Tony stared at the card with mild frustration.
Of all the aliases he could have drawn, why did a notorious playboy like him have to end up with one that sounded so blatantly feminine?
It hardly suited his image.
He was still considering whether to put it back and choose another when the Fool spoke from the head of the table.
“The Paragon Pathway… Interesting.”
Tony glanced up, puzzled by the unfamiliar term.
‘Pathway?
What’s that supposed to mean?’
Then he gave a self-deprecating smile.
If the title had anything to do with craftsmanship, perhaps it wasn’t entirely inappropriate.
Strip away the money, fame, and corporate empire, and wasn’t he essentially just an extremely sophisticated engineer and inventor?
Seeing that the man across from her had chosen his alias, Wanda stepped forward and drew one of the remaining cards.
“The Hermit.”
Kez’s interest immediately sharpened when he saw what she had picked.
The Hermit was associated with the Mystery Pryer Pathway, a Pathway he had always considered particularly suitable for the future Scarlet Witch.
It complemented witches and sorcerers remarkably well.
Tony and Wanda had somehow each drawn a card that aligned with a Pathway exceptionally well suited to them.
Perhaps fate really did leave its mark in strange ways.
Wanda studied the card for a moment before an idea occurred to her.
“Since we’re all choosing aliases from the Tarot, why don’t we call these meetings the Tarot Club?”
Only after saying it did she seem to realize that she had effectively named the mysterious gathering herself.
She looked cautiously toward the figure seated at the head of the table.
“Would that be acceptable, Mr. Fool?”
Kez answered calmly.
“Granted.”
Wanda’s face brightened.
Just like that, she had somehow become one of the founding members of the Tarot Club, and by an even stranger coincidence, she had been the one to give the gathering its name.
She had practically stolen the naming rights from the Fool himself.
Fortunately, the great existence before her didn’t seem to mind.
“If there is nothing else,” Kez said, “we will end today’s gathering here.”
Wanda lowered her head respectfully.
“As you wish.”
Tony, however, didn’t follow her lead.
“Mr. Fool, I’d like to ask for your help.”
Wanda looked toward the High Priestess in surprise.
She had plenty of questions herself.
She wanted to know more about supernatural powers, for one thing, and whether there was some way for an ordinary person to obtain them.
But she had already agreed to leave and didn’t feel comfortable changing her mind immediately afterward.
More importantly, she had no intention of risking the displeasure of the mysterious being seated before them.
Kez turned his attention to her.
“Then I’ll send you back first. We can look forward to our next gathering.”
The crimson star representing Wanda flared once more.
Its light contracted around her as her figure gradually became translucent, then vanished completely into the gray fog.
Only the Fool and the High Priestess remained in the vast hall.
Tony Stark finally spoke.
“Mr. Fool, I’ve been kidnapped by an armed terrorist group. They’re holding me in a cave, and I was badly wounded by a missile during the attack. I’ve got shrapnel lodged near my heart, and right now the only thing keeping it from killing me is an electromagnet powered by a car battery.”
He explained the situation without embellishment.
The mysterious being before him was the only possible lifeline he had left, and for the first time since his capture, Tony felt something resembling genuine hope.
“I want your help.”
“You said you believe in equivalent exchange, so tell me what I’d have to give you in return.”
“I have money. A lot of it. I can pay—”
Tony stopped himself.
‘Idiot.
I’m really getting desperate.’
Offering cash to something that might very well be a god suddenly sounded embarrassingly absurd.
Whatever this entity was, it was difficult to imagine him caring about a billionaire’s bank balance.
Tony quickly corrected himself.
“That’s not what I meant. Name whatever compensation you consider appropriate. I do have considerable resources in the ordinary world, though. If you ever wanted to establish a church, build places of worship, fund an organization—anything along those lines—I could help.”
Kez understood perfectly well why Tony was talking this way.
A drowning man would grab at anything within reach if there were even the slightest chance it could pull him back to shore, and Tony Stark was very much drowning right now.
As for money, Kez certainly wasn’t opposed to having more of it, but he wasn’t in Klein’s perpetually cash-strapped position either.
Balthazar had left him a valuable property and enough money to live comfortably, while the Arcana Cabana provided him with a respectable income of its own.
He was nowhere near wealthy by Tony Stark’s standards, but he lived comfortably enough.
Still, accepting a cash payment here would completely destroy the image he was trying to establish.
A mysterious existence bordering on divinity couldn’t exactly quote Tony a service fee.
The offer to establish a church was another matter.
That might become useful much later, but there was no reason to rush into anything like that now.
Kez tapped his fingers lightly against the bronze table as he considered the Beyonder Characteristics scattered across the world when he first arrived.
His system required him to recover those Characteristics.
If Tony and Wanda were eventually going to advance along the Paragon and Mystery Pryer Pathways respectively, he would need the corresponding Characteristics to manufacture their potions as well.
“Your request is granted,” Kez said.
“I will arrange for one of my Blessed to rescue you.”
“In keeping with the principle of equivalent exchange, I will require you to retrieve an item for me afterward.”
“As for what that item is, I’ll tell you once you’ve escaped.”
Tony’s attention immediately caught on the word Blessed.
His mind jumped to saints, divine emissaries, holy children, and the other figures associated with organized religion throughout history.
Apparently, the being in front of him truly was something resembling the entities described in mythology.
Tony bowed his head.
“Thank you.”
Kez’s voice remained calm.
“Let us look forward to the next gathering.”
Tony Stark’s figure disappeared into crimson light.
Kez remained alone above the gray fog for another moment, looking across the endless mist and toward Sefirah Castle looming deeper within it.
Then his spirit withdrew as well.
When he opened his eyes again, his consciousness had returned to the bedroom of the Arcana Cabana.
He was still standing beside the bed exactly where he had been before entering Sefirah Castle.
“I really didn’t expect those two to be the first people I pulled in. Fate works in strange ways.”
His thoughts immediately shifted to the promise he had just made Tony.
“Now I have to rescue Tony Stark. As far as the Pathways are concerned, I’m only a Sequence 9 Seer. Against a group of armed militants in Afghanistan, that doesn’t exactly give me an advantage. If anything, I’d be badly outgunned.”
Kez lowered his gaze to the Dragon Ring around his finger.
“But I’m also a self-taught sorcerer’s apprentice. Between the two, breaking into that place isn’t impossible.”
He considered the problem for a moment longer.
“I’ll need a proper plan, though. Ideally, I need something Tony has carried close to him so I can divine his exact location. Finding one man somewhere in the Afghan desert without that would be a nightmare.”
Almost as soon as he finished speaking, a Rolls-Royce pulled up outside the Arcana Cabana.
The doors opened, and Tony Stark’s bodyguard, Happy Hogan, stepped out alongside his personal assistant, Pepper Potts.
Pepper stared at the occult shop with exhausted disbelief.
“I must be losing my mind. The company is practically falling apart, and somehow you convinced me to come to a fortune-teller.”
Happy looked apologetic, but his expression remained firm.
“Pepper, this isn’t some random fortune-teller. This place is different.”
“You haven’t heard the stories about him. He’s frighteningly accurate, especially among people connected to the underground.”
He hesitated before continuing.
“You know I’m Tony’s bodyguard. I’ve picked up contacts in those circles over the years. Trying this won’t cost us much time, and if he can give us even one new lead, it’ll be worth it.”
Pepper looked at the Arcana Cabana again.
Exhaustion was written all over her face.
Between Tony’s disappearance and the chaos consuming Stark Industries, she was clearly running on fumes.
Still, they were already here.
At worst, perhaps she could treat it like an unusually expensive therapy session.
“All right, Happy. I trust you. But this is the one and only time.”
“After this, we stop wasting time on psychics and fortune-tellers.”
Happy nodded.
“Once. That’s it.”
Then he added with complete confidence, “And if this guy can’t find anything, there’s no point asking anyone else.”
Happy stepped forward and pushed open the door.
The small bell above the entrance chimed, announcing the arrival of new customers to Kez Merlin.