Once everyone was suited up, they all squeezed onto the rover. Two of the guards, Guppy, and Little Guppy in the back, and Jacob and Thatch in the front, with the third guard as the driver.
An aperture opened up in the habitat wall and they drove through the hardlight membrane, entering out onto the expansive gray moon plains, the rugged tires throwing up a light trail of powdery soil behind them.
They did not have any particular destination in mind, but would simply pick a spot once they felt they were far enough away from Port Longing. Even with all the weight added by seven people, the guard had to drive carefully over bumps in the terrain to avoid upending the rover with the Moon’s weak gravity.
They saw one stray demon in the distance, but the driver slowed enough that his comrades were able to take aim and focus it down with a few bursts of automatic fire. They continued on, and there was no more trouble. Once they were perhaps ten kilometers from the colony, and it was only visible as a dusty roundish protrusion from the terrain in the very distance, they stopped the rover and got out on a section of nearly flat ground.
Guppy had his apprentice drawing up circles and symbols in the ground while he wandered around and muttered nonsense, making vague gestures in the air. His voice was breathy and tinny over the spacesuit radio comms.
Once Little Guppy was finished laying the foundation of the magic circle, Guppy steered him aside and inspected his work. Apparently satisfied, he began adding more advanced patterns onto it until it spread out like a delicate flower. Careful not to step on any of the lines, he danced back and forth, somehow appearing just as whimsical in the featureless gray spacesuit as his purple robe and old underwear getup.
“You’re making a ward, is that right?” Thatch asked, holding the Deady Bear case protectively in his arms.
“Mmhmm,” Guppy hummed in a singsong voice.
“Do you think it’ll hold?”
“Depends on how juicy your demon is.”
“Juicy?” Jacob asked.
“Demon?” asked one of the guards.
Guppy ignored the latter. “Yeah, juicy. How much of himself he’s recovered while in the soul trap. It would depend on the specifics of the trap itself, as well as the strength and resilience of the demon, both of which I have no way to gauge. However, considering his showing against Paragon, it’s safe to assume he will have recuperated rather than withered in there.”
“What does that mean for us?” Thatch asked.
Guppy shrugged. “It means there’s no way to know if the ward will hold him in.”
“Could you give us a rough percentage?”
“Hmm hmm hmm… Seventy percent, maybe?”
“That’s not great.”
“Well, that’s what the hero is here for, isn’t it? If he gets out, he’ll just have to beat him back in.”
“Right.”
“I mean, he’s an S-Rank, right?” Guppy turned towards Jacob and looked him up and down with dramatic head movements, as though he’d be able to glean anything of note through Jacob’s bulky suit.
“I survived the first time we fought him,” Jacob offered, hoping it wouldn’t spark any scrutiny. “I’ll be fine this time, too.”
“Good. Are we ready to get started?”
“Sorry, but what’s going on here?” one of the guards asked, shuffling uncomfortably. “We were told this had something to do with a magic item. This sounds like something else.”
“Shut up,” Jacob said. “All you need to do is stand around and look for incoming stray demons. We’ve got the rest handled. No need to get yourselves worked up over it.”
The guard was reluctant to accept that answer, but one of his colleagues shrugged, and he eventually relented. The three of them spread out in a wide triangle around the magic circle, facing outward and checking the flat horizon for potential threats.
Thatch unlocked the case with a long string of numbers on a keypad. He undid a pair of clasps with a satisfying hiss of escaping air, then handed it to Guppy, who went and placed it in the middle of the circle. He flipped the lid open, then retreated quickly outside.
The Deady Bear lay completely still inside the reinforced case. Akor-Goram had been kicking and spitting before. Jacob didn’t believe the fight had gone out of him for a second.
“The System was able to decipher part of the demonic language he uses by recording and studying his vocalizations,” Thatch said. “If he says anything coherent, we might be able to press him into giving us some useful information before we banish him.”
“Good,” Jacob replied.
Guppy and his apprentice walked around the circle chanting for a good ten minutes, then the mystic abruptly stopped. “Now. Deactivate the trap.”
Jacob wasn’t exactly sure how to operate the Relic, but it had responded to a plain verbal command last time. He cleared his throat. “All right, uh… Deady Bear, release.”
The Deady Bear jumped into the air like a piece of popcorn and bounced off some invisible barrier that ran along the inside of the magic circle. The bear shook as it fell to the ground, limbs flailing. It belched forth a pale, oozing mass that congealed and took shape as it rose into the air.
It assumed a roughly humanoid form, but thicker at the limbs and with three fingers on each hand. Its feet were hooves, and its face was blank except for two piercing black eyes, a pair of infinitely hungry voids.
Akor-Goram floated before them, his corporeal form restored. Guppy and his apprentice chanted faster, more feverishly. Their overlapping whispers became an almost maddening backdrop to the tense scene.
The demon thane did not struggle against his new prison. His gaze passed across all the humans present and finally settled on Thatch. To his credit, the director did not yield an inch to that stare.
[TRANSLATING FROM URGEK ABYSSAL…]
<
“Sure, I’ll make a deal,” Thatch said. “You start talking, and we’ll let you live until you stop saying things that are useful to us. Sound good?”
Akor-Goram did not have a mouth, but Jacob could feel his smile. <
“I assume you’re bargaining for your freedom here.”
<
“Not gonna happen. Set your bar a lot lower.”
Jacob wasn’t entirely sure how Akor-Goram could understand what Thatch was saying, but he didn’t appear to have any problem with English. He guessed that the demon was either interpreting Thatch’s intent directly from his mind, or… he had been listening to them just as much as they had listened to him.
<>
“What about my memories?” Jacob asked.
Akor-Goram swiveled lazily in the air to regard him. <
“What do you mean?”
<
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Jacob interpreted that to mean that he wouldn’t say anything else.
“Jacob, we’re not letting him out,” Thatch said firmly. “I hope you’re toying with him, and not actually considering it.”
“Jesus, Thatch, what do you take me for?” Jacob asked. “I just want to see how desperate he is.”
He wasn’t sure himself if that was a lie or not.
“Could you keep me from losing any more memories in the future?”
Akor-Goram’s psychic smile widened into a ravenous grin. <
“Jacob…” Thatch warned.
The mystics, apparently realizing their imminent danger, sped up even more, their chant reaching a fever pitch.
“And in return you want to be set free?”
<
“Ja—”
“Shut up!” Jacob said, pointing a finger at the director. “Just let me think.”
It was a good deal. If he could never harm a human again, even indirectly, that would mean all of his rage and hunger would be taken out on others. Maybe even the urgeks themselves, for their insolence of ordering him to his death.
“And this works like a binding vow, right? You have to abide by the deal?”
<
Thatch came at Jacob, and he batted the director away with ease, sending him falling lazily to the ground. The guards noticed the commotion but clearly weren’t sure what to do about it, looking to each other for guidance and each of them coming up short.
The terms were good.
He wouldn’t get his memories back, but he could at least keep himself at this level. If he didn’t have to worry about losing more of himself, he could be far more effective. He could die indiscriminately and not have to worry about it. His ability to keep Becca safe would shoot up drastically.
“Jacob, have you gone insane!? I don’t want to have to kill you!”
Jacob looked down as the director scrambled back to his feet, stumbling from how differently his body moved in low gravity.
“Killing me is not in your power, old man,” Jacob said. “You know that well.” Then he turned to Akor-Goram, his mind made up. “No deal.”
Rather than becoming angry, Akor-Goram laughed at that, a sound in their minds that had them clutching their heads. Like forks on porcelain. <>
Then he spoke no more. A minute later, Guppy concluded his chant, and the demon thane burst apart violently, reduced to a foul discharge that coated the inside of the invisible dome projected by the magic circle.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Thatch panted, hands on his knees. “Every fucking day with you, Jacob. When I die of a heart attack, know that it’s all your fault.”
“C’mon,” Jacob said. “You knew I wasn’t going to do it.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“Barely.”
“Fuck you, Jacob.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get it out of your system.”
[ASSIGNMENT COMPLETED: HANDLE WITH CARE]
[OBJECTIVE 1: ASSIST THEODORE THATCH, GUILD OFFICIAL, IN BANISHING THE SOUL OF AKOR-GORAM, HIGH INFERNAL] /// [CONFIRMED]
[REWARDS:]
3 000 000fl
Jacob checked his account to see if the reward had come through.
[TOTAL BALANCE:]
3 060 770fl
Nice.
I guess no taxes when there’s no one to pay taxes to. That’s a fun loophole.
*****
Akor-Goram was dead, utterly and completely. No return to the hell he came from, and no possibility of resurrection. At least, that was Guppy’s reading of the situation, and Jacob thought it sounded like a sensible one.
After retrieving his Deady Bear, they returned with the poor rattled guards to Port Longing. They were still removing their spacesuits when they caught onto the commotion.
Weiss was cleaning house. His guards were dragging people into the street and shooting them point-blank, no last words. Anyone with ties to the Lich Kids, presumably. Now that the balance of power had swung firmly in his favor, he was not wasting any time. Though gruesome, Jacob could only admire the governor’s pitiless nature. If he ever returned to the Moon, he could make sure to sit down and have drinks with the man.
Guppy gave Jacob a small vial of crushed bark that he claimed ‘might help’ Fenris and departed with his apprentice. Their work complete, Jacob and Thatch returned to the Quickdraw. It was time to leave, but Jacob had an alternate destination in mind before they headed to Mars.
Except they were a man down. When they came in, Danger told them in a sheepish and rather roundabout way that Tarim was missing. He said he’d hoped the boy was just out for some personal errand, but that it had been some time now since they’d found his cabin empty.
Thatch was distressed by this, but Jacob was not. He had a pretty good idea of where the kid had headed, and he set out immediately to bring him back.
You stupid brat. Every time I think you’ve learned something, you impress me with a fascinating new level of stupidity.
Jacob blazed across rooftops, leaping in great bounds that took him across several buildings at a time. Now that he’d gotten used to it, he was certain he would miss the Moon’s gravity. It was still low on Mars, but not quite like this. Even without Dashing or really applying himself, he was moving with the explosive jumping prowess of a grasshopper.
Most of the slaughter had already been wrapped up, dusty streets running red. As the last few gunshots echoed out in the distance and the guards returned to their barracks, there was no one outside other than the dead.
He made his way to the apartment building of Clara Friedman. Finding her door unlocked, he let himself in. Following the sounds of muffled vomiting through the filthy apartment, he found the teen in her bathroom, hunched over her toilet bowl.
And sure enough, there he was on the floor next to Clara, propping her up while rubbing her back.
Tarim looked up when Jacob came into the doorway. There was only a hint of guilt in his defiant glare. “She needs help,” he said firmly. “We’re taking her with us.”
Jacob was ready with an equally firm refusal, but it died in his throat. Strangled by the pale hands of a boy whose death didn’t matter.
“Only if she agrees to it,” Jacob forced out after a long hesitation.
“Really?” Tarim was smiling now. “She already said yes. She just needed some time.”
“Uh huh…” Clara groaned, voice echoing off the toilet bowl.
Jacob pointed at Tarim with his whole hand. “Don’t think I don’t know what this is.”
“What is it?”
“This is you thinking with your pubescent monkey brain.”
“Or maybe I just have a heart.”
“Mmhmm. I’m sure that’s it.”
“But she can come?”
Jacob half-turned to leave, a hand on the doorframe. “Sure. If you get her to the ship on your own.”
Tarim nodded gravely. “Understood.”
“We’re leaving in an hour. If you’re not there by then, we’re leaving without you.”
*****
It took Tarim 74 minutes to make it to the Quickdraw, supporting nearly the full weight of the strung-out girl hanging onto his shoulder, while carrying her luggage with his free hand. Jacob stood on the ship’s ramp, hands on hips, watching them plod their way across the landing pad. Some part of him suspected that Tarim had dragged it out on purpose to call Jacob’s bluff.
At least he made sure the engines were warmed up and rumbling to get the kid sweating a bit.
Once Tarim got Clara on board, he insisted on a bit of extra time to get her fit to fly. Jacob gave him fifteen minutes. That turned into forty.
When they finally took off, their destination was Earth, not Mars. Jacob had to see a thune about a debt. Of course, he hadn’t told the pilot that, who was extremely confused by his new orders. But Thatch okayed it as well, so he didn’t have much choice other than to do as he was told.
When it came to the sleeping arrangements, since all the cabins were already full, someone would need to share. Not surprisingly, Tarim volunteered to have Clara stay in his cabin. He got what he wanted, except Jacob sent him to bunk up with Fenris. He mostly took it in stride. He likely hadn’t expected to get away with it anyway, mostly just testing how far he could push his luck.
Jacob knew straight away it was going to be a problem. It wasn’t hard to spot puppy love when he saw it. The worst kind, too. She was a fair bit older than him, and she was an absolute mess. Of course, none of that mattered to Tarim. It would probably take him getting burned a few times before he learned that lesson.
With that in mind, Jacob figured he might as well let it play out. Of course he did warn the boy, but was unsurprisingly brushed off.
They landed in the ruins of Arcadia, on the plot of barren earth that had once been the Lodge. Jacob left to find Cullyn’s while Thatch got to go inside the Lodge and check on his people.
As expected, Earth gravity was annoyingly limiting as he sped across the city. Four stray demons crossed his path and slowed him by about a minute collectively.
With no set location to go for to find Cullyn’s, he just went from rooftop to rooftop and used his second sight to check for irregularities. His sense was dulled by the cold stillness of the city, lacking in fresh mortality aside from the few victims he had just fed it, but it was better than nothing.
It wasn’t long before Jacob spotted the establishment, almost as though the thune knew he was looking. Jumping down to street level and stepping into the shop, he found Cullyn watching TV as usual. This time, he wore a white button-up shirt so large it looked like a dress, long sleeves hanging down over his hands.
“Jacob Sorenson, to what do I owe this pleasure?” the thune asked.
Jacob approached the counter. “I’m here to pay off my debt.”
“Ah, excellent. I’m glad to hear it. Once we have seen to that, you have a visitor in the back.” He pointed to a door behind him that read ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’.
“Your employer?”
Cullyn nodded. “Yes, Mr. Ender would like to have a word with you.”
“Very well.”
I guess he’s probably not a fan of me clearing this debt. Fine by me.
Let’s see what the fuck he wants.