I sighed.

  Of course Mason made the duel to the death. It would have been fine if he’d just asked for a duel, then we could have questioned Payton after. Maybe Payton would refuse.

  “Fine,” Payton said. “I accept.”

  Dammit.

  I glared at Payton, wondering why he’d accept the duel.

  “I can’t undo what I’ve done,” he said. “But I can at least try to atone for it.”

  I sighed.

  “If you hadn’t been caught, you wouldn’t have cared,” Mason accused.

  Payton, at least, had the dignity to not answer.

  He wasn’t trying to atone for anything. He knew he was dead. At least with a duel, he’d be able to dictate how he went out. Payton, for all his faults, was an Adventurer. He’d gone through the Challenge Tutorial. He was a fighter. He’d go down swinging.

  I stood up. No use in delaying it.

  “Okay, if we’re going to do this, let’s go do it.”

  Payton stood up, still hanging his head. He pushed back from the chair, not even looking up as Mason stormed past, heading for the tent flap.

  “Sergeant Parker,” I called out.

  The man poked his head in.

  “Get a couple guards to escort Payton to wherever Mason is going. Make sure it’s a wide enough area and won’t damage any of the fortifications.”

  “Yessir.”

  Four guards walked in. Payton glanced at them. He walked out from the table, standing between the guards, two in front and two in the back. A couple others held the tent flaps open. The guards escorted Payton out.

  I turned back to the table. Daphne was looking deep in thought. Calvin was a bundle of nerves. My folk looked bored. Maria had better things to be doing. She motioned to Derek, the two starting to converse.

  “I guess we have a show to watch,” I muttered, stalking out of the tent.

  I was not happy.

  ***

  Walking out the tent, I saw some char marks on the ground, along with some blood. There’d been a fight. Probably quick and brutal as my folks had been prepared for Payton to bring guards that might cause trouble.

  “What happened to them?” I asked one of the guards still standing at the tent.

  “Had to summon a couple folks to haul the bodies off. They’re over there somewhere,” he said.

  I recognized the guy. He was one of the troopers from Solace, so he knew I hated formality.

  “Any of us hurt?”

  “No sir. They weren’t that strong.”

  I nodded.

  “Assume we’re stripping the bodies of their gear?”

  “Yessir. One of them is still alive. He’s off at the healers and then will be locked up.”

  I walked down the hill, following along behind the guards escorting Payton. I could see Mason ahead, heading for the gate in the wall. He was really walking so much as stalking. People got out of his way quickly. The man was big and radiating anger. No one wanted to be near.

  I wasn’t mad at him. Couldn’t blame him for wanting to bash Payton’s skull in. I wanted to bash Payton’s skull in. The guy had turned his back on humanity and had happily pushed the people that he’d been responsible for into the role of sacrificial lambs. The first to fall.

  But it would have been nice for him until we’d rung Payton of all the information he could give us.

  Guards saluted and stood at attention as I walked out the gates. Behind me, it sounded like more folks had joined us. I could hear Calvin trying to talk to Daphne, and she was trying her best to ignore him. Nathan was talking with Gary. We were attracting quite a crowd.

  “What’s going on?”

  Sunie walked up next to me, staff in hand.

  “Who’s that guy under guard?”

  “Thomas Payton, the former Graywolf Clanchief.”

  “Ah,” Sunie said.

  He knew the story. I’d thought about having him or XXX in the meeting. For a couple reasons. First was to show Payton that Earth wasn’t alone, we had allies from the Multiverse. The other was to throw Payton off balance. Maria had talked me out of it.

  “Doesn’t look like he’s going the same place as that guard.”

  I nodded.

  “Mason challenged him to a duel to the death.”

  Sunie whistled.

  “You’re going to let Mason pound him to death before he answers all your questions?”

  “He’s bound by a System Contract,” I muttered.

  “That’s not good.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Nope.”

  Mason stopped about a hundred feet from the gates, angled away from the city, in a clear area with nothing around. He turned, pulling his hammer from his inventory. The two guards in front of Payton moved to the sides, letting him walk ahead. Payton came to a stop, pulling a two-handed sword out of his inventory.

  “Does Payton have a chance?” Sunie asked as we stood next to the four guards.

  Everyone else formed a wide circle around the duelists.

  “Nope.”

  “Death by combat?”

  “Yeah. He knows he wasn’t long for this world. Figures why not go out fighting.”

  “You could stop this.”

  I nodded.

  As both Payton and Mason’s Faction leader, I could cancel out their duel.

  The System cared about duels. Made them all official, bound by contract. Just like it did on the Nexus. But where the System was the authority in the Nexus, in Territories that I controlled, I was the authority and I could nix the duel if I wanted to.

  I didn’t want to.

  There was probably more information we could get from Payton, but could get that same info from any of the others involved. We had a couple of them in custody already. If Tracy caught Caulfield, he’d give us far more. He was the ringleader in all of this.

  End of the day, I cared more about Mason and what he meant and could do for the Fellowship. I didn’t mean that I was going to use Mason. I wanted him to reach his full potential. Payton was probably holding him back, not wanting him to get too strong and be a threat to Payton’s position. I didn’t care about that. I wanted Mason to grow stronger.

  Yeah, that meant he’d be an asset for the Fellowship. There was no getting around that aspect of it. He was part of the Faction, he’d be climbing the Tower and his gains would be our gains. But I also wouldn’t care if he decided to retire or take up knitting.

  Being angry and frustrated at the situation? That wasn’t going to help anyone.

  If beating on Payton helped him get through all that?

  So be it.

  If Mason beat Payton’s head in, that meant I wouldn’t end up doing it. And I really wanted to. I badly wanted to. But not as much as I wanted to kill the Faction responsible for all this.

  Payton was a pawn. I wanted the one in charge.

  “I know you probably wanted to question him,” Sunie said as the two opponents faced off. “But I hope Mason gives him a severe thrashing. Anyone that would sell out their planet doesn’t deserve mercy.”

  “Did you have people like Payton on Cryim?”

  “Early on. And only a couple,” Sunie said. His expression hard. “The punishment they received convinced everyone else to not try.”

  “Fear’s a good motivator,” I said, and it was obvious I wasn’t a fan of that tactic.

  “I know you want to be the nice guy,” Sunie said, watching as Payton charged at Mason. “But it’s a harsh world out there. Sometimes to protect your people, you need to be the harsh one.”

  I knew Sunie was right. Didn’t mean I had to like it.

  Mason blocked Payton’s swing, hammer clashing with sword.

  From there, the duel was over quickly.

  Payton tried his best. He didn’t give up.

  But he didn’t last long.

  It was short and it was brutal.

  ***

  “He has some decent equipment,” Derek said.

  Payton’s body had already been removed, stripped of its gear. Disposed of somewhere. I didn’t care where. The guy wasn’t getting a funeral or burial.

  Derek was looking through the ring that manifested when an Adapted died. Monsters left loot. Adapted left rings. It contained anything they had in their inventory upon death. People rarely carried bags anymore, not with a dimensional inventory that could be accessed with a thought. Most folk carried around extra clothes, back-up armor and weapons. Any loot they’d recently gotten. That kind of stuff.

  And it was all in the little ring.

  Derek was inventorying it, seeing what Payton had. And it was a lot. It looked like the guy had filled it with everything he’d need to start over somewhere else. Gold, Essence crystals, couple sets of armor, a bunch of weapons. Even had two Leveling Crystals.

  I was back in the command tent with Maria, Derek and Mason.

  Chairs had been righted, the tent had been cleaned up, food and drink had been brought. Mason had taken a couple seconds to clean off most of Payton’s blood from his armor and body. He was still incredibly angry. Pummeling Payton into a bloody mess hadn’t helped, and it had been a major pummeling.

  I’d winced a couple of times, it’d been that bad.

  Mason wouldn’t be okay until the Grimdar were destroyed and the ones truly responsible were all killed. No bringing to trial or anything like that. They were going to get killed. No mercy. He sat at the table, not wanting to be there, arms crossed, glaring at the top and the marks he’d made when he’d slammed his fists into it.

  “Once you got it inventoried, sell it for the highest price you can get. No deals for anyone.”

  “Even you?”

  “Even me.”

  “Why the highest price?” Maria asked. “Some of this stuff would help out a lot of our Adventuring teams.”

  “I want every single coin raised from the sale of Payton’s items to come back up here and go to the families that have lost their homes and loved ones.”

  Mason looked up. A bit of light in his eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course. These are my people. They are part of the Solace Fellowship and we take care of our own.” I turned to Derek, making sure he had his pencil and notes ready. “Have Kat start working up the contracts with the builders and material suppliers. They’ll probably have to ramp up the resource gathering. I want people up here and building the second we kick the Grimdar back through those portals. I’ll be paying for it all, so tell Kat to not worry about rates. Get the best she can but it’s more important to get them up here and ready.”

  “Understood,” Derek said, writing notes.

  I turned to Maria.

  “Now, what’s next?”