“We agree,” the Dushegub leader announced.
And they had gone for it.
The Dushegubs turned to leave.
“Wait!” Surkar’s voice rang out.
“What is he doing?” Dagorkun growled under his breath.
“What happens to her?” Surkar pointed toward Unessa.
“She has failed. We will consume her to recoup our resources,” the leading Dushegub said.
Unessa went white. The arena snarled in outrage.
“Statement: she is ours!” the Dushegub hissed.
“I wish to purchase the female.” Surkar held out a sack.
“Inquiry: what do you offer?”
Surkar tossed the sack to the Dushegub leader. The tree snapped it out of the air, ripping it in half. Golden spheres, fuzzy like dandelions, tumbled out. Baderi fungus, filled with rare nutrients. The Dushegub equivalent of the rarest caviar, a delicacy. He just dropped enough of it to ensure the survival of an entire acre of young Dushegub saplings. To the Dushegubs, it was nearly priceless.
“Statement: she is yours.”
The Dushegubs exploded into action, snatching the fungus and stuffing it into the cracks in their bark. In seconds it was gone, and the trees slithered their way to the portal and out of the inn.
Surkar looked at Unessa. “You are free. You can come with me if you wish. You will be safe. No one will abuse you.”
“Do you wish to go with him?” Kosandion asked.
Unessa gave Surkar a long look.
“Are you strong?”
“Yes,” Surkar confirmed.
“Are you rich?”
“Yes.”
“Do others serve you?”
“Yes.”
Unessa looked at the Sovereign. “I wish to go with him.”
“The Dominion has no objections. Does the inn?”
“No,” Sean said.
The arena erupted in applause. Surkar offered Unessa his uninjured arm. She held on to him. They made a victory lap around the stage, followed by the shaman.
“Damn it all to all known hells,” Dagorkun swore. “He was beaten and humiliated, and now he’s a hero again. That lackwit couldn’t come up with that move in a million years. Who helped him? Who? When I find out…”
“It was me,” Karat said.
Dagorkun froze.
“I told him how to put this together.”
He turned his head slowly to look at her. The shock and betrayal on his face was almost comical.
“Why?” Dagorkun squeezed out.
“Why not?” Karat sneered at him. “I do not owe you an explanation, Under-Khan. Our nations are at peace, but we are hardly allies. Consider it a small reminder.”
Holy crap.
Dagorkun surged to his feet and marched off. I barely had enough time to open the door for him or he might have just walked through it.
“I thought you and Dagorkun had…something?”
Karat gave me a short laugh. “No. Dagorkun and Gaston had something. I am a vampire knight. I’ve seen this kind of farce play out many times before. This was a competition between two men who disliked each other and decided I would serve as the winner’s prize without consulting me. Me, my wishes, my feelings were quite incidental to the entire affair. The Under-Khan is a smart man. I simply showed him he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.”
“None of them really are, dear,” Her Grace said.
Below us, Gaston waved his arms. “Six candidates are gone. Six remain. We have said our farewells to the departed and now we must begin the 3rd Trial.”
The remaining six candidates entered the stage: Amphie, Bestata, Oond, Nycati, Prysen Ol, and Lady Wexyn. A massive round table emerged from the center of the stage, sixty feet in diameter. Six chairs flanked it at even intervals. A terminal appeared in front of every chair, enclosed by privacy screens. The center of the table ignited, projecting a huge planet into the air.
Gaston grinned. “WELCOME TO GAME DAY!”
When Her Grace first arrived at the inn, she devoured popular culture, absorbing everything about Earth like a sponge. She watched countless documentaries, learned four languages, read thousands of books with ridiculous speed, and within six months, she could pass for a local provided she hid her teeth. Toward the end of that half year, she showed me a tablet with an advertisement for a computer game on it. It was the latest iteration of Civilization being offered at a steep discount, and within a day she was playing it.
Civilization started the player off with a small group of settlers, which it plopped at a random spot on the map. The settlers founded their first village, scrounged for resources, reproduced, began to grow crops, developed new technologies, created their first religion, and from that tiny seed, a mighty civilization grew, guided by the player all the way to the space age. That is, if the other civilizations didn’t destroy it first. Warfare was an integral part of the game. One could play against AI or human players, and Caldenia had done both. She had beaten that game on Deity difficulty more times than I could count and moved on to Stellaris and other similar games, but Civilization remained her first love.
The Dominion had their own Civilization, a staggeringly complex and elaborate simulation called Progress. But to the Dominion it wasn’t just a game, it was a national sport, complete with tournaments, professional teams, and very lucrative contracts. Playing it required an advanced understanding of economics, civics, military strategy, and resource management. The game was constantly evolving, changing as the Dominion expanded its knowledge base.
For their third trial, the six spousal candidates had to play the Sovereign edition of the game, the most intricate version, and they had to do it on the highest level of difficulty. The game would last 9 hours, at the end of which their civilizations would be scored on a variety of criteria, everything from military might and population numbers to happiness and cultural richness.
The candidates with the three highest scores would move on to the final selection. Those with the lowest scores would be eliminated. Up to this point Kosandion and his team had subtly manipulated the public opinion, but this trial hinged on pure skill.
The candidates took their spots around the table, all except Oond. The Dominion provided him with a humanoid assistant, who followed the oombole’s instructions through an earpiece. The game began and six groups of settlers landed in different regions of the planet.
The first hour went about the same for everyone. All six candidates feverishly tried to build up their population, so they could expand and grab bigger chunks of territory. Everyone had some clashes with computer generated rival tribes and roaming bands of barbarians.
By the second hour, the civilizations began to diverge. Bestata, Nycati, and Prysen Ol heavily invested in their military. Amphie concentrated on technological progress, while Oond and Lady Wexyn sank their resources into culture and religion. Lady Wexyn generated scores of scouts and sent them all over the map.
In the third hour, Amphie and Bestata had a minor clash over a valuable source of copper. Prysen Ol shifted his priority to developing a unique cavalry unit, Oond’s nation became a theocracy, and Nycati, who had landed on a vast fertile steppe between two mountain ranges, set about conquering all of the budding AI-generated civilizations around him. Lady Wexyn unleashed a swarm of caravans and began trading with everyone.
We were in the eighth hour now. They had about 45 minutes before the game ended and the scores were tallied. I had eaten two sandwiches and drunk two cups of tea and a cream soda. I couldn’t remember the last time I had spoiled myself that much.
Karat returned to her seat after another trip to the bathroom. “I don’t understand how they can hold it for this long.”