by Han Yang
“Then we accept your surrender. Please form groups and deposit all weaponry into the carts we provide. Uncharged, of course!”
I waved at the venturebots in the streets below. After hearing my demands, they moved back into the city as quickly as their legs could carry them before they returned with various carts and carriages they had ‘borrowed’ from the populace.
Defang the enemy, the first trick in the book. Even a half dead soldier could kill you in an instant thanks to the power of a steam gun, so asking them to uncharge and load their weapons onto MY carts made one thing clear.
I was in control of the situation. If they wanted to survive, they had to follow MY commands.
The guards on the wall finally realized that the war was over. Some merely allowed themselves to relax a little, while others sat down on the wall as the impact of their adrenaline-soaked bodies took its toll.
The gate juddered and shook as the venturebot crews lowered the draw bridge over the moat. I kept a careful eye on the army as an entry into the city slowly revealed itself to their eyes, but I knew they wouldn’t be at all inclined to rise and charge into the breach.
Not with the barrel of a siege cannon pointing through the opening right into their waiting faces. The siege cannon’s shot might not kill ALL of them but, at the angle it was facing, a single shell would obliterate a massive chunk of the army in one hot, agonizing moment.
Well, they didn’t know it was impossible for us to fire the behemoth again without a lengthy charging period, but there was no way I would let them know that, right?
“Bradley.” Joanna swept toward me as I leaned on the wall. She took my augmented arm and, after giving it a quick check, moved on to the rest of my body. It was clear she didn’t believe I had defeated the Commander without taking any injuries at all.
To be fair, I barely believed it myself, and I had lived through the damn thing.
“Jo, it is fine.” I took her questing hands in mine and lifted them to my lips, planting a single kiss on each palm before I gave her a wide, gentle smile. “We won.”
Chapter 21
The cleanup process after the One Hour War, as it was coming to be known, took longer than the battle itself.
Several traps hadn’t activated, a freak miracle given the sheer number of soldiers who had stormed over their waiting maws. Trappers went out to unset them before chaos could ensue, though I made sure each person was escorted by squads of armed venturebots.
I didn’t know if some hot-blooded young idiot would try to take advantage of a lone worker strolling through their midst.
Carts loaded with all types of weapons and powered armor pieces rolled through the gates. Duke, after his return upon landing the Moonlit Goddess back in the underground lair, took over the workers, which allowed me to turn my focus to a more pressing issue.
How in all that is holy could I hold an entire army’s worth of prisoners.
Fortunately, Joanna gave me a good idea on how to deal with the situation.
“Just take the big shots, let the rest camp outside.” She looked out across the soldiers milling about in the cleared area at the foot of our walls. “Hexpa will agree to facilitate the transfer, and their leaders won’t have a leg to stand on if they refuse it.”
“So, leave most outside, and the rest we send train by train while the leaders are held in our cells?” I chewed the inside of my cheek as I considered her suggestion.
I had thought of a similar method, but it was difficult to avoid seeing it as the worst-case scenario.
Then again, it wasn’t like I could think up any other solutions to the issue.
While the army stayed outside our walls, I kept up a double guard on the wall and watch towers. The siege cannons, still uncharged thanks to the debt Norn had been plunged into, were swung around toward their make-shift camp.
Not a subtle threat, to be sure, but I didn’t much care what they thought of me.
After all, they had been the ones who wanted to invade my city on the promise of wealth and other worldly rewards.
Unexpectedly, no further issues reared their heads once the main players had been taken into custody.
Portin and Darden accepted our proposal once they were made aware of the absolute defeat of their forces, and Hexpa’s trade manager almost broke my hand off to accept the role as the neutral facilitator. Trains would need to ride via their city anyway, so it wasn’t too hard for them to take a chunk of the payments offered by the defeated cities in return for sending the prisoners on their way.
Most of the officer class for the army had been wiped out, so we had to pick at the remains of their command structure for our political prisoners. To be fair, after the embarrassing defeat they had experienced, I very much doubted any soldier would willingly follow their leaders into battle any time soon.
Still, it turned out we had a few big names in our cells. Three sons and two daughters of Portin and Darden’s leading factions.
And I would return them once the rest of the forces had been shipped back to their respective cities.
With even more leverage at our fingertips, it didn’t take long for the war declaration to be officially renounced as Portin and Darden openly admitted to their complete and absolute defeat. Rumors of the war spread far and wide, though that wasn’t the hottest topic on anyone’s lips.
No, it seemed like the mob cared more for my duel with the Commander than the fact a fledgling town had overcome the combined forces of two bustling cities.
I still didn’t think much of him, but the Commander’s reputation helped us more than it did him. Several highly thought of mercenary companies sent their own congratulations to Norn, along with a promise of service if they could fold their ranks into ours.
After Duke investigated their backgrounds, we accepted pretty much every offer, a move that tripled our guard squads in one fell swoop.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
Emigrations ground to a halt as immigration spiked. After hearing of our city’s exploits, more and more citizens took the chance to leap into the blimp before it could rocket off into the sky. Sure, it took a while, but eventually, the number of trains packed with new residents outnumbered those leaving with the remnants of Portin and Darden’s forces.
By the end of the month, Norn’s statistics were a beauty to behold.
Norn Statistics:
Citizens: 1822 +12
Visitors: 86
City Debt: 0 cubes of hydrox.
Citizen behind on taxes: 0
Buildings behind on upkeep: 0
Buildings behind on taxes: 0
City projects slated for downgrade: 0
Upgrades in progress: 0
Complaints in progress: 3
Immigrants this month: 1426
Emigrants this month: 62
Rating: 100
Walls: 3
Docks: 3
Taxes: 10% on residents
The debt we had gone into prior to the war had vanished thanks to the influx of Hydrox from Portin and Darden’s coffers. I liked to imagine the old men coughing up their own blood, sweat, and tears as they funneled their collected wealth directly into my grubby mitts.
Though the population in Norn had exploded, we still had enough space for the new citizens, but only barely.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I knew the influx wouldn’t end any time soon.
City growth was cyclical in nature. The more reputation a city earns, the higher its number of immigrants. Increased population in a city increases the likelihood of others making the decision to also take the chance to move to the new, upcoming hot spot.
Eventually, it would die down, but not before the sheer number of residents became a new issue.
It was fortunate, then, that one issue resolved the other.
Hydrox cubes, while the standard method of payment, weren’t that easy to transport from place to place in mass quantities. Instead, they were melded together into shapes with ever
increasing sides as the power contained within increased exponentially.
This meant that there were no real delays as the payments from Portin and Darden funneled into my coffers. Sure, Hexpa took a cut, but the amount they received was minuscule in comparison to the sheer volume arriving in Norn day by day.
Portin and Darden had to pay for every member of their army to return home, but Duke and I had worked out a deal with the train conductor’s office. Seeing as we were planning to use the system en-masse, we received a free upgrade, along with a discount for any bulk groups sent out of Norn to any destination.
Free enhancements to my city, along with an open invitation to skim even more Hydrox from the top of an ever-growing pile.
And thus, after around two thirds of the enemy army had been sent on their way back to Portin and Darden, we were finally prepared for the next step – upgrading the tier of Norn’s walls.
I checked the scaling requirements again, just to make sure we had enough in the bank to ensure our enhancements didn’t automatically downgrade after a few months of missed upkeep payments.
Wall Upgrade Amounts:
Tier 1: 100
Tier 2: 500
Tier 3: 1000
Tier 4: 500,000
Tier 5: 2,500,000
Tier 6: 25,000,000
Tier 7: 500,000,000
Tier 8: 15,000,000,000
Tier 9: 5,000,000,000,000
Tier 10: 5,000,000,000,000,000,000
Tier five walls were still far out of reach, but tier four wasn’t too hard to stomach. At Duke’s behest, I also planned an upgrade for the Docks and a new trading hub to go ahead at the same time.
It would bleed our coffers, sure, but the remaining payments from our prisoner transfers, along with the exorbitant fees they had offered us for our noble officer guests, would more than cover the loss.
And that wasn’t counting the increased gains from our new citizens, along with the slightly increased rate of tax.
Ten percent was double the five we had in place previously, but it was still half that in any other city of our average size and rank. I didn’t want to get too greedy, but anyone who knew what had just happened would understand why we needed to increase the taxation amount.
Wars were expensive, after all.
So, after crunching the numbers for both our Hydrox reserves and materials in storage several times and meeting with my general, Corvo, and the leaders of the adventurer’s guild, Leon and Lei, I decided to go ahead with my plans.
Upgrade the walls. Upgrade the docks. Build a trading hub.
I sent out a message to the citizens of Norn to expect some upgrades, which warned them to stay away from the main areas that might expand. The guards remained in their posts at the wall, though I had obviously warned them to leave their posts well before the upgrade process began.
And the remaining squatters in the camp outside our walls were far enough away that the expansion wouldn’t affect them, other than a few tightened sphincters and loosened bowels.
Not my problem, to be fair.
“Are we ready?” I turned to Joanna and Duke, who had joined me on the manor’s balcony as I prepared for the upgrade procedure to officially begin. Many citizens had gathered out on the streets far below to watch their city grow in both power and stature, again showing just how rare such a sight was for most living on Gearnix’s harsh and unforgiving surface.
“Of course,” Joanna grinned as she looked out across Norn expectantly. “I wish my parents were here to see this.”
“They’re the leaders of our adventurer’s guild branch,” Duke spoke up before I could say anything as he nodded toward the large building resting on the main street in the distance. “If they wandered off during an upgrade, who knows what chaos they would walk back to.”
“Yes, I know- Oh, never mind! Just do it!” Joanna huffed angrily as she waved off Duke’s explanation. I spotted a cheeky glimmer in the bot’s shining eyes as he glanced in my direction, and it took a moment to realize he was… winking at me?
He had played a prank on the Baroness, and she hadn’t even noticed it.
Cheeky devil.
I decided to let their actions slide as I took one final, deep breath. The Hydrox had been deposited, the changes had been requested, and I had set the times at the Gearnix station.
And, if I were to judge, it would begin any second-
BWWWWAAAMMMMHH!
A siren echoed out across the city, startling Joanna from her irritated back and forth with Duke. She dashed forward, pushing herself under my arm as she stared down at the city with a happy, enthusiastic expression.
Figures leaped from the walls in droves and moved back into the city as the citizens in the streets looked around, unable to tell what was being upgraded exactly. Most stared at the docks, while some looked at the walls and the rest looked up at my manor.
None of them expected what happened next.
Within seconds, the walls heated up to an insane degree. The watch towers disintegrated, joining the metal slag that had once been our proud defense as they sagged down into a pool of molten metal.
The white-hot gunk looked so bright I almost felt like I could feel the heat from the manor’s balcony.
Next, the docks twisted and bulged as several new slip ways were forced into being. The outer edges of the area swept outward as new warehouses and other assorted areas were created in a matter of seconds.
But that wasn’t the biggest change.
As the walls, now little more than a heap of molten metal, shifted outward, a new set of buildings sprung up along the main road where they had once sat.
Though the moat still ran beneath them, Gearnix accounted for that irregularity as it automatically created a large, sweeping bridge over their turbulent waters. Store fronts and shops reaching up multiple stories sprung up, along with a few buildings I had wanted to see for the longest time.
Accounting, trading, and licensing offices. Not the most interesting of spaces, but the opportunities they presented more than made up for their dull titles.
The army outside of our walls rushed away as the heat of the oncoming metal overwhelmed them. Fortunately, as I had estimated, the expansion stopped long before it reached the edge of their camp.
Moments later, the molten slag bubbled up, as though a huge force was blowing air up into it from below. It rose, twisting and writhing as it formed a new, ridiculously high set of walls. Rivers of rapidly cooled metal rolled down on either side, etching a peculiar design into our new outer defensive perimeter.
And then, as quickly as it had begun, the upgrade procedure finally came to an end.
Chapter 22
Once the upgrades were completed, I pulled up Norn’s statistics to check on the results.
Norn Statistics:
Citizens: 1881 +13
Visitors: 92
City Debt: 0 cubes of hydrox.
Citizen behind on taxes: 0
Buildings behind on upkeep: 0
Buildings behind on taxes: 0
City projects slated for downgrade: 0
Upgrades in progress: 0
Complaints in progress: 3
Immigrants this month: 1487
Emigrants this month: 62
Rating: 101
Walls: 4
Docks: 4
Trading Hub: 2
Train Network: 2
Overall Rating: 4
Taxes: 10% on residents
The overall jumps caught me off guard, along with the new lines I had never seen before. Though the Trading Hub had appeared and was ranked as a second-tier area, the Train Network had also popped up after its own upgrade.
And what the hell did ‘Overall Rating’ mean?
It wasn’t the average of our other ratings as that would be closer to three. No one had ever warned me that a city could even have a numerical representation of how it was doing.
Useful, though, so I decided to stop thinking about it as I turned my at
tention to the other increases.
The number of immigrants had shot up again. That made some sense, given the fact that a significant amount of time had passed since the war. Though the daily number was remaining steady, the upgrades I had just put through would cause yet another surge as far as I could guess.
But it didn’t solve the main issues hiding in the shadows.
Ginli remained in her room, unconscious and unresponsive to all attempts to wake her from the slumber she had been placed in.
The Commander, who had survived our brutal, one sided duel, remained tight lipped about the ones who had purchased his services.
And finally, the agents from Hexpa had all managed to find ways to permanently… silence themselves.
I didn’t even bother sending a message to the city itself because I knew all I would get was a bunch of useless, political garbage. At best, they would refute even the idea that the spies had been theirs, and at worst, they might even try to use our ‘accusations’ against us in some way.
So, annoying as it was to admit, I didn’t have much recourse toward whatever scheme they had brewing in the dark.
Fortunately, there was one bright ray in the darkness.
“He is conscious, barely.” Duke paused as the large cell door before us slowly ground open before he turned to face me directly. “Be patient and keep your questions simple. I can’t be sure how long you have.”
I gave him a firm nod before I strode into the cell and settled down into the large chair set in the center of the room as I stared at the one person held within the harsh, cold stone walls.
“Baron Lord Bradley. Threat: Unknown.”
The old assassin who had invaded our manor mumbled to himself as he lay propped up on a large cot against the rear wall. Though his robotic body had been held aloft by chains when I last visited the cell, it was clear any threat had been removed as the barely human figure rocked back and forth on his fortress of pillows.
A tinge of sympathy welled up, but I stomped that out viciously and without remorse.