Apocalypse: Fairy System by Macronomicon (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

Jeb found Brett waiting outside the servant’s entrance. The supermodel was sitting on a fountain, eating an apple in the dark, faintly lit by the torches of the rear entrance.

Feels weird doing shady deals under the watchful eye of the imperial guard. But I doubt they have any skin in this particular game. Jeb figured they were a neutral party.

Or Brett betrayed me, and I’m dead meat. That’s always on the table.

“Brett!” Jeb said as he approached, the gravel of the rear lot crunching under his feet. “You technically outrank me now, so I’m calling in that IOU! I’ll give ‘er back in the morning. Probably.”

Brett frowned, his head cocked to the side.

Brett knows what I’m talking about. He has to know what I’m talking about.

Jeb looked harder, and saw the Myst packed in tight around the man’s face, forming the familiar features of his friend from the Tutorial.

Ah, son of a bitch. That’s not Brett. Option three, I guess, Jeb thought, reaching for his buckler as all hell broke loose.

***Korzath, level 43 Imperial Guard***

Korzath watched impassively as a half-dozen black-clothed assassin types jumped out of the fountain and the hedges, surrounding the one-legged human in a flat second.

There was a fair amount of shouting, and one of the kidnappers died to the human’s weapons, but in a handful of seconds, the human and his keegan associate were brought down and restrained, then dragged into the mansion.

He stifled a yawn.

They were under instructions from their superior not to interfere with the business of any one-legged humans today. Didn’t want to get caught up in the Emperor’s Summons.

He’d been around long enough to know a Summons when he saw one. Getting tied up and dragged into the emperor’s presence was uncommon, but not unheard-of, especially for people who normally had no interest in appearing before him.

Just one of those nights, he thought, glancing up at the horizon.

Sunset’s got a lot of color.

***Jeb***

Jeb opened his eyes with a groan, barely able to see through the rapidly swelling bruise on his left eye.

He already knew the score: Someone had intercepted his communication with the Courvars and set an ambush, and the only reason he was still alive was because they didn’t know if he had backup blackmail material…which he did.

As soon as they had that in their hands, Jeb’s life was forfeit.

And I can’t even lie. Goddamnit, this is going to be difficult.

“Good evening,” a sophisticated-looking melas man with a well-groomed goatee said upon noticing Jeb’s noise. “I thought you might be out longer than that, but you’re surprisingly resilient.”

He was wearing a green and gold tunic that would’ve looked garish on someone whose skin wasn’t nearly red. His horns seemed almost delicate, swept back like a pompadour. Behind him loomed two more melas thugs with their arms crossed, watching Jeb with that distinctive pleasure that only the very dim took in other people’s suffering.

In the noble’s hand, Jeb’s ‘big stack o’ reaping proof’ gradually burned down to cinders, licking the man’s fingertips without effect, and scattering paper ashes all around.

“Ugh,” Jeb grunted, doing a self-inventory. He was wearing nothing but bruises, his wrists were bound behind his back by thick scratchy rope, and a cold circle of steel was clamped around his neck…which seemed to be connected to the wall by a thick chain.

All of Jeb’s clothes and weapons were lying on a big table at the side of the room. His murder-buckler was lying on the edge, yellow arrow pointed diagonally down toward Jeb’s legs.

Jeb shifted his foot out of the way.

I wonder if I can pick the lock on this thing, Jeb thought, siphoning a thread of Myst out of his Core.

Something grabbed Jeb’s siphon and shoved it painfully deep into his Core, forcibly drawing Myst out of his body. The experience was deeply unpleasant, like a blowjob from a Shop-Vac.

“Gah!” Jeb thrashed in place on the cold stone floor, the chains connected to his neck rattling as something tried to suck all the magic out of his body in a terrifyingly literal sense. The siphon connecting him to the collar gradually grew bigger, seemingly reinforced by the Myst it was stealing from him.

Jeb’s Core flickered, shrinking slightly in size as the burning center of his being was drawn down the pipe.

With a monumental effort of will, Jeb pinched off the thread of Myst, his chin collapsing down to his chest.

So, telekinesis is off the table. Good to know.

“That…sucked.” Jeb groaned.

“I’ll bet,” the sophisticated-looking melas man said, brow raised. “Do you have any more?”

“More what? You’re going to have to be specific.”

“Do you have any more documents linking us to Kebos O’sut?”

“Of course,” Jeb said, meeting the bastard’s eyes. “I mean, not on me, but yeah, I’ve got a hidden stash.”

Jeb actually had two hidden stashes, but telling the guy he had one wasn’t a lie…not unless Jeb said he only had one. It was necessary to head off certain lines of inquiry by ceding misleading information.

“Where is it?”

“Telling you that seems like it would get me killed,” Jeb shot back.

“Quite astute, but you should consider your life spent at this point anyway. Instead, you should think about what other lives will be lost if you remain obstinate,” Mr. Sophistication said, coming closer and leaning down.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to kill everyone you’ve come to know in Solmnath and burn your ridiculous orphanage to the ground with everyone locked inside.”

“How are you gonna lock them inside if you’ve already killed them? And if you’re talking about the corpses, it seems kind of redundant to lock the—”

A sharp slap knocked the last words out of Jeb’s mouth.

“It is not an idle threat,” the