Sell you a Bridge chapter 180

February 25th 2011 The OZ 8:00 PM EDT

The  Realm was FAR. It took us days of walking to get there. I'd gotten used  to everything in the OZ being crowded together. Most of our trips had  taken a day or so of walking, but this place was a fucking trek. On the  upside it gave us time to decompress. Dreamer and Zee and I got closer,  spending nights talking as well as the occasional tantric top up for me,  and I was looking at a solid twenty five thousand points in the bank  right now. DG was feeling better, with Artemis making it her mission in  life to cheer the girl up while Wally kept an eye on Cain, who had been  much quieter since learning his wife had died.

The  cornerpups had been growing slowly as we went, since I was feeding them  bits of void energy when I could, and they were all around the size  Patches had been before, while Patches himself was now around the size  of a small pitbull. He'd been heartbroken he couldn't be easily carried  anymore, but the girls still loved on him and cuddled him whenever  possible so he got over it pretty quickly. I'd been working on  researching my second spell, the Hollow Armor spell, which would make an  empty suit of armor from the void to tank blows for me, but it was slow  going.

Of  course, that was assuming we were actually there because I  saw...nothing. We were standing in a field of tall grass. Todo had been  leading us, and when we got to the field he started barking and running  around, but I didn't see anything there. Suddeny, Glitch spoke up. "Over  there!" We all gathered at the spot he was pointing to and found...a  trap door. Glitch looked surprised as we opened it to reveal a ladder  and a hole going down. "Well that's something you don't see every day."

We  climbed down the ladder and into The Realm. DG's message from her  mother had told us to look for her father Ahamo, and apparently he  wasn't exactly a shiny upstanding type because according to Cain The  Realm was where the unwanted ended up. Criminals, outlaws, just  generally my kind of people. The place was big, but we lucked into  finding an...information center? A pretty blonde with olive skin and  skimpy clothes told us where we could find someone who might know Ahamo  for a good chunk of Cain's money.

So  that was how we found ourselves in some seedy underground bar, meeting a  gaunt blonde main with long hair and a shady cast to his features. DG  as usual, took the lead. "We were told you could help us find Ahamo." I  gave it even odds this WAS Ahamo and the seeker thing was just a paper  identity he used to funnel people into meetings without giving himself  away, but this was DG's quest and her dad besides so I just shut up and  let her work.

He  looked at her critically. "Show me your hand." She did, holding up her  palm, and I smirked when I saw it was empty. He rolled his eyes. "The  other one." She did. He saw the symbol and smiled but before he had a  chance to speak again there was a yell to initiate a surprise attack,  the blonde woman from before and two other men came charging into the  room. The Seeker, which was what the guy was calling himself looked  enraged. "This wasn't the deal!" But someone threw a smoke bomb and the  world turned to chaos.

I  shot. Everything. Not hard, and not enough to actually kill them,  especially not the guy I was pretty sure was DG's dad, but the smoke did  nothing to hide them from my aura vision and a few well placed bolts of  ectoplasm had them on the ground moaning. The smoke cleared and  everyone just looked around. I rolled my eyes. "I'm guessing those  idiots work for Azkedelia. They were probably expecting backup, but  Queenie isn't stupid enough to send me more longcoats to pulp." I walked  over to the man in yellow who had yelled and kicked him. "Hey."

He  groaned and I rolled my eyes. "Sit up and answer me or I'll give you  something to moan about." He pushed himself up and I glared at him. "You  work for Azkedelia?" He glared up at me, so I kicked him in the mouth.  "Sorry. Wrong inflection. That wasn't a question. You DO work for  Azkedelia, even if not directly. So, why did you try to grab my friend?  Keep in mind the clarity and expansiveness of your answer can and will  effect how many teeth you still have when you're done with this  conversation."

I  was annoyed. This shit was non stop here. Azkedelia's bullshit was  causing trouble for me even after scaring her off, and I was done with  it. I wouldn't kill him, because I was trying to lean into my better  nature, but kicking his ass a little was well within the realm of  comfort for me. He spat out some blood and glared some more, but he  spoke up. "We were going to turn them over for the bounty. Azkedelia has  a troop of longcoats waiting outside The Realm." Which made sense,  because she wasn't going to send them into a confined space with me.

Weirdly  I was less annoyed at them just being mercenaries. I could understand  doing this for the almighty dollar. I WAS a thief after all. Didn't mean  I was going to let them just get away with it, but I wasn't as  murderously angry anymore. I looked to 'The Seeker'. "You. Ahamo." He  blinked. "Yes, I figured out your clever ruse, mostly because it wasn't  actually either of those things. Tie them up and give us whatever we  need to find the Grey Gale so we can leave. I don't feel like playing  your nonsense games anymore."

He  just gaped at me, as did DG. Artemis looked pretty calm about it and  the others were mostly surprised with the exception of Zee, who had been  with us long enough to know how these things worked. He turned to DG.  "I...DG I never meant for this to happen. I wouldn't have let them take  you, and I didn't arrange this. Your..." He glared at me. "Friend. Is  right. I am indeed the one your mother calls Ahamo. And as he said, I  can give you the means to reach the Grey Gale."

I  turned away from the man on the ground, and I saw in Ahamo's eyes as he  headed for him that he probably wasn't going to just tie the guy up  once he got him out of sight. The guy saw the same thing because he  froze in panic, before yelling. "Wait!" I stopped, curious what he could  offer at this point. "We were playing both sides. We wanted the bounty  but we sold the info on the longcoats to the resistance. Their leader,  Jeb, is planning to ambush them."

Cain,  who was near enough to hear, froze. Within seconds he was at the man's  side, grabbing him. "What did you just say?" The man repeated his  statement with a stutter. Cain was beside himself. "Jeb. Tell me what he  looks like. Tell me how old he is." I blinked. Shit, that was right.  Jeb was Cain's sons name. Wally found his wife's grave but no trace of  his kid. I was hesitant to believe in that level of coincidence, but  given that I was traveling with a magical princess I couldn't dismiss  anything. The man stuttered out a description and Cain dropped him, looking awed. He turned to me. "He's...he's talking about my boy."

I  exhaled. This was...complicated, but we couldn't stop here. The machine  needed to be used during the eclipse, and based on the message DG's  mother left it's effects would be devastating. Locking both suns behind  the moon to create a reign of permanent darkness for the witch to play  in. Because of course that was what she was doing. At the same time we  couldn't just force Cain to leave behind this chance. Surprisingly, it  was Vykin who spoke up. "We will take him to see his son and safeguard  him on his journey."

Dreamer  looked surprised, but Vykin just smiled, gesturing to Serifan and Bear.  "The three of us haven't been necessary on this journey at all. Your  lover has your safety and the safety of the others well in hand. We all  know how much Sir Cain's son means to him. This will be our chance to go  off and have our own adventure while you have yours. He needs us far  more than any of you do."

Glitch  raised a hand. "Raw and I will go with too. He needs us to keep him  grounded."  He turned to DG tearfully. "You don't need us on this last  leg princess. You have the ghostie over there to keep you safe. Find the  emerald, save your sister, and we'll get Cain's boy and bring him to  meet up with you for the eclipse and we'll come with a whole army to  back you up just in case."

DG's  eyes glistened. She stared for a minute then bolted across the room to  hug Cain and Glitch. She pulled back with a glare at Vykin. "You keep an  eye on them ok? Make sure they stay safe. I don't know how tough you  guys are but if Morgan trusts you to have his back you must be pretty  impressive." I smirked as the princess talked down to literal gods,  proud of how far that scared farm girl had come since we all landed  here. She turned to Todo. "Go with them, keep them safe, and when it's  done, consider yourself forgiven."

The  dog yipped happily and bolted over to hop up into Glitch's arms. I  walked up to Cain, pulling the older man into a hug. "Don't sweat the  princess,Wally, the girls and I will keep her out of trouble. Be careful  on your trip, and make sure to use Bear as a human shield if necessary.  He's tough, he can take it." Vykin and Serifan chuckled as bear yelped  in faux outrage. I stepped back. "You all better go. Who knows if you'll  miss the ambush or something." With a few last farewells the group  tromped out to go find Cain's son.

Personally  the idea that they would be bringing backup from the resistance didn't  mean much to me, but I tried to remind myself not to get a big head. I  couldn't do everything, even if it was getting increasingly easy to  forge that. Being on New Genesis had skewed my perception of what my  abilities could do, and now back among mostly normal humans I had to  adjust my mindset. I wondered how different things would be when I  finally got home, how weak everyone else would be in comparison.  Well...almost everyone. I was betting Superman could still whoop my ass.

I  turned to our remaining group. Artemis, Wally, Dreamer, Zee, and DG.  Well, and Patches. The cornerpups were with us because I was the only  one who could control the little beasties. I took a deep breath and  turned to Ahamo. "Alright old man, we're going with DG on her little  spiritual journey. So what's going to get us there?" I noticed with glee  that he seemed wary of me after my quick take down of the others. He  looked like he wanted to argue but in the end he just help up a finger  and walked out of the room.

He  came back about twenty minutes later carrying what looked like a cross  between a weathervane and a compass. He passed it to DG who held it up,  looking at it in confusion. The old man grinned motioning for us to  follow him. He took us down a long tunnel and up a ladder that led out  into a wide open space. He vanished into the treeline for a bit and  after a few minutes a shadow fell over us. When I looked up I had to  groan. Of COURSE we were going to be getting to the secret treasure by  hot air balloon.