Mark of the Fool

Alex Roth, the very first Junior Crafter ever hired by Toraka Shale, emerged from the workshop with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. Tucked away in his satchel, he carried a writ of employment with a promissory wage clause included of fifty gold pieces per shift, with three shifts per week as a schedule.

Not included in the written contract was Toraka’s verbal promise to lend him her aid when it came time for him to buy his family’s first home in Generasi. Also not included were the numerous extra benefits that would be coming to him in the future.

Soon, it would be time to begin step five of his plan, which—in some ways—was the easiest step. Of course, it was that step that would also bring the greatest risk to his life with it, but when wasn’t his life at risk these days?

“Just need to get my hands on a dungeon core of my own,” he muttered, crossing the crowded street with Claygon at his side. “No problem, really, I only need to enter a dungeon, steal the core and break it down, just me and Claygon…and maybe the rest of the cabal. If I’m lucky, invisible monsters won’t turn me into stone and scream at me until I’m rock-shards!”

He sighed. “What even is my life, really?”

Then there was step six to think about.

If step five risked his life, then step six risked the entire plan; there was no step more critical, but if it worked…

“Financial freedom,” he muttered to himself, stopping in front of the rundown bakery.

He put his hands on his hips, examining it with a practised eye.

Alex had never really stopped and taken a good look at the building before, not in any depth, and what he found…well, was disturbing. McHarris was selling bad eggs, but—this place—he couldn’t imagine which of their ingredients wouldn’t be bad.

“Bloody thing looks more like a haunted house than a cake shop,” he murmured, eyes scanning the building’s facade.

‘What is a haunted…house?’ Claygon asked.

‘Oh, it’s an attraction they build for the festival of ghosts,’ Alex thought. ‘It’s full of people dressed as spooky monsters. It’s supposed to be scary just for the fun of being scared. Selina and Theresa love it, but personally, I see enough monsters in real life. I think the ‘haunted house’ is supposed to resemble actual haunted buildings, which are buildings that angry spirits are trapped in.’

‘Oh…and what makes this…look haunted?’ Claygon asked.

‘Well, there’s a few things. First of all, look at all the cobwebs around the window. Haunted houses always have loads of cobwebs hanging from them, though that’s really less a sign of ghosts than it is a sign of poor cleaning habits. Oh, and it’s also a sign of spiders, but that's pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Not…to me…’ Claygon thought.

‘Oh right…well, I’ll explain spiderwebs another time. Anyway, the threshold looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in months,’ Alex continued scanning the building. ‘Windows are dusty, the brick on the chimney’s darker than a moonless night, and it smells like old dry food even from here. And—Oh, by the Traveller, no!’

He shuddered at a terrible sight crawling from a crack in the mortar.

A sight less welcome in a bakery than even the most vicious of Ravener-spawn, so feared by chefs from Thameland to Generasi, that there were some who had nightmares about it.

The creature that was a plague to restaurants and mills across the world…

…the common cockroach.

It crawled along the bakery wall, antenna wriggling away as though it were drumming on the bricks, before slipping back into the crack and disappearing into the building to defile everything within.

“Well, there goes the idea of grabbing a quick meat pie,” Alex muttered. “Last thing I want is…oh. Oh dear.” His stomach churned. “Is that…oh dear, those are bat droppings on the roof. How has the baker’s guild not shut this place down yet?”

He glanced at the sign above the door, which had a faded image of a mermaid carrying a cupcake in a giant clam shell. The paint was chipping, nearly flaked away, exposing the bare wood beneath. Under the image was the shop’s name: Mermaid Cakes.

“Well, let’s go and have a look, shall we?” Alex said.

The first thing that caught Alex’s attention was the tinkling of a bell as he opened the door. It was a pleasant little sound, contrasting strongly with the second thing that caught his attention.

The smell.

A pungent, sour scent struck his nostrils like a punch from Claygon’s fist, nearly laying him on his back before he’d taken two steps into the place. Only an iron will—forged by a year of combatting the Mark—and the sheer politeness hammered into him by two different families kept the contents of his stomach from spewing out onto the floor.

Not that a pile of vomit’s presence on the floor would have been out of place.

At a quick glance, it looked as though the wooden floors were…well, if not ‘clean’ then ‘clean enough’. But Alex had learned all the tricks when it came to floors: for a few minutes’ effort, one could make a floor seem clean with a quick sweep of a broom, no mopping or polishing needed.

Of course, the corners told the true story.

And the story these corners were telling was filthier than a sailor’s bragging after a late night visit to the local brothel. Dust, crumbs, tangles of hair and worse all nestled in those corners, each the perfect nest for an entire menagerie of vermin.

‘By the Traveller,’ Alex thought, noting cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. ‘Did no one report this to the bakers’ guild? Does Generasi even have a baker’s guild?’

“Hello?” A voice called from somewhere unseen. “Is that you? You’re early.”

Alex heard shuffling from the direction of the kitchen, or at least where he guessed the kitchen was. Mermaid’s Cakes was set up much like McHarris’ bakery: a small seating area at the front of the shop where customers could enjoy hot snacks, then a counter upon which bread, cookies and pies were displayed, and finally a doorway to the back where the kitchen was probably located.

It was from that door that Alex’s nostrils caught the sourest of the shop’s odours, though he definitely detected a certain sickening sweet and sour aroma rising from the baked goods on the counter.

‘Rotten ingredients are likely masked with sugar or jam,’ he thought. ‘Ugh, here I am, halfway across the world and I run into the exact same thing I found at home. But, still…there’s some talent here.’

While the scent might have been the stuff of food poisoning nightmares, the baked goods looked delightful. In particular, a certain cookie caught his eye, one dressed up with an image of the shop’s mermaid mascot, covered in icing rather than paint.

He was just about to take a closer look at the cookie when the source of shuffling footsteps appeared: a middle aged man with a pan in hand.

A pan he nearly dropped when he spied the hulking young man and his towering golem. Alex wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t the first time that he and Claygon had provoked that reaction in a stranger.

“A customer?” The man cried as if shocked. “Can’t…excuse me, sir, but—and I know this is a bit rude—but do you exist? I can’t rule out the idea that the boss ordered the wrong sort of mushrooms.”

“Er…no, I’m real,” Alex said. “Er, you’re a bakery right, you shouldn’t be that surprised to have a customer.”

“I can be if it’s this bakery,” the man snorted, putting the baking pan down on the counter and squinting at Alex. “Well, then off you go. Shoo shoo. Run along now.”

The Thameish wizard gaped at the man, glancing up at Claygon.

‘This man has told us to leave…we are not welcome,’ Claygon noted.

“Yes…I mean no, that doesn’t make any sense!” Alex cried.

The man startled, snatching up the pan again. “You’re not one of those ‘ghost hunters’ are you? If you are, you’d best be moving along and moving along quickly. My pan found the head of the last one and I won’t be afraid to do the same to you.”

‘This man is a threat,’ Claygon declared, levelling a fire-gem at the man. ‘I will destroy him.’

“No, don’t destroy him!” Alex cried.

“I tell you, that act’s not going to work!” The man brandished the pan. “There’s no ghosts in here! If there were, they would have done me the sweet mercy of taking me into the afterworld already!”

“What the hells are you talking about?” Alex demanded.

‘I am destroying him now, father,’ Claygon said.

“No! Don’t destroy him! We’re not destroying anyone!”

“You take your act and your fake ghosts and you get out of here!” The bakery worker snapped.

“Will you shut up! I’m trying to stop Claygon from turning you into a bloody ghost!”

‘If he is a ghost…that means he will stay a threat after I destroy his body. Yes…haunted house, I understand father,’ came Clagyon’s resounding voice in Alex’s mind. ‘We will…go outside. Then I will blow up the house.’

“No, it’s okay, Claygon he’s not a threat!” Alex pleaded.

“Oh? Is Claygon the name of your fake ghost?” The man demanded.

“No, it’s the name of my very real golem!” The wizard snapped. “He’s who I’ve been talking about!”

“Ooooooh now I understand, you’re nothing more than a common loon,” the man sighed in relief, putting down the pan. “Right, off you go then. Or if you’re going to go mad and blow me up let’s get it over with. Oh by the way, it’s pronounced ‘Clay Golem’ not ‘Claygon’, are you foreign or something?”

“What’s being foreign got to do with anything?” Alex demanded, starting to wonder if he should let Claygon blow this place up. “So what if I’m bloody foreign?”

“Well it means you could be talking funny and mis-saying words.” The man put his hands on his hips. “You do have that weird accent.”

“My accent’s not weird! Your accent’s weird!”

“No, it’s not, yours is.”

“Look, what…what is going on here?” Alex squinted at the walls. “Is this a prank? Is this some big joke Thundar came up with? Ah, or maybe Baelin, he’d do something like that.”

“What makes you think I’m joking, you loon?” The man asked.

“Because none of this makes any sense!” Alex gripped fistfuls of his long hair. “I—a bloody customer—walk in, and the place smells like a bloody trash fire. Then you come out, deny that I exist and tell me to leave your bakery and start talking about ghosts and the like! What in bloody blazes is wrong with you? It’s no wonder you don’t have any customers coming into your bake shop, and you look like you could use a bloody sale.”

The man cleared his throat. “It’s not my bake shop. And listen, I’m trying to protect you. You must be a loon to walk into a place like this: you’re the first customer I’ve seen in about a month now, and there’s a good reason for that. Look at the place.” He gestured around. “You have a nose. It stinks in here for good reason. But, here I work and here I stay.”

“Wait…” Alex paused, a horrifying sense of deja vu hitting him. “You just work here?”

“Oh yes, I need the job, hence me not minding you obliterating me right now,” the man grunted. “Better than working for the old slave driver. I mean, look at this.”

To Alex’s great horror, the man rolled up his sleeve, revealing a series of welts along his arm. Familiar welts. Welts that might have been given by an abusive baker punishing a worker for not whipping custard fast enough.

A moment of empathy/sympathy struck Alex so hard, he had to lean against Claygon for support. “And…he holds you hostage with your pay? Never pomotes you? Never appreciates or trusts you? Has you using rotten food and just plays it off? Never protects you from nasty customers.”

A baffled expression crossed the bakery worker’s face. “How…how do you know all that?”

“Because…” Alex sighed. “At one time I had welts just like yours. We’re brothers in mistreatment, my friend. Brothers. Tell me about your McHarris.”

“My McHarris? Who’s that?” The man asked.

“Another devil, my friend,” Alex said. “One I’ll tell you all about.”