Negotiating Rule #1 Never be afraid to bring cannon to a blaster fight.

“You’re late!” Hissed the nasty little goblin guardian before them, glaring at a coldly smiling Aurelia and Eric both.

“Go fuck yourself,” Eric said, flashing the hissing little shit his widest grin.

The creature simmered with rage.

The larger goblin next to him flashed a mirthless smile, before gesturing for Eric and Aurelia to step past the stately gold-inlaid oak-paneled doors now being opened for them.

The buzz and chatter within the chamber ground to an immediate halt when Eric and Aurelia entered the massive half-domed building where the negotiations were to be held, just outside of Freetown, overlooking a truly massive outdoor Colosseum presently under construction that Eric was assured could fit tens of thousands of spectators. A lowball number, as far as he was concerned. He had to choke down the hot bile in his gut when he caught sight of dozens of slaves being worked to utter exhaustion below, his exquisite perception making all too clear the cracks of whips and the thousand yard stare of men and women who just wanted it all to end.

The only thing those attending the conference hall meeting seemed to have in common was their absolute disdain for the pair of Roundears now making an entrance, each and every human administrator and invading faction that decided to make an appearance now looking their way.

Alex then turned his gaze to those who had insisted upon this meeting. About half of those present, mostly the humans dressed in either robes or bespoken power suits, were glaring down at Eric from countless second and third story interconnected booths looking down to the center of the vast chamber that had plenty of room for both administrators and their magitech-wearing, blaster-wielding bodyguards.

A sharp contrast from the humanoid Contenders, all of them either peering thoughtfully or scowling Eric’s way from the comforts of leather seated chairs before a magnificent half-circle conference table made of chrome and translucent polymer, with no less than a dozen pitchers of wine, water, and far more exotic drinks tended to by half-naked women wearing jewel studded collars and nothing above their waists. The only similarities between the girls were the voluptuousness of their forms and the fear in their eyes as they hurried to serve snarling orc, glaring goblin, jackal-faced gnoll, smirking administrator, or one of the massive ten foot tall humanoids his mother quietly whispered were, in fact, Ogres.

Then Eric closed his eyes, breathed deep, and embraced the role he dreaded playing beyond all others.

Before a bemused smile crossed his lips as he opened his eyes with a soft chuckle, feeling curiously liberated and utterly free. He turned to glance at his mother with a playful wink, delighting in her anxious frown as he finally broke free of the cage he had been constrained by for far, far too long.

He flashed the assembled collection of invading humanoids and soulless sellouts whose collective throats he would so dearly love to tear out his biggest shit-eating grin.

“So you assholes wanted to negotiate, right? Well I’m right here for your bargaining pleasure! You want to make a deal? Give me your best offer.”

His grin widened at the hisses of outrage and the roars for his immediate silence that rippled through the assembled gathering, unable to believe just how stupid these fools were.

They wanted to meet him just outside the city. And of course he understood why. No way to steal his sweetest prizes and keep it a secret inside Freetown. No building could possibly contain all the treasures they were so eager to steel for them.

So they were meeting him OUTSIDE the city.

And a quick perusal of all the guests made it clear that not one Blue Corp member was attending.

Not a single one.

Eric’s smile grew all the wider, even as his mother’s look of consternation grew.

“Remember the plan.”

“Fuck off.”

His mother’s gaze grew ice cold, cutting through even his giddy sense of freedom.

“Remember the plan, my lastborn son, and I will free you of all the chains of guilt I have bound upon your soul. Free my people, and you will be free to wreak whatever chaos you like upon this fragile world.”

Eric snarled, shaking his head. Squeezing tight his fists in a desperate effort for control, glaring bitter hate at all the assembled monstrosities that thought they could attack HIS world. Wreck HIS life. Fuck with HIS friends.

“You’re late, Aurelia Silver!” snapped a goblin in a seedy looking business suit who was standing center stage and smoking a cigar half as long as he was, jabbing at her with a stubby finger. “You think we’ll let your foul-mouthed homicidal son set terms at our table? Well congratulations! Our offer of three conscripts per revenant has just gone down to two!”

Aurelia’s frosty chuckle had half the Contenders at the table and almost all of the administrators glaring down from the oak paneled balconies above shivering in their seats. “Blackfang’s elite soldiers fell to my son’s revenants like wheat before a scythe, Greed. If you think we’ll accept anything less than a dozen of my soldiers for each revenant we surrender to you, then we’ll clean the board of your filthy kind just as fast as my son cleared an Orange Tiered territory, fools!”

Eric and his mother flashed cold smiles when the entire crowd of humanoids hissed and glared their way, more than one half-naked servant screaming when they were casually backhanded or mauled by furious, frustrated ape-like hands.

As much as Eric wanted to rip those monstrous hands to shreds… his eyes showed nothing but disdain and contempt for the pathetic games of those who would dare to bargain for his treasures.

The goblin known as Greed turned beet red with outrage. “Are you trying to insult us, woman? Your son has a handful of rotting zombies and cannons he unlawfully stole from a persecuted race! Cannons he must surrender immediately by your administrator’s own edicts!” A malicious smile flashed across the goblin’s face as he gestured grandly to a trio of administrators standing up in their seats, one of whom held a document covered with ribbons and seals.

“As we have stated right here, boy, you are hereby remanded to—”

Whatever else they were going to say, Eric didn’t here a word of, calmly closing his ears and commanding a drop of blood and his essence to block his canals.

Eric roared right over their blather. “I don’t recognize you assholes as anything but the corrupt self-elected fucks of absolutely nothing! The only thing you fools are in charge of is your own deluded power fantasies! Because everyone here knows that lawfare only works if you ALLOW the other party to hold status over you in your mind. And since I consider you all about as legitimately elected as the CFA government, you can all go fuck right off!”

His mocking smirk turned to an ice-cold glare. “And I’ll have your word that you’ll attempt no more acts of lawfare against me here, or via Interface message or by any other means, or the deal's off, and I’ll take my cannons and my revenants and make eliminating every fucking territory and every fucking race that thought they could get a foothold by bribing your sorry assess my immediate priority the second I leave this farce of a negotiation!”

Eric flashed a vicious smile at the looks of consternation being sent his way, for all that he didn’t hear a word.

“Well? Do we have a deal, or am I walking?”

Eric smirked at the dozen spite-filled and very human faces now beet-red with outrage.

His mother sighed, coldly shaking her head. “These fools think to earn points with the goblins by using pretext to steal what the goblins would otherwise be forced to negotiate for.”

Eric nodded, before flashing the incensed-looking Greed, now glaring right at him, his biggest shit-eating grin, deciding that maybe this would play to their strengths, after all.

“Maybe you assholes need to see exactly what you’re dealing with, before you insult me with any other ill-advised attempts at fucking me over.” Eric locked gazes with the goblin. “Say the word, ringmaster of this little farce of a show, and you’ll get to see exactly what you’ll be dealing with, if we don’t walk out of here with a deal.”

The goblins snarled and spat, eyes glittering with hate.

Perception Check Made! You have successfully read the lips of the goblin before you!

“Show us your strengths, fool. And we’ll gladly show you just how outmatched you are!” the goblin hissed.

Eric gave a happy nod. “Great!” he said, lifting his fingers from ears still blocked by blood and the essence of Dominion, ignoring the silent shouts of the furious-looking administrators glaring at him from their elevated seats, or glowering above the oversized conference table.

Before snapping his head up to glare at each and every guard of each and every administrator, the Boba-looking bastards the only ones wearing high tech armor and wielding arcane blaster carbines pointed at the blood-marked elven hauberk he wore. Weapons he’d dearly love to claim for himself.

“Fair warning, shitheads. This show-and-tell is by Greed’s consent. It’s not an attack. It’s a demonstration. If you use that as a pretext to attack me? Well then, I guess everything that happens after that is an act of self-defense. And since you’ve all collectively met me under an oath of truce, as a group, I will treat each and every one of you as members of that same group, full retaliation 100% permitted by the Accords.”

He turned to the indescribably beautiful Silver Tier Queen standing by his side, now favoring him with the tiniest of smiles. “Isn’t that right, Mother?”

Aurelia’s laughter froze the ground at their feet, dozens of slaves now shivering in the suddenly arctic air. “It is indeed, my son.”

Eric smirked at the furious yips of the jackal-headed gnolls in banded armor now glaring at him, hands on the hilts of hooked swords they looked so very eager to draw from their sheaths. So too he noted the curled lips of massive orcs larger even than the Blackfang clan he had eliminated, four-fingered hands tightly clenching the poleaxes whose butts they slammed upon the ground, their impressive size overshadowed only by the outraged roars that he felt as vibrations through the souls of his boots from the trio of Ogres present, glaring at him while jabbing their massive clawed digits his way.

All of them roaring and shouting threats and imprecations he couldn’t hear a single word of, only sensing his mother’s malicious satisfaction, which made his grin all the more fierce as he whispered the words that would choke and throttle the furious upswelling of threats, imprecations, and demands bubbling up from their throats, leaving only ice-cold dread in its place.

“Surge, centuria! Imperator imperat tibi!”

Eric’s voice echoed endlessly through the open air auditorium, an echo he could hear with exquisite clarity despite his muffled canals, echoing as it did through the spirit realm with a clarity utterly transcending the mere vibration of air particles in the realm of the living.

They were words that froze countless glaring visages, faces universally growing pale, eyes of all colors and shapes widening with horror, showing just how closely related all these humanoid races truly were, not so different from mankind after all, Eric couldn’t help but note. Before ruthlessly crushing those thoughts, lest he humanize countless invading monsters he was now dead set on killing.

Still, he couldn’t deny the sweet satisfaction he felt when furious declarations became panicked whispers, his mother’s silent whispers echoing in his mind making it clear that an understanding had been reached, and no administrator would dare try anything untoward, for this meeting at least.

Ears unclogged, Eric couldn’t hold back his savage grin, the tang of terror in the air every bit as tantalizing as he could hope as one hundred revenants, all of them kitted in bronze armaments every bit as all-encompassing as Alexander the Great’s most elite personal guards had once worn, filled the air with a thunderous ringing crash as they slammed the spiked butts of their 25 foot long spears against the stone tiles they stood upon in perfect unison, cracking more than a few cobbles while doing so.

Eric couldn’t help but smile at the way his enemies gazed at the ancient spears of the sarissophoroi with well-earned apprehension, those weapons reinforced by essence and will to be nearly indestructible. The bronze, leaf-shaped spear heads were both razor sharp and broad enough to leave gaping wounds that would bleed out even a charging boar in seconds, each and every revenant now fixated upon the assembled clusters of anxious looking alien Contenders and the wild-eyed administrators glaring down from the proceedings from relatively protected booths above, their high-tech guards they had such faith in futilely pointing blasters at Eric’s revenants that would take out a handful. Maybe. Yet they all knew just as well as he, that if he were to give but a single command, this entire structure would be awash in his enemies’ blood, and there was absolutely nothing those pompous, conniving assholes could do to stop it.

But that was just the beginning of his demonstration as the ground continued to rumble and shake as another hundred sarissophoroi burst free of the earth. Followed by a third row bursting from the ground as the earth continued to rumble and shake, earning more than one guttural curse and panicked cry as first scores then hundreds of summoned revenants continued springing free of earth’s eternal grip to assume a tight formation of nine rows of a hundred and a final row of ninety Level 50+ revenants faced the increasingly shaken council from the arena sands below.

Of course, Eric could have done it much faster, but he found that he quite enjoyed seeing the increasing dismay in his enemies’ eyes as his forces slowly bubbled up from the Earth.

Then a single roaring command from Eric instantly sent a battalion’s worth of long spears pointing right at the assembled power-brokers who thought they and they alone got to call the shots in this corner of the world. Now, each and every wide-eyed Administrator making up the so-called Interim Council got to enjoy the glorious sight of hundreds of sarissa leveled right for their eyes.

Eric couldn’t quite hold back his manic grin, sensing how eager his revenants were to tear across the sands and leap into the open air auditorium with a single nod from their master.

“Nearly one thousand sarissophoroi raised from the remains of my foes! Revenants all but immune to your arrows and any other attack you can bring to bear! Revenants that do not tire, bleed, or stop killing, lest I give the word!”

Eric winked at a panicked-looking Greed. “Revenants I could so easily use to wipe Freetown completely off the map, should I choose to do so. And you think to offer me a pittance of elves for their surrender? Ha! Each of my soldiers is worth twenty elves at least, and I’ll pit one hundred of my spearmen against a thousand from any of your armies. Then you can judge for yourselves just how much my men are worth!”

The entire assembly of furiously whispering humanoids went dead silent, save for the increasingly panicked-looking collard slaves, more than a few whimpering and sobbing and looking at Eric as if he was the monster that would doom them all. A few others, including a handful of fey young men only now making an appearance, were gazing at him with wide, hopeful eyes, at least one fixing Eric with a pained stare so intense Eric could all but feel the youth’s desperate desire to be the hero that would send all his abusers darting about in terror like headless chickens.

Eric frowned, not having missed Greed’s subtle signal, the bastard clearly thinking that pity or desire would stay Eric’s hand. Would keep him from making a bloody massacre of the entire assembly.

What a fool he was.

Eric forced his eyes to glance over the assembled slaves, boys and girls no older than he, who could have been in the same class as he, and shit, was that Jenny from eighth grade?!? as if they were less than nothing, while adding one more silent tally to his demands.

“Twenty elves for every revenant I give up. A fucking steal, and you know it. But wait! There’s more...”

Eric flashed a wicked grin as anxious whispers and murmurs turned to outright panicked screams as a reinforced frame fused with supernaturally resilient flesh, bone, and spirit gator scales manifested into being, giving the balcony row sellout administrators an up-close view down the barrels of six massive 24-pounder long guns now pointed right at them.

“Pretty as sin, and they can obliterate even high level champions a mile off, easy! As your orc shamans should have made abundantly clear. But if you want these bad boys, you’d better be willing to pay up. Because it’s not like I can smuggle in two thousand elves per cannon into your cute little meetings where you think to decide the fate of our world, slap the side of my cannons like this, and blow you all to fuck in your hidden bunkers that you foolishly think I don’t know about, sending you and all your favorite cronies to hell in a firestorm of lead shot and bone shrapnel!”

Eric slapped the center long gun, laughing at the panicked shouts and screams that ensued… for all that no round fired at all.

“He’s lying!” The largest of the administrators roared. “That ungodly abomination can do no such thing! Those cannons are inert, dead! Everyone knows that black powder, infused with the blood and essence of the unworthy, cannot be stored in Extradimensional Storage Spaces any more than gold can!”

The entire crowd went silent. Many inhuman countenances with too many fangs, tusks, and alien hide-like skin of a dozen hues were glaring at Eric with unmitigated hate, terror, or, in some cases, triumph. And never had Eric been more grateful that one of his earliest boons had reforged his neuronal synapses such that Perception now synergized perfectly with Charisma.

Maybe it didn’t do that much when it came to impressing others, but it sure as hell let him see just how badly he messed up every time he fumbled his Charisma check. At other times, it helped him feel out his targets and understand their malice and motives in ways he never could have hoped to before. If nothing else, his What The Other Party Wants boon was at least making the expressions of humanoids who had dealt with Terrans before as clear to him as those of costumed actors in a low-budget Scifi production. In other words, he could now read a crowd with the best of them, even if he still sometimes fumbled his lines.

That, and A Nose for Trouble, also made it clear that the administrator now screaming down at him would settle for nothing less than his death, and his pen would only serve to taint or poison any contract he touched.

“This blasphemous criminal has violated innumerable laws and edicts! He must be made to pay for his crimes!” The man screamed.

Eric gave the man his widest smile. “So says the bloated coward just looking for any excuse he can find to see me dead. Because I represent everything he fears, and I have the one thing he never will. And that’s power that doesn’t require me hiding behind verbal games, manipulation, and lawfare. Isn’t that right, you bloated fuck of an administrator?”

“How dare you!” The bloated man hissed and paled. He truly did look like the most corrupt politician ever to spew their lies on the news shows his mother so loved to mock, Eric thought. His dark blue suit and perfectly pressed crimson tie certainly were those of a politician, though they did very little to compliment his flabby frame, and Eric doubted the man had a Strength or Vitality above 9, let alone Olympian levels of twenty or above. But the hate in the man’s eyes could burn holes through steel, Eric was quite sure.

Good thing Eric’s crimson dyed armaments were infused with nothing less than his blood and the essence of Fire itself.

Because death stares, fireballs, and the blasters he just knew would be firing his way eventually wouldn’t be doing shit if he could help it…

Or so he dared to hope.

“So, that means you’re absolutely confident that my cannons don’t contain a lick of gunpowder in them, are you?” Eric laughed his contempt. “Let’s make a wager, asswipe, what do you say?”

“That’s Senator Vidrig to you, criminal!”

Eric smirked. “Alright, Vidgrig, how about this: You’re so certain my cannons are an empty bluff? Call me on it! Dare me to unleash all the charges they hold your way! If you call my supposed bluff, and no charge goes off? I’ll not only surrender my battery of six cannons, I’ll allow you to personally put me in chains. Perfect for you, since we both know you’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I leave Freetown in a coffin, or not at all. But regardless of what happens, I still get to smack my palm against each of these cannon barrels. Are we agreed? Only catch is, none of you assholes get to declare murder or foul play when my long guns blow all you conniving fucks to a delicious crimson paste. Because sure as shit, we’re using grapeshot for this little experiment! So, Vidrig, what do you say? You ready to call my bluff?”

Eric’s smile widened when the man blanched, lurching back as half a dozen other senators gazed down in horrified disbelief, or sneered and spat their contempt.

“The freakish boy’s bluffing!” Roared one administrator, filling the air with his outraged spittle. “Those cannon’s aren’t even angled to hit us! Fool thinks he can—“

Congratulations! Adept ESS Manipulation has gone up one additional rank!

Eric gave a satisfied smile when the guns instantly disappeared, only to reappear two seconds later at a far sharper angle, thanks to the necromantic nature of the hide and bone casings he used to adjust his deadliest toys. It had been quite some time since he had received an ES notifications at all, even as it got ever closer to Adept tier. Perhaps it quantized while he was asleep. Regardless, he couldn’t hide the delight he felt, whenever he sensed it’s ever growing vastness, his space now so enormous it sent shivers of excitement down his spine when he thought of all the potential it now offered him.

Because holding those 80 massive multiton cannons was now no real strain for him at all.

“You’re an abomination! A violation of the accords!” Vidrig shrieked. “But not even you can defy reality, fool!” The man’s lips lit up in a rictus of a smile, eyes lighting with a manic glee. “Therefor I call your bluff! Try to get your monstrous cannons to fire, and you may rest assured that when you fail, I will be the one claiming your head!”

The cackling madman ignored the panicked roars and shouts of the other senators, more than one holding up desperate hands in placation, panicked eyes going a coldly smiling Eric’s way.

“Stop, you fool! Are you blind? He adjusted the angle of the cannons!” Shouted one of the fitter-looking administrators who clearly had access to an adventuring class of some sort. One that had at least allowed the man to beef up his physical stats to a certain degree, possessing as he did broad shoulders, a tapered waist, and a head of almost supernaturally thick and glossy salt and pepper hair. Yet the anxious glare he now favored Eric with was that of a man who knew Eric could effortlessly snuff him out in the blink of an eye.

“Then flee, Chelton! But don’t think you’re getting any of what’s coming to us!” Hissed Vidrig in a voice that most certainly wouldn’t carry to anyone whose Perception was less than superhuman. Or a good quarter of Eric’s own.

Chelton’s eyes widened, before panicked lips firmed in a hard line. “Fine!”

He glared down at Eric. “Contender, you will hold your fire! I do not agree to this madness. My associates and I will leave. You may then do what you will without facing charges of murder or attempted murder, so long as those who wish to leave, may freely do so!”

Eric smirked. “Sure. Leave. No skin off my back, either way.” His gaze then hardened. “But if any retroactive bullshit goes down, if I find out any asshole Administrator was playing legal bullshit games against my person for shit that happened today or in the past… I’m coming for you. Personally."

Chelton paled at those words, taking a long look at the cannons, then at the pair of equally terrified senators behind him. “Are we agreed that this is one hatchet we bury?”

The woman closest to Chelton glared Eric’s way. “Should these cannon fire, then all edicts of censure or arrest we have against Eric Silver, also known as Eric Orcbane the ‘Free Agent’ who even now stands at his mother’s side, will vanish in the smoke that ensues. Should the boy be bluffing, then I will happily drink his spurting lifeblood when we take his head!”

The pair of senators crammed behind her quickly nodded.

“Agreed!”

They couldn’t say it fast enough, even their fully armored guards’ body language giving away their relief as they fled.

Eric laughed aloud at that. “Deal!”

Then his mother’s cold words washed over them all. “Your bargain has been witnessed by the Winter Queen. Should you break it and my offspring’s blood be spilt by your treachery, I will respond in kind.”