Delvers LLC 5, ch 2

Okay, this took a while.

Tis the season for seasonal depression, but I'm still chipping away.  The good news is that this is a long chapter, and I've already begun work on the next one (which is super fun to write, and will have tons of lore).

Thank you for being patient with me.

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“Okay, but are you sure about this?" asked  Jason.

“That’s our line,” laughed Everr.  “Three on one?  I challenged you alone!  You are the one who wanted all three of us in here with you.”

Jason thought about how to respond to that, and wasn’t sure how not to sound arrogant.  He decided to just be honest.  “I think this--us, fighting all of you at once would be better training for me.”

Everr grumbled, but her sister, Light, nodded slowly.  She frowned.  “Everr, remember how fast Nora beat you?  We haven’t even really seen Henry and Jason fight yet.”

“The wax demons,” Grace reminded her.  “We were all there.”

“That wasn’t like this,” said Light, shaking her head.  She pointed at Jason.  “He has a reputation.”

“So do we,” complained Everr.

“Are you all just going to stand around talking?” Keeja’s voice boomed from the sky.

Jason tensed and checked his surroundings one last time.  He was standing in a little clearing in the middle of a forest.  The setting wasn’t ideal for how he fought, which was probably why Keeja had chosen it for this ultra-realistic World Jar sparring session.

Everr, Light, and Grace all grew wary, and Jason examined their gear as they watched him.  He wondered if he might be overdoing the nonchalant act, but he really was ready to teleport away in a heartbeat.  The moment any of the powerful women twitched, he’d be gone.

It looked like all three sisters had entered the World Jar with their regular armor and shields, all very heavy and durable--most of it enchanted.  All three sisters were armed to the teeth, as usual.  They’d brought some different weapons, though.  

Everr had a huge axe that she could apparently use even with the shield on her arm.  The blade was large enough, Jason had no doubt her weapon could be used as protection as well.  He knew she had other weapons and magical devices on straps and in pouches. 

Light was using a one-handed, but heavy-looking sword.  She waved it around like it was made of foam, but Jason could easily tell it would weigh several times more than a normal sword of its size.  In addition to being more dense, it was probably enchanted, too.  Jason had seen Light use various air pistols and enchanted projectiles before, so he figured she was the most versatile of the three fighters.

Grace carried a massive crossbow in one hand, big enough to be called a siege crossbow, but she held it like a pistol.  Jason had seen her span the thing from the hip before.  She had two quivers of bolts.  Jason knew she was the fighter of the trio most likely to carry potions and other surprises.

“Are you ready, Lord Jason?” asked Everr.

Three fourth ranked orb-Bonded, thought Jason.  This shouldn’t feel so easy, right?  “I--” he began, but Keeja cut him off.

“Jason, for this fight, you can use your sideways space, but don’t use your teleport ability or null-time.”

“What!? No null-time?”

“No.  Let’s see how you do without it.”

He blinked.  “Uhh.”  He hadn’t been expecting anything like this, and briefly considered ignoring the ancient woman, but her guidance hadn’t led him wrong so far.  “Okay,” he said.  He blinked again, realizing the sisters hadn’t paused to give him any time to digest the new rules.

What the hell! He thought.  Seriously? No teleporting?  That’s what I specialize in!  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this was likely the point of this little exercise, though.  But knowing why Keeja had hobbled him didn’t exactly make him feel better about it.  He wondered if he’d be able to resist his instinct to teleport away.  It was like second nature now.

All of Jason’s combat experience on Ludus and the endless training he’d done in the World Jar before had trained him to act and think at the same time when he was in a jam.  He immediately turned and ran.

Everr, Light, and Grace were incredibly fast.  Luckily, Jason wasn’t completely unprepared.  He couldn’t match them physically, so he triggered the enchanted soles of his boots.  The thin enchantments wouldn’t last long, but while they were active, it was like he was running on springs.

Each step was faster, propelling him farther than he could have managed on his own.

He turned for a second to distract his opponents.  After drawing a bronze dagger out of sideways space he threw it at Everr, using magic to split it into ten different blades, all whirling for her face.

She bashed them aside.  The mundane attack hadn’t even phased her.

Even without his core magic skill set, even without his enchanted boots, Jason was still faster than a normal human these days.  His [Speed] ability was not just for show.  He zigged and zagged, barely managed to dodge into the forest before a thumb-thick crossbow bolt screamed past.  The three sisters were incredibly strong, even weighed down with weapons and armor the way they were.  Jason could feel their thundering footsteps behind him and wondered how much their armor weighed.

A tree behind Jason exploded as Everr ploughed right through it.

Keeja’s voice rang out from above.  “Oh yeah, and it’s nighttime too.”

Just like that, the sunny “sky” overhead dimmed and Jason was plunged into darkness.  He kept running, thankful for small favors.  A moon and stars shone brightly overhead, but Jason didn’t need the light.  He’d already switched to his infrared vision.

His mind whirled as he frantically created a list of things he could do with his remaining magic and abilities.  The temptation to ignore Keeja came again, but he decided to see this through.  Odds of him winning this fight without most of his power was pretty much zero, but he was going to do the best that he could.

With a thought, Jason further activated the enchanted inserts in the soles of his boots, helping him shoot forward like he was running on springs.  Everr was right behind him, though.  Jason tried to weave between trees.  The heavily armored and bulky women were slowed down a little, but not much.

After a long spring forward, Jason rolled and triggered a magical ability he’d been working on, a combination of his psionics and Matter school magic.  As he dropped to the ground, a magic copy of Jason jumped up and bounded forward.

As he watched his double run away, he laid completely still and luckily, the three sisters took the bait.  Jason winced as a giant crossbow bolt whizzed right through his doppleganger, but the attacking warriors either didn’t notice or none of them thought anything of it.  Light actually almost stepped on Jason’s real body where he was prone in the undergrowth.  He held his breath and didn’t move a muscle until all three sisters were past.

When Jason had developed this decoy spell, basically a hologram, he’d never predicted he would use it in this sort of situation.  The idea had been to create a double to draw fire around a corner or something. His image had enough logic programmed into it to match Jason’s top speed, in this case he’d set it to a little faster than he’d been moving before.  Not for the first time, skills learned from working in IT had come in handy with magic.

But the ruse wouldn’t last long. Even if one of the sisters didn’t catch up with the decoy, the spell would only last about twenty to thirty seconds.

Jason crawled for a few seconds until he was past a bush, then quietly got up.  Breeze was getting in the way and he could draw it from sideways space anyway, so he took his entire baldric off and put everything into his dimensional storage. Then he began creeping away, desperately thinking of a plan.

The sky continued to dim and shadows grew deeper in the forest.  Jason could still see just fine but hopefully his pursuers would have a harder time.

Now that he had time to think, Jason finished running through his available options and silently cursed.  If he’d been back when he’d first come to Ludus, fighting demon wolves, he would have been fine.  But Everr and her sisters were fourth rank orb-Bonded, each of them was like a freakin’ walking tank, an engine of destruction.  Back on earth, the three of them could have probably destroyed an entire infantry company.  They were tough, bulletproof even before putting on enchanted armor, could run faster than a grizzly bear, had frightening fast reflexes, and could pulp a full sized man with a single punch.  It would probably be awkward to do, but they could likely throw a car just like a superhero in a movie.

It was easy to forget sometimes because of how strange his life was, but any of the three sisters were far more powerful than most adventurers in Tolstey.

Jason would already be dead if the three of them weren’t geared and trained to protect, not kill.  Their big, heavy armor and shields were meant to be deployed in a defensive formation between their employer and any danger.  Not surprisingly, this made the three of them even more tanky.

Meanwhile, Jason’s abilities were lackluster without his teleportation or null-time, at least against other ‘Bonded.  He still had his Matter school magic, and psionic magic.  It might be cheating a little to use the psionics since he only technically had access to it through his time/space magic...but he decided to roll with it.  If Keeja had a problem with that, she could say so.

No matter how deeply he thought, or how many scenarios he ran through, Jason concluded that he was screwed.  In the distance he heard a slamming sound and a howl of frustration.  The sisters must know they’d been tricked now.

He paused to bend down and pick up some rocks from the ground, pocketed them, then climbed a tree and hoped that his enemies wouldn’t look up.  The deepening night might help him.  Since he couldn’t win against three fully kitted fourth rank orb-Bonded warriors, Jason decided to do the best he could in the most effective way--he was going to be a sneaky bastard.

Jason couldn’t see the sisters yet and wondered if they were trying to be more stealthy now too.  He narrowed his eyes.  No heat signatures were showing up via his infrared vision, but what if he used pisonics magic?

He focused, using his power in a new way.  Instead of actively “looking,” he just opened himself to emotions on a certain wavelength.  Some feelings came through almost immediately.  Anxiety, excitement, fear, he was hit by three sources of amped-up emotions.  Two of them were some distance away, but one was fairly close.

Jason focused on the area he was feeling the emotions from and slowly smiled.  Now that he knew what to look for, there was a patch of...negative space moving around below.  His bare vision couldn't spot anything, but his infrared vision could catch the “cold” outline of a person moving.  Plants still had a certain amount of heat, so he could see the cooler figure against the backdrop of the normal forest.  It was like watching a shadow.

At least one of the sisters had a really amazing concealment device.  Jason decided to use it against her.  Whoever it was would likely never expect Jason to know where she was.  Now the problem was his enemy’s thick armor and other defenses.

Jason slowly nodded to himself, deciding to use a combination of Breeze and Matter magic.  Not for the first time, he thought about how it might have been more practical to carry a powerful dagger instead of Breeze, but deep down, Jason loved longswords.  He had a feeling that Breeze would always be his go-to weapon.

It was impossible to know where the cloaked woman was actually looking, but Jason had to trust she wouldn’t see him move. He slowly drew Breeze from sideways space and kept the sharp edge oriented towards his enemy.  While any flashes of light were not likely, he’d rather be safe than sorry.  Staying hidden would be easy if Breeze didn’t reflect any  light.

Then Jason ran over his impromptu plan one last time.  When it was time to act, he drew a stone from his pocket and let it fall. The sound it made was faint, but the shadow in his infrared vision stopped creeping forward.  Gotcha, he thought.

Using much more concentration than before, Jason made a decoy image of himself stand from the ground through the underbrush beneath his tree.  Then the mirage looked around furtively before lowering again, as if hiding.  Jason carefully watched the woman-shaped shadow in his infrared vision begin moving towards where the copy had disappeared.  His psionics magic caught the edges of emotions--patience, excitement, and wariness.

Now it was almost showtime.  Since Jason had no way to make his throwing knives more lethal without using null-time, and he couldn’t clearly see his enemy, he needed to at least fix the latter.  Hopefully this works, he thought.  Right when the figure was beneath his tree, he held a handful of rocks in one palm, and used his Matter school magic at the same time as he let them fall, flexing his power the moment they actually left contact with his skin.

He’d actually developed this use of power a few days ago when he’d been trying to create new projectile attacks for himself.  The idea had been to throw a stone, and make it many times more massive while it was in flight.  

It hadn’t worked.

Based on his past experiences with null-time, Jason had suspected that he would need a lot more power or control in matter magic, maybe both, before being able to make the rocks more massive in flight, or right before leaving his hand.  But his experiments had shown that it worked just fine as long as he made the rock grow while it still had contact with his hand.  The timing was just too difficult if he tried pitching the things, and he didn’t want to break his arm.

So he couldn’t throw a huge, two hundred pound rock, but he could drop them!

A half dozen large stones, practically boulders appeared from pebbles and rained down.  Jason heard a scream as they slammed into armor.  Yes! He thought.  His plan had worked!  The damage wouldn’t be fatal, but it had been enough to make Light’s camouflage drop.  She looked like she’d been hit in the head and had been dazed.

There was no time to waste.  Jason leapt from his hiding place in the tree and applied psychic disruption to Breeze.  He hadn’t really experimented much with this power before, and wasn’t sure how it would fare against Light’s defenses.  Wouldn’t hurt, though.  His sword’s blade began to glow, lighting up his body as he fell.

Jason also pumped raw magic power into Breeze.  He’d only done this a handful of times before on purpose, and only in small amounts.  Each time, it’d made lightning leap off of his blade.  The electricity had never harmed him, but it’d seemed dangerous to anyone or anything around him, so he hadn’t had a chance to experiment much.

But now he didn’t care about collateral damage.  Jason practically shoved power into the sword.

Thick rods of lightning blazed off of Breeze, blasting into the surrounding trees, undergrowth, and even connecting with Starlight as she looked up in surprise.  A massive spile of electricity smashed into several tree branches, making them explode and light on fire.  Jason yelled as he slammed the blazing length of Breeze’s blade down Light’s throat.

“Shit,” he wheezed.  The attack had been a lot more flashy than he’d intended, and now he couldn’t pull his sword out of Light’s body.  She was heavy, and Jason had to awkwardly bend as he fought to free his longsword.  A bellow and the sound of crashing came to one side.  Jason was about to have more company.  “Shit!” he repeated more urgently.

Jason wished he could slow down his perception of time, but that was definitely part of his core magic abilities. Even though Keeja hadn’t specifically mentioned his passive abilities, he’d decided to follow the spirit of his restrictions.  As he absently thought this through, he chose to ignore the fact that he’d used his sideways space storage.

With enemies bearing down on him, Jason decided to ride the lightning again. He injected some magic into Breeze and the burst of power lit up Starlight’s body from the inside. It also helped him free the blade, drawing it from a cloud of cooked meat.  He barely got his guard up in time to face Everr’s rush, and tried dodging to the side.

Too late.

Everr’s huge axe barely missed but Jason got shoulder checked into a tree with the force of a careening truck.  The instant his back slammed against the trunk, a truly massive crossbow bolt hit him in the hip, too.

“Fuck!” he wheezed.  If Uluula was watching this fight and had a problem with his cursing, she would just have to get over it.  Jason held up Breeze and shoveled magic into it.  Lightning sprang out in arms of white-hot fury.  The lances of electricity crashed against Everr and Grace’s shields.  Jason tried to point Breeze, but the energy still randomly arced all over the place.

In pain, frustrated, Jason was tempted to use his other abilities but suppressed the urge again.  Instead, he surged ahead, Breeze still blazing in his hands.  Everr sprang forward and chopped with a curved sword she’d pulled from somewhere, and Jason parried while moving to one side...at least he tried to.  He would have executed the maneuver perfectly if not for something shattered in his side, and Everr’s strength being several times greater than his own.

Jason lurched to one side and barely touched Everr’s weapon.  The clash was still almost enough to rip Breeze from his hands.  Luckily, the brief half-parry had been enough contact to make Everr scream a curse and drop her smoking weapon.

Wow, he thought.  Jason hadn’t known he could do that.  He managed a grin right before another projectile hit him high in the chest.  “Ouch,” he tried to say, but nothing came out.  He looked down in pain and shock.  A couple seconds later, a spear flung by an arm containing the power of heavy machinery slammed through his head.

***

-relogging-

-please stand by-

***

“Huh?”  Jason looked around and realized he was right back in the clearing.  Everr, Light, and Grace stood facing him again, all wearing a frown.  “What’s going on?” he asked.

Keeja’s voice came from the sky, “We need to talk.”  Then the demigoddess herself walked out of the treeline.  “It’s critique time,” she said.

“Mistress Keeja, why not talk about the fight once we are outside the World Jar?” asked Grace.

“Because,” said Keeja as she bent down to brush a leaf off one cowboy boot, “everyone’s performance was horrible.”

Jason winced and examined his diminutive on-again, off-again mentor.  Keeja was old, dangerous, and unpredictable, but she wasn’t often wrong.  He already had a pretty good idea of what she was going to say and braced himself for the criticism.

“What do you mean?” asked Everr.  “We killed him, right?”  She turned to her sister.  “Wait, you died, Light.  Did you see it?”

“Yes.  After I was ‘killed,’ I was able to observe until we all wound up here again.”

Grace scratched a cheek and asked, “Critiques?  You mean like asking why Jason bothers to wear light armor when it seems not to really do anything?  It might work for monsters, but not against other ‘Bonded.  Maybe he could wear some heavier, thicker armor?”

Jason narrowed his eyes, but Keeja waved a hand at him before he could say anything.  “I think you sisters seem to be misunderstanding something,” she said.  “Didn’t you hear me tell Jason not to use his magic?”

“Yeah, but just one kind of magic, right?” said Everr.

“Two, I think,” said Everr.

Light shrugged.  “He still did plenty, with the tricks and the lighting and stuff, right?  He got me, but Everr and Grace nailed him.”

“That was a good fight,” said Everr.  “But we took him down!  He couldn’t teleport and stuff, but that just made the fight end faster, right?”

Keeja sighed.  “Yes, you sisters seem to be misunderstanding something basic.  Alright, before this conversation can continue, I think you all need to have another match.  I’m going to vanish, and I will count down.  After that, I want you all to fight again, three on one.  Jason, this time use whatever powers or weapons you want.  Ever, Light, Grace, fight seriously.”

Light nodded.  “Got it, Mistress,” she said.

“Okay,” said Jason.

Like she said she would, Keeja vanished and a countdown started.  The moment hit zero, Jason slowed down his perception of time a little, he didn’t need much.  He watched Everr take her first step, and Everr begin to raise her crossbow.  Jason had a shield in place and wasn’t worried.

Then he produced bronze throwing knives from sideways space.  Grace’s dangerous crossbow bolt, harmlessly smacked into Jason’s nulltime shield.  Now that Jason had his perception of time slowed, he could see how the bolt glowed.  Each individual projectile was probably enchanted.  He did some quick mental measuring, and threw null-time enhanced throwing knives to the sides, multiplying them even as they were teleported.

Before the sisters had reached him, Jason teleported behind them but at an angle to one side and threw blades with both hands, turning them into whirling, flashing destructo disks.  The sisters spun to face him, but it was already too late.  Magicked projectiles buzzed in from five different angles, mercilessly cutting them all down.  Their armor wasn’t useless, even against a destructo disk, but the attack was still devastating.  Jason’s Matter magic and his general control and experience with magic was much better than it had been before.  The three warriors were turned to mince meat by over two dozen deadly blades.

Jason made a face and changed his perception of time to normal again.  The field was awash with blood.  Only Light was still alive and she moaned piteously.

***

-relogging-

-please stand by-

***

“Rotting creation, what the hells was that!?” yelled Everr.  Beside her, Grace shivered and stared at Jason.  Everr sunk to sit on the ground and slowly felt her face with both hands.  Jason remembered that his destructo blades had basically cut her into pieces.

Keeja reappeared.  “Now do you understand?  The rules that I gave Jason before would be like sending you three out to fight naked with only spoons as weapons.  Dull spoons.  Even with those limitations, he still managed to kill one of you.  You are all fourth rank ‘Bonded.  There are precious few first rank ‘Bonded on this world who could even hope to damage you.  So the fact he still got one of you before is shameful.”

“What...what is he?” asked Light quietly.  “I thought he was fourth rank, like us.”

Everr shook her head.  “When I fought Nora before, she went right through my shield.”

“Also, didn’t you see the fight between Mareen and Nora?” asked Keeja.  “And yes, Nora Hazard is fourth rank too.  ‘Bonded rank is not the be-all, end-all for how dangerous a ob-Bonded warrior is.  Grace, Everr, Light, you girls are tough.  You are strong, decisive, and skilled, but you have begun to enter circles on Ludus where you are not the top of the food chain, not by a long shot.  Even Henry, Jason, and Nora will be near the bottom where you are heading.”

Everr gulped.  “Henry is that strong too?”

Keeja nodded.  “Yes.  Henry, Jason, and Nora are all being monitored closely by Dolos.”

“Who would win if Jason and Henry were to fight?” asked Light quietly.  “Actually, what about Nora too?”

“Me,” said Jason.  “I would.” He gave them a crooked smile.

Keeja gave him a withering look.  “Debatable.  Maybe if you train more.”  She turned.  “All three of them have their strengths and weaknesses.  It would depend on the situation.  Now sisters!”  Keeja fixed them all with a grin.  “Your critiques are first!  You rely far too much on your armor.  Dodge!  If you can’t dodge, energize your shields!  You are not using your gear to its full potential--stop being lazy or thrifty.  Also, you need to be more cautious.  Don’t assume you can run over all of your enemies!  And most importantly, you need to fight as a team, not as three individuals.”

She turned to Jason.  “Jason.  I am disappointed.  Do you know why?”

Jason nodded.  “I rely too much on my main abilities.  Even after all this time, I’ve barely trained with my other schools of magic.  It’s obvious now.”

“Yes.  You rely on null-time in particular far too much, but I think your duels with Henry have already begun to break that habit, though.”

Jason grimaced.  “Yeah, he can break it.”

Keeja ordered, “Everr!  Light!  Grace!  In a minute, you are going to fight Jason again, but now you are better prepared.  Work together!  You will probably all still die, but try to last more than a few seconds next time.”

“Why are we staying in here?” asked Jason.

“I think what you really want to ask is why I am not letting you fight Henry or Nora in here instead of them,” said Keeja.

“We can hear you,” said Light.

Keeja waved a hand at the glowring group of warriors.  “It’s simple.  These three simple sisters are part of your team.  They can help you with some of your training, and you can definitely help with theirs.  The others can wait.  Your group is leaving in the morning to fly across the continent in Henry’s ugly boat, and you’ll be heading to the Adom city on Ludus.   You will be traveling to some of the most dangerous places on the planet.  Like before, I may have to leave for stretches at a time, and I would prefer you do not die.  The way you have all been approaching combat and survival isn’t good enough anymore.”

Jason was suddenly reminded of his fight with Biivan, and how he’d passed out.  If Keeja hadn’t killed the other High Priestess, it was likely that he and his friends would have died that day.  “Point taken,” he said.

Keeja turned again to address the three women in heavy armor.  “Shields up, ladies!  You are covered in weapons, start using more than just your favorites!  Throw things!  Stay in motion, but work together!  If you can’t at least cut Jason, you lose.  I won’t be taking all of Jason’s strongest powers away again, but to help level the playing field, I might ask him not to use one at a time.”

To their credit, Everr, Light, and Grace didn’t waste time speaking further.  Three shields snapped up, and they moved back to back.

Jason only absentmindedly watched them.  He’d already erected a null-time shield for protection.  Keeja’s words were still rolling around in his head.  What she’d said had carried the ring of truth.  Maybe he really did need to mix it up a bit, learn some new tricks.

The Delvers LLC group was definitely heading into the unknown.  What’s more, Jason wanted to hurry, get done as fast as possible with the mission and hopefully make it back before Bezzi-ibbi got back from...wherever he’d gone.    He hoped that wherever the boy was, that he was safe.

If Bezzi-ibbi emerged in the middle of a war...No, Jason didn’t want to think about that.  Failure was not an option.

Keeja disappeared from where she’d been standing.  The surrounding world had been growing brighter, but now it started to dim again.  Keeja’s voice floated down from the sky,  “Alright, get ready!  Jason, no teleporting this time.  Also, slow it down.  Look for new, creative ways to use your power.”

“We aren’t scared!” shouted Everr.  Her voice only shook a little bit.  “Come on Lord Jason!  Let’s do this!”

Jason sighed.