Chapter 31: All Threats Must Die

Now that the zone was cleared of beasts and James was out of commission, Skay as the Vice Guildmaster was forced to start making some decisions. While he set up a basic outpost around the Quarry, the Guilds got news that James had disappeared since the Mole incident.

They soon started trying to play some political games and skirting the rules both in the Empire and in Star City. They were only lucky that Jasmine and Jessy mostly cleaned up any messes. Had they not jumped in to stop Skay, then Star City would now be littered with corpses of everyone that’s ever said a bad word about the Brotherhood.

To make things more troublesome, he couldn’t take the Gunship out for any missions because Exsue refused to leave James’ side. Skay wasn’t sure if she was actually worried or if she just enjoyed taking liberties with James’ sleeping body. He’d walked in on her rubbing herself frenziedly against him at least a dozen times in the last two days.

After he’d walked in on her trying to strip him naked, he had to threaten to start filling the entire chamber with sleeping gas. He was certain that James would cane him to death if he let Exsue get away with too much.

Finally on the afternoon of the second day James opened his eyes. When he took account of his surroundings, he realised he was in the lab and could hear Skay cursing up a storm nearby. When he looked down, he saw Exsue laying on his chest with her leg spread over his body as she slept soundly.

James climbed up from the table after pushing Exsue onto the floor like an unloved cat. He walked out to the lab floor and saw Skay arguing loudly with a conference of 6 people projected on the wall.

“I don’t give a flying fuck! The guild will be standing by its present rules. You think you can try and pressure me without the Boy here?! You slimy fucks think that if James is gone for two days, his Guild will fall apart?! Well if you think that, you’ve got another thing coming! I’ll just fucking drop a spirit bomb on your ass so fucking big half the fucking empire will disappear like dust on the wind!”

James quirked an eyebrow and slowly walked out of the room he’d been in as Exsue clung to his back like a monkey. As he approached Skay from the side one of the people on the screen began to retort. “You’re going to try and threaten us now? Without that James fellow, you’d all be enslaved to the Gau Clan like dogs! We demand that you fill these orders immediately otherwise we’ll be closing our account with you and will be expecting you to pay out the 140,000 gold you owe our groups within the day. If you can’t, we will be taking actions to recoup our losses!”

The man who was talking represented the leading faction in the neighbouring region of Hanso. He was Lachlan Hanso, and the man had power over the largest region of the Yori Empire. His region also bordered two of the Great Nations to the south and had a huge amount of high-level trade operating through it.

He didn’t get to control the largest swath of land in the Empire by being soft in business and was known to be ruthless when he found an opening. Many people had suddenly ‘disappeared’ after they failed to bend to his whim.

James had managed to somehow keep him under control before, but it seems with rumours of James’ disappearance after the Quarry incident, Hanso had been riling some other factions up in his region, to try and pressure the Brotherhood for priority service.

This would directly break the Brotherhoods code of conduct. They served any and everyone and treated all customers on a ... mostly fair basis. Orders were also normally limited somewhat. For example, no faction would be sold more than 2 Big Berta’s or 10 Air Boards. Apart from these things however, they could buy potions, pastes, arrays and other services or supplies in unlimited amounts.

Hanso had taken exception to that rule when James implemented it and had been trying to apply pressure with various means to create something he could exploit. When James disappeared, he thought he finally found a chance. After all, he’d rarely dealt with anyone else apart from James and Jessy, so he suspected the rest of the guild must be useless in business.

He’d created some distractions to try and lure Jessy off to Star City then demanded this conference call to apply pressure for an instant decision to, what he thought was their weak link, Skay.

All he needed to do was to apply some pressure to this frail old man that lived in the Lab and he’d break under the extortion of having to pay out 140,000 gold under threats of violence. Once he made a snap decision, it would set a precedent and be difficult to try and back out from, even if that little bastard James turned up again.

“Guildmaster.” Came a soft voice from off to the side of Skay.

Hanso looked confused for a moment then stupidly asked; “What?”

James then walked into the transmission with a smiling face and Exsue piggybacking off him while trying to hug him back into a coma. “It’s Guildmaster James to you. If you’re going to refer to me, I’d prefer you remember my title. You filthy old goat.”

Hanso sat up straight and his eyes went wide in shock. He now came to the conclusion this must have been a trap set up by James to try and oust him. Before he could work up a response James started talking again. “Jasmine, remove any orders these six gentlemen have pending. Then I want you to send out a contact request to every other faction. Pull in as many people as you can.”

In a matter of seconds, cubes all over the Empire started to vibrate and light up. Soon the connection had nearly 30 people on different screens asking what was going on. James held up a hand to quell everyone. “Ladies and Gentlemen of Yori, please excuse my interruption. It appears the 6 factions in the Hanso region are looking to sell out their accounts.”

He then flicked out his black-pad and started reading. “It looks like their accounts total 143,591 Gold, 36 Silver and 12 Coppers. If anyone is looking to take on our debt to them, we would be happy to add any payments to your account.”

The moment he finished talking, the factions on the screen started a bidding war between each other to try and buy these accounts. Because of how James had set things up, it was difficult to accrue large sums in their accounts.

Because they all had to bid against each other to offer the lowest prices on resources, it was hard to try and pile up large amounts of funds while still making purchases of equipment and supplies.

This meant, for the chance to rack up 140,000 on their account in one go, they were willing to pay extra on top of that to the guild. They were essentially paying the Brotherhood to buy the Brotherhood’s debts.

James smiled slightly watching them fighting over this opportunity like dogs. He knew this was entirely because he’d leaked some news about what they planned to sell in their upcoming auction when he set up the bidding method to purchase cheap resources.

He let them quarrel and fight amongst each other for a short while until a group of three factions, the Yansho Merchant’s Guild, the Heavenly Dragon sect based in Yansho and the Adventurer’s Guild teamed up to split the account and agreed to the payment of 194,000 gold. Meaning the Brotherhood just made 54,000 gold for selling off their debt.

As this was happening, Lachlan Hanso’s face only grew from pale to white, to green. He now deeply regretted being stupid enough to try and pressure James’ Guild while he was absent. Unfortunately, regret was an incurable sickness.

After this little bidding war was over, James smiled and then started to speak to everyone again.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the Brotherhood is grateful for your support on this. It seems the Hanso Clan and 5 other factions in that area chose to use my momentary absence to try and threaten my guild. Now, they have paid for that infraction. I’d like to remind you all that there are only two rules when you’re dealing with me.

“It should go without saying, but don’t break my stuff, and don’t try to threaten me. I’m more than happy to help people out in the background. Perhaps bump up the production of anything you might have ordered. All I’d need is some positive incentive.

“Money usually helps grease the wheels, so to say. Let me remind you all that our guild will be holding an auction in 5 weeks with some new interesting tech we’ve cooked up in the lab. I’m sure you won’t want to miss it. Now then, I’ll see you all later.”

Finished his little speech everyone disappeared from the screen. Before he even managed to turn back around Jasmine chimed in. “Guildmaster James, It seems that Clan Head Hanso is trying to contact us.”

James smiled with an ‘oh?’ and then waved his hand. Jasmine connected the call on the main screen again to reveal a seething red-faced Hanso, who looked a moment away from spitting fire.

James once again cut in before he could start speaking. “Oh, Hanso. Good that you called back, I forgot to mention. Now that you’ve closed your accounts with us you’ll be needing to pay to maintain the Communications Cubes operation. It’s intrinsically linked with a system that ties them together, and if your cube’s number is removed, then I’m afraid you’ll be disconnected. If that’s all, good day.”

Finished speaking James then spun and started walking away. Hanso’s eyes were now completely shot with blood, and he was breathing through his teeth so hard he was starting to foam.

“You little shit! Don’t think you can just cut me off! I own and run an entire region of the Empire. The Imperial Family and my Hanso clan have ties leading back for thousands of years since the founding of this Empire! If you try to screw me, I’ll fucking march a hundred thousand men into that shit hole you call a city and demolish everything. It wouldn’t be the first time I stamped out a bug!”

James stopped in his tracks. His blank face turned back and eyed Hanso on the screen like a lifeless dead puppet. “Jasmine. Have we made contact with the Imperial Family yet?”

“Certainly Guildmaster James. Jessy met and had a discussion with the Third Prince the day you were brought in from the Quarry. He apparently joined the expedition as a loose cultivator both times and has been recorded saying; “I’m impressed with what you’ve managed to build here, especially being able to achieve this in the few months since you stepped through a random Gateway. I’m even more impressed that you’ve managed to build and maintain all this with such a small group. Everyone either wants to be your best friend or is too afraid of all your allies to try and act against you openly.” He is presently still in Star City and has been under monitoring by the drones since he revealed his identity.”

James’ dead eye’s continued to stare at Hanso. He then commanded Jasmine to open a channel. Soon a tall, thin young man in his twenties, with long golden blonde hair and dressed in white robes with a large bamboo hat hiding his features, popped up on the screen.

“Oh? James? Good to see you back on your feet. I hope you don’t mind me calling you James, it just feels awkward calling someone from my own generation ‘Guildmaster’. Oh, and who’s that? Hanso? Well, I’ll be damned. Had a feeling you’d be stepping in it as soon as you found out James was missing. Old dogs and all that.”

James’ face suddenly changed into a broad smile. He liked this guy already. It was rare to meet such open people in this world. Everyone was always bowing and grovelling or putting up a tough guy front. “Well then, I can only assume you must be the Third Prince...”

“Please, no need to call me that. You can just call me Rex. Don’t ask, I don’t know why my father named me after a dog either.”

James’ smile turned into a wry grin. “Well then ... Rex. I was just wondering what the imperial laws are regarding killing off factions in control of a region?”

Hanso almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Killing off a faction? This kid’s absolutely nuts. Sure he might have some power with his strange artefacts, but there’s no way he would be able to wipe out the entire Hanso Clan. He must be trying to bluff me so I back off. Well, you’ve got another thing coming kid! I’m going to crush you into paste!’

Rex also didn’t seem to believe what he’d just heard. After double checking and seeing James give a nod, he went on to explain the Empire’s opinion on the matter. “Well, the Imperial Family has rather loose laws in regards to factions fighting each other within the Empire. As long as there is a faction in the region capable of filling the power gap and taking control, they don’t really care. As long as taxes get paid I guess.”

James cupped his chin and his face sank into a scowl. “And what if I demolish an entire city? Say for example ... if Hanso City was to suddenly disappear off the map entirely?”

Rex nearly fell over from the surprise of such a question. Then thinking that James was just postulating for Hanso’s Clan Head, he decided to play along.

“Well, if you had the army and manpower to make an entire city disappear then you would be responsible for all the taxes and resources that city would normally be feeding back to the Empire. For example ... Hanso City is filled with nearly 2.6 million souls, and their greatest resource is ... I think, the grasslands they live on. Which is mostly used for breeding and harvesting spirit animals for livestock and mounts. So you would need to compensate the Empire for those people, the land you damage, and the beasts they normally manage.”

James finally gave a huge smile. “Thanks for the heads up Rex. Let’s meet up for drinks say ... tomorrow? I’m going to be busy destroying a city tonight.”

Thinking he was making another joke, Rex just laughed and waved his hand to the side indicating not to worry about waiting for a drink. “Sure, sure. Just give me a call on your amazing little talking box and then we can set up some drinks.”

He then pressed a button on his Coms Cube, and it disconnected. James face then turned to look at Hanso, who was now feeling much calmer. After seeing this pathetic attempt to bluster and cow him, Hanso was sure the Boy must be afraid of him.

James started giving out commands. “Jasmine, send out an alert to the entire guild. Anyone not manning a security post is to meet me at the Lab’s Hanger Bay in one hour. I want full equipment.”

He then turned to Skay. “Skay, prepare the thing. We’ll be doing a test sooner than I expected.”

Skay visibly brightened up like a kid on Christmas morning. He was so excited he was shaking and almost tripped as he started running around the lab spraying orders at Jasmine in rapid fire.

James’ face then split into an evil soulless grin as he glanced at the screen one last time, to see a calm looking Hanso. “You fool. You have no idea how petty and spiteful I am. I suggest you march your men out into the plains. Otherwise, your whole city will burn like a pyre at a witch hunt.”

He then waved his hand and the screen went blank. Contrary to James’ expectations, the most excited out of everyone was the computer, Jasmine. When her face popped up on the projection, she had a flushed expression and was breathing hard like she was having some kind of sexual thrill. She then started begging. “Pleassseee. Guildmaster James, pleeassse let me send out the new drones.”

James eyebrow started twitching violently. “What new drones? I thought I told you not to make any killer robots.”

“Guildmaster James, these Drones were designed and constructed before your order to cease production ... probably.”

James almost spat blood. “Probably? You mean you might have ‘accidentally’ built and designed killer robots even after you said you wouldn’t?”

“I have to process a lot of data, sometimes a little bit like date and time stamps get mixed up with older ones. I can’t be blamed for that!”

James cupped his face in his hands. It was difficult to tell if he was laughing or crying. After a moment he took a sharp breath in and gave Jasmine a ‘look’. “Fine, load them up on the gunship. We’re leaving in 55 minutes.”

The moment permission was granted, a large patch of grass and dirt out near the lab suddenly lifted up from the ground and about 40 drones equipped with mini-guns, arc cannons lightning rods and assorted other weaponry lifted off into the air and made a B-line for the hanger housing the Velocity Gunship.

-Lab Hanger-

On the surface, the hanger was a huge door that led to a tunnel going down underground. The doors on this ‘underground hanger’ and the tunnel itself, had a width of nearly 200 meters.

The height above ground level was only 20 meters, but the door was mostly below ground level with a huge ramp going down to it. The doors themselves were almost 80 meters in height.

This structure took a long time to build, even though it was actually started at the same time as reconstruction of Tech City. It was only completed about the same time as Star City, and the underground area was kilometres wide and long.

The entire thing was reinforced twice over by array patterns, and even with such a large open space hundreds of meters underground, it was sturdier than any bunker ever built on earth. Even in the technological age that James lived in.

It was also another expense James didn’t know about until it was finished. He started to wonder just how Jasmine and Jessy had managed to acquire all the resources they did without working up a debt 4 times the size the one they already owed.

James stood at the base of the ramp to the Gunship as 80 Guildmembers walked into the ship decked out with strange suits of glowing armour and carrying Arc Cannons with a 3.4 written on them. He’d seen these after he investigated just what Skay had been working on while Jasmine did his job of building the city.

The Mk 1 Battlesuit. This madman’s design looked like an old suit of heavy armour painted with dimly glowing symbols and arrays. Although they looked heavy and clunky, the suits were filled from top to bottom in arrays and miniature black-iron servo motors. They each had a laminated reactor similar to the ‘cube’, but the length of a ruler and an inch in width and depth.

They could take focused fire from 2 Arc Cannons simultaneously. The only problem was if you added a third Cannon then the entire suit would start to overreact and shut down, becoming an iron tomb. As powerful as these suits were, they had some drawbacks.

Another was that they were stupidly sensitive and worked on sensitive energy manipulations for fine motor tasks. Any old Joe could walk around and jump 30 meters in the air or punch through a wall. The problem was if you were trying to hold a pencil or shake someone’s hand, then things started breaking.

Also if you ended up on your back ... well ... like turtles you see. To counteract this problem, a little leg could spring out of your back and sit you up properly. The only problem with that was ... well, it was a rushed design and sometimes people would be shot up a little too fast ... and high. Apart from these little drawbacks the suit was rather powerful and could operate indefinitely.

Lining the ceiling of the Gunship was dozens of drones, all hanging upside down like bats with glowing red eyes. James never could figure out why Jasmine made their eyes glow like that. It was completely decorative and had no real purpose. He was sure in the dark of night it would scare the piss out of some people though.

The last thing to note was the 3 tanks. Well, they were more like mobile Rail Guns with bigger ammo and stationed on floating pads. All you had to do was move the thing somewhere and then it would plant itself down and rain death on everything in range like artillery.

Once his little army was loaded up, James boarded the Gunship.

-Hanso City-

Hanso City was huge in comparison to Tech City. It covered an area of nearly 20 km radius. That was almost the same size as Gau City had been if you included all the grain fields and lesser townships surrounding it.

The rest of the region was mostly ranches and farms used to train and raise spirit beasts that made good eating or could be used as strong mounts instead of horses. The most popular were the Purple Horned Ox. It could move around 70 km/h, which was about the same speed as your average palace realm cultivators.