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Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.29 (144)
🕑 Added 2024-04-02 22:30:00 +0000 UTCArch-mage Jennings calculating eyes watched Adept Newbanks walk out of his office. ‘Such a capable and promising young mage. Hopefully she manages to maintain that level of work ethic over the next few months. She’s going to need it,’ he thought to himself.
As the door closed behind her, Jennings leaned back in his chair and sighed. Having just heard her report covering all the things he’d been ignoring, and noting her subtle judgmental tone, he let his mind filter through the data files she had provided to support her conclusions. In addition to a detailed review of the hundreds of mages currently working in the Dorchester Tower of Magic, she had included policy profiles for all the major power blocs in the city. There were also personality analytics, family trees, even a section covering popular opinions of the citizenry. Even though he recognized that all of this information was important, he still didn’t feel like reading it at the moment.
Setting all that drivel to the side, he focused on the primary issue he had to address: The kobald infestation.
Looking through the situation summary she provided, he could see that the army seemed to be adequately handling it at the moment. Whether or not they will actually manage to defend the city was the real question.
Turning his attention away from the reports, he sent his mind out to scry on the mountain. It was impressive that the kobalds had managed to hide themselves from the local mages so well. Regardless of the method, he doubted they’d be able to stop him from seeing what they were hiding, that is if he bothered to put in any real effort.
At first glance, he could see the empty mountain tunnels. The images he was coming through were exactly what he’d expect when he was delving into a mountain city that had been abandoned for hundreds of years. There were empty housing complexes, dead farms, dilapidated manufacturing centers, and deactivated power plants. He could practically feel the tomb-like silence echoing through the ether.
He increased his focus, probing for inconsistencies in the image, and surprisingly didn’t find any. He leaned forward in his chair and increased the pressure. Minutes passed as he tried to see through what was obviously an illusion, at least according to first hand accounts from the army’s scouts. Yet, he couldn’t find a single clue that what he was seeing wasn’t actually reality. ‘How in the hundred hells are they doing that?’ he wondered.
Fed up with his failure, he pulled back his probe. Reaching out, he connected with Mage Tower’s scrying apparatus. Rather than disrupt the current operations, he modulated his frequency to run through the essence collectors on a different plane. After all, no one here in this backwater is capable of using a planar modulation technique, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
With the aid of the Tower, he returned his probe to the mountain to see what was really going on. The moment his mental probe breached the first tunnel, his eyes widened in surprise.
The kobald’s numbers were much larger than he’d expected. A sea of campfires and tents filled the layers of abandoned caves. From the top of the mountain down, there wasn’t a level they hadn’t infested. From what he could tell, Dorchester’s forces were heading toward a tough fight. He saw shamans and berserker squads, bone priests and elemental warriors, there were even totemic warlords standing on platforms organizing their troops.
Shaking his head in pity for the city, he sent his consciousness deeper into the mountain.
In the lower levels he saw the kobald’s planar gates. It looked like they were already active, and had been for a while. ‘So they are some type of fire-breed. That’s something at least. If they were something less common, General Branson wouldn’t have a chance,’ he thought to himself.
Regardless, this situation put him in a delicate position. On one hand, the law was clear. His position and ties explicitly denied him any role in the coming conflict. He could not participate, advise, support, or manipulate events to aid the city during this crisis. At least not until they ask him to. At best, the position of the court mage, at least one who was appointed by the mage council and not locally sourced, was merely an advisor limited to interpreting the information the local Tower provided him. Technically, he shouldn’t have even looked at the mountain, as there wasn’t a mage in Dorchester currently capable of piercing the kobald’s illusion.
But on the other hand, he rarely bothered to let the laws influence his actions if he happened to disagree with them. Yet, this wasn’t like his typical antics where he meddled with other people for their own good. This was about the very identity of Dorchester. If he interfered, he could permanently alter the city’s path. This was a trial that the law demanded the city face on its own. The world had provided a challenge, and the city was tasked with meeting it.
Closing off all his connections to the outside world, he retreated into his mind to gain some perspective. So much was happening lately, and he wasn’t sure what he should do about it. He’d spent so much time in seclusion, focusing on his research, that he’d forgotten what it was like to deal with ethical questions like this.
All he wanted to do was come here and make sure nobody snuffed out the life of a promising and interesting young mage that had caught his eye, a surprising anomaly that had made him laugh and invigorated his thoughts. Yet, he’d already allowed outside forces to meddle in the young man’s life, and his mishandling of the situation had nearly gotten the poor man killed.
Shaking his head in anger, he decided that he would stop overthinking it. He came here with a singular purpose, and he’d stick to it. The kobalds and the density shift would be handled by the city, or they wouldn’t be. Either way, his only concern should be protecting the new lord from threats that were political and man-made, and as for the rest, he’d let nature take its course. ‘The world wants you dead, and how you deal with that fact determines your path,’ he told himself, the words of the first king providing him solace and guidance as always.
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The trip to their assigned area in the mountains was much easier than Nero had feared.
Their first stop was at the command center where they were supposed to refill their rations and replace any broken or lost equipment. Nero didn’t need anything, but he still picked up a few cool looking spears, shields, and some spare clothes while he was there. After all, it was war time, and free stuff was free stuff. It wasn’t like his personal space was running out of room. ‘Is it getting bigger?’ he wondered.
On the way out, he actually managed to sneak out three giant cauldrons of stew. It had taken him 20 minutes of hiding in the kitchens, but he eventually got the job done. It looked like he wouldn’t have to force himself to eat that paste which passed itself off as gruel, at least not for a while.
By the time they left the command center, Nero was smiling in victory and planning on how to hide his ill gotten gains from his team-mates. If he was careful, that stew could last him a long time.
After a trip through a teleporter, and another hike through the city, they eventually headed for the mountains.
This time, when they left the gate, there wasn’t much to see outside the walls. In front of all the previous gates he’d seen, there were plenty of building and infrastructure outside the walls. Yet, near the mountains, the exterior towns were almost barren. Aside from a few huts and camps, there wasn’t a lot of activity.
Almost immediately outside the gate, the terrain started getting rocky. The soil was gravely, and the incline became sloped. There were still trees and some underbrush, but it wasn’t really much of forest. It was now like the base of the Washington mountains. He could see the tree-line extending far up the mountain, and he wasn’t looking forward to the hike.
Luckily, the captain kept the pace light, and the trip was rather enjoyable.
He was able to practice his mage-armor and his scanning techniques without running into any issues. There were also far fewer monsters and beasts to deal with. Compared to the eastern wilds, this place was pretty tranquil.
That wasn’t to say that there weren’t ANY threats, they just weren’t nearly as many. Where their trip through the eastern wilds was a constant barrage of harassments and annoyances, here there were only a few monsters bothering to attack them every hour or so. Even that was only because their group was making so much noise.
It got to the point where Nero hardly even noticed it.
They marched at a steady pace, which compared to their earlier run, wasn’t at all tiring. And when they had eventually arrived at their destination, Nero felt like the entire trip was almost too easy. It made his neck itch, just waiting for the catch.
Breaking out of the tree-line, there was a small plateau that had been chosen for their base camp. Looking around, Nero couldn’t help but classify it as a meadow. But, the reality of what they were doing there quickly broke him out of his musings.
After breaking into their teams, they were sent out for lumber. Nero followed Wesker and the others to their destination, and he looked over his shoulder to see the ground being ripped apart by spells. Lines of elites were walking along, churning and packing the dirt into a uniform surface in preparation of their new encampment. The spell was simple, and usually used to clear brush and leaves from the ground. However, the effect in mass was something all together different. He watched the flowers and greenery get mulched into powder, and replaced with gray rocky soil. It was kind of heartbreaking in a way.
Trying to shrug off the uncomfortable feeling, Nero chalked it up to humans being humans and focused on the job in front of him. Who knows, maybe the camp will look nice surrounded by all the trees and mountain air. It wasn’t like a serene meadow in the middle of nowhere was too much of a price to pay for a safe haven in what he was sure to be an annoying war.
Looking around, he saw that the rest of the team was pulling out their axes, even Nick.
“Hey guys, why don’t we just cut down the trees with magic?” he asked, not understanding the point of pretending to be a lumberjack.
Nick shrugged, and replied, “You can if you want. It’s just much more efficient to use tools imbued with your center. If you have applicable abilities, that would be even better. But I don’t think you can ‘adapt’ a tree into falling over.” Nick chuckled at his incredibly stupid joke.
Nero jumped a little, as he heard Cathleen starting to chop down her tree. The sound of the axe biting into the 3 foot wide tree-trunk sounded like a hammer mixed with gunshot. He turned to see large chunks of wood being exploded from the base of the tree she was murdering.
‘Holy crap,’ he thought. As a city boy, he wasn’t really used to seeing civilization overtaking nature. Conceptually, he understood it, but it was surprisingly uncomfortable to see first hand. ‘Am I a closet tree-hugger?’ he wondered.
“Walker, stop standing there like a slack-jawed idiot and get to work!” shouted Wesker.
Giving one final look around, he saw the treeline was already being pushed back into the surrounding forest. Several trees were toppling over and he could hear people calling out warnings to the surrounding soldiers.
Pulling out his axe from his personal space, Nero stepped up to the tree in front of him and stared at the tree trunk. Cocking his head to the side, he tested a simple ‘air-knife’ spell against the bark. He didn’t put much center into the spell, as he wanted to see how much effort it would take to do any damage.
The spell ‘thunked’ into the trunk, slightly shaking the entire tree. Some bark split, and he saw a small gash appear in the wood. ‘Not bad,’ he thought.
Hefting his axe, he imbued some center into the axe-head and he took a solid swing at the tree-trunk, aiming for the same spot. He felt the axe slam into the trunk, causing bark to shatter and eject itself out of the contact point, his weapon burying itself into the tree. ‘OK, yeah, that is actually way easier than using magic,’ he thought.
With his increased stats, his skill at wielding a weapon, and with the aid of his center-imbued axe, he went to work.
In no time at all, he heard the tree-trunk ‘crack’ and he saw the top start to topple over. Not having given any thought as to where it might land, he immediately realized that he might have made a serious mistake.
Seeing the tree start falling, he estimated where it was headed and turned to Nick and Rose, screaming, “Timber! Get back!”
His two team-mates looked up to see the descending tree, and neither of them hesitated for a second. Rose took off like a rabbit, while Nick calming waved his hand in the face of the falling monstrosity. Nero felt the essence shift and he saw the spell carve itself into existence in front of the older mage. A moment later, a large gust of wind caught the falling branches, pushing the tree away from its current path.
After it slammed into the ground around 10 feet in front of him, Nick turned to Nero and said, “Let me guess, you don’t know how to cut down a tree either. Seriously, what did they actually teach you when you were in school? You can’t cook. You’ve never tracked anything. You don’t know how to clean a kill. You don’t know how to build anything. I understand that you didn’t have magic there, and the culture was different, but come on. You don’t even -”
Nero interrupted the old man’s rant. “Shut up Nick. I grew up in a city. Why the hell would I need to learn any of that. I learned plenty of appropriate skills for my environment.”
Nick stared at Nero, waiting for the young man to elaborate.
Rose walked back over to them and asked, “Like what?”
Nero looked at the curious girl and replied, “I was pretty good at a lot of stuff.”
Nick, still holding his axe in one hand, crossed his arms and demanded, “Give us an example that is relevant to the current world you’re in now.”
Nero thought about his uncanny ability to parallel park, his skill at finding people through Facebook connections, and his respectable rank in League of Legends. Not coming up with a good answer, he sarcastically replied, “I specialized in psychological warfare.”
Nick and Rose glanced at each other, and Nick replied, “Yeah, that makes sense.” Rose nodded in agreement, not at all surprised.
Nero’s eyebrows rose in amazement at how easily they had believed him.
“Come here. I’ll show you how to cut down a tree and have it fall where you want it to,” Nick said, waving Nero over.
While Rose returned to what she’d been doing, Nero took another step forward in his quest to become a functional member of Dorchester’s military. Soon enough, he’d learn how to build a wall, maybe a cabin, and if were lucky, someone might show him how to properly make a functioning outhouse.
‘Good times,’ thought Nero with a smile.
Comments
Adam Roundfield
Pave the planet!
Richard Fields
League of Legends being psychological warfare is a fact.
