Might as Well

Most of his time outside of the game was spent arranging things for the charity. He had to have the statue officially graded, as well as get Future Unknown to certify the validity of the certificate they sent him. Meaningless bureaucratic work, but if he wanted to participate in the event with something to show off, he needed to do it.

Some people were auctioning off digital equipment, or other items for Magic Unbound, but he refused to join the circus. The event was not sponsored or supported by the game company and he didn’t need to be a genius to know how many ways it could go wrong. His inherited memories were full of unsanctioned and unsupported auctions, real-world shops that deal with in-game equipment. It usually ended up in tears when the seller sent the “wrong” item, or simply didn’t send anything.

Now, these were a higher class of people, but Sam knew they were probably having the same thoughts that those scammers and snake oil salesmen had.

But he wasn’t the one organizing it, so he kept silent on the issue. He would warn Katie, her brother, and Lara, but otherwise, Sam just looked forward to the fireworks.

‘Seriously, I just have to stand around and these numbskulls humiliate themselves…’ he mused good-naturedly as he finished another document. Granted, most of the smart people, the ones who actually ran those giant companies, conglomerates, and whatnot would no doubt see the issue, but the second-generation heirs and vapid sidepieces would eat it up.

RING RING RING

He put down his pen – for some reason he had to fill out the documentation on paper too – and picked up his phone.

“Yello?”

“Sam, it’s Lara.”

“Hey! What’s up?” he asked as he lodged the phone between his shoulder and ear while continuing with the torture of his wrist.

“I’m calling about the charity event,” she responded.

“Are you going to have to call it off?”

Sam could hear her head shake. “No. I’m still your ‘date’,” she replied with a chuckle. “But grandfather wants to meet you.”

“Alright…”

“Listen, if you don’t want to, I can convin…what?”

“I’m up for a meeting. When and where?”

“Seriously?” Lara asked surprised.

“Yeah. He sounds like a funny guy,” he replied with a chuckle as he went through a checklist and selected the appropriate boxes.

‘Why do they need to know if the item has been inappropriately touched?’

Lara took some deep breaths before continuing. “That’s… That is good. Thank you. How about tomorrow, at our place?”

“Yours and Dan’s or your family’s place?”

Lara chuckled a little. “That’s why I like you. You always catch on fast. At our company’s place. Expect some cousins and whatnot.”

“So, it’s a test.”

“I suppose…”

“Though the question is: is this a test for me, you, or your cousins?”

“Knowing grandfather, all of the above…”

Sam hummed a little as he affixed his signature at the bottom, then took hold of the next document from the stack.

Declaration of Material Composition

‘Seriously guys… these are all on the digital documents…’ he grumbled to himself.

“Dress code?” he asked absentmindedly.

“Casual work? I don’t know. It’s a company building, so suit?” Lara replied with a little confusion. “I don’t really spend time there…”

“Great, I have one of those!” Thankfully, he had one made by a reputable tailor - all handmade and quality materials. Probably not up to the level that Lara or even Katie’s family were used to, but nobody could accuse him of wearing off-the-rack clothing. “Anybody to watch out for?”

It was Lara’s turn to hum a little. “I mean, most of my cousins are assholes if you don’t have as much money as they have…”

“They don’t have money. Their family has money…”

“I know that. You know that. And they don’t want to think about it.”

“Pity, it would make their life expectancy much higher…”

And while he was preparing in real life for future meetings of all kinds, he was also running around in the game to prepare for an excursion to the south.

He took a quick trip to the capital to check where his team’s and friends’ application to Nowhere was, but they just told him to be patient (somebody even winked at him), so he agreed to wait and went to look around the library for a few books about the southern reaches. Mostly about things he knew to expect and some hints for secrets so that he could have a reason for knowing about them.

At this point, his information about the future of the game was mostly useless. He had changed so many things that it invalidated most of the events the other Sam had witnessed. Thankfully, the technical knowledge and the information about people’s personalities, past, and other obscure things were still in play.

For example, this entire ‘invasion’ in the northern direction was completely new to him. It made sense as no doubt the Blood Brothers saw that the Emerald Kingdom was building up and if left alone, the people there would be able to stop them.

Now it was up to him to see what the actual plan was. Were they simply planning to cast the kingdoms into chaos, or was there something specific?

While in the capital, he also took a short trip to the Heavenly Forest that they had built there. He spent a few hours just going through the building, observing the guests and the servants serving them. Some of the maids sent him some queer looks, but otherwise, nobody commented on his presence after he proved who he was.

As he expected, most of the guests in the luxury establishment were NPCs. More specifically, rich second or even third-generation heirs who had more money than sense. It mattered little; they paid with gold and that was enough for him.

And with Nowhere’s implicit and silent backing, most of the noble families followed the rules established by the Heavenly Forest. Though, he suspected this was because most of the servants were spying for somebody. He didn’t mind. After all, that is why he created the entire thing.

After the trip to the capital, it was back to Ironwood for a quick restocking, as well as checking in with Lucy and Liz. Lucy was busy working on consolidating their grip on the city, which consisted mostly of talks with the mayor about road improvement projects and the expected harvest amounts.

He didn’t really get it, but Lucy seemed to be in her element…

Liz, as always, when not out streaming her gameplay, was in her workshop, building and creating. As he entered the workshop, after knocking of course (no need to bait Murphy), Sam saw that she was working on some kind of lamp system.

“Are those the growth lamps?”

“Huh?” Liz looked up, covered in some kind of mix of a welder’s mask and scuba gear. It took a few seconds, but after the question was understood by her hyper-focused brain, she nodded. “Yeah, Lara wants to start with growing food, and this was the last thing we needed. The water filtration was already solved by some existing enchantments that we found in aquariums made for nobles.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Go figure…”

“Yeah, so we cribbed that, put it on our stuff. However, the growth lamp is a new concept for this world, so I needed to create it on my own.”

“And did you?” Sam asked as he walked closer to the table to look at the device. To his untrained eye, it looked like just any growth lamp he had ever seen.

Liz placed her hands on her hips and thrust her chest out proudly. “I did indeed! Even got some nice level-ups from it!” she declared proudly as the ever-present cute drones flew behind her and danced around, letting out cute sounds.

“Wuuuu! Weeee! Wuuuu!” they cried as they did some pretty impressive maneuvers.

Sam gave a polite golf clap before he started asking a few more questions, and Liz began to pull out several tools that would make some of the Q green with envy.

He couldn’t wait to use some of them…

‘Hehe, I wonder what kind of faces they’re going to make…’ he wondered while Liz was exalting the properties of the devices she had created. ‘Also need to make sure she doesn’t build any death rays…’

As Sam watched Liz coo over some mass murder designed into tiny packages, he was pretty sure she already had at least one plan for a death ray…

Sam checked his suit in the mirror, making sure there were no problems with it, tried once more to do something productive with his hair, then after a few seconds gave up as he realized he didn’t really care about it.

Somebody was bound to pick on him, no matter how he looked. Plus, hair products made him super conscious of his hair and annoyed the shit out of him.

Giving the mirror a last glance, he let out a small sigh and headed for the door. His hired car would be arriving soon. After all, showing up in a taxi – no matter how futuristic – would make him look like a rube.

The trip was short and sweet, the car proving it was worth the money he shelled out for it. Honestly, he spent most of the drive trying to figure out if there was a real driver or if it was a self-driven car.

He got out at an underground entrance, kept up for less important guests, and walked into the building.

The guards ignored him, but he spotted several people in suits immediately clocking that he was an outsider and watching his every move, wondering what he was doing there. Sam, once again, thanked the heavens that there was something like Magic Unbound where he could make his fortune and he didn’t have to join the hamster wheel of this almost cyberpunk corporate world. It wasn’t a real cyberpunk world as cyberware wasn’t allowed for civilians and even in the military, it was for special occasions. And of course, because some countries still give a crap about nature and the environment.

He walked toward the receptionist behind the irrationally big desk and counter combo and smiled at the prim woman.

“Hello, I have a meeting on the eighty-fourth floor.”

The woman returned a perfect customer service smile as her eyes flitted over his countenance, then she moved on to the computer in front of her.

“Welcome, sir, to the Astran Tower. Hope you enjoy your time. Eighty-fourth? Can I see some identification?”

Sam nodded and handed over his ID card. The woman took it carefully and scanned it into a device under the counter. There was no sound, but Sam knew it went through properly when the woman looked up and smiled at him. Still a perfect customer service smile, but a touch warmer.

“Thank you, Mr. Lawrence. Everything seems to be in order,” she told him as she handed back the ID. Then she took a slightly thicker but same-sized polymer card and handed that over too. “Please take this. This will be your ID while you spend time in our building. You don’t have to display it, but always keep it on your person.”

“Of course,” he replied, taking the card and slipping it into his breast pocket. He tapped it a few times and then looked at the woman. “Anything else I need to know?”

The woman nodded. “Yes. You can take this elevator only up to the fifteenth floor,” she indicated the one behind her station with a small motion. “There will be a more thorough security check there as that is where the tower’s public-facing space ends.”

“Simple enough, thank you,” he told the woman and, with a small bow of his head, headed for the elevator.

“Have a nice day, here at the Astran Tower!” she called after him.

The fifteenth floor was much more bustling than the one where he had entered. There were maybe one or two dozen people walking or milling around, including the guards and some of the maintenance staff.

When the door to his elevator opened, he was met with a wall of noise made by almost a hundred people. Everything from interns running around to people yelling into different devices could be seen everywhere. To Sam, it looked like a standard corporate environment.

Even though there were at least a hundred people or even more, one could immediately spot the ‘important’ personnel. They were always surrounded by a small cloud of personal assistants and bodyguards and as they moved through the crowd, it parted before them and the people around them fell silent, watching them with either awe or barely disguised disgust and hatred.

Letting out another sigh, he stepped out of the elevator. the door closing behind him, and headed for the clearly labeled security check, which was unsurprisingly avoided by most of the crowd. Probably because of the stone-faced guards that looked like they ate screws without milk.

Happily, there wasn’t a line as he headed for the entrance to the area.

He was almost there when a voice spoke up, cutting through the nearby chatter.

“Hey! Where do you think you are going?”