November 3, 2022

Day 14

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Thank the Three Laws!

Martin thought with relief as he felt the telepathic nudge that he had been waiting for. He consented to the link and immediately found himself on the receiving end of an excruciatingly long message.

"Please don't be alarmed, it's Neha, the new settlement coordinator. I'm using a skill that lets me communicate with you privately. I wanted your help with the Order of Illumination. As we told you, those three men had appeared suddenly in the middle of our previous meeting, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they had been there all along, listening to our conversation. Most likely, their vanishing act too was just that, an act, and they must still be around. We can do nothing about it, so no one is bringing it up, but I'm sure everyone is worried. Is there something we can do?"

Martin found his concentration stretched to its limit as he listened to and processed Neha's message while still speaking nonchalantly with his assembled wards.

Once she had finished speaking, the steward could finally afford to curse the girl.

That idiot. I was speaking to her friends, right in front of her. How does she expect me to listen to such a long message while I'm doing that?

He sent a much shorter reply.

"I can hear you. Don't reply. Don't react. Don't even look at me. Assume that someone is always watching."

Martin waited for something to go wrong, for the young girl to somehow give them away, but that didn't happen.

At least she's quick on the uptake.

He thought with satisfaction after getting neither a discernible reaction nor a reply from Neha.

Determined not to raise any suspicions, he left the telepathic channel idle and continued speaking with his wards, while at the same time looking for a way to organically extricate himself from his stewardly duties.

I need to distract them with some busy work, without making it obvious what I'm doing.

The answer came sooner than expected, as Martin recalled he had never told the group about the real value of their tiered dungeon. He expertly steered the conversation in that direction and brought himself some time.

While they rack their brains with the dungeon equivalence math, I can speak to Neha at length without worry.

Then the steward spoke.

"Don't reply, just listen. There is at least one enemy hidden here who's trained in espionage, and he would be paying close attention to everything that goes on between us. Pretend to think about the tiered dungeon, but listen carefully to what I'm saying."

Martin snuck a glance at Neha, and after verifying that she was following his instructions, he continued.

"Without a counterespionage specialist, we have no chance of catching our invisible spy and his friends. Our only choice is to give them the impression that their plan is working. That means purchasing the 10 million SP quest. In my opinion, that is a good purchase even without the sword hanging above our heads. If he's any good, the spy won't get complacent even if we purchase the quest, and will continue to be on the lookout. But that's okay. Our reason for stringing them along has nothing to do with them. The faction that sent them would undoubtedly have a backup plan if the covert one failed, and it's that plan B that I wish to avoid. Or at least delay them until our strongest fighters have leveled up in the dungeon."

After pausing to let Neha process everything, Martin came to the point.

"You told me earlier about a scroll with a list of enemies and the direction that they'll attack from. Unless they are going for a double bluff, the faction the spies represent would not feature in the list, and would attack from an unexpected direction."

The steward continued sending his thoughts to Neha.

"So our first objective is to convince this group here to purchase the quest, and to do it without either of us seeming over eager. The enemies know about your skill and the ability to communicate with your council members and stewards. Secondly, you need to find a set of people on the island that they would not suspect, and use them to defend against the covert attack tomorrow. I'll try to sell the quest as much as I can without raising suspicion, but I'm afraid your friends will dig holes in my lies, and things will fall to you."

Then, after considering it for a moment, Martin finally added.

"See if you can find a way to casually admit that you have the telepathic communication skill. Just to throw them off a bit in case they suspect us of having this conversation."

Martin waited.

Either she's a really good actor, or she didn't get any of my messages at all.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Martin thought as he failed to discern any signs of recognition in her eyes.

Then, as time went on and Neha refused to react in any way, the steward started getting anxious.

Then the girl spoke and eased all his worries.

"Actually, I already left a message to my council, and the personnel department has found two Dungeon Masters on the island."

Damn, she's a natural! I didn't even have to put up a show of acting surprised, I'm honestly baffled.

I had scanned the entire list of settlement residents and there was not a single dungeon master. How on Earth-1318 did she manage to conjure two of them?

Martin thought as he reconsidered his first impressions of Rahul's sister.

Neha explained how Martin might have missed the two dungeon masters during his scan of the settlement residents, and soon, the two were brought to him.

Ah, so they were taken prisoner due to their association with Kelly. Doesn't matter, it's time to put them to work.

First order of business, enable the dungeon loot.

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What the fuck? Did Martin just say what I think he did?

Rahul thought and immediately voiced his question.

"The dungeons have loot?"

The steward offhandedly replied.

"Of course. I have enabled that mechanic now. Regular mobs will start dropping loot occasionally and all bosses will drop chests."

Without skipping a beat, Martin then continued instructing the two Dungeon Masters, helping them make subtle adjustments to the dungeon parameters.

Is he ignoring me on purpose? I hope my earlier rant doesn't end up causing problems between us.

"Why didn't you tell us that before?"

Rahul asked, trying not to let his frustration seep into his tone.

Martin made no such effort as he replied.

"I don't have the time to explain every inconsequential fact to you in the one hour I have."

Rahul looked challengingly at the steward, who sighed and continued.

"What good would that knowledge have done? There were only eight of you, and you hadn't even reached level 10. Could you have magically manifested a class and a specialization and become a dungeon master?"

I guess he has a point. Knowing that dungeons could give loot but only if the mechanism is enabled by a level 25+ specialist, that'd just have disheartened us. Maybe I should have considered this a bit more before bothering Martin. The man seems to be on edge today.

Realizing he had zoned out of the conversation, Rahul refocused on what the steward was saying.

"These two managed a dungeon in San Francisco, together with about fifteen other dungeon masters. Quite an overkill for a regular dungeon, if you ask me. But I digress."

Martin shrugged.

"I have done what I could to fill in the gaps in their experience, and they should be able to handle the tiered dungeon now. I'll leave it to Neha and Shahid to validate their claims about not being aware of Kelly's planned betrayal. If they are telling the truth, recruit all fifteen non-combat personnel into the settlement. If not, I'd still suggest recruiting these guys. They are exactly what we need now that we have a thriving settlement again, and it'd be a shame to refuse the precious gift Kelly has unwittingly given us."

Rahul noticed the two dungeon masters' ears perk up as Martin discussed their fate, and tried to raise his concern.

"Won't it be better to train our people to get these specializations instead of being dependent on strangers?"

Martin shook his head.

"Of course, we will train the settlement residents, but we need these specialists now. We will use the ones that came from Jafrabad, but there aren't many, and this lot will more than double that number. There isn't much time left, so I won't be able to answer any more questions."

He is right about needing the specialists now.

Rahul thought, conceding to the steward's point, but he had suspicions about the steward's refusal to take questions.

Something is odd about Martin's behavior. For all his flaws, being inefficient with time is not one of them. He knew he had a lot to talk about, so why did he waste so much time earlier, getting us to figure out the true value of tiered dungeons ourselves?

It's almost as if he was stalling. But why? Could it have something to do with The Order of Illumination? If so, is Martin trying to hide something, or tell us something?

Deciding to follow the policy of trust but verify, Rahul listened intently to every word the steward said.

"Purchasing the World Capital item will give you a quest which, upon completion, will advance your settlement through county, barony, province, and every rank in between, instantly making it the World Capital. But that's years ahead. In the immediate term, only two things will happen. First, your island will be expanded to the minimum size that's needed for world capital, bringing it close to Singapore in size. Then, a system message will go out announcing to the world your intention to compete for the spot of the sole dominant world power, painting a target on your back."

That doesn't change much for us, as everyone is already gunning for our settlement. It does tell us that we'd be the first to purchase this item.

If we choose to purchase it, that is.

Rahul thought, and the steward went on.

"Your quest will have a list of conditions that need to be met, including constructing certain buildings, completing settlement milestones, and some other technicalities that I won't get into. It's a venture that will take years, but if you complete it, the upgrade to the World Capital rank will catapult you to a very dominant position on Earth. Though you should already be there by that point. Still, it'll be a tough ask. Defending your settlement is something that you have to do, with or without this item. The tough part would be to meet all the conditions faster than your competition, which would be countries and continents with much more resources than you."

In short, we will be kicking off a race for dominion over planet Earth.

Thinking back to the space race and the nuclear arms race of the 20th century, Rahul realized something.

If we go ahead with this, our settlement would be the focal point for events that are just as historic and monumental as the world wars.

If not more.

Thinking about the World Congress, Rahul realized that they already were central to something that will be in the history books. Not sure how he felt about that, Rahul listened to Daniel, who was much more dismissive about the whole thing.

"Good thing we summoned you, else we might have purchased it and fallen into a trap. What you've said doesn't sound beneficial to us at all. All our money will be spent and for what? Increasing the island's size and getting an opportunity that is well out of our reach and will only materialize in the distant future. First-mover advantage isn't worth anything if we don't have the resources to put it to use. I'd say we wait until we have more builder/crafter type specialists in our settlement and then make the purchase."

Daniel is making a good point, but I get the feeling that he's trying to be a bit too temperate and conservative ever since that dungeon fiasco. Is he overcompensating for his perceived avarice because his presence turned out to be greed?

Rahul's musings were interrupted when he noticed something out of the corner of his eyes.

It was almost unnoticeable, but I think I saw Martin's face fall just for a moment there. He looked... helpless?

I've known him only for a couple of hours, but I can tell that something is up with our steward. I wonder what it's about, and if has anything to do with the Order of Illumination.