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CARNIVAL WORLD, CHAPTER 31

 

Most guilds just teach one class. Cullen trains Paladins. The Adventurer’s Inn Guild trains bounty hunters with ranger skills and the Central Pub in the Irish Pub Theme Park teaches basic Bounty Hunting. Elfred teaches Alchemy and Gadgeteering and calls it Advanced Technology Engineering.
Quetzi determined from the start, that she would teach any race, unless they worshiped a Snake god, and several other Carnival Game classes, from rogue to ranger and even Alchemist Gadgeteers, rather than just knights. She had agreed as well, for a price, to allow non-Flying Serpent Guild members to train, one day per week, even with the new classes that were being prepared to play in the new and improved Carnival Game, like the Nature Ranger, who could have a wolf, dog, dragon, or cat companion.
She uses her Hologram Adventure Simulation computer to train all classes. She hatched a royal her single royal egg, and Ska, a female white human form princess, was given pain killers and quick grow potions. Naga children know their names soon after they are born and can say their names long before they can fluently converse. Ska, which delighted Lady Quetzi, when she had quickly entered her days of choice, had chosen to serve Creator and take human form, losing her little snake tail and head and back feathers. Ska became Quetzi’s executive assistant.
Amazonia and Sumo both hatched from servant’s eggs, were trained first in the combat and adventure simulator, which works kind of like a Star Trek Holodeck. Sumo ended up, somehow looking distinctly Asian. When he was fluent in talking, Sumo told Lady Q and Ska that he was a Japanese Flying Serpent Knight, full name Sumiotomo. He also told them that he preferred to be called Sumo. When he had finished growing, two weeks after the accelerated growth hormone regime, following hatching, he stood six feet and six inches tall, and weighed two hundred seven-five pounds. And both Flying Serpent Knights ate more during their first month than the entire Alpha team for each meal! Lady Q, as many of her new guild members began calling her, had to sell some artifacts hidden in her warren secret rooms to make expenses.
Amazonia was a mulatto Flying Serpent, only five foot and eleven inches tall and 189 pounds. Which meant one of her parents had been a Dark Naga! Not a good sign! Amazonia, although she seemed loyal to Lady Q, would always bear close monitoring. She could, jump and fly – not as far as Sumo. She was faster, both in combat, because of her lighter weapons, and when charging. Ama, as she often referred to herself, favored using two spears but trained in all weapons and armor.
Sumo trained in all weapons and armor but favored the two-handed dire mace. Even when he used lighter weapons, Ama was still faster. Both used leather armor, as they both possessed superb dexterity; sturdier armors increased their armor classes, but negatively affected their combat maneuvering capabilities. They only used chain and plate when training Knights or other classes, like Paladins or Clerics using medium to heavy armors.
Strangely, just after hatching, Ama, according to the combat simulator program, possessed 13 out of 20 strength, for much of her training. Sumo had only started with 11 out of 20 strength, but by the time both had reached their maximum level of 10, at the end of their thirty days of accelerated growth and training, they both had equal strength scores of 20 units. Ama, the mullato Flying Serpent Knight, according to the Combat Simulator program, measured at 20 dexterity, while Sumo had maxed that trait with a 19.
Then these two combat trainers, with assistance from the Holographic Simulator, trained all other Flying Serpent Guild members. And one day per week, trained any non-guild members, if they could come up with the proper coin. One third of their fees were kept by them, but two thirds of the cost were given back to the guild.
Like with Ska, Lady Q had fed them the quick aging medicine and gave them supplements to minimize their pain caused by quick growth and intensified combat training.
To her disappointment, both Amazonia and Sumo decided not to take human form, and pledge their lives to Creator’s service, but are half snake and half human Knights. Sumo being white Asian by race, had white scales, top and bottom, with the ridged white bottom having a light-yellow mottling. Amazonia possessed dark chocolate-colored skin and scales. Her bottom half being a lighter chocolate with shades of yellow sprinklings. Both had dreadlocks, like Charlie Girl, but mixed with rainbow feathers on their, human, but slightly reptilian heads.
Both had vibrant rainbow feathers like Flying Serpent Orchard Guardians, but their scales on their lower bodies, even over their lighter, ridged stomachs, neck to tail tips, looked like and were as durable as diamond. Both could switch forms up to three times per day, but they rarely became injured to the point that they found using their special healing abilities necessary. Secondly, they knew that their changing back and forth, bothered Lady Q and Ska, even more than their snake oil reek. Neither liked the great pain that was part and parcel of switching between human and Naga form. And their human form was more like that of a reptilian humanoid, but with two legs added when in their humanoid form and no legs, with their snake form. Neither could wear shoes or boots in their snake form, and even if in humanoid form, both preferred to walk barefoot.
Neither had wanted to serve the snake gods, when they had aged to the point where they needed to choose their adult forms. As much as smelling snake oil made Lady Q sick, her greatest anguish was that they had squandered their easy option to seek repentance and allegiance to Creator and His Son. That option was possible in the future, but the odds, even if they did not finally submit to the snake gods, but only catered to the god of self, were not in their favor for escaping the results of their choice. The odds were especially lower with Amazonia, as she had Dark Naga blood, in limited quantities, flowing in her veins, which gave her, at times dark sensual cravings, and made her lest resistant to the siren calls of the snake gods, wanting her submission and worship.
Quetzi explained how snake oil literally makes her sick, and stands twelve feet away from them, if she needs to confer with them, and pressed a perfumed hanky against her nose if they are near. She also uses the Holographic Courier Machine from her father’s study, which is in a secret room across from the Holographic Training room, to address the guild members, who live on the first floor and the castle towers.
While Quetzti may visit the topside world from time to time, she prefers to live underground in her warrens.
However, most of the time, the secret door from the castle basement to her personal iron mole chambers, is usually left open with the key in the lock, and the door propped open by a granite carving of a single thirty-sided Carnival Game dice piece. Sumo and Amazonia live in separate open rooms, in the maze of warrens, that lead back to the ruins of the White Naga Castle at the foot of the Misty Mountains.

 

CARNIVAL WORLD, CHAPTER 32

“Greetings and Salutations, ladies and gents. Thank you for coming. Just a bit of housekeeping, kitties and doggies, and then we’ll be off like a herd of turtles.” I sipped from my wooden mug, then placed it back on the small table by my stage chair.
“When it is break-time, I will give everyone about twenty minutes to use the restroom, view the displays or order snacks. Tonight, we will depart briefly from Mystica’s story. At this time, in our story, it is only a day over a week since the fateful carnival opening day.
“Well, folks, let us get down to the show. We’ll start with a summation on our new Bounty Hunter, Mystica and then transition into two high priority missions from Colonel Zales. By the way folks, it was over a decade in the future, before Zales was finally promoted to General. He did not want to play politics or have anything to do with the rituals and secret society gatherings of his Deep State superiors.”
…

We settled the young elven princess into her weekly shuffle between stays in my inn. My Bounty Hunters play a form of playing musical chairs, except for Clem, as they are assigned a different room each week. Depending on which rooms have guests, following the cleaning by the cleaning staff, they get assigned a new room. Probationary bounty hunters and cleaning staff crews and hunter gather crews mostly live at the Econo Suites Inn in the northwest quadrant. Eva, of course, lives with her husband and daughter at the Carny guild.
I had introduced Mystica to the wonders of an electronic apparatus common to earth visitors, the compact movie player, from my library. Of course, we don’t have electricity here on Carnival World, we use the Zero Point Module Batteries or special appliances that use the Tesla Free Energy.
Mystica had eagerly paid her monthly gold fee to join my library club, like Clem. She developed an instant love for sci-fi movies and animated movies. Most mornings and late nights she would spend in her room for the week and watch library movies over and over.
She had also spent a great deal of time practicing Ranger training skills, in the guild hall, attached to the back of our inn.
From about noon to three Mystica spent about three hours cleaning, at both the fairgrounds and the Carny Guild Hall. Every guild member, except for the staff leaders, completed various cleaning tasks, set up like the bounty hunters board outside of Cullen’s Constabulary. And depending on the number of tasks completed and whether the rating was judged satisfactory or unsatisfactory, earned the Carny a twenty-five cent to two dollars per hour bonus on their ride and booth pay. Mystica at that time just earned a bonus on her training wages. After only a week, she was given her assignment in the central children’s ride area.
After ninety days she had trained in on every ride and booth and was on call to work each one. Her mainstay, however, was a balance of children’s area and grounds maintenance. While the military janitorial crew still maintained the lawns in the rest of the park, the Carnival Guild had its own zero turn lawn tractors, powered push mowers and trimming equipment. The Carnival Grounds had separate lawn tractors and push lawn mowers. Mystica took outside tasks, rather than inside janitorial duty contracts, whenever, possible from the “maintenance bounties board.”
The Carnival Guild Hall is between the Carnival Grounds and the northwest quadrant Economy Suites and Mini Mall area. She avoided looking out of the windows into that area, and never walked in the park or visited the Mini Mall, as that was where she had been attacked by three Dark Atlanticean Assassins and watched her parents die. Of course, Mystica still thought with great hatred, much in the same grudge holding manner as Zandar, about the wicked little vampire with the quill vest and tanned robe, and the two Divine Thieves who were responsible for her parents’ death. Until the snake god’s false memory patch failed, it blinded her to the horrific work of the three Jesters of Chaos, who had assassinated her parents.
The Carny folks over there are very nice but eccentric people. Human and Humanoid. No grumpy Orcs, Dwarves or male Feyhoomon worked for the Carny Guild! Only good-natured Dwarves or Feyhoomon, not apt to curse or act lewdly, were allowed to be Carny ride and game staff. So, our little princess fit in very well, as long as she didn’t lose her temper. Mystica had a few close calls, but she was normally so well-behaved, skilled, and willing to help with maintenance jobs, that most people did not want, that a short lecture, rather than expulsion, were her reprimand. If you were to ask Mystica how she was doing at that time, her most frequent comment was, “I am taking it one day at a time.”
And that response, kitties and doggies, boys and girls, remained as common as “One!” and “uhhm” and “basically.” For well over a year. And this is where our little princess picked up that slight grammatical indiscretion, from Smokes, the Catling Carny: “Yous.” Instead of using the more common and grammatically correct word, “You.” Well, these days, she had left that phase in her life, and for the most part, unless she is irritated or if it is too early in the morning, and she is not awake yet, chances are she says you instead of yous.

CARNIVAL WORLD, CHAPTER 33

“Welcome to the Adventurer’s Inn, girls and boys, kitties and doggies, you are in for a rare treat tonight, I am just about to start my story arc for the famous Hobgoblin Quest series!
Bard tipped his hat and cleared his throat, then began his tale, “Vividly…”
***********************************************
Vividly the thunder crashed, and the lightning flashed. Angry were the winds that pushed and pummeled the long dark clouds. I tightened my hooded oil skin cloak, that covered my leather armor, and hunched my 6’ 3 form that still resembled, somewhat, the lithe muscular body of my former days as a United States Cryptid Team Four operative. But of course, while those thoughts come to mind, every time I share the tale I tell at my inn, my presentation is unavoidably sanitized.
Back on earth, we had to pass tests that were a combination of Ranger and Navy Seal requirements. Dive training, for us, unlike for Navy Seals, was short and sweet. The first phase of our training was as a group. Normally two thirds would wash out. This was mainly strength, endurance and mental fortitude testing.
Phase two was completed in pairs and then alone. With a minimum of equipment, we would be airlifted and dropped off in the wilderness. Snow lands, mountains, jungles, and deserts.
Half of the battle was just enduring, with little rest and little sleep, and often hungry and thirsty. Stubbornly refusing to give up, no matter the depth of the exhaustion and pain. With grim determination, forgoing the desire to just let one’s mostly dead from exhaustion, mind and body, embrace the soft promise of failure. A few moments of nerve-racking shame that would lead, shortly, to future rest and relaxation, but not as an elite soldier.
Perhaps a safe but a disillusioned life of factory work, flipping burgers or running your own small construction business. Some of us, like myself, despite the overwhelming odds, forced our numb bodies beyond the finish line. Only those who passed the tests of phases one and two were inducted into phase three, where we became Cryptid Rangers. There we learned the art of cryptid lore, and how to capture or exterminate rogue monsters of myth and legend.
We joked that we were the equivalent of Seal Team Six. We specialized in countering things that go bump in the night. We had been trained to bump back and bump back hard. Bigfoot, Solomon Island or Kandahar type giants, Jackal Heads, dinosaurs, Buck-Heads, Thunderbirds, or Lizard Men. It didn’t matter.
Without that training, I would have never survived long enough to crash Conner Corps’ building party and trade enough relics, gold, and gems to equip my small inn, nestled between St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and the town constable’s office and guard bunkhouse.
I call my inn “The Adventurer’s Guild.” It is a bar and café, like the other inns.
Tommy O’Field’s Inn, just a block or so away, called the Sanguineous Leprechaun Club, is actually the front for the Thieves’ Guild. Tommy is an O.K. guy. Some think he is shifty and a bad dude. Conner Corp hired him for a purpose, to keep the thief’s guild activity to a dull roar, without giving out that he works for Conner Corp. He is doing a swell job at Carnival City.
At the Irish Pub Theme Park, not so much. But then that is really not his job, although he does have a modicum of influence there.
Cullen’s twin brother Chauncey, who is the Chief Constable over there, has twice as many Paladins and throws pickpockets in jail and hangs the assault & battery thugs and assassins, especially in the Simple Sunday pubs.
Tommy Senior and Junior are either tending the bar at their inn, or you will find them wandering the fairgrounds. Tommy, with Tommy Junior sitting on his shoulders, trudges around the carnival environs. Both are wrapped in an overly long, ankle-length gray trench coat. Junior and Senior together scalp ride and game tickets around the fairway.
Junior hawks the tickets, and shouts, “Get your Carnival tickets here! They are half-price and going fast! A free small prize with any purchase!”
Senior opens up the bottom of the trench coat, and says, “Yeah-yeah,” and makes the trade for ride and game tickets, at a discount price, for cash or gold. Then he smiles and tosses the buyer a free small prize.
They are both well liked, but Jr., almost a midget, is often very mouthy. Jr. can’t grow a beard, no matter how hard he tries, and wears nice hoodies and short pants.
Tommy Sr., while being charismatic, and persuasive, wears a worn T-shirt that advertises his inn and knee-length gym pants. Tommy Sr., short and slightly stocky, has dark blond hair, usually covered by a stocking cap and a rough black beard with a few strands of gray. Tommy Jr. looks like a much younger version of Tommy Sr.
Cullen, the Chief Paladin, and constable of Carnival City, wanted to send Tommy back to earth and just hang all of the thieves and beggars, and worse.” ***

***Orlando paused in telling his tale, and began to sing in his deepest voice, sounding suddenly like a Tibetan throat singer, a song like Hans Zimmer’s “Hoist the Colours.”

Rhythmically tapping his well-tanned and scarred, ham-fisted hands, on the cracked white leather top of a large tan bongo drum, he sang for his audience. Only those patrons closest to the stage, or who possessed enhanced olfactory senses, scented the odor of the exotic cedar drum, crafted from a tree native only to Carnival World. The drum had been a gift from a mountain Barbarian shaman, but one who served Creator, rather than the snake gods.
Following the piratical song, Orlando sat down his drum, covered his mouth with his hand, coughed, then smiled. “Now that I have given tribute to the thieves, beggars and pirates of the Irish Pub Theme Park – for the adult facility, mind you – it is high time to return to my story. If you happen to visit the eastern Carnival, the bouncers and serving wenches will, I promise, at least once, sing that song, dark and bawdy, in its entirety. Since my inn is a family show, dear patrons, I will spare you the sordid and bloody lyrics, sharing only the basic and sanitized chorus.
“And now girls and boys, kitties and doggies, back to tonight’s tale!”
Patrick and Alex thought that – hanging all of the thieves and beggars – like at the Irish Pub Theme Park, would have cut too wide a swath. I’m glad the founders intervened.
If you think about it, that would be natural for a normally good natured and honest, but somewhat self-righteous and judgmental paladin. Patrick Conner, his grandfather, who you would expect to be the lording over, judgmental type, is not.
Just the opposite, as a matter of fact. Patrick’s wife passed on many years ago, before the Conner’s came to Carnival World. Patrick and his late wife raised twin sons, Cullen and Chauncey. The Conner Twins are now grown men.
Patrick adopted a boy, not long after coming to Carnival World, and now raises him as a son. Alas, dear patrons, I ask your forgiveness. I, Orlando the Bard, am getting ahead of myself.
Where was I now? Oh, yes! Patrick is a slender man with long white hair tied back in a shoulder blade length ponytail. He is just but kind, and jokes around so much that some people call him Sir Blarney or, by his favorite saying, ‘Cool Man.’”
I hire a staff of multiple crews who do the everyday work of running my inn, but I train new adventurers to be bounty hunters. One of the inns at the Irish Pub Theme Park has a guy that teaches bounty hunting like a class, then sends his students out on their own. Their out of class final test is basically survive or die!
I train my students, but not only in the safety of the club, but I finish their training in the field. My inn staff also receive some very basic training in self-defense.
We did train at the club first, actually more than a few months’ worth. Then I took them on a hunt for Gobs and Hobs.
Technically, that is inaccurate.

Padre

and Ghordo

were with me for quite a while before the elf princess joined my bounty hunting crew as a trainee.

The Orc and the Dwarf had long ago finished their bounty hunter training. Mystica joined me not long after the Grand Opening of the carnival. She had only passed her field test a few weeks prior to the Hob and Gob Quest. We were escorting a wealthy CEO from earth on a paid bounty hunt.
Hopeful bounty hunters join our team almost every month. And occasionally we host expensive fishing or hunting trips for the wealthiest earth clients or Carnival World nobles.
As far as the monthly bounty hunter wannabees? Most do not make the cut. They may be offered a job, if I take a liking to them, despite their ineptitude for bounty hunting, with one of my inn crews.
“Hmm. Where was I now? Oh yeah. Thanks for your indulgence my patrons! I will get on with the story.”
I was coming back from a bit of scouting. My Dwarven Cleric was holed up with the rest of the group, the ones that still lived, patching them up. The livid bruise on my cheek was no longer stinging, but I had fared the best. Except for Padre who is a prayer warrior and ranged fighter wielding a sling staff.
Several goblins there are, I reminded myself, that will no longer be hiding around the outskirts of Carnival City, sneaking in and robbing park visitors both from earth and the little scattered humanoid and human villages that dot the borderlands.
Customarily, special ops are assigned to each gate, but they are on away team missions these days, or in the enclosed military base that conceals the Star Portal.
We rarely see them. Although, when something comes up, Zales definitely knows my name, and how to find me in less than three shakes of a cat’s tail!
Many of my American friends from days past would be scandalized, but not my first nations ancestors.
I am carrying a burlap sack full of sanguineous gray-green pointed ears, both of Gobs and Hobs, that I will turn in as bounty to the Chief Paladin. His full name is Cullen Conner. Yes, he is part of the Conner Corp family. Patrick’s grandson son. So, he has a great deal of authority and influence, but not like the founders, Patrick, Elfred, and Alex.
Cullen, like some of his cousins, is naturally young. Just like the Irish of early America, who were often from large families, it was like that for the Conner family.
Most Irishmen, back in Earth’s colonial American days, had a cousin Jack, or niece Kate, who would be more than willing to come to America for work.
In much the same way, the Conner’s had many second and third cousins across America, who could be enticed to sign an NDA, especially if they brought the whole family, and work at Carnival World. Cullen and Chauncey because of their relationship with the founders and the importance of their role, understandably, had much more influence than their minor relatives who happened to work at the Carnival Theme Park or the Irish Pub Theme Park out east, on Carnival World.
The original brothers recently received access to some primitive age regression tech. Their machine is not as good as the one I found in the secret area of the Goblin Caves, and from what I read in the Atlanticean’s journal, he wanted the Knorn family to receive guardianship of his device. Conner Corp did find a much more advanced med bed device near West Catalina Island, along the west coast, a few weeks after the Carnival Game area opened for the first time. More on that story, which is very important, much later in my presentations.
Zandar can barely move now, and his niece needs more seasoning before she is ready for that responsibility. Zandar is too old to benefit from the device and, as far as I know, as far as general healing and age regression, it only works on human types. There are features on that unit which benefit Elves and Half Elves, but I will detail that at a later date. It even changed me, at my request, to look like a half-elf, but genetically I am still human, although from a different world.
Nayana Zazazi’s device is sentient and understands many languages. I will share more later about Zazazi, the legendary “last Atlanticean” friend of Creator, hero of the Dark War.
For now, on with the story.
The one the Conner’s have is just a machine that they found in a room in a chamber beneath their star portal that was recently back engineered by the military science officers that are overseeing the Carnival World Project for the American government. Although, with treatments lasting more than a year and consumption of fresh Carnival World food, Alex Conner was able to leave his motorized chair for short stints.
Part of the reason for his health improvement had been following a dietary regime that severely limited highly processed American food. Alex Conner vacated his voice modulator only after his death.
The new Alex Conner, following a stroke and heart attack, is a product of the Atlanticean machine, taken from the Western Seaside Research Facility, that reanimates or designs clonal replacement bodies. The new Alex walks with an expensive sword cane, that is not medically necessary. His mobility enhancement device is merely a foppish accessory to compliment his Giorgio Armani black suits with white button-down shirts and black or charcoal fedoras – many of which have the name Bing Crosby inside the rim.
We will, myself and my other adventuring mercs, a week or so from now, turn in those elongated, pointy, faintly zombie-scented ears to the town constable. Those of us that survive.
If Padre didn’t have a potion of Quick Heal, we’d be stuck in this cave weeks, maybe more, before Ghordo would be ready to travois out of here. Tomorrow or the next day with that potion and prayer, we will be off like a herd of turtles.
Our rich client, from earth, Mr. Robin Turpin, paid for the resurrection contract. Otherwise, he would never have been allowed to exit the theme park. His body vanished as soon as that Hob Gob chief cleaved him with his axe. Turpin had been injected with a small medical tracking device and as soon as it detected his death, his body was teleported into the Carnival City Hospital connected to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
I will have to go visit him when I get back. He may be in a coma for several days or more. Conner Corp has access to praying healers from the other races on this world. The Dwarf Clans have many more clerics than the Elves, Fey, Barbarians, and other Carnival World races. And of course, Princess Quetzi is a well-known healer.
Many doctors specializing in different fields, but recognized as the best in the world, on earth, who are willing to sign the required Non-Disclosure Agreements are paid handsomely to work their professions here on Carnival World.
They are imported from earth and in addition to standard medicine and equipment they would have normally used, have access to tech not yet available on earth, for public consumption, to use for healing Conner Corp employees and theme park visitors. Some of the services are free. Others, like the resurrection tech, is very expensive and only available to favored Conner Corp employees and high-ranking American Government personnel or wealthy visitors.
Rob will get his cut. And the hospital staff will fix him up real good. On the outside at least. He’ll learn to hate the NDA he signed before he came to Carnival World. Or he’ll disappear. Or there will be a family accident. But he has money and is the head of a large manufacturing corporation. He can hire a good shrink to get him through the nightmares. ***
***Orlando cleared his throat and chittered like a squirrel, a signal he had taught his bounty hunter trainees. He carefully stepped over the long, thick, fallen oak tree branch that had been carried over and placed to conceal the small cavern entrance.