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Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.7 (122)
🕑 Added 2024-03-01 23:30:02 +0000 UTCVera was having a pleasant morning. She had gotten up early to see Nick and Nero off, and then spent the past hour luxuriating in some peace and quiet. After the chaos of the past few days, it was nice to return to some normalcy. Although, it had been rather pleasant to spend some time with her husband again. It had been a while...
Deciding that she was finished daydreaming, she made her way to her office, eager to get to work. As she made her way through the hall, she perused her link, digging into her messages.
She poured herself some tea, and sat at her desk watching the holograms wink into existence. The displays of her efforts and current projects brought a slight smile to her face. From here, she felt as if she were in control of all of Dorchester.
Her mind unfolded and several streams of consciousness started digging into the various tasks she had assigned herself that day.
While going through the paperwork for the trading houses, she signed off on another three storefronts. Soon, Precision Trading will have a presence in every gate. Each store carefully curated to provide what the locals need, as soon as they need it. Her initial plans had expanded in scope, and she couldn’t be more thrilled.
Her efforts to expand Nero’s manufacturing capabilities were also going well. She had successfully acquired two more factories through ‘hostile’ negotiations. As a result of her efforts, after merging everything together, Walker Industries was doing quite well. Even better for her, House Verena was responsible for providing several blacksmiths and factories, which resulted in her owning almost 15% of the company. If she wanted a larger piece of the pie, she’d have to talk to Nero.
Before she could let her thoughts linger on the predictable problem of her divided loyalties, she saw an urgent message from some of her agents.
Opening it, her jaw dropped in surprise at what she was seeing. Victoria Blackwood moved quickly once again, decisively ending any threat to her position. Last night she executed two of her sisters for treason against House Blackwood. She even went through the trouble of having the Tower of Law in attendance to ensure the legalities were observed. With the duels she had the day before, that’s a total of 4 sisters killed in less than two days. That’s not even mentioning the four banished heirs she had cut out of the family. She had already been confirmed by the family heads to be the new Lord Blackwood, and it looked like she was adapting well to her new position. Vera was impressed. ‘Very well done young lady,’ she mentally congratulated the new house head.
Pausing her work, Vera leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea. Nero had said he thought the woman might turn out to be capable, which now appears to be an understatement. She had to admit, the young man was very perceptive, despite his oddities. What had he gone through to be able to read people like that?
Putting thoughts of Nero and his mysteries out of her head, she focused on the issue at hand. She would have to be careful when she met with the woman. Even with the agreement, Vera couldn’t allow her any room to maneuver. The leadership council had been present during the arbitration, but the specifics still needed to be discussed.
Tapping her fingers against the chair arm in thought, she looked out her windows calmly. ‘I wonder how far she’ll try and push me. Despite Nero’s friendship with her brother, I doubt he’d want House Walker to lose out in this exchange, even if it’s a matter of degrees. I’ll need more information about the Blackwoods in general, and I’ll definitely have to acquire some recordings of the new lord’s exploits in the arena. Knowing who sits across from me at the negotiating table is crucial to getting them to give me what I want. And if worse comes to worse, House Verena hasn’t participated in a noble war yet. This might turn out to be another interesting week. Who knew being a proxy could be this much fun?’ she thought to herself with a smile.
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While everyone enjoyed their gruel in silence, the crackle of the fire along with the sounds of the forest created a rather pleasant atmosphere for the companions. Rose, Wesker, and Cathleen were lost in their thoughts. Each of them quietly eating their meal while letting the tension of their morning fade away.
Meanwhile, Nero and Nick were having a private conversation through their mental connection. They had been careful not to let on that they were capable of it, and their efforts were paying off right now. Neither Nick or Nero wanted their conversation to be shared with the military. Nero, due to the fact that he was paranoid, and Nick because his curiosity was bordering on illegal.
“Nero! Do the math. A person typically awakens with a soul density between 3 and 7. Taking into account the optimistic level stress of 3 for the stat, and an increase of half of that during soul level, what equivalent level would you need to be in order to have a soul density of over 100!?! That’s not even taking into account the multiplicative effect of stars for the operative density,” he said with clear excitement in his voice.
Nero glanced at his friend, and he could tell the man was having trouble keeping his poker-face intact. “Calm down, Nick. I did do the math. I figured I started off with an equivalent of 60 levels in my soul density. But I got a little confused about the whole multiplication thing,” he said.
Figuring that he needed a reference, he brought up the soul stat section of his identity.
Soul 2
Base/Operative/Level Stress
Size 29/40.6/2.4
Density 101/141.4/1.4
Intensity 76/106.4/1.9
Pressure 27/37.8/1.9
Harmony 24/33.6/21.8
Adaptability 270/378/1.2
While Nero looked at his stats with some confusion, Nick replied quickly, “What’s to be confused about? Operative levels are just the base stat added to twenty percent of the product between the base stat and the amount of stars infused into the governing stat in question. What’s more interesting is what you having a soul of that strength implies!”
Nero tried following along with Nick had just said, but despite understanding what every word the man spoke actually meant, his brain just wasn’t wired like that. So instead of dwelling on it, he just shot Nick an annoyed look from behind his gruel cup, and replied, “And what exactly does it imply?”
“That the arch-mage was right! And more importantly, so was I. You see, when we were in my lab, Arch-mage Jennings postulated that you spent a great deal of time without a body. The memory of that time wasn’t recorded in your mind, because a body is required to interact with and alter a mind imprint. So when you finally gained a body, the mind imprint that was used to form your consciousness came from when you were outside the planar spheres. He believed your body and mind were influenced by the remnant desire of your soul’s wish to be an adventurer, or at least what you believed an adventurer to be,” Nick said with a lecturing tone.
Now, normally Nero would interrupt a rant like this. After all, while this all sounded very interesting, he’d also heard it all before, including the parts he still didn’t understand. His soul was altering this body at the whims of his inner desires, so what? Yet, Nero had learned his lesson about interrupting smart people who were trying to tell him something. Eventually, Nick would get to the point, and Nero would just have to put up with him until he got tired of hearing himself talk… or think… or whatever the term for mentally communicating was.
Nick sat on his stump with a dumb smile on his face, eating his gruel out of his cup and sipping his iced tea from his enchanted flask. All the while, he was mentally walking Nero through his thought process.
“So your body and mind were, and still are, being shaped by that desire. But that didn’t account for all your peculiarities! Even with an inborn, or more accurately ‘ingrained’ advantage concerning spell casting and temperament, you shouldn’t be able to do half the things you do. You can SEE spells in your psychic field! That isn’t normal. Most people can’t do that, regardless of level. It’s not just a function of your soul density. It’s a fundamental difference between your soul and everybody elses,” Nick said as if he hadn’t said something outrageous.
Nero’s eyes widened, and he struggled not to show his fear and confusion on his face.
“I think your soul spent so much time in the outer planes, slipping between realities that it changed how it interacts with the ethereal plane and material reality. I bet your adaptability is over 50 too, isn’t it?” Nick said proudly, figuring he was finally starting to understand his young friend.
Nero frowned at the implications of having an ‘altered’ soul. “Um… the soul adaptability, right? It’s at 270 for the base, 378 for the operative. That’s really high, right?”
Nero felt the hairs on his neck rise up, and he glanced over at Nick to see him staring back at him, eyes wide in what could only be described as horror. The man quickly gathered himself, and returned to staring at the fire, but Nero could tell Nick was still pretty shaken.
Nick tone was very soft as he said, “Nero, a soul’s adaptability like everything else can be improved by level stress and infusing stars. However, where time is effort can effect a soul’s density, its adaptability is influenced by adversity. What I mean by that, is that it is incredibly rare to get a soul’s adaptability level stress above .5, and that usually only happens to people who spend a great deal of time traveling the planes through astral projection. No one, and I’m not embellishing to make a point, I mean NO ONE has a soul adaptability stat over 100. That isn’t just rare, that’s unprecedented, bordering on impossible. I can’t imagine what your soul must have been through to become so malleable.”
Nero gulped, his stomach roiling in his gut. “When you say malleable, you don’t mean easily changed, right? It sounds more like you mean changeable. Wait, that’s not right either. I guess I don’t understand what you mean,” he said with some worry.
Nick replied, “You understand what I mean, but you’re struggling with the implications. It’s a common problem with translation across languages. What I mean is that your soul is able to change itself to fit its environment better. Your soul isn’t damaged, and is probably very resilient. But… and don’t freak out… but I think your soul has very little in common with the standard human soul at this point.”
Nero dropped his canteen, then hastily picked it up before too much water spilled out. Everyone around the fire looked over at him, and he just shrugged sheepishly while trying to play it off as nothing. “I’m not human?!?” he asked.
With a tone full of compassion, Nick replied, “Of course you’re human Nero. It’s just that your soul may be a little… different... now. I’d say it’s probably closer to a planeswalker. Ha! Walker, get it. That’s kinda weird now that I think about it. Just be happy it still ‘looks’ like a human soul, otherwise you would have been killed the moment you entered our plane. Gods above and below, that is a load off my mind. I’ve been stressing out about how weird you were, but now it all makes sense.”
Nero’s eyes narrowed, he looked over at Nick and saw the man sitting comfortably on his stump, sipping his iced tea, seemingly at peace with the world. Apparently, now that he knew Nero’s deepest secrets, the stress lines on his face were just melting away.
“And how does any of this affect my essence shield?” Nero asked icily.
Surprised at what he considered a complete change in subject, Nick replied, “Your essence shield? It doesn’t really have anything to do with that. It just means that your essence field is really overpowered for your level, and since you were contracting it across your body, it did a pretty good imitation of the effects. No wonder everyone thought you were using an essence shield. I bet Sergeant Howard had to use a lot of center just to get through your field with his constructs intact. It’s kinda funny when you think about it. If you hadn’t been using what you thought was an essence shield, we’d have figured this out ages ago. Everyone’s been treating you like a level 15 with an essence shield, when they should have been treating you as a level 15 with an essence field resembling a level 50… or maybe 70. I don’t know, we’d have to put you in field-inductor to find out how strong your field actually is. After all, there are a lot of factors that determine an essence field’s strength. The body and mind also play their part.”
While Nero listened to Nick flippantly regaling him with a rehash of his own misunderstandings and blunders, he felt his entire body shaking in repressed fury. “You mean to tell me that I wasn’t even using an essence shield?” he asked.
Nick, completely ignoring the agitation in Nero’s psyche, replied, “Well, you did the first part. You collected essence and collapsed your field. All you have to do now is impart the identity of a shield onto the film along the layer. It’s just like when you cast the shield spell. The spell collects the essence and your center supplies the identity. You just didn’t complete the technique. All you did was copy the arch-mage’s field. I doubt even you could have seen the spells he had active on his own field. I bet the arch-mage just assumed you figured out the rest on your own. Why wouldn’t he? Collapsing the field is the hard part after all. Actually turning on a shield is incredibly simple after that. I doubt the spell he hit you with was all that strong anyways… you were like what, level 8 at the time? He wouldn’t have wanted to hurt you. Your field’s been strong enough to tank that since you’d gotten here. Why are you looking at me like that?”
His eyes were staring at Nick with reflected flames from the fire dancing in his irises. Nero, still fuming, patiently waited for Nick to finish. Despite his urge to throw his mug of gruel at his friend, he waited to see if Nick had anything more to add. “If you already knew what the problem was, then what was all that about my soul stats? Why didn’t you just say that from the beginning?”
Nick looked at the fuming Nero and replied easily, “You have no idea how annoying it is to have a theory I had no way of proving. What can I say, I was curious. Now let me eat the rest of my meal in peace. Practice your essence shield, you should be able to figure it out now.” Then turned his head back to the fire, and enjoyed the companionable silence while closing the mental connection with his young friend.
Nero stared at Nick, stunned at the man’s casual abuse of the situation. On one hand, he was furious that Nick used the situation to probe Nero’s secrets. But on the other, he was filled with brotherly love for his best friend that he now knew was a troll after his own heart.
Deciding to let it go, he joined everyone in staring at the fire, while muttering, “GG Nick… well played.”
Comments
Ocean Breeze
I'm not sure. I think I was just saying I liked the chapter.
Leetle Sheet
What? Tricking Nero into talking about his secrets, or Nero not being terribly upset about it? Or Nero's crazy soul stats from bouncing around the outer plans for ?
Ocean Breeze
That's pretty insane.
