Orconomics_A Satire by J. Zachary Pike

Author:J. Zachary Pike [Pike, J. Zachary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gnomish Press LLC
Published: 2014-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

Tuomas polished the blade of his shortsword vigorously. The enchanted blade crackled with sorcerous lightning that singed his knuckles, but he kept scrubbing long after he could see his reflection in the runesteel. He’d been cleaning his gear since the cart had rolled away, leaving his team to their task. His armor and shield were already polished to a mirror finish. His boots were immaculate, and his cloak, unsullied.

He told the others that his rigorous cleaning regimen was a mark of professionalism, but they just laughed and shook their heads. Everyone else in the company had been a licensed thug for years and recognized a nervous rookie when they saw one.

There was a lot to be nervous about. Tuomas had been a goon for his entire career, up until now. Gooning was good work, if a little dull. Easy. Simple. Low risk. Not like thuggery. Thugs had to deal with heroes, which never seemed to turn out well for the thugs in all the bards’ stories. Sure, there were the great thug legends, mighty individuals who took down hundreds of heroes during their tenure with the Thugs’ Union, but they were vastly outnumbered by the vast throng of thugs who had promising careers cut short: stabbed, incinerated, melted, or otherwise violently ended by professional heroes. Even with the venerable Damrod the Eye fighting by their side, and the fact that their marks were rumored to be a bunch of newbloods led by a few washed-up drunks, there was a good chance someone on the crew wasn’t going to survive the ambush.

Of course, that assumed they survived until the ambush. Tuomas had been told it was at least a day away, which meant spending nights in the middle of the Myrewood. Nights waiting in dank caves while blackness closed in around them. Nights fighting whatever terrors skittered from the darkness. Nights spent sitting next to …

Tuomas shook his head and resumed polishing his blade with renewed vigor.

“Problem, kid?” Hogar asked him. The senior thug was a wiry man whose face boasted more scars than teeth.

“I just don’t know why we had to do the ambush in the Myrewood.”

“Same reason we do everything,” laughed Hogar. “To avoid paperwork.”

The death of any hero, even a rank-one fighter, prompted an automatic guild investigation to determine who was responsible. This was usually less a matter of blame than fiscal responsibility, but when thugs were involved, the Heroes’ Guild went to extra lengths to investigate the killing of its members. The law left a gray area around thugs and heroes fighting or slaying each other, but every thug knew that some jobs were of a darker shade. In those cases, it was best to head off any inquiry by outside authorities.

The trick was that the degree of proof that guild coroners and medical investigators required was inversely proportional to the degree of risk in the investigation. When a hero was found dead in the street, a full forensic autopsy was usually needed to satisfy the guild’s

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