Chapter 95: Change of Status
It did suck. Royally. Ryan had shifted Fury and himself across nearly the entire plateau to the little hillock diagonally opposed to their previous position. Then they had slowly struggled, under Refractive Shield, their way down the little hill and across a little stretch of flat ground, all naturally choked with dense vegetation. And then the real fun started. They slipped into the minuscule gully running diagonally past the burrow that, if barely, kept them out of line of sight of the vigilant sentries and inch by agonising inch wormed through the impenetrable bush to get close enough to meet their objective. Naturally, without making the slightest sound. It had taken hours and once they had been close enough, Ryan Identified the closest sentries and, without any hesitation and slightly alarmed, Shifted directly back to base.
At Level 28 and 29, the two sentries that had been within range when he popped his head out of the trench for a quick Identify, where stronger than he had expected. As he walked towards were the rest of the guild, sans the members in the plains, were enjoying dinner he knew that they would need to deal with the burrow soon. Both sentries had been far larger than a meerkat had any right to be, clocking in at an estimated ten to fifteen kilo’s and Identified as Fecund Mongoose. The colony would just keep growing if they weren’t dealt with soon, and, dependent on their source of prey, eventually threaten the guild base directly. If they moved down from the plateau to circumvent the territory of the Rhino’s in search of further prey that moment might come far sooner than Ryan hoped.
“You want to hear the good news or the bad news first?” Ryan asked his brother who was sitting in the company of his girlfriend Liz and John.
“Both? Hit me.” William mumbled past a half-chewed piece of steak.
“I found the targets and you’re not gonna like it. It’s a pack or colony of meerkat. They Identify as Fecund Mongoose and the two sentries were Level 28 and Level 29 respectively. As to the rest, however many there are, I have no idea.” Ryan shared his misgivings.
His report was incomplete, and he knew that he’d probably have to return to the area at least one more time so that they could get at least an approximation of the pack’s size.
“It took you twelve hours to establish this?” John asked in disbelief.
“Hey,” Ryan defended himself, “it took me near four hours to find the colony, another hour to find a way to get close unobserved and then nearly seven hours crawling through impenetrable bush in blistering heat to get close enough to Identify them.”
“Really?” Ryan could taste the scepticism suffusing John’s statement. After the day he had it really rubbed him the wrong way and with a greater effort than he believed himself capable off he reigned in his temper and avoided snapping at the Spymaster. In a flat, no-nonsense voice he retorted: “Really.”
“We’ll need to observe the area then. Find out how many there are and come up with a viable and, more importantly, safe-ish way to eradicate that colony.” William’s comment closely aligned with what Ryan had concluded earlier so he nodded.
Then, after a short, thoughtful silence, he added: “I’d like to portal Marc, Phillipus and Johannes up there sometime early tomorrow so we can properly observe the area. Do we have any sacrificial lambs left? Might be a good idea to use one so we can get an estimation on the pack’s size.”
“There you are!” While he loved hearing her voice Ryan had to shudder at Alexis tone. Exasperation, annoyance and a little bit of anger all suffused by a slight hint of disappointment in her target let him know that a certain someone wasn’t pleased. He didn’t need to see her face to know that Alexis wasn’t happy with him. And she sounded just like the mother of his daughter used to. It was uncanny, Ryan thought, how all women managed to address their man with the exact same tone if he’d done something, even if unknowingly, they disagreed with. The most frightening thing was that he didn’t understand how Alexis would consider using this tone. Sometime, he didn’t know when, he must have crossed some unseen line drawn in the metaphorical sand that was the field of intersexual relations and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out when. Not that he wasn’t amenable to the situation.
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His thoughts were frantically racing, trying to find a way out of the situation he inadvertently stuck himself in so, in order to play for a bit of time, his mouth eloquently solved the problem. “Uuuuh.”
‘Damnit!’, Ryan remembered that he’d basically promised Alexis to come in for a check-up sometime in the afternoon. Extenuating circumstances aside, he doubted that his explanation of his tardiness would help matters so he continued with. “I’m sorry Alexis. The scout took far longer than I feared.”
Then, in a flash of rare and brilliant insight, he continued: ‘Do… do you want to go out with me?” The moment had been serendipitous, the location perfect and the romantic ambience must have muddled his brain. In other words, he had no cooking clue where that had come from. Yes, he realised in retrospect, he’d come to like her over the limited interactions that they had over the past few months. And from what he could understand, she seemed to care for him too. But they’d never spent much, if any, personal time together. It was just work, survival and guild related stuff. They hadn’t had any meaningful conversations, barely shared any special moments. She was attractive and he cared for her, but that, that had come out of the blue from some unfathomable depths of his unconscious.
‘About time you asked.’ the approval in the mental sending was clear as can be, with a slight undertone of smugness. Ugly suspicions raised their heads, breaching like Nessy chasing a bird. Did his soulbond influence him? With a firm hand he set aside that line of thought for now, he’d investigate to what extent they influenced each other at a later stage, for now it was high time to return to the present moment.
“Uuuuh…fine. Ok?” Ryan replayed the last moments in his head and to his great delight found that Alexis had delivered a masterpiece of eloquence comparable to his earlier statement.
The awkward silence that descended over their immediate surroundings was so thick that it could have been cut with a knife until his brother William came to the rescue with a mischievous chuckle. “Great. About time you two hooked up. Wow. much UST, so relief.”
The non-sequitur snapped Ryan and Alexis out of their mutually induced stupor. “Seriously, we were contemplating an intervention. The unrealised sexual tension was killing us, and you guys were OBLIVIOUS.” For the life of him Ryan couldn’t understand how he could hear the All-caps in the way William was stressing the last word. Neither did he understand what sexual tension his brother was referring to. Sure, he liked Alexis and was attracted to her, but at no stage had he made any effort to get closer. He wasn’t that attracted to her. And if, by any chance, he was, he definitely hadn’t given that away in public. In any event, considering their current living arrangements, it was unlikely that there would be any sort of the release that his brother was alluding to. The how of which, coincidentally, he now resolved, was a question that he’d grill his brother about. Payback, after all, was due.
In order to bring the awkward situation to a close Ryan decided to clarify the matter and move on. “Ok, so you’re my girlfriend now. Didn’t see that one coming this morning. So, you still want to do the check-up?”
John’s barely suppressed snigger in the background confused him for a second before he groaned. “Seriously, Alexis wants to check how my mutations have integrated. It’s for medical reasons.”
“Check your mutations? Medical?” Liz delivered in a tone as flat as the dead sea which apparently was funny enough to set the whole group to laughing. Ryan’s ears were blushing a vivid shade of red by now, and even to himself it was unclear whether it was from a mounting anger or the supreme sense of embarrassment.
Well, the damage had been done so there was nothing for it. “Idiots.” he grunted and grabbed Alexis’ hand. “Let’s go and get out of here.” To the sound of howling laughter Ryan fled the scene of one of, if not the, most embarrassing moments of his life.