I sat in the dirt, looking up at the sky for a while. Nice blue sky. Fluffy white clouds in aesthetically pleasing quantities and arrangements. Easy 7.5 or even an 8 out of ten as skies go.

  Should I feel bad for the raider? But so what if I did? He was still here to steal, burn, rape, starve, spread disease and generally be an agent of misery and death. Maybe it was involuntary, but again, so what? You have the right to kill in self defence, but only the person threatening to kill you. If the person threatening to kill you demands that you kill someone else, and you do, it’s still murder.

  At least, I’m pretty sure I remember a Law and Order episode where they said that. I don’t know.

  The Mongols did this. I knew that much. This was Mongol 102, right after “Horse Archery for Fun and Profit,” and before “Make the Chinese build your siege engines.”

  “Did he have anything on him?”

  “Just a coin.” Othai said.

  “A coin? Do you recognize it?”

  “No.” She handed it to me. “Mind you, it might be a medallion or something.”

  She passed me a silver disc, about the size of an Oreo. There was a mountain on one side, a two tailed bird on the other, with edges inscribed in some language I couldn’t recognize.

  “I’ve seen this before.” I frowned. “Don’t I already have one of these?” I checked my storage pouch. I did have one. I put the two side by side. Identical.

  “Versai, didn’t we get this out of Sebastian’s safe?”

  “Yes, Tower Master.”

  “Did we ever ask him where he got it from?”

  “I don’t believe so, Tower Master.”

  “Othai, you recognize this thing?”

  “I would have said something if I did, My Lord.”

  Fair enough. “Alright. Mr. Bocciati wanted an upsetting display around the farm house, a real Do Not Disturb sign. Thoughts, concerns?

  They all just shook their head.

  “Othai, is there anything about violating a corpse or something that would particularly shock the conscience of the good people of Verton?” Because that seems like an easy mistake to avoid, but a very hard mistake to fix.

  “Many. But none that would apply to Hosk raiders.”

  Yep. Felt a definite prod in the kidney of guilt on that one. Some real conflicted feelings there.

  “Alright. Strip the bodies of anything worth salvaging, weapons absolutely included, and toss them in the barn for future collection. Then… I don’t know. There are a lot of fences around here, right? Hang the bodies up on the fences. Don’t get creative with it. Imagine you are hanging out laundry to dry, but it’s human remains. Go up and down the road with them in both directions.”

  I looked back up into the sky, and wondered who I would be in another twelve days.

  Mr. Bocciati was unsurprisingly as good as his word. I was given the location of a few farm wagons, told where to find my guides, and given a manly kiss on each cheek. I had a quick chat with his guys, discovered that they would have no trouble at all finding the Merchant Pastet’s hidden observation posts, and for a small gratuity, were willing to deliver flares to them. I got them in motion. Money well spent, I’d say. Nothing quite like hitting a quest completion cascade.

  Five thousand raiders. Less sixty now. Two hundred still on the beach at the other relic site. A city in the distance, but Red Feather said their villages had been cleared and the big army was still coming. The big army from… Ko’Ras, a name I hadn’t heard before.

  I sat on a wooden bench, looking over the cobblestone streets. Enjoying the sight of the stone and wood houses. They were actually kind of nice, in a RenFair or Assassin's Creed II way. “Othai, who, or what, is Ko’Ras? Other than cannibals and demons.”

  Othai squeezed her halberd so hard, I could hear her gloves creaking. “A nation, my Lord. One originally quite far away, but it has been consistently expanding towards us for four hundred years now. Not without some reverses along the way, of course.”

  I nodded.

  “As I understand it, they were originally nomads. Then the nomads made a deal. With who or what, nobody knows. But all of a sudden, they have these masked priests and when they invade a city, if the city does not surrender immediately, they kill eight in ten. The people are sacrificed. Their souls to the demons, their flesh to the troops.” She continued.

  Nasty.

  “But what makes them so feared isn’t just that. It’s the monsters they breed as attack animals. The sacrifices are for them too.”

  Ahah. Keyword “Monster” has appeared. Which means we know who they made a deal with, too. It also puts a real change in what this defensive action is going to look like, because if I’m only gearing up for Raiders, I’m going to get murdered when monsters turn up.

  “Think Truso knows?”

  “I couldn’t possibly guess. My Lord.” Oh the inflection on that one! We are right back to playing games over relationship gated information.

  “Let's go tell him.”

  “Yes! My Lord.”

  We had just finished explaining everything to Truso when we teleported back to the Throne Room. It seems that delegating orders to the locals counted towards my order limit. On the one hand, it is better to discover that now than later. On the other hand… What is the limit on this exactly? Does it trigger when things happen “off screen,” like with the scouts? I know I can make Awakened burn orders right in front of me.

  Well. Whatever. I’d sort it out. The weight of what I had heard was heavy on me. I needed time to process.

  My little potted plant seemed to be growing well. Still no idea what to do with it, still having the sense that it was an Important Clue and I was a doofus for missing out on it.

  I rang the Council Bell and summoned Sebastian. “Sebastian, I found this coin in your safe. Now, in another Relic Site, I found another one just like it. Any idea what it is?”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  I handed him one of the coins. Honestly, I hadn’t kept them separated, and they looked identical.

  “This isn’t the coin from my prison, Tower Master, though it is very similar.”

  I pulled out the other one and laid them on the arm of my throne. I couldn’t see a speck of difference between them. “How can you possibly tell them apart?”

  “After an eternity of staring at it, fiddling with it, pouring over every line of every picture, rubbing it, flipping it over my fingers, doing magic tricks with it, trying to dig my way through the walls using it, even occasionally beating to death my visitors with it-”

  “Got it! Damn. I thought you were only conscious when other Tower Masters tried to raid you?”

  “That is correct, my Lord.”

  “And you had that much time? You got that bored?”

  “Yes.”

  Christ. I’d noticed that there was a poorly hidden feral edge to Sebastian, but maybe I was underestimating how much he was keeping repressed.

  “Do you know where it comes from?”

  “I do not, my Lord. How much have you deduced about my prison?”

  “I guessed that it was a bunch of places that actually existed mashed together. The different rooms clearly didn’t belong together.”

  He gave me a mildly impressed look.

  “Correct. Exactly correct. These were all places that belonged to my various interests in the city. A room from one building, a hallway from another. None of them were of any particular significance. Even the safe was taken from my office in a building not included in the prison. The fact that the code to the safe was preserved… I cannot put into words what it made me feel. I’m still not sure what it made me feel, my Lord.”

  I didn’t speak. What could I even say? A life of nightmares.

  “And in the midst of all that, in the midst of those headless goons who superficially resembled the men I knew, was one thing that did not fit. One thing that I could categorically state did not belong. The coin. It was one of very, very few clues.”

  Sebastian took a deep breath and fixed me with his bright eyes.

  “And I discovered nothing. Not one thing. I deduced endlessly, interpreted endlessly, tried to divine the mind of the artist endlessly, and in the end it was all dreams. It was hallucinations of a mind trapped in solitary confinement. Endlessly walking through the same rooms, prying open the same crates- did you look in the crates?”

  “I did. It was the stuff you were smuggling out for the refugees.”

  “Yes, exactly! I thought there might be something in there, maybe the contents changed, maybe there was a hidden message. Nothing. Even the books weren’t real books. Just boxes. The wine bottles didn't break. For some mad reason I couldn’t set things on fire. I deduced, and reasoned and put together all the disparate elements and concluded nothing.”

  “Because there was nothing to check your answers against. Because you were missing key bits of information.” I nodded. Of course Sebastian’s eyes were bright. They were lit from within by the fires of a brilliant mind forced to consume itself endlessly as he tried to escape Hell.

  “Key information, yes.” He opened his mouth to try and say something. I could see him physically strain to speak. No words emerged. Then he laughed. A soft, indulgent sound. If you didn’t know better, you would think he wasn’t upset.

  “It seems I haven’t escaped the rules yet.”

  “No, not yet. There are a couple of reasons I haven’t bugged Jim more. His bloody minded approach to breaking the rules seems to be working. Slowly, and God only knows what will happen if he succeeds, but it is clearly having an impact.” I half smiled.

  “And if someone does invade-”

  “Send forth the Jim.” I nodded. “It would be a mistake to make him the entire defense budget, of course.

  “Naturally, naturally.” Sebastian nodded along with me. “So. Sorry. I don’t know anything more about the coins than you do. Though I do wonder if they really are coins. Notice how there is neither a coat of arms nor a royal face on them?”

  “Yep.”

  “People stick those on there for propaganda reasons. A bird and a mountain, unless one or the other is the current head of state-”

  “Gotcha.” I thrummed my fingers on the armrest of my chair. “I don’t suppose you want it back? Or the knife?”

  “No thank you, my Lord. For some reason I have another knife that seems to be identical to the one you currently have in almost every particular detail. As for the coin, I think it will prove more useful in your hands than mine. Just tell me when you figure out what it’s for.”

  I nodded and… I guess there isn’t a nicer way of saying “dismissed him.” What else do you call it when someone comes when you call them and leaves when you don’t need to talk to them anymore? But it feels cold.

  I needed a source of information. And Cutthroat Clothiers did offer. Mmm. I tapped on the pinned notice on the Notice Board, then waited. In less time than should have been possible, our wandering Bandit Queen/Shein Dropshipper arrived.

  “And who are we dressing today, mmm?” Her curly hair remained immaculate, and immaculately oiled. The sash, the big earrings, they all really worked together, super well coordinated, but it was like a band just killing Row Row Row Your Boat. Amazing skills, but I don’t care. It’s just not for me.

  “I need information on what something is and where and how to use it. It’s origins too, to the extent that you can give me that.”

  That got me an odd look. “I’ll do what I can. What have you got?”

  I held up the coin, showing both sides. She grunted in recognition.

  “No fee- I don’t know much and you should find out for yourself soon. I’m assuming you have more than one?”

  “Two.”

  “Eeehhh… technically that’s enough, but be smart- save up more. The more, the merrier.” She seemed to put extra emphasis on that last sentence.”

  “So what exactly are they?”

  “Entry passes and a sort of currency. And I won’t say where to, as again, you will find out soon enough. Consider my not saying anything as proof of my business ethics.”

  “How soon is soon enough?” I asked, hanging on to my temper. I never liked being told “You will find out when you are older.”

  “Literally any day now? How many monsters have you killed?”

  “If it isn’t five figures, we must be high in the four figures.”

  That made her jerk around and look at me. “That’s not right. What wave are you on? After the Tenth?

  “Today is Day Twelve.”

  “When did you find the coins?”

  My patience was running out fast. She seemed to see that and waved her hands. “I’m asking because you need at least two coins and a thousand dead monsters, minimum, to unlock the place. And it should happen pretty much automatically after you get the medals.”

  “Got the second one today.”

  She breathed out with a “Woof.”

  “Well, there you go. Tomorrow, you are in for a… ‘treat’ might be too strong a word, but something that will be useful and interesting?”

  “I do like things that are useful and interesting.”

  “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Do you have information for sale about when you have two related, but separate, relic sites that appear at the same time?”

  “Nothing reliable. I have heard things that lead me to believe such a thing was possible, but it must be vanishingly rare.”

  I nodded, smiled, and sent her on her way. She seemed pretty curious about the Relic Sites, but I was feeling petty. Calling for an information broker and spending all my time answering her questions left me irritated.

  Answers coming tomorrow. Fine. I can wait. In the meantime, I have three orders left. And a shop to hit.

  Soft Feathers didn’t have anything in for Versai, but it did have three arm-thick candles that Carousel should like, and a deck of playing cards that Othai will enjoy. Nothing for Mrs. Hungry, unfortunately. You would think a store with this much food on display would at least have cookbooks. Guess I was waiting on the mercy of the RNG gods.

  RNGesus? Does that work? I want it to work but I feel like it’s not quite there.

  Well. Whatever. I’d keep advancing the relationship system. Not going to lie- having people I could talk to was nice.

  I have talked to more people in twelve days in this game than I did in… probably years back in New York. That’s not literally true, but it feels that way. I’m not counting talking to people in stores or over Discord here. Maybe it’s not so different. I talked to my dress up dolls back home too.

  My instinct was to stop by the Gnome Market and see what was available in terms of resource packs or traps for tonight’s wave, but I held back. I needed to be stacking money for the relic sites. Did I still have an animal den that needed clearing out? Pretty sure I did. And more scouting was never a bad idea.

  But did I want to clear the beast den? The results from the last one blatantly weren’t worth it. I mean, a rug and a severed head on a stick that provided a niche, situational buff? Screw it. It would keep.

  “Marci, Judiths, please go to the Bluestone Quarry and bring back as much stone as you can in one order. Rache, Rikka, Scout for one order.”

  I’d save the last order until the scouts got back. In the meantime, I lay back in the recliner and rested my eyes. I might not be able to sleep, but I can teach myself to relax.

  “Well, it was a nice ride at least.” Rache shrugged.

  “Literally nothing?”

  “Happens, Boss. Sometimes, there just ain’t nothing to see but all of creation.”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure that makes sense, but sure, why not. Rikka?”

  “I found a pond, my Lord.” Was there a note of quiet triumph in her voice? Yes, yes there was.

  “Oh? More fairies?”

  “No, my lord. Worms.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Worms, my lord. The ground around the pond is filled with fat earthworms. They are apparently intended to be a higher quality bait.”

  Right! The fishing platform! Oh my god, of course there would be a bait mechanic, as well as higher tier fishing rods to unlock. Maybe special hooks too.

  “Did you bring back any of the worms?”

  “Yes, my Lord. I received five of them for discovering the pond.”

  Let us not question who she received them from, and press on.

  I went back and forth in my head about what to do next, but ultimately, I wanted a break.

  “You know what? I’ve never been fishing. Gimme the worms. Rikka, you said that the rewards include Runed Bones, right?”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  I grinned. “When I get back I’ll have to tell you about the fish I almost caught. It was thiiiiiiiis big!”

  “My Lord?”

  I guess that’s not a thing in fantasy Japan. Shame. Ah well. And I don’t even have a bucket hat. Now… how did I actually go fishing? I frowned, trying to think it through. Then a tool tip popped up. “Go To Fishing Platform?”

  I clicked yes. And off I went.