The door opened, the murmur of conversation was heard and then it closed again. Len V. Griffin II took his seat at the head of the table. He was impeccably dressed in a flawlessly tailored black Rutheford Martini wool suit and bright red Nationmade tie. He moved with a refined confidence not uncommon for a man with a majority share of a worldwide electronics manufacturer and a telecommunications empire with customers on five continents.
“Good evening Jay, Lori, Mike,” he said as he opened his own folio. “My apologies for the abrupt invitations. The situation we’re in is fluid and seems to be changing more rapidly than even we were prepared for. Have any of you retained representation?”
“My agent wasn’t very happy with me for agreeing to attend this meeting alone,” Mike replied.
“Smart man.”
"She has helped me a lot in the last couple of years.”
“I will see to it you and your representatives will have an opportunity to review this agreement with the appropriate security measures in place. My legal department is drafting non-disclosure agreements for all of you. If you don’t plan to sign them I’d ask that you excuse yourself so we can begin.”
Griffin looked around with a pleasant expression. Everyone remained seated.
“Very good. As of this morning, Fairly Unusual Stock has recovered and is trading at four times its public offering price. Those traders who shorted the shares have all taken expensive haircuts, leaving us with a billion-dollar company that apparently not only shipped their flagship project, but also managed to build a player population north of a million subscribers.”
“It’s an interesting game,” Lori replied. “I wish I had the time to play it.”
“That’s why we’re here, Miss Locke,” Griffin replied. "10.6 million shares of Fairly Unusual Stock are apparently hidden in the game as what my CIO calls ‘lootable treasure.’ I’m not all that sure I know what that means, but it sounded to me like those shares are up for grabs somewhere inside this video game called ‘Kings and Conquests.’"
“I think I read something about that. Wasn’t it just after Supercon?” Jay asked. The other two shrugged.
“If what my CIO says is true, there’s more than a half-billion dollars of raw capital hidden in this game,” Griffin said. “I wrote a check for $44 million this morning and filed the necessary paperwork with the SEC. I have announced my intention to take a five percent stake in Fairly Unusual Games as a first step towards a takeover of the company. I would like to invite you three to join my enterprise.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Mike replied. “Why would we join your enterprise?”
“Because I want each of you to be equity partners. I want you to take up this game, find your way through whatever challenges are built in to it and bring me those Fairly Unusual shares. I need you to do it before Wyland’s side is able to pull off their little scheme.”
“Garrett Wyland is dead. He was shot weeks ago. What scheme could he possibly be trying to pull off?” Jay asked.
“There are private companies with stakes in this race. I can’t see what they are doing because they are all privately held. And now that Fairly Unusual’s plan to emerge from Chapter 11 has been approved by the court, all I have to go on are the main corporate entity’s quarterly filings, which don’t tell me anything except that I’m missing out on a hell of a lot of revenue. Those private companies are all doing business with the publicly traded corporation in some way. They collected a $300 million dividend. Meanwhile, FUG stock keeps going up, and I don’t expect it will stop any time soon. I want those shares, and I’m willing to put real money on the table to get them.”
“So you want to hire us to go get these stock shares from inside Kings and Conquests? Then what? You sell them?” Mike asked.
“No. I want to accumulate a majority of the voting stock. Then I will own the company and the game. I’m willing to underwrite a team of pros to get the job done and then deal you in as shareholders in the company once we take ownership.”
“And we’re the team?” Lori asked.
“I want four players. You are the first three I’ve invited.”
“How much equity do we each get if we do this for you?” Jay asked. “And what happens if we only find half the shares we’re looking for? What happens if someone else beats us to it?”
“If I get what I want, you will each walk away with one percent of the company. As of this afternoon’s closing price, that would mean each of you would control–”
“Ten million dollars,” Mike said.
“Very good,” Griffin replied with an avaricious grin. “I see you have the same respect for math as I do.”
“Side effect of coding for so many years,” Mike replied. “Turns out hexadecimal math is easier for me than classic arithmetic.”
“You’re serious?” Lori asked. “Ten million dollars to gather up these stock shares from KNC? That’s all we have to do?”
“Wyland’s faction turned a team loose practically the very moment the game launched. I don’t know how he did it, but they’ve got several weeks head start. So I got my own ace in the hole.”
“Which is–?” Mike asked.
“I have a mole in the Fairly Unusual Games IT department who can provide us with some interesting advantages.”
Jay and Lori looked at each other with wide eyes.
“Now let’s all gather ‘round and sign these NDAs and I’ll have my CIO go over the details with you.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Robb Doncem was firmly convinced he had discovered total paradise. His mutant sorcerer character had finally made it to the outskirts of Dayshire, and he had a story to tell.
The No-Name Games guild had survived long enough they were no longer in continual mortal danger. Amy had completed her introductory quests, Dave was level four and rapidly learning to control the nuances of the barbarian rage mechanics. Jordan had discovered the Founder’s Interface, which included two full-screen control panels that allowed him to call on abilities that no lesser character would ever get access to. Marc was still working on a history for his vaguely cleric-like adventurer.
That left Robb, who had been working towards this moment since level two. An infestation of low-level demons had been turned loose in the rough fields west of Dayshire. The local constabulary was unable to defeat them. Their offensive fire spells and durable armor-like scales made them a hard-to-exterminate threat even for hearty adventurers like the unbalanced sorcerer that had just ridden into town on a rattletrap cart pulled by a bug-eyed pony.
The game had provided what was quite literally the perfect character for the colorful NNG camera operator. The mutant sorcery option gave players one of the most unique and entertaining origin quest lines in the game. Robb had chosen the “Solitudes” race. His character looked like it had escaped from a psychedelic concert in an abandoned mental hospital. Based on the game’s comparative heights and weights, Robb’s sorcerer would have been six foot five and weighed just over 115 pounds. He was bald, wore tattered black clothing that looked like he had recently been in a life-or-death struggle with a barbed wire fence and bore the name “Nash.”
The mutant sorcery specialization required the player to navigate a quest line which consisted entirely of their character’s paranoid mental illness, hallucinations, voices and the effects of several different kinds of alchemic compounds. Some of the potions, salves, medicines, powders and inhaled aromas were helpful. Most weren’t. Some served to amplify the worst of a sorcerer’s delusions. Others created entirely new categories of mania. The key to the mutant sorcery skill tree was to learn to control the outbursts caused by these twisting mental conditions and finally to turn them into unpredictable psychic and magical abilities.
What made Nash so much fun was his tendency to punctuate his sentences with a most unsettling laugh that sounded like he would have fit right in as the deranged assistant for a mad scientist. His “I can seeeee youuuuu hur hurrrr rrruurrr” was the stuff of ni
ghtmares. What happened after the laugh was even worse.
The other members of the No-Name Guild were watching when Nash climbed down off his cart, straightened his mangled coat, produced a walking stick, placed a rather expensive top hat on his head and began dancing in a jerky, convulsive style. His hat bounced along the ground and rolled through the faded, dry grass of the Dayshire farmlands. Everything in the vicinity of the rugged westerly fields looked as if every drop of moisture had been burned out of it. It wasn’t hard to imagine why.
One of the demons noticed the flailing sorcerer and the battle was on. For his first trick, Nash drew a Colt’s Dragoon pistol from his coat and ran, knees-bent, directly at the demon. The little creature scarcely had time to react before Nash gibbered “I’m a sloppy boy!” in a hooting, cartoon-like voice and fired. It sounded like a Howitzer had gone off. The demon fell to its side, deader than a closed book. An enormous cloud of gunpowder-laced smoke drifted over the faded brown grass.
“Aaaiiergghh!” Nash bleated. He dropped the gigantic gun on the ground as if it were covered in ants. “I hate violence!” Then he froze, chin up, as if trying to detect a faint scent. A second demon wandered in his direction.
“Dude, do something, or he’s going to–”
Robb motioned for quiet. In the game, Nash held his hands out to either side in a gesture of serenity and peace. The demon wound up a nasty firebolt and attacked. The magical explosion caught Nash’s suit coat. Flames climbed the material in moments.
“Now!” Robb yelled, pressing the “use item” key.
In the game, Nash awakened and let out a deranged scream. Robb’s character yanked the burning coat off and began swinging it in the air. He ran in apparently random directions, whipping the flaming coat around and around. In the process, he attracted at least six of the demon monsters, all of which started in his direction, intent on ending his adventure at level five.
At another apparently random moment, Nash stopped in mid-stride, turned and made a gesture as if he were a conductor bringing an orchestra to its feet. As he did so, dozens and dozens of skeletal hands reached out of the ground, fingers wide. All six of the demons were yanked into the air. They struggled mightily to escape the clutches of the bony, rotted hands, but were unable to gain any leverage. All at once, the hands yanked back into the ground, slamming the demons against the packed earth. None survived.
“hurrrr hurrrr, he-he-he-he-heeeeeeeee”
“Well?” Robb asked proudly.
“I won’t sleep well for days,” Dave replied.
“Area of effect spell, huh?” Amy asked.
“And now, the payoff!”
From the first demon, Nash looted 68 silver coins.
From the second demon, he got a Wand of the Subjugator.
From the third, he got what the game referred to as “An Unusual Amulet.” It didn’t seem to have any obvious function, but Nash kept it anyway.
From the fourth demon, Nash looted 12 silver coins.
The fifth demon had two unblemished pieces of Gorian silk.
The sixth demon had a Potion of Exquisite Healing.
All the NNG members cheered. It was just like the old practice of grinding mobs! Except this time, Robb had invested nearly five levels of questing, planning and work, and gotten his reward.
Nash took a deep breath and his face contorted into a silly grin. His seventh demon opponent leered at him. Then its face blanched. A moment later it sprouted spinning helicopter blades from the top of its head. Its expression as it rose into the sky was priceless.
“Oh I just can’t wait to see what Nash will come up with next,” Robb said, wearing his best evil grin.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kukalesh the Foul.
Rumors about the highest level creature yet discovered in Kings and Conquests had been swirling since the early hours of release. Tales told by characters brave enough to risk their progress to travel that far indicated it was a level 40 world boss. It was a member of one of the eastern races of giants. Thirty feet tall. Armed with a magically-hardened stone axe. Fifteen tons of angry, face-painted, almost naked destruction. Very aggressive and capable of one-shotting just about anything.
Players couldn’t resist.
From almost the moment the proper route to and from Lavadesh had been mapped out, communicated to others and properly tested by characters of wildly divergent races, skill types, class tracks and experience, a steady stream of truly brave adventurers had gone out there, only to be instantly killed in a grisly and brutal manner.
Every time a character died, the KNC community got a little closer to figuring the encounter out.
One player had actually managed to get the monster’s attention from a sufficient distance to lead it a few hundred yards towards the nearest King’s Bridge, where it might by happenstance encounter a few high level guards. The chase ended when it was discovered that Kukalesh had a sprint ability, at least after a fashion. The player laughed as his level two healer was abruptly and rudely turned into fertilizer with one downward punch.
So he tried again. Using the knowledge gained from the first chase, Foobar the Bold, the renowned level two healer with no armor, no weapon, no gear except a good sturdy pair of shoes and all of his skill points in evasion, managed to upset Kukalesh of Lavadesh for the second time in as many days. Foobar ran for his evasion-specialist life. The ground thundered and shuddered around him. He climbed over branches, ran through huge floppy-leaved plants, stumbled through ponds, splashed mud everywhere and finally broke from the treeline into a huge grassy field. At the far end of the open area was the Doril River and four heavily armed members of the King’s Guard.
All four of them were level Twenty-Eight.
If Foobar played his cards right, this could be the first leg of the greatest 48 hours in Kings and Conquests history. The bridge over the Doril River would be fun, but it was the gates of the City of Rook only a quarter mile away that were the real target. If Kukalesh were sufficiently upset and of a mind to blame the good people of Rook, Foobar might be in for a treasure haul beyond all belief.
Kukalesh broke from the trees and pounded the earth as he pursued the little nuisance cleric across the open field.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Highwayman sat at the head of the table and slid the Conquests of the King gamebook to one side. Gathered around were Arianne, 4884, Nash and the newest member of the team, Thiridion, the recently promoted level two healer.
Marc’s bonus level had been awarded as the result of yet another of 4884‘s outbursts. This time it was the tribal home of a marauding band of creatures called Dleks. They were medium-sized fast-moving humanoids with a total lack of self-control and crude weapons. A more appropriate place to turn a half-giant barbarian loose had yet to be discovered in KNC.
Marc was a newly minted level one mostly-cleric-with-a-few-armor-skills. He had chosen the human race option in order to get access to the wide-ranging training options available to cleric characters. He had a small congregation on the outskirts of Rook and had just learned his first healing spell when a raiding party of Dleks came pouring out of the jungle and hit 4884 in the face with a stick.
Thiridion’s spell landed critically and healed eight percent of 4884‘s damage while the brute was slamming a Dlek chieftain head-first against a wooden totem. The entire group cheered as Marc snagged a 20 experience point bonus. They cheered again when the cleric narrowly avoided being instantly killed by the chieftain’s dead body as it was thrown across the burning camp.
Moments after that landmark event, Dave was in the middle of performing the intricate nine-step procedure to drain away the last of his character’s rage when Nash, true to both his function and very nature, conjured a beautiful ethereal pastel-colored butterfly on 4884‘s eight-inch-wide nose. The insect instantly grew enormous razor-sharp teeth and clamped down hard on the giant’s thick, fleshy face. The roar of pain echoed off the nearby foothills just before 4884 engaged in an irrationally
angry dispute with a tent, ripped it to shreds and then bounded into the forest after the few remaining Dlek survivors.
Much treasure was had that day. The other important event was the discovery of a new quest line in the City of Rook.
“Mreh heh heh,” Robb chuckled.
“Are all mutant sorcerers such assholes?” Dave asked as he navigated his character through another round of wanton slaughter.
“Some aspire to my level, but few reach it,” Robb replied.
Once everyone had been calmed down and everything valuable was collected and hidden, Jordan had decided it was time to make everyone log out and convene a guild meeting in the real world.
“Okay, it took a little longer than four days, but we’ve all managed to complete our introductory quests, get a little gear and a little money, and now we need to set about reaching our goal.”
“If you’re talking about going to Safekeep, it’s a little early,” Amy replied. “You’re level seven. That map location is on the far side of the Sulfur Flats. To reach it, we have to get leave from the Elders in the City of Tabula or make ourselves their enemy. We’re not eligible for that quest line yet, and even if we were you need a royal bride to obtain it for you.”
“We’re not playing this straight,” Jordan replied. “Even if we do everything right and survive long enough to reach max level, it will take a calendar year of quests, nearly flawless management of our wealth, a couple of very lucky developments with our estate, castle and grounds, alliance with at least one other noble and a list of achievements that would take an hour just to read out loud.”
Overpowered: A LitRPG Thriller (Kings and Conquests Book 1) Page 10
