Chapter 192: 192
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"I want to know that Grandpa Booger can be Grandpa Boogie Monster if she's being dumb because I may not have the time or attention span to stop her myself. The last thing I want on my conscience is a dead girl. Right now, that might be a little more than I can deal with."
Blinking dully, Birgir said, "That's it?"
"Uh, what were you expecting? I mean, I figure that you don't look like a person who'd be shy about throwing in an extra pair of hands where they're needed. For the sake of convenience, I'd like to add you to my team roster."
The old man burst out in laughter.
After he'd got himself back under control, he said, "I don't know what I was expecting but I almost feel ashamed about it now."
Taking a serious cast, Orison added, "If I want dark deeds done, I find dark people. The only killing you might have to do will be self defense... Well, let's say group self defense. For some reason, people think I'm easy to pick on and get very offended when I prove them wrong...
"Whatever. You know how it is. When you got something good, the vultures start circling and the predators start stalking. Unlike in nature, these predators and vultures don't have good instincts because they still won't give up. It's mostly bureaucratic at this point but who knows when some bowling pin will stand up for me to take some frustration out on."
Cracking his knuckles, Orison said, "That's alright. I'm about to bloody a whole bunch of noses at once real soon. If you are really down to make this official, you'll have balcony seats. They're pretty comfy ones too. When they made the Reese Rover, they didn't start getting cheap at the features. It's pretty fully loaded."
Looking at Orison strangely, Birgir asked, "Do you even know what I did for a living?"
As if the answer to that question only had meaning to him after the old man asked, the young mage said, "Well, I can tell you move like a someone who knows their way around a fight. What more do I need to know? Got some interesting skills to throw on your resume?"
"I was a B list bounty hunter. Did some assassination work too. I'm one of the dark people you were talking about. I thought you knew," the old man said.
There wasn't pride on his face when he declared it. If anything, it was the opposite. He had done things that he was ashamed of.
They talked on the lake for some time and Orison cracked a Doc Agave for him. It wasn't one of the top shelf ones but the only real difference was a little more aging for flavor that the young mage couldn't really appreciate much, being someone who didn't particularly enjoy getting hammered. When Orison got him back to the house, the real 'fun' began.
Just about everything in the young mage's augmentation arsenal aside from super rare was thrown at the grandfather/granddaughter duo. That included the crash course 'four days of hell' that turned out to be only a little more than one for Babs. She didn't have much toxin build up and had the fish tank treatment only a few years prior. That didn't stop her from crying and making him feel like a terrible person.
The young mage was glad that he had started out with some life extenders before he got started on the old man or Bergir might not have survived. Part way through the treatment, a weak and barely noticeable tremor ran through the world. He had Roy watch over their recovery and medicine schedule while he put in for a small vacation.
Those who were sensitive enough to catch it or attentive enough to have set up devices capable of detecting such a thing, thought it was just another ripple but Orison knew better. The next ripple would be truly horrifying and thankfully was still some time away. In it's own way, the tremor was just as terrifying but for a whole other reason.
Three new planar rips had opened at the same time. Two of them Avalon was aware of extensively due to Orison's divulging of information to Aurora. The third was something that would only grow in danger the more knew it existed and thankfully Aurora believed him.
Despite that, it needed to be closed and not through the normal method. So, while Avalon was extended trying to stop an infernal invasion from breaking out in the prime ring of Australia and the Brazilian Archipelago, the young mage was taking a vacation to Halia, the island that formed from an underwater cluster eruption that wiped out the original Hawaii chain. As a friendly reminder that he was trusted but not without reservation, El and Em were sent with him.
From their perspective, all it looked like the young mage had done was go there, pay a couple to camp on a private beach for a couple of days and then sit underwater for his who three day, two night stay. What they didn't know was that for a brief moment he had went full devour form and had dealt with several waves of parasitic infections that were slowly drawn into his space as they appeared.
Additionally, Orison had managed achieve a ritual work and a few sets of equipment on loan in his space to unmoor the rip he was covering the existence of and move it TO his space. There, it would spit out wave after wave of deadly creatures ranging from nearly microscopic to fist size. There wasn't much else to do with it until the collection of aquatic horrors that called the planar fragment home figured that enough time had passed to reap rewards.
There would be no controllable vessels, no surplus of psychic energy and spiritual essence to feed off of. There would be no one to see them and be imprinted, transitioning into a psychic parasite to keep from dying until they could force their host to drown themselves in the sea. They would just die.
It wasn't a permanent solution. A rip was a hole and the devouring swirl couldn't eat a hole. Nor was it strong enough to forcibly pull the internals of that rip out once it opened wider. Ultimately, he had exchanged safety for the potential resources of that plane. A worthy trade in his mind, considering the lives and living space lost until The Weird aided Avalon in uncovering methods to drive the invaders to extinction. The costs to Beta Prime were incalculable in that other future.
Until he could take the rip to a place where it could be disposed of properly, he did get some enrichment from the devouring of whatever decided to poke it head out til then. All things were going smoothly and the small amount of danger for carrying the rip in his space were manageable even if he died. His death would take the danger with him.
And it seemed someone was readying an attempt. But before the sudden screaming increase of intuition driven warning reached 'inescapable', a few extra merging shadows joined the occasional ones that had steadily added themselves from time to time since he came back. A small missile was stopped in mid air inches from the ground a few feet away as frozen time began 'rewinding' in millisecond frames.
A tired and slightly older LeStrange was standing in front of him, a different device in his hand. This one looked like a cube filled with a combination of circuitry both magical and mundane in nature. That cube reconfigured itself into the next platonic solid in the list, an octahedron. Aside from a small space around them, time stood still.
"I want you to eat that and then we talk," The man said as he stared at the missile.
"Can't. Dispersed kinetic force will tear my physical body up as it passes through. Displacement of air will cause deviation and I won't even absorb the whole explosion.
Shouting angrily, Jacques said, "Three seconds, pull it in before I'm out of magic."
Deciding to trust, Orison walked up to the missile and pulled it in. It was relatively small and LeStrange kept pace behind him. Despite precision control of their respective power usage, the young mage suffered a severe burn on his chest from the remaining heat at the tail end. He couldn't hold devour mode for that long so soon after having used it previously and LeStrange's magic ran out.
Without waiting for a word, he line of sight teleported far away from their original location before doing it once more. Running into El and Em's room he shut the door and let LeStrange start throwing out all kinds of orders over The Weird. The young mage was patient to wait until that was done before a rolling ripple, like a lake wave, lapped around the world.
Eyes growing wide, Orison said. "Mass Dimensional Erasure Phenomenon in less than ten minutes! How far back did you travel!?"
Jacques went blank for half a second and then started carrying out more orders, getting Aurora and the elusive Third Triumvir involved. Luckily, Aurora had a list of all the possibly disappearing people that Orison knew were important enough to care about in an emergency. Otherwise Avalon's infrastructure would have been torn to shreds.
Likewise, Orison had his own list and thought he'd have the time to get resources together to deal with it but with the sudden 'shrinking' of time before 'First Stage Merge had disappeared with LeStrange's return. He had created a list of priority targets for such a instance and released it to Roy. He told the equipment specialist to use the shrunk budget to get as many to the lake house as possible in the next few minutes with whatever resources there were on hand.
He even asked for a personal loan from the man's account to get more. Turner and the man's family was on the list as well as a few others Orison had met. So, Roy didn't balk too hard. Fortunately, there was some overlap between his and Aurora's list or there would be some truly sad moments waiting in store after the 'Tsunami ripple' came.
"Please tell me we can use Sky Hook to get to my house. If not, questions are going to have to wait until after," Orison said, nerves ratcheted to 'fourth cup of coffee' bad.
The man nodded and ordered a Sky Hook drop. Within moments, they were at the lake house with Orison rushing to the basement while LeStrange continued pouring instructions to people over The Weird.
"I don't need to know anything right now on my end other than if I still have permission to go to Echo Marsh after this event is done. It imp-" Orison said before he was interrupted.
"Yes. You have twenty-four hours and then you need to get your personal affairs wrapped up for a few weeks. We're going to Shambahla," LeStrange said with a grave face.
The young mage handed LeStrange a list and a potion. "Coordinate with Aurora and Roy. If there are people you are unsure about, ask. If everyone you care about is covered on the safe or unsafe but tagged for pick-up, please help me get some more of mine."
Jacques sighed as he read over the list and joined Roy at the magic circle in the training room while Orison headed down to the basement of the lake house to charge up the massive formation under his property. It was a stressful few minutes. As the ripples built in surges and reality slightly buckled under the strain and metaphysical erosion, holding magic steady was more than specialists at the teleport station could handle.
Panic and fear reigned over the world and nothing would be the same after. Mothers would walk into children's rooms without recalling anything about a child, feeling a deep sense of loss. People would come home from work wondering why there were stranger's possessions in their houses as people at home would wonder how they were surviving in the places they were without the income to support themselves.
More rarely, a child or baby would be left unattended and have no discernible reason for being where they were. Almost always, it would be traced back to an adoption to phantoms. One of many problems government programs would creak under the strain of trying to solve on a scale far beyond what manpower would be available.
For people like Aurora and Orison, who had other means of getting a collection of 'fluffy soul' people over the first hump, there were different concerns to deal with. As the young mage eased the lake house property from being phased out, the survivors who were meant to disappear suffered a multitude of other problems. Weakness, premature aging and a collection of medical problems ranging from mental to physical needed to be dealt with.
Adjustment insured survival but it was a painful one for most. Outside of the pains of forceful soul condensation and its attached effects the the body, there was the purely psychological burden of erased connections with the evidence of those connections left behind to be seen. And considering how much time had been squeezed together as time travel created a discord with the higher dimension still moving its stately course unhindered in any way, they wouldn't have long before the second wave of merge induced problems would be introduced.
Tossing LeStrange a slightly immature ginseng in a medical solution, the young mage said, "Who's trying to kill me?"
His mentor replied, "I don't know. It's impossible to find them but they will succeed. Each time it's stopped, they get more elaborate until they resort to tactics that are beyond prediction or prevention. The casualties get higher too.
"I don't know how to say this without sounding callous or cruel. But looking at all the evidence, it's a training run that turns serious at merge day. Whoever is responsible wants to take you out without hurting others but in the beginning, it's more like they're trying to teach you than hurt you. I'll show you what I mean," Jacques said as he reached out a hand to Orison's head, asking for Aurora's help through The Weird.
Somewhat hesitant, he allowed the two strands of intent to touch his spiritual seat. The rush of scenarios did seem like they were training. There were even a time or two where they had succeeded in killing him only to bring him back and using the same tactic again. That stops after the final merge begins. Done playing teachers, they become intent on making sure he expired before the merge was finished.
"That's why we're going to Shambahla. Dr Odd's mentor has a way to contact the other side. There's a good chance she's already talked to him and might have answers or, at the very least, offer guidance to you before we have no choice but to ask you to get somewhere they can get to you without hurting a lot of innocents. That's my deal with you," Jacques said.
Clueless as to what else he could say, Orison agreed before openly getting his team, twelve year old girl included, together. LeStrange didn't seem keen on stopping him and if a Triumvir wasn't going to, no one else was going to interfere.
"Alright, gang. It's a pretty simple run. We go out to a certain area of the swamp and then we come back. There's some other stuff too but it's only the minor details. Anyone want out?" the young mage asked.
Not seeing anyone volunteering to walk, he gave the go ahead and they flew to the rip stabilizer warehouse. There was some friction on turning the dial a half day early but a charged chain battery and a goods bribe to the captain of the current plane's fort, that friction disappeared. With an extra half-day of open rip time being all the bribe Echo Mire's captain needed, he faced no challenges setting up his tour.
In a private moment, Roy said, "I thought this was going to be your nose bloodying plan. It doesn't seem like you're going to get much of that done with how fast we're rushing things."
The young mage looked at Roy helplessly, "I'm on the verge of desperate here... There's one thing I can do, though."
Walking up to the captain of the fort, Orison smiled widely and said, "I'm really excited to be here. You've had it hard. If my hunch is right about this, Avalon is going to be very happy with the results and you'll be first in line to get ten percent of that happiness."
"Do you need an Irregular crew put together to help bring back findings?" The dark and burly captain asked with a hopeful expression that looked out of place on the dour man's face.
The young mage chuckled and said, "I see my reputation precedes me. That was for morally decent debtors in the Barrens. You've got the worst of the worst here. There might be a wrongfully accused among them but do you know who they are?
"That said, if you'd like a little extra on the side, I do have some wiggle room and a favor to ask. It's not strictly illegal and you could even turn it into an opportunity for yourself."
With the man all ears, Orison spent a few precious minutes laying out an 'opportunity' for the captain.
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
"I want to know that Grandpa Booger can be Grandpa Boogie Monster if she's being dumb because I may not have the time or attention span to stop her myself. The last thing I want on my conscience is a dead girl. Right now, that might be a little more than I can deal with."
Blinking dully, Birgir said, "That's it?"
"Uh, what were you expecting? I mean, I figure that you don't look like a person who'd be shy about throwing in an extra pair of hands where they're needed. For the sake of convenience, I'd like to add you to my team roster."
The old man burst out in laughter.
After he'd got himself back under control, he said, "I don't know what I was expecting but I almost feel ashamed about it now."
Taking a serious cast, Orison added, "If I want dark deeds done, I find dark people. The only killing you might have to do will be self defense... Well, let's say group self defense. For some reason, people think I'm easy to pick on and get very offended when I prove them wrong...
"Whatever. You know how it is. When you got something good, the vultures start circling and the predators start stalking. Unlike in nature, these predators and vultures don't have good instincts because they still won't give up. It's mostly bureaucratic at this point but who knows when some bowling pin will stand up for me to take some frustration out on."
Cracking his knuckles, Orison said, "That's alright. I'm about to bloody a whole bunch of noses at once real soon. If you are really down to make this official, you'll have balcony seats. They're pretty comfy ones too. When they made the Reese Rover, they didn't start getting cheap at the features. It's pretty fully loaded."
Looking at Orison strangely, Birgir asked, "Do you even know what I did for a living?"
As if the answer to that question only had meaning to him after the old man asked, the young mage said, "Well, I can tell you move like a someone who knows their way around a fight. What more do I need to know? Got some interesting skills to throw on your resume?"
"I was a B list bounty hunter. Did some assassination work too. I'm one of the dark people you were talking about. I thought you knew," the old man said.
There wasn't pride on his face when he declared it. If anything, it was the opposite. He had done things that he was ashamed of.
They talked on the lake for some time and Orison cracked a Doc Agave for him. It wasn't one of the top shelf ones but the only real difference was a little more aging for flavor that the young mage couldn't really appreciate much, being someone who didn't particularly enjoy getting hammered. When Orison got him back to the house, the real 'fun' began.
Just about everything in the young mage's augmentation arsenal aside from super rare was thrown at the grandfather/granddaughter duo. That included the crash course 'four days of hell' that turned out to be only a little more than one for Babs. She didn't have much toxin build up and had the fish tank treatment only a few years prior. That didn't stop her from crying and making him feel like a terrible person.
The young mage was glad that he had started out with some life extenders before he got started on the old man or Bergir might not have survived. Part way through the treatment, a weak and barely noticeable tremor ran through the world. He had Roy watch over their recovery and medicine schedule while he put in for a small vacation.
Those who were sensitive enough to catch it or attentive enough to have set up devices capable of detecting such a thing, thought it was just another ripple but Orison knew better. The next ripple would be truly horrifying and thankfully was still some time away. In it's own way, the tremor was just as terrifying but for a whole other reason.
Three new planar rips had opened at the same time. Two of them Avalon was aware of extensively due to Orison's divulging of information to Aurora. The third was something that would only grow in danger the more knew it existed and thankfully Aurora believed him.
Despite that, it needed to be closed and not through the normal method. So, while Avalon was extended trying to stop an infernal invasion from breaking out in the prime ring of Australia and the Brazilian Archipelago, the young mage was taking a vacation to Halia, the island that formed from an underwater cluster eruption that wiped out the original Hawaii chain. As a friendly reminder that he was trusted but not without reservation, El and Em were sent with him.
From their perspective, all it looked like the young mage had done was go there, pay a couple to camp on a private beach for a couple of days and then sit underwater for his who three day, two night stay. What they didn't know was that for a brief moment he had went full devour form and had dealt with several waves of parasitic infections that were slowly drawn into his space as they appeared.
Additionally, Orison had managed achieve a ritual work and a few sets of equipment on loan in his space to unmoor the rip he was covering the existence of and move it TO his space. There, it would spit out wave after wave of deadly creatures ranging from nearly microscopic to fist size. There wasn't much else to do with it until the collection of aquatic horrors that called the planar fragment home figured that enough time had passed to reap rewards.
There would be no controllable vessels, no surplus of psychic energy and spiritual essence to feed off of. There would be no one to see them and be imprinted, transitioning into a psychic parasite to keep from dying until they could force their host to drown themselves in the sea. They would just die.
It wasn't a permanent solution. A rip was a hole and the devouring swirl couldn't eat a hole. Nor was it strong enough to forcibly pull the internals of that rip out once it opened wider. Ultimately, he had exchanged safety for the potential resources of that plane. A worthy trade in his mind, considering the lives and living space lost until The Weird aided Avalon in uncovering methods to drive the invaders to extinction. The costs to Beta Prime were incalculable in that other future.
Until he could take the rip to a place where it could be disposed of properly, he did get some enrichment from the devouring of whatever decided to poke it head out til then. All things were going smoothly and the small amount of danger for carrying the rip in his space were manageable even if he died. His death would take the danger with him.
And it seemed someone was readying an attempt. But before the sudden screaming increase of intuition driven warning reached 'inescapable', a few extra merging shadows joined the occasional ones that had steadily added themselves from time to time since he came back. A small missile was stopped in mid air inches from the ground a few feet away as frozen time began 'rewinding' in millisecond frames.
A tired and slightly older LeStrange was standing in front of him, a different device in his hand. This one looked like a cube filled with a combination of circuitry both magical and mundane in nature. That cube reconfigured itself into the next platonic solid in the list, an octahedron. Aside from a small space around them, time stood still.
"I want you to eat that and then we talk," The man said as he stared at the missile.
"Can't. Dispersed kinetic force will tear my physical body up as it passes through. Displacement of air will cause deviation and I won't even absorb the whole explosion.
Shouting angrily, Jacques said, "Three seconds, pull it in before I'm out of magic."
Deciding to trust, Orison walked up to the missile and pulled it in. It was relatively small and LeStrange kept pace behind him. Despite precision control of their respective power usage, the young mage suffered a severe burn on his chest from the remaining heat at the tail end. He couldn't hold devour mode for that long so soon after having used it previously and LeStrange's magic ran out.
Without waiting for a word, he line of sight teleported far away from their original location before doing it once more. Running into El and Em's room he shut the door and let LeStrange start throwing out all kinds of orders over The Weird. The young mage was patient to wait until that was done before a rolling ripple, like a lake wave, lapped around the world.
Eyes growing wide, Orison said. "Mass Dimensional Erasure Phenomenon in less than ten minutes! How far back did you travel!?"
Jacques went blank for half a second and then started carrying out more orders, getting Aurora and the elusive Third Triumvir involved. Luckily, Aurora had a list of all the possibly disappearing people that Orison knew were important enough to care about in an emergency. Otherwise Avalon's infrastructure would have been torn to shreds.
Likewise, Orison had his own list and thought he'd have the time to get resources together to deal with it but with the sudden 'shrinking' of time before 'First Stage Merge had disappeared with LeStrange's return. He had created a list of priority targets for such a instance and released it to Roy. He told the equipment specialist to use the shrunk budget to get as many to the lake house as possible in the next few minutes with whatever resources there were on hand.
He even asked for a personal loan from the man's account to get more. Turner and the man's family was on the list as well as a few others Orison had met. So, Roy didn't balk too hard. Fortunately, there was some overlap between his and Aurora's list or there would be some truly sad moments waiting in store after the 'Tsunami ripple' came.
"Please tell me we can use Sky Hook to get to my house. If not, questions are going to have to wait until after," Orison said, nerves ratcheted to 'fourth cup of coffee' bad.
The man nodded and ordered a Sky Hook drop. Within moments, they were at the lake house with Orison rushing to the basement while LeStrange continued pouring instructions to people over The Weird.
"I don't need to know anything right now on my end other than if I still have permission to go to Echo Marsh after this event is done. It imp-" Orison said before he was interrupted.
"Yes. You have twenty-four hours and then you need to get your personal affairs wrapped up for a few weeks. We're going to Shambahla," LeStrange said with a grave face.
The young mage handed LeStrange a list and a potion. "Coordinate with Aurora and Roy. If there are people you are unsure about, ask. If everyone you care about is covered on the safe or unsafe but tagged for pick-up, please help me get some more of mine."
Jacques sighed as he read over the list and joined Roy at the magic circle in the training room while Orison headed down to the basement of the lake house to charge up the massive formation under his property. It was a stressful few minutes. As the ripples built in surges and reality slightly buckled under the strain and metaphysical erosion, holding magic steady was more than specialists at the teleport station could handle.
Panic and fear reigned over the world and nothing would be the same after. Mothers would walk into children's rooms without recalling anything about a child, feeling a deep sense of loss. People would come home from work wondering why there were stranger's possessions in their houses as people at home would wonder how they were surviving in the places they were without the income to support themselves.
More rarely, a child or baby would be left unattended and have no discernible reason for being where they were. Almost always, it would be traced back to an adoption to phantoms. One of many problems government programs would creak under the strain of trying to solve on a scale far beyond what manpower would be available.
For people like Aurora and Orison, who had other means of getting a collection of 'fluffy soul' people over the first hump, there were different concerns to deal with. As the young mage eased the lake house property from being phased out, the survivors who were meant to disappear suffered a multitude of other problems. Weakness, premature aging and a collection of medical problems ranging from mental to physical needed to be dealt with.
Adjustment insured survival but it was a painful one for most. Outside of the pains of forceful soul condensation and its attached effects the the body, there was the purely psychological burden of erased connections with the evidence of those connections left behind to be seen. And considering how much time had been squeezed together as time travel created a discord with the higher dimension still moving its stately course unhindered in any way, they wouldn't have long before the second wave of merge induced problems would be introduced.
Tossing LeStrange a slightly immature ginseng in a medical solution, the young mage said, "Who's trying to kill me?"
His mentor replied, "I don't know. It's impossible to find them but they will succeed. Each time it's stopped, they get more elaborate until they resort to tactics that are beyond prediction or prevention. The casualties get higher too.
"I don't know how to say this without sounding callous or cruel. But looking at all the evidence, it's a training run that turns serious at merge day. Whoever is responsible wants to take you out without hurting others but in the beginning, it's more like they're trying to teach you than hurt you. I'll show you what I mean," Jacques said as he reached out a hand to Orison's head, asking for Aurora's help through The Weird.
Somewhat hesitant, he allowed the two strands of intent to touch his spiritual seat. The rush of scenarios did seem like they were training. There were even a time or two where they had succeeded in killing him only to bring him back and using the same tactic again. That stops after the final merge begins. Done playing teachers, they become intent on making sure he expired before the merge was finished.
"That's why we're going to Shambahla. Dr Odd's mentor has a way to contact the other side. There's a good chance she's already talked to him and might have answers or, at the very least, offer guidance to you before we have no choice but to ask you to get somewhere they can get to you without hurting a lot of innocents. That's my deal with you," Jacques said.
Clueless as to what else he could say, Orison agreed before openly getting his team, twelve year old girl included, together. LeStrange didn't seem keen on stopping him and if a Triumvir wasn't going to, no one else was going to interfere.
"Alright, gang. It's a pretty simple run. We go out to a certain area of the swamp and then we come back. There's some other stuff too but it's only the minor details. Anyone want out?" the young mage asked.
Not seeing anyone volunteering to walk, he gave the go ahead and they flew to the rip stabilizer warehouse. There was some friction on turning the dial a half day early but a charged chain battery and a goods bribe to the captain of the current plane's fort, that friction disappeared. With an extra half-day of open rip time being all the bribe Echo Mire's captain needed, he faced no challenges setting up his tour.
In a private moment, Roy said, "I thought this was going to be your nose bloodying plan. It doesn't seem like you're going to get much of that done with how fast we're rushing things."
The young mage looked at Roy helplessly, "I'm on the verge of desperate here... There's one thing I can do, though."
Walking up to the captain of the fort, Orison smiled widely and said, "I'm really excited to be here. You've had it hard. If my hunch is right about this, Avalon is going to be very happy with the results and you'll be first in line to get ten percent of that happiness."
"Do you need an Irregular crew put together to help bring back findings?" The dark and burly captain asked with a hopeful expression that looked out of place on the dour man's face.
The young mage chuckled and said, "I see my reputation precedes me. That was for morally decent debtors in the Barrens. You've got the worst of the worst here. There might be a wrongfully accused among them but do you know who they are?
"That said, if you'd like a little extra on the side, I do have some wiggle room and a favor to ask. It's not strictly illegal and you could even turn it into an opportunity for yourself."
With the man all ears, Orison spent a few precious minutes laying out an 'opportunity' for the captain.
"I want to know that Grandpa Booger can be Grandpa Boogie Monster if she's being dumb because I may not have the time or attention span to stop her myself. The last thing I want on my conscience is a dead girl. Right now, that might be a little more than I can deal with." Blinking dully, Birgir said, "That's it?" "Uh, what were you expecting? I mean, I figure that you don't look like a person who'd be shy about throwing in an extra pair of hands where they're needed. For the sake of convenience, I'd like to add you to my team roster." The old man burst out in laughter. After he'd got himself back under control, he said, "I don't know what I was expecting but I almost feel ashamed about it now." Taking a serious cast, Orison added, "If I want dark deeds done, I find dark people. The only killing you might have to do will be self defense... Well, let's say group self defense. For some reason, people think I'm easy to pick on and get very offended when I prove them wrong... "Whatever. You know how it is. When you got something good, the vultures start circling and the predators start stalking. Unlike in nature, these predators and vultures don't have good instincts because they still won't give up. It's mostly bureaucratic at this point but who knows when some bowling pin will stand up for me to take some frustration out on." Cracking his knuckles, Orison said, "That's alright. I'm about to bloody a whole bunch of noses at once real soon. If you are really down to make this official, you'll have balcony seats. They're pretty comfy ones too. When they made the Reese Rover, they didn't start getting cheap at the features. It's pretty fully loaded." Looking at Orison strangely, Birgir asked, "Do you even know what I did for a living?" As if the answer to that question only had meaning to him after the old man asked, the young mage said, "Well, I can tell you move like a someone who knows their way around a fight. What more do I need to know? Got some interesting skills to throw on your resume?" "I was a B list bounty hunter. Did some assassination work too. I'm one of the dark people you were talking about. I thought you knew," the old man said. There wasn't pride on his face when he declared it. If anything, it was the opposite. He had done things that he was ashamed of. They talked on the lake for some time and Orison cracked a Doc Agave for him. It wasn't one of the top shelf ones but the only real difference was a little more aging for flavor that the young mage couldn't really appreciate much, being someone who didn't particularly enjoy getting hammered. When Orison got him back to the house, the real 'fun' began. Just about everything in the young mage's augmentation arsenal aside from super rare was thrown at the grandfather/granddaughter duo. That included the crash course 'four days of hell' that turned out to be only a little more than one for Babs. She didn't have much toxin build up and had the fish tank treatment only a few years prior. That didn't stop her from crying and making him feel like a terrible person. The young mage was glad that he had started out with some life extenders before he got started on the old man or Bergir might not have survived. Part way through the treatment, a weak and barely noticeable tremor ran through the world. He had Roy watch over their recovery and medicine schedule while he put in for a small vacation. Those who were sensitive enough to catch it or attentive enough to have set up devices capable of detecting such a thing, thought it was just another ripple but Orison knew better. The next ripple would be truly horrifying and thankfully was still some time away. In it's own way, the tremor was just as terrifying but for a whole other reason. Three new planar rips had opened at the same time. Two of them Avalon was aware of extensively due to Orison's divulging of information to Aurora. The third was something that would only grow in danger the more knew it existed and thankfully Aurora believed him. Despite that, it needed to be closed and not through the normal method. So, while Avalon was extended trying to stop an infernal invasion from breaking out in the prime ring of Australia and the Brazilian Archipelago, the young mage was taking a vacation to Halia, the island that formed from an underwater cluster eruption that wiped out the original Hawaii chain. As a friendly reminder that he was trusted but not without reservation, El and Em were sent with him. From their perspective, all it looked like the young mage had done was go there, pay a couple to camp on a private beach for a couple of days and then sit underwater for his who three day, two night stay. What they didn't know was that for a brief moment he had went full devour form and had dealt with several waves of parasitic infections that were slowly drawn into his space as they appeared. Additionally, Orison had managed achieve a ritual work and a few sets of equipment on loan in his space to unmoor the rip he was covering the existence of and move it TO his space. There, it would spit out wave after wave of deadly creatures ranging from nearly microscopic to fist size. There wasn't much else to do with it until the collection of aquatic horrors that called the planar fragment home figured that enough time had passed to reap rewards. There would be no controllable vessels, no surplus of psychic energy and spiritual essence to feed off of. There would be no one to see them and be imprinted, transitioning into a psychic parasite to keep from dying until they could force their host to drown themselves in the sea. They would just die. It wasn't a permanent solution. A rip was a hole and the devouring swirl couldn't eat a hole. Nor was it strong enough to forcibly pull the internals of that rip out once it opened wider. Ultimately, he had exchanged safety for the potential resources of that plane. A worthy trade in his mind, considering the lives and living space lost until The Weird aided Avalon in uncovering methods to drive the invaders to extinction. The costs to Beta Prime were incalculable in that other future. Until he could take the rip to a place where it could be disposed of properly, he did get some enrichment from the devouring of whatever decided to poke it head out til then. All things were going smoothly and the small amount of danger for carrying the rip in his space were manageable even if he died. His death would take the danger with him. And it seemed someone was readying an attempt. But before the sudden screaming increase of intuition driven warning reached 'inescapable', a few extra merging shadows joined the occasional ones that had steadily added themselves from time to time since he came back. A small missile was stopped in mid air inches from the ground a few feet away as frozen time began 'rewinding' in millisecond frames. A tired and slightly older LeStrange was standing in front of him, a different device in his hand. This one looked like a cube filled with a combination of circuitry both magical and mundane in nature. That cube reconfigured itself into the next platonic solid in the list, an octahedron. Aside from a small space around them, time stood still. "I want you to eat that and then we talk," The man said as he stared at the missile. "Can't. Dispersed kinetic force will tear my physical body up as it passes through. Displacement of air will cause deviation and I won't even absorb the whole explosion. Shouting angrily, Jacques said, "Three seconds, pull it in before I'm out of magic." Deciding to trust, Orison walked up to the missile and pulled it in. It was relatively small and LeStrange kept pace behind him. Despite precision control of their respective power usage, the young mage suffered a severe burn on his chest from the remaining heat at the tail end. He couldn't hold devour mode for that long so soon after having used it previously and LeStrange's magic ran out. Without waiting for a word, he line of sight teleported far away from their original location before doing it once more. Running into El and Em's room he shut the door and let LeStrange start throwing out all kinds of orders over The Weird. The young mage was patient to wait until that was done before a rolling ripple, like a lake wave, lapped around the world. Eyes growing wide, Orison said. "Mass Dimensional Erasure Phenomenon in less than ten minutes! How far back did you travel!?" Jacques went blank for half a second and then started carrying out more orders, getting Aurora and the elusive Third Triumvir involved. Luckily, Aurora had a list of all the possibly disappearing people that Orison knew were important enough to care about in an emergency. Otherwise Avalon's infrastructure would have been torn to shreds. Likewise, Orison had his own list and thought he'd have the time to get resources together to deal with it but with the sudden 'shrinking' of time before 'First Stage Merge had disappeared with LeStrange's return. He had created a list of priority targets for such a instance and released it to Roy. He told the equipment specialist to use the shrunk budget to get as many to the lake house as possible in the next few minutes with whatever resources there were on hand. He even asked for a personal loan from the man's account to get more. Turner and the man's family was on the list as well as a few others Orison had met. So, Roy didn't balk too hard. Fortunately, there was some overlap between his and Aurora's list or there would be some truly sad moments waiting in store after the 'Tsunami ripple' came. "Please tell me we can use Sky Hook to get to my house. If not, questions are going to have to wait until after," Orison said, nerves ratcheted to 'fourth cup of coffee' bad. The man nodded and ordered a Sky Hook drop. Within moments, they were at the lake house with Orison rushing to the basement while LeStrange continued pouring instructions to people over The Weird. "I don't need to know anything right now on my end other than if I still have permission to go to Echo Marsh after this event is done. It imp-" Orison said before he was interrupted. "Yes. You have twenty-four hours and then you need to get your personal affairs wrapped up for a few weeks. We're going to Shambahla," LeStrange said with a grave face. The young mage handed LeStrange a list and a potion. "Coordinate with Aurora and Roy. If there are people you are unsure about, ask. If everyone you care about is covered on the safe or unsafe but tagged for pick-up, please help me get some more of mine." Jacques sighed as he read over the list and joined Roy at the magic circle in the training room while Orison headed down to the basement of the lake house to charge up the massive formation under his property. It was a stressful few minutes. As the ripples built in surges and reality slightly buckled under the strain and metaphysical erosion, holding magic steady was more than specialists at the teleport station could handle. Panic and fear reigned over the world and nothing would be the same after. Mothers would walk into children's rooms without recalling anything about a child, feeling a deep sense of loss. People would come home from work wondering why there were stranger's possessions in their houses as people at home would wonder how they were surviving in the places they were without the income to support themselves. More rarely, a child or baby would be left unattended and have no discernible reason for being where they were. Almost always, it would be traced back to an adoption to phantoms. One of many problems government programs would creak under the strain of trying to solve on a scale far beyond what manpower would be available. For people like Aurora and Orison, who had other means of getting a collection of 'fluffy soul' people over the first hump, there were different concerns to deal with. As the young mage eased the lake house property from being phased out, the survivors who were meant to disappear suffered a multitude of other problems. Weakness, premature aging and a collection of medical problems ranging from mental to physical needed to be dealt with. Adjustment insured survival but it was a painful one for most. Outside of the pains of forceful soul condensation and its attached effects the the body, there was the purely psychological burden of erased connections with the evidence of those connections left behind to be seen. And considering how much time had been squeezed together as time travel created a discord with the higher dimension still moving its stately course unhindered in any way, they wouldn't have long before the second wave of merge induced problems would be introduced. Tossing LeStrange a slightly immature ginseng in a medical solution, the young mage said, "Who's trying to kill me?" His mentor replied, "I don't know. It's impossible to find them but they will succeed. Each time it's stopped, they get more elaborate until they resort to tactics that are beyond prediction or prevention. The casualties get higher too. "I don't know how to say this without sounding callous or cruel. But looking at all the evidence, it's a training run that turns serious at merge day. Whoever is responsible wants to take you out without hurting others but in the beginning, it's more like they're trying to teach you than hurt you. I'll show you what I mean," Jacques said as he reached out a hand to Orison's head, asking for Aurora's help through The Weird. Somewhat hesitant, he allowed the two strands of intent to touch his spiritual seat. The rush of scenarios did seem like they were training. There were even a time or two where they had succeeded in killing him only to bring him back and using the same tactic again. That stops after the final merge begins. Done playing teachers, they become intent on making sure he expired before the merge was finished. "That's why we're going to Shambahla. Dr Odd's mentor has a way to contact the other side. There's a good chance she's already talked to him and might have answers or, at the very least, offer guidance to you before we have no choice but to ask you to get somewhere they can get to you without hurting a lot of innocents. That's my deal with you," Jacques said. Clueless as to what else he could say, Orison agreed before openly getting his team, twelve year old girl included, together. LeStrange didn't seem keen on stopping him and if a Triumvir wasn't going to, no one else was going to interfere. "Alright, gang. It's a pretty simple run. We go out to a certain area of the swamp and then we come back. There's some other stuff too but it's only the minor details. Anyone want out?" the young mage asked. Not seeing anyone volunteering to walk, he gave the go ahead and they flew to the rip stabilizer warehouse. There was some friction on turning the dial a half day early but a charged chain battery and a goods bribe to the captain of the current plane's fort, that friction disappeared. With an extra half-day of open rip time being all the bribe Echo Mire's captain needed, he faced no challenges setting up his tour. In a private moment, Roy said, "I thought this was going to be your nose bloodying plan. It doesn't seem like you're going to get much of that done with how fast we're rushing things." The young mage looked at Roy helplessly, "I'm on the verge of desperate here... There's one thing I can do, though." Walking up to the captain of the fort, Orison smiled widely and said, "I'm really excited to be here. You've had it hard. If my hunch is right about this, Avalon is going to be very happy with the results and you'll be first in line to get ten percent of that happiness." "Do you need an Irregular crew put together to help bring back findings?" The dark and burly captain asked with a hopeful expression that looked out of place on the dour man's face. The young mage chuckled and said, "I see my reputation precedes me. That was for morally decent debtors in the Barrens. You've got the worst of the worst here. There might be a wrongfully accused among them but do you know who they are? "That said, if you'd like a little extra on the side, I do have some wiggle room and a favor to ask. It's not strictly illegal and you could even turn it into an opportunity for yourself." With the man all ears, Orison spent a few precious minutes laying out an 'opportunity' for the captain.
