R. R. Quan
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Chapter 54 - Low Low Price
🕑 Added 2022-01-08 01:49:51 +0000 UTCBrock flinched as a hoarse voice grated against his ears. He didn’t know exactly how, but it seemed to embody the word ‘pissed’ perfectly. Whoever was waiting inside was indeed rather annoyed, perhaps due to the fact that her clients were three hours late for their predetermined appointment. Harry ignored it and continued forward into the store.
Shrugging to himself, Brock followed after him.
Brushing aside a curtain of hanging beads, Brock ducked in and panned his eyes over the dim interior of the building. The only source of illumination was the sparse few wax candles spread about among the various piles of dull crystals and mysterious plants. The windows were obscured by what appeared at first glance to be black paper, and the whole place smelled heavily of incense, as he had first caught a whiff of.
From what he could see, the building consisted of the front room they found themselves in currently, the desk that was once used for administration now reduced to a mere storage shelf for strange potted plants and inactive salt lamps. If not for the glow of candlelight on another curtain of beads, Brock doubted he would be able to locate the entrance to the backroom through the sheer amount of mystic junk strewn about.
It was a home befitting of a hoarder.
Together, the duo pushed past the second doorway, and immediately, they were forced to squint their eyes. Unlike the first room, the place was entirely devoid of any candles, with only indecipherable blue runes floating around and shedding a slim shine on the interior. Otherwise, the place was pitch black. Eerily so.
A hum echoed out from the far corner of the room, and Brock looked over, spotting the figure of a frail elderly woman resting in an old wooden chair. An active incense burner was stationed in her lap, and he could see that she was enjoying the soothing smells with closed eyes. Yet somehow, he still felt her to be staring right at him.
Her liver-spotted face was marred by a deep scowl, her mediocre aura portraying sensations of deep annoyance as the two entered the room, “Took you long enough. You are lucky I didn’t die in the meantime.”
Her words were spat with venom, and clearly, she was the source of the voice before.
Brock gave a wry smile and approached her, Harry quietly in tow. He seemed oddly subdued considering his usual liveliness. Most likely, he understood the weight of the moment and was afraid of ruining it. Brock had to admit, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried that the kid would ask to eat the incense or some shit.
“Sorry. We… uh… kinda slept in…” Brock chuckled nervously as he ran a hand through his matted hair. In the time span of a few months, it had lengthened significantly, changing from his signature short and spikey to relatively messy and loose. His last proper shower had been a while ago, so it was no wonder it was matted as it was.
For the most part, water had been doing the trick for the monster grime anyway.
The elderly woman snorted, neglecting to open her eyes, “I can see that. What do you want?”
She framed her words as a question, but Brock could tell that she already knew what they had come here for. Ari had told the lady beforehand after all. It was always good to hear the request from the source, however.
“We were wondering if you could locate our mothers. Wherever they are.”
She nodded silently, regarding their words without a reaction. Then, from off to the side, a select few items began to hover and float over to her position, settling in the air and hanging there idly, “You are aware that I cannot find a corpse, correct?”
Brock shrugged, although he couldn’t find the strength to make it anything more than a half-hearted action, “Yeah, that’s what we thought.”
“Good.”
And with that, the runes shone with increased radiance. The various gathered materials flew into the centre of whichever glowing sigil was unoccupied and closest. They too quickly adopted a luminescent blue sheen, and from a side table two small metal bowls picked themselves up and hovered over to Brock and Harry.
They looked to the dull semi-spheres dumbly as they stood before them, and the mystic clicked her tongue in discontent, “Fill the bowl with your blood, you wastes. I need it to track your direct relatives.”
Harry frowned and hesitated for only a second before he cut a gash onto his wrist with the edge of his axe and let his sunset tinged blood flow freely into the bowl, filling it a few centimetres from the brim before his Vitality stemmed the bleeding. Brock did the same, but his overflowed for several seconds before his own Stat kicked in and stopped it.
The woman did not appear to be happy at the newly created blood splatters on her worn flooring. She hissed a breath through her teeth but chose to say nothing.
Delicately, the bowls began to travel through the air, stationing themselves in the direct centre of the giant ritual. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then an intensely rich wave of energy washed over the area and the separate magic sigils interconnected together, blue lines of that very same energy joining to the rune closest until a massive web of lines were created.
The ritual circle began to spin wildly, starting off slow and rapidly gaining speed before it and its material contents of varied crystals and herbs became a mere halo of aqua in the air. A metallic hum filled the room as the bowls of blood started to vibrate with fervour, the liquid within illuminating the roof above in their content’s respective colours.
“Emma Hoffman is alive. She is somewhere on the… ‘mainland’.” She paused for a few seconds as her wrinkled face scrunched up in obvious effort, before continuing, “You have no other direct relatives.”
Harry seemed satisfied with that knowledge, hiding his elation behind a somewhat ineffective expression of neutrality. Brock had never really asked about his family life, but it seemed that the kid was in the same boat as him; without a father. He didn’t dare ask why, and he was quite frankly comfortable with never doing so.
The mystic stopped speaking and the bowl containing Harry’s blood turned to molten slag before quickly cooling down. Now a misshapen hunk of metal, it fell to the ground, shining a strange sheen of greyish orange. With bated breaths, Brock waited as the woman took a deep breath and once more began to speak.
“There are…” her face scrunched up as she expended the same effort as before, “four relatives I can detect.”
Four? Brock frowned. He only had a mother, a brother, and a sister. Wait…
Energy continuously flowed into the surroundings, and she continued, “Maryanne Carter is located on the mainland; the exact same position as Emma Hoffman.”
The office worker’s shoulders sagged with barely masked relief.
“James Carter is stationed not far from here. In Alice Springs, I believe. Jane Carter is also on the mainland,” Brock expected her to finish. Hoped for her to finish. But she just kept speaking, “…and Noah Reyes is-”
“Stop!” Brock interjected instantly, “I don’t wanna know!”
Shocked by the unadulterated panic she found in the man’s voice, the mystic’s eyes opened imperceptibly. But it was enough for everything to come undone. The runes fizzled into a wild storm of blue sparks and the materials within rapidly began to be burned up in flames of the same colour. The bowl once more melted to slag and thumped to the floor.
Even Harry appeared to be somewhat surprised, having managed to make the educated guess that ‘Noah Reyes’ was the man’s long-lost father. But Brock didn’t care. The woman had already told him the locations of his family members - although he previously knew James’ - and that was all he wanted. Nothing more, nothing less.
“You… don’t wish to know his whereabouts?” the elderly lady had regained her composure and once more closed her eyes, runes of blue flaring to life and returning light to the room, even as they continued to be showered around with turquoise embers.
Brock straightened his mouth into a tight line and shook his head stiffly, “Nope.”
She licked her lips silently, choosing once again not to respond.
**
The only other information she left them with was the knowledge that she had no idea what the ‘mainland’ actually was. Brock had asked, but she had waved him away, only deigning to tell him that that was what the ritual had called the place.
It took them waiting five minutes after that before they realised the woman was not going to keep speaking, and the duo promptly left. A sombre mood had befallen the two as they walked, both silent in the presence of the idle chatter of Adelaide’s streets. Though, currently, it was a blessed silence. Right now, both of them just wanted to enjoy the simple fact that they had made progress toward their goal.
Brock had desired to ask the mystic why she couldn’t have just done the same ritual and find Ari’s sister, but fate had other plans it seemed. He doubted she would have told him even if he had asked. He ended up putting it down to the clearly stealth-based Ascendancy the young sister had, and that it interfered with the ritual somehow.
There was only one issue now that they had the knowledge, and that was twofold; they didn’t even know what the mainland was nor how they were supposed to get there. Just judging by the fact she hadn’t referred to Alice Springs as part of the so-called mainland, he could infer that it at least wasn’t a part of the continent, instead somewhere overseas.
Overseas was the keyword there.
So, they didn’t really have any idea where to go in the end. All they truly knew was that they needed a ride, “So, what’s the plan here mate?”
Harry glanced at Brock, his brows raised in scepticism, “Don’t ask me, dude. I have no idea.”
“…you know how to steer a boat?”
“No.”
Brock pinched the bridge of his nose, “We might have a problem here then.”
The older man groaned as they walked through the city until finally they were spent and sat on an oddly familiar street corner. Brock let out a heaving sigh and leaned back, gazing at the afternoon sky as the sun hung lazily at the precipice of daytime. It was an insignificant detail, but strangely enough, staring directly at the sun didn’t hurt nearly as much as it used to.
Blowing some air from his lips, Brock stewed on the issue in his mind. He didn’t want to be the guy that always asked for things, but he could go and speak to Ari about it, maybe even find a solution. Although, he hadn’t seen a single boat at the docks, and he didn’t think they’d be anywhere else. He sighed.
To his side, Harry perked up, an idea springing to life in his mind, “If there was a scryer in the city, what’s stopping there from also being people who can teleport us?”
“Apart from common sense?” He verbally jabbed at the kid, but still, Brock considered the words seriously.
Common sense, as he had long found out, wasn’t really applicable anymore. That aside, he’d seen the violet Treants manipulate space to a limited degree before, and even witness the Void Toads teleport behind him. Not to mention the accursed scammer that warped himself away. It sounded a bit nonsensical, but it was certainly a viable option.
In the end, it was that or riding a boat across the ocean with no nautical knowledge. He knew what his choice would be.
“That… could actually wor-” Brock began quietly.
He was quickly cut off, however, as another voice interrupted him from behind. It contained a slight tinge of a French accent and was all too familiar. Brock felt a vein bulge on his forehead, “I hear you’re looking for a teleporter?”
Slowly, Brock began to stand and turn around as the man continued to talk freely, clearly all too happy to hear the sound of his own voice, “I can transport you to a town overseas for the low, low price of five thousand dol- WAIT?! IT’S YOU?!?!”
The unimpressed Aussie’s face was once again revealed to the man, and his eyes widened in a brief flash of panic before space began to shimmer. He donned a smug smirk and chuckled.
That smirk was immediately dispelled as a powerful hand wrapped around his throat, disrupting his teleporting Technique and pulling him up close to Brock’s face.
“Fancy seeing you here, huh?”
His fingers flexed and tightened on the frantic man’s throat. He didn’t even bother to respond, just devote the entirety of his energy into wiggling free and escaping. He once more attempted to teleport away, but he was left dumbstruck as the ability failed to activate and fizzled out. Brock didn’t really care about that, instead spinning around and slamming the scammer up against a rusted lamp post.
“W-w-wait! I… I apologise! I can give it all back! I can… I ca-”
Brock’s voice effortlessly overpowered the man’s own, and he instantaneously went silent as his captor began speaking, “You said you were able to teleport us?”
“Y-yes! Yes, I am!” Brock noticed a ruthless gleam shine in the man’s eyes. He resisted the urge to sigh. Clearly, he was planning something. A true scammer, huh?
Either way, the office worker didn’t give a shit. As long as he got to the apparent ‘mainland’, he was fine with whatever the scammer tried to pull. For good measure, he rammed the cloaked man up against the pole again, watching him shrink in his grasp at the suddenness of the movement. Idly, he felt the flows of energy within as the man tried to activate his ability once more.
It failed once again.
“Well then,” Brock’s snorted and a sinister grin broke out on his face, “You’ll be taking us overseas for the even lower price of your life.”
Brock didn’t really plan to kill the man no matter what happened, as long as he didn’t make a serious attempt at his or Harry’s life, but for intimidation, the overt threat worked wonders. The ruthless gleam shook, but to his surprise, it still refused to fade.
The process of transportation took no preparation. All it required, according to their teleporter, was for every individual involved to be physically touching. Brock could sense within that the man certainly had used a legendary Shard of Awakening, something he knew was responsible for the long-distance teleportation the man claimed himself capable of.
Such an incredible power would definitely not be found in a Shard any less rare.
He started the process as Brock shook him one last time, and the space around them began to shimmer. The office worker felt the power of the man’s Ascendancy as his energy finally managed to leave his body and tear a hole in the fabric of space for them to enter from. Brock had no idea why his power suddenly worked now, but he didn’t care to complain.
The shimmering reached its peak, and abruptly, they popped out of existence, their eyes instantly being met with entirely new surroundings. It was immensely disorientating, and Brock felt the cloaked scammer break free from his grasp in the period of dizziness. Instantly, his arm shot out to grab him, but he had escaped the range of his grasp.
An arrow flew past Brock’s face, missing by a few inches, and he froze.
Looking up, he spotted a crew of five amidst a severely run-down town, nearby dirt-covered civilians watching on with what looked like hopefulness as each of them hefted their Tutorial issued weapons. Their teleporter scurried over and joined them, boosting the number to six. The archer’s eyes became wide and she fumbled with her next arrow.
The scammer grinned triumphantly and cackled, “Sorry ‘mate’. You do what you have to.”
Brock heaved out a sigh and he flexed his fingers. Well. Just when I thought people couldn’t get any dumber.
Shit was about to hit the fan.
