By the time those wretched vultures were dispatched, I was down to 670 hit points on the Sphere. A little more than half had been whittled away. But thankfully my planning had worked out. If 23 had hit that sphere at once, we’d be dead instantly.
“Oh dash it all,” Ivan grumbled. “I could have sworn I had you. My math didn’t include a split Karrack beam. You know they deal less damage that way, right?”
“Seemed to damage enough of your swarm,” I replied, returning my focus back to the front of the battle. The Siege Golems were stuck wailing on the resolute Shield Golems who were quite resistant to the attacks. With the huge units blocking the pathway, the rest of the Stone Golems had become stuck, unable to move forward. But the Judge had not called an end yet, meaning there was no way this round was over.
“I swear, man, you must be hiding treasure in the first sector of your maze! I’ve never met an opponent so insistent on keeping the fight at the very entrance,” Ivan murmured. It was hard to tell whether his tone was full of admiration or frustration. Perhaps it was a mix of both.
Deciding to accelerate the process, I once again dropped the Sandozium onto the two Siege Golems. Thanks to the spreading ability, the puff of sand covered them both, then traveled across all the other golems, diffusing the armor destroying compound to all units at once. However, only the Siege Golems were armored here, so there was no effect on the regular golems.
The yellow armor protection burned away in an instant and once again, the Siege Golems were broken to pieces, shattered by the unending payloads delivered by the trebuchets. There came a long sigh from my opponent as the remaining Stone Golems lumbered forward. They were able to finally break one of the Shield Golems down, opening a pathway for them to move, single file, straight into the first Slugtine trap.
“I must admit, I feel a little silly for not anticipating you putting Shield Golems down at the entrance,” Ivan mumbled as we watched the few golems that did make it past the first slug trap get annihilated by the Karrack Towers waiting for them. Within a few minutes, the wave was over. Victory went to me, though he had still done a number on my hit points.
“Leave the Grid,” Ivan said. “The fight is over. There are only two waves left, both comprised of 10 Stone Golems. Let the crowd watch it with bated breath while we talk business.”
Was he being honest here? I had won? I closed the Grid to see Ivan sitting down on one of the wooden stands. The crowd that had been nearby was gone now; the security force had corralled them elsewhere. It was just me and the Count alone.
I sat down beside him, watching the battlefield. It was strange seeing the area from high above, yet without the magical abilities to zoom in on areas. The fight had begun once more and the golems came barreling out, ten regular Stone Golems, just as Ivan had claimed. The crowd was cheering at the sounds of the towers going off, firing and making a general spectacle of things.
“You put up one hell of a defense,” Ivan said, not looking at me. He seemed rather taken with the battlefield. “Those traps are ingenious. It’s funny when one gets so absorbed into the Grid that they forget this all takes place in the real world.”
“Indeed. To be honest, this was a huge risk, and I had no idea if it would be legal,” I said. “But the scientist must indeed test limits!”
The Count said nothing for a minute, flinching as a well-thrown boulder smashed a lone golem to bits. “Oh that’s gotta hurt!” he commented. “In fairness, I should warn you that I came with a very limited force. Your traps took me by surprise, but I wasn’t here to truly win at all costs. This was sport. I say this not for my own ego’s sake, but for yours. Don’t go thinking you can dance with a count just because of this match.”
It was as I had anticipated. The Count had cut me some slack because of the clear disparity between our ranks and power levels. “I thank you for your prudence and your warning,” I replied, leaving out the fact that I had accurately guessed his strategy. No reason to show off my strategic mind, at least not to one who wasn’t a friend yet.
“So, you’re new to the Game,” the Count said, eyes still watching the match. He had staggered out each golem in order to make more of a spectacle of it. From the looks of his eagerness, it seemed he just liked watching golems get smashed, no matter that they were his own. “It’s rare to see a newcomer who hasn’t been bulldozed by his neighbors.”
“They certainly have tried,” I replied. “And it’s been a real scramble to stay alive.”
“Ah yes, the gentry days. How I miss it,” the Count said. “Everyone knew it was safe to take a piece of you. Battles every week. Endless carnage.” He paused to get a hold of himself, returning to the present. “Anyway, I appreciate your willingness to not only join in an exhibition match, but to fight like hell, just like you had something to lose. You gave me a real thrill.”
His words seemed to indicate he didn’t know about the wager between Henshaw and myself. Curious. Why wouldn’t Henshaw have told him? My eyes widened suddenly. What if gambling on fights was illegal? Had I agreed to some kind of illicit underground deal? My fear was diminished by the fact that I would get four lots out of this shady dealing, even if it were against the law of the Crown. I mean, gambling’s a victimless crime, why should the Crown be involved in my affairs?
Fortunately Count Ivan didn’t notice this swarm of thoughts running through my head nor the sudden crop of sweat appearing on my brow. He merely continued talking. “Anyway, you’re pretty low on the hierarchy, so it would be unbecoming of you and I to fraternize beyond this. But when you get to Baron, come calling, please. I’d love to get to know just who you are and why you chose now to join the game.”
An invitation to visit a Count’s home? That was huge! This man was in charge of an entire county in the south, responsible for collecting taxes from baronies and gentries. At one point, before the end of war, a Count handled the raising of armies from vassals and organizing defense of the homeland. But now since nobles no longer raised armies, the title was little more than just a representative of a very large pile of claims and the right to collect taxes. He had only as much power as the size of his territory and anyone, from the lowly gentry to a duke, could invade him on a whim. The Great Game was egalitarian in that matter.
Chapter 33
The Count did not stay long after the spectacle match. If I had any kind of high status or noteworthiness, he would have been pleased to stay for an early dinner (or perhaps even a second one for he never seemed to stop eating), but unfortunately that was not the case for now. I didn’t feel snubbed, but instead felt somewhat invigorated. As if I had a clear goal beyond simply surviving and finding the murderer of my family. Once that had all settled, perhaps I would begin setting my ambitions on something a little higher, such as becoming a Baron.
As I watched the crowds pack up, content from their viewing of the game, a sense of dread crept up in my stomach. Lily’s words and warnings about ambition echoed in my mind. She had been so unhappy with my decision to take this game up, for fear that I would begin going down an ambitious path…but what was wrong with a little ambition? I certainly wouldn’t try and take anything from anyone, at least not unless they provoked me first.
I stood alone, before the entrance to the Barrows, waiting on Gurlick Henshaw to show his face. I hadn’t seen him during the actual match, but knew that he was somewhere around here. The nature of his secret wager with me probably lent him to staying incognito.
Eventually, as the crowd completely vanished, there came forth a man and a woman, both wearing hoods to conceal their faces. I felt a slight fear surge through my stomach as I realized I could not readily identify these two. What if they were assassins? But my fears quickly evaporated as Gurlick removed the hood after making sure that we were more or less alone.
“Ah! Mr. Henshaw,” I said with a wide grin. “It’s good to see you.” More like, it was good to see you’re here to pay up your end of the bargain. He did not share my enthusia
sm, for he wore a long, grim look upon his face. The look of a man who might not pay his debts.
“Evening, Richard,” Gurlick sheepishly said as the woman beside him pulled off her hood. She was a little older than Gurlick, with a mixture of gray and brown hair, the course of old age taking her faster than it did most adults. She bore a dark scowl upon her face and her eyes very well could have been daggers, aimed straight at my heart. I found myself swallowing as Gurlick took a step back, letting his counterpart take the stage. She was undoubtedly his wife and she was furious.
“Master Richard,” the woman said, bowing to me. “Forgive me for being so straightforward with you, but there’s been a mistake. My husband was not authorized to make such a deal with you, wagering our family land on a game.”
“Is that so?” I asked. I looked at Gurlick, but the man did everything in his power to avoid eye contact, staring at the ground instead.
“Indeed. We’re a husband and wife team, you see, handling everything on our meager estate as a unit. He can’t just make a deal without my knowledge. So, in truth, you cannot collect that land. It wasn’t his to give.”
I crossed my arms. In the distance, Sigmund had finished whatever task he had been doing and was looking at me, motioning if he should come or not. I shook my head. This was my problem to handle, and handle it I would. “I apologize, Missus…”
“Yandah,” she said, expression not changing once.
“Missus Yandah, your husband and I struck a deal. I made a very risky wager on my part and he was more than pleased to roll the dice against me. Unless you two have a corporate partnership, complete with papers and all to delineate who has voting powers and for what, this arrangement stands.”
When anger and legal outrage failed, the woman changed her stance and quickly! She leaned back a little, dropped her shoulders down low and sighed, frown turning mournful. “Sir, I must confess that my husband is a degenerate gambler. No doubt you saw that contraption he rides in. Such a machine is far beyond our means, but he wagered for it in a horse race. He won a brand new auto-carriage, sure, but he wagered our finest race horses, meaning we’d go broke. The man has no self-control, no ability to stop himself. He wagered our horses and won, and that meant he thought he could wager our very land, our livelihood, and win even bigger. Please, you must have clemency on us! He got caught up in his successes like a fool and doubled down. We need that land for our cattle to graze. Without it, we won’t be able to afford feeding the very animals that keep our estate alive! ”
Her words sounded sorrowful, but…I could not help but look at their vehicle parked off in the distance. It was a very expensive vehicle, worth a small fortune. Something that most peasants would never dream of owning.
“I do apologize, ma’am, but if you believed your husband to have made a mistake with the horses, why not simply have returned the carriage?” I asked. This question caught her off guard. Her body language shifted for a moment from supplication to indignation.
“What do you mean?” she grunted before slumping her head back down, remembering to keep the act up.
“Well, if you really wanted to discourage your husband from gambling, you would have insisted he return the horseless carriage. Instead, it seems you were quite willing to keep the prize. But when the shoe is on the other foot, oh you insist he not keep his end of the deal? Seems a little fishy to me.”
Yandah did not like those words. She scowled and crossed her arms, standing up straight. “It’s not the same. He won it off some rich man with a whole fleet of those newfangled vehicles! The man wasn’t truly losing anything. Not like us! This is our livelihood, sir.”
I tried to return her glare. “And if I had lost this deal, I would have lost my own livelihood. Tell me, would you be demanding he give it back if I were to lose? Or would I just be ‘a rich man who wouldn’t miss his land?’”
That question was pointed like a dagger and Yandah took a step back, trying to come up with a response. I could see the question in her eyes. Should she use anger or pity to win me over? She was certainly a schemer, but I did wonder about the validity of her claim. A small power usually lacked the resources to expand their land. They usually obtained their property through extreme merit or favor from the Crown. If I took her grazing lands, their business would most likely suffer.
Finally, after some calculation, the woman sighed and dropped all signs of pretense. “You got me there. I raised hell about him making the bet, but certainly didn’t ask he return it,” she put a hand over her face and sighed even deeper. “Look, we can work out some kind of deal, maybe proceeds from our races and sales, but you…you can’t take the Meadowlands. We need it.”
Her honesty and lack of theatrics caused a twinge of pain to run through my heart. She really was in a bind here and, come to think of it, so was I. Without her land, they would suffer immensely. But at the same time, there’s no doubt the woman would have gleefully taken my property if I had lost this wager. I could ignore her pleas and just take what was rightfully mine, but what about my noblesse oblige? I had to live by my philosophies, did I not?
“Look…I’ll be square with you. Part of my own livelihood depends on acquiring this land,” I said, regretting each syllable as they came out. My selfish ambitions (which startlingly did exist) were screaming for me to tell this lady to take a hike. To use my power and authority as a gentleman to enforce the deal. But, at the same time, could I really take her life away? Condemn an entire family to live in poverty? “Would you be able to survive with one plot?”
“Going from four plots to one…how dreadful,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “How will we ever expand?”
Perhaps there was an alternative here I wasn’t seeing. Rather than get into a bidding war over her homeland, which I needed so desperately, perhaps I could make a better arrangement for them overall. Why win this battle when I could win the war in one fell swoop? “Racing is a prestigious thing and raising their horses must be quite profitable,” I said. “But it must be expensive in the time between racing season.”
Yandah nodded at that. “We have several lean months out of the year.”
“The Henshaws have two winters, I always say,” Gurlick interjected. A single look from his wife caused him to shrivel up into the background, not saying another word.
“What if I were to tell you I could arrange a 14 month a year racing season?” I asked, crossing my arms and taking a more coy stance. Her reaction here would dictate if she really cared about her family livelihood, or if that too had just been an act to get what she wanted.
Immediately, the woman’s head lifted up and titled, certainly curious about what I said. “What do you mean? Aside from the occasional spring match, the nobility here only attends races during the summer and fall. What would cause them to attend winter ridings?”
“Well, it’s not the current nobility, but our friends across the sea, the Ikorians. They don’t have a winter season due to some kind of enchantment that interferes with the weather cycle. They have racing all year round.”
“And they’re also 10,000 miles away from us,” she exclaimed. “Shipping there would be impossible.”
“Not quite,” I said. “Just expensive. But leave handling that to me. Here is what my proposal is. I keep the land and gain a controlling share into your horse business. Your family keeps the rest of the shares and everyone stays where they are.”
“Why a controlling stake if everything stays where it is?” she asked, crossing her arms again and standing up straight.
“Because, I want to control it under my estate’s banner. Your business then becomes my business. I’ll add the operating expenses to my own budget, since it’ll be considered in my estate’s control. So while you’re running the show day to day, my estate will handle the big picture stuff. We’re always shipping wine to the Ikorians. Finding a way to sell race horses shouldn’t be too hard.”
I expected the woman to begin arguing with me
about how my offer involved her losing more than what was wagered, but instead she just started counting. “If your estate controls our land, the fees go to you, as well as feeding costs. We can improve our…” she mumbled for a few moments, doing all the math in her head. It was clear that she was indeed responsible for at least half (if not more!) of the Henshaws’ ranch operations.
“By allowing you to take controlling share, you’ll triple our profits,” she finally said. “We’ll make a lot more with a noble partner. Question is, will you actually leave our family alone? Because if I just hand controlling power to you, you could easily fire us.”
“I’m sure there’s some kind of arrangement where you have voting power but I still technically own the building,” I said, waving my hand. “But that’s something for the bean counters to figure out. I’m a man of my word and I intend to follow through with it. You’ll have full control over the farm; I’ll just be in charge of selling your horses and paying your bills.”
“And no matter our profit, we don’t pay any operational costs? Even during times of no sale?” she asked.
I shook my head. “It’ll be my responsibility as a noble with a vested interest in the business. Whatever you earn, you keep under this arrangement. So, I keep the lots and gain principal control of the business, but as you said, I’d triple your profits.”
This was a smooth move. For not only would I gain the land, I’d also have a new property to manage. A property that would net me 51% profit. Well, at least 51% before expenses.
“A very generous offer,” Yandah replied, still in thought. “I can see where the profit is, but at the same time…I don’t suspect you wanted to make yourself rich with this deal. Tell me, Richard, why take pity on us?”
Gentleman's Wars: The Rules of Engagement: A Tower Defense LitRPG Series (The Great Game Book 1) Page 19