The Conciege
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August Intruder- Chapter 88- Necessary
🕑 Added 2024-10-13 09:48:35 +0000 UTC“Mel,” Melmarc’s father said, voice confused. “What did you just do?”
The answer to the question was completely beyond Melmarc’s knowledge. But he had an answer, so he gave it hoping that it would make sense to his father.
“I established dominance?”
“Was it intentional?” his father asked.
Melmarc shook his head. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, his father’s expression went back to what Melmarc was accustomed to. It became simple, lacking in emotion.
“Good.” His father released his shoulders. “Your answer determined what we would’ve done next.
Melmarc’s brows furrowed. “Done next?”
“Right now, very powerful people have just been made aware of your presence,” his father explained. “And not all powerful people are good people. Some will come with good intentions, and some will not.”
Around them the others stood quietly. Deoti looked as worried as she’d been in the portal. Fendor looked more as if he was worried about her. Axe sat casually on a large crate on the ground, his true expression hidden behind a mask of placidity.
Saxi looked as if he was confused but was just going with the motion. It was very similar to how Melmarc currently felt. Lisa didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. Instead, she looked like a woman waiting to be called upon to do her job.
Melmarc’s attention sharpened on his father. Surprisingly, he wasn’t as scared by his confusion as he thought he would be. In fact, if anything, what he had just done felt right. It was something he should’ve done.
Right now, he felt as if the world fit him better. He felt as if he could breathe better. Stand better. See better.
It was a new feeling. He’d always been a healthy child growing up. He recovered from illnesses quickly and rarely fell into them. He’d never needed glasses. And while he would not go as far as to call himself athletic, his physical fitness was adequate.
Things had gotten better when he’d gotten his class, but it wasn’t like it had been significantly better.
Now, however, he felt whole. The best feeling he could give it was akin to being born without sight in a world of the blind only to wake up one morning and have it.
“What powerful people?” Melmarc asked.
“People like me.”
The worry in the room slowly bled out when his father answered. As for Melmarc, it felt more as if he’d absorbed it rather than it leaving the room. Yet, he did not feel it. It felt like an emotion to be processed at a later time.
The thought of having to fight people like his father crossed his mind and he didn’t like it.
It felt like a death wish.
But Veebee had said he would need to meet them eventually. He would need them to support him in whatever the world was going to experience.
Melmarc certainly didn’t know how to do that. He’d never led anybody before. Leadership was not his strong suit. There were only a handful of people he could command that were alive, and that was only because they let him.
Ark definitely listened to him because he wanted to. Even his friendship with Delano and Eroms did not have him as the leader. If anything, he was the third wheel. Melmarc knew he was not an intrusion in the friendship.
Melmarc stopped his line of thought immediately. Even without the sensation of panic or worry, he knew when his mind was panicking. It was growing anxious, troubled and was starting to belittle his importance in different ways.
There was no way it would be helpful to him right now so he halted his process of thought.
When Melmarc had pulled himself from his thoughts, it was to find his father’s attention on his teammates.
“Saxi,” he said. “A four wheeled contraption for covering long distances. Deoti, a larger version.”
“Yes, Boss.” Saxi turned to Axe. “He means a car, right?”
Axe nodded.
Saxi got up from the crate he was sitting on. “Got it.”
Deoti, however, hesitated. “Boss, is it okay if I have a quick word with Mel before I go?”
Melmarc’s father’s attention was already turned away from her. “It is not. Time is important.”
Deoti pressed her lips into a thin line but did not disobey. Fendor gave her a soft look as she walked passed him.
“Would you like me to have a word with him while you’re gone?” he asked.
She paused, then nodded. “Just confirm for me, please.”
They were in what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Boxes of different shapes and sizes, all brown, but not all cubed for some reason littered the place. There were empty crates that must’ve once contained beer bottles or bottles of some other drinks.
The entire space was dark with the little bits of light to see with coming from less than a handful of functional bulbs that let off little pockets of yellow lights. On one side of the space was a stairway leading to a small manager’s box at the top. The machines the workers had clearly used when the warehouse had been functioning were old and dusty from disuse. Abandoned.
Melmarc’s nose wrinkled at a bad smell. and he looked down. Just between his feet was the skeleton of a rat. Every other part of it had been lost to decay so that only little pieces of hair served as accompaniments to its skeleton.
Ignoring it, Melmarc looked up at his father. His mind went to his reward for clearing the portal and defeating Caldath. Did he want to make use of everything here?
Maybe not, he thought. There was no rush so he needed his time to sit down and think about it, preferably with his parents and Ark and Dorthna.
The thought of his Uncle brought him back to Caldath. They both had the same indicator colors. What that meant continued to bother him. Was Dorthna a Demi-god? There was also the possibility that his Uncle was another variation of a Sapient being. For some reason even if the indicator implied that the person possessed Broken Divinity, Melmarc was not inclined to believe that Demi-gods were the only creatures that possessed it.
As for his other rewards, Melmarc pulled up his [EP]. He winced when he saw it.
[Total EP 6503]
Between going to the other world and whatever else Veebee had done with it, he’d consumed well over a thousand points. That was a thousand points he could have used to grow stronger, but he tried not to let it bother him.
Next were the weapons. He paused, realizing that he had no idea what had become of them.
He remembered that Axe had taken one, but while he’d been holding one of the weapons before Veebee had taken him to the other world he had not been holding it when he had returned.
“What do you need, Marc?” Axe asked and Melmarc realized that he had actually been turning his head in search.
Axe had nothing in his possession except for the clothes on his back. The others were the same.
“The rewards,” Melmarc answered. “In all the commotion I forgot about them.”
Axe looked at Fendor. “Do the honors.”
“Deoti would’ve liked to be here for this but alright.” Fendor held out his hand and the ground in front of him turned into a dark swirl of shadows.
Melmarc watched, impressed as Fendor dipped his hand into the shadow. The first thing he pulled out was the spear of Caldath. It was a deep crimson red that reminded Melmarc of the pain in his hand. Absently, he took the wounded hand in his and was surprised at what he found.
While it still hurt, there was no hole in his hand. He looked down at it and found that while there was still an injury, it was healing quite nicely. So far it had healed enough to simply look like a terribly injury instead of a hole in his hand.
Fendor placed the spear to the side careful.
“Shit weighs a ton,” he muttered as he reached into the swirling darkness on the ground once more.
The second thing he pulled out was the sword of Valoth. Melmarc remembered the name Valoth, Caldath had implied that it had belonged to his father.
He did say the spear was always his weapon of choice, Melmarc thought.
… Right before killing Claire.
Fendor held the sword by the hilt with a tight frown on his face and dropped it to the side. His hand returned into the darkness and his frown became one of annoyance. He put his second hand into it and pulled. Nothing happened.
“Alright, big guy,” he said, addressing Axe. “I’m gonna need your help for this one.”
Axe moved from where he was and came to Fendor’s aid.
“Just follow my hand,” Fendor told him.
Axe nodded and did exactly as he was instructed. He stood opposite Fendor and placed his hands right where Fendor’s arms were. Then he dipped both hands into the darkness and pulled.
His hands came out carrying a chest.
That has to be the armor, right?
Melmarc remembered the armor of Caldath being one of the rewards.
Axe dropped the chest quietly on the ground.
Melmarc’s legs carried him forward slowly.
“Do you want to take a look before Deoti and Saxi come back?” his father asked and Melmarc nodded.
These ones he would see now. As for the [EP] and skill mastery, those ones could wait until he was home.
The thought of going home relaxed Melmarc just as much as he thought it would. A warm shower and a cold bed would be the best thing for him right now. A good sleep too.
He remembered that he was taller now and almost smiled. He wondered how Ark would handle being the same height. In fact, there was a chance that he was now taller since Ark had only been taller than him by a few inches, maybe three or four before he’d gained his class.
At this rate I’ll be dad’s height before I’m twenty.
His father was either seven feet or almost seven feet of muscle. The man was built like a tank.
When Melmarc got to the weapons, Fendor had already dismissed the portal he had created on the ground and was simply watching him.
Melmarc bent and picked up the spear first. It carried a significant weight but wasn’t something he couldn’t hold in one hand. Compared to how much it had weighed when he’d used it on Caldath, it wasn’t anything worthy of complaining about.
“It’s sturdy,” he said, curling it in a single hand like a barbell to test its weight. He squeezed his hand around it. “I guess I’ll never need to worry about it breaking.”
“Rewards like this usually come with extra features,” Fendor said. “We’ll need someone with an appraisal skill to tell us what the features are. Or you can just use it long enough to figure it out.”
“Look at the spear and focus,” Melmarc’s father said from behind him. “Think of smelling freshly baked dough and trying to figure out the many things they put inside it.” There was a pause, it was thoughtful, before more words followed. “Ingredients. Think about what ingredients are inside it.”
Melmarc wasn’t sure if his father was talking about bread or cookies, but it didn’t matter. He focused on the spear. His nostrils flared even though he knew his father’s words had just been an example to follow. Still, whatever he’d done to establish dominance had felt like moving his shirt into place and it had worked.
So he tried to invoke the feeling of smelling bread to know if it was banana bread or sardine bread or chocolate bread.
His eyes focused tightly on spear and he realized even in the dim light of the warehouse that the weapon was actually aesthetically crafted. As deeply crimson as it was, there were swirls of designs going through it as a spiral.
The spiral helped with giving it a strong grip and the swirls were designed with countless things.
Melmarc peered down at the swirls. Are those words?
They were too tiny to see but they looked like words to him, countless words inscribed into the swirls. If they were words, they were very clearly words belonging to a language he did not understand.
Still, his eyes were drawn to the words and he found himself slowly turning the spear as he followed them. It was like looking at Japanese writings. They were nothing but lines to him. Yet they were interesting to look at, interesting to follow.
No one around interrupted Melmarc as he moved the spear. In fact, there was a chance that they tried, but he couldn’t say, for a moment everything else was lost to him. Only the lines and twirls that made words in their countless amalgamations mattered to him.
He was still following them when his interface popped up in front of him.
[Spear of Caldath]
A weapon crafted for the warrior Oath of Madness Caldath. Birthed from metal, fire and the blood of his enemies, it was designed to his specifications, then evolved for the purpose of slaying greater enemies. Effects have been broken by more than 50% due to prolonged exposure to Broken Divinity.
[Effect: 40% increase in strength.]
[Effect: +30% increase in accuracy]
[Effect: Weapon skill Blood Feast]
[Effect: Weapon skill Phantom Spear]
Those were some very impressive effects. Melmarc could only imagine how powerful a person would be with those increments.
But he wasn’t done. He focused on the skills.
[Blood Feast]
A weapon skill designed to increase damage for every drop of blood spilled within a specific area.
[Radius: 30 feet]
…
[Phantom Spear]
A weapon skill designed to create instances of attacks that inflict the same damage as the weapon on an existential level without having to let go of the weapon.
[Phantom instances: 6/6]
Melmarc knew [Phantom Spear]. It was the skill that Caldath had used to immobilize his hands and feet towards the end of their fight. It was an interesting skill. He could just imagine the multiple uses for it.
He put it down to the side, pausing as a realization dawned on him.
“How long was I out?” he asked.
Fendor’s brows furrowed. “Out?”
“How long was I looking at it?” Melmarc clarified.
“Not long,” Axe answered. “You just looked at it and dropped it.”
That was odd. Melmarc could’ve sworn he’d been looking at it for at least three minutes. The time loss was odd.
“You’ll get used to it,” his father said, walking up to him. “Now the next one.”
Melmarc looked at the spear once more before picking up the sword. While it still had the twirls that were wrapped around it, by the life of him he could not see the words.
He put aside the little piece of information as he picked the sword.
The sword was black with words running the length of the blade. The words were like those on the spear, miniscule and without meaning, scribbled in molten color.
He held it out to Fendor who looked up at him in a questioning gaze.
“Need me to do something?” Fendor asked.
“Just curious of something,” Melmarc answered. “Do you see anything written on the blade?”
“Nope.” Fendor shook his head. “Not a single thing.”
Melmarc nodded. It was safe to assume that whatever those words were, he was the only one seeing them.
“They are the nature of the weapon’s existence,” his father said.
Those were very specific words. Usually, Melmarc would’ve expected his father to define some of those words in the sentence. Maybe define ‘weapon’ instead of using the word itself or define existence.
It didn’t matter, though. At least now he knew what the words were.
“Can all Oaths see them?” he asked.
His father nodded. “Oaths and those who have the skill that allows them see them.”
Melmarc’s brows furrowed. Just to be sure, he asked, “Appraisal skills?”
“Yes.”
When he looked at the sword, his sense of time did not stretch. He didn’t feel lost in looking at them. And in a matter of seconds, his interface popped up in front of him.
[Sword of Valoth]
Crafted for the great warrior Valoth, this weapon was forged in the heart of a crumbling mountain. It is known for its sturdiness and the blood of two Oaths. Effects have been broken by more than 50% due to prolonged exposure to Broken Divinity.
[Effect: +8 points to Agility when equipped]
[Effect: +4 points to precision when equipped]
While the numbers were impressive, they didn’t really feel very impressive to look at. With everything Melmarc had seen and been through, it didn’t feel like much. But he knew they were significant numbers.
A Gifted did not experience stats increase until they hit a ten percent mastery increase in their skills. And gaining an increment of four stat points in already existent skills was not necessarily unheard of but it was very rare. Eight points in agility was a massive boost.
“Powerful weapons?” his father asked.
Melmarc nodded. “You can see them, too?”
“I can. But I do not like seeing them,” his father answered. “Too much information. Unnecessary information.”
“You don’t like too much information?” he asked and his father nodded.
Melmarc’s mind was drawn to how much unnecessary information he and his siblings must have given his father as children. All those times when Ark was more than eager to talk about some random grasshopper that he’d seen in school, or some new knowledge he had about why a snake was its color or some unnecessary thing like that.
They had given him a lot of unnecessary information. It must’ve been tough to deal with. Yet, their father had patiently and quietly listened to them. He’d always carried no expression, but they’d always known he was listening. And he always remembered.
Melmarc smiled slightly. “Must’ve been tough listening to me, Ark and Ninra talk about everything when we were small.” His smile widened. “You must’ve had your fair share of unnecessary information to deal with.”
“It could be tiring,” his father agreed, expression nowhere to be found as always. He might as well have been talking about the color blue.
“Sorry you had to deal with that,” Melmarc apologized on behalf of him and his siblings.
His father’s eyes softened so minutely that it was almost nonexistent. “I said it could be tiring,” he said. “But nothing a child tells a parent is unnecessary. Everything a child has to say, tiring or not, reasonable or not, is always necessary to a parent.”
Melmarc paused. He would be lying if he said he’d seen that coming.
“Awww,” Fendor cooed. “Boss has got a heart.”
“And you’ll soon be looking for a job,” Lisa said from where she was sitting. There was a touch of spite in her voice that demanded Fendor’s attention.
Fendor turned to her. “Hey!” he protested. “What did I—” he paused, attention suddenly focusing on her a bit more. Then his voice softened. “How’s he doing?”
Lisa took a moment to compose herself. She took a calm breath before answering.
“I do not have a strong link to him,” she said. “And you have taken us to another state. So I don’t know how he’s doing.”
“Once we’re done with this we’ll find out,” Axe said. “Promise.”
Lisa shrugged. “These things happen. Let’s just focus on what’s important.”
Melmarc wondered if they had been talking about Clinton. Lisa had not left the Delver’s side ever since they had gotten out of the portal.
Axe tapped the chest on the ground with his foot, drawing Melmarc’s attention to it.
“Last one, Marc,” he said.
“Last one,” Melmarc repeated.
He walked over to the chest and opened it. He was surprised to find that it hadn’t even had a lock. Inside it were a few things. At the top was a crimson breast plate.
[Armor of Valoth]
Crafted for the great warrior Valoth, this weapon was forged in the heart of a crumbling mountain and a dying basilisk. It is known for its sturdiness and the blood from a basilisk’s heart. Effects have been broken by more than 50% due to prolonged exposure to Broken Divinity.
[Broken Effect: +12% resistance to fire damage when equipped]
[Broken Effect: +34% resistance to mind magic when equipped]
[Broken Effect: +22% resistance to magical damage]
[Broken Effect: + 10% resistance to physical damage]
Melmarc was curious as to just how powerful the effects had been before Caldath had gotten his hands on the armor. Also, he thought looking through the contents of the chest. For an armor set without a helmet, it has mind magic resistance?
He’d always thought that to protect against mind magic you also needed to keep your head protected. It was where the mind was, after all.
“What do you guys normally do with things like these when you get them?” he asked his father.
To his surprise, his father shrugged.
Melmarc opened his mouth to ask how his father had no idea when he really thought about it. Even back home, while his father was aware of almost everything, he always left what happened to those things to their mother.
If something was broken, his father always knew. However, if that thing would be replaced or fixed was a decision that boiled down to their mother. If they wanted something, his father would always know, but if they got it or not always boiled down to their mother.
“Would mom know?” he asked.
His father nodded.
Lisa was more than happy to add some more pieces of information to the mix. “Your father doesn’t really care much about these things,” she said. “When we get weapons from portals that automatically go to him, we hand them over to your mother and that’s that.”
“No one asks what she does with them?” Melmarc asked, curious as to what happened to all the weapons his father had earned.
“Nope,” Fendor answered. “Your dad doesn’t care so we don’t ask. It’s not like its our weapon to begin with.”
“Then what do we do with this?” Melmarc asked.
Axe laughed. “Not our weapon, Marc. You’re the one that’ll have to make that decision.”
After a very quick moment of thought, Melmarc asked, “What happens if I want to share them with Clinton and his team.”
Lisa was the first to answer that. “Very bad idea. The weapons of Demi-gods would drain their life force each time they use it. From what the world knows, only Oaths can use weapons gotten from a Demi-god without side effects. S-rank Gifted can use it with minimal side effects, that just come down to having their mana drained at an annoying rate.”
“What’s your rank?” Fendor asked Melmarc.
“B,” he answered.
“Then I guess we’ll be leaving the decision to his mother,” Axe mused. “Boss will do that, too.”
Melmarc had a feeling that if Oaths could use the weapons without side effects, then he should be able to do the same. But it didn’t really matter. He had no training in using any weapons. In his self-defense classes he and Ark had been taught how to fight against an enemy using a knife.
Their instructor had gone the extra mile to let them know that the first course of action when faced with an enemy using a sharp weapon was always to run. Fighting was only in the even that you could not run. When that happened, you had to prepare yourself for a lot of injuries including stab wounds during the fight.
But weapons training was never a part of it. Melmarc’s only experience with using a sword or a spear was from play-fighting with Ark as a child with pieces of wood and rulers imagined to be swords or spears.
“There are other Oaths who will be more than happy to buy them from you and add to their collection, though,” Fendor pointed out. “Or you could put it up for auction in the black market and get a hefty sum from people who just want to own such things.”
Axe and Lisa shot Fendor a scolding look.
“What did I do?” he protested.
Melmarc smiled. “It is never a good idea to advise a boy my age to do anything concerning the black market.”
“You know about the black market?” Axe asked, worried.
“I’m sixteen, Uncle Axe,” Melmarc pointed out, almost laughing. “I know about a lot of things adults think I don’t know about. The black market, the dark web, Mr. Swayzee’s little cabin of debauchery.”
“No idea what that last one is,” Fendor said as a side note.
“Me neither,” Lisa confirmed.
Melmarc almost laughed. Just how old did they think he was?
There was a sound of a door opening and everyone turned to find Saxi and Deoti walking into the warehouse.
“Shit,” Fendor swore under his breath. “She’s going to kill me when she finds out that I didn’t do what she wanted me to do.”
Melmarc had no idea what that was about. It was probably whatever Fendor had said he would talk to him about when she was leaving. Still, he doubted it was that deep.
“Got a nice-looking salon car for the group,” Saxi announced.
Axe frowned. “Another uncomfortable trip. Couldn’t you have gotten something like a sienna?”
Fendor laughed. “Or a minibus.”
Axe gave him an angry look. “Salon cars always cramp my legs.”
“Aren’t you the one with a Lamborghini?” Lisa asked.
“It’s a trophy car,” Axe groaned. “I own it because I can. Also, it’s custom made. I fit in it.”
“Comfortably?” Fendor teased.
“I’ll wring your neck comfortably, little man,” Axe replied.
Fendor laughed heartily. “And I’ll store your car. Don’t test me.”
“That’s enough of that, kids,” Deoti declared, joining the group. She tossed Melmarc a set of keys. “I got you and your dad a Hilux. Superb comfort.”
Axe gestured at her dramatically.
“See,” he told Saxi. “Why couldn’t you have gotten us a Hilux. How do you expect all five of us to fit in a salon car?”
“Five of us?” Fendor was still laughing. “Speak for yourself, big guy. Deoti and I are taking the portal express once it’s charged up.”
“Please tell me there’s space for one more,” Axe pleaded.
Melmarc knew that there was space for more than one more.
Fendor stood up and patted Axe on the shoulder. “Sorry, big guy. It’s full.”
Axe made a strangling gesture at him and the both of them laughed. Melmarc watched them as they somehow lulled themselves back into a normal state. With their time at the portal done, they now acted like normal adults.
If not for Axe’s size, it would be difficult to believe that they were Delvers who went into portals to live dangerous lives.
“Alright, boys,” Lisa got up and approached them. “Let’s help Marc and the Boss get his rewards into the car. Then we can be on our way. Any pending instructions, Boss?”
Everyone turned to Melmarc’s father. Melmarc turned to him, too.
“Lay low,” he said. “I will have words with those responsible and come back to you.”
Saxi made a hissing sound as if he was in pain. “You having words with them? Sure that’s a good idea?”
“The woman that chose me will come with.”
Melmarc knew who the woman that chose him was. It wasn’t very often, but he often referred to their mother as the woman that chose him when talking to other people. With him and his siblings, he sometimes called her ‘your mother’ or ‘the one who birthed you.’
Once upon a time, he’d been talking to Uncle Dorthna and had referred to their mother as ‘Mine.’ Ninra had thought it was so romantic at the time. Melmarc had just thought of it as a normal thing.
“Personally,” Axe closed the chest and picked it up. “I say if they try to play hard ball, we just start our own company and be done with it.”
Lisa nodded. “And if they’re against it, we’ll just move. Not really that hard.”
Fendor nodded. “It’s not like my portal knows what boarders are.”
Melmarc watched them talk about quitting their job with the government and starting a Delving company or leaving the country as if they were planning a get-together.
He couldn’t lie, he was impressed.
Melmarc’s father walked up to the remaining weapons on the ground and frowned before picking them up.
“Alright then,” Saxi said happily. “Time to get going. You don’t have to go home, but you all definitely can’t stay here.”
As for Melmarc, he was just happy to put the portal behind him. But while they walked towards the exit, he found himself hoping that Naymond was doing well.
His father slowed his pace until they were walking side by side. Only when they were next to each other did he speak, and his words resonated with a part of Melmarc that he blamed on [Optimum Existence].
“Once the one who birthed you returns,” he said. “Only then will we speak of what punishment will be befitting of the Detective Alfa Firdausi.”
Alfa was not the only one deserving of punishment. There was another name and it slithered in Melmarc’s mind as they left the building. The Confidential Informant Naymond had had him and Pelumi chase the first time he'd taken them out on their mentorship program. The man that had led them to the meeting place for the delivery that had ultimately ended up with Melmarc inside the portal.
The man who'd asked him for his class only to pass the information Melmarc had given him to the man he had made the delivery to, knowing how dangerous he was.
David Swan.
Comments
Jesper Hallstensson
So that where i knew the name from.
The Conciege
Wow, it has actually been forever since he was mentioned. I updated the chapter to state who he is. However, David Swan was Naymond's Confidential Informant. The one Melmarc and the Nigerian character, Pelumi, had chased down at the beginning of his mentorship program.
Jesper Hallstensson
Gonna be honest, i don't remember who David Swan was, but I can't wait for the mothers reaction.
