Meanwhile…

Fire hit the ground next to Rumi with a loud thump.

Rumi nearly jumped clear out of his skin.

It was an unexpected interruption, but he did a pretty decent job of hiding the primal fear that gripped him.

It was almost enough that Fire didn’t get a thrill of satisfaction out of the jumpscare.

Almost.

Rumi did, however, recover quickly, and that smoothed-over fear soon gave way to confusion and frustration.

“What are you doing here?” Rumi demanded. “You’re supposed to be stopping the thing coming for me. Unless you can explain to me how dropping from random ceilings accomplishes that.”

“I have been trying,” Fire said, enunciating each word carefully. “But someone has been tying my hands and forcing me to put tiny little road bumps in the path instead of letting me actually end the threat.”

“It’s called science, Fire,” Rumi said, mimicking the enunciation. “I need to know how strong these things are. The only one I have a proper feel for is Hirrus himself, since he wiped out the guild. But how much investment does one require before it can match him? I’m never going to know if I don’t know exactly an equivalent force. And if I don’t know, then I’m not going to be able to craft my army of one-man armies.”

“Science is not security.” Fire pointed southeast, indicating the direction Hirrus was coming from. “That thing is a force of fucking nature. He is going to kill you, and if he bleeds away any more of my resources, I won’t be able to slow him down anymore. It may already be too late to stop him. Go ahead and tell me right now if this is a suicide attempt, because if it is, I’ll stand aside and let you two fuckers get to it!”

Silence reigned for a long moment.

Fire had been relatively free to talk smack to Rumi’s face before his first successful Awakening. Even after, the first few either weren’t a threat or had just fucked off to have an existential crisis.

But things had changed.

Rumi had played the numbers game. Enough of them had become loyal to him. And enough who had become loyal had been powerful.

The last time Fire was in this camp, their MPKers could have overpowered Rumi’s forces if his ego got too big for Fire’s snark.

That wasn’t so much the case anymore.

Even now, Fire could feel tension in the air. Rumi’s office was just a big pavilion tent erected around some loose furniture, and he had stationed a few loyal guards outside. The thick canvas didn’t offer enough privacy to block out Fire’s words. The guards outside were cut from the same cloth as the man who was ripping through Reputable Monsters like they were made of crepe paper.

All Rumi had to do was order it, and Fire would share the same fate as all the toys that had been crushed under Hirrus’ heel.

Rumi moved around his desk and sat down. While Fire pondered their mortality, he was apparently searching his soul for a different purpose. With steepled fingers, he considered Fire for a long moment before he finally spoke again.

“Are you exaggerating?” Rumi asked calmly. “I appreciate that you’re taking my safety seriously, but I need to know the truth.”

“Bolwing is dead,” Fire said, carefully trying to keep their tone even. “With him, several of my people and my Gley.”

Rumi had the decency to look shocked.

It was an act. Rumi had personally ordered what resources Fire had been allowed to field. He was the one who sent Bolwing - the guard captain from Shemil’s Citadel - to his inevitable death.

“I am nearly one hundred percent confident that if I send every monster I have at him at once,” Fire continued, “their deaths will just make him stronger. And I’m afraid without Bolwing to lead the Awakened you have left, you might not be able to contain him, either.”

Rumi’s brow furrowed at that. He clearly doubted Fire’s assessment, but was unsure of how to proceed.

“I have so many now,” Rumi said at last. “I’m confident that sheer numbers would overwhelm him.”

“You would have to get lucky,” Fire said slowly. It was a challenge to not pull out their hair and scream in frustration. “I need you to trust my skills here. I’m the best at what I do, and a lot of my job comes from risk assessment.” They pointed energetically to the southwest again. “I think there are instanced raid bosses who wouldn’t measure up to that thing one-for-one.”

“So we need to put together a raid team,” Rumi said, gesturing around himself, encompassing the growing encampment beyond the canvas walls of the tent. “I have more than enough to make one of those. Hell, I’m not convinced we couldn’t just zerg him down.”

“I’m failing to convey this to you,” Fire said, rubbing their temple. An angry headache was forming, but the action wasn’t soothing the pain. Stupid game. “Imagine a mid-tier raid boss. A gearcheck boss, let’s say. Harder than Darkwater Monarch, but not quite the First Lotus.”

“Alright, so we need a good raid team,” Rumi said, making an impatient gesture northwards. “I could get a proper raid team from Onara and-”

“I’m not finished.” Fire glared at Rumi until he motioned for them to continue. “A mid-tier gearcheck boss that doesn’t give a fuck about aggro and has the capacity to plan and react counter to any programming you’ve ever seen.” They animatedly talked with their hands. “Able to ignore tanks to kill your healers. Able to anticipate burst phases and cycle defensive cooldowns to counteract them. Able to escape and recover before coming back for another pass. Able to benefit from the cannibalized gear of one of the top raid teams on the server, as well as anything else you throw at him.” Fire shook their head. “This isn’t a raid we’re talking about. This is asymmetrical PvP. It doesn’t matter who you make your raid team. You’re throwing a bunch of underleveled noobs at the twinkiest twink who ever twinked.”

Rumi grimaced, but he didn’t dispute Fire’s claims. “So, what do you suggest?”

“Realistically?” Fire said with a disbelieving laugh. “Pull stakes. We run and try not to leave a trail he can follow.”

“You want me,” Rumi said slowly, with narrowed eyes, “to take my whole army - unprocessed prisoners and wild Merciless and all - and run without leaving a trail? You and I have very different ideas of what’s realistic.”

Fire almost snapped that Rumi would leave his NPCs behind or die alongside them, but that was a one-way ticket out of this partnership, and they’d invested far too much to be undone by a challenge of egos.

“We can’t stop him,” Fire said carefully. “I’m positive of that now. So we need to distract him. Slow him down. If we can give him a reason to reverse course and go back to Inoha, there’s a chance it slows him down. If we can buy that space, maybe you can use the time to build an army big enough to stop him. Maybe.”

“You could grab his little friend,” Rumi said. “Apparently that was what Clive did. Grabbed the kid and put the screws to him. Made the monster come running.”

“That will be a challenge,” Fire said, scratching their chin. “It will take resources to distract him while we get our distraction. I’m not sure how many Awakened it would take to stall him, but if we’re just looking to keep him busy, I think I could do it with three or four of even the weaker ones.”

“No, no Awakened,” Rumi said, making an angry chopping gesture with his hand. “The purpose of this is to build my army, right? Why would I throw away a chunk of it first?”

“You want me and mine to be the bait for this plan?” Fire sputtered.

They paused to take a breath and regain their composure. Familiarity with Rumi was going to get them in trouble; they’d let their aloof mask slip and they needed to get it back under control.

“If you’re telling me I don’t get any support, then I’m not going to intentionally walk into the same zip code as that fucking thing. I’d have better luck running to Inoha now and praying for him to intuit that he should chase me.”

Rumi steepled his fingers again, and his dark eyes turned calculating.

Fire hated that look in his eyes - or in the eyes of anyone who he worked with. It was the expression of a man who had made up his mind and would refuse to listen to any amount of reason. It meant that Fire was going to have to find a way to deal with whatever Rumi said next.

“An army that can take down the Merciless that destroyed Last of the Strong,” Rumi said slowly, visibly savoring the words, “do you know what I could do with that? I don’t have to stop at the army itself. No penny-ante heists. More than just trolling a starting zone for an afternoon. With this army I could take the country. I could unseat Hari’s Shadow Council. King Larisa could be in my pocket next week.”

He tapped his chin as if thinking, even though it was obvious he already knew what he was going to say.

“And unlike them, I am no power-hungry fool. I won’t forget who got me there, I promise you.”

Fire hesitated at that. Despite their fears, this was probably the most appealing promise Rumi could make. Fire didn’t trust him as far as they could throw him, but this was bait that was, perhaps, too good to miss.

Rumi certainly wasn’t power hungry.

The man was a lunatic.

He derived unhealthy enjoyment from the suffering of others.

It meant he wasn’t going to want to lead.

If Fire took this deal, and they came out on top, they could be the one ruling this country while Rumi quietly tortures some NPCs in the corner.

Fire didn’t consider themselves power hungry.

But now that power appeared on the plate before them, their stomach was rumbling.

“I think I might have an option for you,” Rumi said, eyes glazing over in the telltale sign of someone navigating menus. “Bait that won’t require you to start off toe-to-toe with him. Unless my memory is making up stories, I think one of Orlina’s boys had something… Do you know where the Violet Plate Tavern is in Inoha?”