Flannel

Chapter 19! Return of the Contract!

I have been anticipating this scene so much.

The temptation to simply hang out up there and listen to the Contract’s psychotic-adjacent break – with a different soundtrack, though –

- or, Justin, you could not fiddle with the nigh-irreplaceable Earth technology that’s likely a significant multiplier to The Plan overall, at over a hundred feet up, he thought -

- wasn’t that appealing, once he’d calmed down from the bladder-testing terror he’d just put himself through. He closed his hand around the pocketed player with exquisite caution and turned it off, then started climbing down.

Roughly a tenth of the pursuit fleet total had either continued to chase the Chloe or turned around to start again after the show was over. One each of those two groups, plus another half-dozen of the remainder, had broken off to approach the Utzin longboats. Justin memorized what characteristics he could see of them, because in his opinion, those were the smart ones to watch out for.

The rest were scuttling away towards the City, with the lone exception of one rakish, fast-moving craft that was heading into deeper northern waters at high speed, and another high-speed newcomer behind the fleet, aiming straight through them. Probably couriers, messengers, something along those lines. Note to dinner self: have Taiko brief you on geopolitics.

The Contract’s infuriated screeching was getting louder the farther he descended, but going by the rate of increase he had the impression it was climbing towards the upper deck from below at the same time.

Ahhh, so good. And still more to look forward to, he thought. Knock me out and dump me on a quay radiating disastrous levels of eldritch power for the Demonic secret police to find and apprehend, will you? Well, how you like me now, Jokey Pokey?

“- NEVER AGREED TO THIS!”

Oh yes you did, sucker. ‘Narratively’, remember? 3^rd definition - That part of an oration in which the speaker makes his or her statement of facts.

That argument was so literally rhetorical that it wouldn’t last a mashed potato moment in court – or to be accurate, not in a good court - but it didn’t need to. Justin only needed the pretext, the wedge, the lever with which to move the world. Or, in this context, the decisions of whatever ‘Upper Management’ was in charge of the Contract.

You got a feel, after sufficient experience in business and corporate law, for the characteristics common to employees and executives who didn’t have their superiors’ support. People who remained in their positions because they’d made themselves indispensable and/or irreplaceable. Often they’d earned it, by being the best there was at what they did, but you knew they were out on a thin branch all the same. If someone with a better balance between competence and cost came along, they’d be out on the street with a box full of their things before the ink on the new hire’s agreement was dry.

The Contract gave Justin that feeling, in spades. And he loved taking people like that down. The degree to which the Contract had made it personal was the delicious double icing on the cake of settling accounts.

As he reached the last quarter of the mast’s height, the port-side double trap-doors to the port hull's main deck staircase slammed open. Justin looked down to see the Contract stomping up and out, and he felt a little bad. A little.

The Contract, for unknown but doubtlessly interesting reasons, had taken on the form of a large, animated Grimoire, around 4 feet tall. Its cover was made of the black, gnarly hide of some warped monster, and covered in glowing arcane sigils of magical-looking metals, golden-orange and silvery. Two pairs of stumpy, thick-muscled arms and legs grew out of its cover near the spine, the legs near its bottom edge and the arms slightly more than halfway up. Between those it wore a belt-clamp holding its pages shut, with loops filled with arcane tools and buttoned pouches. Its elemental face was at the top of its spine, with three white glowing gems for eyes, all different sizes, inset in a triangle of small cups, and a broad, jagged rip underneath them for a mouth.

It was also shedding. Horribly, and not in a euphemistic or exaggerated sense. Bits of the cover were constantly flaking off, breaking down into smaller floaty, ashy pieces that dissolved into nothingness in midair. Beneath those were raw red striated patches, glistening like wet exposed muscle, which were quickly being re-covered by new black leathery growth.

And bright blue steaming goo was dripping from its eyes, like boiling hot tears of slimy neon – not from the edges of the sockets, as human eyes wept, but directly from the gems themselves.

A little bad.

Nowhere near enough to change his script, though. Some people, well. . .you just had to keep rubbing their noses in it until the lesson took.

“Who exactly asked for what, you ambulatory bog-roll!?” Justin shouted down at it. “You wanted to poke the butcher-bear? Congratulations, ding-a-ling! Consider the butcher-bear poked!”

I think English’s ‘Grizzly’ has the edge over Riben’s ‘butcher-bear’ in isolation, Justin thought, but I gotta say ‘butcher-bear’ scans better metrically.

The Contract screamed back at him, wordless with rage, while he kept descending.

Neener-neener nanny-nanny boo-boo poopy-pants, Justin paused to silently mouth at it, emphasizing the movements. It dropped to its hands and knees and clawed at the decking in fury, over and over again, doing no damage that he could see.

Time to twist the knife, Justin thought. “Hey, book smarts, are you in violation yet!? Do I need to contact your superiors!?

The Contract looked up and howled at him, “YOU CANNOT SEPARATE EXPANDED DIMENSIONS! AND YOU CANNOT REJOIN EXPANDED DIMENSIONS! AND YOU CANNOT STACK EXPANDED DIMENSIONS INSIDE OTHER EXPANDED DIMENSIONS! IT ALL PUNCHES HOLES IN REALITY, LUNATIC!”

“Sounds like a you problem!” Justin sneered back. Inside, however, he was exulting. Yesss! It’s the Shrines section, isn’t it!? They’re inherently, necessarily ‘Warped Spaces’ themselves!

That wild guess had probably panned out. The evidence was almost non-existent; he’d had only the tiniest hints right after he’d woken up, and he’d put the odds at no better than one in sixth, closer to one in eight. Of course, even if it hadn’t paid out, he’d still have wanted those Shrines in there. For so many reasons.

“IT’S AN EVERYBODY PROBLEM YOU APOCALYPSE-∇≡⊕ℵING ∞þΞ∞þ∞‡ξ ∇≡⊕⊥þ ℑ∴þ‡∞ζ∴⊗∴!”

The translation – magic; enchantment; whatever the term was – fritzed at the end of the Contract’s shrill, hissing fulmination, but the sense of excessively perverse revulsion it still managed to convey gave Justin pause. He hadn’t known that was possible, and the experience was giving him second thoughts.

o-oh m-my, oh n-no, Sol laughed in his head. Thank you, Justin. I’ve never observed It in this extreme a a state. That’s a first, and as a deity, I treasure those.

So It’s basically all right?

Yes. What you’re seeing is only cosmetic. A consequence of Its divided focus as It works to recompile the Shop’s structure to compensate for your wish. Which shall be done, and there’s no apocalypse incoming because of it. But I should put my hand in here. Look aft, please.

Justin’s attention had been so wholly on the Contract that he’d missed another fast ship coming up behind them to port, its bow full of richly robed older men and women who were also shouting, as well as gesturing both indignantly and demandingly.

Please imagine a field protecting them? Sol asked. No price asked, no precedent set; just sensible cooperation towards a mutually -

On it, Justin thought, estimating the ship’s center point and a large enough radius to cover its length and height. A good relationship of unweighed give-and-take with Sol was more than prudent; the god’s continuing respect for Justin’s boundaries had also earned him multiple shares of goodwill.

The Contract must have noticed them as well, because it turned and screamed, “I’M NOT OPEN! GO AWAY!”

The ship kept approaching.

And flex, Sol said, and the instant after Justin focused his will and the yellow field sprang into existence, more purple lightning erupted out of the tip of the Right Here Chloe’s central mainmast, aimed at the other ship. It shattered against the Dawn’s shield.

Most of the passengers and crew on board ducked, covering their heads and hiding, but three of those in the prow stood firm, one turning back to shout and gesture at the crew instead, sweeping their extended pointing finger in an arc overhead. The crew tentatively returned to their stations, and the ship’s speed began returning to what it had been.

Never mind, then, Sol said. The Dawn’s chill was stronger than usual in his ears. They had their chance.

Rather than abandon them to the Contract’s, and/or the Shop’s, and/or apparently the damn god’s lack of mercy, Justin shrank his visualization to a few yards behind the other ship’s prow, flexed, and thought Please.

When the Chloe’s second web of powah! unlimited powah! blasted out, it vaporized the exposed bow down past the waterline with the steamy flash and SHHHRACKK! of wood being exploded by the hyper-evaporation of its internal moisture.

But not the rest of the boat, or the people on it, behind the second shield. Including the potentially. . .not ‘innocent’; Justin didn’t believe in innocence beyond legal decisions, but he did believe in the ideal of justice. The potentially underserving. Because he chose to believe that at least one person on that craft didn’t deserve to be tortured, possibly to death, by the Chloe’s sithtastic version of tribulation lightning.

The other ship naturally stopped as though it had run into a wall of ballistic gel after the mild waves of the Toh hammered into its suddenly open front. The passengers in the front toppled into the water and their shouts changed to cries of alarm.

Or we could do that, Sol said. You may regret letting them live.

I’m also not about to chri- hallow – my newly Invested home, including its alchemy lab, let alone named as it is, with the blood of the stupid, Justin thought. Like calls to like; once together, always together; principles of correspondence -

So it’s not the blood so much as the stupidity? Sol chuckled, and the god’s presence vanished from his mind. At the same time, the Contract’s Grimoire-form disappeared in a flare of purple fire.

Uh, Justin thought, as he skidded down the last few feet of the mast and started pulling off the harness. Now what?

Oi!” Pei’s distant voice answered him from beyond the Chloe’s stern. “Slow down, and steady us some lines, you lot!”

“Ah,” Tzo said on the heels of Pei’s call, no longer at the helm. Justin assumed the man had put the wheel’s tie on at the last minute, and stepped out to watch the climax. He was shading his eyes as he scrutinized the rest of the pursuing fleet, all but one of which had dropped in speed after the closest ship’s crippling – the exception being the newcomer he had spotted earlier. “I believe that’s Captain Ougo with your hires,” he said smugly.

Justin looked at Taiko, his eyebrows raised. The old monk immediately got the message, and he glowered sarcastically, his shoulders drooping as he raised three fingers and nodded his head in mock-resignation.

Justin said “Yes!”, did a fist-pump, and headed for the still-trailing ropes the Utzin crew wanted, waving Taiko over to the starboard promenade to deal with that set.

Flannel

Alas! I cannot use the Iokharic font here, so I had to do something less consistent with the Special Characters set. But someday I'll figure out how to do Zalgo text on SH and come back to edit it in on top of that.

I just can't decide, so it's our first tie for favorite line this chapter -

Spoiler

“You wanted to poke the butcher-bear? Congratulations, ding-a-ling! Consider the butcher-bear poked!”

book smarts

'Book smarts' is so viciously pleasing to me that I even had to make it the chapter title. Though it's not like my first idea was working well anyways.

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Flannel refreshing his library account's Hold page every hour like -

Spoiler

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