Baron Knight

by Jason Krate

  Baron Knight: A Dark Fantasy Adventure

  c. Jason Krate 2019

  The world as everyone knew it now was a burned out relic that the current generations born of survivors of the "Grim Destruction" of WW III had left behind from their parents for them to inhabit.

  A world of ruined cities, no plumbing, healthcare, government, not a lot of commodities from the old world survived the "Grim Destruction"…and some things that did survive, shouldn't have.

  One of these things that should never have survived the fall of the old world, is where our story begins at.

  In an apartment complex, one of the ones that were still intact in Lost Hallowing, a red haired woman about 34 years of age with black lipstick was busy putting her clothes back on in front of a makeshift mirror made out of a large piece of window glass erected upon the floor, leaning against the wall.

  She could see herself clear enough to put her cloth's back on, but what she wished she didn't have to be able to see was the smug grin on that perverted sop she had let do her for 800 pebbles.

  It was bad enough she had been forced to look at the creep while he was lodged deep between her legs while she was lying down on that back breaking monstrosity he called a bed, it was even worse to know that he was looking at her ass as she changed before the mirror.

  "Tell your boss, you were worth the price" he said to her.

  "You tell him" the woman said snidely, "I don't broadcast my rounds with anybody."

  "Shame." The man said to her, "Body and skills like yours, bragging about it would get you more pay."

  "I got enough to get me by for the next two weeks, that's all I need" the woman said, still not looking over her shoulder at the man.

  He then got up and slowly made an approach towards her, he didn't speak again until he was standing right behind her "well I don't know about you baby doll. But I think the amount I paid you for this session is deserving of a free ride".

  He was about to grab her around the waist with his hands when he felt something cold and metallic press against his groin.

  He looked down to see that the woman was now holding a small hand-held knife to his private area, her back still turned to him, but looking at him in the mirror.

  "Unless you want to parade your fucking little friends around in a paper cup, I'd back off if I were you." The woman warned, "one flick of my wrist and I won't only neuter you, I'll change your sex. But something tells me you'd probably enjoy being a woman…wouldn't you?"

  "Oh…." The man scowled, "your boss is going to hear about this".

  The woman then withdrew the knife and grabbed her cash and left, making her way out of the apartment complex and onto the streets.

  The woman's name was Rachel Addison, and she had been a prostitute for a long time…since she was 16 if the truth was ever told.

  It was not anything she was proud of doing, being that she had been raised a Christian by her long dead parents.

  But there wasn't much for job opportunities in the world today.

  You were either a doctor, a farmer, a teacher, a preacher…or part of ALL aspects of the Entertainment industry that had survived the collapse of the old world.

  And prostitution was a disgustingly profitable trade in today's world, and she had been forced to endure it because of this fact.

  She couldn't be a doctor, or a farmer, those took years to learn how to do and during the early years she couldn't have survived on "apprentice pay" from any of those jobs.

  Now…now she was a reluctant whore.

  People payed her more to let them fuck her than they did their local apothecary for medicine, it was disgusting…but it keep food on her table.

  * * *

  Speaking of which, food was what she had currently on her mind as she walked down the ruined streets sidewalk.

  She took a glance at the traffic, which consisted of horse or dog drawn carriages (people used whatever they could to make vehicles go these days) and wistfully thought about the stories her parents had told her about the old world.

  Where the vehicles ran on their own power.

  It was a hot one this august afternoon.

  If she hurried to the market place she might be able to catch the train back to Brightmoon City, and hopefully get something to eat and have a bit of sleep before Marco called her up to be another damn sex toy to some jerk with cash again.

  World she lived in.

  All of the jobs that had sustained the old world died during the "Grim Destruction", a lot of them couldn't function without power…and for the longest time during the upheaval of society, there was a big struggle to survive until an economy was re-established… and even then, that wasn't much of an improvement.

  They used colored pebbles as a currency, and she found it funny that her folks had told her stories as a child that the old world had used wads of paper as a currency instead of pebbles.

  In this world, that kind of money… it is called toilet paper.

  Food was expensive due to it being a bit scarce due to the lack of farmers and farming fields due to raiders and marauders who roamed the country, from state to state attacking and stealing produce for those places, as was medicine.

  In small towns, like Lost Hallowing, things were okay and you could get what amounted to healthcare.

  In the remaining city's, like Brightmoon City, it was a feudal system.

  The doctors were expected to treat the "feudal lord" of the city and his enforcers first.

  So the current Feudal Lord of Brightmoon City, Reginald Blackthorne, had the best healthcare out of everyone in the city due to this system…with only a few apothecary's left who served the people first.

  She had gone to her apothecary in Brightmoon City from time to time, a strange "painted" man called Maestro, to get meds in case she wasn't ever as quick on the draw with an overeager customer as she had been today, penicillin mostly.

  But the most expensive were always fruits and vegetables.

  Unless you were lucky enough and it happened to be farmer's market day in Lost Hallowing.

  She waited for the traffic guard to give her a clear sign that it was safe to cross and she walked across the street to the main town park where the Farmers Market was taking place.

  It was busy today.

  She quickly made her way over to the fruits section and grabbed some blueberries and strawberries.

  They would make a good treat for Kaylie back at her apartment.

  Kaylie was a 13 year old girl that she had been taking care of for the past 10 years since finding her scarred and alone on the city streets.

  She was part of the reason for Rachel's "Extra jobs" as it was expensive to raise a child in this world, but Rachel didn't mind taking care of the girl…in fact, in a way, she was like a daughter to her.

  She then made her way down to the center of the farmers market, and that's when she caught sight of something that made her stop and do a double take in disbelief.

  There was a booth, with a sign that said "Water Purifiers".

  It was being maintained by this scowling, grizzly old man.

  A snake oil salesman if she had ever seen one in her life.

  Against her better judgement, Rachel approached the old man and his booth.

  She took a glance at the old man and took immediate notice of his snow white hair.

  Sure, a lot of old timers had white hair…but this was whiter than any she had ever seen before…it almost looked like it had been bleached that color.

  She could tell by the wrinkles that he was at least 83 years old.

  She picked up one of these pouches that the old man had labelled as "Water Purifiers" and scoffed.

  Water couldn't be purified by whatever was in the pouch, you had to boil it.

&nb
sp; What kind of scam was this old man running here?

  * * *

  "You're not the town apothecary, and I've not seen you around here before. Who are you?" Rachel Addison asked.

  "None of your business" the old man with the snow white hair growled.

  "I think it is my business when I find someone trying to scam people out of their pebbles" Rachel Addison said sternly, "Water Purifying powder? You're trying to sell snake oil to people who don't know better! Have you no shame?"

  "I wouldn't talk to me about "Shame" gutter slut" the old man hissed, "I can smell the hypocrisy coming off of you."

  "Excuse me?" Rebbecca Addison said in surprise, "I don't know who you think you are old man, but you don't know me…"

  "I know you come from the city, east end based on the coloration of mud on your pants legs and knee areas, indicating you tripped somewhere on your journey here from the city. Your attire is typical among two groups, gangs and prostitutes. And the smell I can detect from you confirms you are the other, you have been sweating and I very much doubt it was due to exercise or psychical fitness activity. Plus I can smell from "Down there" the stench of all the overly eager dorks who have…."docked you into port" recently in the current day. Should I go on…?" the old man said with a smug smile.

  "It's not any of your business what I do, we all have to do what we have to do to survive…" Rachel Addison began.

  "Flimsy excuse to justify a scandalous affair" the old man sneered.

  "I'm not a whore!" Rachel snapped.

  "You get naked and fuck for money and pleasure, sounds like a whore to me" the old man countered.

  Rachel Addison lost her cool upon hearing this, and slammed her fist onto the table.

  "You want me to go get the guards?" Rachel Addison asked, almost getting right up in front of the old man's face as she did, "Because I will…"

  Suddenly from behind the curtain, a black haired woman in her 60's came out and stepped between the two of them.

  "Woah, whoa! Easy now, there's no need to get the authorities involved" the woman said apologetically, "you'll have to forgive my father, he's old, and getting SENILE in his old age and doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut."

  The old man scowled at his daughter, and then returned to glaring at Rachel Addison.

  "Doesn't excuse him or this scam business of yours…" Rachel Addison countered.

  "It's not a scam. My father and I run a clinic a few blocks away from the apothecary here in this town. We have been giving the town "alternative remedies" if the apothecary can't help them for half a year now. We only just recently begun offering our products on the town's farmers market. We give them products that work. Ask around, everyone in town has tried our Water Purifier powder. It works. Just sprinkle a small pinch into the water, wait five minutes and voila. Safe, clean, drinkable water. You will no longer have to use a fire to boil it again. It's made from herbs and plants. It's natural."

  Rachel Addison looked at the pouches and then back at the woman.

  "You should keep your father away from the counter, he's not good for your business. Maybe next time I'll consider buying one of these things…so long as he's not here with you." Rachel said to the woman, and then she turned and walked away down the aisles of the famers market away from the two of them.

  The woman then turned around and faced her father, "Okay dad, I've have HAD it! Do you want us to be pariahs and starving all the time? Is that it?"

  Her father then turned around and walked back behind the curtain without saying a word.

  She followed angrily after her father behind the booths curtain cover, "Damn it dad, don't you walk away from me. I'm not a little girl anymore, you talk to me for god's sake! It was bad enough struggling with you to survive from town to town, but its worse that you and your attitude force me to look after the both of us by myself. You drive away the customers that need mom's magical powder remedy just as much as we need the money."

  "And you know as well as I do that those murderers don't deserve your mothers remedies for whatever ails them in this world Kilari!" The old man, who had once been known as Minra Moraes, snapped.

  "Dad, you can't blame the whole world for what happened" Kilari pleaded with her father.

  "Like hell I can't" Minra Moraes countered, "As far as I'm concerned, humanity made its bed years ago…it shit the sheets the day society fell…so it can sleep in it and all the unpleasantness that go with it!"

  "Well what about me then?" Kilari asked sadly, "I can't get buy on scraps like you can, do you want me to starve?"

  Minra Moraes then sighed, and felt bad about what he did.

  His misanthropy had cost them before to the point that he had to secretly steal food on occasion to sustain himself and his daughter… then it would eventually force them to move on to greener pastures when his attitude had completely alienated them from the colony's they visited.

  She did so much for him, she didn't deserve the crap that he caused.

  He shook his head sadly "no…no…I don't want that….I'm sorry…"

  "Sorry doesn't cut it anymore dad, you need to try as well" Kilari said sternly.

  * * *

  That was when the two of them heard the sound of someone at the front of the booth, calling for them both by their alias name, Spectrebrooke.

  "Mr. Spectrebrooke?" it was a lady's voice, and from the sound of her tone something told the two of them that it was an urgent matter that had brought her to their booth in the farmers market, "Oh…please be here…I saw a note on your buildings front door that said you'd be here in the market. Please answer, I need your help!"

  Both Minra and Kilari Moraes made their way to the front of the booth.

  They found it was one of their repeat customers, Miss Grimsby, a widow of four children who live at a house (or what counted as one, really it was more of a shack) near the cliffs overlooking Brightmoon Bay in Lost Hallowing.

  Her husband had died of cancer during the five month trek from California to Washington State, apparently they had gotten to close to one of the radiation hotspot badlands left behind from the Great War before the Grim Destruction occurred.

  They had provided remedies for her children, but her son, Mark if they recalled correctly was diagnosed with leukemia.

  The cure for that disease had been lost during the Great War.

  But the two of them had been using…an "Alternative Remedy" for cases like Miss Grimsby's child for others before during their travels before settling back into the remains of Brightmoon City's suburb town Lost Hallowing.

  One time during their travels, the secret behind this remedy was blabbed and it lead to them being evicted from a colony, and avoiding a lynching because this cure…came from her father's blood.

  Her father was a metahuman…and even with him potentially being the last Metahuman on earth, anti-metahuman sentiment still existed.

  "Demons" was what they were called by the survivors of the Great War….because most people blamed the war on them, but Minra and his adoptive daughter knew better.

  The Great War had been caused by that very sentiment against people with powers, and that was one reason why her father had such disdain against the humans of his generation.

  Miss Grimsby was descended from that generation, so he didn't hold much if any disdain against her family…didn't stop Minra from being a bit of a curmudgeon with her.

  "What do you want now?" Minra Moraes asked, "Did your daughter come down with a cold again?"

  "No…" Miss Grimsby said desperately, "Mark's leukemia is acting up, its bad…real bad this time. I…" she paused, "I've heard about what else you can do….you can cure him. I know you can."

  "Who told you?" Minra said with narrowed eyes.

  "No one, I caught a glimpse of you using a vial of your blood to heal Miss Perkins of her debilitating lung disease. She didn't tell anyone, neither did I…" Miss Grimsby

  "It's a good thing you didn't…otherwise I would be inclined to do something
about your memory of my…shall we say secret "Miracle cure" remedy and it's true origin" Minra said, his eyes flashing red for a second, and then he got up in front of her face "Now understand this, if you tell a single soul about this…I'll make sure you and your family regret it. Understand?"

  "I understand." Miss Grimsby nodded, "now please…save my child."

  Minra then relented, "lead me to him…"

  * * *

  Kilari followed her old adoptive father to the Grimsby house.