The Gaming Outpost

I woke face down in a drift of powderpuff snow, and rolled over, and looked up into a twinkling starry sky with a sense of relief from oppression. I could think clearly, and it did not feel like the universe hated me, like that last place.



It wasn’t all that cold, and so I contented myself with my cloak, before I started to test my magic. A simple Arts Magical spell started a warming fire, and an expandable pot rested in the fire to make my snow tea.



It was peaceful, beautiful even, and I sighed happily as I reached for my mint tea, only to spill it across my chest as the rattle of an AK-47 stuttered nearby. I dove into the nearest snow drift, and snaked my M-5 fletchette autorifle out of my duffle bag.



Slipping through the pine forrest toward the sound might have sounded crazy, but in truth the forrest was open enough that I could be easily snuck up on if I did not find out what was going on.



True, I could have set a ward, or simply awoke the inner wolf so as to be never fully asleep, but I was curious as well. It seemed incongruous in such a fine place to hear a weapon of war.



“You, and you, and all of you. Go back, you are not wanted here, and if you come back again, next time we won’t be so nice.” The voice came from surprisingly close.



“Hey, we need jobs too.” The protestor sounded weaker as if suppressed by his knowledge of the other having guns.



“Listen ya’ filthy scabs; I don’t care what the big man told you. Go back to Earth, now, in one piece or two pieces.”



Go back to Earth…? It looked like high, very high, in the Northern Hemisphere to me from the stars above. Where was I?



I waited until the noises faded, and then I determined to track the ‘scabs’ because they sounded unarmed. The column kept good discipline hiking, not marching, in a straight line so I had no idea of their numbers or really anything despite the thick snow.



But I could not seem to get any closer, in fact, I seemed to be falling behind. The snow grew thicker in the track even as I started to jog.



Finally, in the forrest, I came to a slight rise. Perhaps from it, I could see them, but I doubted it.



Whoa! I walked up the rise, and saw snow turn to fog before my feet, and a great blackness lit by electric lights glow in grids beneath me.



I looked down over the edge of the cloudbank at San Fransisco, I think, or whatever it was called in this world. The harbor was fairly distinctive, and add the hills, and a bridge across the mouth of the harbor; it added up.



Backing off from the edge, I scanned the sky, and thought I saw a flying Viking longboat in the distance, but I could not be sure.



Being careful, I dug into the snow and kept going until about four foot down I struck nothing but fog. Gulping, I hastily filled the hole back in, and then I tested it very cautiously. It held, and I was grateful not to have created some pit for the unwary.



I think I was in what we versers call a Border Supernatural, or in plain speak, a magic realm.



A magic realm with AK-47′s? That was not likely to be good. In fact, they might be actively bad. Some such realms recede from the presence of the technological. The innate order, and the depersonalized nature of a device can be offensive to the nature of reality in such a place.



But I was just speculating. I needed more data. So I turned around, and hiked back.



Upon getting closer, it occurred to me, that avoiding the blockade might be a good idea. So, I whistled up a wind, and rode it into the night sky up and over the blockade, or so I hoped.



None came shouting when I landed a half-mile further on, and so I shrugged, and continued hiking.



Another two miles brought me to a trail head overlooking a shallow vale. In the center looked a single main street with brightly lit stores, a Woolworth’s Five and Dime, a Soda Fountain, a Shoney’s Big Boy’s, a movie theatre, and several others.



I walked into town, and despite the lateness of the hour, people were moving about. But they seemed harrassed in their fine quality fiftyish winter gear, and when I tried to stop someone, he brushed past me.



“Sorry, no time, no time.”



So I walked into the soda fountain for food, a cherry shake with whipped cream, and conversation from the clerk who had to stay there. I could quiz him on what was going on.



But except for one tired guy slumped in a booth who had not even mustered the energy to take off his hunter’s cap, I saw no one. Instead, I saw a sign hastily calligraphied.



“Please Serve Yourself in this Time of Crisis.”



I walked over to they guy wanting to ask him what I should pay.



“Son, they take any type of coin or paper you lawfully earned here. Just open your wallet, and the shop will handle the rest.”



So, I did after making myself some food. And the shop took my Union of Yukonia script without a twinge, and gave me change in red buttons. The money just disappeared, and reappeared.



I was glad to use that money, because who knew when I could use it again. Paper money is often the worst investment a verser can make. Its too easily varied, and unless its the proper type its basically useless. That said, a small amount can be very useful. I keep a wide variety. Gold-backed certificates, Yukonia plastic sheets, CSA, American Revolutionary Greenbacks, State of New York script, pesos, deutschmarks, euros, americanos, yen, and nuyen, and about ten varieties of the U.S. dollar that I got given as a gift by someone who I can’t even remember. My favorite is the holographic set with Elvis as a fifty, Michael Jordan as a twenty, and Gary Gygax as a ten dollar bill.



The door opened, and I spun around on the stool to see the tops of AK’s float by. I looked down, and in their lederhosen, shorts, primary color turtlenecks, and suspenders, a job lot of four two and a half foot tall elves marched by bristling with arrogance.



One bumped me with the butt of his rifle; I think on purpose.



The hopped up alongside the guy, and snarled.



“Okay, big man; we’re here for the daily negotiation that we agreed to. But we ain’t shifting a bit in our demands.”



“You’re late.”



“So?”



The guy stood up shoving back the back of his booth with his thick legs.



“A little more respect, or even common courtesy might be called for.”



“Listen, we got the guns, big man.”



“YOU DARE threaten me!” The door ripped open, and artic air roared into the shop; icicles formed on their guns, and the walls within seconds.



They placated him, and he sat down, and they started picking at him all over again. So, I dropped the frigid remains of my hamburger, and strolled over. The elves gave me nasty looks as I got closer.



I stopped at the guy’s shoulder.



“Uh, Santa Claus?”



“Yes?” He said in a voice of broken tiredness, and then he raised his head to look at me.



“I don’t know you. You’re not one of my help; you’re not even someone I gave a gift too. How can that be? Have you elves been slacking off that much for that many years? Missing people?”



They babbled in the negative while I explained that I was a verser. He explained that he was Santa Claus, but only one of many in the different dimensions. He did service several dimensions at once, but some people had a conception so far distant from his conception of Santa that another had to take it for him.



I thought he was in the line of the Rodina, a time-bound spirit of power, but not on the scale of those who wandered the trackless paths of infinity. But he also seemed to be incarnated in a physical body.



Talking to me refreshed him; I could see that the elves had deliberately been wearing him down emotionally so he would give in. They left with many dire glances my way.



I talked to Santa, and it developed that the elves in his Christmas factory had gone on strike demanding a greater share of the magic that flowed from children’s and parent’s dreams as their pay.



“I cannot do it. There is no give in the budget. And they harrass my human employees who are trying to make up for the slack, but not doing too well. The humans are good material handlers, and secretaries, and accountants, but not so good toymakers.”



“Harrass?”



“Throw iceballs at the workers, and so on when the meal break is sounded. Like now.” A beautiful melody rippled out from the factory across town. It made you long for food and drink just to hear it, even if you are already full.



“I’ll be back.” I said, and quickly headed across town. I wondered about his budget, but violence was uncalled for.



Soon, I got there, and I saw a large group of elves being directed by the ones I’d already met tossing iceballs at the humans who sheltered in a gazebo in order to get a smoke. It looked downright painful.



So I gathered snow into great balls, as I prepared to cast a spell I’d never done before. I prayed to the Almighty, and wrote “truth” on a piece of bark, and embedded it inside the snowman’s head.



Snowman no longer, but a snow golem awoke.



“Attack to drive away those four.” I said, and grimly it set about doing as I had required. The golem caught them off guard, and drove them off with many cuffs of its fists.



The rest of the elves wandered off slowly, dispiritedly, and the humans cheered as they got down to some serious smoking.



I found an accountant, and asked his opinion of the Santa budget’s inflexibility.



“Um, well, we got plenty of money, or magic of dreams, but we are using it to break in a new factory. The angels have scheduled a new worldwide baby boom in five years, and we need to be ready.



“Does the new factory have new machines? Different machines?”



“Yeah.” The accountant said with a bit of dawning undertanding.



“Yeah, the elves might not want to learn it all over again, and that might be behind their striking.” I said, and he agreed.



I thought, and then decided. My next move would be to track down the elves, and talk to them, and find out their side of the story.



Tadeusz