Greed God chapter 185

April 4th 2016 Brightedge City, Warehouse District, 9:00 PM EDT

Of  course, that wasn't the end of things. I spent the next hour hashing  out details and making sure our 'cooperation' would go off without a  hitch. Sadly, they were pretty firm about not giving me material aid.  I'd tried to talk them into sending some supplies (which would have been  more useful to me than money anyway) but they were firmly against it.  In the end I didn't get much more done than outlining the terms of our  agreement in more detail, but that was plenty for now.

With  their backing it would be ten times easier to arrange the summit I had  planned, and I could point the League at anyone who was resistant or  tried to get it the way. As we climbed into the car, I sighed in relief  I'd used one of the multiple cars included in the garage at the house  that I'd never driven before. I'd make sure to pay attention to that in  the next upgrade. Having untraceable burner cars was crazy useful.

"Well."  Amy said cheerfully. "That was bracing. I was very excited to meet some  of them. I remember Red Tornado being around before I left." She  frowned. "Green Arrow too, but I heard some of the terrible things he  was saying to Dinah when she left the League. I'm not so much a fan of  his. That Captain Atom was strong though. I could feel his power, and  he's around the same level we are. I was surprised to find out the  League had such an ace up its sleeve."

I nodded. "Yeah,  the Captain isn't exactly what comes to people's minds when they think  of the heavies. He's measured, calm, and he does minimal property  damage. Part of being a trained soldier probably. He isn't as excessive  or obviously terrifying as Superman or Supergirl, or as sexy as Wonder  Woman, or as flashy as Green Lantern. But he's one of the more dangerous  members of the League all the same."

She nodded  thoughtfully. "Clearly. Marquis level is nothing to sneeze at. In any  case, that seemed to have gone well. I'm just relieved they didn't check  in the warehouse we came out of. Do you imagine miss St. Cloud cleaned  everything up well enough?"

"Probably." I said without  much worry. "I'd be shocked if they didn't have some kind of disposal  method for Talons. Regardless, the League can't just bust down the door  to a warehouse with no warrant. They're UN affiliates. I'm sure they  were curious, but like they said, I haven't been linked to any crimes,  and wearing a mask isn't really probable cause for a search. Not to  mention fae have been in Gotham for months. If Silver hasn't hired at  least one illusionist my opinion of the Court of Owls will hit rock  bottom."

She made a noise of agreement. "Fair. Anyway,  this was an extremely fun night. I imagine you'll need to fix the house  before we can resume our marital activities. Will you be able to do that  properly with the Amazon and her charge around?"

"Nope." I  said unhesitatingly. "That's why I'm doing it tonight. They aren't  showing up til tomorrow remember? Aside from those two, I'm going to  have Zee over and have her put on a bit of a magic show. Most people  don't know what magic can really do anyway, so they'll have no reason to  suspect the changes aren't just her making with the hocus pocus."

Just  because we needed to explain things, didn't mean we had to come up with  big convoluted reasons for all our abilities, 'cuz magic' worked in  basically every fantasy novel and movie, no reason to think it wasn't  going to work here. You average layman knew nothing about how magic  worked, and if Zee said she could transform a house they'd believe her.  Plus I was ninety percent sure she would be thrilled at the possibility  of watching me upgrade the place to D rank.

I'd been  thinking about what to do with it since it had been damaged. I'd come to  the conclusion that despite using an E rank painting as an ingredient,  it wasn't really very impressive. With the sole exception of being kind  of sturdy and keeping out spys, it didn't do much. I'd learned quite a  bit about how to use and apply the greed system since I made the Palace,  and I had more than a few thoughts about what to do with that.

As  we pulled into the driveway, I sent Amy inside, then slipped out my  phone and texted Zee, stopping to ponder while I waited for her. The  Palace was G rank, because the house I'd started with had sucked and  averaged out with the painting. I still had plenty of room to grow it  and over four and a half million GP to burn. I considered exactly what I  would need from it. Isolating us from detection was good, but not just  spying. I could do better.

I slipped a hand into my pouch  and pulled out a G rank item I'd picked up in Gemworld. A small compass.  I grabbed an F rank concealment item after that. I put them each down,  then withdrew another series of items. The E rank ingredient I would  need to make custom. I decided that once I'd arranged for secrecy,  defense was probably best, and I merged together a few durable stones  and metals to create a strong rocky base material to use.

Finally,  as I was finishing work, Zee arrived. She'd teleported over here, so it  wasn't a long wait. "Hey." She said as she stepped up next to me. "I'm  here. You sure you want me here for this? It seems like kind of a big  deal? Also shouldn't we like...get people out of there? Having them  inside seems like a bad decision."

I chuckled at that.  "Nah. It's fine. The house will change as I will it. If I keep in mind I  want them to be ok it won't be an issue." If she understood how my  power worked she'd be more worried about me accidentally merging one of  them with whatever I was using. But since she didn't I could just get on  with it. "Alright. Now, I have my focuses for the transformation. We go  smallest to largest." I held up the compass, giving it a quick  appraisal.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Wayfinder  Compass- G rank. Allows the user to always find their way home from any  location. General direction only, does not factor in distance. Only  works when sharing a plane of existence.]

The  compass was a glass sphere with a single gold ring around it and a gold  needle floating horizontally inside. It could point in any direction,  and theoretically could help me find the house even on another planet. I  grinned and triggered the merge, but rather than stop it, I immediately  triggered the next one while the energy was still in flux, something  I'd been experimenting with but never done. I added the F rank stealth  item next.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Mistflame  Candle-F rank. Walk unseen through the world. While inside the candles  light, you will be seen only by those to whom you wish to be visible.  Dampens scrying attempts, but does not deflect perception past a certain  level.]

The candle merged into the still  writhing energy of the house, interacting with the compass and changing  the nature of the merge to reflect the new combination. Doing it this  way would save me the points of merging the two together, as well as  having to find replacement items. The candle merged into the house along  with the compass, changing the nature of the merge for both items  exactly as I hoped. Finally I merged in the E rank stone I'd made.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Darkveil  Marble- E rank. A powerful stone that destabilizes the ether, creating a  scrambling effect on magical detection and superhuman perception.  Larger concentrations enhance the effect, with only the specific few  keyed to the stone being immune to its power.]

That  one joined the merge, and I finally stopped holding the house in its  energy state, allowing the merge to complete even as one million one  hundred and ten thousand GP drained out of me. The energy began to  converge in the location of the Palace, but in a much different form,  and despite staggering under the weight of the strain of holding that  merge for so long, I grinned widely as the new shape of my home  solidified.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Hall  of Nevers- D rank. A castle of black stone in an endless mist. The hall  can only be found by those who know where it is, whether told by word  of mouth or shown directly. No eye may find the hall unless its masters  wish it, either from afar or right beside. A realm that is even as it is  not.]

Zee and I both just stood there, staring.  The Palace was gone, and in its place stood a massive castle of pitch  black stone. The thing speared straight up into the air for what looked  at first glance like a quarter mile. The crenelations were jagged and  imposing, and the windows had been transformed into taller, thinner  tower windows covered with beautiful stained glass showing scenes of my  past victories.

Around the base of the castle there was  banks of fog, shrouding the entrance, and somehow, when I tried to stare  into the fog, the castle itself flickered out of sight, isolated from  the world. I grinned. Perfect. The mistflame candle and wayfinder  compass had combines into the Palace exactly as I'd hoped. The place was  literally hidden from anyone who didn't already know how to find it,  and with the combination of the Darveil Marble into the mix, that wasn't  just a visual hiding. My castle existed in a state of flux, where it  would only be accessible to people I had already allowed in.

I'd  been extremely careful about that too. It was imperative to make sure  that I was in control of this place, and I'd made sure the compass was  keyed to me specifically by blood before the merge. The blood link  allowed me complete control over the castle, since I'd been very  specific with my wishes for that to happen during the merge. This had  been the biggest most involved project I'd ever undertaken with the  Greed System but the result was exactly what I'd hoped.

Turning  to Zee, I shot her a grin. She was staring up at the castle, eyes wide  and fixed and almost...hungry. "Admit it." I said smugly. "You're so  fucking turned on right now it's not even funny." I could sense her  desires, so I already knew that, but I wanted to remind her. She was so  enthralled by the castle she didn't even audible respond, just nodding  her head slowly without breaking eye contact.

Unfortunately,  others weren't quite so enraptured. There was a loud bang as the front  doors of the castle slammed open, and Barbie stalked out, glaring at me  darkly. She pointed sharply up at the castle. "What the fuck is this?"  She didn't even give me a chance to respond, staling up to poke me in  the chest. "Because it LOOKS like you just dissolved a fucking building  into ENERGY, while all of us were still inside. Including your unborn  children!"

I blinked. Oh. Right. The babies. "Oh. Um. This  was perfectly safe. Everyone is fine and no one was in any danger."  Despite being pretty sure that was true, I started slowly inching away  from the door as more of my girls filed out, most of them looking  equally annoyed. The newer and younger ones were confused by what had  happened, which was nice, but Dinah and all the E rank girls know the  deal and they didn't look happy. I sighed internally. I do a little work  around the house and all I get is bitched at. This was what I got for  being all domestic and shit.