Adamant Blood

In the shadows of the hallway just outside of the main lobby of Crystal Tower, Mark stood in darkness, breathing softly. Prepping. It was just a minute long meeting. That’s it. Derek stood behind Mark, in the lights that had been left on in the hallway. The lights over Mark, and the lights on the other side of the main lobby, down past the main elevator, were dark.

Mark felt the person down there, in the dark. His vector was controlled with absolute strength, but he still leaked out a presence that stabilized the world.

The main lobby was filled with people—

The other person moved forward, hints of gold glinting on his costume, hints of white showing in the darkness.

Mark walked forward before he was ready, but it was time. He wore a copy of his black suit with the white high-vis lines on it that someone had given him. Mark had no idea where the costume had come from. It fit well. Skin tight, except where that would be bad for optics. No one needed to see the outline of his dick, after all, though a lot of people—

Mark stepped into the light opposite Glorious Man.

Mark felt like a child walking up to a real superhero.

Glorious Man had dark hair and dark eyes, and he looked almost ageless, or maybe just 30. He was a bit taller than Mark, and a bit bulkier. Imposing. He grinned a little, and Mark realized that Mark was smiling too much, perhaps, so he toned that down. Someone chuckled in the audience just beyond the velvet ropes, and some guys and girls were screaming out joy, and then Glorious Man held out a hand and Mark gripped his hand.

Strong.

Glorious Man would break the world around him if he didn’t move carefully, but he was old-hat at being careful, just like Aurora.

There was a real kindness in Glorious Man’s eyes, face, and posture, as he said, “It’s been a long while since Memphi. I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”

“Thank you, sir. You’re doing, uh. Are you doing well?”

The audience chuckled as Mark stumbled over his words.

Glorious Man merely grinned, letting go, saying, “I’m doing very well. And after today, after your assistance with some ‘diplomatic problems’, I’ll be sleeping a lot better. Ready to go to work?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Glad to have you here, Mark.”

“Glad to be here.”

And then there were some poses for the cameras, with Glorious Man putting an arm on Mark’s back, hand on his shoulder, and Mark awkwardly putting an arm around Glorious Man’s waist, which was the absolute wrong thing to do, so Mark reached up, crashing his arm against Glorious Man’s big lats, to barely touch Glorious Man’s shoulder, which seemed marginally better. Mark felt like a complete and total idiot. Glorious Man chuckled, and it seemed genuine.

Cameras flashed.

And then Mark and Glorious Man were somehow in the elevator going up together—

“I’m so fucking sorry for grabbing your waist,” Mark blurted.

Glorious Man shook his head, still grinning, but an emotional weight seemed to descend upon him. “Don’t worry about that. Worry about the fight. Are you going to aim to kill?”

Mark found it easy to talk about battle, as he said, “I’m going to rip through their ranks with my shavallian aura, rip out the Bindings of everyone who even remotely resists, and then move on to the next one. I’ll figure out something to do with the dryads on the fly, which will depend upon whether they resist anything or not. Based on a previous encounter, I expect the dryads to have a lot more morale so they won’t break fast, but the individuals on the ships might break when they recognize me in my suit. With Isoko there we’ll both be moving at around 10x speed, to start, but she and I can both move a lot faster if we need to. The only ones I’m unsure about are Specter and Tempest.”

Glorious Man still had that weight on his shoulders, but it had shifted. He accepted Mark’s words, saying, “I suppose you have fought a war all on your own, so… I’m glad you’re here.”

Mark was confused. “What war do you mean?”

Glorious Man arched an eyebrow. “The goblins?”

“OH FUCK. I… yeah. Thoseguys. Yeah. Uh… That… A lot has happened.”

Glorious Man kinda paused, and then he laughed. It was a glorious sound—

Timeweaver blipped into the elevator, stumbled just a bit as he landed on the ground, and then he stood tall, pretending he hadn’t stumbled… But he had gotten the blip correctly before, right, so why—

“He times the elevator ride right half the time,” Glorious Man told Mark, smiling as he did so.

“Or that’s whatI want you to believe,” Timeweaver countered. And then he told Mark, “You haven’t upgraded yourself yet.”

“Ah, fuck, I… I won’t forget!”

Glorious Man arched a questioning eyebrow again—

“Do you practice that eyebrow thing?” Mark asked, looking at Glorious Man with genuine curiosity. “I always wanted to… to ask…” Mark fell silent, thinking he was being stupid.

The guy grinned, and then he waggled both his eyebrows up and down independently, saying, “It’s a trick I can do and that the screen guys liked how it played, so I practiced.”

“Neat!”

Timeweaver interrupted, “Mark can do 4 Talents but he’s hesitating on pulling the trigger.”

Mark winced hard, saying, “Seriously.”

“Oh cool!” Glorious Man said. “And you can just switch out everything, right?”

“Uh… yeah. I can. Theoretically. I kinda like my setup, but… Necromancer seems necessary for Dryad destruction.”

“It will be necessary for survival,” Timeweaver said, and then he blipped away.

And then the elevator slowed down.

Glorious Man told Mark, “If you need a moment there’s a prep room up above. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.”

“I’ll take that moment up there but, uh… don’t, uh, tell people, please.”

Glorious Man nodded with all seriousness as he said, “Of course.”

And then the door opened and Glorious Man walked ahead, and it was like he walked into a room of coworkers instead of superheroes, but Mark followed, supposing that of course they were all just coworkers, so why wouldn’tGlorious Man walk out there like that—

A twin map floated above the round table. The lower map was yellow with ‘Daihoon’ on the edge and with colored lights of importance scattered over the Daihoon-side of the map. A small walled city was in the center, about where Crystal Tower was on Earth, near the very center of New Tokyo. The upper map was bright blue and it was covered in cityscape, and labeled ‘Earth’. Giant walls separated the entire urban sprawl of New Tokyo from the waters surrounding the city, while each district in the city was separated with smaller walls.

In between, inside the city walls of New Tokyo but outside of the city walls of Sidecity on Daihoon, were bright green dots, each one a dryad-supported hovership.

Justicar was at the helm.

Glorious Man gestured Mark toward a side room, beside a pair of superheroes that Mark knew, but could not name at that moment. And then Glorious Man called out to Justicar, “Where am I headed, boss!”

Justicar huffed at him, “Don’t ‘boss’ me, but you’re on Earth rapid deployment…”

Mark went into the side room.

- -

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Mark quieted his mind, breathing out Bad and breathing in Good, and then he faded into elsewhere, into the dream, into the dark.

Mark stood on the porch of his soulhouse, and then he turned and walked toward his Skilling room, telling Quark, “Please record everything you see, Quark. I have no idea how this is going to work.”

Quark flickered silver and then walked with Mark like a strange reflection of Mark’s own body, saying, “Yes, sir.”

Reaching the archived abilities in his Skilling room, Mark picked Necromancer out of his stored Abilities. The blueprint was a mess of Death and channels for Death and so very many different hooks for spellwork that would allow Mark to take control of Death mana already out there. It was the most extensive, most basic form of all of that sort of magic. Like an operating system for a computer that had no programs at all, but which would allow the user to eventually create everything else that was aligned with Death mana.

Mark was absolutely not going to Skill himself, even if he was pretty sure he knew what he’d need to do. No reason to risk actual self-soul mutilation if it wasn’t necessary, right?

“System Call,” Mark said, to the dreaming dark beyond, “Slot Necromancer into my fourth Binding slot, please.”