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 cara," said Ling. She ca closer to the door to retrieve the cara 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 take the photo."
Artemis went round the table while Colin ca to receive the cara.
Arthur set his glass down. He had an odd look in his eye as if... he could see .
"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, sohow, 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..." ca another voice. And another, and another.
I backed further away, then had the sense to take a glance behind , and thank god I did.
Down the other end of the hall, there was another throng of Artemises gathering, all slowly shuffling towards , eyes all fixed on .
Another Artemis. And behind him, another Artemis.
"We have..."
"Guest... guest..."
My heart hamred 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 so random place, pri 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 imdiately 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 mont 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 nas of, and in a large variety of styles that made think that they probably ca from all over the world. It reminded of so 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 soone had clearly cared a lot about and here they were, so far from ho.
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.
I had to get going.
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 to loose my way.
How?
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 sothing wrong, and for a mont I thought it was with before I realised that it was the space itself that was wrong (the fact that I’d, even montarily, considered it to be only further reinforcing the strength of this upset).
There was a muted bang, then another far less muted one and I glanced behind 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 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 gas counted as accurate teaching materials. For another, the ammunition was pretty limited and looked more like enchanted arrows that you’d craft at endga that scale based on magic or faith or sothing 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 gas. It was then that I made a quick ntal note to actually go study so real history when I had the ti. That is, if we all got out of here okay.
I opened the cabinet with the glaives and reached up to take one.
It didn’t move.
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.
Next.
And it turns out that three really is the charm because the next display cabinet I ca 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, symtrical sword with a substantial crossguard and long, segnted hilt that looked about perfect for the size of my hands. It was unsheathed and looked sharp and there were small na 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 departnt.
"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 ti this had happened and soone else might have wondered why soone would keep doing sothing 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 tres. The reason for the qualifiers was simply because Bran believed him to still be holding back, though whether it was out of so kind of misplaced sense of care for his son, or for so other reason more along the lines of arrogance, he couldn’t be sure.
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 ti dragged on, his job was done.
Well, as long as he also survived.
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