For The Drop Of Blood Ch.10
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OUT OF THE TENT
I went out of the tent and immediately knew I was right, shouting from the main fire. I didn't want to walk into it and couldn't stay out. I placed my hand on Helen and first time, I felt rejected by her. I never even tried to draw, I knew why she was angry “We would die...I would die. You would go to the victor. Khyon would lose, and I would likely lose too. Santino would still get you...except now. If I feel you if you don't want me to use you, I won't.” I felt the pain, like a bite from an animal, and then calm. I chuckled “So we're even then?” Something like warmth flowed from the handle into my body. “Good because this will be messy.” I Drew Helen and emptied the chamber putting magic bullets into the pouch before drawing six fresh normal bullets and enchanting them into pure Aether ones and reloading the revolver. I wanted to try something for a long time but never really had a reason to. And now I figured it a good time as any, I slowly approached the yelling match, which was at such a pitch that my attempts at stealth were likely unnecessary. Still, better safe than sorry. I got to the wanted place between two tents, away from light. Khyon and Ronald were in a shouting match on one side of the fire. Santino was standing on the other side and occasionally threw in a snide remark or two at either participant. He was most coolheaded, but even he was far from a cool and collected self. All armors have a breaking point. I quirked my lip, before pointing the revolver into the fire and pulling the trigger. One of the reasons I exchanged bullets for a full load of Aether ones. Untamppered Aether is best represented as a pure force but it can be tampered with so easily because it's VERY volatile. Shooting it into any element and you'll have a lovely reaction. Concretely into a fire pit and you'll have a disproportionately large blast, but since a fire pit isn't really usually that rich with fire, and it's in the open, it's not really an explosion. Few singed hairs here and there and some light burns, sure if you're close enough, but not much more, but force blasted in that way would knock a few people on their backs or butts. And it did, but with this bunch, it will not last, I had to be quick. Most Arts have names, not exactly universal ones but you call it something. But there are a few fancy ones, that did have universally accepted names...and most of those were way above my ability. Actually, arguably, this one was too. That's why I never tried it, I was ballsy enough to think I could because of my affinity for fire Arts, moment after the connect explosion I closed my eyes and reached toward the fireplace toward a few embers still in place and tugged them to connect before others get their wits together and then I molded my creation as I saw it and as fast as I dared. It may be taken just a few seconds but in my mind, maybe half an hour went by. “Pretty good for a first try.” Santino's sarcastic voice make me open my eyes.
It was good for a first try, I don't care what he thinks. I did see a few flaws here or there but, no one who knew Arts would mistake it for anything else. I made a “Fire Rose” on my first try and I did feel a bit proud. Fuck him. “Akhm!” Ronald drew my attention “If it's not too much trouble could you explain why you're holding us hostage...again?” I walked out of the shadows to check it from a bit closer. “Oh? I'm not. I knew a bullet with scatter the kindling and just wanted to provide some light to us with no adaptions to see in the dark.” Khyon chuckled and looked around for scattered half-burned logs and started throwing them into the flame, after all, he knew me longest and knew that, yes, that was absolutely something I would do. While Santino pinched the bridge of his nose “And you chose highly dangerous Arts that could've burned the entire camp if you messed up or lost concentration?” Logs started catching fire again and I said goodbye to my little creation before annulling it “What, in that rigorous vetting you did, didn't come up that I like to gamble? For shame!” I returned Helen to the holster. “At least I wasn't sitting with my hands on my ass and throwing sarcastic comments, while a fight was about to break loose two feet from me, good going boss. Highest mark for leadership skills.” Our eyes met, he was cold enough to freeze balls on a Hellhound, but I wasn't about to back down. Compared to the current tension, what Khyon and Ronald were doing before was mere friendly banter. Which both realized quickly enough. Both standing in front of us Khyon in front of me and Ronald in front of him and carefully coaxed us away from each other Khyon was pushing me away to one side “O.K. I may have reacted a bit ungratefully toward someone who saved our bacon, misplaced anger. You know the one I should have saved for the idiot who forgot what “secret” in secret mission means.” Ronald at the same time was leading Santion in the opposite direction “The boy is not a whole wrong, you more than the best know how I get about Aether weapons. And just because Knifeear didn't prostrate himself in front of you in gratitude you'd let us tear each other apart? It's not like you man.”
We were on opposite sides of the fire now, our handlers giving the last checks to see if the situation will escalate again before nodding at each other. And moving away. Both of us avoided each other's eyes for a second before Santino, to his credit, first broke the silence “O.K. I screwed up, I allowed my pride to cloud my judgment. I should've stepped in sooner.” I bit my lip “I shouldn't have taunted you...or blown up the fire for shits and giggles...and activated “Fire Rose” just to check, can I...I hid from Khyon that you were there...” I noticed all three of them looking at me. “What?” Khyon narrowed his eyes “You know, the longer you talk, the more it seems all of this is your fault.” Ronald fixed his monocle “You know I usually have your back, but when you present it like that...you do make a food point to at least give you a good thrashing.” Santino just quirked his lip. I raised my hands “Waaaaait a minute. Yeah, I do a lot of impulsive crap, but we would not be here if each of us haven't squirreled a hoard of secrets of which at least some have been shared between us. If we behaved as reasonable adults we wouldn't be here. Now, with that in the account, does any of you really expect me to be the one to start behaving as an adult?” They looked at each other. Santino shrugged. Ronald quipped “Well it does save him from that thrashing at least.” Khyon added, “Honestly if he began behaving as an adult I'd thought Changeling replaced him.”
I nodded “Now when we started to use more parts of our head than just our mouth we can concentrate on how we got here, likely pretty close to dying by one of several parties we pissed off and will piss off.” There was silence uncomfortable looks changed around. I sighed “I have to spell the obvious again? Secrets. For one reason or another, we are sitting on stuff that's pertinent to this case and just choose to keep silent. I'm not asking how the race that can't produce Aether made Aether weapons. I'm just gonna assume you had many generous donors and no War Crimes in your neverending war with Drows were committed. Like, say, illegal experiments on Art users.” Ronald just coughed and pushed a few loose branches into the fire “Or, Khyon. The closest thing that breeds with two legs that I might, under certain circumstances, if the sun shines just right call a friend. Funny how whenever some shit is about to hit the fan, just the right thing falls from the truck. It's never just a shipment of ponchos, the latest Northern shoes, or something like that, They are suits of armor that would make a Medieval Knight blush and rifles that can shoot Aether for effect at 4 freaking miles.” Khyon looked at me but he also kept silent “And Santino, in a happy relationship with the psychic version of a Succubus. Unless you both live in celibacy, while she has munchies on the side, that is strictly physically impossible.” Santino was just looking at me with his usual poker face.
“So I will break one of my rules and go first, but if you continue to play mummers, I'm saying my bye to the girls and leaving. I'll wait with bated breath to see how well we are going to do splintered. It's gonna be awesome I bet.” I made a pause cracking my knuckles, then took a deep breath “O.K. I'm a bastard...” Khyon chuckled “Oh if those are secrets that's cool. I'm an, in fact, Elf.” There were a few snickers around the fire. I offered Khyon to take exact measurements of my middle finger before continuing “...I, of course, meant literal one.” Khyon frowned. “But you said you were an orphan since birth and...” he stopped himself in time but not fast enough for me not to have my piece of flesh as payment. I looked at him innocently “...and your friends in important places, in fact, fact-checked it and found it to be true. But the funny thing with old records is they are sometimes lost and found ...sometimes.” I opened my new swanky jacket, eye-catching three holes from crossbow bolts. Drows, these guys will be buckets of fun, I felt it in my bones. From the front pocket, I removed the bag sealed in the stasis field. I undid the spell and pulled out a small batch of documents, together with old news clippings, and hand it over to Khyon. I summarized for others “According to both newspapers and documents there was a fire in one of the burrows in New York, in the house of respectable midwife Rosemary Austin (65), due to poor conditions of the neighborhood, it spread to 4 more houses. The fire department destroyed two more houses to stop the continual spread because they could not douse something in late Mrs. Austin's house. With some reluctance, they decided to employ Arts since they did have two practitioners just for cases like this, and several smaller barriers were raised, and reduced, and reduced until after 40 minutes they got close enough to see the thing on fire. Apparently rather calm and happy, healthy-looking baby boy. More practitioners were called, until, finally, a nurse from The Sacred Heart Of The Blessed Mother managed to reduce the barrier to cradle size and take the boy away. The investigation has later shown the almost untouched purse and the dress. Documents inside identify the pile of ashes on the birthing table as Erzsébet (Father Hákon) Hólt. The name of her father is written as the custom if the child is born out of wedlock.”
Roland again coughed “Well, that is all very interesting, also suitably macabre for you to score two first kills while you were in the womb. Not to sound cold, but I see little connection with our current predicament.” I snorted “Those documents weren't lost for a bloody trophy, I wanted to find my father and punch his ticket too.” Santino barely raises one of her eyebrows “And?” “Well, the first part was rather straightforward, relatively speaking as always. There was never any doubt in my identity, but naturally, my grandpa wasn't called Hákon Sr. for nothing, he was even more senior bastard than I am, this time metaphorically speaking. He was non to happy about that “out of wedlock” thing, and apparently, he wasn't happy I caramelized his daughter either like that was my fault. Just when I was 18 I managed to...convince him, that I'm not looking for a tearful reunion with my father but to put a bullet in his head, which convinced him. He gave me permission to search his daughter's room. I found the diary, as expected of a lot of young people, nonsense contained like 90% of it. But I did find what I wanted near the end. See looking at me you wouldn't believe it but she “met a fella”. Apparently, the giant of a man, 6'9” easily, with fiery red hair and built like a...and this is a direct quote... ”Vikings of legends.” since he was somewhere from Scandinavia and Hungary, her old country, had dealings with Kyiv Rus before, who, at least in part had a lot of Scandinavian blood. There I thought when he left her, she went a bit loopy because there were long and boring passages about how lucky she was and how when he revealed the truth, she knew what privilege she left her, “privilege” being me...” I made a brief pause thinking to myself not aware of others waiting for me to continue “She sounds a bit dumb but sweet, I hope it was fast.” I shook my head like to shake off cobwebs...or ghosts clinging to me “Then two full pages in runes. I was 18 and barely knew how to levitate and burn stuff, I managed my pyromanias affliction by sawing sigils directly into my palms using Mithral wire...” Khyon chuckled “Yeah, he was still doing that when he met me when I suggested just using a pair of gloves and pocket dimension to put them on he looked at me like I just made a world-shattering revelation to him.” He noticed me glaring and went quiet “Yeah, maybe some other time...” “Never would work too.” I growled before continuing “Anyway, translating languages, especially so old and esoteric was an ask. I had to return to that miserable house 6 times, so I had the pleasure of spending a week with my gramps. What a miserable cunt. Anyway...I managed the basics, not the message itself. More what it contained. Kinda map to her hidey-hole in the room where she hid a piece of her lover's “real self” he gave her as a goodbye. with his name carved into it.” Santino quirked his lip “Edgy.” I moved to the Girl and fished around the bags in the saddle since it might be a decade since I looked at it last. Finally, I found it, inch by inch crystal box with a black stone inside and a rune carved on the side of it. I threw it to Santino “Necessary.” I returned “Don't try to open it, if it gets in contact with oxygen it will burst into flames, rather it will burn until someone strong enough to close the box arrives, or until it burns oxygen, all oxygen it can find...” I pushed my pinky into the left ear to scratch one of those annoying itches that you just can't reach “...on the planet.” Santino looked at the rune and finally, I saw a tangible reaction from him. He went pale as the moon above us and gave the box to Ronald, Dwarfs are always more collected, still while his complexion remained the same monocle slipped from his eye and would likely meet unfortunate faith if Khyon and his Elven reflexes saved the day. They exchanged items like they are hostages, as expected Khyons reaction was most relatable, ripping one of few Elven swearing phrases I knew, and for their standard rather juicy one. He did a double take like he doubted his eyes the first time. Then just shook his head and returned the box to me. I went and returned it to the saddle bags. No one spoke the word until I returned. There wasn't much to say really. Santino's palm went over his seemingly perpetual 5 o'clock shadow beard. “So...” he finally started
“... Surtr.”
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