bacchusnovels Chapter 281: Cultural Exchange
Chapter 281: Cultural Exchange
Rory wasn’t certain what he expected when he awoke.
Well, first off, Rory wasn’t certain when exactly he’d fallen asleep, or more accurately, gone unconscious, but that was sort of beside the point.
Anyway.
Several things he might have expected upon waking up were to see Apostolos or Irene, Roxy, Zoey, or even Aelia, to name a few.
Not a red-headed man sitting in a chair near his bedside, flipping through a book.
“Awake now?” The man, whom Rory recognized as the First Monk, after a split second for his brain to fully kick back on.
“Um… yeah?” Rory asked, confused about what was going on.
“Hell of a fight you two had,” The man said.
“Tom, right?” Rory asked, reaching back for the man’s name.
“Correct on the name, honestly surprised you kept that near the front of your mind after everything that has gone down recently.”
“Uh-huh,” Rory mumbled. “So, about that?”
“Oh, the fight?” Tom asked, finally looking up from his book, what Rory briefly recognized as a romance novel that had become popular in Ehkorrus as fiction had become more popular, such as stories about made-up worlds without any magic, as implausible as that was to imagine.
Yeah, imagine that.
“To cut to the chase, it ended in a draw. You two threw two fucking nukes at each other.”
Oh. A draw. Well, that sort of blows, but-
“But on a technicality, Allison won,” Tom followed up with.
“What?” Rory said, surging upright. Or trying to surge, it was more like an awkward lean forward.
“Jungle rules, as the World Spirit Aelia called it,” Tom said with a shrug. “Basically, the winner would be decided by who recovered first, as out in the wild, whoever recovered first could get to stabbing the other person before they could defend themselves.”
“And the Spear recovered first?”
“She’s good at that,” Tom answered.
“Well… That fucking blows,” Rory huffed. All of that long-awaited build-up, just to end on a technicality.
“She wasn’t much of a fan either,” Tom shrugged.
“Where is she now?” Rory asked.
“Gone. She left with Eric, her sister, and Garfunk’s body, who they are going to give a proper funeral to.”
“Wait, Zoey went with her? Double wait, why are you still here?”
“We talked, myself, the Vanguard, and Eric. Eric still thinks you are a prick.”
“Perhaps warranted,” Rory muttered.
“But, with some time to think, and with things ‘settled,’ there was no point dragging it out into some eternal blood feud, not with the event with Aelia’s siblings coming up shortly. So, we decided to initiate a bit of a cultural exchange. I’d remain with you as a sort of quasi-envoy, and the Vanguard would finally have at least a little time to reconnect with her sister before things pick up once more. Oh, also, a few of your people went with us as well. Before you worry yourself, Allison has absolutely no hard feelings against your people.”
“Just me,” Rory clarified.
Tom gave him a sympathetic, knowing smile in response.
“So, she won,” Rory huffed again.
“It’s not all that bad. To paraphrase a bit, she made it very clear she didn’t like the end result. So, it was decided that the final reward would be split. Technically, the winner got rights to ‘control’ the planet, but well, Allison isn’t big on that sort of stuff. In fact, it was Garfunk who often delegated her responsibilities. Also, this event was originally from Aelia, so she also had sway in altering the rewards, though apparently that took convincing for E.O.N to agree to the terms.”
“So, the new rewards?”
“She got a Major Law, and you got planetary authority, which apparently isn’t the same as planetary rule, but as the rest of us got jack shit other than the significance of being involved, so hey, congrats to you.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Rory sighed, already knowing he was handing this sort of responsibility off as well. Irene would probably get a kick out of forming some planetary council or coalition, or whatever she would think up. “Did she mention what she wanted to use the Major Law for?”
“Yeah, and it’s a bit of a doozy,” Tom answered, before his eyes flicked downward to an invisible interface, then to Rory, who gave him a nod.
Realm Formed: Oscuro
A dimensional realm born from the space between days and light, cast in eternal twilight and reaching shadows. Resources are abundant as are opportunities to grow, but where the shadows lengthen, danger lurks.
Entry Requirements: T8+, Apotheosized Eclipse
“She made an entire dimension?” Rory blurted.
“Seems that way,” Tom agreed. “Major Laws carry some oomph, it would appear.”
“But still, an entire dimension?”
“You probably can guess as well as I can, but because it wasn’t a self-focused use of the Law, I think she got more juice out of it than normal. Or something like that.”
Taken from NovelBin, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Rory thought about it for a moment before sighing, agreeing with the logic.
“Oh, and the Apotheosized Eclipse is just a thing now, I guess,” Tom followed up. “Every ten years, the ‘local’ eclipse occurs, a limited entry into Oscuro that changes based on what planet you’re on within this system. Don’t ask me if it works elsewhere. Then, every hundred years, a true eclipse occurs, which apparently has a much wider entry or something.”
“Stuff for the future?” Rory sighed.
“Stuff for the future,” Tom agreed.
“Why a realm, or dimension, or whatever?” Rory suddenly asked, curious why the Spear would have been motivated by such a thing.
“High-level resources are scarce,” Tom said with a shrug. “Perhaps not as much for your people. Do you know how often we find rare-grade metal?”
“Not often?”
“Never,” Tom corrected. “The best armor any of our people, and when I say ‘our’ I mean between myself and Eric’s original faction, and Allison’s was the armor you saw Allison wearing, and even then it required burning up quite a few valuable resources to shortcut a way to producing it.”
“I did find it odd how it seemed to emulate some of my own style,” Rory said with narrowed eyes.
“One of those valuable resources lets our best crafters channel inspiration from a legendary crafter.”
“Me?”
“You,” Tom nodded.
“Ahh,” Rory rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I guess it makes sense then. So, this ‘Oscuro’ was an attempt at establishing a location where higher-level resources could be pillaged, with the ‘downside’ being anyone could take advantage of it.”
“Not really a downside,” Tom shook his head. “We all figured we would be working together in the future. This was pre-Garfunk incident, so a lot less inherent hostility.”
“Whoops,” Rory grumbled, not feeling in the mood to retread that.
“I’m not going to berate you,” The Monk said. “So. Want to grab a beer?”
Rory stopped for several seconds, staring at the Monk who merely shrugged.
“What?” Tom said.
“Didn’t expect that from a guy named ‘The First Monk,’ is all.”
“Oh, come on, you know how much weight is worth putting into those early vocational titles,” Tom snorted. “Or were you some grand architect building all sorts of amazing shit from day one?”
“Fair,” Rory agreed. “By the by, how old were you when you first appeared here?”
“Teenager,” Tom said. “Pimple-faced and everything.”
“Damn,” Rory whistled. “You did a good job for yourself, all things considered.”
“Wasn’t easy, scrawny thing I was, but I played enough video games that some of the shit I tried worked out well.”
“Speaking of which,” Rory suddenly changed topics. “That stuff you do with fighting. Your pneuma flows a specific pattern.”
“Ahh, my Form fighting,” Tom nodded along. “I don’t actually have a crazy amount of physical attribute investment, surprisingly. Instead, I reinforce my body with pneuma in specific patterns, and that eventually evolved into ‘casting’ magic through spell patterns that I’d carved through myself internally, spiritways as I call them,”
“Fancy, and actually, reminds me of some people here,” Rory said. “So, two birds, one stone, I know somewhere they’d be more than happy to supply some drinks. Well, everywhere would, given I’m technically the boss here. Might need to give some speeches or whatever.”
“And where exactly is that?” Tom asked.
“A family, though they’re really more like an organization at this point, called the Rong. Just, uh, one thing first.”
“Yes?”
“How good are you at bowing and stuff?”
“So, like, you got stuck in some fuck off mountain?”
“Basically,” Zoey answered, the Rogue making it a point to constantly disappear and reappear like he had a rampant case of ADHD.
“And for how long?”
“Several decades total,” Zoey said. “The item I’d gotten, the Horizon Mirror, ended up busted at that point. So, stuck until he found me.”
“The prick,”
“Eric,” Allison said, eyes narrowing.
“Rory, yes,” Zoey said, not bothering to correct the rogue; she’d met his type before and knew there was no point in trying.
“Yeah, that’s what I said, the prick,” Eric repeated. “So you met him there and what, got along as soon as you met?”
“Fuck no,” Zoey snorted at the memory. “I nearly killed Eia, and then he dropped a meteor on me in return.”
“Eia, that oversized snappy worm?” Eric frowned. “You should have. Snakes suck.”
“Eric,” Allison again sighed. “We are almost back. Could you try to be serious for maybe a minute?”
“Nah, and I don’t know why you bothered to ask. My weakness has been removed, I am unshackled!” Eric flexed his arms, smiling as he did. “No Tom to lecture me!”
“Quite a walk,” Zoey noted.
“Security reasons, or that’s what the oversized hamster stressed,” Eric answered. “Couldn’t put our own bridge through space or whatever right in the middle of everything, not when we didn’t know the capabilities of the others, we didn’t have the sort of precise stuff that you guys all did.”
As he spoke, he looked back toward the group of crafters who’d come along from Ehkorrus, unable to hear what they were talking about in thanks to Eric’s Primal Night affinity allowing him to erect a simple privacy barrier around them.
At the side mention of Garfunk, Zoey noticed her sister twitch ever so slightly, or perhaps it seemed that way to Zoey, who had the sisterly understanding to read Allison’s expressions better than anyone else. Her sister was hurting and would probably continue to hurt for quite some time, but the girl, now a grown woman, had always been someone who shouldered those aches and put on a tough face.
Zoey internally sighed. She’d been spending pretty much all her free time with her sister post-fight with Rory, which had ended in a rather expectedly fuck-off sized explosion of force.
Seriously, they may as well have thrown two nukes at each other.
Others might have been in awe of how climactic the battle had ended. To Zoey, it was beyond expected; she knew Rory well enough, and her sister, even if only from her childhood years, to know that it was never going to be some basic tap out.
She probably should have said bye to Rory, but that sleepy ass could sometimes get himself knocked out for months at a time, and she had no intention of waiting around and letting her sister leave on her own.
She’d discussed things with The First Monk, Tom, who also happened to be the most levelheaded of their ‘group,’ and they’d decided to do a bit of a wife swap, except instead of wives it was a sister and a ‘monk’ who could really slam down drinks. The ‘cultural exchange’ was also meant to ease tensions. Zoey, being Allison’s sister and the direct ally of Rory, would keep Allison from ever viewing her as a ‘puppet’ of Rory. Rory hadn’t truthfully had much of a personal grudge against Allison now that the Woodsman was dead, but sending an adult to interact with him was probably still wise.
So, in the end, the Ts had been crossed, the Is had been dotted, and everything was settled, all without ever saying a single word to Rory.
Eh, he won’t have an issue.
Zoey wouldn’t lie; she was happy to get away from Rory as well. She loved him dearly as a friend, though she made it a point of not saying that, but doing novel things was her entire schtick; she couldn’t be locked down in any one location for too long. It was why she’d left her people, why she’d needed an escape from the Reverse Mountains, and why she enjoyed getting breaks from Rory, who could crunch down on a singular project with laser focus for years if need be.
Plus, spending time around her sister was refreshing. Alice had been a little brat the last time she had spent any time around her, and now here she was, a full-grown adult. The thought filled Zoey with pride just looking at her sister, pride at how she had grown up. Oh, definite baggage, you didn’t go through the trauma of their father without some serious mental fucky-wucky. Unlike herself, Allison hadn’t been an adult who could afford –or scam— therapy sessions like Zoey had. But the baggage of their shared childhood aside, she’d grown up into an excellent woman. Still a little violent, but at least she was restrained.
Except for when fighting Rory, throwing nukes, and all that jazz.
Her one real annoyance with her baby sister?
Just how tall she was. Depending on the shoes she wore, Zoey stood at a whopping five-foot nada, 153 centimeters. Her dear baby sister? 181 centimeters, or just shy of six feet. The difference in mothers was extremely visible in that alone, if one also ignored the fact that Zoey looked like a California beach Barbie and Allison a Mexican Disney princess.
A Disney princess who could snap a fridge in two with her bear hands, but hey, who was Zoey to judge?
Ethnic differences aside, being so much shorter than her younger sister chafed now that Alice was fully grown and she could no longer rely on the age difference to stand over her.
Actually, looking at it now, she’s almost exactly the same height as Rory. Hah, funny how that works.
Carried on by the slight ironic amusement, the group carried on for only a short bit longer before stopping as a ‘city’ came into sight. It instantly reminded Zoey of the cities that had grown around military bases, a weird blend of civilian and not, as they overlooked the place, roads and paths artificially raised to remain dry and outside the gentle lapping waves of the mangroves, the buildings on slight stilts as well. It wasn’t nearly as big as Ehkorrus, but it was still impressive given the lack of any Rory to jump-start the technological development.
Turning around to face Zoey and the others from Ehkorrus, Allison cracked a slight smile.
“Welcome to Tidal Grove.”