Chương 208: Chapter 201 - Interlude 19

He walked into the apartment, well apartments, as Lara had some rather specific requirements for where she lived and the area where Sam and the others lived wasn't known for luxury apartments or a manor house fit for someone like his girlfriend, and put down the box he was carrying. Even though he had enough money to hire a delivery service, Lara insisted that they do it themselves, with some help from their friends. That way, their first move would be more authentic…

Dan suspected that she just wanted to see him and Sam in tight shirts sweating… The rest of the apartment looked like a bomb had exploded. Boxes, most of them belonging to Lara, filled half of the apartment, while the other half was cluttered with things that didn't fit into boxes, were too valuable to be boxed, or had already been unpacked for various reasons.

"I got the last one!" he called out to the giant space that would become his home, well their home, for the foreseeable future.

"Did the truck go away?" came a question from another room.

"Yeah, made sure that we didn't leave anything behind, thanked them, and told them they could go," he answered his girlfriend. Said girlfriend came into the room, wiping her hands in a rag while a dingy shirt clung to her frame, soaked in sweat and one half-drunk coffee that somebody left in an open cup in a place where it wasn't supposed to be. She looked breathtaking… He walked up to her and leaned forward for a smooch but she pushed him away.

"Please no… I'm sticky in places that I don't even want to think about…" she complained with a put-upon face. Dan moved back a little and grinned.

"You know, it was your idea that we do this ourselves." She looked back at him and let out a frustrated sigh while trying to blow away a rogue hair that was sticking to her forehead while also hanging in front of her eyes.

"Believe me, I'm thoroughly regretting it now. No matter the eye candy…" she answered while glancing at his ratty shirt that had more holes than fabric. Perfect for moving through dust and dirt, but didn't leave much for the imagination.

"Where is Sam?" he asked, trying to change the subject, but Lara just sent him a playful glance. Still, she answered his question.

"He is in the server room, setting up the basics before the family security arrives."

"Lucy?" Lara just shrugged.

"She said something about talking with the company that does the maintenance of the building but otherwise I have no idea…" Dan nodded wisely but before he could say anything the door to the apartment was opened with enough force that it was only the magnetic doorstopper that prevented the creation of a new hole in the wall. There in the door stood Lucy with a satisfied look on her face.

"I did it!"

"Did what exactly?" Sam asked as he also entered the room, holding the remnants of a few cables. He turned to Lara, holding those up.

"These were duds with manufacturing faults." Then he threw them into one of many trash bags littering the floor. Lucy continued as if Sam hadn't interrupted her.

"Spoke with maintenance. Got their schedule and made sure that your utilities will be inspected tomorrow." She looked rather proud.

"Trust me, you need it. These big buildings are practically one step removed from those monstrous hab buildings and that means doing maintenance is a murder, so they only do it when they really need it."

"And they will be doing an inspection on our lines and whatnot because you asked?" Lara asked skeptically while making a note to have the security people also do an inspection.

"Well, I wasn't really asking…" Lucy declared with a proud smirk.

"However, after some… spirited discussions, they agreed with my request." Sam just walked forward and raised his hand to offer Lucy a high-five, which she returned gleefully. They spent the next few minutes talking about the realities of being a new homeowner, a lot of which really surprised Dan.

He never really thought about getting insurance – which was another labyrinthian edifice to bureaucracy that he didn't really understand or wanted to understand – doing regular maintenance, keeping up with taxes, and so on. It probably helped that Lara's family smoothed most things over and Lucy was anal-retentive enough that by the time they announced which apartment they chose, the woman already had a sheet full of information and calculations about how much money they had to pay and to whom.

Dan just knew if he didn't make these friends, he would be hopelessly lost. He may have had a pretty nice doctorate in plasma physics and engineering, but the real world scared him. Finally, the discussion was broken by the growl of an empty stomach. Dan looked down at his stomach, then back at the others.

"Food?" Sam just smirked.

"Already ordered the traditional moving food. It should be here in a few minutes…" And just to prove that his friend was totally bullshit, their bell rang for the first time. He walked over to the intercom and pushed the button to allow the pizza delivery guy to enter the building.

Isabella, or nowadays Izzy to her friends – which was a rather nice feeling as she hadn't had real friends since maybe kindergarten – made sure that her cargo was still in her purse and entered her, or more her family's house, stone-faced and with purpose-filled stride. She ignored the few cousins who were always lying about, made sure to nod and smile at the servants, and headed for her own room.

Partially to change out of her clothes and partially to continue with the diabolical plan that the Chaos Gremlin and she cooked up. It was a pleasant day spent over an empty notebook and filling it with all sorts of information that would look legit and powerful, but if someone didn't know much about this sort of thing, they wouldn't notice the many, many errors they inserted.

It was great fun to take the tutorials and manuals that Sam had given them and tweaking them so that it wouldn't work, or mess up people, though they had to ask Sam how to achieve the second part. Unfortunately, most of the time was spent making it look authentic and not something that was thrown together by two young women as they consumed their body weight in puddings. Entering her room, or rather the outer room, she put the bag on a table and began chucking off her clothing, beelining toward the shower.

Spending time with the gremlin was a highly active time, and she didn't like feeling sticky. Isabella stepped out of the shower, grabbed the warm towel, prepared for her, and began drying herself as one of the servants stepped into the room.

"Miss, your father had requested a meeting as soon as you're presentable," she said in a soft voice, offering another towel for her hair. As soon as Isabella took the towel, the servant reached for the hairdryer and began to help her. A half an hour later, dressed in casual clothes, she left behind her room, heading for the meeting where she would no doubt be needled by her father and other relatives to share information about Chrysalis, AFK, and Sam.

'Maybe this is the time they would give up…' she wondered to herself, then she snorted.

'As if…' Sometimes she really wondered about the general intelligence of her relatives.

'Why couldn't I get someone like Dan or Lucy as a relative?' she lamented. In the room left behind by the heiress of the family, the servant went through the room, casually picking up the thrown-away clothes, folding them, and putting them in a basket, preparing them for washing. She already righted a few items here and there, arranging things in neat order until she reached the bag left behind. The female servant picked up the bag and took it back to the office used by the young woman.

If the bag was a little lighter by the time it reached the office, it wasn't her problem. After all, the money offered to her was enough that even if they fired her, she would be set.

"All right people, where are we with the Portia quest?" he asked, sitting at the desk, massaging his poor aching feet. He had been on his feet for the last few hours and he needed a little sit-down. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. One of his assistants spoke up.

"They finished with the preparations, the f- I mean he got the reward and now they are starting on the workshop." He stopped massaging his feet for a second and reached out for his cup and took a sip.

"Any events we could redirect at them?" This time it was the AI who delivered the damning news from one of the nearby screens.

"Can't really do that. This part of the quest is mostly about logistics, politics, and some crafting."

"Which the fucker can knock out of the park with the help of his stupid talented friends and massive amounts of money? Right? RIGHT?" Selene gave him a cheeky thumbs up. He emptied the cup of coffee in one motion, almost threw it at the table, the cup clattering on it but ultimately landing without breaking or flying away, then he threw his head back and let out a rather dramatic"Aaaggh… I hate that fucker…"

"We know sir, we do too!" joined one of the overeager interns, waving their hands in a threatening manner, looking like they were ready to throw down with the person whose name was forbidden to be uttered in front of the boss. One of the other workers reached over and gently pushed the young man's hands down.

"We don't do that here…" After a few seconds, he spoke, still leaning back and eyes closed.

"What about their enemies? Do they know about this?" There were a lot of shaking heads around the room.

"A lot of them are still reeling from the Great Gold Panic, the others are either trying to do raids or the stupider ones are fighting for the valleys."

"Still?" he asked in a disbelieving tone, with one eye cracked open.

"Haven't they got bored with the bloodshed?"

"No, sir."

"God, they are stupid… They're over there, killing each other for some stupid items and that fucker is over here making bank…" Nobody was brave enough to comment on that.

"Selena," he called out toward the smirking AI.

"Is there any way we could slow him down?" The beautiful AI shook her head.

"We always planned for the Portia questline to be pretty simple and straightforward to make sure the end result would be realized pretty early on. We actually want the people to move around…"

"Damn… Have I mentioned how much I hate that fucker?" One of the brave programmers was courageous enough to answer that.

"Many times, sir." However, before he could react to that, Selene continued to speak.

"There is one thing we could do…" Instantly, he sat up and was intently gazing at the screen displaying Selene's beautiful face.

"What? Tell me you beautiful amalgamation of code and technology!" Selene preened a little under the praise but she was a consummate professional, when not enabling people's caffeine addiction or playing practical jokes with monitor backgrounds.

"It appears that the subject of your… enmity is nearing Level 101. The first barrier."

"And?" he asked, almost bouncing on his chair.

"Well, we could leak it carefully with a list showcasing the top-level players. Anonymously, of course, but it should incentivize people and could distract him." There was a momentary silence as he contemplated the idea before nodding and slamming his fist into his palm.

"An excellent idea! You're promoted!" he yelled out, pointing at the screen before jumping up and racing toward his station.

"Come on, people! We need to design a 'Race to the Top' event! Chop, chop!" The rest of the people in the room looked at each other, then back at the still-smirking AI, and collectively shrugged. They got paid either way… Lucrecia was over the moon. No. She was over the very star orbiting the planet. Her hero. Her savior. The very person who gave her Fortune, her loyal companion. Whose actions finally allowed her to spread her wings and prove to her family that she was capable of many things.

The spy circle she put together was taken over by her mother after Lucrecia approached her for help, but she didn't mind, as it allowed her to participate in real military action. Granted, at first it was only against some miscreants and lame criminals but as she improved (and took some extra classes) so did the danger rating of the enemies she went after at the head of the unit her darling father entrusted her with. And not long ago, she was sent to the middle of nowhere to guard some kind of excavation.

At first, she was angry, believing that her father was punishing her for something, but after a quiet and calm conversation, she was enlightened. Her beloved had plans, and in his infinite wisdom and skill, managed to arrange things in a way that would result in Lucrecia gaining the leadership of the future town. As she expected from someone like her lovely adventurer!

Then Lucrecia met with the woman whom her beloved Samuel assigned the task of building up the town and was instantly suspicious that the hussy was after her beloved, but when she had met her boyfriend, she managed to calm down. Lucrecia still didn't like Lara, but at least she had to admit that the woman knew what she was doing. Which allowed her to focus on the task that was her current favorite. Hunt miscreants! And there were so many of them!

There were spies from other nobles (they were distracted), spies from all sorts of organizations (killed with extreme prejudice), marauding bandits (sent to the chopping block), adventurers who didn't know better (told to turn around), and finally, countless adventurers that believed that Chrysalis, the guild her beloved founded with that tramp, had found some kind of treasure.

They also wanted to get that treasure, no matter how hard Lucrecia or her people tried to explain to them that there was no treasure and it was under the Silvercrest family's aegis. They didn't believe her and they just kept coming… Endless waves of adventurers tried to break through the patrols, guards, scouts, and every other defense they had set up. Thankfully, her beloved had made sure – as the genius he was – to hire talented people. This…

Tim, while crude and overly amorous, was rather talented in the area of security. Granted, the long-awaited meeting was cut short as she had to do her duty and provide a grand welcome to the acclaimed master of runes that even she had heard about. And the man arrived with her hero! How exciting! She couldn't wait to see what her Samuel had planned!

'Should I go with the low-cut yellow dress or the blue that shows off my legs?' she mused as she stood before her full-body mirror and twirled around while Fortuna lounged behind her, the loyal wolf following her movement with her beautiful eyes. There was something to be said about role playing, and enhancing the gaming experience. And he had to agree, to a certain extent, that acting like a follower of a demon cult made the whole thing much more enjoyable than the usual assassin-for-hire thing they did in games.

Granted, it was harder to make money now that Silent Step transitioned into a demon cult, but variety was the spice of life and whatnot… He could have done without the blood sacrifices and the stupid orders. The Shadowed One was a great demon, with plots within plots and plans that would boggle the mind, but it was also very demanding. If a plan wasn't executed to perfection, or how it demanded, then there would be hell to pay.

They still took assassination contracts, but sometimes the Shadowed One took an interest and directed the procedure by itself. Mostly when they went after NPCs but sometimes the demon even demanded obedience and that they follow its plans when they were hired to take out certain players. They tried to figure out a reason for its actions, hell they had an entire team in the real world pouring over all available information that they managed to glean from the demon and books. But no success so far…

Sadly, life wasn't perfect. They were always hounded by the druids around Ironwood, which necessitated moving their headquarters deeper into the forests, which in turn had the chance of triggering the local guardian. Never a good idea… Boy, did the demon not like that… They also tried to go after Tim, but the man was as crafty as a fox, and not even the plans of the Shadowed One could penetrate the defense woven around the buildings he frequented. And when he was not there, they couldn't find him anywhere.

Clearly, joining up with Solar did his skillset some good. He was broken out of his thoughts when he was approached by one of the NPC cultists, who showed up not long after they set up shop in the cave system. They cleaned and made sure the place was always in order, manned the kitchen and armory, and did every miscellaneous task the demon demanded. They even operated a few cult-specific shops where they could buy things that normal people couldn't.

Sometimes when they really needed money, they just sold some of the specialty products at the Auction House and their liquidity problem was solved. When the NPCs first appeared, they were suspicious, but when they saw them do menial jobs they realized that this was the game's way of making their life easier. So they just celebrated and put the mystery of cultists out of their minds.

"Sir! The great Excellency in the Shadows demands your presence!" he declared in a soft voice, their face hidden by their hood and the whisper disguising the nature of their voice. He nodded his head and without waiting began heading deeper in the cave system. He had recently reached Level 70 and had been waiting for a quest that would allow him to learn more powerful spells.

'Maybe this time I'll get something that will work against Tim…' he mused as he expertly navigated the tunnels that had no identifying signs or even maps. They lived in the shadows and the shadows guided them…

"DODGE!" Stephen threw himself forward, landing on the ground as a small elemental shaped like a ball exploded behind him. Thankfully, his Mana Armor absorbed the impact, but it was still annoying.

"Thanks!" he called out to his comrade, climbed to his knees, and spied through the hole in the temporary wall made of some rubble.

He took in the destroyed city streets, the crazy elementalist bastards on the other side readying their poor elementals He watched as Slathy, his giant rabbit, wreathed in water armor, courtesy of one of the mages in the guild – as the elementalists' favorite tactic was summoning low-level fire elementals and making them explode – sped around the battlefield destroying all the earth elementals trying to pull up the stone that made up the road for ammunition.

Stephen took his bow, notched an enchanted arrow, and took careful aim while he was not being bombarded by exploding elementals. He ignored it when another guild member nearby was taken out by a blast of lightning, took a deep breath, and then let loose the arrow. He instantly ducked behind the cover and looked through his spy hole to see if he struck true. He was just in time to see one of those blasted fire mages collapse with an arrow in his throat.

'Critical! Hell yeah!' he celebrated silently. Sadly, he was the guild leader, thus he couldn't be too loud, otherwise, all the enemy elementalists would target him. Suddenly, he felt someone touching his back. Jumping a little in fright, he turned around awkwardly, as he was still squatting. He came face to face with Azu, her creepy water spirit sitting on her head like a crown and holding three different binoculars in its slimy appendages, occasionally using them to scout around them.

"Yes?" he whispered.

"They found the headquarters!" came the whispered reply from the soft-spoken girl.

"Really? Great!" Then there was a short silence, occasionally disturbed by explosions far and near, punctuated by the cry of the wounded or dying interspersed with the sound of crumbling infrastructure.

"Well?" she asked impatiently.

"Well, what?" She just sighed and then began to talk.

"Cactus. You are the guild leader. Only you can give the order to attack." He blinked in surprise.

"Then what are you waiting for? ATTACK!" Sadly, in his excitement, he forgot about the enemy and yelled the last part. Instantly, the activity in the area tripled. His position was bombarded by all sorts of spells and exploding elementals and before he could talk with Azu anymore another yell interrupted his thought process.

"INCOMING!" Hearing the whistling sound, he threw himself forward, summoning all his shield spells, ready to protect Azu and her creepy familiar, not seeing the almost imperceptible blush on the smaller girl's face. Then their world was filled with explosions.