RD 3 Ch 4

Chapter 4

I walked out of the meeting with Carmen after another half an hour of pleasantries. Sadly, the whiskey did little to my constitution thanks to my abilities.

It was still early in the day, and with my stats, I rarely felt the need to sleep unless I had been awake for multiple days in a row. At this point, it would probably take close to a week before my body would revolt and require me to sleep. It was still a high luxury to sleep every night though. 

Jenny was leaning against her car. She pushed off of it, swiping away her system menu, only to grin at both of us. That grin fell away as another car pulled up.

A handsome man of indeterminable age stepped out. Vincent Jear, the executive of North Trust Bank, wasted no time marching over. He had a touch of a baby face, with a pair of deep eyes that betrayed his real age. Given his stats, he could be well over a hundred and retain his baby face and muscular body.

I gave him a slight nod as his eyes pinched down, trying to inspect me with his ‘Appraisal’, which I brushed aside with my spirit. "Something wrong?” I asked.

“You've changed," he said, his eyes rolling over me and his brows scrunching together. “I’d almost peg you as a relative rather than the man I met months ago.” 

I grunted. "In my work for the Hero's Clan, I acquired a powerful ability, one that has had…" I gestured at myself, "... a substantial alteration to my body." 

Vincent's eyebrows steadily climbed up at that statement. “It takes an incredibly powerful ability to make this big of a difference to an initiated's body. Regardless, I've given you long enough to go through the information we've sent you," He started, but I waved him away before he could finish.

"I can open the seal, no problem." 

"No problem at all?" Vincent blinked. 

"No problem. The greater difficulty is that once it is open, it will not remain open for long." I told him.

Vincent nodded. “Precious few things worth their time give you an extended opportunity. Me and my collaborators are eager to get inside and would assemble shortly if you could promise to be there and open it," he said. The man was clearly in a rush.

Rightfully so. He held something in his grasp that the five clans would kill him for. Only by using it and reaping the rewards inside did he think he could save himself.

I rubbed at my chin. Given who Vincent was and how much he used system gold as a way to power himself up, I had a solid hunch. "How much are the spots to get in going for?" 

Vincent pursed his lips before answering. "Ten million gold a spot.”

I assumed he meant system gold. “But you haven't opened this up to the clans." That meant their were more developed initiated outside the clans than I expected.

Vincent shook his head. "Intentially so, I suspect if they had become aware of our Vault of Archimedes it wouldn't still be in my possession." 

I smiled at him. He at least was a man of reason. Because surely if the clans thought it was anything valuable, they would have ripped it out from under him and his dead body.

It was a treasure trove. Just not one you were supposed to walk out of alive.

"I'd like a few of my own spots in order for me to open the seal for you." I told him.

"Sure. Standard rate," Vincent nodded, not even batting an eyelash. 

"No. For free," I smiled plainly at him. "The value of me opening this for you now rather than later is immense. Especially because if you aren't aware, the Heros Clan has just flown into Vein City and is setting up a presence. Thorin Aegis is also in the city. Are they perhaps circling something?" I raised an eyebrow at him, throwing doubt into the situation. 

Vincent's eyes twitched. "Thorin Aegis is here?" 

"Yes, and Circe Heros. However," Vincent frowned at Circe's name, not recognizing it.

"She's the same Circe from Greek myth," Gloria added in, only to cause the banker's eyes to swell the size of dinner plates. 

"Why is someone like that in Vein City?" He asked.

"Because she followed me back," I answered plainly, there was no reason to lie and he might have someone watching me. "We are working on something, in my opinion, even bigger than your vault." 

I could tell Vincent was starting to consider my offer, though I was sure a counteroffer was about to come. 

"And what would it cost for our involvement in this larger scheme that you have with the Heros Clan?" 

"I think that would be quite difficult for me to take your money, Vincent. Because that scheme is very large scale, to the point I would reckon you and the Free Player Alliance will have easy access to it after it starts. You just may not have front row seats." 

Vincent licked his lips and I smiled at him knowing that I almost had him. 

"Don't worry. When it comes, you'll know it. The whole world will know.” I told him plainly.

Now he went from interested to terrified. "The whole world will? You can't possibly mean that. The Hero's Clan is going to come out into the open?" Vincent wasn’t looking so calm at the idea of that.

I shook my head with my hands up to calm him down. Though perhaps what I was about to reveal was worse. "No, things have aligned, and a prophecy of theirs is soon to come true. Are you familiar with it?" 

Vincent shook his head. 

"All five clans have a prophecy that demons will attempt to take the earth, storming it one day through nine immense hell gates. In my recent efforts with the Hero's Clan, we have discovered one of those hell gates, and with it we have a better understanding of when they will open." 

This part was a lie. In fact, I was going to have to convince the Hero's Clan that they would give me the hell gate anchor so I could actually do something like what I was saying. Despite my knowledge from a different future, enough had changed that I was feeling a little less certain about when the Rapture would occur.

Stopping the demons from reclaiming the hell gate anchor at Tartarus, could have altered enough to change the date of the Rapture. There were too many unknowns wrapped up in everything. 

I might have learned inscriptions, but I certainly don't know how worlds are born. That's a level of magical understanding I would hazard to guess few understand.

Vincent nodded, but seemed to calm down. "Well, that's a cheery thought. I'll give you yourself and four other spots for the vault. With that, I would ask that you open the vault in two weeks." 

I ran my tongue along the back of my teeth, glancing out into the distance. "Two weeks I can do. Tell me where, and exactly when.”

“Is there anything else you require to get it done?" He asked me.

I shook my head. "The reagents you've already given me will be enough." 

Candidly, opening the vault was a trivial matter. It was like a puzzle with minimum requirements so that the demons inside ensured they got decent quality hosts to possess. The materials I required from him were simply things that were of personal value to myself. With my Blood Ink ability, I would have no trouble opening the vault. 

"Good. I will arrange things on my end, and send you a note on the date. No more stalling, please, Bran." He watched me with an implied warning. 

I gave him a flat smile. Last time we had a conversation, I had to be overly cautious. However, since then, my stats have gone through a massive shift and I could teach him now to threaten me. Yet at the same time, I didn't want to alarm him more than I needed to.

Perhaps it was better if he thought I wasn't an unwieldy threat to what treasures may lie within the vault. After all, if I were opening an incredibly rare opportunity to someone, I would prefer them to be less competent than me. Life after the Rapture taught me more about humanity than I ever thought I could have learned working for the criminal underworld.

"That went smoother than I expected," Gloria said as I stepped up to the car and Jenny let us in.

"There was never going to be an issue. This isn't a situation where he can accept other bids for the job." I glanced at Gloria. "You're coming, correct?"

"You bet your ass," she said. "I assume we'll bring Simone and Nyx as well."

I nodded along. "That leaves the fifth spot precariously open."

Jenny got into the car and I could see the excitement in her eyes as she glanced at the mirror.

"Circe is out," I said. "I can't bring a Heros clan member in there or Vincent's going to freak out. So that also rules out my mother, Thorin, and the three servants."

"It doesn't rule out Nyx?" she asked.

"I'll make it work." I waved the concern away. "I think given the opportunity this presents, I was going to offer your father the last spot and we both know who he's going to throw in there.”

“Bobby.” Gloria answered without hesitation.

I nodded in agreement. "That would be my assumption as well. However, I'm quite concerned about the dangers inside and what they would pose to Bobby. I have half a mind to leave one spot blank."

Jenny was paying more attention to her rearview mirror and the road and seemed to be vibrating in her seat.

"Yes, Jenny?" I tried to hide my amusement.

"Any of the Mul’Branova would go," she said in a hurry.

"I'm well aware of your eagerness to perform. However, this is not some idle instance, Jenny. This is a false instance filled with demonic souls aiming to possess capable bodies." I told her.

Jenny swallowed. "We would all throw ourselves into such a situation without hesitation."

I rubbed my forehead, not wanting to lose the Mul’Branova to the Vault of Pandora. There needed to be a way to get her to stop chasing it. "Yes, but there is also the problem that if I give it to you and not Amanda, she's going to throw me off a bridge next time she drives me."

Jenny giggled. "It wouldn't be that bad." I noted that she did not say that Amanda would be fine and not attempt any vengeance.

"Perhaps there's another way," I said flatly.

Jenny shifted her attention back to the road.

I leaned back in my seat, watching the city go by. It felt like there was plenty of time until the rapture came, yet at the same time, it felt like there was far too little. The time we had left felt like water seeping between my fingers, even as I held a full palm of clear liquid.

***

Jenny pulled the car up to the fortress, a sight to behold.

Several individuals, whom Soul Gaze confirmed to be members of the Mul'Branova, were carrying around construction supplies with more efficiency than heavy construction equipment. One even appeared to have the bucket of a backhoe, using it to dig out a basement. Another walked on layers of rebar, pouring what was likely a several-thousand-ton drum of cement into the area.

I glanced over at Gloria with a raised eyebrow.

"We swore all of the people who are coming here to work to secrecy." She shrugged. "Look, they're not even fazed anymore." She gestured at a crane operator handing a pallet off to another lady of the Mul'Branova. 

The fortress itself was being constructed in four quadrants according to Gloria. The residential quadrant already had walls and roofs up on the buildings. All of them were made of rebar and concrete, with the exterior stamped to make it look like stacked stones.

The next quadrant being worked on was energy and food. Out of the foundation emerged the beginnings of a power station and the shell of what would eventually be a vertical farm. The other two quadrants were unrecognizable at present. One would be for recreation and the final one would be another residential quadrant. The fortress was like a compacted city. 

"You've done incredible work, Gloria," I complimented her. "I don't think I could have managed this nearly as well as you." 

Gloria put a hand on her chest and gasped. "Bran, the Wandering King, has things he can't do?" 

I rolled my eyes. "I took the title Wandering King because I didn't want a kingdom in my past life." Glancing out over the budding fortress, my thoughts drifted to my new reality. "If I did the Trial of Kings, I would most likely have to pick a different role this time around. So yes, both Simone managing the Mul’Branova and you helping manage the enterprises that are making us so much system gold, as well as building our fortress, are things I am not particularly skilled at doing. So thank you once again for all of your hard work." 

She grinned and leaned back. "Let me bask in that for a moment, Bran." 

We sat like that for a solid minute before she sat up straight. "All right, Jenny, we're going. Get Amanda to tell us where all of our guests are currently. I think it's about time Bran gets to talk to his lovely worshipers." 

I stepped out of the car, resisting the urge to roll my eyes, only for one of the ladies carrying two industrial-sized drums on her shoulder to do a double take at me and drop both drums, liquid spilled out of one. 

"Watch what you're doing!" Gloria shouted

The woman quickly righted the drum, though the contents were clearly still seeping out of a fresh crack. "It's him! He's back!" the woman screamed, and then again at the top of her lungs, "Lord Bran is back!" 

Her voice seemed to echo within the fortress, followed by several more thuds as other members of the Mul'Branova dropped their tasks. 

Gloria groaned. "Do you see what I have been dealing with?"