Death Smith - Book 1 - Chapter 14

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Kebab, beer, and death threats

One month ago.

February, 14 AR.

United Kingdom, London, Mr Chang’s Kebab.

Mr Chang’s Kebab shop smelled of meat, spices and just a hint of sweat. Time had stained the once sparkling white floor tiles grey and dull. There were a dozen benches and tables inside the shop, with groups of people eating a less than healthy late-night snack.

Lance watched Thomas continue to dig into his meal, stuffing his face with kebab, potatoes, salad, and plenty of garlic sauce. Just the idea of eating again was almost enough to nauseate Lance.

“You know you are a pig, right?” Lance asked Thomas, watching him grin as he used the fork to prepare his next bite.

Thomas simply gave Lance a food-stained smile before he replied. “A man has got to eat, Lance. Like mom said, I am a growing lad.”

“Horizontally perhaps. We just had a big meal with your family forty minutes ago,” Lance said, although Thomas did not answer. He simply took another bite before destroying the delicate balance between food and garlic sauce. Knowing it was futile to change the ravenous entity that was Thomas, Lance simply shifted his gaze towards the television.

The quality of the old device was horrendous. It surprised Lance that it even displayed colours at all. He could still make out the commercials that were being shown on the tv. It was useless to waste one’s brain cells on watching them, but he figured it was better than watching Thomas.

Most commercials were about beauty products, perfumes, or cars. The one that stood out the most was about a new beverage that was being promoted by a well-known British Rifter. The woman held a rank somewhere in the top two hundred in the UK and had a position within a good guild.

Lance was shaking his head at what he was seeing, yet felt his ribs being nudged by Thomas. “Come on, it is not that bad. Professional Athletes do it too. Why not Rifters?”

“Because, Thomas, athletes don’t fight monsters or store items into the ether, or whatever is linked to our inventory system,” Lance replied, shifting his gaze from the television to Thomas, who had finished his plate and was looking quite pleased with himself. With a sly grin, Thomas then leaned towards Lance and spoke while his garlic tainted breath was doing unspeakable things to Lance’s nostrils.

“People like symbols. It can be a logo on your shoes, a celebrity you fancy or an athlete you wish you could be like. Sure, it is just a money grab, but that is the way things are. Why shouldn’t Rifters have a slice of that pie as we-” Thomas suddenly stopped talking as Lance’s eyes went wide, knowing full well how that reptile brain of Thomas worked.

Desperately, Lance tried to stop his friend. “Thomas, don-”

“Pie! Lance, I want some pie,” The redhead demanded, interrupting Lance as his smile widened. He then jumped out of his seat and made his way over towards the glass cabinet that was housing the assortment of pies and desserts. Lance shook his head before returning his attention to the television. The commercials were now over, and the regular news program was on.

At the bottom of the screen, Lance could see the lines of text slowly crawling from right to left. The news ticker gave information about the stock market going down, the French president having to answer to parliament, the weather forecast, as well as a Rifter that the Japanese government had sentenced to death.

Lance had heard of the latter vaguely. The man had been a high ranking Rifter that had gone rogue and raised a horde of undead to terrorise one of Japan’s many islands. A force of Rifters had taken out the horde and subdued the man.

His class, a necromancer, was a rare class that allowed a user to revive corpses temporarily into undead minions. Although Rifters with a necromancer class could be a great boon inside the Rift because of the element of fighting numbers with numbers. They had a bad rep because of working with corpses or situations like this. The convicted Rifter in Japan only further made the necromancer class appear as pure evil.

“Lance, you ready?” Thomas called out.

Lance blinked quickly, seeing Thomas standing next to him, licking some pie crumbs from his fingers. Sensing a change in Thomas, Lance figured it would be best to find out what the plan was. “Yeah, I am ready. We were going to take it easy tonight, right? A few pubs?”

“Of course. Nothing too fancy. I promise,” Thomas said, lying through his teeth as he led Lance out of Mr Chang’s place.

The outside air relieved Lance’s nostrils of the pungent Garlic odour, his sharpened Rifter senses now identifying the unique scents that lingered in a large city such as London. It still amazed him how much more of the city he could experience through his senses the more his Perception skill grew.

* * * * *

“You know you are lucky, right?” Thomas asked Lance, looking over his shoulder and seeing Lance browse through the gallery on his phone. Most of the pictures were of monsters they had faced in their previous Rift. Some monsters were hard to identify due to damage they had sustained. A few of the monsters still had their features intact.

A working mobile phone that someone could bring into a Rift was a rare commodity, so Lance was indeed lucky. “I know. You keep reminding me. Jealous?” Lance asked, already knowing the answer.

“Hell yeah. So, are you going to send the pictures to the GRRO or sell them to an information broker?” Thomas asked, watching Lance zoom in on a picture of a small rat-like creature. They had faced several of these in the past. Although still a monster, they were a minor threat and wouldn’t be all that interesting to other Rifters.

Someone could usually sell pictures or recordings of monsters to brokers. Rifters that wanted to prepare for a new Rift would usually buy a premium to learn more about the monsters inside that Rift if the GRRO did not have full documentation of it.

“I doubt it will be worth more than a few pounds,” Lance said, opening the GRRO app on his phone. Through this app, he had access to dozens of features and thousands of documents. He quickly filtered through the known list of monsters and found out that there were already hundreds of pictures and documentation about the monster he had captured on camera. “Perhaps even less than that. Do you think your little brother would like a picture?” Lance proposed as the two men slowly made their way further down the street.

“The little brat is obsessed with Rifters. So, he’d love a picture. Mom would probably have your hide if she’d find out,” Thomas said, having a deep understanding of the fury his mother could unleash.

“Ah, good point,” Lance countered, not wanting to find out either.

“So, what did you think of the music selection I emailed?” Thomas asked, as the two of them crossed the street and passed a taxi.

“You mean the torrent of spam? I’ll check it out later. Besides, I don’t see the point,” Lance said as he shifted his attention back at Thomas.

“Dude, it is outdated, weird, and boring,” Thomas said, doing his best to educate his musically stunted friend.

“Thomas, those are fighting words, my friend,” Lance announced as the two of them rounded the corner and spotted the nightclub that they were heading to. Thomas had heard about it from his sister and wanted to check it out. Apparently, it was hard to get into. Seeing the line of people outside, it held some truth to it.

“Speaking of music! Come on, Lance,” Thomas said, playfully jabbing his friend on the shoulder.

“Thomas, the line looks way too long. We could still head back to our usual place. All right?” Lance said, seeing the line of people and feeling uncomfortable at standing in line for an hour.

“Nah. I’d rather not spend my first night outside of the Rift drinking lukewarm beer with a bunch of old people. Come on, Lance. You promised me a night of drinking,” Thomas said, applying more and more pressure on Lance until he’d give in.

Somewhat defeated, Lance began to cave. “I guess…”

“That’s the spirit, Lance. Besides… I have a plan to get us in,” Thomas said with a childish grin as he led Lance towards the nightclub, passing the long line of people who were waiting outside and stopping in front of the bouncer.

Many people were staring at Thomas as he calmly asked the bouncer to open the door for him. Some onlookers were curious, others simply annoyed at the arrogant two men who looked like your average blokes on a night out.

Still, Thomas was persistent in his demand to be allowed entry, only to be met with a question of whether their names were on today’s guest list. And then, in that moment, Thomas oozed confidence as he leaned closer to the bouncer.

With his right hand, he opened a button on his shirt to reveal the Rift-stone in his chest.

Thomas smiled at the shocked bouncer before he continued talking as if he had not even noticed it. “I was under the assumption that this club treated my people decently. Was I misinformed?”

The soft smile turned into a wolfish grin as the bouncer quickly stepped to the side, allowing Thomas and Lance entry. Moments later the bouncer used his earpiece to alert the staff that the VIP room would have to make space for two Rifters.

Lance was still shaking his head as he followed Thomas inside, praying that Thomas would not make an even bigger scene inside.

* * * * *

“Come on, do the thing.”

The girls asked, watching Thomas with wide eyes as he laughed. Thomas got up in a show of hesitation, grabbed a chair with one hand and lifted it up with ease. The girl who was sitting on top of the chair was giggling with glee. Even with Thomas’s level being abysmally low compared to more experienced Rifters, it was clear to everyone in the room just how different a Rifter was compared to an ordinary human.

Lance observed it from his sofa. Surrounding them were several men and women who had enough social credits to be allowed entry in the VIP section. Lance thought he recognised at least one actor and a singer. Still, all eyes were on Thomas at that moment.

‘Thomas, you are just one step away from performing in the circus,’ Lance thought, sipping his beer and leaning backwards on the sofa. He ignored the loud dance music in the background as he focused on the conversation Thomas was having with a blonde woman.

“Does it hurt?”

“Hmm? Oh, the Rift-shard?” Thomas asked the blonde on his side as he glanced downwards. Within a second, he opened another button to better show off the white crystal-like shard that was embedded in the centre of his chest.

“It does, but I don’t pay attention to it,” Thomas said to the woman, pretending it wasn’t a big deal. All lies, of course. The Rift-shard had appeared in their chests when they had survived the first Rift and it did not hurt a Rifter or cause discomfort. Every Rifter got his or her Rift-shard this way. Lance mentally shook his head.

‘Putting it on thick, Thomas?’ Lance thought, grinning as he finished his beer and placed it on the table.

Ignoring the first Rift that they had been in, Lance and Thomas had only been doing porter jobs. Tagging along with other Rifters to clear level 2 or level 3 Rifts. A small group of regular Rifters could clear these on their own. Their group usually had about twenty lower levelled Rifters that did the mining while ten higher levelled Rifters ran security.

‘The only actual fight we have been in was squashing a few rat-like monsters. And even then, Thomas felt grossed out because of the way those monsters were crawling on the walls,’ Lance thought, remembering the way Thomas had acted afterwards.

Still, the people with them in the VIP section wouldn’t be able to tell whether a Rifter was just a beginner or a veteran of a hundred Rifts. Thomas was counting on this and the naivete of the surrounding people. Rifters could occasionally feel out another Rifter’s strength, yet it was hard to measure properly and more akin to guessing. The only accurate way of knowing a Rifter’s strength was to have it measured by a machine the GRRO used or by a Rifter who had a specific class that allowed such a feat.

‘This could be fun, were it not from the stares of the other people in the club,’ Lance thought, seeing several individuals looking at them from the distance. No doubt there was a mixture of curiosity, jealousy, and resentment among them. He couldn’t blame them, seeing as a Rifter was such a strange thing. It wasn’t something you trained to become or inherited. It was pure chance at ending up in an initial Rift and surviving it.

“Could have been worse,” he said to himself as he slowly got up, signalling to Thomas that he was going to get them another beer.

In some places, people treated Rifters with scorn, linking them to the horrors of the Rift itself. Other places forced Rifters into work-camps, forced to clear a Rift all at the whims of a government.

‘At least here we can still have fun, earn cash, and spend it on ridiculous things such as staying in a VIP section of a club in London,’ Lance reflected as he left the VIP section and made his way over the bar, evading the occasional person who nearly bumped into him before he got to the bar and waited to order.

As seconds turned into minutes, it left Lance waiting for the bartender to notice him, rather than help each woman that wanted to order first.

‘This is going to take all night,’ He thought, his irritation slowly building until he finally had enough. He then steeled his mind as he activated his skill.

‘Mend wounds’

[You have used Mend wounds lvl 1 at the cost of 10 Magicka]

[Current Magicka 85/95]

Instantly, a blueish light radiated from Lance, making him stand out like a sore thumb until it dimmed again. Those closest to him were still adjusting their eyes while those further away were watching him with a shocked expression. Startled, the bartender blinked a few times before he recovered and put two and two together. The man instantly dropped what he was doing and rushed over to help the Rifter at the bar.

“Two beers,” Lance ordered, placing a few pounds on the bar, and waited for his drinks. He felt anything but calm at that moment, not fully understanding why he just did what he had done. This was so out of character for him. Still, it proved quite effective.

Nearly everyone close to him was staring in his direction, fascinated by the unknown. He could understand why, remembering the same feelings he had when he met a Rifter for the first time. It just felt weird to have the roles reversed. Compared to Thomas’s display of strength before, what Lance had just done was far worse. Anyone could understand raw strength or speed, but to illuminate yourself like a blue candle. No doubt the number of eyes on Thomas and himself would only increase.

‘Dammit… I am slowly turning more and more into Thomas,’ He thought as he grabbed his beers when they arrived before he made his way back to the VIP section, handing the grinning Thomas a beer.

“Nice,” Thomas said, complimenting Lance for finally showing off a little. He had seen Lance’s little show. It was hard not so, seeing as he had lit up like a torch.

Compared to Thomas, Lance preferred to not scream to the world the fact that he was a Rifter any chance he could get. “Sod off,” Lance said, suppressing a smile before knocking his beer bottle against that of his friend, creating a satisfying sound before both started drinking again.

‘All right, perhaps I could learn to enjoy the benefits of being a Rifter,’ He thought, taking another sip before he felt they should hit the dancefloor after their beers.

“Hey Thomas, do you want to-” Lance stopped, seeing Thomas stare at his phone with a shocked and pale expression. The man’s mouth was slightly ajar as the phone slowly slipped from his hand.

With the phone now on the table between them, Lance could read what was on the screen, seeing an open text message.

“Talk and training, starting tomorrow at seven. Same place as always. Looking forward to it. Daniel.”

Lance understood why Thomas paled after that. Hell, Lance was experiencing something similar as his own phone vibrated. Daniel had sent Lance the same message.

“Lance, he is going to kill us,” Thomas commented, waiting for Lance’s reply, only to find the man simply stare at his phone while agreeing with every word Thomas had said.

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Author: Osirium

Copyright: 2021 OsiriumWrites

Released: 2021