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

Ability to secure his own body to the ground. The sheriff’s belt was slipping off because of the slime, and his sword had long since flown away into the hedges.

“He thinks you’re the ‘bad guy’. Give me a minute to sort this out.” Jeb carefully stabilized himself with his own Myst as he walked through Colt’s slime zone and crouched in front of the kid.

“Calm down,” Jeb said.

“He’s right there!” Colt shouted. “And you helped him!”

“That ain’t the guy we’re looking for, and there’s no reasonable way it could be, since he was the sheriff of a town nearly a month north of us until a few weeks ago.”

Colt peered at him with a single angry eye from where his face was planted in the ground.

“This is a pretty good lesson on why I don’t want you fighting the kidnapper by yourself, though. Zlesk beat you easily.” Jeb poked the teen’s shoulder.

“You helped him!”

“Who knows? There might be more than one,” Jeb said with a shrug.

***Kebos O’sut***

Kebos O’sut, or ‘Lenos Surpey’ to the children, watched from the balcony as his newest acquisition slaughtered rabzi by the dozens alongside her peers. The feral creatures snarled at the children before they died, but the little girl no longer flinched and mewled, instead having grown numb to the fuzzy creatures’ threat displays.

She simply speared the restrained animals in the neck and moved on to the next cage.

About time, Kebos thought, ire simmering under his expressionless surface.

“How is your product coming, Mr. O’sut?” Judge Elkor asked, joining him on the balcony overlooking the courtyard. The keegan man was wearing his work attire, a black and blue checkered affair.

Even at a party, the judge wanted everyone to know who he was and what his station was. The man was a raging narcissist. Kebos swallowed his personal distaste and motioned to the eight children killing caged rabzi.

“Those three have shown complete regeneration on the scar test. We will get them ready to ship by the end of the week. The other five are newly acquired. It will be some time before they are ready.”

“If they showed complete regeneration, why not just kill them now? They are immortal now, are they not?

“Here, hold this,” the judge said, shoving his drink into Kebos’s hand before rolling up his sleeves, crackling energy dancing along his fingers.

“Which one’s mine?” Elkor asked, his eyes dancing with mirth as he scanned the unaware children.

“Judge, I don’t mean to be a wet blanket, but the scar test is not one hundred percent accurate. Our standard practice is a five-point buffer of Body to be absolutely sure they have achieved immortality. You wouldn’t want to pay for a dud, would you?”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. I trust your skill.”

If you trust my skill, then let me perform my business my way! Kebos shouted in his head.

“You think I could hit that one in the head from here?” Elkor said, closing a single eye and lining up a finger covered in brilliant sea-green energy. “I bet I could.”

The child he was pointing at wasn’t even one of the three he’d pointed out! The judge was doing it specifically to get under Kebos’s skin.

“Your Honor,” Kebos said, choosing his words carefully and treading the fine line between obsequious and forceful. “If a child is killed in front of the rest of them, it will spoil the entire batch. Are you willing to pay for all eight of them, when only three are possibly worth the money? I can’t imagine the other investors would be pleased.”

The judge’s eyes opened, and he glanced at Kebos before lowering his finger, the Myst fading. “I suppose not. You shouldn’t put them on display like that if you don’t want people taking potshots at them. It’s lazy and a safety hazard, Kebos.”

“I’ll take care of it right away, Judge,” Kebos said, bowing as the man left.

“What an ass,” the lady Nevair said, idly stirring her drink as she approached, cloaked in her lovely gown. The keegan woman’s cheekbones were high and stood out to a tremendous degree that always made Kebos wonder if she’d had work done.

Kebos chose not to respond to her comment. He was merely the supplier, a low class of Citizen compared to the movers and shakers of Solmnath. He couldn’t afford to choose sides, even though the woman was absolutely correct.

“Just eight?” the lady asked as she leaned over the balcony, brow raised. “I don’t mean to criticize your math, but there’re more than eight of us.”

“Apologies, my lady, but the current supply of rabzi can only support eight at a time. If we were to stretch the Impact too thin, it simply wouldn’t work. Your Immortal will be shipped in the order they were acquired. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“You don’t have to take that tone with me,” Nevair said, waving him off. “I understand limitations, and you are the expert, are you not?” Her eyes scanned the eight distant figures hungrily. “Tell me, is mine in here?”

“As you requested, a young female with pale skin,” Kebos said, pointing out Nancy. “The specificity of your request made finding one a little more difficult, but not impossible. She still has a few weeks to…bake, for lack of a better word.”

“Why keep the rabzi in a cage? Why not just restrain them entirely, or better yet, put them on an assembly line and have the children press a button?” she asked, taking a drink.

“Because it wouldn’t work. Impact transmission is dulled the more degrees of separation there are between the act and the result. It would be possible to arrange a system like you described, but the children would receive next to nothing in return.

“The two most important features of Impact transmission are awareness of purpose, and directness of causation. If the child