Three Years, Six Months Ago

  East Empire

  My name is Nelson Masters.

  I’m getting out of prison today.

  I can’t say I’m happy about it.

  I’ve had a lot of time to think over the past six months. The fall started about nine months ago. I must have pissed off the wrong people.

  My wife left me—but if I’m being honest, I started pushing her away once things began going south. Within three months, I was bankrupt. Everything I’d built was gone. To cap it off, I was thrown in prison.

  Some of the big players in the business world manufactured evidence against me. I’m fairly sure they paid off the judge too. They walked away with my company for free.

  Samantha had already left by then.

  Prison does strange things to your priorities. Somewhere between the walls and the silence, I realized something fundamental:

  The only real power is power over life and death.

  You don’t move forward by being right. You move forward by making people owe you—by collecting favors, leverage, obligations. I was weak. I couldn’t protect what was mine.

  That won’t happen again.

  The first thing I’ll do when I’m out is become an adventurer.

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  Those same people won’t see me as a threat while I build strength. They’ll underestimate me. Let them. I’ll take every last one of them if it’s the last thing I do.

  Priority number one: gain strength.

  Everything else comes after.

  I came to this world two and a half years ago.

  In my old life, I was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I didn’t come from nothing—I had a university education. I started as a low-level manager at twenty-four. By forty-two, I was at the top.

  Then I got sick.

  Leukemia.

  I was hospitalized. Three months into treatment, I lost my position. I didn’t fight it. I just… lost my drive. I still had money saved, but it didn’t matter anymore.

  I went to sleep in a hospital bed.

  I woke up here.

  The place was strange—clean, clinical, wrong. I remember dizziness, then hands at my temples. Words like “Optical” and “Initializing.”

  After that came the questions.

  They were subtle, but I recognized the pattern immediately. We used the same techniques back home. I gave them as little as possible. When they asked about my past, I told them I was a philosophy student.

  I couldn’t think of a less useful profession.

  They lost interest fast and kicked me out.

  So I adapted.

  I went to the employment office and got a job. I worked for a company that ran general stores across the East Empire while I learned how this world functioned. After three months, I quit and started laying groundwork of my own.

  I cultivated relationships. Rounded up investors—local business owners I’d made myself useful to.

  With their capital, I opened a general store.

  Within a year, I had eight.

  That’s when I met Samantha.

  She had presence. Confidence. When I tried to impress her with money, she got angry instead.

  That’s when I knew.

  …But there’s no point dwelling on that now.

  The man I used to work for—and several of his friends in government—didn’t appreciate my rise. I was becoming a problem for his own chain of stores.

  Guards began harassing me. New laws suddenly made some of my exclusive goods illegal. My investors called in their debts early. Only my wagons were searched at borders. Only my employees were arrested.

  They planted contraband. I’m sure of it.

  There was nothing I could do.

  Three months later, I was here.

  So now I’m being released.

  I don’t know exactly what comes next.

  But I do know this:

  I’m done being weak.

  The first step is physical strength.

  Everything else will follow.