RD 5 Ch 49

Merlin glanced at Ricky, letting out a sigh as the man visibly withered. She didn’t think she was scowling, but the man really could use a firmer spine.

“I’m sorry that they left you behind.” Ricky voiced, though it came out more like a question.

Kathy apparently didn’t know what to do with herself as the rumbling grew louder. More and more of the patrons jumped to their feet, scrambled out of the building, leaving the hostess with suddenly very little to do besides wring her hands and look lost.

“If you’d like, you can stick close to us,” Merlin offered, only to get a once-over from the waitress. This time the look came with more than just a visual as she inspected Merlin.

The wizard didn’t block her, hoping her stats would give the woman some level of confidence, only for the waitress’s jaw to nearly hit the floor.

Merlin smirked. It was always satisfying to get that sort of reaction.

“You are level six hundred?” she hissed, and Merlin felt herself puff up a little.

“It sounded like you were about to express your concern that I wouldn’t be able to help. I hope this puts aside any of your concerns.” Merlin shrugged. After being around Bran for so long her strength had started to feel ordinary. At least the average person would still be impressed.

Kathy nodded dumbly. “I’ll do anything you say… Merlin?” It was as if something occurred to her with that.

Ricky seemed distracted by what was happening rather than focusing on the woman behind him. “I can help. I think I can help,” Ricky said, doing a double take and glancing toward Merlin as if asking if it was alright for him to try.

“Oh? How?” Merlin crossed her arms. Bran seemed to think this man would one day become a miracle worker when it came to inscriptions. However, in Merlin’s opinion, that day was very, very far away. Right now, he was not in a state to contribute enough to be worth their time. The man was a bumbling idiot. If he didn’t have the confidence to talk to a woman, how could he have the confidence to make the kind of inventions Bran was hoping he would master?

“It’s a bunch of monsters, right? I can make something for a bunch of monsters, like… ” The man paused as he tried to think.

Merlin took a deep breath, trying to keep her face neutral and kind. But she was fighting her nature every step of the way to not roll her eyes.

“You’re a mage. You have some powerful abilities, don’t you? I can make something to amplify them, copy them even.” He offered.

“Show me.” Merlin gestured at a table, and in a flash Ricky had pulled several items from his spatial ring. One of them was a rubber ducky, the other a vial she had seen Bran give him, filled with Bran’s thick red blood. It was apparently a panacea for inscription.

Regardless of intention, Ricky had already set the ducky down, and with a small tool that reminded Merlin of the dentist office began carving lines all over the soft yellow vinyl.

“Why rubber duckies?” Kathy asked behind him.

He didn’t look up, still clearly engrossed in his work. “Well, I liked them. I was a bit of a collector before. All of this, ” he waved a hand in the air. “But I really think they’re good for enchantments. The vinyl’s easy to work with, and really their form is quite versatile. You can even invert them and inscribe what you need on the inside. Which, let me tell you, putting the script on two sides of the same paper is a really good way to enhance effects. But roundish is better for linking inscriptions, not many flexible, double sided, round objects out there that can be easily carved.”

If Kathy understood any of what Ricky was saying, it didn’t show in her eyes.

“But more importantly, I think, is that I can trigger one of my class’s abilities off of them.” He continued.

“Oh,” Kathy said with sudden understanding. “So it’s not a weird sex thing. It’s a class thing.”

“Yeah, of course it’s not a weird sex thing.” He finally looked up to realize who he was talking to, and what he was saying died in his throat as he stumbled over his words.

“Inscriptions. Now.” Merlin grabbed Ricky by the head and forced him down to continue working. Then she turned to Kathy. “You don’t distract him until he’s done. I have people I care about out there, fighting to protect you when we could just as easily pack up and leave.”

“Well, thank you for not leaving,” Ricky mumbled as he worked.

Merlin scowled down at him. “You’re welcome. And even if I think we should go, Bran isn’t the type of person to leave anyway. While he may not fully relate to his last name, he does have a little bit of a hero complex.”

“That’s the big guy?” Kathy asked, with far more interest than Merlin particularly enjoyed. She had made peace with the fact that Bran wasn’t going to be a staunch practitioner of monogamy. However, she found the waitress to be unworthy of him, as crude as it sounded.

“He leads a large organization across the globe,” Merlin kept her tone even.

“Oh,” Kathy said, but clearly didn’t understand. “And he’s really here to recruit this guy?” She pointed at Ricky.

“I am right here,” he said.

“Of course, I didn’t mean anything by that, just trying to understand.” Kathy leaned down, watching what Ricky was doing. “It’s just, I didn’t know that people needed their rubber duckies enchanted.”

Merlin cleared her throat. “His skills with inscriptions are good enough to get Bran’s attention. It’s not my area of expertise, but if Bran says he’s good, then the truth is that he’s fucking incredible.” Merlin was feeling a little on edge that she had to explain anything to this woman. But she focused on making sure Ricky continued his work.

With her words, Ricky’s face had turned into a slight frown while he worked. “Yeah, well, he just wants me for my ability. He must want me to create a miracle for him, but it doesn’t work that way.”

Merlin shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, it works however Bran wants it to work. Your only job is to make it happen.”

“Ah, okay,” Ricky said awkwardly as he kept working. “Look, it’s just… I don’t think it’s as easy as he might expect. There was someone else who tried to make me make miracles, and when it didn’t work, they got pretty upset. I don’t need the same thing happening again. I think Bran could just as easily pick me up and crumple me into a ball if I upset him.”

“Don’t worry about ‘what if’s’. If you can do something now, just do it.” Merlin leaned down over him.

His fidgeting didn’t get worse. Instead, he seemed to calm down, which only made Merlin’s eyes narrow with an idea. “You’ll do this here and now, because it’s just what you’re going to do.” She told him.

He didn’t even look up, he just stayed focused on his task, doubling over as he began to inscribe on the ducky. “What type of abilities do you use?” he asked as he worked.

“Ice. I could summon a large-scale blizzard. That would be my best option for such a large swarm.” She told him.

He nodded again, his motions taking on a slightly different cadence. There was no shake, no nerves to his movements, simply focus.

Merlin had met people like this before. He didn’t want to think; he didn’t want to worry. He was the kind of person that just needed a job to do and space to do the job. Someone else could take on all of that for him and he’d be more than happy to just be a grunt.

If Simone were with them, she’d probably have a few choice words to call this man. No, Merlin realized, there would only be a single word. She’d call him a sub, which was an insult to some, but for him it was just a fact of life. It went against what many people viewed as the norms of being a man. But it was just Ricky’s life.

And that realization caused Merlin to glance sideways at Kathy. “Tell him what to do,” she said softly, fairly certain the man wouldn’t hear it if the inn fell down atop them. He was fully focused on the work in front of him. Nothing else existed around him.

“How am I supposed to tell him what to do?” Kathy said, glancing at him and his rapid motions as he worked on the inscription. “I don’t know what he’s even doing.”

“You don’t have to know the specifics.” Merlin shook her head. “You just need to tell him the outcome.”

Kathy looked at Merlin as if she was speaking gibberish. “I told you, I don’t even know what he’s doing.” Kathy shrugged helplessly.

“Just tell him to make it perfect. Tell him to blow the entire stampede away in an instant. Tell him that you want it to snatch the moon for you. You don’t have to know what he’s doing. You just have to demand that he do it better.” Merlin instructed.

“Isn’t that going to be really disruptive?” Kathy blanched.

Merlin shook her head, growing impatient. “Not from you. Go.”

Kathy took a deep breath and shook her head, but still, she at least listened to the wiser woman.

“You. What is that? That’s not good enough.” It sounded like Kathy was doing her best impression of an asshole boss she’d had in her past.

Ricky shook his head from his work, glancing at Kathy and then back down at his creation. “You’re right. It’s not good enough.”

“You have to make it bigger,” Kathy said. “Big enough to blow all of the monsters away in a single go.”

“Bigger,” Ricky repeated, continuing to work on the inscription. Bran’s blood sat next to him, and Merlin couldn’t help but feel like it was begging to be used, but she stayed quiet for the moment, not wanting to break the focus.

“Bigger. Destroy them all in one blow,” Ricky repeated to himself. He began working at a feverish pace.

“Faster,” Kathy demanded, and this time Merlin looked up with a raised eyebrow, only for the waitress to give a helpless shrug and gesture to indicate Merlin was welcome to step in if she would rather take over. But Kathy’s effect seemed to be working.

Ricky worked himself so hard that the tool in his hand nearly drew blood with how hard he was holding the tool. And sweat began to drip down his face as he leaned over the rubber ducky.

Kathy still stood behind him, arms crossed. “You call that good enough? Maybe barely,” she said, still demanding more. “Though I hope you wouldn’t give something like that to me. If it’s to protect me, it should be at least ten times better.”

Merlin could see the sudden determination form in Ricky’s eyes. She wondered just what miracle this might produce. The man clearly bent under Kathy’s whims. Merlin thought this entire scenario was ludicrous, but in the end it was working. Kathy seemed to either be getting into the concept or didn’t know when to stop as she kept demanding more from him in a dozen different and very colorful ways.

By the time Ricky slowed down, as if there was nothing more to do, Kathy stood with her arms crossed. “Well, I guess if that’s the best you can do, then we’ll see how it does,” she said haughtily.

Ricky swallowed before he reached for Bran’s vial of blood. He used a small dropper to collect just a scant amount, and brought it to the rubber ducky. As he did, he squeezed the back end, letting the blood flow smoothly into one of the etchings he had carved.

The blood ran cleanly along the lines, spreading throughout the entire surface of the ducky before finally connecting in a glorious and incredibly complex pattern. It shined briefly for a moment, as if the world were announcing that it was complete, before the glow wore off.

Ricky turned around and held the duck out with shaking hands toward Kathy. “It was the best I could do.” His voice trembled, but it wasn’t so much the fact that he was facing Kathy. Instead he seemed genuinely exhausted from making the single enchantment.

Merlin squinted at the ducky and used Inspect to see what the system would have to say for his achievement.

[Quackers of Frigid Annihilation - One time use to create a minor world ending ice storm]

Merlin’s eyes shot open in surprise, and Kathy seemed to notice the look. She raised her eyebrows, waiting to hear if the ducky would be good enough to help them. Merlin gave a single nod.

“We did it,” Kathy whispered, reading Merlin’s reaction and turning back to Ricky. “Now you just need to stand still as we go give it a test run.”

“Test run?” Ricky said, glancing back at his work. “But it’s only a single use.”

Merlin wondered if he understood just how powerful this blast might be.

“Which is why I’ll take it.” Merlin snatched it out of Kathy’s hands, worried the woman might accidentally squeeze the duck and destroy the town.

“Both of you. Come with me.” Merlin ordered. She put a hand on each of their shoulders and closed her eyes briefly before teleporting to the highest point she had seen from the town to get a good visual on what was happening outside.

It didn’t take her long to see the slashes of red, the arrows blotting out a section of the sky, and the roaring gale from Circe. Between those actions she quickly gauged what her fellow friends, and Circe, were trying to do and drew on her teleport to go over to Circe’s side, an instant later dragging the other two with her.

Circe did a double take as Merlin appeared. The haughty nymph was looking worse off, her hair frayed as she summoned blades of wind and balls of storm to hold back the monsters before her and try to push them east.

“Why did you bring them?” Circe’s voice was harsh.

Merlin smiled back. “Because apparently he can make this.” With a little extra flourish, Merlin brought forth the rubber ducky and pointed it at the horde of monsters. Then she squeezed the object until it gave a cute little squeak.

It sucked up all of Merlin’s mana with its single charge. Circe must have seen something was wrong and reached over to grab Merlin, only to have her own mana ripped from her as well.

The rubber ducky grew so bright that Merlin was certain it was just going to explode in her hands, only for a whirling gale of icy hell to rip out from the duck’s beak, destroying the rubber ducky in the same breath as casting one of the largest blizzards Merlin had ever seen.

The ability froze the entire area in front of them, spreading rapidly outward as ice and snow magically swirled, turning everything it touched to frigid ice, hard and brittle, for all the world to see.

The gale that flowed quickly behind it was harsh enough that trees shattered into icy shards. It tore through the land in front of them until it came upon the monsters. The ability coated them in ice to the point that they shattered, bowling through the hoard in a way that was even far more effective than Circe or even Bran.

Merlin panted, working to recover from having her mana drained so significantly. Her body felt weak and shaky.

Circe must have been the same, because the haughty nymph would have never leaned on her otherwise. A moment later, Circe’s legs gave out, and as she clung to Merlin, she brought them both down to the ground. Sweat poured off their faces, even though the world around them had dropped far into the negatives.

In front of them was nothing but ice shards trickling to the ground. Everything from the dirt to the sky had been swept clean, frozen, and shattered like a frosty hole had been punched through the world.