Chapter 58: What level are you?
As soon as he’d left Reba, Mason actually looked around and realized the settlement was totally different.
Streets had changed, buildings had merged, and he was pretty sure the whole thing expanded entirely. How exactly the walls had been moved out he didn’t much understand, but then, this <em>was</em> the robot apocalypse.
He nced around and noticed faces he didn’t recognize, too. Apparently they’d had some more refugees while he was gone. Ultimately he didn’t much care, and mostly just wanted to see Haley before realizing she wouldn’t be at home, but in the hall. He sighed, and slowly trekked up the hill.
A few of ke’s yer minions were guarding the door, and when they saw Masoning they sprung to attention or otherwise clutched nearby weapons with some kind of nervous energy.
“Master Mason,” said the oldest with a kind of salute.
“Just Mason is fine,” Mason said with a forced smile. “Carry on. Or at ease. Don’t worry about me.”
“Course, sir,” the man smiled with equal effort and opened the door.
Mason was surprised to find a veritable party inside. Music yed from the town’s digital system, several women lounged on the furniture with drinks. ke, Haley, and Seul-ki stood at the back of the room in conversation with an olive skinned, attractive couple.
Most of the new faces that turned to Mason went wide with panic or horror, and he knew they were civilians seeing his deep red, yer killing aura. He sighed, and walked through the middle towards ke, scattering a few groups.
“There he is! Come on in, brother,” ke waved him forward with a gesture.
A wide smile spread across Haley’s face at seeing him, and the thought of putting her aside sted from his mind as impossible. She stepped forward and kissed both his cheeks, then a quick peck on his lips before nestling into his side.
“Wee home, <em>master</em>,” she whispered. And unlike the guards at the front, he had little desire to correct her.
“It looks like you’ve been busy,” he said to ke, and his brother grinned.
“I have indeed. Cindy and Alberto, this is my brother Mason. I suppose you’d call him the muscle of the operation.”
The attractive, maybe Italian couple smiled politely but made no move to shake Mason’s hand, or really get closer to him at all. For the first time he considered how he might look, and possibly smell, and realized his clothes were covered in bat blood and w marks.
“Sorry about the clothes. I was, uh, attacked.”
“Anything we need to worry about?” ke kept his voice light and raised a brow.
“Not anymore.”
keughed like this was a tremendously funny joke. “d to hear it. Well, we’ve been signing Alberto and Cindy’s people all afternoon. One new yer, nine civilians. So our little family grows.”
“Oh? Well. Wee,” Mason said, no idea what else to say and frankly not really caring. He nced at Haley and vaguely gestured out of the hall with his eyes. She gave him an apologetic tight lipped smile, and he knew ke was going to ruin his day.
“Your timing is impable,” ke pped him on the shoulder, and Mason tried not to groan. “Our new friends here were part of a muchrger tutorial, literally hundreds of civilians and yers if you can believe it. Though unfortunately it sounds like many were killed.” Mason stared with what he hoped were ‘get on with it’ eyes, and his brother cleared his throat. “We need yers to go down the main South river, find any more survivors, and bring them here to Nassau. I thought you’d be the perfect man for the job. Trust me Alberto, there’s no one faster than Mason here. He crossed half the damn world to find me already.”
“Is that so?” Alberto’s fake smile widened. “I would be in your debt then, sir. We all would be.”
“To that end,” ke added, “I suspect we’re going to need to dy our little trip.”
Mason felt his polite patience drain like sand. “We need a moment,” he said, no longer pretending to care about the Italians.
When they met his eyes theirs widened slightly before they nodded and walked away. Mason looked at Haley and Seul-ki next, and with an encouraging smile from ke, both turned and left as well. Mason waited until they were all well away before he turned on his brother.
“I’m not your errand boy,” he whispered. “I’m not your ‘muscle’, either.”
“I’m aware, you know I just tell people things when it suits me. That’s not at all what I’m…”
“You’re forgetting what this game is,” Mason hissed. “It’s not parties and making friends. It’s power, in and simple, and you’re not gaining any sittingfortably in this damn town.”
“There I disagree. Allies and town improvements <em>are</em> power, which is why…”
“What level are you?” Mason interrupted, and his brother scoffed and cleared his throat before lowering his voice even further.
“I’m level six. Which I’m reliably informed puts me approximately in the top 30% of yers, and…”
“I’m twelve, ke. I was your level <em>before</em> I cleared a damn dungeon on my own.”
ke’s mouth opened but for once he appeared speechless save to make a sound like ‘oh’.
“Yeah. Oh. And if a few people like me show up they are going to rip your little town to pieces, starting with you. So you need to level up because it’s the most important thing for your survival. Period.”
ke looked like he wanted to argue, but eventually sighed and nced at Mason with a properly chastised side eye. “Very well. But we agreed on two more days, yes?”
Mason sighed but nodded.
“Then that gives you two days to round up more refugees along the river, which <em>does</em> add power to this settlement, I assure you. You should go right now, in fact, if you’re up for it.”
Mason felt his jaw clench and tried to rx. “And what are you doing while I get more sheep for your pen?”
“The same,” ke nced around the room as if someone might be listening, then grinned. “I have a new toy. It lets me fly around like an invisible drone, leaping into people’s minds, all kinds of fun tricks. Oh, and I can talk to people from a distance. Including you, by the way.”
“Great.” Mason took a breath and nced at Haley watching him while she chatted with a neer. He would have much rather spent the night banging her brains out, but since he just gave ke shit for sitting around Nassau toofortable for his own good, he couldn’t very well justify it.
“Now if you’re done giving me jobs, I’ll go get your damn refugees. And can Haley be excused, <em>my lord</em>?”
“Yes, yes, stop that. Nowe here, this is why I need you. I’m asionally wrong. <em>Very</em> asionally.”
Mason gave his brother a hug, with a little extra super-hero-strength squeeze for good measure, only letting up when he heard the pained groan.
“Idiot,” he said.
“Moron,” ke agreed.
“I’ll see youter. Anything else I should know?”
“There’s probably monsters chasing them,” ke said far too happily as they released. “The refugees, I mean.”
“This day just gets better and better.”
Mason turned with a wave, no longer bothering to smile politely at any of the people watching him in the hall. That was his brother’s job.
Haley met him without instruction at the doors, and he took her arm as they both walked out.
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<strong>Oh hi there.</strong>
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