(TPOR) Chapter 183: Devil Mage

The room was quiet. All four of its inhabitants watched each other in silence.

After what seemed to last for five minutes, Zed broke it.

“So what you are saying,” he told Chris, “is that, this is like an RPG, and we have the option of siding with the republic or the rebellion.”

Oliver held up a finger. “I believe that’s Star Wars.”

“Thank you,” Zed said. “Point being that, we can either go in with the Olympians and join the governing body with their amazing power armor and ruling authority at the cost of being tracked. Or we can be the underdogs and join the rebellion with their… Remind me of what they bring to the table again.”

“Autonomy,” Chris said flatly.

“So they are like hobos?” Zed sighed. “When I asked what they bring to the table, I meant material things, prestige, power. The VHF get a sweet suit of armor, rune mages, and superior power. Also, your rebellion doesn’t give autonomy.”

“Hold up!” Ash got in the middle of the conversation. “Nobody said anything about joining a rebellion, just smuggling ourselves in.”

“Yea,” Oliver added. “You saw what the anti-mages did at Madam Shaggy’s party. I’m not willing to work with people who have no problem engaging in that level of mindless massacre.”

“Those were the anti-mages,” Chris said with a tired sigh. “The rebellion is different.”

“So you are trying to get us to join in with the rebellion.” Zed shook his head in mock disappointment. “I never took you for a secret hobo with delusions of freedom.”

“They are not hobos!” Chris was fuming now. “And what do yo mean delusions of freedom. Working with the rebellion guarantees you freedom.”

“Freedom from the VHF,” Zed corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Chris groaned and made a dismissive gesture. “Miss me with that bullshit of semantics.”

She turned away from him to face Oliver.

“What semantics?” Oliver asked.

“Let her be,” Zed said. “She’s just annoyed that someone’s picked out the semantics of freedom since it totally invalidates her claim towards the subject of freedom.”

“And what semantics is that?”

“First, I would just like to point out that we’re probably using the word wrong. Second, she claims joining the rebellion will give us autonomy. But it won’t. Autonomy is self-governance. Joining the rebellion only means that we are sacrificing one leadership for another. Because I’m sure the rebellion has a leader.”

Chris frowned but didn’t say anything.

Ash was the one who spoke.

“It’s a rebellion,” she said. “Of course it has a leader, someone has to lead the rebellion. Guide it.”

Zed looked around, remembering they were not complete in the room. He bent and checked under the desk, not that he needed to. Still, he couldn’t help himself.

“… It doesn’t matter,” Oliver was saying.

“And why not?” Ash asked. “I think it would be important to know what we’re getting ourselves into, and if Chris is somehow prejudiced. I swear going through the front door with the other Olympians is beginning to look more enticing by the moment.”

“Where’s the snog?” Zed asked suddenly. “And are you saying that you were really considering going through the smuggling part of this entire thing? If yes. Why? And, again, where’s the snog?”

“The snog’s outside, Zed,” Oliver answered.

Zed nodded, then made his way for the door.

“You’re leaving?” Ash asked, surprised.

Zed stopped at the door and turned to her. “I’m not really doing anything here, though. Wether you guys want to be smuggled or not is up to you guys. But let me be sure I’ve gotten the plan right. We go to a certain place close to the city walls—I’m wondering why the city now has a wall—then we make some kind of sign on the wall. We wait two to five business days, and we’ll find some response on what we need to do to be smuggled. Did I miss anything?”

Oliver shook his head. “That’s a good enough summary.”

“We aren’t waiting two to five business days,” Chris clarified. “I said we’ll need to wait a day, two at the most.”

Zed shrugged and opened the door. “Compared to just walking in the front door, I’ll say that’s two to five business days.”

He was about to leave but stopped himself. He closed the door quietly, let out a sigh and turned back to them.

“See, I get it. You have trust issues and everyone has their agenda for coming this far. But so do I.” He rested his back against the door. “The gate will be right in front of us, yet you’re asking us to spend an extra day or two doing something unnecessary. The smuggling feels unnecessary.”

“Trust me,” Chris said with conviction. “You don’t want the VHF getting a hold of your mana signature.”

“That’s like saying you don’t want the government having your finger prints. That’s the mindset of the bad guy or an aspiring bad guy.”

“Bloodbath.”

“I get it,” Zed interrupted Chris. “Believe me I do. But all I’m hearing about this smuggling thing is that someone in this group is trying to get their own arc in the story. Trust me, joining the rebellion isn’t it. If you want to do something special, join the VHF and be a force of justice.”

“And who decides what justice is?” Chris spat.

“Definitely not you. And definitely not some rebellion trying to topple a government.”

Zed paused. He had almost forgotten who he was talking to. Chris would not listen. She would argue to the ends of the earth. Once upon a time she would’ve simply shut him down and moved on like he didn’t matter.

Maybe he could see it as some kind of change that she acknowledged the fact that he was someone to argue with. But that didn’t matter here.

What mattered to him was finding the R and D institute that used to be in California. A part of him believed it was the VHF headquarters. There was another part that thought it wasn’t but was fairly certain the VHF would have the location. If they did, then he could find a way there.

“Zed.”

Zed raised his head to look at Oliver. “What’s up?”

“You’ve got that look on your face,” Oliver said.

Zed had no idea what look Oliver was talking about. He had a lot of looks, each one had their purpose.

“Don’t do it,” Oliver said.

Ash looked between the both of them. “Don’t do what?”

“He’s thinking about doing something,” Oliver told her. “As far as he’s concerned, this conversation is no longer of any interest to him.”

“How do you know? He’s never stepped out on us before.”

“I know because I’ve seen it in the mirror before.” Oliver turned to Zed. “Let’s think about this before we go making decisions.”

Zed chuckled. “Ollie, I promise you that I’m not going anywhere. Personally, I just think that deciding to get smuggled into the city will—regardless of how you feel about it—lead to joining the rebellion. And that’s not the next story arc we want to go into. That said, I’m going to find that damned snog.”

He opened the door and stepped out of the room.

“And why hasn’t anyone decided to name it yet,” he muttered as he walked back out into the afternoon air.

………….

Daniel scratched his head. Zed was definitely not making being an Olympian and a good person at the same time easy.

Jennifer looked even more bothered than himself at the information Kid had just given them.

“All by himself?” she asked, biting her finger nail nervously

Kid nodded. “He practically bullied it with only his force rune.”

That was all well and good, but Daniel had other worries. Rune mages were already special in their own way. having a Beta rank rune mage defeat a Rukh rank golem, considering the category difference wasn’t something he couldn’t wrap his head around.

He could still remember one of the tests Ven had allowed him watch back at head quarters. They’d placed two mages of equal ranks in the arena and had them cast their spells. Each specialized in fire and each time the rune mage’s runespell packed more firepower than the normal mage.

The only downside to runes was the mana consumption. A normal mage would cast three spellforms for every rnespell a rune mage could cast.

“How many?” Daniel asked.

“How many what?” Ash asked. She was sitting on the ground, the table having been occupied by Jennifer.

Kid was rested against the closed door.

“How many runes did he cast?” Daniel clarified.

“Not sure,” Kid said. “Maybe a total of fifteen? Could’ve been eighteen.”

Daniel scratched his jaw in thought.

He’d be lying if he said he was surprised, but it didn’t mean that he wasn’t impressed. He’d seen the carnage Zed had created when the anti-mages had crashed their ship. It would’ve taken an ungodly amount of mana to hold up that level of regeneration at that speed and consistency.

Even attribute mages couldn’t go for so long under that level of attribute demand without running out of mana.

He took that piece of information and filed it away. It was the weapon he would use when it was time to justify recruiting Zed to join their team.

The other piece of information was where his worry bounced around. It was information that would change Zed’s status to the VHF from recruitment to abduction. The man had been struck a direct blow to the heart by Devil mana and had lived to tell the tale.

Worse, it had somehow mutated him.

“And you’re sure his runes were black?” Daniel asked.

“I saw him use it too many times to get confused,” Kid said, then he held up his wrist to show the bracelet that had once been the devil lance. It was a deep black. “They were as black as this. It was unmistakable.”

“What are the chances that he now has a devil mana affinity?” Jennifer mused, worried. “We’ve never had a mage with a devil mana affinity before.”

Daniel nodded.

“It could be worse than a death mana affinity.”

“Imagine having a devil mage.” Ronda hugged herself and shivered. “I don’t think I want to fight someone like that.”

“And it won’t come to it,” Daniel assured her. “I’ve met people like Zed. They don’t turn bad so easily.”

Jennifer snorted. “It only takes the right circumstance, Daniel. I’ve seen it happen to the best people. That girl with them, Chris, she’ll fill their heads with a lot of nonsense before we even get to HQ. With her presence, it’s only a matter of time.”

“What do you mean?” Kid asked.

“For starters, am I the only one that gets the feeling that she knows too much for a girl we found in the middle of nowhere?”

Everyone in the room nodded. Daniel couldn’t fault them. Chris had a tendency to say somethings only people who’d stayed in California should know. She clearly knew far more than the rest of her team.

Jennifer continued smoothly. “I’d bet my next Olympian armor that she’s already had a conversation about smuggling themselves into the city instead of taking the front gate.”

Kid shook his head. “There’s knowing somethings and there’s knowing too much. It takes a certain level of knowledge to know that you can be smuggled into the city.”

“That’s true,” Ash agreed. “And it takes another level of information to know where to go to get someone who not only could smuggle you but would also be willing to.”

“Then you’ll have to know where you’re being smuggled to and what the cost would be.” Daniel shook his head. “There’s too much. I think believing that she has all this information is paranoia.”

“But what if she does?”

Everyone looked at Jennifer.

“Humor me for a momet,” she said. “We already agree that she knows far more than her teammates. She knows too much to just be a girl coincidentally the middle of nowhere, not to talk of her versatility with spellforms.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“So what if she’s actually not from around here?”

“You’re saying she might be from California?” Daniel asked.

“Not necessarily. What I’m saying is what if she knows way too much not because of where she’s from but because of who she knows.”

There was a slow silence that filled the room as each person came to their own conclusion. It wasn’t difficult to know that everyone came to the same conclusion.

“You’re saying she might be a spy,” Daniel muttered.

No one said anything in opposition.

“But why?” he asked.

“Too many coincidences,” Jennifer answered. “The party that the anti-mages crashed, she survived that.”

“So did her entire team.” Kid argued. “Ours too.”

“She fights completely differently from the way the rest of her team fights.”

“So does Zed.”

“It wasn’t long after we left the forest that the anti-mages came for us. They knew our exact location. Enough for them to shoot us out of the sky on take off. And we already know they had a spy.”

Kid scratched his head. “I’ll be honest with you. This might make me sound like a bad person but I was really hoping whoever it was died in the crash.”

Ash looked down, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze. “Me, too.”

“I’m just saying,” Jennifer said. “We should consider the possibility.”

Daniel wasn’t sold on it. Something was bothering him.

“But she was already there before us,” he said. “She’s been there for at least a year.”

“So what?” Jennifer shrugged. “We already know the rebellion works that way. We do it, too. We send someone to scout out a new location, then we infiltrate once the time is right. It’s possible that she might’ve actually been sent to get the Watchman, Heimdall. Or at least give him some support or something.”

Daniel shook his head. “There are too many loopholes.”

“I know,” Jennifer agreed. “But I’m not saying that she’s a spy. I’m saying that we should consider the possibility. And if she is, then she would try to have them smuggled in.”

“Why?” Ronda asked. “What does her being with the rebellion have to do with smuggling them in. What does that prove? She could just get in the city and find a way to contact her team.”

“Not really,” Daniel disagreed, thoughtful. “If she’s a part of the rebellion, then there are different possibilities. If she’s not had her mana ID registered, then she would likely not want to go through the entrance.”

“That’s assuming she knows of the registration process,” Ronda pointed out.

“Everything is an assumption at this point,” Daniel agreed. “Now, if she knows of the registration process, she would not want to be registered because there’s a lot that can be done if you’re not registered.”

“And if she’s registered, then going through the gate will get her flagged,” Kid added. “Which is why she would not want to go through the gates. She’d practically be arrested on sight.”

“She’d fight back,” Jennifer said casual. “Those rebels are fanatics. She’d most likely end up getting herself and a few innocents killed.”

At the mention of the possible deaths of innocents, the room fell quiet again. Now they were in a new dilemma. They couldn’t let Chris go through the front gate unless they had a way to ensure it could be done peacefully.

And they obviously couldn’t let her convince the others to take the smuggling route.

Daniel couldn’t help the frown that crossed his lips.

This was becoming more of a hassle than he would like to admit.