The Arbiter
Copyright© 2025 by James Girvan
Chapter 24
We (Mace and I) settled back into a pattern, but with a new sense of unease on my part. I had initially simply accepted that Mace was an officer and a gentleman, and therefore would be a standup guy. I’d assumed he would be all over a section of the government that was using abusing (and killing) Weapons who just happened to be prisoners.
I was wrong, he’d just shrugged and moved on.
I’d once overheard my stepmother talking to my sister about boys. “Sara;” she said. “Just remember that whatever he’s willing to do to other girls, or say about other girls he is also willing to do and say about you.”
That was good advice and I hoped I’d never learn how she’d figured that one out. I’d taken it to heart more than Sara ever did, and she had a string of bad boyfriends who (surprise, surprise) treated her as badly as they had treated their last girlfriend.
I may have been a man-whore and fucked anything that moved, but I never badmouthed the ladies to others, and I kept my mouth shut about what I did with who ... If they spread it around that they spread their legs, that wasn’t my fault.
I was seeing a connection like that here. If Mace and those in charge here would turn a blind eye to mistreatment and murder of those Weapons, then they would turn a blind eye to the mistreatment and murder of this Weapon.
All of a sudden mopping floors and tagging nurses was looking appealing again.
The French speaking provinces seemed to have more small prisons dotted about the place instead of large mega-prisons. For Mace and I it meant a lot of driving to waythehelloutoftheway, day after day. The scenery was nice but after a few weeks it just became another boring job.
I’d taken to going to the shitty little gyms in the hotels we stayed at. Mace and I would even spar on occasion, having bought some foam versions of our weapons. We never failed to draw a crowd when that happened since the gym’s were usually glass-walled and usually on the main floor next to the pool. I found out that more than one young woman (either bored from her job travelling about or bored from her kids hockey/dance/gymnastics event) would like to use me to scratch her itch. It was easier than bars, and a whole lot better on my waistline. I even got a repeat performance once when ‘Yyvette’ (a hockey mom) happened on me again in a different town a few weekends after we’d originally hooked up. She didn’t even bother to take off her ring.
Gods she was fun.
With the exception of the one maximum security prison that we figured had a portal hidden somewhere on the grounds, we didn’t find any other incarcerated Weapons. None that had their weapons yet at least. According to Mace there were quite a few of those and he made copious notes about them on our travels. I couldn’t detect them at all if they didn’t have anything in their inventories or their purse. Just being a Weapon didn’t trigger my skill, only the stuff and their weapon did.
And the weeks ground on. Mace and I found two more ‘fill-in’ runs, one on a simple Pink with 8 solitary Tigers and one pair at the end. Five of us managed it pretty easily and that group was happy with a few measly experience and a few measly Silver.
The other part of their team had split due to the low ‘level of play’ that these guys sought out. I could sympathize, since those guys left behind were out of shape and didn’t work well as a team. Hell, even the Stoners had been a better group than this one. Mace told me one of them mentioned that if the paper plant he worked at had been giving out Overtime, he would have done that instead of running the portal. It was like playing pond hockey with a bunch of 8th graders. 22 experience and 5 Silver wasn’t worth the aggravation of running portals like this. Lucky for these guys we were available, and that my reason for wanting to go into the portal had to do more with the Portal Store than the fighting. The market for Healing Potions was heating up.
The other run we lucked into was a full team of six. We had four ‘heavy melee’ fighters in a purple portal, level two mark II. The arrangement was called ‘The Camp’ and was based on a summer camp. A few Zombies could be found roaming around all over the place, but the major combat was a steady cabin-by-cabin search with one Ghoul per cabin that had a dozen more Zombies with it. It was disturbing that the majority of the Zombies were children, but they behaved like any other zombie we’d ever encountered and were just as strong even if they were shorter.
The six of us were stretched to the limit at one point when some miscommunication between me and the other five (all hardcore French speakers) had me opening the wrong door at the wrong time and we had to fight two cabins worth of monsters at once.
I got a lot of dirty looks for that one but after we’d cleared the cafeteria with its two Ghouls, I redeemed myself by splitting the Ghouls heads during the search and finding two marbles (neither of which I won). This group hadn’t heard of the Marble-in-the-head trick yet.
Mace and I learned that my curse specifically activated only when I drew a bladed weapon. The phrase was exactly ’when the Cursed draws their own edged weapon.’ Which meant it didn’t apply when I drew a blunt weapon that I’d stole from somewhere else. A brass and wood ball mace I’d picked up recently from one of the dead convicts worked well enough (though I still felt awkward using it with my shield) on the stumbling rotten corpses of children. But it was enough.
Mace mowed them down easily enough, and a frowned every time I saw him kill a zombie with a single swing. Sometimes he killed two! He had managed to pass to level one (so he said) during the run but kept that one quiet from this group. With his armour and other goodies they’d never have believed it especially with that fucking pink bracelet on.
He (like many) saved his Status Points for later. Many believed it was going to give them an advantage if they redeemed a bunch at the same time. The internet was divided on that one though.
We finished up our tour of the peninsula and hopped a ferry for a day-long trip to the big island. If I’d thought that I’d had a hard time understanding the language of my French-speaking countrymen, I was almost completely lost when encountering the accent of these islanders who were supposedly speaking English. A few were pretty straightforward, but I could have sworn that others were speaking a different language. Maybe they were just putting me on.
The Harbour Inn was the only watering hole in Elsie’s Bay, just one of hundreds of small fishing towns that dotted the small coves and bays on the island’s east coast. Fishing was pretty much a dead industry here, but the remnants of that age were still picturesque and in good enough shape to draw in the tourists.
Mace and I had pulled off the road here since we could see we weren’t going to make it to St John’s at any reasonable time. There were only two prisons here on ‘The Rock’ and we’d spent the morning yesterday touring the mostly empty facility on the north side. Our drive down the coast was long but beautiful even this late in the fall and I could see why tourists flocked here in the short summer months.
The Harbour Inn had a room for rent, cold beer, and a hot meal which I booked by phone while Mace drove us through the setting sun. The man who answered my call was a brisk talker, but at least his words were intelligible.
It also had a Portal, a Blue one.
These things popped up everywhere, but seemed to have an affinity for specific areas according to their colour. Pink portals were almost never found on concrete or asphalt, but were mostly outside. Green portals were (apparently, I’d never seen one) almost always found in urban areas, as were Purple. Blue was found all over the place, but was rarely exposed or out in the open, always hidden away in individual rooms or behind thick bushes or walls.
Conversely, The Harbour Inn had an oddball Blue portal right smack-dab in the doorway from the kitchen to the common room. It was unnerving to see someone (some Norm) pop out of there with a tray of food or drinks. The first time it happened I had to prevent myself from pulling out my weapon. Mace didn’t quite manage it, and the poor server found herself face to face with a huge black man dressed as a knight from the 14th century. He’d put his gear away before the tray hit the ground, but the damage was done. We just had them add the cost of the dropped food to our bill, and Mace made all sorts of appropriate apologies.
Deep fried fish and clams was heavenly when the fish was fresh and the people cared enough to make an effort. Ketchup was frowned upon and a request for tartar sauce was met with a mysteriously stern ‘No!’ by the still-pissed-off server. Still, the beer was cold and having Mace flash his armour and weapon drew a line of interested locals all eager to talk about Weapons and Portals.
Mace and I had become somewhat adept at ‘talking shop’ with interested Norms. Our sparring practices had gathered the same (or greater) attention. I’d used the chance to pick out and pick up interested ladies, but today Mace leaned over and whispered that under no account was I to go poking a local in the room, since we’d be sharing it.
We were ending our meal with a few free beers bought by our charming new friends when we were approached by a rough looking man and twin boys.
“Would y’eh be able to take my laddies here inna dat dere’ Porta’?” He asked brusquely, lacking the charm that every other damn person in this rock had in over abundance. “D’ere a handful most days, but dey’ed doWhat yeah told ‘em” he turned his head to glare at the two boys who were big enough that it looked like either of them could have taken this asshole one-on-one, but instead both of them just turned their eyes and looked at the floor.
I hadn’t registered them, so they hadn’t gone in and gotten their weapon yet.
Mace spoke up. “Have either of your boys gone into a portal yet?” He knew damn well they hadn’t, he was just making conversation with the asshole and asking the reasonable question that any other Weapon would have to ask.