ROD - Chapter 114

Chapter One-Hundred-Fourteen – Veritas – Part One

The World Hunter Association and the World Supporter Association are our closest allies in the fight against the quota for the gates. They are as integral to the survival of Earth as the UWO itself. To support any of the three pillars is to ensure the next generations shall prosper.

-United World Order Propaganda Poster-

“So, what the fuck is going on?” I ask Clayton.

He belches another plume of fire before putting on a serious face, “I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark. I didn’t want to put more on your plate. I needed you sharp.”

“I seem to remember you saying that communication is key to team dynamics.”

“They are, and that situation was fluid. Look, I’m also in the dark. But I made a judgement call. Greymore told me that Alveria was leading us into a trap.”

“A trap for Starman and Vella?”

“For all of us. They haven’t contained the leak yet, and they decided to use you as the bait to flush out the moles, then trace it back from them.”

“Did she really give up our file?”

“Who told you that?” Clayton asks.

“The harpy said it,” Carl says, blowing a puff of smoke.

“I wouldn’t put it past her to be honest. Her priority isn’t always your safety.”

There’s something else that’s bugging him, something he hasn’t said yet.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He looks down and presses both hands on his face before running it through his hair, “I’m not sure who attacked the WHA, but it might have been us, the UWO.”

I blink at him, “I know that there are factions, but attacking the WHA directly is madness…”

“Yet, they were talking about it.”

“What do you mean?”

He turns to Carl, “Do you have anything stronger than tea?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Carl puffs, standing and walking toward his desk. He taps it twice and then twists an owl paperweight. A compartment clicks and he pulls out a large bottle of what I assume is alcohol.

“Should we be drinking with them here?” I ask, motioning to Vella and Starman. Clayton also bound Jennifer just in case, but her bindings aren’t as tight, and he put a small pillow behind her head.

“It’ll be fine, they can’t weave magic even with the System in those mage binders. Ancient magic in those,” Carl says, pouring three generous glasses.

“You’ll want the drink,” Clayton says with a furrowed brow.

Carl pulls out his wand and mutters some strange words that aren’t translated by the System under his breath, I’m not sure if it’s because they can’t be translated or if the System just doesn’t work here. I try to pull up my interface manually with my hands, still nothing.

“System won’t work here, boyo, the place is warded past its tits, you’ll have to go past the gate to use it,” Carl says, he waves his wand again and ice forms inside the glasses.

His magic seems… useful. Wonder if he can teach me how it works.

We clink glasses and I sip slowly at mine, Carl and Clayton down theirs in one go then look at me… bottoms up. The glasses refill and we all sip on them this time.

“So, what’s bothering you?” I ask.

He sips, then stares at the fireplace, musing his jaw for a moment, “When we got back, and Greymore chewed Alveria’s ass for op security going to shit, he gave her the brief for the mission. He told her that you might be getting Abyss back and that we should extract you. I kept them updated the whole time. He also told them about the new gate feature, the one that holds people for three days, which will fuck up gate rotations.”

“The thing that Cortez said might initiate Project Torchbearer, right?”

He nods and spins the liquor in the glass, his eyes narrowing.

“When I told them we’d be meeting with WHA chairs, I got a message from Alveria herself, telling me that the orders from on high were to neutralize them all if opportunity presented itself.”

I stop the glass before it hits my lips, he looks down at his hands.

“She wanted you to kill all the chairs of the WHA?”

He nods, silence falls over us for a few moments as it sinks in. It makes sense why he seemed on edge before.

“I asked her what was more important, that mission, or asset security.”

My hand lowers with the glass slowly, “She said the mission, didn’t she?”

He nods again, taking another drink.

“So, when Abyss arrived, they might have used it as a perfect opportunity to attack,” I muse, leaning back in my seat.

“I don’t know why, but the order was clear, kill them all.”

Carl chiefs on his pipe and blows three rings, “Goddamn politics.”

Gears are spinning in my head as I piece all the information I’ve learned together. It’s starting to make sense, but I’m not entirely sure it was the UWO, even if they were going to attack or meant to. It just seemed too convenient. Have they been infiltrated by the Marauders too? I remember Special Agent Smith told Fisban he worked for Chairman Olivers before she killed him… and Olivers conveniently left the meeting before the attack.

“I think I understand,” I say, taking a drink.

Clayton turns and looks at me, “What do you think it is?”

I muse my thoughts for a few moments more, “Remember the news? With Starman disparaging the UWO.”

“Yeah, prick was stirring the pot,” Clayton says, then after a sip, “But that’s hardly new, the WHA has been doing that for ages.”

“Right, and with the changes to the gates, for the first time in ten years, we might actually fail again.”

Carl and Clayton look at me, both swirling their glasses in a similar manner.

“What is Project Torchbearer?” Carl asks.

“Eh, it’s basically what they tried when the gates first opened I think in the third year, didn’t work because it wasn’t as organized, but they mass recruited the population and threw them at the gates. This version is much more organized from what Greymore said, it’ll recruit all able bodied people even from non hunter classes and force them to run gates. It will increase the standing military by over ten thousand percent and enact martial law on the entire world.”

He adjusts on the chair leaning forward, Carl blows a smoke ring and chimes in sarcastically, “That’ll go over well with the civilians.”

“Well, it won’t matter what they want, the only force capable…” Clayton stops as he finds my point, he looks up and I nod.

“They realized that there will be insurrection, and they probably realized that the WHA chairs would go into hiding if the news broke about the gates changing. If there is no WHA to rally behind, it will go nowhere. The WHA and the WSA are the balance to the UWO’s power. Without them, who is going to stand a chance of fighting the UWO? Every rebel faction has been mercilessly routed and executed over the last ten years. No one cried because the UWO brought us victory, but if they failed…”

“All hell would break loose,” Clayton says softly.

Carl muses it and squints at the bottle, topping off our drinks a moment later before saying, “Doesn’t seem like there’s much choice for them then.”

“You’re thinking it’s deeper than that, aren’t you, Godslayer?”

I nod to Clayton, taking a generous drink, “If their goal was as simple as consolidating power, they would have taken measures to ensure the heroes were accounted for. My issue is that whoever put our faces out there put Starman’s too. He didn’t take his mask off today, the picture of him was old. So whoever did it already knew his real identity, which is a very small list of people. Include that to the list of people that had access to old driver’s license photos from before the fall, and the missing nine chairs, I’d say it’s suspicious.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I think that if I was a Marauder, I’d thread the needle of this situation and use the new information about the gates to get the UWO to cripple the WHA before the change happens. Next, I’d dismantle the WSA. Both are pillars and the largest contributors to high tier gates for the quota. Without the WSA’s support, we will see a delay in the necessary items needed for specialized gates. All research into classes and weapons advancement stops immediately, and no one will believe the UWO isn’t responsible when the Torchbearer program starts.”

“Most specialized classes do get poached by the WHA, private sector always pays better,” Clayton says.

“Without the WHA, we’re going to fail the quota this year, I’m almost certain of it,” I say, bringing a chill to the air between the three of us, “Mythren said it’s going to be two hundred percent more difficult than the original cycles.”

“Witch’s tits, that’s drastic,” Carl chimes in, “Whose this Mythren fellow?”

“An admin, I’ll catch you up later, keep going Godslayer.”

“If it comes out that the WHA and the WSA were destroyed by the UWO, and then the UWO fails to meet the quota, you know what happens, ten percent of the current population is basically instantly dead. We fail again, another ten and another. We might not recover from the losses this time. This…” my hand wants to shake, “This is a wipe plan, not a war plan.”

We sit in silence for a few moments.

“So, you think the UWO will kill off the rest of the WHA and the WSA?” Carl asks.

“If they don’t, then the WSA will be the fracture point where most people will rally, if the WSA is owned by Marauders, we’re fucked. If they aren’t and the WSA gets wiped, we’re fucked.”

“There are more supporter classes than hunter classes,” Clayton says, putting another log on the fire and watching the embers rise, “They could probably organize a solid resistance.”

“Which then brings us to fucked again,” Carl blows a solemn smoke ring, “Damn, the kid might be right, though I’m still not sure what the hell a Marauder is.”

“I’ll fill you in later, simply put, they’re bad guys who win if Earth loses, and they have gods backing them,” Clayton says.

“How many are there?”

“Nine, well, technically ten if you count me.”

Carl tilts his head and blows three puffs, “You sure you’re not a witch?”

I blink at him, “Yes.”

“He’s also a good guy, we had six of them, and now with him it’s seven.”

“What do they call them?”

“Champions.”

“Bit pretentious,” Carl mutters.

“Coming from the man who named himself the second greatest fire mage in history,” Clayton says with an eyeroll.

Carl coughs, “That was a jest, I’m probably the fifth now, youngsters these days are strong.”

Clayton rolls his eyes, then looks at me, “Anyway, it sounds fucked, what do you think we should do?”

Carl answers it swiftly, putting more tobacco in his pipe, “Simple really, kill the nine.”

“They aren’t easy to find.”

“What about their gods, do you know who they are?”

Clayton squints at him.

“What? You said he killed a god, nine more would make a good number, an even ten as it were.”

I lean back in my seat and drink… he’s not wrong.

“Look, it’s like this, you don’t know if it’s the bad guys messing with things, but you do know they’re bad guys, seems like even if they aren’t you should,” Carl makes a motion like he’s shooting something, “Tracking?”

“Well, we might be able to find out more from these two,” Clayton says motioning toward Vella and Starman.

“Why’s that?” Carl asks.

“They might be Marauders.”

“That why you busted down my door in the middle of the night?”

“Sort of, I was hoping you still have Veritas extract.”

Carl chuckles and drags deeply, twirling his wand in the smoke… a horse forms and runs in a circle, “If you’ve ever dated a witch, you always keep it in stock, my boy.”

Veritas… truth in Latin. We might be getting somewhere.