Talbot had determined that Dionys was a fairly recent pseudonym, as was the general elven appearance. He had heard rumors that McCanoc’s previous incarnation had gone so far off the permissible track that it had actually come to the attention of the Council.
Whether he had actually been remanded to therapy or simply placed on probation was unclear, just as the crime for which he had been accused was buried under privacy restrictions, but as soon as he entered the recreationist sub-culture the reason for his problems became obvious: Dionys was just bug-house nuts.
He had started his career in recreationism by trying to force a duel with the King of Avalonia. Since the king had no reason to accept the challenge of a duel from a person who hadn’t even won his spurs, he rather pointedly declined.
Dionys then proceeded to start a whisper campaign against the king, accusing him of everything from cowardice to pedophilia. At the same time he began gathering a group of henchmen — who were immediately dubbed “The Young Louts” — and used them to sow discord far and wide in Avalonia. Throughout this period he either avoided tournaments or participated only against the weakest possible opponents, especially when the rules permitted enhanced weaponry. With excellent power-blades and his Changed size, he swiftly crushed all his opponents.
Finally the situation reached a condition of crisis and the king banished him from the kingdom. Not content to rest in banishment, Dionys continued his verbal, political and physical assaults from the fringes of the group until the king eventually gave up and agreed to a personal combat.
However, due to the ability for people to Change and enhance, formal challenge had changed over the years. What Dionys did not realize was that in such a challenge, the Net, which had full access to Change data, determined handicaps based upon the degree of Change of each fighter. It went without saying that enhanced weaponry was banned.
When he went into battle against the king, McCanoc’s absolutely mundane armor and weapons were loaded down with nearly a hundred kilos of weight.
Because of his avoidance of the challenge ladder, it was unclear how good McCanoc might have been. His few battles had ended in massacres, but they were always against lighter, unskilled opponents. Whatever his actual ability, the challenge against the King of Avalonia was brief. The two met in ground combat against one another, both using Ropasan broadsword, mail and shield. Their swords, befitting the ritual nature of the challenge, had blunting fields on them and the battle was decided on points.
Despite that fact, Dionys was not only defeated but defeated quite bloodily. The King of Avalonia had been in a thousand similar battles over the previous century or twain and he knew every legal trick, and most of the illegal ones. He used them to not only win on points, but win in such a way that Dionys was going to remember the pain for some time. At the least he was never again going to consider a shield as a purely defensive weapon. When McCanoc stumbled off the field his helmet was streaming blood out onto his armor. He teleported out and wasn’t seen on the fields again for months.
That had been nearly a year before and only in the last few months had the Louts and their ringleader been seen. This time Dionys seemed serious about moving up the challenge ladder and had been fighting opponents who were of similar mass. As it turned out, he was fairly good. But since his opponents tended to have weaponry that was just as enhanced as his, when enhanced weapons were permitted, he was moving up the ladder very slowly.
Which appeared to be the problem.
“I want you to make me a set of turbo armor and a power sword,” the fighter said.
Talbot couldn’t help himself; he laughed out loud.
“You have to be joking,” the smith finally chuckled. “Why on Earth would I make you anything?”
“Well for one thing, the credits,” Dionys said, apparently unfazed by the laughter. “I can pay you handsomely for it, I don’t think you’ll believe how much.”
“I don’t think you have any idea how much it is worth,” Edmund replied. “I don’t just conjure armor out of the air or you wouldn’t be here. Every piece is custom constructed from the base iron and for enhanced armor, which I assume is what you want, I use customized nannites. A full suite takes nearly three months to complete. What could you possibly offer me that would be worth three months of my precious life?”
“Two hundred teracredits,” Dionys said promptly.
“What?” Talbot snapped. “That’s a noticeable slice of the planetary budget! There is no way you can find that sort of money!”
“I can get it,” McCanoc replied. “I have… sources.”
“Okay,” Talbot admitted, grudgingly, “assuming you can lay your hands on it, that’s a lot of credits. There’s only one problem.”
“What?”
“I don’t want them,” Edmund said. “I have nothing worth spending two hundred teracredits on. In fact, I have nothing to spend the credits I have on; I give almost all my surplus to my daughter. Who never manages to spend all of them. So I don’t have any use for your fortune, whatever its source.”
“All right then,” Dionys said with a nod. “I can appreciate that. In that case, think of the challenge. I don’t want just any set of weapons and armor, I want the most magnificent armor and sword ever created. The armor has to have self-contained power sources, be able to drain power from external sources, trade power and repair damage to itself and its user. The mail should be kinetic reactive and, of course, impenetrable. All of it proof against any field generation or energy weapons. The sword needs to generate a scything field and a power field as well as be able to drain and trade power. It has to be the finest, the best nannites, the best programs, capable of taking on any enhanced suits on Earth and defeating them. All of that invisible to casual inspection and, of course, it should look… good.” He gave the battered suit of mail and half armor by the fireplace a dismissive wave.
“Challenge is for the young,” Talbot said, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his feet. “When you get to be my age, you’re either over doing stuff for the ‘challenge’ or you’re dead. There is a reason the most common cause of death in our time is accident. Followed closely by suicide.”
“So you won’t do it?” Dionys asked.
“I doubt it,” Talbot said. “And why in the hell do you want something like that? You can’t use that in any tournament, anywhere. Not even ones that permit enhancements. The power drain function alone would preclude that. And that is more than a ‘casual’ inspection.”
“It’s not for a tournament,” Dionys said. “Although, I’d want to be stealthed and be able to turn down the enhancements if I did use it in a tournament. But I intend to use it to become king of Anarchia.”
Talbot was not one for expressive mirth but he couldn’t help laughing out loud again.
“Oh, thank you for that, Dionys,” he said, trying to get his breath back. “I haven’t laughed this hard in forever.”
“I’m serious,” the visitor said with a glare. “I can make myself the first king of Anarchia since Charles the Great.”
“With my help,” Talbot said, still chuckling. “King of Anarchia. With stealth power-armor. I suppose it should glow, too?”
“Under the right conditions,” Dionys said loftily.
“What’s your favorite color?” Edmund grinned.
“I think it should flow out a midnight black cloud,” Dionys said. “That would be… appropriate.
“Hah,” the smith grunted. “No. Not black nor red nor royal blue nor even flaming pink. Go away.”