Shango POV: Day 90

  Current Wealth: 221 gold 2 silver 42 copper

  We’d been busy, for the three days given to us before the tournament resumed. Very busy. Beam had been training like a motherfucker, of course, and Solitaire had started working on something new. I wasn’t sure what, hadn’t quite mustered the courage to ask. All I knew was it involved bulk-buying a fuck ton of mercury.

  No good could have come from that, I decided, so I just pretended it wasn’t happening and hoped very hard not to wake up one morning finding out the building had been blown to bits by a Scouse maniac. The usual manoeuvre.

  As for myself, well I had my own set of tasks to attend to. Largely compulsion-based, to be fair, but we’d finally assembled a big enough range of people to do some experimentation and see exactly what each level of a stat actually meant. Helena had helped me with the sprinting tests, and the Strength ones had been even more straightforward- just a matter of shoving increasingly heavy blocks of Solitaire's ice until it stopped yielding. The results were quite satisfying.

  A twenty five percent increase to strength per level, which was about what we expected. Solitaire was pretty smug about that of course. What surprised us was the eight percent increase to speed. I’d been confused about the weird specificity of that number, until Solitaire had pointed out it was the exact cubic root of one point two five.

  Smug arsehole. One of these days he’d meet something as smart as he was. Actually, that was quite an eerie thought. I imagined there’d be quite a few bits and pieces involved.

  “So what would this mean for us?” I asked. “You’re sitting at twelve Strength, now, right? And eleven Speed. Is that superhuman?”

  He did some quick calculations.

  “I’ll be about six and a half times the average man’s strength, and seventy percent faster give or take. I’m fairly sure that’s world-record breaking in both areas.”

  Well shit, that was encouraging. And we’d be getting two Skillpoints per level too.

  My other tasks were less straightforward and dopamine-releasing than just finding out how much we could lift; I had to somehow go about integrating our new joins. I’d expected Magnus to be the hardest one to organise, but he proved surprisingly malleable compared to Elizabeth.

  It wasn’t that she had difficulty following orders, of course. It was that she completely fucking refused to on a categorical level. It was like herding not just cats, but some bizarre cave-creature which ate the fucking things as well.

  “Armour’d slow me down.” She sniffed, as if that were the end of that. I actually short-circuited for a moment, pausing my futile efforts to put her in plate just to properly consider what I’d been told.

  “It…Will…It will also keep you alive…?”

  “Not if I get caught because I’m slower.”

  “Yes.” I snapped, “Exactly then, and what if some idiot gets a lucky shot with an arrow while you’re legging it in linen and wool?”

  She hesitated, considering that, then shrugged.

  “I’ll make sure they don’t.”

  It was like arguing with Solitaire, almost. Just a complete refusal to even acknowledge the possibility of her actions having consequences, wrapped in the infuriating ability to almost make a half-solid argument justifying the sentiment. It was all I could do not to just start swearing blind at her, and I took my leave.

  Some victories, apparently, would require even the great Shango Belahont more time than that to achieve.

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  Our final matter of consideration was business, and that was by far the most notable. It was Phelia who called my attention to it, awaiting me in her- my- study with eyes as focused for work as ever.

  It really was strange, speaking with her these days. Felt like I was in some fugue state given all our bedroom activity, and her complete and utter disregard for it the moment we were dressed and doing something else.

  I followed suit.

  “You had something to tell me?” I asked, taking a seat just opposite her. Funny how the distance we chose to remain apart hadn’t shrunk at all since we started…Well, that was marriage I supposed. Or, at least I assumed that was marriage. I’d not exactly had much experience with the concept just yet.

  “Yes, I believe, given the hectic beginning to our arrangement has apparently been left in the past, we may now be best served looking for more…Purely financial opportunities. Wealth, essentially, gotten through business. It is rather a more surefire way of bolstering one’s coffers than simply killing people.”

  I widened my eyes, let my mouth gape open.

  “You…What?” I gasped. “Not…Not killing people? How can that-”

  “Enough, arsehole.” She snapped, clearly not appreciating my hilarious wit. “You understand my point, though, yes? Particularly now, I think you’ll agree your new company is far from suited for a large-scale conflict. And that’s just the sort that you’d need to pay off my famil- our family’s debt.”

  Was she just pretending to slip up so I’d be reminded that she didn’t view us as a real family yet? I wouldn’t put it past her, it was the sort of thing I might do too, after all.

  “Fine.” I sighed. “Let’s talk business, then. Which for the record I’ve actually got more experience with than I do mercenary work.”

  And most likely more experience than her for that matter, too. But we could cross that bridge when it came to it. Phelia was at least robust in her conversational skills, quickly bouncing back onto the main topic of discussion as if the distraction had never happened.

  “Good. I doubt it will surprise you to know that I called you here having prepared several options for you ahead of time, each of which is…Viable, at least, within its own area. But all of which will likely require some legwork to secure.”

  “Start with the most optimistic choice.”

  She did so, and I listened intently as Phelia moved through our options. Lord Wilskasai was the first among her chosen prospects, and I could see why quite quickly. He owned most of the city’s mines. Elswick was a city ever under attack from…Well, pretty much everything really. When it wasn’t orcs, it was undead. When it wasn’t those it was some enemy nation. One day I half expected a Dragon would drop down and start burning everything. For now, though, it meant there was always a high demand for good steel.

  I put that option on the solid “maybe” pile, but made a note to ask Solitaire about the possibility of mass-smelting later. It would be a lot less hopeful if our only option was diverting Ardin’s efforts.

  “Who are our other options?”

  “The next up would be Lord Duriah, one of the more prominent heads of this city’s martial families.”

  I’d heard that term before. Martial families, as the Elswickians called them, were those nobles who’d carved out a niche for themselves by turning their family into a sort of elite fighting force. One hundred men at arms was good, of course, when you were being attacked by orcs. But in a world where seemingly every human could muster some degree of superhuman physical power simply by training and practising, there was a much greater difference made by elites. Sometimes you didn’t have room for a hundred men to charge in at once, sometimes there were benefits to sending in a half-dozen wrapped in steel plate and swinging swords hard enough to take limbs off with every hit.

  I had a feeling that type would be rather difficult in a negotiation, though. Violent people tended to come with plenty of other traits packaged in, few were pleasant.

  “What does he want?” I frowned.

  “Do you need to ask?” Phelia sighed. “Your staff, or others like it. Word has spread of it you know.”

  “Ah.” I noted. “No, definitely not, that’s non-negotiable. Long-term we’re best hoarding that secret to ourselves, believe me.”

  I didn’t mind starting an industrial revolution, but I didn’t want to kick start one on Redaclan’s terms. Putting aside the exploitation that only increased as factories started emerging- and I was fairly sure looking at something as advanced as a gun would inspire technological growth in other areas like that- our modern knowledge was our sole advantage, and I didn’t want to see that reduced as the morons we’d been forced to share a world with started copying some of it.

  Phelia, to her credit, seemed plenty understanding. I supposed even without knowledge of the particulars it was fairly intuitive to realise how bad an idea it would be to give up the sorts of edges we had. Particularly when Solitaire was working on…Something. Whatever it was he had his wits wrapped up in, I had a feeling it’d make people a bit volatile when he finally revealed it. Better volatile people without guns than with.

  “So who’s our last option?” I asked, thoughtfully.

  She hesitated, licked her lips, then sighed.

  “Lord Byror. If we offer a truce, offer ourselves as subordinates, he may still wish to accept now that I have assets of more consequence to offer.”

  Solitaire’s grin, pooling blood, a mangled friend and a giant, ticking time bomb just waiting to go off. I shook my head.

  “Out of the question.”