Tap-tappity-tap.

  Non smelled blueberry muffins and heard a nearby woodpecker.

  His heavy staff bonked his head until he grabbed it. Non could feel it wagging with joy. Chaos.

  The staff pressed to the right side of his head so hard his whole equine body dragged to the left.

  With the command, the heavy staff dropped onto his body.

  “There’s an ivory-billed woodpecker outside. First time I’ve seen one. Come look,” said Lagen.

  Non got to his hooves, only to teeter as the overzealous staff launched itself towards the window and leaned out. Fortunately, no glass.

  Non got both arms and a foreleg around his staff just in time to brace it from swinging between himself and his father. With careful hoofwork, he backed away.

  “Did the meld go bad?” asked Lagen. “Your right shoulder looks good, but your left ear is bleeding.”

  “The meld went well!” explained Non Sequitur. “My staff Icosian now has the mind of my former dog Tycho and has gained considerable enthusiasm. My shoulder is healed?” Sure enough, moving it didn’t hurt. He felt his ear stop bleeding. ‘Take a moment to enjoy regeneration.’

  He finally had a moment to gaze at the large sleek black and white bird with a red crest.

  “He’s gorgeous!” said Non, regarding the ivory-billed woodpecker.

  “Muffins done. Did you get the veggies, dear?” said Mama Naga.

  Lagen lifted up two bags, then gave the smaller bag to Non. “Bint’s Bargains has the cart. Take the bridge across the river to the visitor’s cabin. Good luck with Swee.”

  Non nodded, stuffing the snacks into his feedbag and exiting with Icosian. While running to Bint’s he thought about what to bring, his healing system, alone time to process a mind meld. Five minutes of introspection finished with: ‘Am I thinking the same as before? Picoid?’

  A kobold jumped on Non’s back to point-point-point at a manifest. “Gun safe, salvaged items, typewriter repair, ten ribbons, four reams of papers, blank journals, pens, …”

  Non’s focus drifted. Bint’s voice. The cursive-scribed manifest. Middy Zola and her snakes checking the cart. The neat straight packing. All curves outside the cart, all lines inside. Order vs chaos.

  Non returned his focus.

  “…through each territory. All approved by Middy and Lagen. Bint can set up anything!”

  “Okay, got it.” Non let the kobold get off, then used two ratchet straps to secure his staff to the gun safe.

  Middy pointed to a wrapped package as Non hitched himself to the wagon. “I made the meatloaf recipe he likes. Say hi to him for me.”

  “I’ll be back soon.” Non pulled, then hauled the heavy load toward the bridge. He pinged the local area as a precaution.

  The previously boring local map populated with ranked color dots, mostly gray. A green line marked his route, with a green dot labeled Volos Bridge.

  As a squirrel ran in front of him, the whole cart creaked. “Tycho! You’re strapped to a safe that weighs twice what I do. Only do movements I ask for, okay? Thank you for calming down. I could be hurt if you tilt the safe out of the cart.” He tried to do a Ping for other local threats.

  His heads-up display added an overhead map of his area, much like he’d see in a game. As he moved, his own senses and those of Icosian added to the information shown. He moved the map and comments.

  “That looks very useful. Tycho, you mentioned new commands for Icosian, could you show those?”

  A list of commands appeared in his messages list as he started snacking.

  Engrossed in his meal and the command list, he strode under the shade of a ? Clove tree: Syzygium syzygy. Colored dots ranked a Pawpaw tree, wild onions, fine grasses, a clutch of rabbits and clover.

  Non picked and ate a custardy pawpaw fruit as he neared it, then took a glance at Picoid to see the Information Overload pop-up.

  “What’s the story with your new bird form, Picoid?” He stopped at the forlorn cabin in the woods.

  After unhooking himself, Non stepped into the empty-seeming cabin. Dust on the floor and table showed the long neglect. His variable pattern turned barcode as he examined a red can of tomatoes from Earth. A ragged gray curtain flapped at a broken window. He stepped back out to avoid stirring the dust.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Swee hobbled to the loaded cart on a crude branch crutch. His new eye had a gray glaze. The troll’s head turned to use the good eye for visual contact.

  “Nonce Equitaur. You brought more than my sword and satchel.” Swee coughed a bloody mass into his hand, looked at it, then tossed it away. “I appreciate the excess.”

  “I’m Non Sequitur the Equitaur, now.” He planned a staff defense and escape route.

  “A change of titles, I see. Bold of you to show, Non. If I weren’t nearly dead, we’d need to try round two. But every hour, I feel stronger. What a trip. Being a centenarian sucked.”

  Non hoped to keep the meeting short. “Middy says hi. That list is the manifest from Bint.”

  The troll’s Vaderish wheezes smelled strongly of garlic. “I know Bint. Take this and have her start a tab.” Swee opened a medicine case, pulled out dental things, then closed and tossed it to Non.

  Non caught it. “I’ll do that.” He backed up in alarm as Swee ate Middy’s meatloaf with primal gusto.

  The war troll smiled like he might steal Christmas. “Middy’s recipe. Seems my tongue works better now. Delicious. Be careful here. Onex traps everything. He used tellurium darts to paralyze me. A goblin with no legs and he wiped the floor with me. A very, very skilled mechanic. He’s terrifying! Anyways, Onex said I could get my stuff for ransom and that you’d meet me. I asked where. Can you guess how he replied?”

  Non wondered if he had enough info. “No idea, Swee.”

  “Onex loaded me into a catapult! He said, ‘You Can’t Miss It!’” Swee laughed and coughed as he continued rooting through the cart. “Funny in retrospect. Then the meld. Among a thousand other clashes, I was reminded of your Dad Aaron Hauler from books four and five. He’s Lagen Cruciger here. Book, Attack on Pelion. Here, Siege of Pelion. Book, I started it. Here, Vushi Klovel did, AKA Claw Machine. Her merc mecha hamster series sold well in Japan. Never in my books, but here I’ve worked with her dozens of times. We’re the usual suspects for hired mercenaries.”

  Non could feel Swee’s energy surge from being in the spotlight. But then the troll’s tone grew darker. “You remember that fanfic you sent back in the seventies, don’t you?”

  Non’s eyes narrowed at the memory. “I do. I suggested a colt and his father, both with regeneration. Swee toyed with the colt and cut off a leg to force the regeneration. I have mixed feelings now. On Earth, I was overjoyed you used my idea and character. Here as a colt, I had to suffer you doing it.”

  Swee bellowed in amusement. "You’re welcome! In my author mindset, I thought your regenerative ability would allow me to push the envelope without making the readers squirm. As a war troll, I made you tougher. I omitted the pattern changing thing since you were a one-page side character. In retrospect, I like it. Has it been useful?”

  Non’s pattern turned dark. “I’ve escaped ambushes with fast moves and sudden vanishing.”

  “Have you heard of Dr. Ravensbourne? He read Swee book four in prison. Other inmates confronted him and he mentioned your character name. They shouted ‘nonce’ as they killed him.”

  “The slang for nonce traces to us?”

  “According to my UK publisher. They’re rewriting the whole series to remove objectionable material: body shaming, ableist language, stereotypes and gender roles. Ageist stuff. Here I am, a century old, and they tell me I’m mean to old people. In the new series, your name is a yellow fruit. Nance, that’s it! And you don’t get your leg chopped off. The crazy old cat lady that came to help you, she’s gone.”

  “I liked the cat lady.”

  “Tell my publisher. Then there’s my sixty-pound sword. Too heavy even for me. Ha, got another metric nag. Mile, foot, furlong, acre, gallon, stone. There we go, an achievement for ignoring a thousand metric notifications. They can pry imperial measures out of my cold dead fingers.”

  “My staff here is a sleeveless Olympic bar. 45 pounds. Took me years to use it as a contact staff.”

  “Contact staff? Let me see your moves, pony boy.”

  Non set aside his feedbag and began a routine starting with the Conveyor Belt, then ratchetted up into more complex and faster maneuvers. He amazed himself as Icosian twirled around his body. Halo, Rolling Fishtail, Arm Roll, Reverse Luceros, Tankboy Stall. The vector aspect of the staff made the long-practiced moves even defter. He could analyze how the plane shifts and circles worked together.

  An Extenso goof sent the staff flying, so Non summoned it back. The retained torque caused the staff to whack his flank hard.

  Swee chuckled. “Advice: avoid signaling moves with your pattern. Anyways, you’re good enough to buy cheap food with skills like that!”

  “Yes, exactly that good,” Non said from sad experience. He donned his feedbag and surcingle.

  “Want a gun? Or a blade?” Swee pulled out several gorgeous, exotically-patterned Damascus knives from his safe. “Ha, you’re drooling.”

  “I love patterns.” Non closed his lips. “Could I see your sword?”

  Swee drew it out, tapping his foot as he spoke. “The sword ain’t purty, just huge. How about a token?”

  “You gave me one, Swee.” Non held up the silver bullet, then tossed it. “You forgot to sign it.”

  “So I did.” Swee scratched the bullet with a claw, then tossed it back.

  “Also, Onex ransomed you for items,” said Non, dropping the bullet in his feedbag.

  “So he did.” Swee’s eyes narrowed. “Do ya bet he’s watchin’?”

  “Probably. How about some info? What were you doing in Athens yesterday?”

  “You heard about that? I wanted to kidnap Bearwarden for profit and the good of the planet. Seriously, read A Journey in Other Worlds. The man is insane. The Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company has access to vast power because Sagittario wants to change the path of galaxies. But I’d already chickened out, even before an agent came to take me to Earth.” Swee pulled out an air rifle and pumped it, aiming at far-off rabbits. “Any Trojan horses in here?”

  Non shrugged. “Your ex-wife, your ex-slave and kobolds did the packing.”

  “Wonderful.” Pap, pap, pap. “Look at that aim. Better move on before this explodes.”

  Non decided to take Swee’s advice. He waved and cantered off.

  A clove tree seemed unlikely. “No idea. The troll getting rabbits?”

  “Sorry to hear that,” said Non, not feeling sorry about long-gone clove trees. “So are you staying with me? I really do apologize for my role in getting you fired.”

  “If I got to an Arpanet zone, would that help? I do enjoy your company.”

  “I didn’t see how to access choices.”

  Non sighed at himself. “My new mind loves notes, so we’ll wrangle that. Meanwhile, choices. In a book, a character can choose between a bad ability and a good one. It’s a false choice or a False Dichotomy.”

  Hundreds of digital cards for fallacies and failures of reasoning dropped into his mind, from Ad Hominem to Zero-Sum Bias. Each card explained the fallacy and gave examples, and then presented it as a power. Whataboutism could copy an attack as a counterattack, but had a possibly high financial cost. Survivorship Bias could make him tougher, but would take months to acquire. After removing fallacies with prerequisites either pricey, lengthy or unmet, he still had many choices.

  “Is the ? prompter in my staff? One ability seems above the others. Consequent: Reverse cause and effect. I doubt violations of scientific causality are possible. Let me get that one.”

  “Tricky. Okay, I’ll look at this later. I can see my dad watching me through his telescope. I suppose all character paths lead to Athens at this point, so I’ll get on that ferry with Dad.”

  @raptorous_.