His body moved with purpose and the animation of the corpse. His fist clenched his cane with tension. "Another client has… fled from my grasp and flocked to your chicken coop."
The fool actually chuckled! "It seems so."
No longer did this pillar of society dominate these murky waters. No longer did his shadow cast dark shades of profit and efficiency on the lower class.
What a waste. "Such foolishness."
Ebenezer Scrooge glanced up from his heavy piles of paperwork with a strained smile. "I suppose so."
The air seemed to unnaturally chill further, though neither of them noticed it. One due to his nature, the other thanks to years of experience.
Still, certain circles, specific classes of people… They stood together. "Why? Why all the changes? You didn't merely earn an income, you were the titan of industry! A king of the money lenders, power dripped from your grasp!"
Everyone knew of THE Marley brothers and their partner, the deadly and heartless Ebenezer Scrooge! Whispers spread throughout England, hints passed throughout shadows!
The disturbingly cheerful man grinned once more, such an expression foreign to his face. "I had something of… Of a revelation, you may say."
Standing, Scrooge began filing paperwork into his cabinets as he talked. "I earned more in the last few years than most ever would, I have no doubts. My books were heavy with profit, and without my partners I split none of it and lost nothing."
The dream of any money lender.
The man chuckled. "But… But in the end, I found my profits cold and burdensome. Tell me, Rowlandson… What is the difference between earning the most money you ever have achieved in your life… And then doubling it? What would be achieved?"
His mind skipped at the mere thought of such a thing. "I could triple my investments in…"
Ebenezer waved that off. "Assume you did all that. You towered over anything you heard rumored about my own career, everyone bows beneath your talent and skills, and anything you wished to invest in has done so… At that point, at that pinnacle of achievement, what would change if you doubled everything you possessed?"
Where was he going with this?
Scrooge chuckled again. "I found myself wealthy. Respected, if only through fear. Powerful: Society literally bent at my whim, to my will. And with the Marley brothers passed on, bless their souls, I found my dominance only growing."
It had been a miraculous thing, back then… These last few years.
And the man's face grew somber. "And with achievement I found that I had lost my way."
…What?
Ebenezer Scrooge sighed… "Do you remember when we were younger? When we eagerly spent our youth to invest in our futures, when we fought the crowds to climb to the top of the mountain of industry? Before all the compromises and failures and victories, before all that."
His eyes seemed to shine with lost memories and forgotten times. "When I was young, I dreamed. I would one day have food when hungry, respect when passed in the street, be listened to when heard, be followed when I led. When I was young, the idea of a warm meal was sometimes all I strove for."
Scrooge finished filing away the work of the day and sat once more. "When I was older, I dreamed. I would defy my love's oppressive relatives, I would fund a future together with her, and my career would grow beyond any limits or restrictions… As a lad yet still, I thought a few sacrifices at the moment would be outweighed by the lifetime of success to come."
Years of failure personified seemed to look back to the still cold man standing in the office. "Yet when I won the battle for supremacy, when I climbed that mountain, I found those dreams I cherished cast aside as steps to help me ascend further. I had lost so much, yet… All I knew was the climb itself. I gathered others around me who also fought to claw up that mountain, and with each grasp we all knew our fellows would one day be cast aside as yet another step upwards."
Ebenezer Scrooge sighed, alone despite the company. "I achieved my many dreams, what fragments were left of them. And on that mountain top, as I looked down upon the frozen remains of my past and lost futures… I was lost. All I knew was the climb. All I was… In the end, all I could ever be was the climb."
Something far harsher and more sharp than sin glinted under the fake image of a cheerful man. "So I began to slaughter dreamers so their corpses would pile up for me to climb. Why not? What worth were they to me? Better they be under my heel than wasting life on such festivities and frivolities, on worthless things like betterment and generosity. At least then, these walking trash wastrels would become steps for my climb."
And it was gone, and only the body of an older money lender sat across the desk. "I forgot somewhere way back then, in times when I was more alive than I had become, that profit and success was only a tool, a step itself… Not the point of my climb. I had discarded my prize so I could more efficiently achieve it, and I threw out my rewards so I may work all the harder towards them."
Something inside his long hardened heart hurt to hear the brokenness of this colleague of his… So like usual, he cut it away. "All that nonsense aside, you are wasting money. Why accept my clients? Why buy their debt, what is the point of it all?"
Was there an angle here? Some failure in himself, something he could have exploited missed that this former king could take advantage of?
It seemed a bit paranoid, but one had to be clear witted and calm when confronting THE Ebenezer Scrooge, whether or not he had lost his way!
Ebenezer Scrooge gave a wry grin. "Wasting money? I suppose it may seem like that." With a chuckle, he waved a hand towards his side office. "But I fail to see why you would waste time bothering us about such a thing, considering you must be very busy this time of year. Cratchet! See Mr. Rowlandson away for the day."
The man's number one clerk entered with punctuality as usual. "Yes, Mr. Scrooge. Mr. Rowlandson?"
The tall stone of a man failed to shift an inch. "I will find what you are attempting to do, Mr. Scrooge. I will NOT be taken advantage of."
Scrooge seemed to find humor even in this. "Very well. Oh, and if you have other clients who seem unable to pay let my office know. At least you could earn back something when I buy the debt off them, no?"
A trace of unyielding sternness wavered on his face. At least Scrooge still had a trace of comradery with the money lending industry. "Perhaps. Good day."
…There had to be a way he could exploit this. For now, he had work to do.
~~~Pocket System~~~
Bob watched the man who so reminded them all of his Boss's former attitude stride out of the office with the harsh and chilled winds of determination and efficiency cutting the air.
Scrooge sighed. "It's like looking in a mirror."
He held in a strangled chuckle… No, at his worst Mr. Scrooge had been VASTLY more vile than that person. "The new accounts are being reviewed sir."
Mr. Scrooge hummed and leaned back in his chair. "Anything unexpected?"
Not really. "Most will break even, a few are likely lost causes honestly…" And it hurts to admit that. To honestly tell a former shark like his boss about the worthlessness of some of these debts.
His boss chuckled. "Yet for every coin I lose to these people, I gain a small crowd of loyal followers and future clients! All this despite my former reputation, and my years of abusive behavior…"
Scrooge sighed. "Remember this, Cratchet: Reputation is costly to earn and cheap to lose. That said, loyalty can be priceless, as are the other harder to measure and quantify benefits. Not that I have to tell you something like that… How's Tiny Tim been doing recently? Are the new treatments helping?"
His heart jumped as he remembered his boy again. "Much improved, Mr. Scrooge! His coughing is nearly gone and the doctors think he may eventually be able to walk without a cane one day!"
Of all the miracles that had blessed his family, the transformation of his boss included… Well, his boy's improvement was the most cherished.
A trace of worn burden seemed to lift from his boss's face! "Oh that is wonderful… Though with his treatment costs coming down again I will need to find something else to invest in eventually."
Bob blinked, adjusting his paperwork. "Really sir?" Honestly just not regressing alone was considered a charitable donation to charity by the local populace.
He seemed to see something from the past… "I gave nothing when I could so I feel the urge to give now that I can. Besides, this is just the portion marked for my salary, and I have mountains of funds for myself already. I literally haven't noticed the difference and yet it can change lives for so many."
Well, that was fair. Ebenezer Scrooge had been among the elite of the wealthy for years now, and like most of the upper class kept his income as a sort of score card until recently. A mark for how much 'better' he was, massive funds not needed for any bill or purchase. "I see sir."
Mr. Scrooge hummed as he began working on the next page on his pile. "Let's see… I've already donated a bit too much to the local churches and workhouses, if I go further they may be targeted by shady groups… Same issue for direct donations of non-goods to the families on hard times, so that would be a risk… Hmm."
And Bob thought back to the strange boy and the supposedly soon-to-be-established unprofitable restaurant. "I… I may have heard of something, Mr. Scrooge. Although I must say you may truly be throwing away your money if you decide to assist them."
The older man blinked, slightly confused… Then he chuckled. "Is it a cause or group that you think may be worth such investment, despite said loss?"
Maybe. "I'm not sure… But my family will be stopping by to visit them regardless after work. We'd love it if you could join us?"
Like always when other people try to involve his employer, there was that moment of hidden shock and surprise. That the idea of people wishing to include him still astonished the elder gentlemen.
And that weak but warm smile returned. "I… I think I'd enjoy that. A bit of an evening walk then shall we?" Mr. Scrooge glanced at his paperwork. "After the accounts are in order, of course! Proper documentation and handling is vital to good service."
He nodded. "Yes, Mr. Scrooge. I'll go back and keep the clerks on task then."
Scrooge waved him off. "Be on it then, I'll be done with this stack within the hour… have the next batch prepared for me to process by then."
Right. "Yes, Mr. Scrooge."
~~~Pocket System~~~
Jessica was silent after John's demonstration. For a bit. "Why prayer?"
John blinked. "Well, there are several reasons… It guides the process, influences any side effects to be more beneficial, and I don't like soup that much."
His sister paused. "I'm sorry?"
He nodded. "Like, I don't HATE soup or anything, and a bowl of warm soup can be pretty good once in a while… But not every day."
She tapped the table. "John, you've lost me. What does soup have to do with empowering religious prayers with reality altering effects?"
John had explained that earlier right? Or had he modified his presentation… Ah. Yeah. "Well, I originally was just going to set up the process of Spiritual manipulation using movements. You know, stir 'X' times clockwise, 'Y' times counter clockwise, etc. But there were several problems with that."
He ticked them off. "First of all, if you get the number or direction of stirring wrong it would either fail or worse: Attempt to do something unknown. Which could either be annoying or VERY bad."
Another finger down. "Secondly, my first attempt was harder to remember and teach, and would make us look more than a little crazy. Which honestly fits well with Religion to begin with, because some religions are pretty crazy to begin with… But uh, the motions thing made it feel very odd. It might have been resonating with witchcraft or something, and I don't want to touch that mess right now."
If Faith was frustrating, Magic was too flexible. At least with Faith, the overall goal of the power was directed via mass influence from its followers… But with Magic? The group could manipulate the new abilities that manifested or the range and scale of the effects, but any individual could activate any individual 'spell' they wished without general oversight.
He coughed. "Anyway, third of all: I don't like soup, and the easiest methods to attach my ability to a ritual involve a lot of stirring actions if you didn't cheat and use acoustic cues. I mean, you CAN stir a sandwich, but it gets pretty messy and squished and stuff, so we would be stuck teaching people how to make soups and sauces and stuff if I went with that method."
John shrugged. "And I don't like soup that much. So prayers it is!"
Jessica just rubbed her face. "All that aside, can we go back to the empowering religions thing? Do we want to just attach special effects to something that millions or billions of people interact with every day?"
He blinked. "I mean, if this was a different world, no… But uh, this has already been happening here for years. Heck, if anything I am just clearing out the random effects those prayers may have already and establishing something more stable and less likely to mutate into something more random…"
After all, John was pretty sure that 'blessed' holy water was not SUPPOSED to burn vampires and stuff, it was just some strange interaction between the local concept of 'bless' and 'cleansing' and 'protection' from the Faith itself.
He shrugged. "At least my new version of 'blessing' will empower a substance with unaligned Spiritual energy… So other religions or groups can use it with less of a risk of being forced to convert beliefs or something."
She blinked. "Wait, can holy water do that here?"
He shivered. "That's the point: No one KNOWS. And even if it doesn't today, it might do something like that TOMORROW. There is a reason I didn't want us attending church services."
Oh. Had he not mentioned that concern to her before? "Don't worry, I've been ensuring our Spiritual Energy doesn't align with anything while we are here by Pocketing all that stuff when we sleep. I've been learning a lot from decontaminating Party over the week."
HIs sister was trying to calm down. "Oh. That… That's good. Keep doing that, please." Breathe in, breathe out… "Wait, who's Party?"
John held up a wooden ball. "Party the Apartment Complex! You know, since you said I could keep her after I sort of blew her up and we then went and bought Doe Home."
She stared at the orb of compressed materials. They seemed to emotionally (not literally) smile back. Somehow.
Yeah. "She lost a lot of weight when I got our stuff out and compressed all the material into a superdense composite, but you can't mention that to her because she's sensitive about it. Anyway, I'm still adjusting her Spiritual composition so she doesn't Muppetize or infect other stuff when we leave, so she's been hanging out in a secluded area of my Pocket for now."
She was apparently looking forward to being 'a REAL inanimate object', and who was John to argue against a Pocket Pal with a dream?
Besides, this would allow the Pocket System to continue developing the decontamination procedures they would both need to undergo when they eventually left this place.
Which John would totally bring up to his older sister. Later. Much later.
~~~Pocket System~~~
After much hesitation, eventually Jessica approved the new cooking methods for 'Doe Kitchen'!
The methods seemed to work fine, and it completely prevented the chance of all this prepared food suddenly growing teeth and stuff. Tests came back fine, the new employees were hired, everything was good to go…
So John began teaching the Doe Kitchen cooks the new methods within the next few days. This would work out great!
~~~Pocket System~~~
Oh dear.
