further. You have chosen your vacation spot well. Kafana Sabanagic is the very heart of true Bosnian culture, and we the last warriors defending it and its ways.”
Several of the others nodded in agreement.
“Thank you!” she said beaming, but then suddenly looked sad. “Oh! But perhaps it is not to be, after all. Time. Time. I must leave in only 5 days, and I came here to be with my friend Nadine. I confess, I didn’t realise before how vital she is here. It seems I will be spending those 5 days sitting here sipping coffee, so I can spend the time with her while she serves and chats with you. What a shame that there are no others like Elder Bahrudin, with the skills and chivalry to lighten her load. Why, if there were, then instead of me being in here accompanying Nadine, she could be upstairs accompanying me while I got to work!”
Heather let out a sigh. “Nadine, my old friend, could I trouble you for a cup, and then perhaps we can have a game of Crna Dama or Terziglio?”
David nudged Daris forwards, as being the eldest present who wasn’t deaf or incompetent. The others gave him significant looks and little motions of their hands, making it clear what they expected of him.
Daris: “Far be it for me to compare myself with Elder Bahrudin. But if Ms Sabanagic will entrust me with it, I will undertake to keep this motley lot” he eyed the others imperiously “plied with the sort of coffee this establishment is rightly famed for.” He gave a slight bow, and then whispered to Heather “And, hey, that tractor on the list, you’ll make sure it is at the top? Vital for our economy you know.”
Heather whispered back “The very top!”
Nadine: “I thank you all for your support. Friends mean so much to me, and it is good to be loyal to them, yes? I gratefully accept, and I promise I will drop back down at random times whenever I can, to see if there’s anything that needs my help.”
Omar, who had been eyeing a rather expensive bottle behind her bar, blushed a little and avoided eye contact.
With that, Nadine took Heather’s arm and they grandly left together up the stairs.
Once safely out of earshot Nadine gave Heather an admiring round of applause.
Nadine: “Heather, I didn’t know you had it in you! That was naughty, you really will have to fix his tractor, you know.”
Heather: “I had my new drones checking out the targets on the fix list all last night, as practice. I already know the make and model, and have uploaded a full schematic. Trust me, they’re going to think I’m a witch by the time the week is out.”
Nadine: “Better hope they don’t. In these parts, they don’t associate ‘witches’ with children dressing up for Halloween. They remember the stories their parents told them about striga, the witches who also suck blood.”
Heather: “Anyway, it was easy. I asked your Crown’s advice” Heather giggled, still delighted that Nadine had given her tiara a pet name, drat her “and he played me a recording of you talking to Bahrudin before I arrived.” She sounded smug. Too smug.
Nadine laughed, gently.
“Heather, Heather. They may be unemployed, but they’re not dumb hicks. They knew you were attempting to manipulate them, and went along with it anyway. It’s the game. It wouldn’t have been good sportsmanship for them to have turned you down when you showed how important it was to you by the effort you went to in order to stage your performance. Well, ok, Vedad probably fell for it, but he’s young. He’ll learn.”
Heather wasn’t sure whether to look annoyed or impressed. “Well, they fooled me.”
Nadine, virtuously: “We all play our roles in life.”
Heather: “Humph. Some of us with more skill and relish than others, it seems.”
Nadine: “Heh, now you’ve declared yourself to be part of the game, they’ll be cooking up a return play aimed at you, even as we speak.”
Heather’s eyes lit up with challenge. “Oh will they now? Well I’ve a trump card they don’t know about. This is going to be the most fun vacation ever!”
They paused at the doors to their bedrooms. It was good to have Heather here.
Nadine: “If your ploy works, then later in the week I want to take a half day to take you out and drive you around, maybe take you herb picking, maybe see if you can really hit a rabbit with a thrown knife, and you can learn to gut it. Coming all this way, and just ending up spending all your time stuck in a single building, however nice, is a travesty.”
Heather: “I’ll hold you to that. In the meantime, however, please check up on the location of that jackass Necromancer, and then spend a good while on the burrow. These are the critical hours where we get to shape its atmosphere. You’ve a bucket load of karma points. Spread them around on the sort of posts you want more of, to help train the expert system to model your opinion. The rest of us are doing the same.”
Kafana: “I haven’t wasted all my time in the bar. I’ve been thinking. I’m not going to check on Kullervo straight away. I’m going to watch the recordings of Vessel-Kafana and Pierrot first, damn it. And while I do, I’d like you to contact Wellington and ask if he can try to use resonance between the personalities of myself and Vessel-Kafana to pick up a direction. The link between us may have been severed, but the similarity between us went deeper than that, I think. If he agrees, then we can time my login to his attempt.”
Heather agreed, enthusiastically, and gave her a hug, then they parted and logged in.
*flip*