Guild of Tokens by Jon Auerbach

Author:Jon Auerbach [Auerbach, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ARC Worlds Publishing
Published: 2018-06-14T04:00:00+00:00

8

Sufficiently advanced technology

“But war makes strange bedfellows and too many of our number threw in with the British. So the rest had no choice but to help the new Americans.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Steve hiccuped, his cheeks alcohol red.

“S-surely your parents showed you-BWAAAP!”

The sound and the smell of the loud burp made me cringe. I looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to us, but thankfully, we remained safely anonymous.

“Excuse me. Hooo. The grog is strong tonight, amirite? That needed to come out. Anyway, what was I saying?”

Steve pulled something out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth. As he chewed, his demeanor began to change almost instantaneously, the drunken sloppiness of the previous few minutes fading to the background and his cheeks returning to their normal color.

“You were saying that the Council was bringing in new blood to find more magic. What magic?”

“Oh. Right. You know about magic, yeah? Real magic? Not wave-your-wand-and-say-a-stupid-word magic?”

No, I didn’t. But please, continue.

“Ummm, sort of. My parents weren’t exactly the talkative type.”

“Oh. Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything then. But how awful of your own family to keep you in the dark like that! I mean, I told my daughter the truth when she turned six, although if I known how that was going to turn out, maybe I would have waited.”

“Your daughter wouldn’t by chance be an 11-year old girl with blond pigtails named Polly, would she?”

Steve’s face lit up with excitement and I instantly regretted making this connection.

“Yes, that’s her! How do you know her? Is she mentoring you or something? I told her that she should be helping people instead of trying to scam everyone. The little scoundrel. What a small world. I mean it’s not like there are thousands of Questers in the city, but still!”

Ah crap. I had just broken open the dam of this whole secret world and now we were going to get sidetracked into a discussion on how great little ‘ol Polly was. If Steve only knew how she had raided his stash of vervorium, then he might not be so eager to sing her praises. Which gave me an idea.

“No, nothing like that. I did a Quest for her a few weeks back. She wanted to test out a new game she was working on. Cute kid but…”

I stopped and reluctantly took a swig of the grog, causing me to shiver involuntarily as the liquid cascaded down my throat.

“But what? What did she do this time?”

“I don’t want to get her in trouble or anything. I mean she paid me what she said she would, but…no. I shouldn’t.”

“Yes, you should. You’ve already said enough to get her in trouble, so you might as well tell me so I know how serious this is.”

“OK. Fine. I’ll tell you. But you go first. Something about ‘real magic?’”

“Oh. Right. So. Magic. Maybe that’s a bad word for it. It’s not something you’re born with or can learn by practicing. That’s just some fairy tale that Hollywood cooked up to sell movie tickets.

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