Strange Notices

"So, how is the boy doing? No trouble with the brand?"

"None as far as I can tell, he remains himself, and he appears stronger than you expected him to be."

"Hmm, good. The boy will grow much stronger still, so long as he can hold on to himself."

Karl was stripping the bark from an enormous redwood log. It was at least fifteen meters in length, and a meter in diameter, some branches had been stripped off already. How he had moved the felled tree would have been a mystery to a passing onlooker. Huginn was observing the process while perched on a dozen other logs of similar size that the old man had yet to work on.

"What exactly is that brand you used?" Huginn held a stern tone in his question.

"If you must know, do not tell the boy. He is not yet ready to know its nature." Karl put down the chisel he had been using.

"Very well, but if I am to look after him, I need to know what I am dealing with."

Karl seemed to be lost in thought for a time, stroking his beard, before he finally explained.

"You remember when we sealed the Great Wolf, yes?"

Huginn squinted slightly. "I do, I recall your brother gave up his arm so we could subdue that monster."

"When the realms were split, the seal binding his chains was undone, damaged beyond repair. We were scattered and unable to get there in time to seal the beast again. He was the only one nearby."

"No… Fenrir took half the Aesir and Vanir host to subdue, even he would not have been able to do it alone."

"Yet he did, and it cost both of them their lives. When I had arrived, both he and the beast were covered in grievous wounds and nearly beyond recognition. There was hardly any fur left on the monster. The flames of Valor continued to burn his flesh without reprieve. Perhaps time will paint my actions as a mistake, but I was not willing to let him die, so I crafted a vessel from Fenrir's anima and soul and stored my brother's own soul in it."

"That vessel…"

"I kept it within myself."

"This entire time?"

"Indeed. You two came with me to the mortal world after that, I could only preserve it within myself."

Huginn's eyes widened in shock. "Wait, but that brand, the color of his runes, and the strength and speed boy gained."

"It is as you suspect, I no longer am host to the two souls."

"Reckless! My lord, that is truly reckless, even for you!" The raven nearly squawked his words out, but Karl simply held a conflicted gaze.

"What options do we have? I fear a second crusade is coming. He thinks like mortal men, but I hope in time as he grows stronger, he will be able to understand both worlds. All the races will need to figure out how to make this work, mortal men are not as weak as they once were, they could have destroyed their world many times, and they still can. I would rather describe it as a gamble."

"The remains of a god, and a beast of divinity, you placed both within the boy?! The human body supports only a single soul, even those highly skilled in the arcane can hold two for a time, but what will be left of the boy if they consume him?!" Huginn was frantically squawking his words at this point.

Karl held up a hand to try to calm Huginn. "It is up to him, but do not underestimate his innate strength. He should be fairly compatible with Valor's flame, and his mother's blood comes from powerful practitioners of Spirit magic and binding arts. The two souls I placed within him will recover their strength in time, but I trust he will be able to control them. Besides, there are other factors at play, such as my brother's own intentions."

"If he cannot—"

"If he cannot, then there is little I can do. Either I have given him the strength he needs to survive, or I have unleashed Fenrir, armed again with a physical form and the ever-burning flames." Karl interrupted with a rueful look in his eye.

. . .

"Clear left.��

"Clear right."

"No, wait, movement in the hall."

"I'll go." A young man darted into the hall, in his hand, a metal spike about half a meter in length, appearing to be a length of rebar with one end sharpened. Turning the corner, a ghoul was listlessly wandering, but just before it began to move after noticing Val, it fell limp as the makeshift weapon was put through its skull.

"It's good that there's not as many as we expected, but we still need to be careful. Armory's two doors down on the left, Val will take point." Jim instructed in a hushed voice as the team moved into the abandoned police station.

Val removed the metal stake from the corpse. Focusing for a moment, he activated his brand, and his eyes lit up. They had brought a few working flashlights, but it was easy enough to see in the dark with his runes active. He marked the body with Hagal, as two officers in masks and gloves began dragging the body outside.

Moving carefully down the hallway, they only encountered two more ghouls, each of which was taken care of easily. The officers blinded them with the flashlights while Val took them down, again marking them for the cataloging crew.

Coming to the door to the armory, Jim took a set of keys Richard had given him. Upon unlocking the door, the team carefully shined their lights inside. The room had a counter with a screen, a heavier looking steel door blocking the entrance to the armory's storage itself. Val remained outside, keeping an eye out for ghouls wandering the halls. He felt an itch to go hunt down any stragglers, but remained in place, remembering the point of the mission.

"This is what we're here for, load everything into the trucks. Two groups of three, Val will watch the hall for us." Jim instructed as he worked a couple locks on the heavy steel door. Along the walls, there were rifles, shotguns, and stacks of boxes labeled with model numbers and inventory labels denoting types of ammunition or tactical ordinance. In the back, there were shelves below which helmets, bullet-proof vests, and various components of body armor had fallen in the earthquakes. Five thick polycarbonate transparent shields were toppled to the ground, seemingly having been resting in a neatly lined row previously.

The officers quickly got to work, the men and women dividing into two groups of three, Jim and another officer remained to move the equipment out in front of the reception counter.

The team worked efficiently, and quietly, over the course of the next hour, they had nearly moved everything from the armory, a few dozen worth of firearms, and cases upon cases of ammunition were loaded up in the trucks. The sound of a gun discharging down the hall shattered the silence. They had just been transporting the last of the equipment.

"Who the fuck just fired?" One of the officers swore quietly.

Near the entrance to the station, one of the officers had seen a ghoul shamble into the room. In alarm, he had drawn his weapon and put a round in the ghoul's head.

Val's eyes immediately flashed with the color of fire. "Everyone out, now! Get outside to the trucks." He ordered, moving quickly through the lobby and towards the stairs leading up to the second floor. He could hear the sound of a couple dozen footsteps hurriedly shambling from the ceiling. Leveraging his strength, he quickly pushed, kicked, and carried desks and anything else not bolted to the ground towards the stairs, attempting to create a barrier to slow them down.

Jim and his team rushed down the hall to the exit. Between them, they hauled everything left into the trucks.

"Everyone out?" Val called out.

"Yeah, but we still need to get the evidence lockup! There should be some more stuff in there!" Jim replied.

"Forget the lockup! We got what we really needed, and a few more guns aren't worth it! Get everyone out of here!"

Jim did not think twice about it. The biggest prize was the armory, and the ghouls were visibly trying to get down the stairs, some of them falling down into the furniture and desks Val had stacked up hurriedly. He ordered the team to get to the trucks and start heading back.

"Val, you coming?!" Jim called into the station.

"Go! I've got my bike, I'll be right behind you!"

Val could hear engines rumbling and trucks being put into gear as the rest of the team started pulling out onto the road, heading back towards the warehouse. Having confirmed that the rest of the team left, Val stepped away from the stairs and drew his sword, chucking the piece of rebar to the side. Without his support, the barrier fell apart as the ghouls pushed through, ravenously issuing guttural noises and flailing their arms in his direction.

Not willing to wait for them to all swarm at him at once, he began to precisely thrust his sword through openings into the eyes of the ghouls. The limp bodies of the ghouls contributed to the barrier, but it eventually fell apart as the ghouls stumbled through, many falling over. Val moved swiftly to dispatch as many as he could, cutting the oncoming number down to less than ten.

In the next few minutes, he managed to take care of the rest of the ghouls, leaving all of their body parts intact. The limp bodies were all missing an eye or had been dispatched with a precise thrust through their hearts. However, Val felt much better about the state he left them in this time. Quickly marking them all and dragging them outside, he picked up his sword from a desk he had left it upon and headed up the stairs to the offices.

I'll get some answers from the Chief and other residents later, but there has to be some evidence of the evacuation orders here…

The office was dark, Val could see well enough to fight, but it was too dark to read or carefully search the place. Confirming, there were no ghouls left upstairs. He wiped off his sword and returned it to its scabbard. Holding up his left hand, Val focused for a moment, two runes in succession were hastily carved, as Radh appeared then gave way to Sigil, a soft incandescent light ignited and remained above his palm, illuminating the surroundings. It could hardly count as a runeword, but after studying Radh more, he had learned how to use it in conjunction with other runes. So long as he kept the power invested low, he could channel the light like a bright lamp for hours without rest.

Sifting through papers strewn across the desks and floor, he came to a large printer & fax machine. In it, there was a notice seeming to have been faxed multiple times.

This is the evacuation notice! Let's see…

Val's eyes widened as he read the pages of the notice. They were all slightly different, as it turned out. They were all dated for November 7th, 2019, but each had increasing severity. Some even resulted in conflicting instructions.

<NOAA 4 REPORTS CATEGORY STORM APPROACHING. ALL RESIDENTS IMMEDIATELY ADVISED TO TAKE SHELTER AND REMAIN INDOORS…>

<MAGNITUDE 8 31 EARTHQUAKE HAS BEEN DETECTED MILES WEST OF SAN FRANCISCO. RESIDENTS ADVISED TO SEEK HIGHER GROUND…>

<HURRICANE IVO ELEVATED TO CATEGORY 6. ALL RESIDENTS ARE IMMEDIATELY EVACUATE. STATE OF EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DECLARED. REFUGE CENTERS IN CARSON CITY NOW OPEN…>

Carson City? Nevada? That's not even too far, just how badly did they underestimate this thing…

Val frowned, the entire situation seemed strange. Looking at the timestamps, they elevated a category four to a six in a few hours. That should be an alarm for everyone. A category six hurricane is the kind that only ever appeared in apocalypse scenarios. He had a hard time believing that emergency officials were in disbelief regarding NOAA's declaration of the first-ever category six hurricanes.

Either way, it looks like Carson City is where I'm headed after taking care of things here. Can probably ask Muninn to check it out in the meantime.

Val left the notices and departed from the station. After burning the bodies outside, he hopped on his bike and pulled out into the road. Heading back to the warehouse, Val had some more questions about the side effects of World Fusion. Two things did not add up; first, why did everyone seem to unanimously underestimate the disasters. Second, the number of people who passed in the catastrophes was in the count of several billion based on what Karl described. The disasters alone should not have done that much damage. Especially when considering some countries were far more accustomed to tragedies like this and should have been able to weather the storm. A sizable portion of the death count must have come from sources other than freak natural disasters.