All the other children had been so cruel to Aodh back on the farm, sometimes Vitaliya had had to go out after dark to teach them a lesson. A few singed eyebrows, some burned arms, no problem. Little Aodh…poor little Aodh.
After Vitaliya had left to start her active duty tour as an Intelligence agent, she hadn’t thought she’d see Aodh for at least another year. She had known he’d wanted to be an adventurer, but she’d been sure nobody would hire such a frail, frightened boy.
The fact they had met up again in such coincidental circumstances was truly the gods’ way of reuniting her with her troubled cousin. He needed her help, and he wanted her help. The confused boy just didn’t know he did, didn’t know what was best for him, probably due to his Fideli blood. Poor thing.
Vitaliya began paying attention to the conversation again.
Keeja said, “My role has changed. When I first met you, I was only meant to give a piece or two of information within certain limitations. I really didn’t want to be involved. However…things are different now.”
The High Priestess breathed deeply. “Dolos is so happy with the data he is getting from Bonded hunting each other and a few preparing for the attack on this world…Actually, it’s more accurate to say he’s happy with the data he is getting from the growing chaos in general.
“He has offered a two-hundred-year vacation to any High Priestess that sufficiently impresses him in some way, including shepherding one of the teams in play. What this actually means, I’m not sure. However, Dolos does not lie. I’m not entirely certain how to go about this. I still have all the same limitations I had before. I can’t just tell you things. In fact, I have reasons that I can’t tell you why I can’t tell you things. On the other hand, now I am much more motivated to find loopholes.
“However, Dolos also does not play fair. At all. Ever. I’ve been asking for a music playback device for over six hundred years. The other Priestesses have too. Dolos telling you about the music gadget was for my benefit.
“If I act, if I get this music device for myself, it will mean I will not be able to interfere in your affair for a long time afterwards except in self-defense. I’ll also be a target for others that will want it, too. However, I can’t pass up this opportunity, and Dolos knows it.”
“Excuse me, but I am not sure what you’re talking about,” said Jason.
Keeja smiled sadly. “This is a story thousands of years in the making. We don’t have time for it right now, nor do you have the context to understand. I’m not sure I want to pry open old memories anyway. The point is, I’m a more willing participant in helping you now, but I still have to abide by strict rules.”
Jason nodded thoughtfully. “Like not being around until we figured out you were there, probably for some reason you can’t tell us.”
“Precisely.”
Henry frowned and said, “Okay, enough Kumbaya bullshit. There are people out there who still need a hand while we stand around gabbing. It sounds like we need three teams, one of them being Keeja, and—”
“I’m taking Jason,” Keeja said.
“You’re what?” asked Uluula. The diminutive woman was calm, but Vitaliya noticed she tightened her grip on the strange spear she held.
Keeja rolled her eyes. “Oh, simmer down, little girl. I’m not taking your Terran toy. Besides, this one is much more my type.” She took a quick step forward and squeezed Henry’s upper arm before he stumbled back with a yelp. Keeja chuckled. “I just said I am more willing to help now. Take this on faith. Also, here.” Keeja pulled a map out of thin air and handed it to the dubious Henry.
“What’s this for?” he asked.
“You can find dungeons on a map, yes? You have the skill?”
“Oh, yeah. Hold on a sec.”
“Also, Dolos said the dungeon was ‘nearby,’ yes?” Keeja asked.
“Yeah.”
“That means nearby for him, not you. Henry, what dungeons do you see up to about 300 miles away?”
“What makes three hundred miles so special—”
“Just do it, Terran.” Keeja let iron command bleed into her voice.
As Henry grumbled about “Terran-this” and “PMSing hobbits,” Vitaliya watched with interest. This side of Keeja was a lot closer to myth and legend. Keeja the Ravager, the selfish general. Vitaliya thought it was fascinating to observe the creation of new legends in her lifetime.
She watched Aodh out the corner of her eye and clucked her tongue. The poor thing was still so scared. He was so small and defenseless. She wanted to walk over and give him a hug. He truly didn’t seem to know what was good for him sometimes, and she might have to persuade him to cooperate, but it was truly for his own good.
She wasn’t looking forward to telling little Aodh that their entire family for the most part had been working as Intelligence officers for generations. In fact, it kind of amazed her that he’d never wondered how his Da had ever been able to meet Aodh’s beautiful, half-Fideli Ma while abroad if he were just a simple farmer. Oh well, at least his lack of curiosity had been convenient. Plus, they were travelling together for a while now, so their family’s secret was a moot point for now. Vitaliya had to think carefully how to break the news when the time came, though.
Aodh was probably going to be upset. He always was when he found out she hadn’t told him something, but Vitaliya knew what was best for him. That terrible man, Henry, might have been making things worse lately. She frowned while she thought about it. He even called little Aodh “Tony” and had given him weapons! The entire grouped treated Aodh like he was a real adventurer! It was incredibly irresponsible.
But now that Vitaliya was here with him, it was fine. She could watch over him and make sure he was safe as could be and taken care of. Of course, her job had to come first, but she was very good at multitasking. She would always take care of little Aodh.
Henry listed off the dungeon locations he was seeing, and Keeja thought for a moment before she said, “I think I know which of these that old snake hid my music player in. It’s probably the one about two hundred twenty miles away, one hundred fifty Ludan turns, or about three hundred fifty kilometers. What measurements would you like me to use?”
“Around us, use miles,” Henry growled. “So you’re going with Jason to this dungeon in the middle of nowhere to get your magic Walkman or whatever, then you’ll become even more useless than usual?”
Vitaliya was accustomed to Keeja’s presence, but she still cringed on the inside when Henry talked so familiarly. She spared a glance at Gonzo, but he still hadn’t reacted at all. He was probably in observation mode, just storing away data.
Uluula bristled and asked, “Jason doesn’t have to fight, does he?”
“Of course not.” Keeja scowled. “Really? That was your question. You think I’ll need your Terran husband’s help? Your second rank orb-Bonded husband? Really? Have the Baglan Blue gone senile?”
Uluula looked embarrassed, but Vitaliya had no idea what the exchange meant. She decided it might have had something to do with homeworld Areva politics, so she needed to include it in her daily report. When she eventually turned all of her reports in, they might find it valuable.
She kept a separate report on her cousin Aodh. She still needed to jot down everything she had seen him eat that day. She also had to make sure he never found her notes. He wouldn’t understand.
“Okay, enough grab-assing.” When Keeja’s eyes lit up and she opened her mouth to respond, Henry growled at her and the woman just smiled. Henry continued, “This is how the op is going to play out.
“Jason and Keeja are going to…” He consulted his map. “They’re going to the Halls of Grief. Dolos apparently tells the truth, according to Keeja, which doesn’t make any sense to me since he lied to us in the first ten fucking minutes we met him, but I already know I’m overruled on this one.”
Keeja looked amused. “What I meant was he doesn’t lie within the realm of a deal or a bargain being struck.”
“
Yeah, whatever. I don’t care. Losing Jason stretches us thin. It also grounds the Battlewagon. Are you sure you’re going with her, Jason?”
Jason looked at Keeja for a couple seconds before replying, “Yeah, I think I’m going to chance it, man.”
Henry grumped, “Fine. I’m going northwest with Gonzo and Vitaliya on magicycles. They’ve been riding them and I invented the things. We’ll make great time.
“The rest of you will go east to see what you can find. It’s close by. If anyone runs into trouble, fall back here to the Battlewagon.”
Vitaliya was curious. “Why don’t you have someone else pilot the Battlewagon so you can operate its guns?”
Henry sighed. “Because this is a rescue, not a combat op. I have enhanced senses and the Mo’hali do too. We need to actually find these people in order to help them. I still don’t really know what you and Gonzo do, but I doubt you’ll just tell me.”
Gonzo finally spoke, “In this situation, sharing information would be ideal.”
“Oh,” said Henry. “I thought you wouldn’t care about stranded people from Earth.”
Gonzo smiled grimly. “I may be a spy, but I’m still originally from Earth, too. Plus, one directive of Berber Intelligence is to make contact with new refugees to Ludus whenever possible.”
“I’m sure finding new orbs wouldn’t hurt either, right?” Uluula sounded skeptical.
Gonzo ignored her. To Henry, he said, “I am a water and life mage. I specialize in ice. Vitaliya is a fire mage.”
Vitaliya noticed how much information Gonzo held back and approved on principle. She really had gotten lucky to be paired with Gonzolez as her first partner.
“And do either of you have tracking abilities?” asked Henry.
“No,” Gonzo lied.
Once again, Vitaliya approved.
“Okay, fine, my decision stands. Everyone saddle up and go. If these Earth people really exist and Dolos isn’t just playing games, who knows what we’ll find. Remember, if you run into trouble you can’t handle, head back to the Battlewagon and send an MMB to the other group. Each team has a mage, and at these distances, an MMB will take no time. Don’t bother sending anything to Jason or Keeja, though. They’re doing whatever it is Keeja wants to do.”
“Damn right,” the demigoddess purred.
Henry didn’t respond to her. He just ordered, “Okay, let’s go!”
Vitaliya noticed how Henry had placed Gonzo and herself in his team, probably to keep an eye on them. He’d even found a way to ask them what their abilities were in a way they couldn’t refuse to answer without ruining goodwill. Vitaliya actually thought it was fairly well done, even if a little ham-fisted. It worried her. Aodh was spending a lot of time with Henry, almost like a surrogate older brother. Vitaliya would have to be careful around the man.
Henry seemed to be a lot smarter than she’d originally believed. That could be a problem both for Aodh’s safety and her future plans.
* * *
Jason flew through the air in teleporting hops as fast as he could while using a reasonable amount of magic power, but Keeja easily kept pace, scowling at him and motioning him to go faster. The most disturbing thing was after each teleport, she was almost instantly near his side again. Just how fast can this chick fly? Jason felt a chill.
He had not forgotten the display of power Keeja had given within the first few days of him meeting her. He remembered the awesome beam of energy. Jason had a very, very bad feeling about what was to come. On the other hand, he also strangely believed Keeja that it would be in his best interest to come with her.
Suddenly, he felt himself slowing down until he eventually stopped, floating in midair. Keeja hovered into view and said, “You can’t hear me when you’re darting all over the place like a minnow. You are going way too slow, and it’s boring me.
“Keep your goggles on and don’t teleport. I’m going to gradually speed up for a while before slowing down. After that, give me a thumbs-up when you’re ready to go fast again. You won’t be able to breathe when we are accelerated. Just focus on breathing when we slow down and holding your breath when we go fast again.”
“Wait, what are you—”
Jason began accelerating forward at a terrifying rate, so he quickly gulped some air and held his breath. What the hell did I get myself into this time?
Powerleveled
Jason was freaked out at first as Keeja towed him behind her, rocketing forward at incredible speed. Luckily, he was wearing his goggles, so he could still see, but the High Priestess had been correct that he wouldn’t be able to breathe while moving so fast.
He briefly thought of teleporting away, but he somehow knew that it would be a bad idea. He was not sure how he knew, he just sensed it.
He settled in to wait and merely held his breath between rests as Keeja had instructed. Eventually he got the hang of it and it wasn’t too bad. He judged they were moving at least a few hundred miles per hour every time Keeja got up to speed. An ugly suspicion formed in the back of his mind that the experience might have killed him prior to becoming orb-Bonded. Then again, perhaps Keeja was doing something to protect him.
Jason got the feeling Keeja could move much faster if she wanted and was limiting herself for his sake. It was a scary realization.
He couldn’t really do anything else while they traveled, so Jason had time to think. He wasn’t very happy about where his thoughts led him.
He had to admit that he’d been fairly stupid with how he’d approached Dolos and what had resulted from it. His first clue it was a bad idea should have been that he and Henry had been trying to hide it from the others.
He still didn’t think it would have been a good idea to meet Dolos as a group. It could have been disastrous. He and Henry had some immunity against Dolos’s temper, but that didn’t mean anyone else in the company enjoyed the same protection.
On the other hand, Jason really had no excuse for being so stupid. He was the gamer of the group, the guy who had been playing roleplaying games his entire life. He should have known there would be issues, and at the very least he should have caught on when Dolos began playing word games. Jason kept kicking himself. Stupid, stupid Jason!
The only reason he could think of that he’d acted so dumb was how he was getting used to life on Ludus. The more normal his average day felt, the less he analyzed everything that happened around him. He was starting to see everything less as a challenge, as survival. Getting married hadn’t helped. He was glad he was married, and he loved Uluula to pieces, but sometimes it was hard to spend time thinking about how the planet would gladly kill him or trick him when he was so happy all the time. When he cuddled with Uluula at night, murderous monsters were the last things on his mind.
As he was pulled through the air by unknown means, travelling as fast as an airplane by a woman who claimed to be several millennia old, Jason realized his threshold for weirdness had been permanently altered, if not forever destroyed. This might have been another reason he’d screwed up so badly with Dolos.
Oh well, there wasn’t anything he could do about it now other than try to make the best of the situation. However, one way or another, he vowed that Dolos would not get the best of him again.
While Jason was still trying to figure out what to do about Dolos, Keeja began to reduce their speed. They were approaching a mountain. In the distance, Jason could see an enormous doorway set in the side of a cliff, but Keeja wasn’t heading that direction. She set them down on a hillside instead.
The High Priestess stared at the mountain for a moment before glancing at Jason. She frowned and levitated a couple feet off the ground. “Do you know how irritating it is to look up at you all the time? Why must Terrans grow so tall?”
Jason decided not to say anything. Keeja seemed to be growing more grumpy, and he’d already been conned by a god. He didn’t want to piss off a demigoddess on the same day.
Keeja grumbled under her breath for a while before ordering, “Be rea
dy to move. I’m extremely irritated with Dolos right now, and I don’t like feeling manipulated, so I’m taking advantage of a loophole to help you out. However, you’re the only member of your group that could survive this and you are still going to be in great danger. Just try not get hurt too badly. I’m not very good at healing.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t we still in Tolstey? I thought we just took out one of the most dangerous dungeons in the area.”
Keeja rolled her eyes. “Tolstens really don’t know as much as they think they do. Most of them live in their capital city, Taretha, and most Tolsten adventurers farm dungeons and monsters to the south. They avoid places like this because it’s just instant death for most of them. Elite dungeons were not the best challenges Dolos ever introduced. They’re very poorly balanced for the areas they’re in.”
“Elite dungeons?” The term was familiar to Jason. In gaming culture, it meant battles that were harder, sometimes exponentially harder than regular challenges for players, but usually offering better loot.
“Yes, it’s how I knew this would be the place. Dolos is obviously trying to set me up. He wouldn’t have put a music device anywhere that your group could handle on its own, or you could have just teleported in to get it for me. He was trying to force my hand.
“Plus, I believe this dungeon was just reworked a few years ago. It means I wouldn’t be able to give you any meaningful data. As far as I know, no adventurers have bested this place for over a thousand years.
“Most adventurers would die before even getting to the front door of this place.”
Jason shook his head. “What—”
“That’s enough. I’m not sure what this location’s new defenses are. Try to be as quiet as you can.”
Jason whispered, “Can’t you just…do something from here? You have that beam you showed me before.”
“Really?” Keeja blinked. “I want an item inside and you can benefit from what we find as well. What would I be accomplishing by probably destroying everything, including the items we seek?”
Delvers LLC: Obligations Incurred Page 11
