Unwilling Eldritch Horror of Fortune

When Big Bob said that Central went all out, he really meant it. Even Xalla, still trying her best to appear professional given her new assignment, couldn’t help gawking every now and then.

For one, an entire ensemble of butlers took the four of us to a private loading platform and escorted us into the most luxurious passenger train I have ever seen. I’m not sure why all these multidimensional creatures traveled by train, but I wasn’t complaining right now. The interior was much more spacious than it had any right to be and was decked out in exotic furnishings and artwork. The floors were covered with a soft white carpet that massaged my feelers as I walked, and a beautiful scent of iron-rich blood was flowing through the interior.

On high, golden display cases adorning each of the carved walls of the train hung living portraits made up of rare and wondrous species; some were opened up to show how their unique biology worked, and others were made into beautiful sculptures and chimeric creations. And the most wondrous thing was that none of their screams escaped the displays, instead, the soothing background music lulled me into a state of relaxation.

Huge windows made of the clearest glass I have ever seen showed off the view of the swirling galactic void as the train blitzed through the dimensions, the multicolored radiation warmed up the interior nicely and provided a great ambient light source.

Big Bob showed me to the bar, where a team of homunculi bartenders awaited our orders. I sat down on the lavish stool, custom-made with living material so that my feelers were perfectly supported, and just took in the atmosphere.

“Like I said, Walter,” Big Bob said with an even bigger smile, “They went all out for us.”

“Damn, this place is impressive,” I muttered as I glanced around my surroundings. Rogue had ordered drinks for all of us, although Xalla refused hers since she was technically still working. It was nice to see that she was so dedicated to her job, especially when that job involved keeping me safe, but I did want to spend some more time with her outside of work hours. But I’m sure there’ll be time for that to come.

I took a sip of whatever Rogue handed me, I don’t know what it was but it was pretty damn nice, and asked absent mindedly, “Pretty impressive train though, I’d love to know the specs on this thing.”

Rogue quickly added with a groan, “Ah, Walter, why did you have to mention that?”

Before I could ask what he meant, Big Bob’s face lit up immediately, “Oh you have no idea!”

Rogue sighed, “Here we go again… I’ll have another, no, make that five more shots, bartender.”

“Walter my friend, let me tell you all about this baby!”

Oh… Big Bob was one of those types of people. I gave him my polite smile and just hoped that he wouldn’t talk about the train for too long.

I was wrong.

“This is the newest model made by the Karmen Corps, the LCVI 1200 Super, fully decked out with the latest and greatest,” he continued without stopping, “And before you ask, yes, it is the same Karmen Corps that made most of the trials, but their interiors are all fully customizable. We have the Xolloid design today, but the best thing is that you can even combine different aesthetics together. You couldn’t do that in the 1100 model! Have you ever seen Xollon art mixed with Omni Architecture? Well, you can here! And don’t even get me started about the materials used on these trains…”

And on and on he went. My god I have never seen anyone talk about one topic for so long. I could see Rogue give me the most scathing look I have ever seen him use, and I think Xalla dozed off for a bit halfway through his explanation.

“Yeah, that’s great…” I mumbled as I nursed my 6th drink, or maybe it was my 7th? I had lost count after Big Bob went into excruciating detail about each of the train's ten carriages. I absent-mindedly peered out the train, marveling at how beautiful the interdimensional chaos was. It was strangely welcoming.

“... and the new engines?” Big Bob continued, completely oblivious to his audience, “Unlike last year's make, these new ones can take you anywhere in the multiverse in one go, Walter. Anywhere! Do you know the kinds of engineering and alchemy needed to accomplish that? You’re an alchemist yourself, so of course you’d know! But it took Karmen’s R&D department over 5 cycles just to get the prototype working…”

“Yeah, anywhere, amazing. Prototype, yeah...” I nursed another drink, hoping that Bob would finish his little speech shortly. Given Rogue’s expression, however, I didn’t think that would be the case.

“... so all of that means that we can skip going through multiple parallel dimensions and go directly to our destination. Walter, just think of how much time and resources that saves! But you don’t need to guess, because according to last year’s…”

I must have dozed off as well, but a slight shift in the compartment woke me up, and to my utter disappointment, Big Bob was still talking.

“... this is one of only three in service right now, and we get to be a part of an exclusive group of people to travel on it! And the list of VIP passengers is quite astonishing, there’s-”

“That’s all wonderful and good, Babylon, but how about we talk about something else now?” Rogue finally said as he finished his latest drink. He’s had a lot so far.

“But I was just getting to the good part!”

“But we need to get Walter caught up on uh…” he looked at Xalla for help.

“What my mentor means,” Xalla answered without missing a beat, “Is that since Walter has been away from Central for over 10 cycles, it would be best to update him on some of the changes that have occurred since he was last there. Unfortunately, that does mean that you’ll have to explain the rest of this train’s functions at a later date.”

Big Bob looked slightly deflated, but nodded, “Yes, that is true. I’ll make sure to tell you all about the rest when we get back!”

Rogue visibly groaned, “Let’s just save that wonderful conversation for another time…”

“Fine, fine,” Big Bob conceded with a sigh, “I have no idea why you guys just can’t see the beauty in a properly built train. Works of genius, really! Makes me regret choosing Alchemy over Engineering in my early days.”

“So what’s changed since I’ve been gone?” I asked.

Rogue was the one to sigh this time, “A lot, and none for the better. You would think that after 10 cycles Central would pull their heads out of their-”

Xalla gave her mentor another death glare.

“Alright, alright disciple of mine, I’ll be professional,” Rogue cleared his membrane and continued, “What I meant to say is that the core of Central has stayed practically the same.”

“Yeah, still the same Overseer as before, if you can believe it,” Big Bob grumbled, “No shortage of coup attempts, but that old bastard is hanging on somehow. Now I normally don't want to get too political, I enjoy being a neutral party for the most part, but even I can see that he’ll drag the entire damn Central Collective down with him at this rate. I think things have just gotten worse since before you left!”

Hmm, more information I could use, “You have to be exaggerating now, I mean, I heard about the budget cuts from Q, but that’s been happening for cycles at this point. How can it possibly be worse than before?”

“Don’t get me started!” Rogue added, looking more animated than ever, “That braindead Overseer’s been making one disastrous mistake after another ever since his best Arbiter left. That’s you, by the way. I’ll bet you anything that he’ll chew your frills off when he sees you again.”

I shrugged, “Come on, there’s no way one Arbiter would make that big of a difference.”

“Now you’re just being humble, my friend,” laughed Bob, “You were practically holding the whole organization together near the end, and you know damn well that’s the truth. You should have seen the Council’s faces when they found out you disappeared, ha, I think I have a recording of it somewhere, I have to show you!”

Alright, so it turns out that this mysterious Arbiter W was more impressive than I had originally thought. He was a serious deal if everything went downhill the second he left. There’s just the slight problem that I have to somehow live up to these ludicrous expectations again, and I didn’t even have the damn Absolute Luck Skill with me this time.

I took another look at my unused Luck Charges and despaired.

Luck Charge: 1057/1057

Transformation Time Left: 23 hours 44 minutes.

All those tasty Charges that I couldn’t use, but at least I still had a lot of time left on my current transformation… hold on, there’s no way that only 16 minutes had passed, I swear Bob’s speech alone took hours, not to mention the time it took us to get to the private train platform.

Noe, what’s going on?

“To clarify, my Host,” she answered cheerfully, “Since Unit Noe’s upgrade, I have been able to slightly alter the way your Transformation works. I have taken it upon myself to sync all of your functions with the timeline of Pandora, whereas I could only use your local timeline prior to my Shard’s integration.”

So that means that the 24-hour time limit is going off the Regressor’s clock, and not whatever strange dimension I’m in now?

“That is correct, my Host,” she answered, “But do note that I cannot make further adjustments until more of my functions are unlocked. I apologize, dear Walter.”

That’s more than enough, Noe. You just got rid of the biggest headache for me! If I could kiss you I would!

“Noted.”

I smiled awkwardly, “Well, any specifics I should know? I have a feeling that the Overseer will try to rope me into more annoyances if my absence was that profound.”

“Well…” Rogue said, “That depends on how strong your ties with Central still are.”

Ah, he was afraid that I’d take offense seeing as how I was a big shot at Central. Good thing I have literally no ties with them now!

“There was a reason I left for so long, Rogue,” I said, reassuring him that he could speak the truth with me, “And I’m a Xollon first, so you know where my allegiances lie.”

He gave me a huge grin before moving his gaze to Xalla. She had been quiet in this conversation so far, as she was here on official duties, but I could tell that she liked my answer. I felt like they just confirmed something about me during a secret discussion they’d had. A little concerning.

“That is good to hear, and you should know that Xalla shares those sentiments,” Rogue continued, “Why, she was thinking of saving up some cash and buying herself a nice little plot of land, maybe start her own brood with a handsome young m-”

Another quick stab of her feelers shut the man up again.

“Those aspirations of mine can be discussed later, lord General,” Xalla said, her tone icy, “without a third party giving their inputs on the matter. If you would please tell Arbiter Walter the rest of the information, that would be much appreciated. We are almost at our destination.”

“She’s got a fiery temper, that one,” he whispered to me, ignoring another one of Xalla’s death stares, “But anyway, to summarize fast, Central’s war is still going strong, that idiot Overseer burned more bridges than cycles I’ve lived, and Origin’s getting overloaded trying to put all the fires out.”

“A bit of an exaggeration,” Big Bob added, “But not completely untrue. The Overseer is growing desperate, anyone could see that, and there are a lot of worrying rumors about some of the steps he’s taken to solidify his quickly dwindling power. Some say he’s even gone into the Origin Matrix’s core and fiddled with its code, but I highly doubt even he could manage that. I’m pretty sure he specifically summoned you here to rope you into his petty power struggles.”

“An idiot decision,” Rogue muttered, “We Xollon have long remained neutral, does he honestly think Walter would change that?”

“So what do you think will happen at the Tribunal?” I asked.

“It’ll be a farce,” Big Bob said with certainty, “They’ll do everything to get you back into the fold, using whatever means they can. The Tribunal’s a shell of what it used to be, and it’s nothing more than a political tool now.”

Big Bob smiled and gave me a friendly pat on the shoulders, “But knowing you, my friend? You’ll be fine! Let them know what happens when they try to mess with the legendary Arbiter W!”

“Yeah…” I answered with a forced smile, “I’ll make sure to do that.”

I felt the slowing of the train we were on, and Xalla’s warm voice welcomed our arrival.

“Lord Arbiter, Grand General, Master Alchemist,” Xalla said in her most professional tone, “We have arrived at Central’s base of operations. Please gather your things and follow me.”

 

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