[Repair, Quirky]
It was nice not having to rush out of the tower to deal with the market, vendors and gnomes. People didn’t seem to be carrying away as much free food as the first few days. They must realize that they really will be able to get free food for the rest of the two weeks. Fresh free food is better than day old free food. I expect the last few days of free food will be when people really try to stock up.
I found Ruby, Opal and Maz having breakfast.
“Good Morning Rose, I have a present for you.”
Maz handed me a handful of light grey metal bits.
“Is this a new invention Maz?”
“No Rose, those are the bullets that were fired at your speakers last night. ”
“Was anyone hurt, Maz?”
“No Rose, I picked up those bullets about one inch from your border, my best guess is that the bullets hit your magical field and completely lost momentum. I have a favor to ask, could you please jump me to my lab and author something for me. I want to get a high speed camera. I'd love to study what happens when a bullet hits a magical field. My hypothesis is that it repels them just like rain, but due to the much higher velocity they can penetrate a small amount before the magical fields Inertia counters the momentum entirely.”
“Yes I’ll be happy to take you to your lab and author you anything you want but I have no idea what you are talking about momentum and Inertia, I was usually in the back writing a story during science class in school.”
“Bottom line Rose, your magical fields can stop bullets and I want to study how it’s done. How much energy they can withstand before they collapse. For instance if you could surround an entire city in a magical field would that stop a bomb blast from harming the city and its population. We could go to Earth and you could create magical fields around cities there that would make them safe even during a war.”
“Except Nyx says that Earth has almost zero magic left, religions have siphoned out all the magical energy of the world. With their prejudice against anything magical, no one practices ‘real magic’ ; it's either stage magic or satanic magic. Neither of which are real magic. Satanism is yet another of Earth’s weird religions and they all feed off each other, destroying real magic in the process.”
“Whether it's useful or not I’d still like to study it.”
“Rose, should I continue operation crush the Harris’s wine business today?”
“I would love it if you could Ruby, do you have enough portal muffins?”
“Yes I have plenty, I portaled to the bakery late last night and Lily gave me fifty of them and promised to gather more ingredients this morning to make more. I thought I could just portal my old sales route and hit any wine sellers I find along the route.”
“Sure that sounds great, I’ll portal to the warehouse and make sure the gnomes have taken out today's free food supply. I already have five hundred cases stored there, if the food has already been removed, I should have room for another seven hundred and fifty cases. Which reminds me, who got the last one hundred cases?”
“The wine merchant in Tranquility, he only had eighty nine cases of Harris's wine but I knew it was your home town so I gave him the extra eleven as a bonus and made him promise if your mom or granny comes in he gives them a free bottle. I paid for the shipping back as well. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine honey, it’s more than fine, thank you so much for doing this. Make sure you bring the body guard.”
“I don’t really need him, but he carries the cases of wine, so of course I’ll bring him.”
“Good.”
“What about you, Opal? How are your lessons with Draco going?”
“Good Rose.”
“I spoke to Mr Thompson yesterday, he is so grateful to you for healing him. He said he had some other medical problems before he was beaten up. When you healed his injuries you also healed his other medical problems as well.”
“Is that good, Rose?”
“Oh yes, sweetie, it’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I think it means that you are a really great healer.”
Opal beamed. Jumped up.
“I have to get to my lessons.”
With that she disappeared, down the hallway to Draco’s lair.
“All set Maz? I need to do some things this morning, but I’ll jump you first if you want.”
“Yes please Rose, I’m all set.”
We said goodbye to Ruby and jumped to Maz’s lab at Tregaron. It was a total mess, as usual. Bit’s of electronics here, there and everywhere. He grabbed a cell phone and rapidly scrolled through a series of pictures of scientific equipment, cameras which I authored for one after the other. But I paused when he showed me what was titled the Barrett M107, the most powerful rifle ever made.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“No guns Maz, sorry.”
“But Rose, this is just for a scientific experiment, and I just need it for one day to run the experiments. I swear on my life that it will never be pointed at a living thing. We can drop it into Mount Doom at the end of the day. I heard that’s what you did with those other weapons that were being smuggled into Wyldwood and I’ve always wanted to see Mount Doom.”
“Well we can’t hang around there, it’s not my intellectual property, but it is really cool, so alright. Just don’t let anyone else get hold of it alright, and be super careful.”
I authored him the rifle and seven hundred and sixty cases of wine. I jumped Maz, all his equipment and seven hundred and fifty cases of Cabernet Sauvignon to the warehouse. Maz then portaled himself and all his equipment to the farms.
I portaled to the bookstore.
“You do know that I can’t protect you if I don’t know where you are?”
“Good morning Ryder, I’m sorry but I did leave word with one of the guards. They said you were doing a perimeter check and I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“I know they did tell me, but I’m meant to protect you not some piece of land that you just purchased yesterday. You didn’t even want us to protect it, you wanted us to retreat.”
“Right, I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“No chance of that with those gnomes around, they could easily take out a navy seal. A squad of them if three gnomes worked together. Two of the Harris’s gang tried to sneak in last night, I watched through binoculars as one gnome took them both down. They are tied up at the mansion. You said if we were to catch any you wanted to take care of them.”
“Did they have weapons?”
“Yes, handguns.”
“Okay, good morning EG, I’ll be leaving but will be back in about twenty minutes, where’s Elma and Mossbeard.”
“Mossbeard went to check on the free food gnomes and Elma is in the back reading.”
Ryder and I portaled to the estate, we grabbed his prisoners and jumped to Tranquility two. I found out what the thugs' ideal jobs were and I wiped their memory for ten years. I gave them each some money and sent them in opposite directions from each other.
“You do realize Rose, that is no punishment at all. They can freely choose to do whatever they like for the next ten years. What will they learn if they aren’t punished?”
“First they already learned a hard lesson, they are no match for a gnome that comes up just a little higher than their knee. Second, I don't want to punish them, I want to change them. I can’t prove this works but I don’t think criminals are born, I think they are made. If they can be made they can be remade. But they need to lose their criminal habits, strip away the memory and you strip away the habits. Now they have ten years to learn new habits. I hope it works but it is up to them. If they commit a crime here and are caught they’ll wind up in the mines or something worse. But I hope they won’t. I hope they have a long happy life, meet someone, get married, and have a family. Then ten years from now when those memories come flooding back, I hope that they are ashamed of their prior life and just happy that they have been given a second chance.”
“But what about their victims?”
“That’s tougher, if I could I’d offer to remove their memory of the event if that’s what the victim wanted. If they wanted revenge, I’d tell them that the perpetrator had been removed from their world and would have to answer for their behavior in their next life.”
“So you’d lie to them.”
“No it’s not a lie, the perpetrator has been removed from the world. They will have to answer, if when their memory comes back and they’ve had a great second chance in life, they’ll feel the guilt of their former life. If they had a terrible second chance after their memory comes back they’ll feel the loss of the life they used to have here in Emain Ablach and the longing to come back. But there is no escape from a fictional world. But come on, I have to get back, I hope to make some rich people richer today.”
We jumped back to the store and just as I’d hoped Harvey was waiting for me. I can only hope that this is all over, but I’ll settle for some small gain.
“Good morning Harvey, thanks for sending Sophie to me yesterday. She certainly wasn’t the rich spoiled brat I expected.”
“No, she's really a lovely young lady. I see you’ve been busy and loud. The Harris’s are taking you to court; they are suing you for harassment."
“How lovely maybe we can wrap it into the case where Sophie and I are suing them, just how are we harassing them?”
“Well they claim a dragon flew over their land yesterday and after that some horrible noise started and hasn’t stopped since.”
“That Harvey is the sound of construction, they better get used to it. The gnomes have moved in and are building affordable housing for all. But they don’t have enough land so I’m hoping to acquire four more estates. I just recently started a wine business and I have to have an avenue to funnel all my profits. You might be surprised but wine merchants from all the local towns are enthusiastic about really high quality Cabernet Sauvignon, for only one gold a bottle. From Duskhaven to Tranquility. I would imagine the wagons returning the Harris’s wine should begin rolling in today.”
“What have you done, Rose?”
“My only stipulation to buy my wine is that it not be sold by a store that sells Harris’s wine. My understanding is that in Duskhaven one seller refused until it was pointed out that his competition would probably put him out of business, selling my one gold wine. I hope you enjoyed a bottle last night Harvey.”
“It was delicious Rose and I really should give you a gold and I probably shouldn’t be telling you this but, as I was leaving the Harris’s estate a couple of freight wagons were arriving. That must be the wine that was being returned. Well done Rose. But let me not temporize. I have some news that you might be interested to hear. After hearing how you treated Sophie, three more cartel members indicated to me that they may be planning on visiting you today.”
“That is excellent news, I would surely give you a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon if I had any here, but the quantities are so large I had to purchase a warehouse to store it all.”
“I did try to warn the Harris’s, that your powers granted you unlimited wealth, but being the richest family around here for so many generations, they just couldn’t wrap their heads around raining gold. But remember Rose, a cornered animal is the most dangerous. I do hope you come to agreements with the other three members.”
