NOVEL SIMPLE Faire’s Fair
6/4 Late Morning
Princess Poobah was being allowed to relax after her ordeal, and was already at the Darkmoon Faire when I arrived. I didn’t stop long, exchanging a few pleasantries before pulling out my compass to find the premium vendor. I did note in passing that seven people triggered my red string sense, just in the few minutes it took for me to find the tent. I suppose more people than I’ve given credit for would be interested in a position that included as it’s perks immortality, body sculpting, immunity to disease, a sense of purpose, the opportunity to meet celebrities, and a friendly community of attractive, intelligent, and sexually liberated companions of both sexes. Unfortunate that others would see the mental enslavement and immediately declare it to be evil to even give people the option.
The Faire was in full swing. It was a fun event, an old style traveling carnival with ice cream, funnel cake, games, shows, fortune telling, and more. More in this case referring to a tent that everyone was ignoring, walking around it without ever looking at it directly. That’s where the compass on my map was pointing at, so I went for it.
It was dark inside, with a single gnome in a wide brimmed bar seated behind a counter. “Well well well, look what the cat dragged in. So tell me, what are you buyin and what are you sellin?”
I looked around. “What is there to buy?”
“Anything you’ve earned, and anyone you like, assuming that you’re ok with them being a little off. Oh yeah, and they need to fit the setting. No superheroes or the like, not unless they have a specific and canonical Warcraft theme. I suspect you’re more interested in what you can sell at this point. Same rules, minus the people. You can only sell people on the approved list.”
“So people in the catalog?”
The gnome rolled his eyes. “Obviously. What other list would I be referring to?”
“Yeah. Probably not going to sell any of them to be honest. They are pretty much always useful.”
“Suit yourself. So. You here for cotton candy or are you here to deal?”
“I’m here to deal, hold your horses.”
I started pulling out company swag that’s been burning a hole in my pocket. So much of it just wasn’t as useful to me as it once was. Most skill chips, for example, paled in comparison to actually finding an expert in the field and capturing them. Unfortunately they were also priced appropriately. For the sword/torch, sailing, manual labor, and tailoring chips I only got 4 credits, but that’s 4 more than I had before. I also sold both paralytic poisons; my mages could do something close enough in combat and Vanessa was excellent with poisons. The bed of fading dream mushrooms was priced at 5 credits; it was in many ways worse than extra stock for the same value, so I didn’t have any problem selling it. The Equivalent Exchange, letting me swap someone out with their rough equivalent from another faction, was just too finicky to use and sold for a whopping 10 credits. Finally, reversing mirrors were fast acting but again, finicky compared to other things I had access to. I’d use them eventually if I couldn’t get 2 credits a pop for them, but I could, so I did. That was 23 credits in the bag, bringing me up to an even 50. I have never had this many credits before.
“So, you buying anything?”
“What have you got?”
“Anything you can get from the company, if you know what to ask for.”
“Could you give me, like, a catalog or something?”
“I could, in theory, but I don’t have to so I don’t think I will put in the effort making one. Same with discounts, exchanges, or advice.” The two foot tall twerp sat back in his chair with a smirk. Just dangling quite a lot of valuable information in front of me and telling me I couldn’t have it.
“So where’s your stock?”
“Print on demand. We make it as needed. Those things eat up a power budget something fierce.”
It’s at that point I decided to try something that was probably stupid, but in my defense it was such an obvious exploit that I had to try. I’m a beta tester, after all. Palming the pen of written ownership, I started moving towards him. He kept his smug smile, and continued leaning back in his chair.
When I lunged for him, he seemed to blur as he hit the deck and executed a perfect roll before popping right back up and sweeping a long knife towards the back of my leg in one fluid motion. He stopped short of hitting me and hopped backwards.
“Alright buddy. Lucky for you, I’m not allowed to attack you unless you attempt to steal something. Capturing me would be a corner case; I see the idea, but I’ll let you know now. The defenses you and Nefarian have against each other aren’t shit. Don’t waste limited resources. But hey, good idea. Tell you what, I’ll reward your creativity.”
Bonus mission
Cut one extremity of your choice off. You will be penalized if you leave the shop tent before doing so.
Reward: Mission ticket
“Wait what. What the fuck.”
“Chop chop. Oh don’t be such a baby. You’ve got full troll regeneration and body tune up. You could cut off a whole leg and you’d be walking again in a day or two. I hear if you chop off your dick it’ll grow back bigger. Not buying it? Did I upset you?” His smile grew substantially. “Tell you what. You apologize, and I’ll cancel the quest.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure. Sorry.”
“I’ll take it. This time.” He clapped his hands and the mission vanished from my log. “Now get the fuck out of my shop, eh? I’ve got other things to do.”
Suitably chastened and a bit annoyed I didn’t have any way to complain to his manager, I left. That was irritating, but I resolved to have a good day. After all, I had an ungodly number of credits, multiple people doing missions around the world, and a collection of dozens of nubile love slaves and counting. I think I’m legally required to have a generally good day.
••••••••••
There were precious few people that would be allowed access to the Ruby Sanctum. It was where Alexstrasza had chosen to spend her time in convalescence, seeing to the births of a whole generation of red dragons. She was a mother, first and foremost, and being surrounded by flourishing life was good for her.
The Dragonqueen would have liked many things to be different. She would have liked if Tyranastrasz, her eldest consort, had survived just two weeks longer in captivity, to be released alongside her by mortal heroes. She would have liked if Korialstrasz, her newly promoted prime consort, were to spend more time at her side, though she understood the importance of his work. She would have liked it if all of her children born in captivity could have been saved. Alas, all were not meant to be.
She was not idle, though she did not take the field herself. She received reports from her children, orchestrated events as best she could, and took a personal hand in the education and training of her brood. Soon she would feel ready to face the world once more, but she had found these periods of seclusion, surrounded by those who loved her, were vital to her wellbeing.
Few outside of her flight would be allowed to intrude upon her seclusion, but her sister was chief among those few. Ysera was sleepwalking as usual, so she was inclined to believe it was a social call. That gladdened her; her dear sister had been occupied with something for quite a while. Had Ysera arrived with her eyes wide open, Alexstrasza would have tensed up, ready for a call to action. Instead, in deference to her sister’s decision to come in the shape of an elf, she took her visage and held her arms open for an embrace.
“Ysera, it has been too long. Are you well?”
Her sister smiled back at her. “I am. I think I may have met a powerful new ally among the mortals. He helped me to deal with a dangerous being that is causing trouble in the Dream.”
“Oh? A powerful druid then?”
“No. A powerful human healer and quite a wonderful man. He creates jewelry of great power, which can cleanse corruption from even those very far gone, as well as mere trifles like this one.” She gestured at a necklace around her own neck. “It is used for communication. I mentioned at one point that I wished we had more opportunity to speak, and he straightaway gave me this, and it’s sister. A gift for you.”
Alexstrasza was touched. It was a sweet gesture indeed, and it was always good to hear tidings of good mortals. It was the Life-Binder’s nature to love all living things, which made it easy both for her to be hurt and to share true joy in the achievements of others. Further, the small citrine inlaid in gold had a mesmerizing quality. She wanted to put it on as quickly as possible. “It’s beautiful! I will need to meet this man, to thank him if nothing else.”
“My dear sister, I assure you that you will have the opportunity to thank Erich Bismark. He gave every indication that he’d also like to meet you.”
“Ah! Bismark! The one Keristrasza mentioned. He’s working with Vaelastrasz as well, and you know how picky Vaelen can be about mortals.” With the collar snugly around her neck, Alexstrasza spoke animatedly with her sister. She still wasn’t sure when she’d feel comfortable taking a direct role once more, but she was already feeling much better. Family really was the best salve.
••••••••••
Lunara, first daughter of Cenarius, couldn’t properly say what she expected to find. She’d been leading a cohort of her sister dryads in clearing out the nightmare infestation in the area known as the Barrens in the mortal world. It was a thankless but important task; the corruption there was relatively weak, but it had deep roots and grew to cover more ground quickly. Then, for no reason she could understand, she felt a deep conviction that she needed to go to the west.
She found what she was looking for after hours of sprinting without any rest, which she only realized was far easier than it should have been after the fact. As she ran, she vaulted over enemies that tried to interfere, launching a spear straight down at the tops of their heads as she did. She felt faster, stronger, more agile, and most importantly she felt tireless.
Her brother’s wildseed was in good condition when she found it. Somehow, Zaetar had managed to get away from that horrid woman, and now he was regrowing his physical body from the matter of the Emerald Dream. It would go faster here than in the world beyond, but it was also far riskier. Good thing she’d come along, who knows what might have stumbled across him? Lunara needed to find a nice safe place to hole up and guard her brother until he was functional again. The green dragons had broken free of the nightmare; maybe she should check the portal to the south, in Feralas?