Orconomics: A Satire (The Dark Profit Saga Book 1) Read online

  Orconomics

  A Satire

  by J. Zachary Pike

  Edited by Karin Cox

  Published by Gnomish Press, October 2014

  Copyright © 2014 J. Zachary Pike

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Gnomish Press, LLC

  P.O. Box 64

  Greenland, NH 03840

  [email protected]

  Prologue

  As a general rule, signs are too subjective a topic for polite company. Where one man sees a sign of blessings to come, another sees bad tidings, and a third is puzzled by the animated discussion his companions are having about an oddly shaped piece of toast. With so much disagreement regarding the meaning of portents, let alone whether there is a meaning at all, it’s seldom wise to discuss them. All things considered, however, it’s probably safe to say, without fear of controversy, that a crying bride is a bad sign.

  Naturally, there’s nothing foreboding about a gently weeping bride, her glistening tears only highlighting the joy of her radiant countenance, nor even a nervous bride softly weeping as the stress of anticipation and uncertainty and an overbearing mother-in-law-to-be leak out before the vows; such things may or may not be taken as signs, embraced or dismissed by reassuring friends and family with equal ease.

  A bride whose entire body shakes with wracking sobs, however, a bride whose choking wails send streams of spittle and snot to join the tears running down her face, is almost unquestionably an ill omen.

  Just such an unfortunate woman, if she was old enough to be called a woman, stood in a dimly lit stone room, her long white dress soaked in sweat and tears, her dark curls tangled and mussed from a night that should have left her without any tears to cry. Yet, standing in the cold, damp chambers next to a pathetic sliver of a groom—a milk-white, scrawny boy in an oversized suit with a mop of greasy hair that did too little to cover his pocked, ratty face—the bride found a sudden reserve of tears, and she heaved them forth with all the grief she had left.

  “Enough, Princess,” said the man officiating the ceremony. He wore royal purple robes bearing a silver skull motif that announced he was a wizard. A neatly trimmed beard implied he was meticulous, and his hard expression suggested the ceremony should continue with all haste, lest things become much more unpleasant. “Now, do you swear to stand by your husband, through good times and bad …”

  The groom gave his bride a clumsy smile and fumbled for her hand. She swatted his clammy paw away. “No!” she screamed, bursting into a renewed fit of sobs. “No! I won’t!”

  “Marja, you will marry my son,” the wizard said coldly. “The ceremony will be completed, you will take him back to the royal palaces, and he will be third in line to the throne. Quiet, boy!” he snapped, cutting off a comment from the groom. The boy nodded dumbly and looked at the floor.

  “He was supposed to come.” Marja sobbed quietly. “He was supposed to save me.”

  “What are you babbling about?” barked the wizard. “Nobody is saving anyone!”

  “Detarr Ur’Mayan!” called a voice like a trumpet. An armored foot kicked in the great oak doors of the chamber. A knight in shining armor followed.

  “Johan!” The princess shrieked in delight.

  “Oh, by the gods,” said the wizard with a sigh.

  Johan was the kind of physical specimen that inspires sculptors, clad in the kind of cutting-edge gear that inspires bankruptcy. Faint, sorcerous lights flickered in the runic etchings of magical armor that would cost a king’s ransom. A magical flame danced along the edge of a blade that would cost a king’s fortune. The torchlight gleamed from a perfect smile that would win it all back again.

  “Detarr Ur’Mayan!” he shouted again, crimson cape and golden hair streaming behind him as he strode into the room. “You have been declared a foe of the people of light. I come for the princess, and for your head.”

  Detarr’s lip curled into a condescending smile. “Have I? Well, I think you’ll find that I’m not so easily—”

  He was cut off by a sudden wail.

  All eyes turned to the young groom, who lurched for the back stairs and fled the room in an ungainly, knock-kneed sprint.

  “Did he just wet himself?” asked Princess Marja.

  The wizard rubbed his temples. “He’s been having trouble with … he just gets nervous,” he said, his voice heavy with paternal exasperation. “No matter! It’s a setback. Just a setback.”

  “It’s your last one.” Johan hefted his sword. “Come, sorcerer. To battle. To death.”

  Detarr made no reply; instead, he pulled his hands into an intricate pose. Thin strands of sorcerous light spread from his palms, and his fingers deftly wove them into an incandescent sphere of dark magic and malice. With a guttural cry, the wizard hurled the spell at the knight with all the force of a lightning bolt.

  He missed.

  One moment Johan was standing in the doorway, grinning confidently at Detarr, and the next, he was standing several paces to the left of where he should have been, smirking at the passing spell. A heartbeat later, he was directly in front of the wizard, moving with the fluid grace and speed of a shadow.

  “You—” gasped the startled wizard.

  “Me,” said Johan with a swift swipe of his sword. The air whispered like steel on silk, and Detarr’s head bounced on the floorboards. His body slumped to the floor a moment later.

  “Ha haaa!” Johan’s laugh was musical and resounding.

  “Johan!” The princess threw her arms around him. “You came!”

  “Indeed, Milady.” He gently lifted her into his muscular arms. “And now, I shall return you to your father’s palace.”

  Princess Marja gave a little laugh and tossed her curly auburn locks. “Oh, no rush.”

  “And you shall be married to your good prince!”

  “Or not,” said Marja suggestively.

  “Ha haaa!” Johan trumpeted once more. He strode triumphantly over the corpse of the fallen wizard and out the door, ending a very well known story and setting the stage for an even greater one.

  Chapter 1

  “And that’s how Johan saved the Princess Marja from the evil wizard,” said the old farmer.

  “Uh-huh,” said the warrior, without looking up from the long scroll of parchment in his hand.

  “And she married good Prince Handor, who’s King Handor now, long live his majesty!” The farmer was as gnarled and leathery as the turnips strewn around his field. He was the sort of rural soul who had more fingers than teeth—and he was missing several fingers.

  “I think we’re all familiar with the story of Johan,” said the warrior, marking his document with a weathered quill. He was a pot-bellied man, covered in furs and scraps of armor.

  “Didn’t ask for nothing in return, neither,” said the farmer.

  “He got a rather large estate in Andarun, as I recall.”

  The farmer got a sly look in his good eye. “Ah, but he didn’t ask for it, see? ’Cause he was a true hero.”

  “Well, I’m a professional one. Just pay your bill, sir.”

  The farmer snorted and gestured to the turnips haphazardly scattered around him. “You an’ yer so-called-professionals tore up half my fields!”

  “In pursuit of the reported Goblin threat,” said the hero. He made another mark on the document.

  “You burned down my barn flushin’ the varmints out!” The farmer pointed his three-fingered hand at a pile of smoldering
beams and charred hay. “Where’s the sense in that?”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t matter if it makes sense,” said the warrior. “It’s standard procedure.”

  “But you broke all my barrels!”

  “Standard procedure.”

  The farmer was aghast. “You looted my basement!”

  The hero shrugged. “Standard procedure.”

  “But … but …” The farmer grasped the hero’s arm and spoke in a low whisper. “But you and … and my daughter.” The nervous tittering of an infatuated young woman rang out from within the ramshackle farmhouse.

  A hint of a smile twitched at the warrior’s mouth. “Standard procedure,” he quipped.

  “But … you can’t … you …” The farmer reeled uncertainly.

  “Sir, you put out a contract to exterminate a nest of Goblins,” said the warrior, brandishing his document. The contract was written in exquisite script, and near the bottom of the page, the hero had checked off and initialed a number of tasks; below that, the farmer’s signature was scrawled among several others, surrounded by official seals and stamps. “The good people at Adventure Capital Incorporated accepted your contact and hired me and my associates to kill said Goblins, and outfitted us with the gear necessary to do so. And now that the Goblins are dead, I’m afraid it’s a little late to decide you don’t like the terms of your contract.”

  “I …” The farmer shook his head and stared out at his ravaged fields, littered with green corpses and ruined crops. “I thought the loot would pay your fee. Thought there’d be some left over for me, too. Heard that’s how a man can get rich nowadays. Find some foes, claim the contract, get a cut of the loot. Barten Mander had a griffin take his cow, and he bought hisself three acres with his cut of the hoard.”

  He turned back to the hero, his eyes filling with tears and futile rage. “And then you come in, you ruin my farm, you take all the food in my stores and you tell me that’s the loot! You rob me, give me half my stuff back, and charge me for it!”

  “No, the Goblins in your basement robbed you,” corrected the warrior. “We took it from them. That’s what loot is.”

  “It came from my house!”

  “Where else do you think loot comes from?” hollered the hero, finally losing patience with the old man.

  The farmer didn’t have a ready answer, but he was spared the trouble of finding one by a high-pitched scream. A lone Goblin, presumably startled by the warrior’s shout, burst from its hiding place in the charred ruins of the barn. Once the creature’s huge, panicked eyes caught sight of the warrior, it took off, sprinting in the opposite direction, clouds of soot billowing in its trail.

  “Bones!” swore the warrior.

  “Oh!” The farmer pointed to the hero and then to the fleeing Goblin, and then back to the hero again. “You ain’t done! You ain’t got ’em all! I ain’t payin’!”

  “Sir,” the hero tried, “the Goblins are all dead or dispersed. One or two stragglers—”

  “Contract says exterminate!” said the farmer, practically dancing. “Ye ain’t done!”

  “It doesn’t make sense to chase down every single Goblin,” protested the warrior. “They’re harmless alone.”

  The old farmer’s malicious grin displayed his limited collection of teeth. “Don’t have to make sense, do it?” he cackled. “It’s standard procedure.”

  There was no recourse for the hero. Fuming and sputtering curses, he hiked his belt up, tucked the contract into his rucksack, adjusted a couple of armor plates, and set off at a brisk trot after the Goblin.

  Goblins do not excel at much, but they are masters at tactical retreat. This particular Goblin was talented enough at fleeing that it took the hero more than an hour of tracking before he even had the creature in his sights. The Goblin led him off the old man’s farm, down a stream, through some scrubwood, and to the main road from Scoria to Andarun. The warrior had to chase it for a further mile down the road, until both were well past the point of stumbling exhaustion.

  Finally, the warrior was close enough to make a desperate swipe with his sword; the Goblin made an equally desperate attempt to dodge it. The maneuver sent the creature tumbling into a muddy ditch on the roadside, the warrior barreling after it. The hero raised his sword for the final blow. The Goblin fell backward onto a pile of mud and leaves—which immediately startled both combatants by sitting bolt upright and roaring like a demon.

  Goblins are famously unsavory creatures. A Goblin’s skin is pale green and oily, and reeks even when it’s clean, which is almost never. Their large yellow eyes constantly run, their mouths bristle with serrated teeth, and their stunted, piggy noses are always dribbling something disgusting. Like a bad hangover, a Goblin can make any experience much more unpleasant.

  Gorm Ingerson had the misfortune to discover new depths of displeasure when he awoke to a Goblin and a bad hangover combined. The creature was clambering over his face, and the dull, throbbing sobriety thundered in his skull with such fury that he sat up with a start and screamed. His shout startled the Goblin into screaming, too, which scared the fat Human enough to cause him to fall on his rear. Consequently, for a time, the three of them sat shrieking at each other in confusion.

  “What are you doing here?” hollered the fat man, pointing his sword at Gorm and the Goblin in turn.

  “Keep it down,” growled Gorm, gripping his forehead. “I was sleepin’ it off, before it jumped back on again.” His initial surprise was receding, but a dull pain was washing in to replace it. Gorm stood with slow, labored movements and tried to remember how much he had drunk. Last night was a blur; this morning was a smear.

  “You’re a Dwarf!” exclaimed the fat man.

  “What tipped ye off? The beard?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t see that under all the leaves and muck,” said the man, pointing at detritus that covered the Dwarf from head to toe. “It’s just that you’re really …” The warrior trailed off.

  Gorm and the warrior stared at the warrior’s hand, held level with the Dwarf’s head at about chest height.

  “Aye?” Gorm said softly.

  Some would say Dwarves are sensitive about their height, but not when Dwarves are within earshot. It would be more accurate, and much safer, to say that they enjoy vigorously defying stereotypes about height and prowess.

  “… speaking with a thick accent,” finished the warrior.

  “Ha. Right,” said Gorm, realizing that the Human looked like a professional hero. His mismatched armor had clearly been scavenged from a variety of foes, and his sword showed a faint glimmer of magic around its edges. Probably somewhere around the third rank. “Ye on a run?”

  The rank-three warrior’s demeanor warmed at Gorm’s use of heroic jargon. “That I am,” he said. “You a hero, then?”

  “Oh, I’ve done my fair share of quests and grinds. Used to be a big name in the guild. Still am, in some circles.” This was true, strictly speaking. Specifically, the Heroes’ Guild’s Internal Affairs and Enforcement departments maintained a keen interest in Gorm. “What’s the job?”

  “I’m harvesting greenskins for the points.”

  Gorm gave a short laugh and pulled a clump of leaves from his long rusty beard. “Well, ye don’t take ’em for the loot, right?”

  “Right,” guffawed Rank Three. “Not the best job I’ve had.”

  “Well, you take what comes.”

  Opportunism was the mark of a professional adventurer. When a potential payout passed a hero’s way, he was either ready or missed out. Gorm had spent too many nights clutching an empty belly to let a chance for a quick bit of gold pass him by—even if he was hungover and covered in mud.

  “Quite right. If you’ll excuse me, there’s just one left,” said Rank Three with a nod to the Goblin. The wretched creature was lame with exhaustion, crawling on its belly away from the two men. When it realized it was being watched, it squealed piteously and doubled its futile effort at escape.

  “This won’t take
but a moment,” said the hero, cleaning his sword. It was a nice-looking sword, at least twice enchanted. Valuable.

  “But here’s a thought,” said Gorm pointedly, pulling another clump of filth from his beard. “Why not let the little blighter live, an’ just say ye killed it? All of the benefits, none o’ the risk. Very economical, see?”

  “It’s the nature of being a professional hero.” He shrugged.

  Gorm could hear the warrior’s purse jingling.

  “Fight, kill, loot, get credit. Repeat until you’re dead,” said the hero.

  “See, I just skip the fightin’ and killin’, and forego the credit,” said Gorm. “Instead, I give the target a chance to hand over the loot.”

  Rank Three took off his helmet, which was easily worth forty giltin, to scratch his head. “I don’t see how that benefits you.”

  Gorm smiled. “I’d say ye’ll benefit more’n I will.”

  “Eh?”

  “This here’s your chance.”

  Realization spread over the Rank Three’s face, quickly giving way to anger. “That sounded like a threat,” he growled.

  “More of an offer.” Gorm pulled his old axe from the mud. It was a simple wedge of iron on a solid oak shaft wrapped in grimy leather grips. Old and plain and not the least bit magical, it was, however, Dwarven-made, which meant it was balanced and sharp. Gorm didn’t need much else. “I got a feelin’ I’m about to find a stash of loot. Don’t make a difference to me if I find it on the ground or on your corpse.”

  “Suggich?” asked the Goblin.

  The warrior’s eyes narrowed. “Dwarf, I don’t want to fight you.”

  “No, ye don’t,” agreed Gorm. He could see the warrior sizing him up, trying to gauge his rank.

  On the whole, professional heroes are remarkably prone to violence, and this is by necessity; a hero’s work consists almost exclusively of forcibly separating deadly monsters and nefarious villains from their valuables. A long history of armed conflict had shaped the Heroes’ Guild into a group that was remarkably effective at killing and remarkably poor at conflict resolution. Professional-versus-professional combat remained an ever-present threat to up-and-coming adventurers, especially those who couldn’t quickly determine whether or not they were outmatched.