Chapter Six

He certainly wasn't looking forward to it, but Tommy knew his next stop was Carpenter Station, the coldest location for myths across the world.

Named after John Carpenter and his classic version of the movie "The Thing," Carpenter Station was built in 1984 by a handful of mages, dragons, elves and werewolves, who wanted someplace on Antarctica where they could do research and training completely removed from the prying eyes of modern society, concealed among the ice, obscured and protected by layers upon layers of spells.

The initial footprint of Carpenter Station had been small, but over the last few decades, it had grown and grown into a major city, one of the few magic-only cities on the planet, with around three thousand people in it at any given point in time. This meant each of the seven factions had representatives there, and even their own Houses, although they were ridiculously small, and barely had any real power or clout to speak of. Because the Violet factions (Violet was the color for Antarctica) represented so few people, they tended to not get involved in most of the world stage's politics, except when it applied to what happened at Carpenter Station, or to the faction across the globe entirely.

With all that taken into account, however, the one thing the members of the Violet factions did take very seriously was welcoming people to Carpenter Station, and determining how long they were going to stay, because the arrival and departure windows were... touchy.

Because of the way Carpenter Station was built, it was under such a giant convergence of leylines that the there were only 'windows' at which point people could enter or exit Carpenter Station, via using the preestablished gateways. Each gateway was open for fifteen minutes every six hours, staggered every four hours, which meant that at a bare minimum, a trip to Carpenter Station was a day-trip, and not something that could be done lightly. As such, requests to visit were generally filed a day in advance, and a 'travel window' was arranged, because transporting supplies in (and waste out) of Carpenter Station was a full-time job, and used up ten minutes of every fifteen that each portal was open.

Tommy stepped through the North American gate and arrived in the enclosed garrison that was Carpenter Station, and the first thing he noticed was how it wasn't anywhere near as cold as he expected. Standing there waiting for him was his point of contact, Captain Leo Noctus, one of the Violet Captains of the Wizards' House, although he hadn't specified which he was, nor did Tommy think it much mattered. The difference between the Head Captain and the rank seven Captain wasn't a hill of beans to the rest of the world. "Heya Leo," Tommy said to him, offering his hand to the Violet Wizard. "I appreciate you coming to meet me."

"Well, we can't exactly have you running around Carpenter Station without giving you at least some warnings, now can we?" Leo said to him with a refined grin. The two men had known each other for over a decade, but Leo had only been part of the Carpenter Station for the last few years, previously having been an enforcer for a team of mages out of Italy known the Eternal Needles. After having spent several years in the debt collection business, Leo had decided to strike it out on his own and had been conducting 'research' at Carpenter Station since then. "You seem surprised by the temperature?"

"Sure, it's like 60F or so," Tommy said. "I was expecting it to be colder than that."

"We use the ambient cold from around us to power parts of the Station, but we're also deep enough in the ice that it doesn't give our location away, nor do we affect the ice around us. The ground rule of Carpenter Station is the first rule of any clandestine organization - do not get caught."

"Fair enough," Tommy replied. "So you're here to give me the lay of the land and let me know the house rules, I'm guessing?"

"Consider me the welcoming committee, here to let you know what you can and can't do, and to make sure you're not showing up intent on fucking things up for the rest of us."

"I'll be gone in four or eight hours, depending on how conversations go," Tommy said, "and I have no intentions of causing problems for anybody. Hell, if I could've just come and gone without anyone even knowing I'd been here, that would've been even better, but the gate wardens are super restrictive about letting people through, and part of their acceptance of my request hinged on having you vouch for me, so I don't blame you coming to meet me and size up what I'm working on, even though you should know I can't tell you all that much."

"'Fraid you'll have to divulge at least a little bit about what you're up to, or we're just going to be sitting here and waiting for four hours until the next gate out," Leo said, clearly relishing in his ability to exercise what tiny bit of power he had. "Up to you, old sport."

"I've got some research I'm doing into necromantics, and I didn't want to touch any of that stuff without checking in with at least a few people down here," Tommy lied. "I don't have a ton of experience in that field of magic, and I came across a relic that may have something to do with necromantic energies during one of my recent escapades, so I wanted to bring it out here to a few experts and see what they thoughts of it."

"I've dabbled in necromantics before," Leo said hesitantly. "Am I one of the people on your list?"

"Anyone who's ever dabbled in magic has probably dabbled in necromantics before, Leo. You and I both know that. So no, it wouldn't qualify you as an expert in the fields, but don't worry, I'm not one either. No, I'm mostly here to talk to the wraith community - people who have far more experience with this than you and I will ever. There's a few people who've dabbled on both sides of the finish line who might be able to help me understand what it is I'm dealing with. We've got some truly remarkable experts in the wraith community down here, so I should be able to get some answers, or at least some places to start looking."

"And how long do you plan on being in Carpenter Station?"

"No less than four hours, obviously, and no longer than twelve," the green wizard answered. "If I'm here more than ten hours, I think I may go crazy, especially since I hear you folks have no windows anywhere in the base."

Leo waved his hand dismissively. "That's old wizards' tales. We have around fifty windows scattered around Carpenter Station, but almost all of the time, they're just looking out onto a blowing snowstorm, so there isn't much point in them, if you ask me. Anyway, consider yourself checked in and welcomed to Carpenter Station. If you need me, you know where the Violet Wizards' Office is, and someone there can reach me at all times, even when I'm not in the building. Other than that, you're free to go, and don't go causing trouble."

Tommy smirked, flicking up the collar of his leather jacket. "You should know me better than that, Leo. I don't have to try causing anything." He strolled away from the gobsmacked wizard before Leo had a minute or two to put together a comeback.

Carpenter Station seemed to be a weird mix of Eastern and Western architecture, but for the most part, buildings leaned towards the more spartan and brutalist than he was accustomed to seeing. But the people, well, they were dressed in casual attire, some of them sporting more skin on display than what he'd seen in his little Brazilian jaunt a few days ago, the slightly cooler air of the place no bother to them. He didn't see any cars, but every so often he would catch sight of a golf cart hauling around freight, more often than not beer kegs. Otherwise, the streets were just mostly walkways, with the occasional boardwalk café out to let patrons keep an eye on the comings and goings.

The best part about Carpenter Station was the fact that nobody was making the attempt to conceal what they truly were. Werewolves walked around in wolf form, the elves didn't try and hide their ears nor did vamps hide their fangs. Everyone was allowed to be their normal magical selves without making any efforts to hide any of it.

It was also something of a relief to see how integrated everything was - not only were residential and commercial districts blended together, but the factions themselves seemed thrilled to be co-mingling with one another, which just went to further Tommy's theory that most of the inter-faction rivalry was manufactured political bullshit, because he didn't seen any more animosity between, say, a dragon and a werewolf as he would any two typical New Yorkers on a good day.

Sure, there were reports of conflicts between people at Carpenter Station - the place had its own sheriff and its own jail - but for the most part, those things were solved quickly, and people recognized they didn't really have anywhere to go. Closed quarters tended to reduce all the minor shit to negligible status, and all the major shit into 'how do we fix this?' status.

Because he didn't want to raise suspicion, he made his first stop not the thing he most needed to do. He stopped by a place called Abernathy's Antiquities, a dealer in rare items and exotic ensorcelled objects. It was the perfect cover for him to be talking about a newly located lost relic, and Tommy spent a good half an hour inside the shop before walking out with an antique brooch that detected magic intended to alter the wearer's mind without them knowing about it.

Then once he was sure he'd bored anyone who might be tailing him, it was time to get down to business. He needed to head to the far side of Carpenter Station, towards the section called Combustion Alley, nicknamed that because it was where people with the most volatile projects were told to keep their work, so that fire and emergency services were always close at hand for when things went wrong, and things were always going wrong. He could tell because he saw an errant bottle rocket spiraling down one of the alleyways the moment he entered the district, a slight grin crossing his face as he saw it explode into a shower of silver, glimmering lilies, the flowers falling to the cool concrete streetway. It was a neat trick, but he thought it likely that it wasn't what the creator had intended. Still, maybe it was, and maybe it had just flown out through an open window or something.

Combustion Alley was lit with mostly neon lights, weird streaks of green, orange, purple, blue and pink, popping on and snapping off, like a symphony of pastel blooms decorating every street corner and rooftop. The fact that there was a mandated single story of open space between the top of any building and the roof of Carpenter Station gave the place much more the feeling of being a city, and had allowed artists to decorate the ceilings over certain areas with various artwork, most of Combustion Alley covered with a traditional night time sky, including fake stars and an artificial moon that was lit up magically which kept track of the phases the moon was currently in, a tool for the werewolves of the district to keep track even when they couldn't look up at the actual night sky.

The place he was looking for was a little bar called Desolation Corner, where some of the biggest and most powerful casters on the planet would go to unwind and very occasionally get reckless with their magics, and cause some serious chaos. When Merlin and Morgana Le Fay went to their monthly couples counselling, it was done there.

He found the place and wasn't surprised to see it wasn't especially busy, a handful of mages and other creatures over in one corner playing an especially tense game of Texas Hold'em, with a vampire dressed in a sort of 1980s New Wave rocker outfit holding the lion's share of the chips, although the dragon just two chairs down looked to be mounting a decent comeback.

That wasn't where Tommy's attention was focused, however. Off to one side, near the far end of the bar, was a small, elevated stage. Nothing fancy, but enough to hold a small band, maybe, if they didn't have too much gear, or, as it was set up now, one grand piano and a piano player.

It was the piano player that Tommy had come to see, one of the most powerful beings on the planet, a wraith named Mercury, at least, that was what they went by. Any name they'd worn before that was so lost to the annuls of history that even the Dragonborn himself didn't know it - Tommy had won a bet with the Red Joker in the earliest days of their friendship, and asked for Mercury's real name, feeling like it would be a powerful secret that he could use at some point later in life, only to be told that Jonas Silversmith, perhaps the greatest keeper of secrets alive, didn't know something.

That had been a hell of a lesson day for Tommy Clarke.

One of the things about Mercury that made them such a fascinating individual was that their appearance was generally not the same on any given day. Age, height, weight, race, appearance, even gender - all of these things were totally fluid to Mercury. The last time they'd met, Mercury had been 6'9", central Asian male in his thirties with a long black braided mane and a black braided beard. Most importantly, the wraith had been sporting the kind of overly muscular physique that could've Arnold Schwarzenegger 'pipsqueak' without batting an eyelash.

Today's appearance ran about as far in the other direction as was casually possible. Mercury couldn't have been even 5' with blonde hair pulled back into a kicky little ponytail and a slender figure like a gymnast, dressed in a strapless emerald-green dress that started at their collarbone and stopped halfway between their knees and her hips. They barely looked old enough to be in a bar, 21 at best. They'd chosen not to be very curvy, but they were incredibly feminine today. The top part of the dress was tight enough, however, that he could make out the impression of barbell piercings through each of their nipples just from the outlines in the fabric. They also had on cowboy boots.

Of course, as always, Mercury had their telltale completely black eyes, like two orbs of highly polished obsidian with no change across the entirety of their surface. It did make it a little hard to tell where Mercury was looking at, but Tommy had learned to just read the head cues and go with it from there. Mercury never seemed to get offended if Tommy didn't realize they were looking at him, so he expected they'd simply learned to adapt to how hard it was to take visual direction from eyes without irises.

"I see a familiar wizard sniffing around my briar patch," Mercury said, their voice soft and playful. If it weren't for the jet black eyes, it would've been easy to mistake her for some college coed on holiday, as strange as a place as it would be. "What brings you looking for me, Tommy?"

"What makes you think I'm looking for you, Mercury?"

They laughed and offered a playful tilt of their head. "Because you're in fucking Carpenter Station, and nobody comes to this god forsaken hellhole unless there's something they desperately want, so I'm hoping whatever it is, it's at least got a good tale associated with it."

"I'd like to think it does," Tommy replied. "Can I buy you a drink and we can sit and talk about it?"

"Sure, if you're buying, I'll drink the good shit," they said heading over towards a corner booth, far removed from the few patrons the place had in it.

Tommy wandered over to the bartender, a fae with skin the color of dark chocolate, his hair up in dreadlocks and swept back out of his face, which was covered in metal and bone piercings - two in each eyebrow, a septum piercing, one at the bridge of his nose between his eyes and several rings in each ear. "Help you?" the faerie asked him in a heavily accented voice.

"Yeah, Mercury wants two glasses of 'the good shit,'" he told the bartender, reaching into his pocket to pull out a couple of emeralds, setting them down on top. "This should be good to cover us at least a handful of them, yeah?"

The fae picked one of the gems up, held it up to the light then nodded, scooping the other off the counter before putting them into some drawer in his cash register. Then he moved over to his library of liquors and reached far into the back to a deep orange bottle that was sealed shut with wax. He slid the bottle across the bartop to Tommy with a slight shrug. "Keep it. Finish it. Dey da only one dat drinks dat toxic shit 'round here an'way."

The wizard grabbed the bottle and wandered back to the booth, where Mercury had settled in and put their boots up on the table, offering a sly smile in his direction. "I heard you made Captain," they said to him. "Good on you. You deserve it. You're a smart, talented, clever little wizard. You'll go far. Assuming nothing blows up in your face."

"Yeah, well, I'm playing with fire here, but I think it's important," Tommy said, reaching to his belt, pulling off his Leatherman to get the knife, popping the wax off the bottle to unseal it once more, a powerful fume emanating from it, like orange peels and gasoline, as his eyes widened a second at the intensity of the smell. "Jesus, what is this stuff?"

"Don't ask," Mercury said, sliding their glass over for Tommy to pour in it. "You'll like it better if you don't know."

"Fair enough."

"Now, answer my question, Tommy. Why are you looking for me?"

Tommy poured a glass full of the stuff for Mercury, then poured a few fingers worth into a second glass for himself. It wouldn't do to be impolite and not have at least some of the substance, which he hoped wouldn't kill him. "How much do you keep an ear to wraith politics?"

Mercury grinned with the confidence of a senior sorority girl overlooking her new pledge class. "Better than most, although you know wraiths - we're a difficult bunch to put under one tent under the best of circumstances. There's too many sub-factions for any one of us to keep tabs on everybody. But I'd like to think I'm probably one of the most in-the-know wraiths ever. Why?"

"You're probably the only one this might mean something to," the wizard said, considering his words carefully. "How much do you know about Septimus Maximus and his broadscale theory?"

Mercury turned to look at him as a strange, knowing smile creeped across their face. "You're building his legendary seven-fingered fist, aren't you?"

"What if I am?"

"Let's just say, if I knew someone who was putting together a contingent like that, I'd certainly be curious about what they intended to use it for before I'd want to say yes or no on being in," Mercury said as they picked up their glass, swirling it around.

"Trying to smooth out a bunch of the wrinkles that keep popping up and crushing all the little squabbles before they get big," Tommy sighed. "Too often, shit that could've been solved by a conversation or a goddamn email, you know? People talking, just, just fucking talking would've kept us from losing five to ten lives, all the damn time! I'm sick of it! Honestly, I don't understand how nobody else isn't more vocal and with me on this! The last couple of squabbles that I've heard about between Houses have left like five to ten dead, each, and they've basically been the kind of shit that people could hammer out without too much effort if the factions were talking to each other regularly instead of only coming together for the quarterly gatherings. We've all gotten so... so..."

"Territorial?" Mercury offered.

"Exactly! We're bunch a damn chattering housewives, willing to put forth a grouse on just about anything. I can't bear to watch it go like this all the time," he said. "Not when it's so easy to stop."

"Which of the paths are going with - the open or the silent?"

"Silent, obviously, otherwise I'd be a lot more open in talking about it to people."

"Makes sense. How are you solving the trust issue?"

"Got rather an unusual solution to that, actually," Tommy said with a wry grin. "We're all voluntarily submitting to a truth enchantment. So none of us can lie to each other. Any of us."

"That sounds like trouble waiting to get kickstarted."

"Not so far."

Mercury tilted their head. "What do you mean 'so far'? You've got actual recruits with skin in this game already?"

"One," Tommy replied. "I picked up a Plunder on my Captains' Day, which was what led to the idea of having a complete crew."

"Who's your plunder?"

Tommy waggled a finger. "No freebies. You're in or you're out."

"I need a bit more information than that, but let's say we're still negotiating. Can you at least tell me the regions and houses you've got covered?"

"Sure, but not in specific combinations. In terms of tribes, I've got sign ons from the Werewolves, the Dragons and the Elves, with myself representing the Wizards, obviously. And in terms of regions, we have the Green, Red, Blue and Orange regions covered."

"Violet region's a bitch, isn't it?" Mercury laughed, dipping their fingertip in their glass to swirl the liquid around some.

"As are the wraiths, considering the sort of extras option we've got figured into our little cabal."

"Oh?" Mercury said, arching one of their eyebrows. "What's that?"

"Well, it seems like we're also aiming to make the whole thing into one big polypod, so it'll help if you're interested in fucking at least a few of the members. I know many wraiths are unsexual creatures--"

"I am not many wraiths, Lord Clarke," Mercury smirked. "And I take it you're unsure of what I am and am not attracted to, because of my constantly shifting appearance?"

"You said it. Not me. But yes."

"Well, I like to consider myself extremely open-minded, so I don't cross any species or genders off the list."

"I'd probably be up for it, if you were in a feminine form."

"Even if I wasn't original a female when I was alive?"

"Were you?"

"Do you expect me to tell you that?"

"No. Do you expect to change forms mid sex?"

"Not typically. Why, is it a dealbreaker if I do?"

"For me? Probably. But if you don't, my original offer still stands."

"The others?"

"Hell, I'm probably the only square in the group, although the dragon might be a little picky about the appearances you choose if you want to have fun time with them. That's not about gender - that's just general dragon snobbery. Part of the package, I'm afraid."

"Dragon a he or she?"

Tommy clicked his tongue with a smirk. "You expect me to tell you that?"

"That's a fair point."

"Think you'd be interested?"

"Sounds like you've got quite the cabal already."

"I do, but I also think you'd be a great addition."

"You did your homework?"

"More than you'll ever know," Tommy said. "But before about a hundred years ago, there isn't a whisper of your existence anywhere. That's pretty impressive, you know."

"Then I'll join your little gang under two conditions, both of which should be quite easy to follow."

"Let me be the judge of that. What are they?"

"First, nobody investigates my past. Where I come from, who I used to be, that's my business and nobody else's. Agreed?"

"Sure," Tommy laughed. "Not like anybody would make any progress on that sort of thing. If Silversmith can't figure out who you used to be, I would assume nobody can."

"Silversmith looked into me?"

"It sounded like it to me, but you know Silversmith - he keeps his own council."

"He's not your dragon, is he?"

Tommy almost snorted the liquor out his nose, he laughed so hard. "Silversmith? He's not anybody's anything. He's the most independent person ever. He's not a team player. Or maybe he's too much of a team player. He's got everyone's priorities in mind. But I think he's also the ultimate solo act, so, no, he's not the kind of person who'd fold into here well."

"That's my assessment of him as well," Mercury said.

"So what's your second condition?"

"The second condition is that we don't favor any location or any faction," Mercury said. "Just because you're technically in charge, and you're from the Green Wizards' House doesn't mean that if there's a conflict, we automatically assume your house is in the right."

"I wouldn't want you to," Tommy said. "In fact, if you'd said you did want that, I'd have rescinded the offer. Seven people, seven votes - most votes always wins."

"Then I think we have ourselves a deal, Mr. Clarke," Mercury said, shaking his hand with theirs.

"Good. If I send a message through the messenger service, how soon could you meet up with us? Sooner or later, we're going to lose another captain in the Green Wizards' House and I want to put as many of you under Plunder protection as I can at once."

"Between eight and twelve hours, but there's nothing I can do about that. A message will have to come in on an inbound gate and then I'll be out on the next outbound gate I can get."

"It'll be tight, but we should be able to make that work. Just try and not dawdle."

"That's it? No interview about my power level, or skill set, or political views?"

"If I didn't know all that in advance, Mercury, then I deserve whatever I'm stuck with."

"And I don't get to interview you about yours?"

"If you don't know that, well, then maybe I made a mistake in recruiting you, but I guess I'll work with what I got."

Mercury giggled a little bit. "You didn't. Just wanted to make sure you were the man I thought you were. Tell Eddie I'm looking forward to working with him. Toodles!"

Tommy could only grin and nod in appreciation. "I'll tell him you said hi."