Captain Angelton took a moment to strengthen his control on the surrounding essence. Firming his resolve, he opened the door, and walked into the large training room. A center walkway cut through the massive 100X50 units in space. Each of the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling were lined with reinforced ablatum (which is a steel derivative, created by enchanters to have a strong identity and be resistant to essence influence). Lining the side of the walkway were sections for training, each with a target and a display. The captain walked down the center path, already feeling the essence currents pushing into his psychic field.
He watched the man he had come to meet as streams of destruction pummeled four separate targets from the center of the room. Colors were shifting like a kaleidoscope, and the wind was randomly changing directions. On top of the physical effects, the psychic pressure only added to the uncomfortable environment. The captain was around 30 feet away, when he decided to stop and just observe.
The man looked like he was at the center of an essence storm. His bare chest covered in sweat, the man bounced around a 10 unit radius in perfect control of his movements. ‘No wonder they label him as a tactical asset,’ thought Captain Angelton as he tried to pretend he wasn’t intimidated.
Standing at 5’10”, the man was not large. yet his presence couldn’t be ignored from even 30ft. away. With his shoulder length black hair in a tight combat braid, and bright green eyes, he was utterly focused on his training. Angelton fought to hide his bubbling anger, as he could FEEL the man ignoring him.
After a few minutes of watching the man continue to spin in place while sending spells hurtling toward the walls, he decided enough was enough. “Specialist Howard, you haven’t been replying to my pings,” he said loudly. Although the room was filled with the sounds of explosions and wind, he knew that the man had heard him.
Like a weight being lifted from the room, the essence calmed down and Howard reigned in his psychic field. “It’s because I read them, and my ignoring you WAS the reply,” the man said as he pulled a towel out of his personal space.
Wiping himself down, he walked over to the Captain with a casual disregard of rank. “I’m not going to train a newly awakened kid. If you want him to be a war mage, send him to Center-point like everyone else. He’ll have to go there to be certified anyways. There are more productive ways for me to spend my time.”
“Did you even READ the file?” Angelton asked.
“I glanced at it.” was the reply.
With a sigh, Captain Angelton gave up on trying to make Howard care about the assignment. “General Branson wants the boy trained, and we’re going to train him. You’re who I’ve chosen to teach him magic. You start tomorrow, check the hub for the schedule,” he ordered. Turning around without waiting for a reply, the captain walked away.
When he was almost to the door, he felt the essence pick up again. As the explosions resumed, Angleton spoke in a normal voice to the room, “You’ll get along great, you’re both assholes.”
Shaking his head in resignation, he closed the door and left for his office. He had a great deal to get done, and not a lot of time in which to do it.
Walking down the hall, his link received an urgent ping from command. Opening the ping, Captain Angelton’s footsteps faltered. He had just received word that the Populators had arrived. ‘Apparently, less than a full day of preparation is all we get,’ he thought grimly.
Immediately opening his link, he contacted every one of his sergeants. He needed his men to be ready to move at a moments notice. Increasing his speed, he saw the hallways fill with people in a heightened state of readiness. Instead of the calm controlled movements of trained soldiers going about their day, he saw that all of Gate 7 was preparing for war.
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Nero woke up with a splitting headache. The pain in his head was so intense that he struggled to get his to his feet. ‘Where the hell is this pressure coming from?’ he wondered.
Nero looked around the room for an answer. He must have fallen asleep reading those ridiculous guides on stat development. Techniques on how to maximize level stress were not very interesting.
Realizing the problem, Nero focused on the connections trying to make contact through his link; so many connections. He reached out and willed the link to block all his pings. Blessed silence returned to his head and he took some deep breaths. ‘I fucking knew these things were dangerous,’ he thought as he ripped off his link which was still glowing. Standing up he decided to head to the lobby for some answers.
After he put on his pants, Nero’s mind started waking up. ‘What if this isn’t just happening to me? That many connections coming into the links will paralyze the cities communications. This is a denial of service attack. The hub is being hacked!’ Nero thought with rising panic.
Throwing on a robe without a shirt, he went to the window to see what was going on in the courtyard. There were associates and Wayfinders standing in groups, either being separated or searched. Men in armor with red tabards were apparently now in charge. They seem to be looking for something, and he could almost hear one of the men below his window shouting something.
Carefully opening his window, Nero strained to hear what was going on. “We just require the location of the Cosgrave brats. Anyone who gives them up will be rewarded after the transfer of power. You all know the accords, no one will hurt you if you don’t cause trouble. Just tell us where they are…”
The guy kept blathering while more and more people were led into the courtyard. It didn’t seem like anyone was being mistreated. ‘What are the accords?’ Nero wondered with a frown. Without access to the link, he didn’t think he’d find out any time soon.
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Stepping away from the window, Nero could already hear soldiers in the hall demanding that everyone leave their rooms peacefully. Nero lamented the fact that his link was now useless. Already he was addicted to the ease and availability of the information it provided. He needed to make a decision based on what he knew. Should he just go with the flow like everyone else? They didn’t seem to be mistreating anyone.
Paralyzed with indecision, Nero glanced through the window and watched as the guards in the courtyard continue their attempts to find the Cosgraves. From what he had heard, Nero realized the Cosgraves must be related to the nobles in charge of the city. Realizing that this is a kidnapping and ransom plot, he finally decided that he should stay out of it.
As he began to calm down, the situation in the courtyard changed. A young woman was pushed by her companions toward one of the guards. She was a very aristocratic looking beauty, with long flowing auburn hair, and pale features that Nero could appreciate from his window. She was 20 years old, at most, and looked like a typical hot college chick. ‘Back on earth she’d have a ton of followers, but here she is like everyone else. People here are stupid hot,’ Nero thought, as he watched the events play out through the window.
Straightening her shoulders, the girl said, “You won’t find my brother, he spent the night at the keep.” The entire courtyard had gone quiet at her appearance, and Nero could easily hear the leader’s reply.
“We may not have been able to specifically scry for you, but we were able to locate the last known location of his link. We know he was here when we brought down the hub. Don’t worry Mistress Cosgrave, we’ll find him,” he said, projecting his voice so the entire courtyard could hear his confidence. The man then motioned for the men flanking her to bind her hands. Nero felt bad for her plight, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
His head snapped to the door as he heard the soldiers outside start banging on it. “Open up! You won’t be hurt if you don’t resist.”
With a sigh, Nero slipped on his boots and opened the door. Two large men reached in and roughly grabbed his arms. While they pulled him into the hallway, he saw other groups of soldiers searching the rooms for stragglers. Following directions with his head down, he saw all of his dorm mates doing the same. Their overlapping psychic fields were filled with worry, and it was starting to make Nero light headed.
As he moved through the halls, he just tried to focus on following the person in front of him. By the time his group was at the elevators, Nero was finally getting his mind under control. He mentally prodded the fields around him, affirming his control and closing himself off from those around him. ‘So that’s what the books were talking about,’ he thought. Controlling his own psychic field was easier than Nero thought.
‘The mind directs the body’s psychic field of control, and the soul is the medium the mind uses to sense the essence in the air,’ he thought to himself. As he continued to play with his psychic field, he went over his conclusions, fitting them into a framework based on what he had read.
Finally being led into the courtyard, Nero didn’t see anyone he recognized. Looking around, he saw that the soldiers were in mismatched armor, with their only unifying feature being their red tabards. The enemy soldiers looked like everyone else, there were men and women, large and small. They didn’t really look like soldiers at all. Even so, it was impressive that they were managing to guard the thousand or more associates with so few people. There were maybe a hundred of them, at most.
Nero tried to not draw any attention to himself, but all this did was draw MORE attention from his captors. The guards for his group made sure he stayed in front and within arms reach. Annoyed, Nero just wanted to go back to bed.
Just when Nero was really getting bored, he heard a ‘crack’. He looked over to see the lady from before on her knees with blood pouring from her lip. The guards around him chuckled, and the man who hit her was standing there, looking very pleased with himself. ‘So much for not hurting anyone…. Assholes,’ he thought with some venom. Nero was no longer bored, he was pissed.
Here he was, in a new world. Yet, he hadn’t changed, he was still one of the ‘sheeple’. Once again, he was standing shoulder to shoulder in a group, waiting for some asshole to tell him what to do. How long did it take him to forget his promise to be the main character in his own life? Hours… it just took hours… and an impromptu nap.
Soon, a commotion could be heard across the courtyard. As everyone looked over to see what was happening, Nero saw the guard on his right, the one standing in front of him, turn around. There was a knife in a sheath horizontally strapped to his belt. Glancing to his left and right, no one seemed to be paying attention to Nero.
‘Am I actually considering this?’ he wondered; Nero was shocked at his newfound desire for relevance.
The commotion was revealed to be caused by the other Cosgrave. The young man was bloody and beaten, with his hands tied behind his back. He was stumbling toward the center of the courtyard, while being pushed and prodded by happy guards. Nero made the decision that a knife wasn’t a bad idea after all.
Reaching out delicately, he unclasped the button holding the knife in place. With a 'pop', the snap released. Nero quickly pulled his hands back to his sides, just as the guard turned around. Not making eye contact, he acted as if nothing had happened. Nero could only hope that the people around him didn’t give him away.
The guard looked over Nero’s group and didn’t seem to notice anything, so he turned back to the center to watch the show. Nero looked up and saw the knife waiting to be pulled free. Rubbing his fingers while mentally preparing for his planned theft, he glanced around one last time. His hand reached out and smoothly unsheathed the knife, then he immediately reversed his grip to hide it along his forearm. Looking around, Nero seemed to have gotten away with it. Although the girl standing next to him was looking at him like he was an idiot.
Making sure the knife was hidden in the sleeve of his robe, Nero turned his attention back to the center of the courtyard. The drama was still going on. Both of the Cosgraves were on their knees, with the young lady trying her best to hug her brother while her hands were tied. Nero didn’t think he had ever seen the emotion of despair before. He saw actors portray it, and he saw famous pictures of it, but he had never actually seen it in person. It was heartbreaking. ‘I guess I’m not as much of a sociopath as I thought,’ Nero congratulated himself with hollow levity.
Looking closely, Nero could see the man in charge talking to a crystal. It was apparently their method of communication. ‘They must be using those, since they brought links down. This is well planned,’ thought Nero.
The man must have received new orders. Nero watched closely as the leader started giving out commands. The groups of Center-people were corralled along the sides, and a few guards picked up the Cosgraves and started marching them out of the courtyard toward the front lobby.
The guards were more relaxed now that they had the Cosgraves in hand. So, Nero took advantage of the opportunity to move to the back of the courtyard, putting as many people between him and the guards as possible.
While the center-people were being moved around, he looked for a way out of the courtyard. He needed an open window, or a grate. In fact, Nero would have settled for a tree. Not seeing an opportunity to wander off, he tried to slide along the wall. All of the ground floor windows were closed, and he didn’t think he’d be able to open them quietly.
Right before the guards leading the Cosgraves to their fate left through the wide doors of the entrance, the man in charge turned around to address the whole courtyard. In a loud voice, probably boosted by essence, he shouted, “This was a legal action, performed in accordance with the statutes governing Noble Wars. As none of you fought, you will be considered non-combatants.”
He then addressed his soldiers, “As for you lot, we’ll get paid when we drop these two off. Don’t let anyone leave until you hear from me. The city-guard and the army should still be occupied, but if either of them show up, you know what to do.” After concluding his little speech, he finished it off with a typical villain chuckle.
Looking around at the thousand plus associates and wayfinders who looked resigned to their fates, Nero was annoyed. ‘Is it just the Center that houses these peace loving self-help types? Isn’t a huge part of their culture combat? Why on earth are they all just standing here and not fighting back. They outnumber these guys 10 to 1 at least. I bet Ms. Averett didn’t go quietly. There is fighting happening somewhere, and I’d bet my left nut that she is in the middle of it. I wonder what kind of magic she uses… Wait! I know magic!’ he remembered with a grin.