Aggro Litrpg || Progression Fantasy

"—you didn't send me to a pick-up, mate," I said. "You sent me to a bunch of guys you owed money to. At best, you were hoping I'd take them out for you. On the other hand, at worst, you were hoping they'd do the same to me. So, time for you to make nice. And quick."

Mooney had his door half open and was standing just inside it with his arms spread wider than his frame truly allowed. I was in the corridor outside his flat with the recovered bag on my shoulder, held higher than his grabby little hands could easily reach.

"Ah, it's all semantics, ain't it, Undershaft?" he said, working a wheeze up into a cough even as he lit a fresh cigarette. My eyes flicked to the 'No Smoking' sign next to the door, on which someone had scribbled beneath 'because arson often offends.'

"How is you sending me to get knifed semantics?"

"There's two kinds of errands in this life, mate. The easy ones and the ones a strategically shaved bear with a penchant for violence is perfect for. Did I owe those guys money? Maybe. But in a capitalist society, what really is it to 'owe'? Do we not all owe someone something, Undershaft?"

I wasn't really in the mood for one of Mooney's trademark lectures. I tried to interrupt, but he was already underway.

"Money is, after all, a social hallucination. It is fiat currency. Fiat, from the Latin because I said so, is basically monarchic fan fiction we've all agreed to applaud. And debt? Well, in those circumstances, I think we can all agree that debt is just applause that goes on too long. Do you agree?"

"Mooney…"

"Certain drug dealers may call it arrears. I, on the other hand, would describe it as narrative momentum. Fifty quid of blow represents a fungibility of obligation, Undershaft. One dealer's 'I owe you' turns into 'he owes me' turns into 'we owe the idea of each other,' and all of this is really nothing more than a choose-your-own adventure. You've got your modern monetary theory, which is where a government prints the future and hopes no one reads the fine print; you've got compound interest, which is a pyramid scheme with better stationery; and you've got me, a humble practitioner of liquidity."

I may have raised my eyebrows at that.

"Seriously, mate. I don't steal; I reallocate urgency. After all, ownership is temporary stewardship under duress, and possession is nine-tenths of the metaphysics. So when you say I 'owed' those guys money, I would say, rather, we were engaged in a dynamic dialogue about value—Socratic, even—wherein the only honest outcome was me taking what I needed before inflation did. That's not crime, that's participation."

"And then you roped me into participating in all that by sending me to kick their arses and steal their gear?"

"I make use of the tools that come my way. And if there's one thing everyone knows about you, Undershaft, it's that you are a massive tool."

"You could just have said 'thank you' like a normal person," I said, pushing the door open and stepping over a takeaway container that had achieved a kind of brittle fossil state. A cat that, hopefully, didn't belong to him shot out from under the sofa, snarled at me, and then vanished into a nest of carrier bags.

"Thank you," he said, following me inside and jumping to try and grab the bag. "Now, gimmie!"

The lift had spat me out into his part of the Barbican, which needs to be seen to be believed. The building's all brutalist geometry where the wind was playing hopscotch between various concrete canyons. Someone had put googly eyes on all the CCTV domes, and the corridor that led to Mooney's front door smelled like urine, damp dogs, and a million curries that had gone to war with the pizza boxes. As I'd waited outside his door, I'd been able to hear the rest of the buzzing life of the rest of the estate: far-off shrieking babies; ancient plumbing negotiating its way; and hundreds of radios doing call-ins about things nobody could fix.

But that was nothing like the chaos within.

Obviously, I'd been here before, but now I had the System, and the pungency of Mooney's flat was smashing me in the face. It was a potent mixture of fried dust, Lynx Africa, martyrdom, and black mould. His ceiling was the yellow of old teeth, and as I walked through to the living room, the carpet crackled under my boots like autumnal leaves. Every surface had decided to be sticky in a different way.

Just taking a breath in here was an assault on my Endurance.

But so, so much worse, it was also a shrine to Arsenal. There was a sagging cardboard cutout of Arsène Wenger stood in one corner wearing a Santa hat and a lei. A seat bolt from Highbury had been repurposed into a doorstop, and two framed shirts hung above the television: one signed by so many people it looked like a bad tattoo and the other signed in a hand that was definitely "the man at the stall." There were commemorative DVDs stacked by the telly, "The Invincibles" used as a coaster under a mug that declared BEST DAD in club red.

I knew that in the kitchen would be three mug trees holding fifteen more of those, in case fatherhood came back into fashion.

The kitchen area itself presented a sink full of evolutionary experiments and two teaspoons with tide marks. The kettle was so limed it counted as geology, and I knew that if I looked in the fridge, I'd find a stick of butter with a cigarette stubbed in it. On the counter was a fish tank containing a single morose fish labelled Ian Wright in Dymo tape, busy losing an argument with the algae.

"Shoes!" Mooney said, nodding at a mat that read MIND THE SHOES. He was barefoot.

"I'm minding them," I said, trying not to gag. "And if you think I'm exposing my feet to this toxic waste dump, you have another thing coming."

He did another casual reach for the bag, and I slapped his hand away. I think it's a testament to my self-restraint that I managed not to shatter his arm as I did so.

"Undershaft! What gives!"

I stared down at him and tried to suppress an understandable shiver.

Mooney's a man who looks like he's been assembled from a cosmetic clinic's 'before' photographs. His filthy hair is slicked down by spit, he has a perennial nicotine moustache and his eyes are crossed and crossed again. His clothes hung off him like they were gathering evidence, and his fingers were so yellowed he might as well have dipped them in egg yolks. And probably had done.

I blinked, and the System did me the courtesy.

Name: Desmond "Mooney" Rowntree

Class: Fixer — Level 3

Disposition: Opportunistic | Risk-Averse

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Passives: Rolodex Memory (Local), Phone-Box Resurrection, Discount Tea Alchemy

Note: Minor morale buff within 3m of Arsenal memorabilia.

Level 3 Fixer. I assume that meant "Knows a bloke who knows a bloke" with a progress bar.

"You set me up, mate," I said, letting the bag settle on the floor where it managed not to melt. Good for it. "You knew there'd be a fight."

"How about we don't get hung up on what I 'knew'. 'Knew' gets me into all sorts of trouble. Let's say I 'suspected,'" he said. "That crew has been getting lairy for a while about who owes who what. I just figured you'd have a… calming effect."

"They had knives, Mooney," I said.

"And, judging by the fact you now have their gear, you had a calming effect on them," he repeated, helpfully.

The radio muttered from the living room—tinny news between callers with names like Geoff, who had thoughts obsessed on the make-up of a back four. The fridge coughed and buzzed. The bathroom fan mewled. I picked the bag up again and set it on the coffee table, which was a door propped on two crates of records. He twitched at the thud.

"You going to offer me tea?" I said.

"Hospitality, is it?" He brightened. "I'll put t'kettle on."

He shuffled into the kitchen, opened the cupboard, and produced a jar that said MILK on it in sharpie. The sugar poured like gravel and held up his last remaining teabag to the light like a priest doing transubstantiation.

"Strong one," he said. "Been in there since Easter."

As the kettle ground up to a scream, the radio did its own throat clearing. "…breaking news for E17: witnesses report an 'epic microburst' in a municipal park this afternoon. Photos show an uprooted oak—" Mooney turned it up with a greasy knuckle. "—and what some locals described as 'a right mess, like it landed on something black and greasy.' Police are advising—"

"Sounds like the weather over that way has gone funny," Mooney said over his shoulder, fishing two mugs with remarkable stains from the sink. "Did you notice anything while you were over there?"

"Must be all that climate change they keep going on about," I said, and one part of me was back with the oak, bark under my fingers, tendons in my arms singing, the turn, the downstroke, tree and shadow thing and the slap of it causing sap to run sweet up my nose. Call it gardening with extreme prejudice.

I let the flash go and nudged the zip of the bag while Mooney kept clattering around in his kitchen. Among the various mundane wraps was what I'd looted from the body of the Lurker. Something that made light bend around it a fraction.

It was a matte sphere the colour of night, and the various reflections on its skin moved a beat late, like it was pulling off a bad dub. I took it out of the bag and considered it. It hissed back at me and whispered threats I couldn't quite hear.

My System had reacted quite strongly when I'd picked it out of the Lurker's mashed corpse. I pulled that string of notifications back up.

[Quest Update]

You Have Returned to Earth.

Quest Thread Active: "The Man Behind the Hit."

New Objective: Find Griff.

Timer: 34:32

But that had then been extended with a bigger, more officious addendum.

[New Quest Thread: EARTH INVASION]

Objective: Collect the Orbs. 1 / 5

Reward: Veil Stabilisation | Unknown

Advisory: Shadow pressure rising across London nodes.

And then, finally, had come a third series of comments, braiding the previous ones together.

[Quest Adaptation]

The Man Behind the Hit — and the Invasion.

Additional Objective: Find Griff… and question him about his connection to Shadow.

QUEST UPDATE

Personal Quest reasserted and extra time awarded.

Veil Link: Active

Countdown: 60:00:00

Then the kicker.

SYSTEM ADVISORY

London Tether under stress.

Delay in completing Quest is increasing the risk of a local thinning event.

I closed my fist around the Orb and Mooney's room brightened half a shade as if relieved. The kettle behind me finally clicked off with the bravado of a small bomb and, within seconds, Mooney returned with two mugs of tea the colour and viscosity of weak gravy. He handed me one with pride and sat on the sofa, eying the bag as if it might develop legs.

"Right," he said, "let the dog see the rabbit. Hand us the gear."

I rested the mug on my knee. "Not yet. You owe me all sorts of explanations mate. Why send me to a debt you owed?"

He raised both hands, bangles of nicotine stains catching the light. "Because, well, look at you, Undershaft. I knew you'd sort it out. These were just local dealers and you're… terrifying. And look at me! It's a very difficult time to be me, mate. Costs are up. People are funny. I needed a, you know, a display of intent."

"A what?"

He gestured at me. "I needed to let it be known I know people. People who… bode."

I took a sip of the tea and regret bloomed on my tongue. It was somehow both thin and chewy at the same time. I put it down on a coaster that said EMIRATES in gold. He watched my hand leave the mug like it was treason.

"Well, I think it would be fair to say I boded sufficiently." Now, I said, "you owe me big time. And much more than just a few nights in Casa Del Botulism."

"Ask and you shall be answered, Oh Great and Powerful Undershaft."

"Talk to me about Griff."

Mooney's face moved through three expressions. All of them being pure terror. "I don't work for Griff."

"But you work for people who work around him."

"I work adjacent to those who work around him," he said. "This is a very important legal term. My lawyer says so."

"I don't care about legal right now. I just want to know where to find him."

"You don't want to find him, mate. Trust me."

"Mooney…"

"Okay, okay, okay. Look, I'll be serious for a moment. I've been hearing things for a while," he said. "Obviously, I try to pretend I haven't, but…"

"Mooney, you don't have the personality for ellipses."

"You're getting narky in your old age, Undershaft. Okay. From what I've been hearing, a whole host of you 'old school' guys have been going quiet of late."

"Quiet?"

"Like permanently. First, there's a couple of rumours of a few jobs going bad. Then, boom, they're gone. I'd have warned you but, you know, that sort of thing is supposed to be your meat and drink."

Ouch. And, what was worse, he was right. I hadn't picked up anything like that going on. But, then again, I'd hardly been the most clubbable of Griff's operatives. "Give me names."

"Renard's not been seen since a week last Tuesday. His spot in Marylebone's sitting empty, but not one's touching it. All known burners for the Deptford Sisters are dead. Brolly Tom's lock-up cooked itself from the inside. With him in it. Couple of others too. Old faces. People who've had keys for years. Being connected to Griff right now seems to be… a limited situation. I try to stay clear. I am a simple man."

Griff was clearing house? That was bizarre. From what I knew, he'd been making money hand over fist. And he was a man that wouldn't bin his supply chain for sport. You prune for two reasons. One, when you're scared. Two, when you're laundering the past before a bigger play.

I don't think anything has ever scared Griff. So, my bet was that he was moving on and up and those of us from before were collateral damage. And, what is more, the shadow orb and the update quest suggested he was connected to the Veil.

Which made finding him not just a revenge mission. It made it Warden business.

"I need to find Griff," I said.

Mooney's eyes flicked. He did not like that name in his flat. He looked at Arsène in the corner, as if expecting managerial advice. "Yeah. That's above my paygrade. Drink up and make a move, yeah?" he said, shifting the topic by force. "No offence, Undershaft. But you're catching the light in here, and I don't like it. I'll, you know, I'll make a few calls after you're gone. Maybe."

"No," I said.

He tried a laugh. "No? Mate, I don't want to get involved."

"You are involved," I said. "You set me up back there. No harm, no foul. But I'm wanting a little pay back. You need to get me names, numbers and drops. I want to know who's still working and who's not. You're going to be my personal Griff directory until I say we're square."

He scratched the side of his nose until it squeaked. "Way I hear it, Undershaft," he said, aiming for casual and hitting damp, "you're a dead man walking. I don't want any part of that."

I smiled, and it was not friendly. "Trust this, Mooney. Being next to me for the foreseeable is going to be the safest place on Earth to be."