Madrick
Shoftleaf Tea House, Farcem City, Motrendi
It had been a while since Madrick had truly relaxed, let himself think about something besides his upcoming conquests, and let his worries lie unattended. Today, he was doing just that. He took a sip of his tea, a bitter and spicy mix of some kind. The waitress had been insistent that this was the best blend they had, an assertion he wouldn’t be challenging given his current enjoyment.
Of course, he hadn’t planned to take the day off after finishing his recruitment-day babysitting duty. He had decided to see what became of the funny girl who put that bear beast kin on his face. He’d intercepted the recruiter, Baav, and had a quick conversation while the girl had made herself scarce. Baav had been both capable of, and planning to, catch up to the arrival and teaching her the error of her ways. Madrick had ruined that plan.
Unfortunately, the huge bear man wasn’t the sharpest dagger in the clutch and hadn’t been able to provide much to Madrick in the way of observations or speculations. The oaf hadn’t even gotten her name, though he’d found that quickly enough when he interviewed the attendant who processed her and another girl together and sent them to orientation. He’d told Madrick that she had introduced herself as Willow. He’d also mentioned that something weird was going on with her UICI or something, as he hadn’t been able to view her contract details.
When pressed, Ray hadn’t been able to conclusively state that she even had a contract with the Frazzlen. He assumed so and trusted that she did, based on the fact she had come to his desk and said Baav had signed her. Further, he said a puppet to a seventh rank recruiter had been present and apparently knew of Baav. It assumed any mistakes made were on Baav’s part. All in all, Ray believed that the girl probably had a faulty contract that needed to be reviewed. He’d planned to report the oddness to his superiors after his shift ended, but Madrick requested he keep it to himself. Ray had been happy to oblige.
Now Madrick, quite likely the most powerful entity currently on Motrendi, was sipping tea and watching a new arrival through the Frazzlen surveillance network. It had been simple to request access to their surveillance servers. He’d simply posted a curt demand with his signature through his UICI and ten minutes later he had access. The fact the message was somewhat threatening and ominous was just flavor, he knew they would have complied even if he asked “please.”
The girl had more fight in her than was healthy for a new recruit, having confronted Ka’ai’en without a second thought. It was an amusing happenstance that said elf was the very administrator who had requested Madrick’s assistance today. It appeared Ka’ai’en’s “emergency” had been a personal desire to make last minute changes to his faction’s on-boarding process. Madrick would be giving him hell for that later. Actually… Maybe he’d get on that now. It looked like his little “feedback session” with miss Willow was about to come to a close.
Deciding it was time to move on from relaxation to recreation, Madrick finished off his tea and left. Time to meet the girl who came from her tutorial with an insight.
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Willow
Frazzlen Cafeteria 22, Farcem City, Motrendi
As it turned out, Kai was a pretty nice guy. He was overly serious, certainly, and the closest to a smile any of them got out of him was the slightest tugging of his lips. Kent kept glowering at her throughout the entire conversation, but they moved past that to answer Kai’s questions and get him the feedback he was interested in.
The story was, apparently, that Kai’s boss about six levels in the faction above him had heard about a study done which indicated new arrivals should be able to integrate and begin contributing to their new faction within three months. Their own recruits rarely began to “give back”, as they saw it, until well into five or even six months from arrival.
It was an interesting conversation and Willow felt she was slowly starting to get an idea about the landscape of this new world she found herself in. She also felt like she was missing a lot in regards to power, progression, acquiring magic, and all that.
When she mentioned that, Kai’s forehead crinkled in the slightest of frowns before answering, “That’s mostly due to the fact that the factions don’t expect you to progress in any meaningful way for at least ten years. That’s usually around the time when a faction begins dolling out promotions and sending people out on delves to rifts they own. We have a standard briefing which everyone goes through before their first delve.”
Before she could ask follow-up questions about that revelation, Kai had quickly moved the conversation forward. He was difficult to read, so she wasn’t sure if he didn’t want to talk about those topics in particular or if he was just focused on the goal for this little impromptu meeting he’d called. She let it go and continued the Q and A, appreciating the small insights and extra tidbits she was able to pick up through the conversation.
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Willow
Frazzlen Cafeteria 22, Farcem City, Motrendi
Having all finished their meals, Kai stood and offered his thanks. He inclined his head in a slight bow and offered, “If you have additional feedback about how the on-boarding process goes for you, please feel free to contact me.”
Having said that, a little scroll added itself to her semi-transparent notification shelf in the right side of her vision. Instructing it to open, she read the alert.
CONTACT REQUEST
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Ki’ai’en Sovree has added you to his contact list.
Would you like to add him to yours as well?
She confirmed, adding him to her contacts, then quickly added Naomi and Kent as well. Contacts could be added in a few ways. If you were in the presence of another person, you could simply tell the UICI to add ‘this person I’m looking at’, and it would do so. If she wanted to add someone who wasn’t nearby, she could do that through the use of their UICI signature. The UICI signature was pretty much included in anything someone did through the interface. Make a post on a forum? Your signature is attached. Leave a review on a module? Signature.
Thankfully, she could have just as easily decided to block Kai when the notification that he’d added her popped up. She wondered what the standard etiquette for adding someone as a contact was. She opened her mouth to ask Kai just that, when she felt all of the hairs on her body stand up.
Although Willow had trained for years to fight, and Gymnastics wasn’t exactly safe, the danger from those contexts were expected. She had plenty of warning that she’d be fighting someone. When performing a bars routine she knew it could go wrong but there was padding beneath her to avoid the worst of the consequences. Moreover, Willow would consider herself a pretty brave person.
All this to say, she was not used to feeling her fight or flight instinct kick in suddenly, and violently. Sometimes she felt the edge of that instinct while watching suspense or horror movies, this was on an entirely different level.
Her body moved on its own. She snapped into a guard stance, dropping her center of gravity and pulling her open hands up near her face. At the same time she turned, dragging her left foot lightly over the floor while using her right foot as her pivot point. It felt like an eternity under the roaring adrenaline before her turn completed and her eyes fell on the source of her terror.
The man she now faced wore a wide shit-eating grin, sorry Ma’ma, it’s the only way to describe it. She thought he was a human, though his pupils were slanted like a goat’s. He was taller than her, but most men were. She thought he was probably a little under 2 meters, definitely on the taller side. He wore what she could only describe as a vampire chic tuxedo with an outrageous amount of frills, buttons, folds, and other nonsensical embellishments. The primary color was a deep black, with hard crimson highlights along the trim and the edges of most of the fringes of the various layers. The overcoat flared dramatically around his waist and covered the top of the trousers which appeared to be made of old cracked leather; though it was difficult to see the base material under the absolutely plethora of belts and straps.
Even with the slimming style of dress, she could tell the man was wide and solid. His wide shoulders couldn’t be concealed by the sharp cut shoulders, his broad chest was possibly made even more striking by the fact she could see a full five layers of clothing without any of it appearing crowded. She’d guess he was one large slab of muscle, too. The sharp jawline suggested he hardly had any fat to speak of.
If she’d met someone else wearing this getup, she’d probably have to stifle a laugh or at the very least avoid thinking unflattering thoughts. In this case, she was far too busy being terrified under his burning amused gaze. The horizontal slit pupils were surrounded by a deep green iris which called to mind swaths of marsh land filled with bright venomous snakes, poisonous insects, and toxic foliage. Those eyes were set deeply underneath thick silver eyebrows, trending dangerously toward a uni-brow. A short goatee ended in a dramatic flare, the same bright silver as his eyebrows. His not-so-recently buzzed head of hair was a departure from the silver, as it was clearly a dirty blonde color.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
While she took in the man’s physical appearance, most of her attention was squarely fixated on the feeling of absolute primal danger she felt from him. She’d never really felt afraid of any person before. She was afraid of concepts more than people, concepts and tight spaces. Those fears were pale before what she was feeling now. The instinctual desire to run and hide fought with the knowledge that turning her back on a predator would invite it to pounce.
It was almost shocking to hear a casual voice speak from what felt like miles away, though she knew it was from directly to her left. Kai’s tone was dry, “Please stop scaring miss Willow, Madrick. She’s been quite helpful.”
The scratchy tone of Madrick as he replied played a rough counterpoint to Kai’s smooth voice, “Is that so? So she didn’t infiltrate your faction without a contract, huh?”
Willow refused to take her eyes off of Madrick, although she felt Kai turning to look at her. After a moment he answered, “Hm, well, I admit looking up her contract in our system failed. It could be an oversight. Though, if that’s the case I’m happy to personally extend a contract with excellent terms to her. Again, please stop frightening her.”
While she was frozen in her fighting stance, so clenched up and stiff she probably couldn’t even throw a punch if she tried, Madrick leaned forward toward her threateningly, “I’ll stop if she can land a single hit on me.”
In a normal state of mind, Willow would have been skeptical if such a frightening person would keep their word. Especially about something as outrageous as what he’d just said. Surely, a terrifying person like him would become enraged and cut her down if she managed to punch him. Right?
Willow was not in a normal state of mind. She punched him. That is, she tried to punch him. He slightly moved his head at the very last moment, her fist flashing past his cheek. She pulled her right hand back fast and threw a left hook. Then another jab, a hook, a knee, a snap kick. The movements were textbook, but he stepped around each attack as if she had sent him a written invitation and waited to receive his cordial confirmation before moving.
Fast. So fast.
Although she still felt the terror within her very bones, Willow was also in single combat. A place she was comfortable and felt some modicum of control. She forcefully entered her focus. She hadn’t ever forced the sate before, and it was jarring to say the least. Instead of the extra information of the world falling away gradually and becoming easily ignored white noise, it was lick she flicked a switch. Everything irrelevant fall into absolute darkness.
Madrick’s grin, which hadn’t budged for even a moment, widened into a vicious smile, “There it is. Show me what you can do.”
Left jab, right jab, step forward and piston punch, pull left knee up sharply, snap the leg into a kick when it misses. Continue forward, push through the opponent. Don’t them take a breath. He’s stronger, faster, more skilled. Like sparring with coach had been at first. Use everything, hold nothing back. She continued her assault but failed to touch him over and over.
She felt a hand coming in from her left, she stepped smoothly away from it and ignored it. She pushed her focus harder, she entered her moment. Just like she had never forced her state of focus before, she hadn’t ever entered her moment. She had always chosen it, taken it when she was ready. This time it felt as though it had been waiting for her, potential ready and eager to be used.
Madrick’s movements slowed. Not by much, but she could now see him move. For the last several seconds, she hadn’t been able to see any of the movements he made. She couldn’t tell how he was dodging her, she just knew she hadn’t touched him. She pulled on the potential of her moment, an instinctual action born of her desperation. Madrick said he wouldn’t kill me if I hit him, right? Her thoughts and memories were fuzzy. That was for the best, all that mattered with the Moment. The moment compressed as she saw Madrick start moving to her right to dodge her left foot’s kick. Her left foot hit the ground and planted as her entire body coiled for a right cross with the strength of her entire body behind it. She forced all of the potential into the single motion as the released the punch.
Madrick was still moving to her right as the executed the strike. She saw his eyebrows raise slightly, his left arm came up and blocked the cross effortlessly. Before she could feel any despair, she realized he had counted it as a hit. The overwhelming sense of fear and dread were gone, popped like a bubble. Her moment and focus popped in the same way, followed immediately by her consciousness.
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Jonah
Frazzlen Cafeteria 22, Farcem City, Motrendi
Jonah hadn’t been able to do much back on Earth and was enjoying this strange day so far. It’d been tiring, but exciting. Part of him was silently weeping and had been since Willow pointed out how long his contract with the Frazzlen was. As soon as he’d arrived here, he’d had visions of adventure and excitement. The pop-ups had told him this had to be a litRPG kind of world, after all. That means opportunity and numerically-based shenanigans! Then he’d signed a stupid contract, barely thinking about it. Now he was obligated to work in an economics department for thousands of years. The cruel irony was almost too much too bear.
He had been doing his best to suppress that crying mess version of himself that waited to ruin the chances he still had. Instead, he had determined to make the best of the situation. People were talking so casually about working for thousands of years, maybe the scale of time here was different and it’d fly by! For the hundredth time that day, Jonah pulled his mind away from the spiraling thoughts.
The lunch hadn’t been bad, the orientation guy Ki’ai’en had been nice enough, Naomi seemed nice, and Willow was like a magnet. He was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one who felt it, either. The moment he had seen her, he’d been drawn to her. It was similar to the feeling he had when listening to a motivational speaker, watching someone perform an inspirational piece of dance or music, or watching the hero of a movie overcoming a particularly difficult obstacle.
He could only describe Willow as inspiring, and he’d known her for less than a day. She was also exhausting. It was like every time she said or did anything it was with so much energy that it pulled that energy directly out of him. He’d always been an introvert, and having been paraplegic and legally blind in life, he didn’t have a lot of experience with energetic social gatherings. Most of his social interactions in an average day had been on his computer.
Jonah had been tired to the point of exhaustion before that guy showed up. A weirdo dressed like Hollywood’s best teen-dream Dracula appeared in front of them just as they were about to leave the cafeteria. Kai and Willow had stood, but he and Naomi hadn’t yet. In hindsight, he thought that was probably for the best.
The guy had showed up and Willow had absolutely lost her shit. She’d seemed pretty cool and collected, if confrontational, so far. Yet as soon as the guy had appeared, quite literally not there one moment, then there the next, she had spun and dropped into a fighting stance. He wasn’t really sure how she’d even known he was there. He hadn’t made any noise, the air hadn’t been displaced or anything, and he was directly in her blind spot. None of that apparently mattered to her, as she’d noticed big time.
Why she was ready to fight immediately, Jonah had no idea. Then Kai had asked the guy who was apparently called Madrick to chill, and he’d said he would if Willow could hit him. She hadn’t even hesitated for an instant to hit someone she just met. She attacked. He might have said she attacked like a rabid animal, her eyes looked almost crazed after all, except her motions were anything but wild. They were fast, controlled, and seemed planned.
He’d been impressed to see her flurry of an assault, her limbs seeming almost to blur with their speed. Then she somehow got faster and he had a feeling her strikes would have been truly dangerous. That Madrick guy had said something around that time, but Jonah was too engrossed to catch exactly what it was, but he didn’t seem mad. Maybe happy, if anything.
Both of them became a literal blur. Had it been before he was reformed here, his body in the best shape it had ever been in, without any of his previous handicaps, he would have assumed it was just his eyes failing him. He didn’t have those issues anymore though, and his eyes were definitely working fine as he stared with wide eyes. He couldn’t tell what either of them were doing anymore. He vaguely got the impression that Madrick was more of a blur than Willow, faster than her, but he might have been wrong.
Kai stepped into the fray, his form flickering as he stepped toward Willow. His hand moved in a motion like what someone would use when laying it on their friend’s shoulder to calm them, but about a thousand times faster as far as he could tell. The gesture was wasted as Willow blurred away from it and he stepped back, shaking his head while keeping his eyes on them.
A few seconds after the blurring thing started, it suddenly felt as if all of the color was drained from the surrounding area. His focus still captured by the fight, if one person dodging and another trying to hit could be called that, but he noticed everything but the two of them appeared less real. Kai, standing with a deep frown off to one side within Jonah’s peripheral vision had suddenly seemed more fuzzy around the edges, less saturated, just less.
Then it ended. It was shockingly sudden. There had been a whirlwind of motion which looked more like a localized tornado than two people moving, then they were still. Jonah saw Willow’s fist planted firmly against Madrick’s left forearm, then Willow collapsed like a doll with its strings cut.
He leapt up, moments before Naomi did the same. They moved quickly toward her, he thought he said something but it came out incomprehensible and he wasn’t sure what he meant to say anyway. He briefly considered if he should be running away from the guy that just became a tornado to avoid the punches of his new, hopefully, friend. Instead he knelt beside her, quickly checking for her pulse.
Madrick spoke from above him as he did, “She’s fine. Just a bit of mana deprivation and Will strain.”
Finding she did indeed seem fine, with a strong heartbeat and even breaths, Jonah slowly looked up at him, “Uh… Sir… Can I ask what that was about?”
Madrick ignored him and turned to Ki’ai’en, “You see that? She hit me!”
He sounded excited.
Ki’ai’en was still frowning deeply. That was the first expression Jonah had seen him make, and he’d been wearing it for a while now, “Yes, I saw. That is… Impressive.”
“Yep. I’m taking her.” So saying, Madrick’s right hand reached down toward her prone form. Jonah wanted to jump in front of that descending hand, wanted to demand he stop, that he couldn’t just take someone. He didn’t move. He knew he couldn’t stop that monster from doing whatever he wanted. More than just the display he’d just seen, something deep within him was simply certain about that.
Ki’ai’en, thankfully, didn’t have the same hesitation. He stepped forward quickly and grasped the larger man’s hand. Ki’ai’en’s fingers couldn’t even close around half of Madrick’s massive wrist. “While she may not be contracted to the faction, I can hardly allow anyone to be abducted from our premises, and directly in front of me at that.”
Jonah was ready to drag Willow under the nearest table to give them both some cover, Naomi would probably join them too as she was on Willow’s other side and was fussing over her and ignoring the other two’s discussion.
It wasn’t necessary as Madrick just sighed, “Yeah, good point. We’ll just wait for her to wake up I guess. How ’bout we all go to my lounge while we wait? No need to worry the rest of these…” He glanced around with clear contempt in his eyes, “people.”
The impression Jonah got was that himself and Naomi were included in the descriptor ‘people’ which, coming from the man he was rapidly developing a fear of, was clearly derogatory.
Ki’ai’en nodded slowly, “That is acceptable. I will carry her there, if you will lead the way.”
“Great!” Madrick rasped and spun on his heal, walking at a pace Jonah was entirely sure he couldn’t keep up with even at a run. He wasn’t sure how that was even physically possible. Madrick’s steps seemed almost lazy, yet they cut through the distance like a razor blade through paper.
Hesitating for a moment, Ki’ai’en reached out and tapped both Jonah and Naomi with his pointer finger. Immediately, Madrick’s steps seemed more reasonable. The elf nodded at them, “Keep up. It would be best if she has friends around her. I have an inkling of what Madrick has decided for her fate. It’s a path best not walked alone.”
With those ominous words, he scooped Willow up and followed in Madrick’s wake. Naomi and Jonah exchanged looks, then followed. What other option did they have, sit back down and pretend they’d never met the exuberant girl? Jonah hadn’t been able to do much back on Earth, but it seemed that so long as he stuck near Willow, he’d get an adventure here.