Adamant Blood

Redwolf said, “I’m gonna have a headache for a full day without some more healing. Is that the best healing you can do?”

Mark switched to ‘good’ and ‘bad’, instead of the half-and-half protection/healing that was his resilience/weakness blend.

Redwolf frowned a little. “What’s that?”

Mark said, “That’s good/bad. The other one was resilience/weakness.”

Redwolf closed her eyes, and then she winced. “I think I liked the other one better. Go back— Yeeeahhh. That’s it. Fuck. You really are a True Union kid, aren’t you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Redwolf nodded. “Just… just keep doing that for a while. Reach whoever you can. I’m sure practically everyone in the city under 20 Body is seriously injured, and that’s 50% of the people here.” She looked up at some guy in a white mask, saying, “How is it looking?”

Whitemask said, “80% structural damage. Buildings holding due to wards. Few building falls that we’re working on clearing now. 3 deaths, 540 injured. Estimated time to repair to full is one week. Basic functions will be back in four hours. Shorter if Mister Careed keeps up his Union centering.”

Mark kept up his ‘union centering’, as Whitemask called it.

“Fuck,” Redwolf said, “… Could have been a lot worse.”

Whitemask bowed and stepped away.

While they had spoken, Mark had extended his range and yeah, he felt injured vectors, denoted by their focus on themselves and their pain, turn softer, turn outward. Mark’s own healing was helping to organize all the other Freyalan healers out there, like a server coming online in a grouping of individual computers, or however Eliot had explained it that one time on the chat boards.

Looking around himself, Mark saw that he was in some sort of central square of Wolf Bayou. Probably the Central Square; Mark recognized it by the fountain over there and by the videos he had already seen on the place.

Redwolf was talking softly to a few different people, organizing whatever was happening out there from right where she sat, next to Mark. Isoko stood to the side, a few steps away, focused on breathing and her heartbeat.

Redwolf finished with initial talks with her people and she just sat there, relaxing in the sun as more people spoke to her about lighter concerns. Mark could tell she was in pain, her vector pointed inward just as much as it was pointed outward, at all the people in the square and at whoever she talked to. She looked focused on herself right now, but she was still the queen of her community. She was worried about everyone else around her.

She didn’t seem like such a big time killer of Drakarok in that moment.

Eventually, the litany of people bringing concerns to Redwolf tapered off.

Mark spoke up, “So, uh, hello, ma’am, uh, Redwolf.”

Redwolf paused, and then she started laughing— she winced and held her head. “Let’s not talk for about an hour.” She sighed. “That fucking hurt. Six damned brains! All the size of a manor.”

Mark’s idea of ‘Daihoonian Queens’ probably needed an update.

And then Redwolf took off her red wolf half-mask and Looked at Mark with serious, bright red eyes. Those were not colors you’d find on a human from Earth, at all. Her eyes were brightest red, and they practically burned. “We’re gonna talk later about your interactions with Addavein and everything else, but not right now. You understand?”

That sounded more like a ‘queen’ to Mark.

Mark said to her, “Sure.”

Oh.

That was not deferential enough, was it.

Redwolf relaxed anyway. She nodded, and then she pulled her mask completely over her head and laid down on the ground. She mumbled, “Fucking headaches.” She spoke a bit louder, “What’s your favorite food, Mark? We’ll get it made.”

Mark had no trouble saying, “Really good tuna. Blackened steaks.”

Redwolf angled up her mask to look at him. She smirked. “Good choice.” She put her mask back down. “We’ll have a good party tonight. Do you want someone to escort you around town while you’re here?”

“… Uh.” Mark decided to just get on with his main reason for coming here. “I’m looking for four people that tried to murder me and steal from me. It was an ambush on the road and I escaped. I want to find them and ask them why, and then offer them some tokens of clemency from Memphi if they want that. I’m starting to think they were just blinded by greed and not actually bandits.”

Redwolf frowned a little as she lay there. “You think they’re here?”

“I fully expect to never see them again and to need to put that attempted murder behind me.”

Redwolf nodded a little. “There’s a lot of shit you have to let slide as a True Power, Mark, otherwise you’ll drive yourself crazy. Attempted murder is not one of the things you should ever let slide, because if they attempted to murder you, then they would certainly murder others.” She spoke up, “Greenwolf! Where are— Ah. There you are. Help Mark find the people who tried to murder him. He doesn’t want to kill them right away. Clemency from Memphi and whatnot.”

A man in a green wolf mask appeared from the light as though summoned, but Mark had watched the light peel away from him. Mark had already noticed him as a vector in the air, but a lot was happening right now, so he hadn’t thought much of it, not until the guy was suddenly visible.

Mark noticed other invisible people in the area, now that he was truly looking.

And now that he was looking, he also watched as the black veins in the air around him were bent toward the invisible people, as he noticed them. They noticed him noticing them. Mark wasn’t sure how he felt about suddenly realizing that his veins pointed toward people he was noticing, and how he presented to the world. Seemed like a tell, like he was exposing himself somehow.

Mark would work on that tell later.

Greenwolf bowed, saying, “On it, ma’am.” Greenwolf turned to Mark. “I will take your statement now, if it pleases you, Blackvein.”

Mark had a moment of surreality, and then he began, “One of them was—” He paused, and then he opened up his backpack, grabbing for Quark on his dead phone, saying, “I have all of it here, but I think Quark got zapped by some electricity monster when we were out there. Maybe if I can get it running I can give you the current investigation… Hmm.” Lights blinked on and silver light appeared, briefly. And then the phone died again. “… Ah. Never mind about that, then.” He looked up at Greenwolf and began, “It was four of them. An older woman Mind Controller, maybe around 50-ish…”

Redwolf lifted her mask when Mark mentioned ‘Mind Controller’ and then she took off her mask and frowned when Mark spoke of a possible Mesmer. She said nothing, though, and Mark continued to beat black veins into the air, healing and supporting all of his fellow Union-users all around as they healed others in turn, as Mark talked of his run-in with some opportunistic killers.

Greenwolf asked clarifying questions about powers seen and words spoken. Talking to him felt like talking to Layfair or Willow, or to any of the other investigators that Mark had spoken with ever since he came out of Tutorial and ended up at Citadel Freyala. Isoko stood to the side, not doing much; just watching. Mark eventually finished.

Greenwolf said, “I will seek you out later, Mister Careed.” He bowed, and then vanished from sight.

Mark kinda wondered what was going to happen next, since a bunch of stuff seemed to be happening a lot faster than Mark could think—

Redwolf said, “The people you speak of don’t ring any alarms, but if they’re here or if they passed through, then Greenwolf will know of them.” She sat up and then stood up, asking, “You want to take part in the kaiju cleanup? You’d be one of the centerpieces in the cleaning; 10,000 goldleaf for the job at that role, like industry standard.”

Mark stood up. He found himself about a foot taller than Redwolf. It felt like the world was coming at him fast, and he was barely keeping up. So he bought himself time, saying, “I need to know what that sort of job looks like, and why you’re offering… or asking?”

Or telling.

Mark knew, in the back of his mind, that the kaiju needed to be erased from existence as fast as possible, but his mind was a bit frazzled right now. Why was Redwolf talking to him like this?

Redwolf looked at Mark for a moment. She hummed. “This would be your first kaiju kill, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s getting easier, but the normal amount of kaiju a person encounters in their lifetime is between 0 and 1, and I’ve had at least 4 or 5 right now, right up in my face. I think it’s going to be a lot more, though, and…” Mark’s heart was steady. He looked at Redwolf. “And I’m ready for it.”

Or at least he was getting there.

Redwolf grinned. She started walking down a road, saying, “With me, please.”

Mark walked with her, and Isoko walked silently behind a few steps. Mark glanced back to Isoko, to gauge her mental state, and she shook her head a little and simply walked in stride. A man in a purple wolf mask stepped to Isoko’s side and spoke quietly to her—

“It’s never easy to face a kaiju,” Redwolf said, drawing Mark’s attention back to her.

They were walking down a wide street, paved with stones and with stone buildings to the side. It was a nice street, but there was battle damage from the kaiju fall. Mark was pretty sure he heard in the far distance, to the north, a gradual rumble, like the body was settling, or something. He for sure heard stones falling here and there in the city—

Something wooden snapped to the left, instantly drawing Mark’s attention.

Someone cried in pain to the right, and that drew Mark’s attention, more. He focused his Union healing in that direction, toward the person in pain, to some inwardly-pointing vector and the four vectors surrounding that vector, trying to help that downed vector. They were all people, of course, but four half-walls separated themselves from Mark so he couldn’t tell who they were, or what they were doing. The walls didn’t matter for Union, though.

As Mark healed that downed person, their vector gradually pointed back outward, relief flooding their body. Mark had no idea how he had helped them, but he had.

Redwolf continued, “And this kaiju was worse than most. We almost all died today, Mark. That kaiju should not have been there.”

Mark’s blood ran cold. “… Okay?”

“I’m sure you noticed the monster wave; you were in the thick of it. It was a rather spontaneous wave, too. That’s not too strange. The land here is incredibly rich, so spontaneous waves happen sometimes because there aren’t enough hunters killing enough monsters. But then the kaiju appeared. That particular beast was a creature of ice and sky, and having a sky-based kaiju is always a terrible thing, because yes, they can appear just like that.” Redwolf said, “But I can kill kaiju rather easily, just by myself. That one should not have been a problem, but it had 6 brains. So, it was a problem. Thankfully, some helpful Freyalan priests knew you were in the area, so I went and picked you up and you were solid enough to do what needed to be done. Freyala is good like that; connecting people in their moments of need.

“And then the whole battle went down without a major problem.

“But that kaiju should not have been born that large, or that strong. Spontaneous kaiju births are always worrying.”

Mark went, “… Okay?”

He wasn’t sure what Redwolf was getting at, but it made him uncomfortable in some unknowable kind of way, like he was in deep waters and sharks were circling.

Redwolf seemed to watch Mark from behind her mask. And then she grinned, and said, “The world is dangerous. Don’t be surprised if some other bandits come after you for your adamantium, or your life. If you let the next batch live, you should extract their reasons for attacking you and be content with whatever they tell you.

“But anyway. About the kaiju cleanup.

“I’ll put up the all-call request in a few hours. I’m imagining paying for 10 centerpieces, of which I assume you’ll be one of them, and then 1,500 sidepieces, each of which will get 150 goldleaf to help clean up, as long as they can actually clean up well. My own men will be going in to extract whatever goods we can extract out of the big thing before all of that. Everyone in the city at the time of the kaiju kill will get a fraction of the sales of those goods, which is also industry standard.

“That whole body has to be gone by 48 hours, or else we’ll end up with a bunch of B and A rank monsters after they eat the feast of meat out there. Maybe even a few S’s if we let the poison pot stew for too long. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous a high speedster rabbit is; you probably killed a bunch of the normal little flesh monsters out in the wilds to get here.”

They had arrived at a big thoroughfare. To the north was a coliseum; the centerpiece of Wolf Bayou, where they held all the blood sports. To the south was Wolf Palace, which looked like a castle. A nice castle, all white stone but with differently-colored roofs here and there, from red to green to purple and all the colors of the rainbow and more besides. But it was still just a castle.

There was an open gate leading to the castle, and Redwolf stepped to the middle of the gate. She turned and said to Mark, “Do you want to stay in the castle? Or do you want to find lodging in the Grand Hotel?”

“Ah…” Mark looked back toward Isoko.

Isoko was deferential, but her vector was pointed away from the palace.

Mark told Redwolf, “Hotel. Thank you.”

“Of course. Set it up for them, Purplewolf,” Redwolf said, to the guy standing next to Isoko. And then Redwolf told Mark, “It was wonderful to meet you. I need to sleep for several hours. See you tonight for the party. I am usually of the night guard, so don’t expect much official to happen during the daylight hours.”

And then she turned and walked toward her palace.

Mark said, “Nice to meet you, too!”

Redwolf waved behind her without looking.

The gates closed, and Mark found himself talking to Purplewolf and Isoko about accommodations.

- - - -

Mark lay on a bed in a team suite, at the top of the Grand Hotel, on the fifth floor. There was a crack in the white marble wall, but as Mark lay there watching the wall, he sensed a vector in the wall, crawling in the crack. The wall began to seal, to heal. It was fucking weird, but also really, really neat. And now that Mark had a moment to himself —even with Isoko laying on her own bed over there— he sensed a bunch of different vectors crawling through the wires and the walls and the floor and ceiling. Something was repairing the entire city in one slow swoop. Probably the Hearthswellian paladins and priests—

“So!” Isoko said, laying on her bed.

Mark said, “So that happened.”

“Yup.”

Mark asked, “That’s what Freyala guided you to, right?”

“I had no idea what was going to happen, Mark, only that we were needed up ahead. I thought we were going to need to fight through a bunch more monsters, or something. Not… Not get picked up by Redwolf and her teleporter… Blackwolf, I assume, based on the mask.”

Mark nodded. “She called him that; yeah. Her teleporter.”

“The colored masks makes remembering names convenient, at least,” Isoko said. “But they do the same thing with some hero teams out there. You know the Color Rangers aren’t actually the same Rangers as they used to be, yeah?”

Mark chuckled. “The Color Rangers? I never watched that one, but I heard about it.”

“What! Never?” Isoko laughed. “It’s like the most popular kids show of our generation!”

“More like the most popular kids show of our parents’ generation.”

“Ehhh!” Isoko asked, “Have you studied the powers in the area? The names of the heroes we’re going to be working with? Is Redwolf actually one of those heroes, or is she… is she something else, I guess?”

Mark paused, and then he began, “My uncles talked a little bit about the heroes of Memphi. There’s, uh… Titanfist, that’s a big one— Oh! Kraigen Steele. He’s the leader of Memphi’s hero’s association. He uses his normal name for all of that. We talked a bit about who actually comes out and kills all the kaiju all the time, and they said some guy named Frozenfire and some supervillain named Credenza does most of that work, most of the time. And also Blackthorn, the local archmage.”

Isoko said, “I don’t know any of those guys— No wait… I might have heard of Credenza before. I think she’s a support hero? Luck-based. Doesn’t do anything herself, but she does fuck up an entire battlefield all on her own.”

Mark nodded. “That’s what I heard, yeah. Frozenfire is a through-put kinda hero, with the Talent of Temperature Manipulation. He makes ice to make propelling fire and stuff like that, or something. I think he has a few different sidekicks to help litter the land with fire or ice, depending on what’s needed…” Mark sat up and looked over to the big screen on the wall, and at the keyboard sitting below the screen. “I bet we can look them up on the internet.”

Isoko said, “I’m ready for a break.” She got up and started tapping away at the keyboard, lighting up the screen. A loading symbol prominently appeared in the middle of the screen, along with a message at the bottom. ‘Technical Difficulties – No Internet Connection’. Isoko tsk’d. “That’s about to be expected after a kaiju attack. I’m surprised that Wolf Bayou is this advanced, anyway. They have to be supported by Memphi, don’t they?”

“I’m getting that impression, yeah. Like. It’s an exile city, but not really…” Mark lay back on his bed, saying, “I’m still supporting people anyway. I’m going to close my eyes for a minute.”

Isoko said, “Let me help.” She went back to her bed and set the keyboard on the nightstand between them as she lay down, too. Her heart beat with good and bad, and Mark connected back to her instinctively. She breathed in, and then out, asking, “So… uh. How do I help? I can’t actually target anyone without seeing them yet, or having line of sight.”

“You’re doing a lot already, just by being open. All I’m doing right now is functioning as a server in a computer system, or however Eliot explained it that one time. I’m helping all of the other Union users out there connect to each other, extending our range all across the city, and enmeshing our Power with the weave of the world.”

Mark could feel maybe the nearest 200 meters in every direction, the vectors of everyone and every living thing, all jumbled up and hurting, but mostly healed already. But beyond that he felt the other nodes of the Union network out there, like expansions to his own network. If every person out there was an invisible pull on the blanket that was reality, the other Union users were other blankets, other people that could feel the world like Mark… or something like that. They were all ‘stitching their blankets’ into one ‘unified quilt’.

It was neat!

Mark said, “It’s like Healer Club. If you have questions, ask, but I’m still figuring this out myself.”

“I spent a few days in Healer Club, but not many. I haven’t even gotten to really learning how to connect to a group on my own and I’m still learning how to speak while keeping Breath active.”

Mark smiled as he lay there, eyes closed, saying, “To keep Breath active while in a Union, you gotta pull back harder before a punch, like when you know the punch isn’t going to be good enough so you wind up more. That’s how I figure it. Breathe deeper inward, and then punch harder outward.”

Isoko hummed, then she breathed in deep and said, “Is this working? No. That’s not working.” A breath. More words, “How about now… Maybe this is working. La la la la la la.” Inhale. “La la la la… Ah, I think… Is that working. It is working. I feel like I’m missing something. I’m not matching breath with you at all.”

“Unions don’t have to be in perfect sync to be a Union; they can be staggered.”

“Logically, I understand that, but…”

They spoke for a while about Union work.

It was a nice cooldown from the day’s action.

Holy shit, they had really been there for a kaiju birth, hadn’t they. And they had helped to kill the beast! Holy fuck that had been cool.

Mark smiled a little.