He tried to meditate for a while, but intermittent bouts of turbulence kept shaking him out of it until he decided to just give up.
‘Fun fact for you,’ said Garovel, still privately. ‘Under normal atmospheric conditions, turbulence is usually exclusive to higher altitudes, but since we’re near a mountain range, the air currents are all wonky even at this height.’
‘How interesting...’
‘It IS interesting, you sarcastic fuck.’
Hector breathed a small laugh and looked down to avoid drawing attention to himself. The shield was right there in his lap. It seemed too valuable to not keep a solid grip on at all times, especially with that hole in the plane sitting right there. He really didn’t want his luck with shields to be the same as his luck with motorcycles.
After a while, Hector remembered a question he’d been meaning to ask. ‘By the way, uh... why did you lie to Sazandara about my age? Wouldn’t it be better if people think I’m weaker than I actually am?’
‘She DOES think you’re weaker than you actually are.’
‘W-what?’
‘I told her three years. Truthfully, factoring in all the times you’ve achieved emergence and your constant practice and meditation, your iron ability is more like six or seven years old.’
Hector squinted with one eye. ‘Wha? No way. That can’t be right...’
‘In terms of sheer volume and power, yes. It is. Trust me.’
‘But... that means I’m, like, uh... er... e-eight times stronger than normal...?’
‘Thereabouts, yeah.’
He thought back, trying to count. ‘But I’ve, um... I mean, I’ve only achieved emergence, like... four times, I think.’
Garovel snorted. ‘“Only four,” he says. That’s kind of a fuckload, y’know.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes!’
‘Hmm... but still, I mean... EIGHT times as strong?’
‘I know it sounds ridiculous. That’s exactly why I had to lie about it to Sazandara. If I tell people you’re less than eight months old, and then they later see what you’re capable of, that could bite us in the ass. If you’re a bit stronger than average, no big deal. If you’re eight times stronger, BIG DEAL. Big smelly, hairy deal. That kind of information is not to be shared lightly, Hector. Understand? That’s how we end up with people like Gohvis knocking on our door, people who’ll see us as a problem that should be nipped in the bud.’
‘I understood that much. I just, uh... hmm.’
‘You just, what?’
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Being really good at meditation is kind of an amusing talent for a protagonist to have when you're talking about an action story with superpowered zombies fighting each other with extreme goriness.
ReplyDeleteGarovel's going to have to come up with a consistent method of lying, isn't he? If, every time Hector gains emergence, he jumps up a year or two in terms of skill, and he gets thrown into do or die situations enough, then the inconsistent lies are gonna add up. Quickly.
ReplyDeleteJust imagine: "Wow, isn't it amazing that that four year old servant just plugged a volcano?"
"Four years? He told me it was seven!"
"He told ME it was twelve!"
...Garovel?
Yeah?
It's been fourteen months, right?
...FUCK.
Just lie and say he down played his age by a lot to have their enemies underestimate them and that he's actually been a servant for 10 years or something and the whole set up with hectors family was a ruse a fictional back story to fool the enemy
ReplyDelete"Hey, every ally I have! I have lied to you consistently about an important detail affecting my ability to fight and to support you! Please continue trusting me through the power of friendship and stuff!"
ReplyDeleteThe Queen and Roman would understand If he explained why he needs to lie about his age and say he is older than he is and they are the most trustworthy people. Everyone else being recently introduced are not
ReplyDeleteWOOOHOOO I called it! Also, hector dropping that shield from the plane would be hilarious.
ReplyDeletegod i can imagine it now. hector freaking out and Garovel just laughing his behind off. he would freak afterwards but he could not be able to resist
ReplyDeleteNah,I have a feeling he'll either use the shield as a sled or surfboard forced by the wonky turbulence along with the crates of the rocket-propelled grenades to catch up to the plane.
ReplyDeleteHector uses the rocket-propelled grenades causes a chain reaction avalanche fused rock slide too that comes down with the shocked faces.
It became akin of the first mummy movie sand tsunami to surfing on it. A bizarre freak event on a grand scale with all of that, with the cargo plane in front. Hector once again goes on the front page of newspapers with him surfing on it.