The Forerunner: A GameLit Progression Fantasy, page 23
Visiting the home reminded Zed that he and Dan needed to come up with a way to do knowledge transfers from Iris to the Naïlos. A way that didn’t involve revealing Iris or having them spend all their time writing things down.
As he walked back home Zed asked, ‘Iris, do you have any ideas on how we can efficiently pass information from you to the Naïlos and others?’
‘I could create memory crystals if you provide me with the raw materials and allocate more mana to me.’
‘What materials do you need, and how much mana?’
‘The bulk of it is carbon or silicon. Charcoal or decent quality sand would do, along with small amounts of gold. As for the mana, I will need 50 units.’
‘That’s a lot of mana. Are you sure you aren’t gradually trying to take over the world, and that this isn’t just an excuse to build up your power base?’
‘I thought I made it very clear, Zed, that the end-state of this world was always going to be resting under my figurative boot.’
‘And then afterwards every other world too?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Alright, as long as we’re all on the same page.’
Instead of returning straight home Zed bought bags of charcoal. Once they were home he gave Iris the additional mana she needed, and asked her to make as many memory crystals with farming knowledge as she could by 11:30.
**
When he got to the Naïlos, a servant answered the door and went to get Laurel. She smiled at him in a light green dress that made her look enchanting. She tended to be more of a “leather and daggers” girl, so seeing her this way was a little different for him. He decided he liked it. A lot.
“I’ll assume that your stunned look means that you like it," Laurel said with a smile.
Zed got it together, smiled, and said, “You assume correctly. You look amazing.”
She saw the bag in his hand and said in a slightly mock-feminine voice, “For me? Why, you shouldn’t have!”
“Good, because I didn’t. They’re for your mom.”
“Hmph. Two gifts for her and none for me. I’m beginning to think that you trifle with my affections, sirrah, and have designs towards my mother.”
“Well maybe if you would give me a hint, once in a while, about what you would like…”
“If you loved me and knew me you would know.”
“Ugh.”
Laurel laughed and took the bag from his hand. “I’ll give this to mom and come right back." She looked in the bag and asked, “What are they?”
“Memory crystals with farming information.”
Laurel’s eyebrows rose, and she quickly dashed off with the bag.
A couple of minutes later she came back.
“Everything good?”
“Oh yes. When I told her what it was she was ecstatic. I think if it wouldn’t be embarrassing for us she would order me to propose to you," she laughed.
“And would you?" he asked with a grin.
“A gentleman would not ask such a question.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not one then.”
“Hmph." She was in the middle of picking up a picnic basket from the dining room table, but then set it back down. “Apparently I was invited under false pretenses then. Wilmore said a gentleman caller came this morning to invite me on a picnic, but apparently that wasn’t you.”
“Alright, alright, you win," he said with a laugh while grabbing her waist.
She smiled and picked the basket back up.
He looked at the basket and said, “Oh, good idea. I didn’t even think about taking a basket ourselves.”
Laurel rolled her eyes and said, “Men.”
**
The four of them had a good time at the picnic. Laurel and Annabelle had met before, both being members of the upper echelons of society. Fortunately there wasn’t any bad blood between them.
Zed enjoyed talking and eating but started to get restless, so he decided to be a little mischievous. He lay down on the blanket, face up, with his head in Laurel’s lap. She rolled her eyes, but humored him by caressing his hair and feeding him the occasional grape.
“You take very good care of your beau, Laurel,” laughed Annabelle.
“Yes, and then he ignores me for days and weeks and only brings gifts to my mom.”
“Surely you wouldn’t treat beautiful Laurel that way, Zed?”
“I’m afraid it’s true. I’m what they would call back home a ‘bad beau’.”
Dan snorted with laughter.
‘I’m not sure making the one guy here the target audience of your joke is ideal, Zed.’
‘I take ‘em where I can get ‘em.’
“I suppose it’s true what they say, Laurel. All the good men are already taken, so we have to make do with what we can get," Annabelle said.
“Hey!" Dan laughed. “I give you gifts!”
“As a matter of fact, I do have a gift for Laurel," Zed said as he stood up.
“You do?" said Laurel, feigning looking around. “Well, it can’t be a very large gift.”
Zed ignored the gibe and started speaking.
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.[1]”
His three companions looked stunned, as if they couldn’t believe what they had just heard.
‘Plagiarist,’ Iris chided.
‘Hush.’
Dan and Annabelle recovered before Laurel did. Dan didn’t know what to say. Annabelle did.
“You’ve never given me a gift like that," she said to Dan.
“Dude, not cool, Zed," Dan said.
Laurel finally picked her jaw up off the floor. “I… don’t even know what to say. That was beautiful, Zed. Could you write it down for me?”
“Of course.”
Grinning like the Cheshire Cat, Zed lay back down, put his head in Laurel’s lap, and closed his eyes. Sometimes life was good.
Chapter 30
After escorting Laurel back to her place, Zed went home to continue his mental enhancement upgrades. He felt a little guilty about deceiving Laurel about the poem, but enjoyed the effects enough—she was very sweet to him on the way home—that he decided he would get over it.
Once he returned home he went into the courtyard, got into a comfortable position, closed his eyes, and examined the mental enhancement mana flow. Everything looked good. He had already decided to follow the same process as before—adding mana at a single point and stopping when it completed the loop—but to be a little more ambitious with how much mana he added. He figured increasing the flow by 25% should be safe.
‘And if it isn’t, well, hopefully the regeneration will save me.’
He went to the heart of the flow again and started adding the mana to the existing stream, letting it wind its way through the entire cycle. The larger mana addition felt a little uncomfortable, like it was stretching his brain’s limits a bit, but manageable. It became increasing uncomfortable, even painful, as the increased mana filled more of the channels.
‘Oh, crap. If it keeps going like this I’m in trouble.’
He seriously considered stopping, but didn’t know what would happen if he did. He decided to plow through and hope for the best. He started meditating in the hopes that it would help him bear under the strain. It helped. The one saving grace of this mess was that while he was increasingly on the edge of losing control, his mind had more power than ever before, so splitting off a third focus of attention to meditate was doable.
The hours passed by, with his muscles cramping from the tension and pain that his body didn’t know what to do with. He checked how far the flow had progressed: 80%.
‘Thank goodness. Nearing the home stretch.’
With that thought, he heard a low voice.
“Well, what do we have here? I was just going to leave a message for you, but I could kill you right now instead, couldn’t I?”
Knowing that the increased mana flow wasn’t going to complete the loop anytime soon, Zed snapped his eyes open. It was nighttime, and he saw the outline of a slender man in a cloak and mask stepping out from behind one of the trees in the courtyard. His body type and voice made it clear that he was an álfar.
“What… do you… want?" Zed rasped.
“Money. Your money, to be specific. Some of us don’t like you. Actually, a lot of us don’t like you, because you don’t seem to know your place. So we’re going to teach you.”
He crouched down near Zed, and whispered in his ear. “We have your girlfriend. If you ever want to see her again, you’re going to lose to challenger #93 in that little stunt contest of yours. If you fall before challenger #93, or don’t lose to him? We won’t do anything to you. We’ll just have some fun with her… and then give her back to you in little pieces, with a little bit of us still on her.”
“If you do what we say, we’ll give her back to you whole, and untouched. Probably." The man laughed while Zed raged. If he wasn’t sure that he would have a brain aneurysm if he stopped controlling the mana flow, he would have gotten up and ripped the guy’s throat out—after finding out who sent him. He wanted to do it so badly, but he would fall over dead the moment he lost control.
Instead he used his third consciousness—the one that had been meditating—to reach a hand out and grab the man’s cloak while he whispered, “I’m… going… to kill… you.”
While the words were heartfelt, Zed’s primary focus was on his hand holding the álfar’s cloak. He demanded that the mana in his hand expel itself into the air through his palm. In his current circumstances there was no way he would be able to relax enough to open up his mana channels to allow the mana to pass through freely, but that was okay. The whole point was to tear his flesh.
The pressure built up on his palm, as if an alien was trying to burst out of his hand. It was sweet agony when the flesh tore and blood seeped into the cloak. Agony for the wound, sweet because the pressure was gone. And because he knew he would find this asshole.
Zed was helpless right now, but he wouldn’t be in a few hours. As long as he could hold on, he would track the man with Brutus’ help and get Laurel back.
‘I’m sorry, Laurel.’
“Pathetic. Is that all you can do? A weak threat like that?" He stood up, walked away a few steps, turned back and said, “Remember, challenger #93." He then ran to the wall, climbed up it, and left the premises.
The rage and fear were all-encompassing, but he forced his emotions to bury themselves for now. Later, he would give them free rein.
**
The next few hours were hell, both physically and mentally. Oddly, though, the rage he felt at the kidnappers gave him the strength he needed to see the mental enhancement upgrade through. When it was done he stood up, shaking, weak, and soaked with sweat.
He stumbled to Dan’s room and pounded at the door. Dan opened it, bleary eyed. “What’s wrong, Zed?”
“I need your help. Someone’s taken Laurel.”
That woke Dan up. “I’ll get dressed, he said.”
“Meet me at the Naïlos.”
“Okay!" he heard from the depths of Dan’s room.
**
By the time Zed got to the Naïlos he was in much better condition. He pounded on the door pretty hard.
A servant answered the door and asked, “Master Zed, what is it?"
“Is Laurel here?”
“I imagine so, young master, but this is hardly…”
“IS LAUREL HERE?" he roared.
“I… I… don’t know, sir…," he stammered.
“Then find her! Now! And get Lady Naïlo!”
Zed thought about following the servant into the house, but decided that he had caused enough of a ruckus. Instead, he started pulling pieces of his armor out of the ring’s inventory and putting them on. Before long Lady Naïlo came out in her robe.
“Where is Laurel, Zed?" she asked, with a hint of menace.
“I don’t know, but I can find out if you get me a tracking dog. Can you?”
“Yes. Give me half an hour. And come in.”
She swept into the house and started shouting orders. Zed walked into the foyer and resumed putting on his armor, commandeering a servant when required. About the time that he finished with the armor, Dan showed up, also in his armor.
“What’s going on, Zed?”
“Someone’s kidnapped Laurel. They’ve threatened to kill her if I don’t throw a match in the upcoming gauntlet challenge." He didn’t bother to communicate the rest of the threat, mostly because it enraged him too much.
“Damn! I’m so sorry, Zed. What are we going to do?”
“I left some of my blood on the guy’s cloak. We’re going to track them, find out who’s idea this was, and then kill them.”
Dan nodded and said, “Right.”
As it looked like they were still going to have to wait some time, Zed looked at his status to distract himself from the anger and fear.
Logically he knew he should be pleased with the changes, but they gave him no pleasure. All he could think about was Laurel, and how scared she must be.
After what felt like hours, Lady Naïlo had gathered the hunting party: two tracking dogs with their master, and 6 guards with swords. She was also dressed for a fight.
He nodded to her and said, “We need a clean piece of cloth with as little scent as possible, and then let’s go to my house.”
“Why your house?" she asked, even as she was moving to get the cloth.
“I’ll explain on the way.”
While jogging towards his house, Zed cut the same hand he used to put blood on the messenger’s cloak and wiped the blood with the clean cloth. He then gave it to the dogs’ master.
“We need the hounds to track this scent. It’s on the cloak of an álfar.”
The dogs’ master nodded. When they got to the house, he let the dogs get a good smell.
“He left the house somewhere around here," Zed said, pointing at the location of the outside wall that was opposite the location on the inside where the messenger climbed up to the roof. The dogs actively moved around, sniffing for the smell of Zed’s blood. Before long they got a hit. They perked up and started following an invisible trail.
“They found something," the dogs’ master said.
‘Thank you, Lord,' Zed thought. He put on his gauntlet and helmet in preparation for the moment when he would need them. Hopefully that would be soon. He also took the time to activate his Silence ability to avoid tipping off the kidnappers and distracting the dogs. It probably didn’t help, because the group was still plenty noisy. But he felt like he had to do something.
After traveling through the city for about a mile, they came to the gate of a mansion. The dogs started barking wildly.
‘Damn it.’
Zed had intended to carefully scout out the place and hit them surgically to avoid danger to Laurel, but stealth was clearly out the window. It was time to move. Every second counted.
Zed maxed out his physical enhancements and leaped over the fence. While he was in the air he shifted his mass to “inertial” and away from “gravitational," making him both light and prone to keep moving in the same direction. He shot up in an almost straight line. When he had crossed the fence, he shifted his mass back and dropped to the ground while pulling out his spear. He turned on his night vision and super speed while rushing to the front door of the mansion.
Zed kicked the front door and, as if he was in a fight, switched from speed to inertia at the last moment, causing the door to be blasted off of its hinges. Once inside Zed added infrared vision to his night vision, something he had been working on with limited success. With his improved mental capacities it went far more smoothly this time, his split attention running the abilities seamlessly and juxtaposing the resulting images.
He searched the house methodically but quickly. Dan and the others rushed into the house and started looking as well.
Zed saw a guard staggering near the front door. He was either drunk or shaking off the last remnants of sleep. Zed was about to take him out with a spear thrust to the head, but demurred and speared him in the thigh instead. He needed live prisoners to interrogate and, if this was a mistake, it would be easier to make amends if their people were injured rather than dead.
