Country of Champions 37

Predictably, when Roy tried to open communication, he was ignored. When the fort tried to contact them, the communication devices had been turned off. Firebrand's team was trying to use an old rule that if a site claim isn't clearly marked or known by a team, then whatever they collect will belong to them with a thirty percent cut to the claimant.

Since older teams had other channels to filter acquisitions through, Avalon rarely got the fair share they should but as long as teams weren't pushing the smuggling too far, Core Administration wasn't going to waste more resources on monitoring them than what they'd be able to seize. It was almost a sure bet that Firebrand's group would be worth the random high tech shakedown this trip. And considering that it was potentially cutting into Adam's retirement fund, they'd be getting one.

The sad thing was that it was a case of mistaken resource find. The place had been found a long time ago but had been temporarily abandoned due to uncovering a limit of plane depth. The place had been deemed too dangerous to continue operations until the plane was ready to be decommissioned. Planar walls were always some kind of dangerous. The Barrens, more than most.

But once they were ready to shut a rip down, places like the corundum mine would be excavated by a space craft that Avalon would personally spring widening the rip to push in, assuming it was worth while. Such a craft would have a limited time to mass grab things and a ten percent cut was given to the Captain that held the fort down as a bonus. The Eclipse team thought they were getting one over on Orison's team but all they had earned was death, medical bills and a fort captain waiting to fleece them.

While the young mage spared a thought of sympathy for the team that would be heading back in tomorrow with pain and regret, the brothers had gotten busy setting up a modular pavilion. Once inside the space large enough for the instructor to laugh about it, Orison activated the wards drawn up on the inside to prevent spying and with a great effort, produced the cabin from his space.

There were a few enchantments on it that the young mage didn't understand. They were locked away from his prying eyes but one of them allowed for him to remove and deposit it back into his space despite it being far larger than any object he could consciously choose to. With a nearly unanimous shocked look, he invited them in.

The door frame cleaned and disinfected them as they entered. There was a closet for storing clothing that would repair them over an eight hour period. It gave out an hour's worth of hot water and two of cold without another essence refill. A pot bellied stove could be used to cook with and the whole thing was constantly at seventy degrees Fahrenheit. There was a field camouflage and protection field that was life support friendly enough to use in a heatless vacuum, much less a set of parasite riddled ridges with a vermin and germ problem.

The six sleeping cabin had one major problem for all its conveniences. It was an essence hog. Inactive, a single mote of condensed eternium could keep it in good repair for ages in his space but when fully activated, it could burn through a stripped human soul's worth in around a day. Much less if it were under attack.

Within a few minutes, everyone was treating the place like just another magic trick he could do. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, he wondered what they would think if they knew the nature of what ran the terrifying cabin. Even more so, if they knew what its real purpose was.

The real reason it cost so much was because time inside could be entirely halted and only ran around a full day before restarting if there was enough essence for the reboot. The cabin had been built within a singe fragmented 'frame' of time removed from the stack of who knows where. Only a being who could manipulate laws to an insane degree could do such a thing and Orison knew exactly what the price of this advance payment from Sammy was.

He wasn't pleased but it could be considered rather fair. Despite all the limitations it possessed that stopped it from having uses outside of being able to 'keep' a few willing people safely in his space for awhile or holding perishables indefinitely, it would survive the harsh crossover to the mid-dimensions in tact. Considering its abilities, that alone made it priceless.

Early the next morning, he made everyone a modest breakfast and some fresh coffee. Before anyone was ready to stir, he invited Julia to come in and clean up, giving him a chance to presto her chair and the 'pot' underneath it. After everyone was done doing their thing, he put it away with instructions for no one to mention the cabin.

After taking a moment to mend the pavilion module of scratches and chew marks, he had the brothers pack it up while the gloating Summit instructor said, "Nice and cozy up here. How did you sleep down there with those rats trying to gnaw their way in? Anybody sick yet?"

Orison said, "Blood Moon, give the proctor our best fresh-faced smile and greeting."

It took the man a moment but he suddenly realized that everyone looked well rested, clean and content, at least on the surface. The man didn't take it badly. He just shrugged and chuckled before calling in his response personnel to gather up his things.

On the road, out of some misplaced sympathy and very much average person curiosity, Orison asked the man, "How many did they lose?"

The instructor shook his head in pity. "Half of a six man team. Two are going to be just fine but the last one's going to have some serious permanent problems unless he gets some expensive treatments done."

As they passed the opening to the corundum mine, Orison sent in an impression of Nibbles to fetch something. He gave the operation a quarter hour but was done in around ten minutes while his team took an early ration bar lunch. When the shadowy dog came out with a small bag in its mouth, he quickly dismissed it and threw the bag into his space for a moment before pulling it back out and handing it to the instructor.

"This belongs to Captain Rogers. Ask him to make sure the man gets the treatment he needs." Orison said grimly.

The instructor's eyes bored into him as the older man said, "You trying to win a saint's badge or something?"

He shook his head and answered, "Just sowing seeds."

After a few more hours, it became apparent that there had been another team ahead of them. There were the occasional rat or strange reptile corpse scattered along. Someone was trying to predictive model their course. Orison wanted to laugh but couldn't. If Firebrand had his team try to head them off where they were going, it would be lucky if any survived.

Orison sighed as they set up at the last safety shelter. "I don't know if it will do any good, sergeant, but could you radio back and let someone who can contact that team in front of us know that our destination is past the 'air splinter' field. If they keep trying to stay ahead of us, they are going to die and not even know how it happened."

The older man chuckled and said, "You sure do know how to get an old man's heart pumping. Who did I p*ss off to get stuck proctoring you? Have I just lived too long and payroll doesn't want to shell out for my retirement?"

Orison smiled and said, "Just stick around, old man. I'm going to show you that you don't have to pray for miracles if one is meant for you."

The old man kept chuckling but there was a little frost to his smile as he said, "I can call myself one all day but if YOU call me 'old man' again, you'll need a miracle to pass your trial."

Later that evening, Roy had a special request to have the cabin to him and Julia's selves for awhile. Apparently, the grizzled Summit instructor wasn't the only one to get shaken up by 'air splinters' being mentioned. It was a bit sappy and melodramatic in Orison's eyes but he was only asking for a half hour. Instead of crowding on the cabin's relatively small front porch, the brothers elected to take that time to have the bathroom to themselves instead.

Alone with Gan on the front porch as a bit of weak sound filtered out that the young mage would have been happy to leave trapped inside, he made small talk to drown it out. "What's the first thing you're going to do after you get back?"

The scout said, "I'm going to find Halda. If she's still alive and unhitched, I'm going to see if she'd be willing to give me a child in exchange for making her young again with the extra stuff you gave me."

Wide eyed, Orison said, "The lady I tried to help become a therapist? Why? I mean, aside from the obvious 'why not?'.

Gan said, "Because Gran asked me to. It's going to sound crazy but when I was dying in the other future, I saw her. She said that if I found myself alone, I should find the woman with the orange handkerchief and I'd know a kind of happiness until my real happiness would come for me.

"If you want to hear a more practical reason, it's because I want to be a father. Being the way I am, I thought I'd end up taking some tired bar maid home with me at some point anyway. A person who could secretly accept who I am and still be happy with what I CAN provide, you know? Having lives I care about to be responsible for will keep me from doing something stupid.

"You can blame yourself. You sort of planted the idea in my head. It made me want to believe my vision of Gran was real and I thought that kind of life wouldn't be so bad."

Jokingly, Orison said, "What if you had a daughter and she fell in love with me?"

The scout responded in a light voice, "In this make believe, do you love her too?"

"Uh... sure, why not," the young mage said unthinkingly.

Gan nodded and said, "I'd walk her over to your house on a garland decorated horse and after the festivities were over, I'd find a way to disappear that wouldn't make her too sad when I never came back."

Realizing he said something cruel without meaning to, Orison attempted to pull the conversation from it's gloomy nosedive. "Note to self. Do not fall in love with Gan's possible future daughter. I will lose my future long road companion. Post note. It's a bad trade."

Gan laughed but there was some building real anger in his voice. "My daughter's not good enough for you?"

With a serious face, Orison said, "Your kids are my kids. I shouldn't be making eyes at them. That would be wrong."

"Gods but you are a greedy man," Gan said after a long silence.

Orison agreed and added, "If I had a son and he fell in love with you, I'd beat his *ss and tell him he couldn't have you... Note to self. Always be stronger than son. He might inherit my greediness."

The silence lingered a little longer and Gan said in a cracking voice, "I should have known the day that little silver tonged devil squeezed my hand, I'd be wrapped around his little finger until the day I died. If I knew then what I know now, would I have had the courage to squeeze it back?"

As the sounds in the cabin died down to silence, the silence on the porch became stifling.

Orison finally said, "I know better than to write a check with my mouth that my assets aren't ready to cash. Instead, can I have one last 'best friend' Gan hug before it becomes all or nothing?"

With troubled eyes, Gan relented. Orison pretended not to notice Gan was taking in his scent, making a memory to last the rest of his life. But the young mage couldn't ignore what he heard before the scout cried in a very un-Northman like way.

"S' cruel," Gan repeated between sobs.

Not feeling too good about it himself, Orison said, "I know. I won't insult you by apologizing. I just hope I have the ability to make it right some day."

"You may not have to. Maybe I'll be the cruel one and you'll find that I've buried your memory, found someone else to walk the long road with," the scout said, airing his hurt feelings and pride.

Orison nodded and said, "Because I'm cruel, greedy, selfish... all of those things and more, I might be able to accept you someday but I don't think I'll ever be able to be happy for you with all my heart if you find that person but I'll try."

While they sat in silence once again, two ethereal ripples spread across the plane in quick succession. The young mage and scout looked at each other with similar expressions of alarm.

"It's happening three times faster. I should have known. What's below cannot affect what's above but the reverse doesn't apply. Beta Prime may have reversed it's ascent but Alpha Minoris didn't stop falling. The will of this world is playing catch up," he informed the scout.

Cracking the door to the cabin, he shouted, "Change of plans. Julia, kick the brothers out of the bathroom and get cleaned up. We pack up in five. The time table just lost a crap ton of comfort zone and we're in the red."

Ignoring the scent of burnt herbs and the red eyed chuckling of the two brothers, he had them start packing up, to their surprise. Once Julia had loaded up into the ball and supplies were put away, the young mage hit everyone with a Heal and Cure Poison, not taking chances that someone else had indulged in something they shouldn't have.

After a few instructions to Roy, the young mage shouted at the module shelter holding the Summit instructor. "Double merging phenomenon in rapid succession just occurred. We need to wrap this up and get away from the outer edges of this plane before the end of tomorrow. No rest for the wicked. Chop, chop."

Their proctor came out of the back of his module and said, "So, let me get this straight. We had two merging ripples or whatever jargon Core Administration slaps on it this week until something trendy sticks. It's something that gets all these planar latrine holes all jumpy and jittery.

"And instead of packing it up, use the ripples as an excuse for a retry, you're going to barrel on through one of the most unstable regions of this plane... Do you know what an air splinter is? Do you know what it does when you run into one?"

Orison laughed. "I think they're invisible stress cracks. No one knows what they are exactly but the common theory is that they're splinters of some extra dimensional space material. That's bull and I don't think they move either. I think the plane kind of drifts around a bit and so does the other side of those stress fractures. Someone's about to make the math work on 'wobbling curve theory' and it'll all match up."

The man took on the universal customary scowl of military disciplinarians the multiverse over and said, "I could care less about the why's and the how's. What they do is slice you so cleanly you won't feel it until part of you slides off the rest of you."

Putting his best poker face on, the young mage said, "Follow me if you're not a chicken sh*t or sit here and wait for pick up after failing me. Whether your name is on this achievement record or not matters less to me than astrophysics seem to tickle your interest."

Red faced, the man said, "Will you feel the same way after I radio in your detainment and declare you unfit?"

Orison waved as they started moving and shouted back over his shoulder, "Avalon is first and foremost, a Meritocracy, sergeant. Join the list of jumping clowns that tried to stand in my way and failed if you want. I don't have time to coddle an ego today."

He ignored what came after, "Well, look at the balls on you!"

Once they were barely outside of hearing distance, Stag said, "Say what you want. That man has turned foul language into an art form. If they don't give medals for that, they should reconsider just for his sake... It's been so long since I felt my ears burn, I've forgotten what the sensation felt like."

"It's nice to be appreciated," the proctor said as his suit came out of stealth.

Julia shrieked and then apologized profusely causing the man to chuckle in spite of his anger. Surprisingly, he apologized to her for 'conduct unbecoming'.

Turning on Orison, who showed no surprise at all, he said, "I was half a second from putting a bullet in you but I'm more interested in what's so damn important out here that a nice lady who has no business being in this dangerous place can pull up her bootstraps for it."

The young mage said, "Well I'm glad you didn't try. Once Julia's done with her observations, use the emergency jump circle you have folded up in your pack to take her back and bill me for it. I'd appreciate it if you'd radio Captain Rogers and let him know to pick up the pace. The illumination technique I'm going to use for the cracks will only last for a few hours and we're going to get there a few hours ahead of schedule.

"I don't want anyone to run out of time and get stuck trying to navigate blind through the air splinters back from the acquisition site. Assuming they stay the minimum distance away from an active trial. They'll have a maximum of two hours to safely collect what they can. People may not have a lot of love to spare for Irregulars but not all of them actually belong there in my opinion."