Chapter 25: Deal with Marcus

Marcus: "So let me get this straight. You want me to invest my money into funding a mining branch organisation, that would then mine all across Pandora to extract a mineral called "Eridium". You will get 20% of the harvested Eridium while I keep 80% of it. I can sell the Eridium in the distant future when it becomes a highly sought-after mineral by many big corporations. The thing is, you haven't explained what the Hell "Eridium" is?"

The conversation had only started and I gave him a brief layout of my plan by explaining how valuable Eridium will be.

I had to start with that because it was the only way to entice Marcus.

And I will tell him one of the greatest secrets anyone in this Universe would want to know.

What happened to the Eridians and what the Vaults are?

Naturally many players who had acquired all of Nyriad's Eridian Writings will know these secrets, but Marcus didn't.

I had made sure ten times over that Angel was watching me through her PhaseShift or her Siren Telepathy.

I DID NOT want Jack to know any of this, and Angel would be forced to tell him since she has that Siren Collar on her.

Raime: "How much do you know about Sirens, the Vaults and the Eridian race., Marcus Kincaid?"

He looked puzzled at my question but answered nonetheless.

Marcus: "From stories and rumours. The Eridians mysteriously vanished from the Galaxy, leaving behind only their technology and the Vaults as traces of their existence. The Sirens are a woman who wields powerful mystical and magical abilities, while also bearing blue tattoos which makes them stand out like a sore thumb. It is well known, to those that actually learn this, that only females can be Sirens. The Vaults contain unimaginable power, wealth and secrets left behind by the Eridians but are also full of dangers to even being able to open a Vault. Typhon DeLeon is the first Vault Hunter and helped Atlas uncover the first discovered known Vault on Promethea. He vanished at one point when he went in search of the Eridian Homeworld, and hasn't been heard of since."

Raine: "That is practically correct. But some of it is wrong. The Eridians didn't" mysteriously vanish". There was an Interdimensional being named by the Eridians as "The Destroyer". The Destroyer consumed stars, planets and entire civilisations. With each civilisation it devoured, it gained the consumed organic lifeforms wisdom, intellect, knowledge and essence. Thus, The Destroyer is not a mindless creature but is exceedingly intelligent, so much so that the Eridians were not able to lure us into a trap to deal with it permanently. Well...not unless they could provide The Destroyer with the ultimate bait. The Eridians devised a grand plan with all six Sirens at that time to help in imprisoning The Destroyer. As they were creating the Great Vault, which is Pandora itself, many who worshipped The Destroyer as a deity tried to stop the Eridians. But the Eridians created a protector, called The Warrior that would defend the Great Vault from any who tried to open it. The Eridinas carried out their plan by having a Siren called Nyriad kill their entire race with her power which succeeded in luring The Destroyer to The Great Vault. The six Sirens activated a device the Eridians created on their Homeworld and trapped The Destroyer within The Great Vault. Before the Eridians sacrificed themselves, they created the Vaults and the Vault Guardians. The Vault Guardians defend the Vaults from being opened and they resemble the true appearance of the Eridians in some capacity. The Vaults do hold some of their technology and treasure, but they are mainly used to contain "Prisoners". Beings that the Eridians captured and imprisoned to protect the Universe from the danger they possess. I know one of them called The Rampager. These Prisoners of the Vaults are called the Vault Monsters. Eridium is what is keeping The Destroyer imprisoned, and can be made if Nyriad and her power kill a being with it, which can create Eridium. The Eridium of Pandora was made in the same way I had just said since Nyriad had killed them, thus the Eridium of Pandora is actually the crystallised essence of the Eridian's bodies. Now then anything else?"

Marcus looked completely lost, I had just dumped a shit ton of secret info to him and he was baffled by everything told him.

Now I know what you may be thinking.

What the Fuck are you doing telling him all this?!

Simple.

He won't betray me, well...unless Moxxi got in bed with him as she does with everyone.

She will definitely try to get me to lust over her as soon as she knows I am the greatest source of profit for her.

But I am a Reincarnator, I know everything!

Marcus won't tell Moxxi cause I will kill him and Moxxi if he does, and he knows it since I made it clear. But when I master my power better, the Galaxy will know to fear me, and Marcus will be my absolute subordinate.

Right now he is my equal and my partner, but not for long, at least for the following years until I amass my stores of Eridium.

...

After going over some things with clarifying the things had just revealed to him, we continued with the conversation.

Marcus: "I'll definitely be careful when mining the Eridium from what you told me would happen if I touched the stuff. But what then? I would be making a loss in my profits since I would have to maintain the mining facilities all while being unable to sell the Eridium now. I may cause my whole business to go under if I kept all these mining locations you marked out. The Caustic Caverns you mentioned are infested with Varkids and Spiderants. This will be a problem since trying to deal with a Nest is harder than maintaining the location, that's the whole reason Dahl abandoned that place, how am I going to be able to do something that a Mega Corporation like Dahl couldn't even do?"

Raime: "With this..."

I took out a strange lantern that glowed a turquoise colour, and a pendant that also emanated the dame glowing hue to it. The last item I took out was a glass cylinder that had a metallic casing to it, it glowed a vibrant orange.

Raime: "This will allow you to control a creature I will summon from the lantern. It is a powerful being that will only obey my will, but if you wear this pendant, it will give you some level of authority over it and will guarantee your protection. The last item, the cylinder, contains the Soul of a Great Wyrm of Greed. When you open this, you will have this Soul's power. It varies from being to being, but it will allow you to attain unimaginable wealth quite easily. Though ut does have the downside that you will be extremely greedy, but it won't change you much since I had altered it slightly. You'll just be a little more Greedy than normal, you and everyone else will never even notice."

Have you realised it yet?

Indeed it is...

These were items I had gotten from Death, Strife and Vulgrum.

Strife had killed a Great Wyrm Dragon, related to the Sin of Greed, and kept its soul.

Death had the lantern, which contained the Soul of Godamn Frostbane!!!!

Do you know who that even is?!?!?!

Frostbane is a Soul of the Abyss that the former ruler of the Kingdom of the Dead, before the Lord of Bones overthrow him, was Argul, the Mad King, aka. The Deposed King.

Frostbane's soul was bound to Argul, making Argul his absolute master, and Argul created Frostbane's draconic body.

Frostbane was able to fight on par with even the Horsemen Death, this is no small feat to be overlooked.

And now I have not only his soul, as I had told Death to ensure he brought it to me, but I also got his decapitated corpse!

Seems Death killed him the same way by cutting his head off while in his Reaper Form in midair.

The Pendant is something I got from Vulgrum.

The greedy bastard tried stealing Frostbane's soul from me when I summoned him with his glyphs!

Anyway, I had gotten the Pendent from him to allow me to control Frostbane in the same manner that Argul did.

It also allowed me to erase certain memories and aspects of Frostbane and his soul when I am summoning him into a habitable body for him to possess.

That means I can erase Frostbane's memories of Argul summoning him and make it so that Frostbane knows me as his sole master!

Not only will I have Shruikan, a 300 metre Dragon with magic from the Eragon book series, but also Frostbane, a Dragon that is on par with a Nephilim of the Darksiders universe.

I wonder who would win against a fully trained Laura and a fully restored Frostbane?

Now that will be interesting to find out.

Marcus: "This...will certainly work out if what you say is true."

Raime: "It will. All you need to do is monopolise the places of Eridium we can mine from before Hyperion comes, as i told you about before. Then in a few years i will take control of the remains of Atlas since an Assassin called Athena will butcher every member of Atlas. Allowing for me to take control of it effortlessly along with all its technology. I would also gain the right to claim Promethea for myself and the Vault there. So what do you say, Marcus Kincaid? Do you accept my proposal?"

I slid over a contract I had written on.

I already told Marcus what this was and was tensed up when he saw it. Why?

Cause this is a Soul Contract I purchased from Vulgrum for cheap price of an Incendiary Sniper Rifle.

Marcus stayed there for a while before he finally made up his mind.

Marcus: "I accept, Partner!"

He signed the Soul Contract and ut magically duplicated it into three, one for each of us, while the original was burned, signalling that our souls were bound to the contract.

I stood up to leave until I remembered something.

I cancelled my [Silence Area] custom spell, which does as it said. It makes the area soundproof from being spied upon by unwanted individuals, such as right now!

I kicked the door to our room and surprise surprise!

Laura was there and had received a full-powered kick right through the door which had a hole in it.

Laura was bleeding from the nose as it had been completely broken but was healing at a visible pace.

Laura: "Asshole!"

Raime: "That's what you get for many reasons. One, you were eavesdropping. Two, not my fault you were standing there. Three, you keep calling me "Asshole" even though I am trying to help you, are what I do is rough and seems cruel, but life is tough! Don't you want to kill Storm Terror and avenge your mother?!"

She froze in her place as she listen to my words.

She didn't know how to respond as she thought and went over how I have been treating her ever since the village.

I had beaten her and trained her bloody, but she never felt any pain and was always fine.

She also clearly knew that I was trying to give her the life experience she had been severely lacking since she grew up in an isolated village, not to mention she is still a young girl and not mature enough to understand some things.

I can see all this on her face, but what she was thinking was another thing entirely.

Her eyes became wet as tears rolled down her face.

I may have been a bit direct, but she has to grow up. I experienced similar things to her at an even younger age and was forced to accept them on my own.

But I want her to understand them, accept them. I will be with her when she does, I didn't have anyone when I was going through that difficult phase, but she will have me to help her through it.

Laura must have realised I am helping her to grow up so she can personally kill the Sandstalker Storm Terror since she cried in my arms for a few dozen minutes before she calmed down.

Marcus was silently grinding and gritting his teeth in disgust at this "touchy" sight between us.

Damn man, don't be so heartless just cause you hate kids and nice moments like this!

Raime: "Hey! Marcus!"

Marcus: "What?!"

Raime: "Babysit Laura for me until i get back okay? Thanks!"

Before Marcus could shout, i had teleported away with a audiable *poof