Second Skin: Unified: A litRPG Adventure (Second Skin Book 3)

by M Damon Baker

  Title Earned! – You have earned the title, Empress. It wasn’t very easy, but you’ve finally been granted your second title. Beware—just as with your first title, this does not come without consequences, and many will object to your new position. But for now, revel in your accomplishment and the reward you have received. You have been granted 5500 XP.

  Well, the snarkiness was certainly still there, and was that a clue that there would be a reward when I finally came up with a name for this new Empire? Again, these were questions I simply had no answers for, so I tossed them into the rather large circular file I had for the ever-increasing number of those that I had.

  Once I was done with the messages, I closed the tab and pulled up my personal sheet. I hadn’t gained a level, but the rough math in my head told me that I was at least close.

  Dreya Dae

  Sintári Female

  Titles: Sintári, Empress

  Level - 32

  457709/461200

  Health - 341/341 Aura - 647/847 Endurance - 341/341

  Sintári – Sintári interact with their surroundings in unusual ways. The effects of these interactions can be unpredictable

  Class – Warden – Wardens gain a 10% bonus to skills associated with nature or which have natural effects

  Specialization – Protector

  Mastery –

  STR - 39 (+3)

  CON - 29 (+2)

  DEX - 25 (+2)

  INT - 25 (+2)

  WIS - 24 (+2)

  CHA - 47 (+4)

  Before I could even look at my XP, I noticed my new title taunting me again—there was simply no escaping it, but balancing my irritation was the fact that I was less than four thousand XP away from my next level. If I’d spent these last few months adventuring instead of building my Realm, I’d probably be several levels higher than I was, so I welcomed any little gains I was able to make while I was stuck in my capacity as head of state. Wow, had I just admitted that?

  I quickly focused on something else rather than dwell on the fact that I ruled a nation and realized that the slow trickle of advancement I had been getting from holding Ridge with the summoning spell had stopped. I was stuck at 39% proficiency in Summon Elemental, but it should have been higher than that. Strangely, my Medium Armor talent was also stuck at the same point as well, even though I wore Melía’s Armor almost constantly.

  When I remembered that my weapon talents gave me certain perks when I reached the 40% threshold, I thought I had an idea why my progress had stopped. The passive nature of my advancement simply wasn’t enough to push me over that limit. I would most likely have to actively use those skills in order to make the leap into the next tier of those particular talents. It was a quirk that I probably would have known about if I had access to the wiki, but then again, this was a real world, and much of what had been in that digital guide probably didn’t apply anymore. I didn’t know if my hunch was correct, but I had an idea how I might be able to test my theory.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Tási as I closed the window.

  “Was there anything interesting in your ‘Deathless’ messages this time?”

  “Just a quest to torment a halfling,” I teased her. “Do you know anyone who might be able to help me with that?”

  “No one comes to mind,” she said as she slid away from me.

  I smiled and grabbed her hand as we walked out the door and Aiva followed closely behind us. Tási kept glancing at me as we made our way out of the Palace, apparently unsure whether I had been joking about the quest I had told her about. I enjoyed letting her sweat for a change, so I didn’t bother clarifying things for her until we approached our first stop of the day.

  “I didn’t receive a quest to torment you, Tási,” I confessed as we walked toward the small ranch. “I don’t need any prompting to do that.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any safer,” Tási replied.

  “No, I don’t suppose that it does,” I smiled back at her as the rancher and his family came out to welcome us.

  As luck would have it, the homestead was run by Hollyn’s family, and the young woman was among those who greeted us.

  “Hollyn! It’s so good to see you again,” I said to her as she offered me a curtsy. “We should talk. I’d love to hear the story of how you met my good friend, Evans.”

  “Well, there’s not much to tell—it was quite by accident,” she admitted shyly. “He came by much as you just did with one of his patrols. They stopped by every few days to check in on us, and eventually, he asked me to accompany him to dinner at the inn one afternoon.”

  I could see Hollyn’s mother casting me a meaningful look, letting me know that at least she hadn’t been fooled by the First Marshal’s seemingly random appearance at their ranch on so many occasions. While it was likely that his first trip with the patrol had been a simple matter of overseeing his troops, there was absolutely no way that Evans was accompanying them on a routine basis. With Hollyn’s story told, I let her return to her work and approached her mother as she waited nearby.

  “He may have manipulated things so that it appeared that meeting your daughter was just a random thing,” I told her. “But I can assure you that the First Marshal is an honorable man. You have nothing to worry about.”

  “Oh, I’m not concerned with that, Dreya Sintári,” she replied. “I know he’s a decent man, but as decent as he is, I’m afraid men like the First Marshal aren’t usually the marrying type, and I just worry that even with the best of intentions, he’ll only break her heart in the end.”

  “Would you like me to speak with him for you?”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what I would say, but considering what she had just told me, it felt like I should at least make the offer.

  “No,” she replied softly. “Hollyn is old enough to figure things out on her own. Meddling in her affairs will likely only make things worse in the end.”

  We let the topic go and moved on to discussing how her ranch was doing. Their livestock was thriving, due in no small part to the continuing aid we were receiving from the Dryad, and she was expecting a fairly decent number of births in the near future. If the current pace continued, we would have more than enough fresh meat from our own sources in the valley to feed many more people than we already had in the Realm. Good news, considering the rapid turn of events that had just occurred.

  We continued walking through the valley for a while, stopping almost randomly at some of the many farms and ranches that had sprung up. So many had taken up residence there that there was simply no way for me to visit every home in the valley like I used to during my tours back in the beginning. Finally, we headed back towards the Palace to see Renn before we moved on to visit the Garrison.

  Renn was busy coordinating with Ilvain’s people on several finishing touches for the Palace, a job that would be getting far more intense once Venna completed her list of projects that she wanted done in case we would be hosting the planned summit for the rulers of Íforn and Lorida. As busy as he seemed to be, as soon as Renn saw me approach, he stopped what he was doing and met me outside his forge.

  “Forgive me Dreya Sintári, but I cannot let you into my forge right now,” Renn said, obviously uncomfortable with restricting my movements.

  “And why is that?” I replied curiously.

  “There are some… projects I am working on that I was told to keep you from seeing,” he answered as his discomfort grew.

  “Who told you this?” I pried as his evasion only piqued my inquisitiveness.

  “Please, Dreya Sintári, don’t make me tell you,” he begged me. “They’ll only get mad at me.”

  “Let him be, Dreya,” Tási whispered. “Whatever it is that he’s working on, it wasn’t me who commissioned the work. You should be able to narrow things down from there yourself without causing Renn any more distress.”

  She made a good point, so despite my overwhelming curiosity, I left Renn to his business and we wandered down the canyon tow
ards the Garrison’s walls.

  After the way Renn rebuffed me, I wanted to see what Georl and Hilgreth were working on in their forge more than anything. If those two tried to keep me out as well, I might have to insist on barging my way in even over their objections. Rank has its privileges, after all, and I could only restrain my curiosity just so long before my inquisitive nature would overcome my ability to resist the temptation. However, something even more tempting caught my attention before we got to the forge.

  “First Marshal,” I greeted Evans with a wide grin as our paths crossed just inside the Garrison’s boundary. “I’ve just come from meeting Hollyn and her family. She’s quite a lovely girl, and her mother is such a sweet woman. It’s so fortunate that you were able to meet them on your routine patrols.”

  “Well um, yes, that it was,” The First Marshal uncharacteristically hesitated. “Such a shame you arrived here too late to see off the King though.”

  His attempt to divert the conversation was immediately successful, as the King was supposed to stay with us for quite a while longer. I instantly became concerned that something might have gone wrong, and the King had backed out of our alliance over some concern that I was not even aware of.

  “What are you talking about, the King isn’t scheduled to depart for days?”

  “I cannot address that issue, Dreya Sintári,” he replied. “His sudden departure took me by surprise as well. I assumed that you were aware of what had transpired.”

  “No, I’ve been away from the Palace for most of the day,” I lamented. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “Perhaps we should return to the Palace and find out then,” Evans offered. “If something’s gone amiss, I may need to make certain preparations.”

  I didn’t like the implications of what Evans had said to me, but I couldn’t fault the man for simply being prudent. Hopefully, his abundance of caution was misplaced, but I couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding as I cut my tour of the Garrison short, and the First Marshal joined me on my trip back to the Palace.

  The relatively short trek seemed to last forever, and my unease only grew with each step I took. Could my Empire already have collapsed so quickly? What could possibly have happened in the short time I’d been away tending to my Realm to make things take such a turn for the worse? Tási sensed my mounting concern and gave my hand a slight squeeze of reassurance as we climbed the steps into the Palace.

  “It might not be bad news at all,” she tried to comfort me. “There could be any number of reasons why the King needed to leave ahead of schedule.”

  “Name one,” I challenged her.

  “I can’t,” she reluctantly confessed after a moment. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

  “Thank the Gods you’re back,” Broda exclaimed as she came out to greet us. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “What happened?” I asked her urgently. “What went wrong?”

  “Wrong? What makes you think something went wrong?” Broda replied.

  “If everything’s fine, why did the King leave ahead of schedule?” I asked her in complete confusion.

  “We agreed to terms over the summit,” Broda explained. “Once everything was taken care of, my uncle felt it would be best to start negotiating with the rulers of Lorida and Íforn as soon as possible. Our situation will be somewhat precarious until we secure their place in your Empire, so we decided to begin that process immediately. He wanted to say farewell in person, but when we couldn’t find you, he asked me to offer his goodbyes to you in his stead.”

  I hadn’t even imagined that the discussion over the coming meeting with the two monarchs would have been resolved so quickly. It seemed almost inconceivable, but I should have known better. That word simply had no meaning as far as I was concerned, as my past should have reminded me. The impossible was a regular occurrence wherever I held any influence, and the difficult was simply an everyday event.

  “What were the conditions you settled on?” I asked her, with a sense of relief.

  “We will be hosting, the King was quite insistent on that,” Broda replied. “He will let us know the exact day to expect their arrival, but my uncle is hoping to have everything in place so that the summit occurs in about two months’ time.”

  “Is that long enough for us to be ready?”

  “Venna believes so,” Broda smiled back at me. “She made it to us in time to relay your little bribe. My uncle thought that it just may be enough to coax the others to agree to come along. If not to actually join us, then at least to see the upstart with the temerity to blackmail them so brazenly.”

  “Brazen is my middle name,” I finally retuned her grim

  “I’ll bet it is,” Tási mumbled under her breath.

  She was still holding my hand, so when I heard her little jab, I sent a tiny ball of warning into her as she stood by my side. Not enough to truly cause any issues, but more than enough to let her know that she was on thin ice, and when I felt her body stiffen in response, I knew that my message had been received.

  “That’s cheating,” she whispered.

  “Not if you’ve been warned about it in advance,” I whispered back to her. “And you have.”

  Evans left as soon as he knew there was no danger, interrupting our furtive discussion. Once we learned that the King’s unexpected departure didn’t portend any threat to our Realm, his presence was no longer required, and he rushed back to the Garrison, ostensibly to see to his duties there. While I had no doubt that was the case, I also knew that he sought to escape any further prodding from me regarding his relationship with Hollyn.

  Once the First Marshal was gone, and with my fears allayed, I decided to conclude my tour of the Realm with one last stop. It would be a visit that was long overdue, and quite possibly the most productive destination of the day. So, with a great deal of anticipation, I sought out Ridge to see what he was working on now that the Palace had been completed.

  We located the elemental and his assistant rather easily, as he was building the wall that formed the bulk of the fortress around the Palace. He noticed us as we approached and set aside the heavy block he was about to drop in place when I walked up to him.

  “Well done, Ridge, you’re moving very fast,” I complimented him.

  “There is still much more to be done, Sintári,” he replied in his typical gravelly baritone.

  “Do you intend to finish the fortress now?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. “And then we will move on to the defenses along the canyon before moving to the top of the cliff and building the guard towers there. That will complete most of your fortifications. Once we finish those, I will begin work on the structures above the valley.”

  That last item was quite ambitions, and even at Ridge’s steady pace would likely entail years of work for him. The plans for the flat plateau above the valley included an entire city, surrounded by a ring of lookout towers. It was envisioned as the site for a major city, with literally dozens, if not hundreds of structures designated for that massive area.

  “Would it interfere with your efforts if I dismissed you briefly?” I asked him. “I promise to call you right back, but I need to test something out.”

  “That should not cause me any problems, Sintári,” he responded flatly.

  Ridge was definitely not one who required much in the way of formalities, so I simply nodded back to him and cancelled the Spell that held him in my service. After waiting just a moment for the magic to dissipate, I cast Summon Elemental again, and once he yielded to my will, Ridge rose from the ground at my feet once again.

  Ding!

  “Thank you Ridge, that was very helpful,” I said gratefully.

  “I am here to serve you, Sintári,” he replied as he resumed his work.

  “What just happened?” Tási asked as we moved away from the construction zone.

  “I’m not quite sure yet,” I replied. “But I think I just confirmed a theory of mine. I�
�ll let you know once were back in our quarters.”

  While I trusted my guards completely, and I knew that they would undoubtedly learn a great number of my secrets as they served so closely beside me, I wasn’t going to simply give everything away to them either. So, I held off on pulling up the message I had received until after we returned to our chambers and we were finally alone.

  “I had been gaining proficiency in my summoning talent while I held Ridge and his assistant here,” I began explaining to Tási. “But that stopped once I reached 39%.”

  “I think that passive means won’t allow me to advance any further than that,” I lied, knowing full well that my Manipulation talents continued to advance beyond that point, but that was a secret that I wasn’t about to divulge to anyone—not even Tási.

  “So, I dismissed Ridge and resummoned him to test my theory.”

  “I assume that it worked?” Tási asked.

  “Let’s find out,” I replied as I opened up the UI.

  You have reached 40% proficiency with the Spell, Summon Elemental, and have gained the ability to summon beings from the Air sphere in addition to Earth elementals.

  “Wow!” Tási exclaimed as I read the message aloud. “I wonder what they can do?”

  “I have no idea,” I replied. “That’s all the information I have right now, but unless they can help build the defenses or do something else useful, I’m not sure that it’s worth slowing down Ridge’s efforts to summon one.”

  “How would that slow him down?” Tási asked.

  I realized that I had never told her how much more difficult it had been to summon a second elemental, and how even more challenging binding a third would be. Or the disastrous consequences that would occur should I fail. Venna had been the one who stood by me when I summoned Ridge’s helper, and I had never explained the process to Tási.

  “After the first one, it’s harder to summon each elemental,” I told her. “Summoning the second one wasn’t too difficult, but the third will be much harder. If I fail, the creature will most likely attack me, and I don’t want to have to deal with that, so I’d have to dismiss Ridge’s helper if I want to even try.”