“Ohayou!” I greeted the Japanese. Traditions and upbringing couldn’t be destroyed by any game. In response, Tao gave a polite nod and a slight smile. His expression seemed familiar, as if I had seen it before.
“It’s konbanwa, not ohayou,” he said, correcting me. “It’s evening, and ohayou is used for morning.”
We measured each other with stares. Finally, the PROJECT leader grinned and praised me.
“You’ve picked the right place for us to meet. Eless and my mistress don’t really like each other. It’s a bad place for me.”
His mistress? PROJECT HELL worked for the House of Darkness, a mighty faction headed by the goddess Ananizarte, I remembered. Had he meant her?
“Your mistress doesn’t like almost everyone.” I tested the waters.
“True. And grey swindlers are her sworn enemies, too.” Tao looked right at me with his single eye, smiling.
Had he meant Tormis? But how could he know I was talking to him? Or was it just wordplay?
“You have many faces and hands, HotCat, and each time, they’re new. Will you tell me how you manage it?”
“I won’t. Let’s get to business.”
“As you wish. Have you brought my cloak?”
“I’m not an idiot to carry legendaries in my inventory,” I replied. “You’ll get your cloak at the auction. Here, take the contract. It’s in your name, one gold coin — sorry, I couldn’t set the price lower. The ring was delivered to you as an advance payment.”
Tao nodded thoughtfully and said,
“An odd thing happened to the ring. Was it your job?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re good at pretending,” Tao said, making a compliment. “The ring got stolen in a crowd next to the tavern where I was supposed to meet your newbie. I can’t shake the feeling that the thief was tipped. It went too smooth.”
“Really?” I feigned confusion. “My condolences. There’s no end to strange things.”
“What do you mean?”
“When your legendaries appeared inside the Watchers’ warehouse, someone posted them online. I got a message from some shop, they tried to buy them for real money. They were very persistent and offered a good price. It might be their handiwork while they’re exploring Sphere’s market. Take a look, maybe your ring’s there?”
“What shop?” Tao asked sharply.
Selling in-game items for real money was the domain of the administration’s premium shop. Yes, you could deposit and withdraw your funds by purchasing in-game gold, but buying items from third-party sellers was forbidden by the User Agreement. It was unregulated turnover, and things like that were strictly punished. There were all sorts of horrible rumors about it on the official forums. Supposedly, the administration used exceedingly rough methods and used their real-life influence when punishing private sellers who tried to compete with the Golden Hamster.
“Let me have a look...” I delved into my bookmarks and with a certain fiendish delight sent Tao a link to the COSMOGOLD page. My ploy was about to cause my former associate a lot of trouble. I never forget my debts. After betraying me and giving my address to Goggy, Old Nicky deserved a payback.
“I hope you’ll play smart and pretend to be a buyer,” I said. “You must realize they won’t put such an item on sale openly.”
“We’ll sort it out,” Tao cut me off. “Now, about your sword. You promised information.”
“Yes, I remember. Here’s a screenshot.”
Tao spent a few seconds studying the picture I sent him that showed the item with eight question marks instead of properties and then abruptly turned to face me.
“Are you taking me for a fool?”
“If you don’t believe me, let’s form a party, and you’ll take a look at my equipment yourself.” I threw up my hands. “That’s what it looks like.”
I immediately got an invitation to join a group. The PROJECT leader didn’t take my word for it.
“You’re trying to trick me,” Tao surmised after checking my equipment. “This item is disguised. It looks like that for anyone except the true owner. It’s an exceedingly rare item feature usually encountered in divine sets.”
“Well, if you’re so smart, you must understand that information like that cannot be given for free,” I said through my teeth, trying to keep a calm facade and not quite succeeding. The damned Japanese couldn’t be conned like Snow.
Tao’s hand fell on the clawed hilt of his black sword. I remembered its deadly power. That demonic blade was a match for Aelmaris, but I had no chances fighting a warrior such as the leader of HELL. Still, I tellingly let the tips of my fingers touch the silver cross-guard.
“I would have cut you in half for playing me,” Tao said slowly. “You got lucky. You picked the right place for the meeting.”
“I don’t understand your problem. I gave you the ring, the cloak, and free information as a bonus, just as agreed,” I said, shrugging. “Everything on top of that costs extra.”
“All right. What exactly do you need for a screenshot of the sword with open affixes?” With an effort of will, Tao got his act together, and his expression became once again impenetrable, while his hand slipped away from the hilt.
I smiled. He really needed that information, and I had an inkling why. It meant that the game would go on.
“Well, two things. The first is simple. You’ve recently shot down an astral nave without even sharing the spoils with me. Bad form, don’t you think? Let’s fix the issue — I want the equipment, the surviving modules that you’ve looted.”
“Have you lost your mind? They’re faction and customized — “
“I haven’t finished. Not for free. I’m ready to buy them out at fifty percent of the Bazaar price.”
For the next minute, Tao was thinking hard. I understood him. The total cost of equipment from Keith Borland’s Crabstrocity was more than twenty hundred thousand. However, those items had a pretty narrow field of application and could be sold to only a short list of customers. Selling them at a good price was hard; to do that, one would have to live at the Bazaar.
“I think that could be arranged,” the PROJECT leader finally replied. “For seventy percent. What’s the second condition? Money, again?”
A shadow of disgust marred his delicate features. I gave him a wide smile.
No, not money. It was much simpler.
Chapter 16
MONEY MUST WORK. I didn’t spend too much time with four hundred grand warming my pocket. After solving all issues with the Watchers, I had to move on to the next step and organize my own logistics. I was going to create my own pocket transporting company.
If shipping in Sphere wasn’t profitable, nobody would be doing it — that was the simple idea at the bottom of my plan. There were lots of nuances, and I had to take a few lumps, but in short, that turned out to be true.
Going by the local prices, a common flying vessel took five thousand for one haul. An astral nave took twenty. Basic math: by calculating expenses, I found out that the net cost of such a journey was no more than two or three thousand. In a nutshell, each Eyre-to-Bazaar flight should bring in at least two thousand gold. In my situation, when I needed to take cargo from lots of locations on the northwest of the continent, I could do, at most, two or three runs a day.
I had a mere pittance left of the tidy sum on my account: almost three and a half hundred grand had been spent on buying flying barques and a rig. To equip the ships, I used the help of Keith and his pawns who became a part of my small air fleet. We entered into a three-month contract on the condition I would return the surviving modules of the Crabstrocity to them. It was a win-win arrangement, helping me establish logistics, while Octopus could restore his astral nave to its original state.
I expected to recoup my money in two or three months. It was my first long-term investment in Sphere, a constant flow of income. Factoring in exclusive rights to the resources and loot from the Northerners’ clans, I had wide-rangi
ng prospects. Access to the third account of the Watchers, a free million gold for turnover... I could accumulate a critical mass of goods from the tenants of the Bazaar and try to fight for those market lots by controlling their price. Not immediately, not easily, considering the size and volume of the Bazaar’s market, but I could.
All in all, I was quite pleased with the course of events. At the same time, I watched the consequences of my risky conversation with Tao. “COSMOGOLD,” the shop of my former companion and his main source of income, had suddenly disappeared from the index of the major search engines. It wasn’t offline, but when I opened the store, it almost hung up my computer — nothing worked. The main page said something about technical issues. The symptoms were clear: the site had been hacked. Apparently, it was a hard-hitting attack. On top of that, its address was blacklisted by search engines and payment processors. I wondered what the reason was. Still, finding a fault in any online shop wasn’t impossible; everyone had breaches.
I had been preparing my revenge for a long time, weaving an intricate web of multiple fake accounts, letters, and offers. I knew how COSMOGOLD operated, and luring Nicky wasn’t hard. He loved money and would always use any opportunity to make it.
First, I utilized an old network of shady accounts that I had long since purchased. They belonged to real people who had no idea that they had an online presence of that sort. Some of them had already been used, and some were quietly biding their time.
COSMOGOLD’s mailbox and chatrooms started receiving requests to buy gold and items from Sphere. Not many, but they were frequent enough: almost every day, someone inquired about that subject. Then they got a supply offer, and another one, and....
COSMOGOLD didn’t work with Sphere and its currency. The operators couldn’t offer any help, and all requests were denied. Yet I knew that a new market and a new way to make money were bound to pique Nicky’s interest. He would start looking for suppliers.
All commercial offers sent to his mailbox were fake, of course. I wasn’t going to run afoul of Sphere’s administration and actually sell anything.
When one of the fake suppliers received a request from COSMOGOLD, I knew that the fish finally took the bait. The rest was a technicality. An anonymous buyer inquired about several items, including Tao’s ring, the order was forwarded to the fake supplier and confirmed. The buyer suddenly fell off the radar, but promised to recommend COSMOGOLD to his friend who was “a sure bet” to buy. It was almost time to reel the fish in. All I had to do was to connect the “friend” with Nicky’s online shop.
The ring itself, in the meantime, thanks to Tao, Kesson, and a fake Darknet middleman, was put up for sale at the Bazaar’s auction, ready to be sold to anyone who knew the correct password.
I was sure that Tao would either tell the Sphere’s administration about the online shop that violated the rule about in-game trade or try to deal with them himself. Judging by the issues experienced by COSMOGOLD, I had been right. I smiled, imagining Nicky screaming and pulling his hair, having no idea what was going on. I wondered how much money he would lose during the shop’s downtime and on paying programmers to restore the site and its search results position. And that’s not even taking into account his reputation.
Still, I hoped that Sphere’s administration would take a step further and bury COSMOGOLD for good, just as they were rumored to do to all goldsellers who tried to one-up them. Good luck, Old Nicky. Karma’s a bitch, and I hope you’ll realize that.
* * *
An enormous glow rose over the mountains, blotting out the sunset. The century-old forests, the ruins of outposts — everything that could burn was aflame. Gusts of wind ripped apart the sheets of grey smoke, and countless flocks of ravens circled the skies above. Dark shapes scurried in the fire on the mountaintop, making inhuman screams.
The tired cavalry slowly retreated via narrow forest paths, having separated into multiple groups. The grandees’ armor bore marks of battle, and banners with the sign of a barley ear drooped sorrowfully. The footsoldiers marched on as well, sullen and silent, escorting the wagons with the dead and injured. Few of them were still standing, and the survivors never looked back.
“Thank you, Lorindale. You can switch off Bird’s Eyes.”
The video broadcast stopped. The leaders of the Northern Alliance that gathered on the balcony of Condor, the Watcher’s castle, once again looked westward. From the highest peaks of the Northern Mountain Belt, a hundred leagues away from the battlefield, the glow of the battle was as clear as day.
“Well, that was quite vivid,” Crow, the leader of the Varangians, said with a nod. “Let’s continue.”
They left the balcony that encircled the tower and entered a round hall, seating themselves at a huge table. A detailed map of the northwest of the continent was carved on its marble surface. Komtur touched it with his hand, and one of the regions flashed and turned crimson.
“Black River is lost. The battle of Bear Pass is over,” Bara Norkins, the leader of Brethren, spoke up. Her character was a halfling, and she had to climb a chair to look at the map. Her red, round-cheeked face looked exhausted, and she was constantly yawning. Bara was the only one of those present who had fought in the aforementioned battle from start to finish. Despite her comical appearance, everyone knew: Bara was a tough leader of one of the most active clans of the alliance.
“Strikes against Ardat have already begun!” Olaf nodded. “Drax riders are swirling above Dan-na-Ard, and we have nobody to meet them!”
“We’ve spent three days fighting for the Black River,” Bara said through her teeth. “Round-the-clock raids. People need to sleep...and so do I, by the way.”
“How did it happen?” Goodfellow, the leader of Enemy, asked. “Why couldn’t you hold the pass? They were just NPCs...”
“Orcs, more than ten thousand strong. Strong fighters, well-organized,” Bara replied. “Plus, they were assisted by PROJECT HELL, at least three teams. We can’t hold them. We need help!”
The clan leaders were wide-eyed with shock, having never heard proud Bara say something like that before. If she admitted her defeat, then it was truly no laughing matter.
“Bear Pass is the gate to Ardat, the northern province of Eyre. If they took it, they now have a clear path to the capital. Olaf, how much time do we have?”
“No more than a month. Dan-na-Ard, the central stronghold of the province, is a level four outpost, a well-fortified castle. The Err will surely pull his forces there, even despite the attacks from the east, from Daigor and Dyre. Still, they don’t have a chance. The enemy’s stronger and more numerous. The orcs are coordinated and have a siege horde with engineers, catapults, and battering rams. In short, I expect them to be done in a month, and that’s if they don’t hurry.”
“And what’s next? Eyre?” Komtur asked.
“Eyre,” the analyst affirmed. “If the odds don’t change.”
“In a nutshell, we risk losing the kingdom,” Bara said. “We need help, alliance! Time to join the faction war! Let’s kick their asses all together so they remember it!”
“I agree. Varangians will fight!” sullen Crow snapped. “Do you really want the House of Darkness to get here? Ananizarte and her minions?”
“The Watchers can’t intervene, as much as we’d like to,” Komtur said softly. “We have a deal with PROJECT.”
“Oh yeah, Helt Akor, we remember,” Crow said sarcastically. “Have you farmed a lot, at least?”
“Not much.” Komtur’s face was a mask. “And no taunts, please. I have an idea, but I’d like to hear everyone out first.”
“Enemy are out. They don’t threaten our territory or the alliance lands, either,” Goodfellow said lazily. “I don’t see the point. We have enough on our plate beating off the Japanese. We could use some help ourselves, actually.”
Goodfellow was a well-known player famous for being one of the best PvP raid leaders of Dorsa. His clan controlled the west coast, the most tumultuous part of the allianc
e’s territory. Enemy were famous as the fiercest fighters of the Northerners. Occasionally, Japanese clans from the Farsids tried to raid their land to break through into the heartlands. Goodfellow’s position made sense. The other leaders nodded thoughtfully.
“Faction war is a joke. Everyone will stop respecting us. Battling NPCs is for newbies. It’s not an option.” That was Madman, the chief of Heroes, the fifth clan of the alliance. Their territory was to the south, on the border of the Wild Field.
“So you consider Tao and PROJECT newbies?” Komtur chuckled.
“Sorry, wrong phrase. But it’s like sex with a blowup doll. It’s not fun. Heroes are out, no offense.”
The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 22