Scalar Surprise

“You have to realize, Petros, we are really in this world. It’s not like in the Sims. We used a red orb to travel here. That means our real physical bodies are here. Teleported from the Absinthe ship to this plane. So you can really die here. Be more careful than usual and don’t piss off the locals. They tolerate us and will help us, and all we have to do is conform to their customs and ways and follow their training. It is also the reason for your outburst of giggles after arriving. The red orb is known to build up emotions and make us somewhat unstable for the first few hours after porting.” explained Raúl.

We had been discussing the differences I had felt since coming to Illuminous and how it was more difficult getting and using magic than I had experienced before. It all made sense now. When I had first come to Illuminous with Horatio, I had been able to instinctively make shields almost without effort. This time I actively had to seek out my inner abilities and trigger them actively. Raúl had explained that it would be even more difficult when we were deployed because the Reaper officers had a dampening effect on magical abilities in their area of control. I was beginning to see again just how undercooked I was and began having second thoughts about joining the team. Despite my growing power, was I really ready for this new form of real combat?

With these thoughts roiling through my mind, we were summoned to the banquet and as guests of honor were given much attention. The whole event took place next to the town hall in a large open area. With the stars glinting above and fire torches around the periphery casting jovial shadows. Everyone was buzzing with excitement and I got the idea that banquets were not held very often.

This was a very different sort of lifestyle to what the Elder Elves had, and reminded me somewhat of an Asterix comic book and one of the Gaul's famous banquets, where tables and benches were arrayed in a horseshoe-like arrangement while servers hustled from the cooking fires to the tables bringing freshly roasted meat, and various potato like vegetables.

A fruit-flavored punch was served too that had a real kick to it and I soon forgot my worries and joined in wholeheartedly with the festivities. As it turned out, the Orc women were very much the fairer sex, and I caught many of them eyeing me speculatively. I was equally enamoured, being of young mind and body and certainly the alcoholic beverage was adding to my libidinous thoughts.

Before those could take root, however, Lord Groggar captured us, one under each protective arm as he led us to meet everyone else, one-by-one. Both Raúl and I were toasted and greeted by almost everyone present, including the Orc Champion and the chap I had de-tongued. He couldn’t speak very well as a result, and instead to make his point he put his arm around me and opening his mouth wide, showed me the new growth on his stunted appendage. It wiggled wetly in the back of his throat between the sparkling ivory of his tusks and teeth and that's about the time I lost track of proceedings, everything blending into dark but not unpleasant memories.

The unpleasantness only started about the time I woke up. Which was about the time I landed in the icy stream. Spluttering and swearing I came out of my drunken haze knee-deep in the middle of the very fresh mountain stream. A group of Orcs cheering as I realized they had been the ones to throw me in. I was naked again and had no idea how I had arrived in my current predicament. The jeering shouts from the townsfolk made me crouch down protectively as I saw Raúl completely passed out being carried along by another group of Orcs, also towards the river. His fate was sealed as I watched him arc through the air only to bluster and fumble up in much the same way I had, both of us shivering and naked in the middle of the stream. The Orcs quieted and Shaman Bab stepped forward.

“I warned you not to drink too much Tongue Taker” she intoned in the “I told you so” voice that mothers and sisters everywhere have access to.

I just groaned as the herd of elephants tried to break out from inside my skull. It was a rude awakening but was probably one of the most effective hangover cures I had ever had.

“Good, you are just in time!” echoed Lord Groggar’s voice from the opposite bank as a wave of warriors stepped to the bank and began disrobing. Raúl this time groaned loudly.

“Better summon your staff or sword Petros, we are going to spar. Just be warned that running water inhibits magic so you will have to concentrate really hard to just do the summoning. Madre de Dios! I forgot how badly that party drink of theirs affects me.”

He wasn’t wrong. I tried and failed several times before I got the staff in hand and by that time I had four burly Orcs with only their loincloths, moving ominously towards me, two with swords and two with pairs of short sticks, one in each hand. This was going to hurt.

“The same rules apply Petros, you can’t kill anyone and you can’t dismember anyone, but other than that, make them sorry.” said Raúl who was facing off to another four Orcs with the same weapon configuration and another two slightly further behind starting to wade into the river.

My head was throbbing, and I had the taste of bile in the back of my throat. Despite that, I pushed it out of my mind as I tried to get into battle mode. With almost the entire village along the banks of the stream, I realized we were supposed to stay in the water to complete this training. I had to look at it as training because if I didn’t I would accidentally hurt someone. I saw Raúl had managed to summon a similar loincloth to the warriors, so I tried the same. Instead of a loincloth, I got boxers, but those would do. What followed wasn’t pretty.

To sum it up, it was a beat down, with Raúl and I getting the worst end of it. Okay, they outnumbered us and we gave as good as we got, but in the end, we got clubbed down and cut to ribbons. It doesn’t matter who you are and how well you have trained. More than five minutes of sustained real fighting is enough to make you forget your form and resort to brutal survival.

At that point where stamina is everything. My breath came in gasps and my senses were heightened, making strikes I took much more painful but equally making my own strikes more desperate and less controlled.

Standing in the knee-deep fast flowing water with slippery rocks, made for treacherous footing. This meant it was only a matter of time before I copped it.

And boy did we cop it. Despite ending up back-to-back, making a last stand, there were just too many of them, and they were much more controlled in their attacks. Coordinated and well-practiced.

A bad while later we were dragged to the bank to recover. The welts, bruises, and cuts on my body were superficial and not serious at all except they continually reminded me of my inadequacy and inability to prevent them, but they added to a new and growing sense of humbleness regarding this form of physical combat. It was unlike anything I had ever trained for before. In fact, all my training had been directed at short, sharp, hand-to-hand confrontations with the idea that it should end quickly and lethally. It was a lesson well learned.

Against a number of opponents, I had to draw on Aikido techniques and continually move to make the enemies obstruct each other and thus control how many attacks came at me at once. When I ran out of steam, it was over.

The rest of the day was even more difficult to bear. We were not given healing as promised and had to endure as they took us into various greenhouse type buildings set into the hillsides on the outskirts of the village. I got the impression that most of the Orcs buildings were burrowed into the side of the mountains, conjoined by an intersecting warren of tunnels. Each one of the greenhouses had magical light interspersed at varying intensities and had a vast array of different plants inside. Each representing different worlds that were known by the Orcs and had been or were under attack by the Reapers.

The assortment of plants considered immediately important were shown to us and their various uses were explained in great detail, which included healing benefits as well as detrimental effects such as poison, paralysis and so on. Each plant had quite distinctive features. They introduced us to the odor, taste, color and shapes of each, and the different phases of their life-cycle as well as the periods when they were most effective.

After the short tour of each greenhouse, we were then grilled independently about how much knowledge we retained. For every wrong answer we had to run around the village walls only to return and be shown again what we had gotten wrong. It wasn’t a fair system either, because if I got something wrong, Raúl had to join me on the run, and similarly if he got something wrong I had to join him.

The running wasn’t so bad as I was supremely fit now and well used to running, but with the hangover still looming in the back of my head as well as the beating we had endured, it made it almost unbearable. Raúl only joined me for those greenhouses that were new to him, but was excused from the ones he had already learned.

During this time, I was taken at last to the Scalar home world greenhouse. Each greenhouse was an amazing repository of native life with different climates and zones replicated exactly to facilitate the various forms of life that were growing upon those worlds. A kind of botanical gardens. I began to respect the Orcs as green-fingered geniuses. Their herb lore was literally out of this world. When a certain grass was shown to have hydrating properties as well as the ability to act as a mild sedative.

I surreptitiously took a little more than I should for one dose and during the quiz I deliberately got one wrong answer. On the subsequent run, I handed Raúl some of the grass and chewed some more myself. The relief was immediate and refreshing, and both Raúl and I were much better students thereafter. In between, we were fed, watered, and treated as new recruits. I had been through this drill many times and just took it in my stride. What else could I do?

Later that evening, we were left alone to rest and recover after a hearty meal. Both Raúl and I made straight for our bunks. The fresh air, high in this escarpment, and the busy day had us both exhausted and drained. We needed the sleep desperately.

Unfortunately, this was when J.B. visited us and he had someone with him I certainly wasn’t expecting. The knock on the outside wall of our hut elicited a groan from me. I had healed Raúl with my rejuvenation spell, but he could not do likewise for me. This left me even more drained and depleted than I had been and I was grumpily resigned to the fact that I needed to “acquire” more healing herbs with more lasting effects on the morrow. In the meantime I had just curled up on my pallet and slipped into the place between worlds that sleep is so famous for. The dark oblivion of peace and respite to give my body a chance to heal and recuperate. The knocking resumed and I groggily shouted “Go away!”

When J.B. entered, he seemed far too excited for my mood.

“J.B. you are not welcome” I intoned ominously looking at the doorway. I was still curled up on my sleeping pallet and Raúl’s loud snores seemed to corroborate my statement wholeheartedly.

“Petros, it is imperative we speak. Please, I have someone here who you should meet.”

“imperative? What kind of word is that? Are you British? Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised, you have that demeanor.” I mocked lightly as I crawled out of bed to see whom he had brought with.

“British? what is that?” he inquired, his face deadpan and emotionless as if he were the Prince Charles of Wales himself.

“Nevermind, who is here? and can you heal me? I desperately need it.”

He motioned me to come out the door to the patio, and I went leaving Raúl to his slumber.

I walked out, and found to my disbelief a Scalar male standing in the torchlight, all four arms and three eyes of him patiently waiting for an introduction. He wore a sarong around his waist and his torso was bare, showing the very pronounced musculature of his race.

Look at them guns! I thought but did not voice it. He seemed to scowl but with that third eye in the center of his forehead it made me kind of outstared and I felt compelled to look away. I did not know they were also here on Illuminous and was a little taken aback.

To date, the only Scalar I had met were simulated creatures and besides the two kids we had rescued, they were all infected with the zombie flu and I had had to hack them to death or undeath, depending on how you looked at it.

After introductions, J.B. bless his soul, healed me, and I felt well for the first time that day.

“I will never drink again” was echoing in the back of my thoughts and then I remembered it was one of the three great lies, as J.B. brought out some cups and a jug and poured us a round. This drink was tart and sharp, nothing like the fruity punch I had the night before and I downed it grimacing at the familiar burn. I declined a second round and waited expectantly at what we were meeting for. At this point in our preparations for the rescue mission, Major Gladstone had told me explicitly that we were to have no contact with the local Scalar under any circumstances, and that order was from up high in the Absinthe command structures. The decision to heal those kids at the house had been made spontaneously, and I felt it was a normal reaction by any sane person. I doubted Stone would have let us just abandon those kids, even if they were in the simulation. We had to show our human side after all.

“I believe you are going to be active in our world human Petros” said the strangely accented Scalar who had introduced himself as Shavestri. If I had to put a likeness to how he spoke, I would say he had an Indian accent. It was then that the penny dropped, and I gasped inwardly. How had I been so foolish. Shiva is an Indian God, one of the big three of their holy Triumvirate. The breaker of worlds and destroyer. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Did this have anything to do with the Scalar? It was so nearly a perfect match it couldn’t be a coincidence. Shavestri had four arms and three eyes as did Shiva. The middle eye was supposed to see into the soul. His skin was a grayish hue though and not blue as in the pictures I had seen of the Hindu God.

Before my thoughts could divert me further, I was brought back to the present by J.B. answering for me.

“Yes, the human warriors will attempt a rescue at the prison, not two nights hence. They have someone of value there and so do we. I expect that your resistance will be able to create a diversion as we discussed?”

“It is so, it is so, but telling me please, when will you be able to send help? You know it has been fifty cycles since you last sought us out. We do not fare well against the Reapers. Every day they take more life, capture more land. It is a slow and painful cancer upon our homeland. I have personally and much to my serious distaste, had to kill kin that have been consumed and changed by those Devourers. Many of us cry at their foul stench upon the winds and their unstoppable consumption of our lands.”

“Forgive me Shav, I am still new to this whole situation. I am also not the one in command. You should plan this with Major Gladstone. He will lead our team. Even Raúl probably knows more than me. Let me wake him up and he can join us.”

J.B. interrupted Shavestri’s reply, “Petros, you will lead this other mission. Leave your comrade to sleep. I have enchanted him so he sleeps soundly. That is why we are meeting. Major Gladstone’s mission is important of course, but Prince Horatio assures me you are more than capable to rescue Princess Adrianne. You are to rescue her and deliver her to Shavestri here. Let me show you.”

J.B. didn’t notice or perhaps chose not to notice my raised eyebrows. He delved into his robe and removed a fairly detailed map showing contours and positions of the area we would infiltrate to rescue our missing Prodigy.

“Here is the farmhouse where you were teleported from. Where Shavestri’s team will meet you is five gallops to the south. Before you ask, a gallop is a measurement of how far a Grist can gallop at full sprint in a regulated count to one hundred.” Journeyman Robert looked up and saw my puzzled expression hadn’t changed. “Oh forgive me, you humans use Kilometers as your unit of measurement. Let me think…. Okay, about four point seven kilometers. Do you follow?”

“Well, sure I do J.B., although I am curious what a Grist is?”

“One of our companion bearers. You must have seen them standing guard the last time you entered Illuminous? We passed several on our way out of the Tree City.”

“The horse-lion creatures are called Grists? That's a cool name. When can I ride one?”

“I fear we are getting off topic. How is it you are a leader in your world? You seldom take anything seriously and your attention span is more fleeting than a magical wisp in winter.” His waspish retort was an indication of the seriousness of our meeting.

I smiled wryly; He was not the first to have said my attention was fleeting in my life. Despite the authoritarian lifestyle I had lived in, I had always chased the threads of thought my mind contrived to conjure as much as possible. The subconscious had a way of seeking things that built into credible intelligence if you followed those threads.

“Sorry J.B. you must understand that everything I am doing here with you and the Absinthe or Ancients or Orcs and especially the Scalar is very new to me. I am learning as fast as possible and while my leadership skills are not really for me to determine or quantify, don’t mistake my curiosity or lack of linear thinking as a sign of anything detrimental to our mission. I have survived many bad situations because of those exact traits and I am not changing now.”

J.B. nodded thoughtfully.

“Fair enough, now shall we get back to the leaves on this branch?”

I smiled. I loved this guys idioms, always so apt and to the point. He continued. The Scalar had a slight smile on his face too but drew his face back into a grimace when I noticed.

“Your infiltration will center on the Science complex. The caves extend from within it at the end of the valley. From your team's previous reconnaissance there are roughly two hundred Devourers and possibly two Reaper Officers. The vehicle that has been sent to retrieve the prisoners should arrive within the next five days. As you should know by now, the Reapers use air and spacecraft and have not yet learned the node travel that you will use to infiltrate that region.”

J.B. Looked at Shavestri and the Scalar moved in and took over the briefing.

“We know the complex extends at least seven levels below ground and that Princess Adrianne is kept at the very lowest level to prevent her signature magical essence from being identified clearly. Your fellow Prodigy will be held in one of the three levels above ground and since he has been there longer, will probably be in a terrible state. You will need to make sure that you can heal him, otherwise he will not survive the rescue. Also consider this, that parts of him may have been cut off and are being kept cryogenically alive in case he escapes. They do this so that they can feed the body part to a Devourer and the escaped prisoner will be changed, no matter where he is. For this reason alone, the security will be lax.”

“We don’t think the Princess has been interrogated yet, as she is a prize worthy of one of the Reaper Lords. The Reaper Officers will know that and will protect her from their own minions and anyone else trying to rescue her. Destroy them and the entire complex to destroy any evidence of your team’s involvement. Our own team will leave explosives here and here…” He showed several points along the periphery of the complex on the map, “…and you will have to choose which ones are easiest to get during your insertion phase.”

I held up my hand to interrupt. “So does Major Stone know about the explosives? What type of explosives are they? What detonators will they have and while we have trained for insertion, there is precious little information about the site itself? Do you have blueprints?” I looked up at Shavestri and it was his turn to hold a quizzical look.

With three eyes, it was mesmerizing looking him in the face. It reminded me of those optical illusions that tricked your eyes into wanting to see something that wasn’t there. I kept blinking to get my eyes to focus correctly.

“If you mean the building structural plans, then we have something like that, although I do not have them here with me. My people built it primarily as an educational and scientific research station. We used it to explore and research the cavern depths and the various geological formations unique to that mountain range. I can leave copies at the explosive drop points if that will help.” he replied.

“The explosives are a Trillin base chemical, with a 100 count detonator. You only need to press the button, and after a count of 99 they will detonate. Each of the packages will contain enough explosives to level the building and collapse most of the cavern structures within, as well as most of the hillside the structure is built on. You will have to place the explosives on the lowest levels at the structural base within the caverns. I can have those indicated on the… blueprint as you called it.”

I stared at them both incredulously. Gritting my teeth and holding my exasperation in-check I tried to get across to these two aliens what I was thinking, because while this was exciting and new for me, it was seeming less and less likely that it would succeed.

“This mission is less than ideal. It will all go to hell if we don’t have those plans and if it’s as complicated as you describe, I would prefer the blueprints sooner. Major Stone told me it was a three-story complex with a maximum of ten rooms only and mentioned nothing about caves. I take it the building is constructed against these caves you mention?”

“Yes, the building covers the cave entrance which lead to the deeper floors. The three-level complex is built above them.” explained Shavestri

“Excuse my French, but how the fuck are we supposed to pull this off? We are six people with swords and clubs, without projectile weapons and while we have magic, it’s new to me and limited in the others of our team. I’m getting a bad feeling about this and I really don’t like keeping anything from the chain of command. You would need a full company of troops with modern weapons and air support to crack this nut.” I stated with exasperation and a growing sense of unease. I was used to compiling and presenting full briefings once the intel had been assimilated, and the operators I presented to would be howling in indignation if I presented nothing less than full intelligence. This was anything but a full briefing and the intelligence summation rounded to a big fat zero.

“How do you expect me to keep this secret from the other team members? They will need to help me in every way they can to get this close to even remotely successful.”

“Unfortunately, Petros, we have only you. Prince Horatio assures me…”

“Prince Horatio can go to hell in a hand-basket!” I raised my voice. “He’s not the one putting his arse on the line…, and you guys have loads of troops and ability. Why aren’t you going?”

J.B.’s stoic face didn’t flinch, in fact, it got sterner.

“Prince Horatio assures me you have the ability. With the additional training you will receive here over the next day, he is confident that you can pull off the raid. You need not kill everyone you meet and with the Dark spells you will learn, it should be relatively easy to sneak in and out with ample time to spare. Do not give up before you have even attempted the rescue.”

His face pinched as a painful thought came to him. “Our King is bedridden, he ails Petros. His life is meaningless without his daughter. Please do not give up. You really are our last hope.”

I wanted to walk away then; it was the strongest feeling, and I might have, if not for Shavestri.

“Colonel Petros, we have faced down the Reapers for over 100 years. As they encroach across our land, our world is being consumed. We have lost and never once gained back anything they have taken. In some places, we have held our ground. This would be the first tangible blow we give to them in taking something back from them. The first time we walk away with a win. You will free your comrade with our help and free the Princess, and perhaps in the process even if you don’t free the other prisoners there, those who are my poor brethren, you will at least free them in spirit and their age of torture will be lessened. For that alone, your men will be honored above all others by my people.”

“You have many people in the place?” I asked, caught up in his pain and knowing if it was me, I would not rest until I had them all free.

“We do not know how many, because it is very hard to know if someone has been turned or taken. When they are turned into a Devourer, it is very hard to tell who they once were, unless from clothing, or perhaps some unique feature.”

“Have you seen the Devourers? They injure themselves to find food; they don’t care about anything unless under the control of an officer. Who they have in that jail is really unknown, but whoever is left in there deserves to die with some semblance of honor. The explosives will completely destroy that place and destroy them too. They won’t be turned into devourers. It is a blessing.”

“Look, I will help you both as best as I can. For what it's worth, I will do my best to extract anyone and everyone that has a reasonable chance at escape. What I don’t understand is why you aren’t going through the correct channels, using the Ancients and working with the rest of my squad.”

“The Ancients have written off Princess Adrianne as an unavoidable loss.” said J.B. “They believe that returning her to us, will upset the Reapers and cause them to be much more aggressive and active. They fear that by freeing her, their own complicit overtures in aiding us and yourselves will become widely known and cause a ripple effect that might lead the Reapers to our world and the discovery of planar travel. The Ancients political structure is opposed to direct intervention and the Reaper Lords use the threat of annihilation on the Ancients should they change this outlook. If the Reapers gain the knowledge that there is an inner faction of Ancients, the ones you call the Absinthe, working towards their destruction, then they will take direct action against the Ancients. It will cause chaos and widespread destruction and may wipe out our benefactors.

“You're not saying anything that encourages the path we are choosing,” I said forlornly. “Are we not dooming ourselves and them in this one act of kindness? Is it really worth it?”

“This one act of kindness, as you put it, will restore our nations’ monarch to full faculty, additionally it will give the Scalar people a hope that the foe can be beaten after a hundred years of persecution and untold numbers of casualties. Last but not least, it will rip out the root of a relentless enemy. If the raid goes off as expected, then you will be wiping all evidence of the human presence in the explosion anyway. The presence of the Scalar raiding party will give credence to the idea that they were the ones to mount the raid. Perhaps it is they who will reap the harvest of the Reapers displeasure. The less anyone knows about it, the better.” I saw Shav nodding in agreement.

“You still have not explained why you don’t send your own warriors to do this? Your troops, combined with the Orcs and whoever else lives in this land could probably make short work of these Devourers.”

“On this world, we would make a strong standing because we are tied to the land and the Illuminous Lodestones. However, on a different world, we are too far from our source of power to be much use. Humans are the only species in existence who can tap into any planets magical energies without serious inhibition to their latent magical ability. Additionally our auras, I mean all the races of Illuminous will shine extremely brightly to the Devourers senses and so it is almost impossible for us to hide from them or surprise them.”

“And yes, your aura will also shine brightly, but that is why you are here and also so crucial to this mission. One of the books I gave you will teach you a spell of how to dampen your aura significantly such that you can pass almost undetected throughout the complex. Invisible from sight and senses. The same spell does work on us, but not as well as on humans.”

“The Orcs are masters of the Dark and Fire, and you will need to boost these skills to be of use to your team. Both you and Raúl will be sent inside the jail fortress because you both possess the prerequisite spells and abilities. The others in your team will maintain security while the pair of you move in, infiltrate and rescue Malabourne, and then you, Petros, on your own, will have to infiltrate further to secure and release the Princess. I suggest that you task Raúl with planting the explosives at that juncture so that everyone can escape leaving no trace of your presence.”

“How will I explain the Princess to the rest of the team?” I asked what I thought to be the obvious question and considering how blasé J.B. was about going around the chain of command, it was clear he knew nothing about our military tactics and the level of trust we built as small team special forces operators. There was just no way this would go down without my team being in on the WHOLE plan.

As if reading my mind J.B. replied “She will be a happy coincidence. The whole idea of you sneaking in to plant the explosives and retrieve Malabourne is that suggested by my King and his advisors working with the intelligence provided by the Scalar and the Absinthe. He knew that the Absinthe would not risk retrieving his daughter but would be keen to extract the Prodigy human before he is interrogated further. Their own complicit exploits would come under scrutiny when the human broke and released all their secret dealings. Whereas another Elf lost to carelessness was hardly a concern of theirs.”

I was once again startled at the seemingly discordant nature of the relationship between the Elder Elves and the Absinthe. Especially considering that the Absinthe were the ones taking the biggest risk by supporting and aiding everyone I had met in this hodge-podge mish-mash of alien species or races or sapients or whatever. It was the Absinthe’s own technology after all that was ensuring everyone was still surviving. It also seemed to me that the Elves were bereft and willing to do anything to get their addled King back to full health. I could not begrudge them that. I also knew that the Absinthe could monitor my thoughts and conversations while I was within a Sim, but could not do the same level of monitoring when I was “in the flesh” so to speak.

It seemed like J.B. knew and was taking advantage of the flaw to get this intelligence to me while I was unfettered to my Absinthe handler. How I would share it with the others in my team without the Absinthe knowing would be a tricky and dicey endeavor. Lucky for me, that was exactly what I had been trained for. After all, when one deals with the CIA, JSOC, NSA, MI6, Mossad and the myriad of other acronyms out there, one learns to keep the cards you are dealt close to the chest. As far as poker goes, I was shaping up to have a straight, not a great hand, but not a bad one either, and you never knew what your opponent was dealt and that was why it was called gambling, the outcome was never a certainty, only a probability.

We discussed the finer details of the plan; I asked questions, and Shavestri told me what he could, and promised to provide the rest of the information I requested within a day. When the meeting finished, I joined in for a final toast.

Shavestri started it off, “With the blessings of Shiva may his hand bring destruction upon our foes.”

I interjected with a quote from General George S. Patton, “The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.” to which J.B. added a quote from his King Abalone, “When the rot runs deep, dig it up, cut it out and replant for the best chance of success.”

These proved to be prophetic words that would come back to haunt us all.