LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 19 (Patreon)

Mira watched Andrei through the corner of her eye as she put on her seatbelt and Adra got into the driver's seat.

Andrei was standing there, next to Heron, and staring at the van with his hands balled into fists at his sides. It reminded her of the aftermath of the duel he'd fought with Randall in their previous life; when he'd been expecting victory and adulation, but was instead left holding nothing except the consequences of his own actions. Had he really not grown at all, since then?

Bryn had changed. Why hadn't Andrei?

She'd started to hope, as old age settled in during her previous life, that Andrei had just been too ruined by his upbringing in Avenon to ever make a full recovery into the hero she'd once known. Seeing Andrei now made her wonder all over if maybe his goodness had only ever been on the surface and Adra was right to keep calling him the 'False Hero.'

She didn't like being wrong, but it really seemed like she had been.

Mira glanced up at the rear view mirror and looked at the faces of her companions. They were all quiet and tired. Adra was right. They shouldn't have had to stick around to listen to Heron speechify at them while a goblin attack was being put down fifteen feet away. She had every faith in the Bowler Hats' ability to squash the goblins without breaking a sweat, but her party had no reason to.

She turned to stare out the window at the darkened storefronts and empty sidewalks as they passed. Downtown San Aurelio was abandoned. The army might not have shown up to contain this gate, but the locals sure had cleared out. She could also see big barriers in the far distance with a lot of flashy cop lights, where local law enforcement had presumably established a perimeter around the Gate.

"How many Gates are there?" Mira asked.

Adra glanced her way. "There's no official count yet and the System hasn't said," he replied. "The last number I heard was seven hundred, but that's just in major urban areas. There's probably more in the countryside and we won't know until the nearest Guild gets an alert that the Dungeon has either been cleared or there's been a Break."

"So, you got an alert through the System when we escaped?" Mira turned her head to face him. His new face was nicer to look at than the abandoned streets outside the car.

"Yes," he said, nodding. "I have a transportation skill so I went ahead, in case any monsters spilled out with you. I had backup stationed around the Gate already, but you can see they needed a few more seconds and that Gévaudan would have made it into the city."

"So, you're a hunter too?" Randall asked, entering the conversation. "Is that how you were able to put down that monster?"

"Not the same way you are," Adra said as he watched the road.

They were getting close to the high rise where the penthouse was. Was that where they were going? Mira sure hoped not. The Gate would be awfully close to their living space, if so. On the other hand, if that Dungeon was only going to be 'stabilized' for a month then she and the others would need to stay close at hand until more hunters could turn up to share the load.

"I received some specific skills and abilities when I won a contract from the System to be one of the three guilds permitted in the region. I won't be able to level my skills the way you do."

Mira gave him a sideways look and pretended not to see it when he winked at her.

Sure enough, they pulled into the parking lot at the beachfront high rise that had tentatively become Mira's new home—or, at least, she thought it was the same high rise. The building had been constructed from pale stone with gold-tinted glass windows that gave it a feeling of luxury, but it was was clad in black volcanic glass now and there was a red pulsing light somewhere up on the roof. What's more, there were a pair of Bowler Hats guarding the entrance to the building's underground parking garage and they were hardly pretending to be human at all.

"What's with these guys?" Alan asked as the Bowler Hats waved them past with a respectful nod to Adra. "The lady back there had something going on with her teeth and I'm not trying to be rude, here, but…"

"They're citizens of the Altiviri Triumvirate; members of one of the Founding Races," Adra explained as he took them to the private parking spaces. He pulled in next to Mira's Volante. "The Triumvirate is a misleading name. They have about twenty client species, including us. There was just three races in the original alliance. The Demons…"

"I'm sorry, did you just say demons?" Cece interrupted. "Hellfire? Brimstone? Demon demons?"

Adra put the van into park. "They're a multiplanar species that appear in the mythology of a lot of previously non-magical worlds like ours."

"The Gévaudans had something similar in their description," Mira mused, mostly just to smooth over her friends' disbelief. "The System said they often break into less magical worlds and end up being remembered as cryptids and mythical creatures."

"Correct," Adra said, nodded. "The Demons only have one home world in one reality where their race occurred naturally, but they travel extensively to other realms and can be non-consensually summoned. As a result, there end up being demon colonies all over. They like to establish small enclaves on new worlds in case any of their brethren end up trapped anywhere on the planet. I made an agreement with this enclave to sponsor their emigration in return for their support in establishing my Guild."

"Why couldn't it have been elves?" Cece whispered, with a semi-guilty look back at where the Bowler Hats were putting down the barrier. "Or fairies?"

"The Elves apparently are working with the world governments to smooth our transition into galactic citizenship," Adra replied with a straight face.

Mira hid a grimace behind her hand. Elves? Really? That was the only way this whole mess could have gotten worse. Demons had a reputation for being terrifying fantasy lawyers, but Elves were terrifying fantasy bureaucrats. There was no organization they couldn't make less efficient.

"So, demons and elves—who's the third race?" Randall asked. "Dragons?"

He'd pitched it like a joke, but then wilted when Adra just nodded.

"There were apparently no Dragons who wanted to immigrate here to support the transition," Adra said. "I'm told that could change, once our world integrates more in a few hundred years. They like their comforts and it's primitive here, by Triumvirate standards. We're the new frontier, insofar as they're concerned."

Ugh. Hopefully, Mira and everyone else would be dead by then. There was nothing wrong with Dragons, except their personalities. She'd never met one that wasn't a raging megalomaniac, even the nice ones. It sounded in character for them to wait until this world was sufficiently gentrified before they started to pitch in. Humans had their own racial flaws, but Mira was a human (more or less) and so other humans seemed less annoying by comparison. Even then, she fit in better with Demons, even when Adra wasn't around.

A young demon woman met them in the parking lot and she had a pair of sandals with her for Mira. She also had a weak-looking potion in an aerosol bottle.

"Let me sluice your soles off with this before you get out of the car," she said, approaching Mira. She had red eyes and a curly mop of dark hair with enough volume that even Mira had trouble spotting where she'd styled her curls to hide her short, rounded horns. She was dressed in a button up shirt and cropped slacks. She was wearing an ID card around her neck that identified her as 'Morwen–Head of Personnel.' "Dungeons can have strange bacteria so you need a stronger antiseptic than usual if you're carrying any small cuts. Diluted potions are the best for this."

Mira submitted to having her feet examined by a stranger. Once Morwen was satisfied, she sprayed the potion on Mira up to the ankles and let it dry before sliding the sandals on with gentle hands and a demeanor that told Mira that this woman knew exactly who she was.

Adra's relationship with the demon race split the difference between 'beloved ancestor', 'patron deity', and 'that one fun uncle who always has entertaining ideas that will definitely end in explosions.' By extension, Mira's relationship with the demons tended to default to 'beloved auntie who needs looking after', depending on the demon.

Mira let Morwen help her out of the van with a quiet 'thank you' and they all went to the elevator.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," she said, as they took the elevator up. They didn't go as high as the Penthouse, but she did recall there were some office spaces around the middle levels. "This building wasn't empty two days ago."

"It was close to empty," Adra said. "Most of the units in this building were ghost condos that offshore investors were using to park their capital. I think the common descriptor is 'safe deposit boxes in the sky.' When the Dungeon opened nearby, I was able to use the System to buy most them out at a fraction of their original value. My business partner was able to secure the rest and now the Guild owns it all outright. If you sign with us, we will include housing as part of your compensation. Samira can tell you, the facilities are very comfortable."

"You live here?" Cece asked, looking at Mira. She looked understandably confused since she knew, better than anyone here that wasn't Mira or Adra, what Samira's living circumstances were supposed to be.

"Mason owns a unit here," Mira explained. She looked at Adra. "…or he owned one?" she asked.

"He still does," Adra replied. "Here is my office."

Morwen trotted ahead to let them into a mostly-empty corner suite office with a small lobby where a receptionist would normally be. There was an empty desk there, but it was covered in darkwood crates containing scrolls, potions, and other arcane materials. Presumably, the weapons they'd brought with them were all in the hands of the Bowler Hats who were containing the Dungeon.

Whoever had sold their office space to Adra had at least left him a very nice desk with an intimidating chair behind it. She could see why they hadn't moved it. The desk was a thick dark stone top with veins of red minerals in it set on top of two thick mahogany posts. The chair that went with it had a high, thin back and a wide, bowl-like seat. Mira did not imagine that it had belonged to anyone who needed to work comfortably on a computer very often or anyone that sat there often enough to care about things like 'lumbar support.'

Adra lifted a paper-thin tablet off the desk top. "Now, I'm afraid I cannot offer you an open-ended stay at the Four Seasons, however—" he broke off as someone stomped into the office.

Mira turned and, well, that was Mason Dietrich. It wasn't the original Mason. He still had Adra's eyes. It took her a cold second to remember that Adra had admitted to being able to pilot two bodies at once.

"Mason, we're in a meeting," Adra said coldly. "Can it wait?"

"You don't need Sammie," 'Mason' replied. "She's already signed."

What sock-puppetry was this?

Still, she meekly let 'Mason' take her by the arm and tow her towards the door. His grip on her was nowhere near as tight as he'd made it look, so this theater was all for the party's sake. They hadn't ended up talking about why he was acting like a bore when other people were around, but Mira assumed he was going somewhere with this.

"Hey!" Alan bristled. He'd been relatively calm, if unhappy when Adra had picked her up the first time, but either he'd run out of patience for people manhandling women in front of him or 'Mason's' behavior had activated an entirely different set of instincts for him. "Who the fuck are you?"

Bryn moved to block the door, but for once he wasn't the biggest guy in the room.

"I can take my fiancee wherever I want," 'Mason' grunted. "She's wanted on a call upstairs. Move it."

"I probably need to take this," Mira said, eyes downcast. "I'll come find you later, alright?"

None of the boys liked that and Cece liked it even less, but they let her go once she asked them to. Adra took her out into the hall and towed her by the arm until they were out of sight from the big glass-walled office. Then he scooped her up in one arm and opened a portal to transport them directly to the Penthouse.

They landed in the living room where a robe and pajamas were waiting, thrown across the back of the sofa, and a small grazing board was laid out on the coffee table with a huge pitcher of ice water.

Adra kissed her forehead and wordlessly helped her strip out of her filthy clothes. "Eat something and drink water while I run you a bath," he said to her. "I only have a minimal presence in this body right now. Most of my attention is in the meeting room, so I won't be very responsive."

Mira kissed him back. "Go," she said.

That snack board was calling for her.