by Nick Harrow
“Ah, there you are,” a gruff voice called to me from across the room. “I was wondering if you’d ever figure this out.”
An orc stood stock-still next to the Solamantic Web, his suit as crisp and clean as if he’d just plucked it from the tailor’s garment bag. I couldn’t be positive this was the asshole who’d started this whole adventure, but I went with the assumption it was the same pig-nosed motherfucker who’d dragged me out of bed at gunpoint a week ago.
“I don’t remember inviting you here,” I said. “Unless you’ve got something better to offer me than insults, you should probably get the fuck out of here.”
“Easy,” the cartel thug said. He raised both hands, palms out, as if it prove he wasn’t packing. “Just busting your balls, man. The bosses think you’re doing very well.”
Rathokhetra growled and twisted in my skull like a cobra preparing to strike. He did not like this orc’s talk of bosses, and I didn’t, either.
“Your bosses like my work,” I mused. “I guess I’m flattered. Though I’m not sure why they’d care, given the current circumstances.”
“The current circumstances are why they care,” the orc said. “Do you have anything to drink? Wine? Ale? Shit, I’d even drink some mead if you’ve got it. Mindcasting’s thirsty work.”
For a moment, I considered conjuring up some piss-tasting swill but then decided to be the bigger man. If the orc was talking, then any lubrication that kept the words flowing would buy me more info.
“Hold out your hand,” I said.
The orc raised an eyebrow but did as he was told. A moment later, I summoned a Glencairn whiskey glass with a finger of Pappy Van Winkle’s 23 Year Family Reserve swirling in its bulb. I could afford the good stuff, and I wanted the orc to know it. But I also wanted him to know that I could be a stingy motherfucker if the mood suited me.
He sniffed the glass and shot me a surprised stare.
“That’s right,” I said. “Best bourbon you’re likely to ever taste.”
“Nice,” he said. “You’re moving up in the world. But I’m here to remind you of how you got here.”
“At gunpoint?” I said.
The bastard took a deep, appreciative pull on the bourbon, then shot me a smile over the rim of his glass.
“Time was of the essence,” he said. “If I’d explained what was going to happen to you, would you have come with me?”
There was no doubt in my mind that I’d still be here today if I’d been given a choice in the matter. Leave behind the dangerous and not-always-profitable life of a gray hat hacker to become a dungeon master surrounded by more hot guardians and worshipers than I could shake a stick at? Hell, yes.
“Just because it was expedient to shove a gun in my mouth and drag me off in the dead of night doesn’t make it right,” I said. “Even if the end result would have been the same. Why don’t you cut to the chase before Sauron calls you home to rough up some hobbits?”
The orc took another sip of my whiskey and waggled his glass in my direction.
“Good shit,” he said with a gusty, appreciative sigh. “I’d hoped we could be friends, but I see you’re all business. Let’s get down to it.
“My boss, who, technically is your boss as well, is very pleased that you’ve gained control over a node in the Solamantic Web. In very good time, too.”
“I didn’t do it for your boss,” I said. “And, to be very clear, I don’t have a boss.”
The orc tilted his head back to drain the last drop of Pappy’s from the glass, then chuffed out a disappointed grumble.
“Partner, then?” The orc moved on without waiting for my response. “Look, we have a good thing here. A very good thing. Now that we have the web—”
“I have the Solamantic Web,” I said. “You don’t have jack shit.”
“Listen,” the orc shot back. “The Inkolana Cartel has invested a massive amount of time and money into positioning its assets where they can contribute the most value. You are one of those assets.”
The thug’s words stung my pride, but I bit my tongue. It didn’t matter what his people thought, but I needed to know what they were up to. I could play along if it got me the intel that I needed to make smart moves.
“I’m beat,” I said. “Sorry if I sound like an asshole, but while your boss is moving the pieces around the chessboard, I’m getting my ass kicked. Makes me testy. But I’m willing to hear you out.”
And, just to show what a magnaminous and magnificent bastard I can be, I refilled his glass. With Buffalo Trace, Pappy’s much cheaper cousin.
“Shit,” the orc said after a sip. “Guess I earned that. Listen, the bosses don’t want to tell you how to run your business, all right? To be honest, none of us really know what the fuck you’re doing over here. It takes a ton of money and resources to connect us like this, and it only works at all because I made such a strong first impression.”
We both grinned at that, and the orc continued.
“You’re free to do whatever it is you’re doing here. But we need you to keep an eye open for this special kind of metal. They call it—”
“Godmarrow,” I finished for him.
“You’ve found some?” The orc’s eyes burned bright at the sound of the words, and he took a step toward me.
“No,” I said, dimming the light in his eyes almost as much as the first taste of Buffalo Trace had. “But the asshole I just killed babbled on and on about it. What good will it do you if I did have some, anyway?”
“Above my pay grade,” the orc said and downed his drink. “But the bosses want as much of it as you can find. I’ll pay you a visit again in a couple of weeks, see how things are going. It would be good, really good, if you had some of the marrow for us by then.”
Rathokhetra and I both rankled at the suggestion that I should grub around in the dirt to find some marrow for these faceless bosses. Shit, as valuable as it clearly was, I’d keep whatever I found for myself.
“No promises,” I said. “I’ve got a lot on my plate here, and I wouldn’t know where to start looking for this marrow. Sounds like a fairy tale to me anyway.”
Though it clearly wasn’t. From everything the orc had just told me, godmarrow had to be priceless. It was behind everything since the orc had dragged me out of bed, and if it let the cartel send me off to Soketra, who knew what else it could do.
Which is why I was not, ever, going to give any to the cartel.
“No pressure,” the orc said in a way that made it very, very clear that there was more than a little pressure here. The cartel wanted that marrow, and they wanted it yesterday. “But you don’t want to disappoint these guys. They’re doing important work with this stuff, and you want to stay on their good sides.”
That seemed like a load of horseshit. In the history of fucking never had a cartel done anything good for anyone but its members. They were probably using it to brew up some new and particularly brain-melty variety of meth. Or some kind of weapon they could aim at the head of the world’s governments.
No, the cartel was not getting any of this stuff if I could help it.
“If I find any, I’ll be sure to let you know,” I lied and decided to push my luck a little with another question. “If I knew what they planned to do with this garbage I’d be a lot more enthusiastic in my search.”
The orc fidgeted for a moment as if deciding whether he could tell me anything. Finally, he shoved his hands into the pockets of a pair of thousand-dollar slacks, and his shoulders slumped.
“The world is in bad shape, my friend,” the orc said, his voice low. “And not just the one you know. The Inkolanas want to hold together what they can. However you might feel about how you ended up here, you should know this:
“You were meant to be here, in this place, at this time. The cartel’s people knew that you, and only you, could do this work for us. This is your destiny.”
It should have sounded corny as hell.
But it didn’t.
My mouth
was dry, and my usual smartass comebacks were locked up behind a traffic jam of thoughts snarled in my brain.
“Gotta run,” the orc said. “Study the web. Find the marrow. Save the world.”
Before I could ask another question, the orc was gone.
And so was the glass I’d made for him.
I hustled over to the spot where the asshole had been standing just moments before, and the only trace of his presence I could find was a faint whiff of expensive cologne and an orc-shaped spot of very, very cold air.
There was something about the way the orc talked about his bosses that set my teeth on edge. It wasn’t just deference in his voice, it was true reverence. Whoever pulled the thug’s strings did so with the orc’s full consent. He believed in these fuckers.
The question was, should I?
The Solamantic Web grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go. The orc hadn’t said what was so important about this weird network of worlds, but its discovery had pulled him all the way from Earth to Soketra.
Maybe the web would work the other way, too. And maybe that’s what the cartel wanted. To move godmarrow from Soketra to Earth. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to aid and abet that little trafficking operation.
But it wouldn’t hurt to learn more.
It would be hours yet before my guardians stirred. Might as well put the time to good use.
I focused on the Solamantic Web, and got to work.
Chapter 20: Peace Talks
NEPHKET FOUND ME STUDYING the Solamantic Web. I’d spent a lot of time there since we’d defeated Kozerek and the cartel’s orc had come calling.
Maybe too much.
“Zillah made breakfast,” my familiar said. “Come, keep us company.”
“Soon,” I lied. “I want to figure this out first.”
Her feet hardly made a sound as she crossed the floor to reach me, but her approach was as plain to me as the sun in the sky. There was nothing Nephket could hide from me, and less and less that I could hide from her.
“Staring at it won’t change anything,” she chided me. “These threats have been out there far longer than you’ve been a dungeon lord. If they knew about us and wished us ill, they would have attacked already.”
Nephket was right, but that didn’t make it any easier for me to ignore so many potential threats. A few days ago, I’d thought there were a handful of dungeon lords that could threaten my territory. Now, that number had swelled to more than fifty. If any of them had access to the Solamantic Web, they could reach Soketra in no time at all. And those on Soketra wouldn’t even need the web to fuck up my day. They could reach my doorstep in days.
Maybe even hours.
The business with the cartel had me on edge, too. If a bunch of orcs with Uzis showed up one day, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.
“I need to be ready. If they come, we’ll need an army to hold them off,” I said. “An army I don’t have.”
“An army you don’t have yet,” Nephket corrected me. She stepped between the web and me, wrapped her arms around my waist, and nuzzled my chest. “But you could raise one, could you not? Surely you gained some ka from our final battle. Use it to summon guardians.”
While it was true I had a fat stack of new ka in my core, none of it had come from the final battle. The undead had been outside my dungeon, as had Kozerek and his twisted fuck-buddy. They’d earned me bupkis.
But Insuxexara’s core had been packed with ka, most of which had been stolen from Delsinia over the years from the way I understood things to have gone down. There’d been well over a hundred motes, but I’d ended up with ninety-seven of them. Exactly enough to take me to the maximum ka for fifth level, but no further. That Settlement ability on the Tablet of Engineering had blocked my path. Until I figured that out, I’d advance not one mote further.
“I’ve got one hundred and twenty-one motes of ka,” I said to Nephket. “But I’m stuck with that amount until I figure out how this Settlement ability works.”
“That is strange,” Nephket said. She furrowed her brow for a moment. “It says here—”
“Wait,” I said. “You can read my tablets now?”
“Our tablets,” she said with a small smile. “And, yes, I’ve been able to since you advanced us all. But this makes sense, Clay. Rathokhetra had many cities under his rule. He had to have started somewhere.”
“Not all of the wahket were guardians or worshipers of Rathokehtra, were they?” I asked. “I mean, the old, shitty Rathokhetra. Not the new hotness.”
A dry, annoyed rasp filled my head as the ancient dungeon lord protested that characterization. But, you know, fuck that guy.
“Oh, no,” Nephket said. She kneaded my shoulders with her strong hands as she answered. “Some were, of course, but most served him because of the glory he brought to our people. Others followed his banners because he kept us well fed and supplied the finest arms and armor. He led us to war, but he also helped us to prosper in times of peace.”
The pieces started to click into place as I looked at the puzzle in a new light. I’d been so focused on defending my dungeon from raiders and other assholes that I’d overlooked the obvious.
A dungeon was only part of my territory. The land above it was an even bigger part. There may not be more wahket, but Soketra’s people could still be led.
I turned, lifted Nephket off the floor, and spun her around. A mad grin stretched my mouth from ear to ear, and I laughed long and loud.
“I take it you’ve decided on our next course of action,” Nephket said. She curled her arms behind my head and kissed me. “Tell me.”
“We’ll rebuild your oasis,” I whispered in Nephket’s ear. “We’ll draw the hungry with food, the thirsty with water, the poor with work. Then we’ll put steel in their hands and show them how to take what they want from our enemies.”
Rathokhetra’s dry chuckles of approval rustled through my thoughts like windblown leaves.
“You are far more clever than you know, dungeon lord,” he whispered. “If your skill matches your audacity, then Soketra will never be the same.”
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Looking for more Harem Gamelit? Well, then check out the first book in Aaron Crash’s bestselling series, American Dragons: Denver Fury (Book 1) Or keep reading to take a sneak peek!
Gather an escort. Acquire a dragon hoard. Build an empire ...
STEVEN WHIPP, A NORMAL, poor college student, is kissed and shot on the night of his twentieth birthday. He realizes three things: he’s bulletproof, he’s a dragon, and everything he’s ever wanted is within his reach. But the attempts on his life are just the beginning of his troubles.
Steven is a Dragonsoul—a magical race of beings who have thrived, hidden from the eyes of humans, in control of the world. And not just any Dragonsoul, but the last in a long line of Arch-Sorcerers, thought long dead. Now he is being hunted, and he must unlock his powers through battle and sex or ancient forces and old feuds will destroy him and all he loves.
From the Author
of the LitRPG epic War God's Mantle comes a brand new Pulp Harem Adventure!
Disclaimer: Denver Fury (American Dragons Book 1) is a shoot-em-up, action adventure, urban fantasy novel which is not intended for readers under the age of 18. This novel contains swearing, violence, and a harem of beautiful shapeshifting women that the hero regularly sleeps with—and he does so gladly.
ONE
IT WAS GOING TO BE one of those nights at the Coffee Clutch. You’d think midnight in a Denver coffee shop would be pretty chill, and it was most of the time. But then things can get weird on the night before a guy’s twentieth birthday.
Steven Whipp grabbed the mop out of the cleaning closet just as Bud came in and kicked the water bucket. “Oops,” Bud sneered. “I just gave you more to mop up. Gotta earn that minimum wage, Cool Whipp.”
Steven tried to ignore the guy. What was the point of getting in a fight and losing his job over some bully messing with him? The cleaning company job was the one job that Steven actually liked. His other two jobs—shelving books at the Denver Metro University’s library and working in the cafeteria—were stupidly boring. Besides, there was no Tessa Ross there to make them bearable.
Bud swaggered back to the employee lockers to grab his jacket and backpack. He’d leave early and let Tessa close down the latte machines and other equipment. It was unfair to Tessa, but Steven could relax once the jerk-off left.
Steven maneuvered the rolling bucket and mop out of the cleaning closet and into the main area of the coffee shop. Chairs crowned the tables, and while the bright overhead lights had been turned off, the neon signs cast a multicolored light like a buzzing rainbow. Tessa cleaned behind the bar, wiping off the machines with a rag and listening to music on her phone through one earbud. The other dangled free.
Even late on a Wednesday night, traffic still moved down Broadway in a parade of lights.
Before Steven started mopping, he inhaled and smelled the sweetly bitter coffee and Tessa’s perfume. He so wanted to tell her how he felt about her, but she was light-years out of his league.
