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Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.4 (119)
🕑 Added 2024-02-27 23:30:01 +0000 UTCArch-mage Jennings returned to his personal quarters in the Dorchester Mage Tower via teleportation, further antagonizing Lady Bennings. The woman was already going to be filing a stack of complaints against him with the Hennings Tower of Law, what was one more?
With a golden ‘pop’ he manifested in his study and felt his personal connection to the room’s communication crystal re-establish itself. Immediately, he was inundated with connection requests and messages from missed pings.
Groaning, he rubbed his hands down his face. ‘This isn’t going to be pleasant,’ he told himself.
Rather than putting it off, he reached out and stabalized the connection request through the communication crystal forming a scry-connection to the council hall in the Hennings Mage Tower. While the holographic window manifested in the middle of the room, Jennings made his way to the wet-bar. He needed a drink for this.
When the image resolved itself, the mage council could be seen eagerly waiting to speak with him. Jennings ran his eyes across the councilors, then sighed heavily. Instead of addressing them, he let Arch-mage Mathers quiet them down.
He could hear Mathers banging his hand on the council table while yelling at everyone to quiet down. Ignoring them, he collected a glass along with a bottle of apple brandy and walked over to his desk to take a seat.
As Jennings poured himself a drink, he heard the mage council fall silent, yet he continued to ignore them. Instead, he just set the bottle down on his desk and stared at his glass.
Almost thirty seconds passed in silence before Mathers apparently reached the end of his patience. “Jennings, I believe we’ve waited long enough. I think it’s time for some answers. There are a great many people here who are questioning what exactly you were thinking,” he said in a voice cold enough to cause frostbite.
Jennings took a heavy sip from his drink, then huffed in exasperation. Squaring his shoulders in his seat, he forced himself to sit up straight and look at the scry-window. His face firmed up as he regained some vigor. His presence swelled, imbuing him with some gravitas. It was rare to see the arch-mage this serious, and the entire council felt a little intimidated. Regardless of how annoying Jennings was, they all knew that he was arguably the most powerful mage in the kingdom.
Jennings set down his glass, and said, “I can see how many of you think I made a mistake. After all, the entire reason I came to Dorchester was to see this anomaly in person and stave off threats to his growth. However, everything I’ve done, and allowed others to do, has been with the anomaly’s growth in mind.”
One of the mages crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat with a huff. She had been a fan of Nero’s antics, and did not appreciate Jennings mishandling of the situation. Rather loudly, she muttered, “Old bastard probably forgot how to tend a garden, hasn’t done any real work in centuries.”
Ignoring the councilor’s outburst, Jennings continued, “When I first learned of the plot, I investigated the chances of it succeeding. After looking into who was involved, and running some calculations based on behavioral models created from historical data in the local Though-hub, basing their likely moves on their previous behavior, I determined that the assassination attempt only had a 26% chance of succeeding. I even used some subtle influence to manipulate events, and change the anomaly’s team make-up in order to lower that chance to 7%.”
While he had been talking, Jennings had collated and transmitted his personal notes on the assassination attempt. The entire mage council was silent as they digested the arch-mage’s words and looked through the calculations he had sent over.
While they were reading, Jennings took another sip of his brandy, then looked away from the scry-window. His firm countenance relaxed, and the entire council began to realize how tired the old man actually was.
Keeping his voice low, Mathers asked, “So, what happened?”
Finishing off his brandy, Jennings refilled his glass. “A lot, apparently,” he replied evenly.
A little annoyed, Mathers replied with some heat, “If it’s not terribly inconvenient, would mind elaborating?”
Jennings set down his glass and met Mathers glare through the scry-window. “I did a little digging, and a few things through off the calculations I had made. First, someone arranged for Lord Blackwood to receive a shipment of dwarven whiskey, which he then shared with Lord Cosgrave’s daughter. That led him to sleeping with her. So ins-”
One of the council interrupted harshly, “You couldn’t account for interpersonal relationships in your personality matrix? I find that hard to believe.”
Jennings replied with some venom, “Do you know what the odds are for a bottle of dwarven whiskey to appear in a place like Dorchester? I was well aware of Blackwood’s repressed desires and the daughter’s resemblance to her mother. But the man wouldn’t have made a move if he hadn’t encountered that be-damned enchanted liquor! The man was just supposed to have comforted the girl, then put her in contact with a low-level fixer.”
Mathers’ voice was wary as he said, “If you’re suggesting that someone knew how dwarven whiskey would influence the situation, I’ll have to seriously reconsider how much faith we have in your deductive reasoning.”
Nods around the room agreed with the acting director, along with mutters of agreement, all of which stopped when they heard Jennings’ reply.
“Three words. Matrix. Of. Fate,” he said with some clear malice in his voice.
The silence was filled with tension, and Mathers asked quietly, “How sure are you?”
Jennings offered a dry grimace, implying that Mathers was being an idiot. He then sent over his personal notes from his investigation.
The council looked through the documents. There was evidence of someone maneuvering Lord Blackwood’s pet hunters into returning early from an already scouted pro-dungeon they were accidentally sent to investigate. Then there was the mage whose debts were mysteriously called in, requiring them to seek out some side-work. Someone even managed to countermand Jennings’ order to have a war-mage included in the anomaly’s party, not to mention the absence of the captain. The entire excursion was tweaked to allow the assassination to proceed without trouble.
While the council read through the documents, Jennings’ voice interrupted their thoughts. “Regardless of whether you think the risk of letting the assassination attempt happen was a good idea, none of you can argue with the facts. Someone played with fate. Worse yet, they were able to do it at a level even I couldn’t predict. So, yes. I’m relatively sure the matrix was consulted. The damn fate-weavers tried to have a new noble killed while trying to ensure that their original prophecy of Dorchester’s fate was ensured. The prideful bastards tried to kill off millions of Oglivarch’s citizens in an effort to hide their mistakes,” he growled.
The entire council was stewing in repressed rage. Trying to kill a new noble under the protection of the crown was bad enough, but condemning a city to death because they couldn’t handle being wrong? That was too far.
Mathers’ tone was full of fury as he asked, “Alright. So what do we plan to do about it?”
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Nero heard the ‘thwip, thwip, thwip’ of Rose’s arrows, so he knew the right side was in combat behind him. She only started rapid shooting after the sarge and Cathleen were in melee range. Yet, he maintained his vigil on the left side. He’d learned that ensuring the rear of the engagement was just as important as the fight itself.
While most of his attention was on the woods in front of him, he could still ‘see’ what was going on behind him, at least a little bit. Even though Nero wasn’t focusing on the battle, his field still showed him a general idea of what was going on. It was like seeing something happening that you weren’t focusing on, kinda blurry and without any details.
As the seconds passed, the combat started sounding sporadic, Nero chanced a look over his shoulder. He could see Sergeant Wesker standing strong, forcing several dog-like things to maintain their distance. There were small mud walls about 3ft high acting as a movement hazard on both sides of the man. Nick covered Wesker’s right side, blasting any of the dogs that tried to jump over the wall. Cathleen maintained the other side, swatting dogs with her spear. Rose was directly behind Nero, firing at whatever she could.
The little dogs were fast. Their dark fur and misshapen snouts made them look like over-sized Chihuahuas. Only standing a couple feet tall, they were more of a swarm than a pack. But, there must have been 50 of them running around and barking like a sea of annoyance.
Nero snapped his eyes back to the side he was supposed to be covering. Where were the rest? Dog types always tried to get behind their prey. The walls Nick put up were only 25, maybe 30 feet wide. There was no reason for the dogs to not try and just go around them. Why were they only focusing on the opening Wesker was guarding?
He narrowed his eyes, scanning the forest as best he could. Even with his field sweeping his attention through the woods, he couldn’t see any sign of the pack trying to surround them, or any other pack trying to act as a flanker.
Nero heard Wesker shout, “Walker! Anything in the back?”
Shaking his head without turning around, he shouted, “Nope. All clear on this side... I don’t get it either.”
Nick yelled, “Well, get over here and help, I’m having trouble holding them back. They are very resilient… I think they might have some kind of disproportionate disruption property in their essence fields, I’m having trouble maintaining my constructs.”
Nero could hear the underlying panic in Nick’s voice. Despite how many times they’ve been in situations just like this, the old man was still uncomfortable in combat.
Nero said over his shoulder, “Rose, switch out with me. You’ve got the rear.”
As he turned around, he felt Rose take his place and say, “Got it!”
Nero took up position a dozen feet behind Wesker to survey the scene, and saw Cathleen and Nick holding back the little monsters. Nick was holding two glowing balls of essence in his hands, blasting the hopping dogs back over the wall, while Cathleen just played whack-amole.
He focused his senses on the battle and saw something weird.
“Hey Nick, don’t their essence fields seem like they’re all jumbled up together?” he asked with a little confusion in his voice.
Nick shouted in panic, “Wait, what? Is it a mob?”
Wesker groaned loudly as he swung his sword, removing the head from one of the little dogs. “I hate dealing with mobs. You see any bodies?” he asked calmly.
Cathleen called out, “I don’t think it’s a mob, the bodies are just dispersing quickly. Wait…”
Nero looked over at her, curious as to what they were talking about. He saw her lean over the wall and skewer a little dog as if it she were making kebobs. Pulling her spear back, she looked closely at the little monster and watched it struggle and die. The moment it stopped moving, the body seemed to lose cohesion and turn into a black cloud.
Immediately, she returned her attention to the wall she was guarding and said, “Never-mind, it’s a mob. We’re just going to have to wear it out. That is unless anyone happens to be carrying a spare set of full plate?”
Totally confused, Nero asked, “Um… am I missing something? A mob is just a group of monsters right?”
Nick, clearly annoyed, replied, “Yes. It’s a group of monsters. But while the word means a group, what that implies is that the entire thing is one entity. It’s an essence configuration of the concept of a mob. We can’t kill them off one by one. The total number will stay the same until the stored potential of the mob is used up.”
Nero, hearing the explanation, tried to understand what Nick was saying, but his brain refused to accept it. Then, like a flash of insight, he thought of the old rpg board games he used to play when he was younger. There were ‘swarm’ enemies that were single figurines. When their hit points hit zero, the ‘swarm’ died. Until then, the swarm didn’t lose any of its combat capability.
“Oh! I get it,” he said. Then with some confusion, he asked, “So why isn’t anyone doing any AOE?”
Nick used what looked like an air blast to knock a group of hopping dogs back over the wall, and grumbled, “Because we didn’t know it was a swarm! It’s too late now, we’ll just have to kill them off until the mob dies out. Wasting essence on a big spell would be completely irrational. All we have to do is maintain the perimeter and chip away at the swarms potential, it will stay together so at least we don’t have to worry about it surrounding us.”
Nero stood there dumbly, watching Wesker, Cathleen, and Nick occasionally picking off dogs one by one, doing very little in the grand scheme of things. He looked at the incredibly large essence-blob in his psychic senses, realizing that despite their efforts, it wasn’t shrinking all that fast.
“But that will take forever!” Nero shouted.
Wesker, still holding the center, slammed the edge of his shield down on a pair of dogs harassing his legs, and shouted back, “Mobs are annoying, there isn’t a good way to deal with them if you get caught in one. Unless you have a massive essence advantage, overpowering their essence field isn’t worth the effort. Now get over here and start helping. The more of these things we kill, the faster the mob will convert to something we can actually kill. Just be happy the mob manifested as a pack of weaklings.”
Nero felt Rose approach his shoulder, and he turned to see what she was doing.
She looked at Nero and said, “I’ll keep an eye out, you can go into melee.”
Nero felt this whole situation was absurd. He knew this was a fantasy world, but really? ‘Mobs’?!? Even if the concept of an entity made up by a group made sense, seeing it in reality was just too weird for him to process. Focusing his psychic field, he could see the dogs coming back into existence in the middle of the pack after being killed. It was all fuzzy, the mob’s essence field was just too large. Like clouds forming out of nothing, the dogs just materialized and then joined their friends in barking and howling like mad.
Shaking his head in wonder, Nero put away his shield and brought out another sword. Dual-wielding, he approached Nick’s side. Cathleen would be more than fine on her own.
As he got closer, he took a better look at the essence surrounding them and he could feel what Nick was talking about. The essence in the air felt ‘muddy’, like it was reluctant to do anything. Nero watched as Nick fought, gaining a little respect for the scientist. Being able to cast at all seemed like a chore.
Joining Nick at the wall, he realized he was too short to see much past the wall. He definitely wasn’t tall enough to lean over and start clearing out the ones on the other side. He had known he was only a little over 5 ft, but this was ridiculous, the damn wall came up to his chest.
A dog appeared directly in front of him, jumping up and trying to get its paws over the wall. Its snapping mouth caused Nero to hop back in surprise. He lashed out with a sword, feeling his blade dig into the side of its head, causing it to yelp in pain and fall back down.
Grimacing at the sound, he suppressed the guilt he felt at hurting what in any other circumstance would be a pet. ‘Just because they remind you of the evil little bastard Sarah used to have, doesn’t mean its a dog. It’s a monster, and you need to treat it as such,’ he told himself, remembering an annoying little dog that used to bite his ankles until he fed it.
Nero joined in the occasional slaughter of the jumping dogs, doing his best to aid in the continued violence. His swords striking out at anything that tried to make its way over the wall. But minutes passed, and he could see that they weren’t really making much progress.
Looking around, he could see Wesker and Cathleen were both annoyed, seemingly treating this as an unfortunate task that, while simple, would be a pain in the ass. Nick, on the other hand, was having trouble. Prolonged casting in this environment was causing him to have some problems. Nero could almost feel the man’s center struggling to maintain itself.
“Hey Nick, how about you step back for a bit and rest. I got this,” he said.
Nick shook his head, and replied, “Nero, you don’t have the range to cover this much wall. I’ll be fine. Just focus on your area.”
Nero knew the man was just being stubborn. Nick did have melee weapons, he just rarely used them. Even during close-quarters training he treated melee weapons like workout tools. He never tried to master them, just fighting with a rapier as if he were in some Errol Flynn movie.
Realizing that Nick would eventually tire himself out, Nero tried to come up with something to speed this up. It was ridiculous that their only option was to chop at the edges until the ‘mob’ tired itself out. While he continued swatting at the jumping dogs, he reached out with his field, trying to get an idea of what the mob’s essence field was doing.
He could feel the essence in the ether being subdued by the mob. Mentally reaching in, he tried to grab hold of the flows, but they refused to cooperate. Even if he were to use his center to cast something, he’d have to do it right next to his body, or the essence would refuse to complete the spell. ‘No wonder Nick didn’t just blast the damn things with fire. Casting anything in their field of control is damn near impossible,’ he said to himself.
Yet, Nero noticed that the mob’s essence field was really spread out. It was like its psychic existence was covering the entire area. But he could see that his companions’ fields had no trouble maintaining themselves. So, he reasoned that if he could cast something close to himself without issue, he could still fire things at the mob.
Nero’s mind worked at the problem, while he continued to swing away at the hopping dogs. He then noticed that the wall Nick had put up was starting to melt a little at the edges. ‘How did he put up a wall in the first place?’ he wondered.
“Hey Nick, how did you manage to cast the spell to create the wall? The essence field of the mob is all around us?” he asked.
Looking over, he could see that Nick had finally given in, and was now swinging a sword in one hand, while still using his other to blast the dogs with a simple gust spell. Now that he was closer, he could see the spell attached to the man’s hand.
“The ether is still there. The mob’s field is just stopping you from controlling it. It’s like trying to cast inside of someone else’s control range. You can do it, but it takes a great deal of effort. I managed to get the wall up before the mob overtook us. Now I just have to maintain it, it’s not easy, but it’s manageable,” Nick said while sounding a little stressed.
It had probably been, at most, 10 minutes since this little battle started. Even though the dogs weren’t very large, they still were big enough to bite chunks out of them if they weren’t contained. Nero furrowed his brow at the thought of the mud wall failing. Even though they were all capable of fighting at this subdued pace for an hour. He didn’t like this at all.
In his field, he could see the mob’s field shrinking, but it wasn’t fast enough. They just weren’t causing enough damage to it. ‘It’s a damn dps race. This is a fight with a countdown timer. I’m in a real fight with a damn clock on it!’ he thought to himself. Forcing himself to calm down, he looked around and tried to gauge how they were doing.
‘Weren’t low level swarms supposed to be a low level encounter?’ He wondered.
Even though their progress was slow, they didn’t seem to be in any real danger. The fight was just annoying at the moment. Remembering what Cathleen said, he could see how someone in full plate would just be able to go out there and wreck the little bastards. Their team make-up just wasn’t geared for taking out a lot of small enemies.
Upping his intensity, he put away one of his swords and really started chopping at whatever dog managed to get its upper body on the wall. He ran back and forth, slamming his sword into the snarling monster’s faces.
Deciding to try something, he started creating a bigger version of his laser spell in his off-hand. Even though there wasn’t a lot of light in the forest, there was enough essence to charge a spell. He just had to let it collect enough light essence before he fired it. And, since he would be creating the construct right next to himself, it shouldn’t be disrupted by the mob’s essence field. All he had to do was concentrate on maintaining it. At least, that’s what he thought.
‘That should work, right?’ he told himself.
After a few seconds of charging the spell, he raised his fist and sent a stream of light into the dogs several feet away from the wall. Due to his height, they were the only ones he had line of sight on.
The moment the light left his hand, he could feel the beam start to disperse. It was like firing a gun into a tub of water. All of the power seemed to bleed off of it. By the time the laser hit a dog, the damn thing didn’t even react. Nero could only frown at his failed experiment. The construct’s existence was so brief, it made whatever center he put into it too fragile. Instead of becoming a solid, real construct, it became an incredibly ‘real’ flashlight.
He heard Nick say, “Nero, did you not hear a word of what I just said. You’re inside the damn things control radius. We’re IN its essence field. You don’t have enough control to maintain a construct, let alone to infuse enough essence to imbue a construct with enough center for it to matter. Stop messing around and focus on doing as much damage as possible. I can’t hold up the wall forever.”
Nero grimaced at implied rebuke. ‘I listened! I may not have really understood… but I listened!’ he thought sourly.
Realizing his center wasn’t the problem, he focused on the essence in the air. It was just too entwined by the mob’s field. Anything he cast wouldn’t have enough ‘weight’. He could fire a bunch of pebbles, and even if he emptied his center in their creation, they would be too brittle to do anything. So, Nick’s wall only worked because he put it up before he lost control of the ambient essence. ‘Ok, so that explanation doesn’t help me at all, does it?’ he mentally griped.
Swinging his sword lazily, Nero tried to come up with another idea. The only good thing about the situation was that their enemy was so pathetic. He could stand here for hours batting them down if the wall managed to hold up that long.
Putting that delightful prospect out of his mind, he tried to focus. There had to be a way to cast something useful. He refused to believe that magic couldn’t solve all of his problems. It was MAGIC, its entire point was about doing things that were impossible. He would figure it out eventually.
Comments
Adam Roundfield
An infinite chihuahua generator might make an effective torture device...
Ocean Breeze
Btw, stabalized is spelled incorrectly. It should be stabilized.
