Monster Mansion 2 by Dante King (best way to read ebooks .txt) 📗

“You will!?” said Kyrine, suddenly grinning.

Amanda stared out the window, looking grim. “I will,” she said. “In fact, I already have.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked. There was obviously something here that Amanda had been keeping to herself, but I was determined to have all the cards on the table now. “Come on, Amanda, enough secrets. I’m not kidding around here; we need to know what’s going on. What have you done?”

Amanda looked around the assembled faces for a moment, then shrugged.

“Fuck it,” she said. “I’ve been working with the Drow underworld.”

I sat back in my seat. She must really trust us to be prepared to tell us that. I was glad she did.

“The Drow queen has contacts throughout the country,” she went on, “but particularly here on the east coast. Earlier this year, I got my hands on some memory sticks that would link to a cache of data on the dungeons. I couldn’t get in myself without getting caught, but I know some shady characters who can get past security systems better than me. I passed the memory sticks on to them, and they managed to retrieve a cache of data about the dungeons. It was scrambled, but I used my contacts in the Drow underworld to distribute copies of it to a few groups of hackers.”

“The Ascension Gate data leak?” said Astrid, her mouth and eyes wide with surprise. “That was you?”

Amanda nodded. “It was pretty desperate, but I knew that if we didn’t start getting the word out now, the government would lock the dungeons down and we wouldn’t get a chance in future. Through my contacts with the Drow underworld, I made sure that the data got to the most elite groups of dungeon adventurers out there. VR dungeon sims aren’t the same as live combat, of course, but it’s the closest we’ve got in this world.”

I sat back in my chair, thinking it over. It made sense. The Drow were known to be a proud and haughty community, with Queen Viera at its heart. The Queen was a shadowy figure, rumored to have connections to a wide network of underground criminal enterprises. The Drow were supposed to have their fingers in smuggling groups, money laundering, drugs, and, of course, the massive black market in illicit magical goods. My old boss, Trevor, had been known to get some of his more ‘under-the-counter’ stock from a friendly local Drow contact.

And it made sense that the Drow would have connections with the dungeon adventurer community. The dungeon adventurers were groups of elite geeks and gamers whose lives revolved around running VR simulated dungeon experiences. Sometimes they even made it to the big time—professional dungeon running on the higher-level sims was a popular spectator sport.

Of course, the idea that there were real dungeons out there to run would be irresistible to those groups.

I shook my head. “It’s insane that you have to use the black market and your underground contacts to get the information about the dungeons out there,” I said. “Dungeon magic and high-level items are still illegal because in the wrong hands they could do harm, but in the right hands, they can do a lot of good. I think you’ve done well, Amanda. Do you know if any of the adventurer teams have managed to get the dungeon’s locations yet?”

“No idea, I’m afraid,” said Amanda, “but it’s only a matter of time.”

“So what’s Queen Viera’s take on all this?”

“She knows that the Fateweaver is coming, and she’s keen to see the ban on cultivation levels lifted. At the same time, the Drow have a lot of interests in keeping the price of magic potions and magical artifacts artificially high—if they were made legal, the black market would become a lot less profitable. I think Viera herself recognizes the bigger picture, but I’m not sure if that’s true for her top lieutenants.”

“And what about the EDI? Do they know anything about any of this?”

She shook her head. “If they did, there’s no way I’d still have my job. I’m sick of being an EDI agent. It’s what I always wanted to do, but now that I’m here I’ve realized that it’s rotten on the inside. But if what I’ve said here ever got back to my bosses, I wouldn’t just get the sack. I’d probably find myself in prison, or worse.”

I looked around the table, meeting the eyes of Amanda, Belinda, and Selena one by one. “You hear that you three?” I said sternly. “There’s to be no leaking of this information that Amanda has given us. You guys might have had your differences in the past, but we’re all on the same side here, got it?” All three agents nodded. “Good,” I said.

“Thanks,” Amanda said to the other agents. “I’ve been a bit of a hard-ass, I know, and I’m sorry if I’ve been a bitch to any of you—especially you, Selena—but I’ve been under a lot of pressure. That fight in the dungeon—wow—I’ve not felt like that for a long time. That’s the kind of thing I want to be doing, not kissing ass to climb the EDI career ladder.”

She stood and stretched. “It feels great to get all that out in the open. I’ve been keeping too many secrets from too many people recently.”

I stood as well. “I appreciate you being so honest,” I said, shaking her hand again. “It’s good to know we’re all on the same side.”

She nodded her acknowledgement. “So, you’re in charge here, Jeremy, what’s our next step?”

“I’ve a few things to do,” I said, “but the most important thing is to start getting magical items out of the dungeon and onto the open market. I’m not talking about crazy stuff, not yet, just level 4 and level 5 healing potions, and maybe some level 6scrolls too. I’ll have a think about