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Nero Walker, Book 2 Ch.1 (33)
🕑 Added 2023-12-02 23:30:00 +0000 UTCCity Lord Heleema Cosgrave had spent the past few hours calming down nobles, and trying to come to terms with the atypical results of the Noble War. Though the war had started early this morning, it was finished before the sun even broke the horizon. The traitors were dead, and a noble house was ended. The Populators were nothing if not efficient.
She had seen them off after they delivered former Lord Dorchen’s body. In total, they weren’t even in the city for 30 hours. The saying was true, ‘Where the Populators tread, the dead weight is burned so that new growth can flourish’.
Walking into her office, she saw her children rise to greet her with a shallow bow. Both of them, Master Derek and Mistress Deidre, had been caught up in last night’s events at the Center. She knew that they had visited a healer, and wasn’t surprised to see them in fresh formal robes.
As she sat down in her chair, her children remained standing. The fact that she had asked to see them here, in the office of the city lord, had implications that they were unable to ignore. They knew she was not pleased.
Placing her hands in her lap, she said, “Sit down, both of you.”
As they took their seats in front of her desk, she continued, “We haven’t had a chance to speak much since you were brought back from the Gate 7 guard station. I have, however, had a chance to read the reports you submitted concerning your actions during the Noble War. As a result, I have some questions.”
Deidre was the first to speak, “We know that we should have taken your warning to heart. We made a mistake staying at the dorms. We didn’t think that someone would actually assault a Center. It was madness.”
Derek nodded in agreement with his sister. “It WAS madness,” he added.
Lord Cosgrave pursed her lips, and frowned. Despite her best efforts, her children were spoiled. They never placed higher than the 80thpercentile in the yearly Games, and only Deidre showed a particular talent in magic. Nodding to herself, she decided that it was time for her to have her consorts give her another heir.
Deidre and Derek, however, thought she was agreeing with them.
Noticing this, she said, “It was not madness. It was a brilliant strategic move. Had it succeeded, Dorchen would have had you both for use as a bargaining chip. If his plan at the keep had succeeded as well, he would have won the seat of the City Lord with a force that numbered less than 1200. That has NEVER been done. If we hadn’t had sufficient warning, and if you hadn’t been freed, we’d have died in shame. Our branch houses would have distanced themselves from us by changing their name, and the 600 years we controlled Dorchester would be forgotten. Do you comprehend the magnitude of what we avoided?”
The Cosgrave heirs paled as they heard their mother’s analysis. Both sat in silence, too embarrassed to speak.
Sniffing with disdain, Lord Cosgrave continued, “While going over the events of the last few days, there is one factor that changed the course of Dorchester. One young man that realized what was happening, predicted the angle of attack, and saved the both of you while earning first place on the Noble War leader board. Do you know the last time a war of this category was won by an independent? I asked, and Champion Charity agreed to look it up because she was curious. The answer is never. Granted this Noble War was a confluence of very rare events, but when analyzed, all of those events lead back to Nero Walker.”
Derek couldn’t hold back his opinion, “We saw him lying on the floor, barely alive and covered in blood. I believe the Populators must have made a mistake, there is no way he is responsible for what we saw at the Center.”
Raising her eyebrow, she waved her hand and a hologram appeared on her right. 10’ tall, and 15’ wide, it covered a good portion of the wall. The hologram showed the memory of Champion Memory, the Populator who had witnessed Nero’s fights. The City-Lord and her children watched as Nero fought with never before seen environmental spells. They could see the determination in his eyes as he spit out his last words with venom before succumbing to center over-use and passing out. With another wave of her hand, Lord Cosgrave dismissed the hologram.
Deidre and Derek sat there with their mouths open in astonishment. They hadn’t known that the Populator witnessed the fight first hand, and offered a recording to the sitting City Lord. So much about what they just saw was unprecedented.
Their attention snapped to their mother as her hand slammed down on the table.
With gritted teeth, she addressed her children, “I know how both of you think. You will see this boy as a challenge to what you ‘believe’ is your right. Deidre, you will want to demand his secrets of magic. Derek, you will want to put him in his place. Both of you will try to use your position as heirs of a victorious House Cosgrave to intimidate him and pressure the heirs of the court to aid you in your politicking.”
The heirs regained their composure and exchanged looks as she talked. They could both see that as a possibility for their sibling, but they believed their mother was wrong in how she viewed them.
Lord Cosgrave very rarely raised her voice, and displays of anger were even rarer. So when she shouted, “Both of you will look at me when I’m talking to you.” Their eyes snapped to hers and they wilted in their chairs.
Lord Heleema Cosgrave controlled her tone, and spoke as if she was passing judgment, “You both will make every attempt to befriend this young man. He has earned the title of ‘new noble’, which means that any house that acts against him will be sanctioned by the crown. For the next 100 years, his house is untouchable. More than that, you need to understand how he he thinks.”
She looked at her children, and made sure they were paying attention. She continued, “He is essentially 5 days old, he didn’t know what the accords were. He didn’t know what being an independent meant in a Noble War. Champion Charity asked him why he got involved. I want you both to etch his response into your mind.”
Pausing once again, she raised her hand, and a hologram showed Nero sitting in a chair. He started talking in a quiet, slow voice, “I didn’t know 90% of what you just said. Also, even after hearing it, I only understand about 60% of it. All I know is that last night, my home was invaded. People came in and rounded us up. They took two people, one of them had the crap kicked out himand the other was a young woman that the man in charge smacked around. That shit doesn’t happen when I’m around. No one seemed to want to get involved, like it wasn’t their problem. As for me, I didn’t like the idea of letting invaders take what they wanted without anyone fighting back. So I fought back. I’m sorry those men died, but they made the choice to enter into a fightthat put us on opposite sides. Nobody comes into MY house and starts shit. They wanted a war, so I gave them one.” Nero finished with a growl.
With a wave of her hand, Lord Cosgrave dismissed the hologram and returned her attention to her children. She was pleased to see that they were both deep in thought.
“What do you think he would do to someone who placed themselves as his opponent? Think it through. What is a man like that capable of? He is 14, awakened only 5 days ago, and apparently already over level 5. How will your games cause him to react?”
The room sat in silence as the siblings frowned in thought. Deirdre spoke quietly, “A man like that doesn’t lose. He will keep coming until he wins the game. He doesn’t have opponents, he has targets. And we DO NOT want to be that man’s targets.”
Lord Cosgrave turned to her son, the one she was really worried about. Looking at his eyes, she waited for him to speak.
“I am having trouble seeing what you both seem to see when you look at him. To me, he is just a lucky boy with more balls than sense,” he said while attempting to choose his words carefully.
Lord Cosgrave’s shoulders sank, and she leaned back in her chair. Smirking with disappointment at herson, she said, “You’ll be dead by the end of the month with that attitude. Either you will anger him enough to act, or you will do something stupid which will result inme havingto kill you to avoid sanctions.”
It really was past time that she worked on getting some new heirs. She made a mental note in her link to schedule a meeting with her consorts. In fact, that Captain Angelton was a good looking man. She had better start a list.
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Nero entered the Center while rubbing his belly. Even though he had some food at the army compound, he decided that he had earned himself some cake or cake-equivalent. After all, he did just find out that he was going to be a noble.
Walking through the entryway, Nero noticed crews rebuilding the office he had blown up the night before. ‘They got on that fast,’ he thought.
He joined the group of people surrounding the destroyed window, and looked into the remains of the office. He could see the what was left of the door, and what could charitably called a wall.
The fight he had with the mercenaries replayed in his head. He relived his panic while hiding behind the desk, and how magic didn’t work on people the way he thought it would. It really was just dumb luck that he survived. ‘I really need to learn how to fight,’he thought as he heard the people around him talking.
There were associates standing around, discussing the damage. Some were debating the mechanics of the spell used to make such an explosion, others were examining the essence residue. Not a single one of them was complaining about the damage, or how the violence was unacceptable. In fact, most people seemed to look at the damage in a positive light. Like the destruction proved the utility of the spell. Even though back home, people would have been ‘outraged’ at the savagery of their fellow man, here they celebrated the victor’s brutal handiwork.
More than anything Nero had encountered so far, the people’s reaction to the evidence of his life and death struggle brought home how different this world was from the world he used to live in.
The occasional pings from Nick and his wife were starting to get annoying, so Nero decided to move on. As they were more or less his caretakers in this new world, he should probably ping them back. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a long conversation, as he had that noble party to get to, and some people to screw with.
Continuing his walk to the cafeteria, he debated whether he should address his missed pings, or just ping the Salvatores himself. He opted to open a connection to Mrs. Salvatore, as keeping her waiting just seemed dumber than ignoring Nick.
As soon his link connected, Mrs. Salvatore’s psyche hit Nero like a water balloon filled with paint. Nero felt her anger cling to his mind, she was pissed.
“Where have you been? You’ve had Nick climbing the walls with worry, he said that you’ve gotten into some trouble with the nobles and that you need clothes,” she said. Her tone reminded him of a mother probing for information, waiting for the chance to pounce on any perceived weakness.
Instead of getting into it, Nero said, “Before anything else, please tell me if any of your messages need to be read. I have a massive backlog of pings, and I need to clear them out. I have orders to ‘read my pings’ from Captain Angelton.”
With a mental sigh, she replied, “I don’t know what you still haven’t addressed in your link, you’ll have to deal with that yourself. Mr. Walker, please tell me what’s going on, and I’ll do my best to help you deal with it. I understand that you’ve only been in this world for 5 days, and helping people on their path is quite literally my job.”
“Fine, but can you join Nick into our ping from wherever he is, I don’t want to tell this story twice,”he said.
While waiting for Mrs. Salvatore to get Nick into their ping, Nero walked into the dining hall. As he was waiting in line, he sensed Mrs. Salvatore return to the ping alongside a very agitated Nick.
Nick said, “Nero, I got some robes that should work for you. We don’t have time to get you a haircut or anything, but we’ll make do. What time are you being called to court?”
Nero was surprised at Nick’s preparations, and said, “You got me robes already? You just believed what I told you?”
“Hell no,” Nick replied. “I pinged Captain Angelton. He let me know the situation. As I’m currently your Center advisor, it falls to me to help you on your path. And it seems your path is leading you to the inner ring. Are you at your dorm room?” he asked.
Mrs. Salvatore interjected herself into the conversation, and said, “Can someone please just tell me what’s going on?”
Nick replied, “Nero, let me explain. You’ll just confuse her.”
Nero just nodded as he sat down to enjoy his cake. It was actually some kind of multi-layer pastry. The dining hall even had milk. He said to the pair, “Explain away.”
“Last night, Nero chose to involve himself in the Noble War. He ignored the accords, and fought as an independent. The details are less important than the results. It seems that he fought five men in combat, including the leader of the mercenary force that assaulted the center. Nero killed all five, and aided in the liberation of the captured Cosgrave heirs. Due to the fact that his battles were the only actual combat that occurred during the entire war, he took the highest place in the rankings. If you don’t realize the implications of that, don’t worry, I had to have them explained to me as well.
“According to Captain Angelton, since this battle resulted in the elimination of House Dorchen, it puts this Noble War into one of the higher award categories. When the points were tallied, it resulted in some serious consequences for Nero,” said Nick.
“What kind of consequences,” she asked.
Nero smiled as he drank his milk. “I’m going to be a noble. I’ve got to attend a dinner or something. The captain is picking me up in like an hour. You guys wanna come? I’m guessing the food will be good,” he said.
“Hence, Nero needed some better clothes. We’ll also have to revisit his lesson plan, and schedule. All that work with the previous syllabus… what a waste,” said Nick bitterly.
Nero replied, “Don’t worry old man, I’ll still keep up with my part in the deal. We’ll just have to amend the contract. We haven’t signed anything yet anyway.”
“Nick, I’ll get you a change of robes and meet you at Nero’s dorm. We’ll not let that nest of vipers at Nero without representation. Bring his robes and meet me there,” she said and cut her connection.
Left with Nick, Nero said, “She’s not a big fan of nobles, huh?”
“The Salvatore’s are a noble family. Technically, I’m a noble. However, I gave up the game and am an independent branch house. I just never completed the noble rights to found my own house. My family and Vera don’t get along. She likes to focus on helping people with their path through the Center. Where my family tends to focus on advancing societies path from a larger perspective; through business,” Nick replied.
Nero listened to the gossip as he bussed his dishes.
Heading back to his dorm, he said, “I’m looking forward to seeing her give the side-eye to everyone when we get there. She’s an amazing woman Nick. Anyway, when are you getting here? I still gotta take a shower, so I’ll just leave the door unlocked. Wait, can I leave the door unlocked?”
Nick replied, “You can change your entry authorizations through your room’s station. I’ll be there soon, and I’ll walk you through how to tie your robes. For once you might actually look like you know how to dress yourself.”
Offended, Nero said, “Hey, I followed the little diagram thing that was in the cabinet. Anyway, I’m almost there. The door will be unlocked, just come on in. It’s room 3.18 if you don’t remember.”
“3.18. Understood,” Nick replied and cut the connection.
Nero arrived at his room, changed the setting to allow Nick and Mrs. Salvatore to temporarily enter, and tossed his satchel on the desk. Heading to the shower, he thought, ‘So it looks like I’m going to the ball. I wonder if I’ll meet my fated enemy. Maybe some noble heir will be all offended at my being raised to nobility, and I’ll have to defend my honor. I bet I’ll be face-slapping some brats in no time.”
