Chapter 51

  “So yeah, that’s our story. Of the thirty convicts who went into the dungeon, we six survived,” Lawrence said. The leadership of the Arashantos guild was sitting in the teachers lounge, enjoying a cup of coffee, as the leader of the new arrivals explained how his group had broken out of prison after challenging the dungeon on Hard Mode and emerging victorious.

  “Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this instead of trying to obscure our origins,” he said, stirring his coffee to mix in the sugar. “There’s a certain fact that I learned. Lies have a way of coming back to haunt you. The simple fact is that this world isn’t the one we lived in two weeks ago. I believe that I can contribute to this little group of survivors in a way that is mutually beneficial. But I’ll be honest, some of my companions are...well they’re useful idiots who are following my lead for now. But they’re also dangerous, and the dungeon has made them more dangerous.”

  “That’s not exactly reassuring,” Miguel said. “Are you sure you’re arguing for us to let you stay rather than the other way around?”

  “If it’s murder you’re worried about, let me give you a little reassurance. We found out pretty early in the dungeon, a few hours in actually, that murdering someone you’re allied with inflicts a permanent negative experience bias. Minus fifty percent. The system actually pauses time after the fight, reevaluates what just happened, and renders judgment,” Lawrence explained. “It also grants the ‘Murderer’ title if it judges you guilty. And I’m happy to show my own status to prove that I’m not a murderer. I was in prison on charges related to...shall we say the distribution of certain illegal substances.”

  “You’re a drug dealer,” Elaine said.

  “Guilty,” he admitted. “On numerous accounts. Anyway, once the truth came out and I was tried as a kingpin, I had an honest reformation of character while in prison. I’m not the man I once was. But I don’t have any way of convincing you. I just knew that a clever group like you would figure out my companion’s origins sooner rather than later and thought that I’d get it out of the way.”

  “This isn’t the world we were in before,” Eli said calmly. “Drugs are useless. Even former addicts say that they … just don’t work anymore. You won’t be able to—”

  “I am very well aware that this brave new world is not the one that I said farewell to before beginning to pay my debt to society,” the man said bluntly. “Which is why I’m hoping that your party will overlook my past misdeeds. After all, if I’m not mistaken, part of your own mythos is that you defended yourselves successfully against a black ops team sent to take you into custody. I simply sold a product that a lot of people want to buy, even if they won’t admit it publicly. If this was still the pre-system world, there would be a manhunt for you and your party right now, and I’d be calmly watching events unfold on the news.”

  Eli turned to the others. “He has a point,” the boy admitted.

  The others considered the man carefully.

  “What exactly do you bring to the group?” Erik Estabon asked after a few moments.

  “So glad you asked,” Lawrence said. He pulled out of his pocket a small gemstone that they all immediately recognized. “This was my reward for completing the tenth floor. Of course we powered through the final floors instead of completing the puzzles like you did, which is where we lost more than half of our men. If I had realized at the time how lucrative the puzzles were I would have—ah, never mind. Spilled milk and all of that. Anyway, while I was approaching your territory, I received a notice from the system.

  “Basically, if I become part of your guild, and since I have no guild creation token I’m inclined to take that step if you’ll have me, then the Haven I create is considered part of your territory as well. But more than that, if I give this token to your guild and you use it to expand your territory, together we gain one hundred twenty percent of the territory that we’d gain if we used the tokens separately. Now, I’m not a genius, but it seems to me that mathematically, it’s in both of our interests to join forces.”

  The Truthkeepers exchanged looks. After a few moments, Eli nodded towards Lawrence. “We need some time to discuss matters among ourselves. Maybe put it to a vote or something. Would you mind excusing us? You and your party are our guests until we come to a decision. So, please, act like guests, okay?”

  “I assure you we’ll be on our best behavior,” the ‘reformed’ criminal said, smiling charismaticly as he stood to leave. “Oh, and if you say no, don’t worry too much. We’ll just establish our Haven on the North Edge of town, near the mall. We’ve already scouted the location.”

  The door closed behind him. They looked at Sophie, who nodded.

  “He walked away,” she said. “Although maybe he has senses like mine. I noticed that he never told us what his class is.”

  “He did offer to show us his status,” Maia pointed out.

  “And we should absolutely take him up on that offer before we accept any of their applications,” Erik said. The former teacher turned to Miguel Phelps. “What do you think? You were in law enforcement, weren’t you?”

  “That aspect of my career was somewhat unofficial. I managed several websites who were concerned about—it doesn’t matter. I dealt with law enforcement regularly but was more of an outside contractor. Let me make a phone call and see what I can find out about Lawrence and his compatriots.”

  The others began discussing the situation while Miguel was on the phone. Unfortunately the discussion simply went in circles until Miguel hung up the phone.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  They turned to him and waited patiently.

  “So, basically, he wasn’t lying to us. He was in prison on drug trafficking charges. What he neglected to mention was the felony murder,” Phelps said.

  “He’s a murderer?” Junior asked.

  “Technically so am I,” Mattie said. “I killed three of the SWAT assholes who were sent to kidnap my son.”

  “Well, yeah, but…” Junior trailed off.

  “This is a different world we live in now,” Mattie said. “And maybe we all need to get used to that.”

  “Anyway, it was felony murder. Given that some of you are only teenagers, I’m not certain if you appreciate the difference, but basically it means that he never pulled the trigger himself, but was part of a conspiracy which resulted in people dying. For example, a driver of a bank robbery can be tried for felony murder of the guards who are shot during the robbery even if he never got out of the car.”

  “Oh, so he’s guilty of murder by proxy, that’s so much better,” Elaine said.

  “Elaine, stones and glass houses,” Mattie said. “You shot two of the—”

  “I know what I did, dammit,” she shouted. She glared at the other woman. “You think it doesn’t bother me? You think—”

  “Let’s not fight,” Eli suggested. “Okay. So, what exactly did he do?”

  “He ran a few different gangs. One of those gangs went to war with another gang, and some bystanders got hurt. The gangbangers fingered him as the kingpin to get a reduction on their own sentences. That’s all I know,” Miguel admitted.

  “Okay,” Eli said. “So what does that mean for us? We could really use that token. And he says that he has five days before he and his party are planning on reentering the dungeon, so that’s five days that the rest of the Haven can have protection from elites and go on scavenging missions and such.”

  “Are we really considering this?” John Sr. asked.

  “Yes, I think we are,” Eli said. “Let’s put it to an initial vote to see where everyone stands. I know not everyone is too excited about this situation, but—”

  “Yeah, let’s vote,” Luke agreed. Eli blinked as a system notice appeared.

  Luke Campos has proposed a vote:

  Accept Criminal Scum into Arashantos?

  Yes/No

  ~#:

  Eli considered for a moment longer before entering his vote.

  Vote Results:

  Yes: 9

  No: 3

  Abstain: 2

  “Well I guess that answers that,” Luke said, shrugging. “I kind of hope we don’t live to regret this.”

  Eli nodded to the sentiment, but said “I’d rather live to regret it than die because we didn’t grab every opportunity we could.”

  ~~~~~~~~

  Lawrence was enjoying the luxury of a hot shower for the first time since the dungeons opened. He’d bathed in a stream after getting out of the dungeon, and changed clothes, but the water hadn’t been running in any of the houses they’d raided for supplies.

  He wasn’t alone in the high school shower, there had been a line and even now men and boys were scurrying in and out. He was vaguely aware that his presence made them uncomfortable. Maybe it was the prison tats. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t suppressing his power the way that the other party’s kids seemed to do without thinking about it.

  He didn’t really care. He was just enjoying the hot water, and the fact that he could reasonably enjoy this shower without having to worry about being shanked or otherwise attacked by the other factions in the prison who were less than enthused about his continued existence.

  The system message came out of nowhere, and it just made his grin grow wider.

  Elias Mathews invites you to Join his guild, Arashantos.

  Accept? Yes/No

  ~#:Yes

  Welcome, Lawrence Graves.

  Your Rank has been Assigned as: Delver.

  Please see Resource Management teams to receive guild crafted items and gear in preparation for your next delve, and ask the Scavenging Team how you can help during your mandatory break period.

  Thank you for your service. Together, we can get through this.

  --Eli

  “I knew I still had my silver tongue,” he commented to himself. He stepped out of the spray, not bothering to turn the water off. Indeed, his spot was taken a moment later by a middle aged man. Instead he just walked over to the attendant who was passing out towels. A few minutes later, he was dressed in clean clothes and on his way towards Resource Management to see what sort of SWAG the guild gave its Delvers.

  ?