Chapter 199: No Adventure Without Danger
To no one’s surprise, except perhaps their Str?m family relatives, Elizabeth continued to be a pain in Nara’s ass. She wanted everything—flying, web slinging, teleportation, fire, ice, lightning, guns, swords, portals, and so on and so forth. No combination could do everything, and if Nara was forced on her life to dredge up some sympathy, could at least sympathize with having to pick.
She did eventually settle on something, at the off-handed mention of one of The Agency’s people in the room, who was comparing Earth’s notes on the Elemental, Might, Resolute, and Avatar combination to what Erras had recorded about the combination.
“Well,” the agent clarified, who was eying Elizabeth with the same wariness that Nara had long learned to regard her with, “we call it the ‘Superman’ combo.”
Elizabeth had finally learned she could not upstage Nara in rarity (for her own benefit), so ‘settled’ for the double epic and single common combination. “Avatar sounds cooler than Mystic anyway,” she had declared.
Nara didn’t care what logic she used, as long as it convinced herself.
Nara’s life with her family was a little rocky; Modern life had always distanced them, literally and emotionally, geographical distance their main obstacle. It was often remarked as a tragedy of modern life—the destruction of The Community, the separation of the extended family, the transience of friends. With the other multitudes of issues governments half-assed, this was one of many that fell to the wayside. Nara could admit she was partially accountable for this, and hadn’t really minded the distance.
“It’s not fair,” Elizabeth said.
The sounds of dinner clinked around her. A “could you pass the salad,” was murmured from another family member, and the corresponding salad bowl was sent over. Homemade Ceaser dressing—she hasn’t had that…well, from even before Erras.
“It’s not fair,” Elizabeth reiterated, “that Nora gets to stay here and start this…whole new life! She’s not some plain engineer anymore.”
“That’s rather rude,” someone muttered. Likely Oskar, who seemed similarly immune to Elizabeth’s social charm. Or at least, had the scales removed via forced closed proximity. Elizabeth tended to lose her charm filters in the proximity of close family, or perhaps, this was the 2nd face that Elizabeth chose to adopt with family, uncaring of her perception.
“No,” Nara said slowly, “It certainly wasn’t fair that I fell into a coma and ended up in another world, with no idea whether I’d make it back or not.” And got tortured—twice—and almost died and did die, but she wasn’t going into that with her family. Nara was never one to share. Redell was a professional, and her team understood. At this point, it’d just create drama which she didn’t care to suffer through.
“Oh my God! And I have to return to work after this. Programming! I’ve already extended my vacation!”
“You can always quit your job and work for the Agency,” Nara pointed out and kept eating. As a bronze ranker, this mana-less food didn’t actually do anything for her, but food was food, and it was delicious. How she’d missed the spice of familial love and nostalgia, although her mom being a good cook definitely helped. It wasn’t Chrome’s perfect and professional style, but the home food familiarity she’d grown up with, a bowl of rice with (almost) every meal, and sauces made the way her tongue seemed to remember even when her soul had not.
Also, It was an option. The Agency typically recruited talents and gave them essences, but those already with essences certainly made them a cheaper hire. They still had to train everyone from scratch (very few had real combat experience), so that wasn’t a detracting factor.
“Yeah,” Elizabeth snorted, “and get paid for shit. Unlike you. What did you do to get paid so much?”
“I have knowledge from another world.” Which was really the most succinct explanation she could give. “Look, sis,” Nara said, deciding to dispense some wisdom that would probably go unheeded. One could try. “I had a fortunate start to my coma-venture. Just about as fortunate as the one you have now. I had patrons, I had teachers. In one month—” she held up her index finger “—I can send you to that world, set you up at the same school for adventurers that I attended, and you can make your way there. I’ll even fund all of your expenses—within reason.
“The downside is, that you could die.” Nara dabbed a napkin around her mouth and set down her silverware. “I suppose I never did tell you how I returned here.”
So quickly she had changed her mind; spite really was the most powerful motivator. Her sister always knew how to push all her buttons and abused that ability with malicious indifference. She still wouldn’t tell her family about the torture. Death, she decided, would make her point. Torture was objectively worse.
“I died.” She drew a finger up from her navel, up her sternum. “Got stabbed by a Priest of Undeath, right here. The only reason I ‘survived’ was that the crossing of my soul to another world had given me another body. I’m not even genetically human anymore. Had any of you noticed I don’t breathe, and don’t have a heartbeat?”
If there hadn’t been before, they were staring now.
“I’m something that that world calls an outworlder now. Soulborn, in another. The soul, when it crosses the astral unprotected, is fundamentally changed. That body had been killed, murdered by a silver rank priest. My soul crossed again, finding this original body of mine, comatose but still alive.
“There is no adventure without danger,” Nara said. “No progress without challenge. You think you can do what I did?” Off to the side, Oskar cringed from the pain of this conversation, of being in the same room. Clearly wishing to be anywhere else. “Go right ahead. You have a month to decide.” Her aura sharpened and weighed upon the room. “At least, you get to decide to stay or leave. I did not!
“All the training in the world cannot save you from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, from being the pawn of a higher power. You think you can do better than I have done—don’t deny it, Elizabeth, you always think so. Here? This world? There are no gods and no diamond rankers.
“So, sister, if you decide to stay here rather than risk it, to change your profession rather than stay at your boring job, then you will just have to be content with the resources available here, and with the level of pay which you will start at. Do you understand?” There was perhaps a level of menace in her tone that Nara wasn’t entirely proud of using towards family, and the barest pressure of aura.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, somehow maintaining a croaky bravado. Nara was surprised she managed to answer at all, but Elizabeth had always been stubborn. “I’ll, um, think about it.”
It wasn’t an apology (of which Elizabeth was chronically allergic to), but hopefully from that moment forward Elizabeth would be less dismissive of her experience on Erras.
*****
Oskar, Eva, Elizabeth, and Aaron all decided to join Nara in London, which she’d make her home base for proximity to John. Her mother and stepfather would stay in Copenhagen, and Elliot would be reclaiming the position as CEO of Str?m Packaging from Oskar (which, while sounded impressive, was a small and local packaging company). Lynn, a rather competent accountant, would probably enjoy the work. Her father, James, would follow them to London, although certainly not participating in the same training that the younger generation had all decided to participate in. He’d probably use monster cores through and through. At least he didn’t seem insistent on becoming more powerful, so Nara could probably shovel him cores as convenient.
“I’m surprised you’re coming,” Nara mentioned to Eva, half asking, half genuine surprise.
“I don’t think this is the end of it,” Eva said, her eyes gleaming with anticipation, or perhaps foresight. “I think big things are happening.” She held up a camera, flashing a charming smile—a PR smile. “I think this all needs to be documented. My job, at least, is mostly done from home.” A smirk. “Or from London. And…” she glanced at Oskar. “This may be a dream come true for him.” And me, she didn’t say, although it was true.
“And you. I’ve heard you met playing D&D?”
“That right,” she mused, reminiscent. “We’re both big nerds, you know. Enormously so!” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, like she was divulging some big secret. Perhaps it was—the former CEO and the PR manager, playing D&D quietly at night with none the wiser. “We’d both regret it if we both didn’t give this all a chance.”
“You have the magic now. It doesn’t need to go any further than that.”
Her eyes crinkled, smile wide and excited. “Right again. But if we stopped at the bare minimum, we wouldn’t play D&D, now, would we?”
*****
Nara had found a cozy house to rent, nestled with some decent tree cover in the rolling countryside of Britain to rent. With her portal range, almost anything was within ‘commuting’ distance.
She wasn’t actually going to use the house, however, although her family was welcome to it. With a satisfying pop, the cork from the Nebula Flask was removed, and the cozy house transformed into a Tudor manor with a house detachment. The style of the ‘manor’ was still British countryside: steeply sloping shingle roofs, brown-red bricks layered unpainted, diamond pattern leaded glass windows, and a chimney extended out the top. A large linden tree extended its boughs of shade, shade draping over the house in a protective embrace. Alcea halo purple and pink hollyhocks were planted against the wall, delphiniums and foxgloves swayed beneath the protective shade of the tree. Tulips sprouted in neat rows, and Virginia creeper grew unboxed, crawling up the walls and reaching for the sun.
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She was at once at ease within her domain, her soul sensing her absolute ownership over this realm. Home and safety echoed in her mind—she’d left her team in another world and would need all the backup that her flask could provide. They had entreated her to take it with her—it is your flask, Nara—because they could always find their own lodging in Kallid, especially now that matters had been settled back into friendship with the Dahl family.
The house was a few hours away from London—a luxury she could only afford thanks to her portal ability. She’d portal any family members that wanted to stay in the house every day, but at times she was unavailable, she warned they’d have to make do.
The four opted to stay in Agency special housing. It possessed proximity to Agency training fields and lesson centers, and Elizabeth and Oskar seemed most determined to make the best of the opportunity. It was dorm-suite style housing, unfortunately, and they’d have to put up with the reduction in privacy. The two couples were determined to stay in separate suites.
Nara suspected the underlying reason was Oskar’s mixed opinion on Elizabeth overall, and she completely understood. She never much liked sharing space with her sister. The mediative reason via Eva was that they could form connections within the Agency with whoever else occupied their suite. Elizabeth agreed with that logic, so separate they stayed.
Since the four were going through with the Agency’s training program, Nara decided to dispense a majority of awakening stones for each, around 8, that they had selected for themselves with consultation (Elizabeth only wanted 2 legendries to start, so she forked them over. Really, the improvement brought a tear to her eye.). Then, after additional experience or through fortune, they’d fill in the rest of their final 8 abilities, reminiscent of Erras’ overall style. This decision went blessedly uncontested—the Agency had similar limits of mass ability awakenings, although for alternate reasons. Stones were exchanged with credits or traded with others, a part of bonuses and promotions, or reserved and selected to try to aim for particularly useful abilities with certain sets.
They were all given a Gun awakening stone as a sign on bonuses (except Nara, who wasn’t an employee as the others were). It was one of the most commonly manifested stones on Earth and the single most common weapon awakening stone, and the vast majority of essence users used at least one gun.
Elizabeth, however, did prove stubborn about one more thing: She didn’t want to awaken a skill book ability (which Earth did have, surprisingly. But Earth was in an Information Age). Eva didn’t need to take her advice—her set was overall more non-combat (Technology, Light, Echo, Simulacrum) and focused on creating ‘hard-light’ constructions, such as holograms, and other support abilities, although she did not entirely lack offensive options. Oskar did take Nara’s advice, his Knowledge stone indeed awakening a skill book ability. He, in fact, awakened the same ability as Eufemia, Clear Mind, the abilities of which he looked forward to, as its effects were known up to gold.
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Ability: [Clear Mind]
Special Ability
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): You may use skill books for which you meet the requirements.
Effect (Bronze): Able to read, speak, understand, and write in any language.
Effect (Silver): Understand the abilities of others after seeing them.
Effect (Gold): Increased resistance to aura suppression and effects that impair perception and thinking, such as magically and non-magically induced dizziness, nausea, and tiredness.
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Nara provided him with some skill book options from Erras, basic workhorses such as Mixed Range Fundaments, in anticipation of whatever fighting style he ended up adopting, but also more fanciful options (like hers, John’s, and Eufemia’s), like Hand of the Void, a famous combat skill book created from the knowledge of gold ranker known or his defensive combat and the void essence, which Oskar shared similar aspirations with. (Void themed paladin was still his current goal. It was a little odd that the character he was building was himself, but Oskar didn’t seem to have a problem with it.)
There wasn’t anything Nara could do to convince Elizabeth to try for a skill book ability, so it was a battle she never really attempted to fight Elizabeth on. With her set, it was unknown she’d get it anyway. No doubt though, her growing headache heralded, that she’d hear the complaints of Elizabeth of ‘how can she could be so good at fighting in such a short period of time!’
(The answer, obviously, was ‘Magic’)
Her dad was inserted into some non-combat healer program, and Nara could rest assured that he probably wouldn’t get anybody killed, nor would he get killed.
It was with that, that Nara finally, finally started her first day ‘on the job’.
*****
The Ether Realm was suffused with equal parts wonder and threat, to Diya. The monsters and the magic, ahem, ether, the impossible sights equally laden with danger and beauty. It was their mission to keep the magic of the ether realm solidly within the realm and not in reality, to beat it back when it threated to burst forth, destroying society as they knew it and killing all Diya loved.
She kept a wary eye on the contractor that her superiors had assigned to her to introduce to the ether realm. She had better things to babysit some civvie that had arse-backwards wandered into the truth of magic. They showed up, every so often, getting caught up in some event, witnessing a dark EI, or getting manipulated with promise of magic powers. Inevitably, the Agency had to clean up their mess, and sit them somewhere so that they wouldn’t kick up some big fuss.
Although…Diya shivered.
Her aura couldn’t get anything off of that civvie. Her superiors had said she was bronze rank—she still couldn’t believe it, a little girl like that?
It was probably nothing.
“The coterminous ether realm is usually related to its adjacent reality,” her ‘science’ guy, Minato explained. The team just called him ‘Chirp’. “The region around Great Britain often manifests monsters related to local legends—monsters, Sidhe, fairies, selkies and the like.”
“Very unpleasant. Bloody fairies.”
“Obviously, Watson,” said Warthog. “They’re monsters. Not actual fairies.”
Benedict (aka Watson, for the irony of it all), rolled his eyes, hefting a heavy machine gun all the while, although his high physical strength made it easy.
It was her job to show the civvie the ropes, but if Minato wanted to take her off her hands, she was glad for it.
“…our job is to make regular patrols of the landscape, killing monsters that approach any of the apertures. More importantly are the proto realms.”
“Pimple realms,” Watson interjected.
“—Dungeons,” Minato unhelpfully added.
“For the last time—” it would not be, “—We’re not calling them that!” Diya called back.
“The pimp—ah—proto realms are spaces that form between the ether realm and the physical realm,” said Minato, regaining his momentum—
The civvie made an odd face at that, but Diya possessed no ability whatever to discern her thoughts.
“—and they lose integrity after a period of time. Due to their instability, they have a high density of monster manifestations, and higher EQ than the region average. If we don’t clear them fast enough—Pop!—the pimple pops and whatever inside pours out into reality.”
“Gross,” Jasmine said, idly flicking some but that flew into her face. Diya didn’t know if she was talking about the pimple analogy or the bug.
“Lieutenant,” Minato said, suddenly stopping his explanation, “I’m getting an EQ 3 hit, roughly 800 meters Northeast.”
“Copy.” She had actual radios—a conjuration of Minato’s—but unneeded so far on this patrol.
“Two EQ 3s,” he corrected.
“Shit,” Diya said. “Exact EQ?”
“Low end,” he said. “Around 3.1, both of them. They’re accompanied by around 10 EQ 2.5s.”
“Alright! In formation!” she called, gathering her squad members. “Ms. Ambrose, stay back. We wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
She was a civilian, and Diya hated being a babysitter, but she wouldn’t let a civilian get hurt, no matter her thoughts on her presence. It was her duty to protect the people, that didn’t change because ‘the people’ were here.
She furrowed her brow. “I can fight, you know?”
Diya gazed at her—what a delicate looking thing! She had these odd flowing blue robes, far too pretty and silken for something to be used in combat. Did she think this was a game? A convention? She was even wearing jewelry, some sort of black earring! She looked categorically out of place against her squad, wearing their fireproof Agency fatigues and combat armor designed to absorb impacts and protect vitals.
“Just listen. This isn’t some sort of cosplay convention,” Diya said. “Stay behind Watson, he’ll take care of you.”
Watson nodded.
“I really don’t need your protection,” she reiterated, like Diya was the slow and unreasonable one here! “…What exactly did the Agency say to you?”
“You are a civilian contractor, Ms. Ambrose, and that I should show you what we do.”
“Right,” she said slowly, “Show me what you do so that I can do it too.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Ms. Ambrose. You can loot Ms. Ambrose, all you need to do is stay in range.”
*****
Nara sighed. Nothing could be easy, could it? The squad Lieutenant just didn’t think Nara was capable of anything other than literally standing around and looking pretty, which was certainly a novel feeling, since apparently on Earth she was now pretty enough to qualify. With the extra few inches from her rank ups, Nara did probably qualify for a modeling job. Maybe she could hit them up for extra cash? It’s not like she had to dedicate time to maintain her figure. Erras certainly had higher standards in that regard and would never allow someone of Nara’s ordinary appearance a free ride.
She’d have to be at least as beautiful as Eufemia to qualify. Beyond Eufemia there were celestines and elves with rarer and more eye-catching colorations that could really leverage their beauty for the all-expenses-paid position of professional eye candy.
Erras very rarely judged based on appearance—At least, no one competent judged based on appearance, as looking disarming was a viable and deadly combat tactic, Nara would know, but she wasn’t trying to assassinate this squad—and she was certainly missing that now.
“Lieutenant Patel,” Nara said, addressing Priya. “This’ll probably come out wrong, but I am not a soldier, and I am not required to listen to your commands.”
She would know, she made sure that it was a part of her contract negotiations. Diya, however, evidently did not like being told about her lack of actual control over Nara’s actions, and Nara watched in real-time as her posture straightened and arms crossed over the challenge to her authority. Her aura even sharpened, although it seemed to be reflexive rather than an aspect of her control (which was below average.)
“I will go and handle one of the EQ 3 monsters,” Nara continued, undeterred by the posturing. Fun! She really hadn’t gone toe-to-toe in a challenge to authority this way yet. This was at least a novel experience. Protesting to a goddess really gave Nara ‘The Lady Doth Protest Too Much’ vibes about herself.
“Alone?” Diya ground out, her doubt clipped yet dripping.
Nara resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the dramatics. “The Agency should have provided some detail on my capabilities. Rest assured, Lieutenant Patel, that I am capable of escaping an EQ 3.”
“I want you to follow orders, Ms. Ambrose, because I am concerned for the safety of all members of this team. I do not want to have to traipse after you because you bit off more than you could chew!”
“Then do not concern yourself with my safety and prioritize the safety of your team. Have you radioed for back up, yet?”
“I do not need you to explain how to manage my team.” Minato already had, but Diya did not appreciate the questioning of protocol by a civilian. Diya always followed protocol.
“I’m afraid, Lieutenant Patel, that you are at an impasse.” Nara spread out her hands demonstratively. “I will go to fight the EQ 3, and you have no way to stop me. I suggest you ready your team for engagement instead of fighting battles you cannot win. Assume I fail my battle against the EQ 3, and prepare for such an eventuality, if you have so little confidence in my capabilities.”
“A solo engagement of a higher EQ is just not possible!” Diya’s voice rose, echoing across the fields of green and spare forest. In the distance, an impossible fantasy-medieval castle loomed, tattered flags snapping in the winds. “This is ridiculous.”
“Then, Lieutenant, keep your eyes peeled to witness the impossible.”