Path of Dragons 18 - Chapter 28 - Horror (Patreon)

“I fucking hate this,” muttered Rusty, his fingers never skipping a beat as they danced over the strings of his lute.  As he played his song, he couldn’t help but wonder why he kept finding himself in such situations.

Out of the corner of her mouth, the harpist hissed, “Shut up and play.”

That had become Rusty’s mantra over the past few decades, and the philosophy had proven quite effective.  He’d experienced plenty of hard times, but for the most part, he’d enjoyed his climb to the middle demigod tier.  Along the way, he had come to appreciate the wisdom of his past self, who’d chosen to abandon a life as a low-tier tough and embrace the path of a storyteller.

He’d become a Bard – a hybrid class focused as much on music and poetry as it was a fighter.  Sure, he could enhance the abilities of his comrades by playing the right notes, but he preferred to avoid violence.

The world had a different preference.

He had been there at Bloodrock Bay, and as far as he could tell, he’d been the only survivor.  He had also been at Meridian Lux when it had fallen, though he was one among many survivors of that particular incident.  The innocents had escaped the Druid’s wrath. 

And for once, Rusty was considered an innocent.

He’d taken that to heart, vowing to abandon a life spent in seedy taverns and even seedier casinos.  Instead, ever since then, he’d walked the straight and narrow, even accompanying the expedition into Orveth Kaal.

Of course, he knew how dangerous that was, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.  And to his immense surprise, he had managed to leave before the shit really hit the fan. 

More, his time there had pushed him closer to the deity tier.

Which was how he’d gained the opportunity to work in Seattle, playing songs for all the wealthiest people in the world.  They paid extremely well, and Rusty had even developed something of a fanbase.  Rarely did a night go by when he wasn’t accompanied by one groupie or another. 

It was a good life.

And then, he’d been asked to play at the Hall of Harmony.  Not in the meeting itself, but rather, in the lobby.  He was one of a dozen other Musicians and Entertainers, but he was the only Bard.

Did that make him better than them?  Not as a musician.  But what it did was give him quite a bit more combat capability.  And he’d been in enough fights to recognize that he wanted to be just about anywhere else.

Part of that came from the Druid’s arrival.

The second Rusty saw that, he knew there would be trouble.  But then he’d watched while Elijah Hart completely dismantled the cultivation system of one of the strongest people on Earth.

Formerly strongest, he amended.

And finally, he’d watched as Sadie Song, the Prime Judge herself, executed the man.  A few people had gasped in horror as his body hit the floor.  Not Rusty, though.  He sighed in relief, because he could see the truth.  The execution hadn’t been a punishment.  Not really.  It was a mercy.

But what truly freaked Rusty out was the fact that everyone else seemed to take comfort in the Prime Judge’s actions.  Such was her reputation that she could publicly execute a man, and everyone would just accept it as necessary and right. 

Did they need to see the evidence against him?

No.

Her decisive actions were enough to prove his guilt – at least for everyone else.  Rusty saw through that, though.  She might’ve been just.  She might have been powerful.  But he didn’t like the idea of anyone being judge, jury, and executioner. 

Because he knew just how horribly that could go should the public put their trust in the wrong person.  Sadie Song was probably the right person, but the same could not be said for every Adjudicator.  They weren’t as corrupt as many other organizations, but they had their fair share all the same.

Isaiah Roberts – known colloquially as the Watcher – raised his voice and said, “The meeting will begin in thirty minutes.  After that time, the doors will be shut.”

Rusty gave an involuntary shiver that almost made him miss a chord.  That man gave him the creeps like no one else in the world.  By all accounts, he was a good ruler.  He did right by his people.  But the tradeoff for that was that, as his moniker suggested, he saw everything.

The entirety of the city on the surface remained under constant surveillance, and only the deepest depths of the Undercity saw that relax.  Not because he couldn’t watch them, but rather, because he didn’t need to.  Everyone knew that was where the criminals lived. 

But so long as they kept their activities confined to non-violence, the Watcher allowed them to exist.

Or maybe there was someone down there who countered his abilities.  Rusty didn’t know, and he wasn’t about to go looking to find out.  Instead, he wanted to play his lute, collect his paycheck, and find a few willing women to come back to his apartment with him. 

He was a simple man.

So, he had no idea why such complicated situations kept happening all around him. 

As he continued to play, he watched the most important people in the world slowly file out of the lobby.  Vinnie Santoro’s body remained in the middle of the floor, stranded in the middle of an ever-expanding puddle of blood.  His head had been dropped nearby, unceremoniously and without any attention paid to dignity.

The message was clear.  He didn’t deserve such consideration.

For what it was worth, Rusty agreed.  He’d seen the effects of slavery.  He’d even tried to help a few of them back in Meridian Lux, though his influence had been weak enough that he’d failed miserably.  Then, Elijah Hart showed up, and Meridian Lux ceased to exist.

But he knew how power affected people.  What’s more, he recognized how leaders would look at Vinnie Santoro’s execution.  It wasn’t just an attack on their sovereignty.  It was that, but it was also a message that their misdeed would not go unpunished. 

Because Sadie Song was reasonable.  So was the Watcher.  But the Druid?

He did what he thought he needed to do, and there was no one on Earth who could stand in his way.  Tiers didn’t matter.  Cultivation wasn’t important.  He would not be dissuaded by a perceived power imbalance.

That had to scare them.

It scared Rusty, and he hadn’t done anything to piss the Druid off.  He could only imagine how some of the less reputable world leaders were feeling at the moment.

Even so, they all went into the massive auditorium known as the Chamber.  Some did so with looks of trepidation.  Others, with excitement.  Still others’ expressions remained impassive.  But they all went.

Not doing so stood a chance of offending the man they’d just watched destroy a deity.

Or more troubling to them, being left out of world events.  That would be so much worse, because it would rob them of power.  And maybe a few of them were even worried about how that would affect their people.

Rusty’s experience told him that that wouldn’t be the primary concern, though.

Regardless, he continued playing until the final delegate entered the Chamber.  Only then did he and the other musicians stop. 

“What the absolute fuck was that?” asked one of the men.  He was a pianist by training but a Musician by class.  Only ascended, from what Rusty could tell.  Still, a talented man who’d grown up with the system.  By comparison, Rusty had known an Earth before the World Tree had touched.  Increasingly, that was becoming a rarity as people died off or retired from public life.

The later generations had no idea how much their parents and grandparents had struggled.

“That’s what happens at these things,” said the harpist.  She was blonde, with a delicate build.  Pretty, but young enough to be Rusty’s great granddaughter.  Maybe with added great to that. 

“Like you’d know,” said the pianist, with the others adding their own opinions.  Meanwhile, Rusty remained silent as he packed up his lute.  It had been made from wood harvested in the Hartwood Grove, and the strings had been made in Orveth Kaal.  It was his most prized possession, and not by a small degree.

“What do you think, old man?”

“Old?” he asked.  He didn’t look a day over thirty-five, despite being closer to twice that age. Maybe three times.  The years had begun to blend together of late.

They laughed.

But the pianist asked the question again.  To that, Rusty just shrugged. “Keep your head down.  Play your instrument.  And hope nobody decides to kill you.”

“That doesn’t happen anymore,” the pianist argued.

Rusty laughed, then pointedly looked at the body lying in the center of the now-empty room.  A few attendants had already started forward, intent on cleaning up the mess. 

As if a dead body was no more disturbing than a spilled drink.

“I’m not staying,” said the harpist.  “I don’t care how much they’re paying.”

A few of the others mumbled their agreement, but Rusty did no such thing.  When the pianist asked him about it, he just said, “I’m heading over to the ballroom, and I’m going to fulfill my contract.  Experience is experience, and money’s money.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“An idiot on the edge of peak demigod,” he reminded her, shutting the case of his lute.  “You’re all non-combatants, so you might not be used to the way things work.  Danger makes the experience flow like nothing else.  And I can’t think of anywhere more dangerous than in the room with that man.”

“I heard he wasn’t a man at all,” the harpist breathed.

“He’s a dragon, isn’t he?  Just like that girl with the golden scales.”

“That’s the mayor of Ironshore.”

“Doesn’t make her not a dragon.”

Rusty tuned them out and shouldered his case.  Without listening to them anymore, he headed across the room toward the exit.  All the others followed him.  But he knew they would.  One mention of good experience was all it took to get people to forget danger and walk headfirst into bad situations.

He’d done it more times than he could count, and for worse reasons.

He did look back before leaving the lobby, though.  The attendants had thrown the body into a trash bag.  Briefly, Rusty wondered if the bag itself h ad been enchanted.  After all, they weren’t meant to hold bodies.  But then, he dismissed the ridiculous thought and left the lobby behind.

                          *

Elijah looked out at the gathered people.

The auditorium was impressive, and it reminded him of some of his college days.  Thankfully, he’d never been required to teach such huge classes, but he’d known plenty of colleagues who had.  Most hated it.

Elijah knew he would have as well.

Of course, the Chamber was no mere college auditorium.  Instead, it had been decorated according to its high purpose.  That meant an abundance of dark wood and gold trim, reminiscent of a hundred other legislative chambers Elijah had seen on CSPAN and the like. 

The difference was that it was shaped like a bowl, with a central stage surrounded by row after circular row of seats.  If Elijah had to guess, it was capable of accommodating at least five hundred people.  Most of those seats had been filled, though his attention remained locked on two empty seats that should’ve been occupied by Vinnie and his slave.

Regret never really entered Elijah’s mind, but he did wonder about the ramifications of his actions.  Doubtless, people would die.  Most of them would be like the girl who’d been forced to attack him. 

That was unavoidable, and he had to trust that Sadie and Isaiah would take every possible chance to minimize the collateral damage.  What truly worried him was if it spread.  Or if it sullied Sadie’s grip on the world’s concept of law and order.

They trusted her.

And she’d stepped out of her role and executed a man prematurely.  Vinnie had earned it.  The existence of the three enslaved women was evidence enough of that.  But no one would argue that things had gone according to anyone’s plan.

They hadn’t.

Because of Elijah, she’d compromised her principles.  Now, they could only hope that doing so wouldn’t come back to bite her.

Elijah pulsed his attention away from those thoughts and focused on the center of the auditorium, where Isaiah had mounted the stage.

“This should be good,” Sara said from beside him.

“Yeah.  Maybe,” Elijah acknowledged.

Then, Isaiah’s voice echoed through the room as he said, “Welcome world leaders.  We meet today to discuss our place in the wider multiverse, to establish relationships with one another, and to have a conversation about Orveth Kaal.”