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The Gamer Chapter 1639 – The Under Hive
🕑 Added 2024-03-08 12:54:43 +0000 UTCJohn was used to fantasy coming into his life, but this descent felt more like a dungeon delve than most dungeon delves he had been in.
Narrow corridors led into vast halls where slow-moving water flowed through a large basin, only to disappear through a grate. Doors led into large rooms with long forgotten, random furniture. Then, suddenly, there was sound. There was music. There were words exchanged. Suel led him down a giant, out of service metal pipe. When they jumped out of it, they found themselves in a giant hall.
Entire buildings had been erected in the cavernous space and a cavern it once had been. A few Roman columns around, several metres thick, held up the ceiling and the city on top of it. The rest of the walls were abrasive stones of grey and reddish brown. Bits and pieces of unused sewage structure jutted out of the ground, repurposed as cleaned out walkways or to deliver fresh water from the various magical systems of the city to this remote corner.
Activity down here, as up above, was at a moderate level. This was not the shoulder to shoulder crowd of a modern metropolis, just a place busy enough to warrant the word. A few hundred people were moving between the medium-sized structures that had been built all around, with no building code or regard for order to give it an overarching sense of infrastructure.
“Welcome to one of the black market chambers,” Suel introduced John, as they started walking.
John inhaled deeply. The scent of spices was heavy in the air, mixing with ale and sizzling fat. “I expected more illicit goods from a black market,” he stated. “I suppose this has to do with the trade bans?”
“How acute of you,” Suel answered.
History was long and convoluted and this was true for Europe especially, if for no other reason than the sheer density of different ethnicities and cultures that had been competing in this relatively small and fertile corner of the world
Where there was government, there were laws, and where there were competitions between governments, there were laws that outlawed certain trade. Embargos were always a way to assert power over another nation and, as long as those embargos covered something people wanted, there would always be those that sought to make money off the prohibited goods.
Sometimes, such embargos stayed in place long after their intended time. People just forgot to repeal it or some hardliners stayed in position for so long that the workarounds became the accepted norm.
Such was likely the case here. The sharp and otherwise intense scents of the spices marked them as oriental in their origin. Swords forged in foreign styles were on display, next to barrels of northern mead of all things. Several hundred years of history had piled on a list of goods that were, for reasons that could have been good at the time, still traded under the table due to laws that were technically still on the books.
Which clued John in on the reason why Suel had called this placed the ‘dying underbelly’ of Prague.
“I suppose my girl is to thank for the gradual decrease in profits down here?” he asked. As soon as he had been noticed, he had been given equal parts dirty and interested looks, often at the same time.
“Quite so!” Suel answered loudly. “Lydia Augusta the Fourth of house Hohenzollern with her streamlining efforts certainly has made you unpopular! None of this would be happening if you hadn’t supported her, John Newman!”
‘What is his plan now?’ the Gamer groaned in his mind.
“Yeah, thanks, asshole!” one of the people from the stands shouted. “We had a nice thing going!”
“You know you can just move your business up to the surface now?” John shouted back.
“Yeah, sure, fuckface, it’s that easy. Not like we’re dodging a bunch of other regulations that keep us out of the marketplace! Ever seen the real estate tax?!”
“I’m sure Lydia will-“
A crossbow bolt bounced off Particle Skin. The silver projectile flew off. The side of the tumbling bolt hit a random bystander in the side of the head. Before a second shot could be fired, John took three Magus Steps over and took the weapon out of the woman’s hands like an annoyed father taking a toy from his daughter.
“Really?” he just asked.
“Fuck you,” the woman growled.
John turned the weapon in his hands and laughed. This was one of his dungeon drops from all the way back when he had been grinding to save his then-girlfriend from then-Thana. It was far from a threat to him in his current state, especially in the hands of a barely above average woman.
‘It had to happen eventually,’ John thought and tore through the corded bowstring with a single finger. The twisted wires snapped, the backlash wiping half of it over the back of John’s naked hand. It hurt a little bit for a split second, then it was healed. “Be careful where you aim that thing in the future,” was all he had to say, before teleporting off the rooftop.
He appeared by the wounded man next. There were others checking the wound already. They made room for John less out of respect and more because he gave them no other choice. Wordlessly, he spread a healing salve on the wound, then took a step back.
The people here now knew better than to mess with him.
“You won’t accomplish anything even if you try,” he said out loud. The crowd surrounded him still, their anger at him due to Lydia wrestling with their survival instinct. The latter won out and the crowd began to disperse.
Had the issue been one or two people, he might have tried to argue it out. As it stood, there were too many to talk to to even start. Worse, messengers were disappearing down several of the pathways that led out of the chamber. Others like it must have been deeper in the undercity.
“Want me to guess at the reasons why you just made a scene?” the Gamer asked.
Suel grinned. “Oh, I do love the theories.”
“You know that I know that you wouldn’t do this without a reason, so you’re trying to have me discharge the heavy emotions in the air before they can ruin Maximillian’s day.” John’s eyes wandered over the crowd. “This is the clientele to be out and about during a heavy night out in the town, even if we don’t come down here.”
“That’s one, keep it up,” Suel encouraged.
John raised an eyebrow and swiftly figured out the next reason. “You have contacts down here and if Lydia doesn’t ease the transition these people have from the stable criminal life to ‘proper’ society, they’ll lose power and influence. Even if I know that, you’re betting that I won’t let genuine plight go unanswered.”
Flying under the radar or not, these were family businesses that had persisted for generations. Yes, they were more abrasive than the average Abyssal, which was already an abrasive crowd, but regarding their conduct as bad did not make them disappear from society. Everyone was best served if there was a way found to have them open legitimate places of business. The alternatives were to let people that knew how to run a shop slip into poverty or, worse, crime.
“What, can’t I want this out of the goodness of my heart?” Suel asked and cackled. The Gamer just stared judgingly. “That’s two – one more. The most important one. Albeit, it is a bit surreal that someone would even consider this.” John spun the wheels of his head. There were too many options to pick one. “They already tried it earlier, just with the wrong target.”
The hint made John’s mind slot in. Grabbing Suel by the coat, he dragged him off to a dark corner. A quick scan of the environment made him halt long enough to carve an observing enchantment out of the nearby wall with Purgatory. “They’re planning to try and kill Lydia?”
“Bingo.” Suel tried to clap, but there was not enough space between the two men to allow that. Sour breath filled the air.
“Who and where?” the Gamer asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to kn-owwww.” Suel’s voice became thinner as John put a fist on his chest and just kept it there. Like the coils of a constrictor, so too did the knuckles prevent proper expansion of the lungs. “No need for hostility.”
John just stared at the man. Thinking he would let jokes about not caring about Maximillian slide was one mistake he could understand. However, no schemer on the face of the Earth would have brought up harm to one of his haremettes and not expect the Gamer to react this way. “What do you want?”
“Just a teeny, tiny favour at the time of my choosing. What’s a favour between frie-“
John had enough of this. He activated the Hypnotic Gaze of his contact lenses. Suel went limp for a split second, then rigid again. “You actually tried that,” he said in an almost complimenting way. “Come on, that’s not your area of expertise, boy.”
‘Master, should I…?’ Claire chimed into his mind.
‘No, I’ll deal with this,’ John answered and swallowed his annoyance. “Do you put that little trust in the fact that I will make you disappear?”
“Not for a doomed assassination attempt,” Suel stated.
John pushed his hand that little bit further, preventing the vampiric man from breathing altogether. That gave him a bit of silence while he dragged out his thoughts.
By now, he had a good profile of the various mercenaries and assassins that crawled the Abyss. He had to know, because he had paid a great many of them a fair sum in order to alert him if anyone ever contacted them with the intent to harm one of his girls or, more importantly, his parents. The number of people stupid enough to try a hit on the harem was exceedingly slim, his mundane parents were a different story. Them, he needed to cover.
Just because the assassination attempt on Lydia was 99,99% likely to fail, especially now that she, through him, would be informed of it, did not mean that he was going to risk it. A one in a million chance to lose one of his women was still too high a risk to take. Besides, there was always a chance that a new Latebloomer had arrived on the scene.
This was the Generation of Monsters, after all.
“What do you want?” the Gamer asked again and pulled his fist back.
Disappointingly, Suel did not gasp for air. The Abyssal was too high level to be tortured by two minutes of holding his breath. Instead, he just fixed his suit. “A favou-“
“What – specifically,” John pressed out. “My patience is coming to an end, Suel. Answer me or, for every hair harmed on my Lydia’s head, I’ll assure one of your properties all over this world is ground to ash and stone dust.”
“…I want to know what you’ll do next,” Suel stated.
“Huh?” The Gamer did not quite understand. “I’ll go down there and make sure they cannot do whatever they’re planning, obviously.”
“No, I mean… after the wedding,” the Lord of Pontis exclaimed. “Your public appearances have been quite frequent recently. You always do that before going somewhere else. What does the great Gamer have in store next?”
John made a mental note of the fact that this part of his behaviour was apparently predictable. He would have to evaluate how disadvantageous that was later. “If I tell you, you will owe me a Favour,” the Gamer stated. The particular pronunciation of the word made Suel tilt his head. “A mechanic of mine. When I cash it in, you will have to act as agreed or suffer a permanent loss of reputation backed up by Gaia herself.”
“Scary – but I agree.”
“…I’m going to explore Yucatan. I have reason to believe there might be something of interest there.”
Suel’s face froze into a pale mask. Then, he slowly smirked. “Well, that’s less interesting than I had thought it would be.”
“Your end of the bargain,” John demanded. “I demand you repay my Favour.”
“It’ll be easier to guide you there,” Suel stated.
John stepped aside and let the red-eyed man take point.
They descended deeper into the undercity. What initially was clean repurposing of the guts of the city gradually turned into more and more filthy and depraved corners. The upper layers were dominated by the kinds of things that the state had outlawed for bad or outdated reasons. The further down they went, the more the necessity to outlaw some things became clear. Animal fighting rings, likely to contain slaves had that trade still been easy, existed next to shady enchanters selling capes meant to strangle their wearer and the kind of cooks that used gutter oil.
After a while, they moved about in masks and cloaks, which Suel readily provided. “The attempt has been organized by one Levro,” the Lord of Pontis exclaimed. “They’ll try three separate attacks on her life. First, they’ll have bombs installed on her plane, blowing up the Mobile Barrier generator on her flight back. Between gravity and the potential invoking of Gaia’s Ire, they hope she will die.”
John had to raise an eyebrow under the mask. That was a beyond desperate plan. For one, Gaia was more forgiving when it came to isolated incidents of people leaving Illusion Barriers in odd spaces. For two, being the one to plan that operation made them recipients of the supreme deity’s ire first and foremost. Lydia would, at worst, receive a bit of bad luck. Granted, bad luck could be lethal for such a drop.
Could. Lydia was over level 600 and her build was decently physical. Mundane people could survive a fall at terminal velocity under the right circumstances. Lydia definitely could.
“More importantly, their first and second plan involve a potent poison during the gala and, should that fail, a quick attack whenever they can find her alone.”
“I’ll prevent those then,” John uttered.
That Levro had no idea what was coming for him.
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