Grand Game 404: Coming to Terms (Patreon)

Freeing Lorn and the other orcs was only the work of a few minutes. Healing them all was beyond me, however—which was why I had spared Dirk in the first place.

“What is that thing?” I heard one of the newly freed orcs mumble.

“Some sort of devil dog,” the dwarf helping him muttered.

“If you ask me it looks like a stygian,” another said. A pause. “We should kill it.”

That’s just about enough of that, I thought. Striding back to the hatch, I stopped at Ghost’s side.

“Listen up everyone,” I said, clapping loudly to capture their attention. “This here is Ghost. She is a pyre wolf and my partner.” I deliberately left out the part about her being my familiar. Perhaps I was being paranoid, but the less anyone knew about Ghost and me, the better. “She can also hear and understand everything you say,” I warned. “So be polite and show some respect. She is half the reason you lot are alive, after all.”

For a drawn-out moment, no one said anything, then a surly-looking dwarf asked, “Is it going to eat him?”

“She. Not it,” I growled. “And eat who?”

“Him,” the dwarf said, pointing at Dirk.

I rolled my eyes. “No. The possessed is alive. Ghost is guarding him.”

“Maybe I should eat him,” Ghost said, glaring at the dwarf who’d insulted her.

“Alive?” another asked. I recognized his voice from my passage past the prison cells. Megtir was his name. “Why is he alive?”

“Dirk is a healer,” I explained. The significance of this seemed to fly over the heads of most of the orcs and dwarves.

“Fools!” Lorn snorted. “Taim spared the possessed so he could heal you ingrates. Isn’t that right?” he asked, looking at me.

“Correct. When Dirk regains consciousness, we’ll put him to work.”

“Will he cooperate?” Megtir asked doubtfully.

“He will if he wants to live,” I replied grimly.

“We can always feed him to the devil dog otherwise,” another chipped in helpfully.

Before I could respond to that, Stormhammer shoved his way to the fore of the crowd of orcs and dwarves. “Enough questions. Have you lot forgotten where we are?”

Sheepish looks were his only answer.

“Grab some weapons—there are plenty lying about—and guard the entrance.” The thane glanced in Ghost’s direction. “And the hatch.” Lorn must have told him about it, I realized.

“Don’t go too close,” I warned. “Some of the traps I laid about it are still active.”

Stormhammer nodded curtly. “Now, if you’re all done here, it’s time we finished our talk.”

✵ ✵ ✵

Delaying only to relay some final instructions to Ghost—I trusted her more than the prisoners to guard the hatch and warn me of any incoming danger—I followed Lorn and Stormhammer to an empty corner of the room. None of the other orcs and dwarves were close by, giving us at least the illusion of privacy.

“Begin,” Stormhammer demanded without preamble. “Tell us your terms.”

“One thousand soldiers,” I replied, equally curtly.

The thane’s bushy eyebrows drew down. “What?”

“In exchange for freeing you and Lorn, and killing Castor, I want New Haven to loan me a company of one thousand of its finest soldiers.”

The two councilors exchanged glances. “For how long?”

That was a little trickier to answer.  The soldiers were for claiming the dire wolves’ former home valley, of course. In order to take control of the sector, I needed a faction and a force of one thousand loyal to said faction to hold its safe zone for a limited duration. Unfortunately, I still didn’t know what that duration was. Something else I must remember to ask Adriel about.

“A month,” I said finally.

“And that’s all you want?” Lorn asked. “Those are the sum of your terms?”

“Yes,” I replied.

Originally, I’d intended on forming a Pact with one of the Game’s more mercenary Powers—buying the use of their faction—and employing actual mercenaries—from the bounty hunters guild—to form the requisite company of soldiers.

But since becoming an ascendant player, I had acquired the ability to form a faction myself—even though I was still fuzzy on how to go about doing that—and New Haven had plenty of soldiers to spare. It would be much simpler to have the New Haveners fight under my own banner and secure the sector that way.

Mercenaries were expensive after all.

Stormhammer’s expression meanwhile had turned sour. “Damnable players,” he muttered.

My proposal was not going down well, I suspected. Still, I kept my own face impassive. “If it’s too much to ask, we can negotiate the time period they will serve. But I will not budge on the number. I need one thousand soldiers, no less.”

Once more the thane’s reaction caught me by surprise.

“Too much to ask, he says,” Stormhammer fumed. “Bloody imbecile!” Throwing up his arms, the dwarf stomped off in disgust.

Perplexed, I watched him go. Was I really asking for too much? I didn’t think so. But perhaps under the circumstances, the thane didn’t believe the city could spare the soldiers.

Lorn chuckled, drawing my attention.

“It’s not that you ask too much,” the orc explained, “but too little.”

I blinked. “Too little?”

The orc nodded. “The thane is a proud man. What he does not say—and I agree with him, mind—is that he finds your offer insulting.” Lorn paused. “Do you truly value the lives of our people so little?”

“I don’t,” I protested. “And I meant no insult, but I also have no desire to extort—”

“If you asked for ten thousand men, we’d given them to you,” Lorn said, his humor fading. “Thrice that if need be.”

“I don’t need so many,” I objected. Never mind that I had no way to feed and house an army of that size—yet.

“Then we will have to come up with a reward of equitable value,” the orc replied, undaunted. “I will discuss the matter further with Stormhammer. But in the meantime, you have my word we will provide the soldiers you requested.” He winced. “I know it is a bit much asking you to trust one who has already betrayed you, but will you?”

“I will,” I replied gravely. “The situation is different this time around, and I’m willing to overlook the council’s previous… errors in judgment.” I met his eyes. “But there will be no second chances after this.”

“Understood,” Lorn said, the smile returning to his face. “Now that that is settled, you best return to your companion. Your prisoner looks to be stirring.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Lorn was right. Dirk was awakening.

✵ ✵ ✵

I was back at Ghost’s side before the possessed could open his eyes, and when he did, the first thing he saw was me kneeling over him.

“You!” he exclaimed, his eyes going wide with shock.

“Me,” I agreed, placing the tip of ebonheart beneath his chin. “Don’t do anything stupid now.”

Dirk jerked back from the black blade, then promptly winced as the back of his rubbed against the hard ground. “What did you do to me?” he whined.

“Don’t be a baby. It’s only a little bump.” I glanced to the left. “Your companions fared much worse.”

Following my gaze, the possessed blanched. “You killed them!” he whispered, aghast. “All of them!”

“I did,” I said, smiling agreeably.

“Castor will kill you for this!”

“Not if I kill him first,” I retorted.

The healer stared at me speechlessly for a moment before he realized I was serious. “You’re stark raving mad!”

I laughed. “Maybe.” My smile faded. “Now, as pleasant as this verbal sparring is, I’m afraid we don’t have time for more. Do you know why you are still alive?”

Confusion flashed across the possessed’s face, only to be chased away by fear a second later. “You want me to tell you how to get to Castor. But I won’t. No matter what you do to me, I won’t tell you a thing!”

I pushed ebonheart deeper into soft flesh. “You will,” I promised. “And you’re right, I want you to tell me where Castor is. But if I wanted only that, I could’ve picked any one of your companions instead. But I didn’t. I chose you. Do you know why?”

Consternation flickered across Dirk’s face.

Reaching down, I turned his face to the left. “What do you see?”

The healer said nothing.

I smacked him across the head. “What do you see?” I repeated.

“Proles?” he ventured.

“People,” I growled. “Injured people. You will heal them.”

“But they’re just dumb proles,” he whined. “Why would I bother to—”

I smacked him again—harder. “Because if you don’t,” I hissed coldly, “you will join your friends. And this time, there will be no archlich to bring you back.”

The blood drained from Dirk’s face as he went white as a sheet. I laughed cruelly. “I see you know of Loskin’s fate. Do you think I’m not capable of doing the same to Castor?”

Dirk shook his head dumbly.

“Good. Then you will cooperate?”

He nodded.

I glanced over Dirk’s head at Ghost. She was sitting so still her presence had gone unnoticed by the healer—hard as that was to imagine. “Is he being sincere?” I asked.

“He is,” she replied.

Dirk craned his head back to see who I was talking to and, when he spotted Ghost, tried to scramble away, but I was holding him too firmly for that.

“What are you doing with a stygian?” he cried. “Get it away from me!”

“Relax,” I said. “Ghost is no stygian. What she is doesn’t matter, but as far you’re concerned, she is a truthsayer. She can read your every thought.” Which, while not true, was a close enough approximation that under the right circumstances it didn’t matter.

Ghost was using her diresight, which she’d activated the moment Dirk had awakened. The ability was in many ways similar to my own mindsight but there were a few subtle differences.

For one, Ghost could read minds.

Not perfectly, not against a strong-willed person, and not without adequate preparation or being nearly on top of her subject, but she could do it.  And well enough to sense if Dirk was lying.

“You understand what that means?” I asked, focusing on the healer again.

“If I lie to you,” he said haltingly, “I die.”

I smiled. “Good, I see that you do.” I sat back. “Now, start talking. Where can I find Castor?”