The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 40

Chapter 40

“I still don’t think that was a smart idea.”

Larek nodded at Nedira’s words, before looking at the scattered accessories around his bed. In order to get all of the new Fusions done in a timely manner, his friends dumped out quite a few of the purchases that Penelope, Vivienne, and Kimble had made earlier so that he could pick through them. Most of it ended up being copper or even leather bracelets or bands, but there was enough steel accessories that he had been able to make them all into Fusions for the SIC. He wasn’t able to add a Strengthen Fusion to them as well as the boosts, but the material was sturdy enough normally that he hoped they wouldn’t be destroyed enough to release the Mana inside the Fusions. He had at least used the technique that made the formations a bit more “malleable” such as what he used on cloth and leather, so even if they were deformed slightly, they would still be fine.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he replied, shrugging. “It was the best solution I could come up with that would actually benefit people without violence, and based on what we’ve learned about what is going on out there in the Kingdom, it sounded like they needed it.”

“But they were going to steal from us! It makes no sense to help them after that threat!”

Larek understood where she was coming from, so he explained the motivations he had developed while they were still downstairs in the common room. He was fairly sure that she didn’t really share the same thought process as he did, but she fortunately didn’t say anything after that. He could tell that she was just worried about him and his safety, and with everything that had happened over the last week, he couldn’t blame her.

Vivienne slipped through the door a short time later, back from helping the Elementalist deliver all of the new Fusions to the SIC.

“Done. They’re extremely happy. Deal delivered and accepted.”

He was about to say, “Good,” but she continued.

“At least on the surface. Most likely an ambush outside of town tomorrow when we leave.”

That took him by surprise. “Really? What makes you say that?”

“The Major in charge agreed too quickly. Mage girl accidentally hinted that you have more than this, likely hidden in a cache somewhere.”

Larek sighed in exasperation. He had thought that all this would be enough to get them away from this town without any problems, but that seemed to have backfired. The Fusionist wanted to blame Karley, but he realized that most of the blame should probably be on himself, if he was being honest. If he hadn’t wanted to essentially “bribe” the SIC into looking the other way at their presence, then they might have been able to get away from Whittleton through some other avenue. He was also the one that wanted to help save Karley and her group from dying to those Dechonabras, and while that was technically his fault because it was his decision, he still didn’t regret it.

“So… solutions?” he finally asked after a few seconds of silence in the room. “My idea obviously failed, and I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong and out of my depth.” Even worse, with the SIC planning on ambushing them tomorrow, they would all be utilizing the Fusions he had created. Well, that’s not actually a bad thing, especially with the precautions I put in place.

While he hadn’t known something like this would happen, he had thought it might be a distinct possibility. As such, during the Fusion creation process, he had added a very tiny flaw in every single formation in the Mana Overflow Bypass; it wasn’t enough to compromise the Fusion, or even normally affect it at all, fortunately. But with Larek’s sense of Fusions and formations, especially ones that he made, he was fairly certain that he could reach out with his Pattern Cohesion and subtly widen the flaw to the point where the formation would break. It was like leaving a back door unlocked; it was technically still closed, but a with a little application of the door handle via his Pattern Cohesion, he could open it up.

He would normally never do anything like that, and attempting to alter an existing Fusion was highly dangerous, as it could explode – which was exactly why he added the flaw. If the SIC wanted to ambush him and his friends, they would be in store for a rude awakening.

He wasn’t sure how far away he could be to still affect the formations, but as he already had practice manipulating his Pattern Cohesion a bit away from his body when he was applying it toward Focused Division, he thought he could probably reach at least 15 feet or so before he would have issues. Since it was technically only a tiny little wedge that he needed to shove into the flaw to bust it open, he thought he might be able to reach out perhaps twice that distance or more at a stretch.

Larek didn’t mention any of that to the others, however. He didn’t want them worried about him doing something to their own Fusions; he had only done it this time because he didn’t trust the SIC here at Whittleton.

They wanted to steal all their stuff, after all.

His musings were interrupted when Nedira spoke.  “We should leave now. As much as I want to stay in a real bed tonight, we can’t afford to be ambushed tomorrow.”

Vivienne had walked across the room at some point and was looking through a slit in the window coverings. She shook her head at Nedira’s suggestion. “No. There are people watching.”

“Then we all can use the Camouflage Sphere Fusions, right? They won’t be able to see us leave then?” Nedira asked, looking at Larek for help.

He thought about it for a moment. “Moving slowly enough, it might work?”

Vivienne shot that idea down, too. “Too easy to spot.”

Larek and Nedira didn’t argue the point, as they both knew from experience that the Fusion was easier to see while in motion. Camouflage Sphere really just excelled when it came to small movements or standing still, as the distortion it caused in the covered area was otherwise too visible – especially for people looking for any evidence that someone was moving around. Two or three of them might be able to pass by the watchers if they moved at a virtual crawl, but all of them? Not likely.

“Stay another day?” Verne ventured, and Larek had to admit that the idea had promise. If they were going to ambush them outside, then staying inside the Inn would prevent that possibility.

But that also risked someone getting hurt if the SIC force in Whittleton decided to change their plan when they didn’t emerge tomorrow morning. If they came after them in the Inn and a fight broke out, the collateral damage and potential for the people of Whittleton to be hurt by the battle would be high. And there would be a battle, as Larek doubted that the Major from the SIC would simply settle for the Fusions they currently had on them; it was highly likely that they would try and capture the entire group so as to find out where the “rest of the Fusions” were stored. Becoming a prisoner again was the last thing Larek wanted; once was more than enough for the Fusionist.

It wasn’t just Larek who shook his head at his suggestion, as even his roommate realized that probably wouldn’t work a few seconds after he said it.

“I’m not sure there’s much that we can do other than breaking out of any ambush set up for us,” Penelope said after almost a minute of them looking at each other in silence.

Larek briefly thought about some elaborate plans involving misdirection, illusionary images, and even some additional defensive Fusions in case they were discovered escaping Whittleton, but he wasn’t sure if it would do much good. The problem was that as soon as it became known that they were no longer in the Inn, the SIC could easily search for them in whatever direction they went, as they knew the area much better than Larek or those with him. With around 30 Martials that were part of the SIC in Whittleton, each of them could utilize the new Fusions they were just given to track and easily chase them down with their higher Agility stats. His own group couldn’t move nearly as fast as would be required to flee from them successfully, and he didn’t think it would be worth it to even try.

But breaking out an ambush by the SIC had its own dangers. Not only could one of his friends and bodyguards become seriously hurt in a confrontation like that, but it was possible that one of them could die. He was fairly confident they would win in a situation like that, especially if he was able to surprise them all by exploding their new Fusions, but that didn’t lessen the risk to his group. They were veteran members of the SIC, after all, and while they might not be the most powerful members around – such as who had defended the walls of Peratin and Thanchet – they were likely more than a match for any of his bodyguards individually.

Even if he was able to surprise them with exploding Fusions, was that what he wanted to do? He had created the flaw in the formations just in case he was forced to utilize them for his own protection, but he had really hoped that it would never be necessary. Killing them would only hurt the people of Whittleton and the surrounding area, and while he still wasn’t exactly enamored with the common people due to their instinctual prejudice against someone of his height, that didn’t mean he necessarily meant he wanted them all to die when they no longer had a force of defenders to help them. Their town might not necessarily be attacked right away, but without anyone to patrol the roads, travel would become even more dangerous than it was right now, leading to less trade, fewer shipments of food, and eventually starvation because of lack of food.

He might not like the majority of people, but he wasn’t a heartless monster that wanted them all to die.

The Gergasi already fulfill that role quite well, he thought to himself.

Besides, as much as he hated what the SIC were willing to do to get their hands on more  of his Fusions, they were technically on the same side. They were going about things completely wrong, of course, but the intent to protect themselves and others by making them stronger was a worthy endeavor – even with their misguided and misinformed tactics.

One solution that stood out was to negotiate personally with this Major in charge of the local SIC forces, perhaps even explaining who he was and what he was doing. Unfortunately, given how most of the leadership he’d seen in his travels thus far through the Kingdom were nobles or were enslaved by the Gergasi in some way, so it was entirely possible that this Major that Karley told him about was the same. Even if the local leader wasn’t enslaved, there was at least one Noble that was, and the likelihood of Larek’s location and heading being exposed was high at that point. Unless every single Noble was killed to slow the spread of information, of course, but that wouldn’t necessarily endear him to the local SIC, either. At best, they would still simply come after Larek’s group and capture them; at worst, they would attempt to slaughter his group when they caught up to them.

It really wasn’t looking like there was a good solution here that didn’t result in tragedy for one group or another. Either Larek and his own group would suffer, the local SIC would suffer, or the entire town of tens of thousands of people would suffer – it was seemingly a lose-lose situation that the Fusionist didn’t know how to solve.

“Killing any of the SIC forces here, even in self-defense, would probably be the worst thing we could do,” Bartholomew responded to Penelope’s statement about breaking out of the ambush – which likely meant killing some of the ambushers. “If anything, that would simply turn the entire Corps as a whole against us, leading to a Kingdom-wide manhunt to track us down.”

“Even with the situation with the Scissions and monsters as it is?” Penelope asked incredulously.

The Noble Martial nodded. “Absolutely. There’s nothing like the murder of one of their own to bring the SIC together, and even with restricted travel and the dangerous countryside, we would have swarms of people looking for us.” He paused for a moment, before reluctantly adding, “Unless we killed them all, of course, but then we’d be dooming a good portion of the people near this region unnecessarily.”

That tracked with what Larek was thinking, and he couldn’t in good conscience do that to either the SIC or the common people of Whittleton. “That won’t be happening,” he quickly interjected.  “In fact, I don’t want to kill anyone if we don’t have to, unless they force the issue. No, we need to think of something else.”

Not sure where to go from there, he looked around the room at his companions, before settling his gaze on the floor in an effort to think. He let his vision go unfocused for a minute or so, before something caught his eye. Looking at light-based game he had created for Verne and Norde to play with earlier, an idea began to form in the back of his mind. When Penelope began to speak again, he held up his hand for silence as more and more of his idea crystalized into one cohesive whole.

When Larek finally felt it snap into place in his head, he did some mental calculations while he checked his Status to confirm he still had over 7,500 Pattern Cohesion. What he had planned was going to take a lot of preparation and a huge chunk of his Cohesion all at once, but he thought it would work.

Looking up at Vivienne, he asked, “Do you think you would be able to get outside of the town tonight for a short while without being seen?”

The Ranger looked back at him as if she had just heard the dumbest question ever asked. “Of course,” she answered. “Why?”

“I have a plan,” he said, nodding, even as he pulled a leather band over to him from the pile of accessories on his bed. He needed to design and test the Fusion he had in mind first, but if it worked like he thought it would, he would need a few things that weren’t likely to be found easily inside the town. “I need approximately 100 small rocks of different sizes, all varied enough that they won’t look out of place if you were to drop it on the ground. They need to be at least as big as my thumb and no bigger than your fist. Do you think you can do that?”

She only thought about it for a second before nodding.

“Excellent. While you’re out doing that, I’ll let the rest of you know what I’m planning and then I need a test subject….”  He smirked at the way his friends flinched when he said that. “Don’t worry, there shouldn’t be any permanent harm.”

That didn’t seem to assure them one bit.