Good news bad news

Blake gawked at the beautiful blonde along with everyone else. She had apparently just wandered up to the front of the town gates dressed like a sexy park ranger, hourglass figure revealed and soaked to the bone. She looked like Jane who'd lost her Tarzan.

"Um, hello?" she called with some kind of European accent, arms crossed in front of her ample chest.

The gate guards nearly trampled each other to get to her. To their credit they checked the immediate forest for danger, but Blake wouldn't say thoroughly, then quickly brought the girl inside and closed the gate.

Blake was strolling around town with Seul-ki as usual, letting out discreet waves of mental energy, exploring the minds of the inhabitants. The male minds he explored were suddenly filled with cartoonish images of a certain naked, busty blonde, and he rolled his eyes and closed the connections.

"Chief will want her," said Barry the Rogue, one of the chief's loyalists. The other men stared daggers.

"Yes. Eventually," said James, some kind of skirmisher class, then smiled as he turned to the girl. "Let's get you warmed up and out of these wet clothes first, OK miss?"

"Th-thank you," she smiled with whitened teeth, "that would be great. Is there a place I could change?"

"Right this way." Most of the guards led her to a kind of enclosed cook house, which Blake knew for a fact had many peeping holes the men could leer through.

"She's a civilian," Seul-ki whispered, and Blake nodded, having guessed as much. "A bonded slave," she said with surprise. How Seul-ki knew such things Blake didn't exactly know, but he assumed it some kind of identify power. In any case, it was bloody useful. She squinted her eyes. "How could a lone civilian…especially one like her…ever get this far into the forest? And without notice from the town's raiders?"

"A fine question." Blake resisted the urge to start bombarding the girl's mind with mental probing. There'd be plenty of time for that, and he preferred to do a little investigation the old fashioned way first. It was much easier to penetrate a mind once he had some context.

He also decided he recognized her, though it was difficult to tell. She resembled the girl from Mason's brief magic video, but she'd been in the dark and mostly undressed. Now she was clothed, not to mention wet, and anyway Blake wasn't terribly good with faces. If she was a bonded slave, it was feasible Mason was her patron. But he didn't yet dare to hope.

Blake decided not to try and leer at the girl. "Let's move closer to the hall, and wait," he whispered, then took Seul-ki's arm and led her along as if enjoying the afternoon air.

After several minutes the guards finally brought the girl to their chief. Blake inserted his presence into a few of their perceptions with his new and improved Mental Influence, but it soon didn't take a mind reader to know how the meeting went.

The chief's screaming crossed the street. He was thrilled when he saw the girl, but once he realized she was slave bonded to someone else, his mood rather soured. It also seemed this girl's 'patron' had sent her ahead, and intended to join the town when he arrived. This made the chief even angrier. However, the girl pacified him rather quickly (and cleverly), explaining that her bonded patron could of course offer her…services, to anyone he chose. And perhaps he would happily do so, for a good friend and ally, or a trusted chief. Things got more pleasant after that. Chief Sebastian sent the girl to her very own house with all privileges and access to the town's supplies, though without freedom to roam without a guard.

Blake smiled and disconnected from the meeting. Apparently psychic observing was rather costly, and he was feeling mentally drained and running low on mana, and he knew Seul-ki was too. They'd both need to rest and recharge for what was to come.

"That's enough for today," he said.

"I can continue," she said with her typical formal politeness, but he could see the exhaustion in her eyes and smiled.

"I know you can, Seul-Ki. You're incredible, truly. But I need you strong and ready when things get more…interesting."

"You think they will?"

"Oh yes." Blake's smile turned more genuine. "You can count on it."

She searched his eyes, then nodded, and he escorted her back to the home they shared. He found her extremely plain in terms of attractiveness. She had beautiful, dark eyes, and a figure he suspected was rather nice, if not hidden under her baggy clothes. But she was certainly not up to his usual standards. Of course when a man was in a desert, any kind of drink would do. But Blake had no desire to jeopardize the extreme value Seul-ki offered him with anything untoward that he wouldn't maintain. She basically doubled his mana, and probably more, with certainly faster than double the recharge. It was, in fact, an almost unbelievable class and power to have found in the middle of nowhere, and he suspected later in the game powerful casters all over the world would kill for people like her. So he did nothing to jeopardize their relationship.

Once inside he released her and gave a friendly smile, bowing in the Korean style. She returned it, and went to her room before closing the door, as was her custom.

Blake sat at the kitchen table and ate from a jar of mixed nuts, smiling to himself. Oh yes, he thought, things were going to get very interesting.

As a rule Blake kept his emotions locked away, knowing that there might be other mental wizards like him, maybe even spying on him even now. By probing the minds of others, he had learned that people who kept their thoughts and emotions hidden and reserved were far harder to exploit. Mana also protected them, the more the better, but he couldn't do anything about that. He had however begun a practice of building imaginary walls in his mind, sealing his thoughts behind them and only allowing them when they were useful. He wasn't sure if it made much difference, but he thought it was wise to try, and he had little enough to do.

He searched those memories now, pulling up the shimmering fire and the strange night he'd seen his brother's face in a magic screen. He imagined the blonde in the bikini again and again, searching from every angle until he was sure. Oh yes, he decided, it was her. He was almost sure of it. Somehow the Princess Leia-dressed knockout had escaped and traveled across the forest to pretend to be freezing, and pretend to be terrified, with a cute little story for Sebastian's band of merry men.

Mason had arrived.

Blake allowed himself a moment of excitement, then breathed it away. He'd expected to have a little more time. He couldn't know his brother's plans, or what he knew, but it was time to speed things up. There were still too many guards—too many players loyal to Sebastian. Some needed a push, others a shove. A little fear and chaos would help, and Blake expected his brother would soon provide that in abundance.

Here at the end of one world and the beginning of another, Blake expected Mason would become exactly what he should have been—a terrifying monster of the post-apocalypse. A survival machine without concern for what others thought, or what they wanted. Then Blake put all his thoughts away, and grinned as he chewed.