Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.105 (220) (Patreon)

In the common room of House Walker’s tent, Cathleen Averett stood at the head of the table, her steady gaze sweeping across the assembled warriors seated before her. Behind her hung House Walker’s colors, the symbol of their lord watching over the proceedings as if he were there, grinning down on them himself.

Seated to her right, former Captain Angleton, now referred to as simply Knight Angleton met her stare with a confident one of his own from his seat.

On her left, Natalie Keening, now titled Group Leader Keening, sat stoically in her seat as well.

Former assassin and convict Michael Harring was on Group Leader Keening’s right, his smile wide and infectious.

Across from him on Knight Angleton’s left was Sholar Idrius, the evaluator team’s representative and demonstration of the crown’s interest in their lord.

Further down the table, there were Oscar Hudgins and Nora Falkner among others. Each one was hand-picked by her and the other leaders of House Walker for their dedication and resolve.

As a group, they were shaping up nicely.

Breaking the silence, Cathleen said, “As you all know, we’ll be returning to Dorchester tomorrow. While our tasks may be many, we are more than equal to them. Each of you has been briefed on what you will need to do, and I have every confidence that you will succeed in your missions. Trust in yourselves and those around you, and together we shall ensure that House Walker’s name echoes throughout history, immortalizing our deeds into legend, and earning our place in the halls of power.”

The looks of determination on their faces she received in response to her words lit a fire in Cathleen’s heart. While he would never admit it out loud, some of these weak-willed Southerners had some potential.

Knight Angleton’s firm voice interrupted her thoughts. “You can count on us. We will not fail in our duties to our lord.”

Group Leader Keening offered a nod of her own in agreement with him before asking, “How have the arrangements gone with Lady Verena?”

Still standing, Cathleen glanced over at the woman before pulling out the communication orb she’d borrowed from Lord Verena. “Yes, everything has been arranged. Even if there is no settlement to be had with the council of leadership, House Walker’s finances are enough to support us indefinitely. Our lord’s stake in the arena, along with his various businesses are doing quite well and his estates are being prepared for us.”

Chiming in, Michael Harring said, “I’ve heard that since the army has pulled out of the wilds, the hunters have been incredibly active. House Walker’s trading posts have been doing a brisk business and the general consensus among those fighting out of the Hunter’s Hall is that Lord Walker is personally discounting supplies in an effort to aid the city’s protectors.”

Several people spoke up in agreement, making it clear that they’d heard something similar.

Cathleen knew that the rumors weren’t technically true, as the essence crystals being funneled through the trading posts were making the young lord rich. However, there was no reason for her to clarify anything. Besides, it was the young lord’s clever business practices that allowed for such goods to be distributed at the lower prices the hunters were seeing.

Looking around the table, she nodded in appreciation at the sight of such dedicated warriors, Folding her arms across her chest, she almost smiled.

House Walker now had money, soldiers, an estate, and a quest. Things really were looking up.

—--

Having spent the last few hours trying to explain common themes, accepted practices, cultural references, and tropes in general to Ach-mage Jennings, Nero was exhausted. It wasn’t so much the topics or the content they were discussing that had been sapping his strength, it was Jennings’ absurd ‘logical’ parallels he continually spouted on and on about… they were what was making Nero’s head hurt.

Arch-mage Jennings stood before two giant holographic ‘chalkboards’ he’d whipped up, madly connecting different informational boxes into a complex web with various colored lines. “So, in the arena of tactical games, a singular ‘player’ is in charge of his troop dispositions only on the macro scale? That makes sense, I suppose. But, what I don’t understand is how your society came up with the idea to copy The Game.”

Nero was sprawled out in his chair, rubbing his temples as he tried to follow what Jennings was saying. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. Game designers and writers just theorized worlds like yours and then ran with it. They needed some way to represent concepts like magic and stuff so that the games could be balanced. I’m pretty sure you guys have a ‘Game’ or whatever that is pretty similar to the tactical RPGs I used to play. I’m almost positive I saw some stuff on the Thought Hub about it.”

Dismissively waving his hand at Nero’s rambling, Jennings replied, “Yes, of course we do! But that’s not the point.” Turning to gesture at a particular section of the board behind him, he continued, “This particular concept you spoke of, ‘heroic units’... Our games don’t have such a clever feature. Not to mention your description of ‘morale values’ and ‘unit health’. Our games are merely logical representations of the real world that, before today, I thought were relatively accurate. But, now, I have to admit that we’ve been neglecting several important aspects of warfare.”

Nero frowned, dropping his hands lazily to the armrests. “You guys included magic and stuff, right? How could you forget something so simple as troop morale? How do you calculate when a unit breaks up or stops fighting? Do you just assume everyone is going to fight to the death? That’s idiotic!”

Arch-mage Jennings replied quickly, “No, not at all! We simply use a loyalty function to predict what percentage of casualties it would take for a force to give up and retreat. Admittedly, it is merely an analytical representation of historical data sets collected from various battles, but we couldn’t do any better. Until now that is! We never factored into the equation the commanders and their effects on their soldiers' morale. As you pointed out, the essence field combinatorial effect can easily influence large units of soldiers during a battle. Also, this concept of ‘heroic units’ casting ‘buffs’ has some interesting implications concerning troop loyalty and battle prowess…”

Nero watched helplessly as the archmage continued to write haphazardly across the holograms with his glowing finger. Since Nero had introduced the old man to the concept of gaming and subsequently mentioned some parallels he’d noticed, Jennings hadn’t stopped bouncing around like a toddler on a sugar high. For a ridiculously old man, he was surprisingly spry.

Of particular interest to Jennings was the concept of unit designations. Nero had pointed out that in most games, melee units were limited to fighting in melee, ranged units at range, etc. While Nero had offhandedly mentioned that it was weird to see such a concept being explained away by how this world’s essence worked, Jennings had taken it as a challenge to then try and find more similarities between Nero’s gaming knowledge and the world around them.

The archmage equated center with ‘mana’, somehow concluding that competent resource management could explain rising mana reserves in regards to center recollection.

Gaming conventions concerning XP had obviously been equated to experiences being integrated into a person's soul. That one even Nero hadn’t disagreed with. However, he had to spend half an hour explaining in detail how there was no way a game back home would give a player XP for anything other than combat.

Unfortunately, as the conversation progressed, Jennings forced him through thorough questioning to remember games like Dungeons and Dragons which had ‘encounter experience’ and numerous other gaming systems that awarded XP for completing quests like deliveries and successful missions.

Nero had been forced to admit that when looked at in the right way, experience in this world did work a lot like the XP systems he was familiar with back home.

Annoyingly, the longer their talk went on, the more abstract Jennings’ interpretations became.

He’d likened ‘zones’ and ‘maps’ to areas of differing density, adamantly ignoring Nero’s repeated attempts at explaining that the comparison was, at best, only partially correct.

Over and over, Nero was forcibly backed into a corner, having to reluctantly admit how similar some of the concepts were. It became oddly surreal as he’d spent most of his time since coming to this world reorganizing what he’d learned into terms he could understand, which had been gaming terms.

Now, faced with Jennings doing the same thing, he found himself focusing on all the small ways in which the concepts he was familiar with didn’t apply.

Nero tried and failed to explain how dungeons weren’t ‘supposed’ to be places where enemies continuously spawned. To be clear, while they did functionally continually restock themselves, they were created to be story centers that multiple groups could challenge to progress the individual stories they were following. However, words failed him when he tried to explain story progression and what terms like ‘main character’ actually meant.

No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t explain to Jennings that in his world there was supposed to be a sense of permanence. Games were merely intended to represent things. They were not, and had never been, intended to accurately describe ANYTHING. They were just stories that were supposed to be enjoyed, not simulations!

The archmage, however, couldn’t care less about Nero’s objections. For him, there were simply too many coincidences for him to ignore. Despite Nero’s continued denials, the old man refused to let up. He used his centuries of experience to question Nero about every facet of ‘gaming culture’, along with fantasy tropes and intellectual properties Nero was familiar with.

Nero hadn’t realized how much he actually remembered.

Now, as he watched Jennings muttering to himself, slowly trying to work out an accurate mathematical model of an army’s morale, Nero felt nothing but shame and confusion.

‘How in the hell did I end up having to be the one defending the idea that this world is NOT a game,’ he wondered to himself.

Wanting… no, NEEDING this to be over. Nero said, “Listen, man, I get it. Games are cool, and you want to crib what you can and apply it to this world’s favorite pastime. But, seriously, it’s been like hours… haven’t you had enough? Can’t we discuss magic or something?”

The archmage turned around, an incredulous look on his face. “Nero, don’t you see? It’s like you’ve been training your entire previous life to come to this world. Don’t you realize how incomprehensible and extraordinary that is? Haven’t you wondered whether or not your soul, which had been floating through the spatial layers, specifically CHOSE this world due to your familiarity with these concepts? How have you not at least considered the possibility that all of this… you coming here… your effect on this world… could it not all be for a reason?”

Nero, still slouched on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, returned the archmage's intense and excited stare with an unamused glare of his own. “No… I haven’t. Those types of stories are stupid. Even if I CHOSE this world, so what? Would you expect my disembodied soul to go somewhere it DIDN’T recognize? As for the whole fate thing, who cares? Maybe I was completely outside of the time-space continuum and chose this particular time and place carefully so that I could make my mark. Or maybe it was just dumb luck. Either way, worrying about it is pointless. Besides, I have bigger things to worry about. Don’t you think Nick and the others are freaking out by now due to my absence? I need to get back,” he said with a tone of helplessness.

Unfortunately, the archmage didn’t agree. “No, you really don’t. I’ve already contacted your house and alerted them as to your whereabouts. Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on them. You’ll be pleased to know that they have successfully organized your growing army of mercenaries into quite the little force. I believe you’ve chosen your subordinates well,” he said, his tone weirdly proud for some reason.

Continuing to glare at the clueless old mage, Nero replied, “So, you’re intent on keeping me captive here? Are you going to squeeze every bit of knowledge out of my head like I’m some sort of interdimensional content creator? That’s not cool man… bit a dick move, to be honest.”

Rolling his eyes, Jennings turned around to return to his board, saying over his shoulder, “Stop being so dramatic.”

While Nero stewed in silence, Jennings’ hands occasionally flew across the hologram, altering equations and adding notations left and right. As far as Nero could tell, the man was completely and totally absorbed in the process.

Feeling a profound sense of unhappiness about how his intentions to mock this world and all of its inhabitants by comparing them to games had turned out, Nero resigned himself to enjoying some snacks while doing a little light reading.

For the next few hours, Nero was forced to occasionally answer Jennings’ questions as he tried and failed to understand the subject of ‘planes’.

With having to constantly think about games and fantasy novels from back home, he found himself unable to stop himself from interpreting everything he was learning through the lens of what he was familiar with. It was both helpful and incredibly annoying. He was constantly coming to conclusions that were immediately disproven by the following paragraph he read.

Eventually, he noticed an odd peculiarity that he decided to ask Jennings about.

“Hey, old man. Have you ever told me the name of this planet? I honestly can’t remember if you did.” he asked curiously, somewhat amazed he didn’t already know.

The archmage, now having multiplied the number of holograms he was dealing with, turned around to look at Nero with confusion. “What do you mean by name? Why would we name the planet?”

Nero’s mouth gaped, successfully expressing his confusion. “Well, why wouldn’t you? You named the kingdom, the continent you live on. It only seems natural to name the planet.”

Arch-mage Jennings placed his hands on his hips and looked up at the ceiling, seemingly deep in thought. “It’s sometimes hard to imagine how you see the world around you. You really do have an odd and interesting perspective. Perhaps some context would help…”

Waving his hand, Jennings moved all the holograms off to the side of the room, stacking them neatly in rows to preserve what he’d written. In their place, he conjured a new hologram, one Nero had seen before… a slowly spinning globe that represented the planet on which he now lived.

“This is our planet. We don’t necessarily have a name for it, as we aren’t all that interested in it. Travel to other areas is difficult, and our concerns limit us to the immediate areas around us. We refer to our place in the universe as the material plane. Alongside us, at various other spiritual frequencies are the other planes of existence. In many ways, it’s easier to travel to the other planes than it is to travel to the other continents or surrounding planets in our solar system,” he lectured matter of factly.

Looking Nero in the eye, he made it clear how serious he was when said, “What you need to concern yourself with is the planes corresponding to our little slice of the material plane.”

With another wave of his hand, Jennings conjured a pillar of stratified light right next to the globe. From the glaring bright white at the top, the pillar slowly transitioned through gold, green, and brown, until finally ending in a deep and angry red.

Highlighting a thin section of green, Jennings said, “This is a rough representation of the upper to lower planes. See this region here, this represents all the material planes that are capable of stabilizing essence enough to create matter. Each one has a world of its own, and that world exists in the same time and space as the own we are currently living on. Now, when there are so many planes so close to us, why would we concern ourselves with naming the planet?”

Nero sat up in interest, trying to wrap his head around this new information. “So, what you’re saying is, there are a ton of alternate dimensions that are easier to explore than the world around us? That seems… unlikely.”

Raising an eyebrow imperiously at Nero, Jennings replied, “Oh, really? Have you not realized that the kobalds currently invading come from one of these other material planes? Well, technically one from the elemental sections of the planar map, but nonetheless my point stands.”

Pointing harshly at the section of the pillar which was still highlighted, Jennings said, “Within this narrow band of reality, there are an infinite number of planes that are filled with dangers. Every time an essence disturbance materializes, a connection to another plane is made. Dungeons and rifts are commonplace, and not all of them lead to fully realized material planes. There are demi-planes, isolated pockets of temporary reality, and even hidden sanctuaries filled with ruins that are constantly popping up all over the kingdom. It takes every bit of humanity’s attention to keep them from overtaking us. As a citizen of Oglivarch, not to mention a member of the human race, you have a responsibility to help us fight for our place in this universe. This is not a reality that is kind to the weak.”

Nero stared at the ominously glowing pillar in thought. He’d known about the dangers and read about the various threats that could come knocking, but he hadn’t truly understood it until now.

‘Those kobald sons of bitches really did come here to expand their plane,’ he said to himself.

Looking up at the archmage from his cushy position on the oversized chair, he said, “I get it. You don’t have to worry that I’ll fuck off and go exploring. There is plenty of adventure to be had right here.” Stealing one of his favorite quotes, he added, “Besides, all my stuff is here. I won’t let anyone mess with Dorchester.”

Frowning at Nero, Jennings replied, “Not to mention your house and the nearly 150 people who have left their lives behind to follow you.”

Nero’s grin faded a little before he shrugged and said, “Yeah, of course. Them too.”