Second Prestige Chapter 4: Problem Solver (Patreon)

The mountain guide returned shortly, carrying a large duffel bag. He opened up and pulled out a strange contraption, it looked like a small cannon on a tripod. Hugo doubted that he could lift it with his current strength, and the brothers were moving it about one handed.

It didn’t take Hugo long to realize that the cannon wasn’t special, they set it off to the side negligently. Then, Feynman reverently pulled out the ammunition. It was a heavily runed cylinder with a pointed tip. It was enormous, it would just barely fit in the cannon.

“Should I start filling it?” one brother said to the other. He was cradling the munition like a baby in his arms.

The other brother nodded, “It takes a while. If we want to use it today, it has to have enough mana. Go ahead. I will prep the extraction tool if we don’t use it today.”

“I can’t say that I hope we get attacked...” Feynman said.

“But you totally hope we get attacked,” Fermi replied.

The next hour was stressful for Hugo. He knew that they would get attacked soon, but the two brothers kept giving him the side eye as more time elapsed and no attack came. He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted a dot in the distance.

“There it is. That airship is going to attack,” Hugo said.

Fermi yelled to the engineer, “Stop the train!” He hurriedly started setting up the tripod as his brother did something with the ammunition.

The train slowed to a stop, gently settling onto the track. Once they were stationary, the brothers jumped off the train. Hugo followed to watch. They quickly set up the cannon in the gravel near the track and trained it on the airship. By now it was clear that the airship was heading straight for them. They made constant small adjustments, but waited to fire until the airship was closer.

A few girls came to the door of the train and looked out. They wanted to see what was going on, but seemed hesitant to step off the train.

“What are you going to do? Are you going to shoot them? Why? How do you know they are the bad guys?” one of the girls asked.

Fermi stood up and said, “Peaceful people don’t head straight for a stopped train on the day after a heartbeat. If they get any closer, we will shoot them down.”

The airship didn’t turn, it kept heading directly for them. A few moments later the brothers nodded at each other and slid the ammo into the cannon. A few adjustments later and they fired it high into the air.

“Go, Trinity, go!” Feynman said.

It flew through the sky, heading directly for the airship. It wasn’t going fast enough though, it was going to miss. Then, to Hugo’s surprise, it grew brighter and changed trajectory, arcing up through the air.

“Yes! The mana tracking works!” Fermi said and grabbed his brother’s arm.

Trinity was on a direct collision course. The total flight plan was measured in tenths of a second, but felt like forever.

A bright blue shield appeared around the airship, emanating from the numerous protrusions around the airship’s envelope. Trinity didn’t seem to care though, it pierced straight through the shield, through the airbag, and out the other side. The airship quickly started falling towards the ground. The four mana engines on the pod below tried to keep it airborne, but only managed to slow it’s descent. It crashed to the ground about a mile from the train, sending up a cloud of dust.

“It didn’t explode,” Feynman said sadly.

“I told you that we needed a proximity trigger,” Fermi said.

Feynman said, “At least the mana piercing part worked.”

“Yes, good job on that part,” he replied.

Hugo heard the girls squeak and turned around to look at them. Someone in a blue vest was standing at the train door instead.

“What’s going on here?” a mountain guide said. By the way that the two brothers reacted, Hugo guessed that this guy was high ranked.

“The boy was right. There was an airship headed on an attack trajectory. We shot them out of the sky with Trinity. They crash landed about a mile away,” Feynman said.

“I bet most of them survived,” Fermi said, “We need to set up an ambush. We have five minutes or so to prepare. More if any of them are seriously injured.”

“Don’t be stupid,” the guide said, “There is no reason to stay here.”

“We need to recover Trinity, it didn’t explode on contact and we might be able to salvage it,” Feynman said, “It’s worth a few hundred golds.”

The lead mountain guide thought about it and said, “The risk to the passengers is too great. If you want to come out here and salvage on your own afterwards, feel free.” Then with a shout he said, “Engineer! Get this train going, right now.”

Everyon hopped back aboard. Since the train was shimmer powered and on top of a shimmer vein, it didn’t take long to get moving again. They sped off towards Tallinn, and they were gone before any of the attackers were in sight. Hugo found himself hoping that the experience would deter the train jackers from ever attempting this again. They were shot out of the sky before they even got close, and their quarry left before they could recover.

Shortly before they arrived at the train station in Tallinn, Feynman sat next to Hugo and said, “Thanks for warning us, that took some real character.”

Hugo chuckled, “I was on the train they were planning on robbing. I just didn’t want to get robbed myself.”

“Still, it took some courage to warn us about the robbery. If it ever gets back to the fox gang that you were the one that tipped us off, your life would be in danger.”

Hugo’s eyes grew wide. He hadn’t even thought of that. This train was a potential huge score for the gang, and he had blown it for them. They wouldn’t have succeeded either way, but they didn’t know that.

Feynman laughed at Hugo’s face and said, “Didn’t quite think that one through, did you? Still, I appreciate the warning, even if it did come from a place of stupidity.” He put something in Hugo’s palm and closed his fist around it. “That is a small token of our appreciation. You should consider a position as a mountain guide when you grow up. I would be happy to help you think with your head instead of your heart.”

As Feynman walked away, Hugo took a peek at what he had given him. It was a mana shard, a softly glowing construct of pure mana. Monsters dropped these when they died. He had seen plenty of mana stones when he had gone hunting during his previous life. But this was the first time he had owned solid mana of his own. And manashards were a step above the common mana stones, this was probably worth a gold or two. That was very generous of Feynman. He tucked the shard away in his pocket so the glow wouldn’t give him away.

As he got off the train at Tallinn, he wondered if he could directly use the mana shard for anything. They were worth a lot of money because they powered enchantments. One this big could probably power a mana cart for a year or so. Maybe less, he didn’t actually know.

Now that he was a mage (again) maybe he could figure out how to make it power something of his own. He would love his own mana cart, but that was probably unrealistic for now. Maybe a powered bike though. Since he was going to be a formations mage, he could build it himself, the mana shard would power it, and he would only need a little help from a runic mage to complete it. He could just see himself, zipping along on a mana bike, the talk of the town.

That reminded him, he needed to get going. This time around, he actually had time to catch his connecting train since the fight with the gang members was so short. He just barely had time to send Marion’s letter to his family before he hopped in the monorail towards Reval.

He let his head rest against the window as the countryside sped by. The experience reminded him of the last trip he had made with his father before he died. They had been on a trip up to Deva. It was four stops north, and he had spent hours with his young head pressed up against the glass. He found himself imagining that he could see a soulmarked man running along the train path, jumping over trees and hills in the way.

His dad had told him at the time that the trip was a vacation. He had been so excited. They had seen the sights and enjoyed the local foods. It wasn’t until he was older that he had realized that the trip had been a job interview. One that hadn’t panned out. He was even more impressed with his dad when he figured that out years later. His dad must have been so disappointed, but Hugo only had good memories of that trip.

One of the best things about that trip was that it was just him and his dad. His mother hadn’t come with. She had been ornery even back then, a character trait that had only gotten worse once his dad died. She hadn’t taken the news well, and Hugo was sure that she only survived the following six months because of him.

He shuddered at the thought of seeing his mother again. Particularly in this body. He just didn’t have the emotional strength to deal with her anymore. He knew she would argue with him as he tried to convince her of the truth. It was pretty fantastical that he found himself in a new body. He wondered if she would accept a letter instead. Then a thought occurred to him. Maybe he didn’t have to do either. He could just sidestep the issue and tell her that Hugo had died. He didn’t feel great about lying, but he knew his mother wouldn’t miss him.

Could he really do that? He felt guilty just for considering it. He wanted to be a dutiful son, to do the right thing. But spending time with his mother was just so stressful for him, and her. Hugo was convinced that half of the reason she was such a terrible mother was that he reminded her of her dead husband. She just wanted to run away from the pain of that loss.

All she really wanted from him was some money and to be left alone. Nodding to himself, he decided to give her just that, with the message that Hugo had died.

With that plan in mind, he walked towards his mother’s apartment. The long walk from the train station to the narrows was a mix of familiar and foreign. He was looking at his home town, literally through someone else’s eyes. He almost waved towards a nox friend, before he remembered that he wouldn't recognize him.

Another familiar face popped up as he got closer. A man in a fox mask stepped into the street and said, “Hello stranger. Perhaps someone with such nice clothes doesn’t know this, but this here is a toll road.”

Hugo looked down at the clothes he was wearing. He was surprised to see that the thug was right. He wouldn’t fit in here at all. He had spent the last subjective year around rich kids and it had skewed his idea of what nice clothing was.

“Yeah, alright,” Hugo said with a shrug. He flipped a few coppers into the air. He maneuvered himself around the man so that as soon as he caught the coins, Hugo was around him.

The man in the fox mask looked down at the three coppers in his hands, trying to decide if it was worth it to try and extort more money out of Hugo. Laziness won and he stepped back into the shadows.

The apartment building wasn’t far from that point, and Hugo made a point of avoiding eye contact with anyone else. He didn’t want to stand out any more than he already did.

A wave of guilt washed over him as he put his hand up to knock on his mother’s door. He was about to tell her that her son was dead. He suddenly had doubts about his plan. Maybe he should tell her the truth. There were bound to be childhood memories he could use to convince her that he really was Hugo.