City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

how we feel about you goin' anywhere now,” Mal said. “And I already told you, we can’t raid the Emporium.”

“Which is more valuable, in terms of goods,” I asked, looking at Oracle. “The Emporium or the Stockpile?”

“Stockpile,” Soween and Mal answered immediately in unison.

“So why are they at the Emporium instead of the Stockpile?”

“Because they don’t go anywhere else. They just patrol the Emporium. From what I heard, they don’t listen to anyone except the owner, some old wizard, and he’s always complainin' about how hard they are to control. Now tell me why.”

“Because if they are Golems, especially proper ones from the Empire, then I can probably take control of them,” I mused.

“Only if you take control of the control crystal,” Oracle said warningly.

“But if they’re active, will they accept my authority?” I asked, and she shrugged.

“I don’t know, they might… but it’d depend if the control crystal was able to identify you. If not, you’d have to capture it. That could cause more issues than it’d solve…”

“What do you mean, you can control 'em?” Mal asked hesitantly.

“I captured the Great Tower, and the Golems that we’ve built there obey me. That was understandable, but we found some at a Waystation we reclaimed, and as soon as we charged them, they just started up and took orders straight away.”

“That might be because they were linked to the Waystation, though,” Oracle warned me.

“Yeah, but if we go look at these Golems, we can try to take control of them. If it doesn’t work, then we just leave.”

“You’re not goin',” Mal said. When I turned to look at him, he shook his head adamantly. “I mean it, son. If you go, the deal’s off. You jeopardized everythin' when you were out last time, and we lost nearly two days. We can’t afford that again. I’ll take her, and she can have a look; maybe you can buy what you want, but I’m tellin' you now, you can’t afford much.”

“Mal’s right,” Nerin said suddenly, interrupting. “I’ve been in the Emporium before, I’ve bought spells there. It cost me over six hundred gold for one, and he didn’t have many. As to Skillbooks, except for the common skills, such as carpentry and leatherworking, he only had a few. The one I wanted was inside a special case attached to the wall, and covered Magical Gardening…” She sighed, shaking her head as she recalled it. “The things I could learn from that book…”

“Gardening?” I asked disappointed.

“Magical Gardening, boy!” she snapped. “The growing of ingredients and herbs in such a way that they complement each other and increase the potency of the plants!”

“Oh, right…” I said, trying to make myself sound excited. “I suppose that could be useful. I do know some alchemy, after all…” I shrugged. “There are Spellbooks, though, right?” I asked for confirmation, grinning.

“No, Jax! You know…” Oracle started, then paused.

“Yup,” I said, grinning evilly. “I’m all cured now…”

“Oh dear.” Oracle began rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“Oh yeah!” I said, grinning even wider.

“What am I missin'?” Mal asked, and Oracle just held up one slim hand to stop him.

“We can talk about this later. I’ll go with you, Mal. We can check to see if the Golems are Imperial first; if they’re not, then it’s not important. If they are, then we can try to come up with a plan. Soween, you were saying…” Oracle said, gesturing impatiently.

“Thanks, Oracle,” Soween said, nodding. “So, we gather up as many people as we can without drawing attention to ourselves, and we start collecting any necessary gear that we can get easily. We hire wagons and stash them in Old Buswisk’s yards near the Stockpile. While we’re doing this, Jax communicates with the Enclave through the Legion fliers, gets them ready to break out. They make a run straight for the battleship?” She asked, and I turned to look at Augustus.

“Provided you can convince the Prefect of your identity, he will follow you. He won’t be happy about breaking the laws, but as I say, this is officially a city we are now at war with, making it a valid target. We can dispatch squads to board and capture ships, provided they are in the shipyards. Our fliers can probably capture a single vessel in the air, but we only have eight in the entire Legion, so if it’s a larger ship, then there’s a good chance they will suffer losses.”

“Right, then. On the fourth night, two nights from now, when they get the signal, they break out and go straight for the shipyard, capture what ships they can, while we raid the Stockpile. We use the wagons to get the stores to any ships the Legion captures. We can send a few thieves to raid the ships we aren’t going to steal, get them to steal the manastones from those engines so they can’t follow us. That should restrict the amount of ships that could cause any problems.” She made a few notes as she spoke. “We’ll need some of the engineers who swear to you to train the thieves, maybe an engine to practice on as well… maybe a mock control system…”

“Oh!” I said suddenly, a thought coming to mind. “Oren told me about a prick who took his contracts for visiting the villages, said he was happy to do slave runs…”

“The Star’s Glory; she’s owned by a wanker called Bateman, why?”

“I want that ship,” I said firmly.

“It’s a shitpot,” Mal snorted. “Bateman uses it for runs to the villages, all right. Almost always brings back slaves, and he spends nothin' on the ship besides the bare minimum, as near as I can tell. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t offer him a deal, even before he started slavin'. Now, it reeks.”

“Well, is it in dock?” I asked.

“No idea, not somethin' I care about normally,” Mal said, shrugging.

“It’s due in any day,” Soween said, looking over a piece of parchment. “She’s out doing a tax run now, visiting some of the