“Theodoran? Can’t believe he came all the way from the capital to see you. Guy’s legendary for his predatory business tactics.”
Gathering intel was the first order of the day, but it wasn’t particularly hard work to learn what I needed to. Fez already knew all about the guy. It seemed our little tyrant had quite the reputation.
“Predatory? How bad are we talking here?”
“The usual: land sharking, coerced contracts. The kinda thing the commerce boards banned back when my ears were still the size o’ yours. With most of the old folks around here, you say this guy’s name and you’ve already ruined their day.”
“Is that right. Guess I’m going to need to set someone to escort Ann. Mary’s occupied, so it’ll have to be Carla.”
Donnel, with his decades more of experience, seemed the stronger of the two, but if Ann’s escort was going to be guarding her at all times, I wanted them to be another girl.
“Wait, how come? What exactly did the guy want from you?”
“Check it out.”
I handed the unsigned contract over to Fez. He grimaced as he read it, and when he finished he glanced over my way anxiously. No, maybe at Carla?
“Yo, Carla, what’s up with your tail? It cramped or something?”
“Mind your own tail, Fez!”
When Fez called her out, even more color drained from her face, and she just shook her head. I couldn’t believe how frightened she was. Personally, I found Mayor Hopper or even Fez more intimidating than Theodoran.
“Hey, Fez, can I ask you to look into this guy for me? I need to know how I can get at him.”
“Uhh, um, sure! That’s what friends are for!”
Friends, huh? The way he said it, maybe Fez wasn’t looking forward to this, either. I had a hunch I was going to be paying a pretty hefty fee for this info.
✦ ✦ ✦
Fez came to the labyrinth’s workshop about two weeks before the free challenge period ended.
“Aoi, where are you? They’re already on the way! Get your ass in gear!”
“Oh yeah? Thanks, Fez. I sure wish this could’ve waited until I was less worried about the labyrinth, but what can you do. How far out are they?”
I’d been expecting this, but I was still exasperated. Managing the labyrinth and dealing with Theodoran at the same time would be difficult. I’d have rather resolved the labyrinth’s performance review first, and then dealt with him afterwards.
But I hadn’t just been twiddling my thumbs. I’d been doing as much as I could to bog down Theodoran. Fez and the hunters were all the man power I could spare, but they’d all followed my orders with such zeal that I was feeling bad for overworking them.
I hadn’t taken any drastic measures just yet. A few stalls and shops back in the city which were managed by Theodoran had suspiciously been struck with accidents. For example, unregistered carts filled with soil would mysteriously crash into them in the middle of the night. And, strangely, it seemed a whole lot of delicious horse feed had been left in the stables for Theodoran’s pack horses, and now they were suffering from diarrhea. In another nearby city, where Theodoran’s company had its headquarters, there had been a string of small fires. Very small ones, I promise.
No, no, I wasn’t burning down a city. I just figured nobody would care about a few unpopulated warehouses except their owner. But even so, when he’d received his orders, Fez had come bawling to me, begging me not to make him burn anything down. So I’d resorted instead to just handing him a pot, a brazier, and a funny little monster called a wheat fish. The fish had a fat tail, reminiscent of a mouse, which it used to dash around on dry land, and it was famed for sneaking into silos to steal grain. Thing was, even if you managed to catch one, it was so greasy and disgusting that it was borderline inedible. Most people who went looking for them did it to wring them out and harvest the oil, rather than to eat them and destroy their stomachs. Seriously, they were something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. But as reviled as they were, I’d found they made a whole lot of smoke when cooked, enough to make it look like you’d set a building on fire.
I’d clearly gone soft. Back in my days playing Imperialization, we’d razed that hotel gang’s city to the ground. Well. I guess the situation wasn’t quite the same here, given there were actual lives at stake.
“He’s hiding out in a huge hunter caravan. I think they’ve got upwards of a hundred people.”
A hundred of them? It sounded like a tiny force compared to war in my own world, but when I considered it was just me, Mary, and the labyrinth against all of them, it felt overwhelming.
“Wait. A hundred hunters. How many...?”
A chill ran down my spine.
“Fez, how many of Theodoran’s hunters are human?”
“Can’t say for sure, but probably eight outta every ten?”
Theodoran couldn’t have known anything about Mary’s condition; Mary and I were keeping that secret to ourselves. There must have just been more human hunters looking for work than I’d thought.
“How long do we have?”
“They’ll be here in three days, early in the day.”
I couldn’t suppress a flash of admiration for Theodoran. I’d had Fez tracking his moves this whole time, but he’d given us the slip until the last minute. He’d really stolen a march on us, and we were going to have to rush our preparations.
“Here I’d been thinking of shutting down the place in a hurry, even if it damaged my reputation a bit.”
I looked over my records and took a few notes. We’d had a decline in challengers sometime after the two-month mark. Most of the hunters around these parts either had already made their two attempts or had found long-term contracts. We were ten people short of meeting our goal of expelled intruders. We could try to cheat. I could ask Donnel and Carla to make their forces challenge it, for instance. I didn’t really mind using underhanded tactics against Theodoran, given how he was approaching things, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to try the same with my labyrinth goals.
“Maybe I should get Suzu’s take.”
I rang up Suzu and told her about my woes.
“Wow, you’re pretty screwed. For what it’s worth, I’ve never heard about any labyrinth managers trying to scam the performance review like that, so I’d follow your instincts and do it right.”
On the video chat, Suzu was wearing pink pajamas and periodically rubbing her eyes. Had I woken her up? And was it really okay to wear clothes like that to a meeting? I figured she’d give me hell if I pointed that out, so I decided not to say anything.
“Huh, really? So you’ve never heard of labyrinth managers gaming the system?”
“The only thing I’ve ever heard was the embezzlement story you told me a few months ago.”
That at least clarified one thing for me. My labyrinth had already been victimized by one corruption scheme, so I’d wanted to ensure that was an outlier in this world, rather than the norm.
So I couldn’t take the easy way out. All right, what other options did I have?
“I suppose we’ll just have to roll out the red carpet for our guests. Fez, can you go talk to Mayor Hopper? I’m going to need as many workers as the village can spare for the next two days. And on your way, tell the receptionist back in Milt that the labyrinth is temporarily closed for renovation.”
“Sure thing, but what are you gonna do? You’ve only got two days!”
Like all games, the game of life was at its best when it threw the really hard content at you. I tried to keep my excitement in check as I thought about what was coming, and I gave Fez a confident smile.
“We’re gonna overhaul this place in record time.”
Fez looked at me in horror. Oops, did I put on my evil grin again?