Chapter 201: Not all it’s Cracked up to be

Will took in the air of the jail. Solid stone with a hint of puke and regret, long since cleaned up, but the smell lingered.

“Hey buddy, how you doing?” Will asked, squatting down beside the jail cell, inspecting the Climber crawling bonelessly across the stone.

“Am fainne.” He groaned, struggling to raise his hand above his head and grab the bench.

“So it looks like you partied a little too hard after hitting Advanced last night and went a little nuts.” Will said, offering the man a flask of water. “Some things got busted.”

“Hngg.” The Climber, a salt-and-pepper haired Nuker pried one eye open and squinted at Will, accepting the flask and downing some before coughing and flinging it across the jail cell.

“dis is water!” He said, accusingly.

“Yes, because you have a hangover.”

“Hair o’ the dog, not freakin…animal feed.” The Nuker groaned, covering his eyes.

There were many ways to get drunk. Despite high-level Climbers having superhuman Resistance, people were resourceful and determined to poison themselves.

From wearing cursed items that lowered their alcohol tolerance, to mixing in special blends of magical poisons to bypass Resistance, from the dawn of time until now, people always found a way to get drunk.

One had to take care when drinking on the upper Floors. Some booze was literally lethal. This fellow was lucky he wasn’t dead. He’d gotten lucky when his friends had noticed he was drinking the wrong booze and stripped his drinking kit, which restored his resistance and allowed him to just barely survive.

Of course, the Nuker had responded to his friends trying to strip him with violence and burned part of the tavern in a naked brawl that caused a substantial amount of property damage.

Public indecency wasn’t really a thing in Will’s Stronghold, because everyone here was an adult Climber who could handle themselves, but on the other hand, property damage was severely frowned upon. Even more so than out in the Ring.

It was rather difficult to get new drinking glasses, wood, tablecloths, etc. all the way up here on the 10^th Floor.

“Hey.”

“Nnng.” The Climber waved Will off and turned over, pressing his body against the cool stone floor and groaning in relief.

Will grabbed the Nuker by the back of the neck and hauled him up.

“Hey.”

The drunkard batted at Will, his eyes barely open enough to see.

“You broke some stuff. Your Party is moving on, but you’re staying here.”

“’w long?” He croaked.

“Three months.” Will said. “Do some easy caravan jobs with the miners. Kill some monsters for the Stronghold, and we’ll call it square. Otherwise I’ll sell your Kit to compensate the innkeeper and send you back out into the wilderness naked.”

“’uck oo, ‘rat.”

“I’m sensing your decision-making still isn’t all there yet, so I’m going to visit again when you’re completely sober.” Will said.

“Stupid…kid. no’ the boss o’ me.” The drunkard said before spitting a poorly aimed loogie at him, which Will easily side-stepped.

“You really don’t know who you’re talking to, do you?” Will asked.

The hungover nuker opened his eyes enough to blearily look Will up and down.

“Deputy?” He hazarded. “Accountant…Intern?”

“William Oh.” Will corrected. “The Lord of the sandbox you pissed in. And yes, while you’re here, I am the boss of you.”

The drunkard snorted like he’d heard a particularly good joke.

“’n I’m Baron Akul.” The Nuker did a shaky jazz-hands.

…It occurs to me that now that I have a suitable jail cell I need to get a mean-looking sheriff.

If he had a Vassal with a scary face, he could delegate and skip this next step.

“…Let’s get you some fresh air.” Will said, rising to his feet, the hungover Climber in his grip. Will marched out of the jail with the nuker dragging behind him.

The early morning sun caused the drunkard to hiss and cover his eyes a moment before Phantom Hand grabbed Will and the two of them took flight.

Will shot straight into the sky, the Nuker screaming as the wind whipped him violently in Will’s wake like a flag.

A minute later, they came to a halt, and Will created a platform of hardened air beneath them, tossing the drunkard down onto it.

“YOU SEE THAT!?” Will asked the hungover Climber, pointing at the Stronghold sparawling beneath them.

“EEEEEE!” The Nuker shrieked, his limbs trembling as he found himself supported by an invisible platform miles in the air.

“I am William Oh, that’s my Stronghold you fucked around in, and I’m not a kid! I’m at least-!”

Will paused, frowning.

How old am I now? How long have I been here?

Will brought the shaking drunkard back to his cell and locked him back in.

Will had only recently saved enough Influence to purchase an incarceration zone from The Tower, and it had been a godsend.

Before they didn’t have a place to stick people with superhuman strength, but now they could handle arrests with significantly less property damage, which was phenomenal. Less murders when they could wait for people to cool their tempers in a cell, too.

“I think he believes you now,” Anna said as Will walked back out of the office.

“Here’s hoping. We’ll check this evening. We need a sheriff. A mean-looking one. I can’t keep being the guy who breaks up drunken brawls.”

“It’s tough to find someone who looks mean but isn’t, and is also capable of handling rowdy Climbers with Advanced Classes without being interested in a Lordship themselves.” Anna replied.

The blonde Tangled girl was wearing her official ‘handywoman’ outfit with a picture of her logo embroidered into the back: A girl with six arms holding various tools, letters, and pastries.

“Former Vassals might be where we could find some. Maybe we can steal Arms from Mark. Mark’s Stronghold isn’t that big.” Will thought aloud, idly playing with his beard.

This novel’s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Arms was a high-level Vassal working under Mark Wyrd who could control weapons remotely. Hence the name.

“I doubt Arms would be interested. Plus isn’t he actually mean?” Anna asked.

True, Will thought, glancing at his secretary. They’d tried to have Ria keep the law in the past but ran into a similar problem .

She could still manhandle them just fine, but they weren’t really afraid of her prior to that. She was too cute to be intimidating, and when Will tried to enforce the law, everybody thought Will was a kid at first glance even though he’d deliberately grown out his facial hair.

“Hey, how old do I look to you?” Will asked, pointing at himself.

“…Nineteen?” She said with a shrug.

“Hmm.” Will measured himself against Anna’s shoulder. She was significantly shorter than him now. Of course that measurement was suspect because Anna could be whatever height she wanted to be, but it seemed like a lot of people were shorter than him nowadays.

It’s not something I can do anything about right now anyway. Will thought with a shrug. It only took a couple minutes to sort Climbers out anyway. A minor inconvenience.

“What’s next?” Will asked.

Anna’s eyes went vacant as one of her copies rifled through his schedule book and letters back in his tower.

“Consult with the innkeeper, then you’re free the rest of the evening.”

“Seriously?” Will asked, agog.

“Seriously. Ghoul’s not visiting for a few weeks, June’s crew is a well-oiled machine, the property disputes have been wrapped up, and tax season is behind us, soo…” She shrugged. “You’ve got some free time.”