His friends were jogging towards the enormous, obviously dead rock wyrm. The creature’s stinking, flaccid tongue hung out of its mouth in death. Aodh hadn’t been spotted yet. In the past, he wouldn’t have known what to do, but now, he leapt down from the beast’s body, knees flexing to absorb the impact, and went to meet them.
Tanushree was running ahead of everyone else. It was obvious she had been crying. Her face went through several different expressions when she saw Aodh and eventually settled for a serious demeanor. “Did you kill that monster all by yourself?”
“I had some help.” Aodh grinned. His body was still steaming, but not as much as before. He felt good.
The blonde noblewoman’s eyes widened and her mouth worked a few times. Then heat came to her cheeks and a different look entered her eyes. “You did all of that?” She pointed to the huge dead monster. “And you lived through it?” Tanushree shook her head in frustration. “If you don’t...you stubborn—”
Her words were cut off as Aodh took a step forward and kissed her. She was taller than he was, and strong, but he wasn’t weak himself. Not anymore. He lost track of how long they kissed, the moment was interrupted when Henry cleared his throat.
Aodh reluctantly parted with Tanushree, but kept his arm around her waist. The beautiful woman was panting, her eyes slightly unfocused. Aodh had never been prouder in his life.
“So you’re alive,” Henry said, stating it as a fact. Honey rode on the muscular Asian man’s shoulder. The animal looked frazzled, and her little paws were wrapped around Henry’s neck.
“Yup, I’m alive.”
“In case you were curious, it’s been over an hour since you fell. I also fell off the Mosquito. I’m okay, too—I’ll explain how later. Rekkla lowered the Mosquito by herself. She’s bawling her eyes out at the controls as we speak.”
Aodh blinked. “That’s... a lot.”
“Yeah. I just thought you should know.” Henry looked meaningfully at Tanushree.
“Ah, got it.” Aodh understood, but he was also done with hesitating. Around Henry, the rest of their group stood goggling, still trying to process the fact that Aodh was even still alive. Only Henry seemed unfazed, probably because he and Aodh had already died together before.
Henry said, “Okay, I’m going to take a while fixing the Mosquito before we head back. You have some time to do... whatever you want to do.” With that, the powerful ‘Bonded turned and began walking back to the Mosquito. “Come on, everyone. We can check this big, dead motherfucker out later. We have stuff to do.”
“But, Lord Aodh and Lady Tanushreee, and—” Gavra began.
“No arguments; come on.” The steel in Henry’s tone caused the group to immediately hurry after him.
Aodh shook his head ruefully. He felt like he’d taken an important step, but he had a long way to go before he could be like Henry or Jason. Suddenly, he felt fingers on his chin as Tanushree gently turned his head until he was staring into her bright eyes. “I believe you started something. Shouldn’t you finish i—”
Another kiss interrupted what she was going to say. Aodh didn’t need any more prompting. He knew what he wanted. After breaking off their embrace, he took Tanushree’s hand and began leading her away from the clearing and the broken trees from the rock wyrm's fall. They needed some privacy.
Nothing was certain in life, and everything could end so suddenly. Aodh was done waiting for good things to happen to him. Done being worried all the time. It wasn’t like Tanushree seemed to actually need any motivation or help, though. The tall, blonde noblewoman already had her tunic off before Aodh could even touch her. That suited him just fine, though. His eager hands found her breasts as they both kissed each other hungrily.
More clothes came off, and Aodh had no idea what he was doing, but he’d stopped caring. It seemed that Tanushree knew the basics, maybe even a bit more, and that was definitely enough. Aodh hoped he had lots of time to practice with her in the future. But even if he didn’t, if his days were numbered, he was learning to live without regret.
He devoured every inch of Tanushree, her body was entirely mysterious and wonderful to him. As he nibbled on the gasping noblewoman’s ear, Aodh quickly scanned the surrounding forest but mentally shrugged, going back to enjoying the passionate moment again.
Some worries couldn’t be completely ignored, but at least monsters weren’t one of them, not right now. They were in the rock wrym’s territory, and Aodh had just killed it.
Now was the time to enjoy the fact he was still alive. Tanushree’s warm, inviting embrace felt like home.
Next Steps
Jason drove the Battlewagon over to where a Berber soldier was guiding him to park.
Just like Gonzo had said would happen, as soon as the Delvers had cleared Rose Lake and finally reached the Berber main road, a detachment of Berber military had been waiting. Their mission had been to escort the Delvers to the edges of Berber farmland, deep inside the country. Almost thirty trained soldiers, most of them women, all of them veterans, comprised the detachment.
As soon as they’d been nearby, Gonzo had gone out to meet them and smooth over the introductions. The Berber spy had been communicating with the group’s captain for weeks via MMB. Since then the two groups had traveled together.
The Delvers were nearing the point when their escort would end. Jason had found the entire experience both comforting and maddening.
Unfortunately, the military detachment was definitely slow. Their lack of speed was annoying, but it came with benefits. While they moved along at a fraction of the speed they could have traveled alone, the Delver’s escort did make the entire trip very safe. The soldiers wore masks so Jason wasn’t sure what their actual strength was, but he could guess that their number included at least one orb-Bonded and several mages.
They all showed deference to Gonzo, and Jason wondered how well-placed the man was in Berber intelligence. It wasn’t like he would find out by asking, though. The soldiers had all remained extremely tight-lipped the entire week they had traveled together.
About half of the soldiers rode zebras. The animals looked exactly like zebras from earth except for the fact they were a bit larger. At some point in his life, Jason had heard that zebras were ornery. He bet earth zebras didn’t come close to the bad attitudes of Ludus zebras. They were like black and white and furious all over. The Berber soldiers regularly repeatedly punched their mounts in the head or snout when the creatures tried taking a bite out of their riders. Despite their surly natures, the steeds seemed to do their jobs, though.
The other guards rode in magic vehicles, the first that Jason had ever seen that Henry hadn’t built. To say they were crude was an understatement. One of them was just a floating platform pulled by zebras. The bored soldiers riding the makeshift vehicle carried bows, powerful rubber slingshots, and an NCO carried an interesting, powerful-looking air rifle.
Three guards, one on each side, one in the rear, operated a manual brake - pretty much just a thick, bronze lever with a ratchet system that could be slammed into the ground. Since the platform floated, the zebras could maintain speed easily once inertia kicked in, but that meant the vehicle needed help stopping or it could cripple the animals pulling it...or anything else in the way.
The other magic machine seemed to function as the command vehicle. It looked a lot like a jeep, and seemed to function like one too. There were three crew - a driver, the group’s captain, and a gunner that manned the magic-powered plasma cannon in the rear. Jason had seen a demonstration of the weapon once, and he’d been impressed. He thought Henry’s inventions were on the same level of power, maybe a little stronger, but he definitely wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of either weapon. The plasma cannon was effective, but very expensive to operate, consuming almost an entire magic stone per blast.
After the Battlewagon had been parked, Jason gave the Delvers group a nod and they all moved away from the soldiers to have a private chat. This was unremarkable
to the Berber troops—the Delvers had still pulled guard shifts when they’d been escorted. The group didn’t really trust anyone else, after all.
In fact, if Jason were entirely honest, he kind of wished they could ditch Gonzo for their private chats, but despite the lack of trust, the man really had earned his position in the group...even if he wasn’t really a part of it.
As the Delvers headed to where Jason had gestured, he surreptitiously glanced at Mareen. She looked normal...and that concerned him. Before the group had met up with the Berber military, Jason knew that Mareen had ventured out at night to find monsters. She’d gone out like she was going to relieve herself, but hadn’t come back until much later. Bezzi-ibbi had tracked down where the beautiful, dark-skinned woman had headed a couple times and reported back privately to Jason what he’d found.
It hadn’t been pretty. Mareen had been learning to use her blood magic.
Jason still didn’t know what all of it really meant. He’d asked Bezzi-ibbi about blood magic but all the Jaguar Clan heir knew was that it was bad, evil, and completely taboo. Jason wished he could ask someone else about it. Even his orb-granted knowledge of monsters didn’t include anything about blood magic. Perhaps even monsters and demons were afraid of that sort of power, whatever it was.
He’d briefly considered asking Keeja about it, but Jason was getting wary of sticking his foot in his mouth again or violating some esoteric rules that the High Priestesses played by. Better to just live in ignorance a bit longer.
Shaking his head, Jason dispelled that thought. If he really wanted to know, he could actually just ask Mareen. The truth was, he really didn’t want to know, which meant pondering the issue was counter-productive. His loyalties were already too divided, and he didn’t wish to be placed into any more of an awkward situation. He just hoped that they could meet up with Henry before anything came to a head.
Ultimately, he did trust Mareen. He’d just have to continue trusting her and leave it at that. Jason knew he might regret it in the future, but he’d had to make a choice, and second guessing his friends wasn’t a life he was willing to live. Betrayal and appropriately reacting to it was one thing, but he was not going to distrust those closest to him.
Once the group was gathered, Jason didn’t start with small talk. Everyone was tired, and the sooner he gave them an update, the sooner they could all start breaking camp and starting dinner. “As most of you know, our guards are leaving us soon.”
“Why don’t they stay with us the entire way to the Berber capital?” ask Uluula.
Gonzo crossed his arms. “They’re too important for that. Soldiers are hard to come by and it’s a dangerous job. The only reason Berber is even civilized - in fact, the only reason this entire continent is not overrun by monsters - is because of the Berber military. They guard the mountains and the portways.”
“Portways?” asked Jason. This was the first time he’d heard that word.
“Doorways to other worlds that spit out large monsters or groups of monsters. Without the military there to stop them, they would advance and destroy city after city before we even knew what had happened. In fact, that did regularly happen in the past before the country was formed and the military was built up to contain that area.”
“Okay, makes sense.” Jason nodded. “I actually agree with UIuula that they should just come with us to where we’re supposed to be going anyway, but then again, I figure there’s more to it than just going back to their posts.”
Gonzo nodded. “Berber is a safe country near the cities. We are getting close. Berber is far, far more dangerous than Tolstey in the wilderness, and even more dangerous in the mountains, but we’re about to hit farm country. This area is regularly patrolled.”
“Alright.” Jason sighed. He wasn’t entirely sure he bought Gonzo’s explanation. His gut was telling him that there were politics involved, too.
He prepared himself to field more questions from the group about why the guards couldn’t just stay with them, but he was secretly glad they’d be leaving. He wanted to hurry to Mensk. It had been ages since he’d had a proper bath, and the sooner they reached their destination, the sooner they’d meet up with Henry again.
In fact, Henry would be heading there soon with his crazy new flying machine he’d informed them about via MMB. Jason smiled slightly and thought, What will that bastard think of next?
***
Henry scratched his goatee and stared down at the ground. “I can’t think of anything right now,” he admitted.
Tanushree stood behind his seat in the Mosquito’s cockpit. She shook her head. “I can’t either. I think we need to follow the roads.”
“Yeah, but that will take forever and add a lot of time to the trip. But there just aren’t enough landmarks on the map to let us go cross country. We’d get lost as fuck.”
The blonde woman just nodded and left the cockpit for the Mosquito main deck, probably to spend time with Aodh. Ever since those two had gotten together, the young couple had been inseparable. Good for them. At least someone is getting laid.
Henry absently pet Honey as she slept in his lap and thought back to the last couple weeks. He’d repaired the Mosquito from the damage it took in the fight against the rock wyrm and used the combat experience to upgrade the vehicle’s weapons. He’d also started giving his orders to Tanushree in the form of advice.
Luckily, the young noblewoman had a good head on her shoulders and she liked the plans Henry had finally explained to her. Veritasholm, the ruins around the transportation array that the rock wyrm had been living in was being restored. Tanushree had been discreetly moving her entire personal guard force as well as any artisans they could find into the ruins, offering a lot of promises and more than a few dreams.
The money they’d made off the corpse of the rock wyrm hadn’t hurt, either.
Henry massaged his leg, feeling old wounds beneath his trousers, and considered their current problem. Luckily, the travel route issue wasn’t high priority because the Mosquito could move so fast and be relatively unimpeded by monsters. Still, he had quickly learned that figuring out exactly where they were was difficult, especially from up in the air. It might not be the biggest problem they had, but it was still a problem.
It would sure be nice to have GPS.
With a grimace, Henry wished he’d paid more attention to shows on TV about old school sailing and flying navigation. It would also be helpful if he had had a compass, but they didn’t work well on Ludus, and the position of the sun was a shitty way to navigate.
Suddenly, Henry had an idea. “Bring me one of the bigger maps!” he called back.
“Yes, Demigod,” answered Trask. In a few moments, the little goblin delivered a large map, pushed his fake glasses up his long nose, and disappeared back to the deck. He was probably spending more time consoling Rekkla. The fierce, would-be shaman had been moping around ever since Aodh and Tanushee had got together.
Henry had been expecting the two females to come to blows, but apparently, as usual, he didn’t know shit about Ludus culture. Instead of wanting to clash with Tanushree or fight for Aodh, Rekkla had seemed to immediately acknowledge her defeat, an attitude Tanushree had been expecting. It was weird to Henry that the wack-ass Ludus dating customs even transcended species, at least in this case.
Then again, in regard to cultural differences, at least some angry Jaguar lady wasn’t trying to tear his throat out again.
Henry rubbed his neck at the memory of meeting Bezzi-ibbi’s family and studied the map. He knew about where he was...sort of. He wanted to try an experiment. With luck, maybe he could replicate the trick he’d pulled back at the Bobrik estate before he’d sensed the portway at Veritasholm.
He cautiously extended his Mind Whip, and after a second of vertigo, he grinned as little holographic looking symbols popped up on the map. This particular map was large, showing half of Berber, and a dozen little portways were marked. What’s more, Henry could sense them, at least the nearest
few.
He could navigate now! Plus, he was reminded of another phase of his original plan and he chuckled a bit. Honey grumbled on his lap, but didn’t wake.
Suddenly, Tony was at Henry’s shoulder and the Delvers leader suppressed a startled reaction. “Don’t fucking do that, kid!” he snarled.
“Ah, sorry, Henry.” Tony looked bashful and Henry’s expression softened. Volleyball was probably running the boy ragged. Plus, Tony was an adventurer now and had saved their lives. Henry reminded himself not to think of the kid as a kid as he absently patted his scarred leg.
“Okay, what do you need, Tony?”
“Ah, this is a little strange,” the young man began, then fidgeted, looking out the cockpit windows.
“What’s up? Just say it.”
Tony sighed and seemed to stand straighter, then turned to look Henry in the eye. The young man had been doing that a lot more often lately, and Henry approved. Tony said, “We’ve been heading one direction for a while, and I have a feeling we should go that way.” He pointed slightly to one side, but definitely a different bearing.
“Did you feel this way when you were channeling your magic?”
“Yes. I do that a lot now. It doesn’t hurt me much anymore.”
“Good to hear.” Henry considered briefly, but not very long. Tony hadn’t steered them wrong yet. “Okay. We’ll go your way, but you need to pop in here a few times a day to guide me. I am going to take little side trips from time to time. I think we have plenty of time, so it should be fine.”
“Alright; thanks, Henry.” Tony looked relieved and headed back to the deck. After he was gone, Henry scratched his goatee again. This world really needed trains or something. Maybe one day he would build some.
He could probably mount some truly massive guns on a train. The former EMT from Washington state wondered if he could build exploding ammunition in the future. Henry pondered how to make larger magical weapons as he adjusted the Mosquito’s course.
Delvers LLC: Adventure Capital Page 30
