Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.70 (301)

Archmage Jennings slowly wove his hands through the air, using them as an attenuating focus point for his mental evaluation of the surrounding ether. Letting himself float like a kite in the middle of the dark cavern, the majority of his attention was entirely focused on what he was doing.

The singular essence light he maintained above him provided the only source of light in the entire chamber. The former throne room, now completely devoid of life, remained filled with piles of rotting kobald corpses and ruined defenses, and was likely inhospitable to anyone needing to breathe. Yet, wrapped in his prepared essence filter, he remained blissfully unaware of the smell surrounding him.

A few days ago, when he’d arrived after the battle for the portal had ended, a quick look was all it had taken to determine the stability of the ether. When he’d confirmed that the essence flows weren’t in any danger of sublimating, he’d put off his investigation into what had happened. For days, he’d been itching to return here and study what Nero had done, but with all that was currently going on with the council and those troublemakers in the capital he simply hadn’t had the time.

Normally, delving into the history of an area was easy, at least for someone like him. But now that he was finally here, taking a look for himself, he was having trouble connecting with the events which had occurred here. It was almost as if history in this little slice of the world had been manually restarted. That wasn’t to say that he couldn’t connect to the history before the battle, it was just that the time around the battle itself hadn’t been ‘recorded’. It was like there were two throne rooms, the throne room existing before the battle, and the one after it. The throne room during the battle was nothing but loose ether that he couldn’t make any sense of.

When delving into that time, he was getting flashes of the battle interspersed with the sight of kobalds assembling on the other side of the portal. No matter how much effort he put into his attempts, he couldn’t control what he was looking at. All he could do was suffer under a hodgepodge of sights, sounds, and experiences that didn’t seem interconnected with each other at all. Yet, as a scientist, even without being able to observe what specifically had happened, he was still able to learn quite a bit through the means of deduction.

When Nero had closed the portal, however he’d done it, Jennings posited that a rudimentary but effective essence integration had occurred. Simply put, Nero had scooped up the localized essence around the other side of the portal and dragged it into this plane of existence. With both sides of the portal now in the same place, the portal itself lost meaning and therefore could no longer exist. Somehow, the little lord had invalidated its identity, something theoretically possible but up until now never actually accomplished. Subsequently, the ether here then immediately began integrating the foreign essence, overwriting and incorporating it into the local ether.

But, what he couldn’t figure out, and what was beginning to concern him more and more, was how the foreign essence seemed to have lost its identity. Typically, when foreign essence is incorporated into an area, there were signs, changes to the world’s template for that area. Altered weather patterns, monsters, beasts, mutated plants and fauna, all of these were signs of foreign ether infecting an area. For none of that to be occurring here was… puzzling.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sensation of someone reaching out to him through the link. While the Thought Hub couldn’t reach him where he was, he’d set up a long range relay in his office to maintain his connection to Dorchester so that he could monitor things while he was away. Now, someone was trying to contact him, and their ping was being forwarded to him here in the throne room.

Annoyed at the interruption, he diverted a small amount of his attention to the part of his mind which was monitoring his connection to Dorchester to see who it was. When he did, he was surprised to feel Nero’s presence on the other side of the connection, beckoning his mind to come join him. Seeing as the last time he’d spoken with Nero the little lord had made it clear he intended to put off any discussion concerning anything of importance until he and the Wackos returned to his estate, Jennings was more than a little surprised to be hearing from him.

Mentally checking the separate part of his mind which was currently in charge of monitoring his scry connection to Nero, he saw that the young man was still in the upper city of the mountain and had just ‘participated’ in another battle with the kobalds.

Accepting the ping, Jennings was about to ask him what he wanted when he realized that Nero had mistakenly created a meeting space using his own mind rather than using the Thought Hub to stabalize the connection. And the stupid boy didn’t just invite him to the space, but multiple people had been given access to directly into his mind.

‘Why is he always trying to find new and inventive ways to kill himself?’ Jennings wondered to himself with a sigh.

Annoyed at having to once again save the troublesome brat, Jennings reached out through the connection and encircled Nero’s mind in a protective shell. He forcefully ejected the others from Nero’s mind and carefully reached out to speak with him.

“Nero, stop what you’re doing! You need to focus. Pull together the threads of thought that are connected to this space and isolate them. Separate your intentions from your thoughts,” he whispered and imparted the concepts Nero needed while keeping his presence in Nero’s mind as small as possible.

Sighing in relief when he felt Nero’s mind beginning to stabilize, he retracted his control of the shell he had created, allowing Nero’s instincts to take over. When he recognized that Nero’s mind had recovered enough to understand him, Jennings’ tone became less forgiving, “Nero, I understand that you’re the type of student who learns by doing. But, you’re doing it wrong. You can’t just host a communications link in your mind without first working your way up to it. You need to disconnect. Use the Battle or Thought Hubs to host the communications link, Nero! You’re going to overstress your mind and pass out!”

As expected, Nero blatantly ignored how close he’d come to harming himself, and instead changed the subject. Had what Nero wanted to talk about not been so important, Jennings would have likely put more effort into confronting the young man over his recklessness. But, like always, the little lord managed to take charge of the conversation, skillfully manipulating everyone involved into following his lead.

While the majority of Jennings' attention remained fixed on his study of the throne room, part of him couldn’t help but applaud at how well Nero had glossed over his mistake. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen one of his sub minds tricked by Nero, and he doubted it would be the last.

Jennings’ unintentional chuckle was loud enough to disturb the dead silence of the massive and empty throne room, causing him to retract his mental tendrils from the ether and take a moment to recenter himself.

Muttering under his breath, he said, “The boy’s probably right, them trying to control him would be like trying to subdue a wild thunder-wyvern with a metal saddle in a lightning storm. It might be worth it to let those idiots in the capital have a chance at him. However it turned out, it would probably be worth seeing just for the experience.”

—--

After having enjoyed a bowl of still steaming stew, Nero took a moment to bask in the atmosphere that was developing among the Wackos. It reminded him of summer camp. More specifically, the summer camp experience he’d seen in movies. There was a growing sense of closeness between the Wackos. He could tell that they were all becoming more comfortable among one another, and beginning to trust each other on an instinctual level.

He could almost imagine them wearing matching friendship bracelets made out of kobald remains and creating a secret handshake known only to those who’d survived the upper city.

Closing his eyes and reveling at the feeling of belonging, he took stock of his current mental state. He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that his expanding mind had been causing him problems, but with all that had been going on he hadn’t put a lot of thought into what he should do about it. Up until now, the best idea he’d come up with was to delegate a good portion of his attention span toward maintaining his mage shield. It was kind of like the mental equivalent of keeping his hands occupied with busy work so he didn’t end up embarrassing himself by scratching himself in public.

Hearing the call repeated throughout the cavern that they were moving out, Nero stood up from his stool, returning it to his personal space with a thought. All around him he could see the radomized chaos becoming quickly organized. The few people who’d bothered to set up tents were breaking them down, and supplies were being loaded up into backpacks and personal spaces.

Glancing over toward where the food had been being distributed, Nero chuckled at the arguments going on concerning the tub-like caldrons he’d left them. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they didn’t know whether or not they should just leave them. Compared to the smaller caldrens they’d been using for their rations, the ones Nero had given them were more like huge tubs they had no idea what to do with. It was a reasonable assumption that none of the people who were in charge of carrying the rations had personal spaces large enough to handle them.

Seeing as it hadn’t been all that long since he’d dropped them off, they were still infused with his essence. So, in order to stop their argument, and also to mess with them a bit, Nero walked past them, pulling the cauldrons into his personal space one after another without bothering to say anything.

The look on their faces as the cauldrons vanished, and the few seconds of justified confusion they suffered was everything Nero had hoped it would be.

Walking away, he responded to the scattered calls of ‘thanks’ with an over the shoulder wave of dismissal.

Before long, the Wackos were back together in one big formation, ready to resume their journey out of the mountain. Finding himself once again beside Merrick and the others, Nero took a moment to enjoy the feeling of kinship and acceptance radiating throughout the ether, surrounding him like a weighted blanket.

The only weird thing he noticed was that everyone had pretty much gone quiet. No longer were there discussions about politics or philosophy going on, nor were there any sounds of idle chatter. Everyone was seemingly focused, preparing themselves for their return to the tunnels.

Whether it was due to them running out of energy concerning the subject, or their worries over running into another ambush, Nero had no idea. All he could tell from their essence fields was that the Wackos were in sync, and ready and willing to get moving.

For him, it was something of a blessing, as their combined essence felt like a stable pillar he could lean on. It gave him the feeling of safety, but on a spiritual level. Although he’d likely never admit it, he was growing more and more comfortable with the cliched metaphysical overtones that permeated this new life he’d found himself in.

It brought to mind a great meme he once saw of a lion sleeping peacefully with cubs crawling all over him causing chaos, and the quote that went along with it - ‘You can get used to anything if you have to’. Nero was positive it was a quote from a great man or woman from history, likely Cleopatra or John Lennon or something, but he couldn’t remember who’d said it. Either way, the meme itself had stuck with him.

Muttering under his breath, Nero told himself, “Well, might as well get this over with.”

With the formation finally moving out, he allowed himself to be led by virtue of maintaining his distance from the person in front of him. Now no longer needing to pay much attention to his surroundings, he released his hold on his mage armor, letting the concentrated essence release back into the ether.

Feeling his available mental energy expand, multiple thought streams began bombarding him. He was aware that the longer he put off learning how to deal with this, the worse it would get, so he’d decided that now was as good as any to learn how to handle it.

‘Focus man, becoming a scatter brain would not be a good look on you,’ he thought to himself.

Random thoughts popped into his head concerning how badly everyone around him smelled. Which then led to thoughts about how long it’s been since he’d cast a cleaning spell. Other related thoughts joined in concerning how he might go about creating an area healing effect while part of his mind tried to remember if he’d ever considered something like that before. Multiple streams of thought branched off, his attention beginning to spread out all over the place.

All the while, the core of his attention remained fixed on the person’s back in front of him. Step by step, he kept pace with them, ignoring his surroundings and ensuring that his feet kept walking.

It took some effort, but more and more of his available brain power began to congeal into a focused stream. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was doing, but over time, he began to get a feel for how his attention worked.

From out of nowhere, a memory of Jennings speaking to him asserted itself. He recalled the sensation of Jennings showing him how to isolate and aim a part of his mind toward… something. He couldn’t exactly recall when it had happened, but he remembered the sensation. It was like remembering seeing someone knitting, and trying to copy what they’d done from memory.

Slowly but surely, he began to get a grip on his mental state. He leaned heavily on the concepts he’d cribbed from anime, movies, and popular culture… along with a few YouTube videos he’d watched concerning ‘the power of the mind’.

He recalled how ridiculous he’d found the people spouting crap like, ‘be wholly in the now’ and ‘concern yourself only with what’s in front of you’. But, now that his brain was running on cliches, he began to see the results of putting nonsense like that into practice.

‘I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a monk or a samurai,’ he thought to himself with a chuckle.

Time passed quickly as he allowed himself to be guided through the tunnels, his efforts remaining completely on his mental practice. It took a lot of effort, more than he thought it would, but the more he worked at it, the easier it became. And slowly but surely, his mind returned to his control.

Anytime a random thought popped up, he ruthlessly cut it off, pulling his attention entirely back onto the present. He found it disgustingly hard to focus completely on one thing. If he ever needed any proof that he’d once been an idiot, now he had it.

Sure, in the past he’d been able to mostly pay attention to what was going on, but now he had to wonder if that was only because that was all he could pay attention to. It made him wonder if how he felt now was how smart people had felt sitting through classrooms back on Earth. If it was, then it was no wonder why geniuses often ended up getting poor grades in high school. It must have been torture for them to force themselves to pay attention to a teacher droning on about the industrial revolution. Every sentence they heard must have been like a starting gun urging them to think about how sawmills worked, or the best way to organize a labor union.

Interestingly, Nero didn’t feel all that much ‘smarter’, he only felt like his attention span had become broader. Which of course caused his mind to begin fracturing into questions concerning what constituted intelligence.

Harshly cutting off those considerations, he forced his mind back together. His efforts became something of a walking meditation as he practiced maintaining control of his thoughts.

After who knows how long, his practice was interrupted by the feeling of someone shaking his left shoulder. Blinking away the focus he was maintaining, he was happy to find that he was able to keep his attention from wandering.

Turning to look over who’d been poking him, he saw Merrick staring at him with an expectant look on his face.

Having missed whatever Merrick had said, Nero replied, “What’s up?”

Likely repeating himself, Merrick said, “I was just wondering what you thought about what Helen said.”

Not having heard what Helen said, Nero ignored the eager looks of anticipation from everyone walking nearby, replying honestly, “I wasn’t listening. I was training my mind to be more focused. Hey, speaking of that, didn’t you mention some advanced training techniques or something? I remember you saying something about how the ones in the books were only for beginners.”

Merrick smiled a bit before he caught himself, dutifully replying, “I believe you’re mistaken, my lord. While I did mention the mental training techniques, I believe it was you who said they were only for beginners. I likely only know the same ones you’ve already mastered. I’m sure by this point you’re far more advanced in that area than I am.”

Waving dismissively, Nero replied, “Right, sure, that makes sense. Anyway, what were you saying about Helen?”

Being one of the people walking in front of him, Helen replied over her shoulder, “I was just saying that I agree with your plan to visit the dwarves. Human nobles are nothing but trouble… aside from you and the Verena’s that is… my lord.”

The other Helen standing next to her spoke up, sounding somewhat annoyed, “Nobles are just like everyone else, only their opinions actually matter. I very much doubt it will be any different in the dwarven lands. But, I do agree that with our lord’s ability to close portals, we could do a lot of good there.”

Understanding that they likely had been discussing what he’d asked them to, he replied, “Oh, so you’re thinking that it might be a good idea to get out of dodge until the heat dies down. Although, admittedly, I didn’t consider whether or not dwarven nobles would be any better than the ones in the capital.”

Looking around, he could see most of the Wackos in the area were paying attention to them at the moment. Speaking up a little louder so everyone could hear him, he asked, “So what’s the general consensus? Or is there one?”

Merrick spoke up first, “Not as of yet, my lord. We were just discussing your options. Whatever you decide, we’re with you. That’s the only consensus we need.”

Nero rolled his eyes, replying, “I appreciate that, I do. But that’s not all that helpful when it comes down to it. I mean, it’s helpful, of course it is. I just mean that it doesn’t help me decide on where to go from here.”

Peter, one of the quieter members of their little group, replied, “My lord, doesn’t this situation merit the application of one of your tenets? Like you said, ‘Decide where you want to go, then create a path to get there’. Regardless of anyone else’s opinion, the most important question you should ask yourself is where do you want to go.”

Widening his eyes in surprise, Nero impulsive replied, “Did I say that? Right, of course I did. That sounds like me.”

Coughing into his hand to buy himself a moment, Nero mentally fought his struggling attention span, forcing it to remain completely on the conversation at hand.

“The question of where I want to go is important, no doubt. But, as your leader, I also have to consider what’s best for all of you. Not because I have to, but because I want to. I wish to be a good leader, so I must take into account what being a good leader means. I may want to go visit the dwarves and experience their cities, but that’s a personal desire, and I’m more than just me. What I mean to say is that my focus is on the journey, not the destination,” Nero replied evenly, attempting to sound as if he were some kind of sage.

Merrick, rubbing his chin in thought, replied, “I think I understand, my lord. What you’re saying is that deciding where you want to go is only part of it. One must also consider how to get there while remaining true to themselves. As our leader, where we go is less important than the considerations of the Wackos as a whole.”

Nods of understanding erupted all around him, leaving Nero to feel as if he’d just successfully blamed the dog for eating all the bacon at the breakfast table.

“Uh.. yes, that’s right. That’s what I was trying to say,” Nero replied weakly.

Helen spoke up, her tone sounding overly enthusiastic, “So, the most important thing to consider is what’s best for House Walker. Meaning we need to take into account our identity as adventurers.”

Someone Nero didn’t recognize replied, “Then it comes down to the danger level, associated profit, and the needs of the people. A good adventurer seeks out profitable quests that serve the people while pushing their limits.”

Merrick replied happily, “Ah! I see what our lord is saying! Any and all destinations are equally valid. We could stay in Dorchester and fight for the opportunity to continue fighting the kobalds, or we could go and help the dwarves. And even if we go to the capital and face the kingdom’s Great Houses, we’d still have the opportunity to prove ourselves if we choose our path wisely.”

One of the Helen’s added, “It doesn’t matter which path we choose, what matters is how we walk it!”

Once again, Nero was forced by circumstance to keep silent as the people around him smiled and nodded, attributing words and concepts to him, regardless of him never having said them.

Merrick, suddenly becoming serious, said, “Then, my lord, I believe it might be best for us to wait until we return to Dorchester before you make your decision. Like you once said, the optimal path forward is sometimes determined by the obstacles in one’s way. Any decision you make now may be somewhat premature.”

“That’s why you only asked for us to consider options! Tactically! You wanted us to think tactically! You never expected us to come up with the best direction for the house, you just wanted us to consider the best way to proceed regardless of our ultimate direction!” Helen shouted over her shoulder, sounding almost like she was accusing Nero of successfully having tricked them.

Gasps of shock and understanding caused the conversation to halt, everyone taking a moment to consider what Helen had just said.

Breaking the silence, Nero replied as lightly, attempting to sound as honest as he could, “Yes, that’s right. Well done, all of you. For now, let’s all take a moment to think about House Walker’s options, and the repercussions of each path we might walk from here. Like I said before, our next adventure is waiting for us, and I’ll decide what it is when we get back to the estate.”

Somewhat exasperated by the convoluted reasoning his underlings had engaged in, Nero struggled to keep his mind from fracturing into a series of thought streams, each one attempting to mutter increasingly inventive curses. The last thing he’d expected to happen when he’d asked for options was for them to turn it around on him and make it into some kind of life lesson for them to learn from.

He honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted to get back to Dorchester as soon as possible and get this over with, or whether it would be better to just convince them to ignore the council and stay in the mountain.

‘Killing kobalds is easier than dealing with people. Probably because kobalds are limited in their ability to affect him with their opinions. Yup, that’s the issue. Opinions are like assholes. Assholes spew shit. People are full of opinions, therefore, people are full of shit. So the best way to keep your shoes clean is to steer clear of people’s opinions, or find a legally acceptable way to kill those who disagree with you,’ Nero thought to himself, reinforcing his perspective with what he believed was ironclad logic.

*Chapter 301 - Getting a handle on the new you.

*Spoiler - Scientists have determined that brains aren't computers in the traditional sense.  They don't work the same way logic circuits do.  Instead, they are learning engines based on relationships.  What that means is that by their very nature, they learn and develop by forming comparing and contrasting opinions from everything we encounter.  Effectively, we're the sum of what we've been exposed to.  So, everything we see or hear, we naturally read into.  By the way, that's why it's so important to teach people how to think logically.  It's a learned skill, not something we can do intuitively.  If you've ever wondered how people can believe certain ridiculous things... this is why.  I'd offer some examples, but inevitably, some 'genius' would reference some website created by equally brilliant people as a counterargument.