Bounty

content:

The Habitican Masterclassers’ Meeting of February 19th, 3018 AGW was a short one. Usually it took all day, without a single lunchbreak in between. This one only took an hour, and half of that was spent waiting for the April Fool to arrive.

First to make it to Habit Hall was Manta of Dilatory. As well as being the merman King of Sunken Dilatory, he was the Habitican Master of Mages who ruled over the arcane affairs of the nation. He always made sure to arrive precisely 5 minutes early to every scheduled meeting. He didn’t think this too difficult a courtesy for him, as the complex fabric of spells needed to transmute his fishy tail into a pair of legs meant that every jaunt onto land required intense and longwinded preparation – what more was 5 minutes? Duty called, and he would be early for it. He gave a firm nod to the guard standing outside the private meeting room and took his place at his allotted side of the square marble table.

Next to come was Lady Winona Glaciate, leader of the northern Habitican Mammoth Riders and the Master of Warriors. She ignored the guard and stormed in.

“I wish for this nonsense to be over as soon as possible.” She took off her massive hunting cloak and tossed it to the floor as she made her way to the nearest spot from the door.

King Manta coughed deeply to clear air out of his water-filled lungs. “Good morning, my lady. Your standing position is supposed to be to my left.”

Lady Glaciate harumphed and went round to the other side of the massive table. “I was busy handling a pack of sabretooth tigers on the loose in the Stoïkalm Steppes. I was gearing up to ride home with my kin before Reaper rudely announced these summons.”

And not a moment too soon, one could hear the muffled voice of a crone cry in delight, “Why, good morning Secul! I hope you’ve been having a splendid day at Habit Hall! And not to worry about this dragon situation, it will be well taken care of.” The Grass Reaper, Master of Healers, padded into the room and took a seat across from King Manta.

The Grass Reaper was not human. Or maybe she was, and the reason why her body was nothing but a skeleton was simply that she was just that old. She was so old that there had not been a Master of Healers before her; she was a founding member of Habitica back in 1840 AGW, and yet she still maintained that selfsame joyful aura. Out of the 4 Masterclassers, she alone reserved the right to sit rather than stand at the table. Out of the 4 of them, only she did not have external duties ruling another body; Habitica was her one and only passion project.

She curtsied to her colleagues and removed the leafy hood from her head. “Manta. Winona.”

“Reaper, what is this for?” Glaciate demanded. “Why don’t we place the bounty on the Wyrm and be done with it? Are we really below this formality, or-”

“Halt, my lady,” King Manta interrupted. “We do not speak until all members of the Council are present.”

The Mammoth Rider crossed her arms and huffed, eyeing the Confounded digital clock on the wall. “He’s late as usual. I swear he does this on purpose. I hope you all have eaten enough to skip lunch again.”

Manta dipped his lips into a 5° frown. “I have, my Lady. I must fast whenever I am above water.”

It took 20 more minutes for the final Masterclasser to arrive. The Master of Rogues went by the name of the April Fool. Whether that was his real name or not remained to be seen. It was he who invented April Fool’s Day, in which he would reveal one spectacular and extravagant practical joke upon his personal flying city – Mistiflying – and whatever hapless realm that lay below it. Usually that realm was Habitica itself. What was April Fool’s Day for? Compromise – no one wanted his mirth to be equally distributed across the whole year.

The April Fool sauntered into the room, removing his iridescent top hat and placing it neatly on top of Glaciate’s hunting cloak. He pushed back his mop of candy cane dyed hair (the dye was processed from real candy cane) and after what seemed like an hour of sauntering he took his place at the marble table across from the Master of Warriors.

“Good morning, my Lady,” the April Fool greeted her, much like King Manta. Except while Manta’s greeting had been regal and formal, the Fool’s had more heart in it – his own heart, to be precise. "Did you enjoy yesterday’s bouquet? My gardeners have perfected a breed of: " He paused for dramatic effect. “Coffee-infused flowers.”

“Keep your playthings off my gear.” Lady Glaciate strode to her cloak and dramatically kicked the top hat into the corner of the room. As she returned, she said, “Yes, my sabretooth cats quite enjoyed those flowers – the petals put them into hyperactive fits that sent them halfway across the Steppe. I don’t suppose that was part of this week’s romantic gifts.”

The April Fool grinned heartily. “I suppose the fault lies on whoever decided to feed such a thoughtful gift to her precious icy menagerie. Then again, I always thought those sabres needed a bit of exercise.”

The Mammoth Rider fumed as she stared him down. Despite being average height, the April Fool always managed to make himself look stouter and jollier than everyone else in the room, even in spite of the Grass Reaper’s presence.

Before Lady Glaciate could get a word in, the Grass Reaper raised her skeletal arms and cleared her imaginary throat: she was commencing the meeting. “The Masterclassers of Habitica have been summoned to Habit Hall on February the nineteenth, 3018 years from the end of the Great War. I, Grass Reaper of the Healing, Child of the Eastern Lands, am present to discuss the proceedings of this good country.”

“I, King Manta of the Magic, Child of the Kingdom of Dilatory, am present to discuss the proceedings of this good country.”

“I, Lady Glaciate of the War, Child of the Tribe of the Mammoth Riders, am present to discuss the proceedings of this good country.”

“An I’m here too. Anyway, have you all noticed who’s standing outside this room right now? That’s Secul, guys – the dude we caught on my island? You know, the spy? What’s that doodad doing down here?”

King Manta stepped forward. “Finish the line, Fool.”

“Am not! I want to know why an enemy of Habitica is standing outside our most private conversations!”

“April, just get it over with,” Glaciate growled.

The April Fool performed his signature shrug-of-shoulder-with-eyeroll, then dished out the rest of the procedure in a deep-pitched imitation of King Manta: “I, April Fool of the Freedom, Child of the Mistiflying Group of Companies, am present to discuss the proceedings of this good country.” He leaned his arms down on the table as if drunk at a bar. “I ain’t got anything fun to say when it’s my turn. Like, what’s ‘freedom’ got to do with anything? Certainly not free time. And I have to call my island a ‘Group of Companies’, because what, some ancient Confounded corporates didn’t have any imagination?” He threw his hands up. “The word ‘cult’ exists, just saying!”

“Remember the Chain of Command, Fool. The Grass Reaper creates a motion, and we each take our turns in descending importance. You have broken that chain twice already.”

“Alright, alright, O Fishy One.”

The merman did not take this nickname lightly, but before he could bite back the Grass Reaper raised her hand. “Be still, Manta. It is quite alright.” She smiled warmly, or at least one can only guess that her skull was smiling. “April is right to be concerned; know that there is nothing to be afraid of; we have taken our dear Secul under our wing. And Winona is also correct: we are not below these formalities. But it is with these rules that we ensure Habitica maintains itself to be what it was always made to be, centuries ago when these rituals were established. We Masterclassers are the stewards of this maintenance, for the good of all Habiticans and beyond. Are we all in agreement with this crucial burden?”

And so the recitals were repeated.

“I, King Manta of the Magic, Child of the Kingdom of Dilatory, agree with your assessment.”

“I, Lady Glaciate of the War, Child of the Tribe of the Mammoth Riders, accept your opening statement.”

“And I, April Fool of the Freedom, Child of the Mistiflying Group o’ Companies, think that’s an awesome conversation starter.”

“Now then.” The Grass Reaper pulled out some papers and turned a document overleaf. “Let us start that conversation: the dragon.”

The April Fool gave a whoop and rang his personal gong. The Grass Reaper smiled (again, one can only guess). Manta glared at him, wondering how he’d brought that thing in with him. Glaciate shook her head in disapproval, but secretly stifled a chuckle.

The Grass Reaper put on her reading glasses. “Vice the Shadow Wyrm has unleashed himself upon the realm again at last. Shadow Wyrms are not a true species of dragon – contrary to popular belief, Vice is the only known member of his race. Oh, I remember that day he flew in from the east all those years ago. If these documents are correct, the total score of deaths to his attacks total about two thousand. The indirect deaths – suicides, I assume – approach a much larger number. The last sighting of Vice was by Melior in the year 2727, the month of April.”

The April Fool’s mouth gaped and he pointed at himself in mock surprise.

“After a long battle, he was cast into the crater of Mt. Habitica, and once inside the cave passages within the Meandering Mountains he made himself a lair. In the years since, Vice’s legacy has become shady to most Habiticans. In these addenda, there are noted incidents where ‘daring Habiteers crept into the Caverns of Mount Habitica on a quest to rid this realm of the Shadowed Worm Vice, only never to return, or return in a state that none would consider sane’.” The Grass Reaper clucked. “It must have been Masterclasser Montgomery VI who wrote this report. Ah, his pitiful attempts to translate his powerful voice to paper always brought tears of laughter to my eyes. Such a shame, that tragedy in the Swamps of Stagnation. I digress – now Vice has returned. Are we all in understanding of who this creature is?”

“I, King Manta of the Magic, Child of the Kingdom of Dilatory, am in understanding of who Vice the Shadow Wyrm is to this good country.”

“I, Lady Glaciate of the War, Child of the Tribe of the Mammoth Riders, understand the gravity of this situation.”

“I, April Fool of the Freedom, Child of the Mistiflying Group o’ Companies, don’t get it.” He pauses, eyes the room. “No one’s going to interrupt? How awfully swimming! The one thing I don’t understand here is why we should care.”

A moment of awkard silence.

“Why not, April?” The Grass Reaper raised her arms. “I, Grass Reaper of the Healing, Child of the Eastern Lands, give you temporary precedence in the Oral Chain of Command to speak your mind on this motion.”

“Victory!” The April Fool danced on the spot, candy cane hair bobbing about in a frenzy, before collecting himself again. “Ah yes, uhm, as I was saying: why should we care about this Vice? What’s the difference between him and, say, the Dysheartener? It’s been a year since we bug-sprayed that giant mantis and we still don’t know where it came from and what it was capable of! The only thing we should fear is the unknown, and it looks like we know everything about this dragon judging from that piece of paper over there written by our Monty the Monkey. And to top it off – we’ve beaten this guy before! Almost 300 years ago! Think about how much we’ve progressed since then, how much new magic and tech we’ve mastered. I could release one of these clockwork candy condors I’ve been working on and I bet it would crush this little Vicey like a- well, like a vice. I say we let the habiticans do what they always do: save the day. We’ve primed them for generations to do just that, and we’ve got better things to do than deal with the everyday atrocity.”

“Better things like what?!” Lady Glaciate exclaimed.

“Like bubble tea!”

It was clear what the other three thought of the April Fool’s outburst.The digital hum of the Confounded clock on the wall permeated the silence.

“This is why I feed your flowers to my animals.”

“Remember the Chain of Command, my Lady.”

An impatient huff.

The Grass Reaper nodded in humble understanding. “Now now, my dear April. These documents do not hold everything there is to know about the enemy. You have not – in fact, all of you have not – experienced firsthand what it is like to stand face to face with Vice the Shadow Wyrm. There is something about him – an old and ancient power that no one has yet divined – that can bring forth in your mind your foulest memories as if they happened yesterday. Even my centuries of studying biology and anatomy cannot tell me how Vice came to wield this magic. You could call him part-telepath; he knows your name, and lists all the aspects of your personality and all committed actions that he deems ‘immoral’. I do not believe he can do more, because shortly afterwards he gobbles you whole. That is the basis of his worldwide quest, to raze the earth and cleanse the world.”

“I, King Manta of the Magic, Child of the Kingdom of Dilatory, understand clearly this danger to the world.”

Lady Glaciate got to the point. “So we return to what I said before: we set the bounty on him, give it a good price, and maybe we give the one who slays the dragon a place in a Migrants’ Welcoming Ceremony. We make it a group effort; every day we announce new information about Vice and his whereabouts. We must also send our own contingent of warriors, because of course we must play our part to help-” She gave the April Fool the hairy eyeball. “-and Melior can oversee the close contact affairs. That’s my stance.”

“Fine by me,” the April Fool shrugged. “Once again, the great Mammoth Whisperer demonstrates her wisdom and cunning.”

“I see a different approach,” the Grass Reaper said. “Dealing with Vice by force did not ultimately succeed. Although Melior cllaims to have shown mercy to the dragon when they fought, I find myself inclined to believe that he tweaked the truth as he sometimes does. He was not strong enough to slay Vice – so he purposed instead to cripple him. And now Vice is back. We cannot fight evil with our fists, not anymore. By now we should have learned that. I propose that we send our most trusted diplomats and ambassadors for humanity, to converse with him and persuade him from his terrible quest.”

King Manta slammed his hands on the table. “THAT’S A- I, King Manta of the Magic, Child of the Kingdom of Dilatory, think that is an imprudent idea! Based on what you have described, Vice cannot be trusted to show anything other than its lack of empathy. The way it kills is by its very nature sadistic; its level of tyranny lies among that of the Dread Dragon that sunk our Dilatory. And this dragon is thousands of years old; from what I understand, it is older than the Great War itself. It is ancient. No offering of peace will sway it from its lunacy.”

“Whoa.” The April Fool backed away, doing the jazz hands. “Struck a nerve.”

Manta composed himself, and cleared his lungs of the air he’d just swallowed in his tirade. “That is my vote: Lady Glaciate is correct, we must set a bounty and kill this dragon.”

Glaciate had nothing more to say. “I’m sorry, Reaper. I know you’ve been driving this point for years now. But this isn’t one of those moments. Vice has eaten people. You say over two thousand in our realm – and what of all the others across the entire Eastern Lands? It, it must be hundreds of thousands. Millions dead. He’s that old. No one that old can change who they are.”

The April Fool giggled when his turn came. “I would love to see that – a little caravan of orators with their preppy coats and shin protectors. They’d be the most delicious, juiciest marshmallow to him. We’d make him laugh. Before he’d engulf the lot of them and swallowed the whole cart whole.” He shook his head in mirth. “Where was I? Yeah. No. Bounty any day.”

The Grass Reaper sat still, dark orbs of her skull looking down at the paper in her cracked and yellow hands. “Very well. We shall prepare the bounty and set aside the gold from our coffers. But I will tell you all this-” and she looked at each of the Masterclassers in turn. “Tension is growing within the Quad-Nation Alliance: the Durgor War, the Occidental Blockade, the Dysheartener, the Taskwoods Fire, and now this. The stability of this realm is failing. We are failing. The evidence is plain to see. No longer can we stand idly by, taking the violent path we’ve followed for generations, and let the Void consume us. We cannot act as though all in the world is safe. Fail that, and we risk taking the path of… The Lost One. Do you all understand me? No words. You nod, or you shake. Do You Understand?”

The Grass Reaper rarely abstained from the rituals of the Masterclassers’ Meetings. Rarely did she utter anything less than flowery eloquence. But whenever she didn’t, everyone else in the room would be quick to obey. She was old; older than Manta’s sunken paradise, older than the founder of Glaciate’s Mammoth Riders, and older than the April Fool’s Confounded flying island. No one that old can change who they are, no matter how generous their polished outer coat appears. The Reaper could let herself be superceded should the vote sway out of favour, but she would always make the lasting impression.

King Manta nodded meekly, staring blankly at the wall. His duty rose above all else, and he would follow it to the end.

Lady Glaciate nodded, keeping her hands behind her back. She decided it was wise to keep her mouth shut when it mattered.

The April Fool opened his mouth to say something, but paused and merely nodded as well. The time for jokes would be later. Preferably long after he’d left Habit Hall.

“Very well…” The Grass Reaper took a breath and removed her glasses. “Now, does anyone else have a matter they would like to voice?”

Only the April Fool was brave enough. “Are- are we going to talk about Secul?” He eyed the closed door behind him, picking at his golden tooth. “I still don’t know why he’s here. Little badger’s probably been listening in on this entire conversation.”

“Ah, him.” The Grass Reaper chuckled, as if all was well in the world again. “After he was caught on Mistiflying last year, the Knights of Habitica interrogated him. Apparently they were satisfied by his confession, and after 3 months in jail he was released and given 12 months of community service. I trust that he has been set on the right path.”

“3 months?!” the April Fool exclaimed. “Community service?! What- what- that man tried to steal my Electro Distraction Field blueprints! He tried to take my bubble tea recipe! Who gave that man community service in this land’s innermost political circles?!”

“I did,” the Grass Reaper said. “I saw to it personally.”

“Oh.”

“And quiet down, won’t you, April? He’s just outside, his poor heart! If that is all that needs to be said, I, Grass Reaper of the Healing, Child of the Eastern Lands, return the Oral Chain of Command to the Age Hierarchy and hereby conclude the Masters’ Meeting of February the nineteenth, 3018 years from the end of the Great War. All Masters are dismissed.”

And without further ado, she stood up and padded away, leaving the other Masterclassers to look at one another with blank looks.

“Well.” Lady Glaciate trudged to her hunting cloak. “It was nice meeting you again, Manta. Not so nice meeting you, April. Looks like lunchtime is saved.”

This is a revised version of a story from 25 Dec 2023.