The next morning Rory walked into the office of Carlisle Herbal Processing and Remittance, thinking briefly about the now-familiar serpentine “M” he had seen on the doorway. He adjusted his brand new business clothes, which were dark slacks and a button-down shirt.
Upon entering, he realized it was desked by an older man with a bald pate and gray hair. Rory found it interesting that this place did not use automated interfaces like most of the more advanced facilities he had been to and wondered if that was how it was so easy to manipulate things. For example, like putting a contact poison on a delivery.
Rory walked up to the counter with an amiable expression. “I need to see the manager about a critical business transaction. One that could be quite profitable, potentially.”
The old man behind the counter, who Rory noticed did not have an inscription, seemed to hesitate, but said he’d go get his boss and walked off. A few minutes later another man, middle aged with black hair and wearing a light brown suit, walked up with an obviously fake smile. “Good morning,” he said disingenuously. “How can I help you?”
“Is there someplace private we can speak to discuss some important business?” Rory asked cordially.
The man’s eyebrows rose, gave Rory an up-down scan. “Yes. Please follow me.”
There were nothing but offices, tablets, and crates throughout the building that Rory could see as he approached. He did notice an open door that led to a warehouse filled with people working to fill crates, move materials, and that kind of thing. It appeared quite busy and demonstrated that Carlisle’s was the biggest local provider of this sort of goods.
Rory wondered if they drove their competition out of business legally. In the end, legal or not, it didn’t concern him. He was there for more personal than business reasons; although he did want to talk business too.
They finally got to a sparse conference space with M-steel furniture meant to hold at least eight. The man sat at the end and Rory sat in the seat next to him. He had spent the evening preparing for this discussion, remembering everything he knew about enforcers, Chief, and how things ran in the slums. It still surprised Rory that things up here were pretty much the same. He had truly believed everything was better for the rich.
“How can we help you, mister…” he asked, leaving the end for Rory to fill in.
Ignoring his implied question, Rory asked, “What’s your name? Are you a Carlisle?”
The man looked taken aback and then annoyed. “Yes. I’m Bri-”
“Excellent,” Rory interrupted. “Mr. Carlisle. I represent a local business owner who, as of a few weeks ago, owns Elphina’s Alchemy and a few other concerns in the Western Commerce Center. I understand you have been making it difficult for one of my boss’s businesses. You will stop.”
The man gaped at Rory and then looked him up and down again. The man’s face got hard and said, “I don’t know who you think—”
Rory raised his voice, interrupting again. “My boss doesn’t take kindly to interference in his business and can be very aggressive in dealing with people who interfere.”
The man’s face reddened. “I don’t care who the fuck your boss is. You know what? We aren’t going to do business with your boss anymore. That old hag can get her shit from somewhere else!”
“I’m sure Morton paid you well to poison one of my boss’s employees.” His eyes widening and his face going pale told Rory everything he needed to know. And it confirmed what he believed about that symbol he’d been seeing around the western district. And the slums.
Once Rory had told her about his plan, Elphina had given him the name and what information she could on the history and current situation with the gangster who managed the smaller businesses and more illegal side of things throughout the western district of Brompton.
It turned out that each district had their own “Chief” and Morton was the boss of the west. He would also make a visit to each of the slum Chiefs’ houses to look at their symbols and discover who owned which. But that was not the point of today’s visit.
“You know Morton, don’t you?” Rory asked Carlisle. “The guy who paid you to make it difficult for my boss to run his business? Yeah, I’ve heard of him too. Morton, I mean. Did you hear that eight of his men seem to have vanished? Just disappeared. Poof. Into thin air. Like nobody will ever see them again.” The last words were said slower and with a much firmer tone.
The man’s face was like a kaleidoscope, changing from white to red to purple and back. Rory nodded and spoke again, but back in a genial tone. “Yes. Quite concerning for the local neighborhood. Mr. Morton will be next on my boss’s list, but for now, he sent me to have a conversation with you to determine if you could see reason. He really does prefer business over accidents. And I assure you, accidents happen to people who gain my boss’s attention. Tell me, Mr. Carlisle, can you be reasonable? I think it could be profitable for both you and him.”
Rory went silent, leaning back and tapping the table. Man, was he glad he paid attention to how the folks did business back home. At the time he was thinking about how to use the knowledge to negotiate if he ever found anything of value that Mick wouldn’t or couldn’t handle. But now it showed an unexpected side-benefit.
It took Carlisle nearly ten seconds to get a hold of himself. Then he spoke up with a face Rory wasn’t happy to see. “Get out.”
Rory raised his eyebrows. “Are you certain you want to take this tact?”
The man just glared at him.
Rory sighed, shook his head, and stood. “Shame.”
He turned around and left the office, being sure to stare into the loading room on his way out, and letting Carlisle see he was staring. Then he exhaled, shook his head again, and walked out of the office.
That had not gone how he had wanted it to, obviously. Now Rory had no choice. He couldn’t let Elphina’s fail, both because he was too heavily invested and because he found he liked the pair of nutty alchemist ladies. That meant taking action. Rory exited the building and went around a corner to another warehouse, occasionally glancing at his commo. In particular, his quickly draining power meter.
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Carlisle’s neighbor in the industrial park was a firm that managed transported goods arriving on the planet via transport beacon and then got them where they needed to go. Once there, Rory once again asked to see the manager. He didn’t have an appointment but was allowed in and asked about buying things from other worlds such as alchemy ingredients.
“Sir. I’ll be honest with you,” the manager responded. George was an older man but in quite good shape, despite not being a wielder. “It’s probably better to buy locally. The facility next door sells those very things and will certainly offer you better pricing than I can. The tariffs on the beacons make importing from other worlds less profitable unless I raise my prices to offset it.” Rory noticed that his face had tightened just a little when he had made the suggestion. That said, the man had made it anyway.
“I appreciate your honesty,” Rory said, trying to hide his growing exhaustion as he glanced once again at this power meter. “You sent me to your competitor even though you clearly dislike them so I can get a lower price. I appreciate that in a business. But you know, I don’t feel so good about the future prospects of that place for some reason. And I feel that I can trust you more than them.”
His raised eyebrows showed his surprise. “Really? They’ve always done quite well—”
All of a sudden Rory and the man heard noises from outside the office. When the man got up and the room’s door slide aside, they saw people rushing around calling out nervously. Rory looked at the man, showing concern. “Excuse me,” George said quickly as he turned back, clearly worried. Rory nodded and he was off.
Rory exhaled tiredly and closed his eyes. Then he withdrew a piece of jerky from his ring and ate it hungrily. He had just finished the last bite when he heard the door slide open. Opening his eyes, he looked curiously at George, who remained standing in the doorway and looking quite scared.
“Is everything alright?” Rory asked.
“You look pale, sir. But don’t worry,” George said consolingly. “So far everything seems okay here. But we may be instructed to clear out. There was a creature breakout nearby.”
Rory stood shakily. “What. Are we safe?”
The man nodded. “That is what we were told by the local constables, but the fact that a decent-sized snake of some sort appeared next door and started rampaging makes me nervous.”
“What?!” Rory exclaimed.
The man nodded solemnly. “Yes. A few of the workers ran in here looking for shelter, which, of course, we provided.”
“Can I speak to them?” Rory asked.
The man nodded and took him to a group of five normals in overalls and workman’s clothing shakily drinking water or comforting each other.
“I’m so sorry,” Rory said softly. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Four of the group looked at a fifth. “I saw it,” that one answered shakily. “A great bloody snake tore up the place!”
“Seriously? Was anyone hurt? Can you tell me what you saw?” Rory asked quickly.
“It was all normal, just a day o’ work. Then a bloody brown snake…” He held his arms wide, “…bigger than that just popped out from the side and starting smacking everything and spitting this shit that melted whate’r it touched. It went erywhere! Thank the Queen it didn’t hurt anybody, but it must really not liked herbs cause it broke the crates with all of tha goods. And it melted the machines with whate’r came outta its mouth. I never been so scared in my life! Eryone went crazy, runnin and screamin. Someone came and shot it but it just bounced off. Someone else came and use a big ol’ sword and chopped it and it disappear like nutin.” He raised shaky hands to his face and then look up again. “But erything’s ruined. Are we gonna have jobs? How I gunna feed my family?”
Rory pondered the description of events. When things had gone bad with Carlisle, Rory had spent three SVs on his newest summon, the Terra Basilisk. They are quite large – as proven by the “infant” he had killed – so he figured a level 2 would be good enough. Apparently, he had been right.
He was relieved his plan had panned out. First, he had summoned it without being in physical contact, which he had not been positive was possible. But it had worked and he had done so behind a bunch of crates by the door he had seen as he has stood in the doorway.
Second, based on what had happened with Crann and Elphina, he believed he could give it specific instructions like, for example, “Wreck the place but don’t hurt the humans.”
The third part of the plan had been to prove out an accidental discovery, also from Elphina. When he had been helping her, he had closed his eyes and, strangely, had seen from Crann’s point of view. Thus Rory wondered if that would stay true with the snake. It had and he had used it to dismiss the snake as soon as the sword had struck.
And finally, he had wanted to prove, one way or another, that he could control a summon from a distance. It had increased the Soul Power draw, but it had worked.
When added all together, those four parts of his plan were why he had been so pale, shaky, and tired. But the food, specially bought for the purpose of replenishing soul power for those less than tier one, helped offset some of the exhaustion. It wasn’t a miracle or anything, but he was still low level and, frustratingly, had been unable to invest any SVs in the Power attribute. This meant both his power level, meaning the pool he could pull from, as well as its regeneration, were low compared to the output of his summons.
I really need to raise that. What adds power thought? Need to think that one through.
Either way, Rory had summoned his terra basilisk and asked it to make a mess of the place without hurting anyone. The little brown fellow had followed his instructions perfectly based upon the story of the man in front of him.
Gotta give him a name.
Well, the expense of SVs had been worth it, both for the test and outcome in Rory’s view.
And now we’ll see what Carlisle does. Or more importantly, what this Morton does…
That said, this innocent worker’s concern about his job kind of bugged Rory. He had not wanted to be the reason people lost their jobs. Not having enough to feed a family was all too familiar. So he turned to the man who had been helping him work a deal to get stuff for Elphina.
“George, right?” Rory asked him. He nodded. “George, if I were to make a number of orders, do you think you could temporarily find shipping, packaging, or whatever work for these men? I don’t have enough need for more than that, but I feel bad about their situation.”
George looked at him, clearly surprised. Maybe even impressed. “Let’s complete our business and see what kind of need we can come up with to help them, if only for a few days. How does that sound?”
After they were back in the conference room, Rory sent the list of ingredients that Elphina had provided him earlier. At the time, Rory had hoped Carlisle could be turned away from Morton. But that had not happened, so instead, Rory paid fifteen percent more to George on behalf of Elphina’s, but made a triple order.
As far as Rory was concerned, he was fully in with the alchemist. Even more than after their initial bargain. When he had gone there prior to visiting Carlisle, Rory had given £200,000 of his own money to the Elphina to invest into the alchemy shop so she could order herbs and whatever else the two ladies needed to make that super expensive rainbow potion thing, plus whatever else they needed for the old woman’s other crazy concoctions.
They had been beside themselves when he had given them the quid. Penny had cried hysterically and Elphina hugged him and patted him, saying more about karma. As it was the third time she had mentioned that term, he had decided he needed to look it up whenever he remembered and had time.
Anyway, the ingredients would be shipped directly to the shop after arriving on planet via George’s people. Thus, Elphina would not have to worry about going anywhere, nor being poisoned again. At least not like that.
After he and George finished working through the various orders, Rory nervously went to his predetermined located for his previously booked transport.
In this mind, this next visit was going to be far more intimidated than almost anything else Rory had done since being healed. He was going to the rehab facility for his mum.