Digital Me

by Alston Sleet

  I’m conflicted in my opinion of Baron Felsar. The large jovial but shrewd-eyed man cared for his daughter, that’s in his favor, but he also despised her sexuality and thought it was evil. Even thinking her sexuality was evil, he allowed his daughter to keep her maid who she was, in retrospect for me, obviously involved with. He shipped his daughter off into a life with a man who was from all accounts a cad and asshole, but also made sure the man he aligned himself with wouldn’t harm her. From some of the examples Seren had used during my cultural education, it was clear that her father could have gotten more from her hand if he was willing to sell his daughter off to an even worse asshole.

  This time I speared a bit of roast beef with the provided fork instead of the cheese. I broke out of my introspection to look around the smoky and dim pub area of the inn. More than a few people were covertly glancing at me as I ate. Since the first night at this inn had been nearly an empty room, I could guess that these people were spies of one stripe or another, King, Noble, Merchant House, Guild. All of the above? Who knows.

  I thought back to that single cold night in the Baron’s estate. The man had been more concerned with my presumed sexuality than my murderous and insane ways. I understand that there was some kind of religious conviction involved, but in this world, or at least in this Kingdom, the Church was a far more personal thing. The Churches earthly powers had been broken by some past King many years before, it involved something about a new religious command and a supposedly controlled head of the Church, the details had been very vague. I got the feeling that Seren wasn’t very devout so didn’t fill me in with much besides the idea that the Church wasn’t a powerful political player.

  With another large gulp of my ale, I decided I was going to make another direct move. The plan called for me to take whatever attacks or diversions the King could throw at me, but I was leery of this approach since immortality wasn’t the protection that everyone seemed to think it was. So far, each attack which had succeeded had been lethal in nature.

  This was a very good thing.

  If someone just cut my arm off then cauterized the wound I would suffer until I died. I would guess that a death would restore me, it seemed reasonable and in line with the Digitals goals. But it meant I needed to die for the backup to be enacted. I was not looking forward to possibly living as a torso and head for years after someone figured that one out. I would be able to kill myself using magic on metal or stone, but a smart man could keep me in a wood chest. Even thinking about years being treated that way made me cringe, even as I recognized that with the time frames in store for me, something like that will probably be happening.

  No, I needed to move things forward directly. I couldn’t just sit back and poke the King and let him try and get creative. I need him off balance and lashing out at me, but too much time and he will turn shrewd and think beyond just trying to kill me.

  Glancing up I noticed the barkeep serving a man who had a wench kneeling next to him. That little display of crudity was obviously some kind of ploy to annoy me since even other patrons were giving him a bit of an eyeball for the display. I knew that women were treated badly in this Kingdom, but that was still not common. I made an effort to put it out of my mind, the display was for me, so ignoring it would help make it less likely in the future. The fact that they understood my gallant response so well, said bad things about my enemies growing intelligence about me.

  “Barkeep!” I shouted causing everyone in the place to quickly turn to look at me.

  “Barkeep!” I repeated, ensuring all eyes or at least ears were on me, “Bring me paper and pen, I need you to deliver a letter to the Kings spy-master, your employer.”

  The innkeeper’s face had turned a lovely white shade from fear before, now his face turned sickly green as almost everyone around snapped into rigidity. I doubt that the innkeeper’s second occupation was news to many of these spies, but the fact I was willing to out him like I was said many things plainly.

  It was time for me to poke the hornet’s nest again.

  Chapter 21

  Let’s Make a Deal.

  The pub room of the Drunken Pig Inn had very few ‘customers’, in truth the few still drinking in the pub were probably spies for one faction or another. I haven’t had to deal with any further assassination attempts (successes?) since the three bandits. I’ve also been gaining more blatant allies in the city. The fact that I’ve been able to openly and blatantly insult and denigrate the King has caused more than one informative letter to be passed my way from a scheming nobleman or merchant house.

  Still, I’ve had four days of basically waiting.

  I’ve been spending my time productively enough. I’ve ‘gone calling’ as my Aunt used to call it. I’ve taken more tea in more nobleman’s manor and eaten more little finger foods with merchant houses and drank a flagon or ten from a few of the Guilds. Only the Scribes Guild was willing to openly support me, flat out saying they supported me against the King within the invitation to the local chapter house. As far as I can tell, the Scribes Guild is a multi-kingdom concern and since this Kingdom has been lean in recent years, in no small part due to the King leveraging a larger tax for imports on their good specifically, they are looking for a change in leadership.

  I’ve been spending time visiting in the morning and afternoon but I’ve gotten in the habit of eating lunch in the main room of the Drunken Pig. I want the King to have a way to contact me. It also shows a nice bit of lack of care, another way to underline the Kings inability to threaten me.

  I’m a bit lost, though, the plan called for waiting, but I’m getting impatient. I’m planning to give it another week, then I figure my grand plan is a bust, and I’ll just have to do something like overthrow the Kingdom while letting out why I’m so annoyed with the King.

  My letter was supposed to be a new thrust of annoyance and get the King to act, but instead, it seems to have had the King turning into a turtle. In a couple of days, I hear that diplomats from the southern elves will arrive, I should be able to think up some way to cause an issue for the King on that front. As I understand it the elves are pissed at the King and want some kind of compensation for something, I might be able to get in with the elvish contingent if I offer to piss the King off for them. Sometimes an outside source of irritation can be useful for a diplomat, besides, I’ve never met an elf.

  My planning and plotting were interrupted when the inn door was opened and a polished and presented guard captain entered. I assume he was a captain since his platoon or retinue or whatever you call a group of guards was stationed outside framed nicely by the open door.

  The captain didn’t look particularly certain, but he removed his helmet and strode over to me.

  With a small bend at the waist, the guard captain straightened and began, “The King has requested the presence of the Immortal Wizard, Shawn Bradshaw, to a matter of financial concern.”

  I’ve never been a great actor, but I’ve suffered through more than one upper management scream fits, so I can do the stoic bland faced look at least. My joy to finally have this moving forward made it hard to maintain a controlled facade, but I think I managed.

  “Very well, let me just go and clean up. I need to wipe the dust from today’s visiting off of me, I don’t think my weapons would allow the King to relax so I’ll leave those here to calm his nerves”

  The flinch from my obvious disrespect and the fact that I said it where others could hear was hidden quickly, but I could see it. It appears the King is actually looking to parlay in some form. I was wondering if this was just some plan to get me to slaughter the guards after they took offense to some imagined slight. This looks like a genuine move forward in the plan. I didn’t trust it. The King has been tricky and scheming, but he has shown that when his plans fail, he tends to revert to more direct and violent means…even when they obviously won’t work.

  The walk up to my room was almost a comedy in action. The guard captain didn’t want to appear to be keeping
me from running, even as he obviously was, while also wanting to keep me in sight. Since things were going in my direction for once, I left the door open as I wiped down my face and gently lobbed my weapons onto the bed. I was careful to arrange the sword with the handle towards me and I turned towards the door. Dropping my face towel to the ground I bent to reach for it, mentally prepared myself and made a backup.

  Every time I’ve made a backup, I think back to the nightmarish fight with Valient. I know how backups work, I make a backup, I experience things, I die, the backup is reloaded and I don’t know any of the things which happened after the backup. But that’s not how I remember experiencing it. I either experience nothing as a backup happens and I continue on…or the world shifts around me, seconds, minutes, even hours later, but for me, the world just jumps to some new configuration.

  I’ve started preparing myself for the aftermath of every backup. The moment the towel is in my hand I prepare myself to reach out and draw my sword in offense, but I find myself just standing up with the towel. Setting the towel off to the side as I walk downstairs. I know that there is a version of me, stored somewhere, that is still hunched over and waiting to pull a sword and fight. If I die, that version of me is born and continues on with this life. It’s an odd thought, it will be ‘me’, but not the exact same ‘me’, just a very close to the same version of ‘me’ that will have never experienced this moment.

  My nightmares and dreams have gotten far stranger. Philosophy regarding the concept of ‘self’ has taken up a good deal of my thoughts over the last year.

  The guard captain walked ahead of me and down to join the patrol all the guards looking shiny and parade ground prepared. This could be seen as an honor guard escorting me or the victorious guards capturing the notorious and evil wizard. The small crowd of watchers, merchants and skilled workers mostly, were trying to keep both the guards and me in sight. I couldn’t resist, and it fit into my plans anyways, so I waited till the captain had reached the head of the parade of shiny metal.

  “Thank you, captain for the honor guard. Let’s not keep the King waiting!”

  I’m trying to remember to not become a sarcastic asshole, but dealing with the local assholes is making it difficult to keep it in mind. There is a certain joy in seeing the political board, figuring out the rules, the players and the pieces, and then kicking the table over and making your own rules.

  I enjoyed the walk to the palace with my honor guard. I waved and hollered out “good day” and “how you doing?” to the people as we passed. I wanted it to be cleared these guards were here and I was going because I wanted to.

  I had guessed that more guards were stationed behind the inn to keep me from running, the slow pace we set out and the contingent of six guards who joined the back of our group indicated this guess was correct. The King is obviously not thinking things through as well as he could be. This situation is just too far from what he is used to manipulating.

  Why would I run when I’m getting exactly what I want?

  ###

  The palace appeared the same as the last time I was here. Smooth gray stone, fitted tightly together. Arched stone ceilings with thick smoke stained timbers spanning from wall to wall. Floors of fitted stone, mostly clean and with little dust though sections were of highly polished wood.

  I noticed only two palace servants as we walked towards the King’s office. I was wondering if the King was going to try killing me again. A brief moment of unreality hit me as I found the idea of a King trying to murder me both pitiable and funny.

  One of the leading guards knocked at the door, waited for a reply, then opened the door and let me in closing the door behind me. King Melnus was standing behind the large solid desk with both hands resting on the desk’s surface. The office appeared to generally be the same as it was before, though I noticed more letters strewn about the desk this time. A nice fire was in a small brazier in the corner pulled away from the wall and the bookcases.

  With a single silent gesture to one of the chairs, the King sat at his desk. The chair was overstuffed but still uncomfortable. I sat and looked at the King. I wasn’t in a rush so I just waited. The King was looking at me, I think he was trying for a grim glare, but I was finding it hard to be intimidated by it. I thought about the backup in my room and how if this ‘me’ dies, another ‘me’ will draw a sword and prepare himself.

  I think my polite smile and seeming disregard for his anger was what finally had the King deciding that I wasn’t going to be intimidated. It was problematic that the King was still thinking that these types of games would work to have him get his way.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he asked giving me a sour look.

  I couldn’t help it, I almost guffawed.

  “You can start by realizing you can’t ‘do’ anything with me at all,” I proclaimed.

  Leaning back the King clenched his fists as he considered me.

  “That was rude, but you have to admit you started it. My goals haven’t changed. I told you that you can only push me so far, and only if I let you. I’m no longer willing to let you push me any further.”

  Not exactly consolatory, but then I wasn’t trying to console him. He had dicked me around, not as badly as others maybe, but House Delsar had also worked to further my own goals even as they tried to further their own. I can deal with a reluctant horse, I was just getting tired of the stubborn mule.

  “So, what then? What is this deal you have for me?” the King asked.

  If this had been in my previous life and someone with the kind of political and military power this man has had looked at me with that same glare and icy tone I would have considered running. I was starting to realize that my life had changed. My world had changed, and I was beginning to see that I had changed with it.

  “We should get your wizard out here to cast a truth spell on me, I won’t be lying either way, but at least that way you can trust it,” I said staring back at him.

  I knew the wizard had left, I didn’t know why, but I did know he was gone. I was hoping to poke at the King a bit more. At this point, I think I need to consider if I’m starting to get arrogant with my power or if I was just that fed up. A bit of both I mentally acknowledged.

  I continued to sit, mostly relaxed in the uncomfortable chair, waiting to see how my latest jab would effect the ruler. He simply waved his hand in an almost casual manner, left to right and then a more forceful chopped as if to cut off my suggestion. I noticed that the King seemed remarkably conversant in a hand gesture. Another skill I’m going to have to learn a bit better. Being able to act will be helpful to learn, but this ability to convey entire sentences of disdain with but a single wave of the hand is a skill that could serve me well.

  “Fine. To the point. You are not my problem King Melnus,” I said looking the frustrated ruler in the eye attempting to convey how sincerely I felt about this issue, “in a thousand years I will probably barely remember my current allies, you will probably be remembered if at all as that ‘one King’ that bothered me that ‘one time’”

  “My only concern is reducing the problems that I will experience over the next few thousand years. If a serf insults you, you must cut him down. To fail to do so would be to throw away your power. Every time you insult, attack, or hinder me, I must attack you in the same way. My legend is my only real concern. You can either help me build it and get something from that, or you can be the problem I conquer. I don’t have much of a choice here.”

  The King sat rigid in his chair, comparing him to a serf was probably not the most political of ways to phrase it but I just couldn’t help needling him even further. This comment sealed it for me, I was getting too arrogant for my own good.

  Rubbing the bridge of my nose I changed my tone and tried to be less abrasive.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so rude, but I find myself unwilling to played with any further. Let me just lay out my proposition and we will see where we go from there.”

  The
short choppy head nod from the King was the only indication I had that the King was even listening to me. I was actually surprised that he had let me speak so much and had listened so far. I had gotten the impression that the King let Jofrem do a great deal of the thinking and he supplied the cunning.

  “I want a Duchy. You can assign whatever Barons you want for my Duchy, I don’t plan to rule it. My seneschal will sit my place and will be my voice in the house of nobles, I want no part of ruling. I will bend no knee, though my seneschal will. I want the legend of how I single-handedly gained the right of nobility. The title is my goal, not the ruling. I want House Delsar to have their taxation from all trade from this duchy into the rest of the Kingdom to be reduced to 5%, not the standard 35%. Finally, I want the right to create my own rules of marriage, divorce, internal trade, and so on within my Duchy,” I said slowly and clearly watching the Kings eyes widen incrementally as my demands expanded as I talked.

  “I have no lands to give you, I have no Duchy to offer, and I certainly won’t just hand it over without a fight.”

  This was the first real comment from the King besides his exasperation with me. Good, the opening bargaining has begun, I had considered that this would be the point where our deal broke down and he tried to kill me where I sat. He didn’t say no, he just refused my first bid.

  “In exchange for what I’ve asked for, I will clear the Monster Wastes away and return the land to rich farmland once again.”

  I could see the King pause. His Kingdom had lost nearly a fifth of its total lands because of the Monster Wastes, the main food crops of the Kingdom obliterated, the Kingdom has slowly been declining ever since. This was a tragedy that had been before his time entirely and the destruction of the Monster Waste had been tried before and entire armies had been destroyed. If I could succeed and return the dry monster-infested lands to usefulness, then the Kingdom could begin to recover again. This would indeed be an act worthy of bestowing duke-ship.