Matilda and Ellison walked Jerald back to the main gate. The company he ran, Crewe Investigations, now had its main office in a business district on Facepage. Jerald had been renting space in a nice office park, but that world had been swallowed up by Gobble. Given the choice of being part of the Gobble …
“We only had a small window of opportunity to grab him,” Matilda explained to the client, Count Simond. “The building had multiple exits. If we’d taken the time to get enough bodies together to guard all the exits, we would have lost the chance to grab him. But something spooked him, he ran out the …
“It’s a little firm called Pocoto,” said Norbert. Ellison restrained himself from giving Matilda a high five. That’s what they were looking for. Instead, he walked closer to Jerald and Norbert and pulled at Jerald’s sleeve. “We turn left up ahead,” he told him. Jerald glanced at Norbert, who sped up his sales pitch. “Several …
“And finally we’ve come to the worst of Krim’s fine drinking establishments, the King’s Armpit.” Matilda Scarletstrike swung open the door so that Ellison Davo and his brother, Jerald Rex Crew, could walk in. Jerald hesitated in the doorway. The Krim’s Armpit could be a little overwhelming to newcomers. It was a bit of an …
The guild had rearranged the furniture in the member’s lounge for the hearing. The couches and arm chairs had been pushed back against the walls, and there were now four rows of chairs in the center of the room. The refreshments table hadn’t been moved, though. It was still off to the side, covered with …
“So it all hinges on Ismena’s testimony.” Ellison leaned over the hand-written statement from Gus’s girlfriend and sole alibi. “Do you think she’ll be credible?” Matilda shrugged, then raised her self on her elbows so she could look over at the paper, her head almost touching Ellison’s. “Look here,” she pointed. “She writes her letter …
Ellison met up with Matilda again back at the Barley Mow Inn. And she immediately started in about the elephant. “It’s a smallish elephant, but no, I don’t know how they got it in there,” he said. “I didn’t ask, and I don’t care. For all I know they chopped it up into pieces and …
“Hey!” Just outside the doorway, Gus threw up his hands. “Warren already told you that he didn’t see who attacked him!” The chancellor grudgingly nodded. Or perhaps the chief assassin did see who attacked him, but was too embarrassed to admit that he’d been caught out. Saying so out loud, though, especially without any evidence …
Ellison had never been inside the Paladins of Death guild hall before. The entry hall was two stories high and was a museum of artifacts and successful assassinations. The focal point was a giant elephant. It’s glass eyes followed Ellison across the room. Was the elephant itself the target of an assassination, or its means? …
There were two guards on duty at the assassins’ guild house. They’d beefed up security a bit since the murder. Ellison didn’t recognize either of them, but figured that the one with the wooden leg had been on duty the previous night. “Nimble Wind?” he asked the female guard while the other went to fetch …
“Have you heard the latest?” Matilda Scarletstrike took one of Ellison’s greasy, overly-salted deep-fried skirrets. The skirret was a stringy, pale root vegetable about the size of a pinky finger. A bitter, anemic carrot. Or maybe a zombie pasnip. She pointed the skirret at Ellison. “The head of the assassin’s guild has been assassinated.” She …
Ellison teleported to Facepage’s Main Street. Eventually, everybody came through here. Even people who hated Facepage dropped by, because their friends lived here, or because it was the most convenient spot to meet. Technically, Facepage was just another virtual world, like Krim. But practically, it was more of an all-purpose platform. People who still had …
Back on Banking Street, Ellison shifted Bella’s framed portrait from one shoulder to another. He should have argued harder for removing the canvas from the frame. He checked the list Bob gave him. Bella’s gallery was off to the south. But Matilda’s favorite bar was to the north east, and the Barley Mow Inn was …
“Your wife is trapped inside the rug?” Ellison stepped away from Bob to get a better look at the man. He didn’t look crazy, but, on Krim, you never knew. “Why not? It’s a virtual world, isn’t it? Anything is possible.” “Krim doesn’t have magic,” said Ellison, slowly and carefully, to avoid setting Bob off …
Fried skirrets. Fried cabbage. Fried skirrets with cabbage. Cabbage soup. Ellison Davo stared at the chalkboard with the day’s menu. His stomach growled. Last night’s dinner was also cabbage. Breakfast had been leftover cabbage from the night before. “Sorry,” said Quimby Plummer, the proprietor of the Barley Mow Inn. “We’re still having problems with our …
“Well, I’ll leave you to do whatever it is you need to do. Let me know when we can move the body.” Rodge frowned at the corpse. The flies had found it, and were beginning to buzz around it. “Hold on, what do you expect us to do?” Ellison asked. “Well, you know,” Rodge waved …
Rodge Bannister led them to the other side of the room, where heavy curtains hung across the entire back wall, a guard at each corner. Rodge nodded at the guards to open the curtains.
“The man had me kidnapped and tortured.” Ellison tried to dig his heels in but Matilda easily dragged him out of the Barley Mow Inn and onto Leadenhall Street.
One benefit of dying, Ellison thought, was that he got a fresh new avatar. A washed avatar.
An avatar wearing new, clean clothes.
With a new cover and a Labor Day promotion, Krim Times hit Amazon’s Best Sellers in Two-Hour Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Reads today, reaching spot 29 on the top free books list.
Ellison walked away, not glancing back. If Usman was going to stab him in the back, Ellison wanted it to be a surprise. He didn’t want to see it coming. It was the anticipation that was the worst.
“World of Battle doth have much to be admired.” The speaker raised his flagon of ale, spilling some on the bar patrons around him. “To the World of Battle!” Someone tossed a fried skirret at his head.
Mitchell rushed through the Krim main gate, through the central plaza, across the street, then paused in front of the King’s Arms to catch his breath.
All 13 installments of the Time of the Meatheads novella are now up. The full text will remain free until it goes through final editing and is posted on Amazon. This is also an opportunity for early readers to comment on the text and suggest improvements and corrections before it goes live. You can even …
Final installment posted in Time of the Meatheads Read More »
