“I don’t care if it’s not real, as long as I can Burn it like it is,” Princess Kristie admitted.
“If you do that, you’re going to have to do it all at once. The System will most likely update very quickly with a cash exploit like this. It also means we’ll have to change the form of the pyreal quickly, and Burn it away quickly, too. Melting it down into goldweight ingots rapidly would be advisable. Coins are also usually impure metal, so we can make the excuse that it’s to purify the metal for use, too.”
“Oh, we might lose a hundred tons of usable metal. Poo, I feel poor again,” Kris grinned widely.
“Did you take the extra thieving step and consider going to Northwatch and seeing if they have more MMD’s sitting around there?” I asked her, and she pursed her lips thoughtfully.
“No, as I had assumed that they would have gone in and reclaimed them themselves…” she trailed off, and just shook her head. “And just how were they going to do that without usable Gear? They’re bandits and rogues, not adventurers or fighters. They’re probably green with greed, looking at their precious castle and realizing they can’t get anything out of it.”
“The Blight was very widely spread throughout Dereth at its height. Elder Oswald should be consulted on this. If the whole Blight infection is affecting that castle too, then it is entirely likely that it is the center of Blight infection in all of the north, and the entire area is going to be full of Blighted Summons and real creatures,” I told her. “It’s also likely that T’Thuun is going to inform its adherents that we just killed all its influence on this island.”
“So, we need to send official word to clean the slithis off every single Vesayan island now, no arguments at all. The Aun should be happy to get that done, and with wiping the main nest of Phyntos, the Isparian hunters and trainees should have plenty of time to help them.
“They should be clear in a week. Let me send that out.” The princess looked away, brow furrowing as a flurry of messages went out through the Markspace. “Okay, that should also shift T’Thuun’s attention. Fuzzy will get the Northwatch information from Master Oswald. That should misdirect attention nicely.”
“I need to perform some Divinations in that Portal room, too. I should be able to find out every place the Portals there connected to. There should be a third base of operations that wasn’t public, and which they are probably using as a base now. Kind of not fair that they know all about us and we don’t about them, right?”
“Odds are that the Mick’s uncles know about them, and Master Oswald does, too. But not having to ask them gives them a lot of face and amusement at the situation when it blows up in the faces of the Freebooters.” Kris cracked her knuckles. “Yeah, raiding and looting them sounds good. What are the chances they haven’t been behind most of the thieving and missing inventory for the past ten, fifteen years?”
“They certainly haven’t been supporting anything,” I had to agree. “So, splitting the teams and going to scour the island, especially the Dungeons? That keeps everything within easy Teleport range as needed.
“Actually, it means I can sleep away without any danger at all. If I have Master Ben Ten and a couple of his lieutenants meet me at the Mountain Sewers, I should be able to investigate smoothly… but we’re going to need you or Briggs there to mess up exactly what the System sees.”
“Ohhhh, give Fuzzy a chance to blow off some steam. Nobody’s going to think he’s doing more than sightseeing if he goes into a Dungeon only rated for newbies.” She wagged a finger at me. “No making moves on my Fuzzy, now!”
“You know he sends me to sleep faster than you do. This is just some time off for him. Shall we set it up?”
“Let’s do that. Keeping everything under the radar feels like the right move…”
-------
The Roaches and the Knights split up on different missions. The Roaches were going north to investigate the former lair of the Mana Hunter Brigands whose spawns still manifested on the island, and who were being vivisized every time they were seen. The Knights were going after the Moarsman Jail, and would see if it was worth keeping around as a training location.
Landscape spawns were going to be vivisized and Sealed except in controlled areas, eliminated handily as they progressed towards their destinations.
Oh, and finding and killing any and all Phyntos wasp nests they found or saw. Nobody needed those things around anymore.
Me, I was folding honeycombs into Tapestries and sending them out to Freehold until it was time to go, and then I Teleported over to the outskirts of Mayoi.
---
Briggs was waiting by the dropped Seal Focus I’d homed in on, standing on the outskirts of town. Master Ben Ten was waiting there with him as I materialized into view, and I automatically TK’d Briggs’ Seal up and tossed it back to him.
“Lady Magos,” the skeletal swordmaster cupped gauntleted hands that concealed his bony digits formally.
“Master Ben,” I returned it properly. “Commander.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Magos,” the towering galoot returned with a nod, Endure shrunken down to a mere finishing hammer and sitting on his belt. “I’ve been told the Dungeon is at the bottom of that mount over there, about a mile walk.” He indicated a hill to the south and east of town. “Shall we be out for a short stroll?”
“Certainly, Commander.”
“Any dire ramifications for this Dungeon, Master Ben?” Briggs asked respectfully as we set out.
“There are Dark Revenants towards the bottom, basically left there to rot and forgotten by their masters. I do not think anyone will miss anything if we vivisize everything in the Dungeon and Seal all the Summons. Also, there is an item that may be of minor interest to the Lady Magos.”
“Oh?” I asked.
His plain but elegant kabuton nodded once. “Stones left behind by Asheron himself, it is said, infused with a manner of planar energy that was attuned to Bur. If they still exist, perhaps they may be of use deciphering the Empyrean world-jumping magic… or tracing the old mage’s location, if he still lives.”
“Very interested, indeed,” I agreed with his assessment.
“Supposedly there is a Crossbow there with an old form of the Crushing Blow Rune on it for the Artificers. Perhaps it is not needed, but the Empyrean versions of the Runes are often subtle in their evolution and differences.”
“Assuming it is still there. Many of the Quest Weapons we’ve been going after are limited to single spawns. Let us hope it is still intact.”
“I understand the Queen Mother has taken over a good part of that task?” I inquired.
“She and her grand-daughter, yes. It seems she never got to enjoy doing the Quests back before the Fall, and this is her chance to run all over the map and find treasures in mazes and weird Dungeons. She’s a paramount, so the core of the team hitting the Dungeons…” he trailed off with a grimace. “Your finding of the Black Market is coincidental…”
Alarm bells went off. “Fresh news?”
“Someone’s trying to front-run the Quest Dungeons on us, or at least the low-Level ones.”
“Wow, color me so unsurprised. What have we lost so far, and what clued you in?”
“The Lightning and Fire Protection Gems for the Crimson Silifi were missing from their known spawn points, and there was sign of combat in the Dungeons, multiple respawns and recently disturbed dust from Dungeons that nobody should have visited in years.
“When Elysa went for Mi-Krau’s Jitte, she found definite signs of multiple combats, including blood and fresh scarring on the walls. It seems the team that came in was overwhelmed by a mass rush of undead, as there were several real undead in the Dungeon who organized the defense and they weren’t ready for it. Elysa estimates that she missed them by three days.”
“Tracking?”
“Rained the day before, and they had someone who knew how to evade trackers. She didn’t think there was Portaling or Teleporting involved, but there could have been.” Briggs idly whacked a branch that was hanging too low on the path for someone seven feet tall, and it cracked and went flying down the path instead of flexing with the blow as it should have.
A nice display of Crystal Breaker ki.
“I have some paperwork from Freebooter Keep that was left behind in the hurry to abandon it. I’m guessing they had a very short pre-warning of the surge that collapsed the Portals, and managed to grab some stuff and get out of there with all speed.
“They were pretty arrogant about it, and kept records in real names.”
“Is that so?” Master Ben Ten spoke up in his hollow voice, intently curious now. “I may recognize some of those names…”
“It seems that they had a regular crew of agents cycling through all the Factions and Societies, finding kindred souls willing to help them deal, siphoning supplies and information continuously, manipulating the records, and so forth and so on. Also a couple highly placed agents, and even Kris recognized two of them.”
The former Grandmaster of the Celestial Hand would doubtless have had a grim expression, but the only sign of his ire was the hot white light in his empty eye sockets burned a little brighter. “And we can probably guess that they did not give up their self-serving ways…”
“Master Ristolos is deeply involved with managing the Rune Research efforts. We can probably assume that he’s forwarded most of the discoveries onto his fellows by now.”
Briggs frowned as he listened in. “That knowledge was never meant to be secret, but obviously they hope to find out more knowledge and withhold it in return, hoping to make a superior product of their own.”
“Taking, not giving. Standard Neutral profiteering off the generosity of others,” I agreed.
“Master Ristolos was also involved in the production of our Tokens and Writs,” Master Ben Ten informed us softly. “So, it was not mere coincidence that the other Factions ended up using almost exactly the same reward system...”
“The Freebooters pulling strings to keep everything easy to manipulate and understandable, reducing their own efforts and outlays. There was a reason we didn’t offer him a Mark…” Deliberate lack of trustworthiness, as opposed to undependability, was one of those big things that tilted you away from both Law and Good, and a hallmark of Loyalty to another Cause, too.
“He’s not going to like it when you pay him a visit and he has to give up his contacts and all the information he has on them, is he?”
“I didn’t teach him any Wizardry for some reason, imagine that, and I imagine he even thinks that justifies his behavior to us.”
“That interview should come with some deep Geases. I believe Master Ben Ten might like to be there for his confession of all his sins. I have the impression our dependable and enthusiastic Master Ristolos is going to suffer a significant drop in station.”
“What are the odds he’s not been involved in the deaths of rivals?” I had to ask cynically.
Briggs frowned, and then let out a rumbling deep sigh. “What are some of those other names?” he asked, having an encyclopedic knowledge of the bureaucracy and attached military forces, as well as all the surviving paramounts.
Both of their shoulder sets turned quite grim as we proceeded to the Dungeon, and I named names...
------
The Mountain Sewers of Mayoi smelled, well, like a sewer, except there was nothing feeding into it which should have produced the smell.
Which meant it was magically made, and vivus could eat it up.
I had to do absolutely nothing, as Briggs and Master Ben considered it very inappropriate that I needed to take care of anything here. The two of them would literally swat the zefirs that plagued the place out of the air, crushing them underfoot if they were still feeling rambunctious, while I just sprayed Darts in all directions and vivus was set off to clean the air, stop the smell production, and Seal all the spawn points.