Greed God chapter 106 (Patreon)

February 10th 2016 Gemworld 5:00 PM EDT

This  new hydra pouch was officially my favorite thing in the world. Not only  could it hold pretty much anything, it basically resized things as they  went in and out. I expected to have some trouble getting things in  there but I was able to just shove the pouch into the bottom of a pile  and fill the damn thing up. I was able to get everything into the pouch  and then slip it back on my belt with Cherry's help, and by the time we  were done there wasn't even a spare coin left in the treasury. I  subvocally asked. "Hey Crassus, what's my GP at right now?"

[A  hundred and twenty thousand or so. I forgot how quick you can top up  when you're clearing out a storehouse. I raided a few places like this  too, and they're usually good for a quick boost. Sadly the force you  cleared out was pretty poor in the grand scheme of things. The gold  coins didn't count towards your total because they're money, and they  only had a handful of F ranked items. The rest was a mix of G or lower,  though quantity is a quality all its own.]

That  was actually pretty respectable. I could do quite a bit with that kind  of point total as long as I didn't go crazy and splurge on huge  purchases. I'd seen a few of the F ranked items as I was putting them in  the pouch, and there were a couple real gems in there. No pun intended.

[Appraisal  function activated. Treasure detected. Bloodstone of Emerald- F rank. A  stone filled with the concentrated essence of several weaker members of  the emerald bloodline. A vessel prepared to allow for the purification  of a member of the house of emerald to help their bloodline reach a new  level of power.]

That one was interesting. It  seemed like the big man in charge of the Emerald Edge wanted to pump up  his powers a bit. He'd been killing off thin blooded house members when  he got his hands on them to slowly create this gem for that purpose.  Considering the bastard children of the bloodline apparently mostly  ended up here it wasn't a surprise that he'd managed to get so many of  them. Cherry had said the big boss was F rank, so I was assuming he  needed to get this thing to E before he could use it to strengthen  himself.

Aside from that though there, were a few other  things that caught my eye as I was stuffing everything in the pouch. I  hadn't appraised everything, I didn't have that kind of time, but Cherry  pointed out a few of the more magically powerful items as we were  packing everything up and I'd made a point to give them a once over just  in case there was anything really good.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Hammer  of the Broken Sky- F rank. A powerful war maul wielded by the Tiger's  Eye Tyrant in ages past. Broken in battle with the Malachite Monarch  this ancient weapon still possesses remnants of its owners legendary  strength. With a single swing the hammer can shatter even the air  itself, creating massive blasts of wind and concussive force that can  strike enemies even yards away.]

That was pretty  fucking awesome. Not to mention the thing was absolutely humongous.  Like, even I would have to put some effort into swinging it. The head  was about the size of my torso and my hands barely fit around the haft.  It was honestly too unwieldy for me to tote around in combat, but Waylon  was a decent amount bigger than I was even in human form, and I was  betting it would be perfect for him. If not maybe Sally could use it,  though I wasn't sure her hands would fit around it comfortably.

The  one last F ranked item I'd bothered looking at (there were actually a  few more they just hadn't really caught my eye) was a bit more  understated. It wasn't exactly the most impressive item around here, but  it was pretty uniquely suited for my situation and it was definitely  something I was interested in testing out. It was a red crystal cup, a  goblet really, that almost glowed with power.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Carmine  Chalice- F rank. A vessel of sanguine power forged by the Baron of  Blood, Gemworld's most notorious vampire. The Carmine Chalice possesses  the power to imbue the blood of its owner into the body of the drinker.  Used by the Baron to create his army of empowered thralls, the chalice  grows with use, becoming more powerful the more blood is shed into its  crystalline depths.]

This was perfect for me. It  imbued the power in the blood to the drinker in a more direct way that  allowed them to retain the strength. Granted it was F rank so I was  guessing the effect wasn't going to be amazing, but given my insanely  powerful blood, it should be good enough to get me a few ranked up  villagers, not to mention it made thralls out of the drinkers, which in  my case should effectively Brand them directly. I literally couldn't  have asked for a better artifact to build up my kingdom.

I  was assuming the Baron had died before he could get much use of the  thing, or he hadn't been very strong, because the damn cup could grow,  and if it had been used as much as I was planning to it would be MUCH  stronger. Still, it would most likely take a while to get it to E rank.  Once we'd cleared it all out I turned to Cherry. "Ok. This  was...productive." She licked her lips subconsciously, clearly  remembering the blowjob top up. "Now we just need to finish scouting,  and then we can work on taking out the locals."

She raised  a hand as if in a classroom. "About that. I had another idea that might  be more helpful. Why not absorb them like you did with my crew? Just  kill off the leader and keep the rest of them. You'd have to put them in  their place and keep an eye on them but bandits aren't really known for  their loyalty or dependability. There's a pretty decent chance just  eliminating the boss and offering them a place to live would be enough  to get their support, even without showing off Waylon's terror croc form  to dissuade them from getting any ideas."

I couldn't  really argue with that. There were only ten G rankers, which meant a  bunch of H rankers to test my new cup on, and once we cleared out the  big boss any of the G rankers should be cake for me. "That's a good  idea. But how do we separate him from the others to take him out? I  guess we could wait and kill him in his sleep. I wouldn't have any  trouble putting someone like that down when he was unconscious."

She  shook her head. "I don't think that's the way to play it. I think you  should lean into their current structure. Just bust the door down and  challenge him for control. Granted the G rankers might try to cheat and  step in, but even if you couldn't swat them like flies I'm still here to  help. I can keep them out of the battle if need be. Though it might not  even come up, the boss might consider single combat a way to save face.  If that happens he'd probably attack you head on to prove his power. He  might now even let the others try to intervene."

It was a  decent plan. Granted it could go wrong, but hell, if that happened I  would just kill all of them like I'd planned in the first place and I  wouldn't lose anything. "Alright, since you're the one who came up with  the plan I'll let you handle our entrance. Try to make sure we leave and  impression, but other than that you can be the one to decide how we  bust in." Personally I was partial to blowing a big hole in the wall and  stalking into the room, but Cherry clearly had her ideas about how this  was going to go so I'd let her do her best to impress me.

She  grinned and held up a hand. "Ooh! I love making an entrance. Give me a  bit to scope out the feast hall and we can see what I can come up with."  She bolted from the room, so excited she passed right through the wall  of the hallway after exiting the big ass double doors. She spent a few  minutes scoping out the place, and given her stealth skills, her phantom  lady abilities, and the fact that ninety percent of these assholes were  still at dinner I wasn't too worried about her getting caught, finally  she came back, excitement shining on her face. "I have the perfect  entrance in mind! Follow me!"

There  wasn't much point in dragging my feet now that I'd cleaned out their  treasury so I did, trailing along behind her through a few halls, then  up a short flight of stairs until we got to  a seemingly innocuous  hallway. She grinned. "Ok, now you just need to bust through the  floor..." She trailed off, grabbing my shoulders and moving me over to  stand above a specific place. "Here. But just so you know, there's going  to be a bit of a drop once you get through, so brace for that."

I  raised an eyebrow, expecting a bit more, but apparently she wanted this  to be a surprise so I figured I'd just go with it. After that I just  had to get through the actual floor. I considered just smashing through  with my foot or something, but I'd come through a bit at a time and it  would look like shit. I took the time to crouch down, shift into my  lifestorm form, and slowly dig out a circle in the stone with my claws.  Not all the way through, but enough to create a stress point. Then I  stood back up and shifted back, just so I didn't give anything away.

I  took a deep breath and nodded to Cherry, then hopped up into the air,  and as I came down, slammed my feet into the partially carved out circle  of stone. As expected, the circle was punched out of the ceiling  instead of breaking, since I held back quite a bit. I rode the thing  down through the hall below it, and was still standing on it when it  smashed into the table. Surprisingly the table itself actually held up  under the impact of two hundred plus pounds of muscular wyrmkin and who  knew how many of dark heavy stone, but that didn't matter.

I  didn't pay too much attention to that, I was too busy looking the big  man in the throne on front of me in the eye. The green haired, bearded  giant of a man was staring at me. I almost face palmed. Of course she  thought it would be awesome to drop me literally five feet from the  boss. I shrugged internally and just went with it. She wasn't wrong. I  could work with this. I glared up at the boss man, though not far up  because I was tall as shit and standing on a table, and even the stage  under his throne didn't give him that much height on me.

He  glared back, but before he could speak I boomed out, in my most  intimidating voice. "I'm here to challengte you for leadership of the  Emerald Edge! Will you accept and test your worth? Or will you prove  yourself a coward in front of all your men?" I really hoped he accepted,  I would be annoyed to waste all these potential experimental subject-er  minions. Either way, I jumped down off the table and stalked up onto  the dais. If he did try to mob me maybe I could put him down first and  avoid having to kill too many of them.