“Hate to interrupt,” Jed said as he set the binoculars down on the little table, turning from the balcony. “But I think we’ve got company incoming.”
Gwen stretched out both arms, adjusting her hat so she could look up at him, the little token jingling as she did so. “Company? Are Metsa and Sotas here?”
“Not unless Sotas shrank a couple feet and started dressing in marshal blues,” Jed said, getting up and grabbing his duster and gunbelt, securing both. “Our friend from the duel just pulled his elkheart up downstairs.”
“You think he’s going to ignore the border,” Gwen said as she secured her own gear. “Think it counts as… whatever it’s called when you kill a marshal, if he’s outside his home turf?”
“Rather not risk it either way,” Jed said, rubbing his nose. “Maybe I should’ve shot him. I had the chance, I just…”
“It is good, that you did not.”
“Because it makes me a better person?”
“Because it would have gained you little tactical position. Now he is alone and without allies, while you are not.”
“The Hunter’s guild, if we want to run. He can’t touch us there,” Gwen said as she buckled her belt in place before pulling her revolver to check her ammo.
“Think we’ll be able to avoid him?” Jed asked while doing the same.
A knock came from their door.
“Gonna say no,” Gwen said, shooting him a grin.
“Guess not,” Jed said, hand on his revolver, fingers twitching. “Cover me, partner?”
“You got it, partner,” Gwen said, moving into position behind the door, ready to shoot through it.
“Do not let him strike your face. It is still my favorite.”
Jed chuckled softly as he went to the little eye-hole, peering out. Sure enough, the marshal was standing there, hands at his sides, empty. As was his holster.
It struck Jed that if the man intended to take the law into his own hands, he’d chosen a very poor way to go about it.
“Give me a second to talk to him, eh?” Jed found himself asking, looking between the two woman who were ready to murder the man at the slightest provocation. “He’s not even carrying his gun.”
They both nodded, so, after holstering his own gun, Jed pulled the door open a few inches, boot wedged against the frame.
“Ah. Hello, I am Adam Boltom. And you are the man I have come to believe I was pursuing in error,” the marshal, Adam apparently, said, hands held stiffly at his side.
“That’s… quite the introduction,” Jed said after a second to process it.
“Yes, well… I’m afraid I have had rather a lot to think about these last two weeks,” Adam said, his mustache twitching slightly. “I did not intend to approach you, yet when I saw the warp-stallion outside, I found myself compelled to come and apologize.”
“Apologize,” Jed repeated, staring at the man hard enough he was surprised it wasn’t burning a hole in Adam’s black uniform.
“Yes. Apologize. When I set upon your trail, I was certain you were the most foul fiend to have set foot into Vaskerville since the Six Bed Killer. I have since come to realize this was a heinous mischaracterization on my part. Not only of yourself, but of those around me. And while I am certain it holds little value to you, considering the nature of many of my colleagues, I apologize on behalf of all that the Imperial marshals should stand for. Both for my maligned thoughts, and for the very real threat we have posed you,” Adam said, finishing his speech with a sharp salute, pressing his hand over his heart.
“And that’s it… you just wanted to come up and apologize?” Jed asked, glancing towards Gwen and Mythlyn.
Gwen had her face scrunched up, clearly attempting not to laugh, and Mythlyn’s head was tilted to the side, as she sometimes did when she found something curious.
“Indeed. And now that I have done so, I shall take my leave and not-”
“Why were you arguing?” Jed interrupted. “Just before you came here. Why were you arguing with the man at the compound?”
Adam’s eyes narrowed slightly, looking at Jed, then at the barely opened door, brow furrowing further. “You were observing me?”
“Not exactly.”
Jed and Adam stared silently at each other for several seconds before finally, Adam nodded. “I have long disagreed with some of our family’s actions. Today, I made that disagreement known. It seems doing so upset the local patriarch.”
“And what sort of disagreements did this include?”
“I must refrain from speaking on such matters. I have already placed my honor in-”
“Was it the slaves, at Granite Hills? And the others like them?”
“It was foolish of me to think you might not have noticed. Not after going so far to help them,” Adam said, nodding. “That was one such matter. I am ashamed to say, that while it is among the most egregious, it is hardly the sole point of contention.”
“I think you need to come in for a drink,” Jed said, pulling open the door.
“I do not…”
“Hey,” Gwen said, revolver still pointed at Adam’s chest. “Bang. Gotcha. Bagged me a lawman and I weren’t even trying.” With that said, she turned around and made her way over to the luxurious couch, splaying out, foot up on the table, gun held casually.
“Well, you coming?” Jed asked, doing his best not to show his amusement at the man’s pole-axed expression.
“That is… yes,” the man said, nodding as he stepped inside, hesitating slightly upon noticing Mythlyn standing beside the door, hands crossed.
Despite her not holding any obvious weapon, Adam stepped to the side, keeping his distance from Mythlyn before lowering himself to sit on the edge of one of the two padded chairs across from the couch. “I assume you are the mysterious third Hunter who is sometimes accompanying them, and sometimes not.”
“It seems you know a great deal about us,” Mythlyn said as she sad on the couch next to Gwen, Jed taking the end. “While all we know about you, is that your family attempted to kill my partners and died in the attempt.”
“And he’s a marshal. Don’t forget that part,” Gwen said, legs crossed, feet on the rather expensive looking glass table that sat in front of it. “Rides a nice elkheart.”
“And that you are a marshal with no small skill at tracking,” Mythlyn generously amended as Jed shifted, getting comfortable.
“Well… what else do you want to know?” Adam asked, still perched on the edge of his seat.
“Let’s start with a simple question. Who’s the current leader of the Boltom family?” Mythlyn asked, hands folded in her lap. Then her face split into a grin. “And how many people are between you and them?”
…Isekai-eh…
Jed was having a hard time pinning down when the idea of murdering several people had become something he didn’t immediately reject as a possible solution to an otherwise intractable problem.
Logically, he figured it was sometime between being shot at by a marshal and discovering that they were enslaving teenagers to work underground for most their lives. Figuring out the exact moment… that was what he was struggling with.
Still as Mythlyn teased out Adam’s family tree with that express purpose, Jed found himself less concerned with the morals and more with the logistics. They weren’t in a position where he wanted to return to Vaskerville to help the man start pruning.
In fact, as they talked, Jed realized Mythlyn wasn’t suggesting that they would. She was simply helping Adam identify those worth enlisting in a power struggle that would reshape his family.
He supposed it made sense that Mythlyn had experience helping people overthrow those in power. While she might have failed against the Empress, that had been against a being with mythic level power.
“And that brings us to what we can do about these slaves. It seems to me that control over this mine has given the opposing faction a great deal of power,” Mythlyn said, gesturing out the window in the direction of the Boltom family compound.
“It has, yes,” Adam said, now seated such that he was taking up nearly half the chair instead of just the single inch at the edge. “Not just because of the economic edge, but because they have used it as a way to inconvenience our allies.”
“Inconvenience?” Gwen asked, tone far too sweet.
“My apologies. Enslave. I have had to watch my language around my family for a long time,” Adam said, nodding in Gwen’s direction.
“Instead of nitpicking his language, I believe we should make plans to take his family’s compound,” Mythlyn said, nodding in Jed’s direction.
Before he could speak, Adam raised a hand, his brow furrowed. “Excuse me, but the compound is defended by a dozen guards and an archeotech turret. You may be experienced hunters, but that’s suicide.”
“We have a few tricks up our sleeves,” Jed said, not quite at the point where he was ready to trust a man who’d spent the last two weeks hunting him down with said tricks. “I’ll need to take a stroll past to confirm, but I should be able to disable the turret.”
“Well, if you can do that, this becomes a lot easier,” Adam said leaning forward. “A distraction shouldn’t be too hard to arrange. Maybe something related to the mine?”
With that confirmed, Jed pushed to his feet. “Keep an eye on me Gwen?”
“Course, partner,” Gwen said, getting to her feet to move over near the window. “Don’t be gone too long.”
“Try not to,” Jed said, going out into the hall and down the rickety lift. None of the non-archoetech lifts seemed to be anything but, he was starting to realize.
Once he was free, he went for a little walk.
Getting close turned out to be easy enough, Jed falling in at the back of a group who were talking excitedly about the new bed warehouse store of all things.
Small town.
The compound passed by, Jed surprised that they had a wood gate. It did look nice, he supposed. And there was the turret sitting in the archeotech arch the door was set in to dissuade unwanted guests.
There was a small alcove beside the compound that Jed slid into just before the bridge. Or, as he discovered once he’d stepped inside, a bit of an alleyway. Just one that was so full of old crates and supplies it’d seemed like a dead end through the binoculars.
Slipping deeper inside, Jed brought up his interface, trying to keep the light just bright enough to see. There was a snort from the end of the alley, but when no one appeared, Jed returned to his work. The turret was on a local network. The passkey was so old Jed was surprised someone else hadn’t overridden it. It was the work of seconds to change its targeting and hostility settings. And to update the passkey, obviously.
Right as Jed was buttoning up his shirt, a man with breath rancid enough Jed could smell it from ten feet away stumbled upright just down the alley. “By the divine light. Are you her messenger?”
“Pardon?” Jed asked, giving the clearly drunk man a polite smile.
“You were touched by her light,” the man mumbled, stumbling towards Jed, only to fall to his knees a few feet away. “We are not worthy of her light. Tell me what you need of me, oh holy messenger.”
Jed stared at the man for a moment, wondering if he should just walk away as quickly as possible.
The guy reminded him a bit too much of Thomas to do that. Especially of Thomas after his pops had been shot.
Instead, Jed kneeled down, touching the man’s shoulder and channeling a small touch of warp energy, causing a tiny mote of cyan warp-fire to fill the space between them. “Take care of yourself. No more drinking or approaching strangers in alleyways. Care for those around you.”
“I am blessed,” the man cried, hand tightening around the bottle. Then he sobbed, pushing it away. “I am blessed.”
Jed got to his feet, shuffling away, nearly forgetting his original reason for hiding in the alley. He glanced over his shoulder at the alley entrance. “Not my best moment.”
As he passed over the bridge separating the two halves of Seven Falls, the bridge shifted beneath his feet by several inches, making him stumble. For a second, Jed thought it had been in his head, because no one else was surprised.
Then one of the passing pedestrians chuckled, shaking their head. “Tourist’s never seen a hex shift before.”
Looking down, Jed noted there was a joint in the bridge, only it was nearly invisible. Only after he noticed how the guard rails didn’t line up did he realize it was some mechanism for dealing with what the man had called a hex shift.
Likely the ring redistributing mass to optimize tension. Or one of the other thousands of things the ring was dealing with at any moment.
Shaking it off, he made his way back to the hotel, stopping to stare at the lone warp-stallion sitting out front. It really did stick out. Especially since most warp-stallions didn’t have the big rugged wheels.
Then he took the lift up to their suite, stepping inside. “Turret is neutralized.”
“I told you my partner had it covered,” Gwen said from where she was sitting on the balcony, tipping her hat in Jed’s direction. “Now we just need the distraction. Then we can get started on the fun part.”
Adam nodded from his spot just behind Gwen, once more perched nearly on the edge of his seat.
One of their party, he realized, was missing. “Where’s Mythlyn?”
Gwen popped to her feet, striding up to him and kissing him on the cheek. “Providing the distraction.”
Before Jed could ask for more information, she tugged him towards the door. “Come on. No point just standing around.”
“Please tell me she’s waiting for our signal to confirm I took care of the turret at least,” Jed said even as the three of them moved into the lift. “And that you’re going to fill me in on the plan.”
“We’re about to give her the signal,” Gwen said as the lift shuddered to a stop at the ground floor. “You know your part, badge boy.”
“I will not fail,” Adam said, nodding in their direction before making his way to his elkheart, and stepping up into its saddle with a single smooth motion.
Jed followed Gwen over to the warp-stallion, which she gestured at.
“Part of the plan?” Jed asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Yep. If you’ve got the turret taken out, there’s nothing stopping us from charging through the front door,” Gwen said, squeezing him from behind.
“How much of this plan was based on cool shit you wanted to do?” Jed asked, chuckling as he checked a feature he’d never thought he’d need. The ramming stabilization. Much as he’d expected, it was limited, since the warp-stabilizers were completely non-functional. But it would keep the warp-stallion somewhat upright when he smashed through the ornate wooden gate.
He disabled it.
“Most of the plan was based on cool shit we wanted to do,” Gwen said, her laugh having a bit of a sinister edge.
Before Jed could ask about the rest of the cool shit, also known as ‘the plan’, he heard an outcry from across the river. Several people were pointing to the sky, murmuring about angels.
“Please tell me she didn’t…” Jed said, following their fingers. Sure enough, high above, there was a figure flying.
“That’s not-”
Before Gwen could finish, the figure plummeted downwards in a plume of golden warp-fire, smashing into the ground across from them. They nailed the superhero landing, the street erupting upwards in a crater around them, their fist planted in the center.
White wings flapped once, a golden halo shining over their head as the woman with equally golden hair pushed to her feet.
“Rejoice believers of Tersue Reng! The Archangel of Mercy has heard your cries!” A golden blade emerged from her wrist. “And shall deliver the Mercy of the Grave personally.”