Engineered Magic

2 AL: Irene

Everyone treated her differently when she went back to shopping. Customers fell silent when she entered a shop. No one would meet her eyes, not even the proprietors. The prices quoted seemed significantly lower. They were so much lower, she went back and confirmed that the items she asked about before were now cheaper.

She didn’t like how this treatment made her feel. It made her think the crafters and shopkeepers saw her as a dangerous animal that needed to be appeased. She was looking for acceptance and community, not fear and obedience. She also didn’t like what their behavior said about her brother. She lost her enjoyment of shopping. She left the shops and walked slowly around the square. She was keeping an eye out for Jake or Sophia, she wanted someone to talk to her like a normal person.

As she passed in front of the arches to the training area she caught sight of two warriors sparring against each other. She stepped just within the yard, putting her back against the outer wall and watched. The two combatants were both armed with spears. They were the simplest type and resembled nothing more than sharpened sticks. The men wildly swung and stabbed at each other. The spears were too long for the stick fighting Irene trained in but she didn’t think these two were very skilled either. Irene was losing interest when one combatant shifted his grip and drove his spear forward.

Ice ran up the length of the wood and sharpened the point. His opponent tried to block. He managed to get his own spear over in an attempt to push the thrust to the side. Suddenly the warrior with the iced spear appeared much stronger and was able to push through. Irene watched in horror as the sharp iced tip cut across the man’s side.

The warrior grabbed his side and stepped away. He was cussing as he rubbed his side. There was no blood. Irene looked around to try to get a read on the other watchers' reactions. No one else seemed surprised. Irene decided his reduced injury must be a function of the training yard.

There were women among the watchers but none of them looked like fighters. Everyone wearing leathers appeared to be male. Irene remembered the woman hunter they crossed paths with in the green. That kind of equal opportunity didn’t appear to extend to the warriors. Irene wondered how much of that was the result of the high pregnancy rate. There were no hunters watching, they must all be out in the green.

The warriors faced off again. The man who took the hit was moving slower now and favored his side. They went back to the rather unskilled swinging at each other. The two combatants kept it up until they both called ice at least once. Looking tired, they stepped to the side, while another pair stepped into the sparring area. She watched three pairs of warriors fight.

On the whole Irene was not impressed. She wasn’t very good at physical fighting herself but she saw much more skilled fighters on the Speedwell. She did notice that their skills seemed to improve when the warriors called ice. It was like the iced weapons knew how they should move and they dragged the warriors behind them. Irene watched carefully trying to figure out how they called the ice. She really couldn’t tell. It seemed rather hit and miss for them. She noticed that some of them did keep one finger on top of the weapon but not all of them, so she threw that out as a factor. She wondered if Agatha could figure it out from the recording.

Irene continued on her way to the inn. She sat down at one of the ‘outdoor’ tables. As she sat she realized the tables and benches were fixed to the ground. The bench was surprisingly comfortable considering it was made of steel and stone.

Irene considered what she should do next. Last night when she calculated how much longer she could stay before she headed back, she somehow skipped over what she would do with that time. She didn’t lie to Sophia when she said she didn’t want to stay in the inn with her mother there. She dreaded running into the woman. The visit to Dean and Becky’s place left her less than impressed with the apartments over the square. If she rented one of the apartments for thirty six days would she spend all her time hiding in it? Agatha sent her to get footage of what it was really like to live in the ruins. At first glance this square made it seem pretty nice. It was the undercurrents that were unsettling. Irene wasn’t certain that would come across in the recording.

She decided to go watch the hunters return from the green. She would get a recording of the guards collecting their toll. She didn’t know how to film that healing was addictive, she would have to think about that one. She needed to get more film of the interiors of the apartments. There must to be more people doing business out of them, she would see if any of them were selling something she could buy.

After that she would move on. Now that she wasn’t wounded she thought she could travel the halls fairly quickly. She would go north and look for Darien’s groups. Phillip claimed they didn’t have a defense crystal, so it would be interesting to see how they were sleeping at night. She wondered if could buy a map from someone on how to get there. It would be an easier trip if she traveled with someone to watch her back. She would have to keep her ears open for anyone else heading in that direction.

Eventually she was going to have to walk out by herself. She found it unlikely she could convince anyone else to go with her. She needed to prepare for that journey. She hoped the northern groups knew some secret for keeping the animals at bay. She would need it.

Jack and Sophia

“We could head back,” Jake proposed to Sophia.

“I don’t see how we could make it without the lantern,” Sophia responded. “I asked around and no one had any gas. Most people act like I am crazy for asking.” Sophia laid back on the bed, watching Jake prance around in his new leathers. “Besides, if we did go back we would just be on the bottom again, under the thumb of someone who did better on the aptitude tests.”

“Well I don’t think we should stay here,” Jake offered. “Phillip and his mother have this place stitched up. The warriors take the lion's share from the hunters. They pay most of that to Phillip to get healed by his mother. The crafters are afraid to go out, so they are living on crumbs. The only reason they seem to survive at all is that Phillip wants better equipment for himself.”

“Yeah, it is a shame. The crafters really have done a great job of figuring a lot of stuff out but they are starved for materials. That is good news for us. They were willing to pay top dollar for that scrap. We should go get more tomorrow,” Sophia proposed.

“I agree,” Jake replied. “We would have gotten more for the skins off those badgers from the leatherworker than we did for the whole carcass from the butcher.”

“Yeah, that was a mistake. We will do better next time,” Sophia replied.

“Do you think Irene will go out with us again tomorrow?” Jake asked.

“Maybe,” Sophia responded. “I can’t get a good read on her. One minute she is fading into the background and the next she is threatening guards. I thought that the broomstick she carries was a joke, until I saw her crush the skulls on a couple rats with it.”

“Yeah, she is a little odd. I am not quite certain why she came. She seems to spend half her time looking at the walls. I don’t know what to make of that weird idea she has about the animals being here to kill us.” Jake picked up his ax and made a couple practice swings with it. “She saved you with that stun she has. Her disinterest in the loot is to our benefit.”

“She is right about the smell. The animal pens at the colony were awful. It does seem like those animals couldn’t have been in the rooms for very long before we found them,” Sophia commented.

“Phillip being her brother, she’d be stupid not to settle here.” Jake commented. “She doesn’t seem to have much ambition. This will be the perfect setup for her.”

“I don’t know,” Sophia replied. “She didn’t seem real happy with her mother.”

“I thought I had problems with my mother. That woman is completely insane. How could she slice her own daughter's arm open like that? Even if she did fix it later.” Jake let the head of his ax rest on the floor as he considered Dr. Whitman’s actions. “I wonder if the healing thing has caused her to go crazy.”

“What? Like your sanity is the price?” Sophia asked.

“Yeah,” Jake responded. “Or maybe you have to be nuts before you can learn it. Either way I think we better stay away from healing.”

“Well Phillip claims there are no healers in the north and no protection crystals. I am not certain how much of that is true and how much that is him trying to keep people here,” Sophia responded. “Everyone refers to the northerners as Darien’s groups. I don’t know who this Darien is.”

“Me neither,” Jake replied. “Have you noticed, it isn’t Darien’s group but groups. That sounds like a lot more loose of an organization than here. It makes me think there could be opportunities for us.”

“Have you noticed there are no fire users here?” Sophia asked.

“Yeah,” Jake responded. “I got some hints that since the healing spell doesn’t work on them, Phillip frowns on their presence. That is why there are no mixed hunter and warrior groups either. The hunters know they can’t trust the warriors to have their backs.”

“Nasty,” Sophia replied, “but effective.”

“Shortsighted,” Jake countered. “It takes all kinds to build a community. History is full of ways to control people that don't involve healing spells. If the northern groups don’t work out for us, we can always look farther west for another green. There are plenty of discontented people here that will be easy to recruit.”

“Shortsighted,” Sophia agreed. “That might be the way to go. In a new settlement we would be the ones that make the rules.”

Irene

Irene sat down for dinner late. She chose the same table she ate lunch at with its view of the stairs. As she consumed her dinner she watched a procession of jittery pale warriors head up the stairs to see the healer. Many of them carried high value items, like tusks and finished goods. The warriors returned after about ten minutes moving much slower with an disconnected look on their faces and their hands empty. She recognized some of them as the guards who collected tolls.

Irene saw hunters returning with fresh wounds. Some wounds were hastily bangaged in scraps of cloth, while others were open and still bleeding. None of those people appeared. She even saw one woman with a newborn baby break down into inconsolable grief when a hunting party returned without her partner. The guards still tolled the group, taking half the squirrels they carried.

The guards took at least half of everything that was carried back from the green. If a group wasn’t carrying much, they took it all. They didn’t ask for coins. It took Irene a while to work out that they couldn’t get those from the hunters without a pay surface and there wasn’t one at the gate. Irene wondered if you could see someone else’s inventory even with a prize altar. She suspected you couldn’t. By taking all the food, the warriors could get the coins later by selling it back to the hunters.

Irene realized that these tolls were motivating people to only bring back prizes. Hidden in inventories the guards could not know it was there. The large items like furniture that couldn’t be converted were in short supply, not only for the rarity in finding them but also because no one wanted their effort to be wasted when it was seized from them at the gates.

The unguarded back door was a bit of a mystery to Irene. If she wanted to avoid the tolls she would have scavenged almost exclusively. Maybe today’s unguarded back door was an anomaly. It could have been the result of a single guard slacking off. Plus she didn’t know the history. The back door wasn’t the only way to reach the halls. If you went out through the green and caught a squirrel or two on the way back, the guards wouldn’t even suspect you were carrying more.

There was no pay surface up in the rooms either. Not all of the warriors carried items. Irene wondered how the rest were paying. Were they printing off needed coins on the prize altar? A payment system like that would allow others to skim some off the top and keep the coins out of her mother’s inventory.

Irene hadn’t seen Sophia or Jake since just after lunch. On her way back to her room for the night she stopped and knocked on the door across the hall from hers.

“Who’s there?” a feminine voice called. It was muffled through the door.

“Sophia?” Irene replied. “It’s Irene.”

“Just a second,” came the response. It was several minutes before the door opened revealing Sophia still pulling her shirt into place.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Irene said, taking a half step back.

“You’re not,” Sophia responded. “Come on in.” Irene followed Sophia inside. The room was a mirror image of her own, right down to the single chair. Jake was standing by the prize altar wearing a new set of leather armor. It was a deep rich brown.

“How does it look?” Jake asked.

“It looks good,” Irene responded. “Is it hard to move in?” she asked.

“It is a bit heavier than work clothes but I think I’ll get used to that fairly quickly.” Jake flexed his arm. “More worrying is the stiffness in the joints,” Jake said. “The leather worker claimed it would break in with use but he didn’t say how long it would take.” Irene didn’t think she earned enough coins to buy the armor. Sophia and Jake must have pooled their coins to purchase it.

The small room felt crowded with the three of them in it. Irene sat down in the single chair. It was a dull brown color and looked a little worse for wear. Like the stone bench in the courtyard it was surprisingly comfortable. Irene couldn’t remember if she sat in the one in her room last night.

“What brings you to visit?” Sophia asked. She settled down on the end of the bed.

“I am thinking about going north and checking out the groups there,” Irene explained. “Are you two interested in going? If you are committed to staying here, I can ask around and see if anyone else is heading that way.”

“Don’t you want to stay here with your family?” Jake responded. Irene thought about that question for a long moment. Her internal struggle was visible on her face.

“No,” she said finally. “I find them very changed from when I last saw them.” She shifted uncomfortably on her chair, hoping to leave that subject behind. “I don’t like the vibe here in the square. Everyone seems so afraid.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Sophia responded. “When are you planning to go north?”

“In a day or two,” Irene responded. “I want to upgrade my gear too,” she said in Jake’s direction.

“They hold a street market once a week. The next one is in three days. We would like to stay for that,” Sophia responded.

“That is fine with me,” Irene responded. “Does that mean you’re interested in going north?”

“Sure,” Jake answered for the two of them. “We were just discussing that we should check all our options before we settle down.” Irene smiled, happy that something seemed to be going right for a change.

“We can go scavenging in the morning,” Irene offered. “I learned today that some of the debris can be turned into scrap at a prize altar.”

“Really?” Sophia asked.

“I remember seeing three altars in the rooms we cleared today. It should be easy enough to try,” Irene responded. Sophia told Irene how she discovered they could make more money selling badger hides to the leatherworker and just the meat to the butcher.

“What about the rats?” Irene asked. “Will he buy their skins? If we just brought back the hides it would be a lot lighter.”

After talking over their plans for the morning, Irene returned to her room. She pulled out her map and punched another hole in it. She felt like she was making progress on her mission. She would keep her eye out tomorrow for any crafting tools. Perhaps she could help out a few people here before she moved on.