Warlock of Omaha

Warlock of Omaha By Hemaccabe Chapter 8 Awkward Beginnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Warlock of Omaha

By Hemaccabe

Chapter 8 Awkward Beginnings

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The raid on the "Fomor," was complete and the bolts were turned in, one way or the other for both.

You'd think I would be at my mental and physical leisure and you would be completely wrong. Aside from the questions Poison Ivy had raised about how I was living my life and whether I could achieve real happiness I had other areas of concern.

First was, what the hell was I facing? The so called "Fomor" at the warehouse were very un-Fomor-like. Jake and I had assumed they were Fomor. Jake had told me during our talks after the fact that he had never smelled Fomor before, so he just assumed they were Fomor. I had read a variety of reports about the Fomor but had never before tangled with them directly. There was the barge and the water monster, very Fomor, but then the guards and Poison Ivy were very NOT Fomor. I knew the Fomor weren't a monolithic force. They're composed of many different internal parties and jurisdictions. It could be I was facing my own happy pocket or something completely different.

I had now had four incidents in my life. White Man, Forest Man, Mob Incident and Poison Ivy. Poison wasn't exactly the same as Forest Man, but I definitely felt like they were related. Poison's thugs were definitely reminiscent of White Man's, but MIBs were kind of a generic look. Were they all connected? Did they just seem to be? The Mob incident was the only outlier. That said, I had always assumed Mr. Albici had acted on his own out of general mobster cussedness. On the other hand, what if he had been manipulated by whatever was otherwise harassing me.

So that was stirring around. Not much I could do until I learned more. But my mind kept gnawing on it, reviewing them detail by detail looking for something that probably wasn't there. Forcing me to review my least happy moments over and over.

In terms of my equipment and load out, I now had some major work to do.

The Svartalves may not have needed the bolts or for all I know they needed exactly five hundred bolts for a specific project. The bolts might have just gone into a reserve hardware library, like at a hardware store or well stocked shop. I had confidence the Svartalves kept a very well stocked shop. Now that they had 5/8" bolts I could imagine being called back in a couple months with a request for ¾".

On the other hand, the Svartalves had taught me a new trick which had improved the quality of my magic. They not only taught me but had functionally assigned me a set of learning practice problems, like an elementary school kid learning math. It had definitely been a wax on wax off moment. That may well have been their objective. The bolts could have just been a learning exercise. Having examined my pistol, they may have realized the low level of my ability. So, they assigned me a job with no purpose other than teaching me a new skill so they could keep me in their virtual reserve hardware library in case more work was necessary. The truth is that to do their style of enchantment took me almost all day for the first bolt in the first batch. After that I had thought the reason I had six months was that it would take that long to do the enchantment work. However, by the last few batches, I was doing it in under thirty seconds a bolt. I had become more proficient not just in the Svartalf magic, but in magic in general. I had substantially better control and finesse than I ever had before.

That meant there was a substantial opportunity to upgrade my gear across the board.

I also had become aware over the last six months of a new generation of CFRTPCs. CFRTPCs are the modern version of things like Kevlar, very tough plastic backed by very strong synthetic fibers. Most CFRTPCs had been rigid up to this point. However, the new generation was supposed to be flexible, and might look like leather if treated right. That implied the possibility of a whole new generation of armor. I hadn't checked on the ceramic, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a new generation of ceramic as well.