Chapter 124: Chapter 124

Both Artemis’ hands were at his side. Perhaps his toast glass was on the table and I just couldn’t see it.

"It’s-it’s nothing to make a big deal over..." said Artemis in a subservient tone that I’d never heard from his mouth before. It made my stomach feel sick and I had to consciously remind myself that I had to keep quiet.

"I have a camera," said Ling. She came closer to the door to retrieve the camera from her bag and I saw she had a ring on her finger. "Here we are. Arthur, you should be in the middle. Colin, help me take the photo."

Artemis went round the table while Colin came to receive the camera.

Arthur set his glass down. He had an odd look in his eye as if... he could see me.

"It seems we have a guest."

All eyes in the room turned to the door and I fell back on the floor out of, I’m embarassed to admit, fright.

"We have a guest..." said a voice.

I looked left and saw that Artemis, somehow, had teleported out of the room and into the hallway. I scrambled to my feet, backing up as I did.

Down the far end of the hall a person walked around the corner. Another Artemis.

"A guest..." came another voice. And another, and another.

I backed further away, then had the sense to take a glance behind me, and thank god I did.

Down the other end of the hall, there was another throng of Artemises gathering, all slowly shuffling towards me, eyes all fixed on me.

Another Artemis. And behind him, another Artemis.

My heart hammered in my chest.

What did I do? Run? Fight? With what? Was this the guardian of the Coil? And if I did fight it, and I won, what would happen? Would I just get ejected out in some random place, prime to be captured by Morgan.

I made a split second decision and dashed forward instead, pushing open the office door and entering.

The room was empty so I took the chance to immediately turn, slam the door shut and push a small filing cabinet against it to barricade it. It wasn’t a big cabinet, so I pushed the one next to it behind it as well.

Once I was satisifed that it would take ’zombie’ Artemis at least a few minutes to get in, I took a look around the room.

As I’d observed earlier, it was empty of life, but in the short moment between when I’d been spying on them and my shock at getting mobbed, all the furniture had also changed.

Gone was the glass table, now replaced with large, floor to ceiling display shelves laid heavy with priceless artifact. There were vases, statues, weapons, and other things I didn’t know the names of, and in a large variety of styles that made me think that they probably came from all over the world. It reminded me of some of the museum trips I’d taken as a child where I’d been shown a mish-mash of all kinds of things, with all their context and history stripped away.

My classmates had found it fascinating, and I had too to a certain extent, but the main thing I’d felt when walking between those treasures was sadness. They were things that someone had clearly cared a lot about and here they were, so far from home.

I shook my head and made myself focus on the present. The world inside this room had shifted, but I could still hear the zombie Artemises outside trying to push the door open and from the sounds of it, they were making good progress.

An exit, that’s what I needed, so I made a quick circuit of the room. It had also grown in size from when it had been an office and all the shelving obscured just how big it was, which made it easy for me to loose my way.

I stopped and tried to calm my racing thoughts but my heart pounded on regardless and the thoughts just kept coming.

Why did I feel lost? How had that happened? In the past, even when I was in a Coil, I’d never felt this sense of disorientation before.

There was something wrong, and for a moment I thought it was with me before I realised that it was the space itself that was wrong (the fact that I’d, even momentarily, considered it to be me only further reinforcing the strength of this upset).

There was a muted bang, then another far less muted one and I glanced behind me and saw, from between the silent museum of artifacts that the zombies had broken through. I’d never known my father was that physically strong.

Brain back in high gear, I started forward again at a good, but not too fast pace, and took in my surroundings, looking for anything I could use to my advantage.

The vases and statues I ignored, but the weapons, and there were many of them, presented a rather shiny potential approach to my current issue.

Nearest to me were a set of bows hooked one atop another againts the flat backdrop of their display cabinet and there were a number of highly ornate arrows right below. I hesitated, but decided not to try. For one, I’d never shot a bow before and I was pretty sure movies or, heaven forbid, video games counted as accurate teaching materials. For another, the ammunition was pretty limited and looked more like enchanted arrows that you’d craft at endgame that scale based on magic or faith or something and did not actually make much of a physical dent to their targets.

No, the bows were out.

But there were more than just projectile weapons among the collection.

Beside the bow and arrow display, was a cabinet flush with spears and glaives and those spear-glaivey things you usually see powerful Chinese soldiers use while mounted in video games. It was then that I made a quick mental note to actually go study some real history when I had the time. That is, if we all got out of here okay.

I opened the cabinet with the glaives and reached up to take one.

It wasn’t attached to the wall or anything, it was just really, really heavy.

I blushed to no one in particular and closed the cabinet.

And it turns out that three really is the charm because the next display cabinet I came across was the one with all the swords. There were sabres and rapiers and all kinds of variation of the general concept of ’long, sharp thing good at waving at enemies’ and I’d found what I needed.

Laying on the flat portion of the cabinet and toward the side was a largeish, Western style, symmetrical sword with a substantial crossguard and long, segmented hilt that looked about perfect for the size of my hands. It was unsheathed and looked sharp and there were small name cards pinned next to it that described the sword as a ’bastard’ sword.

That sounded about right.

I opened the cabinet and grabbed it.

Bran had one task to complete in this mission and it was a simple one: keep Arthur Penn busy. Pity it was such a difficult one. Even with all the perks Bran had bestowed upon himself as master of the Coil, he still found himself at a disadvantage.

It was less an issue of power and more of experience as the bald man had a clear advantage in age in that department.

"You’ve improved," called out Arthur from across the sea of small fishing boats that dotted the lake’s waters, the lake that was no longer still or peaceful.

Bran knocked another arrow to his bow and loosed it in the direction of Arthur’s voice. Space in the arrow’s path warped allowing that pointed projectile fly unimpeded towards its mark.

... Only to be knocked out of the air with a casual flick of the wrist.

It wasn’t the first, second, or even tenth time this had happened and someone else might have wondered why someone would keep doing something over and over again. Except Bran wasn’t exactly repeating a mistake. He was probing and extracting information from his foe with precise, trained shots.

The man appeared to have a three-hunded and sixty degree range around himself that stretched out at least two metres. The reason for the qualifiers was simply because Bran believed him to still be holding back, though whether it was out of some kind of misplaced sense of care for his son, or for some other reason more along the lines of arrogance, he couldn’t be sure. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel⦿fire.net

Either way, Bran didn’t especially care what the answer was. As long as he kept the man’s attention here and as long as the time dragged on, his job was done.

Well, as long as he also survived.