Tec Mage Chapter Fifty: The Down Fall Of Lord Bolt
Atlas was now studying in the school ran by the tutors guild. This didn't mean that every one was busy with studying.
Loki was busy with his tutoring but he did find a way to make even more money. By borrowing money from the gnolls, he had gone around and bought up the deeds to the wall space out side of buildings. The owners were happy to make some extra gold.
Then with the help of the gnolls, Loki designed glass tubes with different coloured liquid in them and moonstone. By putting this illuminous glass design on the wall, Loki had invented advertisements.
The first design was for the four jacks shop and was station on the main street, pride of placement for all to see. This showed the new players were to go for great equipment and boosted the sells of the four jacks shop.
Soon many other illuminous signs were erected on walls. Each one paid a small sum of gold for rent and crafting. Soon the streets were filled with advertisements for all different kinds of shop and trade. The gold ran like a river, straight into Loki and the gnolls pocket.
Now Loki was getting paid for tutoring and his adverts.
Loki wasn't the only one who was busy. Mary had revived a quest to create the new crown for the new king.
The players who now ran the kingdom had offered this quest to Mary as she was well spoken for. The players were happy with the equipment she made at the reasonable prices and this action bridge the gap between player and NPC.
In her work shop, Mary was making the ingots that she would use for the crown. In the corner stood two golems, these were Mary's new hammers. When making ingots for her work she would use the massive weight and strength of the golems to hammer the impurities out of the metal.
A bar of metal would be taken out of the forge and placed on a anvil. Then the two golems would hammer down the metal with their bare fists. Folding the metal and then hammering it. The golems caused even time consuming work such as folding metal to pass in a flash.
Mary's design was a mithril crown with gold decorations on it. The crown it's self would turn black to white depending on how much light was on it.
Mary was greatly pleased with her work. The price of the crown was great, but it was for a king and only the best would do.
At the palace Mary bowed to the guild in power. Mary was unsure just who was the king but it wouldn't hurt to bow to them all.
The newly formed crown was passed to player after player. Each one held it in there hands.
Every single player wasn't sure what to make of it. In their eyes it looked like a plan black crown with gold fixings on it. None of the players hand the skill identify and Mithril was a rare metal that they hadn't seen in this pure state before.
In the corner sat a fat little man. He was in the shadows and was hard to see. This man was Lord Bolt.
After the war, the new rulers needed gold to rule the kingdom. This was where lord Bolt came in.
After gaining his title back he invested in the new rulers. Gold he had made on the battle, selling arrows and food was now pumped in to the kingdoms.
Of course Lord bolt wouldn't do this for free. One of the benefits was that he would sit in on all the most important decision making meeting and have a voice when voting.
Right now his piggy little eyes was following the crown that was being passed around by the players.
Unlike the players, he did know what Mithril look like. He licked his lips.
In the pass week Lord Bolt had heavily invested in the city and now was running low on gold.
The crown was made from pure Mithril. If it was melted down and mixed with other metals, many pieces of armour or weapons could be made and then sold for huge amount of gold.
Lord Bolt wouldn't pass up this opportunity.
Struggling to stand up from his chair, lord bolt wiggled his fat from side to side.
On his feet, lord bolt grabbed the passing crown.
"What a load of rubbish" snorted out Lord Bolt.
"A crown has to shine with gold and twinkle with gems, this has none. What kind of shoddy work is this" said Lord Bolt.
Lord Bolt was demeaning the crown. He was planing to pocket it after he pointed out all the flaws. He would replace the crown with one that was made from gold and gems.
Gold and gems couldn't compare to Mithril.
Lord bolt turned around and pointed directly at Mary.
"You should be ashamed with this work, I, Lord Bolt will order a gold crown straight away" Lord Bolt walked away with the crown in his hands.
Before he could walk out a girls voice stopped him.
"You don't know shit" called out Mary.
"How can you compare gold with pure Mithril" yelled Mary.
With these words said, the players eyes widen. They hadn't seen Mithril in it's pure state before. What they did know was even the smallest amount of Mithril in weapons or armour could boast the equipment power.
A player quickly retrieved the crown from the piggy little hands of Lord Bolt. The player went to the window and placed the crown in the sun light, then out again.
From black, then to white, the crown change colour.
Even if people didn't know what Mithril looked like, they knew that the metal turned different colour when exposed to light and darkness.
"It's true" yelled out the player.
All the players then turn to look at Lord Bolt.
Many things went though the players head, all of them thought "untrustworthy"
Lord Bolt wasn't thinking about his reputation, but was instead looking at Mary with narrow and suspicious eyes.
"How dare a peasant talk that why to me" thought Lord Bolt.
Instead of saying what he thought, Lord Bolt waved his fat hand and said "my mistake"
What else could be said. No one could say if he intended to steal the crown, it just looked bad on the Lord.
Before any one could say anything, Lord Bolt left.
Out side the throne room Lord Bolt could hear the players talk with great feeling towards Marys work.
"Idiots" thought Lord Bolt "It was only a couple of minutes ago that they thought the crown was lacklustre.
Behind the Lord a pair of guards followed behind him.
"Find out everything about that blacksmith" Lord Bolt was mad with rage but his face told nothing of the sort. It wasn't often that a commoner talked back to him in that way but when they did they would soon regret it.
The players were so impressed by the crown, Mary received a knighthood. The players offered this title because it gave no land or gold. It was just empty title.
Mary on the other hand insisted that she was covered the cost in making the crown as well as the knighthood.
Mary walked back to the four jacks shop, beside her was the massive black wolf, Midnight.
Midnight went where ever Mary went. She was his Alpha and like a loyal dog, Midnight wanted to be where ever Mary was.
The royal palace wouldn't allow Midnight in to the palace, and so he waited out side. When he did see Mary leaving the palace, Midnight jumped to his feet and wag his tail as he trotted towards Mary.
Midnight truly loved Mary.
Walking home, Mary and Midnight stood side by side. Many onlookers stared at the massive black wolf. Just the sight of him scared the normal people, and so every person gave the wolf lots of space.
As the two got closer to home, Midnight stopped. Raising his head, he sniffed the air and then sprang though the air with such great speed, that it looked like he was teleporting.
Shortly after a large yelp could be heard. Mary followed the noise and meet with Midnight pinning a bulky man.
Mary sighed. The man Midnight had pinned was a known employee of Lord Bolt. Mary made sure to learn all about Lord Bolt, as they were enemy's.
Anything that connected Lord Bolt, Mary wanted to know about. It had been Lord Bolt that had hired the assassins that burned down her family's home and ending up killing her parents.
She realised that she had made a mistake, talking that way to Lord Bolt had given him a reason to look in to Mary's background but she couldn't allow Lord Bolt to get away stealing her crown.
The hate in her heart made every word she had spoken to Lord Bolt bitter and filled with contempt, So much so that it was plain to see that she had a great dislike of Lord Bolt, that went so far as it could be called hate.
Mary showing her hate for Lord Bolt had made it so that it would be harder to work against him.
Raising her hand, Mary punched the bulky man in the jaw. Mary's power was immense and so when the fist connected to the man's jaw, his teeth flew out.
Mary left the unconscious man on the floor. Right now she had to tell her partner in crime what had happened. Mary quickly ran to meet up with Dracken.
In a Dark room sat Dracken. At this point in time he was finishing a quest given to him by the Minster of health.
The player wanted Dracken to take care of the massive rat problem. With the war over and a massive influx of new players spawning in the city, the streets became dirtier. With dirt and rubbish all over the place, the rat pollution burst forth like a tide.
The rats were a pest. Chewing on almost anything and eating what ever they could find, the rats got into places and contaminated the food supply of the city.
Dracken was given the mission to clean out the rats. It was obvious to Dracken that the Minster of health just didn't want to deal with the dirty sewers.
Dracken had pondered on this quest for a little while. Dracken had picked up the habit of working smart, not working hard.
After a short time thinking, Dracken came up with a solution. By borrowing Atlas mana mouses, Dracken got to work.
With the mana mouse army in front of him, Dracken realised that even if his mice doubled teamed a rat it would still result in the mice's lose. The rats were just too big. Thinking fast, Dracken equipped the mana mice with needles and leather.
Dracken had got the idea from adventurers. Adventures were able to take on things more powerful than them by using equipment and numbers.
With the mouses equipped, they started to clean out the swears that the rats lived in.
The massacre was quick and clean. While a mana mouse that was covered in leather jumped in to the mouth of a rat, a different mana mouse that had a needle in its mouth would pierce the heart of the rat.
Soon whole nests of rats were killed, leaving only dead rat bodies. Behind the mana mouses was the clean up crew. Green slimes that Atlas had brought back from heaven's core followed the mana mouse. When ever they found a dead rat, the green slimes would absorb the body until nothing was left.
With this, Dracken didn't have to do anything.
Dracken was putting his finishing touches to his report when Mary entered his office. Behind Mary, Midnight silently walked around Mary and stopped in front of her.
Just then a loud chirping noise came from Dracken's desk. Dracken had a baby Avian black crow as a pet. Dracken had found that the little Avian could talk to other birds. Dracken was planing for a new information network division, totally managed by his Avian bird. Muninn was the name that Dracken had picked for the Avian crow.
At the moment Muninn was still too weak, his level was low but when the level increased so would the young Avians intelligence and power.
Dracken feed Muninn, which quickly silenced the Avian.
Before Dracken could ask why Mary was here, she answered his thoughts.
"Bad news, i think i may of done something stupid" Mary quickly explained what had happened with Lord Bolt and the Mithril crown.
Dracken wrote everything down as Mary said it. Every now and again he would frown when hearing what Mary said.
"Even though we are not ready to fight a frontal war with Bolt, what is done is done" Dracken placed his pen down and stood up.
"It's time to start our plan" Dracken nodded at Mary and she returned the nod.
Mary hated Lord Bolt to her core. Lord Bolt was the reason her family had died. Even though rage filled Mary's mind she knew it was too soon to attack all out. Instead the plan was to steal Lord Bolt's money.
Lord Bolt owned a big part of the slums, this was his main source of money and entertainment. When a person failed to pay rent, Lord Bolt would have fun with the family members. The fear of Lord Bolt caused the slum dwellers to pay shockingly high rent.
Now that lord Bolt had his eye on Mary, she no longer needed to hide it. The many new up to date flats that the gnolls had been making was for the slum dwellers in Lord Bolts slums. Mary was going to starve Lord Bolt by taking his money.
Rent was much cheaper and the in built extras were top notch. Only a fool would want to stay in a slum that Lord Bolt owned when the slums Mary co owned was clean, warm and cheap.
While Lord Bolt and his forces collect info on Mary, she went to Lord Bolt slums and personal offered new homes away from Lord Bolt.
It didn't take long for word to get around that there was a better place to live. Lord Bolt slum soon emptied and the new building that the gnolls made filled. As a nasty little gift, Mary pointed the new players to Lord Bolts slums.
The players couldn't be bullied and flat out refused to pay the massive rent. The players taking over Lord Bolt slums would cause him lots of trouble.
When Lord Bolt first heard of this he didn't care. It didn't matter to him where the money came from, just so long as he got his gold. That was until he found that you couldn't hurt players the same way as NPC.
It was odd scene when a player refused to pay the high rent and four giant men was sent to get Lord Bolts cash. What later happened was the four giant brute's broke a players hand. When the player didn't even seem to care that his hand was crushed, the four brutes attacked him. Instead of rolling into a ball like a normal NPC would do, players would fight back tooth and nail. It started to get out of hand when other players joined the fight and a massive street brawl spanned across lord bolts properties.
You couldn't force players to do anything that they didn't want to do. When the brutes attacked a player it gave all the surrounding players a reason to attack. Free experience inside of a city was rare and now these brutes were fair game. Even though the players were lower level than the brutes, the combined number of players steam rolled over the brutes.
When Lord Bolt heard what had happened his anger burst though his lips and a hot white scum formed on his lips. He was already having trouble persuading the players who ran the city to do what he wanted. Now the players had over run his slums and taken over.
Lord Bolt tried all kind of things to get rid of the players. He even tried to gas them out but the players never seemed to sleep and so the people who tried to gas the players were quickly found and killed.
Lord Bolt attempts to free his slums from players lead him to try all kinds of thing only for the players to be waiting for him. It was like some one was tipping the players off at what Lord Bolt was going to do. Of course that was what was happening.
Dracken information network was keeping a close eye on all of Lord Bolt's men and as soon as they did anything a small message was delivered to the players.
Lord Bolt didn't understand how the players were able to counter everything he did. Lord Bolt's options were running out. When bullying, thefts and pain didn't work, lord Bolt would use dirt or rumours to persuade the normal people to submit. Again this didn't work on players. Most were new to the game and was like a new born baby. There was no dirt on them and they didn't care about rumours.
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Lord Bolt even tried to hire players to do his dirty work for him but if any one was attacked a ant nest would erupt and hundreds of players would attack. No players wanted their level to drop and so that stopped.
With nothing Lord Bolt did to the player working, he got desperate. Lord Bolt went and saw Baron Merek. Baron Merek was the head of the police force.
A long discussion was held where Lord Bolt demanded the players be removed from his property, this didn't go down well for Baron Merek. The days where he was bullied to do the work of fat bastards like Lord Bolt was behind him. Baron Merek had long ago heard the rumours of Lord Bolt and the many nasty little things he did to the slum people.
Face contracted, Baron Merek spoke to Lord Bolt with no manners.
"This is a court matter, you have to go to court and get a notice of eviction. Only after that will the police force get involved" said Baron Merek.
The police force could get involved and throw out the players from the slums but Merek didn't want to, he knew of the misery that Lord Bolt had put his tenants though, now he was getting his just reward and Merek was happy to sit and watch.
Lord Bolt wanted to go to court and get the players evicted but that cost lots of money, and the results were that the players would leave only to be replaced with other players. It was a viscous circle that Lord Bolt never thought he would be part of.
Bullying, extortion, abuse, bribery, thefts. None of these worked with player, the one's that did were soon replaced with players that didn't. Soon, Lord Bolt was forced to lower his rent on the slums. He expected the old tenants to return but every single one of them was snapped up by the new west side slums. In fact it was no longer fair to call them slums. Every couple of days new buildings were built and new shops and facility took the old wooden shacks place. The west slums were fast becoming the place to live. With homes greater than the market sector homes and the price being rock bottom, who in there right mind would want to live in Lord Bolts dirty wooden shacks. Only players who refused the rent and could get away it.
Lord Bolt couldn't force his new tenants to do anything, with little money coming in Lord Bolt changed his plans. His focus turned towards the west slums. New buildings were being created everyday and Lord Bolt wanted a piece of it.
Rumours, pushed by Lord Bolts minions, were spread in the west slums. Most of the rumours consisted of how sinister the land lord was and the evil things they did. The rumours spread like wild fire but not for the reasons Lord Bolt was hopping for. The new tenants of the west slums were angry about the rumours, they had moved from slums that were over priced in to clean, stone buildings that had cheap rent. It also made the people incredibly angry that the rumours were saying how bad the land lord was, when in fact the landlord were the gnolls that had fed and protected the people from the war. The people weren't going to hear these bad things said about their protectors.
Soon a neighbourhood watch was patrolling the streets and catching any rumour spreaders. The police force had to make up a new law and quickly get it passed in court to deal with the people the neighbourhood watch was bringing in. Many of Lord Bolts men were put in jail for instigating a riot and disturbing the peace. It was only a small time in jail but it cut Lord Bolt's power.
After that massive fail, Lord Bolt went to the ruling players of the city. Lord Bolt had found that the west slums were only paying the old rate in tax and so he persuaded the players that it would be a good ideal if he would take over and pay the full new tax.
The next time the ruling players logged onto the Royal Road, they found that their room walls were plastered with notes, all of them said the same thing.
Article 29. Any changes made by the previous king will be held and honoured by the new rulers. Article 29.
Don't brake this law or i will visit you all personal with my army of Golems, some of them are the size of buildings. Signed Tec Mage
This was done with the mana mouses and mana sparrows. They could enter places without being notice.
Every ruling player got the same massage. It was a warning. Most of the time a threat didn't work on players but the notes were placed in the royal palace where no one was supposed to get in to. The players decide to leave the west slums in the hands of the gnolls. They had just won the city and weren't prepared to defend it. The more you had, the more you could lose. It was the best way to make a player do something but it only worked on those that had lots.
When Lord Bolt was told about the change back, his face went bright red. He had already lost a huge amount of face in front of the players that ruled the city.
With no way to get a piece of the west slums, Lord Bolt went to his back up plans. Right now trying to gain property in the west slums would cost an arm and a leg and because of that reason, Lord Bolt couldn't afford to buy the place even if it was for sell.
If he couldn't gain the west slums in it's whole then he could destroy it and buy it on the cheap.
When night came the assassins group called Burning Hand turn up in the west slums. These assassins speciality were arson. Lord Bolt hired them though a complex network of people, just so he wouldn't be connected to them in anyway.
Stealthily they rushed to the centre of the newly developed buildings in the west slums. In each of their hands were bottles of sticky fire. A mix of tar, alcohol, and cooking oil the bottles were lit with a piece of rag.
The assassins threw the bottles at the buildings causing the liquid in side to splash out and catch on fire. The tar in the mix would cause the fire to stick and the cooking oil would cause a very small explosion if anyone used water to put out the fire. The reason the assassins choose the centre building was so the fire would spread to all the other building and cause a massive amount of damage.
With there mission complete, the assassins turned away to retreat.
"Boss, look" one of the assassins pointed at the building that they had just threw the sticky fire at.
The boss had the same black equipment on as all of the assassins but their was only one boss, so he turned to look at the building.
Instead of a burning inferno that he expected to see, the sticky fire was burning it's self out. Confused the boss threw another sticky fire at the building, with the same results as the first.
Little did most people know was that each of the new buildings in the west slums had been enchanted. Every stone from the foundation to the roof had an individual enchantment that work together to be greater the the sum of their parts. The sticky fire had little choice but to burn it's self out. With no fuel to carry on the burning the sticky fire just used up it's fuel and winked out.
The building wasn't even harmed, just a dirty mess of carbon was left behind. The assassins looked at each other. They had all seen enchantments like this but it was on special wizard building and not on some lowly rent buildings. They knew now that they had accepted a mission that was out of their league. They all turned to leave when from out of the shadows many people and golems walked forwards.
It was Baron Merek and his police men backed up by the golems who were painted black. Some how, the police force had surrounded the assassins. It wasn't just luck that the police force had turned up in the right place at the right time. Atlas mana mouses and sparrows had been following all of Lord Bolts connections and reported back. As soon as the assassins entered the city, the police force had been told and taken action.
Everything from Lord Bolt trying to get rid of the players, all the way up to the assassins entering the city had been watched by many tiny little eyes, all of witch reported back to Atlas. It was a shame that Atlas couldn't show the memory's from his mana creations to others or he would have an iron clad evidence of Lord Bolts law breaking activates.
The resulting battle between the police force and assassins was short and sweet. While the assassins used knifes and the remainder of the sticky fire, the police force sent in the golems. Fire splashed on to the golems but with no effect. Only the most fierce and hottest flame could melt earth, sticky fire wasn't hot enough. Soon the police force and the golems had incapacitated all of the assassins. They were striped and thrown in to separate jails. To stop them talking to each other a sleeping draft was constantly wafted in to their cells.
That night, Baron Merek and his police men interrogated the assassins, only there was one more person doing the interrogation with them. Mary in her full leather, chain mail and full plate armour interrogated the assassins. She had a very good relationship with the police force as she was the one that made their armour and weapons. Because of this, Baron Merek had allowed Mary to interrogate the assassins, after all, Mary was the apprentice of Atlas and Baron Merek trusted Atlas.
Little did the assassins and Baron Merek know was that Mary had some serious hate for the red hand assassins.
They had been the ones that had burnt down her home with her family in it.
The screams coming from her room could curled milk. Many of the police men tried to avoid where the screams were coming from. There was a reason why the police force did nothing to stop Mary and that reason was that the assassins were arsonists.
It was bad enough that there was assassins that killed for cash but arsonist were loathed. Fire could and would spread like a blanket over the city and would hurt many innocent people. Besides that Baron Merek had ordered that no one was to interfere.
After the war, Baron Merek felt that Atlas could do no wrong. Atlas had pulled a miracle out of no where and Baron Merek and his police force was alive due to that.
Baron Merek would give a massive leeway to Mary just because of that.
Every scream easily reached the ears of the awake imprisoned assassins. Soon every one of them was singing like canary's, just so as long as they weren't put in the room with screams coming from it.
The police force gather a lot of info and put it to use straight away. People were rounded up and interrogated. The assassins weren't spared the room with screams coming from it. This help to make the new arrested people talk quicker. It was efficient and quick. The more people arrested, the more info about other people was shared.
When Mary left the police force, she felt a tiny bit better but still felt regret. She wanted to kill the assassins but they were still in the custody of the police force. Mary would visit each and every member of the assassins while they were in jail. Paying a bribe she would consistently beat the assassins with in an inch of their lives. The only thing that Mary was glad off was that a major amount of Lord Bolts friends had been arrested and every day that went by meant more would be rounded up. This would cause Lord Bolt power to weaken.
The info from the assassins and the other people the police force brought in, was shared with Dracken information network. The whole library, where people who work in the information network were placed, had fiendishly started to organize and sort the new info.
It took some time but the information started to piece a hint of Lord Bolt's involvement. One persons info would incriminate a different person and then that person would incriminate a different person and so on.
File after file was made for the police force. Detailed info about the city criminals were shared and stored.
This operation was vast but with the new influx of cash Baron Merek pumped in to the police force, they managed it.
Meanwhile Lord Bolt was sweating, he had heard about the massive cracked down on the criminals and he was losing his power over certain illegal and profitably business.
With a smaller amount of cash coming in from his rent and his illegal businesses deals being cracked down on, he was feeling the pinch on cash. It didn't help that Lord Bolt couldn't help his imprisoned friends, he just couldn't afford to be connected to them, in any way.
As Lord Bolt worked hard to keep his wealth, he forgot about the young blacksmith that had caused such embarrassment to him at the palace.
Parts of Lord Bolt slum land was sold off, so he could concentrate the cash in other areas. Of course Mary bought the land.
Lord Bolt was pumping more money into the players that ran the city. He was having little success. The players would except the bribe only to give little in return.
But he finally succeeded when he was offered land out side of the city, near a small town. Here Lord Bolt could take charge and start his own small empire, where he was the law and couldn't be challenged.
Lord Bolt checked the land around the small town, using a map. He made use of his money to buy the best land at the cheapest price he could. The land was full of farm land but it was located near some swamps. It didn't matter to him where the swamp was, just so long as he didn't have to enter it or owned any of it.
Unfortunately for Lord Bolt, Mary and Dracken had spent a lot of gold bribing the players too. What Mary had asked of the players was that they would change certain things on the official land map and offer Lord Bolt certain lands near a certain town.
Dracken and Mary had been planing this for some time, even before Lord Bolt had a interest in Mary as a blacksmith.
When Lord Bolt found out that the land he had bought was worthless swamp land, the usual ruddy red face of his turned pale. Money and power was his greatest love, and with all his spare cash now in a useless swamp, he felt sick.
He just couldn't understand it. He had checked the maps personally and doubled check with the government. All the maps had said the land was prime farming land. Little did he know was the maps were old. The swamp that had been near the farm land had swallowed it up.
Mary and Dracken had swapped over the new up to date maps with the older one's. Then bribed the players to offer the Lord the land. The players were glad to get rid of the swamp land, as nothing could be done with it.
At this point in time Lord Bolt new something was off. When his first bit of bad luck happened, he didn't question it. When the player moved in to his slums, he couldn't imagine anyone controlling the players to cause him difficulties. After all of his shady connections went to jail, did Lord Bolt think something was off, but he couldn't say anything, unless he wanted to go down with them. When he tried and failed to gain the west slums, he put it down to the owners fighting back. But with all of these things happening one after the other did Lord Bolt know something was working against him.
End Of Chapter Fifty.
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Hey brothers and sisters, sorry for the long pause between chapter.
I was playing Dark Souls 3. That game made me so angry that many times i must of used up all the oxygen in the room by shouting at my screen. Never in my life have i felt so tired playing a game before.
But now I've completed and killed all the bosses so i can put it to one side and never play it again.
If you can't tell, i didn't enjoy it as much as Dark Souls 2
But that is that and this is this. I hope you enjoy.