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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | Slicket is having a peaceful day in Kharanos, until an unexpected visitor from the past turns his smile upside down. It's a sticky situation for a greasy gnome, but maybe he has the right allies to see him through it? ~1700 words |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Kharanos was not yet covered with its usual blanket of winter snow, but the air had become noticeably crisper and the faint, pervasive scent of woodsmoke heralded the return of colder nights. The familiar and comforting sounds of tinkering - powered tools and metal on metal - rang through Steelgrill’s Depot, but Slicket Throttleblast was hidden around behind a building, hard at work on a quieter pursuit.
“Aren’t you just gorgeous?” Slicket said, gazing at the object of his affection with clear adoration. “My own little flame chicken. Maybe you’re no rocket car, but I bet you’ll be just so fast and responsive once I’m done with you.”
The mechanostrider did not answer him.
Humming happily, Slicket turned to his paintbrush. Today wasn’t the day for engine work, it was the day to decorate his new ride. First things first, a little symbol of crossed gears on the side, the symbol of Gnomeregan. He dipped the brush in paint and started his work.
Slicket had never felt a deep kinship with the gnomish homeland, likely because his parents had moved out when he was just a toddler. He had grown up beneath wide blue skies in the deserts of Kalimdor, and that still felt more like a home to him than anywhere else. Or, well, it had, until the place was flooded. Maybe that was the impetus, the thing that let him access that common feeling of loss and feel it more keenly.
With nothing left for him in the former salt flats of the Thousand Needles, he’d come all the way back to this cold land of ice and pine trees to learn about the place of his birth. Learn he had, and he’d helped clear out some of the upper levels in the process. It didn’t feel like home, but it felt like… something. It did touch him somewhere, that city of metal gears. There was a feeling of fondness, of some kind of kinship.
It had nothing to do with Natlee, probably - that cute and mysterious gnomish gal he’d met in the recovery effort. He was well familiar with the phenomenon of something seeming so much more interesting because a hot gal introduced him to it. He’d run afoul of that several times before. The latest - using swamp gas as a rocket booster - was still a bad idea, even if the goblin gal who had proposed it was good-looking and enthusiastic. And oh, titans, the smell of that swamp gas…
But okay, really, he had to admit that maybe meeting Natlee did impart a certain positive spin on his first adult encounter with Gnomeregan. Adult in that he was an adult, of course, not saying anything about the nature of his first mission with Natlee. Or any thereafter, really. There had been that glorious period where he’d been in a team with not one, but three hot gnomish gals, but still everything was totally aboveboard. Then Ozmatoz had gone off to continue her illustration career and Natlee had gotten sick. Glyphe stuck around, and she was a cutie. He wondered idly what she was up to these days, now that the Westfall mission was done.
And what was Natlee up to, now that she must have recovered from her cold by now? It was such a shame her illness had kept her from meeting Arric entirely! They could’ve talked about Kul Tiras together, too, a bit of Natlee’s history that Slicket didn’t share.
“I’ll need to get some new paint, my little flame chicken,” Slicket confided in the machine with a fond chuckle. “Light pink, baby blue and a soft yellow - Natlee’s going to look like a Noblegarden bunny, if she really does let me do up her mechanostrider.”
For now, though, he just shifted the paintbrush to red, the color matching his well-oiled mohawk and perfectly-pointed moustache. A bird should match its rider, shouldn’t it? The wrenches done, he started carefully detailing a red lightning strike along the torso.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” asked a greasy voice, breaking the… well, not silence, but it was certainly breaking the harmonious sounds of tinkering. The voice was greasier than Slicket’s, even, and that was saying something.
Slicket’s blood ran cold, or at least a little chilly, and he looked up to see a goblin man in a rough workman’s outfit, walking toward him with a jaunty cane. Oh. Oh, no.
“Greezo, my man,” Slicket said cautiously, setting the paintbrush in its holder to turn more fully to the goblin. “What can I do for you?”
“You can pay me, is what,” the goblin said, with a faint smile that looked noticeably unfriendly. “My employers are getting impatient. Wasn’t easy tracking you down here, but surely you didn’t think you could escape a debt by moving to a different continent?”
Slicket drew himself up to his full height. He’d been a bruiser - wait, no, a warrior - for months now, and no goblin was going to intimidate him. “Look, dude, I would’ve paid for that prototype engine right after I won the race. It was in the bag with that engine, a sure thing, and the odds were against me so the payoff was gonna be huge. You knew that. None of us knew the whole bleeding salt flats were gonna be flooded the day before the race, did we?”
“You know what? Flooding raceways aren’t my problem. A deal’s a deal, and you agreed to pay up,” Greezo said, his eyes narrowing. “You signed a contract.”
“Yeah, but there was a clause in there about natural disasters or acts of the titans, right?” Slicket said, trying to sound reasonable, spreading his hands in a placating manner. “None of us could guess the engine was gonna be in pieces on the bottom of a lake before I even got to use it.”
“Then get the flaming pieces off the bottom of the lake,” Greezo insisted. “Reassemble it and give it back. Or pay up. You should’ve read the fine print, buddy. No natural disaster clauses.”
“I did read the fine print, but fine, okay, whatever, I have a job now with Cobalt Company,” Slicket said in annoyance. “I’ll pay you back eventually. I don’t have a lot right now, because I just bought my ride. But that’ll help me get money faster, so consider it an investment. How much am I in for?”
“Well, let’s see, with six month’s interest, and the flight fee for running out on us,” Greezo said, money calculations chinging in his eyes. He named a figure. The figure was considerably higher than the original price of the engine. It was also considerably higher than any amount of money Slicket had ever seen in one place outside a Trade Baron’s treasure hoard.
“That’s turtle toots,” Slicket said, incensed. “I’ll pay for the engine, but you don’t get to just up the price however you want.”
“Oh yeah? There was a clause for a flight fee in the contract, didn’t you read it?” Greezo asked, cool as an iced kaja-cola and looking at him with shrewd, calculating eyes.
“I did read it as a matter of fact, as I said before,” Slicket snapped. “And there was no flight fee. I’m not an idiot, Greez, I’m not gonna sign a thing I didn’t read. Interest I’ll pay, on the agreed-upon rate, but not this.”
“Oh yeah? You say so? Then all you gotta do is produce your copy of the contract,” Greezo said, an avaricious smile stealing over his face.
Slicket froze. The blood drained from his face. His moustache drooped. No, not really, that thing had enough wax in it to withstand a hurricane, but it metaphorically drooped.
“There was a flood,” Slicket said, the anger in his voice draining to something just a little too belligerent to be fear. “I barely survived myself, I didn’t save all my paperwork.”
“Ah, well, see, that’s a problem for you, but not for me,” Greezo answered, his smile widening. “We’ve got that contract safe and sound in Booty Bay, and I’ll be happy to tell you what it said. Flight fee. Interest. No natural disasters.”
“You can’t…” Slicket said, but then he fell silent. Evidently, Greezo could. “I’ll figure it out somehow. Just… I don’t have anything on me.”
“My employers are getting impatient, but…” Greezo shrugged. “Every month is another increase in your interest. I’d offer to indenture you in the kaja’mite mines, but Kezan’s wrecked.”
“I’m not gonna indenture myself,” Slicket snapped, but his voice was starting to sound a little desperate. “I’m Cobalt Company, jobs are rollin’ in. I’ll get the money. Just give me a little more time.”
Greezo shrugged, and raised the cane high. Slicket knew what this was about. Enforcers always had to make a point when money was on the line. He fell into a fighting stance - the cartel was gonna learn he wasn’t a pushover anymore.
When the cane came down, though, it wasn’t aimed at Slicket at all. Instead, it smashed into the flame chicken, leaving a dent in her formerly flawless side. Slicket howled as if in pain.
Satisfied his point was made, Greezo stepped back. “Remember this, Throttleblast. You get to keep that ride, ‘cause I’m feeling merciful today. But until you pay us, we own you.”
With that, the goblin tossed the cane over his shoulder and sauntered away.
Warring emotions competed in Slicket’s heart as he checked over the damage to his precious new machine. That sleazy, no-good goblin. They probably planned this as soon as they saw he’d hired on to Cobalt - they were gonna squeeze him for every last cent they could get. It all came down to that blasted contract. If only he still had his copy… there was funny business there, he knew it, but how to prove it without his version to compare?
That Light-forsaken flood. It had taken everything from him. Not only that, but it was going to keep taking and keep taking…
But wait, he had allies, didn’t he? This was like a con. He knew a gal who knew a thing or two about cons. Maybe she knew how to break ‘em. He also knew a guy or two with money, come to that, guys he’d much rather be in debt to than a oily-conscienced goblin.
This wasn’t the end. Not even close.