“Expect you’re wondering why you’re here, aren’t you, my two little ducks,” repeated the elf, tone of voice unchanged.
Meryl glanced back at the gnolls momentarily. “To be . . . eaten?”
“It was not our intention to have you consumed by our workforce,” barked the dwarf in a monotone.
The elf sat cross-legged in front of me and leaned forward, staring in fascination. “So it’s true,” he said, reaching out and tucking a stray length of hair behind my ear. “The dead walk among us! What was it like?”
I was leaning back as far as I could manage and his nose was still piercing my personal space. “Whuh?”
“Being dead. What was it like?” He sounded like a schoolboy interrogating a friend about his first sexual experience. “Was there a God? Why’d you come back? Are you immortal now, too? Do you feel pain? Do you feel this?”
His arm was a blur for a fraction of a second, then he wasn’t holding his knife anymore. I looked down and saw the hilt quivering into my chest. “N-no, we don’t feel pain,” I said, not wanting my terrified silence to bait him any further.
He rolled his eyes. “Didn’t think you would.” He withdrew his knife with a chunk and stood up.
“The post-mortem condition of the three suspects appears to leave them largely unfazed by physical torture, Mr. Wonderful, and as such you will be deprived of your chief source of fulfillment on this occasion.”
Mr. Wonderful let the knife complete a few more revolutions, then thrust it straight through his right palm. He watched his own blood drool down into his sleeve for a moment like a cat watching the birds. “Fulfillment,” he repeated, finally. “I can’t remember the last time I got fulfillment out of this gig. Is it true you lot died before the Infusion?”
Meryl and I nodded wordlessly, staring at his hand.
“God, those times were rich. I could take pride in my work back then. I could cut a lovely little smile into a pretty face and know it’d have it for life. I could feel a man’s dying breath upon my sleeve and know he wouldn’t be back up and writing formal letters of complaint the moment I took my eyes off him.” His tone of voice remained level, but his face was screwed up with hatred and his fingers were drumming the knife hilt like hyperactive woodpeckers.
“Who are you?” asked Meryl politely.
We jumped as the elf suddenly tore the knife out of his hand. His face instantly became calm and serene, before he resumed grinning and the corners of his mouth strained back towards his ears. “My name is Mr. Wonderful. My lovely assistant is Bowg.”
“We are employed as agents of the Adventurer’s Guild,” said Bowg stiffly. “Our official job description is ‘troubleshooting,’ but we are chiefly called upon to administer violent coercion.”
Mr. Wonderful’s grin remained, but his eyes weren’t joining in. “Bowg, my little comrade in arms, did we not have a pleasant chin-wag last week about you revealing our intentions too early in conversation with everyone we meet?”
“I recall our conversation, Mr. Wonderful, but I dismissed your request on the assumption that your notoriously short attention span would cause you to do likewise.”
“Well anyway, my little sanitary towels,” went Mr. Wonderful, turning back to me and gently caressing my scalp with his blade. “Stop me if I’m off the mark. Judging by your quiet little faces, you might have a little inkling suspicion that you know why we brought you here?”
“Doubtless the instruction of the fallen ones,” came the muffled voice of Thaddeus, still face-down in the sand. A nearby gnoll dutifully stood on his head, and he was silenced.
“Something to do with Cronenburg?” I hazarded.
“Well, sit this boy on a piggy bank and call him right on the money. Picture the scene, my little toothbrush. A little birdie tells us that there’s some nobody questgiver in a nowhere town raking in coinage in return for adventure points. That doesn’t seem like a tenable state of affairs, now does it?”
“What makes you think it was me?” I asked.
“Our contacts in Cronenburg furnished descriptions of the perpetrators,” said Bowg.
“How do you think we think it was you, you sepulchral retard?!” went Mr. Wonderful angrily. “How many animated corpses do you think there are walking around in Cronenburg?” He jammed his knife into his other palm and tottered a little as the pain flooded his mind with hormone soup. “So tell me, my little stinkwort. Where can be found the magical portal to the fairy realm from which you came, where money grows on trees and economic crises can be averted by clicking your heels together and wishing with all your might?”
I’d known from the moment it happened that my windfall would return to bite me in the arse tenfold, but even so this was a bit much. “Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll give the talans back. It was just a little joke that got out of hand and in retrospect wasn’t very funny.”
“The talans?” Mr. Wonderful seemed highly amused, which I decided was an extremely bad sign.
“It is your bestowing of fraudulently large amounts of points, not your theft of talans, that are of concern,” said Bowg.
“But . . . they’re just numbers on paper,” I said.
Another grisly CHLOK echoed off into the desert as Mr. Wonderful cleanly impaled his own thigh. “Oh dear,” he said, as if he’d merely dropped the toast. “Another foreign hick right off the boat who didn’t bother to read the brochures. How does it work where you’re from, you bung adventurers half a crate of turnips and a pair of your dad’s old pants to chase the foxes out of Squealy McBumrape’s pig farm?!” The volume of his voice was slowly rising, but plunged back down after he pulled the knife out. “Things work differently on a sophisticated continent, my ugly little rural friend. We got ourselves a little organized.”
“Did you know you use the word ‘little’ an awful lot?” said Meryl. Mr. Wonderful ignored her, but I saw his lower eyelid twitch.
“The Lolede Adventurer’s Guild has an arrangement with city councils, town authorities, mobile collectives, and licensed, independent quest providers,” said Bowg. I hadn’t seen any part of him but his mouth move since the moment we’d met. “Each month they pay the Guild appropriate fees and are given a suitable points rate to be divided between their appointed questgivers and bestowed to adventurers upon completion of quests. Points can be redeemed at Adventurer’s Guild branches for bed, board and training, paid for by the quest provider fees.”
“This, my li— my small jellied eels,” said Mr. Wonderful, “is what we call a balanced economy. And forgive me for going out on a particularly blackened and uncomfortable limb, but I don’t think you’ve coughed up questgiver dues, have you, my tiny cream puffs? So.” He steepled his fingers so hard that his knuckles looked about to burst. “How would you propose we remedy this unfortunate bubble in the Adventurer’s Guild’s wallpaper?”
“I have a big bag of money,” I said.
“Not anymore you don’t, manky pants. But it’s not going to be enough. You used up the points allotment equivalent to about twelve of those bags. Have another . . . stab at it.” He twirled his knife meaningfully.
“You could ask the adventurers to . . . give the points back,” said Meryl.
Mr. Wonderful’s eyes widened, and he slapped his forehead with a bony crack. “WELL, Bowg!!” he screamed. “There was me under the impression they hadn’t given this any thought!! But witness how the lady BOWLS me over with her logic!! ASK THE ADVENTURERS TO GIVE THE POINTS BACK!! I’M QUITE LIVID AT MYSELF FOR NOT HAVING THOUGHT OF IT!!”
“Presumably you did not think of it because the points are virtually untraceable and it is highly probable that they have already been redeemed for unreturnables such as room and board,” said Bowg.
Mr. Wonderful leaned on Bowg fondly. “Irony goes completely over his head, doesn’t it? BECAUSE HE’S VERY SHORT!!”
“What do you want from us?” I asked.
“Ah, that’s better. I like you. Well, my diminutive leaping salmon, my first i
dea was to grind you all up into powder and sprinkle you over my herb garden. Which would have certainly brightened up my day and probably my rosemary also, but that wouldn’t bring the money back, would it?”
“The usual punishment for quest fraud is forced service in the work rehabilitation center in the royal palace at Lolede City,” said Bowg.
“Work rehabilitation center,” mimicked Mr. Wonderful, holding Bowg’s head in both hands and flicking his mustache ends up and down. “I always preferred the old name. ‘Dungeons.’ But no-one pays attention to an old-fashioned murderer.” He stared sadly into the middle distance for a second, then reassembled his grin. “So, my microscopic hatstands, how quietly do you intend to come?”
I took a moment to reflect. Our hands were tied, we were in the middle of hostile desert, there were two professional murderers in front of us and an entire gnoll tribe was stinking up the rear. It seemed odd that he’d even ask, but then, there seemed to be a lot of odd things about Mr. Wonderful.
“We’ll come quietly,” I said.
“My life just sets up a series of disappointments, doesn’t it,” said Mr. Wonderful, twirling his knife back inside his suit jacket. “I’m sick of all these ignorant foreigners. Wish we could have another decent deliberate fraud like Mr. Churley.”
“Mr. Churley himself cannot be relied upon to provide you with such stimulation because the excruciating trauma his body underwent in our last meeting will no doubt remain fresh in his memory.”
“Oh, shut up.” Mr. Wonderful made a bored gesture with his fingers, and then one of the gnolls must have bashed me around the back of the head, because I died again.
From: “Brian Garret”
To: “Donald Sunderland”
Cc: “William Williams”
Subject: Re: Re: Simon
I do understand your concerns, I did hear some similar things from Peter and Gavin after the Ham Fighters 3 debacle. But have you ever considered that you just haven’t been creating the right environment where Simon can have a chance to shine? There’s clearly a lot of talent there, I mean, you all played Interstellar Bum Pirates, it has to take something special to create the WTC’s game of the year, right? Let’s all try to be team players and maybe this year will be ours.
Regards,
Brian Garret
CEO, Loincloth Entertainment
From: “Donald Sunderland”
To: “Brian Garret”
Cc: “William Williams”
Subject: Re: Simon
Hello Brian. There’s really no way of putting this diplomatically, but I strongly believe that progress is only looking good BECAUSE Simon is spending so much time away. You know that I usually have something nice to say about everyone, and even when I don’t I’ll usually be quiet and passive aggressive about it, but Simon Townshend is an incompetent boob. PLEASE take him away from us and put him somewhere where he can do no harm to our project or the human race.
-Don
From: “Brian Garret”
To: “Donald Sunderland”
Cc: “William Williams”
Subject: Simon
Hi boys,
I’m a little concerned by some reports I’m hearing that Simon has worked at home for four days out of the last week. We should be stepping things up for crunch time and it’s important that the whole team be on hand at all times. Don, as his supervisor you should be putting your foot down on this. Progress is looking good on mogworld at the moment but things are only going to get tougher.
Regards,
Brian Garret
CEO, Loincloth Entertainment
FOUR
“Oi!” said Mr. Wonderful, as a ringing slap across the back of the head brought me back to consciousness. “You awake, my little plump cherry? We’re here!”
I opened my eyes to find myself lashed to the back of a horse, face-to-face with its huge, muscular arse. The gentle rocking from its measured up-down motion almost lulled me back into the doze before a second smack brought me to full awareness. I looked up.
Lolede City was clearly a great and powerful center of civilization. The buildings were fine white stone and loomed several stories high. The streets were wide and actually paved, with separate sections for pedestrians and carriages. Back in Garethy, you just had to develop the instinct to dive to the side whenever you hear horses coming.
And yet, there was something wrong about Lolede City, even from what little I could see over the horse’s arse. Considering it was mid-afternoon there didn’t seem to be many people on the streets. There were a few adventurers running around on their paid errands, half of them with the determined hip-swinging lope of the Syndrome. The only civilians I could see were small clusters of three or four loitering on a couple of street corners.
They didn’t look like they were in a hurry to do anything or get anywhere. They walked around dragging their feet like sulky children on the walk to school, or made disinterested conversation while staring at their shoes. I found myself remembering the conversations I’d had in the dead world with my fellow zombies, after another round of futile leaps off Dreadgrave’s tower: people brought together by mutual misery, trapped together by something they couldn’t see or understand.
“Oi!” yelled Mr. Wonderful, smacking me again. “I said YOU AWAKE?!”
“Yes, yes, I’m awake.”
“WHAT?!!” Another smack.
“I said I’M AWAKE!”
“GOOD!” He smacked me three more times in quick succession. All my remaining teeth were swaying back and forth like seasick sailors. “Put your curtseying skirts on. We’re meeting the king.”
“We’re what?” came Meryl’s voice.
“Use of any city’s work rehabilitation center requires approval from the resident executive officer,” said Bowg.
“Procedure,” said Mr. Wonderful, pronouncing the word like he was trying to dislodge something from his teeth.
We rode up the main street and through a set of massive gates into the grounds of what could only have been the royal palace, because the guards outside were wearing preposterous furry hats and purple tunics, and royalty are the only ones who seem to be able to get away with making people wear that sort of thing.
The palace itself was a glorious building, all high towers and classical arches, constructed in pricey white marble. Its shape was utterly ruined by a much newer extension that hugged the side of the main building like a barnacle. It was constructed almost entirely from black glass, just like the guildhouse from Cronenburg, with a matching queue of adventurers lined up at the entrance.
We rode past the queue and up to the main doors of the palace proper. They were wide open, and a few men in black suits were lounging about, dragging on cigarettes.
“Let’s keep it moving, my little pineapple fritters,” said Mr. Wonderful. He smartly undid my bonds and pushed me off the horse with his foot. Meryl and Thaddeus were similarly removed from the back of Bowg’s horse, and the three of us were prodded meaningfully towards the grand palace entrance with Mr. Wonderful’s butterfly knife.
Our hands were still bound, but at least we could walk on our own. We trudged past a number of the flamboyantly-dressed ceremonial guards, who stood motionless at regular intervals against the walls clutching halberds. They were watching Mr. Wonderful and a couple of other black-suited Adventurer’s Guild thugs and radiating so much repressed anger that they could have served as a central heating system. Mr. Wonderful held out a hand and gently slapped each one in the face as we walked by.
We passed thr
ough a pair of ornate oak doors and into the great hall. The whole of my family’s farm could probably have fit in it, including the fields. Maybe even the Blumkin farm next door, which would certainly have made the feud more interesting.
The sheer size of the place was underlined by the fact that there was only one piece of furniture in the room. The king’s throne stood at the end of a magnificent mosaic that covered the entire floor, once pristine, now horribly scuffed by the expensive black shoes of the Adventurer’s Guild agents who swaggered around like they owned the place.
We took up position off to the side while we waited for business to be concluded with the person ahead of us in the queue. He was an immensely unhappy-looking man in the dirt-spattered clothes of a farmer.
“Forward,” commanded the king, bored.
Quivering all over with nerves the farmer approached the throne, cap in hand, as a Guild agent on either side loosely but firmly held his shoulders.
“Your majesty,” he said, his fingers drumming uncertainly on the brim of his hat. “My farm just isn’t making enough to pay the questgiver fees. People aren’t buying as much corn as they used to.”
The King of Lolede was surprisingly young and handsome, or at least had been when the Infusion hit, with a black beard and the kind of deep tan that can only be achieved with serious money and the frequent exotic holidays it can buy. He sat slouching in the throne in a bright red military uniform with polished gold buttons, with a coldly angry look on his face, as if he were upset at being the only one who bothered to dress up.
Before replying the king glanced at the Guild agent in loosely-cut suit and narrow-brimmed hat who was leaning casually on the throne’s ridiculously tall backrest. To the king’s relief, the agent seemed to have nothing to add. “What do you need the quests for?”
“Snuffle bats keep interfering with my crop. I have to keep hiring adventurers to drive them away. Your majesty, please, I have no alternatives. My sons are all away at college and my wife is too fat. I can’t be watching my field all day and all night. I tried it for a while but after three days I started hallucinating and set my field on fire.”
Mogworld Page 18
