Country of Champions 8

No longer in a dim spot with a cheap folding card table, the young mage could see that they were back in the basement alchemy room. The circle in the floor was dimming and fading out as Rio slumped, sleeping where the circle touched the wall. In spirit sight, the teen was absorbing a sliver of translucent material that flashed a variety of nature scenes.

With a flash bright enough for mortal eyes to see, the last bit of the shard merged with Rio's body and soul as another minor flare came from the place where Orison's conduit rested on his plane. He had a moment of almost angry envy as he noticed that the teen was nearly as 'real' as himself but then checked to see that he was a little more 'real' than he had been. It seemed that the boy could only absorb so much and the spillover that would have endangered Rio's life had been taken by the keystone.

He had no way of knowing exactly but the Camdis will shard must have had a lot of juice in it. He was almost certain that by all that was spread around between the boy, himself and his conduit, it would be generous to say Rio kept even a quarter of the total. To be fair, that's all the teen could hold safely. In Orison's spirit sight, Rio's soul appeared bloated and strained while the teen's physical internals looked a touch unstable. Of course, he also got the feeling that if it hadn't been for his conduit, the shard would have only passively poured itself into the boy, naturally coming to a stop when there was resistance.

Any further thoughts on it were stored away as the young mage heard the sound of Jacques ordering some people upstairs to stay put while he walked down the opened door to the basement. Orison quickly dragged Rio to the meditation room and laid him out on the large floor cushion while juggling the glasses of liquor in one hand. He barely had time to activate the essence drawing circle under the cushion before Dr. Odd's apprentice appeared in the meditation room's doorway, Orison held out a crystalline tumbler.

With the brightest, most innocent smile he could summon, Orison said, "Sammy told me to give this to you and tell you 'I got my tongue all up in it fo ya'."

When Jacques walked over and reached out for the glass, in a movement that he was barely able to follow, the man grabbed Orison's glass and downed that one instead. "That one as they say, is all for you, little buddy."

Speechless, Orison looked down at the remaining glass to find that it didn't have a lip mark aside from his own and drank it down before wheezing out, "I'm sorry. In all the confusion, I think I switched the glasses?"

Jacques looked at the glass in his hand and let off a bitter smile. "What is a little fallen angel spit for a glass of Ice and Fire?"

Surprised, the young mage said, "Fallen? She said she was neutral."

Snidely, Dr. Odd's apprentice said, "Like many other things about her, it was done half a**ed... It's a little trademark of hers to do something good for you in a way that leaves you feeling dirty and used."

Orison shrugged, "I'm glad you're here. I was in the middle of investigating a transport glyph when she showed up talking about choices. I mean, I don't doubt her wisdom or anything but me and Rio being in the core league member acceleration program!? I'm definitely for Rowdies if anything. And Rio, in core? The boy bought a damn stripper pole for his bedroom before I could get out of intake and stop him. Now he's passed out, essence drunk inside a gathering circle. No wonder she was smiling when she brought it up."

Seeing the bitter look on Jacques' face deepen, Orison added, "He's of a special descent and that gives him some advantages but he needs to capture a demon to seal into a familiar pact. Now don't get me wrong. His ancestors were all about fighting fire with fire. He can handle it. His lineage evolved to handle it. It just seems like a PR nightmare to have a demon wielding, harassment lawsuit waiting to happen as a core when he's obviously built by nature to be a Rowdy."

As Jacques drew up some kind of spell over Rio, Orison redirected the man's attention by saying, "Take a look at that cavity just behind his spiritual seat."

The man was instantly infatuated. After giving little more than a cursory glance elsewhere, he studied the nature given spirit trap that resided there. In his curiosity, the man missed what a little more detailed observation would have showed him about Rio's situation, spell expiring around the time he finished sating it.

"Now, I know that core isn't supposed to dig into the secrets of mystic bloodlines and inheritances. Nearly a third of the League's members would go ballistic but I felt like we can trust you and we need to apply for secrecy protection to train him anyway," Orison inserted craftily to kill three birds with one stone.

He didn't want the man magically scanning Rio a second time and figuring out the kid got a hold of some kind of supernatural goodies. He wanted a good reason for denying other people the ability to without better cause than light suspicion. And best of all, Orison wanted a reason to have anything stronger that mandatory essence scan surveillance of any kind banned from the basement.

Caught red-handed doing just that, Jacques' ears glowed a little as he said, "Oh... Yes, of course. I'll expedite it. So, about this 'transport glyph'?"

Orison pointed out the safe and the circle in the alchemy room. After studying it for a moment, Jacques brought in another man in full 'space and battle ready' gear. Dr. Odd's apprentice activated the glyph and the suited man faded for only a brief moment, spilling the last remaining wisps of the deflated pocket dimension that once held the Camdis will shard. Another man came rushing down from upstairs with a portable device of some kind before a disappointed Jacques told them to stand down.

"Damn. It was a remnant piece of the Camdis will shards some elite smuggled back. I heard Dr. Odd talk about it a couple of times. He was little more than a kid back then but it was supposed to be one hell of a, how you say, cluster f***. Placed in the alchemy room like that, he maybe used it up making potions and such? What a waste." Jacques said, a little heartbroken.

Seeing the wisps heading towards the essence gathering circle in the meditation room, the man with the equipment bent down to quickly deactivate it. When he brought out another piece of equipment to draw it up, Orison said, "Excuse me? Um, who's going to pay the merits for this forceful acquisition of resources?"

The man looked pole axed.

Gruffly, equipment guy said to Jacques, "Are we not supposed to be taking planar remnants as a default?"

Jacques said, "It's essence. It might be special but if we pulled that kind of card on something like this... Orison, you let us take this and we'll give you-"

The young mage interrupted. "Sixty units of magic essence daily to our grid for six months."

Dr. Odd's apprentice said, "Robbery. There can't be more than a thousand units here. Thirty for three months."

"Fifty for six. I'd guess there's a little over 2000. If you're not going to condense it to use as a core for an artifact, you're wasting it. Can you do that with the essence in the grid? Take it or leave it. I'm hoping you leave it," Orison said, stone faced.

Jacques suddenly smiled wickedly, "I'm taking it as payment for your apprentice fees. Congratulations, you're in the Rowdies Accelerator Program. I hope you enjoyed your Fire and Ice toast."

Orison's eyes widened, "You..."

Jacques chuckled. "Speechless? I know. It's quite an honor."

As the man finished collecting the remaining wisps of rich, law laced essence shed from the Camdis will shard, Orison said, "It IS quite an honor to be sworn in as YOUR apprentice in front of witnesses, Certified Mystics Instructor le Strange. I mean, it's not like you could accept my apprenticeship as a proxy for someone else without even saying a word to them or fraudulently claim an apprentice fee on their behalf with the intent on paying them in merits. That would be.... unlawful and the League is a completely lawful organization, after all."

Turning to the equipment man as Jacques spluttered, Orison asked. "Do you know what the unit allotment is for an accelerator student and apprentice of a truimverate adjunct combined is?"

The man said, "I, uh, accelerator is twenty free and core apprentice is twenty daily paid out of the apprenticeship fee... Oh, there's a base ten provided by your accelerator sponsor."

Jacques looked like he lost his soul as he muttered, "Thirty units out of pocket... for two years."

Orison sneered. "Don't be so melodramatic. As long as you take your responsibilities with me even half seriously, it won't be nearly that long."

Suddenly sobering up from his stupor, Jacques said, "Y-yes. That's right. I'm going to work you like a dog. If you don't shape up fast, I'll- what do they say? Your a** will be grass and I will be the lawnmower!"

Orison gave a saintly smile. "It's been quite some time since you've been in the field, pencil pusher. In front of these men here, men who risk their lives to keep Avalon safe, are you going to set a bad example of not showing me how it's done? You're not going to stand on the sidelines and bark orders like an over-the-hill P.E. teacher are you? That would be shameful."

Under the slight intoxication of the Fire and Ice that even Orison's special physique couldn't completely shake off in a couple of minutes, Jacques noticed two black visored helmets stare holes through him.

Red faced, imagining who knows what kind of expressions they had, Jacques said, "Better eat the breakfast of champions... you boy. I have your numbers. Better grow all the grass on the field before you try to play ball with a grown man!"

The more soldierly of the two men that had come with Dr. Odd's apprentice sounded like he suddenly choked on his own cough and said, "Sir, that's... not how that phrase is used. It's probably best that you don't use it at all."

Jacques looked at the man blankly for a moment and said, "Explain to me what I don't understand in the transport."

Seeing that they were getting ready to leave Orison said, "Wait. Your guy didn't get it all."

There was a little that seeped into him and his own essence avoided it like it was structure poison. Pushing it out, he also used his aura pressure to squeeze a bit of the excess of the strange essence from Rio. Seeing the collection device blinking sluggishly again, the equipment guy switched it back on.

The soldierly guy was staring at the young mage, doubtlessly wondering what was up. Jacques was too wrapped up in the pleasant surprise of collecting more of what his Pyrrhic victory earned him. Using what little time that had bought him, the young mage thought hard.

Trying to keep the Cheshire grin off his face, Orison said to the equipment guy, "Hey, a thousand merits to tell me anything interesting it might be hard to find out about perks or privileges that come with being in the acceleration program or the apprentice of a high ranking core member."

Sadly, the man undid his helmet and looked at Jacques. Obviously, Dr. Odd's apprentice was glaring at the man for all he was worth. The man started low, saying stuff that Orison could guess without even asking but Orison joked around with him and got him to loosen up while lowering Jacques' guard a little.

"How about old ones that no one uses anymore because it's too difficult or just not really worth while. Come on, I know the boss man's right there but there's gotta be something that'll make him sweat but won't come to anything. It's mostly just for fun anyway," Orison said with an innocent smile.

Oddly enough, it was the more soldierly looking guy who said, "Oh, I remember one. Back when things were rough and it was like planar rifts were opening every other day, people on the accelerator program could pick out one or two debtors from the Irregulars to train with them. That way, graduates could hit the ground running with a team that had trained together."

Jacques looked at the man like the soldierly guy had lost his mind, telling Orison about it.

Backpedaling hard, the man said, "But... You had to pay off half their debt and they have to agree. Now, most of the debts are expensive and it's almost a guarantee that they'll be older, not that well trained or not that useful. Back then, it made sense but what kid in their right mind would shell out good merits for someone who probably won't take them seriously or be reliable.

"People don't get those kind of debts by being responsible and they don't usually have a problem working out some way to repay them without being useless. Besides, it might be your right and choice but the system's set up for your trainer to vet them and they have to pay half of that half. YOU can only see the debtor's name, age and general class when you're looking.

"So without your instructor digging out things like pictures and personal information, you might see a young woman but it's not like she'll be some kind of beauty if she ended up in the Irregulars. Even if she is, she's probably a psycho or something. Hey, come on. Why are you messing around with the touch screen? You hear what I'm saying?"

Orison's instincts were tingling and he could swear he smelled the scent of an expensive cigar tickling his nose. His first thought was that if anyone was going to get into some kind of serious mess, it would be Stag. Unless the Nunos man was using a different name, he wasn't on the Irregulars list, however. With a building sense of dreadful understanding, the young mage looked up Gan's name and sure enough, the man was there.

The young mage turned around smiling and said, "So the Irregulars are like high risk duties to pay back debts to the system and to society if it's crimes? A bit of a nasty system but I get it... This one here. I want him. Isn't that the weirdest name? Sounds like a viking or something."

Already looking a little faint, Jacques said, "You're just going to randomly choose someone because their name sounds weird!? You do know that you have to match what I pay on this, right?... I tell you, I'll look, just this once if you promise to not do it again."

Orison struggled to keep his face looking casual as he said, "I promise that if you look him up and I don't choose him, I won't do it again but if I do, I reserve the right to do it again if I feel there's a good reason to."

Taking it more as a joke than serious, Dr. Odd's apprentice walked over to the touch screen and accessed it with his clearance. "You do know that you are responsible for everything outside of basic needs, right? You're even responsible for their misconduct, up to a certain point. This isn't anything more than a merit grab for scaredy cats who want a security blanket."

Jacques started laughing. "He owes 15,000,000 merits! Back when he was taken in over a year ago, he owed 30,000,000. He got 10,000,000 shaved off because he died! Another 4,000,000 was taken off for some kind of wrongful abandonment clause some lieutenant probably tacked on for pity because his body was lost for four months. Even the last million was only the default yearly write off.

"He died on his first real assignment without earning a single extra merit. If it wasn't for some wandering phoenix lady who found him and took pity, that would have been the end of his story. Are you going to waste 7,500,000 on a man, who only seems good at making other people feel sorry for him?"

It took all he had not to ruin everything by punching Jacques in his laughing face. Orison knew it wasn't personal but more of a knee jerk reaction to the absurdity of the even remote possibility that the young mage would agree.

Feigning shocked but innocent surprise, he said, "What did the guy do? If he was a real criminal, he wouldn't be on the list. How in the world does he owe so much?"

Jacques started off joking but turned a little pale and sweaty. "With his bad luck, he probably brought an open bucket of paint into a Sky Hook teleporter room or something... He... You don't really need to hear this. It's just some random person's bad luck, right? It's not like you're going to choose him just to be stubborn or something."

Unable to completely hold it in anymore, a dark storm started building on the young mage's face, "The fact that you don't want to tell me makes me wonder if I should just go ahead and do it."

Frowning himself, Dr. Odd's apprentice said, "I think you're taking this farce a little too far... Fine. When he was brought in by the UTF, they put him in a dorm thinking he was the age he looked like. His artifact ate a reserve tester. Being a 'walk in', a person who stumbled here from some other world, he was handed over to Avalon with as much of the debt to replace it as they legally could."

Orison plainly said, "I choose him."