The crisp and chill morning air turned the breath of me and Virginia into streamers of fog as we sprawled together on a pile of clothing and grass. Dew had collected around us, and the enchantment that Virginia had cast to ensure we would not freeze as we lay in our natural state had worn off with the coming of the dawn. And so, the two of us were beginning to collect ice on the parts of our bodies not currently touching -- a hand here, a shoulder there, bits of our legs. We were not pressed close, rather, we were both laying on our backs, looking at the slowly bluing sky.
"Well," Virginia said, quietly.
"Mmhmm," I said.
A long silence stretched betwixt us. A million things occurred to me to say -- things to speak of, considering what we had consummated last night. I could have brought up how I had never felt quite so close to another woman. I could have mentioned that no one had been quite as beautiful as her in the moonlight, with her eyes filled lust. I could have said a great deal of things, and yet all the charisma and all the intelligence in the world matters for nothing when one lacks the courage to say things no half-orc
should
ever say to a human woman.
And so, rather than saying any of the things rushing through my mind, I sat up and announced: "I must pack the fire!" at the exact same instant Virginia proclaimed: "I shall kindle the bedrolls!"
And together, we both dressed and fled.
Thus passed two weeks of travel. Virginia and I remained distant and aloof from one another. I absorbed myself entirely with tinkering on my prototype accelerator, Gillian providing the assistance of her deft hands. If she wanted to speak to me about the strange strain between I and Virginia, she never did quite find the courage for it either. Sally never seemed to notice, and Maggie was growing somewhat moodily preoccupied with the fact we were drawing ever closer to civilization, forcing herself to begin preparing to adorn herself with her false beard once more. The only successful task I did manage during the entire trip back to Tarant was complete the finalization of my accelerator rifle. Now it was the primary weapon I would use in combat.
The only issue was it required
both
batteries and bullets to fire -- requiring me to jerry rig a charging unit based on my arm strength. I wasn't sure how to overcome this deficiency, but supposed that it was still better to kill what I was aiming at in battles. Especially if we were to run into any more damned elemental.
We arrived at Tarant on the 1
st
of April, which meant we had come just as the weather continued to warm after an unusually long, clinging chill throughout March. Now, spring had come and come with full force, bringing the customary warm sun and blue skies. Save for the smog filling the air from the factories, it was as pleasant a time as could be found in the great metropolis of Tarant itself. Walking through the city streets with my companions, I was forced to once more grow used to assuming a posture of habitual deference to the sneers of others. For this reason, we made our way straight to the Bates residence. The guards at the front looked us over, nodded, and sent us in.
There, a stuffy servant said that Mr. Bates would see us after we had cleaned ourselves. This provoked grumbling among Sally and 'Magnus', for the obvious reasons of Sally being a sailor and less than interested in bathing and 'Magnus' at not wanting to remove the beard she had so painstakingly glued to her face before we entered Tarant. But the servant insisted -- and we each contrived to clean ourselves up before going to meet the richest man in all of Arcanum.
I entered into Gilbert Bates study -- the self same study we had met in before, a month before -- and found that he was sitting before the fire, reading a newspaper proclaiming that the murderer of the professor that had been reported last month had been caught, found guilty, and hung at gallows hills. There were grainy photographs of the gentleman's covered head and hanging body on the front page, and Mr. Bates clicked his tongue, then folded the paper shut as I stepped into the room.
"You've returned," he said. "And far sooner than I expected. What have you learned?"
I sighed, then took my seat. "I have discovered that the dwarves of the Black Mountain clan were banished by the Wheel Clan to the Isle of Despair. Because..." I paused.
"Because why?" Bates had grown tense, his eyes narrowing. "Out with it boy!"
"Because of your theft of their technology," I said, frowning.
Instantly, I saw that I had struck a deep blow to the old human's soul. His face crumpled, wrinkles collecting and pressing against one another, turning his face into a contoured map of pure sorrow. He pressed his long, knobby fingered hands to his face and sobbed into his palms. He openly wept, his shoulders shaking as he hung his head forward. I had grown to dislike Mr. Bates, for his capitalist oppression of my people and for bourgeoisie attitudes towards those less fortunate than himself. He owned a goodly percentage of all the wealth in the world, and controlled the lives of hundreds of thousands directly and indirectly.
And yet...
And yet at that moment, I could feel nothing for the old man but pity. He had been a lad, once. And that lad's heart was breaking. I placed my hand upon his shoulder. "You could not have known," I said, softly.
Mr. Bates quieted in his tears after a time. Once he had composed himself, he wiped his face away, breathed in, then said: "We must rescue them. If it is but the beginning to correcting this injustice, I will spare no expense." He nodded. "You will have all the funds required to discover what had happened to them there on the Isle of Despair." His lips curled. "Rescuing an entire clan from that dreadful penal colony will take great effort."
I nodded. "Pay only what is required for transport -- though finding a ship will be difficult."
"No it will not," Mr. Bates said, his hands resting upon the armrests of his chair. His lips twisted into a smile. "You will go to the port town of Ashbury -- there is a train route directly there across the Morbihan Plains. Once there, you will go to the piers and find a man named Edward Teach. He is the captain of a sailing ship I contract to for
special
assignments." He nodded. "He will get you to the Isle."
"Can he be trusted?" I asked.
"Implicitly," Mr. Bates said. "I will telegram him posthaste."
"There is an issue of payment, sir," I said, standing as I did so.
"Yes, yes, I will write you a check-"
"No, Mr. Bates," I said, my voice firm. "The payment I want is something else. Pay for the supplies we will need and the train tickets...but rather than throwing me a trinket, I want you to open negotiations with your laborers."
"I beg your pardon?" Mr. Bates asked, his voice growing cold. "I recall the last conversation we had on this topic."
"And I recall you saying that your orcish laborers were the happiest workers in any factory. If that is the case, Mr. Bates, then the negotiations will be extremely short, will they not?" I asked, frowning at him. Mr. Bates mulled over my words, but remained mulish looking. And so, I tried a subtler blade. Quietly, I said: "How do you remember the dwarves operating their mines?"
Mr. Bates looked as if he had been stricken. He leaned back in the seat, then sighed. "Very well," he said, sounding quite annoyed. "I will begin to meet with this agitator of theirs." He shook his head. "Don something, I'll have to find his name later. Of course, it will take some time. Negotiations will need to be held, discussions will be held in the legislature..." He waved his hand in the air. "My factories supply munitions for the Tarantian Army, and if war brews up with Caladon, then...well..." He shook his head. "We shall see what we can do."
I nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Bates." I inclined my head, turning to go.
But then I stopped.
"Did you say the unionizer was named Don?" I asked.
