Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion Read online

  For the first time in a long time, Mazik was excited. He set off.

  *

  Mazik spent the next few days talking to everyone he could think of. He talked to friends and family members and other customers. He sought out old classmates and new friends, and walked into businesses he had never heard of before, with only a few honest questions to keep him from getting thrown out. More often than not he left with them answered, because people are nicer than you think, at least when they get to talk about something they know a lot about.

  Later on, Mazik wondered what would have happened had he not talked to Eilou when he did. Would he have thrashed about helplessly and given up, never to talk to all the people who helped him crystallize the path he wanted to take?

  Who knows. What Mazik knew was that the next few days were a whirlwind as he talked to anyone and everyone, each person teaching him about a job or giving him ideas for another one to look into next. His list narrowed down, then grew, then narrowed down, and grew, and then repeated that cycle a few more times until he had only a few left. He was getting close.

  And through it all, an idea kept growing in the back of Mazik’s mind. He wouldn’t admit it, not yet. It was crazy, too foolish for anyone sane to consider, and too much of a long shot to have a snowball’s chance in hell of working. Yet still it was growing.

  On the evening of the fourth day, Mazik picked up a newspaper and looked at the headline.

  But, his unconscious mind thought as he read the grisly details, maybe there’s still a way. A plan was beginning to form in his mind.

  *

  Gavi and Raedren stared.

  “That is strange,” said Raedren.

  “I know, right? It’s absolutely bizarre,” said Gavi as she leaned over the bar, her feet coming off the ground as she craned to get a better look.

  “It’s definitely irregular,” said Raedren.

  “Was it like this the whole weekend?” asked Gavi. She squinted, trying to make out more detail.

  “If so, I didn’t notice,” said Raedren.

  “What’s going on?” asked Derana as she walked over carrying a tray of empty mugs.

  Gavi and Raedren pointed. “That.”

  Mazik looked up from his notebook, a weary look on his face. “Can I help you two?”

  “Ahhh!” said Gavi. She ducked under the bar while Raedren hid behind his chair.

  Mazik sighed.

  Derana, not sure what was going on, stepped around Gavi and began unloading her tray. “Would you like another drink, Mas Raeus?”

  “Yes, that would be nice,” said Mazik as he returned his attention to his notepad. “Another of these please,” he said, rapping his pencil on the side of his mug.

  “Coming right up,” said Derana.

  Gavi and Raedren peered out of their hiding places. Mazik kept flipping through his notepad. Finally, the pair gave up the act and went back to normal.

  “Okay, spill,” said Gavi as she leaned against the bar, more out of weariness than anything else.

  “Spill what?” said Mazik, not looking up.

  “Why are you being so … so diligent all of a sudden?” asked Gavi.

  “And patient,” added Raedren.

  “And not drinking to excess,” said Gavi.

  “And not getting angry and hitting people,” said Raedren.

  Mazik sighed. “You know, I’m not always like that.”

  “True,” said Gavi. “But you usually are.”

  “It’s a 90 percent of the time kind of thing,” agreed Raedren.

  Mazik shot them a look, and then tapped his notepad. “It’s nothing sinister. These are just some potential job ideas. I’m trying to narrow them down so I know what to focus on.”

  “Oh, really?” said Gavi. She nodded at the notepad. “Mind if I take a look?”

  “Uh, sure,” said Mazik. He flipped the notepad around and pushed it toward her. “Just this page though. Some of the other ones are personal stuff.”

  “Sure,” said Gavi.

  Raedren tried to read the page upside down, but stopped when he started to get dizzy. “So is this why you were gone all weekend?”

  “Naw. I was just spending time with Kalenia,” said Mazik. “Though I did work on this some too.”

  Gavi handed the notepad back to Mazik. “Very cool. So you think you’re getting close to a new job?” She couldn’t tell much from the notepad since almost everything was crossed out.

  “Maybe,” said Mazik. “This is all preliminary work. I think I’m getting close to something, though.”

  “Well, tell me if there’s anything I can do to help,” said Gavi.

  “Me too,” said Raedren.

  “Will do,” said Mazik. He went back to examining the notepad. “How about you two? Any new developments?”

  “No good ones,” said Gavi tiredly. She felt like she had been on her feet all day—the fact that she had only been on her feet for half of the day really didn’t help. She sighed. “I’m beginning to think I’m just out of luck with my experience. Maybe I really do need to save up and go to college.”

  “I dunno. I went to college and look where it landed me,” said Mazik sourly.

  “I’m not looking for a job,” said Raedren. He was a little slow on the uptake tonight.

  “You really should,” said Mazik. “I know you don’t like the one you have.”

  “Eh. Pay’s good,” said Raedren, and then he slumped against the bar and began to hum.

  “I guess,” said Mazik. “Also DRINK.”

  “Right-o,” said Raedren, and then he finished his beer17.

  Derana came back and set a beer in front of Mazik. “Here you go, Mas Raeus.”

  “Thanks,” said Mazik, finishing off his other beer and handing her the empty mug. “Speaking of, please call me Mazik, or Maz. Rae is this thing over here,” he said, pointing.

  “Yes, I would hate to be confused with you,” said Raedren as he tried to drink from his empty mug without lifting his head.

  Derana squirmed cutely. “Are you sure? It seems so familiar….” She continued squirming, still cutely. “I mean, you’re Gavi’s friend, and a customer. It wouldn’t really be proper….”

  Mazik gave her a look, and then shrugged. “Kil is fine too. I don’t mind going by my maiden name.”

  Derana continued to squirm. “…I’ll think about it!” she said finally, and then she scurried away to check on her tables. This was also done cutely.

  Mazik took a drink and turned to Raedren. “Anyway, I’d like to finish this tonight. Do you mind giving me a little peace and quiet for a bit? It should only take half an hour or so.”

  Raedren looked around them. They were in the middle of a bar which, even on a comparatively relaxed Monday night, was so noisy it could have woken the dead, gotten them drunk, and then deposited them back in the ground again.

  He turned back. “Yeah, sure. No problem.”

  “Thanks.”

  Time passed quickly while Mazik worked. It wasn’t long before the half-hour mark came and went, but Mazik kept on working, his body hunched over the notepad as he wracked his brain. He remained this way until the first fight of the night broke out.

  Mazik glanced behind him. It looked like this was going to be a big one. Two tables were overturned, and everyone at them had boiled out into the middle of the room to exchange blows. It looked like there were five or six on each side, though Mazik was having trouble counting with all of the weaving and alcohol. What was certain was that they were all dressed in leather and chainmail, their clothes replete with buckles, pouches, bloodstains, and more nicks and scratches than a cutting board after a carrot-dicing competition. They were also armed to the gills, with at least three weapons each. That he could see.

  Further down the bar, a scraggly-looking man with a wide grin rocked back in his seat, applauding. “This looks like it’ll be a good one! I got 5Mc18 on the group with the red-haired chap!”

  “Is that the one wit tha woman wi
t tha bum leg?” asked the short, wiry guy with long silky hair next to him.

  “No, she’s on the other side,” said Scraggly19. “I mean the one with the guy who just got punched in the face.”

  “Oh, okay.” Silky Hair watched as the man in question bellowed like a berserker, and then crumpled as a chair broke over his back. “I’ll take that bet.”

  More people chimed in. One man stood up and began taking everyone’s bets.

  Gavi set her tray down beside Mazik and sighed. Before she said anything Tielyr walked over with her club. “Thanks,” she said, taking it. “I swear, it’s every night.”

  Gavi walked over and waved at the brawlers. “Excuse me everyone, I’m going to have to ask you all to lea—”

  A bottle flew past Gavi’s head and shattered on the floor to Mazik’s left. Gavi lowered her arms and sighed. “This is why I hate adventurers.”

  The thing about adventurers and bars is … well, there’s a saying that goes “If you want to find an adventurer, look in a bar”, which, unlike most popular sayings, is actually true. That’s because adventurers drink a lot, as is befitting a group who regularly see horrors so terrible they don’t have the decency to wait until they’re asleep to haunt them. This has given rise to a system whereby even the rare adventurer who doesn’t drink will still go to a bar when they want work, because that’s where people go when they want to hire an adventurer. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy, only drunker.

  That was all well and good. The problem was that when you take heavily armed people who are used to solving their problems with violence and add alcohol, certain consequences are inevitable.

  Gavi waded into the thick of things, with an eye toward thinning them out. She had brought a weapon to a fistfight, and was using it to great effect. She had one brawler down before any of them realized she was there, and was already working on the next.

  It didn’t last. Regardless of their side in the original brawl, everyone turned their attention to Gavi, whose weapon ostensibly made her the biggest threat there. Gavi lashed out, striking men who were many times larger than her, and kicking women who had seen more battles than she could imagine. She fell back under their counterattack.

  Step, weave, dodge, swing. Gavi tried to keep up, tried to quell the fight before it spread to the entire bar20. She could hear cheering as she moved, but she tuned it out. Dodge, dodge, duck, strike! Her club cracked across a man’s shoulder, drawing forth a crackle of mana—his barrier had absorbed most of the damage. He kept coming.

  “Ichn ir ukk—Swiftness!” said Gavi, and suddenly her speed increased twofold, her body blurring as she moved. She dodged close attacks, skittered away from a lunge, hobbled a man with a strike to the knee—and then the magick faded, and she slowed back down to normal.

  They were still coming.

  Not good! thought Gavi as she pulled back, trying to get out of range before they overwhelmed her, trying to—

  The back of Gavi’s legs ran into something, and she toppled over. A glimpse as she fell—the man she had knocked out earlier! Apparently he wasn’t as unconscious as she thought, with the chair he had shoved in her path serving as a harsh reminder.

  Gavi hit the floor in a cloud of dirt and sawdust, her club tumbling out of her hands. Her apron flew over her face, and as she swatted it away she looked up to see three people bearing down on her, their fists raised to strike. Gavi threw up her arms.

  Sssz-snap!

  Nothing happened. Actually, quite a lot happened, but none of it involved Gavi and pain. That was enough for her.

  Gavi immediately scrambled back, kicking the chair free of her legs and rising into a defensive crouch. Only then did she learn what had happened.

  There was Raedren, standing in front of her. One hand held a beer, which he was drinking from. The other was glowing a vibrant green, like light filtered through rainforest leaves. This light spread out in an oval in front of him, and another hovered in front of Gavi.

  “Thanks,” said Gavi.

  “No problem,” said Raedren as he held out his free hand. She took it, standing up. “Here,” said Raedren as he passed her the beer. He bent to retrieve her club. They swapped with another thanks.

  “Though honestly, it wasn’t my idea,” said Raedren, swaying slightly. He pointed with his beer.

  Gavi turned back to the brawl. Once a three-sided affair, now it was decidedly more one-sided. The original brawlers appeared to have teamed up once again, this time out of desperate necessity, for among them in a blinding flurry of swinging fists, crackling mana, and caustic curses was none other than Mazik, who was busy making them wish they hadn’t started this particular fight. Or been born.

  “This isn’t your lucky day, my friends, because you just pissed me off!” yelled Mazik, with all the self-control of a broken dam. He handed one man a beer bottle, grabbed him by the wrist, and forced him to hit another man. The struck man toppled as the beer bottle shattered, causing the man holding it to howl in pain. Then Mazik punched him in the face.

  “If I don’t get to concentrate because of your bullshit, then you don’t get to be conscious!” said Mazik. He kicked one of the fallen men in the head. “C’mon! Fight me!”

  “I think he’s going to do more damage than they did,” said Gavi.

  “Probably,” said Raedren. “You think we should we stop him?”

  Gavi looked at him askance. “Yes!”

  “Not it,” said Raedren.

  Gavi stared at him, then grabbed his arm and pushed him toward the fight. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Raedren chuckled, his vision bobbing unevenly as he followed21. “Yes mis, right away mis.”

  A minute later it was over, to the applause and laughter of the other patrons. Gavi waved while Mazik unclenched his fists, noticeably trying to restrain himself from kicking anyone else. Raedren took a sloppy bow.

  While Mazik stormed back to the bar, Gavi knelt and rifled through the downed brawlers’ pockets.

  “Hmmm, let’s see what you’ve got….” After a minute Gavi stood up holding two small brown bags. Two small, full brown bags, both of which clinked with the undeniably rich sound of money. She held them over her head.

  “So, who wants a free drink? On them.”

  The bar’s patrons responded as one might assume—with a deafening roar that rattled windows two blocks away.

  *

  Several hours later, Mazik was half a city away, hands shoved into his pockets as he stared up at the building in front of him. His breath crystallized in the late winter air, puffs of contemplative mist curling away from him like smoke from a fine cigar. He wondered why he was there.

  After he left The Joker, Mazik had decided to go for a walk, an event so unusual that Raedren asked him four times whether he was okay, and offered to carry him home. Mazik ignored him and left.

  It was eerie, being out so late with the fog and the darkness and the silence, or at least so Mazik thought. Tonight though, he appreciated the silence. He wrapped himself in it, letting it shield him from the world as he wandered aimlessly around the city, alone with his thoughts.

  Houk was a pleasant place at night, provided you were too dangerous to attack.

  And in time, Mazik’s feet had led him here. The building in front of him was the guildhall of Honor Guard, one of the adventuring guilds that occupied a section of Houk known locally as Adventurer Town. Compared to the Vector guildhall, Honor Guard’s headquarters was much more restrained. It started life as a modest noble’s mansion, and still looked like one, with only a pair of flags in the yard and a painted sign over the cast iron gate signifying its changed circumstances.

  Mazik examined the building, tracing its balconies, its frosty windows, and its small weathervane on the roof’s apex. He knew that not far away there were more guildhalls just like it.

  It’s as good a place as any to sit down and think, thought Mazik. He sat down and pulled a leg up to his chest.

  A hacking, phlegm-filled co
ugh came from behind. Mazik ignored it. Then: “Can I help you with something?” said a gruff voice.

  Mazik turned around, and found that the gruff voice belonged to a woman, albeit one with what sounded like either bad allergies or a life-threatening disease. He hoped it was the former.

  There was another round of coughing, then the woman wiped at her nose and straightened up. “Sorry about that,” she said, pulling a handkerchief out of her tunic. “I’ve got pretty bad allergies.”

  Knew it, thought Mazik. He examined her more closely. Though he had been here a few times before, he didn’t recognize her. She was clearly a strong woman, and not just in personality. Beneath her unadorned leather armor was still the softness of a woman, but bolstered by hardened bone and strong muscles. Her clothes were expensive but practical, including thick boots, metal-plated gloves, and a knobby mace hanging from her side. Her hair was shot through with the first streaks of gray, though she didn’t look like this bothered her a bit.

  Mazik nodded at the building. “Are you an adventurer?”

  “That I am,” said the woman, the rasp in her voice lessening as the coughing fit receded into memory.

  Mazik said nothing for a long second. Then: “Mind if I ask you a random question?”

  “By all means.” The woman smiled. “I’ll decide if I want to answer it once I’ve heard what it is.”

  “Fair enough,” said Mazik as he dropped his feet to the ground. “I’m just curious about how someone becomes an adventurer. How about you? How did you start out?”

  The woman eyed Mazik. It felt like she wanted to say something, but she held back. “My husband was one,” she said, walking past him. She sat down next to him and looked up at the starry night sky.

  “It was a long time ago, and my father had set up an arranged marriage meeting for me.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “I had no interest in it, but I went anyway. Ended up meeting my husband there.” She laughed. “It just wasn’t the guy my father set me up with.