Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 24: Pawn to Prize

The next few weeks blurred together in a fog of training and events.

Just as they were told, their time with their combat mentors had increased in order to get them into shape, into proper elite fighting shape. Alex now spent hours each day getting his body and mind battered by Master Sionna as they worked on his short many comings.

But more than that, were the near endless nights of velvet halls decorated with gilded words, and false smiles.

Every evening, Lady Xhiu escorted them through another gathering of high society. First to the courts of the Urhara nobles, then on to sect pavilions and merchant guild towers that glittered with more wealth than Alex had ever seen.

Each place looked different, some with marble carved with elemental runes, or walls lined with crystal light. He sawdecorative fountains of aether cascading upward in defiance of gravity, and much more besides, containing fanciful and delightful enchantments.

But the feeling he got from each location was always the same; opulence for the sake of face. A display meant to show the world how powerful, rich and mighty each noble house or martial school was. And that was all.

One of the bigger events was a banquet in the Spire of Jade Flame, high above the molten city overlooking the caldera. The marble underfoot glinted faintly with liquid aether lines that looked like lava, and hundreds of nobles stood on that floor as they floated goblets of glowing wine between them using idle aether control.

Alex stood beside Lady Xhiu, himself dressed in ceremonial attire provided by her. His jacket’s dark fabric was laced with fine silver threads, and contained enchantments stitched into every seam to subtly amplify his aura. He felt ridiculous in it, like a penguin being fitted into a tuxedo.

Just as back in Terraxum, during their lavish confinement, Alex hated the soirees. Such gatherings always reminded him of childhood memories. His Grandmother taking him and Adam to some charity dinner or other, to rub shoulders with the top brass and other politicians.

He hated it.

Kate, however, thrived.

She glided between the nobles on the polished floor, her crimson dress shifting with every movement of her legs and hips, her laughter smooth and calculated. Every word she spoke dripped with well honeyed ambition. Zach, normally brooding and quiet, lingered behind her, a dangerous ornament attached to her hip.

Devon, Lance and Peter also handled themselves well enough, while Garret’s brash humor and… undignified persona paid him no favors. Holly, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to start a fight whenever she was forced to talk to someone, the same as Ghrukk.

Tom-Tom managed to be endearing enough with his antics to not cause much trouble at all. Many of the guests looked to be finding him genuinely entertaining whenever he did… well whatever the little kobold ended up doing to disrupt the polite societal rules of the present company.

He never gained enemies. The little lizard might have even earned more favor than any of them, in his own way.

Lady Xhiu stood off to the side, keeping Alex close to herself, as her favored show horse. Every time a noble or sect master approached, she spoke first, introducing them and listing Alex’s accomplishments and his “potential for inheritance contribution.”

It made Alex’s stomach twist.

“AWorldstrider,” one lord purred as he spoke with Xhiu, pretending Alex wasn’t even present, and swirling his wine glass. “Truly remarkable. Outsiders blessed by the System itself, fate’s chosen pieces.”

“Pieces?” Alex repeated under his breath.

“Yes,” the man said with a wide smile. “Every game requires them. Pawns that move far enough on the board can become anything.”

Alex forced a smile and nodded back, but inside, some twinge of cold anger simmered in his chest.

This was the part he hated most of all.

He understood that Lady Xhiu had a self interest in seeing them all make it into the Inheritance Dungeon, and while she was powerful in her own way, she wasn’t rich nor powerful enough to invest in everyone. She had already forked over, what Alex assumed, was a huge fortune on their combat mentors as it was.

Even her pockets only went so deep.

So they had to get others interested in them. Other large and powerful entities that didn’t have an heir or scion with a token of their own, but had the means and willingness to throw resources at someone with the promise of return once they made it through the dungeon.

Of course, along with that investment came an implication. Such an implication was clear: Your victories will belong to us.

While Kate smiled and took every offer in stride, bartering promises and favor, and the others played along, Alex… couldn’t. All he could think was how shitty he felt about the whole thing. How little these people saw them as, well,people.

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His fists clenched and he stayed silent as Lady Xhiu continued performing some small talk with noble man for a few more minutes, until he finally made his excuses and walked away.

Holly drifted beside him after a few seconds.

“You’re grinding your teeth again,” she muttered.

“Can’t help it,” Alex said softly. “They keep talking about us like we’re not even human beings.”

“That’s because, to them, we aren’t. We’re numbers, merely investments with legs.”

He gave a small, humorless laugh. “Valuable livestock, yay us.”

“Guess so,” Holly said. Then, under her breath, “At least this livestock bites back. And besides, this isn’t like Terraxum. We aren’t required to do this under the threat of death. We can just walk away from everything, even Lady Xhiu said that.”

“And in the process, we miss out on practically the biggest opportunity we’d be afforded in the time we have left,” Alex said, alluding to their System Trail.

“Yeah, but it’s an option. We can fly the coop, and not look back if we really wanted.”

He gazed at Holly, wondering what such an option would look like. She’d go with him, obviously, along with a few of the others, if he decided to leave. They could perhaps carve out a small life in the city, or out in the countryside, and take their chances at getting powerful enough to beat the Heavens all their own.

How grand that idea seemed.

But he knew he couldn’t leave any of them behind for such a lofty fantasy. Not even Kate deserved to go at all this alone. Like it or not, the team had started to see him as a leader and rallied behind him. He needed to set the example and stay the course.

That’s what Eric would have done, if he was still alive.

“Let’s earn these people’s gold, and then get strong enough to kick their teeth in later,” Alex said with a smile.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Holly smiled back.

The night’s performances ended with Lady Xhiu calling the squad forward one last time. They stood on a raised marble dais, their names and accomplishments recited by a well dressed servant’s with a booming voice.

Applause filled the hall, polite, and yet hollow.

Alex’s vision drifted over the sea of beautiful, fake faces, every one of them smiling far too wide. He felt the pressure of their eyes on him, being appraised, judging. He looked at each one, wondering just what sort of heartless lives they lived.

Until his eyes caught on a man that wasn’t clapping along with the others.

Near the middle of the room, partially hidden in and among the crowd, stood a man in a plain black suit like one would find on Earth, only much, much older in cut and style. His hair was a slicked back dark silver, his expression stony to the point of being unreadable. Unlike the others, he wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t even pretending to be entertained by the spectacle being put on.

He just watched Alex with a blank expression.

When their eyes met, Alex felt something strange, a cold awareness that this man wasn’t there for a show. He wasn’t a noble trying to buy favor and investments like the others. He was someone else entirely, and he felt out of point, and yet strikingly familiar.

The two locked eyes for a few longs seconds, and then the man inclined his head slightly, almost like a greeting before he turned and disappeared into the crowd of onlookers.

Alex did a double take as the man left, his eyes flashing wide as he thought he had seen something strange. He quickly began scanning for the man again among the crowd, but he was gone without a trace of ever having been there. Even in his [Aether Sight] Alex saw not so much as a flicker of aether the man had left behind.

By then Lady Xhiu began leading them from the stage as the polite applause continued. The crowd murmured as they passed, with Alex still straining to scan the group for the man the whole time. Holly leaned close, seeing he was acting a bit strangely.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Alex hesitated on his answer. That’s what he wanted to know, after all, what the hell was that? He tried to think of some explanation before he finally sighed and shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said finally. “Just… thought I saw someone watching.”

“Everyone’s watching,” she said.

“Yeah,” Alex murmured. “But this someone was different.”

Holly rolled her eyes as they walked. “Okay, sure, I’ll bite. Different how, exactly?” She asked pointedly.

“He wasn’t clapping, for starters. He was just looking at me. Then he just, nodded and walked away.”

“Sounds like someone who just hates these things as much as we do. Nothing wrong with that,” Holly said. “Might even be one of the few good ones in this whole place.”

“I mean, sure maybe. But he was just looking directly at me the whole time. And when he left, I could have sworn I saw something,” Alex murmured, his mind in thought.

“Saw what?”

“A tattoo.”

Holy scoffed loudly. “Tattoos aren’t weird, plenty people have them, even here in Aetherios.”

“Yeah…” Alex said, but he wasn’t listening at that point. Instead, his mind probed his soulspace, and prodded at Obby.

The magical rock immediately began to whine at him.“What, you want to talk now, after ignoring me all—“

Obby, shut up, this is important. Alex cut in sternly. Obby stopped talking, and mentally sent a curious nudge his way instead.

You have access to all my senses right? That’s what you told me.

“Yes, anything you see, hear or smell, I also can hear, see or smell, unfortunately.”

Can you play back a memory for me, like recreate it with one of your little illusion things?

“I… eh, never tried, but I don’t see any reason that I can’t sure.” Obby said.

Play back the last minute for me, when we on the dias and I saw that silver haired man.

“Sure thing fleshboy, you got it.”

A tiny pop up screen appeared in Alex’s sight as they continued to walk. Like an embedded video stream, Obby played his memory back in practically perfect detail.

Alex watched intently, seeing the man in the suit, watching him nodded and turn to vanish into the crowd, but not before his neck became visible from behind his collar, revealing a tattoo.

There, stop! Alex practically shouted in his mind, and the “video” paused. Zoom in on his neck for me.

Obby did as asked, and that’s when Alex’s eyes widened to almost four times their normal size. He hadn’t been wrong, or imagining things at all. The man had a tattoo after all, a very distinct one colored in red and yellow. One that no person in Aetherios should have had, but one Alex had seen in history books, and holovids.

Plain as day on the man’s neck was a crossed hammer and sickle.