“What” is only thing I can say at this moment, this is the kind of thing that can make me think too hard and cause smoke to form in my head.
“Yep, I’m your long lost uncle.”
“But what the, how can . . . uh.” Is what came out of my mouth instead of “How can you be my uncle.” But I didn’t say it.
“Nethal, spot me one more drink.” He gets his fourth glass of rum and takes a drink as he sighs and looks at me. “Me and your father were born in Varmania, but the higher-ups at the I.P.L. saw potential in me so they separated me from my brother when we were four. They trained me for 10 grueling years before I just sucked it up and finished up. I sent your father a few letters seeing how he was doing, got to know you and your family, was tragic from what I heard from Tajjit, but them taking me away was just the start of a new life.”
“Wow, so wait, is that what’s been happening to the people from our village, you guys abduct them and train them?”
“I guess, maybe they were disobeying orders.”
“So you don’t abduct villagers in the night and experiment on them?” then Null looks at me with a serious look on his face then his mouth starts to move as he spits rum across the room before laughing, eventually Tajjit starts to laugh too.
“Where did you hear those stories, from the grown ups at the village?” says Null still laughing it up. I just shut my mouth as I let Null have his laugh before he stops and looks at the ceiling.
“Nah, we don't do stuff like that, we either take them in and recruit more soldiers, we make sure they don’t ever return to the village. But were not those kind of people who would just torture people.”
“No no, you just keep us as slaves and kill us if we don't obey you.” I told him that as he looks at me with a concern look on his face. I turn my head to see Tajjit’s face with a sort of tense in his eyes.
“We don’t like it anymore like you do Kodath, but we cant just stop what were doing, we’ve been doing this for hundreds of years, believe me I would love to stop, but this is how we survive, without villagers to cooperate with, this society would collapse. I try to save lots of people, I try to give you as much freedom as I can, in fact, very soon, everyone will be free.” says Tajjit as he lights his cigar again and puffs.”
Then Null leans forward and talks to me seriously. “The reason we came to you was to get a resource known as shrimstone, we found out about it about 200 years ago, back then our leader was corrupted and made a document for us to go and take over the towns and villages within our region, believe me I wish I could destroy it but its against policy to destroy documents brought by the leader. The only way for it to be wiped away is another document brought by another leader, and his plan is to figure out what this shrimstone is and then elaborate a plan to fix this problem.”
“What exactly is this shrimstone?”
“I wasn’t told of it, but I eavesdropped on Et’dra and heard rumors about it, whatever I tell you, you must not tell anyone, understand?” Null looks at me very seriously as I shake my head yes to his words. “Good, now, long ago we discovered shrimstone to be a very high energy based resource that made our machines better. It also was used for medicine and other crafts that made our life better. So Lord Dicta made a document that ordered us to go out and seize land that contained the shrimstone energy. The stone seemed to grow larger and larger every few years, making mining it unlimited. Until we got reports of earthquakes and ruptures in the ground causing deaths and injuries. Sooner or later one of the towns were destroyed by the stone causing it to rise and destroy the land.”
“Kind of what happened to my village.”
“Exactly what happened to your village, it was a good thing we received the report from other villages so we were able to evacuate you, after the destruction of all the shrimstone based towns, we destroyed all shrimstone in North hollow and went back to inefficient coal burning. Now lord Et’dra wants explanations and wants to figure out what happened, we think that the over population of the stone could cause the world to crunch and kill everything. Wanna know what I believe, I think that theres something more to this, I’ve seen the stone, it possesses an energy that feels familiar, wait, not familiar but moving, like someone is move the energy in it cause it to move and cause havoc.” Null rubs his head as he looks at the door and closes his eyes. “Come in.”
I turn my head in confusion at the door and it opens to show a guard with a face mask on.
“Uh sorry to intrude, but uh lord Et’dra is expecting Null to deliver the introductions in the celebration.
“Lame, tell him I’ll do it.” he flips his hand making the door close without anyone touching it, that kind of magic interests me.
“What celebration is going on?” I ask the both of them. they both look at each other thinking which who will speak first, then Null shrugs and speaks first.
“Its the 342nd annual celebration of North hollow. Its where everyone in North hollow comes and parties with everyone as the Lord treats us with a toast with his family, soon after we eat like no tomorrow, play games and watch fireworks done with beautiful magic works. . . its pretty exhausting cause I have to do the introductions every time.” he gets up and pulls on his hood for a second and takes it off to show his goggles and handkerchief on his face, he uses magic for such ridiculous reasons.
“Better get going, don't want him to throw make across the room again.” he leaves without another word. I was gonna ask him a few more questions but I just sit here looking at Tajjit who looks at me then at the door.
“He looks so much like your father, I think that’s the reason why I like him being in my office.” then it occurred to me that he does look like my father, that’s why he looked so familiar. “Close your eyes, I got a surprise for you, I wanted to give this to you when you were eighteen but, what the heck, time can’t be better.” So I look at him rummaging through his desk as I close my eyes trying my best not to look, but I kept them closed until he told me to look. I open my eyes to see a brown box in front of me. I look at him as he gestures his to the box as he turns in his chair and looks out the window. I open the box to show some green cushioning, inside the cushion holds a pair of golden goggles that sparkle in the sunlight.
“What . . . is this?” I ask him without taking my eyes off of them.
“It’s a pair of North hollow celebrational gold tinted goggles.” He looks at me as I raise my head to see his face. “I was hoping if you would like to go to the festival tomorrow, take some time off, and show you the city.”
“Really? Would they let you do that?”
“Not really, but you’re the closest thing to your father that I have and he told me to take care of you if he ever passed.” I now know why he’s so nice to me; he made a promise to my father to take good care of me. I was going to reject but something came into my mind, something I need to know.
“Ok I’ll, on one condition.”
“What is that?”
“I want you to take me to the Imprisonment Correctional Center in North hollow.”
“Why do you want to go there?”
“There’s someone I got to find.”
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