Rule 17

Distrust & Learn Quickly

Statement: During my prior recounts of those first few days, I have talked about many issues; survival being the biggest theme to these topics. I can write that some have chosen to be slaves. The reasons are varied, being oppressed is only part of a complex equation. In exchange for servitude they get a small measure of stability. Again, I’m not arguing if it is morally correct. It simply is.

A person telling themselves it’s better to be a king in hell than a slave in heaven might not know how bad hell really gets. No one sane would want to rule over demons for eternity. Religion aside, a more modern example is abuse victims, that is to say, those who don’t see a way out or realize how bad their situation really is. They choose to stay because there’s a measure of certainty even with an abusive hand. How far can such a justification stretch?

I went from being shoved around, to getting a tour. All it took was being identified as a useful killer of magical creatures. That bothered me but freedom was preferable to being shot. Despite my healing, confirmed by the tiny faerie Nix, and Allegra before her, each wave of damage brought a bolt of pain.

Coach Madison provided the tour personally. He was a muscled giant next to my scrawny form. I couldn’t tell if I was this bad due to months of poor nutrition after the accident, or a side effect of the abilities. My brown-skinned form had certainly been much more built.

He said, “Over there. Slaves. They’re marked at the neck with chains. You may find yourself there, if you don’t prove useful.”

A half dozen people tilled one of the fields nearby. Their clothing ripped. Some had pluses, some had minuses. They all moved slowly while sparse clouds overhead blocked the sun. In another few hours, even that small cover would be gone and they’d be left baking.

I didn’t like the sound of being turned into anyone’s slave. However, I wasn’t sure proving useful to this band of degenerates was any better. They clearly had a good setup and were well fortified, but they were grungy and smelled bad.

“Whore house, though they call it Paradise. Whatever, they can name it anything they’d like as long as they pull their share. Or put out their share.” He laughed once. Coach Madison smiled and acted energetic, but it never reached his voice. Still, from what little I remembered of the man, he seemed proud. He simply had a dry way of looking at the world.

I eyed the house and wondered if any of the “employees” there suffered the same affliction as the brown-skinned woman. I’d walked half a day in her shoes and found myself frequently thinking dirty thoughts. Luckily, I was myself now. It was simply the rest of the world that had gone mad.

There was another building across the way, which they used as a barracks or bunker. Coach Madison explained normal houses were simply too unsafe because of monsters breaking into everything. He called the mini-orcs “goblins” and implied they were worse than fast breeding cockroaches.

It was strangely civil. I’d expected more from a group labeled as raiders. Aside from the filth everywhere and the corner of their compound that smelled like shit, they were peaceful.

I distrusted it. Vending machines ate people. They’d fought one and lost a few souls. There was simply no way they could possibly trust me. Unless they had leverage I didn’t know about, or they had no clue it was me.

That was it. I’d been a brown-skinned dark haired man when I dashed across the door. They had absolutely no way to know me from anyone else. I resolved to keep the two identities separate. Lance, Little Dick, would be a raider friendly identity. Thorn, Hawthorn, Mayor Kent’s son, would be for the group downtown—or wherever they were.

“We’ve got a guy over there, managing a full bar. We’ve raided almost every house in a two mile radius. You would not believe how much people had packed away, or how it makes the death of a companion more sufferable.”

I nodded. He probably meant the few who had died to a roused and irate vending machine. That had been my fault.

“Nasty business, those machines.” Coach Madison spit onto the dirt and ground it out with a foot.

I nodded again. He expected me to say something. Sharing my personal feelings was not a strong suit.

“Why were you in there?”

“They promised me money and orbs,” I answered. It was a good enough reason for the new world gone mad.

My eyes closed. It had been stupid to admit that there were others with me. By the same token, it would have been impossible for me to clear that place alone. At least, it seemed impossible right now. Maybe after enough energy or with the right abilities, I could have taken down the entire place. The idea taunted me while also scaring the crud out of me.

Post Note: Here’s why I paused. Could that ending “boss” have been killed with a single explosive rune in his mouth? What did the black spell do? How much tougher could I get? And Pix, that little faerie, had called me a killer—like this Hephaestus fellow had given me the perfect tools to murder monsters.

“They?” He mused for a while and scratched stubble. After a few minutes he nodded. “Your dad. I’d heard he was in charge of another set of survivors. He sent people to get you.”

I said nothing more and studied our surroundings. A few other buildings were off in the distance that looked clear. Red paint had been poured on their rooftops; serving as a marking that could mean any number of things.

“And that little map maker of his must have known.” Coach Madison heaved a sigh and flattened his lips.

Somehow he knew Allegra. Or maybe Mayor Kent, which was my dad’s first name, knew another person who made maps. I resolved to keep quiet around other humans. They were dangerous. No one had tried to stab me for orbs or money yet, but it was only a matter of time.

“Anyway, enough post-apocalypse bickering. I think you’ll like it here. We’ve got quite the setup. If you’re useful and earn it, that is.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what, show you all this?” Coach Madison waved to the room and turned to the rest of his camp. He surveyed the small end-of-the-world kingdom.

I slowly nodded.

“Smart, Little Dick. You’re at least half as clever as your dad.” I blinked at Coach Madison’s words. We hadn’t been discussing the past, at all. He continued, “I have a mission for you. You can take it, prove you’re useful enough to keep on the team, and we’ll have the cheerleaders work you over, and the fans supply you, like they do all the big league members.”

Cheerleaders must have meant the prostitutes, or whatever they were. I’d seen women engaging in sex for money during the line. The fact that they survived over here felt natural. They were used to making the best of two terrible choices in order to survive.

“Or,” I said without inflection.

“Or you get the boot. We’re simple around here. Pull your fucking weight. We’re a team, one that’s recently lost two members and in need of a strong throwing arm to step up. You could be our pitcher, or a quarterback, in a fucked up fantasy world.”

I doubted it was that simple. Nix was afraid of Coach Madison. The doctor, Krazer or whatever, was scared of Nix. This place didn’t operate on love or trust. It ran on fear and control. The sensible part of me of a few weeks ago felt disgusted at such a situation. We had turned America into a third world country run by dictators with wide smiles.

My gaze settled on a small farm across the way. A dozen people with slave markings tilled fields and checked animals. Beyond them sat the wall of cars, with people crouched behind it checking through cracks. This place was secure, but their very postures told me that we hung on a knife’s edge.

The giant rolling creature with three heads could probably make a mess of most of the wall. If mini-orcs swarmed in behind it, they’d turn a lot of these people into “meat.” I didn’t want other humans to die, there were so few of us remaining.

There were other colors of paint farther away. I knew they meant something important to the people here. It couldn’t simply be a matter of knowing which way to watch for monsters. The guards were on the other side, facing the road. These red roofed buildings were hardly being protected. Maybe they were already cleared out somehow, if such a thing were possible.

Coach Madison let me think about all those factors as the clouds above slowly burned off.

“What’s the mission?” I asked.

He laughed without opening his mouth. “How much do you remember from when we found you?”

Coach Madison probably meant, “Did you see me blow up the building you were in, twice?” Still, his point was clear. Madison wanted the three-headed monster of Main Street dead. Killing it would allow them to travel unchallenged at night, at least until the next monster came along. This world would probably toss another one at us in a few weeks.

“You’re going to kill that monster in its lair. Keep it dead.”

He acted cut throat. I forced myself to stay calm and asked, “What do I get?”

Coach Madison stopped and gestured to the rocking trailer labeled “Paradise. Such as it is here in hell.”

Noises from inside the trailer made my brain reset. Coach Madison laughed and nodded.

“We got girls, if you want them. Food, if you want it. A library. No books because they make shit all sense, but I’ve got a faerie that knows a lot.” He turned toward me and waggled a finger. “You take down that beast with your little explosives and I’ll let you use you all of them. The ladies would adore a young stud like yourself, especially if you can keep them safe. They fawn over the strong.”

He paused and glanced down at my form. His head shook slowly. I knew the issue. He looked at me and expected the same physique my brother had. He’d worked out, I hadn’t. The logical conclusion was that he expected me to die, or try and fail then be indebted. Alternately, I might actually succeed and he’d still win.

Coach Madison had nothing to lose by winding me up and sending me out. I was a toss away player in his mind, a batter who might hit nothing and still wouldn’t cost the game. The treatment annoyed me. Despite the new world, he hadn’t changed. Winning mattered more than the players. Getting what he wanted was the ultimate goal.

It was obvious in his muscles. He respected strength and only that. But we’d both listened to the tiny faerie Pix spout off details. She acted as though I was a big deal, and I didn’t feel the same. I felt like a glass cannon whose emotions had been muted under a tidal wave of mental pressure.

I held still and took short shallow breaths. Both hands cupped in front of my face to circulate air and calm down. There had been an idea there that I’d barely touched upon.

Admission: I’d wondered if I would die; if we were all doomed. I’d wondered if I could function at all in a week, or two, or a month. By my reckoning it had only been a few days, and maybe only a single week since this all happened—not counting time in the line.

He judged the hades out of me. I fought off a panic attack and put my hands down. The coach continued talking, “So. Do you think you’re up to the task? You and that fancy magic you picked up?”

I maintained my poker face and stared at the crowd of people. Their gazes shifted our way repeatedly, the slaves especially. They glanced at me, then Coach Madison, and bent themselves to working harder. We watched as a few feet of field were tilled quickly.

There had to be tools at a store nearby. Maybe they’d been broken. I mused about the sad state of affairs and wondered why no one had ransacked a hardware store.

I had never seen the crazy monster before last night. The giant had been a bit smaller and slower. If a single bomb could blow up one head then it was likely a few might harass it to death. It’d probably heal. That large monster couldn’t survive against a truck and its rocket launcher without being able to heal.

“Okay,” I said.

“Good. When can you head out?”

“I need a few days to recover.”

“You get one,” he said. “Food costs, and no one gets to be idle in this brave new world.”

“I’ll need intel on where the creatures goes.”

“I’ve got someone for that,” he said with an insincere smile. “The perfect girl. She’s a sneak, like you. Right, Mister Obfuscates?”

I said nothing. The man rubbed me the wrong way. Most of it was his voice. He assumed people would simply fall in line. Judging by this place and their fear of him, they did.

He walked me to an empty trailer in the parking lot. I was placed closely to the one that rocked almost constantly. He said someone would bring me food and my guide would show in the morning. For a parting shot, he pointed to a tall man with thick shoulders and a suit jacket. “You have any problems, and Theo here will be more than happy to help you. He’ll guide you around if you need.”

“Theo,” I said.

The large man in his suit jacket barely tilted his head in my direction. We weren’t going to be friends. Coach Madison handed me my spell book. Theo shifted slightly.

I ignored them both and went into the barren RV and sat down. My heart raced and chest felt tight. The entire exchange had bothered me, and it wasn’t until I had a semi-private space that I could really take stock.

I was royally screwed. They were watching me to see what would happen. That problem had to be solved eventually. There were three possible routes out of this nonsense, maybe four. I could simply try to run and see how far I got. They might not care. They might murder me. I could run after being sent to kill the large monster, but that would remove this place as a possible safe haven.

If I wanted to have a vaguely safe place to sleep, or a guarded one at least, I needed to kill the multi-headed serpent. Then I’d have this place while operating as Lance, and where ever my father was as Hawthorn. If I played it right I could even get a huge bump of orbs from killing the big creature.

Worse still, a small idea in the back of my brain said it would easier to simply gut him. I swear that part of my mind giggled. It was like I had a heckling audience of one that repeated the same line over and over while laughing drunkenly. “Or, you could stab him in the face! Now that’s funny,” it said.

That voice would have been perfectly happy going into my attic and trapping the door with an explosive rune, then drinking a pint of liquor and muscle relaxers. In the morning I could get up with a hangover and toss explosive runes at the mini-orcs while laughing maniacally.

I pushed all that aside. None of it mattered if I couldn’t figure out more regarding my abilities. There had to be a twist to the black one which would help me increase my odds, no matter which decision I ended up making.

It took me two hours to figure out the new spell. They were getting easier to use. This one made a black dot form on my palm. Beyond that, I had no clue. It did nothing else except make my palm buzz like it was being zapped by gentle electricity. My fingers jerked repeatedly then relaxed.

I stared at the black dot. It actually cast off light, which made as much sense as the rest of this situation. It had to be useful somehow. The explosion rune was still surprising me with what it could be attached to.

Pressing a buzzing finger into the glowing center of my palm made it tingle harder. There was a sticky sensation that went nowhere when I pulled the finger away. I searched for a reason behind this.

Loud knocking startled me. I shook my hand until the glow faded. It was barely in time as Theo, the large man in a suit, stepped into the trailer. He glanced around as if I’d started writing all my secrets onto the trailer’s deteriorating and barren walls.

“Little, uhh, Dick?” Theo’s poor face twisted in confusion for a moment.

I tried to lie again and come up with another name. The words died on my lips.

After a pause, I said, “It’s Lance.” That would be the only name I’d use with these people. Little Dick was not acceptable and ran contrary to what I’d been told by prior girlfriends.

After a pause, he held up a glass. “Drink?”

I nodded. There were certain needs that hadn’t been recently fulfilled. Drinks were only part of it. Despite the fantasy aspects, I had yet to find anything besides normal toilets.

“Food?” I asked, keeping my words equally simplistic. I tried to give him a friendly smile but wasn’t feeling happy about his presence. My heart still sped from the near discovery.

Theo, who seemed a gruff and non-talkative man, escorted me to the restroom and made sure food was readily available. The door slammed on my trailer which barely blocked out the muffled grunting from the next vehicle over. Apparently the moaning women had finally stopped their day jobs for a union break.

I stared at the briefly forgotten glass. They’d actually given me a wine flute. It was a really thin and tall container that always struck me as pompous. I took a sip and gasped. They’d put in some of the highest proof liquor I’d ever tasted in my life.

Ten minutes later the world spun. I struggled to focus on the spells to understand what they did. It made less sense than ever and I found myself giggling and glancing side to side to see if anyone had noticed. No one, not even Theo, appeared to notice or care.

I’d been left alone. Even the infernally fake soundtrack of moaning from the next trailer had paused. This was good, because I’d been considering blowing them up for at least twenty minutes or more. Time’s passage was impossible to be sure about. I reeled from the moonshine.

My body sagged in relief. I didn’t have to wonder about diseases from the whore next door. I didn’t have to worry about Theo’s nosy nature. It was simply me, an empty wine flute, and an itchy palm that glowed black.

Impulse grabbed me. I remembered the weird stocky man, Hephaestus or whatever, had shoved objects into the book of mirrors. That corner market store had been bigger on the inside than the outside. Clearly space was a tricky concept.

I casually shoved the wine flute into the black spot and barely quivered when it sank in, without pause, all the way to the base.

My arm twitched and shook. The other hand itched. I almost had enough mental capability to worry but instead simply stared, rather detached, at my hands.

The black dot on my palm still existed, but my thumb on the other hand now glowed as well.

Post Note: It might have been instinct of a sort. I, and others, seem to have some inborn knowledge about our new abilities. However, this knowledge is closer to a feeling rather than some user’s guide or manual. This aggravates me. Life would be infinitely easier with a manual.

With a similar gesture, but in reverse, I pulled the wine flute out of my palm. It was nothing like the dirty glass that had gone into the black spot. This wine flute was dark, as if someone had captured the night sky and used it to blow glass. I ran a finger inside and felt a slightly rougher form of glass. The spots where light pooled like stars were strangely warm.

I tested its durability, and let the glass fall. It shattered. I tried to pull a second one out of my palm and failed. Ten minutes later, as with the rune of explosives, the first summoned glass faded away. I repeated the motion and pulled out an identical wine flute.

“Well,” I said dryly and chuckled to myself. This had potential.

I theorized that it might be possible to summon objects. Even if they only lasted a few minutes at most. A weapon would be ideal. Especially if I could attach the explosive spell to it, a theory I didn’t want to test in here. They’d seen me blow up a creature, but doing so in the middle of their compound would be bad.

I wasn’t exactly sober anymore. Instead I simply imagined all kinds of ideas. I had five fingers and could likely store five objects. The only downside so far was that I’d wasted one of the slots on a wine flute. There were still four other fingers, hopefully. I simply needed something else of value to put in my palm. Which, honestly, sounded both terrifying and delightful at the same time.

It dawned on me. I needed a knife. Then I could stab everyone in the face without hindrance. That voice in the back of my brain was absolutely correct. Never again could anyone catch me unaware. A knife, that could be reformed endlessly would allow me many ways to lob spells right into people’s eye sockets.

It would be downright comical; that is to say, the looks on their faces as they gasped in pain and popped like melons.

Post Note: If this seems like a drastic change in personality from the dull distant boy I first described, then know the thoughts startled me as much as they did you. I can tell you that these gifts, curses, debts or what have you—all come with side effects. In sum, I gained power, but at what price to my being? I am still struggling to figure that out, even now.

I opened the door in a rush. Theo stood three feet away with a twisted look upon his face.

“You!” I pointed and yelled.

“Did you need help with something, Lance? The Coach, he’s told me to help you prepare in any way you need. I could… call one of the women over here.”

The faerie’s words came back to me. There had been a necklace and a knife embedded in my mirror-paged book. That meant something, and played a role in my abilities. All of this mattered somehow.

“I need a knife.”