The Legend of William Oh-Chapter 201: Not all it’s Cracked up to be

Will took in the air of the jail. Solid stone with a hint of puke and regret, long since cleaned up, but the smell lingered.

“Hey buddy, how you doing?” Will asked, squatting down beside the jail cell, inspecting the Climber crawling bonelessly across the stone.

“Am fainne.” He groaned, struggling to raise his hand above his head and grab the bench.

“So it looks like you partied a little too hard after hitting Advanced last night and went a little nuts.” Will said, offering the man a flask of water. “Some things got busted.”

“Hngg.” The Climber, a salt-and-pepper haired Nuker pried one eye open and squinted at Will, accepting the flask and downing some before coughing and flinging it across the jail cell.

“dis is water!” He said, accusingly.

“Yes, because you have a hangover.”

“Hair o’ the dog, not freakin…animal feed.” The Nuker groaned, covering his eyes.

There were many ways to get drunk. Despite high-level Climbers having superhuman Resistance, people were resourceful and determined to poison themselves.

From wearing cursed items that lowered their alcohol tolerance, to mixing in special blends of magical poisons to bypass Resistance, from the dawn of time until now, people always found a way to get drunk.

One had to take care when drinking on the upper Floors. Some booze was literally lethal. This fellow was lucky he wasn’t dead. He’d gotten lucky when his friends had noticed he was drinking the wrong booze and stripped his drinking kit, which restored his resistance and allowed him to just barely survive.

Of course, the Nuker had responded to his friends trying to strip him with violence and burned part of the tavern in a naked brawl that caused a substantial amount of property damage.

Public indecency wasn’t really a thing in Will’s Stronghold, because everyone here was an adult Climber who could handle themselves, but on the other hand, property damage was severely frowned upon. Even more so than out in the Ring.

It was rather difficult to get new drinking glasses, wood, tablecloths, etc. all the way up here on the 10th Floor.

“Hey.”

“Nnng.” The Climber waved Will off and turned over, pressing his body against the cool stone floor and groaning in relief.

Will grabbed the Nuker by the back of the neck and hauled him up.

“Hey.”

The drunkard batted at Will, his eyes barely open enough to see.

“You broke some stuff. Your Party is moving on, but you’re staying here.”

“’w long?” He croaked.

“Three months.” Will said. “Do some easy caravan jobs with the miners. Kill some monsters for the Stronghold, and we’ll call it square. Otherwise I’ll sell your Kit to compensate the innkeeper and send you back out into the wilderness naked.”

“’uck oo, ‘rat.”

“I’m sensing your decision-making still isn’t all there yet, so I’m going to visit again when you’re completely sober.” Will said.

“Stupid…kid. no’ the boss o’ me.” The drunkard said before spitting a poorly aimed loogie at him, which Will easily side-stepped.

“You really don’t know who you’re talking to, do you?” Will asked.

The hungover nuker opened his eyes enough to blearily look Will up and down.

“Deputy?” He hazarded. “Accountant...Intern?”

“William Oh.” Will corrected. “The Lord of the sandbox you pissed in. And yes, while you’re here, I am the boss of you.”

The drunkard snorted like he’d heard a particularly good joke.

“’n I’m Baron Akul.” The Nuker did a shaky jazz-hands.

…It occurs to me that now that I have a suitable jail cell I need to get a mean-looking sheriff.

If he had a Vassal with a scary face, he could delegate and skip this next step.

“…Let’s get you some fresh air.” Will said, rising to his feet, the hungover Climber in his grip. Will marched out of the jail with the nuker dragging behind him.

The early morning sun caused the drunkard to hiss and cover his eyes a moment before Phantom Hand grabbed Will and the two of them took flight.

Will shot straight into the sky, the Nuker screaming as the wind whipped him violently in Will’s wake like a flag.

A minute later, they came to a halt, and Will created a platform of hardened air beneath them, tossing the drunkard down onto it.

“YOU SEE THAT!?” Will asked the hungover Climber, pointing at the Stronghold sparawling beneath them.

“EEEEEE!” The Nuker shrieked, his limbs trembling as he found himself supported by an invisible platform miles in the air.

“I am William Oh, that’s my Stronghold you fucked around in, and I’m not a kid! I’m at least-!”

Will paused, frowning.

How old am I now? How long have I been here?

Will brought the shaking drunkard back to his cell and locked him back in.

Will had only recently saved enough Influence to purchase an incarceration zone from The Tower, and it had been a godsend.

Before they didn’t have a place to stick people with superhuman strength, but now they could handle arrests with significantly less property damage, which was phenomenal. Less murders when they could wait for people to cool their tempers in a cell, too.

“I think he believes you now,” Anna said as Will walked back out of the office.

“Here’s hoping. We’ll check this evening. We need a sheriff. A mean-looking one. I can’t keep being the guy who breaks up drunken brawls.”

“It’s tough to find someone who looks mean but isn’t, and is also capable of handling rowdy Climbers with Advanced Classes without being interested in a Lordship themselves.” Anna replied.

The blonde Tangled girl was wearing her official ‘handywoman’ outfit with a picture of her logo embroidered into the back: A girl with six arms holding various tools, letters, and pastries.

“Former Vassals might be where we could find some. Maybe we can steal Arms from Mark. Mark’s Stronghold isn’t that big.” Will thought aloud, idly playing with his beard.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Arms was a high-level Vassal working under Mark Wyrd who could control weapons remotely. Hence the name.

“I doubt Arms would be interested. Plus isn’t he actually mean?” Anna asked.

True, Will thought, glancing at his secretary. They’d tried to have Ria keep the law in the past but ran into a similar problem .

She could still manhandle them just fine, but they weren’t really afraid of her prior to that. She was too cute to be intimidating, and when Will tried to enforce the law, everybody thought Will was a kid at first glance even though he’d deliberately grown out his facial hair.

“Hey, how old do I look to you?” Will asked, pointing at himself.

“…Nineteen?” She said with a shrug.

“Hmm.” Will measured himself against Anna’s shoulder. She was significantly shorter than him now. Of course that measurement was suspect because Anna could be whatever height she wanted to be, but it seemed like a lot of people were shorter than him nowadays.

It’s not something I can do anything about right now anyway. Will thought with a shrug. It only took a couple minutes to sort Climbers out anyway. A minor inconvenience.

“What’s next?” Will asked.

Anna’s eyes went vacant as one of her copies rifled through his schedule book and letters back in his tower.

“Consult with the innkeeper, then you’re free the rest of the evening.”

“Seriously?” Will asked, agog.

“Seriously. Ghoul’s not visiting for a few weeks, June’s crew is a well-oiled machine, the property disputes have been wrapped up, and tax season is behind us, soo…” She shrugged. “You’ve got some free time.”

Will pumped a fist. He rarely got as much time as he’d like to study Miasma, usually having to cut into his sleep and get a bit of research done here and there while everyone else was in bed and not bothering him.

I might be able to get some Climbers to give me some demonstrations. Also, I can try that experiment with the rats I wanted to do and chart the…

Will paused as he walked, dropping his fist into his palm.

“…I’m gonna ask Muriel to make a chart!”

“Eh?” Anna asked.

“It’s gonna be a line with different levels of ‘effective Resistance’ matched to different brews. That way a climber can follow the line until they find their Resistance, and under it will be the strongest drink they can have without dying. I don’t know why she doesn’t have anything like that up already.”

“Because Climbers are responsible for their own drinking?” Anna hazarded.

“And we don’t have to take that responsibility off of them, but some of them are stupid, some forgetful, and some are just bad at math, so a simple chart that says ‘if your Resistance is this high, this is what you can drink’ could save lives.”

“Yeah, but…” Anna grimaced. “I think Murial is going to see a required chart as the first step towards telling her what she can and can’t serve.”

“Maybe it will be, if she takes that attitude,” Will said with a scowl. They’d had sixteen people drink themselves to death since the founding of the Stronghold, and that was just too many Advanced Classers that ceased to exist because of stupidity.

He wasn’t gonna make Muriel babysit every single drunkard that passed through, but a simple warning sign…how hard was that?

‘course, then you might get people lying about their Resistance to drink harder than their body can handle, and nothing changes. People always thought they were the exceptions to the rule.

“Uugh…this is gonna take all afternoon, isn’t it?” Will groaned, bidding his relaxing afternoon goodbye.

“Who knows, maybe it’ll be a light one?” Anna said, crossing her fingers.

It was not.

The matronly innkeeper was already on the war path about the wrecked tables and such, and even after Will gave her money for replacements and a small Quest to ice that cake, she still treated him like an enemy come to steal from her, just because he took a quarter of her profits from the last year.

Things only got more fun when Will suggested she make a chart for people to roughly gauge what they should be drinking based on effective Resistance.

Murial got all bulgy-eyed and accused Will of trying to come in to her house and shove responsibility for this mess back on her while simultaneously telling her how to run her own business.

It took every ounce of self-control not to tear the entire Inn down and run the woman out of his stronghold.

The biggest problem was that people who make it to the 10th Floor generally were…headstrong, to say the least. They had huge egos and violence simply didn’t impress Climbers who had fought this high on their own, and Murial was one of those.

A retired Climber in her forties, she could probably tear this place apart with her bare, meaty hands. The inn was practically built out of twigs for both of them, which was why diplomacy was so important.

Instead of giving into the urge to tear the supports out of the building and send it toppling down, Will put on the business smile that he’d acquired during his time running the stronghold, and met her furious gaze with a coldblooded, serpentine smile.

“Yes. In this specific instance I am telling you how to run your business. And if you don’t put up the chart like I asked, I will shut this place down until you do. And if you continue to defy me beyond that, I will drag you up to the eighteenth floor and force you to become the Lord of Shit-mountain and visit this Abyss back upon you.”

“They’re not gonna pay any attention to it!” Murial cried. “It’s a damn waste of time!”

“Maybe so, but it’s an easy task that’ll give me some peace of mind. It’ll mean anybody who kills themselves with drink from now on was too stupid to survive. It’ll also give you a standard you can hold your drinks to. I’d hate find out your brews vary in potency, and that you accidently killed a dozen climbers because you couldn’t be bothered to accurately measure klanth pollen.”

Murial paled.

“Ugh, FINE!” the rotund innkeeper threw her hands up and walked away in a huff.

“And bring me three shots of tank-slayer!” Will called after her, slapping down a couple coins.

Murial poured him three shotglasses full of the vile green brew which was mostly concentrated magical poison from the local flora and fauna. On any lower Floor this stuff would be a literal war-crime.

The surrounding patrons went quiet. The shotglasses sliding across the bar was the only sound that carried through the stone building.

Without hesitation, Will downed the drinks that had caused twelve of the last sixteen deaths.

Clack, clack, clack, went the glasses as Will emptied them before slapping them back down on the wood.

“Uuuugh, that stuff’s gross, but the tingles are nice.” Will said, chasing them with cactus syrup. Will had a very hard time getting drunk between Aspect and his Resistance and even the strongest drink didn’t do much. The curse of having a poison-resistance passive, he supposed.

“Anything else, Milord?” Murial asked, her sour expression faltering as Will shrugged off an amount that had literally killed twelve people.

In the back, one of the regulars stood up and added three more marks next to Will’s name on the blackboard, composed of a short list of names under ‘I survived the Tank-slayer!’

“Nope, nothing else. Have a nice day. I’ll be back in a week to check for that chart. And if I find out you haven’t standardized your recipes, we’ll have a very different conversation.” Will said, waving as he left.

“…Milord.” Murial said, nodding as Will left.

Once they were outside, Will took a deep breath and stared up into the sky.

“Am I doing something wrong?” Will asked.

“Huh?” Anna frowned, cocking her head. “What do you mean?”

“Seems like everyone hates me and is forcing me into the position of being the bad guy. I gotta knuckle down on anyone I talk to to get them to do what I want.”

It left Will with a greasy, twisted feeling in his guts. Or maybe that was the tank-slayer.

“…Whenever I saw other Lords from the outside, it seemed like people worshipped the ground they walked on, but now I’m on the other side of that it seems like everyone…hates me?”

“OH! No, that’s not the case at all.” Anna said, shaking her head. “It’s survivor bias. The only people you need to deal with are the ones who need a Lord to straighten them out. Everyone else likes you and follows the rules, so you don’t deal with them.”

“So I’m stuck with all the bad apples. Exclusively.” Will said, giving her a skeptical side-eye.

“Pretty much. Watch.”

Anna took him by the arm and pulled him over to a vender selling steaks. The bugs were big and flat and once cooked you could pop the carapace off the top and bottom with a knife and they looked something like a steak. So they called them steaks.

Meals fit for a Climber.

“William Oh!” the vendor said as he caught sight of Will, his eyes bulging for a moment. “The man who saved our asses, not once, but three times! Have a steak, on the house! You want some spicy cactus syrup with that?”

“Just plain…thanks.” Will said, bemused as the man shoved a steak into his hands with a wide grin.

“See?” Anna asked.

“Yep.” Will said, scanning the crowd flowing around him. Now that he wasn’t wallowing in his own self-pity, he was able to noticed quite a few respectful nods and people giving him and Anna plenty of space on the crowded street.

Just the bad apples then. Now that I know it’s not everyone…I can live with that, Will thought as he took a bite of the steak. It had the texture of lobster from the 6th Floor, squishy with a bit of snap to it at the end, and it didn’t taste bad at all with the Floor’s native spices and a bit of rock salt.

“…Thanks for always cheering me up.” Will said between bites of steak.

“I l-like cheering you up.” Anna said. “I think…as your secretary, it kind of falls inside my job description to help you out whenever you need it, but honestly, I’d do it for free.”

“Technically it doesn’t, but much obliged.” Will replied, inhaling the rest of his street meat before rubbing his hands together in anticipation as he looked at his tower looming above them, filled with secrets of Miasma just waiting to be exploited.

“Now, finally, a day all to myself to-“

Will paused as Anna’s hand came down on his shoulder. He glanced over to see her eyes vacant, listening to something far off. She snapped her gaze back to Will.

“Actually, something came up. It’s an emergency on the west side farms.”

“…Damnit, the booze is starting to kick in.” Will muttered. He’d only taken the shots because he thought he had the next couple hours to ride it out in privacy.

“How much of an emergency?” Will asked, peering down at the baker girl, angling to put it off until tomorrow if it was anything less than Stronghold-ending.

“The Stronghold might be in danger of starving. Again.”

“…Damn. I guess we’re doing this, then.”