NOVEL WEB 178. Back in a Minute
“Are you sure this is the right move?” Uncle Ant asks me as he tilts his head and narrows his wrinkled, slightly rheumy eyes. There’s real concern in his voice and I love that even after everything that’s happened, everything that I’ve survived, he’s still worried about me.
“Is this different from all the other times someone’s tried to kill me?” I ask absently.
Through the Portal I’ve created but not yet manifested, it looks like there are at least a dozen would-be assassins waiting, along with a comprehensive set of deadly traps and high powered weapons. The Galactics resemble four armed, orange seahorses with six powerful legs and they look tense with the way they’re darting around and twitching their heads from side to side, or maybe it’s just their natural state. From what I can see there’s a mix of Levels and Classes amongst them, but all of them are Advanced Class except one mid-Level Mythic.
St’iikylt Vi-halltic Orangebrood (Level 15 Extortionist) (Mythic)
[Igenis] [Milky Way Leverage Cooperative]
“You’re just going to walk into a trap, and I don’t like it,” he replies and shakes his head with a resigned look on his aged, unshaven face. “Terrible, just terrible.”
I move the Portal around to see what’s going on in the MIS Hub on the other side from a few different angles. It’s in one of Toronto’s Settlements and they’ve been doing a great job; the whole area down through and including Buffalo is linked up and thriving, despite being a few days into the third Mana Influx. It helps that they were virtually untouched by Oblivion Shroud’s colonization efforts and they haven’t yet been hit by any high Level Monsters emerging or Teleported in through a spontaneous wormhole.
Mentally I lock in a match with what my Foresight Skill warned me I’d encounter, if I’d just blindly shown up to set up a closer working relationship. Uncle Ant and I would be walking into a shitstorm of punishment and he wouldn’t have made it through and the scene plays heavily on my mind despite all the blood and death I’ve seen. Not much danger for me, but losing one of my few remaining family members is something I am bloody determined to prevent.
My anger rises just thinking about it and is amplified when I see the Settlement owner bound and helpless, tossed in a corner. In a way I can’t believe that despite the fact we’ve turned back Oblivion Shroud there are still assholes trying to carve something out on Earth at our expense. There’s no doubt that as soon as I manifest the Portal and step through it’s going to get ugly.
“Back in a minute,” I say and in under a second I’ve manifested the Portal and fully prepared myself for combat. At this point it’s practically instinctual for me to trigger Elemental Aegis, drop Stamina into Acceleration, and call my Swords to my hands before plunging into chaos and mayhem.
A split second after I’ve entered the MIS Hub I’ve triggered Guilty as Charged and all of the Galactics are instantly held in stasis, unable to move or take any actions while my Skill judges them and determines the punishment they’ll receive. I can already instinctually feel only one of them will get a very significant debuff and the rest will be slain when the ten seconds of stasis is up. Now that I’ve left Uncle Ant, the magical Eyes that follow me around appear in the room watching everything I do and broadcasting it to a Universal audience.
Dozens of auto-targeting defensive measures from plasma beams to disruptive sonic attacks hit me from all sides as their preparations come to life. Some splash against my Elemental Aegis emitting blue flashes and the rest just wash over me without effect. I don’t bother glancing at any of the notifications that flicker by in the corner of my vision; instead, I focus on triggering Wall of the Clan to create an impenetrable barrier over the Settlement owner to protect him from becoming collateral damage. Once that’s locked in I tear around the MIS Hub at high speed and silence all the defensive measures and Galactics with my Swords, ending it quickly.
Once it’s quiet for a few seconds I Loot the bodies and use Greatest Need to pull the Settlement owner out of my protective bubble, then free him with my Swords from his restraints. I’ve not met him before even though I’ve heard great things about what’s happening in this area so I pull his status while he equips some armor from his Inventory.
“Thank you, Bronwic! Fucking Galactics,” he spits and kicks one of the bodies. “What a joke.” I glance at the Eyes and wonder who might take offense, but dismiss my concerns. Why would anyone powerful, desperate, or rich enough to get to Earth care about an obscure Settlement owner from Earth thinks?
Scotty Burrows, Mayor (Level 29 Economist) (Advanced)
[Human] [Settlement Owner: Scarborough, Vaughan, Toronto, Mississauga, more…]
Health: 1310/1310
Mana: 1080/1080
Conditions: Efficiency Aura, Arc of Insight, Market Forces
Here’s a guy that’s clearly done the right thing and dumped his free Attributes into Constitution; there’s no way his Class has given him that amount of Health. He’s tall and lean with blonde hair and a strong jaw.
“They came a couple of hours ago. Somehow they knew you were coming, Bronwic. I never meant for this to happen… I’m going to rip someone’s fucking head off for this!” Scotty’s mix of anger and embarrassment seems totally genuine; there’s no way he’s set me up. I think.
“Not the first time it’s happened,” I assure him.
“Let’s get out of this stinking room,” he says and we leave, only to pass through other rooms where what’s clearly his people have been slaughtered by these Galactics. I’ve seen a lot of bloodshed since the Influx but even so my anger continues to build as Scotty’s emotions show on his face and I see the people who have paid the price, all because I was meant to visit this place. We pass dozens of them on our way outside and both Scotty and I have clenched jaws. I’m well aware it’s not my fault, but I can’t help but feel a bit of responsibility. Something like this has happened so many times since the Influx I’ve learned to function with it, if not deal with it. So I shove it down into a compartment with all the other things that I need to either accept or go crazy about and leave it there for processing later. Maybe.
When we get outside he strides a short distance to a next door park and sits down at a wooden picnic table painted light blue. It’s a beautiful, crisp day that seems to ignore what’s just happened around us. A picnic bench in a park isn’t exactly the typical surroundings for a negotiation but neither of us care. I sit down on one of the benches, which creaks with my weight, and I keep one eye on my minimap while Scotty has a chance to collect himself. It’s a couple minutes before he looks right at me and launches in.
“I was keen to negotiate with you and form an alliance, but now I see that was stupid as shit and we’ve just been lucky since the Influx. And specifically I’ve been lucky that this is the first time something like this has happened here, where Galactics show up and try to take over or take advantage of us. It gave me a false sense of security, Bronwic. A few days ago I thought our position - my position - was powerful and we had something great nobody could mess with.”
Scotty takes a deep breath; his complexion is looking flushed and he seems a bit flustered, but he’s looking me in the eye and seems pretty solid about what he’s saying. I can see why he’s made a very good Settlement owner in the face of all the chaos and shit that’s normal life post-Influx.
“It’s better if you take over my Settlements, Bronwic. I’m happy to run these ones or join your team to help your Settlements economically, or whatever you want. Things here have been good but I see now it’s only because we’ve been left alone and that was never going to last forever. I’m just glad for everyone here that it lasted as long as it has.”
His gaze unfocuses and this bit seems to be harder for him than just admitting he’s been lucky so I wait patiently for a few seconds. Scotty’s world has really been rocked and it’s no surprise really, considering what’s happened. I don’t really have anyone on my team that’s an expert in building post-Influx economies and I’m not sure Scotty is the solution to that, but I imagine there’s a lot to optimizing a post-Influx economy in a world that’s just been Mana saturated. Maybe something about his class helps him understand a whole lot of things about our new reality and I reflect on how much I’ve learned about combat in such a short space of time. At this point surely almost everyone alive has been forced to adjust, grow, and learn quickly in all kinds of directions.
“I’ll take your Settlements,” I tell him. “But I want you to either run them or, if you want to join my team, find someone who can. I’m short of options.”
“Thanks Bronwic,” he says, and breathes heavily then shakes his head. There’s a pause of a few seconds and then he places his palms on the table to push himself up. I guess the meeting’s over, and that’s fine. Foresight is pressing on me with lots of warnings, though none strong enough to push past the threshold I’ve set.
Scotty Burrows has initiated a transfer of 37 Settlements to you.
Do you wish to accept?
Y/N
I hit ‘Y’ and stand up with him, then make a call.
“Hey,” I say, and he looks over. “I’m gonna bring a few people here. Can you arrange to join them, give them a tour of your Settlements, and let everyone know what’s happening? If that goes well I’m keen to get your input on improvements to all my Settlements.”
“Of course!” he says, then glances back at the building we’ve just left and I can tell he’s thinking about everyone inside, probably most of his old team. Nothing I can do about that, though. Anyone still alive and functional has had to learn to deal with it in their own way.
After checking my minimap I open a Portal back to Uncle Ant and his bodyguards, then gesture for Scotty to come through with me. I make some short introductions and set them up with an outline of what I’d been thinking then leave them to it so I can get down to business by triggering Omnipresent.
The number of conflicts and threats to humanity that bursts forth is truly staggering; no surprise two days after the third Mana Influx. I fight the constant urge to race to the biggest, toughest conflict and focus on finishing this mission quickly instead. Galactics need to get the message to leave Earth alone so I prioritize these situations over anything else unless it’s truly dire.
My Skill bucks against my intent slightly because of my lack of information for this specific task, but I’m used to this arm wrestle and I harden my will, then push through to filter down to the hostile Igenis and Milky Way Leverage Cooperative that Scotty’s attackers were associated with. Two groups appear in my mind’s eye, one in what I can only assume is a spaceship in Earth’s orbit, and the other in a far off planet somewhere in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way.
Time to pay them a visit.