The first sight that met Jason’s eyes was Riley. She was sitting on the edge of the table, her hand swiping at the air. As she noticed Jason, her eyes lit up, and he could feel her delighted expression mirrored on his face, a smile tugging at his lips.
“I see you respawned,” he said as he approached her. “You alright?”
“I’ve been better,” she replied with a wry grin. “But we won, so that’s all that matters.”
“I suppose we did,” he replied grudgingly. Riley’s comment only served to remind him of his recent review of their losses.
He shook off his dark thoughts, refusing to let himself dwell on that again. “Although, I think we need to talk about that sacrifice thing,” he added. “What was that? I didn’t realize you had some sort of buff ability. That might have been helpful to know ahead of time.”
“Ahh, so now you are going to lecture me about keeping secrets, huh?” Riley said, punching his shoulder playfully.
He caught her fist and pulled her toward him. Riley didn’t put up much resistance. “Okay, I guess you have me there. But still, after you died, your body erupted into an entire garden-worth of rosebushes. That wasn’t exactly the most comfortable experience.”
Riley bit at her lip, her face hovering in front of his. “I gained the skill in the third challenge, but the tooltip was pretty vague. Certain conditions had to be met to use it, and it didn’t really say what they were. I didn’t know whether I could use it until we were in the middle of the fight.”
Of course not, Jason thought. Leave it to Alfred – the reigning king of the vague and cryptic – to come up with an ability like that.
“Well, this is cute,” Frank said from nearby. He was leaning back in his chair, his legs propped up on the table as he watched Jason and Riley. They stayed close to each other, and Jason kept his arms wrapped around her. “When exactly did the two of you become an item? I’m sort of hurt that no one thought to tell me. Maybe I’ve been gone too long.”
“Shush. You’re interrupting young love at its finest,” Jerry said, popping up beside Frank. “Imagine the ballads that will be sung about their exploits – bathing in the blood of their enemies by day, followed by passionate love-making by night…”
“Hey!” Riley snapped, pushing Jason away as she stabbed a finger at Jerry. “There’s no love-making going on here. I’m a lady, you wannabe bard. However, I’d be happy to show you a personal demonstration of the bloodbath part if you’re volunteering.”
“Wannabe?” Jerry demanded in an offended tone. “I will have you know that in my youth, several of my musical masterpieces received critical acclaim from the local paper. My piece about the perils of stealing from a fire mage was met with a standing ovation!”
“By standing ovation, I think you mean that they tried to blast you to cinders,” Riley shot back. This earned her a grumble from the thief, although he didn’t leap to deny her claim – a point that was not lost on the people in the room.
As Jerry scrambled to respond to Riley, Frank shot a questioning look at Jason. He could only shrug at his burly friend. Things had been hectic lately, and Jason felt a little guilty for not bringing him up to speed, which reminded him of why they were there. A furtive glance around the room revealed that Vera, Eliza, Cecil, and Morgan were also in attendance, their expressions amused as they watched Riley browbeat Jerry.
Jason took a seat at the head of the table. Riley and Jerry soon followed, although the archer was still glaring at the undead innkeeper. Jason spared a glance at Eliza and Cecil, suddenly realizing that he hadn’t had a chance to regroup with the pair after the fight.
“I didn’t get a chance to thank you two for your help,” Jason began. “We wouldn’t have managed to pull through without you – both with the health potions and in setting up the defenses in the market.”
“I-it’s no problem,” Eliza said demurely, avoiding eye contact.
Cecil slapped her on the back, earning him a surprised yelp. “Don’t be shy about accepting praise, girl. We killed it. Literally. Besides, our dark regent here now owes us a favor, doesn’t he?”
Jason couldn’t help but grin at that. The little man was a tad mercenary – something he could relate to. “Tell you what,” Jason began, digging in his bag with one hand. A moment later, he retrieved the strange yellow gem that had once been Thorn’s eye. He flipped it to Cecil. “I’m not certain what this is, and it’s unidentified. Why don’t you look into it.”
Cecil snatched the crystal out of the air deftly, staring hungrily at the gem. “No problem. No problem at all,” he murmured.
“Although, the first priority is getting the crafting school back up and running,” Jason reminded him. Cecil gave him a distracted grunt in reply. He had already pulled a mechanical eyepiece from his back and was carefully inspecting the gem.
“When, uh, exactly did the school stop running?” Frank interjected.
Jason grimaced, but Cecil beat him to the punch, glancing up at the barbarian. “Around the same time that Thorn blew it up,” he answered tersely. If Jason hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have guessed from the engineer’s tone that he had almost died in the explosion.
Cecil turned back to Jason. “You needn’t worry. I’ll have things running smoothly again in no time. I just need to conscript another building in the northern sector.”
“Done,” Jason said before shifting his attention to Eliza. “As for you. Your help with the potions has been instrumental in securing funds for the city and healing our troops. I’d like to continue our arrangement – assuming you are willing. In return, I’d like to offer you a 33% royalty on our net profit going forward. We’ve already recovered the funds I spent, although the potions that were consumed during the battle put a considerable dent in our inventory.”
Eliza simply stared at him, and he could see her mental wheels churning as she crunched the numbers. Since the water mage had been helping him manage his merchant account at the player auction house, she had a good sense of how much the potions were selling for. “T-that’s a lot of money,” she said finally.
“It is, but you’re worth it,” Jason assured her. “Although, you might not like this next part. We need to set up a trade route with the Sea’s Edge to secure ingredients going forward. This will be much cheaper than buying ingredients off the auction house, and, as you’ve mentioned before, there are some things we need from the water city that we can’t grow easily here. Unfortunately, that also means that you will…”
“…have to talk to the Hippie,” Eliza interrupted, finishing Jason’s thought. Her expression was sour, and she pushed at her glasses with her finger. “I guess that’s fair – even if I’m not looking forward to that reunion. I was just getting used to the quiet.”
“I know,” Jason said, giving her a sympathetic look.
“Maybe Fluffy has been able to rein him in a little,” Eliza added with a hopeful tone.
“I’m not sure I’d count on that,” Frank muttered in reply.
Jason chuckled ruefully. He doubted that anything could temper the water god’s… eccentricity. “Anyway, you can coordinate with Vera to secure troops and wagons,” he said to Eliza.
This earned him a sigh from the warrior. “We are already spread thin,” Vera said curtly.
“I know,” Jason replied, his expression darkening. “However, setting up those supply lines is the fastest way to bring in money. Once we have income rolling in, we can afford to outfit and train more troops.”
“The problem will be manpower,” Vera said, meeting his gaze evenly. “We have claimed the outlying villages, but, as I’m sure you are aware, most of the villagers were slain by the feral undead. A few might join our military, but it will be difficult to replace what we lost.”
“We’re also going to need regular border patrols to defend the outlying villages that are still populated,” Frank added, his expression grim. He had witnessed the deaths of those villagers firsthand – including the deaths of the Kin under
his command. The Death Knights had helped, but they hadn’t been enough to stop a concerted raid. “Even with Alexion out of the way, if the other travelers and NPCs catch wind of his plan to sell undead slaves, we might see more raids of the border towns.”
Jason nodded. They both made fair points. “Capturing Alexion will keep his men at bay for a little while, hopefully. The collective-pain-in-our-ass has taken up permanent residence in one of the Keep’s towers and is under constant watch. That was one good thing to come from all of this.”
He turned his attention back to Vera. “I also spoke with William briefly, and he will be sending the corpses he’s stockpiled in Peccavi over the last few weeks,” Jason continued. “That should help us add some new blood to our ranks. For now, we’ll just have to make do with what we have.”
“Hmm. We could send one division to the border. We still have sufficient mounts for that,” Vera said, eyeing the map of the region projected across the conference table in front of them. “That may be enough for now if we aren’t worried about an immediate attack. We can use another division for Eliza’s trade caravan. That will leave four divisions in the city proper.”
“That sounds like a workable plan,” Jason said. Not that they had much choice.
Jason’s attention shifted to Jerry. “What about the city and the construction projects that Grunt was working on? I notice he’s not here.”
“Our monstrous friend is out there as we speak, expending his blood, sweat, and tears to make our poor city pretty again.” Jerry sighed, deflating slightly. “Unfortunately, we’ve been set back weeks. As I’m sure you have observed yourself, the destruction caused by the ghouls was a bit… severe. However, we still have a few minotaurs to assist with the heavy labor. We have prioritized reconstructing the market and the southern wall. Grunt and I can handle that task.”
“Thank you,” Jason said, with a nod to the innkeeper. Jerry tipped his hat in response.
Then the group turned to the last person sitting at the table, a heavy silence descending over the room.
“Well, don’t all thank me at once,” Morgan said haughtily.
“Thank you?” Riley demanded. “You have got to be kidding me.” The others at the table echoed her anger. They had all either witnessed her confession first-hand or had heard the rumors. The news of Morgan’s involvement had spread quickly. To say that she was currently reviled among the Kin was an understatement.
“I did what needed to be done, and we are all still sitting here having this lovely conversation, aren’t we?” the dark mage demanded.
“We are indeed,” Jason replied, his tone grim and his dark mana pulsing through his veins in a frigid torrent. “However, it will take some time for you to earn your way back into our good graces. Whether or not things worked out in the end doesn’t change the fact that you acted unilaterally; you put everyone at risk.”
Morgan couldn’t hold his gaze, and she glanced away. Jason forcefully shoved away his anger. It wasn’t helpful – even if it was justified.
“For now, your duty will be rebuilding the nests around the Twilight Throne,” Jason said. He gestured at the map on the table. “With that in mind, I have an idea.”
Jason pointed to the villages to the south and east of the Twilight Throne. “Many of the towns in these areas are currently unpopulated – a product of the feral undead that you helped create,” he added, staring pointedly at Morgan. “The villages ringing the city are also evenly spaced, creating a loose circle around the Twilight Throne.
“These towns may be perfect staging points to construct new nests, using the villages as a base of operations for each cluster. Assuming Morgan can use her crystals to manipulate the nests the same way she did before, it may be possible to use the nests to create creatures of varying strength. We could then station small garrisons and a handful of merchants in each town.
Frank cocked his head as he stared at the map. “You mean you want to create tiered leveling areas, don’t you? Like one town would have level 50 creatures, and one would have level 100 creatures.”
“Exactly,” Jason said, a smile curling his lips. “One of the problems we had before is that the undead creatures were difficult to find, and they were much too powerful for new players to handle. This made leveling a pain, even for our own troops, and it discouraged players from starting in the Twilight Throne.
“However, if we could control the power level of each nest, we could create more friendly starting areas for new players and an easier way for them to level. Once they have out-leveled an area, they could just move to the next town. This would also be a useful training system for our own soldiers too,” he added, glancing at Vera. The general had leaned forward during this conversation, her pale eyes gleaming thoughtfully.
Jason looked back at Frank. “Assuming we can get this set up and a decent stream of income coming in, it might also offer a way to recruit new members to Original Sin. Hell, the travelers might even be able to help us curate the areas and control the power level of the undead creatures. For example, we could offer quests to kill certain monster-types and to return bones to the vendors in each town so that we could maintain the nests.”
“We could also promise them a streamlined leveling process and maybe some free equipment and potions,” Frank muttered to himself, his mental wheels already turning. Jason knew his friend would be the first to catch on. They both had firsthand experience at what drove guild recruitment: the promise of loot and levels. They just hadn’t had anything to offer before.
“Damn it, that’s genius,” Frank said finally, grinning now as he stared at the map.
“Assuming it’s possible,” Jason amended, glancing at Morgan.
The dark mage was eyeing the map skeptically. “It will take time to set up, and it won’t function perfectly overnight, but it is possible,” she admitted finally. “I’ll need men to move the bones and funds to create the dark mana crystals that we will need.”
“You will have both,” Jason said. “We can assign you another division and Eliza can assist you with any purchases that you need to make.” Vera winced at this, and Eliza watched the dark mage warily, clearly not relishing the idea of working with her. However, they would have to make do with what they had – or who they had.
“Alright, I think that covers the major points. Any questions or anything else to add?” Jason asked finally, looking around the table. The council members all shook their heads. “Well, then let’s get to it.”
With that, Jason dismissed the meeting, and the members dispersed, vanishing in flashes of multi-colored light as Pint teleported them outside the keep. Jason was soon left staring at the map on the table. Their plan was a good one, and each person’s role played to their strengths. However, he couldn’t help but wonder how long this lull would last before some new threat was knocking at their door.
“You don’t look happy,” Riley observed quietly. She and Frank had lingered in the meeting room as the others left.
“I doubt our troubles are over,” Jason replied hesitantly. “Thorn and his two accomplices likely weren’t the only members of the Order. We also know very little about these gates, and, by conquering the outlying towns, we accidentally alerted the entire game world that these gate pieces are valuable. Our problems only seem to multiply at every turn.”
“But we’re alive,” Frank offered. “We still have the city. That’s something.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right,” Jason said, rubbing at his eyes again as a wave of fatigue washed over him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept.
“I guess the main problem with the gates is that we need more information,” Riley added softly, as though talking to herself.
“Morgan searched the records in the keep and found nothing,” Jason said.
Frank snorted. “Assuming she’s telling the truth.” Jason nodded grudgingly. He couldn’t really challenge that. He trusted Morgan about as far as he could throw her right now. With that, the t
hree lapsed into a tense silence, staring at the map on the table.
“From what you all have told me, the Order seems to be a lot more knowledgeable about this competition among the gods and the gates,” Frank said finally. “It’s a shame we don’t have the ability to question them.”
“We still have Thorn’s accomplices,” Riley suggested.
“They knew very little,” Jason said, discarding that idea. “The one whose memories I accessed didn’t even know the full scope of Thorn’s plan, much less the Order’s larger goals. It was clear that they did a good job of partitioning information. They seemed to anticipate that their agents might be captured.”
“I bet Thorn knew more,” Riley said with a frown, her hands clenching involuntarily as she mentioned their former opponent. “I’m not saying I regret that you killed him – far from it. But he might have been able to tell us more.”
Jason grimaced. Riley was right, but the former Order agent was firmly dead – pieces of his body having been spread across most of the market. There was no way he could offer them any information. He froze at that thought, his hand clutching at the material of his bag. Or was there?
“Oh shit, he has that look again,” Frank muttered, nudging Riley.
“I don’t even want to know,” Riley replied, letting out a yawn. “I need some sleep and food and sleep. Did I say sleep already?”
“Fair enough,” Jason offered with a grin. “Why don’t you get some rest. If this pans out, I’ll let you guys know.”
Riley nodded, pulling up her system UI with a few sharp gestures. Before tapping the logout button, she leaned over and kissed Jason on the cheek. “Just try not to kill too many people,” she whispered with a small smile.
Jason could only chuckle in response as a flash of multi-colored light tore through the air, and the archer disappeared.
Awaken Online: Dominion Page 69
