Mark of the Ranger

XXXIII. The Plan

          "And what exactly would this plan be?" Isabel asked me. I put my hand up to signal her to be patient. "First of all, the man who assigns chores is our friend. His name is Oscar. Second of all, the plan is important, so I should probably tell you what it is. Yeah, great idea, Lion.

          "Karen found a giant pearl. She's going to feed Toxiclaw that and as many pearls as he can take, and we're telling him to conserve his energy. In exchange for his freedom, Toxiclaw is going to 'take care of' all the guards and supervisors. How he does that is whatever his whims tell him to do.

          "David is going to steal canisters of pure mana, and Jeff is going to hide a bunch of earth crystals. We're going to stuff Jeff full of these magic things. Since he doesn't wear a collar, they'll never expect him to destroy them with Geomancy.

          "Lastly, I'm going to feed the geovores any ores that Jeff doesn't need. Ko is telling all people against this slavery our plan. I need you to remember especially, this is all happening on the next shipment day, because that's the only time the supervisors check our stocks for progress. Oscar told me that the next shipment is in four days," I explained. Elena raised her hand. I pointed to her, indicating that she was allowed to speak.

          "But what about us?" She asked. I had forgotten to tell them that. "Well, you're going to...er...'Distract' the headmaster for us, if you're okay with that," I answered. The two girls looked between each other. "This time, YOU put on the outfit, and YOU dance," Eli'Nasudora--who I elected to call "Ellie"--told Isabel before she could say anything. Isabel snapped in frustration, then raised her hands in resignation.

          "You've discussed the plan?" Oscar asked me, coming out of absolutely nowhere. Everyone jumped at his sudden appearance. I nodded to him, and he smiled and left. I looked at the time on a pocket watch I had found on the ground somewhere. It was just past the sun being high in the sky, which meant that I had better "get back to work." I strolled down the hallways, through the wooden doors, said hello to Toxiclaw--he said nothing, for he was conserving his energy--and went to the shack to put my wooden armor back on and hope for some ores.

          Ben and Doc found me almost immediately. "Ay, Liahn," Doc greeted me. I shook his hand, and talked to him. "We're on 'feeding duty,' right?" I asked them both.

          "Oh, yes, feeding duty. But we must make sure, don't feed them any ores! Who would know the consequences?" Ben answered, giving a mischievous grin. I grinned back, and we walked back to the shack. I donned my protective gear and waited for Ben and Doc to get ready. As soon as we were prepared, we went to the rock spring to find some ores.

          It was strange to go to the rock spring at a time like this, but the lunch crew had discovered that the geovores had all gone to one side, the side without the rock spring. Now, this was extremely convenient, but we could have done it later, had the situation not been as prime as it was now. 

          We slid down the cliff and ran as quietly as we could over to the rock spring. Immediately, I counted three ores. None of them had earth crystals. "That's not much, but it'll do," I told them. It was odd: usually, the spring produced more ores than that. However, now was not the time to complain, we had to get our jobs in order. I grabbed an ore, and Ben and Doc each grabbed one of their own. We carried the three over to the cliff and hid them under the rock pile for our supper crew. I looked at my pocket watch. It was milking time soon.

          We climbed up the ladder and strolled back to the shack. there wasn't much to do now, just wait for the milking crew to get back. They would feed the milk to the rock spring, which would produce rocks and ores. If the ores didn't contain earth crystals, we would feed them to the geovores. If they did, we would send them to Jeff, who would use them for magic purposes. 

           I saw Larry and Chris arguing as we walked in. "Well, even if they have unwilling slaves, what's the problem with running a monopolist business such as this?" Chris asked. Now that I knew wood elves had more complicated names, I wondered what his real name was. Larry had one answer to Chris' question: "Tax evasion."

          Chris paused for a moment, his mouth open as if he was about to make a counter-argument, but he just responded, "Oh." I snickered and walked past them, going to sit down with Doc and Ben. We took a seat at a table just a few feet from Chris and Larry, and we took off the helmets of our wooden armor. "Well, now we know that we can bring ores to the rock pile to feed to the geovores," I supplied as a conversation starter.

          "Yup. And when the milking crew feeds the rock spring, that's a chance of even more ores," Ben continued.

         "And when we get them ores, we can feed them geovores," Doc continued.

          "And when we feed the geovores, and when every other part is done, we can finally escape this wretched island," I finished. It was sort of a fragmentary plot, except thanks to Ko, everyone knew the whole plan. Our part of the plan was simple, in fact, the more we discussed it, the more we understood it and the easier it seemed. All we needed to do was feed geovores magic crystals for the next four days.

          "Well, now that we know our part, does everyone else know theirs?" Ben asked.

          "Yes. We've decided that the tree workers should hoard up the fruit from their trees for the voyages. The ships may not have enough," I answered.

          "Excellent," Doc finished. "Just fah mah days te go."