“You’re thinking small, Buffy.” I got to my feet and found myself towering over her. I hadn’t meant to do it, more that I’d wanted to walk around while I talked. It was a nervous habit, but I hated sitting still when I talked to people. I always felt better when I was on the move.
“Thinking small?” she asked, and there was an edge of anger to her voice. “How so?”
“What would Mammon do in this situation?” I held up my gauntlets. “In a situation where there was no more commodities market.”
“I’m not following,” she said, shaking her head. “If she was smart, she’d get all the materials and then have her way with the market when it opened, using her resources to make sure she made tons of money.”
“Well, yeah, she probably would do that,” I admitted, taking a deep breath. “But we could create the market. You said yourself, this is all building materials, and that all of it went through Royal Centre. I assume that’s because it was at the center of the trade routes, but that doesn’t matter to us.” I pulled out the Nexus Gateway Conduit. “We can deliver anywhere instantly.”
Buffy’s eyes practically turned into dollar signs as she looked at me. “You’re right. We could become the center because we can deliver things quicker. Hell, we could become the center for all delivery, and once we did that, it’d be over.” She threw her arms around me. “I’m so wet right now.”
“Whoa,” I said, taken aback. “That wasn’t…”
“Not for you,” she shook her head, disengaging from me. “I have so many plans to draw up.” She nodded once before holding out her hands. “We’ll need people. Lots of people. I can hit up the merchant’s guild...” she stopped. “Though most of that is likely gone now. A lot of them were probably in Royal Centre. Ah well, I’ll make it work.” Buffy spun on her heel. “Angel, I need someone to bring Arthur the list once I compile it. Can you handle that?”
“Um… sure thing,” Gabriella said, she nodded, and it was then I’d realized she was back. She’d just been standing in the background waiting patiently. “I’m good at running errands.”
“Excellent,” Buffy said, smiling as she turned back to me. “Give me the conduit. I’m gonna hit up the merchant town. I think I can convince them to help us. They can’t match what we can do with the conduit.”
“We’ll need to get a few more of those made too. Can you relay that to Sally?” I asked, but Buffy held up her hand.
“That’s not going to happen right now. Let me talk to the guild, get their blessing, and move from there, okay?” Buffy waggled her fingers at me expectantly.
“Right, sorry. I’ll let you do your thing.” I handed her the Nexus Gateway Conduit. “Do your thing and make us rich.”
“On it,” she said, turning and heading toward the gate without so much as a look in our general direction.
“Thanks for getting her Gabriella,” I said, smiling at the angel.
“You’re welcome, Arthur,” Gabriella said, smiling at me. “We have about twenty minutes before your meeting with Gwen, by the way. You may consider getting cleaned up first.” She pinched her nose. “You kinda smell.”
“Right…” I looked back at the Coti. I could pull it out, but I’m sure it’d take at least ten minutes, and that’d cut into shower time. “Okay, let’s do that.”
6
All showered and dressed, I followed Gabriella toward where I was supposed to meet Gwen, but when I found her, I was surprised to see Mammon and Saramana sitting there too. As I entered the makeshift conference room in the middle of the big building near the center of town, I found myself confused as to the sudden audience since Gwen normally handled these sorts of things.
“Wow, you got him here on time,” Gwen said, looking at Gabriella and smiling. “I’m actually quite proud of you.”
“Thanks,” the archangel said, nodding furiously. “I told you I’d do a good job.”
“So, um, what’s this about?” I asked, gesturing at the table where the three women were seated.
“What this is about is that Royal Centre has been destroyed and Lucifer is on the loose,” Mammon said, swallowing hard. She didn’t look at me and instead turned her attention toward the huge paper laid out on the table. “Near as we can tell, she hasn’t gone on a murderous rampage, so you must have stopped her.”
“I did for now.” I shrugged. “We have a truce because, basically, she wants her hammer and I want her armament.”
“You can’t give her the hammer,” Mammon said, leaping to her feet so suddenly, her chair clattered to the ground. “If you do, we’ll never be able to stop her from killing us all.”
“Sam thinks it’s a good idea,” I said, moving closer so I could see the paper.
“Samael has bad judgment,” Mammon replied, simply. “She gave Dred his first armament.”
I was about to respond to that, to defend Sam, when Gwen stood and put her hands out.
“Be that as it may, neither of those are topics for this discussion.” Gwen took a deep breath, causing her breasts to strain against her tight white button up. “What is the topic of this discussion is how to move forward given what we know. I’ve asked Saramana to sit in. Buffy was supposed to be here, but she said you gave her a task. She explained it to me, and I agree, but I wish you’d have talked it over with me.” She waved a hand before I could explain myself. “It’s a good idea, so I don’t want to get into an argument about it.”
“Right, fine,” I said, feeling like I was seconds away from getting attacked. “What, specifically are we going to talk about? I have fields of stone to clear.”
“So that you can repair Clarent?” Gwen arched an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, I know about that.”
“Well, then yes. Exactly.” I tried to ignore the sudden flare of embarrassment I felt over breaking the one item that had made me special. “I guess I should have told you.”
“Again,” Gwen said, meeting my eyes in a way that made me squirm. “This isn’t a discussion about what you should have told me about. I trust your judgment, Arthur. I trust you’re doing what you think you should.”
“So, what are we supposed to talk about?” I asked, unsure of what was going on. “The town seems to be coming along, and Buffy has the trade thing happening.”
“We have some problems,” Gwen said, gesturing to Mammon. “Why don’t you start?”
“Most of my wealth was destroyed in the blast at Royal Centre. I still have the lands you freed as well as Blade’s End and Lustnor, but those two towns were stripped to the bone. There are a few people there for day to day, but not a lot beyond. In short, I’m poor.” She looked at her feet. “I’d used most of what I had available to cement my position in Royal Centre, which in retrospect was dumb.”
“Okay, I can see how that would be bad but—”
“Arthur, she means we now have to take care of both of those cities with no resources. That’s the major issue. There’s no one to trade with. No food to buy. No workers to work the land. It’s a big problem.” Gwen sighed loudly. “Unless you want to leave her people to starve.”
“No, I don’t.” I fidgeted. I hadn’t thought of them at all, but with Mammon part of our coterie now, we were responsible for her people too. “What do you think we should do about those towns?”
“You’re actually asking me?” Gwen said, slightly taken aback. “Is this a trick?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I have some ideas, but I want to hear yours first. You’re the one with your fingers on the pulse of our situation.”
“Ah,” Gwen said, and she seemed amused, which was odd. “Let’s table that for a second because I think Saramana can lead us into that.”
“I thought you were leaving,” I said, turning to the head of the Carpenter’s Guild. “We already talked about everything…”
“That’s just it. I have no way to actually get back.” She bit her lip. “I need someone to let me use the Gateway to get home, but once I do, well, we’ll need more of the gateways to
keep commerce going…”
“Buffy is supposed to be setting something like that up already.” I shrugged. “Just have her take you when she heads to your city.”
“We already set that up,” Gwen said, waving off my comment.
“So, what’s the problem then?” I shook my head. “I’m just sort of confused, I guess.”
“Why is that? Don’t you want to be involved?” Gwen asked, peering at me. “I thought you would.”
“I want to be involved, but this is your area of expertise… Oh.” I nodded. “I see what this is.”
“Do you?” she asked, a sly smile crossing her lips. “Do you really?”
“Yes, you wanted me to see that what you do is important. I do.” I nodded once. “If you didn’t take care of all this kind of stuff, I’d have to do it, and I clearly have no idea how.”
“Good.” Gwen pointed at Saramana. “In exchange for helping her, we’re going to sign an exclusivity contract, which means two things. One, her town will have the first choice of our exported lumber. In exchange, we’ll get a certain percentage of every project that uses our lumber, which since we’ll control most of the shipping via our conduits, allows us to drive our competitors out. We’ll make a fortune.”
“That sounds like a Mammon idea,” I said, glancing at the Princess. “Which annoys me because I sort of like it.”
“It was my idea,” Mammon conceded with a shrug. “In fact, Gwen and I are going to go to every trade town and sign similar agreements. We’ll also get you a damned mason.” She shrugged. “Once we do that, we’ll be swimming in money and talent.”
“Well, that all sounds great, so, um, let’s get to it?” I shrugged. I felt sort of irrelevant.
“We will,” Gwen said, pointing at the paper. “Right after we decide what we want to do. Should we build this town up? Move to Lustnor or Blade’s End? Should we build smack dab on top of Royal Centre?”
“Let’s stay here.” I pointed toward the window. Through it, we could see the Darkness on the horizon. “We’re close to that, but at the same time, it allows us to harvest Dark Blood easily, which will let us empower our weapons and armor for the coming battles. We can expand backward toward Lustnor with ease. Blade’s End is on the other side of the world, and so is Mammon’s lands. They’re not in imminent danger of Darkness attack since they’ve been freed, so we can mostly ignore them.”
“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Gwen watched me carefully. “It’s the most dangerous place.”
“If we move back, we’ll be conceding the territory to the Darkness. We can’t give them an inch, let alone miles. The moment we move back, they’ll retake this.” I shrugged. “Lustnor is too far for us to build our stuff there and then travel here. I think it’s better all-around to stay here and expand backward.” I took a deep breath. “Unless the Royal Centre is a serious idea. I just don’t feel like it was.”
“It’s not really. Getting the ability to rebuild there will be endless red tape,” Saramana interjected. “I keep telling them that, but they keep ignoring us. Besides, if we ever want to lock down Lucifer again, it has to be there. That’s where the ley lines are the most powerful.”
“Right, so that’s out.” I took a deep breath. “Are we good then?”
“There’s just the matter of Mammon’s people. We have to supply them.” Gwen watched me. “I’m worried if we pull them here, we’ll just create resentment with the shortages, and we have no idea what the refugee situation is going to be like. Royal Centre may have been destroyed and along with it, many people, but there are those refugee camps in the forest. Those people will come here. We’re the closest and besides you’re here. We need to be ready for that.”
“Can we get some people to work the farmland then?” I looked back out the window. “I’m going to clear it all.” I made a fist. “I need to get good enough to extract Stygian Iron to remake Clarent. There will be a lot of grinding to make that happen.”
“Saramana, do you think you can help us with that?” Gwen asked, turning to the guild head. “I’m sure everyone is going to be hurting, but I’m sure you’ll have some pull.”
“Not with Randi. She’s a total bitch and runs the farming sector. She always hated being ignored, but with Royal Centre not here, we’ll have to sweet talk her. It won’t be easy.” Saramana put her hands on the table. “Everyone will be trying to process new contracts or make her stick to the Royal Centre decrees, but without the city to enforce anything…”
“No-man's-land. Just the way I like it,” Mammon said, licking her lips. “Look, I’ll take care of getting us everything we need.” She came around the table and stood in front of me. “You just figure out how to deal with Lucifer.” She poked my chest. “In a way that doesn’t involve all of us dying. You saw what she did while trapped by our most powerful wards. That was without her hammer.”
“Right, I’ll deal with the Devil,” I said, taking a deep breath. I wasn’t sure how to do that, but at the same time, there was plenty else to do. Sure, I needed to find the hammer, but I needed Clarent to do that first. If I didn’t have my sword, there was no way we’d beat the Darkness.
“I guess that’s all,” Gwen said, looking past me to Gabriella. “I want hourly updates on Arthur’s progress clearing the stone. Make sure no one bugs him without my approval.” I was about to object when Gwen looked at me. “You have the tendency to get distracted.” Then the succubus clapped her hands. “Dismissed.”
“Dismissed?” I asked, somewhat annoyed at her. “What the fuck?”
“What, Arthur?” Gwen said, meeting my eyes. “Is there something else you want to ask me?” The way she said it was a challenge, and I realized, she was still ten kinds of pissed off at me for dismissing everything she did around town. I also realized it was probably better to avoid this fight if I could. See, I learn things.
“No, I’ll be outside picking up rocks.” I shrugged. “You girls have fun.”
7
“I made this for you,” Annabeth said, walking up to me as I worked on clearing the fields directly behind the Graveyard. It’d taken me the better part of a week to clear all the Coti from town, but today was the first time I’d moved beyond the walls.
Now that I was looking at the seemingly endless stretch of field in front of me, I was beginning to lose the will to go on. For one thing, My Proficiency had stalled at twenty percent. Ever since then, it’d taken a lot more effort to move it even one point, and now, after nearly half a day, I’d barely managed to raise it from twenty-four to twenty-five.
I had, on the other hand, experimented with some of the other stones, and found that they had risen pretty quickly until about ten or so proficiency before hitting a similar wall, so there was definitely something I was missing. Still, I was half inclined to go around and try to find all the different ones, but that also wouldn’t get these fields clear, and in addition to my needing to level up my skill with the gauntlets, we did need the land for farming, assuming we actually recruited farmers.
“You made me something?” I asked, wiping my brow with the back of one hand as I turned toward the sculptor. She was carrying what looked like a picnic basket in one hand. “You made me lunch?”
“No.” She frowned and turned her eyes to the picnic basket. “I’m just delivering this. Would you like me to cook you something?” She seemed a bit surprised at the possibility, though I couldn’t tell if it was in a positive or negative way.
“I just presumed.” I shrugged and took a sip of water from my canteen. Despite there being no sun, I could feel the heat of the day baking into my flesh. It didn’t help that I was surrounded by dusty fields.
“Ah.” She looked at the basket in her hands. “I can see how you might think that since I’m bringing it to you.” She set the basket down on the ground beside me. “It’s just a breadless sandwich and some stewed rice.”
“You know, it’s not really a sandwich if it doesn’t have bread. That’s kind of the whole thing.” I
waved off the comment and moved toward her. “Thank you though. I appreciate you bringing it out to me. I’d probably have forgotten to eat if you hadn’t.”
“I doubt that. Gabriella would have made you eat.” Annabeth looked around. “Where is she anyway?”
“I’m not sure.” I rubbed my chin and looked around. “She left a little while ago saying she was bored. She doesn’t really stick around to watch me work. Between you and me, I think she enjoys defending the city with Sheila. The two of them have been patrolling for monsters more and more.”
“Well, she was raised as a warrior. She probably doesn’t know how else to contribute.” Annabeth stood there for a moment fidgeting with her hands. “Anyway, I should get back to work. I’m trying to sculpt some statues to help with the farms. Sort of like scarecrows, but you know, with benefits.” She met my eyes as she said the words.
“Well, I won’t order you to stay and chat with me, though I wouldn’t mind the company while I eat,” I said, flopping down beside the basket. “I’ll understand if you’re too busy. The last thing I want is for Gwen to yell at you.”
“You just don’t want her to yell at you,” Annabeth teased, but sat down next to me, anyway. “Besides, we can all take a break sometimes.” She opened the basket and pulled out what looked like a cabbage-wrapped burger, only I knew we didn’t have cabbage which meant only one thing.
“Devil’s lettuce?” I asked as she offered me the sandwich. “I hate that stuff.”
“Am I going to have to force you to eat your veggies?” she replied, raising an eyebrow at me. “Because I’ll be honest, I don’t care what you do in that regard.”
The Builder's Pride (The Legendary Builder Book 3) Page 4
