Chapter 68: Good News For Clive (1/2)

The common room of Jason’s inn was a sprawling, luxurious space, with dining area, bar and lounge. Jason was in the lounge area with Rick Geller, who had sought him out in the early hours, eager to discuss their fight. Jason was quickly realising that Rick was obsessively dedicated to training, even compared to other Gellers.

To Jason's surprise, he bore no animosity against Jason for the loss or wariness over his tactics. Instead, he was excited to encounter a style unlike any he'd encountered before.

”It was incredible,” Rick said. ”Sometimes people can get lax in the mirage chamber because it isn't real. The way you got in our heads, though? You had me making rush decisions, panicking. I’ve watched the recording at least half a dozen times, and I just keep screaming at myself to do something different.”

“There’s a recording?” Jason asked.

“There certainly is,” Rick said. “It’s all from our perspective, so you’re barely in it until the end. You’re always this crazy threat, lingering just out of sight. That crazy laugh, that creeps me out. It really felt like you’d lost it.”

“A lot of guys ignore the laugh,” Jason said, “and that’s about standards.”

“Hannah thinks you’re amazing.”

“Isn’t she the one I ambushed, cut her throat and strung her up to use as a shield?” Jason said uncertainly.

“She saw most of it from the control room,” Rick said. “She had copies of the recording made and she’s been showing them off to people.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Hannah’s very spirited,” Rick said. “Always ready to go, ready to try anything. She’ll take almost anything, good or bad, as an experience worth having. She’s kind of amazing.”

“Oh?” Jason said, arching his eyebrows meaningfully.

“Not like that,” Rick said.

Jason shook his head. It wasn’t that long since he was a teenager himself, but it had been a hard exit, relationship-wise.

“Don’t let it just sit there,” Jason said. “Tell her and find out one way or the other. Trust a guy who didn’t for far too long.”

“The others are mixed in their reactions,” Rick said, forcibly steering the topic in a new direction. “Henry is a little scared of you, I think. Claire is ready to stake you out and leave you to the marsh ants. More for what you did to her sister than her, but she didn’t like those leeches. Were you actually controlling them?”

“That’s my familiar, Colin,” Jason said.

“Colin? Wait, your familiar is a swarm of leeches?”

“That’s right,” Jason said.

“Swarm-type familiars are really rare,” Rick said. “I’ve seen more dragon and phoenix familiars. The only other swarm type I’ve seen is a gold-ranker back in my home city. He has these fire hornets that suicide attack to inflict a burning condition, and when they kill something, a bunch more hornets burst out of it.”

“Nasty,” Jason said. “How did Jonah take how our fight turned out?”

“Jonah can be obnoxious and strong-willed, even to his own detriment,” Rick said.

“I won’t hold that against him,” Jason said. “I’ve been guilty of that more than once myself.”

“Well, you’ve earned his respect,” Rick said.

“Seriously?” Jason asked. “How does that work?”

“Jonah can be prideful, and quick to look down on people,” Rick said. “He respects strength, though. He doesn’t care if you’re a king or a commoner; show him you’re capable and you have his respect. He just needs to stop making snap judgements about people before he knows what he’s talking about.”

“Also something I’ve also been guilty of,” Jason said.

“I think you might have startled Humphrey quite badly, though,” Rick said. “I don’t think he realised you had that in you.”

“I’m not sure I did either,” Jason said. “I think that might have been bubbling up for a while. I’m really surprised you don’t have more of a ‘burn him, he’s a witch’ attitude.”

“You’re not actually some kind of blood-thirsty lunatic, right?” Rick asked.

”Of course not,” Jason said. ”It was just a persona. I might have got carried away with it, a bit, though. I felt so… free, afterwards. Like I finally started pushing back on all the pressures I've been feeling. Still, you really aren’t freaked out?”

“You don’t know a lot of adventurers, do you?” Rick asked.

“I know a few,” Jason said.

“Once you know more, you’ll understand. As long as the Adventure Society isn’t sending people to hunt you down, anything is on the table. Fear, misery, despair. If those are your weapons, use them. If you have them and you don’t use them, you’re an idiot. Of course, that’s a generalisation. Everyone has their own opinion.”

“Humphrey?” Jason asked.

“Humphrey,” Rick said.

“I should talk to him,” Jason said. “I don’t have enough friends to start scaring them off.”

“In my experience, it’s best to just leave him be,” Rick said. “He’ll work things through and then come find you.”

“Alright, thanks,” Jason said.

“So when are we having a rematch?” Rick asked.

Jason went downstairs to the common room. He was dressed in cool and comfortable clothes: loose tan pants, colourful shirt and sandals. He was about to set off on a contract, but there was a decent travel time and he could change clothes in little more than an instant. He might as well travel comfortably.

”Mr Asano.”

Clive Standish stood up from where he had been quietly sitting in the common room, under the baleful eye of Madam Landry.

“Jason is fine,” Jason said as he walked past Clive and out the door. The sun had yet to rise, the predawn light washing out all the colour from the world. Jason observed the similarity to how things looked with his ability to see through the dark.

Clive followed Jason outside and down the street.

”Uh, Mr Asano. Jason. This was the agreed-upon time for our meeting.”

“I’ve got some good news for you, Clive,” Jason said, walking down the street. “Our meeting is going to be extra long.”

“Why is that?” Clive asked warily as he followed along.

“I have a contract,” Jason said. “Probably take me a few days. We’ll have a nice, long meeting on the way.”

“On the way where?”

”There are some villages, deep in the delta,” Jason said. ”They're being menaced by something called a mangrove snatcher.”

“A large lizard-type creature,” Clive said. “It attacks by ambush after hiding in waterways or burrowing itself into mud or wet earth. Unusual for a monster prone to such tactics, it doesn’t have the ability to hide its own aura. That makes it bad at hunting animals, which are sensitive to auras.”

“So it goes after people?” Jason asked.

“It does,” Clive said. “Any essence user who has reached iron rank will sense its aura, making it a minimal threat to adventurers. To ordinary people, on the other hand, it can be quite the danger.”

“You know your stuff,” Jason said. “You’ve dealt with them before?”

“Oh, goodness, no,” Clive said. “I may ostensibly be a member of the Adventure Society, but I am not an active one.”

“Well, you are this week,” Jason said.

“What?”

“You're coming with me,” Jason said.

“No,” Clive said. “No, I’m not.”

Jason pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handing it to Clive, who read it as they walked.

“This is the contract,” Clive said. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Four different villages in the area sent word that the mangrove snatcher came right into the village. Aggressive little prick, apparently. The messengers all came in overnight and the contract was assigned to me. I was told to head out at first light.”

He waved an arm at the sky.

“And here we are,” Jason said. “First light.”

“I realise that being assigned a contract pre-empts our appointment,” Clive said, “but it does not mean that I am going to participate.”