The disciple a gamelit p.., p.31
The Disciple: A GameLit Progression Fantasy, page 31
It was a message that few creatures would be foolish enough to ignore.
**
Brutus and his mate saw the boar rooting in the dirt with its tusks. He couldn’t imagine what was in the dirt that could be so interesting to the boar, but it worked in his favor. He turned to his mate. ‘Watch this.’
Brutus silently padded forward, gradually picking up speed. By the time he was 20 meters away he was a blur. The boar heard him, but by then it was too late. The giant husky crashed into it, knocking the beast that weighed half a ton over. He rolled with the boar, but having expected it he was able to spring up and clamp his powerful jaws on the back of its neck. Blood flowed as Brutus crushed down and worried at the neck.
The boar cried out in distress, trying unsuccessfully to swing its tusks into the mutated dog. Brutus’ mate rushed up but, seeing that she wasn’t needed, just paced back and forth, waiting for the boar to die.
A few minutes later Brutus crushed the spine of the weakened boar, causing it to drop. The pair moved in to feast. His mate nuzzled him. ‘That wasn’t bad.’
Brutus had a big doggy grin. ‘I think you mean, “that was awesome”.’ He went to the boar’s belly and asked, ‘Have you ever eaten boar?’
‘No.’
‘Then get ready for a treat! It’s good fresh, but when it’s cooked over a fire? Oh my gosh—to die for.’
Brutus salivated when he thought about eating Zed’s bacon.
‘You mean what the two-legs do?’
‘Yeah! I wonder if we could start a fire…’
His mate looked on in amusement as he tried making a fire. At first it was mostly scratching different kinds of wood, which didn’t accomplish much. Brutus remembered that Zed usually blew on the wood when he was trying to start a fire, so he did that too. Still nothing.
He couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working for him. Then he remembered. When Zed was really serious about starting a fire, he poured a liquid onto the wood, and then it lit on fire really easily.
Brutus thought about it. He was a smart dog and could figure this out. He looked at himself. He did have a liquid he could work with… He knew it wasn’t the same thing, of course, but if he added mana to it… Zed lit all his fires with mana when they came to this world.
That was it! The best of both worlds! Use the liquid and mana to light the fires.
Brutus used his urine to mark his territory all the time. It carried his unique smell. All dogs did that, though. He would be the first dog to light fires with his urine!
He moved mana into the urine in his bladder and told it, ‘Light a fire.’
It started to warm up. Perfect! He got in position next to the wood and let it arc out onto the wood. He stopped the stream, but the urine he held for later kept heating up. ‘Ow, ow, ow!’ Brutus quickly lifted his leg and released the rest.
The wood and urine boiled and smoldered and… lit the wood on fire! Brutus was mesmerized by what he had done. His mate walked over, surprised to see he had actually done it.
Seeing her, he broke out of his reverie and blew on the fire. ‘Quick! Get the boar!’
Shaking her head in amusement, his mate did as he asked. She had long since realized that Brutus was a strange one.
Chapter 37
Zed
Zed looked down affectionately at the young álfar woman snuggling with him on her couch. He enjoyed lying down with her head on his chest. He ran his fingers through her hair, which he had learned she enjoyed, though it had the unfortunate effect of putting her to sleep. He smiled as he saw drool starting to form on her lip.
“Constance.”
“Huh?” She groggily wiped her mouth and looked up at him. “What?”
“I’m going to leave Harlond.”
“Why? Is Silwan sending you somewhere? I thought you had resolved whatever issue he had with you today.”
“No. Silwan isn’t sending me anywhere. My time with him is over.”
Constance sat up and, with tousled hair and rumpled clothes, looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean it’s over? I thought there was half a year left until you could go back to Formenos.”
“We decided to end the contract early.”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “That doesn’t sound like Silwan…”
Zed smiled. “It turned out that I had something he wanted.”
She took that in. After a moment she asked, “When are you leaving?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight?! Why so soon?”
“I need to get back to my friends.”
She pouted. “You say that like you don’t have any friends here.”
He put his hand on her leg. “I know I have a friend in you, but I still need to go.” He hesitantly said, “You could come with me.”
She stared at him with her mouth open, obviously surprised. “What about my family?”
Zed shrugged. “Screw ‘em. You don’t like their plans for you anyway. Why not get away from them?”
She looked at him like he was being dumb. “Because they would come for me, and probably cause trouble for you.”
Zed went back and forth on what he should tell her. “In half a year,” he said slowly, “the sect is going to be too busy to look for you.”
She seemed flummoxed by that. “How could you possibly know that?”
He stared deeply into her eyes, trying to see her unvarnished thoughts and feelings. “How do you feel about me, Constance?”
She turned her head to the side and blushed. “I… like you…” Her cheeks flushed deeper.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, he couldn’t help but smile. “How deeply are you into the sect? Have you made any contracts?”
She looked at him and shook her head. “No, net yet. Why?”
“One more question. If I asked you to keep a secret, would you?” Though he seemed calm on the outside, internally Zed’s feelings were at war with one another. His hopes, fears, and sense of duty were fighting for dominance.
He knew he was thinking about going down an unforgivably selfish road, but he was so tired of being lonely. He felt like he had found a kindred spirit in Constance. Yes, she could be bratty, but that was mostly her just being tired of being controlled. Something he could relate to.
Most of the time she was warm and affectionate. It was a balm to his soul in a land where he always felt like he was behind enemy lines.
‘Zed, are you really going to endanger humanity by spilling the beans to her?’ Iris asked.
Zed didn’t respond. They both knew that he already felt guilty about considering telling her everything. He justified it by relying on his ability to read people, but he didn’t need Iris to tell him that he wasn’t perfect at reading them. And even if he was, she could always change her mind.
Still. He needed someone. It had been crushing for him when he lost Laurel, though he hadn’t recognized that until later. He had been trying to deal with his depression for weeks when Silwan found him in Formenos. The depression had been buried by his struggle to get free of his mana contract and back to Formenos, but he could still feel the loneliness and fear like a yawning chasm in his life, always threatening to engulf him.
Constance seemed uncertain. “What kind of a secret?”
Zed felt his hopes come crashing down as he looked at her. He was hoping for a confident “yes”, and this was anything but that. He couldn’t rely on her to not tell the sect about Earth. It was possible the sect already knew. Silwan had. Humanity had been supremely lucky that the álfar who discovered the secret hated the sect enough that he hadn’t shared it. He wasn’t necessarily the only one who found out, though.
‘Hell, with enough Earth forerunners out there, it’s inevitable that some of them have been discovered. So would it even matter if Constance told other people?’
‘Maybe not, Zed, but if no one else knows, do you really want to be the cause of the sect preparing for humanity coming?’
He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. They both knew the answer.
Disappointed, Zed looked away and started to rise.
“Wait!” Constance grabbed his hand. “Don’t go. I will keep your secret.”
Zed looked into her eyes. She was sincere, he felt. But it wasn’t enough. He shook his head.
“I’m sorry. It was unfair of me to ask. I don’t want to set you at odds with your family.”
“Why don’t you let me decide that?”
Zed chewed on his lip as he thought about it. Slowly he said, “Let’s say that in half a year, a war between álfar and ogrums broke out. The sect would be caught up in the war. What would you do?”
“Are you saying there will be a war between álfar and ogrums?”
Zed shrugged.
“Because there hasn’t been a war between us for hundreds of years,” she said skeptically.
“It’s just a hypothetical. What would you do?”
She looked down and tapped her lips with a finger. “I’m not sure. I’m not ready to fight, so I guess I would stay with my family or the sect. It would be my duty to be with them.”
Though Zed was disappointed, she had made it easy for him. “That’s probably wise.” He stood up and looked at her. “Things are going to be very dangerous in half a year. Stay somewhere safe, and out of the fighting.”
“Wait! What about you?”
He looked at her with a sad smile. “I won’t be somewhere safe.”
**
Zed spent the rest of the afternoon preparing to leave. At 6:30, he and Phineas boarded a carriage. Once they were out of the city Zed opened the curtain and watched the sun set over the valley.
A couple of hours later they left the valley and reached the dusty road through the forest Silwan’s group had run through to get to Harlond. Zed perked up and started looking for a good ambush site. He wasn’t looking for anything fancy, just a straight stretch followed by a turn.
Half an hour later, he found what he was looking for and asked the driver to stop. After a reminder to Phineas to look for Dan in Formenos, Zed wished him well and disembarked.
After he watched the carriage trundle down the dusty road, Zed tried to make himself comfortable amongst the trees. He found a spot that had a good sightline down the road. He figured it would make sniping Drusso easy if it came down to that.
He honestly wasn’t sure if he hoped to see Drusso or not. If he was honest with himself, he was a little frightened of the man. But he would rather deal with the álfar here and now than wonder for years if he will show up someday.
‘And I wouldn’t mind getting his mana-rich wine and beer,’ Zed chuckled.
That said, if Drusso didn’t follow him, he would be happy to leave the man alone.
Zed sighed. He hated waiting. After a year of struggle he was so close to getting back to Formenos and his friends that he could almost taste it, and it was making him impatient.
**
Zed had seen a couple of caravans pass through over the last half a day, but he ignored them. Drusso could have been in them, but if he had any sense of the man at all, he was not there. Caravans were too slow and too undignified for him.
The approaching carriage, however… that was a different story.
Zed was nervous as he considered how to handle the carriage. He had hoped that Drusso would optimize his speed by running, making identification easy. With the carriage he wasn’t sure what to do. He briefly considered lasing one of the wheels, but it was too likely that it would cause a crash. If the passengers were innocent, that would be unacceptable.
‘Even if Drusso is the passenger, his driver is innocent, Zed.’
Zed sighed. ‘True.’
He could kill one of the horses, but he found that idea distasteful as well.
‘I guess there’s nothing for it but to wait for them to come by and see if I can either see him or sense his mana.’
‘The carriage moves kind of funny, Zed.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It has four horses, but it’s still not moving that fast. And it rides over bumps oddly. I think it’s really heavy.’
‘Huh. Maybe it’s a payroll shipment, so it’s carrying a lot of coin?’
‘Maybe.’
Zed spun up his laser. He was not planning to fire, but he wanted to be ready in case the situation called for it.
Then he felt it. A massive mana sensor field stretched forth in front of the carriage and on its sides. Remote mind constructs extended its reach beyond what Zed could currently manage. Fortunately, though the sensor field could “see” quite far, Zed could see it even farther.
It was like submarines searching for each other with sonar, or ships looking for planes with radar. Yes, it lets you see stuff farther away, but it also lets your enemy know where you are from an even farther distance.
‘Oh, crap!’ Zed had six seconds before the carriage would reach his section of the road. He briefly paused, wondering what the chances were that it was a mana user that wasn’t Drusso.
‘What mana user would actively search like that, besides Drusso?’ Zed thought.
He raised the arm with the laser and, pumping it with as much power as he could, swept the ultraviolet beam back and forth on the carriage. Zed felt horrible as he cut the first pair of horses in half on the first pass, and the second pair on the next. Everything was pandemonium as the carriage came to an abrupt halt as it plowed into the dead horses. The driver was tossed from his seat onto the road. The carriage came to rest, the front wheels on top of the bisected horses.
Zed continued to sweep the laser back and forth into the carriage, varying the height to make sure he got Drusso. Feeling sure that Drusso was dead, he turned the laser off.
‘Zed, the carriage appears to be armored! I don’t think your beam penetrated. Quick, fire again, without moving the beam for a half second!’
Zed raised his arm back up, but it was too late. The carriage door burst open and a figure blurred out of it and into the treeline.
‘Damn it!’
The one silver lining was that Drusso no longer had thick armor protecting him.
‘Save your shot, Zed! He likely doesn’t know where you are.’
It was moments like this that made Zed very glad to have Iris around.
‘Iris, take over and do visual and infrared camouflage.’
‘Done.’
‘Oh, and silence too!’
‘Already done.’
Zed watched himself going deeper into the trees.
‘You looking for shadowy areas for camouflage, Iris?’
‘Yes, and I’d like to flank him.’
Suddenly, a massive sensor field billowed toward Zed and encompassed him.
‘We are detected.’ Iris hid behind a tree. ‘Do you want to take over?’
‘Yes. I…’
At that moment, all of the mana in the area rushed towards their location, heating the air into a blinding white as it came.
Iris sprinted while leaning forward at a 45° angle, their mana leg muscles pushing hard into the dirt of the forest. The only thing keeping them on the ground was the increased gravitational pull. Zed saw the trees blur by as Iris dodged between them. Zed had felt heat from Drusso’s improvised plasma ball, but hadn’t been burned.
‘Releasing control on three. One… two… three!’
Zed felt full control return to him. He stumbled briefly but quickly asserted control thanks to his enhanced mental abilities.
‘Good job escaping the plasma, Iris.’
‘It was a combination of running and putting up a magnetic field to keep it away from us.’
Zed sighed. He may have reacted as quickly and as well as Iris did if he used his time slow-down ability, but he wasn’t sure. It bothered him that she was better at this than he was.
‘We both have our strengths, Zed.’
‘Do I have any strengths in combat compared to you?’
‘Of course. Never mind your experience in hand-to-hand combat; your will is stronger, which translates to the mana reacting faster to your desires and obeying you at longer distances. When we learn how to create the remote minds, you won’t have to create as many as I will because each one will be able to cover more area.’
‘Well, I’m glad to know there’s still a reason for keeping me around.’
‘Don’t worry, Zed. You’ll always have a job with me as my boy-toy.’
Zed took the time to sense behind him. Drusso’s mana had already been reformed as a sensor field and was quickly moving forward. Fortunately, it didn’t advance as quickly as he was running.
Zed thought about ways to strike back. He could flank Drusso by crossing the road, as he doubted that Drusso could push the sensor field as hard as he was in all directions. He could also bury himself in the ground to evade the sensor field and then give him a surprise when he popped up. Both plans seemed risky, though.
‘The remote minds are a huge advantage. I can maybe win now, but if I can retreat and learn how to create my own remote minds, I would have a much better chance.’
‘“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.”’
‘Sun Tzu?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, let’s hope he knew what he was talking about.’
**
Zed ran for a few hours. He thought about moving away from the road because it would make him very difficult to find, but he was afraid that Drusso would pass him and head to Formenos. He probably didn’t know Zed was from there, but Zed didn’t want to risk it. He needed to deal with Drusso before he returned to Dan and Laurel.
Zed decided to cross the road and go 100 meters into the treeline. That would be far enough that he should be outside Drusso’s scanning range, but close enough for Zed to detect the scanning.
‘Magic isn’t the answer to everything, Zed.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The easiest way for him to find you is to track you. When you ran at full-speed you were tearing up the ground.’
