“Mareen! Get out here, girl!”
“Yes, madam!” answered Mareen, scampering forward.
“What did your devilishly handsome husband say? Actually, never mind, I’ll just read it later. You sent a message back, yes? When was that? When will you get a new message via magic messenger bird?”
“He should be getting my MMB any day now, I think,” replied Mareen, turning her bronze bow in her hands nervously.
“Okay fine. Some of what I have to tell you can wait, Jason. Some can’t. Hurry up and get your people together and let’s leave. I’ll formally introduce everyone to Philana after we’re away from thinly armored spitting water ambush demon territory. I will also start filling you in on what I can. Everything has changed, and I don’t even know where to start. I’m not even sure where to begin to give you the context you need to understand...anything.”
The High Priestess sighed and shouted, “Bezzi-ibbi! Come here!” The Jaguar Clan heir ran out and stood to attention before the Areva demigoddess. Keeja reached forward and pulled her music player from thin air. “Go attach this to the Battlewagon and put some music on. I want to hear some disco, dammit. Make it happen.”
Bezzi-ibbi bobbed a nod and ran back to the Battlewagon. “Keeja is back,” the Mo’hali boy chuckled.
“Yes, I am back,” muttered Keeja. “I’m glad we know Henry is alive, but I wish he was here so I could just tell everyone everything at once. I hope he doesn’t still manage to get himself killed. Knowing that idiot, he’s probably knee deep in battle, blood, and chaos right now.”
To the side, Mareen made a strangled noise, covering her mouth. Keeja turned and patted the taller woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, dear, but you know it’s probably true. Carnage follows that man everywhere he goes. Well, the same is true for Jason.”
Jason glanced at the altered river, the destroyed landscape, and could only silently agree.
Meal, Interrupted
“Hey, Tony, this is kind of nice isn’t it? Kind of peaceful?” asked Henry around a mouthful of food. The younger man sitting across from him nodded and tore into his own food with relish.
I could get used to this, thought Henry. He held up his chopsticks and appreciated his morsel for a moment. When it had been alive, his food had been some sort of giant shrimp, scorpion thing called a sharp claw miniature stinging shoal demon. Henry thought this name was thoroughly fucking stupid and called them shoal shrimp. Now this shoal shrimp was a lightly breaded, lightly fried delicacy about halfway between a prawn and a lobster tail.
Henry dipped his morsel in the sweet, mustard-ish sauce supplied with the meal and closed his eyes in bliss as he bit and slowly chewed. Then he added some sauce to a few of the unfamiliar green tubers that had come on his plate and nodded in satisfaction. He glanced up and saw Tony doing pretty much the same thing, but awkwardly using the strange, two pronged, aluminum spork popular in Berber instead of his chopsticks.
Henry chuckled for a half second, almost just an exhalation or breath. Jason was going to feel stupid when he got to Berber. His friend had never quite mastered chopsticks, a fact the taller man had always been strangely self-conscious about.
Tony put a hand to his stomach, and Henry felt some concern. He’d noticed the younger man doing that a lot, lately. “Is the food bothering you?” he asked.
“No, sometimes my gut hurts when I use my magic.”
“You’re using magic right now?” Henry frowned. “Why?”
Tony shrugged. “I get the idea I’m supposed to, you know, since what I do can affect stuff in the past like finding my dagger.” The young adventurer went back to eating and Henry took the hint the younger man didn’t really want to talk about it.
His magic affects the past, huh? Henry hadn’t really thought about that. He quickly went through a mental list of every lucky break, every crazy coincidence that he and Jason had had on Ludus and felt a chill. If Tony’s power could affect the past, maybe he was the most powerful member of their group, especially if he would keep growing in power in the future. How far back could his magic reach? The implications were mind blowing.
Could Tony have been partially responsible for Henry and Jason coming to Ludus? Without the two of them, Tony would probably still be a farmer, after all. Henry shook his head and dispelled the thought. Even if it had been true, Tony was his friend, and would never do anything to intentionally hurt him. Henry absently patted his leg and gazed out at the magnificent view while he munched on some more shoal shrimp.
The outdoor dining area that Henry and Tony sat at was part of the Bobrik estate, taking up an entire plateau near the city of Makovo and overlooking Blackmarsh Lake. Henry couldn’t see the other side of the lake from where he sat, but after pouring over some of the Bobrik family’s maps, he now knew it fed a massive swamp as well as the river that flowed to Berber agricultural lands.
Discovering that Tanushree’s family was many times more powerful and influential than the Jaguar Clan back in Mirana had been a bit of a shock. Henry had realized that he really didn’t have a good frame of reference for infrastructure on Ludus. As an example, Mirana had seemed like a large city, especially since electrical technology was forbidden.
However, Makovo was a properly large city, at least as big as some of the modern cities Henry had visited back on Earth. It wasn’t the biggest city he’d ever seen, but he was definitely impressed.
Being used to Tolstey, and Mirana in particular, it was also strange to see dolosbots so often now. He could spot one roaming around every few days, and every time it happened, all the surrounding people became muted, frightened. Henry hated the things on principal.
A frustrated growl jerked his attention away from the view. He raised an eye at the goblin siblings, Rekkla and Trask, where he’d seated them at a kiddie table. Rekkla held her spork up, eyeing her cooked shoal shrimp with open disdain. “Look,” growled Henry, “I know you don’t like seafood, but this is what we were given. Eat it.”
Trask eyed his own food warily. “At least we are given something to eat, even if it is not great. But must we sit here? This is humiliating. I am not a slave, or a servant.”
Henry pointed with his spork. “Now that you mention it, I don’t know what you are...well, other than Tony groupies and an enormous pain in the ass. As for why you don’t get to sit at the grownup tables, are you thinking it’s because you’re gob-folk? Fuck no.
“Don’t get me wrong, I would have no problem killing either one of you, but until you actually do something to deserve that, I promised Shaman Hask to treat you like my crew.
“You get to sit at the kiddie table because your retarded sister can’t stop trying to bite the Bobrik servants, especially around Tony. Regular people sit at the grownup tables. Monsters that can’t keep their fucking teeth to themselves, especially monsters I am responsible for, get to take a timeout at the special table for special people.”
Trask tensed but didn’t respond right away. He smoothed his crude, homemade clothes, straightened his fake glasses, and finally asked, just a hint of a whine in his voice, “That’s Rekkla. Why am I being punished?”
“Coward. Traitor!” growled Rekkla at her brother, gesturing with her half eaten food.
“Because I know you can help control her more than you are, and you aren’t. I’m stuck with the two of you. Her failures are your failures now and vice versa,” said Henry.
Rekkla growled and threw her spork. The morsel of meat fell off in midair and the Asian Delvers leader deftly caught the eating utensil. “See, this is the behavior that landed you in time out in the first place—” Henry paused in mid-sentence as the metal tool in his hand...spoke to him in a way that no metal had in some time.
Is my magic back? Excited, Henry reached inside himself to check on his magic and verified that yes, his power was restored. “I’m not dying anymore!” he crowed, waving around the spork in his hand. The two goblins were confused, but Tony gasped and smiled.
Henry continued ex
ploring within himself and laughed. His metal magic was stronger than ever! On top of that, he felt something new within himself. Something smoky, something that felt familiar and...right.
On a whim, he reached inside himself with his mind whip ability and touched his magic. He quickly pulled away when the feeling was uncomfortable, but looked around himself in wonder when he realized what had happened.
He could sense metal.
The sensation was strange, and Henry could tell the effects would be temporary, but he glanced around, excited as he realized he could sense all the metallic objects in the room. Most of his little group’s weapons rested on a table on the other side of the room, but with his new ability, Henry could tell that Trask kept a little bronze dagger in his boot, and Rekkla had a push dagger secreted between her breasts. Henry turned towards Tony but quickly looked away. He could sense the young man’s dagger at his lower back, and it had felt like it was looking back at him. He didn’t want to deal with that just yet.
Henry felt his eyes moving to the horizon too, sensing something, something interesting in a direction he hadn’t traveled before. The feeling was strong, and he felt an urge to explore it.
The door to the room opened, and Tanushree entered, her manner much more refined and less murder-stab-kill than she had been while traveling. Henry absently noted the young noblewoman’s presence, but kept exploring his new senses, trying to make the most of it while the effect lasted.
The interaction between the others in the room barely registered. At a glance, Henry could tell it was just more of the norm that had taken place for the last few days. Tony was stuttering, focused on Tanushree. The tall, muscular woman stared at Tony with startling intensity. Rekkla glared at the blonde noblewoman, and Trask pretended to ignore everything that was going on, but his ears wilted in discomfort.
Henry continued to examine all the metal in the room, just enjoying the wonder of it all. The feeling of his metal magic being back was like having a limb returned to him. The strange feeling under his magic now felt good too, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Tanushree broke off from talking to Tony for a moment to instruct a servant to fetch refreshments. By now, Henry knew the Bobrik noblewoman enjoyed drinking syrupy-sweet fruit wines. He made a face and rolled his eyes, but looked up when a group of four women wearing white Bobrik servant outfits entered the room.
Two were bigger, older. One was blonde and the other taller woman was racially ambiguous. The blonde woman briefly looked up and scanned the room, her demeanor very unservantlike. All four of them wore lacy white ornaments around their eyes that matched their dresses. A lot of the Bobrik servants added individual flair to their uniforms, but these four were all the same, and the additions looked like...masks.
Time seemed to stutter for Henry, and he narrowed his eyes. Why are all these servants carrying daggers? Sure enough, all four women carried daggers within their clothing. At least one of them was enchanted, another might have been blessed steel. To Henry’s senses, it glittered.
As the four women began surrounding Tanushree, the pieces clicked and Henry shouted, “Rekkla, bite them!”
The goblin girl immediately jumped from her child’s seat and pounced on one servant, biting the woman in the face like she’d been waiting her whole life for the command. Rekkla savaged at her victim’s ruined nose and lips with glee, blood spattering everywhere as the gob-folk shaman shook her head from side to side like a dog.
Henry was already moving, his adrenaline and hard-won battle instincts triggering his body to draw on magic and fortify his strength without requiring conscious thought. One of the fake servants screamed. The one closest to Henry was skilled. She stayed silent, calm, drawing her dagger and slashing at Tanushree in one motion.
Henry dove forward, unleashing his metal magic and letting out the dangerous shadow from under his magic as well, guiding it by instinct. He managed to block the blade with his arm, and in the next moment, wasn’t sure who was more surprised, him or the would-be assassin. His arm was now covered in metal, but instead of a second layer of steel skin like his armor had appeared before, now it looked like a proper gauntlet; a gauntlet made of smoky darkness.
This must be darksteel! Henry gleefully let the power cover the rest of his body, reveling in the feel of it. Using all of his other magic had been something he’d had to learn, almost like practicing dancing or understanding a math problem. The darksteel felt as natural as breathing, though.
Henry went to grab for the assassin’s weapon, but he’d been distracted and didn’t pay attention to the other fake servants. Another of them rushed forward, stabbing with her enchanted dagger. Henry managed to deflect the blow, but the woman’s other fist slammed into Henry’s chest hard enough to hurl him across the room, hitting the opposite stone wall with enough force to crack it.
Henry snarled and used one of his new abilities, simultaneously plunging the room into absolute darkness and giving himself darksight. One of the attackers that had been lunging at Tanushree was thrown off, missing completely. “Get down, Volleyball! You idiot!” Luckily, the noblewoman must have gotten the message because she gracefully dropped to the ground and rolled to the wall.
Rekkla rolled around the floor, still biting and clawing at her foe while somehow avoiding being stabbed. The fierce goblin girl didn’t seem too bothered by the dark room. Henry began moving to the side, trying to get a clear view of the dangerous, inhumanly strong attacker. Unfortunately, the woman whose arm he’d blocked earlier raised her hand and generated a painfully bright, condensed sphere of flame. The darkness wasn’t dispelled, but it did get thrown back as the fire magic collided with Henry’s magic.
“Oh shit,” muttered Henry. He sprinted forward, sure now that whether mages or ‘Bonded, at least two of the women were incredibly dangerous. He heard sirens in the distance but sneered. By the time any help arrived, it would all be over one way or another.
He jumped forward, trying to reach the fire mage. He didn’t have any particular plan in mind, but knew he had to do something. Unfortunately, he’d lost track of the strong woman with blonde hair. She moved incredibly fast, and next he knew, her arm was around his throat from behind in a sleeper hold.
Even with his enhanced strength, the woman’s arm felt like an unyielding steel cable. Without his new, full body armor, she probably would have squeezed Henry’s head right off. As it was, it was a struggle to avoid panicking and blacking out. In his field of view, the fire mage leveled her hand, snarling as she prepared a magical attack. Henry was helpless while her teammate held him.
His heart sunk. The stubborn man’s oxygen-starved brain slowly put words to the thought, It would really suck to die right after getting my metal magic back.
Suddenly, the darkness behind the fire mage grew deeper and the woman stiffened before falling to the ground, stone cold dead. The darkness had the same basic height and build as Tony. The disturbing visage had deep, somehow even blacker eyes staring back at him, and the dagger he held in his hand was terrifying, a weapon so dark it was like gazing into a hole in the universe.
As the woman died, her fire orb disappeared, but Henry could still see with his darksight and noticed the other dead woman lying on the ground, probably also done in by Tony. The blonde woman holding Henry loosened her grip just enough for the Delvers leader to snap out of his stupor, and he remembered his last coherent thought. Metal magic.
With a snarl, the furious Asian ‘Bonded generated razor sharp, steel blades from his elbows and began slamming them into his attacker behind him. One hit, two hits, three hits, four hits, she held tight. On the fifth, inhumanly powerful strike, the woman let go and began falling backward.
Henry spun, ignoring the agony in his throat and punched out with a closed, gauntleted fist. The blonde woman slammed backward through a set of tables, sending wood and pottery flying everywhere.
Leaping forward, Henry batted aside a weak thrust from the enhanced woman’s dagger, properly seeing h
er face for the first time. She’s only a kid, he thought sadly. She was dangerous, though, and he didn’t know if there were others.
With a regretful heart, Henry formed a steel needle projecting from the front of his smoky gauntlet and slammed the blade into the girl’s forehead, his great strength overcoming her natural armor. She must have an orb like Mareen’s, he thought. His eyes filled with unshed tears, and he angrily turned.
All the attackers were dead except for the woman with the ruined face that Rekkla kept rolling around on the floor with, growling and biting and tearing. The wounded assassin’s dagger had been lost in the scuffle and Henry noticed it, just out of her reach now. He jogged over and kicked it away.
“Rekkla, get off of her,” he growled and released the darkness from the room, sighing as he stopped expending energy on maintaining it.
Rekkla rose, beaming, leaving her whimpering enemy on the floor. She bounded over to Tony, asking, “Did you see, Voice? Did you see me tear your enemies?”
Trask had pretty much not moved the entire time. The young goblin sat with his back straight, his arms crossed, looking like he disapproved of the whole affair. Henry figured the translator was just good at hiding the fact he had probably almost pissed himself. Trask was not a fighter.
Tanushree slowly stood up, avoiding the bleeding, crying woman on the ground, her lip curled with distaste. However, when she looked up, her face drained of blood and her eyes grew huge.
Henry slowly nodded as he realized what the girl was probably seeing. He was covered in some sort of smoky armor. He didn’t even know what it looked like yet, but he had blades coming out of his elbows and fist. He was also covered in blood.
Tony was shrouded by darkness. He had wisps of it following him now, and it almost reminded Henry of the dangerous stuff that had been coming out of his own back when he was dead. In fact, now that he thought about it, they were probably related. The young Fideli-looking adventurer must have realized what he looked like at the same time Henry had, because he hurriedly sheathed his deadly dagger with a yelp, dispelling his dangerous aura.
Delvers LLC: Adventure Capital Page 17