Ruthless: Path of Conquest

In the morning, James got up early and made his family a hearty breakfast.

He used a frying pan that someone had recovered from one of the old apartments, flames that he could generate from his own body and control at will, and ingredients he’d found in Carol’s Retail. It really was a brave new world.

That was the best way James could think of to tell his closest people that he was home again. Ideally, they would all associate the times when he was at home with the sound and smell of his cooking, happy memories of him reading aloud and playing with the children, and other similar scenes of domestic bliss. He had a bad feeling that he wasn’t going to be as present as he would prefer.

The new neighbors brought it home to him. There would always be more enemies to fight.

At least everyone seemed happy to see him. Yulia looked relieved, which James guessed was in part because she and Mina had suffered through quite an annoying series of meetings and bureaucratic tasks while he was gone. Abhi ran up to James and embraced him silently but fiercely. And even baby James seemed to be in high spirits, gurgling and wiggling energetically at the sight of his father’s face.

After breakfast, James announced his return to the Fisher Kingdom using his powers.

[Greetings to all residents of the Fisher Kingdom! I am back within our territory, and on my return journey I was accompanied by a small group of humans as well as roughly one thousand Goblins and two hundred Mole People. If you see giant fur-covered creatures that look a bit like a bear, or humanoid figures with yellow-green skin, please do not be alarmed. These are friends who are eager to live and work alongside us to build our new nation. You may not see them very often, as both Races primarily dwell underground. Please treat them with the same courtesy that you would extend to members of your own Race, whether you are a human, a wolf, or some other life form. The Goblins and Mole People are instructed to do the same.]

People reacted to James’s announcement all across the territory. Some were simply glad he was back. Their body language reflected relaxation or mild euphoria that they were a bit safer than they had been before. Others were immediately worried about his decision to welcome so many new non-human immigrants into the country. Their frantic movements conveyed a sense of urgency as the most concerned paced back and forth.

James felt their movements all through his territory as he reached out with his aura to gauge the state of things. He was primarily focused on the land rather than the people right now, but in observing the condition of the territory, he couldn’t help but get a general sense of people’s activities, and by extension their feelings.

This is a powerful ability that I’ll have to be careful in using.

Not much about the land itself had changed since he left, besides Mina beginning construction on a few new buildings.

There had been a bit of tunneling—which James was fairly certain was the work of Mole People burrowing where he had authorized them to dig.

Elsewhere there were some changes to the surface, including some new seeds planted.

Someone was preparing to farm a certain section of land. James had authorized the formation of an Agriculture Commission before he left. It seemed they were already hard at work.

And there were a hundred or so new people, which was the most interesting development to him.

James resolved to meet as many of the new residents as he could and begin familiarizing them with his style of leadership. He walked toward the stairs leading out of the apartment.

Then there was a knock at the door.

James was going to answer it, but Yulia rushed out of her room at that point and marched downstairs with an air of such certainty that he just let her go ahead of him. He was left standing upstairs alone for a moment.

What’s going on? he thought. Yulia’s answering the door now? What happened while I was gone? Well, if it’s another complaint like the landlord’s, she can go ahead and get it, maybe they’ll be nice to her.

James heard the door open, and then heard her greeting what sounded like more than a few people.

She called up to him, “Citizens here to see the Fisher King!”

“Alright,” James said, just loud enough for Yulia to hear a floor below him. “I guess there are a few things to discuss.” He had given a fair number of them tasks to work on while he was gone, after all. “Please have them form a line, and then send them up, first come first served.”

Then he wondered if he’d said something wrong or unintentionally funny. Even from where he stood at the top of the stairs, he could see Yulia’s mischievous smile as she stood in the shadows by the door.

From then until lunchtime, he had hardly a minute alone.

First, there were a couple of people who wanted to express how enthusiastic they were about the new citizens—which James quickly realized was code for, We need reassurance that the Mole People and Goblins aren’t going to kill us and eat our children, please!

He provided that as best he could and then announced to the whole Kingdom that there would be a meet and greet with the leaders of the Goblins and Mole People in the next few days, and that any questions about the new residents should wait until then.

Next a group of engineers and plumbers showed up. Mina had apparently authorized them to begin planning the construction of a large sewer system for the Kingdom. The names of the Sewer Committee members were Jeremy Zucker, Steve Hsu, and Angelina Zuccarini.

Steve was their “sewer historian.” He was weirdly excited to explain the historical models they were referring to in making their plans. The London sewer system was apparently a great historical example.

Once James felt he had sufficiently attempted to express his enthusiasm for the project, he gently pushed them to get to why they’d come to see him this morning.

“Oh, we heard your announcement, sir,” said Zuccarini. “We wanted to check in with you about the underground locations we’re allowed to consider for the sewer. Since your, er, new subjects will reside largely underground.”

“Ah.” That made a lot of sense. “Well, let me just connect you with the parties directly concerned. They can probably help you with construction anyway.”

He reached out to Magnar and Duncan with telepathy, and once he confirmed they were both available, he sent the Sewer Committee out to meet them. James would have preferred to make introductions himself, but he was confident enough in Duncan’s social graces, and he also didn’t feel that he could just leave right now. There were more meetings to attend…

“Ready for the next group!” James called.

A moment later, he heard another small party climbing up the stairs.

This group was comprised of three men in robes. Two of them wore glasses, and all moved with the hunched postures common to those who were perpetually at a computer desk or staring down into a phone. For humans who had survived the System apocalypse, they looked remarkably physically weak. James automatically labeled them as geeks in his head. He spent the next twenty minutes trying unsuccessfully to put that judgment aside.

The lead geek, Christian Zito, spent most of that time explaining, in highly technical terms that they apparently had not figured out how to dumb down, some information about wires, cables, radio waves, satellites, and the size of the Earth. It gradually dawned on him that the Geek Squad was trying to explain something about the Internet. After that, the explanations seemed to flow more easily.

Eventually, James raised a hand to signal that they should pause.

“Hold on, please. Gentlemen. I have to be the first to admit that I am not a very technical person by nature, nor was I particularly good with pre-System technology. So I need to try and summarize the gist of what you’re saying, before we get any further into the weeds on this topic. You’re talking about the Internet, right?”

A tentative nod.

“What does the Internet have to do with the challenge of surviving in this semi-wild environment?” James asked, raising an eyebrow.

The three men visibly deflated.

“Not much,” admitted Darryl Brush.

“But it means a lot for people’s quality of life,” Christian said. “If we could get the Internet up and working again—”

“Guys, I don’t want to put a damper on anyone’s spirits,” James said. “I want the Internet back.” He was not entirely sure that he did, but that seemed the civilized tack to take. “But we don’t even have electricity and running water right now. We have to prioritize. If you come up with a way to get the electricity back on, I’ll devote some resources to trying to turn the Internet back on.”

Hopefully they won’t bring this up again until years from now, he thought, when people don’t miss the Internet so much anymore.

“That’s a very reasonable decision, sir,” said Mateo Rivera. He had spoken less than the other two during the conversation, but James noticed that both Darryl and Christian looked as though they considered the matter closed once Mateo had spoken.

A natural leader, then?

“If the three of you are interested in tackling these broader civilizational priorities, though, I am very interested in restoring power and getting a semblance of modernity back. Maybe you can be the founding members of the Electricity Committee. If you come up with a plan for electricity, we can move on that very soon.” James looked from man to man, but made sure to make slightly longer eye contact with Mateo.

The three looked at each other, and then Christian spoke up.

“We’ll talk about it and see if we can come up with something,” he said.

“We won’t let you down, sir,” Mateo said, throwing side-eye at Christian. “Thank you for giving us this responsibility.

When they were gone, James shook his head. Getting the Internet back on? he thought. That’s so insanely ambitious that I have to hand it to them. Mainly Mateo, I guess. But the idea’s a fantasy. What’s next? A delegation from the Lollipop Guild?

By the time of his next meeting, with the Agricultural Committee, James was starting to think seriously about what kind of governing structures he might put in place to minimize the number of meetings he had to attend.

People need to understand they have the authority to make decisions about things. If I put you on a committee, the committee should make decisions in the area they have responsibility for unless they’re really big decisions that require more input. And if you want to try a moonshot project, maybe you need to go and do your best at it yourself. A meeting to figure out if we can get the Internet working again isn’t a good use of my time. I can’t be everywhere at once, unfortunately. And I’m really more interested in figuring out what the laws should be, directing foreign affairs, and protecting this land than anything as specific as which crops we should grow.

James made eye contact with the leader of the Agricultural Committee, an older gentleman named Harry Luntz who had been a farmer pre-System. Luntz had just finished giving the group’s report on their farming recommendations and activities thus far.

“May I be frank with you all?” James asked.

The members of the Committee looked back and forth at each other and finally nodded in a disjointed agreement.

“I know very little about agriculture,” James said, smiling sheepishly. “I know that farms are where the food comes from, and I feel ignorant on this subject. I am, however, absolutely thrilled that there are actions we can take to have our own food grown and ready for the end of the year. Given that spectacular possibility, I’m happy to take all of your recommendations. Let me know what you need from me, and I’m happy to assist however I can.”

I didn’t even know you could plant crops this late in Summer, let alone that they could grow so quickly. But I guess farms were always just something I drove past.

Fortunately, the Committee looked relieved at his admission of ignorance.

“We are eager to take your help, Your Majesty,” Luntz said. He and James set a time to meet later that day, before they planted their crops. He did have tasks that needed James’s power to be accomplished—or at least to be accomplished quickly. The Fisher King’s land would naturally be much more responsive to his Will and his Mana than to anyone else’s efforts to manipulate the soil. Apparently, the farmers had learned that the hard way.

And maybe I can bless the seeds, James thought. That would be a contribution that only he could make.

The Agricultural Committee seemed to be in high spirits when they left James. The Fisher King himself was getting tired of dealing with administrative matters.

James finally got something done that was among his own priorities when Hester reminded him that he was traveling with Carol the Dungeon Core, who probably ought to be planted somewhere so she could start doing her work of rebuilding her Dungeon. He asked Mina to take the next meeting for him. It was the Building Commission, whose work he knew she would be invested in.

Mina smiled.

“I’ll help you out,” she said. “I know meetings are a pain. But could you make time for one extra meeting later? Yulia would really like to talk to you about the Child Rescue Commission. I know that’s not at the top of your mind right now, for good reasons.”

“Oh, it’s not a problem,” he said. “It would be nice to deal with a human situation instead of sewage and agriculture, honestly.”

Then James put on his Shapechanger’s Cloak.

Invisibility.

And he was escaping through the bedroom window, unseen, looking for the perfect spot to stick a Dungeon Core.

He removed Carol from his magic satchel midway through the search so that she could help him figure out the best place.

“Not there,” she said of the wall between the Fisher Kingdom and the forest. “I don’t want to be too close to your border with that creepy place.”

She was much more interested in the Community Center, but James vetoed that idea. “We’re going to be in and out of there all the time. I know you probably want more social activity, but I think this would probably be a little too much.”

Finally, they settled on a building that was still under construction.

“I can actually finish filling out the structure that’s there with my powers,” Carol told James.

“That’s great,” he said. “And it can still perform its function as a warehouse.” The latter was phrased almost as a question.

Carol quickly reassured him that yes, the items people were storing and planning to store would still be safe inside her dungeon.

So James put her down and began thinking about how he would word his next announcement.

We now have a Dungeon in the territory, located where we were building a warehouse. Please don’t be alarmed…