He Who Fights With Monsters - Chapter 584

When Jason woke up, everything ached. Dawn had helped him recover a little, but then he went and used some of the authority he had before trading the rest away. The after-effects made his entire body feel like it had cramped up, leaving whatever he had instead of muscles feeling like a taught rubber band.

Jason pushed himself out of his cloud bed with a grunt and tried walking around the room to loosen up. His body said no, so he compromised and hobbled around the room, trying to loosen up. It didn’t work as well as he would have liked but he at least managed to make his way out and into the kitchen where Taika was frying eggs and gatchu lizard bacon. Lizards were heavily represented amongst livestock on Pallimustus, although Jason suspected they were more like lizards from Earth visually than biologically. Gatchu lizard meat was the closest local approximation to pork.

“Where’s everyone else?” Jason asked. “They don’t want breakfast?”

“Not anymore, bro. It’s mid-afternoon. You slept in pretty late.”

“Then why are you cooking breakfast?”

“Shade said you were awake and probably weren’t up to making it for yourself.”

“Thanks. I had a big day yesterday.”

“You were asleep yesterday.”

“What do you mean?”

“I may have undersold how long you were sleeping it off.”

“I slept through the whole day?”

“You slept through three whole days. Dawn said we should leave you alone because you were better off unconscious.”

Jason sat at the kitchen table, grateful once again for the soft yet supportive cloud furniture.

“Given how I feel now, she was probably right.”

Taika started plating the food, which seemed to be an awful lot for just Taika and himself, but he could sense most of his friends weren’t in the cloud house. He hoped they weren’t getting harassed out in the world on his account.

“What day is it?” Jason asked.

“Fifthday. Wait, Fourthday? I’m still not used to the six day week here, even if the names are super-simple.”

“Well, we name our days after gods. The gods a real here and probably frown on that kind of thing. I don’t think Dominion would go along with it unless most of the days were named after him, so they probably cut their losses.”

“I don’t think my mum would like all this gods shenanigans. She’s pretty Christian.”

Taika expression was sad as he put a plate in front of Jason, along with a knife and fork.

“I will get you back to her, Taika. Maybe even sooner than I thought.”

“Yeah?”

“No promises, but I might have a line on something. I’ll have to see how it goes.”

Taika gave himself a second plate, then set aside a third that was twice as wide as the others and held a literal pile of bacon and eggs. Jason looked at it.

“You overestimated how hungry I’d be? Oh, wait…”

Gary came in, grinning as he sniffed the air before sitting down in front of the big plate.

“You’re up and about, then,” he asked Jason.

“Kind of,” Jason said. “I half wish I was still asleep.”

“I won’t claim to understand all this high-end magic,” Gary mumbled around a mouthful of bacon. “Give me a magic hammer and some magic iron and that’s where my interest starts and ends. But maybe wait until you’ve recovered from the last time you wrecked yourself channelling weird super-magic before doing it again.”

“That sounds like good advice, bro.”

“I’ll take it under consideration.”

***

Feeling helpless, Jason made his way to the top of the pagoda. It was the tallest building on the island of Arnote at five storeys and noticeably stood out in the otherwise sleepy beachside village in which it was located. Even the royal compound, housing a minor branch of the royal family, was far less prominent. Sitting on the balcony did offer commanding views of the turquoise sea, however, glistening under the tropical sun. He could see quite a distance and spotted a magic storm raging far out to sea, beyond the towers that kept them from the island.

Cloud stuff from the palace danced between Jason’s hands, held in front of him as he waggled his fingers. The cloud flask was designed to adapt itself when exotic materials were placed inside, but the authority Jason had taken from the Builder was a little beyond exotic. To anyone else, the cloud stuff seemed no different, but Jason was bonded to his cloud flask. He could feel that there had been a fundamental change in the material from which the flask created cloud constructs.

Jason was unsure of what the change would bring on a structural level, but he suspected that the cloud house would be significantly more resistant to intrusion, both physically and through dimensional travel, like teleporting. To date, no one had attempted to force their way in and he was unsure how resilient it was. Emir had told him that each rank would make the cloud constructs harder and harder to penetrate, relative to the rank of the flask.

The modifications made by feeding things into the flask would be a large factor, and now that he had fed it authority and turned in into a spirit domain, Jason was confident in the robustness of his sanctuary. He imagined a diamond-ranker could make their way in, but it would probably even hold them off long enough for Jason to escape into his soul space. The likely exception was someone on Dawn’s level, but if someone like that was seriously coming for him, there wasn’t much he could do anyway.

Although he was stuck on the slow road to recovery, Jason didn’t feel the kind of downward suction he had in the latter parts on his time on Earth. Then he’d been out and active, but had felt helpless, as if he were spitting into the void in the hope that it would slay a god.

Even though he could do nothing but wait, Jason felt eager and hopeful. He had a path forward and, more importantly, companions to walk it with him. Farrah had been the string that held Jason together, but at the end she had become as frayed as he was. After the transformation zones and Dawn’s departure, the two of them had methodically gone around, modifying the link between worlds so they could leave. They stopped involving themselves in the affairs of Earth and it’s magic factions, stayed quiet and stayed on task.

By the time they were done and ready to leave, they were both on the verge of burning out. Finally, they returned to Pallimustus, only to find themselves still isolated from their people, kept on the far side of the world by the monster surge. If not for the presence of Rufus they might have cracked, which Jason suspected was the point. Knowledge had sensed they were at their limits and done just enough to keep them sane so they could continue the task at hand.

Once Jason’s team arrived, the healing had begun, but it wasn’t like flipping a switch. Jason and Farrah both spent a lot of time with Rufus’ mother. Her expertise in mental health as a member of the Church of the Healer had guided them towards recovery. Neither of them would ever be the people who had been sent to Earth through death and resurrection, but Jason held no illusions about going back to the person he was. He lamented the loss of innocence, but he could no longer afford the naivety that had led him to make mistakes in the past.

Jason had been angry after hurting himself escaping the underwater complex. It was the latest in a series of events where he had been forced to push past his limits and accomplish the impossible. But as he convalesced, he had a lot of time to think. He had decided that it was time to stop waiting for his life to be anything other than a chain of events that pushed him to the brink. It was time to stop letting the cosmos break him and break it right back instead.

Jason was ready to go forward and, for the first time in a long time, was excited about what the future held. He had stopped trying to fight against being caught up in events ordinary adventurers weren’t. Whatever mysterious danger awaited him, he would deal with it. Rufus had warned him that there was no ordinary path for an outworlder, and years down the road, he had finally accepted it.

The thought made Jason think of the outworlder supposedly in Rimaros, other than Taika, Travis, Farrah and himself. He had never gone looking, having had enough to be going on with, and always assumed he would run into them sooner or later. He wondered if maybe his convalescence was a good time to reach out. He needed to know how big a problem the revelation of recent events would be before he knew if the timing was right.

There was no question that Jason would have an unusual reputation, but what that meant was up in the air. Would it bring political clout? Paint a dangerous target on him? His guess was some of both. The real problem was one of rank. If he was a diamond ranker, people would view things very differently. They were figures of power and mystery, so a little mythmaking was within expectations. It was their job to become involved with gods and strange entities from beyond.

Jason pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. Inside the cloud house he could float himself around in a cloud chair if he wanted, but moving under his own steam was good for recovery. He wanted to do some things, but he needed to wait. Rufus, Humphrey and Dawn all had various levels of political influence they could tap into to get the lay of the land, and Jason wanted to know what he was dealing with before he started crashing headlong into things.

“Maybe I’m growing as a person?”

“That would be very welcome, Mr Asano,” Shade’s voice came from Jason’s shadow.

“You say that like you don’t think it happened.”

“Mr Asano, there is a fireman’s pole running the entire height of the pagoda.”

“I said personal growth, Shade. I didn’t say anything about maturity.”

***

Inside the pagoda was a room with no doors or windows. It was elegantly appointed in wood, with soft light shining from points on the ceiling. There was an impossibly soft bed, a chair and reading table and a shelf of books. It was the third iteration of room design Melody had experienced since being forced into it. She had seen stark, black stone, soft white cloud-stuff and now the latest design.

Melody was reading a book when a gap appeared in one of the walls, revealing the nature of the room as cloud-substance masquerading as wood and cloth. She set the book on the table and watched as her daughter entered, carrying a dish of fruit salad and two bowls on a tray.

While Melody returned the book to the book shelves, Sophie set the tray down on the table and cloud-stuff rose from the floor into the shape of a second chair. It took on the appearance of a wooden dining chair that matched the décor of the room and Sophie sat down. Having put away the book, Melody took the remaining chair.

“What were you reading?” Sophie asked.

“What is the hit television series?”

“I have no idea what that means. Why?”

“All of these books have ‘adapted from the hit television series’ written on them. I have to acknowledge that your friend Jason is an innovator; it’s not often I encounter a form of torture that even the Order of the Reaper doesn’t know. I’m still unclear on what a Baywatch is.”

“You seem to be holding up well,” Sophie said.

“Better than your friend, it would seem. This room has been having some trouble settling on an identity. Is Mr Asano not recovering from his ordeal?”

“He’s recovering just fine. He just got a little angry while talking with some great astral beings.”

“How fun.”

“Is there anything I can get for you?”

“A way out. This room being so inescapable has hurt my pride a little.”

“I’d have thought that finding out the god you’re so obsessed with is a fake would engage your interest more.”

“A transparent lie. When you’re not actively prattling about it, the absurd concept completely flees my mind.”

“It’s not a lie. Dominion admitted as much.”

“Oh, he popped in for a chat while Asano was talking with the great astral beings, did he?”

“It was a little after, but yes.”

Melody’s brow creased as she looked at Sophie.

“You’re being serious.”

“When it comes to Jason, you’ll find that the very serious and the very silly go hand-in-hand.”

Sophie started dishing fruit chunks into the two empty bowls on the tray.

“What shall we talk about?” Melody asked.

“The operations of your group over the last several years.”

“That’s hardly appropriate for our fun mother-daughter chat. I was more thinking boys. You’re not still with that Gellar child, are you?”