Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 23: New Visitors, Part 1(1)
I was having a lovely dream when the end-of-the-world siren went off, which I thought was very unfair on the world's part.
Just for clarity, I meant that it was unfair that the world needed to start ending during my dream, not that it was unfair that the world had given me a lovely dream. Which is actually a pretty nonsensical statement when you think about it...'give' is an agenty word. If there is a gift then there must be a giver, a painting a painter, etc etc insert argumentum imperito ab creatio here. Regardless, the world isn't an agent, secret or otherwise. (Although I would watch the hell out of
Secret Agent Earth, a sci-fi show where all the actors are sapient astronomical phenomena. Aldebaran, leader of the Taurus Cabal, a secret underground organization that makes its money by selling probiotics to planets that have found themselves unable to stop being sterile. Messier87, the robotic black hole who rules the Virgo Cluster with a gravitic fist. (What's a robotic black hole? No idea, that's for the scriptwriters to figure out. Also their problem: How does an astronomical phenomenon emote / speak dialogue / etc?))
Anyway, the end-of-the-world siren was a thing that Leaf originally set up to warn about infusion failures, attacks by foreign nations or rampaging chakra golems, etc etc, but since those weren't as much of an issue these days the siren got taken over by the Church of Youth, who used it to call the faithful to prayer whenever the pews sat empty for too long. The court case "Most of the Population of Leaf vs Sonic Terrorists Who Want People to Attend Their Ceremonies" was still ongoing.
I yawned and stretched and bathed and ate and brushed and did the other normal morning things. I didn't bother exercising; I didn't need that since I'd figured out how to take proper advantage of my reality-warping spreadsheet powers. They had started off with showing a set of numbers like 'Chakra Reserves', 'Taijutsu', and so on, but I eventually talked the powers (or my subconscious, or the GM, or the author, or whomever made them work) into providing more detail. Now I also saw weight, percent body fat, and a few more things. As with the other entries on the spreadsheets, those things could be tweaked with just a few quick taps on the ol' arrow buttons. Anytime I noticed a bit of a deskpilot donut around my middle I would downarrow my body fat percentage, thereby forcing fat to instantaneously convert into a denser form (i.e. muscle or bone) in order to keep my weight constant. I'd always had trouble actually gaining weight (a fact that made Earl grumble whenever I mentioned it) but this was working like a charm and so I was eating all the sweets and fats I could stuff in. I'd gained twelve pounds and a six-pack since we came here three months ago and Earl's head was about to explode. It was kept unexploded solely due to the fact that I'd offered the same service to him and Val. I was working on convincing the spreadsheets to show age as well; I figured that Earl wouldn't mind rolling the odometer back a few years. I would have to discuss with the others whether to do the same for Hiruzen and/or Jiraiya. (I sure was glad that Jiraiya was alive and not a smoldering heap of ashes somewhere! Boy he was a lot of fun to interact with. Every time he was around things were more fun. Yup. Sure was glad.)
Tower Square was currently occupied by a giant mob that had gathered to listen in horrified fascination to the
screaming argument debate between Toadists and Youthers, the commencement of which had been the occasion for the world-ending siren. Each side of the
incipient riot debate was represented by a pair of preachers. Intriguingly, it was the younger member of each that was doing the
arguing debating while his senior yelled from the sidelines.
"Nope," I said, turning my steps elsewhere. The siren had finally stopped, my curiosity was sated, and I felt no need to partake of the madness.
"Hey! Mr Oli! Mr Oli! I make you bao, Mr Oli! Nice hot bao, just for you!"
I smiled and hurried to where Ms Tanaka was waving frantically from behind her food cart. The long-widowed old woman operated a roadside cart in which was a tiny but efficient kitchen ruthlessly optimized for the production of doughy goodness—vat of boiling oil, vat of dough, jars of pastes and oils and meats and other items suitable for filling. The woman in question had a shriveled-apple face, two remaining teeth, and a permanent smile. One of her greatgranddaughters had been born sickly and I had uparrowed her Physique to get her back to par. It had required that she spend half a day riding piggyback on me through the Forest of Death while I fought off various monsters so that she could earn enough XP that my powers had something to work with, but it all came out well in the end. As a result there was no escaping Ms Tanaka: If I did not seek her out for at least one bao per day she would track me down and force them on me. It wasn't a hard sell; her food was delicious and she was delightful.
"Hello, Mama T," I said, taking the bao from her with a smile. They were each a third the size of my fist, pale and fluffy dough wrapped around a central filling, and depending on what was in there one could legitimately debate whether they should be considered pastries or donuts. "How are the smols?"
"They're doing well, thank you, Mr Oli," she said, the wattage on the smile increasing until the air around her shimmered with pure joy. "Little Kaya started at the Academy yesterday thanks to you. They say she has a big chakra system and will make a powerful ninja!"
"I'm so glad." I had bumped her Chakra Reserves at the same time as I was doing her Physique; there were a few spare XP lying around and it seemed like a good use. I started to tear open one of the bao to see what was in it but Ms Tanaka waved a scolding finger at me. I laughed and bit in with appropriate adventurousness.
"Wow," I mumbled around a mouthful of creamy coconut paste and fluffy dough, "that is amazing."
"Thank you, Mr Oli. The ninja, they went to the southern islands like you told them and they came back with more delicious things, plus this time they brought seeds. There should be plenty soon."
"That's wonderful!" Two weeks ago a ninja had come back from a mission to O'uzo Island and had brought some coconuts, pineapples, bananas, and other exotic foodstuffs with her. I had multiplied the plenty by picking up bags containing one of each item so that it appeared on the Inventory tab of my spreadsheet, then uparrowing the quantity of each individual item until the bag overflowed. It was a time-consuming process and I was glad that I wouldn't need to do it anymore.
"Yah. I'm just happy that they let me be one of the test cooks to see if the things are useful. You come to dinner tonight, right? Little Tomiko will be there...!"
'Little' Tomiko was only a year younger than I was and Ms Tanaka had been not-so-subtly trying to fix us up for weeks.
"I'm afraid I've already got plans tonight, Ms Tanaka," I said. "Thank you for the bao, though!" I reached into my pocket for some ryō only to get bapped with her long-handled wooden tongs.
"What do you think you're doing, offering me money? Your money is no good here! You know this!" She swooped two more of the bao out of her cart and onto a scrap of clean cloth, then shoved them into my hands. "Here! You take more. You're too skinny!"
I accepted the bao with thanks and hurried off before she could make another stab at either feeding me or matchmaking me.
I didn't have anywhere to be until the afternoon, at which point I was supposed to go to the Academy and uparrow the talent on the newest intake of students. Jiraiya hadn't been sure when that could get done so he'd told me not to worry about it; the ANBU would bring me once everyone was available. I chose not to think about whether his casual "Don't worry, the ANBU can find you," should be taken to have underlying meaning.
"News sheet! News sheet! Hear all about it! Oh, hey Mr Oli!"
"Hi Namio. How're you doing today?" Namio was nine and the son of Leaf's first newspaper editor. He and his brothers were the distribution part of the business. He had a smudge of soot on his nose today and the cloth bag that he kept the newspapers in was still half full, so sales had probably been mediocre.
"Good! Lots of news! A new visitor, two new seal failures, a new tax, and the crime section. Forty ryō for all of it."
"Forty?! Are you trying to impoverish me?! I'll give you thirty!" The first time I'd met Namio I'd made the mistake of simply paying the asking price; he'd looked so disappointed that now I was careful to haggle at least a bit.
He looked at me like I was a doofus, then glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention. No one was, so he leaned in close. "Mr Oli, you can't open thirty. You open ten."
"Right, sorry," I whispered. "In fact, forget thirty!" I said loudly. "Your newspaper isn't worth thirty. I'll give you ten, you scoundrel!"
"Scoundrel? Who's a scoundrel? I've got top-rate important news here and it's worth twice the price! If Da weren't so generous we could be eating like the Hokage every night, and you're complaining about a few ryō? I'll give it to you for thirty-five, you skinflint!"
"Skinflint! Listen to these insults! I wouldn't pay a ryō over twen—fifteen!" The hasty switch was the result of a scolding glare from my tiny haggling instructor.
"Fifteen? You greedy rich people are all the same, always gouging us poor little guys. You want me to go hungry, Mr Oli? You want me to starve to death, my last rattling breath a curse upon your family name for not paying the extra couple of ryō that would have let me buy food? Thirty-two, no less!"
I clutched my bosom histrionically, hamming it up for the cheap seats to see. "In the name of the Sage! You manipulative little urchin, I wouldn't pay more than thirty if you gave me a golden crown with it!"
"Okay, thirty!" He grinned and pushed a rolled-up newspaper into my hands, gladly accepting the string of coins I passed him in exchange. "You're getting better, Mr Oli, but you still shouldn't jump that far."
"Thanks, Namio. Have you been eating your fruits like I told you?"
"Yes, Mr Oli. Mouth is all nice and solid now. That scurvy stuff's not for me." He puffed himself up and hooked a thumb at his chest.
"Glad to hear it. So, what's going on?" I waved the newspaper in clarification.
"Two new seal failures that people are sure about. One of them happened outside the city—everything turned into tiny little cubes and there was a giant windstorm that blew the cubes up into the air. Some of them fell on the city."
"Huh. What do they look like?"
He grinned. "I thought you'd be curious, so I got a couple for you. You do the trick?"
"Sure. Got a ryō?" I held out my left hand, palm up.
He produced a five-ryō coin and laid it exactly in the center of my palm. I left it there in plain sight while I used my right hand to turn my hip pocket inside out, demonstrating very clearly that it was empty. Namio, a bit weak on the 'personal space' rules, pushed his nose almost against the fabric in an effort to find any sort of gimmick. There was, of course, no gimmick. You didn't need gimmicked pockets when you had a spreadsheet that tracked, and influenced, the exact counts of what you were carrying.
"Ahem," I said, pushing him gently back. I turned the pocket rightside in, then plucked the coin off my palm between finger and thumb and took care to make sure that it was completely visible the entire time until it dropped into the pocket. Namio stared, his eyes burning a hole in my apparel in a futile effort to figure out how I was doing it.
I uparrowed my spreadsheet a few times, conjuring a dozen more coins into existence, then reached into my pocket and brought them all out concealed in my fist.
Namio knew his part and his hands were already cupped in front of him. I dropped one of the coins into his fingers and then another after it, taking care that the second landed on the first to get that satisfying clinking sound.
He looked at the coins and then at me, eyes wide. "How—" He broke off and looked down when I dropped another. And another. And another. And then I let my hand open and dropped the rest of the coins in a ringing shower.
"How do you
do that? You didn't make any handseals!"
I tapped my nose knowingly. "A magician never reveals his secrets, Namio. Now, let's see these cubes that were produced by a sealing failure."
Author's Note:
@Velorien has been very busy lately so there's been no time to do the necessary planning before the big battle can be written, nor will he have time before Thursday. Ergo, another interlude today and Thursday. The current plan is that he'll write the Thursday one; if he does then it means that the Spoon Lord has smiled upon him and allowed him to complete his current efforts to the delight of those who shall benefit from his works. I will let him decide if he wants to talk about what he's been working on this month and where you could observe the results, thereby driving eyeballs to the relevant site and marginally increasing the ad revenues of the people who are paying Velorien and thereby increasing the likelihood that they will remain in business and continue to fund him but hey no pressure man you don't have to reveal that stuff if you don't want. ;>
(1) Given the surfeit of ':' punctuation marks in this title I considered doubling down and calling it:
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 23: New Visitors: The Colonic Assault but that seemed a bit puerile and like it might make the story go in unpleasant directions. The 'Part 1' got added when I realized that Friday's accidental all-nighter was catching up with me and I needed to wrap it up. Oh, and, speaking of puerile, given the context of its initial use I hope that people will not look too askance at me for using the word 'bao' instead of translating it to a more idiomatic 'bun'.
