LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 36 (Patreon)

Alan was about as nonplussed and starstruck as Mira had ever seen him in two lifetimes as the elves hustled Bertram away from the gate and to the first aid station they'd set up nearby. It was mostly stocked for elves, but they'd optimistically asked LivingShadow to bring them some human trauma supplies in case there were any human hunters who made it out.

Cece took point on healing him up, which the elves appreciated once they'd realized they only had the broadest idea of what all the human medicines they'd requested were actually for. Mira made a note to try and hook them up with paramedic who wanted to change careers or something.

Bertram sat on a tree stump left over from when they'd cleared the area around the dungeon and let Cece douse him in a golden cloud of mana. She looked a little pale and she was chewing on her lower lip, but her hands were steady as she cast her spell.

She led with Bless, having learned from their experiences with the goblins that you needed to clean the wound before you closed it. Mira was working on a multi-effect spell that could eliminate that step, but so far she hadn't gotten the mana demand down to the point where Cece could cast it more than once. That one might have to wait until they'd leveled up some more.

"That sure is doing something, young lady," Bertram commented. "I didn't take too many hits, but the scratches I got were burning."

"I think I need to Bless you one more time," Cece fretted. "I got an error message saying I hadn't fully cleared your negative status effects."

"I'm in your hands," he chuckled.

Mira looked him over and he fortunately wasn't infected with anything lethal, but [Necrotic Sting] sounded uncomfortable and potentially dangerous.

[Necrotic Sting: a minor status effect that causes burning and itching around the site of an injury caused by the undead. This effect has a 5% chance to stack and will not resolve until removed by a potion or spell. An individual case of Necro Sting will not do more than cause minor discomfort to the afflicted, but when this effect is stacked enough times the resulting pain can cause skills and spells to fail unexpectedly.]

'William Ash', as it turned out, was just the name of a character that Bertram played in a long-running and beloved series of cult classic horror movies. His actual, professional name was Bertram Crowe.

"You said the System picks people who are most likely to survive and defeat the dungeons, right," Randall asked quietly as he sidled up to Mira. "What, exactly, do you think it is basing those decisions on?"

She shrugged. "He made it, didn't he? Now I want to know what kind of training he was doing for those films."

"Mira, can you tell if the status is coming off?" Cece called out to her.

"It says the status stacks. You'll need to keep hitting him with Bless until each individual one comes off," Mira called back. "It won't progress into anything bad. It's meant to be a distraction and ability disruptor. He won't turn into a zombie."

Some of the tension left Cece's shoulders—and Bertram's too, Mira noticed.

"Well, I sure am glad you kids are here…" Bertram said with a megawatt movie-star smile as he peered around the clearing. "…and, uh, these other people."

"We are volunteers from the Triumvirate," the nearest elf replied, pausing in her work. She had long translucent blue-white hair that contrasted sharply against her dark brown skin. She seemed to be in a managerial position because most of what she was doing was checking other people's work and verifying that she knew where everyone was. "I understand that you may not have had time to read the Global Alerts. A near-B class dungeon demands all your attention."

"I found a safe zone where I could sleep and clean up a little," Bertram's eye narrowed a little as he addressed her. A little of his actor-glamor faded. "Gotta admit, you're not what I expected."

"We never are," the elf woman chuckled. It wasn't an unsympathetic sound. "Are there elf stories in your mythology? That's usually the case when a Triumvirate response team lands. On some level, we all know about each other and then the natives are nonplussed when mythological creatures show up to help them fight the incursions. You should hear the human stories I grew up hearing."

"I kind of want to," Cece admitted, still working. "Growing up, I thought humans were the least magical-sounding species possible."

"Everyone thinks that," the elf woman reassured her. "Except the dragons. They are still annoyed they have to share the universe with the rest of us, sometimes. Humans are a cryptid story on my homeworld. They supposedly start following their prey one day. They don't run or threaten, but they also don't stop so their prey never gets to stop for food or rest. They follow until the thing they're hunting drops dead of exhaustion."

"Oh!" Cece frowned. "That's real, though?"

The elf woman paused and blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Historically, people think that's how prehistoric humans hunted when we were still hunter-gatherers. There's even a name for it: persistence predation."

The elf woman blinked again, more slowly. "That is horrifying."

"Am I in real danger of you stealing my name or turning me into a slave for eating your food?" Cece asked in response.

"That was one ethnic group during a single, very problematic period in elven history," the woman defended herself, but visibly surrendered the argument. "I take your point. I'm looking forward to when our historians will be allowed to collaborate with human record keepers. There's going to be some fascinating comparative folklore studies."

"That could take a while," Bertram said, a bit more quietly. "Humans can be xenophobic."

"We all are. It may be decades or even a century before your people can comfortably integrate with the other Triumvirate citizens, but I have all the time in the worlds," the woman said. The look in her eyes said she was not joking.

Bertram agreed to return to the Tower (damn it, Mira realized that she was starting to call it that too) and hear a recruitment pitch from Adra, after he got a chance to sleep and eat some real food—that wasn't to say that he didn't demolish everything Bryn gave him to eat on the ride back. Bryn's secondary class let him store food, preserve it, and keep it warm in his inventory so he had a supply of hot meals he could produce with the wave of a hand.

Mira watched her favorite former parent tear into an enormous turkey melt and privately suspected that he had actually run out of food a while back.

"What's happened out here while I was gone?" Bertram asked, once he'd taken the edge off his hunger. He helped himself to one of the water bottles they had in a box on the floor of the van. "Also, can I get some of your names? You kids recognize me, but I haven't had the pleasure of meeting any of you before."

"I'm Alan Tanner," Alan introduced himself. He'd finally thrown off the paralysis of meeting one of his cinematic heroes and reverted to his self-appointed role as the face of their team. "Cecelia Newman is the young lady who healed you. Bryn Alvarez has been feeding you. The other nice young lady is Mira Bellamy. The one behind you in black is Will Holloway and Randall Zhao is the one riding shotgun with our employer, Illya Volkov."

"I recognize some of those names from the alerts." Bertram took another drink and held it in his mouth long enough before swallowing that Mira suspected he'd also been suffering from dehydration. "Miss Newman was the one who found the social tab. Randall Zhao unlocked the map." He paused and turned to Mira. "Mira Bellamy… would that 'Mira' be short for 'Samira'?"

"Correct," she told him.

"Well, then I owe you a big thanks," he said and a bit of his exhaustion peeked out from behind the mask. "I hit the ground running in there and I would never have had time to figure out the System functions if it hadn't been for you all."

"We've heard that a few times," Alan agreed and elbowed Mira. "Some more than others."

By the time they pulled into the garage, Mira was fairly certain they were looking at their newest hunter. She was relieved to have someone else on the team who wasn't underage. Bertram had to call his manager and publicist, but he'd apparently been stepping back from his acting work in recent years so he didn't have a current project that he'd gone missing from.

"What's a Chainsaw Exorcist?" Cece asked Bertram as they took the elevator up. "We all have basic classes. That sounds advanced."

"Well, the chainsaw part is pretty self-explanatory. I'm most effective against the undead and I don't have much in the way of ranged abilities," Bertram explained. "I just found the shotgun. I don't have a System-given skill for it, but you don't really need one and the zombies I faced were soft enough that the shotgun hurt them just fine. The only problem was I had to be frugal with my rounds and it's slow to reload."

Adra had been quiet. Mira had assumed it was because he didn't want to risk triggering an employment conversation before he'd made good on his promise to give Bertram an opportunity to rest. He'd been looking at his phone off and on, though.

"Miss Newman, can you show our guest to Syrith's office? Or Morwen? She will get hime one of the empty suites," he said. "The rest of you are free to go about your business. Miss Bellamy? I need a word."

The others dragged their feet. They were still a little weird about leaving her alone with either of Adra's bodies, but Mira followed him down of the corridor and into his office where they couldn't follow.

"I don't think the boys have forgiven you for picking me up without permission," she said as the door closed.

"I would be offended, but I like the sentiment behind their objections," Adra allowed. "You seem to be getting along with them much better in this incarnation."

"They're friendlier," she admitted. "It just turned out that way."

"They were plenty friendly last time as well, but you let them get closer this time." He held up his hands when she shot an annoyed look in his direction. "I think it's good. You seem happy. I like it when you're happy. Humans are happiest when they have a social unit. You had your sisters last time, but you've been isolated this time around, save for me—until now."

Mira shrugged, feeling a bit under the microscope. "I suppose. I wasn't expecting Andre to run off the way he did, or to stay gone. I half-expected that circumstances would have separated us by now and that Andre would have come back to the fold, but that hasn't happened."

"I doubt it will," Adra said as he pulled her into a gentle hug. "They're very angry with him and they like you a lot. I would be very surprised if they let you be taken away without an argument, much less allow him to replace you. I suspect that was her plan from the beginning."

Mira squinted up at him. "You're joking."

He shook his head. "I don't think it's a coincidence that his System-given skills and classes were duplicated among the rest of the team. You and Will have no crossover between the two of you and you are the next most similar members of the team. However, that's not why I asked to see you."

True, they could have had this conversation after lights-out, once the others had gone back to their own apartments.

Mira propped her chin up on his chest. "What happened?"

"It is—it's an issue with this body, or rather this identity," Adra admitted. His ears were turning a charming shade of red.

"Yes?" she prompted.

"It's the Volkov family," he said and cleared his throat. "Specifically, the Volkov family patriarch; this body's grandfather. He, well, he would like to meet you."

She squinted up at him. "…in what capacity, Adra? You wouldn't be acting like this if they wanted to meet one of your employees."

"Do you remember when I told you about the push I made to replace Mason as Samira's fiance?" he asked and his gaze skittered off to the left.

This was kind of fun. Mira decided to play along. "Mmmhmmm."

He sighed. "The Volkovs were a part of that effort. I made a case for bringing you into the family as my wife and they agreed that you were a good investment. They weren't concerned about the conservatorship. I leveraged many of my family connections and they didn't take it well when your father turned me down."

"I suppose a former criminal family would have ways to deal with that," she agreed. "How angry are they?"

"With you? Not at all," he scoffed. "I was obliged to hire a private investigator and share the report before they agreed to help me. Your former situation with your parents is known to them. They are aware that you had no say in the matter. In any event, my grandfather took the refusal as a temporary set back rather than a failure. He still considers you his future granddaughter-in-law and, as such, he'd like you to come to dinner this evening since you will not be needed at the gate."

Mira couldn't help her grin. "Adra, are you asking me to meet your parents?"

He dragged one hand across his face and nodded. "I suppose I am."

 Note: In my imagination, Grandpa Volkov is like Don Corleone, but somehow Russian.