Chapter 10

Negotiations

“Regan. An ominous name,” the woman said leaning forward on the table her and several other people were standing around.

“So, I’ve heard,” I said with a chuckle. “What would yours be?”

The woman frowned even deeper when I asked that. I could only assume that she must be pretty important or at least well known. “I am the Mistress of Ice! Kori!” she said icicles formed in the air around her.

“Fascinating! Look. I don’t have much time. I want to host a game of sorts here. I would appreciate it if you’d allow me to land my airship here in a day or two,” I said. I’d unconsciously put my arms behind my back and stood like a teacher talking to a student or child.

“How dare you! You think you can waltz in here and just demand me to allow you access to my lands? Over my dead body!” She yelled as the icicles floating around her angled towards me and streaked through the air. I grinned as I tapped my watch, a very recent addition to my personal affects. A barrier formed around me, and the icicles vanished just as they passed through the threshold.

“How... what...” she stuttered after her attack failed so easily.

“Yeah. That happened. Now are you willing to listen?” I asked with a cocky grin wanting to get this over with. I wasn’t too interested in the politics of the area. I just needed the uranium this city produced, and I wanted to try my hand at the EXP and profit that these games might bring in. Preferably not in an area that was my own so if something goes wrong, I don’t want to have to clean up the mess.

“No!” Kori said with a growl then poured even more energy into another attack. A blizzard strong enough to cause a whiteout flooded the hall around me. The guard that I’d knocked out froze instantly. The attack was strong enough to get nearly halfway through the barrier and I noticed that the temperate in the air dropped even in the barrier.

“Not bad,” I commented. “But this isn’t my only trick.” I had Smith access the locations for the C4 and choose the closest one that was set in a factory. With a mental click, the C4 exploded along with quite a bit of materials that were being used. I checked the list and it was a factory that processed Cryoleaf. Turns out it was explosive. The entire factory and a bit of the surrounding area was turned into a very large pile of rubble. We quickly felt the tremor here underground.

-Committed an act of terrorism +100 Villain points.

-Destroyed 4 buildings in a foreign city. +20,000 EXP

-Killed 30 factory workers +7,000 EXP

-Killed 10 bystanders +1,500 EXP

-Caused a state of Panic in the area. +105 Villain Points. +1,900 EXP

“What did you do?!” Kori shouted dismissing her attack and glancing at the ceiling.

“Set off an explosion in the city. I don’t care what you’re in the middle of, I won’t interfere. As long as you allow me to host my games here,” I said stroking my chin.

Kori looked at her advisors and they all nodded quickly. I noticed one had a thoughtful look. “Mistress. For the announcement we planned to make. This may be an opportunity for a far grander, if Mister Regan would allow us to use his stage at the opening, presentation.”

Kori glared at me but nodded. “Fine. You can land here for your event. But if I notice a single note of hostility from you, I will make sure you become a frozen statue in our front lawn. Even if it takes everything I have,” she said almost snarling.

“Quite fair. Alright I believe our business is complete.” I tapped my watch to send Daniel a message to come pick me up.

He phased into existence next to me. “Already boss? Those explosives were expensive,” he said as he teleported us away.

I grinned. “Nice. Make them think the explosives were a singular thing so they relax their guard.”

“Not my first rodeo. First time getting villain points though. You’ve ruined my perfect record,” Daniel said with a frown.

“Sorry. I wasn’t expecting it to cause quite so much damage,” I said with a shrug.

“It's cool. Not sure the world can be quantified quite so easily anymore.”

“Did you blow something up again, sweetie?” Alara asked as we came around the corner of the hall.

“Just a little bit,” I said rubbing the back of my head.

“What am I going to do with you?” Alara asked shaking her head.

“Come over and give me a kiss?” I suggested with a grin.

“Reward you for blowing something up?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Like I said, only a little bit,” I said holding my hand out to her.

She sighed but took it then moved into my embrace. I leaned down and kissed her gently. Alara was one of the grounding forces in my life. I don’t think I would trade her for the world, and I’d been offered before. I pulled back from the kiss to see her with a small smile. “You are so naughty,” she said patting my chest.

“Only for you my love,” I replied.

Pre-Flight

“Alright. We have approval for landing over at Winter’s Garden. Let’s take off as soon as we get a good amount of scrap loaded. I don’t want to run out of Matter blocks while we do this,” I said taking Alara’s hand.

She smiled and wrapped her arms around mine as we walked. The thugs and even the recently tamed junk dogs started carrying scrap from the junkyard up to the ship. I upgraded the elevator again, but it still was a hassle to use. We were heading out in the morning. That gave them plenty of time to work on it.

-Its MIDNIGHT!

-You defeated 1 Villains

-You defeated 0 Heroes

-You Earned a Total of 24,400 + 10,000 (crafting) Experience points

-Level Up! You are level 30!

-Level Up! You are Level 31!

- Level Up! You are Level 32!

-You have 3 Power Points to spend!

-You have 16 Stat points to spend!

-You have 5 Feats of Power to allocate!

-You Earned 0 Hero Tier Points

-You Earned 100 Villain Tier Points

-You Earned 105 Villainous Points (Naughty, naughty. You’re a villain now!”)

-Current Villain Tier 6

-Days Until Payout 1: 2,415,306t

“Thank you, Smith.”

I dismissed the notification then made my way into the office that Alara had converted into her room. I laid down next to her and wrapped my arm around her. She was as soft as always. She slipped over and curled into my embrace.

The next morning came much too quickly for my tastes. I never slept as a dungeon core, and I was finding I enjoyed it quite a lot with Alara next to me. I opened my eyes to find she was laying on top of me with a serene face as she dreamed about whatever it was, she dreamed about. She was always a peaceful sleeper.

I gently shook her awake which resulted in her squeezing me tighter and she buried her face in my chest. I didn’t mind laying here but we unfortunately had things that needed to be done. I pulled her face up to me and kissed her full on. Her eyes shot open, but she sank into the kiss. We broke apart a minute or two later.

“Meanie,” Alara said laying her head on my chest.

“Only a little bit,” I said with a smirk.

She traced her hand down my cheek. “Always getting us into trouble.”

“You know you enjoy the thrill,” I said grabbing her and spinning us around, so she was under me. I ran a hand through her hair, the silky strands falling through my fingers.

“I do, though I have to put the brakes on you, so you don’t get us killed,” she said with a coy smile as she blushed. The world tilted suddenly as she used her legs to twist me down and got back on top of me.

“Anyone even thought of killing you, I would turn the world to dust. After I chased your soul to its next destination,” I said seriously.

“Awe. I’ll wait for you though let's try not to die shall we,” Alara said. She leaned down with closed eyes and kissed me. I closed mine as well and enjoyed the moment.

~~~

We finally left the room a while later. Everything that could be done was done for the trip. All the thugs and mutts were loaded. The airship was repaired and ready to fly at least according to its readout. The drones had also done a once over after I fixed all the places that they reported damaged.

“Jane. Keep the city operating while we’re gone. If anything should happen send me a message. I should have communications restored while on our way out,” I said while going over the check list in my head. This wasn’t my first away game and having a firm hand at home usually helped it operate better while gone. I missed Ignea, she kept my dungeon moving smoothly without a problem.

“Of course, my Lord. Is there any particular focus that you would like us to undertake?”

“Keep us healthy and alive.”

“Understood,” Jane said as she disappeared.

“Everyone ready?” I asked.

Alara nodded from where she sat at a console that would track anything that moved outside the airship. It was a job that allowed her to see the scenery passing by and she enjoyed it. I wouldn’t write her off, she could kill anything within a two-kilometer radius with pinpoint accuracy.

“Yep.” Daniel sat at the communications console, more because he was bored than anything. He could beat us there and back a thousand times over in the time it would take us to reach our destination. He was in a good mood, having just gotten back from visiting his wife.

“Yes, Sir.” Ralph said. As the head thug, I’d allowed him on the bridge as representative of his thug buddies. He manned the defense console and was responsible for protecting the airship. I felt it was a good placement considering Ralph liked to look after his own hide.

Finally, I stood at the helm since I didn’t have anyone that I trusted to pilot. I found it a little funny that the controls took on that of an old sailing ship. As I was in a hurry to just put the ship back together, I didn’t change it to anything else. Standing at the wheel, I found I quite enjoyed it. Back on Murgin, I’d always had someone or something that did it for me.

“Looking good, Love,” Alara said running her eyes up and down my figure.

“Thanks. Let’s get underway,” I said with a grin.

Smith created a holograph interface that controlled the unmanned stations. I tapped the power section and began funneling energy to the engines. The airship shuddered as the massive atmospheric thrusters activated for the first time in at least a decade.

I pulled up the dock controls and tapped the disengage button. There was a loud rumbling as the clamps pulled back into the city infrastructure. Screens showing the pavement and streets of the nearby area came up. I’d warned everyone in the area, not that there were many, about today.

There was a thrum as the airship slowly began to pull away from the city. The shaking caused the meter of dirt, loose debris, to fall off to the ground. Finally, the airship was completely separated from the city. We gained both speed and altitude as we pulled away.

Without the buildings around the command tower, the view was much better. We pulled further up and soon entered the smog cloud that always hovered around the city. The city itself had a weather barrier, that kept the nasty chemicals away. A few minutes on and we’d cleared the airspace of Autumn’s Reach.

“Set course to Winter’s Garden!” I said with a whoop. I always enjoyed flying.

We were about ten minutes into our journey when Jane appeared. “Sir. You about to leave the effective range of my communications’ tower.”

“Thank you, Jane. First thing on the list is to stop at the communication’s outside the territory and set up a line for the city.”

The airship couldn’t go to fast. I wanted to make sure of its structural integratory before I attempted to punch it. An hour later we finally reached the edge of what was Autumn’s reaches’ properties. The landscape was a rolling plain that seemed to go on forever.

A large town to shape on the horizon after a while. The biggest building was in the center, the single skyscraper in the town. I put the airship on hover and walked over to Daniel, who was floating sideways in the air snoring. “Time to work.”

He jerked and woke up pretty easily. He looked out the window then back to me. “Where to?”

“There, main office,” I replied.

“You got it,” he said grabbing my arm and teleported us over to the building.

We appeared in a back area that had hundreds of wires leading in every direction. I looked over to Daniel. “I said main office. Does this look like an office?” I asked gesturing to the mess of wires.

“For an electrician,” Daniel said with a yawn.

I looked around for an exit when I saw a large column of servers, along with a control panel. I walked over and played around to see if I was able to do anything. It was locked, of course. “Smith, can you get access?”

“One moment.”

The screen flickered a few times as Smith worked to break in. Maybe after two minutes, the lock screen went away, and desktop appeared with enough icons to make me dizzy. I looked through the options and found one that accessed the network. I clicked, crossing my fingers, then grinned as the program opened with the user and password options already filled in.

Once I clicked in, a map of the area appeared. I was able to treat it like a touch screen and zoomed in. Autumn’s Reach appeared, its name red. I tapped it and its options came up.

“What’s up boss?” Daniel asked floating over.

“Found something interesting,” I replied.

I selected the best option then edited the price to zero thread a month. I was sure it would be caught sooner than later, but it I was able to get even one month out of it, that would save me hundreds of thousands of thread. The cheapest option for Autumn’s Reach was a hundred thousand thread after all.

I found an option where I could set a password on it. I put in a random sequence of letters and numbers then closed the program. I checked the other programs, but couldn’t find anything dealing with power, so that was still going to be an issue. I logged the computer off, then turned to Daniel. “Time to go.”

Mid-Flight

“How goes the advertisement?” I asked Daniel. We were about eight hours out from our destination. Once there, I planned for a week before starting the tournament. That would give me time to build the facilities and to scope out Winter’s Garden. There was a lot of interesting things happening in this world, but I was still content to enjoy the time with Alara.

“So-so. I had a few interested takers from both players and NPCs. We’ll have to wait until the day of to actually see the turnout.”

I tapped my chin in consideration. We needed people to show up or this little venture I wanted to try would be a waste of time and resources. I walked over to the communications console. With the network restored to Autumn’s Reach, the airship also gained access. Don’t ask me how it worked, but I felt it was a game mechanic.

I quickly created an ad that would target people that were poor, using a site that only cost a few thousand thread. That’s who would be most interested in coming to something like this. I put up a diagram of a test suit I made based off Daniel’s suit. It came out quite well if you asked me. There was a bit of a power drop but not much and still worth several thousand thread, if not million.

I listed every detail I could about the suit then published the ad. With that done, I leaned back and waited. Less than ten minutes later, the click per view skyrocketed. In only ten minutes, it had already reached fifteen thousand. I started to grow worried that the bait might be too good.

“That’s a week from now Regan’s problem,” I mumbled then left the console.

“What’s wrong?” Alara asked catching me mumbled.

“Nothing. What do you want to do?” I asked while walking over to her.

She narrowed her eyes at me but left it alone. “No much to do on this floating rust bucket. I miss the ship we built back on Murgin.”

I laughed and swept her into a princess carry. “How about we go enjoy the fresh air?”

She leaned into my chest and nodded. I looked to Daniel. “Don’t break anything.”

“Don’t worry. I’m good right here,” he replied pulling a pillow that floated with him out of his inventory.

“Creative. I like it,” I said leaving the bridge via the hatch on the side. A balcony that had stairs lead to the deck of the airship greeted us. The wind wasn’t too bad with the leisurely velocity we were maintaining. The view was amazing. Blue skies, a flock of birds in the distance, slow clouds that meander along with us.

“Beautiful,” Alara whispered.

“Not as much as you, my Love,” I said leaning down to kiss her.

She blushed and closed her eyes as we enjoyed the moment. Sometime later, while we sat enjoying each other’s company something slammed into the airship. I looked up with a glare as I tried to find what was interrupting my time with Alara.

A large man stood at the end of the deck, looking around at the airship. It was rude, but the only thing I thought was Russian when I saw him. He wore the big fur coat and the double eared caps that old movies on Earth always showed Russians wearing. He suddenly panicked and threw a bulky contraption from his back. A moment later it exploded into a thousand pieces.

“Shitty American gadget,” he said with a deep Russian accent. When I listened closely, I realized that he was actually speaking in Russian, but I was hearing English.

Alara and I stood and made our way over with our weapons drawn. “Excuse me. This is a private airship. No visitors,” I called when we were about thirty meters from him.

He looked away from the smoldering pile that was his jetpack and saw us. He pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and bit down on it. He used his finger and a small flame leapt from the tip. “Pozhar does not listen to Americans.”

I tilted my head. “I guess technically, I’m American, but she’s Murginan,” I said putting my hand on Alara’s waist and pulling her close.

“Whatever! Pozhar was in the market for a new base since his sadly went up in flames,” Pozhar said putting a hand to his chest.

“Well you can’t have mine,” I said leveling my gun at him.