“I don’t think going back there is going to get you your cart,” Gabriella said, putting a hand on the goblin’s shoulder. “She will not return it.”
“Then I’ll file a grievance with the Merchants’ Guild,” Buffy snapped, but though her words had vigor, I could tell she thought her cart was lost. Yet another thing that was my fault. I wasn’t saying that to be self-deprecating either. This time it was my fault, and I’d make damned sure we got her stupid cart back.
“No,” I said, shaking my head as I gripped Clarent. “That’s her cart, and we’re getting it back.” I began to march toward Lustnor. Only no one followed me.
“What are we supposed to do?” Sally asked, and I realized she wasn’t talking to me. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed her staring at Crystal.
“Not sure,” Crystal replied, taking her friend’s hand. “You’re still blacklisted, but maybe I could get a job?” she flexed her hand, the one I’d given Sally the power to heal. “I do have this back now.”
“You can’t seriously be thinking of leaving now, can you?” Gwen said, exasperation filling her voice as she stood there, hands on her hips. “We need to band together, not break apart.”
“Band together into what?” Crystal asked, turning to look at the succubus. “We have no town, no jobs, and no people.” She gestured around the horizon. “We have less than fuck all.”
“We have the Builder,” Gabriella said, grabbing my arm and shaking me like I was exhibit A. “That is worth more than any of those things. We can always build a new town, get more people.” She smiled brightly. “And even if we don’t, we must find the Armaments. We can do that.” She clapped her hands together then. “The possibilities are endless.”
“We can’t build a new town without a charter,” Buffy said, glancing from Gabriella to me to Gwen. “Otherwise what we build, they’ll be well within the law to take away. Something tells me we aren’t going to get one either.” She sighed. “So unless one of you has an idea, I think Crystal and Sally may be right. It might be time to shove on and do our own thing. You know, party until the all-consuming Darkness devours us all.”
“I cannot believe this,” Gabriella said, throwing her hands up. “We have the most important mission in the universe, and you want to hide in some dark corner waiting for the inevitable? What about fighting?” Gabriella smacked one fist into her palm. “What about never surrendering?”
“This isn’t Heaven,” Buffy replied with a shrug. “This is Hell and shit don’t work that way here. In Hell, it’s every demon for herself. Helping is the quickest way to wind up with nothing.” She turned and pointed at Lustnor to illustrate her point, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe she was right. It did seem like we were well and truly fucked.
“Maybe Buffy is right.” I turned away from them and staring out at the horizon. Should I go back to Mammon? Ask her for her help to stop the Darkness?
I wasn’t sure, but as I stared out toward the land we’d taken from the Darkness, I realized I could still see stat boxes over the Graveyard of Statues. The same stat boxes that told me I owned the property… how was that possible?
“Arthur, you can’t really believe that, can you?” Gabriella asked, moving toward me. I felt her need to reach out and touch me, but then realized why she hadn’t. She didn’t want to see me give up, didn’t want to see resignation on my face. Well, I wouldn’t do that to her. Not when she’d sacrificed so much to come help me.
“Buffy, I have a question,” I said, turning back to the group as an idea percolated in my mind.
“What is it, Arthur?” she asked, watching me carefully. “I’ll help where I can, but I think I might need to go find my sister, beg her for a job…”
“How does that town charter work?” I said, pointing toward the Graveyard. “Because near as I can tell, I still own that.”
10
As we approached the Graveyard of Statues, I waved my hand at the massive green orb that hung above the land.
Graveyard of Statues
Class: Land
Grade: B
Owner: Arthur Curie
When we’d first taken the sprawling meadow, it had been filled with the statues of lost warriors, but since then they’d all thawed, leaving only barren land in its wake. It was right up against the border between the Darkness and the rest of Hell, and as I watched the horizon seethe and pop, I knew it really wanted to take the land back.
Only, I wasn’t about to let it. I owned this land, and I would build my new town here. It would be a monument to what we could accomplish if we worked together and took it to the Darkness. Better still, there’d be nothing the guilds or Mammon could do to take it from me. I mean, there was still the Darkness right there on the edge, and defending the territory would be tough, but I was sure we could do it. After all, it was our only option.
“Well, it isn’t ideal since it has no walls, but I suppose it’s better than nothing,” Gwen said, absently kicking at a piece of stone that had broken off one of the statues. The entire expanse was littered with the rubble of statues that had been destroyed during our battle. At first, the sight of them had made me feel bad because those were people who had lost their lives, but another part of me knew more people would die before this war was over. Tears were a luxury I couldn’t afford, not when my main concern was winning this fight.
“I’ll still have to file the paperwork,” Buffy mused, turning in a slow circle as she surveyed the Graveyard of Statues. “But it’s about half the size Lustnor is, so the fees should be less. That’s good because we don’t have a lot of funds left to our names.”
“I’m surprised we have anything at all,” I said, glancing at Buffy. I wasn’t sure what she meant about filing paperwork, but I had no doubt there would be some. This was Hell, after all, and if there could be a bureaucracy for something, there definitely would be.
“Look, don’t get mad, okay?” Buffy said, moving closer to me and grabbing my arm. She pulled me down until my ear was next to her lips. “I put a bunch of the town’s funds into my merchant account so I could try to grow our fortune. I probably should have asked you about it.”
“I’m not following,” I said, shaking my head. “That seems like something I’d have approved.”
“Yeah, well, no, not exactly. Townships aren’t allowed to have speculation accounts because those with big pockets can make or break a market by outbidding or underbidding.” She waved her hand. “So yeah, I moved the money to my personal account.”
“So you embezzled money hoping to make scratch on the side?” I replied, raising an eyebrow at her. Part of me was annoyed at that, but most of me wasn’t that surprised. Buffy was a goblin merchant and had an actual tattoo on her left butt cheek that said, “money before people.” Except it was written in Latin, so it didn’t seem so brazen.
“See, when you say it like that, it sounds bad.” Buffy fidgeted.
“Sorry, should I use the word stole?” I took a step back and waved off the comment before she could reply. “Either way, looks like you saved us.”
“Yeah, see, what I did was a good thing.” She nodded furiously even though her cheeks were starting to color. “So as I said, I’ll file the paperwork to have the town charter ratified.”
“Yeah, you do that,” I said, barely containing my annoyance with her. The more I thought about it, the less pleased I was. Part of me knew Buffy wouldn’t have robbed us, but that didn’t mean what she’d done was okay. No, she’d betrayed my trust. Unfortunately, I needed her, so I’d have to suck it up.
That wasn’t so bad, but I felt like I’d sucked a lot up lately. Almost too much. Only lashing out at her would be just that. I’d be taking out all my frustration on the goblin. That wasn’t fair to her.
Instead, I shut my eyes and took a couple deep breaths. When I opened them, she wasn’t standing beside me and was instead walking the perimeter, making notes. She didn’t even look in my direction, which was good. Out of sight, out of mind and a
ll that.
“So what should the rest of us do?” Gwen asked, gesturing at the crafters we had. “It isn’t like we have someone who can build structures or anything.”
She was right. We had a lumberjack, an alchemist, and a sculptor. Neither of those trades were particularly useful when it came to construction. What we needed were masons and carpenters. Something told me we wouldn’t be able to hire them either.
“I think the first thing to do is see if there’s anything of value here.” I gestured at the broken statues littering the grounds. “And we need to clear all these rocks. Perhaps some of it will be valuable?”
“Okay,” Gwen said, nodding to me. Then she turned to look at Sally and Annabeth. “Can you two come with me and help me clear this mess? You two are most likely to know if any of this rock is useful.”
As the two crafters nodded and began to follow her, Crystal chimed in. “What would you have me do?”
“I need you to scout the perimeter. We’re definitely going to get attacked out here, so if you can figure out a way to defend us for that inevitability, that’d be the best,” Gwen said, turning to look at her. “You’re the only person here trained in actual combat.”
It was true. Crystal was trained to be, for lack of a better term, a rogue, and she was damned good at it. Sure, I’d rather someone like Sheila, sure, but Crystal was no slouch in battle.
“By myself?” Crystal asked, taking a deep breath and looking around.
“I’ll come with you,” Gabriella said, moving up beside the rogue. “I was trained as a warrior in Heaven. I wasn’t good at tactics or anything, but I’m really good at smashing things.” She hefted her mace and mimed clubbing something.
“Alright…” Crystal said, and the look on her face told me she didn’t like the idea. “Come on.” With that, the two girls moved off, leaving me standing there by myself.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do. After all, everyone seemed to have a job but me. It seemed crazy because I was the Builder, and I felt like I should be doing things to help. I just didn’t know what they would be since I wasn’t good at crafting or anything. Part of me could walk along with Buffy, but I didn’t want to deal with her right now, and while the others wouldn’t mind me following along, they’d be more efficient without me. Otherwise, they’d have asked me to come.
Without even realizing it, I found myself walking across the broken lands of the Graveyard. Buffy had been right, it wasn’t that big of a space when compared to Lustnor. That town hadn’t had much in the way of buildings or structures, but it did have a lot of land. To make use of our space, we’d have to be more efficient with our usage.
I knelt down in the dirt and began thinking. We’d definitely need a lumber mill to process wood. With all the trees around, that would be the best way of setting up an industry. We’d also need the lumber to create buildings in the event we actually acquired another carpenter. Maybe I could get Maribelle to help us on the down low? While part of me thought that was probably a fool’s errand since doing so would likely get her blacklisted, even if she did help us with the designs, we’d still need someone to actually build it.
That would be our best bet… as I had that thought, I wondered what had happened to the Extractor XD-17 Buffy’s sister had lent us. Was it still around the town? If it was, maybe I still owned it since it’d been lent to me.
I resolved to find out, and as I stood and stretched my legs, it felt good to be doing something that’d help us. Still, it took a bit longer than I’d have liked to walk the distance toward the forests where I knew the Extractor would be, and I found myself wishing I could fly for the umpteenth time. Then I’d have made the trip in a few seconds instead of the hour it took me to walk there.
Part of me was worried I’d get attacked, but I didn’t know why. There were hardly any devil dogs in the forests around Lustnor anymore, but that didn’t stop me from being wary.
“Better safe than sorry,” I mumbled, pulling Clarent from its sheath and summoning my armor. As the silvery plates burst into being around my body, I instantly felt stronger and faster. I was never quite sure if it was in my head or if I was actually stronger, but I felt it all the same. It was doubly frustrating because if I could have just looked at my own stats, I’d have seen the buffs.
I managed to find the Extractor only a few minutes later. It was sitting idle next to a rather large tree. A red light flashed on the top of its dome, and as I approached it, I quickly realized why. A large branch had gotten jammed in its treads, rendering it immobile.
At first, I’d been surprised how often it had happened, which was why I’d assigned a person specifically to follow it around. Only, those people were all gone now…
A smirk crossed my eyes as I opened the machine’s details window.
Extractor XD-17
Class: Mechanical
Grade: C
Owner: Merchant’s Guild
Tenant: Arthur Curie
“Booyah!” I cried, throwing one fist in the air. Then, feeling embarrassed, I looked around to see if anyone was there. Fortunately, no one seemed to be, so I quickly set to work removing the branch. I wanted to work quickly before some sort of bureaucratic magic took the machine away from me.
I hastily hacked away at the branch with Clarent, slicing off the bits that held it in place until I could pull it free. As I sheathed my sword and grabbed hold of it with my gauntlet-clad hands, I pulled. My muscles strained as I wrenched the branch free inch by painstaking inch until all at once it snapped free with a crack.
The treads whirred to life, grinding away what was left in the spokes as the red light flashed to green. Then it began moving again, massive claws angling toward the closest tree so it could reduce it to lumber. Before it could, I smacked the button on the side, causing it to stop.
“Operation ceased,” the machine said with a distinctly feminine whirr.
“Follow me,” I said, gesturing at the machine before turning to head back to the Graveyard of Statues.
“Affirmative,” it replied before moving to follow me.
11
I was sweating by the time I made it back to the Graveyard of Statues with my prize in tow. We’d had to stop a couple times when it’d had difficulty moving over the terrain, so the way here had been far from straight.
Still, I didn’t care. I had an Extractor, and with it we could process all these trees. Then I’d nail the damned things together with my own hands if I had to. Now, it was just a matter of marching down the path and showing off my prize. Then I could bask in my own awesomeness for a while. Or, you know, bend my attention toward keeping us from dying.
“Where the hell did you get that?” Buffy asked as she crested the hell coming out of the graveyard and saw me. “Did you steal it? If you did, put it back because that will cause fines and paperwork, and we can't deal with either.”
“Nope,” I said, gesturing triumphantly at the metal behemoth. Its claws and metal shell gleamed like hopes and dreams beneath the crackling, lightning-filled skies of Hell. “This is the one your sister lent us.” I patted it affectionately. “Turns out it was lent to me personally, so…”
Buffy’s eyes widened as a grin that seemed to fill the whole of her being spread across her face. “Holy fuck. That’s great!” She scampered forward, eyeing the machine like a lover. “It’s going to make us a bundle, and let me just say, we’re going to need it.” She took a deep breath.
“What do you mean?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at her. “I thought you said we had a bunch of money?”
“We have money, but not that much money.” She tapped the stack of papers she had under one arm. “Once you sign these, and I submit them along with the fees, we’ll be practically penniless.”
I rubbed my face with my hand. I wasn’t sure how it’d happened, but somehow I’d gone from elated to frustrated in the span of a second. I’d already spent the last few days getting hung out to dry by the Princess of Greed. Now, I’d have to sp
end even more time trying to buy back what we’d already had instead of turning my efforts toward Dred and the Darkness.
We were on borrowed time, and it seemed like no one cared but me.
“I know it’s upsetting, but there’s not much else we can do,” Buffy said, holding the papers out to me. As I took them, she offered me a demon bone pen.
“You keep saying that, but killing everyone is starting to look pretty good right now,” I grumbled, pulling the file open to find tabs marking where I had to sign. I did so quickly before handing it back to her. “Say, how did you know I was out here?”
“I saw you go out this way a couple hours ago. The Graveyard isn’t exactly large, so I figured you weren’t back.” She put her fists on her hips and looked away. Normally she would have just waited for me or worked on something, that she’d come to look for me just to sign papers that would take several more hours to deliver seemed odd.
“Were you worried about me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “Because it seems like you might be.”
“Yes,” she huffed, looking back at me. “I know things aren’t working out how you liked… I thought maybe you’d sent us all to work on things so you could go find Mammon.” She looked at the ground. “I wouldn’t blame you. After all, you’re here to beat the Darkness, not help us fight the guilds.”
“I can do both,” I said, trying my best to be reassuring. It was hard because I knew that if it would let me save everyone from the Darkness, I’d join Mammon. I didn’t want to do it, not when there might be another way, but I would.
“For now,” she said, nodding to me, and then before I realized what had happened, she’d wrapped her arms around me. Her body pressed into me as she held me. “But what happens when you decide it’s too hard?”
“I won’t,” I said, lying through my teeth.
“I know you’re lying. I have a knack for that, remember.” She released me and tapped her temple. “Thanks to you.”
The Builder's Greed (The Legendary Builder Book 2) Page 7
