A Day in a Life in After World: Farsid

by Eric Johnson

Farsid stated in all honesty.

  She was the first person to ever resist in such a way. She surely must have had powers similar to his. Now he would never know. He could have learned much from her. He pondered for a moment whether or not he would have even been able to scrape her mind or if it would have been him getting scraped instead.

  “Let’s go!” Farsid stated suddenly and a group of trade workers gathered up with him and they went into the streets.

  Farsid opened his mind and let everyone in. He could hear everyone everywhere. As loud as it was, it paled compared to the waterfall.

  He attempted to filter what he heard. He listened for anything about a furry. He was rewarded quickly. He focused on the mind thinking about a furry and found it to be a very simple mind. Then the mind switched from furry to coins. This had to be it.

  “This way!” He called out and broke into a run. The trade house workers ran along behind him.

  Ahead he saw the furry. The furry spotted them and started shouting and pointing at the giant. There it was! In the giant’s big bulky hand was the black felt bag.

  “Get him!” Farsid called out and drew his own sword.

  The traders spread out their attack on the giant but one of them was immediately taken down with an open hand swipe of the giant. Before the giant could withdraw his arm from the attack, another trader rushed in and left a gash down the giant’s arm but had to then jump back as the giant turned back.

  The giant fought hard and would not let any of the traders get close enough for an attack. Seeing an opening, one of the traders lurched in under the massive arms but was rewarded with a kick to the chest. He was flung backwards and he landed in a mangled heap. His entire chest was caved in.

  “Pincer maneuver!” one of the traders called out and in a synchronized attack two traders lunged at the giant from either side. They stabbed upwards into the huge human’s arm pits but the giant reacted by lowering his arms and snapping off both blades.

  The giant looked at the pouch as if he had forgotten it was in his hand and then threw it at one of his attackers. That trader collapsed from the mass of the gold coins hitting him so hard.

  The giant then turned to run. Farsid took his chance to charge in. He leapt into the air and came down and buried the sword point into the base of the giant’s neck. The giant tensed up in mid run and then collapsed to the ground, dead.

  “What’s going on here?” An official voice came from behind Farsid.

  Farsid did not immediately respond. He pulled the sword from the giant’s back and examined the blade for a moment. Then he turned and answered the voice.

  “Just trader business. He stole from a trader, which falls under Trader Law.” He said rather sternly. He made sure that his face did not reveal any emotion. He pushed a thought of authority and importance to the two officers there.

  The officer replied in a submissive tone, “Sorry sir. I did not know. We just heard a disturbance.”

  Farsid had no respect for watchmen that watched out mainly for themselves.

  “And showed up after the fighting was done.” He said to the officer, but he was very careful with his tone. He also made sure that he projected that what he said was not offensive.

  “Well, uh…” the watchman stammered, “we got here as fast as we could. You will be taking care of the body? Since it falls under Trader Law?”

  Farsid nodded. He pointed to a couple of trade workers and signaled them to start cleanup on the body. He then turned away from them and went to the house member that had been clobbered by the coin sack.

  The trade worker was rolling on the ground and moaning in pain. He likely had a dislocated shoulder or broken collar bone the way the gold hit him. Farsid bent down and retrieved his coin purse then secured it to his belt.

  Being finished here he turned and walked back past the officers so he could return to the trade house.

  At the trade house everything had returned to business as usual.

  “Got it?” House Master Protus asked.

  Farsid patted his coin purse as much to answer him as to assure himself that it was still there.

  “I have secured you a horse and a farmer has already made an offer on your previous rig. What would you like me to let it go for?” The house master asked.

  “Whatever he offers, accept it and credit it back to my account.”

  The house master nodded.

  “I will return for the horse in a bit, I need get some lunch.”

  “Of course, I will see that he is well fed for your journey.”

  Farsid headed back towards the market place. He was craving some fresh bread with an olive dip.

  He stepped into the bakery shop and requested one of their freshest loaves fresh from the oven and picked up a bowl of seasoned olive oil. The baker then turned away and helped someone else convinced Farsid had already paid for it.

  He sat at an open air table and mindlessly tore bits of bread and dipped them into the oil. The crust was flakey and crispy while the inside was incredibly soft and flavorful.

  He flexed his thoughts and then spread out his awareness over the market place. The din of thoughts was strong and noisy in his head, but he wanted to practice.

  He concentrated on the thought of a brass penny being dropped and rolling away on the ground and watched as half the people in the market glanced down at the imaginary penny. There were a couple of people that knelt down as if to pick it up.

  He laughed a little to himself. In reaction, a number of people in the market place giggled.

  Farsid stopped pushing his thoughts and everyone continued on his way. He was quite pleased. He was getting better and more powerful every day. Now if he could just do something like this without his blasted coin.

  Farsid patted his coin purse contentedly.

  If he could just free himself of the coin he could take on bigger things than just trade. He was always working too small. He could take over if he wanted to. He just would have to convince everyone he was in charge.

  It would be soon. He just had to keep practicing and find a way to be rid of the stupid coin.

  He got up from the table leaving nearly half of the bread. He looked back at the table and saw a mouse dash out and grab the remains and disappear again. Farsid saw him just long enough to get a good mental lock on him.

  He placed his hand on his pouch and pushed with his mind. He saw blackness envelope the worthless beast’s mind. He smirked.

  He started back towards the trade house. He laid a mental route to the cache and started adding up the profits in his head. He was rounding a corner when a body slammed into him. It was a fur covered body.

  “Begging your pardon—” The furry said but when he looked at Farsid he turned and ran.

  Farsid tried to grab the mind of the furry but found it was a bit different from what he was used to and he could not get a good grasp on it. The terrain was laid out differently.

  He reached for his pouch and fished around inside.

  Where was it? He could not feel the familiar coin. It was gone! The furry must have stolen it! That was why he could not concentrate; the furry had stolen his coin.

  A wave of anger emanated out from Farsid and everyone around him suddenly stopped and held their heads in pain.

  He took off at a run in the direction the furry had just went and kept his mind open to any thoughts of furries. He was rewarded a couple of times in which someone thought about a furry running past them.

  He kept running and suddenly the trail went cold. He was down near Quay Street and no one was thinking about the furry and he was nowhere to be seen.

  He cursed aloud and sat down on a bench.

  He let out a deep sigh.

  He tried to focus on the furry himself again and could not bring his thoughts together enough.

  “Gah!” He said aloud and he shook his hands in frustration.

  He then pictured the image of the coin
in question in front of him, he imagined he had it but could not seem to hold the image together.

  He got up in frustration and paced back and forth. Suddenly a thought popped into him concerning the furry. Someone was warning someone else about a furry in a cabin, a boat cabin. The furry must be at the harbor!

  Set with this new found information he ran down Quay Road to the harbor and then looked around frantically at all the boats present. There were too many for him to search. He walked up the harbor probing for anyone aboard each ship. He was not having any luck. There was one boat pulling out. It was a steam flat. He saw a woman going into the cabin there so he probed there with his mind and was surprised when he could not detect anyone inside, not even the woman. The cabin must have been made from steel framing because he often found that steel inhibited his ability.

  He kept a close eye on the departing boat. After it was fully un-berthed it changed direction and started downstream. It was then that he saw the furry. He emerged from the cabin.

  Farsid lashed out with his mind at the furry and mind and again because it was too different from him he could not seem to make an impression on it. They were quickly going out of range.

  The witch knew he could not take a boat because he did not know how to pilot it.

  “Can I help you with something?” A porter came up. It was the same porter he had touched minds with earlier.

  “Can you pilot any of these?” Farsid asked indicating the boats in the harbor.

  The porter shook his head.

  “Then no.” He told him and then he planted the idea in the porter’s mind that he