V2Ch32-A Beautiful Disaster

James closed his eyes.

His Skin Balloon had transmitted an audiovisual message to him. If he closed his eyes, he could see it like a movie in his mind.

There was a figure striding through the Rostov campground. It took James a moment to identify Officer Ross from the distant aerial perspective, but then he recognized the Officer’s profile and gait. Officer Ross ducked into the largest tent in the camp site. A few long, tense seconds passed. Then there was a gunshot.

“Well, alright, Officer Ross!” James said quietly. He hopped up a tree. The sun was only just beginning to rise now. Hopefully that meant that Moloch was too late to see and interfere in any way.

“Good news?” Hester asked.

“Rostov should be dead,” James replied.

“Hm. Wait, I’m getting something from Anansi.” James felt the body of the spider on the back of his ear grow strangely hot for several seconds. Then it slowly returned to normal.

“What was that?!” James asked, alarmed.

Silence from his tiny passenger.

“Jeez,” he said quietly. He thought he knew what had just happened from previous discussion. Anansi, are you burning through her already? I haven’t been away from your realm that long. Was there a message so important that you needed to send it this way? Something about Rostov? Poor Hester…

James decided to think about something other than the spider’s tragically shortened lifespan. He silently communicated with his Silk Golem. First, he asked if Catherine Ross had awoken yet.

Yes, Master, the Silk Golem sent back.

Excellent, James thought. He ordered the Silk Golem to tell Catherine that her husband had killed Rostov and that Jeff might need her help keeping order back at the camp site. Hopefully I can keep them under control myself after all this.

They wouldn’t all be redeemable in his eyes, but the Skin Balloon had continued to transmit additional video into James’s mind. Some of the activity showed that there were others who were helping Ross.

One pair were trying to keep order and preventing people from entering Rostov’s tent. Another had set about freeing prisoners. All except Moishe, James couldn’t help but notice. Perhaps that seemed like something other cultists would object to.

Fine. He would free Moishe himself once he arrived, and any cultist who held a grudge could take it up with James directly.

James began running through the forest toward the camp.

“Mm. Ugh.” Hester quietly groaned from behind James’s ear. He instantly slowed down to a walking pace.

“Glad you’re still with me,” he said. “Everything okay back there? Felt like you were on fire for a second.”

“Oh, I’m alright,” she reassured. “Thank you for your concern, boss. I just received a divine revelation. All part of the job.” She sounded exhausted and weak, but determined, to James’s careful ears, so he decided not to interrupt her. “The important thing is that I tell you what Lord Anansi had to say. Earlier, I transmitted your plan for dealing with Moloch’s Chosen One. Lord Anansi just got back to me. He wanted you to know that Moloch probably won’t give up on this guy easily. He has a lot riding on the cult’s success, and if he can rig things in Rostov’s favor so he doesn’t die, he’ll probably try to do it. He’s pulled strings already. He’ll pull them again. He’s invested too much of his own power in Rostov to give up now.”

It sounded from her tone as if she was holding something back.

“Did he say anything else?” James asked pointedly.

“Lord Anansi thinks you probably should have done this yourself,” she admitted meekly.

“Hm. Well, he could’ve said something about that sooner,” James grumbled.

“My sincerest apologies,” she said. “Messages I convey have to travel through the void. There are unpredictable delays, and the way time works in the void confuses me. Sometimes he may receive my communications chronologically before I sent them. Other times, Lord Anansi will not receive them in time to be of help to us. Perhaps if I had sent this information earlier—”

“There’s no need to blame yourself,” James interrupted softly. “We’re both doing the best we can. You’re a great asset to me so far, Hester. I know you’ll be an important part of my legend.”

He stopped walking, tilted his head sideways. He thought he heard something.

“Thank you so much!” Hester gushed. “I’ll do my very best to—”

“Do you hear that?” he interrupted.

“Uh, no?” She sounded deflated, but James couldn’t afford to worry about that now.

A few seconds later, it was more obvious. The sounds of movement. Multiple pairs of feet. Enemies?

James opened his magic satchel and took out the Royal Exoarmor, the Solar Helm, several Wolfbone Daggers, and the Ego Antler Spear. In under a minute, James was fully kitted out in the best gear he could be for a fight. He put away the Shapechanger’s Cloak. The time for hiding was over.

He stood firmly, deliberately visible, holding the spear in his right hand and preparing gravity magic with Silent Spellcasting.

And then they came through the trees. Fifteen prisoners fleeing the Rostov camp. It was obvious they weren’t cultists at a single glance. The cultists were all fairly clean, wearing decent clothes and sometimes armor. The cultists liked to dress in white, often nearly pristine white robes. Many of the cultists wore sun pendants. These people were not like that.

James struggled to keep himself from covering his nose and mouth with his free hand. There was a rank smell of unwashed, reeking human body odor, with notes of human waste mingled in.

“Stop!” James called out in a commanding voice.

They stopped. It might have been one of his communication Skills. It might have been that he was dressed in armor, obviously high level, and clearly ready for a fight if anyone defied him. It might have been the fact that he was surrounded with dark-colored gravity Mana, and the halo of energy around his body was still growing.

“Please!” begged a figure near the front of the pack. James noticed it was a teenage boy he hadn’t met when he tried his previous prison break. “Please let us pass. We’re escaping—”

“I know what you’re escaping,” James interrupted. He removed his helm so that they could see his face, and then he remembered none of them had seen his face before. “You can ask some of the others here, but I’m the man who came by to try and free them a few days ago.”

“Oh my God!” called someone at the back. “I recognize his voice. This is the masked man!”

There were murmurs of gratitude and relief from others in the group, and James was momentarily distracted by the feeling of their appreciation.

“Th-then why are you stopping us?” the boy asked.

“I’m not stopping you,” James replied. “You can keep going. In fact, you need to get further away quickly. I just stopped you to say that you should stop when the ground gets soft. There’s a deadly swamp the way you’re running, and if you enter without me, you might be eaten by monsters.”

“Thank you!” Someone uttered the words in a choked off sob, and then a man stumbled toward James and pulled him into an embrace.

Others were murmuring things like: “You did this somehow, didn’t you?” and “You planned this” and “I told you he didn’t die!”

James didn’t quite know what to make of these reactions. He didn’t know if Officer Ross had told his co-conspirators about James’s role in recent events. Even if the Officer had, would those individuals have passed that information on to these prisoners when they were freeing them? It made little sense.

“If you’re wondering why this is happening, it’s one of your Titles,” Hester said quietly.

How the hell do you know that? he wondered.

“That’s Lord Anansi’s theory, anyway,” she continued. “He says that when you’re a Living Legend, the public tends to read more into your actions than makes rational sense. It’s as if you have a Stat for reputation, and it’s always at the highest level possible with people whose lives you’ve touched. Whether you’re famous or infamous, your stature is magnified. It just happens that in this case, they’re correct. Since you are completely responsible for freeing them. And for ending the cult’s reign of terror, if the leader is really dead.” Her tone took on a mixture of reverence and curiosity. “Think of all the people you’ve saved, both now and in the future. How does it feel? How does it feel to save the lives of so many people?”

[Conditions met! New Title obtained: Savior!]

I don’t have time for this right now, James thought. And I don’t know quite how I feel. I’m glad they’re alive and not dead. I’m glad they’re free and not about to be sacrificed.

“All of you, please, go to the border of the swamp and wait there!” James said, his voice loud and firm, cutting through the crowd’s murmurs. He gently brushed those who were crowding him aside. “I’ve already killed the people Rostov sent there. I need to get to the cult and finish this.”

He wove through the crowd without looking around him and then, once he was clear, began running again.

Strange feelings swelled in his chest. What does it mean to be a Savior?

“To answer your question, Hester, I really couldn’t say,” he said. “I don’t understand how I feel yet, myself.”

This new world has already brought me some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life, he thought. But this might be the first time it’s tried to tell me that I’m better than I am. Better than I’m probably capable of being. Let’s at least make sure those people who are worshiping me don’t get recaptured this time.

He raced forward, mind running through his next steps, deliberately pushing thoughts of his changing role away.

—

Ross’s hand became suddenly steady, and remained so, both during and after the moment of truth.

His bullet hit the target.

Rostov’s eyes opened, then rolled back in his head like he was having a seizure. And then his body began moving as if he was having a seizure, convulsing wildly.

I guess a bullet in the crown will do that to you. No one will say you didn’t have it coming.

Ross turned his attention to Alice, who was still shrieking, albeit at a much lower volume than when she’d woken Rostov. He reached out and tried to pull her away. She was still closer to Rostov than Ross wanted her to be, since he intended to put another round or two in the man’s body.

Just to make sure.

Ross managed to yank her to her feet and push her out the flap of the tent. He threw a piece of cloth that looked like a dress after her, since he’d noticed she was almost naked.

Then he pointed his gun at Rostov’s chest again. The headshot clearly hadn’t been an instant kill here. He fired into the place where the heart should be. And waited for a few seconds.

Where’s the notification?

Cold sweat formed on Ross’s neck, and he pulled the trigger again—and shot nothing.

Somehow Rostov’s body was gone. Not glowing and then slowly disappearing like he’d Looted it. Just suddenly gone. As if it was never there. And still no notification for the kill.

“Shit.”

Numb with disbelief, he stumbled out of the tent. A scene of panic greeted him alongside the flickers of early morning light.

The dozens of remaining cult members were alternating between shouting questions and demands at Hilda, Chris, Carlo, and Sara. The four of them stood in a semicircle around the tent entrance, guarding the opening. They each had their weapons in hand. They were so focused on fending off would-be entrants that they didn’t even turn their heads when Ross emerged.

At the sight of him, the questions intensified.

“Where’s the Prophet?!”

“What’s going on?!”

“What was that loud noise?!”

“Out of the way! Let us through!”

People were becoming unruly, and Ross fired one of his precious remaining bullets into the sky in an effort to restore some order without killing anyone.

“Everyone remain calm!” he yelled. “I do not want to have to use this on any of you.”

“What have you done with the Prophet, you son of a bitch?!” Rick rushed at Ross and grabbed him by the collar, lunging at him too quickly for Ross to point and aim his gun.

Rick was more than a little intimidating, with his towering height, reddish skin, and small horns all shoved right in Ross’s face. But Ross had just faced his biggest threat, and he hadn’t faltered. He wasn’t about to be intimidated by this moron.

“Nothing he didn’t damn well deserve, Rick, and you know it!” Ross spat. “Let go of me before I have to shoot you too!”

Then there was a slight humming sound, and Rick’s face went slack.

Ross saw a hand that appeared to be wrapped in electricity pass through the front of Rick’s chest. Stunned, he could only stare at the man who had impaled Rick with his bare hand.

“What the fuck?!” Ross said after a long moment.

James was grinning like a madman, and Ross had to suppress the urge to retreat from him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” Ross finally managed. “I had this situation under control!”

“Now I have it under control,” James replied. As he spoke, the crowd was edging away from the smiling man with the corpse draped over his arm. “You need to understand something. I offered you the opportunity to save yourself. And I’ll even extend it to your little group of helpers here.” He gestured at Ross’s allies. “But everyone won’t be treated all the same.” He shook his head. “Most of these people are accomplices to multiple murders and murder attempts on innocent people, with no mitigating factors, as far as I’m concerned. You, of all people, should know what that means.”

“Death,” Ross acknowledged in a low voice. “You would want death.” I really should have guessed. He was a prosecutor. A rigid sense of justice comes with the job. And it’s not as if I care about them… “Alright.” He raised his hands as if in surrender. “You’re in charge. Now, what about my wife?”

“She’s on her way here,” James said. “I signaled for her release, and I also communicated that we might possibly need some help here.”

Ross opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the force of a tremendous explosion from behind them. All those who had gathered around Rostov’s tent went flying through the air.