Titus whistled low as she finished.
“Sounds like easy money to me.”
“Not even close,” Thorne said with a laugh. “There aren’t that many accounts worthy of becoming trophies.” She gestured to the dozen or so lining the hallway around them. “This selection here has to amount to, what, ten percent of all existing trophies in the game? I forget how many there were valued at over ten million at last count, but it wasn’t that many.”
“How does he have this many?” Kaiden asked. “He can’t possibly own all of these.”
Whenstone let out a low laugh at that.
“The rules of what can and can’t be owned change when you’re as powerful as Odditor. Excess is not a word in his vocabulary.”
Even from a pace away, Thorne heard Kaiden swallow hard at that.
“No reason for nerves,” she said to him, switching over to group comms so Whenstone wouldn’t hear. “The more powerful he is, the more it’ll benefit us when we convince him to join our side.”
“Or the more likely he is to just brush us off as a waste of his time,” Titus said.
“That’s... not going to happen,” Kaiden said finally. “Not again. I won’t let it.”
That’s the spirit, Thorne wanted to say, but she was distracted as the seemingly unending hallway came to an abrupt end. Whenstone turned to face them in front of an unexceptional looking door.
“Odditor is ready for you. It goes without saying that, should you treat him with less than the honor he is owed, it will not end well. For you.” With that happy message, he made a gesture with his hand and the door behind him slid open.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The room was barren but for three things: a holotable at the center, a wall-sized window looking down to the labyrinth, and Odditor. Everything else was, well, nothing. Empty floor space, barren walls. A strange choice of decor, but Kaiden wasn’t interested in any of it. There was one person he’d come to see.
Odditor
Class: Medic
Faction: Unaffiliated
Level: 60
“Oh, they made it!” Odditor turned from where he’d been leaning over the holotable. What looked to be a schematic of the labyrinth was projected above it, but he turned it off with a snap of his fingers. “It’s always a bit of…” He trailed off as if searching for the right word. “A bit of a surprise when visitors make it this far. The menagerie is just so hungry,” he said with a knowing nod.
Zelda frowned. “You mean those cages weren’t secure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Absolutely they weren’t secure? Or absolutely they were?”
Odditor gave a firm nod.
“Yes.”
Zelda frowned all the more and moved a pace away from the door.
“Odditor, uh, sir,” Kaiden said, waving and stepping forward. “We came because—”
“Ooh, look at you!” Odditor placed his hands on his hips and strode forward with an excited smile. “An enhanced warden? How unique! You must be... heh... you must…” He trailed off again with a chuckle, the rest of whatever he’d been planning to say still hanging in the air.
I must be what? Kaiden had genuinely no idea what the man had been getting at. Bernstein did say he was eccentric...
“Enhanced wardens,” Odditor said, shaking a finger at him. “Tsk-tsk. You’re slippery. All those jumps and dodges.” He leaned to one side then the other in what Kaiden assumed was supposed to be an imitation of said acrobatics. “Oh, and that one thing, uh, that thing you do where there’s multiple of you.” He waved his fingers as if doing a magic trick, then chuckled. “Oh, that drives the menagerie insane.” He clapped a hand down on Kaiden’s shoulder. “They get so angry. Why, the last one, when they caught him...”
“I... uh... must’ve missed that stream.” Kaiden stumbled over his words, unsure how to respond.
Focus, darn it! He forced himself to remember why they’d come.
“We’re big fans of your stream.”
“We are?” Zelda asked.
“But we came for a different reason. We think you knew a friend of ours, someone very important. Fred Bernstein.”
Odditor bit his lip and scrunched up his face.
“Bernstein... Bernstein…” He snapped his fingers as if trying to remember. “Didn’t he…? Wasn’t…? Oh, yes! He’s the one that left the... thing. The, uh...”
“The dreadnought, sir,” Whenstone said.
“Yes, that big ship!” Odditor turned to Kaiden with a whisper. “A real pain to store, if you know what I mean. What was it called? The Very... something. Heh. Ha.” He gave an awkward laugh. “The Very Big, should... should have been called that.”
“The Veritas?” Zelda asked, sounding as if she didn’t believe it.
“Ayy! That’s the… that’s the one!” Odditor said pointing at her. “And your ship, your little thing, it had a similar name. I thought it sounded familiar. That’s why I had my turrets not kill you.”
“Bernstein loaned you the Veritas? Loaned you his dreadnought?”
“Loaned, surrendered, lost in an attempt to beat my labyrinth.” Odditor waved his hand as if they were all pretty much the same thing.
Kaiden shot Zelda a look, then switched to group comms.
“Bernstein tried to run the labyrinth? Why would he have done that?”
“Maybe he was trying to get closer to Odditor?” Zelda replied with a nod toward the strange man. “If he bet his dreadnought on it then it was clearly important to him.”
“Hey, hey! Uh, Whenstone? Whenstone!”
Odditor was snapping toward the turenoid.
“Their mouths, their mouths are moving but, but I don’t hear anything.” Odditor pointed at them. “Am I, am I going deaf? I don’t understand.”
“They’re talking through private comms,” Whenstone said matter-of-factly. “Which is rude.”
“Oh. Oh, yes. Of course.” Odditor breathed a fake sigh of relief. Or a real one. Kaiden honestly couldn’t tell. “Don’t, don’t scare me like that,” he said, looking to Kaiden as he clapped a hand over his chest.
This is the guy who's supposed to control a dozen or more factions? The guy Bernstein thought would make a powerful ally? He’s... well, probably crazy. Or, at the least, just really, really odd.
“Look,” Zelda said, easing
