Chapter 6

He needed to get out of his suit. That was his first stop after he left Hope at the top of the stairs. Everything about it felt constricting now, as if it were constricting and confining him from all angles. Once he arrived at his room, he wasted no time, and damn near ripped the thing off him.

He needed time and space to calm down. Fresh air. Fresh air would help considerably, but first he had someone he needed to talk to. He needed to find out if Dr. Saltzman knew that the truth about his mother was being kept from him.


As it turned out, he had. That had been a mistake. Not only did Dr. Saltzman know about Hope hiding the truth about his mother from him, but he also actively encouraged her to do so.

"I guess the part about honesty and integrity being important only applies when you're not one of your favorite students." He spat out as he made his way out of the office, and shortly thereafter, out of the school.

Confronting the headmaster only led to more anger building up within him, which the phoenix in him used as fuel to produce increasing amounts of flame. If he didn't get somewhere far away to calm down soon, he was going to explode, and he was sure how much of that statement was figurative and how much was literal.

The singular upside to this entire turn of events was that he no longer felt the slightest bit guilty about keeping his own secrets from them. Nothing like a little rampant hypocrisy to soothe a troubled conscience.

Making his way down the driveway he noticed a car leaving the school. It seemed slow as it approached him until it rolled to a stop next to him.

To his surprise it was none other than MG's mom in the driver's seat. He guessed someone either found a cure or convinced Nia to return her to normal.

Considering she was secretly a member of Triad Industries this could prove to be a problem…. or an opportunity. It all depended on what she had to say.

"Landon, right?" she asked. He guessed that was innocuous a greeting to receive from a stranger.

"Hi." He replied simply.

"I was mortified when I heard what MG put you through." She said.

"Uh, we worked it out. It's cool." He responded.

"Let me give you a ride somewhere."

So this is what she was after. She wanted to take him to the Malivore pit because she found out he was a Phoenix, and if he said no she's probably find someway to take him against his will. Which was beside the point, she was offering to take him exactly where he wanted to go. She was taking him to his dad.

"Sure thing, I need some air and I can't really be around here right now." He said as he made his way to the passenger's set.

"You know I think I know just the place, it's a bit of a drive though. I hope you don't mind." She told him with a seemingly sympathetic smile on her face.

"Not at all. Thanks a lot for this." He returned her false smile with one of his own, playing the trusting and naïve idiot everyone seemed to view him as ever since his return to the school.

Soon, he thought. Soon I'll be close enough to the pit and you won't be able to stop me.

A genuine smile made it's way onto his face as he settled in for the long ride ahead, all the while slowly and carefully feeding his fire.


To keep up the ruse that he had found himself in over his head due to his "trusting nature" he began to freak out as he "recognized" where she was taking him. That earned him a rather painful dose of electricity courtesy of the taser she had hidden near her.

That wasn't all however. As if to show that his ruse had worked the system sent him a little message.

Due to proficiency displayed the skill Deception – Acting has been generated at rank Journeyman 7

Further proficient displays of general skills will result in the generation of Skills within the System

Talk about a back handed compliment. Apparently, the system deemed his lying to not only be good enough to generate it's own skill, but have it be his highest ranked skill so far and it had started off that way.

Hypocrisy aside maybe the others were right, and he had a problem…. Be that as it may, it was a problem for another time because right now lying was the best and quickest way to get what he wanted.

The had him record a voice mail for Dr. Saltzman. He'd refused a few times until they started punching him, to keep their suspicions lowered. Luckily, he managed to throw in a few clues regarding his abduction in the message without making any of his guards wary. Just because he was playing this fast and loose did not mean he had completely thrown all caution to the wind.

This is how he eventually he found himself tied to a chair gagged next to the pit that had once been his father. MG's mom was having a conversation with another member of Triad, which he should have been paying more attention to, but his title had pushed most rational thoughts out of his mind and left him in somewhat of a stupor.

Floating right about the man's head were the words Ryan Clarke – BROTHER.

Eventually they both left, only for his brother to return alone. Tossing a key into the pit as he sauntered down the stairs.

"No one's watching us now." He said.

"I don't know who you guys are or why you took me but I don't know anything." He lied. He needed to see how Clarke was going to play this and despite their father's desire for them to get along he needed to figure out if his brother was indeed trustworthy.

"I'm not here to interrogate you, Landon. In fact I'm here so you can finally get some answers." Clarke responded with a smirk on his face. Walking forward he undid the bindings tying Landon to the chair.

"When they created the locks to Malivore, they also created decoys so no one would know which three artefacts were the real thing." He continued without missing a beat. "I think you might be able to help me with that." He placed images of different artifacts on the tray in front of Landon and asked, "Are any of these artefacts calling to you? Like a whisper, an itch?"

"A) I don't feel anything and B) even if I did, I'm not helping the people who kidnapped me." Landon replied succinctly. The less he said the less likely he'd be caught saying the wrong thing, which seemed rather imperative at the moment.

"Oh, this isn't for Triad. They want these artefacts to stay hidden. To be clear, I want to throw them into the pit, and unlock Malivore." Clarke said, another smirk upon his face.

"Wow, uh… thanks for being honest. That changes things quite a bit, brother." Landon responded, enjoying the look of confusing that found it's way to Clarke's face as the smirk quickly fell off.

"Wait…. You know? How?" Clarke asked still reeling from the revelation that his little brother know who he was.

"Dad left me a letter I could only read after I died, still not sure whether it was a safety precaution or just a dick move." Landon said as he took a closer look at the images his brother had placed in front of him.

"Honestly? Probably a bit of both." Clarke replied. "So how much do you know?"

"Pretty much everything, I think. Told me that you betrayed him, but that I shouldn't hold it against you." Landon retorted. "Apparently, he thinks brothers should get along."

"He always idealized family." Clarke said, this time instead of his trademark smirk a sad smile had made it's way to his face.

"Not to change the subject from this heartwarming family reunion," Landon said somewhat sarcastically before continuing on, "but honestly none of these are calling to me."

"That's fine. Triad has an entire warehouse filled with supernatural artifacts they've confiscated over the years. I think that's where the final key is but I don't know what it looks like or I would have gone after it myself." Clark responded. "What do you say? Want to go on a magic treasure hunt, little brother."

With a smirk that was eerily reminiscent of Clarke's own, Landon answered his brother. "Thought you'd never ask."


As they made their way into the warehouse Clarke was acting irritable and downtrodden. After finally having had enough, he spoke up. "I still think you should have let me put out a decoy trail."

Landon replied almost instantaneously, "You know the first place they would have gone to look for any artefact not in their possession would be the Salvatore School, and I'm not ok with sending Triad after my friends. Not by a longshot."

"Which is all well and good, until we get caught before we get what we came for, little brother." Clark retorted.

"Then we better start searching, shouldn't we?" Landon said quickly.

It took them remarkably less time than they expected to find the spearhead that ended up being the final Malivore key. Landon just walked up and down every aisle while trying to keep any conscious thoughts out of his head. He figured that if he wasn't focusing on finding the object it would happen naturally, like it had with the previous two keys, and he was right.

Once he had finished walking the aisles he checked his pockets and low and behold there it was. Holding it in his bare hands cause the spearhead to glow a vibrant fiery orange, which was pretty standard as far as Malivore keys went.

The system messages he began to receive the moment the glow faded, however? Those were new.

DULLAHAN has been automatically added to Party – Experience generated by party members is automatically transferred to Player

By itself, the message was concerning enough. He hadn't even realized he had a Party component to his system. Yet another thing he was going to have to go back and explore some more when he had the time, but the messages that followed were left him feeling sick.

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

DULLAHAN has eliminated enemy TRIAD member– 30XP awarded

..

DULLAHAN has eliminated x450 enemy TRIAD members– 13,500XP awarded

You Have Leveled up x9 – 1,500XP remaining

He had to modify his system messages so that it would condense the experience messages for that of a better term. Luckily he already had practice modifying his system messages concerning the displayed titles of others so he was able to complete the process fairly quickly, but even if he wasn't getting and live action report of every time a member of Triad was killed he could still feel it.

He could feel the energy rushing to him, despite the distance. The messages made him feel sick to his stomach, but the power? The power was a rush unlike anything he had ever felt before and he was somewhat ashamed to say that he liked it, he liked it a lot.

His brother had sat in silence while looking at him with concern, finally asking "You ok, little brother? You weren't looking great for a while there."

"I'm fine now, I think." Landon said shaking his out of his stupor. "Quick question though, what the hell's a Dullahan?"