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

Jeb peered at the guy next to him. “The fuck does that mean?”

“Karma,” the old man said. “I believe good people who do good things because they are right deserve to be recognized. I also think that people who go above and beyond deserve to be honored for it. People like you.”

Jeb peered at the old man, his danger senses tingling, sobering him up in a matter of seconds. “Who the hell are you?”

“Nixus.”

“Who the hell is Nixus?”

“God of reward,” the bartender said, idly cleaning a glass.

When Jeb glanced back, the old man was gone, his stool was empty, and his glass was missing.

All that remained was the wedding ring.

It was thicker than Jeb had thought, almost looking like a coin with a hole punched out of it. The outside bore fascinating geometric shapes, and the inside housed roiling Myst that whirled around a central point like a hurricane.

Welp, that’s weird and magical, Jeb thought, scooping it up into his palm before anyone could see it.

“Hey, did you see a skinny old dude sitting here?” Jeb asked, jerking a thumb at the spot next to him.

The bartender gave him a flat stare.

“Are you giving me that look because the answer’s ‘no’, or because the answer’s ‘yes’?”

“You been talking to yourself all night, buddy,” the melas bartender said, throwing his cloth over his shoulder.

Jeb glanced at the empty spot next to him. “That’s what I thought.”

Jeb glanced to his right, where Smartass was floating in a cup of beer, her arms thrown over the edge like a guy in a hot tub.

She gave a respectable belch, her head lolling on her neck shortly before she slipped under the surface of the foamy brew, a few tiny bubbles all that marked her passing.

Damnit, Jeb thought, plunging his hand into the brew to pull the sopping wet fairy out of the beer, spilling a decent amount of her drink in the process.

The bartender did not look amused.

“Did you catch any of that?” Jeb asked Smartass as he retreated from the bar, leaving a silver coin behind. The fairy was sprawled out on his palm, absolutely shitfaced.

“Any of what?” The tiny fairy lifted her head off Jeb’s palm and glanced around. “Where are we?”

“I think one of the gods who voted for me to live felt bad about giving me the shaft and paid me a visit to even the score.”

“Did she say who she was?” Smartass asked, sitting up.

“Nixus.”

“Oh yeah,” Smartass said, lifting a finger. “That makes sense, because—HURK!”

Smartass rolled over and puked on his thumb.

Unlike what they might show you on kids’ cartoons, fairy vomit was not filled with glitter and rainbows.

It was filled with beer and bile.

“Goddamnit, Smartass,” Jeb said, switching hands and wiping off his palm. “Learn to pace yourself.”

“No…natural tolerance,” Smartass muttered between dry heaves.

“Then don’t drink!” Jeb said, just before bumping shoulders with a melas brute on the way out the door.

Between holding Smartass and his bum leg, Jeb almost lost his balance and took a dive into the street, but he was able to catch himself just before faceplanting. The melas didn’t even spare Jeb a glance as he sauntered into the bar.

The orange-skinned, horned fellow was wearing a patched leather jacket covered in dirt and stains, and his hair and horns were decorated with tiny bones that gave Jeb an almost Mad Max feel. He was obviously high level, and making an issue would be…ill-advised.

Not fucking with him, Jeb thought, stumbling away.

He had more important things to do… Like jamming his finger into a magic hole and seeing what happened.

Jeb tottered his way to his alley and was about to go in when he paused, realizing that the only thing between him and prying eyes was a pile of trash about four feet high, which would be taken out…

Shit, what day is it?

Jeb glanced around the corner and spotted the R.O.U.S.s snuffling through his blankets, forced to forage more now that the week’s trash had been taken away. The bigass rats looked up as Jeb peeked over, studying him for a moment before dismissing him entirely, far more preoccupied with gnawing open the can of beans he’d been saving for a rainy day.

“Well, shit. Maybe I can get a room.”

Jeb slipped Smartass’s limp body into his new vest and clomped his way to the nearest inn, seventeen silver coins burning a hole in his pocket.

It only took a few minutes and two silver coins before Jeb was seated on his bed at the Starlight Inn, breathing in the scent of raw wood and stucco.

And trying not to mind the crack in the ceiling.

No. Not gonna think about death and roofs falling on us. We are going to focus on the fact that someone or something gave us a weird magic…thing, as a little present.

Jeb discounted the idea that the strange object could be overtly bad. If a powerful being wanted to kill him, there wasn’t much Jeb could do about it. Same with maiming, curses, etc.

Jeb sat and stared at the ring with the swirling hurricane of Myst in the center. He had to assume it was most likely a good thing, because anything else wouldn’t make sense.

Hesitantly, Jeb poked his least favorite finger through the hole. Just the tip at first, but when nothing happened, he got up the gumption to put his whole left pinky through it.

Nothing happened. He couldn’t even feel the Myst interacting with him. Jeb’s finger didn’t interrupt the swirl of Myst, and vice versa.

Hmm….

“Activate,” Jeb said, clenching his fist and pointing at the wall.

“Go!”

“Shoot!”

“Pew, pew, pew!”

Jeb took the ring off, set it on the table and reached into his Myst Core. I hope I