Chapter 275: I Suggest You Be Very Polite (1/2)
Jason was standing on the edge of the roof, atop a tall building in the Sydney CBD. Shade was beside him as they looked toward an adjacent building. To normal sight it was unremarkable, but to magic senses the building was lit up like a giant candle. The top floor was a dancing flame of overlapped enchantments.
“I see what you mean,” Jason said. “It does seem like a lot of trouble to go to if it isn’t their headquarters.”
Shade had been watching the people who had investigated the hospital incident. Jason’s suspicions about the existence of native magic were confirmed when Shade spotted a pair of essence users. Their iron-rank senses had no chance of detecting him and he followed them to the building he and Jason were now looking at.
While Shade could evade even most bronze-rank senses, he didn’t risk approaching the enchantments in place on the Building’s upper floors. They weren’t very advanced, falling easily within Jason’s level of ritual magic expertise; just basic protection and detection enchantments, made permanent through artifice no greater than Jason’s skill-book derived skills.
What the magical protections lacked in individual sophistication, they made up in the complexity with which they were interwoven. Having so many effects integrated into one another without mutual interference was an impressive feat. Breaking through or sneaking past any individual effect would be a breeze for Jason, but with them pressed so snugly against one another, he could easily trigger one defence in the process of breaking through another.
Jason postulated that the simplicity of the rituals was not from lack of proficiency, but a need to work with the low density of ambient magic. Whoever devised the protections made the most of the restriction to low-rank formations and integrated them together, a feat not possible with more powerful effects. The low-rank magical array made it easier to avoid tricky magical interactions. Only something on the level of Jason’s cloud flask had the capacity to neatly amalgamate more powerful magic.
The more he examined the magical emplacements, the more impressed he became. The cumulative effect of such basic abilities would be surprisingly tricky to deal with, reminding Jason of Clive’s insistence on Jason gaining a deeper understanding of magic. Based on his early knowledge of ritual magic, coming from skill books alone, Jason would have dismissed the danger of the simple enchantments. Only his study into the underlying principles of ritual magic allowed him to recognise the trap.
“What do they have in the way of numbers?” Jason asked. Shade had tasked one of his bodies with watching the comings and goings since finding the building.
“I have, thus far, noted eight different bronze-rankers, almost two dozen iron-rankers and one silver.”
“A silver,” Jason said, frowning.
“Their auras all show signs of heavy monster core use,” Shade said. “It seems to be the primary method for advancement.”
“Where are they getting monster cores?” Jason wondered aloud. “I can understand how I didn’t know about the secret society of magic people, but I don’t think I’d have missed monsters spawning all over the world.”
“It would appear that your world has mysteries we need to unravel,” Shade said.
“So it would,” Jason said, fishing his phone from his pocket to check the time.
He would have preferred to keep the phone in his inventory, but that would have cut it off from the networks. This was not just a factor of the dimensional displacement of his personal storage space, but also the state of stasis objects entered while in his inventory. He would like to experiment with the basic artifice technique that his magical watch used to keep time when stored away, but he didn’t have the materials.
It was almost time for the appointment Hiro had set up for Jason with the leader of Hiro’s criminal organisation. Jason didn’t know how the local organised crime was structured but he didn’t much care. He had been surprised that, rather than some clandestine meeting spot, the meeting was in the heart of the city, in a building not far from the one he was standing on.
Jason leapt off the roof as his shadow cloak formed around him. He had, in his personal opinion, grossly underutilised the ability to glide that it acquired at bronze-rank. The only properly tall building he had encountered after obtaining the power was the tower in the astral space, which he’d been a bit busy to take advantage of. He’d only had one opportunity to jump off of it, and instead of being held aloft by his cloak, he was weighed down by the nest of stone spikes impaling his body.
His cloak spread out wide, like a pair of giant wings made of darkness and stars, with Shade gliding alongside. It was eerily quiet, with only the distant sounds of the street below.
“This a decidedly indiscreet practice in the middle of the day,” Shade pointed out.
“What’s that?” Jason asked. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of how awesome this is.”
“Mr Asano, I’m not physically capably of giving a weary sigh, but if I were, I would be doing so quite pointedly in response.”
Jason laughed as he started testing out his control over the glide. As with most powers, he had an instinctive proficiency. While he would obviously improve with practice, basic control came to him quite naturally. He quickly got a handle on turning in a curving arc, descending to gain speed and even catching updrafts to regain a little altitude. After playing around for a while, he opened up his map ability and set a waypoint for his destination.
As he neared the ground, Jason projected his aura in a directed fashion that normal people could sense. He did so to two points, well to either side of his chosen landing point. He tried to be subtle yet attention-grabbing, so that all eyes turned away as he dismissed his cloak and dropped the last few metres into a silent landing. The momentary flash of aura passed, leaving the people on the street looking slightly disoriented.
“This is not a reliable method for avoiding attention,” Shade said quietly enough that only Jason could hear.
“You worry too much. If someone sees me, they won’t believe their eyes, especially if I gaslight them a little.”
“I am your shadow, Mr Asano, not your conscience.”
“Yet here you are chiding me,” Jason said merrily as he tugged his jacket into place. A suit generally wasn’t the best hang gliding outfit, but Gilbert’s suit, as always, was easily up to the task. The design had more flair than a design from his own world, but Jason didn’t hate being a little flashy.
He made his way into the nearby building entrance, across a large and pleasantly light-filled atrium to the reception desk.
“Jason Asano for Victor Tollman,” he said.
Victor Tollman was a large man. In his football days he’d been a decent ruckman. His gym work became a little harder and a took little longer with each passing year, but he maintained excellent health and physique well into his fifties. He had a friendly face and salt and pepper hair, with a neat beard to match.
He was sitting in his office, in a huge leather chair that seemed large even to his sizeable frame. If not for the swivel base, it would have made a halfway decent throne. His desk was a piece of oak the size of a single bed.
Victor was watching a live feed of the reception security cameras, but the image was distorted, centred on the man standing in front of the reception desk.
“Can you hide from cameras like that?” Victor asked the man standing beside him, likewise watching the screen.
“Yes,” Vermillion said.
Vermillion had pale skin, dark hair and narrow but sleekly-handsome features. He was tall and looked to be in his mid-twenties, although Victor suspected the man was older. He wore an impeccable black suit that cost more than Jason’s last car. Of course, Jason’s last car had been a rather dismal bomb, which he hadn’t given a thought to with Shade on hand.
“Is he one of you?” Victor asked.
“Perhaps,” Vermillion said, “but most likely not. I’ll know once he gets up here.”
“What else might he be?”
“I’ve warned you about fishing for information, Victor,” Vermillion gently admonished. “Too much knowledge and too little power is a volatile admixture.”
“Instead of withholding knowledge, you could just give me power,” Victor suggested.
Vermillion shook his head, a faint smile on his lips. “You’re relentless, Victor.”
“That’s the footy player in me,” Victor said. “You’ve got to be hungry if you’re going to win.”
Jason followed a blank-faced office worker from the elevator and down a corridor that terminated in a large set of wooden double doors. The functionary dramatically pushed them both open to grant access to the room beyond. It was more akin to one of Emir’s cloud palace lounges than an office, taking up a full third of the top floor, with two stellar corner views. It resembled the inside of a gentlemen’s club, with multiple sets of leather chairs and couches, a movie projector and two separate bars.
If it was a gentlemen’s club, though, the gentlemen in question were of the unrefined sort. The walls were covered in paraphernalia glorifying football. From the preponderance of Collingwood merchandise, Jason guessed that Victor Tollman was originally a Melbournian.
The only part that looked even remotely like an office had a leather throne behind what was either a very robust desk, or a somewhat rickety boat. Walking around from behind it were two men, who Jason turned his attention to as the office worker left, closing the doors behind her.
The larger of the two men was older, but vigorous, judging by sight and aura both. He reminded Jason of Hiro’s thug, Growl, but with fewer steroids and more brains. The younger man looked like a sexy mortician. His aura was bronze-rank and rather disconcerting in its familiarity. It reminded Jason of the vampires he had fought in the past, but without the wild savagery of those turned by a monster. This man was clearly of a different breed, with a clean, controlled aura.
The younger man stayed back while the older one came forward to boisterously shake Jason’s hand. The physical contact brought up the man’s information.
Victor TollmanHuman (normal rank)
“G’day, mate,” Victor greeted.
“G’day,” Jason said. “If I’d known you were a Collingwood supporter, I might not have come.”
Victor snorted derision.
“Go the mighty pies,” he said with a grin, then moved aside, a clear invitation for the other man. The tall, pale man stepped forward and Jason offered his hand. After a brief pause, the man shook it.
Craig VermillionGreater Vampire (Human, araneid bloodline, bronze rank)
“Jason Asano,” Jason introduced himself. “Just call me Jason. Mind if I call you Craig?”
The tall man’s lips pressed thinly together but he otherwise didn’t react as he let go of Jason’s hand.
“I go by Vermillion, professionally.”