The Arbiter
Copyright© 2025 by James Girvan
Chapter 32
We were in no particular hurry, the venue change had meant a delay of two weeks. I resisted the urge to call my Father and let him know I was ok. Who knows if they were under surveillance or not. Without contact I wouldn’t know how Mace was doing, and more importantly what he was saying. Leaving him with a goose-egg on the back of his head and a only one working foot (for a while at least) should be enough damage to clear him of suspicion of having just let me go, and my hope was that I hadn’t hurt him so much that he wouldn’t ever recover. He could stand to be near his sweetheart maybe now with this sort of leg (and head) injury he had every excuse to leave the service. With any luck my stealing the Collar from him gave ‘them’ every reason to let him go. My hope was that he’d eventually see that I was kinda doing him a favour and maybe he would keep his mouth shut about certain things about me.
“Since we got time, is there anywhere else you need to go? A great Portal you have a contact with, something you’ve always wanted to do? Maybe you got someone who needs a little payback or an easy mark?” I asked. Robbie was motivated by cash, and had his own Demons. It’d be better (read: safer) for me if I knew about them now.
“Nobody local, or even within a hundred miles ... except there is one guy though who was using the same fence as I did, he was selling Silver too. This asshole was trying to sell me drugs for Silver, got really in my face when I told him to fuck off.” He said with a grin. “Feel like robbing a drug dealer if we can find him?”
“Finding and robbing a drug dealer might be a problem unless we are sneaky. Drug dealers have guns too, I don’t affect those and I’m not fast enough to dodge a bullet yet.” I hemmed for a second though. “Did hey get a good look at you?” he just shrugged in response. “I could just camp out near your fence though and strip him clean from a distance. You want to hurt him or just steal from him?”
“Well, he is selling drugs...”
“ ... and others are buying them. Does that also not make them bad guys?” I’d sold drugs before (tame ones though) and that alone didn’t necessarily make me a bad guy. I actually was a bad guy though, so I’d best not use that argument anyway.
I thought it over. “Is this guy close? We could just wheel by and see if I sense anything. We’d have to get pretty close though.” I waffled “Figure this guy has a lot of Silver eh?” I was wondering just how greedy this guy was.
“Probably. What’s the range of your Skill anyways?” He asked innocently. Too innocently.
“Far enough, but there’s another option and you can try it for yourself. Pull over and read that Collar’s description.” I stayed silent as we exited the highway and pulled onto a side street.
“Says it’s cursed man! What the hell? You want me to put a cursed object on? Says here I can’t take it off unless my master allows me to!” He yelled, it was loud in the car.
“How the hell do you think the other guy and I were finding you? I took this from him, that’s part of my Skill and I had to; otherwise I’d never get away from the guy.” To be honest, I wasn’t completely sure I could, but I once managed to drop another cursed item (the whetstone) on the ground so it wasn’t totally a shot in the dark. “The powers of that collar are insane. Paired with your Fade skill, you’d one of the most dangerous people there are.” I replied in an effort to calm him. “Look, HE couldn’t take it off himself but _I_ could. You and I work together and I’ll take it off of you when you want me to. If you like, think of it more as a ‘working uniform’. Besides, I ain’t letting you get away with that baby, transferrable buffs like that are beyond rare and more valuable than a thousand Silver.”
I waited him out. He could read, the collar had a hell of a lot more that it could do then Mace had ever described.
Collar of Argos: Cursed
Bonded item, cannot be removed except by the ‘The Master’. Removal of collar signifies banishment from the pack.
A nose for Trouble - Wearer can differentiate others based on intent: Hostile-Neutral-Friendly-Pack.
A nose for Predators - Individuals auras are known whenever they appear within range as long as there are no air-tight barriers between you and them.
A nose for Detail - The longer an individual remains within range, the more details you learn about them. Closer range increases detail further.
A nose for the Pack - Pack members retain awareness of each other and ‘The Master’ at all times.
A nose for Prey - Anyone exhibiting fear responses within range will provoke hunting instinct of the whole.
Without a doubt this was the most complex descriptions I had ever heard except for my set, and without knowing what Mace had said about actually wearing it, it seemed like an amazing item. I expected it was the increasing detail that would eventually overwhelm him. I’d never even considered putting it on (no telling if I could remove it from myself) but having someone along who had those abilities (and was under my control) would be amazing. I was counting on the downside of wearing it to keep him tied to me as the only one (he knew) who could take it off.
“And you’ll take it off right?” He asked, verifying my method of controlling him.
“Yup, in fact I won’t let you wear it for more than a minute this time. The last guy complained about his heightened sense of smell quite a bit.” I smiled as I said it. “If he and his bosses hadn’t been such cunts I’d have taken it off of him whenever he asked.”
Some hesitation showed in his eyes, but he lifted the collar to his throat.
I can understand how Mace ended up bonded to the damn thing. Even if you just thought you’d check its size, the collar actually reached the last few inches for itself as Robert lifted it to his neck and closed itself onto him.
“Argh!” He yelped and started thrashing in his seatbelt. I reached up and across him to turn the ignition off as he thrashed against the restraints.
10 seconds.