Chapter 36.3: Crossing Christoff

“Mistress?” A new voice asked.

Veritas looked up and sneered. Jezzi approached, stalking in from the adjacent lab. He’d seen her there on several occasions, and no amount of exposure made her any easier to look at with that pig-nose and narrow cat pupils. No asura was particularly appealing, but this one was something out of Christoff’s childhood nightmares: a little gremlin creeping out from under his bed.

“What is it?” Kikka demanded.

“My people have completed the extraction,” Jezzi said, glancing haughtily at Veritas.

Vadd broke his own sour glare at Jezzi to sneak a look at the human as well. In fact, for an instant, everyone there had shifted their focus to him, though he didn’t know why.

Kikka nodded. “You’re certain there’s nothing remaining?”

Jezzi stood straight-backed and unblinking, seemingly unafraid of Kikka. In that way, she was entirely unlike Vadd and most of the idiot toadies in that facility. “Miniscule traces remain,” she said. “Nothing we could reasonably extract before deployment and nothing that would impact final results on the project one way or the other.”

“You’re certain of that?” Kikka demanded, flaring her ears and stepping up to the other female. “Everything is prepared, precisely as instructed? There is no margin for error in this, Jezzi. None!”

The pig put an overconfident hand to her hip. “Our golems can perform in every way you instructed they should, and beyond. Surprisingly those Synergetics schematics were coherent enough to adapt for our purposes after all, and the conversions from Seer essence to this agony magic—” She cast another sidelong glance at Christoff. “Well, it seems to have been an admirable proxy in spite of my initial concerns.”

She went on to explain in jargon-filled detail what was still needed. Christoff had to assume they were talking about those pill-shaped things Jezzi had been working on.

Tuning out the technobabble, he glanced back at the sylvari in that holding chamber. What he wouldn’t have given to be done with these tiny, big-eared cretins and just have some time to himself with that impudent vegetable. Alas, the asura were currently more of a threat to him than anyone else, so that would have to wait. One day, though, the sylvari, his little associate, and maybe that bitch with the explosives would all get what came to them; they would get whatever vindication Christoff Veritas deemed necessary, or just enjoyable.

There was a pause in conversation that called Christoff out of his thoughts and back to Kikka, whose expression was now dangerously close to satisfaction. She glanced up at Veritas, and it faded.

“You see, bookah?” she growled at him. “Some of the teams here are capable of meeting my expectations without any suspicious delays.”

Christoff tightened his arms across his chest. “And what is that supposed to mean? I’m getting the sense you aren’t as appreciative of our dear Vadd’s caution as you should be.” She was on to him, and they both knew it, but admitting that would only tip the balance of power further in her direction. “Do you really take such little pride in the quality of your art, your science, that you would put it out into the world without a final assessment of its utter quality?”

Kikka jabbed a finger into Christoff’s middle, her voice low and dangerous. “I don’t know why you’re stalling, human, but you are. You had best be certain it’s—”

“Mistress,” Jezzi cut in impatiently, “may I continue removing the material from lab delta to sigma now?”

More than one set of eyes went wide at the interruption. Even Christoff was taken aback. She did have gall.

Kikka stared daggers at Jezzi, though her finger was still pressed into the human’s belly. “Fine. Go and…”

Her burgeoning rage suddenly melted with her words. She was overcome with a dark, crooked smile. “No, not yet,” Kikka corrected, waving a finger at her subordinate.

“Mistress,” Jezzi went on, “my team still has substantial other—”

“Enough, Jezzi!” Kikka barked, her braids swaying again with her sharp movements. “I’ve had a sufficient supply of your insolence. You and your team will continue your work, but not before the human here gets a moment with his precious trophy.”

Christoff rarely saw the krewe leader slow her pace for anything, but there seemed to be a spark in her eye as she looked back up at him: some sudden calculation that cocked the corner of her lip in a twisted snarl of a smirk. He maintained an expression of self-surety, but only by a thread.

“My trophy?” he asked with a sneer. “What are you referring to, you heinous, little imp?”

Still grinning, Kikka turned away, and Jezzi scuttled off toward the lab with a huff. She whistled at someone on the other side. “Bring it around,” she called. “No, no. Bring it here, you ignoramus. Kikka wants it for the bookah.”

Kikka circled Veritas, quietly snickering now. Beyond the doorway, he could hear the creak of wagon wheels moving across the stone floor. He ran a finger down his scar.

They waited, listening to that creak come closer. It was accompanied by pounding steps.

“You know,” Christoff mused, filling the empty space, “I do find it curious.” If he had to wait around for something, at least he wouldn’t do it in that eerie silence.

“I’m sure your paltry human mind finds many things curious,” Kikka scoffed.

Behind a congenial tone, Christoff bit back his rising fury. He truly hated this woman. “As clever a wit as ever, Kikka. However, what I was on the verge of referring to was the interesting size discrepancy between your different golem designs back there.” He gestured toward the doorway where Jezzi stood, waiting for whatever was coming.

“Different tasks necessitate different tools,” Kikka said flatly. “Even a six-foot idiot must comprehend that.”

Holding a tight fist, Christoff forced that nobleman’s chuckle back into his voice. “Yes, of course: cudgels for footmen, rapiers for lords. I do grasp the duller points of strategy, thank you.

“More directly, though,” he went on, “I notice you only have only one of those colossal creations with the cannon Vadd has been working so very hard on, compared to the dozen or more little worker bees that one over there has constructed.” He pointed at Jezzi.

 Kikka’s smile began to wane, and Christoff pressed the point. “That imbalance,” he said musingly, “that is the curiosity to me. Perhaps a lack of resources limits how many you can construct on that scale? But then, if that were the case, it seems to me that four slightly smaller creations with the same weaponry—which is, after all, where their power lies—well, those four would be more beneficial at, say, defending your facility, which I venture is the purpose of your colossus. Is it not? So why not focus your efforts on a quality middle ground?”

Kikka’s grip noticeably tightened around the edge of her data tablet. Her cheek twitched angrily, but somehow that unsteadying smile remained on her face. “Oh, how brilliant you are, human. After days surrounded by my babbling engineers, you’ve finally listened long enough to surmise the purpose of my enforcer golem. I’m sure your head hurts from the exertion, especially since you’ve concluded incorrectly.”

She’d been circling him, but she stopped and began a purposefully plodding course toward lab delta, toward Jezzi. Christoff stood for only a moment, debating whether or not to follow. To do so would be a subtle but real acceptance of Kikka’s retained control of the situation, but all the others were already steps away from him, right on Kikka’s heels, and soon he’d be left behind, just him and the captured sylvari.

Christoff bit back a curse and followed. Kikka eyed his movement over her shoulder, and her grin spread to reveal teeth.

“Whatever reason you have for playing at this point,” Kikka said with a brisk shrug, “it has no bearing on anything, you imbecile—you have no bearing on anything.” She continued to walk ahead, approaching the doorway as she spoke. “I built Thaumacore. I am responsible for its advancements. I made it a place of discovery. I raised it to such a station of prominence that my superiors fear us and what we are capable of. I did all of it, and I will be responsible for our next great step, only days from now.

“That golem isn’t meant to defend this place; it’s meant to defend me. How many of me do you see?”

She was looking ahead now, not at him, but Christoff still fought to maintain his semblance of composure. Yes, he’d gotten information from her: this enforcer golem was her own personal bodyguard. she’d given this away willingly, meaning it had little value in their ongoing contest.

He’d moved up beside her now, and she shot a look up at him from beneath the curtain of teal hair that hung across her forehead. “What?” she asked, sounding almost patient for the first time Christoff had ever seen. “No snide quip? No infantile rebuttal?”

They passed through the massive doorway and into lab delta. He sought for a retort, but Kikka gave him only a second before the biting snap returned to her words. “Your silence is the most intelligent thing I’ve heard out of your mouth since we had the misfortune of encountering you, you mumbling halfwit. Now, do you want to see your Alchemy-accursed jade or not?”

He fell back a step. His jade? What was she talking about? He’d planned for a couple different outcomes from this conversation, but this was not one of them. Was she really going to give it to him already?

Christoff’s flying thoughts halted, as he suddenly noticed the asura around him again. The lab, busy as ever, was filled with dozens of squat, asuran bodies shuffling this way and that, from one task to another and back again, all around that monolith of a golem and a few remaining smaller ones. Christoff’s attention, though, was focused now on the asura nearest to him, who were all watching him once more: Kikka glaring happily, Jezzi and Comakk looking on smugly, and Vadd gawking as if at something terrible. What in the name of the Unseen Ones was happening?

That was when he noticed it approaching them: a large, round-topped golem almost struggling to pull a wooden wagon lashed behind it. The vehicle was piled high with lumpy contents that had been tied down with a tarp. He hadn’t seen it in days, but Christoff knew immediately what it was.

As if to confirm his assumption, a single piece of jade slipped out from beneath the tarp and tinkled to the floor. The attending asura bent to pick up the stray and stuffed it back beneath the tarp.

Torment. She’d actually brought it to him.

Christoff eyed the lab again, where work was still clearly under way on both of Kikka’s primary projects, and more hands were at that work than ever. There was no chance Kikka was done with him, and even less of one she was done with the jade, so what was she really doing?

“Where are they taking that?” he demanded. “What are you doing with my jade?” 

Another couple of jade bits fell from the wagon, and that asura scurried to replace them, tightening down the tarp where they’d fallen.

“My jade, you dimwitted ape,” Kikka barked with almost a laugh. “It only becomes yours when our contract is complete, but I do want you to see it.”

Christoff sneered. His mask of composure was gone. “Oh, no, you slithering, little wretch. Our contract is only complete when I have possession of the jade. It isn’t a spoil of the agreement; it is a condition. So I ask again. Where are they taking it?”

Stomping doggedly toward the wagon, Christoff glanced down at Kikka, who went beside him. Her eyes burned and her grin widened. “The specifics are irrelevant at this point,” she hissed. “There is nothing more we need. I’m having it removed to another location to be packaged for your rapidly approaching departure. But I know how much you want your forebears’ precious jade, so I wanted to make sure you see it, touch it, before it’s moved.”

Kikka grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward her, the smile on her face melting into fixed rage. “I do not know why you’re stalling with these abnormalities, or how long you’ve been doing so, but wasted time results in wasted resources.” She pointed at the wagonload of jade. “This resource has exceeded its usefulness to me, and your people aren’t far behind it.”

Behind her, Vadd’s face puckered ever more anxiously as his attention flicked between Christoff and the asura krewe chief, and Christoff couldn’t keep the worry from his own face. What in Tyria was this woman’s game?

Christoff shook himself sober and brushed her off him, turning to the wagon, which had pulled up alongside them all. Another handful of stone chips tumbled from the wagon and skittered in various directions across the floor of the lab. The assistant ran off after those that stopped nearest the wagon. Two, though, slid across the stonework to stop at Christoff’s feet.

“Gods alive,” he called at the assistant chasing the other escape shards. “Don’t you lose a bit of that! Do you hear me, mouse?” Even that little wretch of an assistant eyed him disparagingly before returning to his task.

Christoff lowered himself to the dusty floor to snatch up the fragments that had come to rest at his boots. He’d be snarling, if not for the thrill that rushed up in him as his hand wrapped around the shards.

But the thrill was short-lived. It burned off as soon as reality struck him: there was no magic left in those stones. He could feel it as soon as they touched his skin. That thrum of power that emanated from living, magic-infused jade was gone. It was just gone. There wasn’t even a hint of the resonance the bandit overseer should have felt.

“No,” he muttered to himself, already stepping forward to the edge of the wagon with those dead bits of jade still in his hand. His heart pounded against his ribs. It was an isolated incident; it had to be. But as Christoff Veritas pulled back the tarp and clawed through the mass of jade pieces, his fears were confirmed. Each shard that his hands dug past was dead, lacking the magical potency that had started him down the path into this gods-forsaken jungle, with these heinous, little, shark-toothed people to begin with. There wasn’t a pulse to it at all. This wagonload of jade was inert, lifeless, nothing but ordinary stone without the slightest magical imbuement.

That bitch, he thought, rounding back on Kikka and her revolting cronies. Unseen Ones take him, she’d planned this from the first, and he, Christoff Veritas, feared bandit lord, had walked right into it. He felt the heat in his cheeks. Gods, she’d even said as much right in front of him. There’s nothing remaining? she’d asked of Jezzi. And the ugly one had replied with all the necessary information: miniscule residue only.

He clenched the jade in a tightening fist, feeling the imprint of it pressing into his palm. The pig was right. There wasn’t enough magic left in this for him to construct a jade cockroach, let alone a construct.

"What have you done?" Veritas blurted.

Her snide delight was palpable, and it infuriated him all the more. "It’s clear, isn't it, bookah? I siphoned off the magic."

No accusation he could level at her would mean anything. Somewhere inside he knew that, but it didn’t stop him.  He gripped the stones even tighter. "My men did your dirty work, and you have the gall to double-cross me, you accursed, little abomination?!"

Kikka’s lightless grin deepened as she glared back at him. "I didn't double-cross anyone, imbecile. You made our exchange for the remaining stone, which I've clearly provided. The fact that you said nothing of receiving the magic inside it is your own knuckle-dragging problem, you utter moron.”

Scrounging for any rebuttal, Christoff continued to silently fume. Curse his name, she was right. She was still a backstabbing wretch of a creature, but she was right.

“You have what you demanded, but I don’t.” Her eyes suddenly alight with rage, she waved the wagon away and leaned in at the man again. “You wanted to stall, to waste my time? Fine. Return to work—you and Vadd—and make my weapon function properly, according to your high quality standards. But know this, you and your band of toddling miscreants won’t see daylight until the work is complete! And the only things you’ll have to look forward to are crates of powerless rocks and your continued pathetic lives.”

Nearly shivering with anxiety, Vadd took only a second to throw Christoff a dirty look before committing his attention to his leader. He bowed haphazardly. “Yes, Kikka. Of course. We will— we will certainly have it completed. Most certainly. We won’t eat, we won’t sleep—”

“I’m not talking to you, buffoon. I’m talking to him.” She pointed at Christoff, refusing to blink, despite the furious quiver at the corners of her mouth.

Veritas hated her.

After another second of that glare, Kikka was done. She spun on her heel and stamped off out the doorway, through the testing facility, and away into the complex. Comakk moved right on his master’s heels, and Jezzi scoffed as she accompanied the wagon to the exit at the other wall.

Veritas hated them all.

Vadd held his tablet in one hand and gripped his belly in the other, looking almost green. His eyes settled on Veritas and his voice shook. “What have you done?”

“What have I done? You fool,” Christie’s barked. His hand all but flew to his scar. “This is the fault of that horrid, little overlord! It’s what she’s done that you should be concerned with.”

Vadd pushed past him and started toward the massive golem across the room. The assistants were following him with the cannon now, though Christoff hadn't seen when they’d approached.

“It’s not what she’s done,” Vadd mumbled as he walked away, “but what she’ll do next that I’m concerned with. You should be too.”

Veritas nearly screeched a response at the coward, but he caught himself. He always caught himself. There would be abundant time for fury later; now he had to think. He stuffed the bits of dead jade in his pocket and slowed his breath.

Kikka’s people must have only just finished extracting that magic, as he and Vadd had been working with it only a few days before. And if that were the case, she had to be using it in some project that was still here, something other than the energy cannon, which only required the most minimal of extractions. He’d been fine with that, particularly once he’d realized he could control it in that device. If he could only find where she’d funneled the rest of it.

Starting after Vadd, Christoff scanned the lab and all the flunkies scrabbling around it. There were Vadd and his people getting back to work at the huge golem and its weapon. A few dozen yards away from their station were Jezzi’s engineers, frantically adding parts to a couple of their little, hovering golems while other asura milled about packing the finished ones into crates.

Christoff’s eyes bulged.

Of course! There had been at least two dozen of those pill-shaped golems, and though he’d been too preoccupied to recognize it at the time, Vadd had just told him minutes before that they too operated on Unseen-One magic—something about domed projections, he’d said. Curse him, how had he forgotten? Vadd had even stated that the contraptions required more magic than Vadd’s cannon. That was where his magic was, in that gang of golemites.

Yes, if he was ever to take his prize back to the Demagogue, he now had the added complexity of having to break his people free of this place. That would be harder with the magic now separated from the jade necessary for a construct, but it wasn’t impossible. It was ultimately about the magic, not specifically what housed it. Besides, he still had the jade too.

Letting his hands fall away from the scar, Christoff grinned.

Vadd may have thought he should be concerned with what Kikka would do next; they all may have. But none of them know what Christoff Veritas did.

“Perhaps,” he said under his breath, “you all should be concerned with what I do next.”