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Nero Walker, Book 2 Ch.13 (45)
🕑 Added 2023-12-08 06:42:37 +0000 UTCCity Lord Cosgrave was in a meeting with several department heads from various city services. They were discussing the recent influx of hunters and adventurers clogging gate 15. The short but viscous actions of the Populators had left localized essence storms, and bodies with loot spread all over the woods to the east of the city. The woods had always been dangerous, but now they were a death trap.
Looking up from the paper in her hands, She looked at the scry-record of what’s left of one of Dorchen’s estates. The buildings were in ruins, and creatures stalked the grounds. Their black skin looked wet, and their snouts made them look like severely mutated hounds. Apparently, they were spawning from somewhere among the rubble.
Lord Cosgrave groaned in annoyance. “How long ago was this recorded, and what’s the spawn rate? Also, has the Hunters guild been alerted?” she asked.
One of the paper pushers lived up to his title, and sorted through his folder for the answer.
Without warning, the doors to their conference room slammed open. The wood creaked as they were stopped by their hinges. Lord Cosgrave’s aide, Ms. Chandler strode in with a look of concern plain on her face.
“M’lord, may I have a moment of your time?” Ms. Chandler asked, as she sent a message to Lord Cosgrave’s link, “It’s a code cyan.”
Standing quickly, but with grace, Lord Cosgrave addressed the room, “You all know what to do. Make sure the Hunter’s Guild is alerted, and send them all the information we have. Ask the army for support if you have to. The numbers must be culled quickly, we don’t want to give the essence time to condense into permanent spawn zones. It’s much easier to prevent them now, than to clear them out later.”
With a nod, she followed a nervous Ms. Chandler into the hallway.
As the walked at a quick pace to the city lord’s office, Lord Cosgrave leaned over and asked, “What’s this about?”
Ms. Chandler whispered, “Master Derek seems to be aiding the Assassins Guild. He escorted an assassination team to the Tower of Law, where they offered a formal assassination challenge to ‘the commoner Nero Walker’. As the contract was requested by House Cranston, who no longer has a presence in Dorchester, it required someone from the city lord’s house to sign off on it. Master Derek was there to act as House Cosgrave’s heir and representative.”
Stopping in the hall, Lord Cosgrave’s jaw had dropped. She was staring at Ms. Chandler as though the woman was spouting gibberish. “When did this happen?” She asked.
Ms. Chandler folded her hands in front of her waist and pursed her lips. “Less than 10 minutes ago. One of the associates there realized that something didn’t seem right. He contacted the guard to report the event, because he recognized Mr. Walker’s name from the Noble War results. The local reports have been running articles on Mr. Walkers rise to nobility and the intricacies of the laws concerning our recent Noble War.”
Taking a deep breath, Lord Cosgrave forced herself into action. Resuming their march to her office, she said, “I don’t understand. Lord Walker is a new noble. The law is quite clear, he cannot be challenged for 100 years. Why is the Tower of Law allowing it?”
With a wave of her hand, the ceiling high doors to her office opened while she and her aide talked. Closing the doors behind them, Lord Cosgrave went straight to the wet bar and poured herself some wine.
Ms. Chandler replied, “The associate at the Tower of Law was very helpful with his report. It seems that House Cranston took advantage of the fact that Mr. Walker hasn’t taken the pledge yet. It’s a technicality that only applies because he met with you personally, but didn’t take the pledge. In the strictest sense of the law, that means that he refused to pledge. Until he does so, he will remain a commoner. Had that meeting not taken place, Mr. Walker would have remained a new noble under protection of the crown. For the brief time that a new noble stands before a city lord, they are under the city lord’s protection, not the crown’s. Therefore, Master Derek could allow a challenge.”
Lord Cosgrave paled, “It would appear to all those who witnessed it, that we were playing the game to remove Mr. Walker before he could become a noble. It would be legal, as our House didn’t initiate the challenge, only allowed it. The crown will be angry, but will be without recourse. They’ll change the law immediately, but that won’t help Mr. Walker. Wait… What was the reason stated for the challenge? If I recall, a noble house can only initiate an assassination challenge to a commoner under specific rules.”
Ms. Chandler nodded, “The challenge listed a blood grievance. It seems that the mage council executed our previous court mage, Lord Cranston’s son, because he wouldn’t agree to protect Mr. Walker. Arch-Mage Mathers stated so in open court, for all the nobles to hear. It’s another technicality. Lord Cranston’s son was executed for refusing orders, but he is stating that a blood grievance still applies. Technically, his noble son fell so that a commoner could rise. That allows for the noble house to ‘test his blood’, to see if the sacrifice is worthy. Hence the assassination challenge.
“As the challenge is lawful, guards have been dispatched to collect Mr. Walker and take him to the gate 5 arena. He will be facing one Caleb Nadric. 19 years old, level 8, specializing in close quarter combat with swords and knives. Apparently he has some skill in wind manipulation and has been trained by a High Hunter since he awakened. As he is within one level of Mr. Walker, it is a legal blood challenge.”
Lord Cosgrave took a gulp of wine, and said, “So to sum up. My idiot son dragged my house into an assassination attempt on a new noble who has the eyes of the mage council following him, in addition to the protection of the crown. All right, we’ll just have to deal with it. The assassination attempt is completely legal, so we can’t stop it. Therefore, we need to prepare for repercussions from our new court mage and the crown itself.”
Ms. Chandler helpfully added, “Don’t forget Vera Salvatore.”
Lord Cosgrave’s shoulders slumped. “If Nero doesn’t kill Derek, I’m going to. Collect my daughter from wherever she is, we better be at the arena to mitigate whatever damage we can.”
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Nero was walking through the halls of the research center, mentally going over the three combat spells he learned. He found the principles of combat casting extremely interesting.
Absently, he used his psychic field to flex and release a little of the pressure from his essence shield, or ‘mage-armor’ as he called it. Arch-Mage Jennings said that Nero shouldn’t keep the shield up, as having it active drained his center. Nero didn’t notice any particular drain though. His center was hovering around 70%, even after some serious magic practice. His guess was that everyone else was just doing it wrong.
With his link still in his pocket, Nero mentally reached out to it. Connecting through his field was easy, and he didn’t understand why everyone didn’t do it. Sending a ping to Nick’s office door, he kept playing with his mage-armor. Receiving the signal, he walked in with a smile.
“Hey Nick, ready for lunch?” he said.
Nick was leaning against his desk as his two lab assistants were seated in comfy chairs taking notes. He looked up to Nero and said, “We can leave in a minute.”
Nero nodded and went to grab some cookies from the tray that Nick always seemed to have by the coffee.
Kendra sent Nero a ping without looking at him. Raising his eyebrows, Nero accepted the connection. “What’s up?” he said.
While she was listening to Nick go over some duties and assignments, she looked like she wasn’t paying attention to Nero at all.
Over the link, she said, “I wanted to thank you for your trust. Nick told me what you said, and I appreciate that trust. I won’t abuse it. If possible, I’d like to join the research team. I think I’d be able to help you on your path. It will be exciting and I think I could learn a lot.”
Nero was munching on a cookie, and staring at her while he poured himself some coffee. He thought it was kind of creepy how she could be talking to him, while looking like she wasn’t. Rather than think too much about it, he just said, “Sure. I don’t mind. Just tell Nick that you’re now part of team Nero. Don’t worry, I’ll get us some team robes or something.”
Right as he closed the connection, the doors to Nick’s office opened and in walked three very large guards. Nick stood up with a frown on his face, and he squared his shoulder as he demanded, “What can I do for you?”
The lead guard was a large woman with what looked like a bat on her hip. She said, “We’re here for Mr. Nero Walker. He’s been formally challenged in the arena. As it is a lawful assassination challenge, it falls under the accords.” Seeing Nick’s growing anger, she continued, “If you would like to submit a complaint, feel free to accompany us director. However, we won’t be stopped from taking him.”
Nero was in a great mood from his combat practice, and he continued to munch on his cookie. Wanting to head off any unpleasantness, he said, “Sure, I’ll go with you. Don’t worry Nick, it’s fine.”
Every head in the room snapped to him as his cheery tone was so unexpected.
Nick gave him a confused look and said, “You’re just willing to go with them? No questions asked?”
Nero took the last sip of his coffee and set the cup in the sink. Walking over to the guards, he spoke over his shoulder, “You thought the nobles would let a nobody like me join them without doing anything? You’re adorable, you know that?”
Waving goodbye to Kendra and David, Nick’s lab assistants, Nero maneuvered around the shoulders of the giant guards. “Are we going, or what? I’m missing lunch for this,” he said.
Exchanging confused glances with each other, the guards followed Nero out. Nick just stood there and watched the group leave with a stunned expression. ‘Vera’s going to go on a Gods be damned warpath,’he thought in horror.
Nick caught up with Nero and the guards as they were getting into a carriage. While Nick enjoyed the ride while sitting next to the guard leader, Nero was sandwiched between the other two. Nero did his best to make small talk about what the guards usually dealt with, and whether or not they liked their job. Overall, the ride was rather pleasant for Nero. He enjoyed being among the working class again. The longer he stayed in this world, the more he saw parallels to his old one.
People at the Center were like the activists. They had grand ideas, and believed in things. Nobles were like the rich assholes. Most people were probably like these guards. They just went about their day, and tried to avoid having to deal with annoying people. Nero’s compliant attitude caused them to treat him with respect and they answered all his questions with smiles and stories.
Eventually, they came to a teleport center. They had to go to a different gate for the arena. Of course, this caused Nero to be interested in jurisdictional questions. He asked where they usual ‘guarded’ or whatever it was called. It turned out that their squad was assigned to the Tower of Law. They were a special squad for high profile retrievals. Picking up Nero apparently required a fantasy S.W.A.T. team, and his pride was immeasurable.
As they finally arrived at the arena. Nero got out of the carriage to stare in wonder at the giant structure. It was bigger than a football stadium. Made of solid white stone, Nero thought the coliseum in Rome would be jealous of the arena’s splendor. Instead of columns, there were crystal pillars that glowed with essence and displayed the fights that were currently under way. There were people everywhere, walking in and out of giant archways with flags and banners waving all over the place.
Looking around, Nero saw people dressed in every manner of medieval theme he could think of. There were knights in full plate, walking alongside commoners and nobles. Carriages were everywhere, along with horses. The excitement in the air reminded Nero of the one time he went to a UFC match. He felt one of the guards put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to see him gesture with his head. Nero nodded, and followed.
Raising his voice a little to be heard over the crowd, Nero asked, “So what happens now?”
The guard next to him, who he had found out was named Bill, said, “We take you to the adjudicator, they should be near the sign-in podium. They’ll take you to the challenge room, fill out some paperwork, then you fight. I’ll be watching, so die well. Make the bastards bleed at least. Spit in their eye till the end.”
Nero looked up at the big guy. Bill was like a caricature of the stubborn bruiser. He would have fit in well in the Hollywood version of Boston. Nero smiled at him and said, “Will do big guy. Hey, what do I get if I win? You know, in addition to not dying.”
Bill looked confused. “I don’t know. There’s always a payout I think. Make sure you ask. You really think you have a chance?” he asked as he looked down at Nero with appraisal.
Nero’s grin widened. “Is there betting?” he asked.
Bill returned the smile and replied, “Sure is. It’s a formal challenge, so it will be shown on the arena banner too. The recording will be available over the link. If the odds are good, I’ll bet on you. Keep your chin up, and face it head on. My dad always said, ‘When your path is blocked, you can either go around and waste time, or go over whatever is in your way, it’s always your choice’.”
Nodding at the big lug, Nero looked around to appreciate the large archways, spectators, and vendors. He couldn’t help but get caught up in the moment.
The guards led Nero and Nick through a hallway off the main corridors. Finally being led into a large conference room, Nero was surprised to see so many people.
Looking around at some unfamiliar faces, he said with a smile, “OK. So who here wants me dead? Raise your hands high, I need to know who to kill after lunch.”
