38 - Chapter 36
Tasha spent some time going over the details with Mamat. She then let the rest of her team know that she would be heading back to London shortly. She checked which airline had the next direct flight back to London, and there was one in a few hours. She booked herself into first class. Thankfully with her storage, she would not need to worry about checking in anything, or even having any real luggage. Just to allay suspicions, she would carry her small carry on that she had arrived with. She would not bother to pretend about the swords though.
She asked the hotel to book her a car to take her to the airport and settled up her bills. Any further expenditure would be managed by Mamat and Malim going forward. Soon she was on her way to the airport.
She thought over everything that she had managed to achieve on her little trip. She had come expecting to take the first step in finding out what had happened to her family, and yet she had managed to finalise her second set of investments, avenge her family and take over a vampire clan. She wondered if her second quest chain had updated and if the taking over of the vampire clan counted against her quests.
She decided to check out her quests to see if anything had changed yet. She brought up the prompt.
Open Quests: 3
Quest A1: Self sufficient (Chain Quest)
Purchase land to create your own self sufficient town
Reward: Quest Points
Status: In Progress
Quest B1: Make your second significant investment (Chain Quest)
Make your second significant investment
Reward: 30,000 Quest Points, more items in shop
Status: Completed
Quest C1: reach for the sky (Chain Quest)
Finalise designs for the satellite monitoring station and break ground in the location picked for quest A1
Reward: Quest points, technical knowledge
Status: In Progress
The first thing that she noticed was that the dynamic quest was not even displayed in her list. She guessed since she had already received the reward, the quest was automatically marked as complete and removed from the active list. The second thing that she noticed was that her chain quest to make the second investment was also marked as complete. It offered her 30,000 quest points and additional items in the shop.
She accepted the rewards and checked her active quests again.
Quest A1: Self sufficient (Chain Quest)
Purchase land to create your own self sufficient town
Reward: Quest Points
Status: In Progress
Quest B2: Make your third significant investment (Chain Quest)
Make your third significant investment
Reward: 40,000 Quest Points (Bonus 100,000 Quest Points)
Status: complete
Quest C1: reach for the sky (Chain Quest)
Finalise designs for the satellite monitoring station and break ground in the location picked for quest A1
Reward: Quest points, technical knowledge
Status: In Progress
She noticed that her third investment quest was also completed. Not only that but for some reason she had received a massive bonus for the quest too. Could the system consider taking over the vampire clan an investment even though she hadn't spent any money on it? She could not think of anything else that she had accomplished that could be considered an investment. If so, then the meaning of investment was truly broad. It also meant that she could potentially earn bonus points for completing quests early.
Next she decided to check out the shop to see what new items had appeared. There was only one new item available.
Purchase subordinate system (0/1) - 100,000 Quest Points
That simple option led to so many questions for her. Did this mean she would be able to buy more systems? Was it an add on for her or for someone else? Was 1 the limit because her balance was limited, or would she need to do something else to increase the limit.
Out of curiosity she tried to purchase the option.
Please select target for subordinate system
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She tried to select herself, but nothing happened. So it seemed like that this was something she could give to others. She left the menu. She thought about who would be best to give access to the system, and her first thought was Hanna. As she was responsible for the security of everyone, making her stronger would deliver the best results. If she was given the option of adding more people in the future then she would decide who else to offer this power to.
There was also the question about what the subordinate part meant. What would be different? What level of control would she retain over the system? She closed the system as they were approaching the airport.
She was checked in quickly and then fast tracked through security. She made her way to the first class lounge. She had noticed she was starting to get hungry and wanted to get something filling.
It seemed like it was not a one time thing. Her improved stats would require her to eat a lot more food. That would be an interesting issue on long flights. She was glad that she had been cautious and filled her storage with a large amount of food. It would tide her over during the flight.
She spent time in the restaurant enjoying her food and thinking about next steps. She needed to get permission sooner rather than later for the SEZ. That would allow her to move forward with the plans and complete more quests. She also wondered what other options the system had yet to display. She also needed to spend time training properly. She would be limited in what she could do in public spaces. She would ask her team to buy her a private gym for her personal use. She had been putting it off due to the task to create her own town, but given the speed at which she was improving, she would need to make some interim arraignments.
She also wondered on the best way to leverage the vampire clan and what actions, if any, she should take against the syndicate. These thoughts kept her company until she boarded her flight back to London.
She was still a little peckish, so ate on board the plane as well, before falling asleep. For the first time in a long time her sleep was restful, absent nightmares of her family. She had intended to take the opportunity of the 13 hour flight to sleep, but found herself awake after only four hours. She felt like she had slept for the whole flight, and put it down to another change brought about by her rapidly advancing stats.
She spent the rest of the flight picking on her stock of food, watching movies and making plans for the future.
She returned to a cold London and took a black cab back to the Waldorf Astoria. She called to let everyone know that she was back and would see them all tomorrow to discuss the progress. She asked Hanna to meet her in her suite as soon as she was available.
It was another hour before she was back in her suite. She wondered at the ancillary benefits her stats provided her. Normally a trip like this would have left her feeling tired and jetlagged. Yet she felt like she had spent the entire time resting. She actually felt energised and wanted to push her plans forward, but knew that she would still be waiting on others. She called her Sensei and booked another week of training. She would use the time to push her skills forward as well as to get better control over her body. She also called James and asked him to find a gym that she could buy for her personal use. If not a gym then a suitably large building. She could always get it redecorated for her needs, even though that would take longer.
Hanna arrived to meet her a few hours later. By this time Tasha was getting extremely restless.
“Hey Hanna,” said Tasha. “Thanks for coming, we have a lot to discuss.”
“Hey,” said Hanna, “we can’t really talk here. It’s not secure. We have a temporary SCIF set up in another suite, so we could use that, or go somewhere private.”
“Let’s just use the suite for now,” said Tasha. “You are not going to believe the things I have learned.”
They made their way to the temporary SCIF suite. After checking that everything was set up correctly, they asked the security team to leave them. They were not ready for the details to be shared yet. Once they were secure, Tasha started her tale.
“So,” said Tasha. “The biggest news is that I found out who was responsible for the death of my family.”
“Who?” asked Hanna, at the edge of her seat. “And what action are we taking?”
“There is no action required,” said Tasha. “And that is not even the biggest news.”
“What could be more important than that?” asked Hanna.
“Well, it was the scion of the Daud family,” said Tasha. “She is officially missing, so until she is found, there is nothing we can do.” She emphasised the missing part. Even though Hanna had her suspicions, she did not want to confirm them. Hanna would have to deal with the Daud family, and she did not have the ability to protect her reactions from them. She needed to ensure Hanna could not accidentally give away her secrets.
“Really?” said Hanna in shock. “Is that why you had me investigating them?”
“Well there is a lot more to it,” said Tasha. “For one thing they are a clan of vampires.”
“Vampires?” said Hanna nonplussed. “You can’t be serious?”
“Very,” said Tasha. “They are part of a group that call themselves the Syndicate. The group consists of other part magical creatures, and they have been controlling and harvesting humanity forever.”
“Wait,” said Hanna. “You are serious? This is not you pulling some insane prank on me?”
“I wish,” said Tasha. “If the syndicate realise that we even know they exist, they will take steps to wipe us all out.”
“Tell me everything from the start,” said Hanna.
Tasha proceeded to tell her about her meeting with Malim bin Daud, and how she had worked out his family's involvement. How he had offered to pay her a blood price, how she had met the Ancestor, and how old and powerful he was, of everything that she had learned about the history and aims of the Syndicate.
“So you're telling me,” said Hanna, “That the syndicate has infiltrated all intelligence agencies, have personal power on par with armoured tanks, and are absolutely ruthless. That is a very dangerous combination. And you want us to go to war with them?”
“I don’t want to,” said Tasha. “I have a feeling we will need to. They see us as livestock. They will not like it when we become too powerful.”
“And yet you managed to bind the vampire clans to us?” said Hanna. “Could we not do something similar to the others?”
“I had leverage,” said Tasha. “It will be a very difficult situation to recreate. I am not saying we couldn't do it, but it would be very hard. Don’t forget just knowing about them is enough cause for us to be culled. It’s not like we can even infiltrate them. If the vampires start acting strange, that will be noticed and put them on guard, and humans will not be able to get anywhere near them.”
“That is a conundrum,” said Hanna. “Let me think about it. There is always the potential for false flag operations.”
“There is even more for me to tell you,” said Tasha.
“What other bombshells are you going to drop on me now?” said Hanna. She was still reeling from the various revelations Tasha had casually tossed out.
“Well,” said Tasha. “I can potentially grant a version of my system to another, would you be interested?”
Hanna’s jaw hit the floor.