He Who Fights with Monsters 3

A Question You Don’t Yet Know to Ask Jason Asano and his team of fellow adventurers were living in a houseboat literally made of clouds. At a marina in the city of Greenstone, it was moored amidst the pleasure craft of Greenstone’s wealthy and aristocratic elite. The cloud house had been the much vied-for prize in the Reaper trials, a deadly contest in an otherworldly realm. Jason and his teammates had managed to beat out some of the finest young adventurers in the world. Jason’s team had no illusions that they were better than the many outstanding young people they had competed against, knowing that luck and circumstance played a large role in their victory. After a celebratory trip away where they consolidated their gains from the contest, their new objective was training. Their young team had experienced success but they had a long way to go, both as individuals and as a team. Jason and his teammate Humphrey Geller were the first to rise each morning. Jason made the team breakfast while Humphrey plotted out the day’s training. As the teams were magical beings, transformed by the essences they had all consumed, they were able to sustain themselves on spirit coins and go without food entirely. Humphrey liked the effect on morale and team cohesion that eating breakfast all together had, while Jason just liked breakfast. When Emir Bahadir had presented Jason with the magical item that created the cloud house, he had warned that it would be something of a money pit. The cloud house was capable of reproducing all manner of amenities, from showers to ovens to windows that could function like a telescope. In order to activate these functions, however, Jason needed to supply magical resources, usually in the form of magic quintessence gems. Water quintessence for bathroom amenities, fire, iron and glass for a stove and oven. Jason had already poured a small fortune into it. The ability to call a grill right up out of the deck, the cloud-stuff the house was made of shifting to meet his needs made Jason think it was completely worth the cost. For someone for whom cooking was such an important part of his life, it was a delightful convenience. “I love being rich,” Jason muttered happily as he flipped hotcakes on the grill. “What was that?” Humphrey asked, looking up distractedly. “Nothing,” Jason said, raising a clenched fist. “Seize the means of production!” “What are you talking about?” Humphrey asked. “Nothing, it’s fine,” Jason said, turning his attention back to the hotcakes. “I’m a really hypocritical socialist,” he muttered to himself. “I like money way too much.” They were out on the open deck, Jason working the grill as Humphrey sat at a nearby table, looking over the meticulous notes he had taken on the team’s training. Winter was pleasant in Greenstone, with mild temperatures and less mugginess pressing in from the wet jungle delta, magically sustained in the middle of a bone dry desert. The sky was a gorgeous, empty blue, with a crystal clarity to the winter air that even the brightest summer day couldn’t match. “Looks like a nice one today,” Jason said, looking up. “You’re right,” Humphrey said. “How about we do some outside training? Maybe focus on mobility training.” “Works for me,” Jason said. “Did you schedule that match-up against Beth’s team?” “It won’t be for a few days,” Humphrey said. “We aren’t the only ones in a training frenzy after the Reaper trials. The mirage chamber is heavily booked.” Like everyone who safely returned from the Reaper trials, the Geller family teams had brought back a treasure-trove of awakening stones to unlock new magical abilities and complete their power sets. Danielle Geller had received the same forewarning as Jason had about the chance for unusual awakening stones. Most adventurers who faced the trails now had a Reaper ability in their repertoire, as every almost everyone who survived had been awarded an otherwise extremely rare awakening stone of the Reaper. This included both Jason and Humphrey, with Jason having even picked up a second one. The rare stones didn’t awaken inherently more powerful abilities but having a little-known power in their toolkit could be a trump card for any adventurer. This slew of new and little-seen powers had excited Jason and Humphrey’s teammate Clive. As an enthusiastic proponent of the Magic Society’s effort to catalogue all known powers, Clive and his dogged questions were now being actively avoided. He had also urged their teammate Belinda to shape-shift into Jason, in an attempt to replicate the interface power that allowed him to look at detailed descriptions of magical abilities. To his frustration, she always ended up with the wrong power and could only replicate Jason’s map ability. “The map is a great power,” Jason had insisted when Clive had complained to him. “Not for administrative purposes,” Clive had bemoaned. “I think you and I look at the potential of magic powers in very different ways,” Jason told him. Humphrey and Jason chatted while going about their morning tasks, until Jason spotted a familiar, but unexpected, figure. She was walking along the marina pier towards the houseboat. “Humphrey,” Jason said. “Your ex is coming by.” “My ex?” Humphrey asked. He spotted Gabrielle as she approached the houseboat. Gabrielle Pellin was a priestess of the god of Knowledge, as well as Humphrey’s extremely beautiful ex-lover. Gabrielle and Jason had originally gotten along but she wasn’t the first person whose strong religious views had placed her in a position antagonistic to Jason. Jason regretted the part that played in souring Humphrey’s relationship with her. He respected Humphrey for having the strength to end things with someone who stood out even in a world full of people made beautiful by magic. Jason doubted he could have made as mature a choice when he was seventeen. Jason invited Gabrielle aboard. The open deck areas of the houseboat didn’t require the boat to take an aura imprint before granting access. “Gabrielle,” Humphrey greeted, a complicated expression on his face. “Hello Humphrey,” she said. Dressed in a plain version of the robes of her church, she was clearly trying to be stoic but couldn’t hide her tense body language. Steeling herself, she turned to Jason. “The goddess has a new gift for you,” she said. “I’m here to deliver it.” “Is it strippers?” Jason asked. “Not you; you’re too young. Other strippers, but roughly the same level of hotness.” Humphrey and Gabrielle both gave him horrified looks. “What?” he asked innocently. “Ignore him,” Humphrey said. “My lady wants me to tell you that objectification jokes are beneath you,” Gabrielle said to Jason. “Yeah,” Jason said with a chuckle, “but you shouldn’t trust someone who doesn’t spend at least a little time in the gutter.” “I very much disagree,” Gabrielle said. “Colour me surprised. So, what does your boss have for me? I’ll admit I’m a little trepidatious, after the last time.” Jason had made a deal with the goddess of Knowledge that she would give him a gift in return for not introducing his very poor grasp of the physicals sciences into this one. Her first attempt at a gift was received as poorly as Jason understood the gravity he had tried to explain to Clive. “She recognised your concerns” Gabrielle said, clearly unhappy, “and has prepared a new gift you should find more palatable. You should know that this gift edges against the boundaries of her own rules. Consideration that you do not deserve.” “What do you mean?” Gabrielle opened her dimensional satchel and pulled out books, one after another, piling them on the table next to Humphrey’s notes. “This knowledge is the answer to a question you don’t yet know to ask,” Gabrielle said as she continued taking out books. “This pushes the limits of what she is willing to do. Further, this knowledge is not of this world. She was reticent to give it to anyone, but you are not of this world either.” “Not of this world?” Humphrey asked. “The Builder cultists have been bestowed knowledge from beyond this reality,” Gabrielle said. “now that it is here, she is sharing it with you.” “Ah,” Jason said. “I know she likes this world to develop knowledge for itself, which is why she offered to bribe me in the first place. The Builder cult doesn’t care about that, though, and now the genie’s out of the bottle.” “What would a genie be doing in a bottle?” Humphrey asked. “Wait, genies are a thing?” Jason asked. “Do they grant wishes?” “No, that would be outrageous. Do they grant wishes where you come from?” “Just in stories,” Jason said, then turned back to Gabrielle. “So, this knowledge is something that comes from the Builder?” “Yes. Once the knowledge was known by someone in this world, it became part of the goddess. She personally transcribed these tomes for delivery to you.” Humphrey’s eyes went wide. “The goddess made these personally?” “Yes,” Gabrielle confirmed as she took out a small wooden case. She opened it to reveal neat rows of recording crystals. “She also created these and the information contained within. She would have produced all these as skill books that you could absorb more quickly but knew you would reject them.” “I would,” Jason said. “I won’t imprint things directly into my mind that came from sources I don’t entirely trust. So, what is all this knowledge?” “The goddess recommends you turn to your friend Clive for assistance. She anticipates he will be quite enthusiastic.” “He always is,” Jason said as he picked up a random book and opened it. It looked to be some kind of magical theory, at a level well above what he could parse at a glance. He closed the book and set it back down. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m not really sure of the ramifications of this gift, but given the source, I expect it to be quite specifically useful.” Gabrielle shook her head. “I am constantly at a loss as to why the goddess feels you warrant such consideration.” “You and me both, sister. You want to stick around for pancakes?” Gabrielle gave Humphrey an uncertain glance, then shook her head. “I have further duties to attend to. I shall take my leave here.” Rufus stirred back to consciousness under the effect of his mother Arabelle’s potent healing magic. He was lying on the sandy shore of the island where the group of adventurers had confronted the Builder cultists. The last thing he remembered was challenging a cultist far more powerful than himself, then man who killed Farrah. He was had put everything into one great blow, which had been almost, but not quite enough. The last thing he remembered was falling unconscious, not expecting to ever wake up. “We won, then?” he groaned. “We were already on the way when we saw your field of darkness go up, and then that huge beam,” his father said. “We finished off that silver-ranker but he was close to done when we found him. I pretty much poked him and he fell down dead.” Rufus closed his eyes and drew a sharp, ragged breath. The man—the inhuman thing—who killed Farrah was dead. Gabriel gave him a proud smile, placing a warm hand on Rufus’s shoulder. “You did it, son. Fantastic job.” “What your father means,” Arabelle said with a pointed look at Gabriel, “is that you should never have confronted an enemy like that.” “Exactly,” Gabriel said. “Terrible job, son. Don’t do it again.” Arabelle shook her head at her menfolk. “I think it’s time for another child, husband. A daughter, this time.” “I’d love a little girl,” Gabriel said. “What essence should we give her? How about a whip essence? I saw a student at the academy doing some very interesting things with one just recently.” “I think you’re skipping a little far ahead, dear.” “What about the cultists?” Rufus asked. “A lot of them made it through the portals,” Callum said. Rufus hadn’t even realised he was there, which was normal for the stealthy adventurer. “We got most of the leadership,” Callum continued. “The count came up with one silver-ranker less than my initial count, so they likely escaped amongst the lower-rank masses.” “Prisoners?” Rufus asked. “None,” Gabriel said. “The cultists did the usual self-detonating crystal star thing. Before they did that, though, they killed off the priests amongst them.” “Killing their own allies,” Arabelle said, shaking her head. “I hate fighting zealots.” “We have plenty of recordings of Purity’s clergy consorting with the cultists, though,” Callum said. “More than enough for the other churches to form an ecumenical council and forcibly investigate.” Rufus pushed himself to his feet. “So, what now?” he asked. “Now we bring in everyone else. We need to identify the dead, see if it leads us to more cultists. Give the Magic Society a chance to figure out where these portals go. As for us, we can head back to the city.”