never alone187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIuGV6w6gMJ
Before I met Bliz, I had resigned myself to being a partner to problems. Not one, not two, but an endless stream of problems. If my problems were all shit, I had dysentery. I was cramping and vomiting and shitting five years’ worth of problems. 187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUINOEo8Tun
You get it.
I had made these little business cards to help in communicating my magical prowess and acumen. They were the nicest things I owned at the time, cut from white vellum and pressed with Poolian ink. They smelled like horse, admittedly, but no one besides me seemed to notice or care.
It was early in the morning, just after sunrise, when I came into a hamlet and tethered my horse at a shrine dedicated to the wealth god, Viyarun. Poole on the whole isn’t a country founded on the appeasement of the gods in Overrift. But, being this close to The Republic of Everlorne’s border, the shrines dot the landscape like a breadcrumb trail leading to the country of willful ignorance. (That’s democracy for you. Give a man his voice and watch him vote for more idiotic, religious zealots.)
I approached the shrine and washed my filthy hands in its spring before making my way toward the village’s lonely inn.
Inside, I nodded once to the barkeep and he nodded back, motioning toward a man sitting alone in the corner, an impatient look on the loner’s wrinkled face. He was the landlord of the area, judging by his rich, layered clothing.
“You’re the warlock from Half’ld’s Spire?” he asked before I could even sit down. He eyed my bare hands with suspicion and fear, as usual, but there was also something greedy in his eyes that I couldn’t quite read. My hands are just like every other warlock I’ve ever encountered. The veins and capillaries from the tips of my fingers to the mid part of my bicep stand out from the paleness of my skin, black as night.
My eyes are up here, Bub, I thought to myself. When he finally returned his reddened eyes to my otherwise unremarkable face, I nodded at him.
He snorted, either unconvinced or unimpressed, but that greed in his eyes never dissipated. “Have you any other proof? How do I know you’re not one of those rouge casters the Spires are always trying to cull?”
I still have a hard time hiding my emotions. I gave him a tired look. If I could speak, I would have given him some backhanded comment about exposing myself if I was indeed some unregistered apostate of the state… In hindsight, it would have been breath wasted.
I handed him one of my nice business cards instead:
Sue, Warlock-TSO187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvxB21kFDMz
Registered via ~ Castin’ld, Poole187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyGxDhRnhaI
1575-0001-01187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡymwiayre27
c/o: The Spire of Wizard Folk and Otherkind187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlxrH6QNu9S
All the cards are marked by a notary, but only castors can see it.
The landlord let out an exasperated breath. “So, what’s your specialty then? They sent you all the way from Castin’ld? Don’t tell me you’re one of those psionics! I can’t stand those mind-reading freaks. I need someone with more force! Someone who can order folks around, or beat them into submission!”
I motioned for him to flip over the card before I flipped the table.
He flipped it and surely read:187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWZXUCu5ZcR
Good Day/Night, Sir/Ma’am/Other. My name is Sue. I cannot speak, owing to my service to The Silent One (TSO). I can make things disappear within exactly 100 spans of myself. Please tell me what your problem is and be very specific about what you would like me to make disappear. I will endeavor to execute your request down to the letter. 187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtRbNtjycqP
187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6MAtC8ZwkO
My rates are standardized, according to Midrift Summary Penal Code 14.7.6.4 Stargodling Service Stipends
“Disappear? As in, forever?” the landlord asked in a hushed voice, the fear in his eyes eclipsing the greed for just a moment.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxo0SpsVWkj
I nodded.
He handed my card back to me and I slipped it back into a breast pocket. He gave me one last judging look before he said, “Well, at least you’re big. Maybe that’ll be enough.” I motioned with a hand for him to elaborate more. He clasped his digits in front of himself before seeming to rediscover the warm bear sitting in front of him. He finished off the pint with a jiggle of his jowls and said, “There’s an encampment of bandits not far from here. They’ve taken from us. They hold the Capitol Road. They even killed and ate some of our livestock! If this continues, the villagers won’t be able to take any of our trades on the road this harvest and no one will be able to pay taxe—survive the winter!”
A job is a job, I thought to myself, trying to balm my tattered conscience. Everyone has to eat. These people, those bandits, even rich assholes like this guy. Everyone has to eat.
even me187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0rIvCCkOtN
eat eat e
at eat eat ea
t eat eat eat e187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5x9v4wC1H1
at eat eat eat eat
eat
eAt this point, I’d been doing my job for four years.
I’d seen greedy men and cautious men. Thirsty women and bitchy women. Desperate people and needy people. Justiciars and thieves; bastards and bailiffs; victims and survivors.
Who is ever right?
The one who pays the bills.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
He struggled to interpret my meaning, but then he seemed to catch on and said, “I need the bandits gone, Wk. Sue. I need them all gone by tonight. Do whatever you must!”
He wasn’t specific. Clients rarely are, unless they know what they’re working with. I do try to warn them. My power, drawn from TSO, is a thorough one. It is a font. It has an ON and OFF position. There are no half-measures where it is concerned.
The horror and the dread were already settling into their old runners in my blood, making a roaring sound in my ears as they raced up and down my frame like pressurized steam. I could already feel the ghost of my magic at my fingertips: a promise of existential annihilation hopping between my bones like static.
I am an engine of destruction.
This man was about to regret working with a warlock. He could have hired someone more capable from the Spire, but he bought the cheap seats, and he was about to learn why they call them the nosebleeds.
I reached my hand across the table and the landlord very reluctantly took my hand in a shake. The greed in his eyes had evaporated. There was nothing left in him but animal apprehension.
He knew what he’d done even then, but I think he also realized he could blame me if everything went wrong.
And it does go wrong.
His wish wasn’t specific.
Unspecified wishes… always… go wrong.
Alwaysalw187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjxmQH1C4dj
aysalways
Al
ways187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq27IvaZJW9
eat?
I found the bandit encampment easily enough and I spent most of the morning watching them from afar, a telescope pressed to my left eye. They'd settled at a nice choke point, right behind a pass, sandwiching the highway with a dozen tents on either side. From the merry way they moved about the trees and swaggered in and out of their hideaways, the majority of them were already drunk. I imagine it had something to do with the onset of autumn. Most people drink more as the colder months draw nearer, trying to pretend that Winter isn’t slowly sinking its claws into their way of life, threatening to draw blood.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡroyFOvb0Y3
I left my horse back in town, but I grabbed the necessities out of my saddlebags before taking off on foot. I checked my pockets and belt again, just to make sure I had everything I would need. Nothing is more mortifying than reaching for something that isn’t there, especially when someone is bearing down on you and all you have is one move that’s the magical equivalent of the nuclear option.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMJCnbvne96
right, I forgot I told you about those187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNhmzQTlnek
Knife? Check. Pouch of sand? Check. Jacks and nails? Check.
Beadnet armor? Check. Dry socks? Check. Boot knife? Check.
Telescope? Ch…
Telescope…? I casted my gaze around for the object, then rolled my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose to relieve the tension beginning to build there. I collapsed the brass contraption between my hands and pocketed that as well, completing my kit.
Praises to the Silent One—no one will ever hear me being an idiot.
I kept to the trees as I made my way down into the shallow pass. I figured a direct approach would be the least expected, and I hit the road between the two hills with a spray of gravel and rock.
Wk. Sue, indentured fuck-up extraordinaire, is on the scene.
I didn’t have anything in my hands as I made my way toward the center of their encampment, my back straight, my eyes roving just above the tent poles. If I don’t see their faces, they won’t join the menagerie in my dreams. Still, I could tell there were women among them, and youngsters maybe just out of school.
I waited for a few to notice. I waited for the cries and calls. Maybe it was easier for me to know that they had a chance to run before The Silent One took them.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI5GqqsrzqR
this is my favorite part187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJv5rgUfXqK
I opened my mouth.
And then the bandit camp was gone. Everything within 100 spans disappeared. A perfect circle centered on me instantly transformed the landscape. The earth was flattened. What remained of the trees were perfectly tabled stumps, so much so they shined like they’d been polished. The birds, the squirrels, the bugs—Everything in the bandit encampment from the people to the tents to the campfires to the casks to the horses…
When I say that everything disappeared, I mean everything fucked off to the nothing between the folds in reality where even the metamagical folk of Midrift can’t fucking follow.
Even the air was displaced and in the second after I invoked TSO’s might, the wind came rushing back toward me and brought me to my knees, filling the void and filling my lungs.
The world was always so quiet after I spoke.
And it was no different then.
Snot ran from my nose as I wiped at the tears in my eyes.
My handler at the Spire once told me that using my power would get easier. Eventually, I would get used to the quiet. I would use my power for good and doing good would make it easier to use.
I felt the Silent One’s gluttonous gratification.
you gave me 187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZjnN51pW6F
29
souls that day
so proud
so proud187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyGrUeczqZF
so proud
But it didn’t get easier until I met Blizzith.
Fatigued from sacrificing another little piece of my humanity, I trekked my way back to town and went to one of the landlord’s many properties. I was directed by a servant to meet him out at his stables where he was gearing up for a leisure ride. I don’t know why, but the fact that this man was just… moseying… when I had just dealt with his problems in the most catastrophic of ways… I don’t know. The anger bubbled up and turned into acid in my throat.
He hadn’t put a bolter to my head. I’d destroyed all those people.
Now he will pay me.
When he saw me, his face, already flush from getting onto his horse, burned scarlet. The old greed was back in his eyes, along with a confidence fueled by a better’s indignation. He exploded from atop his stallion, “All the gold is gone!”
I balked, giving him a confused expression.
A groomsman from beside him also got onto a horse and the landlord snapped his reins to lead the canter out of the stocks. He was growling over his shoulder at his groomsman, “I should have never listened to that magician! All the gold—all the goods—all the heirlooms that those bandits stole! They’re all gone.”
My eyes glazed over.
I’ve heard this before.
Outside, the landlord turned his horse about to glare down at me. A high horse. Ha ha. Very cute.
neigh187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd9eeiltfaO
The acid cooled and settled into my chest like lead.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡls2PQZxuHn
I could have laughed in his face, but I didn’t want to bring half the barn down on my head.
“You tricked me! You spited me! I wanted them gone! I wanted them off the road so we could reclaim some of the items stolen! I can’t believe this! I want you gone by morning! Just looking at you makes me sick! How do you sleep at night?!”
Horizontally, I thought. Drunk.
The landlord snapped his reins and galloped away, but his groomsman lingered behind, staring at me with something akin to revulsion. He took pains to spit at my feet and then followed after his master.
I sighed.
Back then, they used to call me “Double-or-Nothing” Sue.
Nothing-Sue, for short.
I bet you can guess why.
I went back to my horse and, as I was getting my gloves out of one of the saddlebags, I noticed that someone had put lye on the butt of my horse. Wiping the paste away revealed a bleached penis drawn on the ass of my black horse.
I blinked.
At least it had balls. No one would mistake it for anything else.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH8YP2vN8Y7
I shoved my hands into my gloves and gripped the pommel and even stuck my boot in a stirrup, but after a moment, I pushed myself away from my saddle and stomped back into the inn’s common room.
If I had until morning to GTFO, I was going to get fucked up first.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT5bB0SdyTd
Riding hungover back to Half’ld’s Spire with a dick-shaped license plate sounded like a Future Sue Problem.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPRlGSUj3gk
that’s when we saw her187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAJ2W4LGDnx
