Oliver Fizzlecrank pulled on his gumboots, the black rubbery material covering his legs nearly to the knee. While they weren’t the height of fashion (not that Oliver cared overmuch for following such trends) and the rubber sap needed to produce one pair of boots was tediously difficult to gather (even considering Oliver’ diminutive foot size: he wore a gnomish size 10, roughly equivalent to that of a 10-year old human child), there was just no beating the level of protection against certain substances that these boots provided. And so, despite the fact that they engulfed his entire lower leg and despite the high-pitched squeaky squelch they emitted with each step, Oliver smiled, reassured that science and innovation would keep him safe today; the unassailable power of gnomish ingenuity would ensure that he returned home this evening.
His smile widened and his heartbeat raced with excitement as he took a small box from off his desk. Sliding the lid off, Oliver looked down fondly at his latest invention: minotaur-hide gloves. The sale of minotaur leather was outlawed within the confines of the city, minotaurs having been found capable of sentience and therefore recognized as citizens in their own right. Indeed, he’s paid a small fortune in permit fees to have the material imported legally. The exporter, Labyrinthine Leathers, assured the material was ethically sourced, but still, Oliver had made a sizable donation to the city’s minotaur orphanage to assuage his guilt.
That guilt was all but forgotten now, and his smile stretched nearly ear to ear as he pulled on the gloves, the supple brown material extending all the way to his elbow. His testing had indicated they would provide three times the puncture resistance of standard bovine leather. Three times!
His dressing ritual was suddenly interrupted by the sound of feet skittering across the wooden floor. He turned just in time as his dog rushed over and jumped at Oliver’s chest. The dog was considered a mini breed to humans, but standing now on his back legs with front legs resting comfortably on Oliver’s shoulders, the two were nearly the same height.
“Ohhh, good morning little Ollie,” he said to the dog, who, by pure coincidence (or perhaps fate), had also been named Oliver before his adoption. “Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah.” He gave the dog loud, affectionate air-kisses. Ollie had been born with a congenital defect, his tongue nearly twice as long as normal, and that tongue now lashed out from between his flappy jowls, showering Oliver with kisses and slobber.
“Not on the gloves! Not on the gloves!” Oliver said playfully, trying to shield his new gloves from the dog’s slimy expectoration.
“Have a good day today,” Oliver’s wife Taimi said as she came into the room to fetch the rambunctious puppy. “And be safe.”
“Of that, you can rest assured,” Oliver said with a wink and a fond smile.
A coat rack stood next to his desk, and from the coatrack he retrieved his work coat. The black leather duster hung nearly to his ankles, and he had heavily customized the jacket; namely, by the addition of dozens of pockets and attachment points. Now it was truly a functional, multipurpose piece of attire.
A screwdriver housed in an internal breast pocket jabbed into his ribs as he put the coat on, and he made a mental note to modify the pocket’s position. Then, remembering that he’d made the same realization on multiple previous occasions but kept forgetting to alter the pocket, he made a mental note to remind himself about the mental note.
With that he was off. He said a final goodbye to Taimi and strode out the front door of their combined living/work space, taking pride as he always did when he saw the sign overhead:
Fizzlecrank’s Extermination & Extraction Services
Oliver Fizzlecrank, Proprietor
His motorized tricycle was parked right outside. Its triangular frame had been modified to house a large tool chest and even larger cage near the rear end, the former sitting closed and securely locked while the latter sat empty. Waiting.
After a dozen kicks of the kick-start, the alchemical engine that powered the device sprang to life with a cough and a fart, spewing forth a black cloud of…something. Oliver was many things: an inventor, a fabricator, a noted philanthropist, a patent clerk and certified notary, a trained arcano-zoologist; but he was not an alchemist, and the engine’s inner workings were a complete mystery to him.
Nevertheless, he shot off, the engine sending his trike careening through the streets at breakneck speed. The wind whipped at his face and soon tears were streaking from the corners of his eyes. Oh right. He’d forgotten his goggles. He made a mental note to remember them tomorrow.
He moved through the crowded streets, zigging between pedestrians, zagging around oxen-drawn carts, the trike’s engine sputtering and coughing out black clouds as he went. He loved driving fast, and soon found himself laughing maniacally with the thrill of it.
The previous night had been cold and somewhat rainy as autumn gave way to winter, and the cobblestone road was wet and slick. Oliver observed with glee that the reduced traction, combined with the centripetal forces from oversteering the trike at precisely the right angle, allowed him to slide around the street corners with ease. The city went by in a blur, and another maniacal laugh erupted from his lips as he shot from one turn immediately into another, his trike’s rear wheels sliding out first to the left, then to the right.
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“You know,” Oliver said aloud to himself, “someone really ought to arrange a racing league. A dozen trikes, all competing against each other. First one to reach the destination wins.”
He made a mental note to investigate the formation of such a league.
Oliver rounded one final corner and hit a small water-filled pothole. He gripped hard on the trike’s handlebars to avoid tipping over, but the impact caused a small geyser of water to shoot out and splash a woman who was walking along the side of the road.
“Sorry!” he yelled. She might have replied, but he was still blasting forward and was quickly beyond hearing.
He finally came to his destination: the home of a local resident who claimed a bat had found its way indoors and refused to leave. A simple enough job. He sat on the trike for a moment more, letting the adrenaline from his ride die down. It was always best to approach an extraction with a calm demeanor and a level head.
An acrid, sulfurous odor tickled his nose as he approached the front door. He raised his hand to knock when the door flew open, and a man with wide, bloodshot eyes emerged.
“You’re finally here! Thank the aether,” the man said. The sulfurous odor redoubled, and the air wafting out from the home stung Oliver’s nose with each inhale.
“Got here as fast as I could, sir.” Oliver proudly nodded towards his trike. “You mentioned a bat?”
“This is no ordinary bat!” the man shouted hysterically. “You smell that? This thing has acid urine! It’s been flying around my home all night, voiding itself everywhere. The acid’s eating through the walls, through the floor!”
Oliver’s ears perked up in excitement. Caustic micturition was unheard of; this would be a unique specimen indeed.
“One moment, sir,” he said, rushing back to his tricycle. He rummaged around in the tool chest, withdrawing a cotton sheet and a burlap sack that he traditionally used when catching bats, opossum, and other small vermin.
“You said acid urine?” he asked as he walked into the entryway with the man.
“Yeah. You’ll see. Just in there.”
The farther Oliver walked into the home, the stronger the odor became. It was almost hard to breathe. When they entered the living room, Oliver could see puddles of yellow-green acid on the floor, astringent smoke rising up and coalescing into a cloud near the ceiling.
The bat flew into the room from an adjoining hallway, its leathery wings silently stirring up the cloudy smoke into eddies in its wake. Despite the acid, however, it otherwise seemed like a normal bat. Small. Fuzzy body, big ears. Kind of cute.
“Here’s what we’ll do, sir.” Oliver passed the sheet to the man and looked around, assessing the layout of the room. “You’re the human, so you take this sheet and hold it up. As large as you can. Bats use sonar to navigate, and the sheet will interfere with its sonar. It will think it’s a wall. With me so far?”
The man nodded.
“I’ll stand on this side of the room, by the couch. You stand over by the hallway. When the bat flies in, you just hold the sheet up and slowly walk towards me. I’ll catch it in my bag.”
The man looked at Oliver dubiously, but eventually nodded again.
The bat flew back into the hallway and Oliver said, “Okay now, take your position and wait for my word.”
The man did as instructed, while Oliver moved towards the couch. They didn’t have to wait long.
“Go now,” Oliver said as the bat flew back into the living room. “Nice and slow. That’s it.” The bat flew through the room in spiraling circles, their circumferences shrinking and their foci shifting gradually closer to Oliver as the man walked towards him.
Oliver tensed his legs then leapt towards the couch. He kicked off from the couch, leaping higher towards the ceiling. He held the sack in both hands, stretching the burlap mouth wide, and with a quick overarm motion he swept the bag forward, catching the bat within. He landed, quickly twisting the bag closed.
“There we have it, sir!” Oliver said with a triumphant smile. “My thanks for your help with the sheet.”
“But, but what about the acid?” the man asked, pointing at the sack in Oliver’s hand.
Oliver looked down to see smoke starting to billow from the sack. He thought desperately back to his chemistry classes at Gnomish University (go Widgets!), racking his brain to remember the specifics of how acids work. The cage on his trike wouldn’t fare any better than the sack against something this caustic.
“Sir, if you wouldn’t mind holding this please,” Oliver said as he held out the bag. The man’s eyes grew large and he took the bag daintily.
With that, Oliver plunked down onto the floor and promptly removed his boots. He then took the bag from the man, dropped it into his right boot, and firmly pressed the left boot down on top so that the upper portion of one boot encased the upper of the other.
“That’s that! I’ll be on my way now.” Oliver stood up and made for the door, paying careful attention to avoid stepping in the corrosive puddles with his sock-covered feet. “I’ve some colleagues at GnoU who will love studying this little guy. You’ll receive a bill for the extraction in a few days.”
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Olivia the scrivener was an old woman who had spent the entirety of her eight decades living and working in The Greatest City Known To Man. Born without any magical abilities, she was instead blessed with long, flowing black hair and a delicate, flowing script. Being also a woman of determination and motivation, she’d established an independent scriptorium down the road from the Gnomish University almost half a century ago.
She, being human, found the gnomes to be a strange and curious folk. Oh, they were also diligent, intelligent, and hard-working—without a doubt. But very strange.
Still, she’d lived and worked amongst them for her entire life. And now at the sunset of that life, with her hair long ago turned to gray, she thought she’d seen it all. Until that afternoon. Until she saw a gnome wearing a cape-like coat; who was donning polka dot socks, but no shoes; whose gloves were so oversized that they looked more suited to an orc blacksmith than to a gnome, regardless of profession; and who, above all, was flying down the road on a flatulent, motorized tricycle while he talked to himself out loud…well.
Well that was when she admitted that life—that people—could still surprise her, no matter how old she was.