Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.86 (201) (Patreon)

Arch-mage Jennings tapped his chin with his finger, looking both curious and impressed at what he was seeing.

“Are you serious?  You think he’s absorbing soul remnants?  That’s a rather outrageous conclusion to make without evidence,” Made-adept Newgate said reproachfully.

Shrugging, the arch-mage replied, “Well, we know he’s capable of isolating and utilizing the soul stream.  You and I both saw him do it during that portal fiasco.  You can’t have forgotten about that spell he used near the end.”  Gesturing at the large scrying hologram in front of him, he added, “Just look at him.  He’s been healing and resuscitating people for hours, and he looks as fresh as was when he stepped out onto the field.  It’s the only explanation that fits with the facts.”

Shaking her head, she replied, “I disagree.  We know he’s capable of observing the ethereal plane in a way we don’t fully understand.  However, there is a massive difference between isolating and manipulating essence flows directly and interacting with the veil of passing without a ritual or spell to aid him.”

Waving his hand dismissively, the arch-mage replied, “Bah! Essence flows and the soul stream aren’t all that different.  Referring to the separation between ethereal planar harmonies as the ‘veil of passing’ is beneath a mage of your standing.  Religion has a time and place, and neither of them is here or now… not in this tower.  None of that ‘interpretative science’ is welcome within these walls.  Leave the general explanations and terms for people who aren’t interested in learning the greater mysteries.  Our job is to advance our understanding of the universe, not limit ourselves to the explanations we use to impart understanding to the general citizenry.”

Mage-adept Newbanks scoffed before replying, “I’m well aware of the science.  Of the 7 identified harmonic layers within the ether, the one dealing with the soul is the 3rd.  The term ‘veil of passing’ refers to the impossibility for anything connected to our realm to physically or spiritually interact with the other side of the veil.  Granted, it is a colloquial term, but at least it’s descriptive.  That aside, the point I was trying to make is that rituals and spells have been known to be able to coax souls back from the other side by calling out to them or demanding their presence, but what you’re positing is that Lord Walker can reach out and pluck soul remnants from the veil as if he were plucking fruit from a tree.  THAT is a statement without scientific backing.”

After taking a moment to think about it, Arch-mage Jennings had to reluctantly agree with her.  “Point taken.  But I still say he’s performing directed soul manipulation somehow.  Just look at what he’s doing.  I’m sure you recognize the spells he’s using.  They don’t have a single component that could explain what’s happening.  And if you factor in how much center is required to make those spells perform like that, you are watching him perform a logical impossibility.  But, if we accept that he is siphoning soul remnants to buffer his reserves, then we have to accept that he’s doing it without the aid of a spell or ritual,” he said decisively.

Before she could reply, the communication orb linked with the Hennings Tower of Magic activated.  Realizing that Arch-mage Jennings must have been contacted by someone on the council of mages, she resigned herself to resuming the argument sometime in the future.  Mentally making a note, she ensured she would NOT forget.

“What is it, Mathers?” asked Arch-mage Jennings, sounding rather annoyed at the interruption.

Frowning at the abrupt greeting he’d received, Arch-mage Mathers replied, “I just thought you should know, it seems the dwarves have requested to build a city near Dorchester for that initiative the King has been working on.”

Blinking in confusion, Arch-mage Jennings replied, “Dwarves?  Wait, you mean that treaty about opening up the passes into their territory for expansion?  I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen for years.  And why the hell are they choosing Dorchester of all places?  Weren’t we supporting either Carsgille or Manderly for that project?”

Arch-mage Mathers looked rather pleased to see his fellow arch-mage’s confusion matching his own.  “I honestly have no idea how it happened.  All we’ve been able to find out so far is that the king’s recent foray into expanding Oglivarch’s influence has resulted in the dwarves petitioning to found a companion city to Dorchester somewhere in the surrounding mountains.  I’m guessing they’ll probably take over one of the mining projects.  They are large enough to house thousands of dwarves, and would easily work as a base of operations for their city’s construction.  But, to be honest, I’m as surprised as you are.  I was hoping you had some insight as to how this happened, but I can see that you’re as clueless as I am.”

Mage-adept Newbanks asked, “Are they going to arrive in time for the fighting?”

The moment she asked the question, Arch-mage Jennings shot up as if he’d just been poked in the ass.

Mumbling loud enough for everyone to hear what he was thinking, he said, “Yes, that makes sense.  Dwarves love a good fight.  With the recent density shift going on, the region will be experiencing beast tides and incursions by the dozens.  While they build their new city, they’ll be able to partake of all the fighting they could want, and still stay safe in their new mountain.  But, it can’t be a coincidence… can it?”

Slamming his hand down on the desk, Arch-mage began laughing his ass off.  “He played us.  The son of a bitch played us.”  Looking up into the air, he continued, “Oliver you clever bastard.  I’ll give you this one.  But, I expect you to continue this game until the end.  The Tower of Fate needs to be brought down, and you can bet your crown that I’ll be finding out how you knew Lord Walker was coming.”

Pausing, he lifted his hand to begin rubbing his chin roughly in thought.  “Unless he DIDN’T know.  He’s always been one for modifying his schemes during a match.  That would explain why he chose this city for the start of his new game.  The dwarven embassy was probably put into play before the anomaly even arrived.  Oh, that’s clever… but I bet he’s kicking himself for letting the situation get so far out of his control.”  Turning to Mage-adept Newbanks, he added, “I’m guessing that’s why you’re here.  Makes sense I guess.  The heavens above know that I can relate.”

Shocked to her core, Mage-adept Newbanks asked in a whisper, “You knew?”

Scoffing loudly as if he were insulted.  “I have been working alongside you since you got here.  It wasn’t all that difficult to figure out.  I just didn’t understand why an agent of the crown was bothering to come here.  It didn’t make any sense for you to be here for me.  I haven’t done anything other than watch over the anomaly.  And aside from a few harmless games that maneuvered my charge into interesting situations, you’ve mainly been focusing on the local nobility.  You seemed to be working toward the city’s survival, and my anomaly is just one piece in the game for that to happen.  Honestly, I didn’t see the point of confronting you about your purpose, as I figured it probably had nothing to do with me.”

For a few seconds, no one said anything.  Then, Arch-mage Mathers shouted, “Would one of you please explain what the hell you two are talking about?”

—--

Nero had known since he was a kid that assaulting a fortified location was supposed to be difficult.  Between stories, TV shows, games, and documentaries, he had thought he had a solid understanding of the subject.  Castles, walls, boiling oil, archers firing from above… he knew all about it.  But seeing it in person was something else altogether.

The kobald’s tower was strong enough to resist spellfire, and apparently, the army forgot to bring their cannons.  So, like idiots, they were relying on the troops to fight their way in.  All in all, it turned out to be a viable plan as the tight spaces forced the kobalds to fight the humans without mob tactics coming into play.  That wasn’t to say that the humans weren’t taking casualties.

Without anything else to do at the moment, Nero healed who he could.  Occasionally he even ressutated whomever was being rushed back to the healers.  With the soul stuff in the ether, he didn’t have to worry about stressing his center, so he barely paid attention to what he was doing.

Before long, injured troops were being diverted to his position so they didn’t have to head all the way to the back of the formation.  One after another, troops were put in front of him.  Men and women with slashes, bites, stabs, burns, some with one or two missing limbs.  There really wasn’t much an overpowered healing spell couldn’t handle.

While the casters around him kept up the shield, the troops who saw him doing his healing decided to set up a small area for him.  Maybe it was the sense of camaraderie in the air, but he quickly forgot that everyone around him was most likely a criminal.

Since the few healing spell forms he knew focused on different things, namely internal organs vs. muscle and tissue damage, Nero got very good, very quickly at the few spells he knew.  Every time he cast one, his mind was inundated with information about the injury and what needed to be done to fix it.  The more he cast the spells, the faster he was able to interpret how the injured body wanted to be fixed.  As time went on, he felt like he was participating in the process less and less.  He felt like a conduit funneling essence at the direction of the patient’s identity.  It knew better than him how the body was supposed to look.

His little slice of the battlefield wasn’t all that nice, but at least it was peaceful.  The area they set up for him consisted of a foldable table that someone pulled out from their personal space along with some bloody rags that were acting as a makeshift mattress.  Nobody seemed to care about hygiene because… well… magic.

His little 10 ft square area of open space was ringed with troops waiting for their turn to head into the tunnel of death.  Like the last stop for gas before entering the tower, he stood out.  So, while Nero could feel them all watching him work, he assumed they were just bored and he was the only entertainment they had available.  Of course, that didn’t stop him from getting tired of the monotony.

While all these thoughts were bouncing around in his head, he leaned over and put his hands on the chest of the dead guy in front of him.  Quickly carving out the resuscitation spell form, he dove into the guy's soul space and yanked him back from the great beyond.  Like usual, his presence was being bolstered by the soul stuff in the air, so he stuck around long enough to offer the guy’s soul a pat on the back and a smile before returning to his own body.

As usual, the guy gasped and started crying out his thanks as if Nero had just saved his life.  Which… he technically had… so, it was understandable albeit kind of annoying.  Gently pushing the sobbing man off him, he pat him on the back and tried to offer the poor man a supportive smile.

‘After spending the afternoon healing people in the middle of an active combat zone, the blood and guts are barely noticeable anymore.  I guess you really can get used to anything.  Although, I could really use a bathroom break,’ he thought to himself as he watched some soldiers lead the no-longer-dead guy away.

The next customer hopped up on the table and offered Nero his left arm… or in this case ‘stump’.  Sighing, Nero started with the basic healing spell that would connect him to the guy’s body.  He knew for a fact there were better spells he could be using, but he had no idea what they were.  Part of his mind filled up with a picture of the guy's various cuts and bruises, and Nero flooded the spell with soul stuff filtered through his center.  One by one, he watched as the trouble areas vanished from his perception until only the stump remained.

As he worked on the guy, he thought about how weird it was that the soul stuff was so easy to grab out of the ether once he looked for it.  It was like everyone else’s essence fields just weren’t capable of interacting with it.  He knew it was part of the ether like the rest of the essence flows, but unlike everything else, it was flowing freely without any connection to anyone else around him.  Well, there was a slight direction to the soul stuff’s flow.

He could see that it was slowly wafting toward the kobald’s tower.  It was like there was a magnet in the middle of the tower that was exerting a weak pull on the soul stuff.  ‘It’s probably another one of those stone ritual tablet things,’ he guessed.

As he wasn’t sure exactly how the limb replacement spell form was supposed to look, he went with what he was familiar with.  First, he overpowered a bone healing spell meant for internal breaks.  The result was the stump quickly growing a new bone hand and causing the guy to stare down at his limb in panic.  Nero, who was now all too familiar with the response, didn’t bother to reassure the guy, and instead just moved on to step two.  He switched over to a tissue-fixing spell he never bothered to learn the name of, as he had simply copied it from the healers who’d constantly healed during his training with Cathleen.

The guy just held up his bone hand in confusion as more and more flesh crawled up the new appendage and became a fleshy, skinless hand.  Nero had already mentally been preparing for the last step, which was a basic healing spell for trauma.  Fatty tissue appeared before the layers of skin and other connective tissue filled out and redistributed the flesh he’d made.  Nero even took the time to grow the guy some new nails and arm hair… he was pretty proud of himself for figuring out how to do that.

Letting go of the guy's shoulder he was using as a focus point for his spells, he said, “You’re all set.  Break’s over soldier.  Thank you for coming, hope you don’t need to come back.  Happy lizard killing.”  Leaning around the guy to see his next patient, he shouted, “NEXT!”

On and on it went until finally he noticed that the back of the formation had caught up with him.  He frowned at the realization that most of the wackos had left him behind to go and storm the proverbial castle.  All around him, healers were taking over his waiting patients, and he felt the essence in the air begin to WANT to help him with his spells.

It was another piece of the puzzle, and it helped him understand that the communal sense of healing was influencing the ether.  It was like he’d changed units in a game, and was now able to cast group-appropriate spells.  Of course, that immediately led him to wonder what a dedicated group of war casters would look like, and if they all worked together to cast some big-ass team spells that could decimate enemies from range.  ‘Maybe those unit designations unlock after the town level’s up?’ he thought to himself with a smirk.

‘This world is so freaking crazy.  It’s like the only way it makes sense is when it's treated like a game, but the rules of reality make it JUST plausible enough to forget how totally stupid that is.’

Rather than stay with the healers, Nero decided to go and find the rest of his wackos.  After all, the only ones still outside the tower were the ones helping maintain the shield.

Looking over at Greg… or maybe Bruce… he said, “Hey man, I’m going to go head in.  Thanks for keeping the shield up and keeping an eye out.”

The wacko who’d been next to Nero for most of the battle smiled and replied, “Of course, my lord.  We’ll be right behind you after we establish a forward position inside the base.  I have to say, what you did was incredible.  I’ve never heard of someone so young being capable of both war casting and healing like that.  It’s truly an honor to follow you.”

Nero blinked a few times, trying to keep his face from showing his confusion.  Mentally reminding himself to ask Nick to interpret what the guy was talking about, Nero used his ‘manager’s’ voice to reply, “The honor is mine.  You and the others are just as responsible for keeping us all safe.  We’re all in this together.  No man is an island… and all that.  I’ll be sure to talk to you later.  Peace… I mean, WAR!”

After his awkward goodbye, Nero slipped between the troops and made his way into the tunnel they’d cleared.  ‘If recent history is anything to go by, I probably did something weird again that will end up complicating my life in new and exciting ways,’ he mentally complained.

Once inside the tower, Nero ducked and dodged in between the troops who were slowly moving forward, trying to guess which direction he should go to find the wackos.  He found the interior just as plain as the exterior, except for the fact that there were some kind of hovering globes of fire along the ceiling for light.  The tunnels themselves were made of the same black spellstone but were rounded and rough like a cave.  There weren’t exactly twists and turns, so he was able to figure out the general layout without much difficulty.

As he walked through one of the areas that opened up into what could charitably called a room, he saw troops collecting quick meals with ration bars while waiting in line for something.  Ducking his head into the room, he saw men and women using what looked like a trench to ‘do their business’.  Sighing, he joined the small line and psyched himself up for a public display of his unavoidable bodily functions.  ‘Of course, kobald’s adopted the stadium design for public bathrooms.  They’re really going out of their way to alleviate any guilt I felt for wiping them out,’ he thought sourly while nibbling on a ration bar of his own.

After handling his business, he was back on the hunt.

The tower was like a big cylinder, an irregularly shaped big cylinder, but a cylinder nonetheless.  Inside there were layers of circles with random slopes leading off toward the upper levels.  The uniform tunnels bled together and made the place feel like a maze.  But luckily, there were plenty of human troops around who were pushing ever closer toward the center.  However, he still ended up having no idea where the rest of his wackos were, let alone Captain Angleton, Cathleen, Nick, or anyone else he might recognize.

He’d tried using his link to contact them, but apparently, the spellstone was interfering with the battle hub.  Or possibly they were out of range?  Maybe the battle hub itself was left with the rest of the army.  As usual, his unfamiliarity with the local technology made his theories pointless.  It didn’t really matter, the point was… he was lost.

Interrupting a group of soldiers making their way forward, Nero asked, “Hey, you guys know where you’re going?”

The woman next to the man he’d asked stepped forward, “We’re heading back to rejoin our unit.  What division are you with?  Did you get separated from your team?”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought the woman sounded a little suspicious of him for some reason.  Nero activated his ‘bullshit’ ability and replied, “I was misplaced after a rough resuscitation.  I’m unable to contact my superior over my link.  Do you have access to the battle hub?”

The woman frowned and replied, “Our assault forces left our battle hubs behind.  Who’s your superior officer?”

Nero didn’t hesitate to respond, “Captain Angleton.  I’ve been training and serving with the elites.”

The woman’s eyes widened in surprise.  “Well, that explains your age I guess.  From what I understand, the elites are the soldiers most likely to advance regardless of time served.  But I’m not sure who Captain Angleton is.  This section is under the command of Captain Nellis.  If you’d like, you can tag along with us and I’m sure the Captain will have an idea of what you should do next.”

Nero looked up and down the uniform tunnel, the dark stone barely being lit up by the hovering flames along the ceiling.  As far as he could tell, one way was as good as another.

“That sounds good I guess.  Lead away ma’am,” he said while gesturing toward where they were headed before he stopped them.

As per the socially freakish culture, she didn’t bother to say anything before resuming the quick march forward.  Shaking his head in amusement, Nero joined up near the back of the 20 or 30-troop group and followed along.  And after a few turns, he said to himself, ‘Well, at least it looks like she knows where she’s going.’

As he watched a cart filled with kobald corpses go by, he turned to the woman walking alongside him and asked, “So, come here often?”  Life had once again provided him with a bunch of questions, and he might as well get a few answers before things went to hell again.