Part 12 - Manipulation

  Elizabeth found herself in a new home in the blink of an eye.

  Not the warm stonework of the church she’d grown steadily more accustomed to, nor the damp tropical air of her recent training grounds.

  Being underground, the military facility was cool and remained that way. The change was frigid at first, and even as she thought she’d grow used to it, her body didn’t give up the shivering reaction as she left her new bed each day.

  She’d been given no training by the personnel of the facility for the week she’d been there, and groups of eight to a dozen would leave periodically, leaving the facility strangely oversized for the occupants. The only population to remain in the base constantly were the families of a few of the team members. They were part of why the maximum occupancy was so high, in theory.

  In practice, the entire base was meant to be a bunker for an Immortal War and could house nearly a thousand people if packed like sardines. Feeding the people? The complex could reasonably accommodate a few hundred, not counting all the other things that could, and would, go wrong. Air quality stuck out to Liz, being fully aware of what could happen in an enclosed space when people started using up the air. The complex would be a nightmare to keep running if too many people found out and flocked to the bunker when things got particularly bad.

  Something else had stuck out to her during her stay, though. Her new [Martial Arts] variant was allowing her to feel through the stone around her, and she could sense some areas that felt slightly wrong in some of the walls. They were signs that matched with Faythe’s ability to move through stone like water. If Liz was getting the distances right on how widespread they were, then it meant the fox woman had something like a personal mansion deep below the actual military base itself. Funny how the powerful could live in luxury through the end times like that.

  By her eighth day, she’d long given up on staying alone each night. The children were scared, mournful and lost. The least she could do was allow them to stay with her for the night. When the first girl—interestingly the oldest of the bunch at fifteen, Jessica—had come to her door in the night, she’d been hesitant, but caved after a few tearful expressions were cast her way.

  Within the week, she’d simply given up and brought multiple of the facility’s cots into one of the larger vacant dorms and pushed them all together to create one massive sleeping space for the group.

  From then on, she slept in a stiflingly warm bed, buried under sleeping little kids.

  With few exceptions.

  Most notably, the older boy who’d spoken to her in the cart, named Mason, had somehow been recruited when she wasn’t looking. He’d ended up in his own rotation of the coming and going soldiers, having started training the day after they’d arrived.

  Liz had to admit she was going a little stir-crazy, and with none of the personnel of the facility interested in taking her on after the first ‘incident’ while pursuing a training partner, she’d been relegated to solo physical exercise, which was not helping her levels.

  Faythe had been around periodically, simply walking through solid stonework like it was water, and she’d told Liz to be patient about things. Liz had never appreciated the horror genre, and therefore, the vampire lady terrified her. Vampire movies did not instill a sense of the possibility for friendship with the undead creatures. She did have to admit, however, that Faythe didn’t seem to actually be undead. She also knew vanishingly little about immortals in Pallos, other than that they existed and always had a curse, with the noted exception of phoenixes, which was a fascinating side comment from Sylvestre in their earliest conversations.

  Patience wasn’t on Liz’s personality bingo card since arriving on Pallos, though.

  She’d taken to helping the children learn languages with her universal translation ability.

  Half of them were literate to begin with, thanks to Heron Lake having excellent educational systems in place. It made things easier when she could simply convey the meaning of things verbally regardless of how she phrased it. She’d been an awful teacher on Earth, but suddenly if she said something, even in a convoluted way, her ability simply conveyed the idea in the least confusing manner, and Liz could’ve sworn she got the oddly internal impression of annoyance when she’d been testing the limits of the skill. A feeling distinctly different from herself.

  On that eighth day, however, Mason had gone with the soldiers on their outing. The boy was around fourteen, but was far too young for going off to wage war, in her eyes.

  Each of the kids had their own little quirks, and she quickly got to know them over little bedtime stories from her own creative imagination.

  Jessica, the oldest of the girls, was one of four siblings. Jared and Jenna had both been in the prisoner wagon together and remained close and comforting for one another—though Jenna seemed distraught most of the time. The tiny girl was only five years old, so it was understandable, but when Liz learned the poor girl had a twin brother that had been separated from them, she filed the information away and vowed to search for their missing sibling when she had the chance, and decided she would pressure Faythe into the search the next time the monster turned up.

  Selenia was barely eight years old, and was from a family of moon goddess worshippers. She was extremely close with Lydia, nicknamed Luna, who was eleven years old. The pair were inseparable, and Liz could swear the two seemed closer than usual friends. She later found out they had an insanely rare companion bond. Arlyen had one with her mount, the massive kun-peng, and those bonds were hard enough to foster with pets. Selenia had barely even unlocked, but something about their special bond gave a sliver of happiness back to Liz’s frayed heart.

  Esran was nine and was friends with the boy who’d been hit by a stray arrow during their escape. He’d been staying by Redix’s side ever since the injury to the six year old, trying to help him get his liveliness back after the shock of the severe injury. Poor thing hadn’t been himself ever since he woke back up, and had been the second notable exception to the group who joined her each night for bedtime stories.

  The last three were no less enigmas of their own.

  Ivara was only five, but smarter than their entire group combined. She picked up languages with a frightening efficiency, spotting patterns and creating her own study lessons like they were all that was left of her life, which was not an inaccurate perspective. The other kids had no idea a system locked child could be so gifted without skills, and a few thought she might’ve been a changeling—some sort of fey creature—since they’d not seen her out to play in town before. In truth, she was apparently shy and hadn’t left home much.

  Coryn was so shockingly normal that it was abnormal. At nine years old, Liz could tell he had some sort of skill that shifted his appearance and overall vibe into one of complete mundanity. He was sneaky and easy to overlook. Also, always the first one out of bed in the morning to go stealing food from the facility kitchens.

  Lastly was poor Bromwyn. The boy was eleven, and completely in childhood crush mode for Lydia, or rather Luna. He refused to use her nickname, and was an awkward kid. Problem was, there was no room for anyone in Luna’s eyes except for Selenia. A doomed first love would either break the kid’s spirit or turn him into a champion. Liz secretly couldn’t wait to see where the slice of childhood drama would go.

  For Elizabeth’s part, she began filing away different false identities in her head, slipping into the character and, with an [Imaginative] use of [Mental Partitioning], she split those tiny personas of herself into characters for future use.

  [*ding* [Imaginative] has leveled up! 53 -> 55]

  After about two weeks since they’d arrived, Liz had her first argument of real importance with Faythe.

  Mason had come back from an outing missing an arm.

  She couldn’t hold back her fury, and the argument had resulted in a mild physical confrontation in which Liz had received her first taste of powerful mirages used as hallucinations.

  [Identify] could be used to see through mirages in most cases, but Faythe’s divine class and bestowal from Seira had fixed that flaw. Liz had only succeeded in destroying the office space where she’d finally found the little fox-girl vampire before she finally got herself under control.

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  She’d finally broken the sleep schedule the church had put her into, and used her skills to tunnel out of the facility to cool her head. The children would have to do without her that night, it seemed.

  The area outside was warm and humid, so no cooling off was going to actually happen.

  After a while of staring up at the baleful twin slit-eye moons, she finally heard footsteps approaching.

  “I’m sorry.” Faythe began.

  “Oh, are you?” Liz’s temper flared as if no time had passed.

  “It was at his own insistence. My agents have been searching for the rest of the children from Heron Lake, and Mason insisted he could help find Jax for Jessica’s family. Those children are from the Eladria family, so they’re related to some nobles in the west. The soldiers who took Jax found out, and are ransoming the boy. My men attempted a rescue of the child, but were ambushed. I’m sorry.” Faythe actually had an expression of guilt on her face.

  “You knew it would be dangerous, and you still sent a kid to a warzone. You want me to trust you, but how can I? It should’ve been me out there, but instead you’ve been trying to keep me locked up here, shackled to the kids.” Liz knew master level manipulation when she saw it. Faythe had calculated that if Liz spent more time with the kids, she’d take on guardianship over them. That she’d start to feel responsible for their safety.

  “You need to start finding safe homes for them. At least give them a choice of their own. I’m not willing to keep playing your games with them in the middle. At a minimum, return Jessica, Jared and Jenna to their actual family. The rest are orphans, so if they sign up for this life, I can only try to protect them, but I won’t let innocent children get hurt because you're trying to play me like a fiddle.”

  “What’s a fiddle?” Faythe’s question almost brought Liz back to anger. “Sorry, not important. The boy is fourteen. Militaries begin training their recruits at that age. I honestly felt he had the right to make his own choice. He’s the one who came to us.”

  “Send me out instead. If he really wants to fight, he’ll need to train more and until he’s ready, I’ll take his place.” Liz knew she was walking into the baited trap, but she wasn’t about to watch a kid go to war if she could do something to stop it.

  “You seem to think the worst of me. I’m not sure exactly where your animosity stems from, but if you wish for me to be the calculating person you think I am, how do you think I should consider your choice a fair exchange? Your life is infinitely more valuable to me than that of an orphan. Why should I agree to risk your life over someone far more expendable?”

  “Because nobody you trust can train me right now, so the only way to make me stronger is to put me into real, live fights.” Liz started to grind her teeth as she glowered at the vampire who turned and stalked away, tail swishing through the undergrowth as she stalked away without another word.

  The operation to save Jax previously had been spoiled by a soldier who’d gotten drunk before the operation began.

  Rather, that was the official story.

  In truth, Faythe had informed Liz about the possibility of a spy among the facility’s teams.

  She thought back to the [Triple Agent] she’d killed when she and the children had been freed. It made sense that no organization tended to exist without moles getting in.

  Her first meeting with the group she was being attached to began the very next morning, on a very limited amount of sleep.

  The meeting room featured maps in all directions, most of them in greater detail than anything Liz had seen on Pallos. Various countries of note in the region were carefully detailed with cities and military targets pinned on every wall. At the center of it all, spread across the table in the room, was a map of incredible detail depicting the Justiciary.

  Jayce was heading the small meeting, or rather Faythe in her disguise, assuming that they both weren’t imposter identities. Alongside the creepy Sound magic user was a slim man with rippling lean muscles in a tight-fitting black suit that looked like athletic wear.

  “Operatyf Aegis, head of Operatyf Team Iota, meet your newest trial member, Lizha.” Jayce started with introductions without a single real name. Clearly, secrets were secrets in this organization.

  The odd part in verbal communications using Liz’s skill was that she somehow intrinsically knew how things were spelled out as well, even when hearing them verbally. Faythe had an unusual love for the letter “Y” in things, and Liz was beginning to feel it was some sort of calling card or something.

  Weird divine gift quirks aside, Liz had always wanted to be in a spy movie. She just couldn’t find the excitement when she knew she was largely there because of Faythe’s mind games.

  “Nice to be working with you, Aegis. I hope you don’t find me to be a burden.”

  “Hmph.” The man’s response was both dismissive and rude.

  “Aegis, she will be a combat asset regardless of how low level she seems. She has the stats to keep up just fine.”

  “Then how’d she get captured by those mercs? Respectfully, Commander, I don’t need another variable I can’t rely on.” Aegis was actually being practical given the information he had, and Liz had to relent on that front, given her track record had been spotty at best.

  “I was classing up when the attack on Heron Lake happened. It was unlucky, but by the time I woke up, I was in a wagon with enough canceler skills on me to almost completely negate my passive skills.” Liz decided she should at least be prepared for a long effort to correct the Operatyf Organization’s impression of her.

  “We don’t have time for proving everyone’s abilities to one another right now. We need to figure out how we are going to free Jax Eladria before anything else goes wrong.” Jayce was definitely not the right man for calming down a situation. His entire vibe was all different shades of wrong. His voice coming from everywhere and nowhere at once didn’t help.

  Liz turned her attention to the map, ignoring the calculating looks from Aegis and the blank look of indifference from Jayce. The whole interaction put her on edge and no amount of weird interactions on Earth made her ready for the weirdness of magically weird people. She could think of a few very socially awkward Hollywood personalities, and then if she were to add magic stuff like Sound, Mirage or Mirror elements, everything relatable just broke in her mind.

  She quickly studied Aegis again, taking in his fitness vibe, then moving to his blonde hair and eyes shining with the light of a Brilliance element user. The guy looked like a Navy Seal.

  [Mage - 458]

  Based on the name, the element, and the fact he was a team leader, she could tell he was some kind of support magic user with excellent defensive abilities.

  Then all eyes finally fixed on the map.

  “The child has been moved from a mercenary company into the possession of the Vajra elite force.” Jayce’s words turned Aegis’ expression even more sour.

  “That complicates things. How big is this group and where have they holed up?”

  “Who are the Vajra?”

  Her honest question was met with a sigh from Aegis.

  “The Vajra are the main forces of the joint army that took over the Justiciary and were left as the occupying force. They’re a mix of low level forces backed by incredibly high level classers with mountains of combat experience. The elite ones are level five or six hundred, all triple classed. The standard infantry are usually around level three hundred and they outnumber the elites by thirty-two to one. Usually in squads of that many infantry to a single commanding Elite.” Jayce gave a brief rundown that made Liz’s eyes widen.

  “How many elites in this mission?” Aegis cut in with a look of exasperation at her, before turning to Jayce.

  “My spies have counted at least three are normally stationed at the site we tracked the boy to.”

  “I don’t like where this is going. Why the roundabout phrasing?” Aegis seemed to know Jayce surprisingly well.

  “This will be a two-front operation. There will be a ball held at the operation site. Expecting a lot of foreign dignitaries and even more Vajra Elites to be involved. My fastest spies have sent word from the Dynasties to the east and the Aristocracies to the west. Both regions have multiple countries’ delegations coming here to try to claim a piece of the pie left behind. At the same time, Jax will be sold off. But not to his family. He’s being negotiated for by a half dozen other nobles who want him as a bargaining chip in their political games. These things happen all the time, so something like this is the perfect opportunity to cut our teeth on some real work to bring order to the mortal countries from behind the scenes.”

  Aegis shuddered and gave Jayce a cold look. “I hate politics. I hate politicians. Why do we have to do this?”

  Liz finally cut in, with a small grin. “Actually, we’re stopping one of the things that makes politics gross and ugly. We aren’t getting caught up in political matters, we’re ruining some political figures’ days. Also, everything is political in some way. It’s unavoidable. Lastly, you work for a politician.” She gestured emphatically at the leader of the meeting.

  Jayce gave her a hard stare, expression still creepy, but she somehow got the impression that it was Faythe laughing at her, and it manifested as the body double staring at her with an unsettling intensity.

  “The question is, Lizha… can you dance?”

  Liz rapidly felt the blood drain from her face.

  “Can I what?”

  “You’ll be attending the ball of course. It is in a couple of weeks. You don’t have to be flawless, but you’ll be the distraction while my Operatyf team kidnaps the child and returns the siblings to the Eladria family in secret.” Jayce didn’t bat an eye as he stared her down.

  Aegis’ shoulders were quivering with repressed laughter as Liz fully considered the idea.

  She’d danced. Once.

  It was for a scene in a movie—which had her practicing for months—and she’d done well enough. Or so she thought. Until they replaced the scene with a body double that had professional dancing skills.

  She mentally began to panic. The issue wasn’t as simple as physical coordination. She had no sense of rhythm! She’d always loved music in her past life, and her voice was something she’d trained to a wide range of pitches for a variety of roles, so she’d been a bit despondent when her singing just didn’t line up with a song right.

  Music was something she missed so much she refused to think about it after coming to Pallos. The idea of trying to dance, however, was terrifying. She thought back on the skill offerings she’d had when she first chose her General Skill slots.

  [Dancing: You have a hopeless inability to keep time and flow alongside the musical arts. If you have any intention of taking up the art of dance, please take this skill before you make an embarrassment of yourself.]

  She turned her eyes to the ceiling and sent off a prayer to Seira to ease her seemingly inevitable future suffering.