(A/N- start)
An interesting scifi story for those who want to read it, Mass Effect: Synthesis (by Jade Tatsu) tells the oddly uplifting story of what could happen if the Reapers were just a little more symbiotic than parasitic. Personally, I think this sort of story could have been a better plot, even tweaked to make sure that humanity was not the first ones to accept potential synthesis- in CANON! It would have honestly made for a more hopeful ending than the three disappointing ones we got in the game.
So, I originally planned only to have 8 chapters, but that plan has gone out the window with my upload schedule and decreased writing time per week. To compensate, I am going to keep posting every Sunday or Monday evening, and finish this story. It's completely timelined out, I just don't have enough time to write everything down at once. (My job, while somewhat monotonous, is mentally exhausting- and I am planning on applying to a better one in Febuary. Speaking of, anyone who reads this work for Unisea?)
As usual, I don't own any of this. That was the disclaimer.
Anyway, please review when you get to the bottom of the chapter- it helps inspire little things.
Enjoy!
(A/N- end)
Chapter 7- Hiring Procedures
"It is an undeniable, and may I say fundamental quality of man, that when faced with extinction, every alternative is preferable."
- Director Church
Smaug luxuriated in the feeling of sunlight on his scales, and the gentle breeze bringing the scent of miles around to his massive nostrils as he stretched on the mountain above Erebor. It had been years since he had last left the mountain, but rather than hunger driving him, now... Now he was being chattered at by a tiny biped.
A tiny biped who was, in a very real way, incredibly dangerous- even to a being such as him.
"I would say that, with a bit of work, this mountain would be perfect for farming." And there was the biped. "Some workers would be needed of course, to initially carve out bits of the mountain to make it flat enough, and cart up the requisite dirt- but if they were living in dale that would not be such a problem."
Eris was currently sitting on Oculus, and pointing out potential sources of revenue.
She pointed down at the fairly large valley that sat right at the gate of Erebor. "In fact, the doorstep would be perfect for tearing farmland on the hills. A little bit of /gunpowder/ would make easier too.." She mused, almost talking to herself.
"What is this... Gunpowder?" Asked Smaug, as he folded his wings again. He had been asking for definitions a great deal since Eris had arrived.
"It's a mix of three materials that, when ground fine and lit, explode. Saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal must be ground very fine, and mixed in the right proportions when wet seems like a simple mixture, but it took my people a very long time to figure out its utility." She answered almost absently. "You have the land for a great deal of potential minions- with some infrastructure build-up, of course."
The dragon pondered that for a moment, before his head suddenly swiveled towards the direction of Laketown. "Well well well..." He rumbled. "I see they are eager to come meet their new... What was that term you used?"
"Landlord."
"Yes..." He smirked. "That."
Smaug spread his wings, but paused in his takeoff when Eris spoke.
"You know, you might want to let me talk with them first-" she froze, then grinned with both bodies. Even Smaug thought it was unsettling, considering the unnatural way Oculus's jaw bent to smirk. "Actually, never mind. I'll be right behind you."
The Tyrant under the mountain, Smaug, jumped off the ledge he was on, and, with two flaps of his mighty wings, was airborn. He let out an exultant roar as his wings felt the wind for the first time in years, and quickly found the convoy of humans. It looked like they were bringing him a sacrifice- some humans in a wooden cage.
He sighed, and blew out a puff of flame. Well, he would need minions if he wanted to run this whole make-more-money-out-of-money thing that Eris had described to him.
Twisting his tail slightly, and feeling the spinal ridges flex, he gently went into a spiraling turn- to give the bipeds below something to admire on the way down.
There are some things in life that are definitively terrifying. Being attacked by a pack of Orcs, for example. Being swarmed by giant spiders is another. Having a dragon fly in circles around you while you and your family are being carted to serve as lunch to the massive creature- well, that breaks the scale, as it were.
"That's... Big." Bain had to swallow as he watched the dragon from within the wooden cage as it swung around them in gentle orbits. "Have you ever seen anything so big da?... Da?"
His father had passed out, and his mother was looking a mix of horrified and amazed.
"Huh." Sigrid had been watching the dragon as well. "I wonder how it stays up without any feathers on its wings?"
"However it works, that's a dragon!" Tilda was the more practical of the two, and was getting more and more concerned. "And it's getting closer!"
"No it's not. Look, it's not getting bigger." Sigrid was not as concerned- unsettled, but not concerned.
"Yes it is- compared to that tree!"
The dragon had already passed the tree, and Sigrid missed it. "No it isn't."
"Yes it is! Look!"
The dragon abruptly swing around, and landed in front of the terrified convoy.
"Men! You are upon my doorstep!" Smaug roared, smoke leaking from his nostrils as he looked over the cart. "State your purpose!"
"Oh mighty Smaug-" Alfrid began, before Smaug sniffed him, and wrinkled his snout in disgust.
With a huff, the advisor was blown away, tumbling off to the side. "I will not speak with worms who rot in their own bodies- no matter how polite they may try to be!" Smaug trumpeted. "Know this- you, all of you, live upon my land! My territory! And I will not speak to those who have no say!" Blazing eyes swept the escorts. "Who among you has some say?"
The guard-Sargent raised his hand. "I do, Smaug the terrible."
The dragon's eyes locked on him, and he involuntarily wet himself.
Smaug chuckled, and it came out like the rumbling of an earthquake. Slowly, with an air of absolute menace, his head snaked over the wagon and approached the man. A little tongue of flame licked out of one nostril, and the man twitched instinctively. "Tell me, little man, what you intend to do on my doorstep with a..." He sniffed the air again. "A family in a box."
"The Master of Laketown has decreed that, for the crime of witchcraft," the man's trembling got worse as the horns on Smaug's head flexed, "the family of Bard and Astrid would be sacrificed to you, Smaug, chiefest and greatest of calamities."
"Hmmm... In that case..." Smaug tapped the ground with a claw, cratering it, before reaching out and grabbing the box, causing screams from the family within. "They are now |mine|. And as for your 'Master'..." He blew a contemptuous puff of flame. "I will call upon him soon. After all-" Smaug grinned toothily. "Laketown has a great deal of unpaid rent- and I intend to collect..."
With that, Smaug grabbed the box in his jaws, flapped his titanic wings, and lifted off, knocking over a few of the unsettled souls who had been pulling the cart.
There was a rather long silence as the people considered the fact that they were still alive, and got their bowels under control.
"Can we leave now?" Asked a guard plaintively.
The Sargent blinked. "Yes. Yes we should." He looked at the ground, seeing almost for the first time the ditch that Alfrid had dug with his face. "And someone retrieve Lickspittle... I doubt the master wants to loose his favorite toady- and we don't want him to blame us, now do we?"
Eris was working in the treasure hoard, writing in one of the many large, empty books that she had found in the remnants of the dwarven library. Well, calling it a 'book' was a bit of a misnomer in this case- it had no title, no cover or spine... But there were enough pages to fill a book. Or several.
The spine was being manipulated and absorbed by her hair.
To be specific, Oculus had been absorbed to Eris' hair, which now flicked around the room in strands, forming eyes and 'pen' fingers when needed to write down different words the spiders knew, in order to reverse-engineer the language that these people had developed.
It was at this point that a small segment of his biomass, roughly the size of a dog, shot out of the darkness near the ceiling, and impacted the ropes of hair, embedding and being absorbed. It had been nearly shapeless, tendrils and a core surrounded by eyes and advanced ear-like structure, but enough to keep an eye on Smaug in case the main mass was needed.
It hadn't been much, but it was enough to back John-Eris up in the event that Smaug went nuts. Regardless, it was back- Eris updated the material, and released it again. This time, it's task was to get her biomass from various predefined sources.
Mostly trees.
As the odd little creature scuttled off, she sent out a pulse- and felt the anomaly that was Smaug had entered the mountain again. With barely a flick of thought, the pages were neatly assembled, and the heavy mechanisms within the dwarven book bindings were shut on the mass of pages. She tucked the spaniel-sized book under one arm, and, connecting her BlackLight strands to her armor, began swinging between the pillars like some form of demented spider made entirely of hair.
Time to scare some mortals.
Fainting is not the most dignified thing a person can do when faced with the utterly surprising or terrifying. Synonyms include, but are not limited to swooning, pass/black/conk/zonk/wonk out, keel over, and 'out like a light'.
There is also a commonly held misconception that those who pass out are of weaker stock than the others around them who did not- and, depending on the culture, may be mocked with having images of genitalia (usually male, but better artists can get creative) drawn on their face with markers. Or, if no markers are available, charcoal sticks work well enough.
Being carried by a dragon was a bit of a shock. Being gently carried in its mouth while the dragon takes off was even more of a shock. But actually flying?
Bard's entire family joined him in unconsciousness as Smaug leveled off. This, in turn, had awoken the archer-turned-boatman, who looked down, then around, before sinking back into dreamland.
Smaug gently set down the box in the middle of his hoard, next to his prime sleeping location, on a spar of stairway that stuck up out of the golden slope like a rock on a river. Once it was in place, and he had checked to see where the occupants were, he waited.
As if on cue, a black tendril dropped out of the cavernous darkness in the ceiling, and touched the box. Immediately, tendrils of pulsating black mold shot over it, then retracted.
The box fell apart, small pieces of wood falling away from each other and clattering over the humans- who began to stir.
Smaug wasn't that patient. "Attend me, creatures of the race of men!"
Predictably, the family immediately woke up, and clutched at each other like they were some sort of lifeline. The dragon found that hilarious.
However, after a minute or so, Astrid shook herself out of the daze. "Greetings, oh magnificent and terrible Smaug." She patted her children in an attempt to comfort them subtly as she stood, with Bard following soon after. "I hope that we are not intruding."
"Not at all!" Smaug proclaimed magnanimously. "Indeed, you have come at a most... Fortuitous time." He bent forward, and turned his head so that one if his great eyes could focus in them.
Bard swallowed. "Smaug the tyrannical, while I would never attempt to question your decisions or judgement, I would like to ask a question of you reguardless."
"Such nice manners- and so eloquent!" Smaug cooed at the tiny (from his perspective) biped. "You managed to do what many people have not- asked to ask a question without asking directly." He crossed his wings in front of his body, and wiggled a little to sink into the gold. "Bard sounds like the name of one like you. You may ask your question, Bard."
"What are we here for, oh magnanimous Smaug?" Bard was truly puzzled- and concerned, as his family was now at the mercy of Smaug. "Why not eat or flame us?"
"Do you see all this gold?" Smaug didn't answer the question directly. "Have you ever seen so much of it?"
Bard and his family, all who were, in effect, absolutely sober, considered the question.
"No, never." Surprisingly, Bain was the first to answer- but quailed under the dragon's gaze.
"Well, I have been... Informed," Smaug blew out a small tongue of flame as he said the word (which, coincidentally, lit one of the many braziers that the dwarves had, decades ago, filled with coal- lighting up the room). "That there are such things as... Loans?"
"Yes..." Bard had no idea where the dragon was going with this.
"And... What was that other word..." Smaug shook his head by rotating it clockwise and then counterclockwise rapidly, trying to jar loose a thought. "When you pay for the use of someone else's lair or nest?" At their confused expressions the dragon frowned. "House maybe? Ahh! I remember- it was called rent!"
The dragon laughed, and every snarling chuckle made the family flinch- even as they relaxed once his attention was not directly on them.
"Yes- rent!" Smaug grabbed a pillar, and used it to pull himself a bit higher off the gold, allowing his glittering chestplates to catch the light. "Laketown owes me rent- and I intend to collect... But for that, I need minions!"
The blazing gaze of Smaug focused on the family once more, and his next words seemed to worm inside their heads.
"So tell me, spawn of Gidion and Dale- oh, don't look so surprised. I would never forget the smell of the only man who managed to fire a quiver of those black arrows at me!- Can you read and write?"
"I can." Astrid whimpered. Whatever the dragon was doing to its voice, it was forcing her to answer- as it did to her children, who echoed her statement.
"Can you do sums?"
Even Bard could do sums- and after another round of affirmations, Smaug relaxed down off the pillar.
"Good." He purred with the rumble of a summer storm. "In that case, you all are Mine!"
"I knew you'd see it my way." Eris's statement surprised everyone, making even the dragon jump- which created a small landslide. Out of the ceilings' darkness came a waterfall of tendrils, which coalesced into the human form of Eris, black hair waving in nonexistent currents behind her as if she was underwater.
"You!" Bard stormed up to the smiling woman, and thrust a finger at her. "Did you know they would think of us as witches after sharing your berries?"
"Did they really?" Eris looked surprised, but her eyes sparkled with amusement over her clasped hands. "I am shocked! Just... Staggered even!" Abruptly, she toned down the drama. "No. I did not know that. I thought your would have realized that sharing such... Useful plants would be a risk. After all, they came from someone like me." Her hair spiraled up and behind her.
"Thank you." Astrid walked up behind Bard, and put a hand on his shoulder, calming the man. "I admit, it was foolish to try selling the berries to everyone. But I did not think they would want to be sick any longer."
Eris sighed, then clapped her hands together. "The past's the past! No reason to dwell on it too much. So- who wants to help change the way your world thinks about money?"
Smaug chuckled at the immortal's exuberance as he slid, like one of the giant sea-serpents, into the sea of gold. Living as long as he had, he understood the need to shake things up- tedium was not pleasant for too long.
End ch 7
I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter! RL got in the way of updating on Monday, but, since I just started this new job, interferences in my hobbies should be expected.
Please review- and feel free to guess about how things are going to go. And yes- I know I am misspelling Gandalf. I have a joke to run off it.
Toddles!
