Chapter 66: A Stronger Weapon Than the One in Your Hand (1/2)

Humphrey was returning to the family estate after completing a contract, muddy and spattered with monster blood. He was met by Phoebe, a distant cousin. Like him, she was iron rank but joined the Adventure Society more than half a year earlier.

The Geller family sprawled across continents. Although they shared a last name, Phoebe and Humphrey were barely related. They didn’t even share an ethnicity, with her skin being darker and hair much lighter than Humphrey’s. As was traditional for the Geller family, Phoebe had been sent to Greenstone for training and experience. Once she reached bronze-rank, she would return to her homeland.

“What is going on with that friend of yours?” Phoebe asked Humphrey.

“You mean, Jason?” Humphrey asked. “I’ve been busy with contracts, so I haven’t seen him. Mother said he was spending a lot of time in the mirage chamber.”

“A lot of time is right,” Phoebe said. “He’s been in there almost all day, every day, for most of a week,” Phoebe said. “He’ll fight anyone who comes in; bronze rank, iron rank, he doesn’t care. Your mother says its good experience for our people to face an affliction specialist.”

“Is he winning?” Humphrey asked.

“Mostly he’s losing,” she said sharply. “People have a habit of dying after he’s already been beaten, though. Those afflictions are nasty.”

“I’ve seen him kill monsters with them,” Humphrey said. “I’m not sure I want to see that on a person.”

“I don’t understand how he keeps going when he loses so much,” Phoebe said. “That would really get to me.”

“You learn more from a loss,” Humphrey said. “I wouldn’t bother trying to understand Jason, though. I think Mother is the only one who sees through him.”

“He did manage a few unexpected victories,” Phoebe said. “When the mirage chamber throws out a complicated environment he gets tricky to deal with.”

“Oh?”

“He beat my brother.”

“He beat Rick?” Humphrey asked.

“Rick is like you,” she said. “Put the enemy in front of him and nothing at iron rank is going to survive. But the mirage arena put them in a ruined town. The post-surge, cleanout scenario, so monsters everywhere. He’d hit-and-run every time Rick was distracted.”

The illusion power of the mirage area could combine environments and enemies into many different scenarios. A post-surge cleanout was set in a town that had been overrun during a monster surge. It was a favourite of the Geller family trainers, due to the complex environment and constant threat of hidden monsters. Often it was used to train search-and-destroy missions, but it also made a dynamic arena for combat.

“I’m guessing Rick asked for a rematch,” Humphrey said.

“Straight away,” Phoebe said, “but your mother stepped in and took over and decided to make a demonstration of it. She must have been watching.”

“I think Jason fascinates her,” Humphrey said. “She likes to take people apart like puzzles, to see how they work. Jason is nothing if not puzzling.”

“She put out a notice for everyone on site to assemble in the viewing room in…”

She pulled out a pocket watch to check the time.

“…just under two hours. Enough time for you to take a shower first. You smell like swamp and dead monster. Why didn’t you use some crystal wash?”

“I ran out. It’s been hard to get a hold of lately,” Humphrey said.

“Actually, I noticed that too,” Phoebe said.

The mirage area viewing room was laid out like a lecture theatre, and Geller family trainers would often use it as such. With tiered seats looking down on a large viewing window, trainers could talk while mirage arena images, live or recorded, were projected behind them. It was already half full when Humphrey arrived, with more people coming in behind him.

“Your mother tweaked the rematch,” Phoebe said as Humphrey took a seat next to her. “This time Rick will have his whole team.”

“All of them?” Humphrey asked. “Who does Jason have with him?”

“No one,” Phoebe said. “Although I suspect your mother’s hand will be firmly pressed down on the scale.”

“Rick has Claire on his team,” Humphrey said. “She’ll just cleanse all of Jason’s afflictions.”

“Your mother set the conditions of the match,” Phoebe said. “I’m not the one to complain to.”

“I’m going to go find her,” Humphrey said, standing up.

“Sit back down,” Phoebe scolded, putting a restraining hand on his arm. “Do you honestly think you can change her mind?”

Humphrey did as he was told and sat down.

“I never have before,” he said.

“I’m not exactly sure what the point is,” Jason said. He was alone with Danielle Geller, in the control room of the mirage area. They were awaiting the arrival of Rick Geller and his team.

“The point,” Danielle said, “is to learn. That’s what we do here. We teach, and we learn. My family has spread across the world, but this is the place we first became adventurers. It's where we still do.”

“I meant more specifically,” Jason said. “I’m not sure I can hold up against five of your family members long enough to make any kind of educational contribution.”

“When Rufus first described you to me, do you know what he said?”

“Rakishly handsome?”

Danielle chuckled.

“He told me that when you were all prisoners, you showed him what it meant to find something inside yourself you didn’t know was there. To do what didn’t seem possible.”

“He may not have been paying attention,” Jason said. “Mostly I freaked out and got hit with shovels.”

“Yet you took down Cressida Vane,” Danielle said. “I knew her, you know.”

“You did?” Jason asked. “Was she always massively overconfident? That’s what got her killed.”