Chapter 93: Book 2, Chapter 32: Rifleman

Without the collar’s restriction, the second tier soul release —called Soul and Harvest in the world where she’d learned it— went much more quickly than it had with the swine north of Tumblebrook. Iktchi Chi took no more time than to cast, scoop up the gifts presented, and fly. The signal markers and temporary wards, long since constructed, she deployed from the air, marking the kills and a protected trail to the main road.

She’d have Guildmaster Jonkins send a party out to fetch and butcher the carcasses. She’d no idea what sorts of special mats they’d contain, so best to leave it to those more familiar with any possible foibles of their collecting to see to them. Besides, she was in a hurry.

* * *

It was Chi the adventurer who approached Mokkelton’s east gate some short while later and none too steady on her feet. She’d flown ‘round the city before grounding and changing both form and clothing at the forest’s edge. The wizard’s villa was far closer to this gate than to the west, and she’d no desire to trudge slowly across three quarters of the city, weary as she was.

Mohrdrand’s door was answered after a short wait by a flushed and jittery Tiarraluna Galbradia, who frowned volcanically at the blonde woman she beheld. As though she’d gleaned her true identity upon sight, despite having never encountered her in this guise before. Perhaps Mohrdrand had let her in on the secret. Perhaps Jack. In any case, the young mage stood fast a moment, blocking the entryway before stepping slowly aside, her reluctance evident.

“He is in the guest room,” Tiarraluna informed her, voice low and unsteady. “Uncle Mohrdrand is seeing to him.”

She nodded and stepped past, hurrying through both shop and parlor before turning down the hall, following the sound of Jack’s partially stifled groans. Rounding the door into the small chamber —little more than a closet— where Jack slept when he stayed here, she spied Jack laid out on the narrow bed.

He was stripped to the waist, his belt undone, his trousers split along the outsides of the legs. His skin was sheened with sweat and flushed nearly as red as her own. His eyes were tightly closed, his face locked into a grimace. She could feel the heat radiating off of him like a freshly stoked campfire as he writhed uncomfortably, not quite thrashing.

“Gods!” she gasped. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing,” the old wizard shrugged without turning from his charge as he continued to work some sort of spell. “Healthy as a horse. Moreso, I’d hazard. Observe his status bars.”

Chi concentrated and the bars appeared. Her breath caught. They were growing longer, even as she watched! She’d never seen anything like it. And beneath his mana bar she could see a vague hint of an amber glow, almost as though an additional bar were forming. Wait! Amber? “I don’t understand.”

“Are you familiar with dormant classes?” Mohrdrand wondered, finally casting a glance in her direction.

She shook her head, a bit jerkily. “No,” she admitted, still trying to work through the significance of what looked to be a Tarrian stamina bar manifesting for no reason she could fathom. Those, even on Tarr, didn’t come into being until level fifteen. “It’s not something I’ve ever encountered.”

“Nor am I, particularly,” Mohrdrand acknowledged. Jackson’s is the first I’ve happened across, in fact.”

“Jack’s?” she turned from her man to the old wizard.

Now he turned from Jack as well, regarding her with an eyebrow raised. “Have you not seen his guild stone?” he asked. “Or wondered why his Earthian class was greyed out?”

She had, but dormancy hadn’t been the condition that had occurred to her. “You’re speaking of the Rifleman class?” she asked. “That’s Tarrian. Or should be,” she paused. “Some of the traits are unfamiliar, I’ll admit, but Earthians don’t have classes as we know them.

“I’d assumed it to be inactive, and that it would activate once he’d reached Tarr.”

“You’re still not entirely familiar with the way ranking works on Mund, then, are you?” he nodded slightly. “His overall rank was a factor of the dormant skill being taken at half value.”

She nodded in turn. Truthfully, both she and Jack had been sufficiently busy since they’d reunited that she hadn’t really given it much thought.

“I’m told,” the wizard posited as she was puzzling, “that you have a spell called Identify?”

“I do,” she admitted.

“Cast it.”

She hesitated. But Jack had already given her permission to use it on him, granted it hadn’t been today. She cast it and her eyes went wide.

Mohrdrand, noting her expression, nodded again, smiling as though his suspicions had been confirmed. “And what does it say about his rank?” he asked.

“Sixteen,” she murmured. “I swear he was eleven when we set out this morning.”

“Oh,” Mohrdrand laughed. “I’ve no doubt he was.

“I’d halfway expected something like this,” he observed. “Once he faced something with one of his new toys.” He chuckled, then. “Granted,” and he swept a hand over the sweating sentinel. “Not quite this severe. I’d thought its onset would be a slightly more gradual process. Perhaps over the course of a few weeks.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, the majority of her attention still on the field of the Identify spell.

“Why,” Mohrdrand grinned. “He’s activated the skill, and its full value is hitting him all at once. Can’t be comfortable. His body is physically growing, his muscles becoming more dense. That’s why we had to cut him out of his clothing. It no longer fit. Moreover, mana is flooding his system, and any number of skills and traits are taking hold in his body and mind.”

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She moved to the bed, settling herself down beside Jack and taking his hand. He was still burning up, but she felt an overlying chill fighting the heat. That would be whatever spell the wizard was working, she supposed. “This isn’t supposed to happen like this, is it?” she asked without turning from Jack’s face.

“How would I know?” the wizard demanded. “As I told you, I’ve never seen it before. At a guess, he’s going through what should be gradual changes meant to be taking place over the course of a year or more, but in the space of a couple of hours. I’m going to say that this isn’t a situation that’s been factored into the system, given the unlikelihood of its occurrence. I mean, how often does someone get thrown into the wrong world?”

She turned and gave him the eye. She’d made her living at it for well over two hundred years. On world after world. But then, she’d never been recognized by any of those other worlds, had she? Only here, and that with the direct intervention of its god. And he’d reduced her rank rather than increased it. She supposed she should consider herself lucky that she hadn’t been catapulted back into puberty by the act.

“How long?” she asked.

Mohrdrand shrugged, understanding the half formed question. “At the rate he’s going? Probably by midnight or so. Meanwhile, all we can do is try to keep the process from cooking him from the inside.”

Chi nodded. “How precious is this bedding to you?” she asked absently as she began gathering moisture from the air and lowering its temperature, applying the resultant ice to the soaked tick Jack was stretched out on.

Seeing her actions, Mohrdrand allowed his cooling spell to lapse, sagging back and letting out a deep breath. “Not very,” he sighed. “Do as you will.”

Chi took her time carefully layering ice along and beneath Jack’s body, drawing a discarded blanket over him and icing that over as well. Steam was rising by the time she’d finished, creating a fog that filled the room, thickening as it overflowed and began leaking out into the hallway.

Looking up, she spied Tiarraluna at the doorway, turning away, her ears pink. Chi smiled. Yes, his bare chest had looked more scrumptious than before. More muscular and full, hinting at the Jack she’d known on earth, rather than the teenager he’d become upon his arrival here. Such a shame it was all hers, wasn’t it? She suppressed a giggle.

“I’ll stay here with him,” she told the old wizard. “Would you be kind enough to convey a message to Master Jonkins at the guild? I think we’ll need to post a bounty for someone to go out and collect the fruits of our latest quest. They’ll need a couple of stout wagons and someone familiar, or at least acquainted with butchering higher order monsters.”

* * *

At the Mokkelton Adventurers’ Guild, Bor Jonkins scrubbed a hand across his face, his frown firmly settled in for the long haul. He was leaning on the bar, looking in through the door of the Mirror Room at the small, still, orange and white body of the sentinel’s companion as it lay with its head pressed against the glass. Jonkins wasn’t quite sure when Bob had snuck in there. The dog hadn’t asked and hadn’t paid the fee, nor had he gone though the ritual. But it was quite clear that he, or at least his spirit, was no longer in the guild hall to answer any questions.

* * *

Jehsha wore a frown of his own as he strode into the chamber of cloudstuff where the godling waited. It may have been the same one where iktchi Chi had been granted audience, or it may have been another. He was stripped to the waist and running sweat. Barefoot, clad only in an off white loincloth, his avatar that of the giant warrior he’d shown briefly to Iktchi-Chi. His eyes were narrowed as he came to a halt some short distance away from the waiting creature.

There was no true sense of scale to be had in the chamber. Still, Jehsha loomed large, even against Bob’s true aspect — that of a hulking, vaguely canine creature with a short snout, saber-like fangs, and large, slit-pupiled eyes of deep amber. Covered in short, wiry golden fur, his broad, heavily muscled shoulders and arms ended in wide hands from which six fingers and two opposable thumbs each grew. Both hands were currently planted into the cloudstuff before him, holding him in a seated position. His hind legs were doubled such that his more normally appointed eight digited hind feet rested flanking his hands. Not dissimilar to the way Bob the corgi sat, but yet nothing at all like it. This Bob more closely resembled a crouching gargoyle than a lapdog.

“Boho—”

“Bob,” the godling interrupted.

“Bob, then,” the god nodded curtly. “I don’t recollect inviting you for a visit. Odd. My memory’s usually pretty good about these things.”

“What are you up to, Jehi—”

“Jehsha,” the god corrected. “If we’re playing that game. Jehishimayea’s not here. He lives on the battlefield and I’m at home just now.”

“Fine,” Bob’s eyes narrowed. “What are you up to, Jehsha?”

Jehsha let loose a carefree chuckle. “Exercising,” he said. “Doing a little martial arts training. Y’know, just to keep a hand in. Say, you wanna do some sparring since you’re here?”

Bob snorted, nearly going into a coughing fit. “Not likely!” he barked. “The last guy I heard agreed to spar with you still doesn’t have full use of seven of his eight arms, and it’s been over two hundred years. They say he might never recover, even with the powers of the elders and spirit pools.”

Jehsha’s smile vanished. “He was trying to kill me, Bob,” he explained. “I still don’t know why. I’ve no patience with low behavior such as that.”

“Still,” Bob demurred. “I’ll pass. I will, however, repeat my question.”

Jehsha reached a hand out and a thick sheet of cloudstuff materialized in it, which he used to wipe himself down. Another gesture and a throne rose up out of the floor, into which he settled himself. He didn’t offer Bob a drink, nor did he manifest one for himself. Intruders, even those he’d known for millennia, weren’t afforded the same courtesies as invited guests.

“You’ll have to be clearer then, I’m afraid,” his easy grin slid back into place. “I’m a very busy being. I’m up to lots of things.”

Bob let a low growl trickle between his lips. “Jackson Grenell for starters,” he said. “By what right do you waylay my charge? You’ve already got a hero.”

“Waylay?” Jehsha replied airily, his head tilting just slightly. “I don’t know what you mean. He wasn’t anybody’s hero when I found him. He was pretty much dead. Discarded. I saw an opportunity and breathed a bit of life back into him. Offered him sanctuary. You should be thanking me for saving him.”

Bob lowered his head, eyes going to slits. “Breach of rules, Jehsha,” he hissed.

The god shrugged broadly. “My world, hound,” he said. “My rules. Even so, once they’re gone, they’re gone, right? Anybody’s game after that.”

“That’s how you mean to play it?” Bob’s head shot up and back.

“I’ll take that one to the courts, yeah,” Jehsha laughed. “And I’ll win. You know I will.

“And it’s not like I’m keeping him forever,” the god held up a hand. “He makes it to the capitol, I’ll see to it he reaches your Tarr.”

“It’s not my Tarr,” Bob returned. “But they need him now, not in three or four years.”

Jehsha shook his head, his face serious. “The billy goat will kill him, Bob.” he said without inflection. “He’ll never get out of the portal grid.”

Bob stared, taken aback. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Jehsha insisted. “Because, thanks to having grabbed your charge, I know now who the billy goat is. Or, at least who he works for. And a whole lot more,” he added before Bob could interject

“And how could you possibly—” Bob choked off the demand. “The demon,” he rotated his head.

Jehsha merely widened his grin.

“And that’s another thing,” Bob righted his head. “Priestess of Jehsha? Seriously? How do you justify adopting a demon? Do you not follow any—”

“Two of them, actually,” Jehsha didn’t miss a beat. “Possibly three. Too early to tell.”

Bob blinked. "So no, then,” he growled. “You don’t feel the need to follow any of the rules. You’re looking to start a war, are you?” Bob’s shoulders bunched, his hackles rising.

The smile Jehsha gave him back was cold as the void between worlds, matching the sudden shift in his gaze. “I’m already at war, Bob,” he pronounced calmly. “And thanks to my new priestess, I now understand with whom.”