Chapter 113: Book 2: Chapter 14

Chapter 14

 

Stormblade Harbour was a hive of activity when we arrived. Well, the part that we were currently using was bustling.

The youngsters we had saved on the island and the children that had come from Ionia were running amok on the dock front under the watchful eye of Janet Vickers. Due to the timing of our arrival, the school day was over, otherwise, the rambunctious young ones would be at their lessons.

One of the first things Susan organised, even before I made her Stormblade Harbour’s castellan, was the establishment of a new school for the children.

Janet was the only person on the island with any teaching experience and with my approval had been one of the first to sign a two-year servitude contract in exchange for the removal of her collar. In conjunction with the relocation of the troublemakers, Janet applying for and being assigned as School Principal for her two years of service had improved the perception of my indenture policy considerably.

There were a few collared holdouts left, but they would likely sign on when they got the news of Freeport’s demise. Even the attitude of the Freeport sympathisers, those who had remained behind anyway, had softened when faced with the evidence that I was not some evil taskmaster.

Susan was standing close beside the eagle-eyed Janet. My enhanced empathy acted like a lecherous spidey-sense. The pair had become fast friends rapidly, bonding over their similar losses and experiences. But observing them together on the jetty waiting for us to dock told me all I needed to know.

Close enough that they were practically touching one another despite there being more than enough room to spread out comfortably. Subtle, but unmistakable lip twitches of happiness when they glanced at one another. Things had recently progressed beyond mere friendship.

I was glad for them, of course, and hoped it lasted. Everyone deserves to be happy, but it would also be good for me. Another string that tied Susan and Quinntexxis to my faction. Strengthening the Shattered Storm and aiding in keeping us safe.

It wasn’t just my castellan and the school pupils eagerly awaiting our arrival. A significant proportion of the small town’s population lined the waterfront to see us come home.

The ship’s return always seemed to generate this level of excitement. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. A significant number of those who stayed behind had a vested interest in confirming those they cared about on the ship would return in one piece. That or they were simply nosey or bored.

The ship slotted into place and the gangplank extended down onto the concrete jetty.

Brant was the first to disembark and headed straight towards a group of people standing back from the jetty’s edge. I recognised them as those who had family or close friends leave for Freeport. Any faint hope of a positive outcome faded from their expressions once they saw the big man’s body language as he descended the plank.

Not having to tell them personally was a bit of a relief. Letting them die may have been the necessary and sensible decision, but it hadn’t been an easy one. There were likely a few among the fallen who would have fitted well into my faction if they had stayed behind. It was shame they chose to listen to the wrong people.

<Susan will want to talk to you once you disembark> Quixbix said in barely restrained anger. <Quinn has locked me out of the Slave Market’s direct administration…again. All I can see is the alert that you’ve had some new arrivals since we departed.>

[Not deliberately, Quixbix.] Quinntexxis was quick to reassure me. [You know how distasteful I find the place. But we are under orders to ensure nobody is auctioned off in case you are delayed, are we not?]

<Who is eavesdropping now?> was the imp’s incredibly mature retort.

One of the unfortunate discoveries we made after Quinntexxis stopped sulking was that the Framework, whether by intent or accident, didn’t facilitate the cooperation of imps and fairies.

Technically, Quixbix should be able to access and administer any building in Stormblade Harbour if we were within or near its boundaries. As Susan was the official castellan of the town, Quinntexxis was afforded similar access. Had they both been imps this would not have been a problem and they would both be able to access the building’s interfaces without tripping over one another. But they weren’t.

If one of them accessed the interface of a building it locked the other out from all but the publicly available information. The lock could be reversed if Susan or I got them close enough to the building while their opposite was out of range.

I was working on a possible solution involving the pair interacting with buildings using the special override frequency I seemed to possess. However, progress had been slow. This was a frequency neither one of them had encountered before or knew anything about. And they were a little afraid that they might trip some kind of Framework alarm that would result in their deletion.

That and their near constant one-upmanship derailed our earliest attempts and as it hadn’t been a priority, I’d let it slide for the time being.

Apart from that difficulty, up until now the effect of owning the Prime slave market for Earth hadn’t been much of an issue. There had been remarkably few people sold to the podiums over the last month. As much as I would like to attribute that to the milk of human kindness, I suspected it had more to do with how few people had read the Framework help files and knew they could.

I knew I hadn’t read them, but then I had an imp and Jackson for that.

“Fine. We’ll be down in a moment,” I said.

“Something up?” Shana asked as she walked over and put her arm through mine.

“The day’s work is not done. Susan has something important to report.”

“Boo,” Shana hissed. “Those ghasts were a bit too easy to kill. I’ve got all this excess energy and I was hoping we could work it off together.”

“You are an unrepentant hussy,” Anastasia snarked from her favourite spot, sitting on the rail surrounding the poop deck above where we were standing.

“You’re always welcome to join us, Anastasia,” Shana shot back and winked suggestively at the smaller woman.

Ana briefly blushed before she bristled. “You wish,” she muttered.

As they teased one another, Jackson rushed out onto the main deck from below in a hurry. His gaze roved over the dock eagerly and an inordinately big grin broke out on his face when he found what he was looking for. My eyes flicked to the side following where he had been searching, or to be more precise to whom he had been searching for and saw an opportunity to perform a little teasing of my own.

My arm shot out and firmly gripped his shoulder as he hurried past me, heading for the sturdy black gangplank.

“Just who I was looking for,” I exclaimed a little too loudly as Jackson twisted around in my grip with one of his legs kicking out like he was performing the can-can.

Jackson blinked owlishly in surprise and then looked up at my grinning face. “Uhm, yes, Captain?”

He couldn’t help but glance longingly over his shoulder to the pair of beauties waiting for him. Britney and Celeste, two of the cheerleaders he helped save from the Capronids a month ago. They were standing beside each other with coy smiles that fell a little once they noticed I had delayed the young sorcerer.

Amber, the third of the trio who had been saved, exited the militia barracks with wet hair and a basket of laundry under her arm. She flashed the ship with what had become a customary scowl on her face before turning on her heel and storming off.

All three had signed their contracts, Amber being the last to do so. Britney and Celeste had been assigned catering roles, while Amber had asked to join the militia.

We knew Britney and Celeste had followed through on their earlier plans and were fooling around with Jackson because we were nosey, and teenagers aren’t half as subtle as they think they are. Shana gave it another week, maybe two, before they approached her about making it official.

Amber hadn’t become involved, and it didn’t look likely that she would. Hopefully, she would find her place here at some point. Time would tell.

I’d left Jackson waiting on my words as I took in what was happening on the dock for long enough.

“I hope you’ve been enjoying your promotion as the ship’s Quartermaster. Marena’s Mercy should be advancing to mark two soon. Once it does, you’ll get a proper office and quarters on the ship.”

“Of course, Captain,” Jackson answered brightly. His smile returned as he thought this would be a short delay. “I’m very happy. And I promise not to let you down. You won’t be sorry that you put your faith in me.”

“Excellent. That is just the kind of enthusiasm and dedication I wanted to hear. Quixbix informs me that Susan is waiting with an important report to deliver and that we’ve got a long night’s work ahead of us. I’m going to need you for this one.”

I struggled to keep a straight face as the joy drained from his visage and he glanced despondently over his shoulder at the pair of gorgeous young women waiting for him.

“You didn’t have any plans, did you?” I asked with faux concern.

“Honestly, Captain. I kind of did,” he confessed.

“Don’t worry about it then…” I told him and the beaming smile returned. “…I can spare you for five minutes to go cancel them.”

Jackson’s reaction to the punchline of my mischief went unseen as Anastasia’s cackling laughter rang out across the deck from above. She laughed so hard she almost fell off the rail backwards. Shana was hiding her own giggling behind her hands.

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” he sighed.

“Damn straight I am,” I chuckled. “Not about Susan’s report, but I’m sure we can handle it without you. Off you go, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” I finished and pivoted the slight young man around by his shoulders.

Jackson blushed red with guilty embarrassment as realisation kicked in that we all knew exactly what he had been getting up to in his free time. After a quick shooing motion with my hands, he grinned widely and was off like a hare down the gangplank.

“That leaves him a lot of latitude,” Anastasia snorted as she slipped off the poop deck taffrail and landed adroitly on the deck beside Shana.

Whether Jackson heard her or not we couldn’t be sure. He had sprinted away, almost knocking over three or four people as he wove through the people on the jetty. No doubt, putting as much distance between us as he could on the off-chance I changed my mind and called him back for round two of cockblocking.

There was a dark part of my mind that was on the verge of doing just that when Shana leaned up and put her finger on my lips. “We’ve had our fun. Any more and we’re just being cruel.”

I took her dainty hand in mine and replaced her finger with her lips, and we kissed deeply.

The lip-locking was interrupted by the impatient voice of the diminutive blonde. “Come on, you two. I want to find out if the latest delivery included any tasty treats for my dungeon.”

With that, Anastasia shifted out of her combat gear and back into her school uniform getup and skipped off the ship with barely restrained excitement.

“Rain check,” Shana whispered.

“Sure.” I grinned back at her.

Most of the crew had already disembarked and the crowd had begun to disperse as we made landfall ourselves.

“You know what,” I said thoughtfully. “I know what a rain check means. I’ve watched enough American TV in the past to figure it out, but I’ve no idea where the phrase comes from.”

Shana paused her stride and looked back up at me. “Heh…I don’t think I know either. I’ve never really thought about it before.”

“It’s a baseball phrase,” Susan interjected, having overheard us as we approached. “Rain checks were tokens to attend future games if they were called off because of poor weather.”

“Hmmm. Makes sense.”

“I’ll round up the children and take them to the canteen. Give you some privacy. You can meet us there later,” Janet told Susan warmly. Then continued in a firmer, louder, teacher voice after clapping her hands to get the youngster’s attention. “Alright, the ship has docked. There is nothing more to see. Follow me and we’ll find out what Mrs Turner has cooked up for tonight.”

Naturally, there was a round of dissent and comments about how the school day was over from some of the older ones. A stern look from me and a threat of no pudding for those who dragged their heels soon had the dozen or so excitable children moving away into the town. Janet’s stepdaughter Sarah paused long enough to wave at me and then chased after the others yelling boisterously.

“Kids are resilient, even in the face of the apocalypse,” Susan muttered in a bittersweet tone as she watched her daughters horse around with the others.

Her reverie was interrupted as Amber strode back into view. Her face was a mixture of anger and disgust as she shook her hands as if they were dirty. She pointedly ignored our group and hurried back into the barracks.

“What crawled up her ass and died?” Anastasia asked dismissively.

“Oh, Amber,” Susan responded after looking about for a few moments. “She went out on patrol with the militia today.”

“Did she screw up or something?”

“Ah, no. As the group had several new recruits including some of Jackson’s young friends, Carlos and the oddly named, D-Ball. They stayed close to Stormblade Harbour and swept the Northwest of the island on the other side of Font Lake.”

“Oh!” Shana grimaced in remembered sympathy.

“The pestilence monkeys had respawned again,” I guessed.

Susan nodded in confirmation.

“She got worked over by the little shit-flingers, eh?” Ana laughed with significantly less sympathy than Shana.

“I’m afraid so. Apparently, Amber was at the front of the patrol and took the brunt of an attack by a leader-type mob called a Pestilence Monkey King. She has spent the last several hours trying to clean off…the faeces…she was hit with. Unfortunately, the monkey in question got away. A squad has already been assigned to return and hunt it down tomorrow.”

Quixbix chortled with glee. <The filth keeps coming back, doesn’t it?>

“Yes, it does. Quinntexxis informs me as the mob was low grade it should wear off in a few hours without the need for magical intervention. And Amber has already built-up sufficient resistance to the affliction it can inflict that she is in no danger.”

“This just gets better and better,” Anastasia remarked.

<He tagged her with a dimensional boomerang effect.> Quixbix explained for the listening group. <The Monkey King would have stored a load of his leavings in a dimensional pocket similar to the inventory. His attack marked Amber, and every few hours she’ll be smeared with a fresh dollop until either the pocket is emptied, the tag is removed, or it expires. This is a fairly harmless example of the effect. There are some nasty beasties that do the same with venom.>

“Okay, enough,” I said. “Beware of too much schadenfreude lest it comes back to bite you. We’ve become side-tracked. Susan, I believe you have a report on activities at the Slave Market.”

“Yes, but I think it would be better if I showed you.”

 

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***

 

Fifteen minutes later and we were descending to the second sub-level. The cells on this level were more secure and this was where new arrivals were placed by default. Susan had thought ahead and ensured the default arrival cells contained more than the basics to provide a little bit of comfort.

Each cell also had a plaque detailing the collar removal policy of the Shattered Storm. This way people wouldn’t have to wait for somebody to come down to discover the nature of the fate that awaited them.

Conveniently, written words, like spoken language, would be automatically translated via a person’s connection to the Framework. A universal understanding, so to speak. There were still benefits to learning different languages, though. The function was quite basic, and a lot of the nuance could be lost in the translation. There were also devices and skills that could disable the automatic translation if people wished to talk privately.

The function would be vital for me today. Filling up many of the cells were approximately five hundred Chinese men and women and neither I nor anybody else in the town spoke any of the various Mandarin dialects. All eyes were centred on me. Most of them seemed to be elderly and their gazes rather fatalistic. Although there was little weeping, begging, or cries of rage, which I found a little odd.

“This is more than I was expecting,” I said in a low tone so that it didn’t carry beyond my group. “Did some gobshite just round them up and sell them to a podium? Were we able to cover the purchase fee?”

“Ah, no. Believe it or not, they actually volunteered for this. I will let their representative Li Qiang explain,” Susan told me.

As she led us down the line of cells Quinntexxis piped up to answer my second question.

[Currently allocated funds were sufficient to cover the default cost. The low-level and advanced age of most of the arrivals depressed the initial expense. I took the liberty of separating your personal accounts and applying for an unlimited line of credit for both Prime markets on your behalf should the available allocated funds be insufficient in the future. This will prevent any unwanted automatic auctions or being forced to pass on opportunities, while also not draining your personal accounts unexpectedly.

[To be honest, I’m surprised Quixbix didn’t do this already.]

<Because credit lines charge an automatic percentage. It’s a waste of money for a successful corsair> the imp snapped in response.

[Two percent and only if you don’t deposit sufficient funds within six hours. You have no concept of Finance, Quixbix. It’s all raid and hoard with you, and by linking Torin’s accounts you made him more susceptible to those with remote thieving abilities.]

<Bah! They wouldn’t dare. If someone has the gall to steal from us, then we kill them and take back what they stole. A simple solution to a very unlikely scenario. Come on Torin, back me up on this. Tell her to switch things back.>

[Kill them! You don’t kill talented people, you put them to work on your behalf. Were you any help to your previous porters?]

“Well, you did tell me that you got several of them killed,” I whispered under my breath.

<Judas!> Quixbix sniped at me.

“Sorry, my friend. But she’s got you on this one. Pre-apocalypse the biggest thieves were the financiers and bankers. Don’t worry, I’ll follow your advice when it comes to battle plans and picking juicy raid targets, but the corporate side of things seems to be more in Quinn’s wheelhouse.”

Any further discussion was curtailed as Susan stopped and beckoned for a man in his forties and beginning to lose his hair to come forward.

“Li Qiang this is Captain Torin Carter, Lord of the Shattered Storm. Li Qiang was a local party official for the town of Luchang in Sichuan province. I will let him explain what happened there and how he came to be here.”

Susan’s rather grandiose introduction caught me a little by surprise, but I trusted she knew what she was doing.

Li Qiang bowed to me from the waist. “Captain,” he said deferentially in heavily accented English.

I nodded back to him when he stood back up.

Taking that as a cue to continue he began to address me in his native tongue. The Framework translation was both seamless and a little discombobulating until you got used to it.

  “Lord Carter, on behalf of the humble people of Luchang I would like to express our deepest gratitude for the gift you have given us. Our journey was one into the unknown and we are very happy to have discovered such a strong, yet merciful sponsor at the end of it.

“I have reviewed your very generous terms and we shall gladly sign them. Many of my companions might be grandfathers and grandmothers but they are hard workers and will prove useful assets to your community.”

This was the second time I’d been caught by surprise in as many minutes. I didn’t detect any falsehood in his body language, but I remained a little sceptical due to the known flaws with the translation service.

“Gift?” I said after a moment’s contemplation.

“The gift of life, Lord Carter. Had you not created this…uh…particular type of market, we would all be dead or worse.”

I crossed my arms and did my best to seem daunting. “You had best explain, Li Qiang.”

“Of course, Lord Carter, of course. I did not mean to displease you with my expressions of deepest appreciation.”

Li Qiang was laying it on thick, but Susan had mentioned he was a local party official in Luchang. He might be more accustomed to playing the obsequious ass-kisser for higher-ranked officials in the Chinese Communist Party. I would definitely need to keep my eye on him if that were the case.

Ambition could make people do reckless things.

Finally, Li Qiang got on with his explanation. “Luchang is a small rural town nestled in the mountains of Sichaun. Despite the recent changes all was well. We were slowly adapting to the new world without any significant issue until two days ago. There had only been a few mobs, I think Susan called them, that had bothered us during that time. Until they came,” he paused ominously in his recitation.

“Who were they,” I prompted.

“The Jiangshi. Reanimated dead who hunt the living for their energy. I believe in the West you call them zombies or the undead. We awoke one morn to find the town surrounded by the silent, hungry masses.

“At first, we could hold them back. The town’s walls were sturdy and our fighters brave, but more and more of them arrived as nightfall approached. Some of these Jiangshi were spawned creatures that my brother Li Chao had read about, others we recognised as the poor souls who lived on the outskirts of the town. Slain and brought back to feast on the living, in the same manner as had happened to them.

“The town would surely fall before long and so Li Chao and I devised a plan to save as many of the townsfolk as we could. Li Chao and the young men would break through the lines of the undead and shepherd the women and children to Huili, the largest city in the area.

“Sadly, without transport, the older generations would only slow them down. We made the difficult decision that they must remain behind and along with a few brave volunteers, people like me, hold back the horde and give the rest of the town time to escape.”

“That doesn’t explain how you got here,” I pointed out.

“Ah, yes that,” Li Qiang chuckled. “I almost forgot the most important part. During my studies of the Framework laws, I came across a section about being able to sell slaves to the podium because you, Lord Torin, possessed a Prime market.

“It occurred to me that we could use this function as a method of escape for those who had to remain behind. When the walls were breached and our final defenders on the verge of being overrun, the remaining townsfolk collared themselves and they were sold to the podium bringing them here.

“I would have stayed behind and met my end in Luchang, but a venerable grandfather would not hear of it. His wise words reminded me that it was my place to serve the people I had sent to an unknown fate. That I should forgo any selfish desires for a noble death, one worthy of recording for the ages. So, here I am.”

Li Qiang finished his story by bowing to me again.

If my own stats and senses hadn’t told me there was something a little off with the end of his story, then the piercing jade eyes of one of his cellmates that rolled heavenward would have given it away.

Jade-Eyes was sitting alone on the cell floor with their back to the wall and holding their knees up with wrapped arms. They were slight of frame and dressed in torn rags, with their head wrapped tightly in the same. Their eyes were the only thing that I could see over their knees, but I made a note to seek them out later.

If for no other reason than to get a second opinion on Li Qiang’s story.

It’s not that I thought he was lying precisely, at least not about the broad strokes of his tale. It could be something as simple as a low-level city official trying to embellish his achievements and make himself seem more valuable to a prospective owner/employer. Or it could be something a little more sinister.

The Framework imposed nature of the contracts should provide the necessary security buffer until I had the time to get to the bottom of it.

Besides, his story of the undead had given me something else to be concerned about.

“Thank you for explaining, Li Qiang. I’m afraid you and your people will need to remain in here tonight. The hour grows late, and preparations need to be made for the influx of so many new people. You can sign the contracts in the morning.”

“Of course, Lord Carter,” he replied. “Whatever works best for you. We are here to serve.”

He finished by bowing again and then motioning for the rest of those in his cell to do the same. Most did. Jade eyes drew their knees in tighter and made themselves smaller and went unnoticed by the others, but not by me.

We walked back up the stairs and I led Susan, Shana, and Anastasia, into one of the vacant offices where we sat down.

“Okay, I’m assuming, based on Li Qiang’s description, that this zombie attack is one of the swarm clusters like the Hooved Horde. How worried should we be?”

<You’re right about it being a swarm cluster. Why would you be worried?> Quixbix asked. <China is on the other side of your planet, isn’t it? The undead is another continent’s problem.>

[I hate to admit it, but I agree with Quixbix’s callous assessment] Quinntexxis added

“Erm…because there are a lot of people in Asia to be reanimated. A zombie plague sweeping across the planet is a problem for everybody,” I said.

“I suppose it depends,” Anastasia mused. “Are they fast zombies like World War Z which would be really bad or slow zombies like the old Romero movies?”

There was a light chuckle from both the imp and the fairy.

<You and your movies. Darkwyrlds undead don’t work like that> Quixbix stated smugly.

“Really, because from Li Qiang’s description it certainly sounds like they do. Those killed by zombies rising from the dead as more zombies. That sounds precisely like the kind of thing that could spiral out of control unless dealt with decisively.”

Quinntexxis stepped in to explain while Quixbix chuckled inappropriately at my concerns.

[You must forgive our reaction, Torin. The undead swarm is regarded as something of a joke within the Framework for its almost comical ineffectiveness. Allow me to explain. Spawned creatures are enhanced in three different ways. Killing characters, absorbing energy from their or similar spawning crystals and lastly, battling and killing other spawned creatures.

[The most effective of these advancement methods is successfully killing characters. However, the nature of the undead robs them of most of that progression. When they kill a character most of the energy is used to reanimate the body into another mob. Hardly any, especially if the victim was low level, passes to the slaying monster, seriously hampering their advancement.

[And as they are a swarm, there are very few other mobs created in their vicinity, cutting off a second avenue of advancement. So, you see, although they can be deadly to the communities within their boundaries shortly after integration, even with impressive numbers they never grow strong enough to spread beyond their borders as swarms are meant to.]

<What Quinn said> Quixbix added after he recovered from his amusement. <By the time characters start hitting the high teens they are basically free XP.>

“What? Even with the increased crystal density on Earth?” Shana asked.

[That might make them slightly more troublesome, but they are still unlikely to break out from Sichuan province.]

“Okay, I’ll accept, based on your experience, that the world isn’t in imminent danger. From a zombie plague, at least. Then why did you insist I come and listen to Li Qiang’s recitation of events if not for that?”

Susan coughed politely into her fist and looked a shade embarrassed. “Ah, my apologies, Captain Carter. The confusion is probably my fault. I merely wanted you to see with your own eyes how many new arrivals we had. My experience with city hall suggested scale can be underestimated when you are merely told numbers. A visual aid is often necessary to properly assess impact.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “I would have thought more people was a good thing. That we could get more industry up and running earlier?”

“That is true, but we are running into a new issue. Supplies, primarily food. Five hundred more mouths to feed will deplete our stocks quite rapidly. Foodstuffs are beginning to find their way onto the market, but current prices are exorbitant.”

“Don’t we have an organic matter converter that can create food here?” I asked.

“We do. So, that does mean we are in no danger of starvation…but have you tried the…uh…stew it produces?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“About the kindest thing that can be said is that it is flavourless. We will survive, for sure, but morale will take a heavy hit if we become dependent upon it.”

“And unhappy people are rebellious people,” I sighed.

“Exactly.”

[Exactly.]

<Exactly> came the response in three-part harmony.

“Okay, in that case, restrict the collared holdouts to the organic stew. We should likely have done that for the former prisoners we had to house until they could be sent into the dungeon. That might save us a little food in the short term or encourage them to stop being a pain in my ass and sign a contract. As for the longer term, it looks like it’s raiding season.”

<Finally!> Quixbix shouted with joy.

“Susan, after the new arrivals are processed in the morning, I need you and Ana, with a squad of Militia, to head back to Gull Island and retrieve the Freeport podium. I don’t want to leave it unattended for too long. Quixbix, Shana, that leaves us tomorrow to figure out where we are targeting.”

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