NOVGO.NET Chapter 87: Price On Counter
Chapter 87: Price On Counter
"Pass the salt cellar, Ruby, and don’t dump half the bowl on your cabbage."
The pleasant aroma of roasted root vegetables and fried pork fat filled the small kitchen of apartment 4B.
"I need salt, Fin, my armor sweating takes two pints of water out of me every patrol."
"Two pints of water doesn’t require enough mineral brine to preserve a cod."
Nim sat quietly at the fourth corner of the table, holding her wooden fork with careful, measured precision.
"Is the pork too crisp, Nim?"
"No, Jolly... it is very tender, much better than the dried ration blocks."
"Eat as much as you like, there are four more cutlets warming on the pan."
Three gentle, deliberate knocks sounded against the wooden front door, distinct and unhurried.
The conversation around the table instantly halted, the metallic clatter of forks settling into silence.
"That wasn’t Sefu’s knock," Ruby murmured, her hand drifting toward the short spear leaning against the cupboard.
"Sefu bangs like he wants to break the hinge," Nila agreed, her eyes narrowing toward the hallway.
"Stay seated, all of you."
Fin rose from the stool, hatchet resting securely in the leather loop at his hip, and walked to the entryway.
The brass peephole showed only a slender woman standing on the worn hallway runner in a simple grey woolen cloak.
Fin unlatched the deadbolt with a steady turn, pulling the door back six inches.
"You took the stairs instead of the window."
The woman stepped into the light of the hallway lamp, pulling back her rough wool hood with slender, pale fingers.
Her dark grey eyes were calm as stagnant well water, reflecting the yellow glow of the bulb without blinking.
"Even the messengers of the unwritten law must respect wooden stairs when wearing shoes of calfskin."
"Come in, then... dinner is getting cold."
She crossed the threshold with light, soundless footsteps, her grey woolen hem brushing against the rubber door mat.
"You may leave your cloak on the peg by the door."
"A courteous mortal host... how refreshing."
She slipped the heavy wool from her shoulders, revealing a plain ash-colored tunic bound by a simple leather cord at the waist.
"Everyone, this is our visitor from the ether... she calls herself a Witness."
Jolly stared with wide, curious eyes from behind her porridge bowl, while Nim’s ears flattened slightly against her hair.
"She doesn’t have wings, Fin."
"Of course she doesn’t have wings, Jolly, wings would get caught in the subway turnstiles."
A faint, dry smile curved the woman’s pale lips as she took the fifth stool that Ruby had dragged from the bedroom.
"A sensible household," the visitor remarked, resting her bare palms flat against the laminate tabletop. "No altars, no burning incense, and no groveling for rain."
"We don’t grovel for rain, and we don’t worship visitors," Ruby said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Now, what is this warning you promised Fin?"
"The sea moves with a purpose that your municipal charts have failed to comprehend."
"The SS gate in the Pacific?"
"That tear in the deep trench has been vomiting leviathans into the continental current for three weeks."
"Maya said the primary surge will hit in forty-eight hours."
"The vanguard constructs will reach the outer buoys in two days, yes... but the primary tide, the great host of the deep abyssal monarchs, will make landfall in thirty days."
"Thirty days?" Nila asked, setting her teacup down with a sharp clink. "Are you saying a second gate is opening?"
"No new gate is required," the Witness replied, her voice level and chillingly precise. "The existing SS incursion carries sufficient biomass to drown five coastal provinces."
"What is your observational basis for the thirty-day window?"
"The abyssal warm currents are cooling at a rate of three degrees per week as the titans displace the thermal layers."
"You measured the ocean temperature?"
"A witness observes the physical reality of the world, young blank... not the imaginary boundaries drawn on paper."
"And why are you telling us this?"
"Because an unwritten vessel that drowns in seawater is of no use to heaven’s reckoning."
Fin leaned back against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms as he looked down at her calm, porcelain face.
[ Pulse: 10 ]
[ Neutral Interference Shield Active: Zero Divine Distortion ]
[ Mana: 40/40 ]
"Let’s talk about the price on the counter."
"The price?"
"Every patron who offers a calendar or a shield comes looking for a signature in blood."
"I am not Ignis, Fin... I demand no sacrifices on brass altars, nor do I claim ownership over your soul."
"Then what is your protection worth?"
"My presence shields your household from divine scrying and celestial targeting... nothing more, nothing less."
"Does it stop an assassin’s bullet?"
"It does not."
"Does it stop a magistrate’s arrest warrant?"
"Paper laws belong to mortals, and mortar walls belong to the earth."
"So your protection only keeps gods from looking through our ceiling."
"Is that not worth a bowl of barley soup?"
Jolly looked between the visitor and her brother, then picked up the ceramic ladle with a decisive little nod.
"Everyone who sits at this table gets soup," Jolly declared, ladling a generous portion of steaming broth into the visitor’s clay bowl. "Even people who talk in riddles."
The Witness looked down at the steaming broth, her pale fingers curving around the rough wooden spoon.
"Your sister possesses a clearer sight than all the cardinals of the high temple, young blank."
"She has good sense, which is rare in this city."
Nim watched the visitor take a small, quiet spoonful of the hot soup, her amber eyes tracking every slight movement.
"Does heaven have cages like the ones in District Six?"
The Witness paused, lowering her spoon into the broth with an expression that carried the weight of a thousand fallen empires.
"Heaven has gates, little cat... and every gate is built to keep the dead from returning to their beds."
"And the leviathans in the Pacific?" Ruby asked, leaning forward on her elbows. "Are they dead things returning?"
"They are ancient fauna, displaced by the opening of dimensions that should have remained sealed."
"How many can the naval fleet intercept before they reach the shallow water?"
"Twelve percent of the vanguard, perhaps fifteen if their torpedo magazines are fully stocked."
"Fifteen percent is nothing," Nila said softly. "Eighty-five percent of the horde will hit the harbor breakwater."
"Which is why your municipal council must evacuate the outer districts before the thirty days expire."
"The council doesn’t believe our thirty-day report, Witness... they are relying on stale weather buoys from last month."
"Then show them the cooling deep-water isotherms, Fin... even politicians cannot argue with ice forming on their harbor sensors."
"We will bring Maya’s analysis to the defense commission tomorrow morning."
"Do so, but prepare yourselves for a different summons first."
"What summons?"
"Ignis has lodged a formal arbitration petition with the divine oversight registry, claiming a breach of covenant."
"Let him lodge all the petitions he wants," Fin said, taking his seat back at the table. "I never signed his parchment, and I never took his flame."
"The courtroom of the gods is a strange theater, young predator... but tomorrow, you will see how paper shields can break an altar."