After a bit of grumbling that his attempt to scare his friend didn't work, Mike dropped the corpse of the yeti off with Otto. They did the usual deal, with Mike paying the man by letting him keep the meat from the yeti. He didn't know how the meat would taste, but he would try and remember to come by later to try it out. Mike did wonder how Otto would get it into the restaurant, as the corpse was far too large to fit into any of the various entrances to the kitchen.
He saw the man pull out a knife, and mana start gathering on its edge. “Careful, it's a tough bastard. Probably won't be easy to cut through.” Mike said. “Also, the cold effect of its fur might damage the knife.”
Otto simply nodded at Mike, infusing more and more mana into the knife. Mike was actually taken aback, as he felt at least 20,000 mana had been infused into the knife. Just as Mike was about to say something, the blade of the knife suddenly extended to three feet long, and it swiftly was brought down onto the shoulder of the yeti.
The knife passed though the joint with next to no resistance, and over the next ten minutes Mike watched as the yeti was torn apart piece by piece. Not even a drop of blood was wasted, as Otto used some skill to capture it all in sealed glass containers. Each container held about a liter of blood.
“So, how the hell did you do that?” Mike asked, eyeing the knife that had just made the yeti disappear and piles of materials take its place.
Otto chuckled a bit. “It’s just a skill I developed to cut through tough corpses. It doesn't work on anything living.”
“Well if you ever manage to get it working on living things, I might just have to learn the skill.”
“Hey man, I’m not gonna give away trade secrets like it’s nothing.” Otto joked. “But, if you happen to have an extra hundred gold or so lying around-”
“Hard pass.” Mike cut in.
“If you say so. Oh and while you are here, I was wondering if you could perhaps listen to a question I had.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“I know you haven’t been in town for over a month, so you might not know just how big of a problem gemlock has gotten.”
“I see where this is going.” Mike sighed. “I have seen what it does, and I have already thought about it. I decided that it's not something that is going to get banned, and if the council wants to ban it I will use all the leverage I have as leader to veto that.”
Otto got a look of confusion on his face at that. “What, why? I thought you didn’t use it.”
“I don’t. The problem I have with its prohibition is that we would be telling people what they can and can’t do. Obviously we won’t let people just go around doing whatever they want like stealing or murdering, but taking gemlock affects nobody but them. From everything I understand about it, it doesn’t make people violent or even lash out any more often than usual.”
“You can’t just let people go around destroying their mana pathways and hindering themselves like that.”
“Who’s to say I can’t? I don’t care what people do to themselves, as long as it isn't killing them and doesn’t affect others. Lots of people are stressed pretty damn often, and gemlock just lets them relax a bit.”
Otto looked like he was trying to find something else to say, but eventually he just took a breath before responding. “Fine. If that's how you feel, then I at least ask for the go ahead to kick people out if I find them using it in my restaurant.”
“I don’t see any reason why you can’t just kick people out for no reason at all.” Mike said. “It’s your building, feel free to make people leave whenever you want. Just don’t immediately get hostile with them if they are doing something you don’t like.”
“Thanks.” Otto muttered. He gathered the meat from the yeti and brought it into the kitchen while Mike moved all the materials he had gotten to his workshop shed. As Mike opened the door to his house to leave after his final trip, Hobbes was standing right outside the door.
“You have several people who would like to speak with you, sir.” Hobbes said, holding the clipboard that Mike was beginning to think was glued to the man's hand.
“Good to see you too Hobbes. Who is it that wants to speak with me?”
Hobbes looked down at his clipboard, reading from the list. “Sam, Antonio, Lila, Raj, and Alex. None of them know yet that you have returned, so it doesn’t particularly matter who you speak with first.
It took a moment for Mike to recognize the last name as the one belonging to the alchemist who had been making the drug he just argued with Otto about. He hadn't spoken with the man since he first learned what gemlock was, and he wondered what the man wanted to speak about. “Thanks Hobbes, I’ll get to that as soon as I can.”
He now had five people he needed to go and speak with. Actually, there were six. He needed to let Martin know about the new lair under his control. His curiosity got the best of him, and he decided to speak first with Alex the alchemist.
He knocked on the door of the familiar building, with the door opening seconds after. “Mike! Welcome back, it's good to see you again. Come in, come in.” He motioned for Mike to enter, and so Mike entered. He was led back to the lab where he saw a small stone on the counter. The stone was identical to gemlock, though instead of a purple-pink color, the small stone instead was a very deep purple.
“That’s different.” Mike said.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Good eye.” Alex said, picking the rock up. “I made another, stronger version of gemlock. Some of my higher leveled clients were beginning to complain that they couldn't feel the effects as strongly as they previously could. I had explained that it was simply them building up a tolerance, but I realized recently that wasn't the case. Through a bit of experimentation, I discovered that two stats affect one's resilience against its effects.”
Mike took a shot in the dark. “Constitution and wisdom?”
Alex snapped his fingers. “Close, but not quite. The two stats are constitution and interestingly enough, charisma. That second one took a while to figure out, but one of my buyers realized it after raising the stat to be quite high.”
“So what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Well, I needed to make a more powerful version of the drug in order to compensate for the increased tolerance, and I realized it might not be the best idea for this stuff to be out and about with no restrictions on it.”
Mike perked up. “Oh, you are getting a bit of a conscience to you? I hadn't expected that.”
“Well, kind of. It’s more covering my ass, as I know either the council or you would come knocking down my door after the first level 20 person ‘popped’ after taking the stronger version.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Mike asked, not knowing if he heard correctly. “Popped?”
“Yeah.” Alex said, rubbing his shoulder. “The effect of making your mana go haywire only got stronger with the more potent version, and that effect tends to be extremely dangerous when somebody can't handle their mana rampaging through their body with the vigor of a berserker.”
Mike looked at the man, deadly serious. “Alex, have you killed somebody with this?”
“What? God no! I haven’t done anything as horrible as that. I just assume ‘popping’ is what would happen, but I have never actually given it to somebody of a low enough level to find out. I gave it to one poor sap who was level 30, and he had to get sent to Aaron’s clinic after his mana shot out of his torso, blasting a crater through him on its way out.” He pointed to a black spot on the ground. “Happened right there.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna have to say hell no. You can not give this to people. At least, not to anybody lower than level 50. Even then, you have to be 100 percent sure that they aren’t going to be giving it to anybody else. I just want you to know, anything that happens as a result of this will fall squarely on your shoulders.”
“Understood. I only have three clients I would trust enough with this, so that is who I will give it to.”
“Who is it?”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t think they would want you to know that.”
“Fine, but the first time someone ‘pops’, you are done making this stuff.”
Mike left the building, going to the next person he wanted to talk to. He made it to the entrance of Martin's dungeon, seeing that the entrances now had good looking stone bricks laid across the ground. The lines to enter were longer than ever. Mike walked over to the spot where he knew the wall gave way to a control room, and sure enough a chunk of stone slid down, allowing him to enter.
The control room also looked much better than he remembered, with the walls and floor all being chiseled to not look like the rouge rock they had previously been. Screens of mana displaying many teams moving through the dungeon lined the walls. He even saw three that looked to have people going through solo.
“So, it seems like you have expanded.” Mike said, looking at the 10 different screens on the walls.
“I have.” Martin said. “It’s almost getting boring, staring at people killing spiders all day.”
“Well then you are probably going to like the news I am bringing.”
“Martin's gaze snapped to Mike, a smile splitting his face. “Did you conquer another lair? Oh please tell me it’s a good one.”
“I did, and yes it is a good one. It is a mountain that is quite far away, but the space it has for monsters is huge. There is even a second lair on top that if ever conquer could be developed in tandem with the first.”
“Oh yeah.” Martin said, fist pumping. “You got me all excited now. I’ll have to start looking for somebody to take control of this dungeon for me. Maybe somebody who is at a low level and can specialize in the profession.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it while you get that all figured out. Tell Kenny I said hi.”
“Will do.”
Mike left, going to look for the next person he wanted to speak with. After asking around a bit, he found Lila teaching some people to use their magic to create small barriers to protect themselves. He waited for a bit while she finished up the lesson, and she walked over after she was done.
“Took you long enough to get back.” Lila said. “I was worried you were dead.”
“Come one, you can’t have a little faith in your leader?” Mike joked.
“I do, you were just gone for a while. Anyways, I’m sure Hobbes already told you what I wanted to talk about?”
“He did not.”
“Oh, well in that case let me just rip the band-aid off. I am going to be leaving for Hildran in a couple of weeks.” She said, a slightly sad hint to her voice.
“Hildran? Never heard of it.”
“Really? I know you have been living in the mountains but I’m surprised you don’t know about it. It is by far the largest settlement. They still aren’t a village due to not yet having a currency, and I am pretty sure they are trying to avoid having strong night raids. Anyways it is the city built by the people who spawned in the middle of the safe zone. All the children and their parents.”
“Why are you going there?” Mike asked.
“I need to go see my family. I am certain that my parents and my little sister are all there, and I just need to see them.”
“Why haven’t you already left? You probably could have gone and seen them a while ago.”
Her cheeks turned a bit red when he said that. “Well, there are a few reasons. I wasn't sure about making a trip that long on my own. It is quite a distance after all. I also just wanted to let you know that I’d be leaving. It is going to be a while before we see each other again.”
“Oh, well thanks for telling me I guess. Maybe I’ll try and visit if I ever decide to drop by Hildran.”
Lila smiled at that, the redness leaving her cheeks a bit. “Yeah, that’d be nice. I’m gonna go and get ready to leave now, so I’ll see you when I see you I guess.” She leaned in and gave Mike a quick hug, which he returned with a bit of surprise. He watched her walk away before getting ready to go to the next person on his list.
It wasn't until halfway through his flight to Dune that he stopped for a second and thought. “Wait a minute… Oh.” He said, stopping his flight for a moment. He didn't know how he missed it, but there was probably a reason Lila had thought it important to say goodbye to Mike. He also didn't think that hug meant nothing either. He continued his flight, resolving that he would drop by Hildran whenever he could think of a good reason to.