Samantha and Walter stared each other down from across the room. Though, her glare was much more effective than his. It was difficult for the man to look intimidating when on the brink of becoming ill from the pressure of her killing intent. The rest of the Delvers in the vicinity–namely the two wounded guards and the medic who’d come to help them–had fled from her presence entirely. Healing alchemicals had been enough to restore the woman’s crushed throat so she could breathe again, while the man only needed to have the tough glue ripped from his face. His other injuries looked painful but not life threatening.
“I should’ve expected this much from your kind. Was this your plan all along? To steal our hard-won rift out from under our noses? I only wonder how your oath hasn’t broken yet,” Walter sneered.
Samantha laughed once. “You can drop the act now. There’s no one here except for us.”
“This isn’t an act,” he protested. But, she could see the truth of his intent in his qi. He was wary of her, but still operating largely off of greed. He was searching for some way he could manage to exploit her.
“Blatant liars irritate me, so let’s be honest with one another,” Samantha warned. “Once Fara died and you became the strongest cultivator at this outpost you saw an opportunity. You used your guildmates’ sorrow as a tool to get what you wanted, but now that I’ve returned and you realized you’re all too weak for that to continue working… you’re trying to intimidate me with the threat of Silver reinforcements. The reason my oath to abide by the laws of this outpost hasn’t broken is because I don’t consider it valid anymore. That only applied while Harold and I were guests in your home. Not enemies, prisoners, or targets.”
“You certainly have the arrogance befitting a Silver. More proof that you’ve been deceiving us from the beginning,” Walter said through gritted teeth. “You truly believe you are capable of fending off all of us? I am a Low Silver as well, and even I couldn’t manage such a thing.”
Maybe he’s the sort that won’t understand without a more… direct demonstration.
Samantha smiled sweetly at him, then activated [Whirlwind] as soon as Walter blinked. 10 points invested into the bond ability brought her Agility up to a staggering 115, allowing her to grab him by the neck and slam him into the stone wall behind him before he’d even had the chance to open his eyes.
“I think you’ll find that my Low Silver is quite a bit different from yours.”
She let him fall to the ground wheezing and coughing while she stepped back to a safe distance and canceled the art.
“I know roughly what everyone in this outpost is capable of. Many of your strongest warriors were slain during the expedition, and the survivors are still recovering from injuries. The delvers who stayed behind rely heavily on casters to fight due to being mortal or lacking arts entirely. Even if all of you attacked at once, you’re no threat to me.”
Walter’s watering eyes looked up at her for several long seconds. He seemed to be weighing his options. “Fine, I understand. You’ve made your point. We found some of your letters in Harold’s belongings when we arrested him. They’re in that room, in a chest. Here’s the key.” He pulled a key from a small keyring on his hip and tossed it to her. “Take them and go. You can even keep the spider.”
“How generous of you,” she complimented with obvious sarcasm. “To return what was originally mine in the first place and even allow me to take Sandy with me?”
Walter scowled. “Well, what else do you want?”
“I made myself clear from the beginning. I’ll be taking Harold with me, too.”
“And I’ve already told you I can’t get him back! No one can enter that rift until after the delve is completed.”
“In that case, I’ll just be commandeering this entire building until he comes out. Then we’ll go.”
Walter’s eyes suddenly looked like they were at risk of popping out of his head. “That’s madness! I can’t just let you take over our central building!”
Samantha shrugged. “We can duel over it if you want? Victor gets to keep it.”
“You–! That’s–!” Walter spluttered. Several more seconds of silence passed, and the man seemed to be completely at a loss of words.
“Well, if you don’t want to duel for it, then what are you still standing around here for?” She hardened her tone to reflect the absolute authority she’d just gained. “You’re dismissed. Tell your people that they have five minutes to vacate the premises. If I find anyone still here after that I’ll remove them myself. I’ll let you all know when you can have the building back.”
His face reddened and his energy began to roil with indignation, but he didn’t challenge her command. He just stood and began dutifully marching out the door.
“Oh, and leave those keys, will you? I’d rather not have to break down every locked door in this place.”
Walter paused mid stride and Samantha thought for a split second she’d pushed too far. However, he didn’t fight back. He untied the key ring from his robe sash and dropped them on the ground. Then, he left.
I doubt he’ll remain so placid for long, but–
“MY HAROLD!” Sandy wailed into her mind. Now that Walter was gone Sandy focused on other matters. “Where? How reach?” She circled the rift several times as though she’d find some way inside. She even extended a foreleg to try and interact with the tear in space, which only rewarded her with a painful jolt of sparking qi. “Sandy ouch!”
Samantha rubbed at her temples. “It’s okay, Sandy. He’ll be back eventually. We just need to wait here.”
“My Harold far away. Gone. How long? When return?”
The truth was that Samantha didn’t know what the time dilation for this rift was. Judging by the condition of the expelled guard and the few words she’d caught as he was carried out, it certainly was faster than one-to-one.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure he’ll be back soon.” As she spoke, she reached out and patted the side of Sandy’s abdomen gently.
With the incoming delver reinforcements she hoped that Harold would emerge in a couple weeks or less… if he emerged at all. She knew firsthand how deadly the scenarios could be, and she had been an entire tier stronger than Harold was when she started her first one. But, she wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating him. Him killing the court alchemist on the first floor, as well as besting a High Copper guard on his own here, were proof enough that Harold was highly resourceful.
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“I must admit, I’m mildly impressed. You’re a resourceful man,” the representative praised.
Harold openly scowled at the man with his arms crossed. “Oh. It’s you again.”
The representative smiled. “It is! And it’s also you again. I was sure you’d have been reincarnated by now.”
Harold scoffed.
“I suppose I should give you the spiel that we lacked the time for during your ascension. So, you may be surprised to discover this, but–”
“Save it,” Harold cut him off. “I already heard everything from another ascendant. I’m more interested in what this place is, what’s going on, and why you’re here.”
The representative’s eye twitched. “Are you certain you don’t want to hear it directly from–”
“Yes. Just answer the other questions. You people are supposed to be helping us out, right? So, do your job.”
“...”
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“Cease fire! CEASE FIRE!” Walter commanded the delvers.
Several small fires had been started by stray caster beams that had struck wooden furniture. The rear stone wall of the central hall was pock-marked and charred from the minutes-long caster barrage, apart from a distinctly Samantha-shaped area that was left unblemished. Samantha, unlike the surrounding area, was in impeccable condition. A bit shaken from the somewhat nerve-wracking experience, but unharmed. She slowly lowered her buckler-clad arm to stare menacingly at the delvers.
She wasn’t surprised by the ‘ambush’ or her lack of injury, of course. She wouldn’t have taken this approach if she was uncertain of any aspect of it. But, it was one thing to test the sturdiness of her Rank-15 equipment with Nethershot in a controlled environment, and another to willingly allow herself to be shot at by the delvers for an extended period of time.
When she saw Walter gathering up his ambushers with [Spectral Projection], she got the idea to see if she could simply endure the caster attacks nonchalantly as a show of strength. She summoned Tobias to fire full-powered Nethershot blasts at her to see what would happen, and was pleased when it took three or four shots in the same spot to scorch her robes. Her shield also held up very well. After letting the self-repair enchantment handle the small amount of damage, she went upstairs to confront her would-be attackers. If things went poorly, Tobias, Silas, and Sandy were on standby to jump in.
“Are you all finished? Have you gotten that out of your systems?” Samanatha asked.
The delvers stared at her with a mix of shock and horror, as if she were a monster.
She turned to Walter. “That’s… twice now? Twice you’ve abused the trust the delvers have put in you. Did you even tell them my conditions properly? Or did you lie and manipulate them again?”
Several people in the group looked questioningly to their leader.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Ignore her lies! Open fire aga– urgh!”
Samantha unleashed her Low Silver killing intent and brought the entire group–save Walter–to their knees in agony. After a few seconds she let up on the pressure. There were no mortals in this group, but she didn’t want to accidentally cause lasting harm to the Coppers. There was also quite a large audience outside the building she didn’t want to unintentionally affect, though she was fairly certain they were far enough away to be safe.
Samantha spoke loudly so that her voice would carry to everyone nearby. “I didn’t think very highly of you before, Walter, but I didn’t think you were a coward. What was the point of endangering those weaker than you when you weren’t willing to duel me by yourself earlier?”
“Guildmates are supposed to… stand together,” Walter argued weakly. “It’s not cowardice.”
More delvers looked at Walter now. Some with approval, others with disgust.
“As for the rest of you, there’s no point in doing all this. As you can see, casters won’t work on me. Your strongest fighter, Walter, also refuses to honorably duel me, and weaker cultivators cannot stand up to my Silver killing intent. As I told Walter earlier, I don’t intend to occupy this building for long. Only until Harold emerges from the rift–which he was forcefully dragged into by you, I might add. After that, I’ll leave with him and this outpost will never see us again. Just go about your lives, leave us and this building alone for a couple weeks, and we’ll be gone. It really is that simple.”
The emotions she could see in the delvers began shifting and a clear divide began to form. There were those that doubted Walter and his tactics, and those that were in agreement with him.
That should hamper any further attempts to coordinate an underhanded attack.
“Samantha, can you give us your oath? Is leaving in peace really all you want?” Harper and Cole had been amongst the outside onlookers, and both of them worked their way forward towards the building during her short speech.
Samantha smiled kindly at the now-younger woman. “I give you all my cultivator’s oath that I never sought to undermine or harm this outpost when I arrived here. I also swear that I didn’t plan for the tragedy during the expedition to occur, nor did I want to cause trouble when I managed to return. In fact, I have slain the beast that attacked us and avenged the fallen.” To emphasize this point, she retrieved one of the largest teeth of the Ancient Cliff Drake from her pocket. She’d pulled it out from her domain earlier in case the trophy would be useful as proof, and it was serving that purpose now. “It was a Rank 10 Ancient Cliff Drake guarding the rift, and this trophy I took from its corpse is harder than metal. I gift it to you all as a show of my good faith.” At the mention of ‘Rank 10’, there was a collective gasp from the delvers and pockets of whispered conversations started up. Samantha ignored them all, and walked past the group of ambushers to hand the tooth to Harper.
Samantha briefly lowered her voice so only Cole and Harper could hear her. “And, as a show of good faith to both of you and thanks for the kindness you showed me…” Samantha placed her hand on Cole’s shoulder in such a way that her knuckle brushed against his bare neck. Then she activated [Flawless Healing Touch] to repair whatever injury he’d sustained to his eye. Cole jumped slightly at the sensation, but before he could comment on anything she returned to speaking to the group at large.
“Furthermore, you have my cultivator’s oath that so long as you do me and my companions no harm, I shall do you no harm. However, this is your final warning. From here on, those that attack me I will meet with deadly force. When I have retrieved Harold I will leave this outpost peacefully with my bonded beast, though I can make no promises about the behavior or intentions of Harold and his beast. I can only vow to attempt to soothe his anger at his wrongful imprisonment and ask him to spare you from violence.”
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“I am going to kill every last one of those backwater, backstabbing, delver brutes if it’s the last thing I do.” Harold’s fists were balled up on the wooden judgment dais so tightly that his knuckles were white. His hair was unkempt, dirty, and partially burnt in several places. Practically from head to toe he was covered in muck, and blood had matted into the long hairs of the beard he hadn’t had the opportunity to shave. “These scenarios are impossible.”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” the representative asked with a bored yawn. “All things considered, you’re actually performing remarkably well.”
“That’s easy for you to say! Look at this! Look!” Harold raved angrily, pointing at what remained of his right ear. “I lost my ear!”
The representative sighed, exasperated. “And whose fault is that? If you’re going to keep choosing the less combat-oriented scenarios, then you can’t keep being… yourself. You need to make friends! Connections! The only reason that happened is because you keep making enemies of everyone meant to be your allies.”
Harold grunted in annoyance. “Isn’t my being a genius enough for them? They should feel grateful I’m willing to help at all.”
The representative smiled condescendingly down at Harold. “Is that so? Well then, genius, keep doing things your way. Let’s see how that works out for you.”
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Samantha stood vigil over the rift, as she had been doing the last week. In the last seven days since Harold’s unplanned ‘delve’ things had quieted down significantly. Her final show of strength and mass-oath to the delvers finally worked to put a stop to Walter’s schemes. He did try to gather one more ambush group afterwards, but no one was willing to risk dying when waiting a few more days might solve the problem on its own.
Harper had become the unintentional go-between for her and the delvers, which Samantha had no complaints about. She had given the woman a temporary [Liaison] connection so that she could reach Samantha whenever she needed to, and vice versa. Contact between them had been strictly business to begin with, but as the days passed and the uncomfortable tensions between everyone eased slightly, the conversations became more casual. It wasn’t quite the same as when they first became friends, but it soothed Samantha’s heart to have amiable conversations with people again.
Lately there had been several requests for healing from Samantha. Word of Cole’s miraculous recovery spread quickly, especially since such potent recovery arts were exceedingly rare and expensive. She was more than happy to earn good will whenever she could, and would heal anyone that asked without requesting payment. This had helped turn public opinion more favorably towards her, though her absolute occupation of their central building was still a sore spot for most. The only person who distinctly disliked her healing activities was the designated medic of the outpost: a journeyman ‘on loan’ from the Healer’s Guild to the Delvers Guild. For every wound she closed and broken bone she mended the medic was robbed of valuable commission.
As for the Silver reinforcements, she’d been keeping a careful eye both on the riverways and on Walter’s communications. From her observations of Walter urging them to come faster via communication talisman, and the lack of boats on the waters nearby, she’d guess they were still a week or more away. She’d continue staying vigilant, but wouldn’t worry about their approach until they were much, much closer.
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Harold straightened the delicate scarf tied around his neck. The patterns had a tendency to look odd against the clean lines of his business clothing if they were crooked, and he’d learned that appearance, oftentimes, was everything.
“That’s more like it!” his representative complimented. “I’m glad you’re finally getting the hang of things. I was a little surprised when you purchased that construct after your last scenario, but–”
“Mercer,” Harold stated. He touched the small, black figurine hung around his neck. The statue depicted a short, portly man dressed in fine clothing and holding a scale in one hand and a bag of coins in the other. “His name is Mercer.”
“...yes, well… I must admit, I’ve never seen a Saboteur scenario completed quite like this before. I can see why you chose him, and not a combat construct, now. To destabilize a country’s economy by taking over the baking industry and lacing your products with addictive substances? Enthralling, truly.”
Harold beamed. “It was Mercer’s idea, actually. With him handling the finance and business aspect of my work, I was able to achieve so much more than I would’ve managed alone. I could focus on what I do best. I’m starting to enjoy these little scenarios. Just a bit. Almost enough to wish they wouldn’t end.”
“Well, about that…”
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The rift began to shake. It was the first change Samantha had noticed in the two weeks since she started standing guard over it. She could only hope that this meant Harold would be emerging soon, because reinforcements were only a few days away.
“MY HAROLD!” Sandy began skittering in agitation through the room.
The last few days in particular had been exceedingly difficult for the poor spider. Harold must have been cultivating inside the rift, because Sandy was increasing in rank rapidly. Due to the time dilation in the rift the binding thread was strained by passing siphoned energy to Sandy, and the rank ups were oftentimes accompanied with the pain of growth. She’d even had an evolution which caused her carapace to significantly darken. The now-hardened exoskeleton was more like a beetle’s shell, and had sharp, blade-like protrusions along her legs.
“Nearer! My Harold nearer!” Sandy continued excitedly.
Space began to wobble, shake, and vibrate ominously around the rift. Then, it snapped open with a loud crack and someone emerged. The person was wearing a strange, full face mask and was scanning the area for danger. In their raised, right hand was a large glass vial filled with glowing liquid, and their left hand appeared to disappear in mid air. Their eyes stopped on Sandy and their arm lowered slightly. When their eyes stopped on Samantha they pulled off their mask and the rift closed behind them, gone forever.
Harold put the mask and his would-be alchemical bomb in the same empty air space where his left hand disappeared into.
So, he got a Rift Mark, too? I wonder how long he spent in the rift for his.
When his personal storage closed he smiled brightly at Sandy and held out his arms. “Come here!”
The enormous spider nearly knocked Harold over with the force of her ‘embrace’.
“My Harold!!” Sandy cried in relief. To give the spider the privacy of her own thoughts again, Samantha cut the [Liaison] thread between them.
“Look at you! I hardly recognize you,” Harold happily observed. “I know it’s only been a short time for you, but it’s been over three years for me. Did you miss me?”
Samantha felt for Harold’s aura and was impressed to sense the power of a Low Bronze.
Not bad.
After the pair finished their joyful reunion, Harold came up to her and did something that impressed her even more. He genuinely thanked her.
“I take it this is your doing?” he asked, gesturing to the empty space. “You have my gratitude. I wasn’t looking forward to fighting my way out of here. Even with more practice under my belt, I haven’t quite taken to it like you have.”
“Seeing as how you just closed this outpost’s main source of income, we might still have a fight on our hands if we don’t get moving soon. You’re not hard-set on vengeance, are you? I’d prefer to just leave.”
“I say we’ve already achieved vengeance, don’t you agree, Harold?” A squat, jovial looking man appeared from behind Harold. At a glance, Samantha could tell from the way his qi flowed that he was a construct. “The softest part of the body is always the wallet!” The man tapped one finger to his temple as he spoke.
Harold laughed. “True enough.” Harold turned to Samantha, “Samantha, this is my associate Mercer. He’s a construct I’ve brought out from the rift. He’s not the most useful in a physical fight, but his mind and his tongue are as sharp as any blade.”
Mercer extended a hand to Samantha in greeting instead of bowing–a tradition she’d only encountered when dealing with traveling merchants–and she shook it once in response.
“Oh? A fellow trader?”
“Let’s save the introductions for a different venue, if you don’t mind?” Samantha began opening a rift and sending a short communication to Harper. “That rift closure would’ve probably been felt by the whole outpost, and…”
Harold forestalled her with a hand, “No need to explain. I want to get out of here as much as you. Did you manage to get our things back?”
“I’ve got everything in my spatial storage.”
A rift leading them 60 miles away tore open, and Harold nodded in appreciation.
“Then, let’s go.” Harold hovered his hand slightly above Sandy’s back and formed a rough saddle shape out of [Secretion] in seconds. Hopping into the hardened seat and de-summoning Mercer, he let out a sigh of satisfaction. “I’m glad to be back.”
Once everyone was safely across the threshold to the other side, Samantha caught sight of Walter and some of his most supportive delvers rushing into the room.
“You–!”
Samantha closed the rift with a crack that cut off his words mid-sentence. As of now, she was done worrying about Walter. About the Delvers. It was time to move on.