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Chapter 154: The last Morning
🕑 Added 2019-05-16 21:37:54 +0000 UTCGood morning! Garth said, marching in front of the lined-up recruits, his cane jabbing into the dew-covered Grass ahead of him as he walked. The teens Ive got locked up in my dungeon are still asleep, so Ive got time to come take a look at your training.
Some of you may be wondering where I got this beautiful cane. Garth held up the wrinkled leg with the ball of a femur sticking out of it, showing it to the pale young men who hadnt looked away from it for a while now. Long story short, I got tired after removing the leg and decided to just run with it.
Dont worry though, Garth said, pacing the opposite direction when he made it to the end of the line. He was already dead and totally okay with it.
Now, Garth said. Since Im here today, I thought we could do something fun. Ill be a part of your exercise, VIP protection. Ill be playing the role of the valuable liaison between our organization and a large distributing family. Youre going to split up into two groups, and each defender is going to be given one Garthspawn, and each attacker is going to have one Mrs. Banyan. This represents the discrepancy in information. Attackers will always have their shit together, knowing exactly what the defenders are doing, while defenders are out in the open, never knowing when theyll get hit.
Youll be using these paint covered blades, bows and crossbows to make the attempt, Garth said, pointing. And the stage will be the mansion of a rich and powerful family.
Fred, Youre a defender. You already proved youre good at trying to kill me, lets expand your horizons. Juan, Zack, youre with him. The other three take your weapons and pair off with a Mrs. Banyan. Any questions?
Yeah, why do you look different? Fred asked.
I shaved my head, Garth said.
Naw your face changed a little, and youre taller.
Good eye. Its a growth spurt. Garth lied. Im super hungry all the time and my body aches where I can feel the bones stretching. Its awful.
Huh, Fred said, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. Garth was approaching six feet tall, already three inches taller than hed been as an adult, and he didnt plan on stopping until he could look down on his baby brother again.
Things were starting to look small. No wonder tall people tended to have big egos.
I got a question, Juan said. Wheres the mansion?
Mrs. Banyan, if you would?
A circle of Mrs. Banyan formed around an empty plot of Grass and raised their hands as one. A hurricane of green mana swirled in from every direction, and gigantic wooden stilts erupted from the ground, causing minimal damage to Grass before unfurling into an enormous mansion. Mrs. Banyan had learned some tricks while Garth was gone. How could she not?
Eight hundred years is a long time.
Is she stronger than me? Quite possible. Her biggest limitation was being unable to leave her real body too far behind.
Three Garthspawn stepped forward to help out, and together, the seven of them walked up the wooden stairs of the mansion.
Alright, lets get to work. Garth tottered up the stairs with his cane putting his best foot forward.
Once they got into the mansions foyer, Fred turned to face the Garthspawn. Can any of you turn invisible? He asked.
One of the three girls raised her hand.
Alright, take your knife, turn invisible, and go out one of the windows and pick them off from behind. The rest of us are gonna stay with Edward at a spot thats real hard to get to, third floor, end of the hall. Itll give her more time to pick them off.
Says who? Juan said, snagging a Garthspawn by the elbow. Me and her are gonna patrol the halls. The place is too big to just sit in one spot.
I wanna be with Fred, The black-haired, slender Garthspawn said, shrugging out of Juans grasp and glomping Fred. He looked highly uncomfortable.
Zack and the other Garthspawn were wandering away from them, gawking at the marvelous darkwood mansion with beautiful carvings, while it looked like a fist-fight was about to break out between Fred and Juan.
Oh, my god. I had no idea it was this bad.
Garth dragged his hands over his face and cleared his throat. Obviously one weekend isnt enough to make you lifelong friends, but you guys have a lot of balls to pull this shit in front of me. I think we need more team-building exercises. Pushups.
What? Juan asked.
Clarion Call
Pushups! Every single one of you! Drop to the ground and start doing pushups until I tell you to stop.
Garth lined them up and put the remaining five people to work doing pushups.
Now, in every group, there has to be a leader. Im not going to dick around and put it to a vote or try to spare your feeling, in this particular case thats going to be Fred.
Why? Juan grunted between pushups.
Because you got grabby with one of the Garthspawn, but mostly because Fred spoke first. Dont worry, each of you is going to get plenty of opportunities to take the lead over the next few months.
And you, Garth said, pointing to the slender girl straining to do a single pushup. Whats your name?
Heather, sir.
Heather, did you think this would be a good opportunity to sneak away and make out with Fred over here? Ive heard Garthspawns biological imperatives are fairly strong, but I dont give a shit. I expect professionalism. We arent in a high school P.E. class, this is military discipline.
Garth turned to Zack and the blonde Garthspawn, quietly doing pushups.
And what the hell were you doing wandering off like that? I need protection, not the damn architecture!
A whizzing noise came from one of the side halls, and a red- covered arrow splattered Garths clothes with paint.
See, case in point! Alright, up, were going back to the practice yard.
Garth grabbed all six recruits and three Garthspawn and lined them up in the practice yard. The girl who could harness a Succubis invisibility had a red paint mark across her torso, while two of the attackers had red marks on their necks.
Apparently shed almost gotten all three of them, but Mrs. Banyan had used her wireless communication to inform the last one and hed caught her by surprise.
Then the guy had free reign to waltz in the window and snipe Garth from the hallway.
This will serve as a good Before picture, Garth thought, watching the men Paul had selected for him running while carrying a litter filled with rocks.
So what do you think? Mrs. Banyan asked.
I think weve got a bunch of hotheads. Make them into leaders, establish a chain of command, and integrate the Garthspawn with any fighting experience into it. Focus on team building exercises, the more strenuous and difficult the better. When I visit again, I want them to jump in front of bullets for each other.
Once they respect and work well with each other, give them teams, and start larger exercises. I may have been over-enthusiastic with the book learning. Trim it down to the necessary until they arent starting fights with each other at the drop of a hat.
Teams of Garthspawn?
Not like we have anything else, Garth muttered. Just try to make sure they can keep it in their pants when they have to. Also, recruit Garthspawn for Special Forces, make Sheath the leader. A group of ninjas could come in handy.
Alright, she said, nodding.
Next time I visit, I expect them to have their shit together.
Mrs. Banyan saluted with a comically severe expression. Yes, sir!
When did you learn sass?
Mrs. Banyan winked.
****
Garth got back to the house deep in the plant-dungeon just an hour after the sunrise, sliding his overcoat off and hanging it up.
There was light coming from the kitchen, and Garth followed it to find Tad sitting at the counter, eating eggs and a blueberry pie.
Morning. Garth said, sliding up beside him.
Mornin Tad said between bites.
Blueberry pie sounds damn good.
May I have pie as well, Mrs. Banyan?
Coming right up! the Banyan behind the counter said, taking the pie out of the oven and slicing a chunk out for Garth.
Vanilla Ice cream too, please.
Sure!
Banyan opened up the freezer and scooped out a dollop of ice cream for Garths pie, putting it in front of Garth while Tad stared with wide eyes.
The hell is that? he asked.
What, have you never had ice cream with your pie? Must be a twenty-ninth century thing.
Ice cream. Tad said, pushing his plate forward. Half a minute later he was groaning in pleasure as he ate the hot pie and the cold cream at the same time.
Once Tad was done devouring his desert, he tapped Garth on the shoulder.
Something I wanted to show you, he said, turning away and heading towards the workshop.
They walked into the workshop, a wave of heat washing over them as they entered. Tad made a beeline for his experiments, and pulled out a handful of petri dishes, one of which was filled with some kind of silvery sludge, and others with pieces of the light-bending fabric.
So Ive made some progress, he said. I wasnt getting any changes with just heat, or just chemicals, and on a whim I mixed a couple, and they made the webbing dissolve. He pointed at the silvery puddle in the petri dish.
Then I tried diluting them, and I got this. He said, putting a petri dish under the microscope and showing Garth. The fraying ends of the web seemed to have melted a bit back into the web proper. Not as much as the Williams secret method, but better than before.
I havent gotten any better than that, and it makes the fabric a little stiff and crumbly if the mix is wrong. Tad scratched his head. I dunno what Im missing.
Garths eyes slid back to the puddle of goop in the first petri dish.
I think you should consider working with this material. He said using a stick to poke at the slime. The silvery substance was extremely viscous, sliming up the stick, and dangling four feet long above the table as Garth held it up to the light.
That? Tad asked. Thats slime.
Youd be surprised how often things look nothing like the finished product until the very end. Dont let yourself be limited to thinking you have to make your perfect fabric in only one step. I suggest subjecting this stuff to some kind of mechanical separation process to line all the strands up together. Thats what slime is, after all, long, microscopic chains of molecules clumped together.
Garth considered for a moment. Maybe I need to make you something like a taffy puller.
Huh, I guess. Tad said giving the slime a sideways glance.
After he and Tad had been chatting for awhile, Caitlyn and Alicia entered the room, fresh from breakfast, and sporting small amounts of pie at the corner of their mouths.
Alicia took her place in her chair, closing her eyes and single-mindedly trying to channel mana. Her brows furrowed, as there was less swirling around her than there had been the day before, owing to Garth using two of the three mythic cores. What had once been a swirling vortex of loose, fluffed energy ripe for the taking was now a humming, dense pool of mana concentrated around the floor.
Alicia didnt ask Garth what had happened, instead simply tightening her jaw and working harder at controlling the mana around her.
Caitlyn shot Garth a look and went to the laser cutter with the last of the core slices hed bought from her dad, settling it on the cutter and starting to program in her next project.
Everythings going good then. Wonder when Ill have a chance to make that X-ray vision enchantment. There should be enough left even after
Garths thoughts were interrupted by Caitlyns full throated scream of pain.
Comments
Macronomicon
good point
tehlu
is it only me of is it kind of strange that Garth calls his descendants garthspawn. Also he's going around making apprentices of these other kids but hasnt actually gotten to know any of his descendants. It seems unlikely that all his descendants are bimbo's; who knows if there's a genius among them.
Ford-Thomas Frank Loveland
Hopefully this is going according to plan and is the fake injury to make her be given away and not an actual serious injury
