Delvers LLC: Obligations Incurred

by Blaise Corvin

  “We’re listening.” Henry’s voice was short, but Jason appreciated his friend trying to be polite.

  “Your instruction for now is that you need to talk to Captain Haili and the lieutenant over there for your budget from the city. Actually, it’s money the Tolstey queen earmarked for this mission, so they don’t have a choice.” He chuckled, the sound surprisingly warm. Jason hadn’t been expecting a legit spy to be so likable!

  “And the favor?” Henry urged.

  “Yes, as I said, Berber has many things that Tolstey doesn’t have. However, most Magi-artisans, mages that craft magic tools, usually only create machines for important work or public transport. There are weapons and vehicles for war, too, but those belong to the military. Your Battlewagon is somewhat unique.”

  “Spit it out.” Henry was beginning to sound less patient.

  “Okay, okay.” Gonzo held his hands up. “I want a motorcycle.”

  “A what?” Henry frowned.

  Well, that came out of left field. Jason felt bemused watching his friend and the spy continue their bizarre conversation.

  “Yes, you see, back on Earth, I used to love riding my dirt bike for fun.” Gonzo’s eyes positively gleamed as he continued, “I think you can probably make a vehicle smaller than your Battlewagon while using the same tech, right?”

  Henry seemed to think about it for a while before replying, “You seem very well informed, but I guess I should expect this from a spy. Maybe. What’s in it for us?”

  Gonzo grinned and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his trouser pocket. “You must have noticed by now that I am hiding my Holder status from casual detection. This is a note explaining how Holders or Heros can do it.”

  Henry’s eyes widened. “Casual detection…you mean like the info scrolling over people’s eye?”

  “Exactly.”

  Gonzo definitely had Jason’s attention. Out the corner of his eye, he caught Bezzi-ibbi focusing on the conversation as well. Every member of Delvers LLC was used to wearing their distinctive masks, but it’d be nice if they could take them off if they wanted to. Plus, a few other adventuring companies had already begun copying them. The look wasn’t as unique as it had been before.

  Jason spoke up, “That won’t be cheap. Henry uses up a lot of materials.”

  Gonzo shrugged. “After you talk to Captain Haili, I doubt you will have any money problems. What do you say?”

  “Just one bike?” asked Henry.

  “Two, if possible. One for me and one for my apprentice.” Gonzo gestured towards the red-haired girl. She slightly narrowed her eyes, showing no other reaction.

  Jason asked, “How long do we have until we leave?”

  “You mean if you decide not to run away?” Gonzo smiled knowingly. “I was thinking we could head out in about two weeks. It will be a long journey, and we need to leave as soon as possible, but we don’t want to be stupid about it. Preparations are important.”

  “Okay…done.” Henry held his hand out for the paper.

  Gonzo placed the note in Henry’s hand, but before he let go, his entire demeanor changed. His jaw tensed, his eyes grew flat, and Jason thought the man suddenly looked very dangerous. Gonzo quietly said, “I suggest you destroy this after you read it. If you share this information with anyone outside of your company, I’ll be forced to kill you and hunt down anyone you told. Information this powerful is guarded jealously. Please don’t test my resolve. You’re not just dealing with me right now; I’m acting as an emissary for my country.”

  Over his time on Ludus so far, Jason had begun listening to his instincts about approaching danger. They were currently screaming at him to take this man seriously.

  “Alright,” Henry said, pocketing the note.

  “Good, good.” Gonzo was smiling again. “I’ll see you at your house tomorrow morning if you haven’t run away. Please don’t run away. I will find you, and it won’t be pleasant. Goodbye,” he said. With that, he began walking away, his apprentice following him. No government worker or servant came to lead them. For the first time, Jason noticed that the passing servants didn’t look at Gonzo at all. They all seemed nervous.

  How did I not notice that before? Jason wondered.

  * * *

  Jason, Henry, and Bezzi-ibbi headed to the Jaguar Clan House from the government building. On their way out, they took a letter of credit from Captain Haili, who said she’d be in touch. Before he’d left, Lieutenant Boone had sighed and instructed them to tell him if they needed anything else. He’d cautioned that they wouldn’t get any more money or value than what was promised in the letter, though.

  The letter of credit was riding in Jason’s pocket. He still didn’t really understand Tolstey currency and didn’t really want to. He was planning to give the note to Mareen and be done with it. He knew that eventually he’d have to learn about Ludus currency, but it was terribly dry. He wished that everything matched up with Earth currency in multiples of ten like in fantasy books in games, but unfortunately, conversions on Ludus were nowhere near that simple.

  As he walked, their group got some attention. He realized they had to appear like two men in opulent robes, armed to the teeth, traveling with a Jaguar Clan boy, all wearing masks. It was probably a bit of a sight. Jason ignored the murmurs and the finger pointing.

  He hoped that Henry had his super senses turned up to notice any potential danger, but he knew better than to ask. Henry still felt their capture and imprisonment in the storage building when they’d arrived in Mirana had been partially his fault, and Jason agreed with him. He’d never say so out loud, though.

  “Hey,” he said, tapping Henry on the shoulder. “Are you going to grab Mareen and Aodh?” Mareen, Henry’s girlfriend and their company’s treasurer, lived with Henry in his room. Aodh, the Delvers LLC explosive triggerman, a 16-year-old mediocre fire mage, usually stayed in the garage. Through a cruel twist of fate, he looked almost entirely Fideli despite actually being mostly Terran. The nonhuman physical traits he’d inherited could be useful as an adventurer, but they had also made him an outcast for most of his life.

  Bezzi-ibbi suddenly spoke in broken English, “Rark-han too, please.” Jason’s eyebrows went up. The kid was getting better at English, which was fantastic since he refused to speak Luda like everyone else did.

  Jason agreed with Bezzi-ibbi, they should get Rark-han. The one-armed wolf-race Mo’hali man followed Bezzi-ibbi as some sort of religious servant. He had simple quarters in the small home Bezzi-ibbi rented near Henry and Jason’s house. Jason still wasn’t sure he completely trusted the lupine man yet, but he was a part of their company.

  Plus, Jason knew their new conscription affected them all. Every member of Delvers LLC deserved to be involved in the meeting. There was no use getting upset about it yet, but they were all pretty much over a barrel. Jason had felt the jaws of inevitability closing in on them ever since they’d gotten the summons to see the governor. He was disappointed that the feeling had been accurate.

  Sure, they could have tried running away, but the reality was they had no other friends, no powerbase, and if they were wanted by the entire country, much less two countries, that would be a terrible choice to make in their very first year on Ludus.

  “Yeah, I’ll go,” Henry replied. “Meet you there.”

  At the next street, Henry took a turn and Jason went the other way with Bezzi-ibbi. Jason knew Bezzi-ibbi was intelligent and could display a startling amount of wisdom, but he didn’t want to burden the boy with more problems. Bezzi-ibbi was apparently lost in his own thoughts as well.

  The rest of the walk to the Jaguar Clan House was quiet, and Jason wondered how the meeting would unfold.

  Stepped on Tails

  Henry had a lot on his mind as he approached the rental house he shared with Jason. The garage they’d built in the alley next to the house was locked up tight. It made Henry uncomfortable that they still had so much wealth in there, but burying it all under a few tons of bronze had hel
ped make it more secure. The fact the buried loot was in a hole beneath their large, parked armored vehicle also made it unlikely that a casual thief would be able to steal anything.

  Not that a casual thief would have escaped the attention of Rark-han. The big wolf man was constantly checking on the garage from the house Bezzi-ibbi rented across the street. Henry still felt it was a little strange the boy had had to rent his own house, but with Mareen living with Henry, Jason in his own room, and Aodh sleeping in the garage, their little house was already getting kind of crowded.

  Henry wondered what would happen with Jason and Uluula. It seemed it had taken Uluula a long time to decide whether she was going to make their relationship official, but once she made up her mind, she didn’t pussyfoot around. Jason never really had a chance.

  Henry suddenly got a dark premonition as he picked up female voices. He was using his enhanced hearing and caught snippets of a conversation inside his house. He was still developing a habit of alternating between enhancing his various senses in waves. It was hard to control, especially his hearing, but he was finding the ability could come in handy.

  He could tell the voices in the house belonged to Uluula and Mareen. That fact in itself made him nervous. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but ever since Mareen and Uluula had begun forging a friendship, Henry had felt something looming over him, like someone had stepped on his grave.

  He waved Rark-han over from where the Mo’hali man would probably be watching through the blinds across the street and slowed his pace. He wondered what the women were talking about. However, all he could catch was a muffled word or two. It sounded like they were speaking softly behind multiple closed doors. Henry’s nervousness increased, although he didn’t know why.

  He loved Mareen, a fact he wasn’t shy to acknowledge. She was smart, brave, and had already accomplished a lot in her life despite living on a hellhole, monster-filled planet. The dark-skinned farmer turned adventurer showed flashes of wisdom and cunning at times that floored him. He had shittons of respect and admiration for her. In fact, Henry sometimes forgot how young she really was…which was a problem for him. He still felt vaguely creepy for dating a 19-year-old when he was about to turn 30.

  He knew he shouldn’t feel odd, that love didn’t have an age, and pairings with far greater age differences were common on Ludus. In fact, he knew people sometimes got married at 13, at least in Tolstey, same as people used to on Earth in the last hundred or two hundred years. In fact, Mo’hali had really, really strange marriage customs. Intellectually, he knew that 10 years wouldn’t even be that much age difference on Earth. And to top it all off, he and Mareen were capable of living a few hundred years due to their orbs.

  Henry had no reason to feel the way he did, but he couldn’t deny it was still something he was working through.

  He thought it was funny how Jason was freaked out about the possibility of multiple wives, but his friend had no problem with the fact that his girlfriend was a different species and over a decade older than him. Meanwhile, Henry didn’t mind the theoretical idea of polygamy, as long as it was Mareen’s idea, but felt a flash of guilt at Mareen’s age.

  They were still adjusting to Ludus, that was for sure. Maybe Mareen had been right and he and Jason really were idiots. Nah.

  Henry glanced over at Rark-han, who was jogging toward him from Bezzi-ibbi’s house. He shrugged and gave up trying to eavesdrop on the girls. If he had actually managed to hear them, it would be kind of a dick move anyway. He just couldn’t help feeling like something bad was coming.

  He sighed and raised a hand to knock on the door. It was his house, but Henry tried to be polite and avoid barging in on people. He never wanted to walk in on people taking a bath together again. He sniggered at the memory.

  That poor bastard. He really never had a chance.

  * * *

  Aodh walked down the busy Mirana street with Henry, Rark-han, Mareen, and Uluula. Hawkers behind carts lined the street, and a few shops generated inviting smells. He would have loved to browse the vendors’ wares, but he had to focus.

  He knew they were heading towards the Jaguar Clan House, and he was busy trying to convince himself he was as unconcerned about this fact as his companion. It wasn’t working.

  Aodh surreptitiously glanced at Henry before he realized what he was doing and jerked his eyes forward again. He hadn’t meant to overhear Uluula and Mareen talking. He really hadn’t. He couldn’t help that they had been in the next room and he had exceptional hearing due to his Fideli genes…Of course, his Fideli genes hadn’t forced him to put his ear to the wall…

  He wished he hadn’t heard anything. Poor Henry, he had no idea what was coming.

  Well, it’d probably be good for him. Aodh still didn’t know Henry or Jason very well, but he had a decent grasp of their personalities. For all he knew, Mareen and Uluula were right to plan an ambush.

  He shrugged. It wasn’t his problem, but he couldn’t help but worry a bit. Luckily, he’d been getting better at controlling his worrying nature, a necessity while carrying gunpowder bombs around all the time. After thinking about them, Aodh consciously felt the bronze, tubular “grenades” on his belt that swayed and hit his legs while he walked. He shuddered. It was time to think of something else.

  Aodh tried his best not to dwell on topics that would upset him, like the explosives attached to his body, screaming hordes of ork warriors, or his psychotic cousin. In fact, thank the Christian God he hadn’t seen her for a while. No matter what happened while working for Delvers LLC, he took comfort in the fact he’d never have to coexist with his cousin again. The remainder of the walk to the Jaguar Clan House, Aodh took simple pleasure in the fact that he wasn’t exploring a dungeon kitchen full of burned bodies.

  * * *

  The Jaguar Clan House was huge. Aodh nervously crossed the threshold with the rest of his group and envied their self-confidence. Of course, they were all impressive people, so the source of their assurance was obvious.

  Mareen was in mourning, so she wore an orange dress, the same color as the smoke from funeral pyres after adding dried polleena flowers to the flames. Mareen didn’t have her massive bronze hammer, but as usual now she wore the machete recovered at the site of her grandfather’s murder. Aodh thought it was a little macabre, but nobody really talked about the machete. He thought it might be a revenge thing.

  Mareen was as pretty as always. Her dusky skin, big eyes, delicate features, and shiny hair made her look like a noblewoman. Aodh still could hardly believe she was the daughter of his childhood hero and had grown up on a farm.

  While Mareen was dark and curvy, Uluula was pale and petite. The tiny Areva woman’s white hair flowed down just past her shoulders. Her high cheekbones, pointed ears, and subtly inhuman blue eyes gave her an exotic air. She was wearing crude grey cargo pants manufactured in Mirana and a small jacket of the same material over a white shirt. In a show of support for her friend, she wore an orange mourning armband. As always, she carried her bronze, leaf-bladed spear.

  Rark-han was a huge, brute of a wolf-race Mo’hali. As usual, he wore leather pants, laced sandals, and a leather vest. He carried a big, heavy bronze axe on one hip. Where another axe would have hung in the past, his belt was empty. His amputated arm sported a bronze prosthetic made by Henry.

  Rark-han’s wide face was mostly humanoid with a few canine features, including a rough nose, fangs, shaggy hair, and fur on the side of his face. His hair was dark, and his large, upright ears began where a human’s would have but were obviously inhuman in size and shape.

  Henry walked with his usual confident swagger, one hand resting on the pommel of the bronze short sword he had on a baldric. He was wearing fine green-and-black Jaguar Clan robes, probably because Mareen had forced him to for his earlier audience. His freshly trimmed his goatee and combed hair were simple concessions to his appearance that made him look dashing.

  Even his mask looked like a fashion statement. While Aodh looked stupid
and awkward wearing his mask, Henry’s made him seem he was heading to a ball. Henry’s mask covered most of his Asian features, but he was still dark and striking. Aodh knew Henry was an important man, and he wondered why he didn’t put effort into his appearance more often. What Henry usually wore still suited him—serviceable old leather and thick linen clothing—but when he actually tried to look nice, he literally stopped traffic.

  He just had that sort of effect. It drove Aodh crazy how Henry had no clue about his effect on people. In fact, he had no idea where the man actually got his self-confidence from. He knew Henry’s obliviousness irritated Jason, too, but Jason was likewise clueless. Both men were idiots. At least Mareen seemed to actually know she was pretty.

  Meanwhile, Aodh knew he was nothing special. He hadn’t done anything interesting in life; he was only sixteen. He wasn’t very tall or muscular, and he looked Fideli. He hated the white forelock in his dark hair, his sharp canines, pointed ears, tiny pupils, and second eyelids. His whole life he’d been mocked and even beaten up for how he looked. It wasn’t until he’d joined Delvers LLC that he had felt like he belonged anywhere.

  And yet, while he felt like a real adventurer now, he still didn’t feel like he was important enough to be walking into the Jaguar Clan House. Meetings were for people who mattered. He was just a farm boy that could make things explode.

  He was trailing the rest of the group, thinking about turning around and making a run for it, when Bezzi-ibbi appeared out of nowhere next to him. The other boy put his hand on Aodh’s shoulder and said in halting English, “Come, I will help you find good chair.”

  Aodh smiled despite himself. He knew Bezzi-ibbi was younger than he was, but the Mo’hali boy had already accomplished so much in his life. He was even heir to the Jaguar Clan in Mirana. Bezzi-ibbi was wild, and Aodh wasn’t always sure what the other boy would do next, but he couldn’t deny that the merchant prince had a calming effect on him.

  He stopped planning to make a break for it and headed deeper into the Clan building.