Greed God chapter 111

February 13th 2016 Gemworld 9:00 PM EDT

The  first place I headed was my cottage. It was one of the first places I'd  made and I'd paid special attention to it in the upgrade. From what I  could tell residential areas got bigger and more luxurious on upgrade  than other places since size and luxury were the things that made them  valuable. Whereas say a forge might not change too much physically but  the actual furnace might be upgraded. Because I'd gone for size over  density I doubted our G ranked buildings had changed too much with the  exception of a material upgrade, they should still be at G with a few  other important locations joining them and lots of H ranked living  spaces.

The cottage was still G rank, but it had been  heavily altered by becoming part of the city, and pushed much higher in  the G rank range, increasing in size as the material shifted. It wasn't a  mansion now, but definitely a nice sized house with a few stories, and  much more well furnished. Once I took the girls back to celebrate a bit I  decided to look around my new town before the swearing in ceremony. I  was still comfortable on points so there was no reason to get squirmy.  My first move was appraising the house itself to see what the new  description said.

[Appraisal function activated.  Treasure detected. Lord's Manor- G rank. The estate of the lord of the  city, a spacious and sturdy manor house luxuriously situated in the  heart of a budding metropolis. Made from love grade deepvein titanbone  this house possesses the ability to grow and change to suit its owner  over time.]

I grinned. It had my name on it.  Granted it could have easily been a coincidence, but I still appreciated  seeing it. I left the girls to their affairs while I toured around the  house before heading out into the city. I was walking peacefully through  the hall when something caught my eye. I froze, turning ro see what the  movement had been, and chuckled when I realized it was just a mirror. I  stared into the glass, looking into my smiling face, and I started to  remember the strange feeling I'd gotten at Zee's place.

My  smile began to die, and as it did, so did the smile in the mirror.  Despite my knowledge that the face in thew gl;ass was the same as the  one I was making, my eyes bored into the reflection. I tried to look for  any differences. Was the cast of the lips a little more sneering? Was  the glint in the eyes a little colder. I knew it was stupid, but despite  being absolutely sure there was only me in the reflected image I had  the terrible feeling I was looking at someone else. That I was looking  at a stranger, and not one who wished me well. I appraised the mirror  like I had the last.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Gemsand Mirror- H rank. An upscale mirror made from luxurious gemsand glass. Tastefully designed to pull together the room.]

There  was nothing. No magic, no sign of problems. It was just a mirror. Just a  normal reflection of me. I chuckled uneasily. This wasn't like me. My  instincts were usually good. Paranoia was a given for anyone with common  sense, but Lords did not jump at shadows. I scanned my face in the  mirror, it could be that the whole Doctor Gotham thing had made me a bit  edgy.

For some reason though, I suddenly didn't relish  the thought of being alone. Not that I was vulnerable. I was an F rank  wymkin, I could protect myself fine, I just didn't like the silence. So I  broke it. "Hey Marcus, any notes on how I'm building up my territory?  This is your wheelhouse right? I mean, granted things didn't end too  well for you, but the whole ancient world empire thing is definitely  your scene, at least at the beginning you did pretty well, otherwise you  wouldn't have gotten to a position to fall so hard."

I  tore my eyes away from...my eyes, deciding to focus on the issue at  hand. I hadn't actually seen anything other than movement as I was  walking by a mirror, and the system said it was a normal one. I had no  real reason to think otherwise. Everyone had moments where they got a  little weirded out, a creak of a closet, a thump in the hall, once you  confirmed it was nothing you just had to move on.

[You're  doing fairly well for a beginner honestly. That cup was a hell of a  find. The decision to build wide instead of tall is likely to keep you  from attracting too much attention early on. It's smarter than what I  did. Just don't make the mistake of building up a huge force and  thinking quantity can actually bridge the gap. You aren't going to get  to the point where you can take any of the noble dynasties in a straight  fight. Not in the time you plan on spending here.]

That  was a reality check I appreciated actually. It was easy to buy my own  press, to decide I was some world conqueror and try to hit them head on,  but all the power I had was nothing compared to the magical titans that  ruled this world. My big priority wasn't conquering Gemworld, it was  making sure I had a power base that could be effectively translated back  to Gotham. I wanted to build a strong base that would serve me in both  worlds.

One of the earliest lessons my old man taught me  was never to confuse power with glory. Having power, wealth, and  influence wasn't about the status it gave you, it was about having  options. The more options you had the more freedom you possessed, and  freedom to do what you wanted was the only thing that really mattered.  I'd been falling into the conquerors mindset, been letting the promise  of glory tempt me. Not that I'd made any concrete plans to attack the  dynasties, but I'd been tossing the idea around.

I didn't  need to go to war to win my battles, in fact, having to fight would mean  I'd already lost. I sighed, trekking through the house and finding my  study, which I had now apparently. I dropped into the chair behind the  desk, which was pretty nice actually, made of a nice heavy dark wood.  "You're right. I was letting this go to my head." Left unsaid was that  I'd been falling into the same trap that Crassus had, and the reminder  from him of all people was much more effective than it might have been  from others. "So what's your advice going forward then. I mean, I'll  still do what I think is best, but I'm game to listen."

[Keep  doing what you're doing. As long as you don't start churning out F or E  rankers I doubt the nobles will care much. They've got centuries of  foundation here, and whole courts of much more powerful magic users.  Don't make a nuisance of yourself, build up a solid base, and get in  touch with the Amethyst kingdom as soon as you have things stabilized.  We're on the edge of their territory, and the idea of them courting you  should keep the Emeralds from being too pushy.]

Playing  both sides against each other was a game I was well acquainted with.  "You think I should expect an envoy soon? I mean I did just magically  create a giant ass city in their territory. Edge or not I would expect  that to raise a couple of flags." I wasn't going to be the one to get in  touch, I wanted them worrying about who I was talking to, but it would  make sense for them to dispatch someone to at least make contact, even  if only to show off an put me in my place.

[Hard  to say, I don't know the politics here, but my read on the situation is  no. The Emerald dynasty has been in charge here for ages, that kind of  foundation makes people either cautious or reckless. Since they haven't  violated borders and they use the Emerald Edge for their dirty work I'm  thinking the former. They'll keep an eye on you, see if you're worth  approaching, the power you've displayed shouldn't be past their  tolerance point, not when they have C and D rankers. Plus you're  ignoring the obvious question.]

I nodded. "Where  did I come from? Power doesn't just appear. Granted the possibility that  I might be from another world is probably on the table, but without any  reason to expect that the most reasonable assumption is that I came  from one of the other dynasties. Am I a plant from Amethyst? One of the  other territories? I could easily be a red herring the Amethyst kingdom  put here as a pretense for war. Not exactly their style from what I  hear, but counting on something like sentiment in espionage would be  stupid."

[Exactly. Moving on  you before they figure out your origin would be risking getting  blindsided by some plot from one of the other dynasties. Any region with  a power structure this stable lends itself to constant infighting and  threat balancing. Emerald has to consider what every single one of the  regions on their borders has to gain from every action that potentially  involves outside forces. They'll have to be cautious. Use that.]

He  was right. Anything that pushed the timeline back gave me more time to  build my power before I had to interact with the other forces, but it  was a balancing act. If I didn't have some legitimate connection with  Amethyst before Emerald reached out I could easily end up stuck between a  rock and a hard place. The trick was to get in touch with the  neighboring region before Emerald managed to puzzle out any information  about me, and I figured I had at least a few days before that happened.

International  politics was, just like any other interaction, it was all about power  balancing. If you were interacting with someone much more powerful you  needed another force to offset some of the pressure. It was the same  logic I'd used when I'd dealt with Morgan Edge, using the implicit  threat of my dads influence to keep him from just overtly screwing me  over, without actually  pitting them against each other. The key to  getting the most benefits was never picking a side, walking that knife's  edge when the two forces collide.

With  a decent idea of how to move forward I headed out into the city,  finally ready to take that look around. I checked out the forge, which  had mostly remained unchanged apart from a material upgrade, as well as  the new bakery, bar, tailor shop, and a few other G rank specialty  buildings I'd included in my vision of the city, though not too many of  them, since I didn't want to push the town over its ranking limit.

Crassus  went back to his normal...whatever it was he did, and since I wasn't  alone anymore I didn't feel as uneasy. The bandits were making  themselves at home in the new residences, and the farmers didn't seem  too unhappy about the new accommodations either, since their farms had  been upgraded a bit, though again not too much. As I walked though, my  mind went back to the mirror.

I  couldn't put my finger on what I'd been feeling or why, but there was  something...wrong. Something off. It was stupid really, being worried  about my own reflection. I shook it off, continuing down the street with  an internal promise to look into reflections in the next magic library I  found. I knew they had magical significance. I wasn't sure what that  significance was, but I could always ask about it. Zee and Strega might  know something. I had this gnawing feeling it might be important.