It was morning.

The sun was shining.

The birds were singing.

And Goodie was shitting himself.

Not literally, thank gods, but the memories of how stupid he had been last night were a never-ending promise to changing that.

He had threatened the mayor, a corrupt piece of shit that tried to fleece him yesterday evening. Not just with words. He had had Her Majesty bite several of his cronies and implied that he could have her do the same to him, anytime, anywhere, before leaving. He could, but it was idiotic as all she could do was make him drunk. Even if worked out a way for the prick to die, people would be able to figure out what happened. With magic if not skill.

A move he never should have made.

He had disabled them with a combination of Her Majesty’s venom and [SUMMON SHADOW STUFF]. Effective, but ultimately, they were parlour tricks. Useful for pranking, but little more. The trick being that he had summoned his shadow stuff on the hilt of their swords, covering them in a slick, translucent substance that bore a disturbing resemblance to mucus. It had worked last night, but if they had simply taken a moment to clamp their hand down on the hilt, they would have been able to pull their weapons free. Then, they would have been free to skewer him like a pig.

“Fuck, I should have done the boots too.” He said as he thought about it.

Everything he had read, everything he had watched, all of it agreed that you never show all your cards to people, especially the ace up your sleeve. His ace, however, was Her Majesty. A card that he would pull every time his back was put against the wall, whereas [SUMMON SHADOW STUFF], his main attack? Well, to be honest, last night was one of the few times he had ever used it on anything but a rat. Thinking about it, last night may have been the first time he had ever used that ability on a human. Was it?

“Yes, it was!”, He considered that for a moment, “Weird.”

A sound interrupted his thoughts. He could hear the knocking echo from one of the doors down below. It had been going on off for about an hour now. His obvious comeuppance for yesterday’s sins.

He assumed it was a combination of the shock of seeing his plans crumble and the effects of breathing in whatever that sweet smoke was, but yesterday he had acted as he never would have before, felt as he had never felt before. It was probably going to die because of it, but he would have given anything to feel that way again. To not care what others thought, to not always consider the consequences of his actions, to be free of the constant worry of just being alive. No matter what the bible thumpers claimed, that freedom, that peace of mind, now that was heaven.

The knocking came again.

He could only delay the inevitable for so long…

…But that did not mean he had to be an idiot when meeting it.

He sent Her Majesty to scout out the situation; fully expecting a contingent of heavily armed guards to have surrounded his truck-waggon, ready to escort him to the gallows or whatever form of capital punishment the locals practised.

What he saw instead was a lone woman. A tall, blue-eyed, blond. The type that most men would have given their right arm for to have someone like her in their lives. He was not most men, but when compared to the alternatives, he would have gladly thrown in a leg and an ear to seal the deal.

His apathy vanished; replaced by a giddiness born from the possibility of hope.

Seeking out his clothes, he got dressed; the act adding to his stress of the day as he had not bothered to clean himself with his usual morning ritual. He was not particularly dirty, but without access to washing facilities of any kind, every bit of grease, grime and stain put upon them was one moment closer to leaving him no choice but to parade around arse naked just to avoid catching a disease from his soon to be filthy rags.

He had tried using the same technique on his clothing that he used to keep himself clean, but the process was far rougher when dealing with things not directly connected to him. Sooner or later, he would need to learn how to make his own clothes. But that would be under production, which was tomorrow.

He headed downstairs; taking a breath, he walked out.

He had barely opened the door when he was set upon.

“Hi, there!”, the woman screamed, shaking his hand like she wanted to rip the thing off. She sounded Australian, or at least from somewhere in that area.

“Yeah, look, I know it’s forward of me, but you have a snake, yeah?”

He nodded.

“Okay, look, your snake, right; We could call it snake oil, the local lot wouldn’t get it, obviously, But people from Earth? It’ll be a hoot, right? And the money? Well, we wouldn’t make it on the way there, but Blue-Eyes and them would do right by us when we get to where we’re going, yeah?”

Goodie sat down and took a moment to consider what she had said. Looking up at her, he asked, “What?”

“Right, sorry, sorry.”, she apologised. She took a moment to calm down, or at least pretended to, as she began to talk again in the same over-excited tone, “Okay, look, I’m Kylie, hello, I came in with the others, this morning, so I only just heard about you and yours, right.”

“Others?”, He asked.

At first, she gave him a thumbs-up, then raised her arm so that her thumb pointed behind her.

“We came in with the morning sun.”

He bent to the side to look past her; the camp had visibly grown, nearly doubling in number by his best guess. Then, looking up, he noted that the sun had moved well past its noon position.

“They told me your snake makes people drunk when it bites them, that true?”

Goodie rubbed his brow; there went his ace. Served him right for always playing it.

“Yes, ‘she’ does.”

“Sorry, she, when she bites them.”, Kylie continued, “Look, I help with sorting and getting supplies for everyone, but I’m mostly a merchant. Not a [MERCHANT], mind you, just a merchant. Anyway, I was thinking…”, she paused, trying to collect her thoughts, then continued, “This is your first time with us, yeah?”

He nodded.

“Well, the getting to where we’re going bit is going to be shit, it always is; the long walk each day, the sun beating down on everyone, tempers getting high. The only way to keep everyone from getting pissed off with each other is to keep them half pissed, so the waggon spends almost as much on drink as it does food. If we could cut into that, it wouldn’t just help everyone, old blue-eyes and the rest would see some coin head our way.”

“Okay?”

“We can’t really get sugar, especially on the open road, but I was thinking that we could take a bit of honey, mix it with your venom, then water the whole lot down. We just need the end result sweet enough to not taste like water; people just wanna get drunk anyway, so even if we do it at twenty to one, a teaspoon of honey-venom for each cup, which is way more than we need…I think, we’d be making bank on the whole operation.”

Goodie stared at her for a moment. While this was the day for resources, merchants fell under prosperity, and what she was discussing was production, which was tomorrow’s business. Not that he had a problem with all that, but he did have a problem…

“Well…”, he sighed as he began talking, “…I can see that you’re really excited about this idea of yours, unfortunately, it won’t work.” He pointed at himself, then to Her Majesty, who had slither back to her place around his neck, “Both our levels are rock bottom, so her venom doesn’t last too long, and even if it did, my shadow stuff degrades quickly, even quicker if it’s kept in the dark.”

Levelling, he thought, it always came back to levelling. If he were in the city, he could have levelled within the day, but out here in the boonies? He was shit out of luck. He was beginning to think that he should have taken that [GOD OF SNAKES] thing instead of sacrificing it.

“Shit!” she shouted; after looking at the ground for a second she turned back to Goodie and asked, “look I know we don’t discuss our status, but it’s ‘cause you’re low level right.”, she began speaking to herself more than him, “and we can’t go hunting until we leave the territories…shit. Maybe? No…shit. Alright. Fuck. Sorry to bother you, alright.”

The woman walked away; her feelings of disappointment obvious.

It was a good idea, unfortunately, like always, it failed because, despite his nickname, he was not good enough. Mild depression began to sink in as he could not stop himself from thinking those thoughts. That this feeling also dampened the stress that had him so apathetic that morning, was a small mercy.

He sat there for a moment before he decided to get on with his day. He had already lost the morning, there was no reason for him to waste the rest of the afternoon as well. He took a look around to see if any of the village’s guards were about to suddenly pop out of nowhere to confront him. The coast was clear, as far as he could tell, but he would have Her Majesty scout around some more. Her attributes were better anyway.

“Well, I’ve got some meat to buy.”, He reminded himself.

And with that, he left for the market.