On The Wire

Back in Laios, I’ve fallen into a terrible slump. The last two days have been a painful blur of paperwork, repeated inquiries from the College asking me about my son and the numerous headaches that followed them.

I’m sitting at my desk with my face buried in my hands. A warm glass of whiskey, left for hours, rests beside me in between stacks of papers. I just need a few moments of peace.

Someone politely knocks on my door. In comes Leia and Beatrix. Hue didn’t even try to warn me this time; maybe he feels bad for me. I don’t even bother to lift my head up.

“John, are you feeling alright?”, Leia asks, with a mixture of sweetness and genuine concern.

I lift myself up and sink back into my chair, groaning.

“No, not really. Please tell me I’m not headed to another interrogation at the College. Anything but that.”

“Well...” she trails off.

I peek open one eye.

“Actually, Hue had some ideas as to how we can find David. He asked us to bring you to him when you’re ready.”

Some ideas, huh? I’ll take anything at this point. Fredericus pokes his head in the door. The instant he tries to open his mouth, I grab a folder of homicide cases and wave it at him, with a stern look in my eyes. He sheepishly comes to the desk, takes them, and shuffles out of the room.

The three of us file into Hue’s surveillance cave of screens. We all brace ourselves for his unwanted telepathy.

To our surprise, a little, quaint radio voice emits from the desk in front of us. Not telepathy! His oversized office chair spins around. In it sits, of course, the tiny pink slime I’m familiar with, but next to him is some sort of wired speaker contraption with leads that plug directly into his back.

“John, I figured this was a time to make you more comfortable, given the stress, so behold, one of my hobbyist inventions. The microphone!”, the little slime announcer beams with joy.

I almost want to say “You didn’t invent the microphone”, but looking at it more closely, those wire leads seem to just terminate inside him without any logical or physical reason for their being there. The last thing I ever want to learn is slime anatomy; I decide to just roll with this.

“Well, Hue, what do you have?”

“Since it’s clear David isn’t in the capitol, I expanded my search to nearby cities, then nations, and then the nations beyond those. For brevity’s sake, I only did searches through the live feed. And… I found him, I think.”

Leia and Beatrix are shocked; I lean in closer.

“Where?”

“Arctera. In THEIR capitol, no less.”

Beatrix turns to walk out of the room, Leia immediately grabs her arm and stops her. A short back-and-forth occurs and she’s eventually convinced to stay. I suppose her job’s on the line, but I didn’t like this whatsoever.

“What is Arctera? Why is it so important that you’d try to walk out on us?”, I ask all three of them.

Leia gives me the quick rundown. Enemy nation, holy war, millions of mages and soldiers have perished. Hometown of the slimes, orcs, goblins, and some demihumans. Hue takes this moment to interrupt her.

“And hometown of the Slimes means...”

Leia just stares at him. This is no time for academic lessons.

“That Slimes run the place!” He sounds happy about this, for some reason. National pride?

“Not just any Slimes, but the 12 elders, the Grand Council. They make the laws and rulebooks for all Slimes. In fact, our head Dwarf might be able to tell you a bit about the capitol, considering he was born there.”

There’s a knock from outside, on the lower third of the door. Maahnn pokes his head in, and is assuredly surprised to see all three of us in Hue’s suite.

“Tell me about Arctera, Maahn. Especially the capitol.” Straight to the point.

“Well… sir… It’s the most unpleasant place in which I’ve ever lived.”

I raise an eyebrow. Why?

“They had me wielding tools at 4 years old. Full time employment in a weapons mill by 7. And managing a team of children at 10. All dwarves, worked nearly to death in back breaking conditions.”

Leia leans in and whispers to me. “According to their religion, they’re only allowed to start working at 10, under a master apprentice, in one trade supervised by dwarves with strict education.”

“So”, I probe, “They used you all as child slave labor? Did the work have anything to do with Dwarven trades?”

“No, sir. They paid us with gruel. My parents paid a hefty bribe to smuggle me away so that I wouldn’t die there.”

Now I’m really starting to get concerned.

“Was life like that for everyone, or just dwarves?”

“Everyone, sir. The human children would just get tossed into the smelters if they collapsed. They worked them alongside us, knowing full-well that they could never match our pace on the given rations, especially as children. Of the fifty human children I met during that time, four had survived long enough to see me leave.”

So… let me get this straight. A horrible, run-down, corrupt society that unilaterally uses child slave labor like a human meatgrinder… and it’s run by Slimes. Not just any Slimes, but the head honchos. Fantastic.

“That’s not all, John.”, Hue interjects. “I’ve compiled some footage I’ve found from David’s escapades in the city. You’re going to want to see this.”

A big screen pops up in front of us all. First, a tavern. He’s being paraded around by a bunch of drunkards like a hero. I can’t help but smirk. He is my kid, after all.

Then, a walking shot. We see David run over to a group of guards kicking some poor soul on the ground. One by one, they die gruesomely in a matter of seconds, then vanish into thin air. He rescued a little elf girl.

A pang of pain envelopes my chest. An upswell of pride, too, but a lot of pain, as he heals her injuries and walks off with her. The screen cuts to her happily perched on his shoulders, walking through an alley, and I get a good look at his clothes. Fancy adventurer’s light armor. Where on earth did he get that?

He dropkicks the snot out of some skeevy looking guy who bumped into him. Knocked him out of his shoes, no less. Impressive. The feed later shows him return, trying to pick his shoes back up. They won’t budge, no matter how hard he pulls on them. People kick the guy as they walk by.

“Now, John, there are some concerning aspects to this footage, besides where he is, physically.”

“For one, if we slow down the footage, he uses three different types of magic without incantations on those guards, then teleports them silently. Then, a fifth type on that ruffian. Or rather, his shoes, more like.”

“How is it possible that he’s mastered these different types of magic so quickly? Did he study it before he arrived here?”

Everyone’s looking at me like I did something. This isn’t my fault!

“Well...”, I try to explain. “David has always been a… a generalist. Or rather, a renaissance man. No matter what I put in front of him, he’d master it, get bored with it, and move on to the next thing. He learned 5 different musical instruments, and went to school for one. He competed in martial arts. Once he gave up on school, he’d sit there and read physics papers, or have long philosophical discussions with his friends, or read history books. He’s much smarter than I am.”

“To be honest, being gifted in magic is probably like opening the entire world to him. I’ve seen how passionate some of you are for just the magic you’re good at, constantly refining it, but for him, he’s probably going to learn all of it, just because he can.”

“But what about his motivations, John? What is driving him to learn all these types of magic so quickly?”, Beatrix asks. She’s in attorney mode. Uh oh.

“Uh… He did say to me a couple of times that, if he were made emperor of the world, he’d ‘run things a whole lot differently’”

Everyone’s now looking at me like I just said the worst possible thing they’ve ever heard.

“Wait! Wait! He was joking. He said that when he was in our world. The circumstances here are different, there’s no way that he would...” I trail off.

Oh, crap. The circumstances here ARE different. That’s the problem. I need to stick up for him, quickly. Beatrix has made a few, silent steps towards the door again.

“Listen. He’s my son. I know him. Deep down, he’s not evil. If the problems in Arctera are so obvious, he will have undoubtedly figured it out by now. Right now, he’s a rogue agent with no connection to this government.”

No one is looking at me. In the background is video of David making an Orcish king kneel at his feet. The atmosphere in the room is… it’s my fault. God damnit.