Collide Gamer

It was early Wednesday morning, when John heard a knock on his office door.

“Emperor, Emperor Newman, may I enter?” The Horned Rat did not wait for a response, barging into the office without a second’s hesitation. “Working in the middle of your festivities? What a horrid, horrid existence. I don’t even hear sucking beneath the table!”

“Eurodon, my private affairs are just that: private.” John stood up and circled around his desk. He met the Horned Rat halfway through his office. He raised his hand, ready for a shake.

Dragon fire flickered. His arm, clad in black scales, reached behind the Horned Rat’s shoulder and clasped around an ephemeral object. The ocular rotated within his grasp. Dense spellwork resisted his tensing fingers for one more moment, then the curling blades shredded the mana. Fraying particles scattered out into the air.

John scanned the air for other scrying magic hanging about. “Unprofessional of you not to undo that,” he remarked.

“I would rather, rather have them see your spell destroying measures than mine.” Rolling his eyes, John returned to his seat behind the desk as the Horned Rat continued, “And Eurodon?”

“I thought I’d say something unusual to see if they’d slip up down the line.” John plopped down, then pressed a button on his desk. “Any idea who it was?”

“Only one comes to mind, one who would be so brazen to spy on us.”

“You really think Remus would make a move that openly?” There was no doubt in John’s voice, just baffled curiosity. “I suppose he does have the necessary level of self-importance. Ultimately, one can be as rude and underhanded as one desires. As long as there will be no punishment delivered, it matters not. Not like we are going to trust him.”

“This is why it pays to invest your enemies into your surface operations.” The Horned Rat sunk a claw into space and slowly dragged it down. Opening an arcane portal that way was a pure showing of power, one that left John as cold as the stone throne the god pulled out and put on his marble floor.

“You’re lucky that self-repairs,” John criticized, eyeing potential scratches. “You could have just grabbed one of the other chairs.”

“I could have,” the Horned Rat agreed and got comfortable in his rock-carved seat. It was bigger than John’s monstrosity of a leather swivel chair. It irked him. The bare-toothed smile of the skull-headed god creaked ever so slightly upwards. He knew.

“I am learning the value of investing enemies into your operations.” John played over his petty annoyance, talking in a casual tone. “I had begun to web up Xi Ping to make him easier to dislodge or, at least, control. I doubt that will be an issue in the future. He finds himself attached to Lu Zhi by the circumstances.”

“Indeed, and yet I would not write him off,” the Horned Rat said. “Movements in the Forbidden City have his writing on them. Subtle yet not so expertly done that they cannot be spotted. Corruption oozes out of every messenger. An easy net to get one’s claws in.”

“A scheme made by the selfish will inevitably unravel if the right people get promised more for leaving than they get for staying,” John agreed. “Exactly why honour wins in the long run… Still, what is it that you think Xi Pang is doing?”

“Feed intel to both sides, perhaps? I have not penetrated deep enough into that web to say with any certainty.”

John stared at the god. ‘Not like I haven’t considered that Xi Pang is a traitor, but what does Richard get out of telling me this?’

His contemplations were interrupted by the sound of movement. Agitated footfalls and the annoyed, aroused mutterings of a fairy maid preceded the opening of the door between his office and the shared teleportation room. Momo and Lydia stepped inside, one blushing intensely, the other following with long, controlled strides.

“Dick!” Momo cursed him first thing upon arrival. She hurried over, legs jittering, and moved to press the button. Except, at the last moment, she stopped, her white eyes sending a submissive plea to her Master.

“And here I thought, thought you were celibate for the week,” the Horned Rat remarked.

John didn’t have to ask how he knew that one. Everyone who had eyes and brain cells realized that there was an extreme lack of the Gamer’s usual sexcapades and why that would be the case in this particular week. “I’m not touching her, I just pressed a button.” He reached over and did so again.

Momo let out a disappointed whimper, before clearing her throat. “You don’t call women over by pressing a vibrator button!”

“And yet,” Lydia drawled as she pushed a chair over to the desk, “you decided to wear it.”

“Uh…guh…burbu…”

‘Blessed Momo noises,’ the Gamer thought.

“So did you!” the fairy maid managed to shoot back.

“This, I deny, and not out of shame. I genuinely am not equipped in such a manner.” The queen sat down at the short side of the desk, to John’s right, while Momo remained standing to her Master’s left. “Anything you discussed in my absence that I ought to be informed about?”

“Remus might have attempted to spy on us,” John said. “Someone definitely did, we just suspect it’s him because few others would be that brazen.”

“A simpler explanation would be a moronic upstart believing themselves of unique power. Plenty of people suffer an aptly called ‘Main Character Syndrome’.”

“That is not untrue…”

“The unnecessary double negative does not suit you, my love.”

“It’s added for effect.”

“It is a stupid effect.”

John submitted to the nagging with a sigh. “Beyond that point, we talked about nothing of consequence yet. I was about to ask Richard here if he was going to reveal what he is doing in the Asian theatre today?”

“No… no, I don’t think I will,” the god responded mischievously.

“You know, I get the feeling that this means I would disapprove of what I would find and you do not want me trying to smash it.”

“This may be the case.” Shrugging, the Horned Rat dismissed his concerns. “I will, will neither confirm nor deny and you will not draw it from me. I do not desire you to be involved in this one… or perhaps I am veiling it purely to see what you will do when I exclude you? Would you shatter my plans purely to feel a semblance of control, even if they are to your benefit?”

Once more, John could only stare. Then, he shook his head. “Very well then, keep your secrets,” he said. “Considering that you came to me, however, I assume there’s some other scheme you want my assistance with?”

“Quite so, quite so,” the Horned Rat agreed. “I need the attention of the twins and of Krieg bound elsewhere, do you believe you could achieve that for me?”

“To what end?” the Gamer asked.

“Do you need to know?”

“I will definitely not help you in something of that scope without knowing what it is,” the Gamer returned.

Momo crossed her arms and nodded. “Any scheme that requires us to distract those powers has to be big, so spit it out!”

“I have foreseen that the Great Re-Alignment of the Abyss will have a second-order consequence within the next couple of months,” the Horned Rat reported. “All of the empowered Faith from all of these Awakened will cause a cascade of Natural Barriers to open in two clustered areas: the Atlantic Fuse and the Assyrian Gate.”

“…I had expected something more elaborate,” John said. He did not have to check whether or not these news were true. Lorelei had foreseen the same event. Fusion was just not equipped to take advantage of it. Their naval capacity was greatly diminished, and even if they could get there, they would do so in lesser numbers at a longer distance than the others and that was only for the Atlantic Fuse. The Assyrian Gate was the point where the leylines feeding into the eastern Mediterranean fused together.

It fell squarely into the territory of the Great Sultanate. Even if John laid claim to Akkad, taking that territory from them would be tantamount to asking for a war of annihilation between the sultanate and Fusion.

“You have no interest in these Natural Barriers, I presume?” the Horned Rat inquired.

“They’re logistically not worth the cost to me.” John swivelled left to right. “And I don’t expect them to offer Fusion bounties that the Guild Halls and my Instant Dungeons cannot provide more sustainably. The global shock to resource prices will probably be good for us. It will make it less attractive to export raw materials, so the native economy can concentrate on developing its supply chains.”

Lydia had been following the conversation quietly so far. “All of which are boons the Illuminati and the Great Sultanate do not have.”

“Neither does Rex Germaniae,” the Horned Rat pointed out.

“Alas, I got arrangements.” The copper-haired queen gestured in John’s direction. It was no secret that Fusion and Rex Germaniae had tight trade relations. They were built purely on merit for the time, but she would not be above requesting aid if it became necessary. “The Illuminati also benefit from close ties to Fusion’s resource abundance. Yet, you need more?”

“Much, much more,” the Horned Rat responded bluntly. “Romulus’ strength lies in numbers and discipline. Prometheus’ strength lies in innovation and quality. To stand up against both, the Illuminati must have numbers, innovation, quality and discipline.”

“You have the numbers and the discipline, I would say even the innovation and the quality,” John admitted. He had seen the army of the Greater Empire in action. He had also seen the army of the Illuminati in action. He would not have bet on either side when it came to a confrontation of the armies, sans their elites. That spoke volumes about how well the triumvirate’s design of the Illuminati’s armed forces worked. By all rights, that nation should have been inferior on all fronts.

It was the sheer will of the Horned Rat and his chosen peers that kept the Illuminati on the map and competitive.

“And to keep all of them, we require material,” the Horned Rat stated. “You have seen Norahnon’s suit in action. You have seen the golems that the Blood of the Proletariat used to possess. Weapons of war like that even the playing field. Material can be spent when men cannot. The Illuminati needs to monopolize the Atlantic Fuse at the time of this surge.”

“And to do so, Remus and Romulus need to be distracted, I understand that… What about the sultan?”

“What about that decrepit waste of flesh?” the Horned Rat made a tossing gesture. “Demeaning of women yet addicted to their attention. Everyone else capable of building a spy network has at least two women in his harem, keeping him distracted.”

That was hardly a revelation. “And his son?”

“I have made arrangements with Osman. He will receive extraction crews from the Illuminati and in return we split the profit. It would situate him better in the crisis certain to accompany the succession.”

Strengthening the Great Sultanate was almost humorous. For decades now, the Illuminati and Prometheus had been staunch allies, carrying the torch of enlightenment in defiance against their eastern neighbour.

In the world of nations, there was no such thing as a permanent friend. Allegiances shifted quickly. Though the Illuminati had more in common with Prometheus on an ideological level, the Great Sultanate now could be a useful cudgel to keep Remus contained.

“So this scheme here is focused around distracting Romulus and Remus from getting any of the resources… How does distracting Krieg factor into this?” John asked.

“Even if the twins are distracted, their realms will send out expeditions, on order or independently,” the Horned Rat explained. “We will… keep them at arm’s length. Krieg will intervene, as a favour to Romulus if nothing else. I cannot have his posse of gods enforce a sharing of the resources.”

John rubbed his chin. “I can see all of this being to my advantage… if nothing else, I would see the resources in the Illuminati’s hands rather than theirs… What do you think, Lydia?”

Lydia did not have to think about the question for long. “I concur with your analysis. Our current goal is to wrestle Rex Germaniae free. Allowing the armament of our opponents in that conflict would be unwise. It can only be a peaceful split if the cost of maintaining the vassalage is too much.”

“Momo?”

“Nothing much to add… though I may have something that can help you if you agree.” The fairy maid switched to mental communications. ‘You know the pyramidion you gifted me?’

‘Hard to forget you drooling all over it.’

‘I would never drool on something that pretty!’

‘You drool on me all the time when you take a nap on me…’

‘And that says everything you need to know, doesn’t it?’ The sassy maid giggled, then switched to a serious tone. ‘I may have found the remnants of the Library of Alexandria.’

John kept his reaction inside. On the Abyssal side just like in the mundane realm, the library was burned down… a couple of times. The final one occurred during the conquest for the Great Sultanate’s precursor of the area. Eglystas had also said he had been reborn in one of these fires, absorbing all of the knowledge of the books consumed in the conflagration.

‘To be more exact, I believe I have found the forbidden archive of the Museion of Alexandria. If it still exists to this day, then it will hold juicy secrets, yeah?’

‘The forbidden archive of the greatest hoard of knowledge in the ancient world? Yeah, that could work as bait for Remus...’ John considered his other options. He could easily distract Krieg. Be it Nahoa, Ehtra or Undine, he had ways to immediately kick up an international affair that would attract that god’s attention. Romulus he could probably bait with another Raid encounter… in-fact, his current Raid was a tournament. Surely, that could rope in the Apex.

If that didn’t work, he was the toughest nut to crack.

“Provided I aid you in this, what do I get in return?” the Gamer asked.

“My aid in one of your schemes down the line.”

“A favour?” John rolled the word around in his mouth for a bit. He was tempted to pull out his aptly named Favour mechanic to give that agreement a bit more assurance. That, he decided, would have been insulting. The Horned Rat was not trustworthy but he was reliable. Like all schemers, he was bound to a degree of honesty if he wanted to operate in perpetuity. “…Very well. Do you have an exact date when this will occur?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I can lend you Lorelei for some shared scrying,” John offered.

“Very gracious, gracious indeed.” The Horned Rat bowed his head in what likely was genuine gratitude. “You will not regret it.”

“I am sure I will, in one way or another,” John sighed sarcastically.