Delvers LLC: Hostile Takeover, page 20
Suddenly, she registered a hit to her vib-shield and narrowed her eyes. Out of an alley about a hundred yards in the distance, a group of people appeared from the shadows. The woman leading them gave a nasty smile. Her eyes glittered. “Hello there. Nora Hazard. Long time, no see. We have unfinished business, don’t we?”
Nora slowly moved backwards to cover her downed friends with her vib-shield as well. She couldn’t risk turning to check on them, though. All she could do was hope they had survived, but the evidence around her was grim. One of the dying guards on the ground, a rock man, had a hole in his chest the size of a fist. The surviving guards had erected some sort of energy barrier and were huddling behind it. One was trembling. It took her a moment to figure out who the woman was, but when she did, she hissed.
“Sesasi.”
Dealing with Danger
Jason heard an explosion the same time his supernatural senses picked up something weird going on. Only a moment earlier he’d been sitting with Uluula, watching the garden off their little porch and waiting for Nora or Henry to come over the radio again. Jason was ready to assist, but he really didn’t think he’d need to.
Next thing he knew, his mental magic was tingling in the back of his head, fizzing like the sugary powder candy he’d loved to eat as a kid. He turned in the direction his senses were tingling and Uluula immediately stopped talking. “More trouble?” She frowned in concern. After so many hairy situations on Ludus, the beautiful Areva woman could be ready for violence on a dime. Her jaalba practically materialized in her hand from where it’d been leaning against the wall.
“Hope not, but I have a bad feeling. Let’s check.”
He led her directly to a large central building, something like a meeting area located in the guest complex that everyone had been given a villa to stay in. The Raising Hull was parked behind the complex on a large field that was usually used for sports. Most of the crew was still on board, which seemed to have suited most of them fine. Some of the Adom could be…upsetting for the galley crew and the goblins.
About two hours earlier, right after Henry had left with Mareen to check out the city, Everr and Light had gone back to the ‘Hull, too, complaining about how useless a guard was when nobody let them do their job.
Jason felt a pressure building that he’d come to associate with trouble. Like people who’d had wounds that ached before a storm. The feeling grew as he speed walked to where Keeja and Philana were still meeting with the Adom leadership.
“Do you think Henry and Nora are alright?” asked Uluula.
“They should be. The sound came from the ocean, not deeper in the city. Plus, Nora is with them now. All three of them are pretty scrappy and have ways to escape. I can’t imagine anything short of a full-fledged war or the city all turning on us that would actually be a threat, I think. They have Adom guards, too.”
“That’s true.”
After his wife had mentioned Henry, Jason’s bad feeling had gotten worse, though. Right about then, he heard another explosion in the distance. He still couldn’t see anything, though. “It’s probably nothing but let’s go check in with the mayor and with the priestesses just in case.”
“I agree. Besides, we’re heading there anyway. But be ready to go just in case it’s Henry. Do you want to contact him on the radio?”
“Well, I already tried, but he turned off his communicator.”
Uluula frowned and tsked. “What about Nora?”
“I didn’t want to bother her. If she has any problems, she’ll contact us.”
“Jason, I still think you should contact her.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Jason keyed his ear device for direct transmission. He thought he could hear something but it wasn’t clear. “Nora, there are weird sounds. Is everything alright?”
When he didn’t hear anything else, he frowned. Switching to the group frequency was an option, but that was really only used for emergencies. Instead he keyed up Light’s frequency, or its analog, whatever it was the magic device used. “Hey Light. Do you hear me?” He grimaced and added, “Over.”
“Yes, this is Light. We heard explosions but the ship is on the ground right now so we can’t actually see anything. Everr wanted to contact someone or even use the main communication line but I figured we should keep it clear.”
“Good thinking. I’ll let you know what I find out. Hopefully it’s nothing.”
“I hear you. Over.”
“Roger. Out.” Jason always felt sort of silly using the radio jargon Henry had been teaching. Usually he forgot about it completely, but his nerves were raw. Something was off, and this was not a good feeling while surrounded by a city of reformed monsters. He wanted to believe the Adom could be trusted as much as any other race, but not all of the city’s residents were Adom.
And every city had its assholes.
“I wish we were on the ship back up in the air,” muttered Uluula.
“Me too.”
Jason opened a door that led to a reception area. The furry-haired receptionist looked noticeably nervous. She didn’t say anything as Jason swept by with Uluula. He didn’t think this was a good sign.
All the guards that were normally posted were gone.
Jason moved unopposed down the hallway, rounded a bend, and found where all the guards had disappeared to. They were all standing in the hallway facing the open doors to a conference room. A few turned when Jason showed up but only spared him a glance. Some were shaking. None of them said anything to him as he walked past into the room beyond.
“—This is obviously not a social visit, though,” said Keeja. She had her arms folded. “What is the game, Quissel?”
Keeja and Philana stood on one side of a table. Three other High Priestesses faced them on the other side.
Jason came to a halt and studied them. He’d never seen so many High Priestesses in one place before. Two of the unfamiliar demigods were Areva, one dark and one light. The third was a giant woman who otherwise looked human. She towered over even Jason and her body was stout as well. The big High Priestess was the largest woman Jason had ever seen. Her clothing–a ruffled shirt and baggy pants–made her stand out even more.
All of the women seemingly ignored him, but he’d been around enough High Priestesses now to know they had other senses. There was zero chance they’d missed his entrance.
His feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach grew. Everything had been going too smoothly. Nothing was ever easy on Ludus. He still distantly hoped that everything going on was going to blow over, that maybe a plant or an experiment had had an accident. It was a nice hope, but the knot in his gut kept growing.
The big woman said, “There is no game. This is just business. Of course.”
“That’s not entirely true, Quissel,” said the light Areva woman with a chuckle. She was wearing a blue toga-looking outfit. “There’s no point in playing coy forever. I hate Keeja, and she hates me, so–”
“I don’t hate you, Hoel. In fact, I completely forget you exist most of the time,” said Keeja.
“Oh, how droll, Ravager. Too bad for the last few hundred years you’ve been sitting around polishing your wit instead of your weapons.”
Behind Jason, Uluula narrowed her eyes. He had a bad feeling too. Jason nodded at her and he evenly asked, "What is going on?"
"Is this one of your children?" The dark Areva spoke to Keeja in a haughty tone of voice. "He is awfully brave and full of himself to speak that way, no?"
Jason rolled his eyes. It hadn’t taken long to pick up that the newcomers were enemies. He said, "You mean how you three are talking now versus how you would be if Enheduanna were here, too?"
The light Areva High Priestess, Hoel, was visibly taken aback and Quissel’s big eyes got bigger. Keeja flashed a smile at Jason and before any of the newcomers could speak again, she said, "They are brave indeed. There are more than these three, too. I'm guessing that Duanna is staying with the ship so none of them destroy it."
"I thought you all couldn’t just do things like that whenever you want without it being self defense."
"Not exactly. We have a limited number of free actions, remember?"
"Won’t it just… not matter soon, though? All of your rules?" asked Uluula.
“You truly favor these creatures, don’t you, Ravager? They know more than they should,” said the dark Areva.
“I grow weary of these sashak talking like I am not in the room,” said Philana.
Jason scratched his chin. “I can see that, Philana, and they just called us, ‘creatures.’ I’ve kind of already grasped that these three aren’t friends. So anyway, could you two please tell me what the hell is going on?” At that moment, the glass windows rattled with another explosion and the sound of an alarm.
“The city is under attack, or there is something happening that caused the Guard or someone else to set off the city-wide alert,” said Governor Retini. Jason almost hadn’t noticed her and another alligator-looking Adom in the corner. The Adom governor was obviously terrified, and also visibly shaken by the alarm. “Mistress Keeja, I must leave!”
“We asked that you do not leave this room,” said the large demigoddess, Quissel. “If you try to leave, I would be inclined to stop you for not listening to our request.”
“Then I would stop you,” said Philana.
“Oh? You are willing to use up an action? For this? We are, too.” Quissel chuckled. “Do you have more than we do? Who will come out on top?”
Jason noticed a plume of smoke out the window and suddenly understood what was happening. When he’d first come to Ludus, none of this would have made sense, but he’d been a fast learner. “Nobody move,” he said. “You too, Retini.”
“What?” The mayor blinked at him.
“Explain, Jason,” said Keeja. Her eyes glittered in approval. “Tell us what you think is going on.”
“I don’t know all of it, but I can make some educated guesses. You all know that Dolos is going to take the restrictions off of you soon, but you don’t know exactly when that will be, just soon. I don’t know exactly how your restrictions work, but it seems you can do things that break the overall rules periodically, like maybe over ‘X’ amount over time, but self defense is okay, and punishing rule breakers is either allowed or required.”
Jason scratched his head and continued, “So Keeja, I need to ask a question before I am sure of my hypothesis.”
“What?”
He studied the new High Priestesses with a flat expression as he asked, “Are there any other Artifice Holders on our ship? The Hull?”
As the enemy High Priestesses hissed, Keeja tilted her head and answered, “Yes. Two of them. They are both near Enheduanna.”
Jason nodded. “So two for you and two for Enheduanna, and one for Philana. I think that’s roughly even, at least to keep you tied up for a while. I don’t see these types wanting a fair fight, though. Is there another?”
Keeja smiled without humor. “They no doubt hoped we could not sense them, but there is at least one more at some distance in the sky. Probably two.”
All the enemy High Priestesses kept their faces immobile as Jason nodded. “That makes sense. They are trying to fork us.”
“A chess term?” asked Uluula.
“Yes. But it wasn’t originally set up this way, I don’t think.”
“What?” asked Uluula.
“I don’t think the attack on the city was for this, at least not specifically. The timing is wrong.” He looked up again. “Keeja, how fast can a High Priestess travel? Could these three and their friends–”
Quissel scoffed, “Why are we standing around listening to this mortal prattle on–”
“Don’t interrupt me.” Jason’s eye glittered. Everything was happening so fast. Just a day ago, things had been grim, but manageable. Now out of the blue, more powerful groups were fucking with them. Again. Probably trying to kill them. Another explosion from outside rattled the windows. Uluula started and the Adom mayor edged away from the enemy demigoddesses, closer to Jason. She was trembling, her big eye watering. Jason’s voice was cold as he said, “You came here to pick a fight or put a leash on us, the least you can do is shut up for a minute.”
“Or what, human?” The big woman cocked an eyebrow and Jason felt something he hadn’t experienced for a long time.
His rage seemed to change, becoming bigger, hotter. It moved in a direction he couldn’t explain, but he instinctively knew what was happening and hauled back on it. Across the room, Keeja’s eyebrows rose and she very slightly shook her head. Jason nodded back just as discreetly.
This wasn’t the time to limitbreak, but knowing he could right now…changed things. A number of questions ran through his head. Would he be able to find this feeling again? How long could he control this limit-break for? If he held it back too long, would it disappear? Ultimately, there wasn’t any way to know anything for sure.
Thinking about the matter was made even more difficult through his growing anger. Just sitting back and letting his enemies get away with trying to hurt him, or his family…it just wasn’t in the cards anymore. He gritted his teeth.
Uluula must have noticed something. She touched his arm, likely as a form of solidarity or comfort, but it just made him more furious. He and his friends were minding their own business, in the middle of a forced task they hadn’t asked, for, fighting against the clock for Bezzi-ibbi who might come to Ludus back at any time, but these BASTARDS kept fucking with them!
And why they were here was even worse. Who knew how many innocent people were dying. Adom or not, normal people didn’t deserve war. But these High Priestesses were here for blood. He wondered if they came with any orb-Bonded minions. Probably. His team needed to escape. They were powerful, but what they were witnessing was likely the escalation of a legitimate world war.
Through gritted teeth, Jason said, “There are just enough of you here to match my High Priestess friends. But the city is also under attack. You had to know what we are here for and where we are going, but that would be impossible to know more than a week ago. So this means this attack on the city has been planned for a while. It would have to be. But you decided to come here at the same time, or at least to do this instead of just overseeing. Regardless, your presence here means you are working with them, or at least know what they are doing.
“I haven’t seen what is happening yet, but I can reason that the attack probably isn’t monsters. Otherwise the timing would be too coincidental. So it is probably an army of some kind, or affiliated with one. I wondered who in the hell would want to attack an Adom country that nobody usually cares about on Ludus. But then I remembered that a lot of Adom are powerful, and most Adom are trying to be decent people. That means they might be asked to help Berber or Tolstey with the coming war.
“Since the only powers on Ludus right now that would have the ability and desire to move across the ocean with a military force–much less be motivated to attack here–are the demons or assholes allied with demons, that would make you all assholes with the demons, too.
“And it makes sense from the perspective of your inside knowledge, too. You know all the restrictions are about to be dropped. So that means you could get here now to keep anyone from acting to stop your horrible friends with their attack. You’d know we couldn’t risk it because of our mission. High Priestesses can’t attack each other directly, at least in general. At least not without giving something up.
“But now we basically have no choice but to fight or leave. You have the numbers advantage without even considering your asshole friends out there.” He took a breath. “Bullies,” he snarled. “There is no way you’d be here tempting a fight with my Holder friends and blocking the Adom unless you were sure you had the advantage. But even if we run, the moment the restrictions drop, you’d likely come after us anyway. It’s a goddamn fork attack.”
Jason was panting. He realized he’d been shouting the last couple of sentences. Holding back his limitbreak was more difficult now. He wanted so badly to act on his rage. These women had come to kill them and were toying with them like cats torturing a mouse.
Hoel blinked in surprise before a grin slowly spread across her face. She golf clapped, and her two friends joined her for a second. She said, “Very impressive. But you got something wrong. You are even more disadvantaged than you had imagined.”
The dark Areva High Priestess muttered, “Let’s just attack them and be done with it. We have the advantage and they obviously know it now.”
Hoel frowned. “We can’t. The human and his friend are Priests of Dolos. We have to wait for the announcement. If we act first we will be at a disadvantage. But we can wait for them to act first.” She grinned.
Jason’s magical control was being pushed to the limit, so he didn’t say anything. He could feel the danger growing, and as it did, his need to cut, to fight, grew more insistent. The last few months, he’d been tirelessly trying to rediscover this feeling, learn how to find this power again. Now he was trying to hold it back. If it exploded here, he might end up hurting his wife or causing a fight his friends couldn’t win. What was worse, only Keeja seemed to understand what was going on.
But maybe he could use that to his advantage. It was just hard to think with his blood pounding in his ears and his…magic, wanting to change, to be…more.
The big High Priestess Quissel leered as she said, “You think that we are just here to keep you from interceding with the attack on the city? How cute.”
Suddenly, the communicator in Jason’s ear crackled. Nora’s voice sounded in his ear with a tightly controlled buzz of stress. “Nora here. Henry and Mareen were down. They moved but don’t know if they will be up. We are under attack. Assassins. Orb bonded and true-demons. I will keep trying to run interference. Coms might cut out again, so–”
The transmission ended.
Jason slammed his Time school magic into place, using it in a way he never quite had before. He used it to think. Usually he only used a variation for combat. The moment stretched further, longer, giving him the time he needed to think and get his power under better control.
