We were escorted to a second, more eloquent sitting room. Everything was perfectly dusted or polished. When Percival closed the door behind us, all sound from the outside world immediately ceased.

“Whiskey?” Lord Piliton asked. He held up a glass in offering and we both shook our heads. He shrugged and poured himself a generous helping.

So much for slowing down.

Claire removed a cushion from a grey armchair and sat down, placing the cushion back on her lap. I chose a brown seat with terrible back support. Our host slumped down into a high-backed leather eyesore, sinking into its depths until he was at our eye level. Considering his height, he had to shrink rather far.

“So. What can you tell me about Miss Barth that I don’t already know?” he began.

The shock discovery had altered our plan a little, but the main premise still applied. Whether it was baseless or not, we would soon find out.

“Well, we just thought you might like to know that Penelope — Miss Barth — was serving as the Royal Botanist of Bretonhal when we found her. A child. Running one of the most important functions in the country.”

“She has assistants,” Piliton answered.

“I know, but she’s, what, eight years old?”

“Perhaps nine or ten. Time flies when you get to my age.”

This wasn’t adding up to the same reaction I’d expected.

Either it really isn’t a big deal, or I’m missing some pretty vital information.

For a second I thought that maybe Piliton was just terrible at spotting political weaknesses. But looking around at the mansion he occupied, he didn’t seem like a guy who missed much.

“Look, I’m guessing you’re happy to look after Penelope either way, she seems to like you, but I’m just saying, Claire and I walked into that place with no documentation, no knowledge of how the place works, and a half-cooked story about being returning researchers. If that doesn’t spell ineptitude on the King’s part, I dunno what does. Interpret that however you want.”

Claire looked at me, shocked. The whole thing was flustering me, and my hangriness was leaking through into the game.

I just. Want. Lunch.

Piliton laughed. “It has been a very long time since anyone has spoken to me that way. I appreciate your honesty and your forwardness. It would save me a lot of time if my underlings stopped pussy-footing around. Let me think.”

He closed his eyes and sipped at his whiskey. Claire and I sat still. I wondered what Penelope and Percival were doing.

After an awkward amount of time, he opened his eyes. He didn’t seem perturbed by making us sit in silence.

“Allow me to let you in on a few things. Number one, everyone in Bretonhal who cares about such things already knows that Penelope is a child, and they are happy with her in her position. Number two, they feel this way because they know that I was the one who supported her studies and provided her with enough books on botany to fill her unbelievably talented brain. And finally, I’m willing to work with you, but I will need to change the narrative a bit.”

He sat back and evaluated our responses. I was busy being impressed with Penelope, but Claire took everything on board and replied.

“I think I understand. You don’t want to use Penelope, you want to use us.”

Piliton smiled. “Correct. However, once I entrust you with the details of this plan, you can not go back. I will not allow it.”

It was a sinister sentence, and I knew what it meant. He was offering to get us involved with some less-than-scrupulous practices, and he couldn’t have us hearing his terms then flitting away to tell the world about them.

“Give us an idea of what this narrative of yours would be. After that, we’ll either walk away or stay sitting right here.”

He grinned. He was a completely different man to when he’d been playing around with Penelope, patting her head and swinging her through the air while she giggled.

How those sons of his came from this man, I do not know. Unless they were conning us, too.

“Look,” he started. “You are obviously not from here. You do not know anyone. That is where our advantage lies. No one knows you. We have the opportunity to write your stories — to manipulate your identities, if you will.”

He sat back. “Of course, this is all hypothetical. Philosophical, really. If you want to discuss this further, you know what is required of you.”

I glanced at Claire. It felt like he was offering us a quest, and I had no qualms about taking it. Even if he wasn’t a nice man, he was definitely shrewd. From the sounds of it, Asteroth could do with a shrewd king. And having a working relationship with said king could be beneficial to Bill’s Yard.

At least until the end of the year, when we become real players and all this resets.

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It was a sobering thought. I couldn’t protect Bill’s Yard forever, although the circumstances would change next year regardless. Now that people knew how to trigger the Six-Month Event early, that would absolutely need to be changed.

Claire nodded. I nodded back. “Very well. I think we should make this conversation less philosophical and more practical. What do you have in mind?”

Piliton’s frown disappeared, and a jovial face that could’ve been ten years younger took its place. “Voilà! That is wonderful news. Allow me to explain.”

**************

The next hour felt like being back in a classroom. I was basically drooping in my seat by the end, completely resigned to skipping lunch. The saving grace of the whole thing was that I’d make it to dinner. And I was going to do it justice.

Lord Piliton orated an extensive set of ideas to us, narrowing them down as he went. The vibe of the whole thing was that he wanted to present us to the world as being the King’s own hired help. We were supposedly his top-secret infiltration and exfiltration team, unknown to all his advisors and only taking orders from the King. The public would be told that our ‘kidnapping’ of Penelope was a lightly-veiled threat to Lord Piliton, considering his connection to her.

We were basically just going to pin a bunch of nasty shit on the King.

Simple.

As expected, we were granted a new quest to add to our to-do list. The EXP wasn’t great, but Lord Piliton had cash to splash, and it showed.

Quest Accepted!

‘Overthrow Asteroth’

Reward(s)

+1000 EXP

+10,000 Krad

Finally a pay-day.

“Yo, Claire. Are we sharing these rewards?”

“I don’t think so. It’s not labelled as a party quest.” Her eyes were glistening, like she was about to cry.

“Woah. You all good?” Lord Piliton had left us alone in the study to mull things over. We were to come out when we were ready for our first task.

“Yep. Just a lot of money. And I’m hungry.”

I couldn’t agree more. Completing this quest would decimate more than half my debt.

“Okay, well I’m going to hop off for a while and see if I can catch a meal. Should we call it a night?”

She drummed her knees and jumped up from her seat.

“Yep, I think so. Hopefully it doesn’t seem too weird to Piliton. We’re kind of occupying his study.”

“I think it’s fine.”

She smiled and waved goodbye before disconnecting. I sat in Piliton’s chair and followed suit.

--Disconnecting, please wait--

Oh god, my bones.

There was something about immersing as opposed to sleeping that made it way more strenuous on my body. After a good night’s sleep I’d feel great, limber in fact, but disconnecting from B&B was a killer.

I willed each muscle to move, one at a time. A noise escaped me, halfway between groaning and laughing.

“I’ll be around for dinner!” I called. I wasn’t sure if anyone else was in the house, but I assumed they were. Mom felt iffy about leaving me alone while I was immersed. She told me that I better get some housemates when the time came for me to move out.

My body eventually allowed me to get out of the Pod and head downstairs. I said hello to Mom and explained the dire circumstances that caused me to skip lunch, then checked my Yurt. The device felt foreign in my hands, like I should be able to use a hand gesture to bring up my communications screen.

There were a ton of messages. I didn’t know where to start. It had only been a few days, but I felt like I was disconnected from the world. It took me a bit to remember what had happened recently.

Hung out with the gang. Met the Major. Talked to those reporters.

That reminded me. I called out to Dale. “Hey Coach! Have there been any offers coming in from guilds? I thought I made a reasonable splash the other day.”

He bustled out from the study, carting along a stack of envelopes. I took a few off the top and sat at the table, peeling them open.

“I haven’t read them, but I could see the names of some of the brochures through the envelopes. Who’s up first?”

“Tangling Tigers. A…very small guild that wants me to join them next year. They advertise having a great work-like balance, but also no signing bonus or mention of a salary. Next.”

There were invites from guilds across all levels of the Blade & Battle ecosystem. Start-up guilds wanted me to join as a sort of advertising move, promising me cushy conditions and a decent signing bonus, but not much else. Larger guilds promised to fast-track me through their acceptance tests, ushering me into next year’s cohort. They offered a decent signing bonus and good resources for increasing my strength, but no special treatment like the smaller guilds.

I suppose that’s fine. I don’t feel that special.

I also didn’t want to alienate myself from my potential guild members by acting all high and mighty. Special treatment sounded cool on paper, but now I wasn’t sure I wanted it.

Unfortunately, none of the offers even came close to the amount of krad that Dad had offered me. Money wasn’t everything, of course, but it sure did go a long way in helping my decision making.

Mom served up dinner. We ate and talked about other things, leaving the remaining envelopes to be opened later. Dale gave me the deets on how the news had exploded after The Gladiator made his speaking debut.

“They lapped it up. Every newspaper in every outlet had the words ‘Challenge me, boy,” on their front pages. I saw one that had a four-page editorial just dissecting the whole thing. Their conclusion was that the brutal way that he beat his opponent was a sign of old age and a feeble mind. It was hilarious. I have no idea how they got to that.”

“That does sound weird. People love the news, though. So no mention of me?”

“Oh! No! You were there, just not front or second page. I’m sorry to say that your fame was short-lived, at least in the news world. As you know, the guilds are still scrambling to get to you. We’ve had a couple representatives come knocking, but we told them you were immersed.”

Oops. Hope I didn’t miss a lucrative deal because I was busy raiding the Asterian King’s garden.

“And Ma? What have you been up to?”

She set down her knife and fork and assumed a pleased look.

“I thought you’d never ask! I got back in the Pod today. Ran some dungeons. I had an awkward number of ‘Get well soon’ messages. I replied to them all and said that everything was fine and I was just loaning you the Pod until we got you a new one.”

“Nice. Tactical. Any good loot?”

She wagged a finger at me. “Hmmm. Nothing compared to that spear of yours, I’m afraid. I saw a clip; I have no idea how you pulled that off.”

Me neither.

I’d looked on my Yurt to see if anyone had done something similar to my loan bartering situation. There were expansive forum posts mentioning that yes, some people got loans for extremely basic, cheap weaponry, but no one had managed to repeat the process with anything priced over a couple hundred krad.

I was an anomaly.

I didn’t want to pry into it too much — it was all in the rear-view mirror now, and it had worked perfectly for me.

My Yurt buzzed. It was a message from Duri.

[Annette is hosting pizza night tonight. I’m bringing Dad’s new dog. U in?]

I looked down at my empty plate and patted my belly. Despite a large helping, there was room for more.

[Hell yeah. Remind me to tell you guys how I’m gonna destabilize an entire country.]

[Can’t wait. Joey’s got beers.]

I laughed. This could get interesting.