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Phyr orders another peach fleurtini - politely, this time - and just as they’re all finishing up and looking at appetizers, a green-clad security guard appears. “Mister Nadab will see you now,” he says with a nod. “You may head up the promenade and into headquarters when you are ready. Security will direct you to his office.” The adventurers grab their bags and head on out.
Back up the stairs, around the Gilded Lily, then across a lavish quadrangle with a large fountain at the head of a long reflecting pool, the main entrance could not be more obvious. “Big Money” is etched in giant capital letters across the second-floor windows, backlit by a warm glow from the cavernous atrium. The building is terraced with concrete slabs, receding up and away, held aloft by enormous milky quartz crystals that seem to have grown on the spot. As they walk in through the glass double door, large enough to comfortably accommodate two full-grown giants abreast, an elfin blonde in a black pantsuit stands from behind a central desk and says, “Mister Ragnarok,” with a nod. Phyr nods back. “Mister Nadab is waiting in his office. Straight back, if you please.” She extends her arm to the door at the rear of the atrium, and the trio file silently past the desk before the - secretary? clerk? head of security? - takes her seat once more.
The office interior follows the horizontal lines of the atrium, the upward thrust of the space interrupting the visible concrete slabs of each floor that surround it, evoking both the inside of a ribcage and a cathedral amethyst. “Looks almost like one of those Viking longships turned up on end,” Vector mutters quietly. A long, wide floor runner in deep green with gold brocade greets them at the door, trailing over the polished concrete floor to end at an enormous, gleaming mahogany desk. And there he sits: Edric Nadab, at the helm of his domain. As the three walk up the runner, Phyr in the lead, they notice that the floor runner actually narrows as it nears his desk, giving a forced perspective from the entrance that makes him seem both bigger and farther. Phyr glances back as they near Greed Himself, and sees that the forced perspective works both ways: the door from whence they came now appears tiny and close, at the end of a blunt thrust of carpet.
Edric peers out at them over steepled fingers, his elbows resting on the padded arms of his leather desk chair. His green cape, lined with gold, is draped over the back of the chair; his brown shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbow in an Italian cuff; his green vest slowly shifts with his breath. “You must be DJ Ragnarok.” Phyr nods. They stare for a beat. Edric breaks the silence, his voice echoing softly in the glass and concrete chamber. “Did you really think that you could walk right up to my front door, with a brazenly anachronistic name like that, and enter my sanctum sanctorum, without me figuring out who you really are?”
Phyr looks to Alice in a panic; she continues staring straight ahead, presumably, but her mouth makes a tight, sharp downward turn as he watches. He quickly directs his gaze back to Edric, who smiles warmly and raises his arms into the air, saying, “How the Hell are ya, Dale?”
“I’m… good… Deirdre?”
Edric turns his head to give him a sidelong look over a wicked grin, and says, “Yeah. Yeah, I am. But right here, for now?” The grin falls off like a mask, and he spreads his hands out before saying with implacable gravity, “I need to be Edric. When I get everything handled, then I can worry about being me. Being Edric helps me do all that, and I hate it about myself that it still works this way in here, but…” he shrugs and takes a deep breath. “That’s the price I pay in the meantime.” Edric looks Phyr up and down. “But you’re here. It’s actually you, right?”
“Sure as I know it’s you, I guess,” Phyr says with one hundred percent honesty - he is completely lost and shooting from the hip. “By the way, can you Pause, too?”
Edric gets a faraway look in his eye and says, “Shit, I ditched that spell ages ago. Right about when I got rid of my money cheats, I think. Hedge and Vault were just more useful. Why do you ask?”
“I dunno,” Phyr says. “Just wondering, I guess.”
Edric gets to his feet with a sharp breath and says, “So: bring it in? It’s been way too long.”
“Not that long,” Phyr says, walking around the desk to meet him.
“For you, maybe. I’m a hundred and seventy years old. When did you get in?”
“Um, couple months?” They embrace - Phyr stiffens at first, but then leans into it once he feels his best friend’s familiar grasp.
Edric breaks it off, then steps aside to look at the others. “Sye, right,” he says, walking up to Vector with a hand outstretched.
Vector shakes with him and says, “What’s up, Dee?”
Then Edric turns once more and says politely, “Alice. You’re looking pale, but otherwise well.”
“Zombie,” she says flatly. “Nice to see you, too.”
“So is that the, uh… was it a necromancer?”
“No, but there was one of those. Rept Isles, gone? Mystic, life-force tied to the planet?”
“Right, right,” Edric says with a swift nod. “So you just, what? Fell in with Vector and DJ, here?”
“Yeah. Free agent, now that Rayla and Aqu are gone.”
“That so? They’re not just heavily warded? Like you?”
“Could you blame ‘em? We all have a need for privacy, don’t we,” Alice asks, tilting her head askew. “I figure a living god is fine company, considering the state of things.”
Edric nods and says, “I heard about the Loaded Die. Shame. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“What did you hear,” Vector asks, raising an eyebrow as Alice bristles.
“I know people in Leetsburg,” Edric says. “A few days ago, Noob Town just disappeared. Everything in it - gone. No one knows how. Every building, every fence post, every cobbled road - anything that a person made or shaped, that didn’t just grow there, is gone. No survivors, no wreckage, not even an empty field - there are holes in the ground where basements used to be, just bare earth without so much as a nail left behind. But I’m sure you know more than me,” he finishes, looking to Alice.
“No, that’s about the size of it,” she says, swallowing hard..
“And you ran with that Grayl outfit, right,” Edric asks Vector. “Killing destined heroes?”
“Bingo,” Vector says. “So much for destiny, right?”
Edric chuckles briefly, then continues as his demeanor warms, “I heard two of ‘em made it to Salinas somehow - with you, in fact. But Ceena’s got that town under her thumb. What happened there?”
“They died like the rest. We took down Thorn, though.”
Edric does a double-take. “As in, Nathanael? Wow, I had him down for a wild card - he’s a tough nut to crack, how’d you do it?”
“I mean… teamwork?” Edric looks expectantly for a beat, then shrugs for more. “There were three of us. I’m the rangey guy, also the healer, they mixed it up. It was close, but he got them, and I finished him off.”
Edric thinks this over, then exhales sharply. “Yikes. Glad you’re on my side.”
“I mean, it was three on one.”
“Yeah,” Edric says glibly, “And you took down the head of the - what would it be - like this world’s anti-magical equivalent of the Green Berets or something. So either I’m seriously underestimating these ‘destined heroes,’ or you’re much tougher than you look.”
“How… tough do I look,” Vector asks with a sidelong glance.
“Like you’re trying to look tough. I mean, you look like a medieval space marine, it’s awesome. My guys look like techno-corporate paramilitary squads, it’s fine. But look at me: I don’t - wait, where are my manners?” Edric reaches into his vest to activate a small speaking stone and asks, “Nori, are we all clear,” having slipped right back into his corporate persona.
“Yes sir, Mister Nadab,” she answers.
“Please, come in. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” The blond elf from the atrium enters shortly, and as she walks along the floor runner to them, Edric slides back into his familiar demeanor once again, “Officially, she’s my secretary, clerk, and head of security; but without Nori, here, I couldn’t do any of this. She’s been my right hand for about sixty years, now. She’ll most likely kill me one day.”
“I told you a long time ago,” she says patiently, “If I ever kill you, you’ll be facing me, you’ll be armed, and you’ll have done something to deserve it.” She smiles politely to Edric, then turns with a snap to the others and says, “Norissiel Kestrel,” bending briefly at her waist for a crisp, shallow bow. “My cousin, Indy, has told me about you. She lives in Leetsburg. Terrible thing, what happened to Noob Town.” Alice nods politely and mutters something that sounds vaguely like gratitude.
“So this guy, DJ,” Edric says, “He’s my best friend from childhood. And Vector here, we met in high school. Alice, you already know from the old days. Now guys, this is what I was talking about-” he gestures at Norissiel’s outfit. “She looks equally at home in a boardroom or out on the town. But this is enchanted Kevlar©, she’s got a collapsible riot stick in a holster, and nobody would guess she’s a badass.” Norissiel gives a quick scoff of amusement.
“I mean, that’s cool,” Vector says, “But we go tromping around outside a lot. I don’t wanna do that in a suit.”
“That’s fine,” Edric says. “Keep your hiking gear, but let me give you some city clothes?” Vector nods after a moment’s consideration. “Alice - you, too. Nori, get them down to the fitters, really whatever they want in a low-key form factor. DJ, come with me. Ooh! Does anyone want a drink before we part ways?”
Phyr blinks before asking hesitantly, “Do you have any whisky?” This was not how he envisioned getting his foot in the door - but it will certainly do.
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