《The Juggernaut》Eleven
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The stalls either side of them were almost buried beneath piles of scrap metal, pipework and cables. It looked like someone had torn apart some huge machine and left the pieces where they fell.
Malachi poked around for anything he thought might be useful while Ellie settled herself beside Tila.
Ellie ate her portion delicately, one piece at a time.
Tila wolfed hers down, then checked the stallholder was looking the other way. ‘Is he looking for new tech?’ she asked Ellie as she surreptitiously wiped her fingers on the cloth draped over the table.
‘You mean old tech,’ said Ellie.
‘What’s new in this place?’ said Malachi. He had finished his segments too and was using both hands to look for buried treasure. He seemed fascinated by everything on offer, but as far as Ellie and Tila were concerned it was still only junk.
Ellie delicately sucked orange juice from her fingertips. She hated getting her hands sticky. ‘I don’t know what you expect to find,’ she said to Malachi. ‘Nothing that old is going to work, anyway.’
‘What if I told you that I was looking for something for your racer?’
‘Oh, then please carry on!’
‘Anyway, Tila’s staff is old and works fine,’ Malachi replied without looking up. ‘It’s paleotech for sure.’
‘So you keep saying, but we don’t know if it’s paleotech,’ said Tila, dismissing his opinion with a wave of her hand. ‘We don’t even know what it’s made of.’
‘All the more reason,’ Malachi said as if this were obvious. ‘You have to admit that it checks all the right boxes.’ He counted off fingers. ‘One, we don’t know where it comes from. Two, we don’t know what it’s made of and three, we don’t know what it’s for or how it works. Uh, four. So it must predate the war.’
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‘So how do you know it works properly if you don’t know what it does?’ said Ellie.
‘I know how it works, and I know it’s a weapon. And I know without it I wouldn’t be here now,’ Tila said. ‘I don’t need to know any more than that.’
‘Maybe you should find out what it’s worth,’ urged Ellie. ‘Then we can buy our way out of here.’
‘I’m not selling it. Ever. We’ve come a long way together. It’s worth too much to me.’
‘But how much is it worth to me?’ Ellie said with a grin.
There was a cough behind them. ‘Excuse me, ladies, did one of you mention paleotech?’ His eyes darted to the short staff on Tila’s back, evidence enough he had overheard their conversation.
‘It’s not for sale,’ Tila said quickly.
‘Oh, I understand! Really, I do. But items like this don’t pass through here every day. Could I at least look at it? Maybe I can tell you what it’s worth?’
‘It’s not for sale, there’s no point. I don’t care what it’s worth,’ repeated Tila.
‘You don’t care what it’s worth?’ He sounded appalled at the idea. ‘But it could be ancient tech, before we lost contact with Earth. It could even be from Earth! How can you not want to know?’
‘Because none of that matters to me. I don’t care where it came from, or how old it might be. It’s mine now.’
‘But…’
‘It’s not for sale, and no, you can’t touch it.’ Tila said firmly to stop him leading the conversation where she knew it was going. ‘And stop romanticising everything, you too, Malachi. It was barely a hundred years ago we lost contact with Earth. It’s hardly ancient technology.’
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He grumbled something, realised there was no profit to be made and vanished behind his stall, muttering to himself. A few seconds later he reappeared with a broom. This time he was brusque and demanding. ‘You can’t sit there.’
The girls looked up into a scowl that resembled a face.
‘You can’t sit there. You have to move,’ he repeated.
‘We’re not in the way,’ protested Ellie.
‘You can’t sit there. This is my space for my trade. Clear off. You want to sit there you can rent the space.’
Ellie tried again. ‘We weren’t in the way a moment ago. We’re not stopping anyone. Tila?’
‘Come on, Ellie. Not today. I’m trying to be less confrontational, remember?’
They gathered their things. Malachi reluctantly tore himself away from the parts on offer. Tila held her staff close to her body to ward off curious hands. Ellie continued to grumble, and together they dived back into the fast-flowing waters of the market.
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Legendary Farmer (available on Kindle July 2022!)
NOTE: Legendary Farmer is now COMPLETE. The first book, Clearing, was released on Kindle Unlimited July 5, 2022 with significant edits. I will post the first chapter of Clearing, as well as three chapters of Cuckoo's Dream, another novel in the LF universe, as a stub, with a link to the first book, so if you love LF and want me to be able to keep writing consistently, please go give Clearing five stars! In the VRMMORPG, Veritas Online, things are getting a little stale. Since the game launched, only one world- wide event has occurred, and that was a year ago.. The players are still having fun, but everyone agrees it’s about time for something big to happen. Everybody tends to forget that big things grow from small things, and little things are always changing in Veritas.The human country of Quarternell is at peace for the first time in... ever. Aspen, a former war hero, feels like he’s earned a quiet life together with his animal companions. They’re tired of fighting, and other people in general. They plan to live peacefully, far away from the city. As soon as Aspen figures out this farming thing out, he’s never going to go anywhere again. Unfortunately for Aspen, his country and his goddess aren’t quite done with him yet.Rouge the Rogue is a casual gamer in Veritas Online. She’s just a kid, and her focus is supposed to be on school and hanging out with friends. Emphasis on ‘supposed to’. She’s already pretty good at the school thing, and she doesn’t actually have that many friends. What she really loves is exploring all the cool ways the developers of Veritas found to make their game unique and realistic. Then she’s offered a very special quest, and an opportunity to go beyond the average player. She’s never been that much of a rule follower anyway....Clearing is appropriate for most ages. It has minimal foul language, no sex, and some violence. It is LGBTQ+ friendly. (P.S. IMPORTANT! This book contains very mild profanity, no sex, and is meant to be FUN. Yes, the characters sometimes think Deep Thoughts, and idealism pretty much runs rampant, but, in the end, I hope you just enjoy reading it. Laugh, cry, share it with your kids, read it to your dog, whatever makes you happy. My goal is for it to be accessible to everyone from ages 12ish on up, so you could definitely consider it YA, but with lots of big words because I don't believe in talking down to my readers.) Book Two: Harrowing (Starts after the original Chapter Fifty, now Sixteen, since I condensed chapters from the same perspective together.) Zoey has started her summer internship at Veritas Corporation, and she can honestly say that being an adult is boring. Until she starts learning secrets she was never supposed to know. In game, Rouge is finally making progress on her big quest. Apparently Duke Penbrooke took too long to return to the world, so the world is coming to get him... in the form of a few assassins. Aspen is going to have to face the life he left behind, and deal with the fact that it's not as easy being 'dead' as he thought. When what he'd hoped would be a short trip back to civilization to resupply turns into a whole lot more, he'll have to fight for his life, his friends, and his kingdom. Book Three: Sowing Rouge and Aspen have reached Bright, only to find that their enemies were already expecting them. They will have to quickly unravel the mysteries of who their opponents actually are, because they're already ten steps behind. Rouge and Aspen are finally home, but that doesn't mean they can return to their peaceful days of farming. Their enemies are hot on their heels and determined to destroy everything they've managed to achieve. Join them and all their friends for the final volume of Legendary Farmer.
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