We have no choice

After breakfast with Haley and Seul-ki, Blake walked the streets of Nassau, gathering the few players who more openly disliked their chief. With each he sent a wave of trust—and not for the first time—then told them to meet at Haley's house. With some surprise, they all actually came.

"We don't have much time," Blake said, again filling the room with a blast of mental domination. The men of various ages exchanged looks, a sheen of sweat on most brows, or dampening armpits. "My brother is out there butchering most of the chief's men as we speak."

"You can't know that," said Garet Franks the Spearman, a fellow American as it turned out, of maybe forty five. "He's just one guy. He could be dead."

"He's not dead," said Haley from her chair on Mason's left. When the men met her eyes with suspicion she shrugged like it was nothing. "I'm bound to him by contract. If he was dead, I'd be released."

Most nodded at the logic of this, but Garet didn't look convinced. "OK, so he's alive. Doesn't mean he's killed the raiders. Maybe he saw how many there were and ran off with his tail between his legs."

"Mr. Franks," said Blake, "there are four corpses sitting a stone's throw from these walls. My brother, who was a hunter and woodsman before the system gave him magic powers, killed them before they could escape a dozen paces. What do you think he'll do to the groups of four who are many miles from safety?"

The players in the room shifted at this, though it wasn't clear it made them any less uneasy.

Garet snorted. "Sebastian only sends the weakest on patrol. Raiders are better, higher level, proven killers. They won't die so easy."

"Yet die they shall," Blake promised without a hint of doubt. "This meeting isn't really about them. Because I consider their deaths a foregone conclusion. This meeting is about what happens when they're dead. And my brother returns." His confidence soothed them a little, so he shot out another blast of mental energy, Seul-Ki's hand on his back for power. "When he does," he went on, "you're all going to have to make a decision. Do you want to remain loyal to a chief who couldn't give two shits about you, or would you rather join a promising new management team?"

Garet's lips curled in a frown. "I suppose that means you?"

Blake met the man's eyes, then slowly the others, and realized men like this would never serve him. Not as he was, not as things were. "No, Garet, you'll serve my brother. A man who can kill Chief Sebastian. A top tier player in our little game."

"All due respect," said Tommaso, an Italian in his thirties, "but we don't know your brother. What's to stop him from killing us after we help him? Or what if he's even worse than Sebastian?"

"Reasonable questions," Blake nodded. "What's to stop him is my solemn oath he wouldn't, and isn't. Every man here will be respected in the new system, given a transparent share of the town's profits for services rendered."

"You use a lot of fancy words, Blake," said Garet, with a neutral, somewhat defeated tone. "But I still can't trust what your brother will do. At least with Sebastian it's the devil we know."

Haley met Blake's eyes, then spoke up. "Mason saved me from god knows what and certainly death in some horrible dungeon." There was something a bit haunted in her eyes. "He killed three giant…creatures, on his own, one by one, despite getting damn near mangled in the process. He didn't even know me. And he saved my life. What he did was supposed to be for a group of men."

She met the eyes of the players one by one, until Tommaso spoke up.

"Begging your pardon, miss, but anyone with a dick would have saved you. We 'ain't beautiful girls like you. We're soldiers of his enemy, and maybe rivals and turncoats. He might not give us the same delicate treatment. And ain't you bonded? Don't that mean he made you a slave?"

"The system did," Haley said. "Mason would have set me free. I asked him not to."

Despite the tense nature of the meeting, some of the men grinned or raised their eyebrows at that.

Frankly, Blake had lost his patience. He touched Seul-ki's knee beneath the table to warn her he needed her power. Her eyes drooped as she activated her power boosts, then Blake drained most of her mana reserves as he blasted a thick wave of agreeableness and courage at the men with Mental Influence, followed by a Mind Bend. For the past several days he'd been testing their minds, learning their weaknesses. None of them had mana. And they were already susceptible to his message.

Eyes glazed and the men wobbled slightly in their seats. Blake grit his teeth, ignoring Haley as she looked between the others and maybe asked what the hell was going on. Blake, nor the others, could really hear her. It could have been a minute, or an hour, but the air seemed to grow and shrink as Blake poured his mana and most of Seul-ki's into the open minds before him until it was done. Their resistance shattered like glass.

"Your best chance is with Mason," he said, mouth coppery, eyes blurred.

"He's right," said Garet first, wiping a strand of drool from his lip.

"Fair enough," said Tommaso. "We have no choice."

"Alright, Blake, we're all in," Garet put a hand to his temple and shook his head. "Now tell us your plan."

Blake nodded in thanks and squeezed Seul-ki's knee again beneath the table. He could see Haley staring at him but chose to ignore her.

"A wise decision, gentlemen, now listen carefully. Sebastian is all that matters. His little minions might even join us if we can avoid hurting them. So there's only one goal: we're going to help my brother kill the chief."