Chapter 46: Childish But Not Dumb (Patreon)

“Red or auburn?”

“What?” Abed stuttered.

“The mage’s hair,” the Olympian said. “Is it red or auburn?”

“What’s the difference?”

The Olympian pushed itself from the tree and took a step forward. “The difference,” it said, “is that one will get you killed, and the other will get you rewarded.”

Abed gulped visibly, and this time it showed. He’d never heard anything about auburn hair in all the rumors. Was the Olympian toying with him?

He hadn’t seen Jason’s companion so he couldn’t be certain. For all he knew the people who’d seen him were pretty much like Abed; not so blessed in differentiating color shades. Weren’t red and auburn pretty much the same thing?

“You are wasting my time, mage,” the Olympian said.

“Red,” Abed said, enforcing every level of false confidence he could into the word. “His hair was red.”

“A he,” the Olympian stroked its metal chin. “Interesting. And how do we find him?”

“There’s a small gathering being hosted in town in a few days,” Abed said. “We’ve invited mages of any decent repute around. We may not know where this redheaded mage sleeps, but his team has been invited as well.”

“And is this redhead a mage of decent repute?” the Olympian asked, curious.

“No,” Abed said. “But his team is.”

“Then how are you sure he will attend?”

“Because I have a bit of a business deal with the one he answers to. His town sells me mana cores and I get him mana stones. Sometimes. That might not be important now, but you see, a few weeks ago, the merchant that usually takes this route had an unfortunate run-in with monsters and now I’m the only path to resources he will need. I have extended an invite and he will not allow the team turn me down. I assure you.”

The Olympian was suddenly standing in front of him. He’d felt it cover the distance but had been too slow to react. In truth, even if he could’ve matched its speed, he doubted his fear would’ve allowed him move.

The speed rivaled his rank, perhaps stood a category above his, even.

“You are assuring us that the redhead will be there?” it asked.

“Yes,” he answered, voice slightly trembling.

Up close the Olympian was terrifying to look at. It was standing right in front of him yet he couldn’t feel the aura of the mage inside it. To his aura senses, it might as well not be a living thing.

“But,” he added, hating his fear, “don’t attack him during the party. I have other possible gifts to offer that would prove difficult if you do.”

“Then why are we being told of the party?”

“Think of it as an extended invite,” Abed said. “You do not have to honor it, but you can follow the redhead once he leaves and do as you please once you have him.”

“I see.”

Something twitched somewhere in the distance as their conversation came to a slow end. Abed felt an aura in the distance and marked its rank as a Beta monster. He wasn’t sure what it had been doing but it seemed more than ready to come for them.

Unwilling to deal with any physically demanding task, he flared his aura slightly. It would inform the monster of his rank and it would likely flee. The only time weaker monsters attacked stronger mages was when they came in packs. He sensed no other monster, so there would be no attacking.

He’d barely released his aura when the Olympian pulled its side-arm, an old world handgun with no magical augmentation, and shot the monster. The gunshot thundered through the forest as the monster squealed in pain. The Olympian’s aim was true and fast, and the weapon was already replaced before Abed could react.

“What the hell?!” Abed hissed. “Any monster within a ten-mile radius would’ve heard that. They’ll be coming here in minutes.”

“Twenty miles,” the Olympian corrected. “It’s a desert eagle augmented with a sound rune. Some mages use it when they want to draw in monsters too far off.”

“You’ve made a mess of things,” Abed scowled, forgetting his fear in a touch of anger. At this rate he’d be hard pressed to leave the forest without getting into a fight. And if he left, somehow, without killing every last monster that heard the gunshot, Hillview might be faced with a monster attack.

He frowned at the Olympian.

“We might be able to hold them off for a while,” he said, slipping into a leadership role. “I don’t know how VHF armors work but if the rumors are true, then the both of us could put them all down. The problem would be with the Rukh rank monsters.”

“You talk too much,” the Olympian said.

“We’re wasting precious time,” Abed returned, his tone controlled. “We need a plan if we’re going to win.”

“No,” the Olympian shook its head. “We don’t. My platoon has cleared out all the Rukh rank monsters in these woods. There are only Beta ranks here now, even if category two and three.”

“That’s good,” Abed sighed, even as the shot monster struggled to get away from them while other monsters drew closer, entering the reach of Abed’s aura sense. Each one was a bright spot of aura. “We should be able to take them.”

The Olympian chuckled. It was a mechanical sound.

“We?” it said. “There is no we, Abed. Only you.”

Abed opened his mouth to protest when the mana around them shifted slightly. He felt the activation of a rune disturb the ambient mana and the Olympian was gone, leaving him surrounded on all sides by incoming Beta rank monsters.

The thought of running crossed his mind only once before he discarded it. If he ran, the animals would give chase. He didn’t believe himself fast enough to outrun them entirely either. Thus, even if he did escape, they would mow into the town. Should that happen, the others would have questions of why he’d departed in the middle of the night to bring a surge of monsters on them. That and the catastrophe of so many monsters coming down on the town would leave very little of it to rule.

Abed bit down on his anger as the monsters came. Even the one wounded and crawling away had developed a confidence that had it eyeing him like he was a fat steak. Abed wondered just how many monsters there were as he reached into himself and drew on his mana, connecting himself to the ambient one around him, drawing on one of his arsenals of spellforms as he touched a hand to the soil beneath him.

“I am earth born, a man of the soil, born to it and bred by it. It guides me veritably and walks into battle as I do.”

His mana spilled from his hand, commanding the ground beneath him and he took purchase of it. When he stood, the ground surrendered a portion of itself to him.

Abed stood as monsters bent on killing him came rushing forward. He gritted his teeth, channeling his anger at the Olympian for doing this to him, and hefted a massive stone cleaver. It bore the design of a meat cleaver but its blade was four feet long and two feet wide. It also weighed more than anything its size had a right to weigh. Abed hunkered down for a fight, a mage with an earth specialization and a strength that came with his size, and prepared for an onslaught.

……………………………………………..

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Jason said.

“And it doesn’t have to,” Heimdall replied. “The invitation came in this morning for your team specifically.”

“I get that part,” Jason said. “We are the only link Hillview has to you. What I don’t get is why Zed’s attendance is a must. Now is not the time for Zed to be moving around. Especially after what happened with the Olympian. What if the VHF goes after him again?”

“They won’t.”

Json and Heimdall were out on a leisurely stroll, taking in the soft evening air. The town was as active as was to be expected but they walked a path less inhabited as Heimdall guided Jason towards the armory.

“The Olympian specifically went after Zed,” Jason objected.

“Because he has red hair,” Heimdall said. “But they won’t go out of their way to look for redheads. At least not this platoon. The VHF have specific teams that have been looking for redheads for whatever reason. It wasn’t under any specific command. They were simply teams acting of their own volition. This platoon isn’t looking for a redhead. Zed simply happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“And how do you know this?” Jason asked.

Heimdall shot him a dark look and Jason realized the question had come out in a challenging tone. He ducked his head slightly in apology.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

Heimdall took in a calming breath and let it out.

“No,” he said. “I’m the one that should be sorry. There’s no harm in asking questions. Trust but verify, they used to say before the world went to shit. The reason I’m so confident is because I’ve had a few run ins with them. At a point I kept running into them that I started to think there was some level of fate behind it.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in those kinds of things?”

“I don’t,” Heimdall said. “That should tell you how often I ran into them. Anyway, just get your team on the know and prepare for the party—I guess we should call it that. It’s only a few days away.”

“Any idea why they want Zed, though?” Jason asked.

Heimdall shrugged. “Something about a coat that doesn’t belong to him. I don’t know what it’s all about but make sure he takes it with him, too. Whoever wants it back would like an apology as well.”

Jason’s thoughts shifted to a brown duster and his face fell. “Oh.”

“You know what it’s about?”

“I’m not sure I can say,” Jason answered. “But I know the coat.”

“Tell me he still has it,” Heimdall said. “The last thing I want is our relationship with that town’s connections ending over a man-child and a coat.”

“He still has it,” Jason assured him. “And I know you don’t have a good view of Zed but he’s matured since he got here.”

Heimdall gave Jason a flat look. “I doubt that.”

“I mean it,” Jason said. “Just the other day, he—”

Heimdall pointed and Jason paused. He turned his attention to what Heimdall was showing him and found Zed walking about without shoes and a mess of horrible braids in patches that were so separated it revealed patches of the skin of his head.

Zed was walking, looking like the perfect definition of a mad man, staring at nothing and muttering to himself. He paused as if alerted by their attention of him and looked up at them. He waved, spotting Jason and turned to them.

His eyes darted from side to side, skittish as he met to Jason and Heimdall.

“Hello, Heimdall,” he greeted. “Did you know that Heimdall’s a Norse god believed to possess a high level of awareness and keen insight? He was technically the watchman of the Norse gods. Amazing guy. Protective, too. Do you have a similar inclination or do they call you Heimdall because it sounds cool?”

Heimdall turned to Jason with a raised brow. “You were saying?”

Jason said nothing.

“Anyway,” Zed went on, gaze darting from side to side. “I’ve got to go. Things to do and all that. If you see Ivan, don’t say anything. And if he says anything about a belt buckle, I know nothing about it.”

Jason and Heimdall looked down at Zed’s waist and saw a belt buckle that didn’t match his belt. It was a large silver sphere that would’ve cost a lot in the old world.

“Zed,” Jason said. “What’s that?”

“Nice belt buckle, right?” Zed said, smiling down at it. “It’s Oliver’s.”

“I don’t remember Oliver having that type of belt buckle,” Jason said.

“Well, if anyone asks,” Zed said, walking away from them, “tell them I got it from him. He has quite the collection of belts in his wardrobe. You should see them. I think I heard he’s a collector somewhere. Can’t remember where, though. Oh, yea, and I remembered the Heimdall thing yesterday. Superman, too. I can’t believe I forgot who that guy was. It was just so…”

Zed’s voice died in the distance as he left them and Heimdall spared Jason a flat look.

“Uhh,” Jason stuttered. “Oliver doesn’t have a large collection of belts.”

“You handled that well,” Heimdall said, not touching the subject of the belt, or anything else really.

“You spend enough time around him and Oliver and you get used to it,” Jason explained.

“So it’s safe to say that he hasn’t matured, he’s simply grown on you.”

“I guess.”

“Careful, Jason,” Heimdall said, his voice suddenly austere. “Mages like that are dangerous. They say a lot of things and have you believe it’s nonsense simply because you do not have the time to follow what they’re saying. It makes you think they are dumb and childish. That mage might be childish, but he’s not dumb. So you best not get caught up in his shenanigans because you’ll be the only one who has no idea what’s going on while its going on.”

Jason nodded, not entirely certain Heimdall understood what kind of person Zed was.