Vignette - Trouble in Paradise

Late morning light blazed in through the full length glassless windows, glaring into eyes that did not at all appreciate the call to a new day. These particular eyes were hung up on the day before. Or you might say hungover. “Dammit, turn it off!” He swatted for a light switch only to have his arm jerked up painfully short. Confused, he tried to roll over. Tried and failed as he was again jerked to a painful halt. This time he managed to notice why. A combination of reasons, starting with two metal cuffs on his wrists and ending with a massive suit of bruising on his upper thighs and behind.

“Shi-” His movements, aborted though they had been, had aggravated those bruises and the pain curled him into a fetal ball. The swirling agony combined with nausea to make sense of any kind a stretch. Still, eventually even the dullest of knives could be made to cut. Mis mind began to work and a few spotty memories slid into focus. Memories of more alcohol then was perhaps wise followed by.... Something happened, he was sure of it…. He rubbed his head trying to remember. Trying and failing, he simply could not bring himself to move.

Then the barred door of the hut was slammed open with a clarion clang. He convulsed once again, dry heaving as the noise set off his nausea.

“Get up Jerald, it’s time to pay the piper you poor dumb bastard.”

“Quietly please Sam. Please, dear god, quieter!” He dry heaved for another moment, saved only by an empty stomach from soiling himself. Taking an experimental sniff he quickly amended that to be ‘soiling himself again’. He also resolved not to breathe through his nose any time soon.

“There is water in the bucket beside you. Best drink as much of it as you can, cause it’s about to get a whole lot louder. You are summoned to full court, and I would not care to bet on your chances. Now drink! Hell, wash too as best you can. You are going to need every advantage you can swing. Or rather to not swing.” Sam sighed, the gallows humor failing to entertain.

He struggled up enough to shove his head into the offered bucket. A drink from that position was difficult, but a lifetime of practice came through for him. Coming up for air he blearily took the offered rag and performed a spotty wipe down.

“What’s going on Sam, come on old buddy, help a man out.”

“..I already have Jerald,” he indicated the bucket of water with his foot, “I don’t think anyone can help you out beyond that.” Grabbing the chain, Sam used his will as a connection and his belief as the language. Release him please Angravada. A soft questioning thought glided across his mind, seeking for and finding the marks of authority that were so much more than simple keys.

The floor gave up the chains without a sound or noticeable movement. One moment it was secured, the next it hung from Sam’s fist and he dragged a still inebriated Jerald from the cell. The walk that followed was painful but at least short. They were not headed to the still unfinished government building, but rather to the sacred fire’s enormous amphitheater.

The space was needed as most of the town seemed to be in attendance. Massed in dense rings on each of the descending terraces they stared at him as he was half dragged down the ramp to the center.

It was not a friendly stare.

They made the center where Old Man Malcom stood. “Jarold you stand accused of theft.” A flashback hit him of breaking into the supply house for more rum. “Of property damage” Another flash back to breaking a window shutter to get into the building.

“Of interfering with a shaman's work.” No flashback occurred this time, he was honestly confused.

“And of endangering the food supply of the town.” SHIT, the first few were merely a caning or a few days of hunger. He could always find some soft hearted mark to show mercy. Food was a right, afterall. But the last one was a death sentence.

For the first time in… he didn’t remember how long he suddenly felt dead sober.

The herald turned to the crowds, “Last night this man broke into the supply house and stole a keg of rum. He drank a good portion of it, stripped naked and attempted to ride Tucker's prize sow Gertrude. He rode her through a wall and proceeded to race her around the vegetable gardens, trampling large swathes of crops.”

Of FUCK! The bruises began to make sense. But their pain was a small candle light before the sudden roaring fear in his guts.

“This is not the first offense. As many of you know Jerald has persistently stolen alcohol and made a nuisance of himself. Punishments have varied from a day stoppage of rations to a public flogging.”

That was not a pleasant memory. He quickly shoved it back down before it could fully flash back.

“Nothing has worked to change his behavior. So before the community we put forth the recommendation of banishment.”

“Wait! No your honor, PLEASE. Don’t kill me! Please I just have a little problem with alcohol, I can’t help myself. It’s a disease. You can’t murder me over something that’s not my fault!”

A resounding ‘Boooo’ rang from the crowds, echoing as the natural acoustics did their job. His head rang like a bell before their massed vocal hammer. Nausea rose up and he embraced it instead of trying to fight it. Falling to his knees, he dry heaved again and again. Instead of trying to fight the feeling he embraced it. Milking it for a bit of sympathy. But in time he could milk it no more, he looked up, hoping for a glimmer of hope or a bit of pity.

He found disgust and resolve.

“Please, your honor! Have pity!”

“Haaa, dumb as it is I do pity you, Jarold. But it don’t matter. You could get away with being a useless drunken sot in the old world. We had enough to go around and then some. A life, even a wasted one like yours, is still a life. That isn’t true anymore and you persistently refuse to understand. There is a fine line between survival and not. We have enough trouble balancing without internal sabotage! It’s beyond fault. It’s beyond questions of disease or choice. It’s about our community's survival.” He stared into Jeralds eyes searching for understanding. Then sighted and gave it up for a lost cause.

“All in favor?” A rumbling roar crested to the center, by no means unanimous but certainly more than half.

“All opposed?” A few scattered voices cried out mercy, but they were few and far between.

“So be it. Jerald you are hereby banished from Paradise. Sam please take him to the landward cliff and lower him down. May whatever spirits you look to have mercy on your soul.”

Chapter 36

Only one crew member was still injured a little over a week later. Jenney had a pretty damn good handle on physical healing. She might not be able to regrow a limb...yet. Give her a few years to work on it and Timothy wouldn’t bet against her. But mental trauma was an entirely different ball park.

The lady that left out in the cold had a severely strained mind. She had been holding the port forward protection runes when senior Hippo took his wee nip. Oddly enough the ruined remnants of the rune still held a decent charge. The bite didn’t fully deplete them. Timothy’s best guess was that the sudden shock of that much damage in an instance overwhelmed her will. Had she been mentally braced for the attack, the roof might have survived.

The brain and the will, neither of them were nearly as simple as the body and so far a steady supply of enhanced ginger tea was about all that could be done. Like frontiersman and willow bark tea. It was painkiller and cure in one spicy root. Cure, but not really a cure all.

It was a recurring area of injury that they did not understand. That needed to change. Needed to, but probably wouldn’t any time soon. Neither Jenney nor he knew enough about the brain to go poking around, either magically or herbaly.

Still, there was hope. Johnson had recovered, he had been wounded in the last beast wave from holding an overloaded protection ward. It took a week for him to wake up. Another week before he could think clearly and he was still not completely back to where he had been magically. He continues to recover a bit more each day. Hopefully Mandy would come back the same way.

Like bodies, boats also were fairly easy to repair. The runic inscriptions was more like a mind. The damaged structure of the rune left bits of intent behind. Not the full intent of its original purpose, but jagged shards that interfered with anything that came after. Attempting to simply write over the top of them failed in a spectacularly painful way. Timothy did not enjoy occupying a bed beside Mandy with a ginger fix of his own. He recovered in a day, but it was a day where he had no escape from Ma’s scoldings and guilt trips. Hell for a day in other words.

But he healed and the solution came to him as he looked in the mirror.

Reset.

It took a chunk of time and some inventive mana logic to do a true purge of all runes and the accompanying intent. He wiped the Nellie back to day one. Then simply spent the time to re-rune her from scratch. It would have been easier to simply make a new boat. Hindsight was 20-20 and all that. At least the boat was back in tip top shape.

With time and the opportunity to screw it up a couple dozen more times he was sure he could figure out how to patch existing runes on the fly… but that was time they didn’t have. The boats were constantly in use. He could not justify keeping one up on rails while he experimented on it. Survive first, experiment with nifty science magic projects later.

Now they were ready for round two!

“You already swept the planned route Timothy?”

“Just before you came up Arthur.” And he did a bit of judicious pruning while he was at it.

“Alright then, the second verse had damn well better not be the same as the first.”

“It won’t be Arthur, we got cocky and paid for it. I have a few lightning spells prepped and ready to go. In the shallow swamp water a good shock should go a long way.”

“You look a bit too serious on this Regi, relax a bit hmm? A spell on a mental hair trigger sounds more dangerous to us than to the enemy.”

“I can’t relax when we almost lost people last time Timothy. I take your point though. I’ve never had an ND and I don’t intend to start now.”

Arthur muttered “Damn right!” with considerable feeling.

“ND?”

“Negligent Discharge. Sometimes called an accidental discharge or as seaman Abrams Mountgumery called it, a gangbangers vasectomy. Guns had safeties for a very good reason. Their lack worries me greatly. It's why Arthur and I will beat the hell out of anyone found with a charge card in his rifle while off duty.”

Another heartfelt “Damn right!” echoed in the small room.

Note to self, Timothy thought, careful with the jokes on this one.

The pool's view darted after the Nellie as she started the swamp leg of the run. Sometimes ducking down under the leafy canopy to keep the boat in sight. Sometimes jumping up to gain perspective then darting ahead to check for trouble.

“How is it looking on the map Kenney?”

The significantly less gangly young man standing at the map responded with a snap. Months training under Arthurs capable hands had put some serious muscle on his frame. Muscle and more importantly, self confidence. “On track, minimal deviation.” In front of him a very small scale carved replica of the Nellie dangled on a cord. Linked to the real Nellie it acted like a magnet, where the real Nellie went, the model would follow. Combined with a pre-prepared yellow piece of string marking the planned path it was a poor mans ‘gps navigator’. Scratch poor and make it a magic man. Ya, that sounds so much better…

Back on topic!

The route remained mostly clear with only a few marginal detours for a feeding frenzy of crocs or a football stadium sized cloud of mosquitoes. Fuck that, Nope! Where’s the napalm when you need it? Gonna half to work on that.

At last an hour and a half later she left the swamp for the ‘safer’ waters of the tributary stream. Thankfully still more than deep enough for the Nellies twelve feet of draft. It wouldn’t be long now, unlike the main (he assumed) channel of the river, this tributary was not nearly as serpentine. The remaining seven miles as a crow flies worked out to nine by way of the river.

Nine slow miles that someone else could watch over. Timothy glanced longingly at the bottles of berryaid lined up on the sideboard before sighing and taking another sip from his water flask. There was enough time to do a bit of studying.

One step at a time. Don’t rush but make every minute count. Like grains of sand piling up on a beach. In time they will become a mountain. One bit of self denial and two bits of hard work. All he needed was time!

The rushing river pushed the Nellie back towards the swamp in a steady wash of white water. A push she mightily ignored as her anchor did its job, digging an essence wood tine deep into the riverbed. She jerked back and forth on the anchor rope making the disembarking procedure somewhat nerve racking. The river was a fairly safe road for a ship between towns, the same was not true for swimmers. Unlike Paradise or Templeton, Bloodhaven had no presence on the river, and in turn no handy dock to pull up to.

The first attempt with a gangplank was abandoned quickly. Walking the plank as a form of suicide was a bit to cliche and the swaying back and forth of the ship dropped the plank into the jumping piranhas. But if at first you don’t succeed, then drop big rocks on the problem till it works!

Material removal grabbed some rocks and dirt from the shore and a joiner stuck it all together. They ginned up a makeshift dock. A task that took some 20 minutes and certainly did not go unnoticed by the town above.

“Yarg! Ahoy the town. Permission to come aground?” Timothy muttered to himself, sotto voce.

Alas, reality was much more pedantic. Joe simply stood on the makeshift quay, mama tucked up against one side with a large white flag pole on the other. While they waited a small hand cart, more like a two wheeled wheelbarrow than anything else, was lowered over the side. It contained a load of sample trade goods ready to be displayed.

A simple wooden gate, drab and brown against the forbidding black and red of the walls, opened to release a colorful twentyish person party. Most of the men were shirtless and the women in a low tech sports bra. The reason for the lack of attire was immediately obvious. Like the celts of old they were painted up with symbols and unreadable words. The color was the unnaturally bright crimson of fresh unclotted blood rather than the blue of woad.

Timothy had made enough similar enchantments to recognize a bit of protective magic in the swirl of mana that surrounded each painted warrior. Imaginative, probably works better than metal armor, he muttered, it would certainly be lighter!

He had to be careful with assumptions, just because some of it was Protective did not mean that all of it was. Looking past the protective detail there was one man in a set of long robes, charcoal grey and, to Timothy’s surprise, unstained with blood words or runes. Instead he held a peculiar staff. A circle of quarter inch spikes were embedded at eye level. Each above a continuous line of symbols and words connected by a carved channel.

A small prick to his finger and blood pores through the runes. Efficient, if a bit messy.

He zoomed in on the face beside the staff, as expected the wielder was one of the three pathfinders he had seen at the blood ritual. Score one for Regi, leaders did have to go take risks occasionally. Now they just had to work on what was considered ‘occasional’.

Da waited for them to get to the bottom of the hill then took several steps forward to greet them. Symbolically meeting them ‘halfway.’ “My name is Joe, and it does me good to see fellow survivors. I hope to introduce myself, my wife and some very nice trade goods.”

“Trade goods hmm?” Robes eye’s fixed briefly on the displayed contents of the cart, despite the tie downs and straps it had been packed to display the more popular items on top. Mostly cloth at this point. Essence fiber joined shirts were not as good as properly woven cloths, the fibers all lined up as if they were in a living plant rather than interweaving to support each other. Still they worked for a while and were very cheap and easy to make. Apparently some work had been going on in the undercity to start a proper weaving industry. Not using entirely old world methods though, joining made very nice long fibers that could be easily woven into cloth of exceptional strength without spinning. Each piece had to be created by hand though, and they didn’t make enough of it yet to offer it for trade.

His focus was only diverted for a few moments before fixing back on Joe. He held himself very straight, an attempt at regal that worked better than Timothy thought it would. He was a tall gaunt young man with dirty blonde hair growing out noticeably beneath a layer of dyed black giving him a piebald look. He should have looked ridiculous.

He did not. His eyes had seen death and closed the door in its face. Responsibility hung on him, perhaps not comfortably yet, but with gravitas. “You can call me Rafe. I am happy to meet neighbors, even more happy to meet peaceable ones. You will forgive me for not completely taking you at your word though, yes? Trust but verify is becoming something of a way of life. The alternative being the way of death.” He smiled crookedly at the last, clearly some kind of inside joke.

Inside or no, the sentiment was fairly clear. Nodding in agreement Da forged ahead, “Of course. We have done this a few times already and you are far from alone in your caution. The cart-” he gestured to it “-holds a sample of most of the goods that are available through our trade network. Also in there, you will find a carved stone disk and a bowl. It’s a gift sent from our resident Wizard,” he grimaced slightly “Jesus, Mary and Joseph I still feel silly saying that.”

“I don’t know, it’s growing on me though we prefer Magi.” Rafe muttered with a slowly growing sly smile.

Joe waved it away as he continued where he left off, “Anyway, he included instructions with it but I feel that in good faith you need a warning. It's a link for him to ‘phone’ to. Wherever you put it he can listen in. He rigged it for a two way contact but he has to initiate the call.”

Rafe raised an eyebrow “You want to avoid accusations of spying hmm? Fair enough. I admit I’m curious about how he managed to make a ‘phone.’ But curiosity has killed many a cat, no? I’ll discuss it with my co-leaders before making a decision.” He turned to a tall, fit brunette who in addition to the usual torso art had short shorts and additional markings on her long legs. Her very nice, very shapely long legs. “Martha? Could you run back and arrange for a sample box?”

“Won’t take me long. Mrs. Hubbard will have a list no doubt.” She turned and bounded away. Her first step carried her farther than a Michael Jordan dunk shot. Her considerable forward momentum vanished right before she made contact with the ground on the opposite leg, the left one. A small step and her right leg launched her into another bound, quickly devouring distance in a way that could be called extreme skipping.

One leg to create momentum, one to negate it? Timothy focused in on the bouncing amazoness legs, watching the shifting interplay of mana with fascination. Right up until he got an elbow in his ribs.

“Dammit Jenney, what the hell?”

“Oggle the pretty girl's legs later, you are supposed to be giving cover to Da.”

It wasn’t her legs he was staring at, well not just her legs at least. They were a very nice pair… Deciding better than to argue he refocused the pool back on the ongoing discussion.

“-see why we do things this way.”

“Of course Rafe. It’s a whole new world and none of us knows it well enough to start preaching ideology. Whatever has kept your people alive and happy, keep at it. I hate to bring it up, but we have found the ruins of a town that didn’t manage even that much.”

His words cracked the comfortable atmosphere like a brick through a window. All movement stilled and all eyes snapped to Da. A few moments of uncomfortable silence lingered before a large male slabbed in hard fat spoke up. “Do you have news? How many died? How many are surviving?” He was middle aged and could probably still lift the cart off the ground despite the lack of muscle definition. His short trimmed black hair was dotted with grey making a decided contrast with his shirtless painted mad max style.

Da sighed sadly, “Nothing so official. We looked around for other towns and found the ruins of one city and nothing at a site where there should have been something. I don’t mind giving a bit of information for free. We know of four living towns, you included. Two sets of ruins for four living is not a great percentage.”

Timothy had to hide his grimace at that, he had not mentioned to anyone his private searching. More like three out of five Da.

The silence lingered morosely for a while before Rafe did what a survivor does. He shook it off and moved on to what he could control. “Thank you for letting us know. Is it possible to get a map of these known settlements?”

“Unfortunately this is the part where I have to go the trust but verify route. Let’s get to know each other better, then we can discuss a map. It’s definitely available if you prove friendly. I do have to warn you, even with a map you might have trouble getting to them. The rivers seem to be the safest way to travel so you might want to consider building a boat at some point. Even with that I do not recommend you sail that boat downriver on your own. There is a swamp in that direction that is a real danger zone.”

“Oh? We do pretty well with the Boars, Raptors, Maracas and Buzzards.”

“Well, boars and raptors we have dealt with, though we mostly call them Hogs and Jaraptors. If buzzards are the kind that mess with your head I know them as well. But what is a Maraca?”

“Well it’s an instrument from Mexico. Looks like a very large rattle. Considering the snakes are thicker about the middle then a person and when they shake their tails you can hear it from an old school city block away. Naming them after a baby toy was too much of an understatement. So we call them Maracas.”

Timothy shuddered at the mental image of a shadow snake with a rattlers namesake attached. Fuck that. Nope! It shouldn’t have pulled that kind of reaction from him. After all, a beast that warned you it was there was hardly as dangerous as one that silently killed you. It didn’t matter, he grew up dreading the rat-tat-tat of a rattler. Supersizing it made him cringe!

Papa Joe's reaction was much the same and he did not attempt to hide it. A shudder that was matched to an extent in both parties. “Well that’s nightmare fodder and no mistake. Still, I'd be careful of that swamp. Hovercrocs and Near-squiters are not the worst things there, but they are nasty enough. Picture a crocodile the size of a delivery truck that moves around like an air hockey puck. Or a mosquito that is 6 inches long and swarms in packs of tens of thousands. They kill and drain entire hogs. Mosquitoes that can suck the poor critter dry and leave it crinkled up like a raisin.”

“I am not telling you where you can and can’t go. Just giving fair warning. It’s a little slice of hell all of its own.”

Predictably a young man, decked out in his own crimson body art had to ask, “What's worse than a swarm of mosquitoes right out of a Hitchcock film?”

“A hippo that's thirty feet long.”

“Aren't they plant eaters? Why is a hippo what scares you?”

“Shut it Sid. Hippos wrecked boats and killed a lot of folk in the before without magick fuckery. A couple tons of pure territorial meanness.” Grey hair looked grim.

“Not a couple any more. More like fifteen.” Joe unhelpfully added.

That drew more than a few flinches. Size has a quality all of its own after all.

Rafe allowed the chatter to continue for a bit before breaking in, “But you have safely sailed through the swamp. If they are so large and nasty how do you deal with them?”

Joe smiled sadly, “I remember showing a movie to my children ages ago. Karate Kid I think it was. Probably one of several, the way Hollywood milked things. A wise little old Asian man said it best, ‘Best block, no be there.’”

“So you ran?” Sid said with disappointment thick in his voice.

“Like a little redheaded stepchild.” Da smiled wryly back at him. “You’ll want to keep a firm rein on pride and vainglory son. It won’t keep your people fed nor safe.”

A quick smack to the back of Sid’s head from grey hairs seconded that motion. Perhaps more surprising was Arthur's reserved approving chuckle back in the scrying room.

“I figured you would be death on that kind of thinking, Arthur?”

“No Timothy, it’s my job to guide that kind of thinking. A kid who will run face first into a fight he can’t win will get himself killed. But if you train him that kind of dumb courage can turn into a first class fighting man. Some degree of caution can be taught, but if he lacks the balls to fight then you can’t do much with him.”

So he likes them dumb enough to fight when they shouldn’t? It was not a point of view Timothy could understand. Sure courage was a virtue. But surely a bit of common sense was needed as well?

Arthur read the doubt on his face and shook his head. “You are a brilliant man Timothy, but you still don’t understand the power of courage. Someday I will sit you down and tell you of the marine core’s heroes. Medal of Honor winners who fought when they should have run, and won when they should have died! All because they were too ‘dumb’ to know when they were beaten.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand. But I’m not fool enough to ignore you. Next time I get a cheat night we can grab some drinks and you can regale me with heroics.” Timothy stared into his cup of water for a few moments, “Funny thing Heroes. It seems embedded in the human psyche to revere them, but I always wonder at the circumstances. If the leadership didn’t truly fuck the duck before the fighting started then would you still need them? You win a war before the first shot is fired, in prepping a bigger nastier army with better intelligence and training. Not in desperate defenses with inadequate defenders. Leonidas would never have been a martyr without the stupidity of the Spartan People. They could have marched thousands to the hot gates and royally fucked the persians. That or actually fortify the major pass that led to a conquest driven neighbor long before the war broke out.”

“...I worry about you Timothy. Is there a little old man hiding inside you feeding on any fun you might feel? Kick back and enjoy the story occasionally without analyzing it to death. You have to appreciate the heroes because it’s inevitable that the civilians will screw over their military. It’s happened throughout history and I doubt the new world will change that.”

“That doesn't make sense. Why does the military put up with it? Seriously by its very nature the military is the final arbiter of what goes. Guns and planes trump old men in suits. Why the firm support of civilian control if it sucks?”

“Because the alternatives are worse. You’ve not experienced a third world country where a military junta has fucked over the entire populace. I have. We sacrifice lives at the altar of incompetence in exchange for civilization, Timothy. For a world where people can live well without it devolving into whoever has the biggest stick makes the rules.”

“And yet the biggest magic stick now gets to make the rules. So why do you support me Arthur? Seems to be a contradiction.”

He snorted, “You are the definition of a civilian Timothy, you build and you create. Fresh clean water and a home to live in. You think that with your magic that you’re a weapon yourself and you are. But then the president of the old had the missile launch keys.” He grinned for a moment and reached over and poked Timothy in the middle of his chest “This is all civilian.”

Arthur calmly stood up and headed for the floor hatch. Negotiations were over and Papa Joe was climbing back into the Nellie, a couple large baskets of trade goods with him.

It made Timothy wonder. Arthur spoke with the wisdom of experience. But it was experience from a world dead and gone. Where the equality of man was disrupted by money and connections rather than innate skills. The new world concentrated power into individuals rather than polities. He wasn’t sure if what Arthur knew to be true was still true. There was a thousand years of history based on fundamental truths about human behavior. But those fundamental truths had changed! Then again, it could just be raw arrogance to assume he understood more about people than a man who had led them for decades.

He would just have to take it one step at a time and see. After all, he looked over to a section of wall that hid his rune of self, he had all the time in the world. Eventually he would watch the argument play out to a conclusion.