by D. Rus
Very well. I put three scrolls aside and sent an identical letter to all three bidders, informing them that I had just one more scroll left which I intended to keep for any of my own clan's future needs, but seeing as they needed it so badly, I could probably let it go. They could have it for one million two hundred thousand. I just hoped they wouldn't set off to Inferno all at once. Four raids colliding in the portal zone wasn't a pleasant sight. They could easily kill each other and then start asking questions. Not a nice thing at all.
Eh... was my greedy pig still taking notes? Excellent. Because I had an idea. What about building an inn in the portal zone? Or even a bastion. Full service: safe lodgings, guaranteed bind points, a graveyard, a supplies shop, portal services on request, a quick response group and a buff service.
Piggy? Why aren't you writing? What do you mean, you've run out of wishing paper? Go get some more!
As I thus indulged, somebody smart had renewed their auction activities, buying up whatever scarce supply of accumulators was still left. I stared, indignant, as my chosen items began disappearing from my Shopping Basket. Then I couldn't take it any longer. Succumbing to the pressure, I lunged into the Battle of Capital Attrition.
Congratulations! You've received Achievement: Wholesaler I
The total volume of your auction deals has reached the wholesale ceiling, allowing the auction house to lower their commission on all of your deals from 5% to 3%.
Excuse me? I glanced at my bank balance. Oops. Just under four hundred thousand. How's that possible? Well, Max, I didn't know you had it in you. Splurging a quarter of a million in five minutes on some magic crystals—that's an achievement indeed!
In any case, it was no cause for panic. Unlike gold, the crystals were something I needed right there and then. Besides, I had a funny feeling that in another week I'd have no problem reselling the batteries—at a profit if I wanted to. At the moment, accumulating crystals seemed to be a strategic commodity, a bit like uranium ore used to be before Tesla's technologies had been made public.
I unloaded five "Stationary Accumulating Crystals, Large" from my bag and redirected the altar mana flow to them. Then I beamed: apparently, Tianlong had been so flooded by the divine energies that he nobly refused the modest 5% I'd been sending him. He terminated the contract out of convenience. Was I my own worst enemy to object? The main thing was, I finally had the full mana stream available all to myself: 300 mana per second. And even though it sounded like an enormous amount, it meant that recharging each crystal would take about half an hour. Excellent capacity! They still had to go some to compare to the First Temple's altar—that one could accumulate up to thirty kilotons. Actually, a charged crystal cost 10% more than an empty one—speaking about immediate profit.
That seemed to be it. I studied auction panel one. Had the circumstances been different, I'd have looked into their local dealings deeper, but not now. An occasional shiver kept running down my spine, reminding me that danger was closing in and that hundreds of sentients were already busy skinning my mental image alive.
Didn't those advertisers know when to stop! I reached for the virtual cursor, about to shut down yet another unwelcome pop-up. Then I froze.
Urgent sale! A three-hour auction! The brave Rangers of Heisei clan have seized the Scarlet Fort in the heart of the Gong alliance territories!
This is your chance! The fort is perfect as an invasion bridgehead or even an instrument of political pressure. It can be looted bare or resold for a profit, possibly to its ex owners.
The starting price is one million. In the absence of bidders, the fort will be destroyed which in turn will breach the alliance's defense, weakening it. Any material tokens of gratitude from any interested parties will be highly appreciated.
These guys had found themselves a funny environmental niche. As far as I could see through their scheme, this was a small and well-coordinated saboteur group that kept its forces well concentrated, looking for the weakest targets and hitting them with precision. I was almost sure they had their own spies, too. The group collected intelligence, chose a suitable object, took it over in a lightning-fast assault, then looted it or sold it on for profit.
Was I currently any different from them? I wasn't. I had the same knuckle-duster approach, walking the fine line between valor and stupidity.
I would be lying if I said that the thought of a nasty new enemy didn't worry me. Their castle's very name made me gulp uneasily: Shui Fong 7, of all things! It meant there had to be at least six others—possibly, eight. I mentally compared it to the empty echoing corridors of my own citadel, their resonant silence only disturbed by children's laughter and the sound of Hell Hounds' claws clattering over the floor tiles. Okay, so we weren't as populous as some but we had our friends and our reputation, a few business partners and a healthy—albeit temporarily depleted—bank account.
Yes! I grinned menacingly, welcoming the thought that had just occurred to me. Don't I just love win-win solutions. Weaken my enemy, strengthen his opponents and make some money into the bargain.
"Analyst, where are you!" I barked into the staff chat. My five bodyguards startled. "I need a complete report on Shui Fong. Pay special attention to their enemies, both open and covert."
This was the aforementioned fine line overstepped in the direction of stupidity. I should have asked for this report the moment I'd heard Oksana's story. Instead, I'd plunged into headlong action, impatient to help the wronged girl and save some fellow players, dying to teach the bastards a lesson. So typically Russian of me. But after all, there had to be situations whereby any legal boundaries and pretentious courtesies ceased to matter. This was the right of revenge for being robbed of your love or your child; this was the blind courage of someone who has nothing left to lose, the final redemption of a soldier about to sound his last charge, his life flaring bright for one last moment as he accepts his final battle.
Having said that, I might not have been so eager to slap Shui Fong in the face had I had a good view of the said bully's biceps. Or at least that's what I was thinking now as I studied my analyst's report. They were #8 in the cluster's controlled surface area ratings, #30 in economic power, #17 in call-up and assault potential. Nine castles, too.
So they were tough as old boots, oh well. Let's check out the other side of the coin now. What about enemies? Plenty of those, apparently. With a behemoth like this, its every movement affected other clans' and alliances' interests whether it liked it or not. The moment Shui Fong shifted its greedy gaze to another dungeon or a new promising sector of craftonomics, they made themselves another enemy.
Hastily compiled from various official and semi-official sources, the report didn't offer a full picture but at least it allowed an estimate of the shift of various multidirectional powers. Take the shopkeepers' alliance, deadly offended when a few public lashings had been followed by the collection of considerable tribute. Or the gatherers, forced to surrender 10% of the resources they farmed for access to Shui Fong-controlled locations. An impressive list of plundered castles, two subdued and integrated clans, successful raids into nearby clusters. The hyperactive bastards had left quite a trail.
Now this was interesting: Mao's Legacy alliance. Following the Great Helmsman's theses, they rejected expansion and directed their main efforts inward, leveling up and investing in production. Their combined call-up potential was nothing to sniff at which was quite understandable: if your average crafter or minedigger approaches level 200, he won't find it too hard to turn his plough shear into a sword which made him a combat opponent to be reckoned with.
At first, Shui Fong had mistaken them for an easy target and had a field day treading on their toes, wrestling a few top locations away from them, including a rich outcrop of silver and gold with a—wow!—a 0.5% chance of discovering mithril. The Mao's Legacy had recoiled like a taut spring, turned their respective plough shears to swords and wholeheartedly struck back. Currently the two clans were busy pummeling each other with variabl
e success, burning an enormous wealth of resources much to their competitors and Admins' pleasure.
The conflict had now frozen in an uneasy balance of two wrestlers grappling with each other, throwing feints and testing the other's reactions. There were plenty of spectators but no one willing to stick their necks out. Or at least not until we came round. Like an uncontrollable teenager we'd rushed onto the tatami disrupting the tournament's course and giving one of the heavyweights an almighty kick in the balls: unexpected, unpleasant and very unfair. A perfect moment for the other wrestler to throw him out of the circle, breaking the opponent's elbow and rendering his greedy mitts inoperative for quite a while.
That was it, then. I jotted a quick letter to the Mao alliance's official channels, then used a few "gray" contacts to obtain the addresses of their clan leaders and heads of security and forwarded copies of the letter to them, too. I wasn't sure if it was a good thing to do but time was an issue, raising the hairs on my neck. As the saying goes, a cornered rat will bite the cat. In the body of the email I offered them a doctored version of our castle seizure story and made them an offer they had to find impossible to refuse. I suggested they buy the Shui Fong citadel off me for three million, thus hogging the blanket for themselves and achieving the numerical advantage in this lingering opposition: eleven castles against nine.
Slow thinkers don't survive in this line of work. It took the alliance seven minutes to come to a decision. I received an incoming inquiry,
Daxueshi Xiao Long on behalf of Mao's Legacy alliance is happy to welcome our Russian brother!
I shook my head skeptically, highlighting the first word in his name—a title? A new menu opened, offering a translation option. So! A court official of fifth rank, advisor to the Emperor. A big shot. While I was at it, I translated his name, too. Xiao Long: a serpent. Well, well, well. I'd better keep my eyes peeled with this one.
I confirmed chat activation and introduced myself as the commander of a Russian combined service raid. After more greetings and inscrutably syrupy compliments we finally got to the point.
In order to verify your information, we ask your permission to teleport our representative to the seized castle. We guarantee he will not use magic or activate any kind of artifacts.
So they didn't want to buy a pig in a poke. Fair enough. I sent a request through the staff channel to generate a single-use portal key, then forwarded it to the court official. He promised to arrive within five minutes. Excellent.
I closed all the windows and blinked them out of my eyes, refocusing as I tried to work out the cause of all the noise that had distracted me during the course of the negotiations.
Holy mama mia! Oksana, her tear-streaked face dusty and furious, was panting and wheezing as she struggled to drag a slave driver across the flagstones, his hands bound behind his back. Every ten paces she let her victim go, only to dig her heavy boots into his face. But even though the slave driver couldn't avoid the hail of blows, he didn't resemble a timid victim. Exposing his half-broken teeth in a defiant grin, he spat blood, talking out loud as he reminded the girl of all the instances of him raping her, relishing all the unsavory details.
Was he looking for an easy death? Was he trying to provoke the girl into killing him there and then before she dragged him to the knocked-down niche where we'd found the five irresponsive bricked-in bodies? Possible.
The slave driver made another attempt, "Shame you didn't hear that brat scream when I sharpened his fingers like pencils with my knife!"
"You lying piece of shit!" Oksana lost it completely, stomping the man into the ground with renewed force. My men didn't let him die though: one of the mercs healed the scumbag just in time.
Now his face filled with pure hatred. "You bastard Russians! How I hate you! You burned my grandfather alive with Grad missiles on Damansky island! My father was a gold digger in the Amur basin and he never came back from the taiga! I lost both legs in the Far East conflict! We'll kill you all, each and every one of you!"
I frowned and turned to Widowmaker. "Who's that?"
"The head of interior guards. The slaves only mention his name in whispers. They're still scared shitless of him. You can't even imagine the kind of things he did here. He was the one who bricked Alexis in. The kid is away with the fairies now, just drooling and staring into space. They broke something in him. So Oksana flipped out, as you can see..."
I ground my teeth and squinted at the slave driver. This was an enemy, pure and simple.
He burst into insane laughter. "Don't cringe! Scared, are we? Or is it that you want to kill me? Well, you can't! I'm immortal! You think you can brick me in or bury me alive? Never mind, I can wait. Hatred will help me stay sane, even if it's a thousand years. The wind and water will turn these stones to dust, but one day I'll be free to come back and kill you all who speak a dog's tongue!"
Now I freaked out, too. I jumped off my throne and strode toward the spattering slave driver. "You can wait, can you?" I croaked into his enraged face. "Very well. Time to find out what real hatred is like!"
A portal popped open behind me but I couldn't stop. Without looking, I felt in my inventory for Lloth's black dagger and thrust it into the slave driver's heart.
"Give my love to the Spider Queen!"
Chapter Twelve
Moscow, Chronos Life Extension Center.
"Olga, here's more flowers from your boyfriend! Does that mean it's a champagne day again today?"
Olga switched the monitor to transparency mode. Without removing the mental control headband, she looked up at Alina the receptionist scurrying toward her desk. Alina's strongest points were her long slender legs and two miracles of plastic surgery bouncing in her deep cleavage, the cause of the male office staff suffering acute cases of wandering eye.
Now her voluptuous curves were shielded by a colorful riot of flowers. The girl's groomed fingers greedily felt for a small gift box wrapped in expensive "living design" paper.
Olga couldn't suppress a blush. It had to be Max again. Most men wouldn't bother to give you flowers on your first date but this one had remembered his promise, having sent her some direct from the heart of the virtual world.
She felt flattered by the handsome young man's attentions but he had to understand that most of their staff were female, only too eager to indulge in some quality gossip. The last time, even the bottle of Veuve Clicot she'd sacrificed as a friendly bribe for an office party hadn't saved her from two weeks' worth of pseudo friendly teasing and jealous whispering behind her back. Which was only understandable: after the introduction of the obligatory genome vaccinations, male births had dropped a third compared to girls. Apparently, Russian men had lost the incentive to reincarnate in the country where blood had lost its vodka-absorbing properties.
Olga accepted the flowers from the office bombshell and prized the gift box free from the girl's greedy fingers. She stuffed it into a desk drawer, much to her colleagues' disappointment. Who was that idiot who'd invented open plan offices and transparent furniture? It was like sitting in a shop window in a brand-name mini skirt, trying to squeeze exposed legs shut, transparent desk drawers revealing a standard workaholic manager's tool kit. She was forced to store more personal items in her overloaded handbag.
She needed a vase. Olga rose and headed for the bookkeeping department. She walked across the room, clattering the heels of her emo shoes she'd splurged the whole of last year's bonus on. The bookkeepers were mainly in their forties, frumpy and farsighted, happy to oblige whenever one needed a bottle opener or a needle with a bit of thread in an emergency.
The co-workers she met on her way promptly swallowed the unasked question and excused themselves under the pretext of some urgent business. The expensive shoes were paying for themselves, adding an infrasound deterrent note to her pace. Perfectly legal, no need to cringe like that. Not all heels were made to please your subconscious ear with an erotic ultrasound mantra.
Olga returned to her work station, strategically p
lacing the vase between herself and any curious stares. She then opened the virtual monitor to its full 50-inch potential and activated the polaroid screen, leaving the jealous office trolls to stare at their own reflection. God knows she tried really hard not to scream with joy, pressing her face to the beautiful flowers and ripping the gift paper to bits, wriggling with excitement. As a matter of fact, she was terribly lonely. Male attention?—lecherous stares definitely didn't count as such and neither did her miscellaneous dates' attempts to be invited in for a "nightcap" after having gone to the trouble of taking her out. Her wretched bookworm upbringing!
Her male peers were utterly spoiled by the skewed demographics and desperate female competition to land a man of their own, however humble. No one bothered these days to properly date an old-fashioned girl, no matter how beautiful. So any potential boyfriends disappeared with a shrug and an encouraging smile to a more eager workmate. And if you disregarded all the junkies, jail birds and just plain idiots, it looked as if life was pushing her toward the assisted reproduction clinic and further down the aisle in one of those reformed churches to tie a same-sex knot that today's media was really shoving down your throat.
Well, tough! She had her own prince on a white charger! Olga shuddered when thinking about the rather tomboyish Lara who'd been wooing her lately. With a mental finger to her workmates, she jerked the desk drawer open, pulling out the little gift box, and gingerly rustled the paper, admiring the kaleidoscope of living pictures.
Their office probably resembled a giraffe cage in the zoo at meal time: everyone was sticking their suddenly elongated necks out from behind their monitors as the existing world view was crumbling, promising a jackpot to the office Cinderella. Come on now, open it, we can't wait any longer! What had he given you this time, your mysterious suitor?