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Chapter 9: The Next Morning
The following morning, Pannych is up at dawn while the boys are sleeping in. She goes downstairs and finds Alice about to head out the door.
“Oh, hey. Figured you’d be sleeping in,” Alice says.
“Nah,” Pannych says, “I sleep real well after a day of activity. It’s slow days that make me need more sleep. I’m weird like that.”
“Well, I have some errands to run. Care to tag along?” Pannych says Yes, retrieves her outfit from the laundromagic, then changes out of her robe and heads out with Alice.
[img - townshot]
“So what’s on the agenda,” Pannych asks.
“I have a list,” Alice says, flashing it helpfully. “First, we head to the markets. I need to arrange for some supply deliveries. Nearly everything’s gone bad while I was gone.”
“How long were you gone,” Pannych asks.
“Months. Second, I have to check on some of my old employees, see if they need or even want their old jobs back. And third, I need to stop by the papers to get the word out of our ‘grand reopening’.” She says the phrase with something less than enthusiasm. “Finally, I’ll need to stop by the bank and make sure they know I’m back in town, so everyone gets paid when they go looking for money.”
“Jeez,” Pannych says, “Busy day.”
“Busy morning,” Alice corrects. “I’ll send you back after the markets to meet the deliveries. Hopefully, I’ll be back by the time everything shows up, but maybe not, so you’ll be making yourself useful. And you’ll get to see where everything goes, so that means you’re in charge of breakfast for everyone.”
They walk in silence for some moments before Pannych speaks up again. “Say, why were you gone for so long? And how’d you end up down below Fort Roguelike?”
Alice sighs and says, “Long story.”
“I mean, we seem a ways from the markets yet,” Pannych says, looking around. “I think we have time.”
“All right,” Alice says wearily. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I used to be tight with Rayla and Aqu. We go way back. They were very different people when we met, though. Back then, they pretty much ruled the world - and they did a good job of it, too. Held regular tournaments to keep all the Big Bads in check, had a strong justice system that no one but them was above, kept the roads safe and in good condition, built & funded great schools, nationalized healthcare, top-notch disaster relief, free-ish press, all of that.”
“That seems downright benevolent,” Pannych says, confused.
“That’s because they were benevolent,” Alice clarifies, “Benevolent dictators. Don’t get the wrong idea: they ruled with an iron fist, and any kind of dissent was met with swift and lethal force. But they also kept one key fact in mind: happy subjects don’t revolt. And so they kept the world happy for the most part, abstained from the most cruel excesses of typical despots, and let people do pretty much anything they wanted - as long as what they wanted didn’t include having any real political power.”
“So if they were so insidious, then why’d you ally with them?”
“Because the alternative to their benevolent dictatorship wasn’t a progressive and inclusive republic, it was a malevolent dictatorship. Bad as things were under the two of them, they would’ve been even worse under any other regime. You should’a seen the assholes who ran the world before them - that’s sorta how we met, in fact.
“Rayla and Aqu came to power as a result of prophecy, and their fall was also prophesied, so they hired me on to be their seer. I set up The Loaded Die years ago to be a base of operations for them to reestablish themselves. But I had no idea just how hard they’d fall. By the time it really hit me, we had just holed up in Noob Cave, and so I started talking with the noob menders - but I got found out, so Aqu dragged me to the fort and paid the goblins to kill me if I tried to escape, and then he helped Stewart get the Pearl of Transversion so he’d keep an eye on me.”
“Yikes,” Pannych says. “Big favor. Was Stewart some kind of badass? That stalactite got him before he really did anything.”
“Ha,” Alice scoffs, “Only in his own mind. Guy thought he was inherently better than anyone else, some kind of ‘superior breed’ or some shit. Came under the idea that the reason he didn’t have multitudes groveling at his feet was because all the ‘little people’ he was above had ganged up on him. So he set out to make his own sycophantic multitudes, which really takes the fun out of it if you ask me, but whatever - his crazy, not mine. Hey, here we are.”
Pannych looks around at the morning market and says, “Wow, is it always this busy first thing in the morning?”
“Beats the midday heat,” Alice says, approaching a stall.
After introducing Pannych to the various vendors, Alice sends her back to The Loaded Die to meet the deliveries before running the rest of her errands. Pannych has a few minutes to poke around the kitchen before the first of the deliveries arrives, and then helps get everything squared away.
Phyr and Vector are awakened by the shrill whistle of a teakettle. They come downstairs and are greeted by the smells and sounds of bacon & eggs frying in cast iron skillets. “Morning, boys,” Pannych says as they enter the kitchen.
Vector says, “Hey.” Phyr grumbles.
“Why don’t you guys get changed, and we’ll have breakfast?”
Alice arrives just as they’re all sitting down to eat, and Pannych goes to dish her up a plate. “Oh, no thanks,” Alice says. “I don’t eat or sleep. Zombie an’ all.”
“Oowa vobbie,” Phyr asks through a mouthful of food.
“Uh, yeah,” she replies. “My ghastly pallor and hollow gaze aren’t for funsies.”
Phyr swallows and says, “Well, I don’t know! People here come in all colors of the rainbow!”
“That’s because changing skin color is a simple spell,” Alice says. “Some people change it for their job or other reasons, but most people don’t care and just go with how they’re born.” Which is nothing at all like how skin color affects a person’s identity in real life, but this is a suburban white teenager’s Medieval Fantasy World, and her misconceptions translate directly into material reality (see: “crumpets,” and possibly also the physics of plasma blasters vs. solid rock). Moreover, it’s one thing to know how problematic this is, and another thing entirely to fix it in a conscious and sensitive way. So let’s leave it at that, with a Yes This Is Bad But Trying To Fix It Would Probably Be Even Worse.
“You don’t really act like a zombie, though,” Vector says.
“That’s because I didn’t die before I zombified,” she adds. “My soul wasn’t consumed by the void, I just flipped over to undead.”
“How’d that happen,” Pannych asks.
“Same thing that busted up Rayla and Aqu’s power: a prophecy put a hole in the world and fucked everything up. I was fine while this was all imaginary, but then it got written down, made real, and a balance was upset. Being a mystic, my life force is tied to the state of the world, so that imbalance manifests in me - as zombification.”
Pannych says “Are all the mystics like this?”
“There are no other mystics. Rayla and Aqu had them killed after they hired me on. Didn’t want any competition. Erm, so I guess yes, it’s just that I’m ‘all the mystics’.”
“But is there any way to fix it,” Pannych asks.
“Yes - but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”
“Right,” Phyr says, “We gotta go see Jim, let him know what happened yesterday. Maybe we’ll get more XP!”
They finish breakfast, and then the three adventurers head out to find Jim while Alice stays behind to ready the tavern for business.
At the town hall, the adventurers have to wait for a moment because Jim wasn’t expecting them, but they are soon sent in. He stands to greet them as they enter his office, and says, “Welcome, welcome. Please, have a seat.” They do, and he continues: “The guards are abuzz with tales of your deeds. I was just about to send for you, in fact - I wanted to hear it for myself.”
Vector summarizes the previous day’s events, rolling well on Speech to surreptitiously leave out key points. Jim thinks nothing of the missing details, and says, “So you killed almost half a dozen noobs, fought Grayl and lived, cleared the goblins out of the fort, put an end to Stewart, and dealt with a small noob army - all in one day?”
“I killed a couple bandits, too,” Phyr says, raising his hand.
“It was a long day,” Pannych says.
“Well, that’s all very impressive, if true - not to impugn your honesty, I just hope you understand that many would exaggerate such heroic doings. Then again, you seem to be downplaying it, if anything, so I’m inclined to believe you. Still, we’ll see for ourselves soon enough. I’ll have the guards garrison some troops in the fort - or what’s left of it, anyway. Probably never should have left it go, honestly. And I’ll also have them maintain the doubled patrols, just to be safe.”
As if on cue, a voice sounds from a rack of speaking stones on the wall behind Jim’s desk: “Noobs at the crossroads! I repeat: noobs sighted at the crossroads, inbound to Noob Town!”
Another voice says, “How many?”
The first voice responds, “I - I don’t know! A whole lot of ‘em, easily three dozen or more! I couldn’t get a head count.”
Jim’s look of shock quickly gives way to deep suspicion. “What is the meaning of this?”
If you WANT TO READ A DIFFERENT OPTION ANYWAY, then put a tally mark in the Retconning Rascal box on the last page and turn to whichever option you want.
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