War of the Posers Read online

  War of the Posers

  The Bad Guys Book 4

  Eric Ugland

  Air Quotes Publishing, Inc.

  Air Quotes Publishing, Inc.

  Copyright © 2020 Eric Ugland

  Cover by Sarah Anderson/No Synonym

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of Fiction. Of Fantasy. All of the characters in this novel and series are fictional and any resemblance to people living, dead, or undead is purely coincidental and surprising. Mentions of places are incidental, accidental, and mostly inconsequential. The magic and spells have been researched in absolutely no way whatsoever, and any ill-effects after you attempt to cast them are completely on you.

  Also by Eric Ugland

  The Good Guys - Epic LitRPG/GameLit

  One More Last Time

  Heir Today Pawn Tomorrow

  Dungeon Mauling

  Four: The Loot

  Dukes and Ladders

  Home Siege Home

  The Bare Hunt

  Eastbound and Town

  Four Beheadings and a Funeral

  Roseland - Private Investigator Mysteries

  Series One

  Series Two

  Series Three

  A heartfelt thank you

  to that one Murder of Crows

  who have been an unreal

  help with all these books.

  Chapter One

  “They had four of their members killed to send a message?” Matthew said. “What’s the message? That they have too many members?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s more complicated than that.” I took a very deep breath and reconsidered what I was about to do. Because it seemed like a very bad idea. But I couldn’t hide the truth any longer. I needed to tell someone, and if I wasn’t going to trust this group of people, what the hell was I doing here?

  “What’s going on then?” Nadya asked.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” I said. “About where I’m from.”

  All eyes were on me, and suddenly I was nervous. Keeping the truth about myself hidden was still very much compelling. And plus it was a little odd to be having such an intense conversation in the middle of a tavern. And not just any tavern, but a tavern that was in a building I had earned after saving the life of a woman who’d been spawn-camped by a murderous guild of assholes in a completely different universe full of magic and weirdness.

  We, the Skull and Thrones guild, were standing around a wooden bar that had clearly had thousands of pints of ale slung across it in its lifetime. There was Nadya Glaton, member of the Imperial family and monster aficionado. Shae Cushing, beautiful former slave and somehow tied to me through a quest for a dress. Godfrey Hayles, former Legion Sergeant and keeper of both a magnificent mustache and a rough exterior. Godfrey’s brother, Hamilton, stood next to him. Or it might have been the other way around. They were twins, and so identical it made my eyes hurt. I needed to force one of them to shave, or grow more hair, or anything to differentiate the two. But Godfrey was the fighter and an ex-Legion infantryman while Hamilton was an ex-Thingman animal trainer.

  Next to the twins stood Matthew Gallifrey, also former Legion, but a scout-turned-spy-turned-spymaster-turned-pit-restoration-expert. And amidst all of that, he was my mentor. Titus Calpernus, ex-assassin-turned-barkeep, stood with one arm around his wife, Penelope Calpernus, whose history was as much a mystery as mine. Lothar Kuthbrook, arena fighter and protective fighter, who normally seemed huge and muscular, but he he was standing next to the massive minotaur known as Mornax the Destroyer, who was a gentle giant and belonged, in a weird sense, to me. As did the bundle of muscle and anger known as Klara Therkel and the hopefully brilliant researcher Nox Kvist. Leofing Walrond, resplendent as ever in his burnished gold armor, stood proud as a paladin from a country far closer than my own homeland. His face and body held a storybook of scars, and his beard was growing in nicely. Finally, peeking over the bar between Shae and Nadya, and probably looking for a snack, Boris the kobold. While not technically a member of our guild, I had a feeling it was only time before all the kobolds were members, and it made sense to have him there as our current go-between. There we were. The guild. The Skull and Thrones. A thieves’ guild. More or less.

  “Denmark?” Nadya asked, breaking me from my musing.

  “Right,” I replied. “Denmark.”

  “Not another story about Denmark,” Matthew said with a sigh.

  “It’s not exactly another story about Denmark. I’m not actually from, uh, what I mean to say, is that Denmark doesn’t exist. In that way. Well, it does exist, but I’m not from there--”

  Titus slid a gold coin across to Matthew. Matthew put one finger on the coin to hold it against the top.

  “You want to take a step back and explain that a little clearer?” Matthew asked.

  “Right. You know how, uh, I seem a little, sometimes, confused?” I asked.

  “Like you’re an idiot?” Matthew asked.

  “I wouldn’t say ‘idiot,’” I replied, “but I admit I’m a bit ignorant of, well, everything in this world, okay?”

  “This world?” Matthew asked. “What do you mean this world?”

  “I’m not originally from this world.”

  “You’re from the land of the elves or something?” Godfrey asked, his question coming out more like a bark.

  “I’m not even, I mean, I don’t, I haven’t always been an elf. I don’t even know what, uh, the traditional way of eating means.”

  “At least that’s one plus for you,” Titus said with the slightest of smiles. But he was the only one in the room smiling. Well, him and Boris — it was possible he was smiling, but that’s because kobold facial expressions are hard to read int he best of circumstances. In here, he was a little squished.

  “I come from a different world entirely,” I said quickly, trying to get everything out before I chickened out or someone interrupted me. “A world where there are nothing but humans, and there is no magic. And I was a normal everyday human there who couldn’t do magic and had no special abilities. I was just a dude. And then I got sucked into this world, and I came into being in the middle of an alley where the girl who used to own the building next door was being killed over and over again.”

  Silence and confused looks.

  “And I know the question many of you are thinking,” I continued. “How was she being killed ‘over and over?’ She was also from the world I was from, which we called Earth. And she told me never to tell anyone about where I was from, and so that’s why I, uh, I was keeping quiet about it. I kept it a secret because she was, uh, influential—“

  “And we weren’t?” Nadya snapped.

  “It wasn’t,” I started, then stopped. “I had a, I mean, there’s no reason I didn’t tell you except I was scared, okay? This place, this world, it’s really different than where I came from. And I’ve had to play hardcore catch-up, about everything. Monsters. Magic. Even the laws of physics are effing different here! I didn’t have time to think about who I was, just who I was becoming. And yeah, I probably should have told you all before this, but this is where we are now.”

  “Stuck in a guild with a liar,” Nadya said, her cheeks flushed with rage.

  “Liar is a bit harsh—“

  “Did you or did you not come from a small hamlet named Denmark in the south of the Empire?”

  “I did not. I come from a large city named New York. That is not in the Empire. Or on the planet of Vuldranni.”

  She shook her head sharply. Her lips were pressed together so tightly that
their normal reddish color was completely gone. For a heartbeat, I thought she was going to lay into me, to really lash out and yell. Hell, I was ready to take a hit from her. Anything.

  Instead, she shook her head once more, pushed by me, and walked out.

  I turned to follow her, but Leofing reached and pulled me back to the table. “I will make sure she gets home okay,” he said with a sigh.

  “You knew about this, didn’t you?” Matthew asked the paladin.

  “Not much you can hide from a goddess,” he said with a wry smile. “He is a good elf, all the same.”

  He patted me on the shoulder, his hand heavy and comforting. “A bit daft on occasion, but learning. And good.”

  With that, Leofing walked out, surprisingly quiet considering all his armor.

  Matthew sighed and shook his head. “Minor spats notwithstanding,” Matthew said, “it would seem like we are in a bit of a pickle. You do know what pickles are, eh?”

  I rolled my eyes, but nodded. I realized I’d be subjected to a whole lot more nonsense along those lines.

  “If anyone wants to leave the guild, no questions and no problems,” I said. “Go for it. I understand and you won’t be, I mean, there’s no—“

  “Would we still get the sweet rent deals?” Titus asked.

  “Yeah. Definitely.”

  Titus looked over at Penelope, eyebrows up.

  “What are you looking at me, for?” she asked, glaring at her husband. “I don’t care where he’s from — I seen what he’s done here. Who he’s done it for. We’ve seen him run out of his safe home in the middle of the night to take down a monster purely because it was chasing someone. When was the last time any of you here have done something like that? When’s the last time any of you risked your neck for anyone who isn’t family? As far as I’m concerned, we’re his family now. ‘Specially if he’s from some other world. That means we’re his only family now. You want to walk out on Clyde now, we are going to be having a very uncomfortable conversation in the very near future.”

  He put his hands up. “I didn’t say nothing. I was just trying to get your opinion on the matter.”

  “Pretty sure that’s my opinion on it, Titus,” she said, and walked over to stand next to me.

  Boris appeared at my side.

  “As well, have opinion,” he said, and crossed his arms, daring anyone to say anything else.

  Shae came next, and stood behind Boris. She put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Okay, okay,” Matthew said, putting his hands up. “I’m pretty sure we’re all a little, uh, stunned by all of this, but you’ve certainly shown your willingness to put other people first. You may not be from the Empire originally, but I consider you from here now.”

  “And family,” Penelope said again, a little firmer.

  “And family,” Godfrey repeated, slight smile partially peeking out from under his mustache.

  “Sure, right, family,” Matthew said. “He’s family and we’re a guild, and it’s all going to wind up being fine.”

  “It might,” I said.

  “I think we’re still missing part of the story though,” he said. “Because you mentioned something about the girl who used to own the place next door—“

  “Etta,” Titus added.

  “Sure, whatever,” Matthew continued. “You said she was killed over and over again. Mind explaining that little tidbit?”

  “It’s a little bit more difficult.”

  “Try using little words.”

  “Ooh, might help,” Boris piped up.

  “We, uh, the people from my world who wind up here, we don’t exactly, um, die.”

  Matthew squinted his eyes at me, and I heard Hamilton mutter something under his breath.

  “When we die, or when we take enough damage that we should die, we are,” I said, really struggling to find the right way to describe the process of respawning to these people, “we’re just born again? We call it respawning. We come back into this world in the same spot, with, I mean, we are missing some XP, but that’s about it.”

  “Not exactly that big a penalty for death, is it?” Godfrey asked.

  “I mean,” I said, “going through more than one death is pretty horrific, all things considered.”

  “Now that,” Matthew said, “I would believe. But this? I’m not sure I believe this.”

  “We could test it,” I said, “but I’d really rather not die again.”

  “You’ve been killed before, then?”

  “More than once. Hell, more than twice. A lot.”

  “How many times?”

  “Let’s get back to why I’m telling you all this,” I said.

  “Because you’re making a commitment to honesty within the guild?” Matthew asked.

  “I mean, yes. That too. But also because of the Iron Silents. You wanted to know why they were willing to sacrifice so many men to just give us a message? Because they can. That guild is made up entirely of people from my world. They can all respawn. A lot. And they’re using that to their advantage.”

  “They are immortals?” Hamilton asked.

  “There is a limit,” I said. “In theory. But it seems like it’s a lot. They certainly don’t seem to be at all concerned about their respawns. Or about death in general.”

  “So our first opponent in this whole game of guilds is a group of immortal thieves,” Matthew said.

  “With no morals,” I offered up. “They’re impressively horrible.”

  “Not the worst possible outcome,” Matthew with a shrug.

  “Easy to overcome,” Godfrey added.

  “They don’t know what they’re up against,” Titus said.

  “And we’ve got our own immortal,” Penelope said, slapping me on the back.

  “Still,” Matthew said, halting our little love fest, “we’re going to have to outwork them, outthink them, outwit them. We need to figure out how to kill them, or they will wind up killing us.”

  Chapter Two

  From there, we got down to the actual business of the guild. Technically, I was the leader of the Skull and Thrones, because the game-world considered me the leader. But it was pretty clear I wasn’t ready for such a position, certainly not to the stage that Matthew was. So he took over after my revelation, and very quickly got things moving.

  “Hamilton,” Matthew said, “we’re going to need you to get the stables prepped and ready for horses. And probably work on getting us horses.”

  “What kind?” Hamilton asked.

  “Draft. For wagons. We’re going to get this bakery back up and running, and if Titus is serious about serving food in his place, we’ll be getting more deliveries there. Easier to pick them up on our own.”

  “Is there a reason we want the bakery running?” I asked.

  “Steady legal income,” Matthew replied, pulling out a folded piece of paper and taking a look at it. “We have one wagon already. It’s a little disassembled at present—“

  “Broken?” Hamilton asked, jotting notes down in a little book.

  “It was a slaver’s kidnapping carriage—“

  “So we’ll want a proper hauling wagon.”

  “In an ideal world, but that somewhat depends on the budget. Clyde, budget?”

  “We have everything the Biscuit’s Union had.”

  “Which is?”

  “I don’t exactly know at the moment. Several properties spread out through the city, but nothing outside Glaton. I’ve been thinking about this — I think we ought to focus on Old Town, specifically our direct neighborhood.”

  “I agree, but you want to say why?”

  “In my home—“

  “You’ll have to explain why you called it Denmark at some point,” Godfrey offered up.

  “Sure, but not right now.”

  “Probably true.”

  “Anyway, my world, there was this man named Robin Hood.”

  “Why was he robbing hoods?” Titus asked.

  “Maybe he’ll tell us why the m
an was robbing hoods,” Penelope said, slapping her husband on the back of the head. “Stop interrupting the boy.”

  “Uh, he wasn’t, I mean,” I started, but everything was falling a bit apart. “His name is not important—“

  “Is it important that he robbed hoods?” Titus asked again. Penelope shot him a glare. “What? I didn’t interrupt; he stopped telling—“

  She raised her hand a little, and he shut up.

  “The main gist of the story is that he robbed from the rich, and he gave to the poor. And the poor protected him. There’s also another man called, well, Don Corleone, and he took care of his neighborhood first. They took care of him.” I chose to ignore some of the other salient aspects of The Godfather, like the lack of neighborhood protection when it came to Corleone’s family. “I just think that if we take care of those around us, they will take care of us.”

  “That’s my thinking as well,” Matthew said. “Perhaps not as eloquently put as our fine leader, but I like where he’s coming from. The bakery is an aspect of that as well. We are going to be able to subsidize the bakery, in theory at least, and that will make our neighbors lives easier.”

  “Right,” I said, “which is why I want to sell all the other buildings and focus on buying up this block. Nox, can you look into what we have in terms of coin and property—“

  “Not to derail that line of talk,” Titus said, putting a hand up to block his wife’s incoming blow, “but buying up the rest of this block means dealing with Viggo, and that will be a real pain in the ass.”

  “Or somewhere else as equally unpleasant,” Matthew said.

  “Who is Viggo?” Penelope asked.

  “One of the scummier landlords of Old Town,” Titus said. “He owns the bulk of the buildings around here. Closer to the fortress, it’s back to, let’s call them respectable folk.”

  “So he owns most of the buildings in this block?” I asked.

  “He owns quite a few, and chances are, since people are selling right now, he’s picking up what he can. He probably didn’t care that you’ve got these three, but more’n that, he’ll want to know who you are, what you’re doing, and how he can twist your balls into a vice that’ll keep him happy.”