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

“Have you ever heard of a compression wave?”

“N-No?”

“Here’s a good example: the bubble that forms on the other side of something that stops a bullet. Say your skull stops this forty-four. Some of that kinetic force will penetrate, and that makes a compression wave, a little bubble on the other side of your skull. That bubble expands outward at high speed, liquefying brain cells, breaking membranes, popping blood vessels, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, god,” Mark whimpered, his life flashing in front of his eyes. I should’ve went into the Hard Tutorial with Sara.

“Now, it might kill you, it might put you in a coma, or it might just lobotomize you and make you a simpleton. I don’t know for sure. I’m not a doctor. What I do know, is that it will end life as you know it.

“So, you gotta ask yourself one question. Is my soft, squishy brain strong enough to shrug off a compression wave from a point-blank forty-four? Well? Is it...punk!?”

“No! It’s not, please, don’t shoot me!” Mark sobbed.

“Okay, back to my original question. Do you have some time to talk about pirates?”

“Yes!”

“Good, umm…” The gun nudged his forehead, making him flinch. “What’s your name?”

“Mark!”

“Mark, I want you to tell me everything you know about Svek Pederson’s crew.”

Mark did so, telling the whole story between sobs. He gave the brown-haired man everything, from the time he’d been hauled into a side alley by one of the bruisers, up until now. He gave him the password, the location of the meeting point, everything he could think of. Mark didn’t even think to lie to the guy, he was so terrified.

The man digested all of this with a contemplative scowl. “Hmm. And you’ve seen how many of them in person?”

“I only ever meet two. They put a bag over my head and bring me to Svek! It’s in some kind of tent made of leather or something, it smells like cheese sometimes and—”

“That’s plenty,” the man said, raising his other hand. He leaned close, and Mark could smell the beer on the man’s breath. “Mark, before I let you go, I’m going to ask you to do something, and it’s going to sound like a fetish thing, but it’s really not.”

“W-what?” Mark asked, swallowing hard as the man began rummaging around in Mark’s pockets.

“I want you to say some very specific things for me before I get off.”

***Jeb Trapper***

“That stuff about compression waves was all true!?” Smartass demanded.

“All true.”

“Wow.”

Jeb directed the next three butterflies to emerge from the lantern to join the growing swarm high above him. They were so high and so numerous that they looked like a wisp of cloud floating through the night sky.

And that suited Jeb just fine.

Jeb was at the meeting point, sitting next to the signal fire, just waiting to get himself kidnapped. He’d hidden his lantern and wand.

“I hope that kid doesn’t get gangrene and die. I tried to avoid the knees and femoral artery, but those butterflies aren’t exactly precise.”

Jeb hadn’t been expecting the informant to be human, but it made sense. The authorities wouldn’t think a human was working with alien pirates at first glance. Add that to the fact that humans were fairly expendable, and probably would be for another decade or two, until they managed to scrape together some political clout.

“I’ve never heard of a creature with The System dying from any illness other than age,” Smartass said.

“Yeah, high Body would mean the end of disease, wouldn’t it?”

Jeb kicked his foot off the side of the rock as he thought. I wonder if the doctoring profession is crippled from the vast majority of people being totally immune to disease. Add to that people who can heal injuries with magic, and you’re looking at the end of physicians in general.

Then Jeb imagined what would happen if a modern doctor got a Myst Core.

It’d probably be something easily underestimated like a Salt Core that he can use to change the ionic bonds of atoms in the enemy’s body and give them an untraceable heart attack…or dissolve them, or something. I dunno.

There were bound to be a few of them out there.

Jeb’s musings were cut short by the crunch of dirt underfoot. He stood up on the boulder and scanned the darkness. Despite the rather large signal fire, Jeb was unable to pierce the darkness with his regular human eyes. Whoever might be out there was invisible to him.

Jeb, on the other hand, was lit up like a Christmas tree, standing so close to the pyre.

“E’Nak Chuman!” Jeb shouted the password into the wilderness.

Silence reigned for a good minute, and Jeb was starting to think he’d simply heard some wildlife rummaging around, when the crunch of dirt sounded again, much closer this time. Two rather large melas men morphed out of the darkness, like the firelight had scoured away some dark shroud wrapped around them.

“Evening,” Jeb said, hand near his gun in case these weren’t the fellows he was looking for. “Mark told me—MMPH!” Jeb’s well-crafted excuse was cut short when the two thugs lunged forward, moving in between Jeb’s thoughts like a pair of jumping spiders, practically teleporting to either side of him.

One shoved a gag in Jeb’s mouth, the other wrenched his arms behind his back. A moment later, a hood snuffed out Jeb’s sight, and he felt the men going through his pockets.

Jeb had buried anything a messenger wasn’t supposed to have a little ways away, including the wand, the lantern, and the letter from Svek.

Those were no-nos that would probably get him summarily executed.

They fished out Jeb’s last silver coin, a bit of his change from the bar,