The Arbiter
Copyright© 2025 by James Girvan
Chapter 39
After dinner and the campfire, I managed another round with Patty, but it wasn’t exactly energetic. Slow, languid missionary with lots of skin pressed together and not a lot of emotion. Patty wasn’t exactly a great lay in my opinion. I liked a girl who was a bit more active, not just passively taking part. Flexible sex in the shower was about the extent of what she could initiate with any sort of enthusiasm. I wasn’t about to argue though, especially when she casually mentioned wanting her bed to herself later on that night.
With the sunrise I was out of her bed and found Robbie near the kitchen (which was dark and neither of us were confident enough to prepare breakfast for the whole camp). We had both woken early, which seemed an unusual habit for these folks. I stole twelve Silver and an unidentified lighter he had in his inventory. I produced the lighter in my hand, lit it and blew it out before casually throwing it back. He got a really odd look on his face every time I did that.
“You know I can see that, right?” He mentioned casually, referring to his Silver count dropping and not the lighter.
“You’re paying me back man,” I said with a smile, finding the moment humorous and turned to walk a pathway I’d seen when we came in but wasn’t told where it went. “ ... you owe me.”
“The fuck I do!” He exclaimed with heat and caught up with me. By habit I’d already taken his weapons as we exited the portal yesterday, so I wasn’t all that worried about him physically, but Robbie was Silver-driven and fucking with him like this was just mean; funny but mean.
“Chill, brother, the twelve Silver just bought you this,” I pulled out the small painting which he regarded for a moment before storing it. His eyes unfocused for a moment, pace slowing as he read the item’s description, “ ... really, it’s a steal.”
“What’s this about it being able to compound?” He asked, still apparently looking at something only he could see.
“Can’t say exactly, but I’m guessing that the comment about ‘collect ‘em all’ would mean that there’s more of them out there. What does it do for you?” I asked as we continued to walk along a well used path away from the camp.
“It’s subtle, but I feel sort of looser? Smoother? It’s hard to describe.” The anger on his face from a moment before had vanished, replaced by a big goofy grin.
“Bought it out from under the group from Patty. We found it in the library, and she decided that she’d rather have twelve Silver for herself than share whatever the whole group got when they sold it on the open market.” I explained.
Robbie frowned in response. “Not a good pack member then,” he said. I wasn’t all that surprised at his choice of words given his recent changes. “ ... we’re not going to mention this or the Silver thing either, are we?”
“No, in addition to not learning any of what I’d consider ‘basic Weapon skills’, the junior team doesn’t know fuck all about anything important like searching for Silver or items inside the Portals. Someone in this group is keeping them in the dark for some reason and it’s probably so that they can steal the majority of it for themselves. We can’t keep it hidden forever, so we’ll have to decide whether to run with it or expose it. My instinct is to just run with it for now.” I replied, a frown on my own face now. ‘The Juniors’ (as I’d just started thinking of them) would find out they’d been being ripped off, and then all hell would break loose. We’d best be a good long way down the road before that happened.
“Ok,” he replied, not seeming all that worried about it. “ ... what’s the plan for the next few days then?”
“Recover and train ... oh and I need to clear and tidy my inventory, maybe trade or sell off some of our Silver or trinkets with the hunters here or whoever their contact in town is. I’ve also got to sort out an odd ... personal issue.” I replied vaguely, thinking about the set of four ‘Justice’ items in my possession. They had been taking up both physically and mental room in my life. I needed time to figure out what to do with them finally.
“You think we might be able to get a ride in with their other portal?” Robbie asked, thinking about Silver and Experience probably.
“I don’t rightly know. We’ll take it if it doesn’t look too unreasonable, but should we take your ... Sarah along if the offer comes up?” I had intentionally avoided his word ‘packmate’ for her, getting the feeling that it was their term for each other, and that didn’t include me.
Robbie frowned again (I’d swear it was becoming his default expression at this point) before responding. “The longer we are bonded through the collars, the more I get to know about her. You know her class is ‘Fighter’, but she’s also got this extra sub-class thing of ‘Paladin’. I’ve heard people talk of getting a class once they reach a certain level, or you and that weird ‘Marauder’ thing you got going on, but what even is a sub-class? And to add to the mystery, I’m pretty sure that yesterday was her first time in a portal. Somehow, she got her Weapon first. I didn’t even think that was a possibility, man.”
Come to think of it, Sarah’s Weapon was pretty strange. It was pure white. More than just because it looked like it was carved from ivory, but it was almost lacking in color. I’d seen some black Weapons, and one even had silver inlay. That one had actually turned white too, come to think of it as a memory from my time in France popped into my head. I wondered how that dude is doing.
The path eventually exited the woodlot at the edge of a field with wheat or some sort of grain growing there. How the hell would I know the difference? The farm in the distance looked tidy; the red barn looked recently painted with the name ‘Needham’ in big, blocky, white letters that must have been two meters tall each based on how they stood out from this distance. “Guess that’s our temporary landlord.” I said, having nothing better to say in that moment.
We walked back, Robbie only speaking to confirm that he was -still- holding onto a lot of my extra crap, not that it wasn’t painfully obvious to me. I could see that he was ticked off about being stuck as a pack mule while I held his Weapons but just nodded along while not giving anything away. After a lengthy pause he piped up again. “You know you changed again, right? At first it was just that you smelled a bit different, but after all this time with the collar, I can read your stats and you seem ... different.”
“Me?” I didn’t feel any different. I was still the same old randy bastard as far as I could tell. “Maybe it’s because you’ve changed. The longer you wear that thing, the stronger it gets, right? Kinda like standing on a hill makes you see further? Look man, I can’t read Weapons like you can with that thing, but I read its description when I had one. You’ve got Sarah and that’s the start of a pack. Maybe you are becoming pack leader and things look different to you because of it.” I was kinda rambling out an answer and thinking of my own stuff and his comment just caught me by surprise.
Robbie glanced across at me with a tight look on his face. “Nothing in my stats says anything about me being an Alpha, or anything about being ‘The Master’”.
His look warned me not to be flippant about responding. This was really bugging him. “The system can’t tell you who you are, you know. I’m apparently ‘Evil’, and all just because of a few past choices. The system won’t let me use items that are designated for those who are ‘Good’,” I paused and gathered my thoughts “ ... but I don’t murder women and kill babies for fun. I ain’t the antichrist or anything. That one word ‘Evil’ doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t help help other people, or teach them how not to get themselves killed. Hell, not being worried about what the system or others think about me and trying to maintain the alignment of ‘Good’ makes me more flexible!” I smiled at the thought, thinking of Mace’s rigid morals and rules-based life.
Robbie snorted, “Maybe -you’re- the Hero and everything they say about that Black-Axe guy is true!”
Hero? “What’s that again?” I asked, my brain suddenly making a connection.
“You know... ‘The Black Axe’. The guy that was on TV and MeTube? The one that sliced through all those 4x4s in one swing? Yeah, him. It was all over the news.” My blank stare prompted Robbie to continue. “You must have been asleep when we were holed up at that last motel, but basically, they’re telling everyone that the Black axe is actually the ‘Bad Guy’. Maybe that makes room for you to be the next Hero!”
He laughed at the very idea and I gotta admit the idea of me being the Hero was funny, but the guy with the black axe (and that mind-blowing inventory) worried me. I’d figured the ones who’d be most pissed off (or maybe dead) because I hadn’t taken his weapon would be those five army assholes. Now I find out that the government down here had declared him public enemy number one?! I’d seen his Titles there in that court, and while I was never going to display mine to the public, his were very impressive and I could tell immediately why he was a ‘Hero’ to the system. If the whole weight of this country was against him, I was fucked for not helping neutralize him when I had the chance.
“You ok, Albio?” Robbie asked. I glanced up at his use of my Hunter name and noticed we were already back in the camp.
“Hunh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Just not sure I’m exactly cut-out to be a Hero, man.” I gave my best grin and tried to push aside my new worries.
The lights were on in the kitchen now and I stuck my head in to find the smell of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee. Heavenly. Grace was seated with a meal and Jimmy was behind the grill. It looked odd seeing the big-tough guy flipping bacon and cooking eggs.
“Jimmy was a cook in a diner for a while before his weapon found him,” Grace said with a smile, obviously reading the look on my face “ ... the rest of us cycle through the other work around here (more or less) but Jimmy’s in charge of the kitchen until he decides otherwise. Trust me, it’s better this way.” I smiled back while searching her inventory again. Oddly there was more Silver in there than before, and the unidentified Skill book for the Fire Mage that Tina had managed to get when we divided up the loot yesterday as in there too.
“I told Amy when we got here that I’d take the worst job you got, but I don’t think I’d like to be stuck with it forever like Jimmy here...” I mock-complained, while giving off the impression that I was going to be around for the long haul.
“It’s Anne, not Amy.” She corrected me, flexing a little. “Anne mentioned to me you would be starting with the toilets and showers, and she did it with a smile since it was her duty week coming up. You going to help Albio out?” She’d glanced at Robbie who’d followed me (or more likely his nose) into the doublewide.
“Nope, he can take all the smelly jobs as far as I’m concerned,” Robbie retorted, a real grimace on his face; no doubt thinking of the stink of shit and chemicals. “I will eat his breakfast while he’s working though.”
“I’m pretty sure I can manage a meal before I get to work.” I interjected, “Besides, I don’t want to be cleaning while people are trying to use it in the morning.” This was something that we did at Xavier’s, too. It wasn’t always possible, but you’d get fewer complaints if you cleaned places when people weren’t tying to empty their bladders or bowels.
I stepped over to a table that Jimmy was using for a servery. “What can I make for you?” He asked, sounding like he hadn’t had any of the coffee yet either.
“Anything you do really well. There ain’t anything I don’t eat, and the chef usually knows best.” I’d used this kinda phrase at small places all the time. Usually, you get something pretty damn good from a cook who just got complemented and wants to show off a bit.
“Grab a seat and a coffee, it’ll just be a few minutes.”
Music to my ears.
I chatted with Grace a bit after pouring a couple of cups of coffee and thinking. “What’s the team doing today? You got another portal dive planned?” I asked innocently.
Grace rolled her eyes at me pumping her shamelessly for information and changed the subject. “Patricia had nothing but good things to say about you yesterday. Said you took charge, had a plan, and even taught her a thing or two.”