Decision-making was often something I would leave to the spur of the moment. After spending so much time living in the melancholy of the past, current Eric Redd liked to live in the present. It wasn’t the worst place. For all that I had, in the current day-to-day, my life was joy only slightly interrupted by shattering pain or despair. Deep down, I knew that the future was almost more important than this. I needed to start carving out my own path, lest I be driven down into unthinkable misery once more.
“We have to kill Gunther.” My words slid from my mouth with an edge to them. A knife destined to cut the tumor from our functional life.
“Eric?” Pearl opened her mouth, but then paused with a furrowed brow. “Are you sure about that?”
“That’s kind of extreme,” Rodney added with a grimace.
[I agree with Eric.]
It was nice to know my patron had my back. It was a conclusion colder than I usually tolerated, but surrounded by everyone - I knew I had to act.
“He could enter the house whenever he felt like it. If he truly has ill intent on his mind, then we aren’t safe. And I can’t tolerate that.” My fingers tapped at the table.
Pearl tilted her head, a slight smile in the corner of her mouth. I could tell what she was thinking without a word needing to be uttered. Eric the Protector, wanting to keep those close to him safe.
“Should we let the Org know?” Rodney stood now and walked over to the table. “Although if he is working under their guidance…”
[The Organization may have something to keep demons out of the house.]
I nodded. They must have. Otherwise, Hunters would get assassinated all the time. That left some issues, though. “I doubt they’d configure it so that Pearl could enter, however.”
Wight put a clawed hand up to his face and rubbed the underside of his beak in thought.
Realization hit me. “Ah shit, he probably found me because of the holster.” I rolled my eyes. Such a simple thing; well played on his part.
“Assuming he doesn’t have any other way of tracking you, I could get us a new house tomorrow,” Pearl shrugged and crossed her arms.
“He probably does.” I sighed. As much as a new house would be nice - and I was willing to ignore any potential acquisition method she had in mind - in the short term, it wouldn’t work out with too many eyes on us. “I want that,” I reassured her, “but I want to know we are in the clear before we get settled.”
She nodded and smiled. “Want me to see if there’s any information on him in the Mids? It’s your turn to wash up, anyway.”
“Sure.”
She leaned in for a kiss, then stood and went to Rodney for a hug. “Stay as long as you need,” she reminded him. “Don’t let Eric get too noir.”
He smiled and thanked her.
With a click of her fingers, she was gone. It left a hole in the room, figuratively. One piece of the set of four that made me feel alive. For a moment, only morose silence filled the room before I slapped my knees and stood.
“All hands on deck for the clear-up then.” With a grin, I had easily roped them into a share of the housework. My most powerful ability yet.
Wight mostly supervised after dropping the first plate. A little broken crockery never ruined a bad day - not any more than a potential assassination attempt, anyway.
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“What about,” I began, my hands in the bubbled sink, “if there’s a way to be immune to his damage?”
[You wish to absorb or deflect his ability?]
“You said he is a sniper, right?” Rodney held the towel, waiting expectantly for the next washed item to dry. “That’s got to be a lot of power?”
“Yeah.” I paused to reflect on the attack that had slain Rose in the factory. “Long distance, goes through brick, metal, and people.”
[But he can only make the target if Watcher is touching them.]
“Avoiding him forever is easier said than done, though.” My hands circled the inside of a coffee mug. “He can appear out from behind objects - like a teleport.”
“When nobody can see him, or in plain view?”
Thoughts ran wild in my head. Certainly, it was a powerful ability that I didn’t have much to wield against it. My attacks were ranged too, but much shorter in comparison - and I couldn’t see through walls to my target. Wight similarly had limited range away from me.
“You know, it would be nice if I could handle most of my wildcard abilities.”
[What do you mean, Eric?]
I turned briefly to face them both. “Last Light, Entropy, and whatever Last Lantern was. Each one completely ruins my body when used - it would be nice to have access to these on the regular.”
[It takes time to build up strength to-]
“But what kind of strength?” I folded my arms across my chest, making my shirt damp. “What can I do to train to be better?”
Wight stood there for a moment, looking unsure as to how to answer me. Getting resistant to the corruption sounded like something that made sense in my head. It was like getting inoculated against something. Little doses of it until I could handle more and more - but did it really work like that? How was the Organization even testing my ability to be able to handle more of Wight's power?
I sighed and shook my head, turning back to the washing up.
“I’m not sure how it works, to be honest, Eric. They don’t even tell us that a Blank’s abilities come from the divine. Why do you think they hide that?”
More clattering rocks for my busy mind. An avalanche threatened to cover up any answers that I was remotely close to digging up. I gave him a glance and a shrug. “I think there is a lot that stinks at the Org and a lot of things they don’t tell us because we’d be less likely to go along with it if we knew the truth.”
Rodney furrowed his brow. “You think?”
“Every time I come back from a Quest having shot my way through demons, they chastise me for not using a little more nuance in my approach. All the talk of the Mids has been more to do with talking and making deals rather than killing more powerful demons.”
[There are lots of bad demons in the Mids.]
“Exactly, so why can’t I just be the blunt instrument to clean up that rabble? Send the ones with silver tongues to do the parlay crap.” I exhaled; it wasn’t like me to get this riled up. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t much of a surprise I had started to wear thin.
The Blank stayed silent for a while, contemplating and not wanting to egg me on further. With the help of the pair of them, the rest of the tidying took no time, and we returned to the dining room to relax.
“We need a couch,” I admitted. Rodney was allowed my recliner again; the day was more about him, after all. The dining room chairs were okay, but not something you could sit comfortably in all day.
“What happens if you kill a patron?”
As Wight and I raised an eyebrow to the Blank for further information, he realized how strange that may have sounded.
“No - like, I mean, if you attacked the Watcher?”
[After a certain amount of damage, he should return to the pact vessel at the Org by default.]
I drummed my fingers on the table, the spark of creativity willing to blow the house down. “Is it possible to jump straight past the threshold and kill the patron outright?”
Wight mimicked me by drumming his fingertips where he sat. Possibly scratching the varnish on the table, but perhaps that ship had already sailed - I was at least thankful there wasn’t marker on everything.
[Potentially. Although, I’m not sure if you have anything that has that capability.]
Ouch. I winced at knowing I was still soft in some ways. I was willing to bet that Entropy or Last Light could at least send the demon away for a while - although, given that Gunther liked to attack from an unseen vantage point, leaving him without his patron wouldn’t really give us much of an advantage.
My mind wandered. Completely tired of not being able to come up with a simple solution to the potentially deadly problem. I was more used to things being straightforward. Just guns blazing, no matter the odds or how painful. An enemy that I couldn’t see that could be anywhere… it was stressful - one of my least favorite emotions.
“Pearl would be really pissed if we went to Hell right now, huh?” I smiled and pushed my glasses up my face.
[Eric, that would be most inadvisable.]
“Yeah, that’s a no from me.” Rodney shook his head slowly.
“Well then,” my grin grew wider, “who wants to play some cards?”