V2Ch46-Supply and Demand

“Ahh!” Yulia exclaimed. “Darn it!”

She dropped the pixie and raised her hand to her mouth to kiss the wounded place.

From the corner of her eye, Yulia saw the little powder blue person stand up. Then the pixie blew a raspberry at her.

“So rude!” Yulia said, immediately aware that she sounded silly.

Healing Aura.

Her little cut quickly sewed itself back together. While it did, she stared the pixie down. The tiny figure didn’t bother looking back at Yulia. Instead, she was pulling on and straightening out her delicate wings, which seemed to have been bent in the fall.

Suddenly, the pixie took to the air, wings vibrating at impossible speed—and a delicate hand came down and swatted her back to the ground.

Yulia looked up and saw Mina glaring down at the pixie disapprovingly. Yulia was a little surprised at Mina’s reaction, and her face must have shown it.

Mina clearly caught the expression, and said, “I know they look like little humans, but remember, they’re not. And we have to catch them if we want to eat.” She turned to DaSilva. “Do we have any string or something to bind it?”

As Mina spoke, Yulia studied the pixie. She thought that despite what Mina was saying about its inhumanity, it seemed to understand what was going on. The tiny figure looked back and forth between the faces above it, as if trying to figure out the relations among the people who were holding it captive. Though her features weren’t quite human—she was a bit toothier than any human Yulia had ever seen now that she took a more careful look at her face, and her ears were slightly pointed—the pixie’s eyes were intelligent. Feral, perhaps, but intelligent.

And would a dumb creature really make itself a makeshift jacket out of a candy wrapper?

“Can you understand me?” Yulia asked, staring at the pixie.

“Of course I can!” she replied almost instantly, voice indignant. She spoke in words that sounded like gibberish, yet they were translated immediately by some System magic. “Do you think I’m some kind of dumb animal?”

“Well, wonders never cease,” Mina said quietly.

“Nice magic, bitch!” the pixie said in her tinny, wrathful voice, jabbing her finger in Mina’s direction. “Wait until I get back into the air, and I’ll show you some real magic.”

“She can talk, which means that theoretically, she—and others of her kind—can be reasoned with,” Mina said to herself.

“Why were you hiding in the tree?” Yulia asked.

“Well, if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t be hide and seek, would it?” the pixie replied, shrugging.

“What would it take to get you and some others of your kind to come with us voluntarily?” Mina asked.

“That depends,” the pixie said dramatically, raising a tiny silver eyebrow. “What’ve you got?”

“That depends on what you’d value,” Mina said slowly.

“You like shiny things?” Yulia asked. She stood the closest to the pixie, bending over her for better eye contact. Mina and DaSilva stood just behind Yulia, keeping a little more distance from the tiny person.

“Uh, Yulia, maybe we let your sister handle the negotiation,” DaSilva said.

“Actually, as it happens, I like many things humans have,” the pixie said. “Shinies are among my favorites, though. Love this delicate fabric you lot make.” She rustled the candy wrapper that wrapped around her neck and front.

“You know, I think Yulia kind of has this down,” Mina said. She sounded a little surprised, but also almost on the verge of laughter. She looked down at the wee person. “Can we have the pleasure of knowing our new friend’s name?”

Yulia looked at the pixie and waited.

“I’m Seissylt, then,” the pixie said, slightly annoyed. “Sissy to my friends, but you can just call me Seissylt. I don’t think we’re going to be friendly.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Seissylt,” Yulia said. “Do you want to tell me how you ended up here, in a game of hide and seek with us?”

“That’s a long story,” Seissylt said.

“We have a little time,” Yulia said, smiling patiently.

“You know, I’m almost sorry I bit you,” Seissylt said. She sounded a little surprised to hear herself saying it.

“Well, no harm done,” Yulia replied.

“Why don’t we leave the two of you alone for a few minutes to get acquainted?” Mina said.

The pixie gave her a dirty look.

“Don’t think I’m going to forget the indignity you subjected me to, princess!” Seissylt said.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Mina said, “but since you seem to like my sister better than me, I thought it would only be hospitable to leave you in her care.”

“Hospitable,” Seissylt muttered, “talking about being hospitable to me in my own field!”

Yulia scrunched her face up as she tried to think of the right words to break the ice again.

“So, what’s your family like?” she finally asked.

“Well, I’m the sixth sister,” Seissylt began.

—

“You know, I think Yulia might actually solve our pixie problem while we give her this space,” Detective DaSilva said. He kept looking back toward Yulia. On some level, he still couldn’t believe that there was a tiny person talking to Yulia. She was conducting humanity’s first known diplomacy with another race of sentient humanoids.

And we’re here doing what, exactly?

“So what did you want to talk about?” he asked.

“Earlier, I asked you to remember the groups we had near us. Do you remember them?” Mina asked. Her voice was lowered conspiratorially.

“Yes, I remember them.”

She lowered her voice almost to a whisper, forcing him to lean in to hear her. “Were those groups who had food stolen from them?”

“They were,” he replied. “Are you going to tell me why you’re asking? Or maybe I should say: how did you know that?”

“I used my Investigate Skill on the people who were around us when we landed here,” Mina began.

“As you apparently do habitually,” DaSilva observed.

“Yes,” she said.

“You know, the civil liberties people are going to hate you when we get back to Earth.”

She snickered. Then she shook her head, and her expression became serious. “There were two people, one in each of those two groups, who had alarming items in their Statuses.”

“Like theft Skills or something?”

“They both had the same things in common. Talents called Cannibalism and Wendigo Contagion. Skills named Anthropohagy, Pillage, Heart of Ice, Limitless Hunger, and Wendigo Transformation.”

“None of that sounds good,” DaSilva said. “What does anthropophagy mean?”

“Another word for cannibalism,” Mina said.

“Those are some awfully suspicious abilities.” He sighed. “I guess they’re probably the ones who stole the food, then.”

She nodded. “And more than that, I think.”

“You think they’re our killers?”

“I think it’s pretty suspicious that they have a Skill related to eating people, and we happen to have a fair number of people randomly dying while we’re also slowly suffering from more and more of a shortage of food.”

“But none of them are on our team,” DaSilva said. “None of them were around when Yulia and I were crossing the bridge. There was another team in a different part of the dungeon at the time, but it wasn’t one of those two. So, who tried to kill me?”

“One of two answers,” Mina replied. “Either someone else has the same abilities that those two do, and this is spreading like a disease through the population, or someone on our team has an ability that lets them alter their Status.”

“That’s where I thought you might be going. You tried Investigating everyone else on our team before but didn’t come up with anything. I guess this is why.”

“Okay,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Now that you know what I know, what do we do next?”

“First, what’s the deal with Wendigo Contagion?”

“The description said it’s about their willingness to do anything to satisfy their greed in an environment of scarcity. That trait drew the interest of something called the Wendigo. And the Contagion Talent generates the Cannibalism Talent and the Skills Heart of Ice, Limitless Hunger, and Wendigo Transformation.”

DaSilva let out a low whistle. “That is a powerful ability. Too bad it’s evil. I’m guessing you don’t happen to know what the Wendigo is?”

She shook her head.

“Then we need to find a Native American quick. Or someone who’s familiar with their mythology. I’m pretty sure it’s a Native thing.”

“Must be a demon or something,” Mina murmured.

“Yeah. Sounds right. Let’s get back. I’ll do some investigating of my own once we get back. I’m guessing it goes without saying that we keep this between ourselves?”

Mina nodded.

“That includes even Yulia,” DaSilva said. “Until we have a list of everyone who has Wendigo Contagion in their Status, we can’t have any possibility of leaks. At some point, I’ll have to have you Investigate everyone who’s still alive. I wish my Identify had leveled up as quickly as yours.”

“Yeah,” Mina said softly.

DaSilva thought for a moment how unfair it was that he would have to put this young mother in danger by asking her to positively identify all of the possible killers in their midst. But a lot of unfair things were happening recently. Including an increasing number of innocent people dying. They had to put a stop to it, no matter what it took. As soon as possible.

—

By the time Mina and DaSilva returned to where Yulia and Seissylt had been, the two were gone. It didn’t take long to find them, though. They had walked over to sit inside of the team’s circle. The rest of the team were already back, along with a huddled group of little blue people stationed around Seissylt. The humans stood in a loose semicircle surrounding the pixies. It looked like around a dozen of the little people, although since they were so small, and they all stood close together, it was hard to get a good count from a distance.

Yulia was the only one seated, next to the group of pixies who were quietly chattering.

“Well, I guess the team figured out the secret to attracting pixies,” Mina said, looking at Yulia curiously.

“No, it was all Yulia,” Jose said, answering Mina’s unspoken question. “It’s difficult enough for us to catch these things—ah, these little people, I mean—but holding onto them seems to be pretty impossible, unless they’re willing to stay.”

Mina looked down and saw Seissylt nodding along with Jose.

Good job considering the audience, Jose, Mina thought.

“So, you made some sort of deal,” Mina said, looking to Yulia again.

“Yes,” she said simply, smiling slightly.

“Nothing you need my help with?”

Yulia shook her head, and her smile grew slightly wider.

“Well done.” Mina returned her sister’s smile. “Anything else interesting happen while I was gone?”

“Just the expected,” Mrs. Davidson said. “People are trying to steal—er, kidnap—pixies from the other teams. Someone even tried to kidnap little uh, Sea Salt, and that’s why we’re all gathered here. Strength in numbers!”

“People are the worst,” Cara added.

Mina looked at her and gave her the slimmest of smiles.

“Her name is Seissylt,” Yulia corrected gently, looking down at her apparent new friend.

Seissylt smiled up at Yulia as if thoroughly charmed by her. Then the pixie ruined it by speaking. “When do my siblings and I get our sweet reward, by the way?” Seissylt asked.

“Same as I said before, Seissylt,” Yulia said. “The last two minutes of the challenge, I’ll start passing out your gifts.”

Ah. Bribery. Historically, a very useful tool for diplomacy…

“I won’t ask what we’re giving them, since I don’t want to give the other teams any ideas,” Mina said. “I’m guessing most of them don’t have nearly as many pixies in their circles as we do, so if there’s some sort of victory bonus, we’ll get it.”

“I was thinking we could give the information away, but we should wait until a little later,” Yulia said. “Just give the other teams a little less time than us to make some friends.”

“Okay,” Mina said, nodding. “You figured this out yourself. I’m comfortable with your decision.” She looked around at the other team members. “You guys are okay with this, too, right?”

“Choosing to do the decent thing hasn’t backfired on us yet,” Mr. Davidson said. “Despite my skepticism way back when you first wanted to share food. The other teams seem to look at us just a little differently since then. Sure, there was that misunderstanding that Paul created. But once people knew the truth, and especially since some people are going hungry lately, I think they respect the example that we set because of you.”

Jean nodded along with him. “I think that if we hadn’t decided to share when we did, a lot more people would be hungry or dead right now.”

“Alright,” Mina said quietly. She checked the timer. [00:42:11]. “What do we do for forty-five minutes?”

“Maybe Seissylt could tell us more about the pixies and their lives,” Yulia suggested, looking down at Seissylt with an expression of rapt interest.

She’s really come out of her shell here, Mina thought. Maybe the System wasn’t such a bad thing. If not for all the incentive structures that seemed designed to get people to betray or murder each other.

There was a general murmur of assent from the group to Yulia’s suggestion.

None of them, after all, were going anywhere.

So they spent the next forty minutes learning about the ways of the pixies.

They had apparently always lived on Earth, among humans. At some difficult to define point over the last couple of centuries, humans lost the ability to see them. Some critical mass of faith in the magical world was required. Pixie lore suggested it was connected to the departure of the most prominent magical peoples from Earth, although the elves and dwarves left over a millennium before this event.

Pixie history was ephemeral, like their lives. They were a short-lived race who typically reached maturity and died in the span of twenty years.

Fortunately, every birth by a pixie tended to produce at least two infants, if not more. Seissylt was named for the fact that she was the sixth born of their mother’s twenty-seven child brood.

Pixies liked beautiful things above all else. Trees with vibrant-colored fruits, blooming flowers, green meadows, and wild horses. Seissylt mentioned that she particularly loved braiding the manes of horses.

Their magic centered around nature. Although Seissylt had threatened to show Mina her magic, it had been a bluff; they were much stronger with benevolent magic than harmful magic. Under a pixie’s friendly touch, nature bloomed and wild animals acted tame.

The narrative of pixie life reminded Mina to an extent of the noble savage myth about pre-industrial human societies. Complete with the communion with nature and the short but happy and dignified lives. She didn’t know whether to pity or envy them.

And they were absolutely fascinated with humans. They didn’t live long enough to hone beautiful craftsmanship themselves, so they collected discarded human objects. That was why Seissylt wore a candy wrapper. She found the beauty in what Mina would have thrown away without a second thought.

“So I guess I know what kind of gifts we’re giving them?” Mina asked. It was nearing the end of the challenge’s time limit, and although she wanted to hear more about them, she knew that she needed to break the spell of the pixie’s explanation. If Yulia really wanted to pass information to the other teams, it was now or never.

“That’s right,” Yulia said. “I have a bunch of pretty things that are pixie-sized!” She reached into her bag and pulled out a handful of small pieces of colorful cloth.

Mina pursed her lips to keep from laughing. Yulia was planning to give the pixies a bunch of her old scrunchies!

Don’t laugh! she told herself. The pixies probably want this stuff. Supply and demand says the value of the scrunchies is whatever the market will bear. Hell, Seissylt is wearing a candy wrapper right now!

“Well done,” Mina said after a long pause. “Who wants to go tell the other teams our secret?”

There were multiple volunteers. Who wouldn’t want to be the bearer of good news?

Finally, almost everyone left. Mina was left with the pixies, Yulia, and DaSilva.

“How does it feel to be the person who singlehandedly won this challenge for us?” Mina asked Yulia.

Yulia beamed and opened her mouth to respond.

Then there was movement in the corner of Mina’s vision. The population counter was dropping again.

[2,632/3,397 Survivors]

[2,631/3,397 Survivors]

A few seconds passed.

[2,630/3,397 Survivors]

Oh, no…