“You want what?” Pydes asked as he looked up from his laptop.

Arthur scratched the back of one of the earth elementals that had curled up in his lap. The creature squealed with satisfaction before giving a yawn that seemed loud for its size. With a shake of his head, he scratched it under his chin, feeling the anger that had plagued him since his meeting with Chris fade.

“I want to build a bathhouse and a proper R&D lab in The Assembly’s base. Also, I want to know how many Perk Points it’ll cost for me to claim and rebuild the skyscraper.” His tone was light as he spoke, wanting to get what he hoped would be the easiest part of this meeting out of the way first.

They hadn’t yet touched on what had happened during his trip. A conversation he wasn’t looking forward to repeating. His bruises still hurt.

With a clack of claws on a keyboard, Pydes hummed to himself before he turned and looked away from his screen and toward the city.

“That’s going to depend.”

“On what?” Arthur asked, keeping an eye on the water elementals that fluttered by.

Pydes returned his attention to him. “How do you want to go about it? Let’s start with the easiest one. You want the skyscraper, correct?”

“Yes.” Arthur nodded.

He could already envision sitting at the top and looking out over the city. His hoard would fill the bottom floors between the meeting rooms and, of course, the multi-story bookstore. It would be something similar to Diaboli Theatrum, but skyward instead of buried.

“Ok, for that, you’ll need at least three perk points. It’s a large building that’s fairly damaged. Plus, what do you want to do with it when you get it?”

“A command structure,” Arthur answered without issue. “Plus, my bookstore.”

“I see.”

Pydes tapped away at the keyboard some more before he sat back again and looked at the screen. He hummed again, his tail thrashing, before he blinked.

“Hmm. Alright. Good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news?” Arthur asked, trying not to jostle the elemental in his lap.

“If you want to make it your command structure, like you said, you can. It’ll even come fully furnished, and you can spend extra perk points to upgrade rooms. No more sleeping on the couch for you. Plus, plenty of space for anything else you want to put into it.”

A frown crossed Arthur’s face. “And the bad news?”

“Seeing as you’re not a wandering trader, having a command structure like that will force you to stay here. At least for a while. No buying buildings outside the city. So if you were hoping to upgrade the farms, you’re out of luck.” Pydes stretched out, trails of smoke wafting from his nose.

“Why? That seems... random.”

“It’s less so than you think,” Pydes said as he tapped at the keyboard again. “By limiting you to buying buildings near your command structure, your focus stays where it should be. We don’t need you to take over the world, Arthur.”

“Fine.”

He didn’t fully agree with Pydes, but it wasn’t the stupidest rule someone in an upper management position had ever come up with. Besides, with The Greenhouse, he could always use that research to enhance the farm’s crops. It wasn’t like perk points were the only way he could get buildings repaired.

He still remembered the rather large amount of brick that Sally’s group had brought back. With those, he was sure he could get a small structure built. All he’d need would be cement and someone who knew what they were doing. The former of which, he would bet, The Multiverse Mall would have for sale.

A part of him wondered if he could hire builders there too, or find an abandoned SEM to do it. There had to be more than Deliah and Jeremy’s farming robot.

Pydes interrupted his musings to ask more about his building plans.

“What was that about a bathhouse?”

“Oh, right.” Arthur nodded. “I wanted to build a bathhouse. Sure, the box works, but it’s not great. A company one that I can charge non-company employees for. I figured we could use one of the buildings being cleared a street over.”

“Hmm,” Pydes hummed before he nodded. “Yup, that’s easy enough to do. I will cost you two perk points. Fair warning, you will need to supply your own radiation crystals for the hot water.”

“Done.” He didn’t hesitate to agree to those terms.

They would be easy to manage. A single level up would do it now that he received a perk point at every level.

“As for the R&D Lab? No. Not unless you can get the current tenants of the building to sell it to you.”

Arthur cursed even as he nodded. “Makes sense. I’ll see what I can do. How much longer till I hit my next level, anyway?”

“Tomorrow I would guess by these numbers,” Pydes said. “The other store is pulling in a decent amount of experience. Now. We really should talk about your trip.”

A sigh escaped his mouth at Pydes’ words, and he nodded. “Alright, so here’s what happened...”

***

The elementals had all fled as Pydes went on a tirade against Wilth.

Arthur had to admit that it shocked even him to see the dragon so totally unhinged. He was stomping across the roof, roaring, and slamming his tail into trees. Golden Pennies reigned down from shaking branches, and Arthur reached over to pick one up.

He flicked it between his fingers as he waited for Pydes to calm down. It took longer than he would have liked. Not that time was that much of a concern for him. Still, he couldn’t help but be relieved when Pydes finally flopped back down in front of his laptop.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Do you feel better?” Arthur asked.

Pydes snorted, a thick cloud of black smoke wafting into the air. “No. So he tried to rob and beat you? In some ways, I’m surprised he had it in him. At least we know for sure why he’s been blocking my messages. Fine. This is something we can solve. You said Indigo wanted you to talk to Rathnil? Sorry. Thraknor.”

“Do you know what name?” Arthur flicked the coin into the air, catching it and flicking it back up.

“I do,” Pydes admitted. “He got kicked out for messing with things he shouldn’t, though what he was doing exactly, I don’t know. Not that it matters much. You need to talk to him, and so you shall. If you’re lucky, he might even respond better to his own name.”

With a surge of motion that caught Arthur off guard, the dragon leapt to his feet and paced. “I’m going to make sure you have a way to contact Gastho. It’ll be good to have someone who can move around the head office. You need to do what Indigo tells you.”

“Why?”

Ice-blue eyes widened in shock, and Arthur wondered exactly how stupid the question he’d just asked was.

“Because he was one of Mother’s top spies. He would go into other worlds and sort out these exact situations. She disbanded them a while ago. No point paying their rather large salaries for what they found in the end.”

“Of course it was a cost-cutting measure,” Arthur thought as he forced himself not to roll his eyes.

“So, I would listen to what he says. Oh, I’m going to enjoy watching Wilth get buried.”

“I can tell,” Arthur said as he sat up. “What do you think I should do? Any advice?”

Pydes gave a shrug. “Find out where Thraknor is and do as you’re told. I’ll get a line to Gastho. The next time you go to the mall, he’ll be there.”

“Great. Maybe he’ll be able to tell me what to buy to solve the problem,” Arthur said. As he got to his feet, an idea came to him. “Can you organize some data about the store for me?”

“What do you need?”

“Can you tell me the quantity of weapons and armor we’ve sold? I want to know how equipped we are in case we simply need to march until the pit.”

“About forty weapons and thirty sets of armor,” Pydes said after tapping at his laptop. “Most of it is low-powered stuff.”

“Thanks Pydes.”

Arthur waved to the few elementals that skulked about and moved to the edge of the roof. Now that bit of fun was done, he needed to find Theobold. He needed to find out which cultists were masterminding this campaign against his employees, and he knew exactly where to start.

***

By asking around, Arthur found out that Theobold was with Nyssa.

Someone had recently hired her to do a paint job at one of the company houses. His excitement at seeing her new project died when he spotted Davey and two of his friends. Upon seeing him, they paused before making a beeline in his direction.

He gripped his cane when he noticed Davey’s scowl, but relaxed it when he heard Augustus behind him shift his weight. Even if the man came at him, Arthur knew he had no cause to worry. Around the street, people stopped to watch and whisper.

“We need to talk,” Davey said, as he folded his arms across his chest in what he probably thought was an intimidating pose.

Unfortunately for him, having access to a mutated rat carrying a baseball bat made such displays pointless. Arthur instead smiled, even as he felt that little ember of rage billow up. He tapped his cane against the ground, causing it to thump harder than he intended. Behind Davey, his two friends glanced nervously at each other.

“Of course. How can I, and by extension, Apocalypse Assortments, help you today?”

Davey’s scowl deepened at his posh tone. “You said we’d be getting better housing soon. Where is it?”

“That would depend on who is leading the project,” Arthur said with a shrug, returning to his normal tone. “They would know more than I would.”

“And who’s in charge, if not you?” Davey asked, looking around at the surrounding watchers as though expecting someone to raise a hand.

No one did. Arthur paused, debating how to answer. It wasn’t a project he’d assigned to anyone he knew. A situation he should have taken care of earlier. That would need to change, and as he looked at the man standing in front of him, he knew how.

His smile grew wider as he looked Davey in the eye. He appreciated the way he shrank back from the expression. It would make things easier.

“How would you like the job, then?”

The question seemed to throw the man for a loop. He glanced back at his friends, who both looked equally perplexed. Arthur simply waited for them to think the idea through. He didn’t want to need to worry about the housing project, and expanding his business to construction would net him a fair amount in an apocalypse.

Greed filled him at the idea of all the coins that would end up flowing into his hoard.

“Well?” he asked again when Davey still hadn’t responded.

The words caused him to refocus on Arthur, and he frowned. “Why offer me the position?”

“Two reasons,” Arthur said, ticking them off on his fingers. “One. This is clearly a project you care about, which I assume means you’ll actually try to get it done properly. Two, I’ve been thinking about expanding Apocalypse Assortments, and this is an excellent opportunity.”

Davey continued to frown. “And if I don’t want the position?”

“Find me someone who does, and then you can bother them about project details.” Arthur shrugged.

“I. Wait. What would the job entail?”

“To start with? I want you to go check on the teams that are trying to clear the rubble out of the way. Then, I have some books on DIY projects you’ll need to read. See if you can figure out exactly what we need in terms of materials. Maybe send someone to the knights to see if they can’t help you.”

Davey nodded. “Ok. I... I can do that. I think.”

“Great. Here.”

STAFF HIRE FORM - Davey Grimes

NICKNAME: N/A

Position

Team Lead - Construction

Work Load

Full Time

Salary

100 Golden Pennies a month.

Hours

9am-5pm

Benefits

N/A

Access Level

Clerk

“I... yes, ok,” Davey said, and Arthur could almost feel his eyes burning holes into his salary.

“Great!” Arthur repeated. “Do your best. Come to me if there are any other issues.”

“Sure, boss.” Davey nodded quickly as he turned and headed toward the clearing teams, with his friends following behind him.

The rest of the people on the street appeared to relax, and he could hear them whisper. Most were simply mentioning how pleased they were that they didn’t have to call Mike’s team. Arthur was, too. Plus, it meant he didn’t need to get someone to clean up after Augustus.

He found Nyssa behind one house, packing away her spray cans. Splotch sat on her shoulder. The tiny elemental yawned as he sleepily blinked at Theobold, who lounged nearby.

“Hey,” Arthur said as he walked up to the pair.

Nyssa smiled and waved as Theobold sprang to his feet and snapped off a salute.

“Did Mike send out my replacements?” He asked as he moved over to stand next to Augustus.

Arthur nodded. “Yes. Are you ready to go?”

“I am.” Theobold saluted again before turning to Nyssa with a questioning look.

She smiled and nodded. “I’ll head back with you. Thanks, Theobold. You can’t be too careful.”

Arthur was sure he saw her eyes flick to a nearby patch of road as Splotch squeaked. He didn’t need to ask. Dr. Lisa’s kidnapping would have rattled anyone.

“In that case, let’s get going,” he said, trying to inject as much cheer into his voice as he could.

Splotch chirped, and Arthur couldn’t help but smile. One that turned far more insidious as he thought about exactly what he planned to do when he arrived at Diaboli Theatrum.