Chapter 9-255: A Little Public Service +Gearporn II (1/2)
Master Fred watched Traveler melt into existence over the Energized Seal, like a moonbeam passing over that had suddenly decided to take mortal form. He removed his foot from it, and she stepped off next to him smoothly.
All eighteen of the Clan Elders that had come to meet her were now at home with their families for the holiday, stupefying all of them. They had simply not expected anyone to be able to Teleport around the country like that, able to deliver them right to the doors of their own homes, or that anyone would even be willing to do such a thing.
The things she had talked about, of the changes coming to the world when the Shroud fell, meant their short-term plans looked terribly shortsighted indeed, and suddenly took on an immense and heavy gravity. Seeking profits under the old paradigm was just going to cost them immensely in the future with the changes that were coming.
But if they organized now, and plugged into the new networks that were starting to form first, they would have established ground and influence that could only build upon itself rapidly in the future.
Three of them had Blessings and were eagerly awaiting a chance to swear under the Jet and Silver.
Hank Blakhamar had already returned and reunited with his family to enjoy the festivities. Some of the spellcasters of the family were already looking in her direction hungrily, the light of potential secrets of power dancing in their eyes now that she was here.
Sama still had some Marks to pass out among her adoptive family, and was blasé about Traveler passing out Blessings instead, as the interlink meant everyone ended up in the same space anyways. The two of them just shifted the easy chatrooms around to put all the family members together.
The effect such a thing could have on the future of the children could not be overestimated. A massive boost to a mental Stat with adults always around to help and teach and answer questions and get young minds involved in so many things so fast... it was going to change the world.
“What did the Citybound want?” Traveler asked him quietly.
-He wanted some advice on getting some multiple Pacts, it wasn’t the City wanting a favor or two... although the City wants a favor or two.- He met her eyes, she rolled them knowingly, and he gave her what faint hint of a smile he could. -Master Quiffio doesn’t like to travel, however. He’s been a Citybound so long that he hates leaving the city.-
“Local spirits, then. He should go talk to some of the minor Spirits of the area. It will get him out of the city, help build harmony with the surrounding area, and make him even stronger in his home base,” she followed his train of thought easily.
-That was my advice. He’s as strong as the city can make him, but it isn’t strong enough to get him above third tier on his Wrath. Not sure if there’s a city on the planet that can, actually.-
“Ten million is a major threshold, but Detroit is getting pretty close; it’s just sprawled out so much it’s hard to consolidate properly.” He remembered her saying that the population of Terra-Luna had been over seven billion at the time of the Fall, and there had been multiple cities of that size around that world... all now gone, of course, buried under the waves or populated only by beasts.
-He’s not the outdoor type, but the thing about it is, swearing to a local river or woods will make him one. He seemed to think that would be pretty cool. He’s very dependent on the city, and has realized he needs to be more if he wants to get to Seven.-
“He didn’t ask for a major Pact?” She sounded kind of surprised.
-The last thing he wants is to get drawn into the Warlock conflicts and Divine rivalries. He’s got enough problems just protecting the people here and helping the city work.-
“What problem did the City need help with?”
-He said there’s something in the river. He’s not Riverbound, so he doesn’t dare go out and deal with it.-
Her brow furrowed ever so slightly. “Sapient or bestial?” she asked calmly.
-He thinks it’s a big fish or something.-
She reached up to his face, touching the eyes he closed automatically, and magic glimmered on them. “Go do what you need to do.” Her fingers teased his jaw open, and she touched the blackened tongue inside.
His mouth exploded with sudden awareness, as suddenly he could taste the sweetness of the air, the sweat on her fingertips, the cold salt on his own lips, and the textures in the air that always escaped him suddenly resolved into a world of scents, tastes, and odors of the cooking going on, and a dozen different kinds of exotic tobaccos and booze.
It brought tears to his eyes despite himself. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, savoring the magically-provided odor, bypassing nerves burned away long ago. The only thing he was ever able to smell was the last thing he had, the sickly-sweet odor of human flesh burning...
“Hurry back.”
Heavenbound served. She understood that searingly well, and never made demands of him that would compromise that. She also understood that he could certainly handle it without her... and he knew he was the person least likely to be missed from this gathering.
He nodded, light flowed across him, and he was gone, Sleipner’s Alicorn in his hand.
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His fifth Pact slot was active, but like his Fourth, it was a Floating Pact, tertiary and impermanent. Technically, so was his Third Pact, but giving up the Stormbound Pact from the Windgraf was not something he would do easily, even for a short time.
His Citybound Pact was tertiary, so he didn’t really have the empathy with the cities and towns he passed through that true Citybound did. Indeed, unless they actually had an opening for a Warlock, he’d receive little more than mutual acknowledgement from a settlement’s Spirit.
He probably should open a Landbound Pact, simply because the world was a lot bigger than cities, and he wasn’t going to spending all his time around water. Landbound just seemed to get so full of themselves, and yet were always jumpy, considering who they represented. Talking for the entity whose skin you were living on was always a strange thing to be aware of, but did they think serving Heaven did not also show a true Warlock their place in the universe?
The smell of river water, damp, and decay filled his nostrils, and despite it being pungent, he welcomed it. It was such a small thing, but living in a world tasteless and odorless...
Her lips tasted pretty sweet, too.
He Rode the Light over out on top of the Missouri, and reached out with his Water Pact.
The California Gulf had been a bit irked when he didn’t want a Local Pact with it, and the Elemental Pact instead. It had been a bit cowed by his two Alignment Pacts, however, and in the end, he was asking humbly, not proudly, although he could certainly have done so. There were no other Heaven-and-Hellbound on the planet, after all.
The Missouri and Mississippi were proud rivers, and there were a lot of Riverbound working both of them. Still, they always kept one or two floating Pacts, having found it was massively useful for getting favors out of passing Wavebound or dual-Pacted Heavenbound like himself, a large number of whom came out of the Great Lakes where they trained.
The Spirit of the river was naturally suppressed by the Shroud, given its size, but it still retained its awareness of foreign elements, given the agitation it was bringing the city along its shores here.
There was indeed something moving through the depths of the river that didn’t belong there. It was big, powerful, fairly fast, and it was undead.
It was sticking close to the bottom of the river, instead of up near the surface, and wasn’t getting too close to the shore... but he could sense that a boat that belonged to a fisherman of the city wasn’t going to be getting back to the shore, and that event had alerted the city that something was wrong.
It was about a mile upriver, past the large ships and barges that frequented the commercial area, and closer to the personal docks and small craft of the residential areas.
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It took him less than a minute to run and Ride the Light that distance, his eyes fixed below him and the view the Watersight he’d been Buffed with gave him. He could see all the fish ‘flying’ through the water below him, frogs, turtles, and of course endless amounts of junk deposited into the waters and slowly being eroded away.
The river didn’t really care about just junk, of course, although pollutants would get a very quick reaction from it, which might well be terminal for the polluter if the Riverbound responding was fast and aggressive. Not many businesses dared pollute now, and the magitech for cleaning up wastewater, coolant discharges, and sewage was expensive but extremely effective now. Too many men who thought they could abuse the Waters and get away with it were dead for it not to be. It was one of the reasons that being on the board of trustees and speaking for the shareholders meant you could be taking your life into your hands... and those who you were representing, too. Nature Spirits didn’t care about the legal separation of liability corporations were supposed to give people.
The water was muddy, of course, but that was just like looking through a dusty cloud, not really that thick unless you were trying to see things in the middle of the river.
He flicked up the Eyes of Heaven, just in case, and immediately got a ping towards the shore. He turned at the familiar cold, somewhat slimy feeling of necroic power and negative energy, and saw an old man sitting at the edge of a low dock, flicking his fishing rod out and looking back at the man standing out there in the middle of the water curiously.
GET AWAY FROM THE WATER NOW!
The Wrath of Heaven burned bright and golden as he swept Idiot out, the letters five feet high as they burned. The man blinked at him in shock as Fred swept a hundred and ten paces forwards, and now he could see the tail of the thing swaying as it moved forward.
A wako, a crocodile over sixty feet long, killed and reanimated by who knew what. Immune to the chill of the northern waters, it had swum north with the limitless endurance of the undead, and something had triggered it to make a stop here.
RUN!
This time the letters were ten feet high, and the man jerked at the sight of the burning sword, perhaps a ripple in the water, the way Fred’s eyes were staring down, not at him...
He almost fell backwards onto the dock, dropping his pole, and his skinny legs pounded down the dock as fast as they could take him.
The water began to foam, and as he ran up his walk towards the back door of his house, he looked back as something very big and heavy burst out of the water, massive jaws agape, surging after him-
Naturally he stumbled, tripped, and went down with a cry, missing the flaming arc that came up from behind the creature as the short dock exploded under its mass, landing on the land beyond in a surge of muddy water.
Idiot slammed down, taking all of Fred’s over half a ton of weight, adamantine punching through negatively-reinforced scales and bone and into the ground beneath.
Wrath lit up inside the massive skull as he drove Sleipner’s Alicorn with his other hand into its gaping and empty eye socket, and the unicorn politely unleashed Alicorn Lances with Wrath kickers once, twice...
The wako’s mass and strength drove it forward even against the Sword driven into the ground, plowing a path of dirt and grass towards its victim. The massive jaws were gaping open to snap shut on the old man when Light shone within the creature, and the dripping jaws, the thick head beyond, and most of its stout neck blew apart in Wrath and ruin.
Master Fred breathed a sigh of relief. Little bits of river stuff were burning clean on the old fisherman, who was gaping at the headless carcass like a small hill, its tail extending out into the water over the ruins of his dock.
“Holy shit!” the old fellow managed to say, blinking at Master Fred, and, Fred knew, his nonesuch eyes.
I’LL BURN IT AWAY AND FILE THE REPORT, he reassured the man. WHY DON’T YOU GO ENJOY YOUR THANKSGIVING, SIR?
The old fellow sighed and breathed deep a few times, closing his eyes to calm himself. “Thank you for saving me, sir! You’re still at work even on Thanksgiving... could we treat you to dinner, perhaps?”
Fred recharged Sleipner’s Alicorn before starting the process of a full vivic burn, but replied with a sense of pleasure he hadn’t had in some time, THANK YOU, BUT I’VE ALREADY GOT RESERVATIONS FOR DINNER.