The motor at the bottom of the rickety, open-air elevator hummed softly as it took its passengers up towards roof of the hotel. Ophelia looked up at a wrong colored sky, whilst wearing an expression that was both full of anticipation and troubled.
She could have sent someone else to come here today, or possibly just used one of several tactful measures to extract herself and the ministry that she served, from the commitment that she’d ended up accidentally making.
Instead she came, and she came in person. Drawn by a certain curiosity about a certain party, as well as a pressing need to deal with yet another danger that could destroy her world all over again, if improperly handled.
She stepped off the elevator, and thanked the young attendant who led her there. Seated just a little bit ahead, sitting in a rooftop lounge that hotel had specially prepared for them was an ensemble of young, and talented elites.
Yet another group of Up And Comers, whose names were known amongst the various circles and society of Argus. Standing head and shoulders above the rest in ways that were more than a little problematic for the stability and peace of society as a whole.
*****
There were three men and four young ladies, their ages ranging from the late teens to the late twenties. Just feeling the way the nearby aether stilled, growing too thick to move, it was plain to see that not a single one of them was below the second realm.
She knew Matthew Colby, aka Tangent Lord, and Jermaine Abbott from the intel her people had picked up. Same for the rest of the little crew.
There was the Tyrant Queen who could topple entire mountain ranges with a wave of her first. Cold-Mercury Angel who could erase kingdoms, with those unknown weapons of hers, was sitting on the side. Sipping something that looked frosty and playful.
Ophelia had intel that said Thespian Gray’s Thousand Ghosts were currently controlling the main roads for the southern half of the continent with both the KOG and EITCs blessing.
Pushing out a majority of the raider gangs in those areas and rapidly expanding into others, both on and off the continent.
The only people that Ophelia had little or next to no information on, were the barbarian and the dark haired girl that sat curled up like a kitten, napping in one of the couches.
There was also the man in the blue coat who was seated at the edge of everything, perched atop a stool, his gaze fixed on the sky. Prior evidence, and the accomplishments of all the rest made her fairly sure that all three of these unknowns would be more of the same.
Yet more evidence, that the ever worrisome Bone Tree Company was both collecting and/or creating more persons of mass destruction, than any sane warden of public safety could ever be comfortable with.
But that wasn’t the concern for today, today Ophelia had already made up her mind to at least try and ‘pretend’ to play nice. After all, she was supposed to be here discussing a possible cooperation between their two groups.
*****
“Well, hello. You’re Ms.Maddoc correct? Sorry I’m late, some things came up while I was on my way over.” said Ophelia.
Smiling sheepishly. Slightly surprised to find herself just a little nervous. Despite the fact that she meets new people everyday and had been trained for psychosocial manipulations of both the small and large scales.
“Ah...not all. I’ve been there, things happen. Besides, it’s not like we’re on a tight schedule or anything.” said Edna. Matching Ophelia’s smile with a smile of her own. Bright and cheery, and false as per usual. A business smile. A winning smile.
“You have my thanks for being so understanding. Ah, where are my manners. I’m Ophelia Delphi, current Administrator of the Ministry of Public Order.” said Ophelia.
Taking a seat after one was amiably offered.
Edna nodded.
“Yes, and I’m pretty sure you already know all about me anyway, but for what its worth I’m Edna Rae Maddoc. At your pleasure. Current Chair for the Bone Tree Company. Over there is Elena K. Maddoc, head of Accounting. We also have Mister Abbots with us, who’s serving head of Personnel. As well as his assistant Mister Colby.”
Ophelia, nodded in greeting as the young lady introduced every one. They nodded back, most of them smiling, or at least giving some sort of perfunctory greeting.
Ophelia couldn’t help but note that the pretty girl with fake smile had neglected to introduce the three blank spots in the Ministry's files. Or at least she was thinking that, but then the young woman got herself a cup of tea from the service tray and kept going.
“Now, before I forget, I’d like to introduce Tamra and Alessa, they’re with the company as developing talent. And there’s also our new friend Mister Angelo over there.”
Ophelia smiled and nodded as per usual, whilst secretly gazing deeply at each new face. Sending the new information through the mental network to see if any of the Ministry’s people either already knew something, or could find out more.
They got a little on the dark haired one, Tamra Patton, age nineteen, born in a now defunct village in the Mid-East. There wasn’t much else though and there was absolutely nothing on the two other people.
It was far less information than Ophelia was comfortable with, but she was careful to keep that off her face.
*****
Two beasts waged war, rolling about in a big tangled ball, devastating everything around them as they did so. They pummeled and tore at each other, tearing off limbs and scales and flesh, and quickly recovering from all of it.
Spitting beams of grey and red flame that splashed off of their thick hides and blew away big bits of the land. Forcing the continent to heal itself, forcing the continent to bleed. They came near to the city, and even an old hand like Ophelia, felt a jolt of mortal terror.
The only thing that stopped her from outwardly reacting was the wrong colored sky and the fact the know one else, not even the attendants that stood nearby just in case anyone needed anything, seemed be paying the beasts any mind.
Fortunately she knew how to fake a calm, even if she didn’t feel it. Her expression staying smooth and slightly bored even as she watched the bronze giant and the many limbed, many headed, many eyed, serpent, battled. Flattening, hills, and crushing forests.
The only consolation was that most of her agents on the streets and in the building below were just as unnerved by the whole thing as she was. The evac-displacement wards, or ‘evacuation gates’, that the Bone Tree Company had set up for all the cities of Lloyd, apparently shifted the spaces within it, to a sub-dimension that was just slightly off-angle.
Close enough that they could still see what was happening in their world, but far enough away that they couldn’t be affected by it.
The bronze giant, beat the serpent with its spiked, mace-like, fists. Flailing about violently and eventually managing to tear one of the serpent’s heads off.
Two more heads grew in that head’s place, almost immediately joining the others in their task of biting the giant’s metal flesh, and tearing chunks off of it. Slowly eating the giant alive. Geysers of fiery blood, erupted from the bronze giant’s body and setting the land ablaze.
Yet none of the pedestrians or passersby gave it more than a second look. Lloyd had been hit by more of few such disasters already, by now they were more than used to it. And with their lives more or less guaranteed Ophelia could see why they’d want to ignore such otherwise frightening going-ons.
Even she felt it, finding herself actually feeling just a little relieved as she finally relaxed and forced herself to look away from the towering monsters that were busy tearing up the area where the city should have been.
It was just like when she’d faced the titan in Meinrad. No matter how many things, you saw, no matter how much of an old hand you were, facing something that could instantly and easily erase you like you were daydream it was having, would always be a source of anxiety.
*****
Ophelia and the young executives of the Bone Tree Company made small, chatting about business and about happenings elsewhere in the continent.
Ophelia made the most of the opportunity, repeatedly bringing up the company itself and fishing for any news that her agents hadn’t been able to pick up.
A ploy that was almost too successful, if she assumed that they weren’t lying about the many new, potentially frightening pieces of magical tech that they’d soon be bringing out onto the market. She also tried to bring the unknowns into the conversation as well.
Trying to get a feel for them, have them drop a detail about their lives that would her agents with their research. That was slightly less successful. The small dark haired girl generally just gave one word answers.
Seeming to be focused on whatever she saw at the bottom of her teacup. The big one, the barbarian, was surprisingly shy, stumbling over her words in a way that made Ophelia feel just a little bad, and just a little frustrated whenever she tried to question her.
As for the one named, Angelo, he was just a stone wall. The one time she thought he’d given an answer, it had just ended up being a badly timed sneeze.
It was all okay, though, patience was yet another thing one had to learn if one was going run a group like the Ministry of Public Order. She’d get her questions answered eventually.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Speaking of waiting, there was one person, that she’d ‘really’ been wanting to speak to, but he’d yet to show. She’d wanted to avoid seeming overeager, but it had been a few hours already, so she thought it was safe to slide in at least one offhand comment.
“Mhm...You know,I kind of expected that young sorcerer yours to be here. A pity really.” said Ophelia.
Elena, the accountant who absolutely nothing like an accountant, chuckled, and pointed up at the sky, as they all heard the bronze giant give out a death wail. It’s metal chest was torn open by one the many headed serpent’s jaws.
The open chest revealing metal bones, and organs made of light and raw aether. It’s blood spilling by the gallon, melting the soil and stone around it, like a lava flow.
“What are you talking about?. He’s right there.”
Ophelia paled as she looked up at the serpent and watched its heads dropped within the giant’s torso. Attacking it’s insides, tearing away its flesh and inner organs. Snapping the bones and eating those too.
A quiet mental prompt from Dennis, nudged her memory, it was mostly unneeded though, there was no forgetting what happened in Meinrad.
“Ah....” said Ophelia, watching as two of the serpent’s heads seemed to fight over the pulsing mass that was the giant’s heart. Eventually tearing it down the middle and swallowing the halves whole, before returning to their feeding frenzy.
“No worries. He should be done in a little bit.” said Elena.
*****
To be fair, the girl was actually, very right on that measure, Ophelia watched the serpent more or less dissemble the giant’s carcass. Gnawing on the bones once the flesh was all gone.
Once all that was left of the creature was the scorched impression its blood had made on the continent. The serpent cast a spell to aid the planet’s attempts to heal the damage.
The serpent flew up and the wrong colored sky turned blue again. And down from the clouds fell a young, dark skin, delicately feature, mostly naked young man.
Cracking the asphalt on the roof because he’d landed just a little more roughly than would have been ideal.
“Nh...That one was annoying. Extreme Healing factors are a pain. Elemental types, ‘especially’ fire-types, are also a pain. Having both is just gratuitous.” said Billy grumbling to himself.
Seemingly unaware of the various cosmic beings that would go to war with him, if they knew that a man who existed, with the very fabric of reality, protecting and perpetuating his existence, was saying such things.
“Hey, hon. Good looking out. I think you’re getting faster at this. Anyway the friend you wanted us to talk to is here.” said Edna.
Calling out to him, to stop Billy from wandering off for who knows what reason, and making them all wait even longer. Her false smile momentarily shifting to a genuine one, while she spoke to him.
A good call since Billy was about to go and sample the new mass that he had stored in his inner-world. Then he remembered the meeting he’d set up and saw the guest who was still waiting on him.
He wasn’t entirely sure why they were waiting for him, Edna could handle this, as she handle most things, but since Edna apparently wanted him there, he’d let everything else wait.
His gaze shifted over to the guest and he blinked as he placed her in his memory as someone of relative importance.
“Nh? Oh it’s you. Great, we’ve got tons to talk about.” said Billy.
He snapped his fingers to quick-equip some new clothes for himself, because having one’s wobbly bits exposed during a business meeting would likely be very inappropriate.
Ophelia smiled, brightening, her eyes, fixed on the man that she’d spent months knowing absolutely everything and absolutely nothing, about.
“Yes, I do believe we do.”
Billy plopped himself down, and Ophelia, spent a minute watching how the others seemed to quietly rearrange themselves. The whole room, shifting as he joined it, with the girls seeming to drift towards where the young man was seated.
She wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was worth looking into. Her smile grew wider, as the picture of the enigmatic sorcerer relationship with his fellows, grew clearer.
Then Billy spoke.
“Now, Miss Delphi. Before I start, I have to ask you, if you know anything about the Heavenly Super-Space.”
Ophelia smile went away, all the air in the room seeming to go dead and flat. She felt the observers who were psychically watching over her shoulder go tense.
She clipped a few of those connections because more than half of them didn’t have the clearence to know anything about what had just been mentioned.
She considered lying or, perhaps asking what ‘they’, the Bone Tree Company knew about the Heavenly Super-Space. One didn’t just bring up the realm, that brought the downfall of the empire, lightly.
And while the open secret of practitioners and entities who were above the Fifth realm being present on Monde, was more secret than it was open.
Ultimately she decided that this, whatever this was, was too important for her to get caught up in a game of spy versus spy. Maybe it was her sense of duty. Maybe it was something she saw in the eyes, of the young man who sat across from her. Those eerie glowing eyes.
“It depends, on what your asking.” said Ophelia.
“What if I were to say, that something or someone has maybe, possibly, blown a hole in the barrier between the Heavenly Super-space, and our Earthly Space. What if I were to say, the Monde now has, between five to ten million deity level entities and artifacts just lying around waiting for anything or anyone to stumble on them and wake them up.”
Ophelia swallowed, feeling her throat go dry, feeling her blood go cold. She wanted him to be lying but nothing in the boy’s manner suggested he was.
Even if it was a gross exaggeration. Even if the number was something much smaller, that was still a very troubling number of potential doomsday devices just lying around.
“And...Assuming, and this is a very big assumption, assuming this is the case. Might I ask what that has to do with our little meeting today?”
The young man’s smile was faint, but still very noticeable. It was similar to the one her old teacher would wear when’d she managed to hit the right angle of an issue. Ophelia wasn’t sure she liked seeing him wear that look.
“Everything, Miss Delphi. ‘I’ might dabble in collecting information, but information is the very soul of your organization. ‘I’ only care about this world in a very limited sense, but you and your people would sacrifice anything to save it. Who better to help us stop what will likely be the worst the thing that’s happened to this little world of ours since the Black-Nine Event, that nearly led to its destruction. We have all sorts of resources and a fair amount of very decent personnel. You have knowledge and know how and connections.”
“We have resources and personnel too.” Ophelia shot back.
Billy and the rest all seemed to chuckle. The chorus of soft laughter assailing Ophelia, in a way that made her feel both, angry and helpless.
It was very brief but for a moment she regretted agreeing to come her. She could have sent a Ministry Representative but she came herself and she found herself wishing she hadn’t.
“Yes...but ours are better. And we don’t answer to any kingdoms. Nor are we tied by the politicking of the various other guilds, gangs and companies. I think you’ll find that your ability to directly act, will be much, much more expanded then what you’re used to if you take our offer. The only thing that we lack is the practice and familiarity that your Ministry has honed over more than a millenia of safeguarding this world and protecting it from itself. Now Monde is about to get very sick, very soon. I think the least we can all do is that there’s a ‘doctor’, maybe a group of ‘doctors’, ready, when the time comes.”
Ophelia considered his words.
“And what do you get out of it?” she said. Feeling both weary and wary.
“Profit and Peace of Mind. What else would any upstanding citizen need?” said Billy.