He Pushed Me Into the Void, So This Time I Said No novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Fair Terms

Lacey reads Gabe's clean contract, turns it down, buys ooze nobody wants, and one of Brett's bonded teammates begs her for help.

I opened the stranger's Bond Request with my thumb hovering over the No button.

Every contract I had ever seen in this realm was built to take something from me.

This one had five lines.

[1. Each partner keeps their own territory and their own items.]

[2. When one partner dies, nothing transfers. Not items, not talents, nothing.]

[3. Either partner may leave at any time by tapping Leave.]

[4. The proposer controls nothing.]

[5. The proposer signs first, and has.]

I read it twice, and then I read it a third time looking for the trap.

There was no trap.

At the bottom, in the signature field, was the handle NoMoreBadLuck, already filled in.

I wrote to him privately, since I did not trust any room with a hundred thousand people in it.

LaceyOrmond: [Why would you write a contract nobody asked for?]

NoMoreBadLuck: [I read page three of the standard one. Somebody had to write a better one.]

NoMoreBadLuck: [I'm Gabe. You don't have to accept. I mean that.]

I looked at the tall man on the nearest patch.

He had not moved from the edge of his square, and he had not asked me for anything.

That scared me more than if he had.

Every kind man I had ever trusted had wanted something, and Brett had wanted it most politely.

LaceyOrmond: [I'm not bonding with anyone. Trade only.]

NoMoreBadLuck: [Good. That's what I was hoping you'd say.]

LaceyOrmond: [You were hoping I'd say no?]

NoMoreBadLuck: [I was hoping you'd have a reason to say yes later. Take the contract. It stays open.]

I stared at it.

Then I tapped the small gray button that said Save for Later, which was a thing I had never done to a Bond Request in my life.

NoMoreBadLuck: [Have we met? You looked at me yesterday like you knew me.]

The question landed so softly that I almost missed it.

LaceyOrmond: [Yesterday was Day 1. I looked at everybody.]

NoMoreBadLuck: [Right. Sorry. Long drive, short sleep.]

I did not know what that meant, and I did not ask.

I had a market to buy.

The Market tab was the only place in the realm where nobody lied to me, because numbers cannot lie.

Slime ooze sold for nothing on Day 2.

The sludge came off the void-slimes that crawled along the edges of the territories, and everybody hated it.

It stank, it stuck to the hoe, and it filled up inventory slots that players wanted for logs.

I had five logs.

I bought forty lumps of ooze for four of them, and the seller thanked me for taking his trash.

I bought another hundred the same way from players who thought I was an idiot.

By dark I owned a gray, shining wall of ooze stacked along the north edge of my patch.

It was the only thing I owned that Brett would never think to steal.

NoMoreBadLuck: [What's it for?]

LaceyOrmond: [Insulation.]

NoMoreBadLuck: [From what?]

LaceyOrmond: [Weather.]

He did not push, which was the second thing he did that scared me.

NoMoreBadLuck: [Then sell me ten. I'll pay a log each. Fair is fair.]

It was a good price for Day 2 and a bad one for Day 6, and I took it anyway.

We traded across the dark with one tap each, and ten lumps of ooze left my inventory for ten logs.

A fair deal with a man who could have just asked for a gift.

I did not know what to do with that, so I put it away.

On the north edge of the chat, something new was scrolling.

BrettMaddox: [TEAM HEARTH is now three strong! Warm spot, shared food, shared everything. DM me if you want in. Spots are filling fast!]

A player: [lol I'm good]

TinyTurnip: [lol]

TinyTurnip had written that line.

A private message popped up right behind it.

TinyTurnip: [hey. it's TinyTurnip, from the chat. you were right.]

LaceyOrmond: [What happened?]

TinyTurnip: [he locked my inventory. i can't trade, can't eat my own food, can't even move my logs to my own pile. he says he's "organizing" everything.]

TinyTurnip: [i asked how to leave. he says a Release costs 300 logs, and only he can sign it.]

I sat in the dirt with the wall of ooze behind me and the whole dark ocean in front of me.

I had known Brett's Release price in my first life, because he had bragged about it.

I had never known what it was for.

LaceyOrmond: [Hold on. Do you have anyone else on your side?]

TinyTurnip: [no. he told the team that if anyone asks for outside help he'll lock the food too.]

TinyTurnip: [please. i don't have anything. i'm just scared.]

I looked at the number in my inventory.

Eleven logs, and a gray fortune that nobody believed in yet.

Three hundred was the price of a stranger's freedom, and Brett had named it so no one could afford it.

LaceyOrmond: [Give me four days.]

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