FB: Chapter 131 – Yelling At A Friend

“You have screwed us Foxy, like a knife to the back,” Quant Z said as I returned from the Capital. He had followed me to my office in the Mercenery Guild and I didn’t stop him. I had let the members know everything would be fine, but Quant Z knew better.

“There was no other way,” I replied heavily as I took a seat in my office. I used a consumable to ensure it was just the two us in this room.

“For you perhaps, but for the Mercenery Guild, you have sunk us. We invested quite a bit into this town. Once it is taken over by another noble we are going to be forced out,” Quant Z replied while waving his hands, and I nodded at this calmly. “Do you even understand? That is twice my work has been discarded.”

“There was no other option Quant Z. I couldn’t win the fight and the bribes necessary were too high. The super guilds are trying to corner me. Giving up the noble title, is a step back, but it forces them to give up completely on that avenue of attack.” Since I hadn’t been found guilty.

My title had been swapped out. I was no longer a Countess, but now a Herald, which was the third title in the religion title chain. It gave me a 6% boost to my stats and max resistances, which came in handy for my build. It also gave me recognition as a follower of the Human God, which basically canceled out any possible fallout from the Court of Nobles.

While I was a noble, they could go after me, but now that I had moved to the Trinity Church, I was under the authority of the 27 Cardinals. They were impossible to bribe or corrupt. It basically offset the depravity and corruption of the nobility in the Human Empire. They were also a much more public facing institution to the peasant NPCs than the nobility, which meant they required popular support to maintain their power.

The Trinity Church represented the people, the nobility represented the bureaucracy, and the Human Emperor represented the military. That was how the Human Empire maintained stability at a high level according to the lore.

What I did was basically give up on any claim in one camp and jump to another. While the Trinity Church and the Cardinals wouldn’t intercede for me in the Court of Nobility, they would protect one of their own. It was a high level move only I could pull off having titles in both tracks. But there were problems with this change. The biggest one was the loss of control of the town that the Mercenery Guild had set up in.

“We might control the businesses, but I have no doubt that the super guilds are moving someone to take control of this place as quickly as possible,” he said.

“I am not an idiot. That is why I got 40 in game days from Prime Minister Verus before the town is reassigned to another noble,” I said. Quant Z slowly closed his mouth.

“Ah. Well, that makes a difference,” he said.

“We have been preparing such a move for a while regardless. And a fortress just came up on the market for a very low price,” I replied.

“No. You didn’t?” he asked me and I nodded.

“The Apex Mountain, will now be Mercenery Mountain,” I said with a feral grin. Quant Z gave me a look like I killed his dog and then ran it over a couple more times just to be sure. I knew what he was thinking. It was a terrible investment. A terrible location to travel to and from. Unless you were setting up a remote production facility, it was absolutely pointless to take over.

But that was the brilliance of the acquisition. Apex was moving their operations to the city they controlled. They had basically dumped the entire mountain to me at cost in exchange for a discount on repurchasing their damaged equipment. Their resource contracts and other facilities were still in place, so they just needed to get the consumable production equipment back up and running as quickly as possible.

I knew that they thought they were scamming me with such a deal. It was clearly a trap of some kind. No doubt Apex Mountain would be a beehive of false walls and other such nonsense. But that was the entire point. I wanted them to think I had fallen for their trap. Their trap and all the other super guilds. While they might not be allies, they were coordinating to bring me down. The Court of Nobility proved that.

They wanted to lure me to a location that was exposed and kill me there. Most likely with some convoluted scheme to permanently damage my character. It would be a careful balancing act with everything else, but I had a plan to reverse the trap back on the super guilds, costing them an immense amount of money. Enough money to impact their GDP. If they wanted to mess with me, then needed to be prepared for my retaliation. I was the god player, not some low level noob that could be trampled by whatever whim they had.

“Foxy, I take back everything I said. You are a mad woman. I love it!” Quant Z exclaimed as his super brain finally realized my scheme, or at least enough of it to know how deep my plans truly went. “Decoy fall back location?” Quant Z asked me. He truly understood me.

“Yes. I will have some friends arrange the trap. Just approve of anyone I send your way,” I said. I would have Tim and the Illuminati prepare something. No need for me to spend my own money. It was time for those crazy terrorists to do some real work and notch another win on their belt. They would love dealing a massive blow to the super guilds. That was basically their entire reason to exist, acting as proxies in the war between super powers that were behind the super guilds.

“What is my budget?” Quant Z asked me.

“Ten thousand,” I replied and I saw his eyes get a bit wide at that.

“That much?” he asked in surprise.

“Yes. It needs to believable as a fake fall back point,” I said. Which I would actually use and escape from. “Make those super guilds work for the information. Compartmentalize everything. Just require a deep vertical shaft, completely hidden. Perhaps thin floors?” I suggested and Quant Z nodded.

“You are going for everything. If this works, everyone will be your enemy. Not just annoyed, but actively hate you,” Quant Z replied, and I smiled while resting my head on the palm of my hand.

“A great note to retire on. I will go out on top. The ultimate god player, Foxy Blight. The one everyone aspires to. The one that parents will tell stories to their children about. When I am done with the super guilds, they will develop a mental scar that future generations will inherit when speaking my name. I will become a verb where people tell each other to not get ‘Foxied’,” I replied. I wasn’t looking to just kill their Champions, I was going to ruin their characters.

With enough preparation and the right set up it was possible to deal lasting effects on characters. It wasn’t simple or easy. But it was a risk the higher one climbed. With the help of my dark guild, I would be forcing a lot of players to switch allegiances. Since all the super guilds were aligned with the Human Empire, it would create a huge issue for them, losing a large chunk of their fighting force.

While the dark guilds might not be strong in direct combat, they were great at schemes. While something like this had occurred on a much smaller scale in the past, I was looking to lure all the super guilds. The formation of a divine skill would be the perfect bait. That ten million platinum bet had everyone on edge, even me.

That was around 200 billion dollars. While I was richer than that, it was around a third of my total wealth. But it was more than the money, it was about legacy, my prestige and future. I had used mystic money to create the contract in game. Moving that much currency would have had huge fees. If I lost, I would end up losing a half to two thirds of my wealth due to the various fees and exchange rate.

Even for the super powers behind the super guilds, this was a lot of liquid money to get. I had no doubt they had people betting against my contract on the open market to hide their affiliations. If they lost, no one would know as it would be buried in the accounting. If I lost, it would be a complete disaster.

That was why the betting contract was open to mystic money, real world money. There wasn’t enough coinage in game. But everyone had started to use Exponential’s currency as the basis for all transactions and monetary value. QAI had even developed an app so people in the real world could pay for things using Exponential currency. It really was taking over everything.

Regardless, I had to win. But it wasn’t just about winning. A donkey could beat the super guilds in my position. It was about crushing them so much they developed trauma after what they were trying to do to me. If they wanted to fight dirty, then I would fight dirtier, dragging them down into the mud with me and then climbing out of the mud over their corpses.

That was the Foxy Blight way.

Quant Z was practically salivating over what I had planned. He loved being on the core part of this scheme. He would ensure that the super guilds were chasing their tails.

“As for the Mercenery Guild, we are moving to the Capital, to the buildings we have purchased there. A nice strong central location near the Adventurer’s Union,” I said.

“We have enough time to move everything important. A shame, I liked this town, while it lasted,” he replied.

“You will have a chance to cater to the NPCs in the capital. Those are much harder to impress, but I am sure you are up to the task,” I said.

Quant Z was more than up the task. We both knew it. The man was a genius of squeezing money out of others. “That will give our personnel a vacation while we make the transition. Well not a vacation, but you know what I mean,” he said.

They were going to be part of the plan, so it was fine. Everything was coming togeather perfectly. The one thing I had made sure I kept was my image and design for my iconic outfit. While I had lost the Fanged Fox Guild, I had kept my color scheme, symbol, and outfit. A small but important concession based off of the brand I had built.