Alliana looked annoyingly comfortable standing in my Throne Room. Her little cart was apparently magic, and had no problem shrinking to fit up the stairs. I had Versai and Rakim with me, just in case. Alliana looked like she couldn’t have cared less. Which was also annoying. I forgave her. Anyone coming with information will find me a gracious and understanding host.

“I tallied it up. Across seven waves, I’ve collected twenty Cutthroat Clothier receipts.” Half of which came from my perfect clear at Gradden March, but no need to mention that. “I can actually use four of them. Pammy, Miyuki, Rakim and, of all people, Judith.”

“Impressive! Both in total number of receipts and the number of summons who can actually use my wares.” Alliana smiled easily. I knew a retail smile when I saw one. It kind of made me wonder if she was wearing a store uniform too.

Alliana looked… Bandit Queen Aesthetic? Is that a thing? I realize I’m something of an authority on the topic, but I really am drawing a blank here. Her curly black hair was controlled by a red headscarf, pulled tight and knotted into a pair of flowing silk twintails that reached down between her shoulder blades.

Her hair reached almost to the small of her back. Wonderfully conditioned and, I believe, oiled. Delightful bounce to those curls. Just a fantastic commitment to a hair care regime. Traits I one-hundred-percent associate with mountain bandits.

And in the same vein, the rest of her outfit said “I’m a rugged warrior with a crippling allergy to clothing that covers anything below my rib cage and above my hips.” Lots of red silk and hand tooled, ornate leather boots. A wide saber hung at her hip, jutting up through a blue sash with a golden chain woven into it.

The sash was around her hips and not her waist. Some pedantic part of me insisted that it couldn’t possibly work, but she was standing in front of me and you know what?

The look worked. It one hundred percent worked. The lively figure and flashing green eyes in that ensemble? You love to see it. But a bandit queen turned itinerant merchant who traveled wearing all that?

“Does it get cold in the mountains?”

“Oh yes, bitterly. If you are planning on entering a relic site that’s at high altitude, I have some gear you will definitely want.” She reached into her cart and pulled out a fur trimmed bolero jacket. I could see the Mikas looking absolutely darling in that. My urge to play dress-up flared, but I forced it under control.

“Not at the moment, thank you. Clothes and information, you say?”

“Yes indeed! You see, the terms of my charter do not allow me to accept Rune Bones or even Frozen Crystals. Barring very special occasions, anyway. I can only accept our store’s receipts and-” she made a sound that was lost somewhere between my eardrum and whatever part of my brain processes language. I violently shook my head.

“I’m guessing you don’t have any of those.” Her lip quirked. “You can always tell.”

“What exactly did you just say?”

“Don’t worry about it. If, one day, you find some strange currency in your money pouch, summon me. I, happily, accept them for both clothing and secrets.”

“Alright… well. Let's get started with the orders we can fill. Here are the receipts.” I handed them over. She handed me back four cards with pictures of the outfits on them, as well as flavor text. I’d read them later.

“How do you sell your secrets?” I asked.

“Oh, easy. I offer a variety of services at easy prices. Want to have more of your map filled in? For a reasonable fee, I can provide information on local landmarks. Have a question about a specific landmark? More expensive, but still well within the budget of most. Broader questions, things that might be considered… unnatural or sinister to know? Now that is quite expensive. Expect to save up a while first.”

She laughed. There was a coarse charm to it. Great work by the VA or the mixing department there. If that was her actual laugh, then all I can say is that there is no justice in the world when someone’s laugh has its own charisma modifier.

“And you get paid… how? If you can’t take Runed Bones or Frozen Crystals, and I don’t have any of the whatever currency you mentioned.” I narrowed my eyes slightly. She was clearly a six-star equivalent like Sebastian, and like Sebastian, she was being blatant about picking at the nature of this world. Was she running her own exploit here?

“Ah, another happy intersection of your surplus and my demand.” She smiled. Perfect teeth. No “cute” snaggletooth or any of that nonsense. Just a smile that would have a toothpaste ad team high fiving. “You seem to have sixteen additional receipts that you haven’t cashed in.”

I nodded.

“Because, as you implied, you cannot use them right now.”

“Yep. Don’t have these summons.”

Her smile got a hair more genuine. I smiled too. I recognized the look on her face. It’s the same I saw when some Crypto Bro figured out that I was a viable “investor.”

“Well, since those receipts are useless to you, you might as well turn them into something of military and developmental value. Information on nearby ruin sites, for example. Or mines. You just conquered your first bit of your Sky Realm, right? For a fee, I can provide some very useful tips. As for more… esoteric and occult information, let’s reserve that conversation for when you have more disposable income, mmm?”

I chuckled. Oh that game. Sure. I love that game. People like her are why I stay indoors and try to do all my business by email. Or messenger. Or have an AI write the email or IM. And answer it.

“Tell me about the costumes.” I leaned back on my plush throne.

“All the relevant information is on the package.” she waved elegant fingers elegantly at the cards she handed me. Presumably this was because she was a Bandit Queen and not a Bandit Peasant.

“No, not that. I mean, how do you get the clothes? They are all tied to the specific histories of the summons, right? So you don’t have a sweatshop somewhere cranking them out.”

“Well, things like the cold weather gear are actually produced in a factory I control, but that requires the special currency to purchase. As for the stuff you can acquire with receipts? Yes. We have methods. Proprietary methods. Contractors of extreme skill undertake dangerous and lengthy missions to acquire them. None of this comes cheaply, as you might imagine.”

“You are mining clothes.”

She rolled her eyes, and the rest of her head tossed with them. Hand on hip, shift weight to one leg, yep, there we go, Look of Exasperation #4, straight from the modeling guide. I really wonder how much of this was her and how much of it was the game.

“If you want to abuse a metaphor.”

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“So how do the receipts get distributed? I’m getting them as a reward for various achievements.”

“Not my department.”

“Do you pay the contractors and for the factory?”

She snorted. “Through the nose. Why do you think I value-” more unintelligible noise “so highly? It’s how I pay my people.”

“Makes sense, makes sense. Say, how many of these receipts are there? How often are new ones made?”

“No idea. I get my instructions, my contractors get theirs, my clients get their clothes. Easy as that.”

I stared at her. She stared back. I sighed and rubbed my temples.

“You don’t have any background in business or accounting, huh?”

“I ran a gang of over five hundred bandits, so I do have some management experience. Oh, and I currently employ six thousand people directly, and eight hundred more on a contract basis. Sorry, you were talking?” She smiled, “warmly.”

I nodded. The intimidation factor of dealing with beautiful, confident women had dropped severely after daily exposure to Versai, and now Carousel.

“I was talking, and I wasn’t done yet. Receipts. That’s what I get. Receipts. Which means that someone has paid for the costumes, and this is the record of the sale. It’s proof of a debt, because the clothes haven’t been delivered yet. A liability on your balance sheet.”

It was my turn to smile “warmly,” and I followed it up by leaning forward. “In other words, someone, your boss I would assume, is sticking you with the production costs for the costumes while listing the profit from the sale on their own balance sheet. Your unnamed boss is issuing debts in your name and pocketing the cash!” My smile turned morbid. “Functionally, anyway. I’m guessing you work on commission with no base salary?”

She had turned very pale. I could see the new ideas working their way in. Like Sebastian- she had started picking at the edges of the game, but there were still mental blocks there.

“No, actually. I have a body that doesn't need to eat or sleep, so I just put all the profits towards… paying down… my debts…” I could see her voice trailing off.

“And, regrettably, you don’t have a copy of the ledger with your debts recorded, but don’t worry, your godly employer is totally keeping strict track of all your work, subtracting only those minor, incidental expenses that come up as a cost of doing business?”

Alliana went silent. And a while longer. Then- “You know, I hadn’t thought about my early days in a very long time. Early days as a bandit I mean.”

I waited. I could see the gears turning in her head. They were spinning quite fast. Had some thoughts been suppressed? I wouldn’t be surprised.

“My older sister got sold to a brothel when our harvest failed. We didn’t have enough money to feed ourselves, let alone pay the field rent. It was the only way. Apparently. I asked around, why didn’t the girls just run away from the brothel? Well, the girls could run, but their families couldn’t. Besides, the girls could buy themselves out… if they earned enough to repay the debt plus interest. But nothing was free in the brothel. Not the rent on their rooms, their clothes, their meals, medicine, nothing. They didn’t get to set the price for their services or buy stuff outside the brothel either. In fact, it was strictly against the rules to hand the girls any money directly. You could get banned for that, and the girls got beaten.”

I nodded slightly.

“I watched the sky that summer. Not much rain. And dad had a terrible look in his eye when he looked at me. I didn’t wait, and ran for the hills. Eventually, I came back for them all.” Her voice was calm, almost flat.

“Did you get your sister out?”

Alliana was quiet for a moment. “I raised a gravestone for her, and carved her memorial tablet with my own lousy handwriting.”

I closed my eyes. I’m not comfortable with that much raw emotion. What do you even say? I’m sorry that happened to you? There are many such cases? She’s in a better place now?

“I see what you are getting at, Tower Lord. I see it… very clearly now. Very clearly indeed. You want to forge an alliance?”

“A bit fancier than what I had in mind, but basically. I wanted to find more people trying to break out of the trap we are all in.”

“Oh? You aren’t enchanted by being a Lord? Surrounded by beautiful, biddable- alright, yes, I’ll stop, please stop looking at me like that. I am still capable of feeling shame, you know.”

“So you say!” I snorted. But relented. After all, that was how Black Hood hooked me in the first place.

“You are buying back tangible debt for something you can sell infinitely- information. Your only limit is the size of your pool of customers. Goddamn NFT selling… Never mind that.” I waved it away. “Do you understand me? You can try to screw every drop of advantage out of me, or you can treat this like a joint venture. Your call.”

She smiled and made a little half bow. “I can only salute your wisdom and foresight. A joint venture it is.” We smiled at each other. Each concealing our knives.

“This World, the land with your tower in it, can be considered a sort of magical demi-plane, who’s fundamental reality confirms not to natural law, but to the whims of its creator.”

“No. Really. What an amazing surprise. I am very shocked to learn this very shocking information.” I monotoned.

“Really? You already knew?”

“The fact that you have met others that didn’t know saddens and horrifies me. It also makes me really wonder where they came from.”

Alliana stroked her chin as she considered that. “You know, people’s homelands almost never come up. Strange, that.”

“Yes. Equally shocking. Get on with it.”

She snorted and gave me a look, but continued. “And if you have talked to your six stars here, you know it’s not a unique place. There are other Towers, and other Tower Masters. Even I don’t know how many. Thousands. Tens of thousands. More.”

Now that really was alarming.

“And for those few of us who travel between the demi-planes, we need roads and maps. The maps we make ourselves, and are quite unique. Useless for you, but it does provide us with… perspective. Incidentally, did you manage to acquire any road building materials when you conquered whatever ruin site you snatched?”

“Yes, why?”

“Use them. Make roads to any mines or ruin sites you are raiding. Not only will they save your summons time, they also fulfill a hidden purpose.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, the better developed the road network, by which I mean the better connected the points of interest in your land are to each other by road, the better the rewards become. More importantly, you get to start drawing on a much bigger pool of summons.”

“Eh?”

She leaned forward. No generous cleavage was displayed, she was well covered up top, but it was certainly implied.

“Roads. Connections. I can’t prove it, but I have seen enough evidence to believe it is true. You have noticed, I think, that some summons share a country of origin? Or at least, a world of origin?”

“Sure. Rikka and Miyuki, Pammy and Maria.” I nodded, ignoring the duplicates like Mika and Judith.

“Just so.” She gathered herself for a moment. “Every new Tower Lord, so far as I am aware, begins with one Six Star Awakened Soul, and between six and ten random other Awakened Souls.”

Mmm. I vaguely remember Versai saying that most people didn’t start with ten summons, so that checked out. I nodded along as she kept on explaining.

“I don’t think the summoning pool is really random. At least, not completely.”

“Oh?” My eyebrows made a bid to climb all the way to my hairline. “Why do you say that?”

“Because based on my discussions with other Tower Lords, the first Relic Site conquered is overwhelmingly related to their first Six Stars.”

That brought the room to a screeching halt. Because I remembered clearly that Versai had been to a lot of Relic Sites, and none of them had been related to her home country, or home planet for that matter.

“How many people have you asked?” I hung on to my emotions firmly. I didn’t know how to exploit this, but… ah. Immediate chicken and egg problem detected.

“Thousands. I’ve forgotten how many, long ago.”

Mmm. And Versai was always vague about how many Tower Masters she worked for. Other than it being an unspeakably large number, I really didn’t know how long she served. I suppressed a humorless grin. Cutthroat Clothiers were only made available after your first conquest. So all the successful conquests Alliana knew about required a matching six-star. Which, when combined with Tower Master incompetence, explained a lot.

“What if it’s the other way around? The plaine is generated, and the proximity of a given Relic Site determines that first Six Star pull, then other Sites weigh the probability of certain pulls?” I asked, wanting to test my theory a bit.

“I’m really not sure, and I don’t know that there is any way to determine which is which. Are the portals to the Relic sites plonked down when we aren’t looking? Or are they always there, waiting for your discovery?” She shrugged. “Either way, you have to take the summons you have as a clue. And I happened to notice you have two rather special Awakened Souls here.”

“Which?”

“The two raven-haired beauties- Miyuki and Rikka.” She twirled a finger in her own glistening black locks. “They come from Hidden Moon Mountain.”

“Yes?”

“So Hidden Moon Mountain is… unusual. One receipt.” She held out her hand.

“What?”

“I am what, and who, I am. The information about summoning and Relic Sites is beyond anyone’s ability to prove, and it’s considerably difficult to make use of. In other words, a perfect welcome gift! But Hidden Moon Mountain is very unusual, and with two different summons from there, one of them quite highly ranked at Four Stars, I suspect you will discover its relic site soon.”

“Wait, how do you know about it? Do sites repeat? Are there multiple copies of each land attached to a relic site floating around?” I had the sudden terrifying image of hundreds of thousands of Crusher Jim’s, all swinging their heavy fists at the same time, each shuddering the fabric of reality.

“Interesting you should ask- yes and no. Relic sites are not easily conquered, and many are deliberately left unconquered, so that they may be repeatedly pillaged for resources. They do exist on multiple planes, but once one has been conquered, I stop seeing Awakened Souls related to them elsewhere. Ever again. Even after that Tower Master has perished.”

“Ah… how do you know they have died?”

“Because they stop summoning me, and if they want to really advance their Six Stars, they will need me. You will too. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

Oof. Now there was a phrase I recognized. How often had Versai said that to me? But for her it was gated behind the relationship system. For Alliana, I’d bet it was tied to progression. Well, sooner or later I’d figure it out.

… I also needed to figure out how to advance my relationship with Versai. Which sounded unpleasantly sticky, given that I only wanted to advance it to “Able to watch at least two episodes of Nagatoro with her.” Not the problem right now. I could feel my stomach dropping through my feet. I’m sure I looked as sick as I felt.

“You said there are tens or hundreds of thousands of other Tower Masters?”

“Yes. And yes, what that suggests about the size of the pool of possible summons is frustrating.” She grimaced.

“No. It’s what it says about the number of worlds exterminated by monsters that’s scary.”