The Legend of William Oh

Epilogue

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A spray of glass shards bounced off Fabron’s face, making a soft as it impacted against the goggles protecting his eyes.

“Damnit, why are we doing this again?” Fabron demanded, knowing the answer, but still seeking commiseration from his fellow indentured workers.

Fabron wiped the last of the glass dust off his cheek and glanced around, curious about the lack of response.

He could tell by the sound of other workers chipping away at the glass, and the lack of screaming, that nothing was wrong. Rod was probably off taking a shit. His wheelbarrow was set down, half full only a few feet away.

Fabron what he did, but he felt years of indentured servitude for a harmless grift was an outsized punishment. Especially considering how valuable a Climber above level 40 was, outside the tower.

Fabron considered it.

Since Rod was off who knew where, Fabron set down his tools and grabbed a chunk of glass that weighed more than he did, and with barely a grunt of effort, loaded it into the kid’s wheelbarrow, enough to make the wheels sink into the mud.

Fabron took a deep breath and took a step back, inspecting the glob of glass.

It was a mountainous loaf of blackened glass the size of a castle, but it wasn’t a beautiful thing. It was a terrible, ominous ruin filled with bones, rough patches of burned carbon and riddled with cracks.

The glass was murky and patchy, barely acting as a binder keeping stone, bone and charcoal together. Air bubbles were everywhere throughout the structure, like someone had deliberately folded it to add them in.

Fabron hadn’t seen it himself, but word went around. He’d heard that William Oh himself had used an Ability that melted the entire castle Fae Lord and all, then he’d stirred it up like a caramel confection.

Maybe it was someone else? Some other Lord who didn’t want the attention?

Fabron nodded to himself as he picked up his pickaxe.

Lord Bakton wanted to claim the arable land around the newly cleared Key Site. It was a large patch of good farmland, and The Lord insisted that he now had the power to keep the Fae at bay.

There was just one smudge on the valuable land: A huge lump of glass, stone and charcoal sitting directly on top of arable land.

Fabron didn’t believe that Bakton had a way to make farming work, but he didn’t really have a choice about his involvement in this project, so he just put his head down and broke off chunks of glass to be carted away.

At least it wasn’t deep mining or clearing out the more dangerous monsters at the edge of Bakton’s territory.

This was easy work, and he and the other criminal slaves knew it, so they dragged their feet a little, enjoying the safety and the fresh air.

Fabron heard the overseer’s footsteps in the distance, and he hefted his pickaxe.

With a a layer of glass sloughed off the face of Fabron’s worksite, crumbling to the ground and just barely missing his feet.

When Fabron glanced back up, a skeletal hand was reaching out from inside the blackened glass.

“GAH!” Fabron flinched, raising his pickaxe to take a swing.

The skeletal arm hadn’t been reaching for him. It had simply flopped forward when it was released by the glass around it, but that was it. It wasn’t an undead fae looking to kill him and consume his life essence. Just an arm.

“Uugh.” Fabron slumped in place, heaving a sigh.

He heard the overseer coming closer, and he straightened up, raising his pickaxe, when a glint of gold caught his eye.

On the skeletal hand was a ring set with a fire opal. It appeared completely undamaged by the heat of the apocalyptic event that had buried it in glass and stone.

Fabron’s eye widened as he took in the enormous glass loaf that towered over him. It no longer looked like an ominous testament to one Climber’s overwhelming power.

Now it looked like a gold mine.

Fabron inspected the ring.

+4 Strength

+4 Kinesthetics

+12 Resistance

+15 Focus

+12 Acuity

Fabron’s eyes widened as his heartbeat skyrocketed. There was no WAY they wouldn’t find this and take it away from him.

A footstep only a few yards around the corner of the little area of privacy they’d dug out of the glass mountain.

The overseer was just about to turn the corner, and then it would be gone. He needed to hide it. but even if he managed to hide it and take it home, How could he possibly-

Inspiration struck and Fabron jammed his pickaxe a foot into the soil, yanked it out and tossed the ring in, burying the Relic in a single motion.

“FABRON!” the overseer barked as he came into her view.

Fabron flinched and stood, scraping his foot over the hole in a way that he prayed looked natural, filling the hole in with dirt.

The overseer was a mean old woman with steel grey hair, who didn’t have any patience for slacking. The other prisoners joked that she was part-fae, with how obsessively strict she was.

“I heard you shout. What are you doing?”

Heart hammering in his chest, desperately trying not to look down at the hole he’d just filled in. Attracting her attention to it would be a move. Fabron simply gulped and pointed at the skeleton arm dangling from the wall of blackened glass.

“A s-skeleton.” He stammered, not having to fake his nervousness.

She glanced past him to the skeleton, her expression icy.

“You realize it’s not alive?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Fabron said, nodding profusely. “Just startled me, is all.”

“Hmph.” She glanced down at Fabron’s feet, looking like she was about to say something, when her eye twitched, and she snorted, glancing around.

“…Where is Rodney?”

“I thought he was off taking a shit, but he’s been gone a while.” Fabron said.

“!?” the overseer asked, her expression turning demonic. “I suppose I’ll have to go find him and have a little chat.”

“Get back to work!” She called over her shoulder as she turned on her heel, scanning the surroundings.

Once she was out of sight, Fabron glanced back down at the hole. He’d barely covered it at all, just enough to hide the glitter of gold at the bottom.

He spent a minute packing the dirt in tight, making it nearly identical to the earth around it save for an oddly-shaped piece of bone to mark it before he got back to work.

he promised, memorizing its location before picking his pickaxe back up and slamming it into the stone with renewed vigor.

There were at least five more Set Relics in this blackened mass grave, and Fabron only needed to find more to burn away the Debt keeping him enslaved on this Floor.

Fabron started working and when Rod finally returned, he goggled at the massive pile of broken glass and rubble accumulating around Fabron as he dug his way into the mountain of glass.

“Guess she got you too, huh?” Rod asked, rubbing the caning marks under his trousers and wincing.

“I’m just feeling super motivated. Let’s leave it at that,” Fabron said with a grunt as he carved away another chunk of glass, his eyes constantly scanning for orange glints of fire opal as he worked.

Everybody knew Set Relics followed a theme.

“Sure, sure,” Rod chuckled before his gaze turned to the wheelbarrow. “You bastard, you overloaded it!”

Fabron didn’t respond, just kept hammering away at the glass, eyes searching hungrily.

“Oookaaay…” Rodney said, picking up the wheelbarrow and grunting away with it.