Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.60 (175) (Patreon)

Lord Mason Quincy hurriedly made his way through the halls of the massive teleportation hall in Hennings. Aside from some hidden military and royal astra-platforms, this was the one location where all the inter-city teleportations happened. As Hennings was the capital of the kingdom, it was understandably rather large.

He knew he was running late, but the meeting he’d just come from had required his presence. Everyone involved preferred their clandestine plans to be gone over in person, regardless of how pointless it had been.

His frustration was growing, as the teleportation hall was surprisingly busy, and if it weren’t for the directions being provided by his link, he’d probably end up lost in this confusing labyrinth. It was understandable as he hadn’t been here in years.

Every time he was forced to nod in greeting to some noble he knew, precious seconds were wasted. He could feel his anger rising when he considered how much wealth was currently being wasted by these petty nobles abusing their privalages to teleport back and forth between their cities and the capital.

When he finally found the preparation room his team was assigned, he tossed one last disgusted look at the herds of nobles clogging up the hallways with their arrogance. ‘Useless wastes of essence every one of them. Spending their families’ wealth like water, while wasting their lives on politics and the illusion of power. Our ancestors would be ashamed if they could see Hennings now,’ he thought to himself before turning away and entering the room.

The moment he walked in, he saw his 6 member team perk up and rush over to him.

Mage-adept Idrius was the first to speak, as she was his second in command and had been with him the longest. “Lord Quincy, we were worried you wouldn’t make it. Our teleportation is scheduled for platform 23 in 11 minutes,” she said, her voice calm and collected.

Lord Quincy replied quickly without apologizing, “It was unavoidable.”

He ran his eyes across his team, making sure that they all looked ready for what was coming. Seeing them all returning his stare with carefully moderated enthusiasm and discipline, he nodded in appreciation.

Straightening up, he squared his shoulders and said, “As you all know, a lot of favors and political capital were spent to get us all here. Some of you have been following the Walker’s legend since the beginning. Others, not as long. But we’re all aware of what’s at stake. The Walker needs our help, and we’re going to give it. We are to be the removers of obstacles on his path, and together, we shall follow him to greatness.”

Quincy could see their resolve strengthening, their determination to succeed in their mission settling into their very identities.

“From now on, my title of Lord is to be set aside. I will simply be Academian Quincy. Furthermore, you are all now nothing more than scholars. We are not mages, and will not have any association with the Tower of Magic in any way. Our previous mission to infiltrate the Royal Academy is no longer relevant. We are now dedicated solely to the preservation and rise of the Walker.”

Scholar Idrius asked, “Has the paperwork been taken care of?”

Nodding quickly, he replied, “Yes, it’s all been handled by our knights still in the Tower. As far as the Tower of Magic is concerned, we all left and joined the academy and the records of our continued association with the Tower have been deleted. Aside from a few unverifiable rumors, there is no longer any trace of our assignment. We’re now on our own.”

One of the team members asked, “Did Erik and the others have anything useful to add?”

Academian Quincy snorted and replied, “Nothing of importance. Other than reminding me to include them in the dedicated scry-link, he and the council mosty wanted to waste their time arguing about the order’s name.”

Scholar Idrius’ voice cut the through the chuckles. “It doesn’t matter. If all goes to plan, we’ll barely be associated with them anymore. We’ll be adherents to a unique, and walking a much more important path.”

Everyone nodded at that, their faces filled with ambition and hope.

Academian Quincy’s tone was harsh as he barked, “Don’t get ahead of yourselves. We have a lot of work to do before we can even think about asking the Walker to take us in. You all know your assignments. Focus on that, and we’ll proceed one step at a time. Now, get into character and let’s get moving.”

Shaking his shoulders out, Acamemian Quincy adopted his noble smile and softened his presence. His entire being became warm and friendly before he turned on his heel and led them out of the room.

With a bright smile on his face, he turned his head to look at Scholar Idrius who now looked much more approachable. “You said platform 23, right?”

She looked over at him with a gentle smile and replied, “Yes Academian Quincy, platform 23.”

Nodding lightly, he led them through the hallways, smiling and exchanging polite nods with the nobles of Hennings while he led his team to their scheduled astra-platform for teleportation to Dorchester.

—--

Sitting at Vera’s desk, he’d been dealing with each ping, one after another, with Vera looking over one shoulder and Quincy standing over the other. Over and over, Vera had explained why each particular ping was essential, and then went into exacting detail on how this proved he had been an idiot for not having dealt with the ping the moment he’d received it. To Nero’s unending annoyance, each and every time Quincy had then exclusively taken the position of Vera’s opposition by criticizing the need for Nero to be dealing with the pings at all.

Over his right shoulder, he heard Vera voice her disgust with Academian Quincy’s latest barb. “He’s the only one who could sign off their incorporation! At the time of this ping, he was the head of the entire house. How could a mercenary company bearing his house’s name file their articles of incorporation without his signature being included in their initial filing? Do you expect the Tower of Law to just believe me when I say, ‘Oh, Lord Walker? Of course, he knows all about this. I assure you this is what he wanted!’ Lord Bennings would have me in front of a tribunal before the end of the day for abuse of position!” she all but shouted over Nero’s head.

Not remotely convinced, Quincy shot back, “As usual, you’re exaggerating the situation to the point of incredulity just to prove your point. You were House Walker’s proxy. For something like this, your signature and approval would be more than enough for the company to be incorporated. If it weren’t, your application and registration wouldn’t have even been provisionally approved. Honestly, if you didn’t want to be the one dealing with this, then you should have done a better job expanding House Walker’s employment base. Forcing a young man like Lord Walker to deal with these things is a waste of his time!”

Nick, from the other side of the desk, leaned his head in between the two holographic screens displaying the contents of Nero’s account through the Thought-hub, trying to get Nero’s attention. Whisper loudly, he asked, “If you were actively delving into the thought matrix, why weren’t you rebuffed by the intrusion protocols? More importantly, how did you mask your essence signature to allow your influence to permeate down into the link’s core identity?”

It had been a long time since Nero had been this annoyed. The only thing he could compare it to was the one time he’d allowed his mother and the girl he was seeing at the time to help him with his taxes. Before he’d known what happened, it had morphed into both women perching over his shoulders, having him walk them through all of the charges on his credit card statments. To this day, he still couldn’t understand how asking for help on his taxes ended up with him spending an entire Saturday having to justify his spending habits.

Now, just like then, he was the unhappy recipient of two radically different opinions assaulting his ears in stereo.

It was obvious to Nero that Vera was an obsessive-compulsive and detail-oriented psychotic administrator type. While Quincy was the quintessential rich asshole, descended from generations of rich assholes, who as a whole considered everything associated with money to exclusively be the responsibility of employees and trusted advisors, and having Nero deal with it was a travesty on par with a war-crime.

While the two of them were busy bickering had been bad enough, the last straw was when he started being assaulted by Nick leaning over the desk and trying to get him to explain in how he’d been able to ‘influence the thought-matrix’ in his link.

Deciding he’d had enough, Nero tilted his head back and shouted, “Everyone please, for the love of all that is holy and good, and for the sake of my sanity, shut the fuck up!”

The three of them all took a step back and froze, and Nero dropped his head in relief at the blessed silence.

“Thank you,” he muttered as he exhaled heavily.

Looking up at Nick, he said, “Nick, I don’t know any other way to say it. I’ve already told you all I know. I sent my mind into the link, curious to see how it worked. I got a sense of how it dealt with certain things, and then in the sections where I disagreed with how it did what it did, I pushed a little until it changed. That’s it. That’s all I can tell you. I’m sure there is some really complicated jargon and technical explanation as to what I did, but I don’t know the terminology to explain it to you, nor do I plan on learning it.”

Moving on, Nero pushed his chair back so he could look up at both Vera and Quincy who were standing next to him at the desk. “Now, as for you two, I’m sure you’re both making really good points about whatever the hell it is you're talking about. However, I don’t care. Most likely, I will never care. When it comes to businesses, all I’m concerned about is how much money I’m getting out of them,” he said with utter seriousness.

Seeing as Quincy began smiling and was about to say something akin to a victory speech, Nero continued, “But that is not to say I don’t appreciate how much work goes into the running of a house. Lucky for me, I have Vera who is worth a hundred strangers that I wouldn’t trust to mow my lawn, let alone handle my money. Arbitrarily hiring a bunch of people out of nowhere is a good way to get yourself taken advantage of.”

By the time he finished, neither of them looked particularly happy with him. Not that he cared.

Looking up at Vera from his chair, he said, “We’re not even halfway done with this crap, and I’m already considering fucking off and finding a private beach to retire on, all because I don’t have to put up with your squabbling. And for the record, I agree with Quincy here that I’d be an idiot to sign over my rights to you, regardless of how much I trust you. Now, from here on out, let’s all cut the chatter and focus on getting through this without me losing my mind. I have no interest in listening to the comprehensive explanation as to how a particular ping came to be. So please, I’m beggin you, just stick to the basics of what the ping says and explaining to me what I’m signing, OK?”

Vera deadpanned at him, crossing her arms and replying, “Very well.”

Then, turning to Quincy, he said, “And if you could, please go and get us all some coffee and whatnot. I don’t know if it falls under your job description, but could you also arrange for all the paperwork we’ll have to file to get this crap transferred over into Vera’s… I mean House Verena’s name so that we can set me up as a shareholder or something? I don’t know how it’ll work, but I’m betting you do. The ultimate goal will be to have me still getting paid, while Vera continues running everything. However we can make that happen, that would be great. Thanks.”

Turning his head to look at Nick who was still standing on the other side of the desk, Nero cocked his head a little in thought. He stared at the man for a few seconds in silence as he tried to come up with something useful for the man to do.

Thinking of something, he said, “Nick, you’re of absolutely no use here. Instead, I’d like you to go find me a few books on basic magic that explain how spell-forms are constructed, and how normal people attune themselves to essence flows. I’m talking about the actual basics that the average person uses to explain how people in this world do magic. I don’t want you picking out books that have any kind of underlying or hidden theme, or subtle clues as to what you think I might need to know. I want non-theoretical, actually applicable spell-casting books on how to do magic.”

Seeing Nick glaring at him, obviously insulted by what he was saying, Nero returned the man’s stare with one of his own. “I’m telling you right now Nick. I’m the kind of stubborn, cynical bastard who will never believe what I’m reading is anything but a fraction of the whole truth. You won’t be ‘polluting’ me with native ideas or any other such nonsense that you fancy-pants scholars believe about paths. I plan on making my own way. But taking the best part about what someone else has already figured out and making it my own is how smart people save time. I don’t want to spend years trying to figure out the magic system by picking apart spells I see other people casting. If it makes you feel better, consider this ‘my path’, one which I’m choosing to follow all on my own.”

Nick’s face went from reticence to confusion and finally landed on shocked understanding.

Nero watched the man come to some kind of inner realization or something, and he could almost ‘taste’ the misunderstanding in the air. “No, Nick! This is not some profound life lesson or anything you can pick apart to gain greater insight into some nebulous all-encompassing ‘grand truth’. This is simply me not wanting to spend another god damned minute practicing the elemental wheel and ‘honing my control’. I just want to see how you all do magic because I guaran-damn-tee you that I’ll think your way sucks, and then figure out the right way to do it.”

Academic Quincy’s voice carried what one might call a hint of reverence, as he restated what Nero had said, “By taking the best from what others have done, we discover our own path to even greater accomplishments.” He sounded like a reverend quoting scripture or a nerd quoting the opening of the ‘Lord of the Rings’.

Nero looked up at the man with disgust clearly displayed on his face and said, “If you make a poster, start a cult, or some other kind of self-help movement out of that, I better be getting a large cut of the profits. You hear me!”