Greed God chapter 136 (Patreon)

March 10th 2016 Gemworld 4:00 PM EDT

Once  I retreated to seclusion to 'stew over my dilemma' I arranged for  Cherry and Zee to meet me so we could set out immediately for Dark  Opal's territory. Finding it wasn't tough, I still had that ridiculous  skull map memorized, and with Cherry and Zee helping I was able to cloak  my presence as I flew there so I didn't get noticed by any random Duke  or something. After letting Barbie know what was going on and arranging  for her to help stall, I officially set my plan in motion.

The  first thing I did was lock myself up and spread it around that I was  going to wait Graciel out. I loudly declared to the whole city that I  thought her task lacked sincerity and that I was going to patiently  allow her to reconsider. Then I snuck out of there with the help of  Zee's magic and Cherry's phantom abilities. That should buy me a few  days or even a week or two. I'd come across pretty stubborn during this  whole mess, so chances were lots of eyes were on my 'retreat' waiting to  see me fold. People loved watching arrogant men being knocked off their  pedestals.

I was the royal son in law, at least  potentially, so no one would barge in, which meant I was essentially  guaranteeing that everyone knew exactly where I was. Dark Opal  undoubtedly had spies in Amethyst (no dark lord worth his salt didn't  plant people in his enemy's territory' which would buy me some time to  actually accomplish the task hopefully. Now we were in Dark Opal  territory in the city of Cobalt, the capital city.

During  the trip we had been scouting out information in every city we passed  (mostly Cherry, who was excellent at it due to her invisibility and  phasing) and we'd managed to identify the location of the royal citadel  easily enough. On the ride over I'd been thinking about how exactly we  might do this, and where we might find the stone, and it occurred to me  that this thing had been in Dark Opal's hands for decades.

While  it was common sense to keep things important to you close by, the  chances of any rational carrying around a big ass magic rock on them  just to be an asshole to someone who wasn't anywhere near them and would  never see it were pretty much slim to none. There was no way that the  stone was on his person, not after so long, which meant the most likely  place was the royal treasury.

This was excellent for me  for multiple reasons. First, with no clue I was coming the citadel  wouldn't be under extra guard, second, after literal decades of no  attempts it would be literally unthinkable for Dark Opal that someone  would dare rob his treasury, third, if he had C ranked materials from  one of the nearby territories then he probably had other good stuff.  Maybe not anything as terrifying as the gem, but maybe I could pick up  some D ranked materials, or E ranked at the very least.

Whatever  the outcome if I did this right I would be able to gather enough to not  only complete my plans, but to upgrade every one of my F rankers to E  rank. Hell, I could probably upgrade myself to D rank, but for the  moment I was holding back. At the very least I hadn't been able to fully  master my new abilities or explore all their uses. If I upgraded now I  might miss out on a good direction to take, plus once I got back to  Gotham E rank would be enough to take care of myself once Doctor Gotham  was out of the way.

Better to have the versatility of a  large, unquestioningly loyal force of E rankers. I could only be in so  many places at one time, and my other subordinates would definitely have  more specific talents that could make up for gaps in my own abilities.  It all depended on exactly how much I was able to gather in terms of  points. If I earmarked ten million, the million I had now would be  enough to upgrade all of my people, but it would leave me a bit low.

To  figure that out though I would need to identify exactly how to get in  and rob this asshole, which was why I was currently sitting in a tavern  in Cobalt, staring through a window at the massive, garish black castle  that towered over the city. Dark Opal, it seemed, was kind of an  edgelord, because the aesthetic here was something I'd expect to come  from the mind of a fourteen year old emo.

I turned to  Cherry, who was sitting down across from me. I raised an eyebrow and she  lifted a hand, invoking her ability. All five of her fingertips caught  fire, burning like candle wicks, and she nodded. "Ok. So no one can  overhear us. One of the Hand's abilities is the power to let thieves go  unseen or unheard in a targets territory. I've been expending a bit of  power to make people ignore us since we got to town, but with me  invoking this sphere of silence we should be free to talk unless someone  much stronger than me decides to forcibly break the concealment, which I  would notice."

I grinned. "Fantastic. Zee, put up a  secondary scrying detection ward just to be safe. No such thing as  overprepared." She closed her eyes, muttering to herself before opening  them and nodding. "Perfect. Now what's the situation in the capital.  We've been here a day, which isn't much, but your information gathering  ability and powers are well suited to this. Were you able to get close  enough to case the place?"

Cherry scowled. "No. Not by  myself. The Hand is a subtle tool. It can brute force weaker wards like  the ones on the bandit stronghold, but the ones here are old and  terrifying. No chance of me breaking through them alone. However while  brute force isn't an option, I can hide any damage we do while getting  in, at least for a while. If Zee can crack through the first few layers  that dragon breath should finish the job. That's not the problem at hand  though."

"Yeah, the nobility." I said the words like they  had a foul smell, because they kind of did. These assholes were going  to be a huge problem, and I absolutely wasn't going to be able to handle  them in anything like a fight. Any middling Duke would swat me like a  fly if attacked them head on. Luckily I had no intention of doing that.  "Don't worry, I have some things in mind. I'm going to need to use the  phone to make myself look like I'm back in Amaranthine now and again to  keep suspicion off, but I'm prepared to stay here a while to arrange  things."

I was also going to have to make a disguise  artifact to keep me from being spotted or recognized. Opal citizens were  pretty distinctive, what with the stripes, and Cherry couldn't cloak us  all the time. We needed to blend while I made some arrangements. Cherry  look assuaged, but Zee seemed hesitant. "Are you sure you need to do  this Nicky? It's an awful risk. We could just tell the Princess that we  concede. Amy is really sweet and she has a ton of power, I get why you  want to marry her, but changing your last name isn't worth dying over."

Of  course, that wasn't the real reason. The reason was that as soon as we  managed to do this I'd have the points needed to go the fuck home, not  to mention a nice nest egg for upgrades in the future. I hadn't told her  about my points though, so all I could do was deflect. "It's fine, Zee.  You know me. I don't do anything I'm not confident in. I'm not rushing  this either. There's no reason for anyone to attack us if they don't  know we're her. As long as we take it step by step there are measures we  can take to pull this off."

Cherry gave her a reassuring  smile, squeezing her arm supportively. "Hey, don't be such a worrier.  Nicky isn't stupid, he isn't going to try to fight everyone in the city  of something like that." She paused, her tone still pretty certain but  with a hint of doubt creeping in. "Probably. But even if he did he would  have a way to accomplish his goal. Regardless since this idea seems  insane and unfeasible, it just means we're not in on his real plan yet."

I  ginned. Cherry was easily my most understanding girl. She was also  right. "It's fine Zee. I'm not planning anything rash. We need to case  this place for quite a bit longer, and I have arrangements to make. Rest  assured we don't actually need to fight anyone. Hell, if we do this  right they won't even know we were here until we're safely back in  Amethyst, or better yet, home." B rank or not, there was no way Dark  Opal was going to come to earth and run rampant. The League might be  annoying busybodies, but they were POWERFUL annoying busy bodies. Not  even the most useless villains were stupid enough to accuse those  walking insurance claims of weakness.

Even  with most of them being off world, Doctor Fate alone should be able to  counter Dark Opal, at least given the sorcerer's seeming surety he could  handle Doctor Gotham as long as I severed the roots of his power. In  any case, I just needed to go slow and use my brain. With the right  lever even a baby could move the world. I turned to Cherry. "I'm going  to need some supplies to set up our disguises, I'll make you a list." I  scrawled out a bunch of item categories on a piece of paper from my  pouch and passed it to her.

Then  I wrote out a second one. "I also want all the information available on  any of the subjects on this list. Don't be obvious about it, and take  your time if you need to. You know what you're doing so I won't go into  specifics. The more information we can gather, the more stable the next  stages of our plans will be, and the less danger we have to deal with  when things fall out. Information is the most important resource you can  have."

Back  in Gotham I'd been close enough to Metropolis to use my sources to  ferret things out, plus I grew up right over the river and had a  thorough grounding in most of the areas I was playing around in.  Business for the most part, my criminal plans had been a bit more seat  of my pants, but I'd taken precautions to avoid discovery. Here though, I  would be dealing with a seriously powerful force. Trying to do anything  to them directly would just get me crushed. I needed to find pressure  points to exploit, gaps to slip through.

In  a way I was excited. Back on earth I would never be able to do  something like this. Despite being capable of it, the political  landscape there was too unified, at least on a surface level. The UN and  their justice lackeys sticking their nose in everyone's business. Here  though, if you toppled or even seriously damaged a country, not only  would you not suffer for it, you might get rewarded. The houses here  were all circling sharks under the surface. If Opal took a hit, all  their neighbors would be ready and waiting to dogpile them.

Cherry  read over the list, giving me a searching look, and I just nodded at  her. "Like I said, all you need to do is get that information. I won't  make any huge decisions before I see how things look. I'm not in much of  a rush. With the communication device we can appear in Amaranthine once  in a while so even my deceptions aren't a problem. I have a general  idea of the direction I'm taking, and the rest...we shall see. After  all, everyone knows how you eat a whale." My face split into a vicious  grin. "One bite at a time."