by S. R. Witt
Osmark waved away the guard’s concern. “Just tired. But there is something else you can do for me. I’m willing to pay well for it, but it needs to be done now, and it’s not going to make you a popular man.”
The guard raised an eyebrow and scratched his chin. “I’m but a simple guardsman, sir. I don’t know—”
Robert pulled a gemstone from his inventory and flashed the egg-sized ruby.
“Well, let’s hear it then,” the guard said with a nervous grin, eyes wide and fixed on the jewel.
Another pang of disappointment lanced through Robert’s heart. Money certainly changed everything. He suddenly understood just how Sizemore had been able to manipulate things so easily. That ended today.
Osmark laid out his plan to the guard, who listened with a growing sense of panic and outrage, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot, one hand subconsciously reaching for his sword. “You can’t mean—”
Osmark pulled a pouch of gemstones from his inventory. “I do mean. This is for you, and to help everyone else who will be put out. I know it’s a bitter pill I’m asking you all to swallow, but I hope this will help it go down easier.”
The guard chewed the inside of his lip and eyed Osmark. “People aren’t going to like this. This is their home, and what you want to do is—”
Robert put a hand on the young man’s shoulder and pinned him beneath his cold blue stare. “I want to make it very clear that I was never really asking you to do this. This will be an inconvenience for everyone, I know that. But it’s much more convenient than death, wouldn’t you say?”
Osmark thrust the bag of jewels into the man’s hand. The guard reluctantly accepted the leather bundle and peeked inside; he gulped hard, his eyes bulging in their sockets. “Consider it done, sir.”
Osmark nodded, sighed, and headed for the inn. It was growing late, and he still had hours of work to do before he could afford to sleep. Half a block away, the guard called back to Robert. “What do I do with what’s left?”
Robert shrugged at the man. “If you do your job right, there won’t be anything left.”
And if you don’t, Robert thought, you and everyone you know in this little town will be dead.
Thankfully, mercifully even, Sandra was every bit as good as her word despite how short he’d been with her earlier. When Osmark entered the Saddler’s Rest, a pair of tonsured clerics clad in sackcloth robes greeted him at the door as if they’d been standing ready for his arrival. The duo—one almost comically portly, the other rail thin—guided Robert away from the door and to a chair padded with a tidy arrangement of quilted bedclothes.
“Please, sir, sit, let us attend to your health,” the thin priest whispered, glancing nervously at the bar, where Sandra lingered, chitchatting with Murly.
Sandra smiled at Robert and crossed the room with a flagon brimming with honey mead. “I took the liberty of renting the whole place for the night,” she offered with a small shrug, as though to say, it’s nothing really. “The regulars weren’t happy, of course, but the coins jingling in their pockets should sing them sweetly to sleep tonight.”
Robert couldn’t suppress a slight smile at the idea of Sandra negotiating with the villagers. At her most gentle, she was an imposing woman. When she put her mind to it, she was downright terrifying. He chuckled, imagining the townspeople fleeing from Sandra’s stern glare, pocketing the coins almost as an afterthought. “We’re going to be here a while, so try not to scare the locals too bad, all right?”
Sandra laughed, then drank from her own mug. Whatever she had, it left a dark and sticky scarlet stain that clung to her lips until she licked it free. The blush in her cheeks told Robert this wasn’t her first drink since he’d left her to work with the dwarf.
The priests were shockingly efficient. Unlike Karzic, they didn’t need to chant or make any other annoying noises while they worked their magic. They hovered their hands above Osmark and closed their eyes, lips moving in silent prayer to some higher power he didn’t understand or care about. And then, a few minutes later, Robert had a belly full of mead and a body as hale and hearty as the day he was born. Somehow, their prayers had even managed to wash away his weariness, though he knew a full night’s sleep was a definite necessity before the morning.
“Thank you,” he said, reaching into his pouch for a gemstone to hand the holy men.
“That is totally unnecessary,” the heftier priest said, raising his hands defensively as if Robert were about to give him an angry pit viper instead of a brilliant blue sapphire. “We’ve already been paid in full.”
Sandra nodded to the men, and they backed away, bowing and scraping as if she were their queen. “Well, that went well.” She licked the crimson liqueur from her lips. “How did your secret mission go?”
Osmark didn’t like the faint tinge of suspicion in Sandra’s voice, but he didn’t have the energy to argue with her about it. “Good. Very good. I think we’re solid, no matter what Sizemore tries.”
That confidence was greeted with a dubious frown from Sandra. “Sizemore’s ahead of us. I don’t know how, but he’s cut you off at every turn. What makes you think we’re prepared for his next move?”
Her candid doubt caught Osmark off guard, but the longer he let the words sink in, the more sense they made. She probably wouldn’t have said anything if not for the liquor, but her words rang true. Robert cradled his mug in his hands, slowly turning it between his palms as he ticked off the reasons behind his confidence. “All of the board will be together, here, in Tomestide,” he said after a time. “That gives us home field advantage. And trust me when I say I’m milking that particular advantage for all it’s worth.”
Robert’s eyes drifted toward the window. The clouded glass was impossible to see through with any detail, but Osmark saw the shadows of figures walking past. All of them were heading in the same direction. East. Out of town.
“All of my assistants will be here, too, except for Aurion.” Robert reminded himself to check in on the sorceress. He needed to be sure she was on top of her game and hadn’t gotten cold feet. She owed him her life, but so did Sizemore and the rest of the board. Debts had a way of getting erased when self-interest came into play. “If Sizemore makes a move, someone will stand up to take my side. The senator is smooth, but I don’t see him swaying the entire board.
“I’m tactically far better prepared than Sizemore can possibly be. I’m sure he’s looking to pick a fight, but he has to transport whatever he plans to use against me. All of my defenses are already in place. Or will be,” he muttered as an afterthought, glancing out the window again. No doubt Rozak was out there right this minute, slaving away. Setting Osmark’s devious plans into motion.
Sandra gulped down the last of her drink and hammered the cup down on the table with such force Robert had to hold his mug tight to keep it from toppling. “First, you’re overestimating the advantage of convening this meeting on your turf. The Brand-Forged Artifactory was your turf, too. How’d that work out?”
Before Osmark could respond to Sandra’s criticism, she pressed on. “Second, you have no idea how many allies Sizemore is bringing to this shindig. He already has Peng, which is the same as having the rest of the Chinese military bosses. That will bring in the Russian oligarchs, who know they need China’s muscle if they want to survive. Eastern Europe will follow the Russians, and that’ll probably drag the German industrialists along for the ride.”
Sandra’s eyes were bright and glassy—it was obvious she’d had too much to drink. But he also knew she was telling him the hard truth. She’d been under a lot of pressure to gather the intelligence he needed, and now she was giving it to him unfiltered and free of her usual positive spin.
“India’s tech moguls and the Saudi oil sheiks will hang together, but aren’t likely to throw in with you or Sizemore. They’re too afraid that the Iranian real estate tycoons will come after them if they side with anyone from the States, which is probably true for Iraq’s mercenary barons and
Malaysia’s heroin kingpins, too. That whirlpool of fanatics might suck in some others with an axe to grind, but no one of note.
“What does that leave you with?” she asked, eyes squinted and blurry. “Sure, you’ve got all of your pals from the tech biz and the Wall Street hedgies. Other than Sizemore, the rest of the politicos and their business cronies from the States will hang tight with you, because they’re still clinging to the old ideas of a world filled with nation states and all the rah-rah homeland bullshit that just about killed everyone before the asteroid showed up to do a better job.
“That might be enough to get you the financiers out of Britain. Maybe. But it’s always hard to tell which way that crowd will bolt. Carrera seems to be on your side of the equation, but he’s a thug, Robert. If he senses the tide has turned against you, he’ll be the first shark with his nose inside your cage.”
Before he could respond, Sandra grabbed his mug and headed for the bar, giving him ample opportunity to digest her words. Osmark felt a dark shadow rising up in the back of his mind, an old friend he’d thought was long gone. It was a reminder of what he’d done to reach his goals, of the damage he’d left in his wake on the long, ugly climb to the top of the ladder. He’d tried to shed that nasty old side of himself for many years, and after he’d crested the pinnacle of his business, he hadn’t needed his brawling instincts anymore.
But he was damned glad to feel the old darkness worming its way back into his thoughts.
Because the problem he faced wasn’t just the quantity of his enemies, it was the quality.
The Chinese were hardline military leaders with experience and training in large-scale combat. Most of the oligarchs had done their stint in the Russian military, then moved on to global mercenary forces, before finally getting their hands dirty with the criminal side of things when their legitimate business didn’t earn out quickly enough. The Chinese and Russians only made up a tenth of the board, but it was the strongest tenth when it came to combat operations.
Osmark had more allies, but they weren’t people he could depend on in a fight. No matter how much money or power they wielded in V.G.O., they couldn’t stand toe-to-toe with men like Peng. Carrera maybe, but he was unreliable—a loose cannon that could fire either way, and God help whoever was on the other end of that barrel.
“Now you see it?” Sandra asked, dropping into her seat and sliding Robert’s drink across the table. She slurped a hearty mouthful of liqueur. “It’s Spartans versus Persians, and we’re on the wrong side of the fight.”
Robert grunted and guzzled his ale before responding. “What is it that gives Sizemore his handle on people?”
Sandra twirled her ponytail around one of her fingers as she pondered the question, eyes hazy and distant. “Promises, I think. He knows how to get at what people really want, and then he puts them in a position to achieve it.”
“That’s exactly right,” Osmark replied, running one finger over the edge of his glass. “Peng and the Russians stick with Sizemore because he’s promised them something they desperately want. And he’s led them to believe only he can give it to them.” Robert hefted his glass and savored the taste of mead on his tongue. It was sweet but had a bite lurking beneath the honey flavor. “If we can show them definitively that Sizemore can’t give them anything—that he’s worthless to them—they won’t back his play. They’re bloodthirsty pragmatists, plain and simple.”
Sandra nodded. “Sure. But how do you do that?”
Osmark swirled the mead in his mug and stared into its dark depths. A coldness spread through him like liquid metal flooding his veins. “Killing him won’t be enough. Even killing his family won’t be enough. But we can destroy him, utterly. And we can do it in front of the rest of the board.”
Sandra’s eyebrows rose high at his statement. “You really think you can do that?”
Robert drained the last of his mead and banged the mug on the tabletop. “I know I can. Get some rest, it’s going to be a busy day tomorrow.” And it would be a busy night—he had a whole lot of crafting yet to do.
THIRTY-FOUR:
Game Day
Blinding agony dragged Osmark from the depths of sleep. A spear of pain pierced his head from temple to temple as if a maniac had driven an ice pick through his skull directly into his brain. His stomach churned like he’d spent the night shoveling funnel cakes down his throat and then ridden the tilt-a-whirl all morning. His heart alternately galloped and skipped beats, filling Robert with the certainty he was about to have a heart attack, stroke, or some hellish combination of the two.
To top everything off, a chorus of trumpets brayed in his ears every few seconds. “What is that damned noise?” he hollered, pressing his palms against the sides of his head. When that didn’t help, he pulled himself out of bed—only then realizing he wasn’t at home—and leaned heavily against the wooden wall of his cramped room. Painful tremors ran from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, making it difficult to stand and even more difficult to think.
“Where am I?” Osmark asked himself, blinking sporadically, trying to clear his vision. When in doubt, he always started with the simplest facts and worked his way up to the truth from there.
His eyes jumped from the unkempt bed to the rough floorboards, to the wooden nightstand where black clothes, sewn with glittering threads, had been carefully stacked in a neat pile. He was in a hotel—
The stabbing pain in his head obliterated his thoughts for a long, agonizing moment as the trumpets howled in his ears again.
No, not a hotel, an inn. The Saddler’s Rest. He’d been up late the night before inscribing the Vital Sigils on his armor with the tools he’d taken as his reward from Rozak.
He wasn’t dying. He was in V.G.O.
“Kill the alarm,” Osmark commanded, and the trumpets’ call ended abruptly. A blinking message icon flickered in the corner of Robert’s vision; he opened it in the hopes of good news from his agents.
Instead, a prerecorded message from the V.G.O. staff began playing.
“Good morning, traveler,” a perky female voice said. “This is Silvia, your customer support representative, and our records indicate you’ve successfully spent your second night in Viridian Gate Online. Congratulations! Since you’re hearing this, I have some great news for you: your overall chance of surviving the transition has increased from ninety-five percent, to nearly ninety-nine percent. With that said, you’re likely feeling extreme physical discomfort, but those symptoms are to be expected and should not be cause for concern. Make sure you stop by your nearest inn or tavern and eat a hearty meal. Thank you for playing.”
The message faded and died.
Robert once again cursed the technician who’d so badly understated the pain involved in the transition. Shaking his head, he gathered his newly inscribed armor from the top of the nightstand and slipped it on for the first time.
The exterior of the Geometrically Threaded armor was sleek and black—vaguely Victorian—while the quilted interior was comfortable and provided ample protection without looking like armor. Clear threads with a rainbow, almost holographic, sheen were woven into the cloth in intricate patterns that dazzled the eye and made it impossible to follow one thread at a time.
Robert studied himself in the mirror, adjusted his outlandish top hat, which somehow tied the look together, then tweaked the short cape trailing down his back. Perfect. He had a busy morning ahead, no doubt, but he couldn’t resist pulling up his character sheet and examining his stats in light of his new sigil-inscribed armor:
Amazing. He’d inscribed one Vital Sigil onto his coat, hat, pants, and boots, swapping out all four of his primary Physical Attributes. With his ridiculously high Intelligence Score, he now had stats to rival any player in the game—even the most seasoned warriors weren’t likely to have his raw strength. With smug satisfaction, he closed the screen, grabbed the item he’d painstakingly crafted for Sandra, and headed downstairs to eat. Despite his nausea and throbbing headache,
Osmark was ravenous.
He needed food, and lots of it, and he needed it right that second.
Sandra was already waiting for him at a table in the center of the common room, which was completely deserted save for the two of them and Murly. Sandra sketched a salute in Robert’s direction, then lifted her empty bowl with both hands toward Murly, more please.
Osmark flopped down in the rickety wooden chair across from his assistant and leaned back, rubbing at his temple, trying to massage away the dull throb invading his skull. “You look like hell,” he said to Sandra.
She raised her middle finger and used its tip to drag down the lower lid of her left eye. The whites were shot through with thick threads of crimson, and the pupil was a tiny black pinprick swimming in the green ocean of her iris. “Yeah, I had a tough night—apparently hangovers are still a thing here. You look great, too, Sleeping Beauty.” She paused, hunching forward as she examined his Artificer gear. “Nice duds, though. Sort of old world vibe, but they suit you.”
Murly swept in from the kitchen with a platter loaded down with bacon, sausage, fried eggs, and a tureen filled with a creamy porridge sitting next to an open crock of sticky honey. “More coming,” the innkeeper said, before bowing and backing away from their table, eyes averted. She’d put the fear of God into that man.
Sandra ignored the innkeeper and immediately grabbed the serving spoon from the porridge, slopping a heaping mound into her empty bowl. “This is the best hangover cure ever,” she said as she poured a thick spiral of honey on top of the steaming porridge. “Trust me, you don’t want to miss this.”
“Why don’t you give me a status report while I serve myself,” Robert suggested before folding a piece of thick, peppered bacon into his mouth.
Sandra gulped down two spoonfuls of porridge, nodded, and started. “Your boy in Wyrdtide might be the world’s smoothest politician, but he’s a terrible gamer. Dorak says he hasn’t even completed his beginning quests, much less made any progress toward completing the area-specific missions that will help him consolidate his faction once he has his Seal. It’s pretty pathetic.”
