From one professional to the next (It’s time for a buyout!)

Granny Panza knew her new gofer had secrets – everyone who came out here did. It was likely he came from Fortress Town, and probably had something to do with the chaos that occurred there. Those ears on her head weren’t for show: she had heard every little scoff and mutter as he listened to the storytellers, acting personally aggrieved at even the slightest embellishment.

He was someone to keep an eye on, to be profited from, even if she wasn’t sure how. But before even that, he was a hard worker and an earnest learner, for all he acted insulted. He likely did work in a large merchant group at some point.

Paul had secrets.

But the old woman still found it in her to be surprised.

His armor-clad body now seethed with Malevolence, and it was shocking how well he had hidden it before. Many of the greater sycophants of the Menace from the Stars looked similar to him, infusing themselves with so much of its malign essence that in their pursuit of power that their very forms became twisted parodies of the human body.

Paul, however, seemed on another level, and she realized how little she had known about the Fortress Town Malevolence incident.

Panza’s hackles rose. Slung behind her back was a veritable powerhouse, a genuine black powder rifle she had worked hard to buy years ago. Common sense dictated she use it: unsling it right away, and use her first shot to do damage so that the villagers around her could do something.

But Paul still hadn’t acted aggressively, even with the Malevolence suffusing the air. That made no sense – and he looked surprisingly human, with that stupid little head and dopey, sad eyes of his plopped atop all that plate like a cherry atop a pile of droppings.

He took a deep breath, and Arden tensed, leading to everyone else tightening their grip on their weapons.

Then he looked squarely at the crowd and announced his intentions.

“Some guys have just stolen Straw John, but I know what direction they went. I’m going to go get him back, or this village is just going to keep getting hassled by Bruton’s Beaters, who I’m guessing are the ones responsible. Buncha idiots.”

“How can we trust you!?” Arden immediately snapped, the knife in his hand jerking for emphasis even though it could only ever hope to carve wood. With his free hand, he gesticulated wildly. “You’ve been keeping all… that a secret! You’re a monster! What are you!?”

“Do you have some way to take collateral? Judging by the way you’re all acting,” Paul drolly said, his gaze sweeping the crowd and inadvertently making them shiver when his eyes met theirs, “I’m not exactly going to walk over and ask to shake on it. And I’d love a paper contract, but we don’t have time. The only thing I can say is that I don’t want this village wrecked.”

Contracts and economic theory. The same little complaints, the same old resolutions. It was so stupid to see it come out of that suit of ghastly black armor… which told the syhee that it was the armor that was decorative, not the head.

So Granny Panza laughed aloud, making everyone turn to look at him.

The woman grinned daringly.

“You know what? He’s my hire. This is my responsibility, so I’ll take the gamble. I’ll go with him to see what he’s doing, and I’ll come back with Straw John.”

“Granny, it’s too dangerous…!” Arden hissed, but she just looked at him and shook her head.

“If he’s really honest about caring about the situation, he’ll keep me safe – if I go down, then this area loses a good merchant, which will be just as bad. But better an old lady like me than youths like you. That’ll give you enough time to get ready if the worst happens.”

“But Granny… he’s brimming with Malevolence… he’s just like all the monsters roaming around here!”

“Would you rather wait till Bruton comes back, demanding all your food and never giving back Straw John?” Paul coldly snapped, bringing the conversation back to him. “Or would you like to trust in a transaction I really want – the scarecrow’s safety in exchange for mine?”

Not long after, the armored man and the syhee walked through the undefended field and pushed through the brush and into the forest. Paul stared at the towering weapon strapped to her back in muted fascination.

“Panza, I have to ask: where on earth were you hiding that giant gun of yours?”

“You’re the one with powers, and the gun’s what's interesting to you?” Panza inquired, equally curious and incredulous.

“Of course. Guns and bullets don’t grow on trees. Surprised to see one all the way around here.”

“It’s an old friend, is all it is. I double back to Fortress Town often enough that I can buy a few rounds from the garrison,” Panza explained. “Besides, my old little arms couldn’t draw a bow.”

“It takes a while to reload one, though,” Paul said. With how the tech level was in this world, he wasn’t convinced firearms had advanced enough to outstrip every other form of war – a major bottleneck would always be making ammo easy to load and extract.

“One bullet’s enough to solve things around here,” Panza answered. “Most things around here aren’t worth getting shot over. As for you, you say Bruton’s the one who stole Straw John, but do you know how to find them?”

“I do have great and evil powers at my command,” Paul warned with a derisive trill of mocking laughter. “And the ground’s full of memories, seems like.”

Panza felt the flicker of Malevolence in her employee’s hand. In the forest, where Spirit Energy still drifted freely on the edge of one’s senses, it was akin to a sudden burst of candle or tobacco smoke: sharp and noxious. But compared to earlier that night, it was nearly ignorable.

Dust and dirt were pulled from the ground and alchemised into hard black bone, though it was all short and hunched over. Panza blinked, as suddenly by Paul’s knees was a panting dog skeleton, its skull burning with violet lights.

“Poochie here apparently met a wrongful end at their hands, and he’s eager to get some payback. Shall we follow him?”

Bruton was very pleased by the night’s proceedings. Now that Stray John was in his possession, it now just came down to a skirmish between those in Lamespring who disagreed with his free-form business and his ability to enact it, and he was certain he had the manpower advantage on his end.

For that reason, he had graciously invited Redith and Jorn into his wagon, and the three of them toasted with a bottle of wine he had been saving for such occasions, while Lamespring's so-special straw man sat propped up on a spare space on the benches.

“You two have outdone yourselves! I promise, after we bring this village into the fold, I’ll make sure you are appointed somewhere important in its rule!”

“Thank you, sir!” Redith cheered with a grin.

“We’re very touched, sir!” Jorn agreed.

After another round of drinks, Bruton faintly felt a Spirit rest in the straw figurine, and the brigand couldn’t help but sneer at it.

For a moment, it tried to spread that air of unease, but it quickly retreated when the glass bauble shone its wretched light.

“You’ve given me so much trouble,” Bruton sighed, as he slipped it back into his pocket. “But times change. I run this place now, not you.”

Straw John’s dopey face showed no change, though Bruton swore he felt annoyance from it, but he didn’t care.

However, the sense of amusement it exuded was a surprise.

Suddenly, someone outside screamed.

“The duck’s come for revenge! NO!”

Bruton choked on his wine and then crawled over to throw open the wagon covers.

The camp around him was in complete disarray, with men and women running every which way, confused and panicked. Some had unsheathed their weapons and were wildly swinging them blindly, flashes of pale light in the darkness.

The scattered light of campfires made it hard to make out anything, but black shapes were flitting among everyone, aglow with purple flame.

One of his officers – Samkins, was it? – crashed to the ground in front of him, and it was then that Bruton saw what was pinning him down.

A dog’s black skeleton somehow snarled down at the poor man, leaving him frozen in place.

This image having been seared into his memory, Bruton looked up and began making out the similarly skeletal frames of canines, deer, and even fowl that flapped in the air, hounding and driving everyone to the center of the camp, when they were simple being knocked and held down, as one man was, being too terrified to move with while the skeleton of a bear stared him down.

“You guys really went all out on eating everything on four legs and two wings around here, huh? Almost enough to make me a vegetarian.”

Emerging from the dark was the terrifying silhouette of a gaunt man draped in bone-inlaid plate, and behind him flowed the dead of the forest, prowling about him and settling on every branch to stare at the Beaters from every angle.

“Oh no, it’s Paul…” Jorn moaned.

“‘Oh no, it’s Paul’?” Bruton wheezed, before grabbing the offending speaker by the collar. “What the hell is that supposed to mean!? You met him!?

“He tried to run us off, but we took the scarecrow, so I thought-”

“You led him here?!”

Bruton lunged at his accomplice, Jorn sputtering and stumbling back as the clumsy struggle that ensued eventually made the two men fall over the edge of the wagon, with Redith following after as he tried to pull them back and got dragged along instead. Bruton fought back a shriek when he saw that his princely shirt and pants got stained with mud, but the issue was quickly sidelined by the sight of the necromancer stalking forward.

Scrambling to his feet, Bruton searched for his panacea for all things supernatural and thrust out the violet sphere once more, its light mixing with all the hollow eyes trained on him.

The necromancer paused at the sight of the orb, and Bruton grinned in victory.

Paul blinked, before gesturing and speaking very slowly to him.

“Bruton? Bruton, right? That’s… that’s Malevolence, Bruton. I run on the stuff, it’s not going to hurt me.”

“...Huh?”

“Bruton,” Paul emphasised, arms outstretched as he surveyed the assemblage of shambling skeletons before him, “this is an army of the dead, yeah? Affronts to Spiritual Energy? Remind you of something?”

That… did sound a bit like what he heard high-level monsters created by Malevolence could accomplish…

Bruton took one look at Paul, and another at all his men trapped in his grasp.

Then he swirled around and scrambled for the wagon, and his one bargaining chip. At least, he would have, had not a sharp crack of noise split the forest’s atmosphere and blown apart a section of the wagon’s tailboard. The flying splinters made him stumble and fall back to the ground, and the bandit shriveled into a ball.

“P-Panza?!” He screamed, almost out of reflex. “Gun” went hand-in-hand with that name around these parts. “I-I’ll hand over whatever you desire, even the shirt off my back! J-just don’t kill me, I beg you-”

“Give a minute to reload so I can say the next one will hit you,” the old woman’s voice grumbled, and as Bruton gathered himself to his knees, he saw the old horse-syhee saunter up next to the necromancer, while distracting herself with dropping powder and ball down the muzzle of her rifle.

“I guess you still are the most important person around here, Granny,” Paul demurred, voice cracking with a hidden laugh.

“Look, there must be some misunderstanding!” Bruton babbled, now that both fang and firearm were aimed at him. “I was just going to clean up Straw John’s… straw… You know, as a peace offering for when I visit Lamespring!”

Granny Panza grinned as she trained her gun on the brigand. “Arden will be pleased to know you think so highly of his home! Let’s not tarry any further, then! I’ll carry Straw John, you carry yourselves, and we can all have a nice talk about how to proceed!”

Paul cut her off, though, as he walked forward towards Bruton, who shrank further inwards, almost impossibly so, at his approach.

“Just one thing first…”

Paul’s armored hand reached into Bruton’s pockets and fished out the glowing bauble, and held it before him. The bandit’s breath stilled as he watched the dark shadows and violet light dance off the necromancer’s sharp features and focused glare.

“Tell me where you found this toy of yours, because you don’t strike me as the inventing type.”

“And then Paul ran off. He got all sad about making you sad, so he quit on the spot,” Panza glibly reiterated to Arden.

Arden, seated on a bench outside, frowned, before looking over at the large crowd of men and women who submissively knelt in the field, hands pressed against the back of their heads.

The bear skeleton sitting on its haunches next to them was motivation enough.

“Just like that?”

“He seems like an “all’s well that ends well” sorta guy, so I’m not surprised if he considered this a win and chose to look for another chance to make money elsewhere. He barely started, so it’s no huge loss to me,” Panza said with a nonchalant shrug, before taking a long sip of a mug of beer she had been handed. “As for me, I think I made things a bit hot around here, so I'd better take off as soon as I can and head for greener, quieter pastures.”

Arden continued scrutinizing the older woman, before sighing. “I can’t stop people like you from going where you want. Just be careful, alright?”

Panza snorted. “Care is for those without courage. I’m about to roll over and die at my age; having fun is more important.”

As dawn rose, a horse obediently trotted by and lay down next to a scarecrow, and waited for it to be mounted on its saddle.

Elsewhere, Paul had returned to the shape of a humble, dressed-down vagrant, having shucked off his armor. In the back of his mind, he saw the villagers begin moving the captured Beaters somewhere more appropriate for internment, and allowed the memory of the dead bear to fall apart into a pile of bones to fade away with the day.

“Back to a solo act, I guess,” Paul muttered, though as soon as the thought had ended, he heard the clattering of hooves, and he turned around.

He also frowned as he saw Panza cheerily come to a halt next to him.

“I was trying to do a cool thing and take off mysteriously,” He complained.

“This is the only road away from Lamespring, you idiot, you don’t even know where you’re going.”

“That depends on the definition,” Paul retorted. Reaching into his pocket, he took out the confiscated orb of Malevolence and gave it a dark stare.

“Might be more of these floating around here. Gotta make sure I keep them away from every two-bit warlord. It’s bad stuff.”

“Yeah, because the monster out of Fortress Town is the one to keep them safe?” Panza challenged, leaning forward in her seat to look down at her employee.

“You could always shoot me now if you want to tie that off,” Paul answered. “If you don’t stop me, though…”

Panza let him trail off, as she considered what that silence meant in terms of what she knew of him. Before long, she spoke again.

“You’ve got a plan?”

“More like a hunch,” Paul corrected. “You said it yourself, this place can’t get anything done, because the army can’t make it out here, and there’s a bunch of idiots squabbling. I know this sounds like I want to rule the place, but I don’t know anything about it. I just like it when things are running and in order. If it means finding all the Malevolence here, killing monsters, and spanking bandits, well… I could use some wheels and a guide to get me around.”

Somewhere, a pair of birds tweeted innocently.

Panza smiled, and jerked her head at the open seat beside her.

“If you wanna clean up anything, start with my inventory. I can’t read that garbage system you started using in my account book.”