CivCEO

by Andrew Karevik

  “Champion?” the guard asked, glancing back at one of the clerks, a woman with short brown hair and a long scar across her left eye. “Can you verify him please?”

  “Right this way, please,” the clerk said, standing up and gesturing for me to walk over to a small side area, where a large glowing orb was hovering.

  I complied and followed her to the green orb, looking at it in curiosity.

  “This orb will verify your realm of origin,” the clerk explained. “Champions enjoy diplomatic immunity within the city. You can do as you please, with no regard for our laws and customs. There are no fees to enter, nor do you pay taxes for your business. But before I verify you, I must warn that lying about champion status does confer the death penalty. Do you wish to proceed?”

  I nodded. The clerk waved her hand in front of the orb, causing it to make noises as it bobbed up and down. A green wash of energy coated me and I felt a strange pang of longing within my heart, a desperate desire to return home. The sensation and longing lasted only for a moment, but the orb chittered and ceased its scanning of me.

  “You are indeed a Champion,” the clerk said, bowing to me. “Welcome to Igithor. The aura imparted by the Clersus Orb will follow you while you are here. People will know of your status and be aware of your power.”

  “This diplomatic immunity,” I asked, “how would you stop me from blatantly committing crimes?”

  “Major crimes will result in being outlawed from the city, which means no Earl may conduct business with you,” she explained. “And thus you would be throwing away your entire purpose for visiting this place.”

  That made sense. I thanked her and followed the clerk to a special door that existed only for Champions to enter. There were no guards to check me for weapons or contraband, only a rune of entry that would open for those who bore the mark of the Champion. I departed from her company and entered into the city.

  Igithor itself was beautiful. The streets were made of cobblestone, the buildings constructed with brick and mortar. There were many towers with exotic banners hanging from them. Guards marched through the streets in squadrons of six, men and women went about their business, and town criers shouted out news from their liege lords. It was a nice, large city, bristling with life and opportunity.

  But I was not here to look around at all the wonders; I was here to find an advantage for Tine. I made my way through the winding roads, searching for any Earl that would be interested in having an audience with me. There was one problem though. For while there were eight Earls in the city, all with different interests and economic strengths, their townhalls were closed off to me. For while they recognized that I was a Champion, I could not gain an appointment until I had a certain level of reputation.

  Reputation was determined by combining the size of my village with the wealth I possessed, as well as the deeds I achieved. Earls were powerful men who had many important resources at hand. A small fry like myself was of no interest to them, regardless of my status as Champion. I spent a few hours learning that this mindset applied to every single Earl in the city.

  Eventually, I grew tired from walking and decided to sit on a bench outside of a few taverns to think. I had been counting on making some kind of friendship with an Earl, but now? I had nothing to go on. Perhaps I could visit a guild or two. Maybe someone would be interested in working with me.

  As I sat and pondered what my next move was going to be, I heard a ruckus in the tavern next to me. The door opened up and a burly man dragged another, smaller man in robes out of the building.

  “Listen here,” the bouncer shouted. “You ever come back here, we’ll do more than just break your hand!” And with that, he chucked the robed man into the street and slammed the door tightly.

  The man, who wore red robes and a tall, floppy hat, tried to get up on his feet, but was too inebriated to do so. He kept collapsing as he tried to stand up. The people who were walking by just stepped around him, indicating that this was not the first time they had encountered this drunken fool.

  Eventually, he was able to get on his feet but staggered only a few steps towards me before falling over again. I was able to catch him and helped him onto the bench.

  “Oh, thanks,” the man said in between hiccups.

  “Of course,” I said, sizing him up. On his hip was a spellbook, as well as a large metal flask. “Are you a wizard by any chance?”

  “I am the Mighty and Wise *hic* Alamander. Like Salamander but without the S. And with a capital A,” he said as he wobbled in his seat, fighting to stay upright.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Alamander,” I said. “What magic do you practice?”

  “The power of illusion!” he replied, waving his hand and mumbling some incantation. Nothing happened. “See? I made the air invisible.”

  I laughed a little at that. It was clear that this wizard had seen better days.

  “Say, pal,” Alamander asked, “you wouldn’t happen to have a coin in your pocket, would ya? I’m a little low on money.”

  “Are you now?” I asked. “What’s your story?”

  “My story? I’ll tell you, oh yes. I was once very, very sober. And then I went into this tavern and came out much better off. That’s my story,” he replied, putting out his hand. “That’ll be one gold piece.”

  I began to sense an opportunity here. While the man was a bit of a drunken mess right now, I wondered if he would be of any use when he was sober. He was clearly hard on his luck, and judging by the way he had been kicked out the tavern, didn’t have a coin to his name.

  “Are you looking for work?” I asked.

  “Feh,” Alamander said, pulling up his right sleeve. There was a strange brand on his shoulder, seared deep into his flesh. It was a symbol of a large, curly T. “I’ve been blacklisted in this city. You make one, teeny, tiny mistake and the Tradesmen act like you are the most evil person in the world. Look, it’s not my fault they left that barrel of beer out in the open where anyone could get into them. The way I see it, I did them a favor by taking it home for safekeeping.”

  “So you were part of the Tradesmen?” I asked.

  Alamander nodded. “Oh yes, I used my illusions to help them get shipments past bandits, and sometimes, past the taxmen, hehehe,” he began to laugh so hard that he started coughing violently. “Good times, good times. But you make one little mistake and bam! You lose it all.”

  “Why not find work in another city?”

  “Name a city the Tradesmen don’t have their hooks in,” he grumbled. “Between you and me, I’m a decent wizard, but not the best. People aren’t gonna hire me with this Rune of Disgrace. Not if they want the Tradesmen on their side.”

  I looked at the wizard, who was still trying to get steady, despite the fact that he was leaning against the wall while in his seat. He was very drunk and his past seemed to indicate that this was a regular occurrence, enough so to lead him to steal from his employer. But still, he had access to magic and was completely blacklisted in the city. This made him quite the bargain. I just wondered if hiring him would lead to disaster.

  “How thirsty are you?” I asked. This caught the wizard’s attention, who was beginning to fall asleep.

  “Quite! Very! Exquisitely parched!” he said, looking at me, his drunken eyes wide and full of hope.

  “I’m in the process of building a brewery in my home village. One that will produce a great quantity of beer for my many thirsty citizens,” I said.

  “Really?” Alamander asked.

  “Indeed. And I was curious, are you looking for work?”

  “At the brewery?” he asked.

  “Well, not at the brewery, but you’d certainly be in walking distance of it, and better yet, you’d have a key to your own private stash,” I said.

  Alamander looked at me for a moment. “You aren’t planning on luring me into an alley and killing me, are you? Because I will literally follow you anywhere if you give me that key.”
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  “Don’t worry,” I said, patting him on the shoulder, “you’ll be perfectly safe at Tine.”

  Chapter 13

  The wizard and I returned home shortly after an agreement had been made. The big city was full of opportunities, but they simply were not available to me just yet. My village was too small, I had no reputation, nor did I have enough coin to purchase the various special artifacts and items that were on sale in the market. But it wasn’t a wasted trip, not by far. I had a larger goal to strive towards: grow a big enough reputation to be worthy of meeting with an Earl. I just needed to figure how I could possibly do that.

  Upon entering the village of Tine, I returned to the Great Picture to check how things were going. As I looked at the overlay, I noticed that there was a new symbol and a message that said ‘Idle Hero.’ There was also a new page for me to look through, called ‘Hero Management.’ It would appear that Alamander was not a specialist like I had assumed, but was rather what was called a Hero.

  Heroes, it would seem, had entirely different functions from regular specialists or workers. In short, they could be assigned specific tasks, and at any time I wished, I could change their task assignment. There were many different jobs that a Hero could take on, but the assignments were highly dependent on the Hero’s skills and their level.

  Alamander had both a class and an expertise. He was a level 2 wizard, with the illusion specialization. He had a few spells known but his skills at using them were fairly low. Of the assignments that existed, he was only able to perform four of them. The first was ‘Go on a Quest’, in which I could assign him to go out in the countryside and retrieve either an item of value or gold. What would be retrieved wasn’t revealed to me, just that he wouldn’t return until he accomplished his goal.

  The second task was to ‘Fight a Threat’, in which I could send him to any area where a threat to the village was present and he would clear it out. However, we weren’t facing any kind of dangers right now, so there was no reason to assign this task to him.

  The third was a special option, provided thanks to his chosen specialization, called ‘Entertain the Village.’ As an illusionist, he would be able to use his abilities to provide entertainment to the people, creating intricate theater shows for them to watch. This would greatly increase Happiness in the village for as long as the option was active.

  The last possibility was to send Alamander out for hire, where his services would be placed on the Specialist Hire board. This was if I had no reason to keep him around. He’d be hired by various other champions and I’d receive a portion of his daily wages.

  The choice for what he’d do was obvious to me, ‘Entertain the Village’ would increase Happiness and hopefully Satisfaction as well. In the long run, I wanted to unlock the option to allow him to teach other villagers how to use magic. But in order to do so, I’d need to build a Wizard’s Tower, which cost 2,000 gold—something that would be coming way down the pipeline. Still, in the meantime, it was helpful to have Alamander around to keep the people laughing and cheerful. I’d just need to get the Brewery built, so I could keep him interested in staying around.

  I retired for the day, confident in what had been achieved thanks to my trip to the big city. Tomorrow, the new shipment of gold would come in and then we’d be able to kick off on our Brewery development and Beer production. Week three was going to be the week I’d get things in order and win the admiration of the people. And so, I closed my eyes, weary from all my travels, but content from what had been accomplished.

  I awoke the next morning to rapid banging on my door by the Mayor. “I am sorry to disturb you,” Hemmings said, his voice shaking and breathless. “But there has been an incident that you must handle.”

  I was quick to get up and get dressed, wondering what could possibly be the problem. Had the villagers started rioting early? Doubtful, because they would have certainly grabbed Hemmings first. I opened the door and followed after the Mayor into the town square, where Hatha was sitting on a bench, her face severely beaten and a sling around her arm.

  “What happened?” I asked, my mind darting to the bandits in the woods. Had they broken their deal? I would hunt every last one of them down if that were the case.

  “I was making my weekly run to Reed,” Hatha said, barely able to look up from her injuries. Farmer Leopold was tending to her wounds, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “When some band of goons parked outside of the town stopped me. They were armed and told me that Reed was off-limits for trade.” She winced as Leopold applied a poultice to the back of her neck. “I wasn’t about to argue with these guys and tried to turn the wagon around, but they pulled me off and gave me one hell of a beating. Broke our crates and threw the wheat all over the ground. Said that the Tradesmen were in charge of this route.”

  The Tradesmen? They really were a cartel if they were behaving like this. An anger welled up within me as I looked at the pitiful state of the Master of Caravans. They had no right to savagely attack her for simply doing her job.

  “I’m sorry this happened to you,” I said, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder, then stopping for fear of touching a bruise. “But I’ll make it right.”

  “I’m the one who should be sorry,” she moaned, “I lost a shipment.”

  “Wheat can be replaced, a life can’t,” I replied. “Don’t worry about it.” I looked at Hemmings. “Put her up in my room until she recovers. I’ve got to handle this.”

  “Do I get to come?” Alamander asked. He had been lying on the ground in the center of the town and looked as if he had just woken up. Without any alcohol, he was sober for the first time I had seen.

  I nodded at the wizard. “I’ll need your help.”

  “Great!” Alamander said as he climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. A snap of his fingers and his robes looked completely clean, as if he had just changed his clothes. It was an illusion, of course, but one realistic enough to even cover the smell, which was most impressive.

  Taking up our horses, we rode to the small bandit camp, where Finch the Pinch and his boys were sitting around, drinking and laughing. The gold that had been coming in to their camp was more than enough for them to buy all the strong drink they wanted.

  “There’s the man of the hour! Our glorious patron, Charles!” Finch said, raising his mug up to me as I rode into view.

  Alamander immediately locked his eyes onto a large jug of whiskey, but he kept his cool. We were about to ride into potential danger; getting drunk would be too risky and, thankfully, he had enough self-control to restrain himself.

  “Finch,” I said, looking down from my steed. “We’ve gotten word that a band of Tradesmen thugs have set up a blockade on Reed.”

  “Is that so?” Finch said, leaning up from his seat and looking at me. “That’s not ideal.”

  “I say we go and teach’em a lesson,” one of the thieves, who was wearing quite a bit of jewelry, said as he stood up and brandished a large club. “Beat’em and take their stuff!”

  The rest of the group cheered. I had been expecting to give some kind of impassioned plea to these men, in order to rally them to fight on my behalf, but they were just drunk enough to be itching for wanton violence. Only Finch seemed to grasp why fighting these men was important.

  “To arms, men,” Finch said as he stood and began to dress in his leather armor. Swords were drawn, arrows were placed in quivers, and within half an hour they were ready for battle. With twelve men at my side and a single wizard, I felt confident that we’d be able to properly break this blockade apart.

  As we began to walk to the destination, as there were no horses for the bandits, I explained my plan to Finch. “If possible, I’d like to avoid violence,” I said. “The Tradesmen are a very large and expansive guild with quite a bit of influence.”

  “I had a buddy who worked with them,” Finch said. “Nasty bastards. They don’t play fair. I know you’re hoping to talk some sense into them, but
you’re fooling yourself if you think this will end without bloodshed.”

  I felt my blood run cold at his words. “Are you going to kill them?”

  “Don’t ever kill a Tradie,” Finch said. “It’s never worth it. But we just gotta give them such a thorough beating that the guild realizes it’ll be too expensive to keep the blockade running.”

  “What uh…what happens if one of their own is killed?” I asked.

  “They burn your village to the ground, simple as that,” Finch replied. “They got the pockets to hire mercenary armies, enough so to take down any low-level town. Unless you have a standing, professional army, they’ll slaughter all of your people.”

  This was an extreme approach, but I understood the philosophy behind it. By acting in extremes, it would prevent even the most foolish of men, such as these bandits, from ever thinking about doing something so drastic as to kill one of the Tradesmen’s own people. It kept the Tradies safe, and it kept their enemies in check. Whoever was running this guild was brilliant and cruel—a dangerous combination to say the least.

  We approached the city of Reed in the early afternoon and, sure enough, there were three men guarding the entry road into the village. They wore plate metal armor, with the symbol of the Tradesmen emblazoned onto their breastplate. One wielded a halberd, the other two held longswords. They took notice of our crew and one of them walked forward to greet us.

  “Well, hello there,” the man said, waving at me. He was shorter than the other two and sported a bushy red beard. He grinned as if he knew exactly why we were here, and I couldn’t see a trace of worry in his face, despite the fact that we outnumbered them.

  “My name is—”

  “Charles Morris, the supposed Champion of Tine, yes I know,” the man said. His guard was down, but he still firmly held onto his longsword, ready for danger at a moment’s notice. “We know exactly who you are. You hire scabs who have been blacklisted, and you entice villages to tear up contracts with us.”