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

would be easier and faster to simply follow the messenger—whoever they kept on retainer in town to bring them word of important shit.

Any organized group of outlaws had someone like that who was paid to feed them news, allowing them to dodge large manhunts and get out of town if an enforcer was dispatched. Their supply mule getting pinched was exactly the sort of thing they’d pay to know about.

It wasn’t like the aliens were the only ones who had invented working outside the law.

But we mastered it, Jeb thought, chuckling to himself as he hopped down the street on one foot, slipping his pegleg back on in a remarkable display of agility before he went back to clomping on both feet.

He needed to get to his stash and get on the road east ASAP, which meant he had no time to play cops and robbers.

Jeb broke into an awkward run.

***Zlesk, Sheriff of Kalfath***

“Whew.” Zlesk let out a long, slow breath, fingers shaking as the last dregs of his reserves left his system. Almost dying was not a pleasant experience. He kept pressure on his arm to slow the bleeding. There wasn’t much, but keegan didn’t have a lot of blood to begin with.

This was NOT how I wanted my night to go. Now I’ve gotta process this fool. On the other hand, apprehending a dangerous criminal would be a boon for his career, so there was a silver lining to the night.

“Jeb, I’m going to need to take you down to the station and get your witness statement.

“Jeb?” Zlesk glanced up and realized the one-legged beggar was nowhere to be found. He’d fucked right off as soon as Boney Pete had slumped to the ground.

“Godsdamnit.” Zlesk glanced back at the riot of sharpened bones in the corner of the bar, some of them sticking through the floor, ceiling and tables. He was going to have to clean all this up, too.

At least the Ferravore bones in Boney Pete’s collection were worth nearly a bulb apiece. That would help with cleaning up the mess. Already, scavengers were trying to make off with the smaller ones, regardless of the sheriff standing right there.

“You there,” Zlesk said, turning to a younger man who’d watched the whole fight go down. He fished out a silver coin from his pocket and tossed it to him. “Fetch Clisk and Bon from the station, would you?”

I’m not dealing with this shit by myself.

***Jebediah Trapper***

Jeb was outside the city, panting from exertion as he’d kept up a light jog with one leg for at least half an hour. Climbing a hill one-legged was not as easy as it sounded.

Finally, he found the specific scraggly piece of brush on the side of the hill. He knelt down beside it and tore it away to reveal the top of the cooler he’d buried his contraband in.

Whistling, Jeb grabbed the Dirty Harry revolver he’d found in the glovebox of an abandoned car, and strapped it on his hip with the belt that came with it.

Jeb had buried all his gear in an oversized cooler, except for a few things to pawn when he’d first entered Kalfath. He hadn’t wanted to wind up on the wrong side of the law or get mugged in the first five minutes. A few of the item descriptions he’d gotten from The System had convinced him that getting caught carrying the wrong thing could lead to summary execution.

Case in point, Jeb thought, grabbing his self-powered fireball wand and tucking it inside his jacket, away from prying eyes. The aliens would come down on him a lot harder for that than a handgun.

Next he grabbed the Beautiful Revenge. The old-timey four-walled glass lantern was filled with half a dozen black butterflies, their wings accented with fluorescent blue and purple.

Each one of those babies could carve a hole in something about the size of a golf ball. They weren’t very fast, but they didn’t have a limit to the number that could be summoned, and they were able to be controlled until they delivered their payload of Annihilation Myst.

The best part was that the lantern had been designed to be used by weak Myst users…

Like me, Jeb thought with a scowl, tying the lantern to his right hip.

He grabbed a handful of bullets for the gun and put them in his pocket, along with several of his emergency Snickers looted from a vending machine and some bottled water.

Sweat beading on his brow, Jeb turned toward the east, where the messenger was no doubt leaving the city to inform Svek and his crew of kidnappers.

Jeb was half a mile west of the city. If he wanted to catch up with word of Boney Pete’s fate, he had to run.

“Goddamn it,” Jeb said, wiping the sweat from his brow and taking a swig of water before he resumed jogging again. This time weighed down by about ten extra pounds of gear.

“Smartass, I need a distraction,” Jeb gasped as he ran, tugging out the blackmail letter. “What’s it say?”

Smartass cleared her throat and sat on Jeb’s shoulder to read, to his irritation.

“Grenore. I do not care about your mewling protestations. The situation favors us. The Stitch has dropped a veritable fortress in the form of the Split Mountains between you and your beloved mines. A fortress I own.

“I know how far you’ve overreached with your new mine. I heard it straight from your foreman’s mouth before I broke his jaw. I have you by the balls, and you can do nothing to change it short of paying us our due. If you want your shiny new mine back, you will give us no less than two thousand bulbs in imperial marks…

“However, I’m nothing if not understanding and generous. If you can convince me to accept collateral of