“An impressive vehicle,” Lloyd stated with begrudging respect. His annoyance at John’s recent action was clearly still present, but the knight was dedicated to at least appear chivalrous. Now that he was out of his armour and in a regular suit, the emblem of the Golden Rose sewn on the breast pocket, his behaviour was the only way to really signal his knightly status. His squire followed him in a less impressive suit, while the overseer had left the scene.

“Why thank you,” the Gamer responded, knocking on the closed door that led up to the driver’s seat. “Cost me quite a fortune to get. Anyway, I hope you have the space necessary to accommodate us three?” He gestured towards Aclysia and Beatrice. “You’ll have to understand that I want a guard, heading into unknown territory.”

“I understand the want, even if there is no need,” the knight told him. “However, if you prefer it that way, President of Fusion, then I am in no position to correct you.” He folded his hands behind his back. “Overseer Liliana is already reporting back to Lord Brighton. I must also inform you that we will have to rely on public transportation.” He gave the Gamer an expecting look.

“That’s fine by me,” he said and made a long-winded gesture. “Please, lead the way.”

‘Sorry, I have somewhere else to drive,’ John thought, lavishing in his bed. There was no way he would have personally gone into the lion’s den. For the Gamer, not wanting to go personally didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be personally present, however, and so Jack had been sent along.

Lloyd soon left the barrier, Jack and the maids followed and the rest of their expedition party was left in the cosy warmth of the bus.

“Alright, what next?” Rave wanted to know.

“Now we follow them at an appropriate distance,” John told her and everyone else in the room who didn’t already know the plan thanks to mental connections. “We will get directly to the heart of the matter, I’ll get to talk to Moira’s father, and we get to find out the current state of affairs. Maybe I can even get a map of New Libraria out of this. I’ll win whatever happens.”

“I know religious people are fucking stupid, but they’ll guess that we’re tailing them at least,” Eliza pointed out.

“Doesn’t really matter, my dear broken angel,” John said and pulled her into a hug tight enough to temporarily squeeze the irrational hatred out of her. “Whether they have their suspicions or not won’t change what they will do. Me and Moira’s father talking is also in their interest. They might set the location up so I can’t glean a lot of information about the state of the war from them, but that’s about it. It’s not even all that important whether they believe it’s me or my double.”

____________________________________________________________________

The Gamer had a lot of thoughts about what the Golden Rose was.

Righteous, that was the first word that came to mind. Righteous with all of its benefits and all of its drawbacks. They were an organization zealously convinced of the necessity of their cause and that created the moral justification for potentially heinous acts. The apparent ease with which they punished the ‘guilty’ was one such thing.

Honesty, that was the second word John thought of when he walked through the Golden Rose’s camp. An honesty for their case, a lack of lies that was almost sickening. Screams echoed from the depths of the four-star hotel. The spacious barrier the Golden Rose had erected on top of the building encapsulated the cellars and those were currently being used for torture operations.

Cruel, yes, the Gamer thought the Golden Rose was cruel. Not in a sadistic way. At least from what he had seen, cruelty to the Order was a tool to extract information from their enemies and dissuade subjects from rebellion. There were likely those that derived pleasure from punishing the wicked, but John hadn’t seen any of them so far.

Jack’s steps carried him away from the screams and up the stairs, following Lloyd and being in turn followed by his maids. The honesty of the Golden Rose had them invite the Gamer right to the heart of their strategic operations. It could be a sign of trust or a sign of arrogance. He wasn’t quite sure yet.

They walked through corridors lit by ever-burning torches. It appeared the Golden Rose didn’t have the necessary Fateweaver know-how to hook up a temporary base to the electricity grid. Either that or they were not staying long enough to bother. The people around were certainly few and in an immense hurry. When John looked outside one of the windows, however, he was met with a different picture.

Somewhere between three and four hundred people were standing in flawless order outside. They were broken up into a dozen sub-groups that stood in triangular formations, each headed by a knight in the same armour as Lloyd had worn. Each row behind these knights was less well equipped than the one before it, with the back rows only having armaments, a shield, basic leather armour and a tabard. White, gold, silver and red were all used in the design of their items.

It looked like a fighting force straight out of a high-fantasy game, and it was waiting for something. For a drill, there was too little movement.

‘Are we on top of New Alexandria?’ the Gamer theorized. ‘It looks like they are just waiting for a battle to start.’ Barrier Sense didn’t extend to his double, annoying as that was, so he had no way of knowing until the bus caught up with them. The real John floored the pedal in the bus while Jack was brought to the door of the hotel’s breakfast room. The knight knocked twice, then a deep voice answered.

The breakfast room retained much of the splendour a modern hotel displayed. However, in the name of practicality, the long wooden tables had been pushed together, creating a much larger surface for the many documents and instruments put on top. The Gamer was incredibly interested in those, especially the large war map that lay there. Instead of so openly directing his gaze there showing his priorities, he let Beatrice do the analysation of what was on the table. He and Aclysia instead looked over those that sat and stood around the table.

There were two familiar faces. The Gamer’s eyes were drawn to the one he found most attractive first. With flowing, somewhat unkempt, white hair, Lorelei Varnik sat on a lone chair in a corner of the room. Despite the metal ring that snugly wrapped around her head and hid much of the upper half of her face, her face had him enthralled. Sometimes, soft lips curved into a smile was all a man needed to feel wanted. When he saw the ring he had gifted her on the little finger of her left hand, his want to talk to her rose higher. Their acquaintance had been short, but the chemistry had engrained the meek, adorable and wise young woman in his memory. The curves of her balanced hourglass figure, somewhat obscured by her dark robes, did their part as well.

He would have loved to inspect her more, but his eyes had to move on. Similarly, Lorelei lowered her head, blushing from his concentrated attention. She busied herself by braiding her hair.

The other familiar face was, as could be expected, Moira Brighton. The redhead’s hair was of a natural and thorough red and softly waved as it fell down to the middle of her back. Many strands framed a face that was, while no less attractive than Lorelei’s, made less interesting to John by the disapproving expression she wore and the hard eyes that darted back and forth between him and the seer. Moira could have been cute, without a doubt, if she didn’t scowl all the time. Why this didn’t bother him with Lydia was a mystery he couldn’t quite solve.

The Shield Warden was in full battle regalia. Armour plates were strapped on top of a wine red bodysuit, their colour a silvery grey and decorated with gold trims. A strand of cloth dangled from her hips like a banner, the end decorated with dark gold embroidery of a golden rose. The armour was both protective and incredibly sexy. John was quite certain Moira just wanted to have something that fit her perfectly, but because she had such an athletic, well-shaped body, that ended up making her fully armoured form quite stunning.

Her weapon and shield were missing, but the Gamer remembered the silver-white and gold pendant on her neck being a sealed form of the latter capable of carrying the former within it.

There were three more knights and a butler in the room, but John only cared about the grizzled man right next to Moira. His face sported several scars and deep trenches caused by stress and age. The blue eyes, however, were still wide awake and met the Gamer’s gaze head on. The hardness of the daughter was only surpassed by the unwavering will of the father, it seemed. With combed back hair and a full beard, both of the same red as Moira, his status couldn’t be questioned. His armour was thick and, oddly enough, less decorated than that of his subordinates. There was just a single golden rose in the middle of his chest. A sword of impressive size was strapped to his waist.

“Milord, I return with John Newman, President of Fusion, as announced,” Lloyd said, as he lowered himself to one knee. “He brings with him his servants, Aclysia and Beatrice.”

“Let’s use the title the Lady has given him, Lloyd,” Lord Brighton reprimanded, his voice deep and filled with authority. “Whatever sins and stupidity he may commit to, the Gamer is doubtlessly blessed.”

“Yes, milord,” Lloyd said, keeping his head low.

“Come closer, Gamer,” Lord Brighton commanded.

Jack put his hands into his pockets and stared back. ‘I really don’t like being given orders,’ he thought and only approached once he thought that point had been made silently. “I didn’t catch your first name, Brighton,” the Gamer said.

“You will address our Lord-Protector with respect,” one of the knights warned.

“My Master was just insulted, he owes you no respect whatsoever.” Aclysia’s voice sliced like a blade of ice into the conversation. “Take your judgement of my John’s ‘sins’ and ‘stupidity’ and shove them into the opening that I will create in your-“

“Aclysia,” Jack finally interrupted her when it became clear she wouldn’t stop on her own.

“My apologies, Master.” The agitated maid lowered her head in a little bow and then concentrated on keeping her aggression internal. One of the sins John regularly committed was his harem, Moira had made that clear before. Aclysia would never give anyone that saw the Gamer’s harem as something wrong anything but disdain.

“You have poorly disciplined servants,” Lord Brighton chastised the Gamer. “I expected more. This woman doesn’t know her place.”

Jack narrowed his eyes and leaned forwards on the table. “Are you certain you want to play this game with me?” he asked in a threatening tone.

“In the Lady’s name,” Moira finally spoke up, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Father, this is not the time to make enemies with one of Her chosen.”

The Gamer looked over to Moira for one moment and bit back a snide ‘your daughter is poorly disciplined’ remark. Instead, his gaze returned back to Lord Brighton. Both men stared unwaveringly at each other. Even as he spoke again, neither of them backed down. “William. My name is William Brighton.”

“A pleasure.” Jack’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. Before their conversation could go further south, he steered it back on topic in a diplomatic tone, “I’d expected that you would meet me in a shack outside of town. I’m flattered that you would let me into your current base of operations.”

“There’s no need to hide anything from you,” William declared with the nearest hint of a smile. “Should you wish to involve yourself, it will only be to your detriment. You’re too late to change anything anyway.”

‘Arrogance it is, then,’ the Gamer thought. “I suppose you’re just waiting for the barrier to collapse then?”

“Precisely. New Alexandria, this filthy scar on the Abyss, will become unmade like Babylon,” the Lord-Protector spoke with calm conviction. “We’ll make certain no one can ever take advantage of this Kingdom connection ever again. However, enough of what we are doing here, Gamer. Why are you interrupting our operations and saving blasphemous texts from the pyre?”

“Pure chance,” Jack responded and stepped back from the table, “and curiosity.” He put his arms around his maids and pulled them to himself. They responded by snuggling up to him and resting their heads on his shoulders. All three of them smiled at the leadership of the Golden Rose, disapprovingly glaring at this display of disrespect for their righteousness. “I’ll inspect this grimoire. If the demons are as bad as you make them out to be, then I’ll join your side in this crusade.”

“I do not trust your judgement,” William Brighton declared.

“Father, for all his faults, John Newman isn’t someone who needs to be our enemy,” Moira chimed in again.

“You still have much to learn, people who flaunt their power like him are all the same.” Lord Brighton made a tossing gesture towards the Gamer. “Unable to understand that they should submit themselves to the Lady’s gentle touch.”

“I have felt the ‘Lady’s gentle touch’, I assure you.” Jack grinned widely.

William’s lips lost all colour, while he stomached that response. It seemed he had learned, through Moira, of the truth of that statement. “She may approve of you compared to the other wickedness in the world, but that doesn’t mean you don’t fall short of the perfect being that you could be.”

“The being you think would be perfect. Unless you’re going to reveal your omniscience to me here, your perception of the perfect state of being is as flawed as mine.” The Gamer’s hands wandered down from the maids’ waists to their butts. He gave them both a nice squeeze and they sighed in an overplayed fashion. “I’m sorry, I respond to moralists with teasing.”

Unable to find an immediate answer, William instead looked to Lorelei. “What do you make of this, seer?”

“I…” Lorelei’s soft voice barely penetrated the room. When she raised her gaze to look at Jack, her face immediately turned red. “I find his grace too evident to doubt it, milord. The Lady’s work is often so mysterious that She would have to study it Herself to truly understand it. Yet, I feel that John has been chosen by divine reason.”

Furrowed eyebrows underlined that this wasn’t the answer he had been looking for. Before things could escalate again, Moira took control of the situation. “Are you going to give that book back, John?” she asked.

“No,” Jack answered with respectful quickness.

“Will you interfere?”

“That depends.”

“Depends on what?” Moira wanted to know.