Urz and his crew had done such a good job in building Jasmine’s little hot spring retreat that I felt obliged to visit the man and commend him on his work. So, the next morning, that’s exactly what I did. But, as it turns out, Urz is a hard man to track down. Every site I visited directed me to a different worksite. The foreman had a lot of projects to juggle and was busy burning through his boot soles running from one to the other to put out metaphorical – and sometimes literal – fires. Eventually, I did what I should have done from the beginning and used Environmental Mapping to track him.
“Master Rockland!” he said, as I approached.
After some congenial back and forth, I congratulated Urz on a job well done in both building Jasmine’s gift and in keeping it a secret.
“Seriously, Urz, I owe you one. More than one, if I’m being honest. She absolutely loves the work you did.”
“Couldn’t have done it without your guidance, Master Rockland,” he said humbly. Usually, I’d chalk this up to someone deferring credit to someone they considered to be above their station. Urz, however, was a truly humble man. Each and every time someone praised him for his work, he redirected the praise to someone else. Well, this time I wasn’t letting him get away with it.
“Nah, brother. I was just the idea guy. You pulled all this together and made it real.”
I held a hand up as he was about to interject.
“Tell your workers they did a great job, too. I know everyone really put in a lot of effort – especially when it comes to keeping Jasmine in the dark about the whole thing. Don’t think I’m unaware of how difficult that was on all of you. I’m serious when I say that I owe you, now.”
The man had the look of a trapped racoon. He honestly did not know what to do with praise he was unable to shield himself from.
“I…well…thank you,” he stumbled. After clearing his throat, he managed to collect himself enough to make a graceful landing. “I’m just glad the Matriarch is pleased. That was the goal.”
“Indeed, it was,” I agreed.
“Oh, before I forget again, young Miss Juniper has been asking after you. Apparently, it’s a matter of some urgency.”
I nodded.
“Thanks. I’ll go find her now…assuming she’s not doing ghosty things. And thanks again for your hard work, Urz. I’ll catch you later.”
Juniper was not nearly so difficult to track as Urz had been. She was walking with Jimmy as he delivered a few packages to Moira. The Eidolon society seemed to be regaining some semblance of normalcy. They were working together, bartering, and doing the actual work of getting their town up and running in my absence. I would need to go around and give them the same speech I’d just given Urz, I realized. This town was always for them, but it wasn’t like I was nothing more than a simple neighbor in this. Every step they took in building up the town added points to The Plains of Eidolon, pushing it ever closer to its next upgrade. That was still a ways off, but still. They deserved a little acknowledgement, if nothing else.
“June!” I called, when I was within earshot.
She stopped at Moira’s door and ushered Jimmy inside. The lad waved happily in my direction as he stepped through the doorway with one armful of packages for the apothecary. Juniper held the door open for me, as well, and tipped an imaginary cap at me as I walked inside.
“Top o’ the morning to ye, yer govnership!” she said, doing a slightly offensive imitation of Moira’s accent.
“I don’t remember holding any elections for town governance,” I said.
“No need for votin’ Master Rockland,” Moira called from behind a small counter as she opened the packages Jimmy had given her. “You own the land, so you get the responsibility for her. Now come here and let me look at your fingernails.”
I did as I was told. Who was I to argue with a nine-hundred-year-old ghost?
“Ach. A bloody mess. Jimmy, be a dear and fetch me tools.”
Jimmy also didn’t argue.
“So, June…Urz tells me you have something you wanted to talk about.”
“I do,” she said. “It’s about Therin. We owe him a body, Rocky. You didn’t forget that, right?”
I hadn’t, actually. I’d thought about it several times, wracking my brain to come up with some sort of solution for the poor, trapped soul. I came up empty each time. I wasn’t sure what they really expected me to do, in the first place. Who was I, Dr. Frankenstein? I didn’t exactly have a pile of bodies I could offer the man. Even more so, I had no idea how to stuff him into one if I DID have one laying around.
“No, I haven’t forgot. But I don’t really know what to do about it. I’m not a sorcerer, June. I do have one idea…though he may not like it.”
I yelped as Moira plucked a hangnail, and she slapped my hand.
“Be still. You’ll only make it worse.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s the idea?” June asked.
“Hmm?”
“The idea. For Therin.”
“Oh, right!” I said. “Sorry, I got distracted by this little sadist over here.”
Moira huffed at my jab but didn’t interject.
“The idea is to basically recreate the conditions he was already used to inside the forge. We can have Urz try to construct an automaton for him.”
“You’re right. I’m not sure he’s going to like that. He only recently got out of a machine, Rocky…now you want to throw him right back inside of one?”
“True,” I said, “but he wasn’t exactly given a choice in that instance. I’m talking about giving him an automaton that he has a hand in designing from the ground up. He’ll have a say in every aspect of it. Do you have him with you? You could ask and see what he thinks. Nobody’s forcing him into anything here…it’s entirely up to him. At the very least, it could be a temporary solution until we find a better one.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t just leave him lying around on the kitchen table by himself all day.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the crystal where we’d captured Therin’s soul during our ‘fight’ with Forge Wraith. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a fight…but I was fine with that. The damn thing had been huge and was perhaps the scariest creature I’d ever seen, aside from Jasmine. Besides, the best way to win a fight is to avoid fighting altogether. If I can take down an enemy with my brains rather than my bullets, I’d take that path every day of the week. And – while the guy was still a massive dick – I had to give credit where it was due. The System knew the type of fighter I was before I did. He called it from the very beginning.
Juniper appeared to commune with the crystal for a few minutes, and I took that opportunity to check a box off my to-do list. Moira was finishing up with the nails on my second hand as I leaned over and muttered to her in a hushed tone.
“You know, Jimmy’s not the only one who has a package for you.”
She stopped what she was doing and looked at me, aghast. I wiggled my eyebrows at her. She scrunched her nose in disgust. I turned my expression innocent.
“Unless, of course, you don’t want all the ingredients I harvested for you in the northern forests, that is.”
She sighed and shook her head.
“Rockland Azariah Hall, ye’d be the death of me if I weren’t dead already. Just put it on the table, there,” she said with a wave of her hand.
I looked at the table, then back at her and shrugged. She’d asked for it. I emptied my entire inventory of every wildflower, weed, herb and other ingredient I’d collected during my trip to the north. The contents flowed out of me and onto the tabletop, piling ever higher before spilling over onto the floor behind the table. The stoat suddenly popped up out of the front of my duster and chirped happily. She started unloading her inventory as well, and the pile more than doubled. We completely buried Moira’s counter in a pile of apothecarial ingredients by the time we’d finished.
Moira was not amused. Jimmy was, though. He snickered as his head poked up out of the flower mound.
“Alright. Enough. Get ye away from here, all of ye. Out. Out! Shoo!”
She hurried the four of us out of the apothecary and got to work on collecting and sorting the mess we’d left for her.
“Huh,” I said from just outside the door. “Well, how do you like that? Not so much as a ‘thank you, you really went above and beyond.’ Some people are never pleased.”
Jimmy laughed and shook his head. A few flowers dropped from his hair. He took his leave to get back to the never-ending work of supply chain and logistics management. Juniper was still in communion with the crystal. Her eyes were blank and pure white, and I was fairly certain that she had to actually enter the crystal to speak with Therin. I waited patiently, scratching Scorch behind the ears until Juniper came back to her senses. Her eyes fluttered and slowly regained their natural blue irises. She looked at me and smiled.
“Therin was more receptive than we thought he’d be,” she announced. “He said that he’d been tied to that contraption for so long that being put inside another one that he actually had control over would feel like going back home. When I told him that you wanted his input on designing the automaton, he was over the moon. His only stipulation was that there be a binding contract involved.”
“Ugh. No thank you. I don’t need that kind of drama again.”
“What?”
“I signed a contract of binding with the stoat when she evolved. I don’t want to get accidentally married again. Nothing against Therin personally, but he’s not exactly my type.”
“Oh!” Juniper looked down at the stoat, only now noticing her little head poking out of my jacket. She held her hand out and Scorch happily clambered up onto it.
“Oh, MY. You’ve grown!” Juniper was studying all the changes Scorch had been through – the snow white coat, the lengthened body, the fresh set of legs. “You are gorgeous!”
“Sure, NOW,” I said with a shudder. “Just be glad you didn’t have to watch the change when it happened.”
Scorch barked at me and Juniper laughed.
“Wait,” she said. “What’s this about accidental marriage? You didn’t sleep with another orc, did you?”
“No…like I said, I signed a contract of binding with Scorch when she evolved.”
“…and?” she asked, apparently still waiting for the actual explanation.
“That’s it,” I shrugged. “Scorch told me that I agreed to her being my lifelong familiar and so that meant we were married. She actually made me feel a little dumb about not knowing that already when I agreed to the terms.”
“And you believed her?” Juniper asked, incredulously.
“He’s not the brightest human in the world, is he?” Scorch asked.
“Apparently not. That was mean Scorch,” Juniper said, trying and failing to keep herself from laughing.
“Wait. So I’m not married to Scorch?”
“Of course not, Rocky. I can’t believe you fell for that.”
“You little shit,” I said, reaching for the stoat. She nipped at me and then scurried up Juniper’s arm to sit on her shoulders.
“Judas,” I accused.
“Don’t be mad at me, Rockland,” Scorch said, defensively. “It’s not my fault I’m such a good actor and you’re so gullible.”
I covered my eyes with one hand and groaned. Outsmarted by a weasel. Shrek was never going to let me live this down. Although, he didn’t have much room to talk, given how many hands of cards he’d lost to Scorch before she’d even evolved.
“Alright, alright. Enough of that,” I said, grumpily. “Juniper, tell Therin that I also have an idea for what role he could play in the town. I promised him some sort of employment as well, if I recall. It’s kind of a big ask, though, so we’re going to have to discuss it if there’s any way for me to actually speak to him in person. Also, I have a favor to ask of him. There’s something I need him to look at.”