Fiona and I spent a week practicing and got to a point where I could endure her whole form within me for a minute. I really hoped that was enough time.
She had been busy as well, managing to identify four of the spies. The other two were much better at remaining hidden. I wanted to catch all six but I didn’t think we had the time. Martin had received a message from the Marshall, informing him that a Lord Vik’t had paid a personal visit to Houston.
It only helped confirm that Houston had allied itself with the Enchanters Guild. I knew it would only be a matter of time – if he hadn’t already – until Rosewill told the Lord about me. With that came two possibilities that I could see. One they would try and tie me to their organization or they would try and get rid of me. I had heard plenty of stories in the Bazaar about how the Guild conducted business and had no doubt they would do the same to me. That had been my driving force for erecting the wall and the forcefield.
But that was also not an immediate concern. Rosewill, the slimy asshat that he was, didn’t know my current location. Even when they did figure it out we were a hard target to hit. The mountains on the west cut off any attack from that side. The ocean to the south made an attack unlikely due to the ocean monsters and the fact that Lord Vik’t would have to cross the large desert to even get to the ocean. That left an overland attack from either the north or east. The north was dominated by the elementals, and while not unbeatable, they continuously respawned. That left the east as the only real approach by land. And we had the steep plateau to discourage most attackers.
It was always a possibility that the Guild had flying ships, making all my assumptions useless but even then we had the shield that covered the entire city. But this was all only future possibilities. Before war broke out between me and the Guild, I wanted to rid the area of any of the Stygian Order spies. I had ideas for dealing with the guild but in order to implement them, I needed free reign to move about unmolested.
***
The radio crackled to life with two clicks before going silent. I breathed in and summoned my helmet from my ring.
“You ready for this?” I asked Fiona.
“Like I have a choice, can’t let you go off by yourself and die like a fool.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I grumbled.
“You’re welcome,” she smiled back, getting as close to me as she could.
She would only have a few seconds to enter my body before the now floating poles would begin to spin and the teleport activated.
I clutched Dominion and Destruction in my main hand and a fist-sized orb of mithril and runes in my other hand. It was another new invention, required to enact my vengeance on the Stygian Order.
I gave her a nod and she clicked the button on the radio. “Go.”
She threw the radio off to the side and I felt the cold of death soak into my body as her form merged inside my own. Now we had to wait and hope the spies fell for my trap.
***
Oslo watched wearily from his position. He had been on edge all week, some sense telling him that something was off but he couldn’t place a finger on what. He didn’t think he had been spotted, his job wasn’t to keep an eye on Fuller, so he blended it much easier with the populace than some of the others. He was currently dressed as an older Hispanic woman that tended a small fruit cart. Hidden by his headscarf was a small radio transceiver that he used to keep tabs on the local forces. Since they had gone back to using old two-way radios it was easy to intercept their communications.
When Oslo heard the two clicks he froze for a second, glancing around. Then less than a minute later he heard the single word reply and a group of city guards rushed out from around a distant building and forced their way inside. He knew one of his accomplices was within that building and muttered a silent curse. The people milling through the market all turned toward the commotion.
Oslo cursed knowing that Edgar was on the third floor and was a primary lookout for keeping tabs on Fuller. He almost breathed a sigh of relief though, not seeing any soldiers coming toward him before his sixth sense warned him of danger.
He tried to throw himself to the side but was tackled to the ground by a humanoid cat. Oslo knew the jig was up and activated his escape ability, blurring out and reappearing ten feet away as he began to run.
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“Douglas, I’m burned, get me out!” Oslo yelled as he was forced to activate another skill to avoid the persistent grimalkin. A moment later he ran through an open portal, watching it flare out behind him, cutting his pursuer off. Oslo spotted four of the other scouts that had been in Saint June. So either the last one had been captured, died, or was able to avoid detection.
“What happened?” Stone asked, hurrying toward the arrival chamber. Oslo watched him skid to a halt though as a popping noise sounded behind him.
Oslo turned to see a man dressed for war with a staff tucked in the crook of his arm. He held a strange orb between his hands that he twisted and dropped to the floor with a clank. Oslo had no time to process the orb as a second figure materialized out of the first, not that he already didn’t know who the first one was.
“Fuck me.”
***
My own take on the teleportation scrambler dropped to the floor and vanished from view. My surprise at seeing Stone standing there gaping at me had allowed the person to flash through another portal before my item activated. I didn’t think it was Stone though, I was pretty sure it was the strange man that confronted me in Vegas. But I couldn’t be entirely sure. It mattered little as I blurred toward my first target.
The older woman tossed her dress at me but I sliced the dragon head of my staff through it, burning it to ash only to reveal a man wearing the mask of an old woman and now carrying two wickedly curved daggers in his hands.
The man tried to back away while deflecting my blows but I alternated between the lion and the dragon head. It didn’t seem he could keep up as one blow crashed through his defense and shattered his arm. He whipped his other dagger at me and I let it impact my armor. The weapon had been magical as I felt a slight sting as it cut through my armor. Sure enough, when I looked, I spotted poison.
It was nothing special and I quickly Cleansed it as I gave chase. I heard some of the other Order members yell about my sphere and even saw some spells splash in the general area it had fallen, but I smirked in triumph. The sphere had inbuilt levitators and it would continue to move about the room, avoiding obstacles until it ran out of juice. With Fiona keeping the remaining people in the room occupied, it would be impossible for them to locate the item in time.
I had to give the man I was chasing credit, he was as slippery as an eel. But as someone who had fought Ska on more than one occasion, I quickly figured out the man's tactics and managed to land a devastating blow with the lion's head. The man’s back snapped as he was sent hurtling against a wall.
I could hear shouts coming from further down the corridor I had chased the man down but I ran back to help Fiona finish off the others first.
By the time I had returned to the initial room, she had cut down two of the men with Randy Cotton’s old sword. That only left a woman with a bow and one other man that wielded a glaive.
I dodged a crackling arrow as I ran into the room, quickly deciding that the archer was my new target.
It was another chase as the archer faded into the shadows. I clicked my tongue in irritation, noting that I would have to modify the scrambler a bit to affect powers like this.
Her maneuver forced me to activate my tattoo to locate her. Another bonus of my helmet, it blocked the light of my tattoo but didn’t stop the effect. I spotted the woman emerging from another shadow behind Fiona. I fired off an overcharged Annihilator Sphere at the woman before she could fire her arrow. She gaped in surprise, her arrow going wide as her body disintegrated from her pelvis out.
The final man wasn’t nearly as fleet of foot and Fiona fought him into a corner before she avoided a clumsy strike of his larger weapon. She stepped inside his guard and thrust the sword through the man's breast, skewering him to the wall behind him. I heard a grunt of pain followed by a raspy exhale as the man slumped against her blade.
Already I could hear feet pounding down the hall and I activated my mana cannon in my hand and charged Energy Lance with my other.
Both spells went off, flashing down the tunnel. Screams were quickly cut off by a loud boom as the spells detonated. A wave of dirt and debris inundated the room we were in only a second later. But that was fine, it did not affect either Fiona in her incorporeal state or me with my helmet on.
We moved through the complex and killed anyone left alive.
The place was weird. There were rooms for sleeping, some rooms were labs or workshops of some sort with items of all types scattered about. The way some of the people tried to defend the items showed that some held value. The strangest room was the last. It looked like the inside of a massive geode, only the crystals along the walls were pitch black, with a wide crystal sticking up in the center of the room with a slanted top that faced the entry.
You could see where the walls had been broken away to get into the room, so it was clear this was not something the Stygian Order had created. I heard Fiona gasp as she entered the chamber.
“Oh my gods, it’s a node!”
***
Mr. Nobody appeared in the middle of nowhere, still wearing the disguise of Stone. A few others appeared moments later but then there was nothing. He let out a low exasperated chuckle. He had warned the order not to underestimate Paul Fuller. Yet he hadn’t expected the man to move so quickly. It was a lesson he wouldn’t forget. The node was lost but that was fine. Mr. Fuller wouldn’t destroy it like the Black Dragon had attempted to do.
“Douglas, Stone’s cell is compromised, initiating full burn procedure. Give me five minutes and relocate me to another dead zone to await quarantine.”
He didn’t wait for a reply before he began cutting down the confused survivors. Some tried to flee, but he wasn’t nicknamed the hunter for nothing. There was the obligatory screaming and the cursing him out but they knew what they had signed up for. Sometimes cleansing entire cells was necessary for the survival of the organization.
Mr. Nobody knew he had chosen correctly when a new portal appeared exactly five minutes later. He changed his form back to a nondescript man in a well-tailored black suit and adjusted his tie before stepping through the new portal.