3 Chapter 3 : Pride cometh before the fall.
The bell chimed as I opened the door to the tailor's shop and walked in. The shop was simple, a counter at the front by the door, a handful of rails with clothes in various stages of finish opposite it on the wall. Running along the desk on the other hand were tall niches stuffed with all types of cloth bales and finished goods. Across the room was a translucent acrylic partition, revealing the vague shape of the tailor working at the machine.
"Excuse me." I called out and he stopped the sewing machine and leaned back, peeking out from behind the cover.
"I called earlier."
"Ah, yes. The peasant clothes." He nodded in acknowledgement. He stood up and reached into the lines of clothes hung up and pulled out a set from within, laying them flat over the counter.
"Aha, and..." He leaned down, pulling out a pair of leather boots in a mediaeval style from below the counter.
"No tags as requested. White wool tunic, leather pants, leather boots, hemp string. All natural materials." He presented, beckoning me to check, "And as you asked, I have taken the liberty to put them through some ... field testing."
I smiled in appreciation and reached over, rubbing the cloth between my fingers, running my hand over the stitching, checking the integrity of the ties. It was good, tough work. I liked it.
It will last me through my journey. And with these, the likelihood of me being outed as a child of Earth goes down considerably.
After all, the last thing I want is to be caught by that interdimensional monster because some talking bear spotted me walking around in fantasy land with Air Jordans and Adidas tracksuits. That's what happened to an entire class full of magicians.
The Beast slaughtered them like cattle. And they were magicians.
I'm just your average guy. I won't even be able to blink before being exploded into a bloody mist if I'm found out. Blending in with the Fillorian natives while I hunt down the wish granting Questing Creatures is of highest priority.
"Yes. This is good. This will do." I smiled, "You've done some good work. I'll definitely remember you when I need my next pair."
"More peasant cosplay?" He raised an eyebrow.
I shook my head.
"I'm not sure yet, but if all goes well, it will be something a bit more regal next time." If my plan works, that is. I'd like to snatch some royal benefits for myself too, once the main characters do all the dirty work for me, at least.
"Uh, huh?" He intoned, "You know, I checked on the Oxford website, but I wasn't aware there were any plays being put on any time soon."
"We haven't announced it yet. You'll see it soon. Hell, I'll send you a ticket if you want." I laughed, patting his shoulder and waving his doubts off, "Now can I get a receipt for this. I need to comp it with the club funds." I gave him a sly grin.
"Sure." He shrugged, and made one out for me.
"Thanks. Till next time then." I took the receipt and the clothes and waved him goodbye.
"Of course. Please consider me next time as well." He smiled.
He knew not to ask too many questions too, especially when he was getting paid this well.
.
"Alright. Aluminium or fiberglass?" The man behind the counter asked, holding up two arrows.
I shook my head.
"Wood. Field and fish point tips, half and half. Twenty total."
"That's premium stuff. Expensive. If you're a beginner, I suggest...."
I raised a hand to stop him.
"I can afford it." I flashed him the cash and watched him drop the arrows on the counter.
"And haven't you heard? The customer is always right." I added with a grin.
"Well, if you insist." The man gave in, "And I assume you want a branded quiver? We have a-"
"No. Plain, leather or canvas. No logos. No brands."
He looked at me with confusion.
I must look like some rich second generation flashing their wealth on a new hobby. Of course I'd want something branded to brag about.
Of course if he knew my real purpose....
Well, I can't blame him.
"The branded ones come with a warranty." He made one last attempt to pitch it to me.
Does he get a commission per piece sold?
Probably.
"No thanks." I shot it down.
He sighed, pulling off the plainest leather quiver from the display, and shook his head.
"Kids these days, I just don't get them..." He muttered under his breath.
"Okay. A wooden recurve bow, 60 pounds. Twenty wooden arrows, Half field half fish point. One leather quiver. That comes to 210 pounds. Will you be paying by cash or card?"
I pointed at the cash on the counter.
"Of course. Cash it is." He rang me up and off I went.
.
My shopping was almost done by the time I got around to getting the tasers and pepper spray, and what I found was, disappointing.
The tasers on the market were hardly lethal. Hell, half of them barely stung.
Something about new regulations and such, if the guy at the kiosk was to be believed. I still bought one for milder purposes but....
No. This won't do. I need something lethal, something that will down trained battle mages in one shot. I can't risk a prolonged battle against any of them.
Shit. Looks like I'll have to make my own.
I checked the time.
It was almost two.
Well, three hours should be enough, I suppose. Time to finally put those engineering skills to the test.
.
Gathering the materials, and the tools, I returned to the hotel room, carefully packing what was ready into a mountaineering backpack, ready to go at a moment's notice. Dried rations, a lifestraw, tampons, flint and steel, a nice warm wool blanket, a good knife among other simple necessities that could be carried in my leather messenger bag.
Finally, it was time to build my super-taser.
It was a simple enough build. All it needed was a power bank rechargeable battery, some wiring, an amplifier, a switch and two screws.
I took a gatorade bottle cap and insulated it with electrical tape before drilling the two screws through it with wires soldered to the bottom ends of both of them. Then pulling out the battery from a cheap dollar store powerbank, I soldered two wires to the ends, connecting them to a voltage amplifier. This would turn a simple 9000 mAh current into a massive discharge of lethal shock. After securing the connection with electrical tape, I wrapped them up together one above the other with more tape to make sure they didn't come apart, leaving only the wires exposed. Taking the exposed wires, I then extended them and wrung them into a small switch button with another pair of wires extending out for the screws.
Taking an inch and a quarter of PVC pipe, I cut out a hole in the middle for a button and stuffed the whole apparatus into it, pulling out the button through the little hole. Securing the button in place with epoxy and superglue, I pulled the free wires out the other end and connected them to the wires soldered to the screws, completing the circuit gluing the cap onto the pipe to finish it up and covering the other end of the pipe with another gatorade cap.
I looked at the simple white relay baton in my hand and let out a sigh, admiring my handiwork. It wasn't rocket science but I still felt a little proud being able to put this thing together. A simple sense of satisfaction. But I still had to check it.
It's do or die time now.
I took a deep breath, raised the baton sized super taser away from me and pressed the button.
Instantly, I could smell the ionized air, and hear the surprisingly loud crackle of sparks as the taser discharged into the air, creating a mild blue glow over my hand, arcs of electricity flying between the two screws, thick as pencil lead. It smelled and sounded like a socket bursting from a short.
Scary. Scary cool that is.
Hehehehhehehehehe...
I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear, giggling like a little kid.
This taser was eight times stronger than even police taser guns. It was honestly ridiculous.
This will do more than just down the Neitherlands' mercenaries. It'll smoke them like fine ham.
I checked the time again.
4:20 pm.
Noice.
I packed all of my stuff up and slung the mountaineering backpack over my shoulder, making sure to leave no traces of my activities.
Finally, it's time to tour.
.
"This estate has been in the Plover family for five generations." The guide explained, standing on an elevated portion by a cubby hole in the side of the house, the large window shining a dim light on him like a halo. He was a man of round features, with a polite and proper upper class british accent. He spoke with crisp but soft voice, his tone gentle and informative, with the cadence of a father explaining to his children why the sky was blue or where the sun goes at night.
Of course, half the shit he was saying was completely wrong and it took all I had in me to keep myself from being that asshole who corrects the guide.
I was almost insulted by the blatant inaccuracies in his speech, given the sheer amount of research I did on the subject. I pride myself in my preparedness after all, so when the guy whose entire job is knowing shit about this topic does it wrong, it irks me like an ant crawling beneath my skin.
"Christopher Plover, already a prolific and respected author, was looking for inspiration for his new book when Jane and Rupert Chatwin moved in next door."
No. Jane and Martin Chatwin moved here first while their brother was studying magic at Brakebills, and then later fighting in World War 2. Then he got injured and was sent home.
Not only that, Plover was far from a respected author, his book had been utterly rejected before he wrote Fillory And Further.
But, I digress.
I'm not here to nitpick on the guides's delivery, no matter how fucking sloppy it is.
I looked around the house, memorizing its layout, figuring out the best routes in and out when I noticed it.
There were no cameras in the house. Not inside. No security system. Nothing. It was all external. Only on the outside.
I wonder why?
I pondered over the question, taking pictures of the place every now and then to map it out for the very near future, as the guide led us through a corridor, decorated with painting and mirrors, various doors on the side locked and labelled 'not for public access' in red and white. Guess it's not a comprehensive tour then.
"Now we have some pictures of the Plover family." He pointed at the displays in the hall, plaques with pictures and a little exposition.
"Plover's sister Prudence cared for him until his untimely death in 1952."
Nope. Death my ass. The pedophile was dragged into Fillory by his victim, Martin Chatwin, aka The Beast as revenge, made immortal with magic so he could be tortured forever. And once I free him, I have some plans for him of my own design. Immortal test subjects are a rare commodity after all. I'm sure a lot of people in the magical world will pay an arm and a leg for something like that. Successful products of age suspension magic are hard to come by, what with the success rate of the spell being so low and all. Even more so for a perfect specimen like him. I know some choice commodities I'd want to trade him in for.
And Prudence? Head ghost bitch. She was the reason I wanted to get in here early and get out before the sun goes down, because once night settles in, the haunting starts-Oh.
Oh. Of course. It was so obvious, how could I have not realised this?
The haunting is a very physical affair; the spirits, ghosts of the past reliving their death in this mansion over and over again like a broken recorder on loop could affect the physical world through their grudges. A classic poltergeist situation.
And since they can affect the physical world, with every time slip, I finally remembered the official term for it, every rerun of the haunting, each night, they would affect the situation inside the house, setting off alarms like crazy. And alarms going off in the middle of the night would mean the police gets called and the haunting is revealed to the world along with all the pedophilia. That would ruin the reputation of the Plover family and correspondingly, the value of the estate as a tourist trap. That's a lot of money down the drain.
No wonder there are no cameras or security systems installed inside the house. They want to keep this whole thing a secret.
Huh. That makes this a fair bit easier then. I don't even need to break in.
I smiled.
What a blessing, this haunting. Let's milk it for all it's worth.
"... Legend has it, Jane walked through one of the closets in this very house to get to Fillory." He explained as I tuned back in to his inane ramblings.
"Follow me to the writing room." The guide gestured at the stairs to the side, leading up to the first floor of the house.
The writing room was the place I had been looking forward to seeing the most. Seeing it again was like a little jolt to my memory. I could again remember a little bit more about the portions of the show I had forgotten, relating to this plot thread.
Of course, it's been over 20 years for me, since I last saw the show or read the books in my past life so it's all a bit hazy. I can't recall a lot of the details, hence the need for the tour and all this planning. I had to prepare for the shortcomings in my memory.
The writing room was a rather lavish and cozy fixture. Dark wood, from floor to ceiling, a wide, glossed desk, embossed with various patterns at the seams. Behind it against the backdrop of the edge to edge bookshelves sat a plush, velvet red leather chair. A chandelier hung up above it, like a silent crown upon this room. The room itself had its curtains pulled and was lit up by various lamps, here and there, bathing it in a soft golden glow. It was, in no short words, beautiful. Genuinely, despite all the...child molestation that happened here.
That knowledge kinda sours the mood of this room, really.
But if I've learnt anything from living with my new goody two shoes, living sunshine-in-a-jar parents, it's how to look on the bright side of things.
My eyes glossed over everything else though and focused on what I came here to get. The books.
Books on magic. The kind of magic Plover had been trying to learn so he could chase poor little Martin into the only safe space the boy ever knew.
Magic to travel the multiverse!
They would serve as vital resources for me as I began my own rather unorthodox journey into magic. Especially since I have no teachers or manuals of my own.
As I began to scan through the books one by one, out of the corner of my eye I spotted one.
'Practical Exercises for Young Magicians' by Amelia Popper.
Then another.
'Understanding Circumstances' by Ali.
And another.
'Advanced Astral Projection' by Kaminsky.
'Advances in Astral Science', also by Kaminsky was close by.
Then 'Magical History' by Le Goff.
And more and more.
Soon I had a good chunk of them down.
McCabe, Livingston, Umar, Aurora, even a copy of 'Ceremony and Sacrifice' by Aleister Crowley. Now that's a rare find!
I'll be sure to take it later.
I couldn't help but feel giddy at the thought.
"This is where the magic began. Where Plover told Jane and Martin tales of Fillory." The guide finished, "As Plover wrote, 'There is no substitute for a childhood of adventure, warmth and love.'"
He let the moment sink in with a bout of silence before he chirped up again, "Now to the gift shop!"
.
As the tour came to a close and the guide led us all out of the house, I hung back, letting everyone else get out first before walking up to the guide.
"Excuse me." I tapped him on the shoulder as he began to go back into the house to begin shutting down for the day, "Can I have a word?"
The guide turned to me with surprise- did I startle him?- and nodded.
"Sure. How can I help?"
"I'm actually from Cherwell. The Oxford student newspaper. I wanted to ask if I could ask you a few more questions in private for a piece I'm writing in next month's publication. It won't take too long."
"Ah, yes. Yes of course." I could see his eyes twinkle at the thought of free publicity, so much so that I think the only words he heard were Oxford and piece. Well, then again, that was why I used the name of Oxford, both here and at the tailor's. The brand recognition is insane, people don't even question you at that.
I snorted with laughter at his expression and he composed himself, clearing his throat with embarrassment
"Let us talk inside." He gestured, opening the door and led me in.
"So what did you want to ask?"
"Well, most of the information I needed, you've already provided during the tour. Really, it was very informative." I praised, "But I did want to ask how you'd like to be annotated in the article, Mr...?"
"Plover. Hugh Plover." He replied.
"Are you perhaps the grandchild-"
"Grandnephew actually. Sir Plover had no children of his own so the estate passed from him to Lady Prudence and then to me." He explained.
"I see. So should I annotate you as Mr. Hugh Plover or Custodian of the Plover Estate or should I just reference the institution of the Plover Estate?"
"Why not all of them?" He joked.
"As in, Mr. Hugh Plover, Custodian and Spokesperson of the Plover Estate?"
"That sounds about right." He seemed content with that. Now I just need to slowly lower his guard till he forgets to even fight back before I strike.
"As you wish then." I nodded, "I also wanted to take a few more pictures of you, against the backdrop of the writing room. I'm thinking of making it the main spread."
I knew he was a bit of an egotist. This would definitely tickle his jimmies.
"Of course! Let us go right away."
He practically ran up the stairs, with me following close behind.
"Now I understand that the Estate would prefer I not make any references to his untimely death..."
"Yes. Please refrain from mentioning any dark topics or theories please." He requested.
"Of course." I nodded dutifully, "I myself am a big fan of Sir Plover's work. I would never malign his work or legacy in any way." I assured.
"Now could you stand there, leaning against the desk, back to the shelf."
"Like this?" He posed before the desk, standing arms crossed before it.
"Yes. A little to the left." I said, taking a few shots, before I eyed the bookshelf.
"Yes, these are good." I showed him the pictures, "How do you like them?"
"They're good. If the lighting were a little better though... Some spots on my skin-"
"Oh, I can fix that in post. Don't worry about it."
"That would be great. Thank you."
"No worries." I waved him off, "Just one more thing, and this is more personal and has nothing to do with the article, but uh....would you be willing to sell me a few of the books from the shelf. I'm just a really big fan and I would love to own a little of the memorabilia..." I offered shyly.
I figured before I do something violent, I should at least try a peaceful approach. Give the man a chance at least."
"No!" He exclaimed, "I mean uh..ahem...no. The books are not for sale."
I raised an eyebrow.
That was a bit of an extreme reaction over some books.
What was that about? Am I forgetting something?
I meam probably, given my memory of the show is rather spotty but still, I don't think I missed any major points.
Hmmm....I guess I'll find out.
"Money is no object if that is the case-".
"No, it's not a money thing. These are artifacts of the estate. They are a crucial part of the legacy of Sir Plover. They are not, can not be put on sale." He stated clearly.
A lie that is.
I know for a fact he's sold a shit ton of memorabilia, most of it to Umber, God Of Order from Fillory, who was hiding out here on Earth. Not that he knows who it is but still....let me try again.
"Or maybe could you lend them to me, under your paid supervision of course, to photocopy them at least?"
"I'm afraid not." He stubbornly refused.
And I gave in. Oh well.
I tried the peaceful approach but clearly talk-no-jutsu ain't working, so.....
"Well, that's a shame." I sighed, "But I understand."
"I hope you're not upset..." He tried to console me, but I knew what he really meant.
'You won't slander me in the article, will you?'
I snickered inside. Idiot. I don't even work for the paper.
"No. Of course not. I understand." I assured him, and tried changing the topic, "Let us go back downstairs. I want to take a couple more pictures by the niche. It gives you frame. With your looks, I'll bet quite a few ladies to this historic heritage."
"Oh you flatter me. Besides, I'm married." He laughed.
Yeah? Who ever said anything about cheating.
Bet he's already thinking about it.
Still, just a little more conversation. Lower his guard a little more.
"Say, since you're the grandnephew of such a great author, I'm sure you've written a few pieces yourself, eh?"
"No, no." He faked humility, he wasn't very good at it, "But I do have a few novels in the works."
"Of course, nothing less could be expected of someone of your blood. I'm sure you will someday reach, nay, eclipse your grand uncle." I smiled and stroked his ego a little, "I look forward to reading them when they hit the shelves." I could see the big smile on his face.
He couldn't be prouder.
And as they say, pride cometh before the fall.
"Could you turn around, lean into the niche, facing outside. I want to take a picture that says, 'You're a progressive man. Someone who's looking ahead, at a brighter future.' Real visionary stuff."
His smile only grew at that, his lips twitching to contain it and he eagerly turned around.
"Like this?" He asked getting in position, his back to me.
"Yes, with a thousand yard, eagled eyed stare into the sky." I instructed as I silently pulled out the milder, store bought taser from my jacket pocket.
"Just. Like. That!" I jabbed the taser into his back, emptying a whole charge into him as he toppled to the floor, a twitching mess.
__________________
Aaand that's the chapter. Nearly 4000 words and little action, I know. I'm sorry. But the info on his preparations needed to be there or else you'd be left asking how he got that stuff.
Anyways, this took a while, and might I remind you, 4000 words. Y'all better appreciate that my dudes!
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See ya later alligators!
