tedious fiction

fiction from tedious empire

[tediousfiction]

Currency

So the good news is that we did find the treasure. And the better news is that, as far as I can tell it was all there with nothing degraded or stolen. And the best news is that none of us got hurt finding it.

You know, that's one of the things I love about you. You're so perceptive.

Well, it turns out that our friend the miser was a more pious man than anyone ever suspected.

I wish. Most holy artifacts still have most of their power.

Temple coins. Piles and piles of temple coins. Impossible to counterfeit, and accepted freely at any bastion of the appropriate faith in return for just about any miracle you can ask for. Perfect for crossing borders, and almost never debased in value...

Well, the theft of the world and the depowering of every major priesthood was an outlier and shouldn't really be counted.

[tediousfiction]

Flower Child

I wouldn't if I were you.

She's from the city of flowers. You can tell from her hair, and the emblem on her pauldron.

Throughout the city and lining the river on either side are what look like fields of flowers, spun from glass and gold. Each is the height of this inn, and its petals spread farther than the roof above our heads. And nestled in between the stems of these flowers are what look like beehives.

So the hives are kilns, and the flowers are blessed to gather the heat of the Sun and keep the kilns hot, and the land warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I think they keep the air sweet as well, but I’ve never had a chance to really study them.

They never cool off, but there are seasons, just like there are for the Sun. Everything from dried timber to iron has its season. Even adamantite has its day on the solstice, but I hear its a rare year there's more than a fistful of ore to smelt for the ceremony.

So the sun does the heavy work, but there are still bellows.

For at least two years. Every youth with two arms and the strength to work the smallest of the pots does. All day long, twice a week, singing hymns of blessing the whole time while the elders lead them. Only resting, eating, or drinking when their voices begin to waver and someone else is sent to take their place.

The ritual refines their bodies as well as it does the ore. And you can't forget the years she spent in the militia before running off to be a mercenary if she's got that armor.

Her arms can melt steel. I’ve seen your sword. It won’t last.

[tediousempire]

Feverish Shopping, follow-up

America, I say this as politely as I can. All y'all need to calm the fuck down.

I take two days off, Trump gives a speech, and I come back to a 12 hour nightmare shift. On a Thursday. No one goes grocery shopping on Thursday.

And before you ask, yes we’re out of toilet paper. The last of it sold about fifteen minutes after the store opened. And yes, it really is silly and rude and inconsiderate of everyone to be hoarding the things you want. And they’re all totally overreacting. And by the way, what brings you here on a Thursday morning? Because I’ve known your face for years, and you never shop on Thursday morning.

Look, I know it sucks, but in the ordinary course of events we keep at most a week’s supply of most goods in the store. Hell, for things like toilet paper that come in five or six days a week, we shoot for a 2-3 day supply. And our back room? It’s about as large as one of our aisles. And the warehouse is more of a staging area than a long-term storage facility. Which is why they were only able to send us a one day supply of paper this morning.

Calm down. Stop hoarding. This just in time supply chain business our economy is married to only works if we can predict demand well ahead of time.

Also, for the three of you that actually read my blogs, basically everything but the advice column is going on an irregular schedule until further notice.

[tediousfiction]

Second Chance

Hmmn, these are all the documents?

I thought the weather was good this year, did something go wrong with the bladeroot harvest?

We've couriers through here at least twice a week all year. Why am I only hearing about this now?

If all we needed you to do was collect money, we'd just send a patrol by once a year. Your job is to help us manage the district.

And what's next year's harvest going to look like now that half our farmers had to skip out on buying a new plow or ox just to cover the tax? And the year after that?

No. What's done is done. Now we need to worry about what comes next.

There's a group of apprentices that are just starting to learn earthwork sorcery. We'll have them work on that canal the village councils down there have been hounding us about for their training.

Not by itself, but the spell brats all spend money like water so that'll help. We'll offer a few loans too.

Who said you aren't being punished?

Who do you think gets to babysit the brats for the three months they're down there? On top of your normal workload, of course.

[tediousfiction]

Skip

Distracted, and a bit intoxicated. No story this week.

[tediousfiction]

City of Heroes

Remember when I told you about the types of dungeons?

Yeah, they've actually got a live breach.

Some bubble world of planewalkers that got knotted up in the Astral.

Who knows? But it isn't a good idea to go there.

Well the nation it’s in is using it for a mine inside a quarantined city. Adventurers can enter, but there's a massive tax to leave.

Oh there's plenty of money to be made, and plenty to spend it on too. But don't plan on walking away with anything but your skin and a lesson learned if you go.

That is if you're lucky.

[tediousfiction]

Graduation

Are you going to make your flight?

I'll skip it and catch up with you there. My teleport authorization from the last lecture I did there is still good.

They might after this, but they're still trying to talk me into doing a series on the stability of nested bubble universes.

Have you warned her about just how many offers she's going to start getting?

It's a different world than you grew up in. She's used to something kinder, there's no reason to let all of reality slap her in the face at once.

And I'm her grandpa, why wouldn't I worry?

And you have no idea how much sleep I lost every time you ran off for your dungeon diving.

Haeri's already there. We're going on a trip after the graduation.

She'll stop by, but you know she's not big on the family stuff.

[tediousfiction]

Progress

Looks like the feint worked. Have them start pulling back, but make it look like they're hunkering down for a last stand. We'll start the strike in two days.

Don't jynx it, but yeah. That's the idea.

We've been able to hold the advantage in our divinations and communication spells this entire campaign. It's like they're constantly stuck fighting last week's war. Don't underestimate the difference that makes.

They'd love that. If we actually faced them head on, army for army, with no tricks it'd be the end for us.

No. The golem suits and dragon-sorcerers help us try to keep up with their patchwork zombies and liches, but they've got the edge in numbers and strength. Especially if it comes around to a second battle.

You remember a few years back? That vampire hunting trip we took?

This is why.

Last life, as I was dying I learned that she was the one that centralized their intelligence gathering spellwork. And she had to fight hard to do it.

We've got the best sorcerers, druids, and mystics of half the free and living nations of the world working together. They've got four or five clever liches or other horrors for each army. It was never a contest.

Honestly, this is more progress than I've seen in a lifetime since Siira reverse engineered what Iris did to me and invented the dragon-sorcerer pact.

Still don't know what we're going to do about the Thief, but this might just be the end of his cult as a military threat.

[tediousfiction]

Normal

Well, I mean, I guess I could teach you a really annoying song you could sing to yourself so you can’t even hear what they’re asking you.

It’s just that they use a really insidious spell for interrogations there. The only real strategy that works is to not even give them a chance to ask you anything.

It’s not really a charm, that’d be illegal. It doesn’t force you to do anything, technically.

It’s called Normalize. And it works like this: if I ask you to do anything while the spell is in effect, and you do it, that action becomes normal for you.

Pay attention.

What was that? Answer me.

You already lost.

I told you to pay attention, and you did. So if I was using the spell, any time I want you to listen to or watch something, I can just ask and you won’t refuse because paying attention when I ask you to is just normal for you now.

So now you can’t ignore me anymore. And since you responded when I told you to answer me, you have to answer me one way or another.

Next I’ll ask for your name and tell you to tell me the truth.

You see where I’m going with this?

Not quite yet. You see, you don’t have any reason not to tell me your name. You do have a reason to keep your secret. On the other hand, now you can’t lie if I ask you not to, you can’t ignore me, and you can’t avoid answering me. You might still avoid giving up your secrets, but you’re running out of room. 

[tediousfiction]

Diagnostics

Let me guess, the blades spin so fast you can barely hold it down right?

Yeah, it’s a pretty common issue.

Lots of former wizards are making a living these days as artificers. That’s half the reason you can find household goods powered my magic in the first place. But being good at chucking spells and being a skilled artificer are very different things.

No, I can fix it pretty easy. It’ll just take me a couple days. 30 silver good?

If you’re going to start trying to bargain me down every time, I’m going to have to start trying to gouge you for real. Now is 30 silver good or do you want to play stupid games?

The problem is that the maker didn’t really consider the how the varying thickness of the veil between the planes might effect their enchantment. The blades are tuned to spin as fast as they can with the power the blender can tap into from the astral plane. Whoever made this tuned the blade speed by adjusting the size of the thing’s tap.

Not without deconstructing the entire enchantment. That’d take a few weeks at least and we’d be talking gold or even platinum instead of silver. You’d be better off asking me to build you a new blender from scratch.

We got lucky, and the tap’s too big. I’ll layer a shroud over the whole thing that pulls it just a bit farther from the Astral. Don’t even have to bother with the core enchantment at all.

[tediousfiction]

Inheritance Issue

Yeah... she's not a prostitute. For one thing, this town's too small to support full-time pros. The people looking for a bit of fun or to set up an arrangement are going to be at the tavern, and they'll be pretending to be drop dead drunk at just the scent of ale.

Right. You said she showed up, looked through the room, saw you, and then came up and called you by some other man's name and tried to pull you home with her, right?

So that's her husband's name, and he must have died in the last year without leaving any kids behind. She's publicly claiming that her husband's spirit brought you to town to clear his regret over leaving her childless. She'll probably do it once or twice more if she's still interested.

No. If you follow her home, the whole town is going to expect you to be her husband until you leave. If you cheat on or neglect her, they'll decide you were deceiving her and treat you like a rapist. They'll at least beat you a bit and run you out of town, probably take everything you own but your clothes. Maybe worse.

Inheritance. Around here the husband's family provides the land and the buildings to a new couple and the wife's provides the livestock and tools or other starter goods. A widow or widower with a kid keeps it all, without a kid it gets split back to the families after the year of mourning.

Has to be an outsider. Some men of the right age, especially young hunters and merchants looking to set down roots, travel town to town hoping to catch someone's eye. Soldiers coming back from war do the same if they don't have a fiancee waiting.

His spirit has a year to clear his regret, then she'll mourn for a year either way. You'd have to go away while she mourns. If you want to come back and court her after that, that's up to you. It's pretty common from what I hear though. Why are you asking though? It's not like you to fall for a woman at a glance.

If she gets pregnant it's his kid, not yours. And it'll be the kid's inheritance. Your own kids can get something too, but it comes out of what you bring and build yourself.

You're forgetting just how much power there is in traditions and rituals. I can just about guarantee her child will have its father's eyes.

[tediousfiction]

Bling

Hold up, the lich had gemstone teeth? Like diamonds?

You’re sure you saw at least three different kinds gems?

Think hard. Was its skull gilded? Or plated with any precious metal for that matter?

Anything in the eye sockets? It’d have to be transparent, but...

Well so much for this life then. I have to switch over to research to salvage what I can, but if there’s anything fun you want to do before the end it’s probably time to start planning it.

He’s breached the seventeenth sphere. What you destroyed was probably a simulacrum of a simulacrum. He certainly has higher priorities, but the safe money is that he’ll get around to murdering us all before we can prepare a defense against him.

What? No. I just know him, no other lich has taste that garish.

[tediousfiction]

Reality

Note to self, apparently clothing counts as direct contact with the lotus-eater machine.

[tediousfiction]

Skipping

Busy. Back next year. Maybe on the 1st, maybe not, we’ll see.

[tediousfiction]

Victory

Huh.

That was easier than I was expecting.

[tediousfiction]

Starter Home

You should go with the mushroom.

I'm not telling you to eat it, just to build your house in it.

I can spell up a two story shroom for you this afternoon, standard first tier pricing with the discount since I'm onsite already. Then it's just digging out your rooms, bricking in the ovens, fireplace, and chimney, and laying down a floor.

Harder to burn than wood, warmer and safer in a quake than stone. What's not to like?

They'll get used to it. Invite them over for tea once you move in. And make sure to hire local for all the finishing work.

[tediousreviews]

Skipping again

It’s Thanksgiving week here and my day job is at a grocery store. So if you think I’m going to put any effort whatsoever into my blogs this week… you can fill in your own rude and offensive statement about your lack of intelligence and poor grasp on reality.

I’ll be back next week. And just a heads up, I’m probably going to skip around Christmas too, for the same reason.