The others left early the next day to finish the minutiae of diplomacy. Blah, I was thankful I didn't have to be involved. I did my time sitting through mind-numbing meetings when I worked in IT.

After they left, I decided to make nice with the guards. I packed a table, some chairs, and a whole case of my beer into my ring, then I headed outside.

I found the four from yesterday standing off to the side, quietly watching me. I walked down the ramp and approached them. When I was ten feet away, I pulled the folding table out from my ring. It was a circular fake wood table, the kind you would find in a school cafeteria. Because that was exactly where Martin had sourced these items from. They even had the faded school markings on the bottom. Next came the folding chairs. Not the cheap ones either. These had decent padding on the top.

I casually sat down at the chair facing them, dealing out cards in five places along with a set of plastic poker chips. I still didn't get any bites. I arched an eyebrow and reached into the center of the table. The tinkle of bottles clinking together rang through the morning air as I deposited the cold alcohol for all to see. It was the first sign of surprise and eagerness I had seen from the four.

I waited, tapping my cards on the table. The four looked at each other, then looked around. Slowly they each took a seat and a bottle of my finest. I smiled, if you can't win them over with kindness, do it with liquor.

The game of Texas Hold 'Em went on for a few hours. The five of us burned through my entire stock of beer. Not that I was even mildly drunk. Sometimes having high endurance was kind of a pain. Surprisingly Tyrone was the drunkest. I was surprised because he was six-foot-five and looked like a linebacker. Anisha seemed to handle her liquor the best, able to easily keep up with me. The other two were definitely feeling it.

I spotted people coming and quickly cleansed the inebriation from my poker companions. Everything else vanished into my ring, except the table, chairs, and cards.

Tyrone seemed to be a bit surprised by being forcibly sobered up but the others were quick to realize what I had done. They didn't get up but they were more alert.

As the new group approached, the four stood up to greet them.

"Watch is over, we're here to relieve you," a dour-faced man said.

The four simply nodded and headed back towards town.

"So... you guys up for some cards?"

The three behind the dour man seemed interested, but he just glared at me.

"Guess not," I said, cleaning up the cards. I decided to play solitaire until my friends were done and came to get me. My watch said it was around eleven A.M. I hoped this was going to be a lunch feast and not a dinner one. I don't think I could take six hours of playing solitaire.

After about an hour a well-dressed man came walking from the town. He didn't look overly happy about having to walk through the grass to get to my location but I didn't feel like parking on a road and there were no convenient parking lots large enough this far outside of the town.

"Mr. Fuller, I presume," the man said, extending his hand to me.

"Uh-huh, call me Paul," I said, motioning for him to take a seat opposite me and not shaking his hand. Sure it was rude but who knew what types of magic there were. Better safe than sorry.

"What can I do for you...Mr. Frielan?" I had to pause and use Identify to get his name.

The man didn't seem ruffled by my knowing his name.

"Mr. Hornwell has sent me out here to negotiate the purchase of some weapons."

My instincts told me that this guy had been some sort of lawyer before the world ended. He didn't have a class that added anything to it if he was though. His class was Analyst and whatever he did, he made it to level ten. That was a respectable level for a non-combat class.

"Yeah, Martin mentioned something about that. How many were you looking to purchase?" I asked, flipping over another card and sighing.

"It might be better if you give us an idea of how many you have available to purchase, M-... Paul," the man stated amicably, catching his faux pas.

I chewed on his words for a bit. It could be an attempt to wheedle out how powerful I was. But if it was it was pretty transparent. Not that it mattered. I had twelve cannons installed in the fortress and fifty-six to sell. I wasn't going to offer all fifty-six to him though.

"I have twenty-five for sale."

The man looked at a loss for words for a split second but recovered quickly.

"Good... good. We are willing to offer trade as well as credit. Do you have a price in mind?"

I did actually price out the cannons while I was in Houston. Turns out they are impossible to purchase unless you were royalty or belonged to a dwarven clan. It's a good thing I hadn't tried to sell them while I was there. It probably would have resulted in some very nasty people coming to hunt me down, just to figure out where they came from. So, I put a conservative estimate of four thousand credits per unit. While they were powerful items, they were rather basic in design.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Four thousand credits per unit. If you purchase all twenty-five I'll drop the total to eighty thousand."

"A very generous offer, Paul. How about sixty-five, fifty in credits and the rest in trade goods?"

I just shook my head and kept playing cards. Eventually, he relented.

"Would you consider fifty-five thousand in credits and the rest in trade goods?"

"What sort of trade goods?"

The man smiled, knowing he had me on the line now. He just had to reel me in. I kept my face placid, easily accomplished since I learned the skill while in slavery.

It turns out they mostly had beef. Not just ordinary beef, but grass-fed black Angus beef. It wasn't Wagyu but I hadn't had a good cut of beef in years. Getting old and having to cut back pre-System sucked. I agreed to entertain the offer, as the lunch festivities would include a spread of the meat to sample.

I followed the man, after packing up my table and chairs, we were heading for the house where the shindig would be held.

***

The party wasn't so bad. Mr. Hornwell's house was large but not a mansion. He lived on a large ranch called the Hornwell Ranch. Yeah, not very original but whatever. I learned that Carlson Hornwell had raised cattle before the System. And while some of the creatures were irreparably changed due to the effects of mana, most were not. Even the ones that were, turned out to be far tastier.

It was one of these that had been slaughtered for the feast. I didn't find out what it was called but the head and horns were on display at the end of the table. The thing was massive, easily the size of an elephant and the horns were enormous. At the base, they were wider than my torso. The end had to be cut off and was standing on the floor and brushing against the ten-foot-tall ceiling.

I could easily sell those and would make sure that at least a few of the creatures were included in my deal. As I sipped on water and kept mostly to myself I caught a flash from something in the kitchen. When I turned to look I didn't see what had caught my attention until the door swung open again. My eyes fell on something I had never expected to see again.

I was so surprised I just blurted out, "what's that doing here?"

Mr. Frielan, who had been doggedly keeping me company the entire time, looked to where I was pointing. "You mean I/O? We found her wandering near the mountains. A sad tale that one. Have you ever met a Gargon?"

At first, my anger kept me from responding. I thought she might have been a slave or that these people had been the ones to wipe out her town. But from the sounds of it, that wasn't the case. How she managed to cross the massive mountain range was beyond me.

"Huh, oh. We came across a town of them a month or so ago. Everyone was dead."

Mr. Frielan nodded. "It matches up with what she told us. Around four months ago a group of humans came to her village while she was out. They pretended to be friendly and then herded all the Gargons into a group, then slaughtered them. Then they went to the birthing factory as she called it and did the same to the remaining units as well as the progenitors."

"If she was out of the town, how does she know what happened?"

Frielan tapped his temple, "she downloaded their memories. Would you like to meet her?"

"Sure, I guess."

I followed the man into the kitchen, where the Gargon was preparing food. It seemed odd.

"I/O, come say hi to our guest."

The mechanical woman's head slicked up and rotated to look at us, it was a very mechanical motion. "Ah, Mr. Frielan, how are you this evening," the not quite human-sounding voice came from where her mouth was situated, although there was no movement.

She walked over but her movements weren't fluid like Ska's they were more sudden and deliberate, it reminded me of the robotic arms used in manufacturing. Even with the quick deliberate movements, she easily weaved her way through the busy kitchen without hitting anything or anyone.

"I/O, this is Paul. He told me he came across your village."

Her head jerked in my direction and I could see her mechanical eyes adjust and scan my features.

"He was not with the men that terminated the others."

"No... No,” I coughed, “my friends and I came across your village only a month ago. Can you tell me what happened and how you got here?"

"I was out collecting material. When I returned they were all dead. After I interfaced with the dead, I learned that a group of progenitors had killed them."

"Progenitors?" I asked in confusion.

Mr. Frielan cleared his throat, "she means humans. Some off-world humans created the Gargons."

"Mr. Frielan is correct," I/O stated.

"Were you able to learn who killed them?"

"No, they gave no names, but I stored all of their faces for future reference. Would you like to see?"

"You can show me? Um yeah, please do."

Her eyes started flickering and light came out to form a floating image in front of her. I thought I recognized one of the men.

"Did they say anything?"

A recorded voice spilled from her mouth.

"Stone says to finish up here and pile the bodies. We have to finish up in Chicago."

Dammit, I did recognize one of the men. It was Jacob Moore, that prick that led me to Stone and the Stygian Order assholes.

"Does that help?" I/O asked.

"Yes, thank you. How did you get over the mountains?"

"Simple, I climbed over."

"Seems like a risk."

"Very little. I don't eat, sleep, or drink. And the temperature doesn't affect me."

"Ok, what about monsters?"

"Plenty of those, none bothered me though."

"Well, that must be nice. Thank you for your time I/O."

She nodded quickly and returned to her workstation.

"Is something wrong, Paul?" Frielan asked,

"I think I know who was responsible for killing off her people. Where they are now or why they did it is a mystery though."

"Well, if you ever come across them, perhaps do the world a favor and rid it of people like that."

"Oh, trust me, I will. Will you excuse me, I need some fresh air."

I stepped outside. What were they up to? First, they killed off some random village in the middle of nowhere, full of sentient and seemingly harmless robotic humanoids. Then they popped up to Chicago to disrupt and destroy the Black Dragon. I also knew from questioning Michael, that they were in New York but had been handed their asses there.

I tapped the railing on the porch as I thought. Whatever they were up to I doubted it was anything good. No organization utilized that much secrecy if they were helping out. If I didn't have the looming threat of the Black Dragon hanging over my head I would set out to root the Order out first. But I didn't even know where to start looking for them. I would have to set out some feelers, see if I could make contacts, and keep my ears open when we visited more towns. Something was bound to come up eventually.

Seeing as my mood was ruined, I decided to walk back to the ship. First, I thanked Mr. Frielan and agreed to his terms on the deal. He would come to pick up the weapons in the morning.