Hands of Fate - Survivors of Flight AA214

Chapter 45

James

Day 43 of First Landing, Day 3 on the Road

When presenting yourself to new people, they say you must make a positive first impression. A smile, open body language, the works. Be confident. Be friendly. Be the embodiment of warmth and charm. Sounds simple, right? But then again, people rarely introduce themselves as an envoy to mouse farmers, do they?

Now, maybe in the strange world of our rodent hosts, friendliness towards strangers was considered some kind of vile insult. Perhaps a smile was less "hello" and more "prepare to die." Or maybe, just maybe, they harbored deep-seated prejudices against our kind that we had absolutely no clue about.

Still, my gut told me that curiosity was winning out over fear. The lead farmer, a mouse with steel-blue fur, wore a straw hat. His face and ears were distinctly mouse-like, but his body was anthropomorphic, with legs and feet that stood upright like a human's, not like a mouse standing on its hind legs. His stubby-fingered hands were bare of fur. Next to him, a plump, brown-furred woman stood by the farmhouse door, her whiskers twitching with... curiosity? Suspicion? Hard to say—reading mouse expressions wasn’t exactly my strong suit.

I slid off my mount with a smile that could've sold snake oil, making sure to present myself as the lead delegate. It appeared, however, that our elk was the real star of the show. The two farmers were far more interested in the mounts than in me. Sophie followed suit, dismounting gracefully, while Orion stayed put on Rudolph, his eyes scanning the horizon like some hyper-vigilant meerkat. His jackdaw was circling restlessly above us, adding to the general air of paranoia.

Orion had the good sense to zip up his hoodie and pull his cloak over his body, concealing the knife-adorned apron and belt underneath. We didn’t need them thinking we were here to fillet their families.

Bowing low—far too low for a meeting with mouse farmers, but hey, diplomacy is diplomacy—I introduced myself. The farmer nodded in return, his gaze flicking between me and our elk, clearly deciding which one was more of a curiosity.

“Greetings,” I said warmly. “I traveled far away and would ask if you would welcome us to stay with you. We are tired from our journey.”

“You have a strange accent,” the gray mouse responded. “We don’t see many Chattels around here. Especially free ones.”

Chattel was the word they used for humans. I tried my best to adapt to it.

“Yes… we are free Chattel,” saying the word felt sour in my mouth. It felt like a slur against humans. “My fellow friends here are… umm…”

I tried to pick out the words as best I could.

“New couple. New…”

“Newlyweds?” the gray mouse asked. And so I added a new word to my Dictionary card.

“Yes indeed. They are on their… journey after newlywedding.” I stammered, faltering with Lokan.

“Honeymoon?” the gray mouse suggested, to which I added. I tried to avoid using any of my skill cards, as Orion had warned us not to reveal our classes or anything about ourselves.

I nodded, mimicking the way the mouse farmer had done. “I am… guard for newlywed. We wish to…stay here for a short time.”

I reached into my pocket for a gold coin with the picture of the phoenix queen, pulling it out to reveal it to the farmer. He examined it and then shook his head.

“A single Third? I’ll need at least six 3rd mints to host all of you,” he said. “We only have one spare room so you might have to share it if that’s alright. Otherwise, you can sleep in the barn.”

At first, I didn’t understand the terms '3rd mint' or '2nd mint.' Then he showed me. I examined my coins and realized some were slightly different. The 3rd mints were much harder and duller in bright yellow than the 2nd and the 1st mints were extremely bright, while the queen in the picture had slightly shorter hair. We stood there for some time discussing it, Sophie nodding her head while Orion still watched the horizon.

“Make sense. The first mint is probably worth ten times as much. Think of it as a hundred-dollar bill, while the second mint is a ten-dollar bill,” Sophie whispered behind me in English. “The third mint is maybe a dollar in value.”

“Why?” I whispered back in English.

“More gold in the first minting. It’s a common tactic to debase currency,” Sophie replied. “I should have looked at the coins more carefully. Offer him 3 Third mints and tell him we’ll work for our board.”

In total, we had 63 gold coins. When broken down, that included 9 First mints, 21 Second mints, and 33 Third mints

“My dear friend,” I reached for threeThird mints, “I can offer you this. We are hard workers. Can help out.”

I pointed to the fields, and the farmer brushed his hands on his whiskers. “How long will you be staying?”

“Only for tonight and early tomorrow. We plan to head into town after.”

The mouse man came over and I tried my best not to flinch as he pocketed the coin I held out for him. He turned his back and waved us to follow him.

“My name is Nibfoot. My wife over there is Thistletail.” The mouse introduced himself.

“I am…” I thought about lying, but what was the point? “I am James. That is…”

“Clark,” Orion volunteered.

“Lois,” Sophie said, grinning.

We hitched our elk and followed Nibfoot inside the archway to where his wife stood in front of the open door, smiling warmly. She nodded in recognition of us, almost lowered to a half bow in her enthusiasm.

“Company. And Chattel no less!” The brown mouse mused. “Oh, I am so delighted. I rarely see Chattel. Come on in, come on in.”

The way they talked to us, it felt like we were children and they were our superiors, or at least they talked to us as some owners talked to their dogs. Orion’s hands were hidden in his pockets. I knew he was hiding a dagger behind his cloak, but turned to him and shook my head in disapproval. We needed them to know we were no threats. No amount of soothing, though, would help relax the young rogue.

Our hosts showed us to the guest room. The ceiling was much lower than I was used to, and I had to lower my head to get through the doorway. Inside was a feather mattress, a lamp, and an open window that showed a view of an ocean of barley and rye. There was a wool rug on the floor and a chamber pot.

“This is where you will stay,” the gray mouse, Nibfoot, said nodding peacefully. “Please try not to destroy the room or else it’ll be a 2nd. We had a pair of traveling merchants stay here recently and were not too kind to our sheets.”

“We will be very nice to your place,” I volunteered.

“Now as for work… I need someone strong to help me make cheese,” Nibfoot huffed.

Sophie and I both immediately looked at Orion, who, to my surprise, didn’t look annoyed at us volunteering him for work.

“Thistletail will take care of you two. I’m sure she has some chores you can help around the house.” Nibfoot said, leading Orion out of the house towards the barn.

While Orion toiled away at cheese-making, Sophie was tasked with sweeping and dusting the house, and I found myself in the cellar, fumbling with candle-making. Thistletail, ever so pleased with herself, demonstrated the fine art of dipping wicks and slathering beeswax over molds.

In between the drips and spills, I figured I might as well coax a few secrets out of her.

We had opted to stay here instead of rushing to town to get our bearings. These simple farmers were bound to spill some useful gossip, and I could use the time to practice my Lokan, even if I still sounded like I was chewing gravel.

While Thistletail left to get more beeswax and wick, I reached into my palms to pull out a new card I had acquired: “Espionage - 1”.

When the brown mouse came back, I quickly dispelled it back to my palms.

“So… you call us free Chattel,” I asked Thistletail, running my hand through my beard ponderously as she placed the bucket of beeswax on the worktable. “Why is that?”

“You don’t have any collars,” Thistletail talked in almost chirps. It was hard to make out her words. I tried to get her to expand on the word “collars,” which was foreign to me at the time, and she explained later that it was a piece of silver around our necks bound by magic.

The idea of this completely repulsed me.

“You best be careful,” Thistletail warned in almost a whisper. “There are rumors of slavers and some bandit camp nearby. If folk see free Chattel, they will be most unkind. People will pay for information on the whereabouts of free Chattel.”

Coming from anyone else it would have sounded like a threat, but this mouse woman was too kind to intend it anything else but a warning for us. I shuddered at this thought.

This was a bad idea. Coming here. I wish I were back home in Thornhill. Back to my fields. Back to a simpler time.

“Are you alright, James? You are quite pale. I mean… for a Chattel that is,” Thistletail laughed after she had said it, covering her long mousey nose with her bare pink hands.

Before I could reply to her, the darkness of the cellar, only lit by the glass window peeking into the basement, was replaced with a completely different darkness. A familiar table sat before me. He sat there in black silks that flowed off of him like a waterfall.

On the round table, I sat on laid all my cards, neatly arranged in order in bordered slots.

My skill cards were arranged at my highest level.

Golden Tongue - S

Add unknown words to your Dictionary card to translate them.

Polyglot - 3

Polyglot Aura - Those around you have a better chance to bridge cultural and language barriers.

Farming - 3

Pest Control

Assign a small area where small pests eating your crops will be destroyed. 24-hour cooldown.

Harvest - 2

Crafting - 1

Espionage - 1

Riding - 1

Tracking - 1

My class card had my main legendary skill beneath it with open slots.

Diplomat - 5 - 1

Golden Tongue - S

Learn languages faster, decode and collect words into your Dictionary Card.

“Hello, old friend. I have been expecting you,” I said, bowing to the Dealer. He returned the gesture, all grace and mystery, like a nobleman at a court of shadows.

A package wrapped in crimson ribbon drifted towards me, weightless as though carried by invisible hands. With a pull on the ribbon, the parcel fell away, revealing three cards that settled into a neat, floating line before me. Evenly spaced. Suspended in mid-air, just begging to be chosen.

Beside my legendary skill, a rectangular slot flickered to life, glowing faintly—a beacon of promise.

I had been struggling to reach level five for a while. It felt like my progress had stalled after our prisoner was killed, and my Diplomat class didn’t advance with the daily farming I had been tasked with. I managed to grind my way to level four despite the setback of not fulfilling my class duties, leveling slowly from three to four by teaching Sophie and Orion, Lokan. Bianca and Orion, the two highest levels in the village, had warned me about this encounter. They had already briefed the classholders on how, at level five, we’d face the Dealer again. So, there was no shock, no surprise when it finally happened.

The art on the first card was a man in a suit hiding behind a wall with a horn to his ear

Wiretap - B

You can target an area within 100 meters to listen in to with perfect clarity

The second card was a man in a black suit surrounded by thick fog.

Smoke Veil - B

Send a blast of smoke that leaves enemies gasping for breath and reduces visibility. 600-second cooldown.

The last card was a man in a suit with three masks in his hands, spread out like a fan hiding his face.

Chameleon’s Mask - B

You can disguise yourself as any race, adapting your appearance to match any race in this world of your choice.

His British voice was smooth and buttery as he said, “A choice must be made. The cards are dealt.”

I thought about what Thistletail said about free Chattel and selected Chameleon’s Mask without hesitation. I wasn’t going to be taken as Chattel. When the card was in hand, I slotted it into the free spot and the other two cards disappeared, blue wisps vanishing into the void.

“The cards have been dealt. Until we meet again, fellow holder.” The Dealer told me. And like that, I was again back in the farmhouse’s cellar.

Time hadn’t seemed to move, and Thistletail didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the fact that I’d been whisked away to another dimension and back. So, I kept on making candles, the rhythmic dipping and setting a strange comfort. It wasn’t long before our little wax factory was interrupted by the sounds of Orion and Nibfoot hauling enormous wheels of cheese into the cellar, freshly brined and filling the cellar with a sharp tangy aroma.

Later that evening, we gathered around the dinner table; the room bathed in the warm glow of our freshly made candles. Someone had thrown flowers into a vase, lavender by the smell of it. Thistletail and Nibfoot joined us for a simple meal—clear glass noodles swimming in a cloudy broth, served alongside thick slices of barley bread with mixed wild seeds on the crust and generous slabs of goat cheese.

The two farmer mice were euphoric by the end of dinner, and Sophie refilled their cups with special Thornville-blend tea.

Once the table had been cleared, I gathered Orion and Sophie to brief them on everything Thistletail had told me. Orion’s face turned a shade paler with every word, looking as though he might be sick, while Sophie’s expression hardened into deep contemplation.

We were in a tight spot, and we all knew it. Thistletail’s revelations meant that getting into town unnoticed wasn’t just a challenge—it was a necessity. We couldn’t let people know we were free Chattel. If we were to move forward, we’d need a plan—one that would keep us out of chains and one step ahead of those who’d see us bound.