Debauchery Worlds 70 (Patreon)

Commissioned by michael stitcher

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 70

-VB-

Alan Marris (6A3)

Theramore, Kalimdor

2984.05.10 (Year 24)

“So you want to get to know Jaina. Intimately.” The previously soft-looking lady suddenly became an imperious overlady when we asked her that. 

“Yes,” I replied. “She’s a good woman. She’s done all this,” I gestured to Theramore that we could see from the window of the inn I was meeting with Jaina’s advisor. Or should we say Aegwynn? “Without thinking about reward, did she? That alone tells us a lot about what kind of a person she is.”

Aegwynn, still pretending to be a normal noble advisor, hummed as she looked at me. “But we don’t know you,” she replied. “In fact, you are a stranger still despite the fact that your people and we have been trading for almost three years.”

I nodded to her words. There was truth in that. 

“So I should … start to be more open.”

Aegwynn grinned. “Ah ah ah,” she stopped me. “I’m not going to help you until you can provide some real benefit for Theramore.”

I stared at her before sighing. “You want me to bribe you.”

“Yes, I want you to bribe me.”

“What would you like?” 

“You’re not going to offer? Normally, bribery involves you making an attempt.”

“I think a fair exchange is better than tomfoolery that might make either or both of us upset.”

Aegwynn hummed. “Very well. First, I want to know what all of those enchantments on giant armor plates were for. Second, I want a guarantee that from you, through a spell of my own casting, for a promise to help Jaina even when it disadvantages you. Three, I want you to offer up how to fix those warmachines for free. You’ve been holding onto that very tightly.”

“Did it seem like that?” I asked her about the mech repair. 

“Yes. Weren’t you?”

“No, not really?” I replied while scratching my head. “Honestly, it won’t matter even if you know how.”

“How so?” 

“I taught you how to maintain the mechs, right?”

“Yes.”

“How much material do they require?”

“... Substantial.”

“Repair a single mech requires more than just one repair dock. It requires foundries, technologies, and so much more. You need a whole logistics chain for more than two dozen materials, all of which will have to be sourced independently from each other because no one mine produces all of the materials you’ll need.”

“... How big of a facility are we talking about?” 

I thought about how to answer this… and then I knew the answer. 

Why talk when I could show?

I held up my portal generator and opened one directly to one of the few private mech production factories still operating within my borders. The portal opened almost instantly next to me and a whoosh of air came through as the denser and colder air of Cylene filtered on through. 

“Follow me.”

After a single moment of hesitation, she did. 

And we walked out into the edge of a mountain overlooking the edge of the third most populated city on Cylene. And sitting on its edge was a very minor mech producer called “Cylenosis Heavy Arms.” CHA only made one kind of mech: the Locust. CHA was also unique in that it was a family-owned business whose owners actually lived on the same planet that their main facilities were at instead of living in luxury on a better world; Cylene was a very cold world with 1.29 G’s that made living here very strenuous for most. 

(It was partially why even though Cylene II was technically my capital world, most of the people who I’ve taken in from other worlds have been moved to other worlds in a steady trickle.)

Aegwynn frowned as she braced against the higher gravity. 

“That,” I said as I pointed down at the CHA’s Locust factory. “Is a Locust factory.”

Her eyes widened just a little bit. “... It is big.”

Of course, it was big. The entire factory was more than a kilometer across in both width and length, and the biggest facility there was the Locust chassis production line. 

“This factory, if their report is to be believed, consumes nearly fifty tons of metal per month and barely make twelve Locusts a year. It also consumes thousands of logs worth of energy per month. That is the bare minimum necessary to make something that the people in this galaxy call ubiquitous. To make local repairs possible, you need a miniature version of that, but even a miniature version will be a quarter of its size. Tell me, can Theramore support an industry that would and will overtake over all economic activity within its border?” 

She stared at the frankly small facility with a frown. 

“... No, we can’t,” she sighed. “Very well. What about the plates?”

“Look up.”

Just in time, one of our clones brought a Stomata Assault Dropship down into the atmosphere and had it fly by within a kilometer of our position. 

Aegwynn looked at it with wide eyes as the ship in our service flew by. Despite its size, it flew fast and quickly before coming to a swirling stop above the facility before moving on, crossing thousands of kilometers in under a few minutes. 

“That is the Stomata-class assault ship. It is the smallest dedicated combat ship we have. It is also not the one we use the enchanted plates on.”

“... I see.” She turned to look at me after a long while. “You’ve been dealing with us with velvet gloves.”

She knew exactly what we could have done. 

I hummed. “I like making friends and money.”

She snorted. “Indeed. You certainly seem to prefer commerce over war.”

“Not that I’m bad at it.”

She raised an eyebrow. 

I smiled. 

“I conquered this world,” I smiled as I brought up a hologram of Cylene II. Then I expanded the world to solar system. And from one solar system to the local cluster of stars that I have conquered with sequence showing how long it took me to do just that. Then I looked up. 

She looked at me in a different light. 

Why wouldn’t she? She just learned that she’s been dealing with a multi-bodied entity that conquered worlds just like the burning Legion… just not as destructive as the Fel-infused legions. 

“Why show me all of this?” she finally asked. 

“Hah?” I broke the tension with my incredulous expression. “You told me to bribe you! Now, tell me, what does Jaina like, woman?! What’s her favorite food?! Or flower?!”

Aegwynn stared at me with a slightly open mouth before she burst out laughing.

Plan: Win Over Advisor was a success.