“I know full well who you are,” she interrupted, continuing her work. There was a sternness in her voice. A strength and maturity that seemed to be beyond her physical age. I had heard stories that elves were long-lived creatures. Molen himself had seemed to be in his mid-thirties, but spoke like someone much older. How old was this woman before me? “You are Arnison’s progeny. Adopted after your parents died. An alchemist by trade but now a Gentleman of the House.”
Her words were so confident. “I take it you’re the Matron?” I asked in between winces as the elf grabbed the crystal and twisted it, adjusting it within my body. It didn’t hurt, for the green stuff had numbed everything, but feeling something writhing around inside felt pretty damn weird.
“Kinmother Esha, at your service,” she said, standing up and wiping her hands on her small white apron. The woman towered over me, easily 7 feet tall. “I’m afraid we don’t have a proper apothecary any longer, so you’ll have to deal with my butchery.”
“If you call this butchery, I’d be interested to see what you call medical skill,” I said, standing up. The green salve had killed just about all the pain in my body now and I was beginning to feel like my old self. I stretched a little, before realizing that I was standing shirtless and undignified before an elven Matriarch. Self-consciousness quickly took over and I scuttled over to a nearby dresser that had some clothes neatly folded atop it. I realized I wasn’t as much in a medical lab as I was in a bedroom that had been hastily turned into a healing ward.
“The crystal will dissolve within two to three weeks,” she said. “Your organs should be fully healed by then. If not, you will probably begin vomiting blood. If that’s the case, I’d suggest finding a doctor or an astronomer.”
“Thanks,” I said. There were healing potions at home that I could drink to fix this issue in a snap. Crystal healings were widely out of practice due to their unreliability and the fact that they needed to be placed inside the wound. A quick sip of some Revitatine Tonic and I’d be as good as new. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell that to the Matron who had probably worked for hours to heal me.
I threw a silk tunic on as the Matron watched me, arms folded. She seemed none too pleased with me. Once it was clear I was conscious, lucid and healthy, she didn’t hold back such feelings. “Now then, tell me, Blake, why were you on my property this morning? And why did you decide to agitate those bandits?”
“Agitate?” I repeated. “You mean decimate. We destroyed their golems. I think only the Karrack survived. Not much you can do with just one of those.”
Esha’s expression grew more irritated with me. “Those idiots you attacked were just the oafs the Blind King sends to harass us. You destroyed a handful of golems, yes, but not all of them. And now, the bandit king himself is so displeased with our supposed attack that he’s delivered an ultimatum. Part with our farm property now, or face invasion.”
Oops. I guess I had just made things much worse. Or had I? Something didn’t seem right here. “Why not just throw up a defensive perimeter around your farm and call it a day?” I asked. “Golem army or not, those bandits won’t have a chance against even the most basic of towers.”
Those words caused Esha to walk over to the open door of the medical room. She glanced outside and spoke some words in a foreign tongue, then slammed the door shut, turning to face me. “I fear it’s not so simple, Blake,” she whispered. “There has been a…slight complication in the recent decades for our gentry.”
I tilted my head. “Something amiss, ma’am?”
Esha sighed deeply and motioned for me to sit down, walking over to the medical table and leaning against it. I took a seat on the large bed that had been shoved into the corner of the room. “Your uncle was a good man. A man of leisure, for certain, but kind and curious. Always tried to find some excuse to visit us, to learn about our culture. Normally for elvenkind, our ways are…tolerated, at the most. Velicians are happy to regard us as pointy-eared humans, but when it comes to our cultural customs and mores, they don’t like how we conduct our lives. But not Arnison. He never judged our rituals, customs and beliefs. Always wanted to learn more.”
That description certainly fit my uncle. He was a man who loved life fully and was endlessly curious about its mysteries. I always thought he’d make for a great alchemist, if only he could have sat still for more than ten minutes before going onto the next thing. “So you were close to him?”
“We were, for a while, close enough for me to trust you with our trouble…” Esha said, sighing once more. “I don’t know how to say this. But you’ll find out sooner or later. The whole world will. Our Starmetal Signet is missing. It has been for some time.”
My eyes went wide at that. “Don’t you need that to access the Grid?”
Esha slowly nodded. At once, the realization hit. The reason why these bandits were giving the Kintelis such trouble wasn’t their access to golems. It was that Esha couldn’t put up towers to defend her property. “How long has it been like this?”
“Ten years, give or take,” she said. “An alarming amount of time. But our efforts to find where the damned thing went have been in vain. Starmetal is immune to all forms of magic due to its properties. That’s why they were imbued with the Grid’s power to begin with. No spell could force it to fly off a wielder’s neck. No summoned being can slip in the middle of the night and grasp it. A perfectly secure item.”
How does one lose such an important item? It wasn’t like a wallet or house key. Rather it was the single most important object in any gentry, county or barony.
“Don’t give me that look,” Esha growled, her features darkening more. “It’s not like we misplaced it somewhere around the house. Someone stole it. Someone cruel and conniving, someone with blood ties to our family.”
“Why not go to the Crown?”
“Because if we announce to the world that we are completely unarmed…” she trailed off to let my imagination finish the rest of the sentence. It didn’t matter how secure Esha’s current territories were, if she couldn’t access the Grid to repair, eventually any noble could wear her defenses down. Her land would be gone in a month.
“I see. This is alarming,” I said, feeling my heart sink down into my stomach. Not only did this mean the elves wouldn’t be able to aid me in my cause, but it also meant I had condemned them to losing their farms to those fiends. That had not been my intention in attacking those bandits. “I’ll pay you compensation for the farm. Or perhaps you could offer a wage to the Blind King? Pay him off? I’ll of course handle those payments in perpetuity,” I said.
A look of surprise washed over the elven woman’s face. For a moment she looked confused, then amused, and finally pleased with the offer. “You take responsibility for your actions. I like that. Few men do so. Even your uncle would blame the drink when a joke of his went poorly.” She paused for a moment and frowned. “But why did you come to see me? My husband mentioned you wanted to meet with me for some business?”
Molen was her husband? He could have mentioned it. “Ah, yes. I was hoping to conduct some trades and maybe talk about a relationship between our houses,” I said. “But it would seem, er…” I paused and shrugged at her.
“Yes, such an endeavor means little when I cannot access the Grid to make arrangements,” Esha said. “I’m sorry you had to come this way for nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say it was for nothing. It’s nice to get a chance to meet you, Esha,” I replied. I paused for a moment and decided to press a little. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
Esha laughed at that. “Ah yes, you’ll just waltz in and solve our decade long trouble in a single afternoon.”
“With an attitude like that, I doubt you’ll ever find it,” I replied, standing up and making my way for the door. I might not know the ways of the elven folk, but I doubt mocking someone to their face was considered to be acceptable in any culture.
“Wait, wait,” she said, standing up and grabbing
me by the shoulder. “I apologize. It’s just that you humans often have a way of just…trying to take charge as soon as trouble rears its head. I’ve not met a man who doesn’t assume he’s the right one for the job, whatever it may be. And the results of trusting such impulsive folks tend to be rather troublesome. I mean…you did make my situation with the bandits far worse due to that desire to throw yourself into conflict without a second thought.”
I opened my mouth to say something terribly racist, but my common sense and proper upbringing stopped me in my tracks. I almost said that if the ways of elves were so great, why didn’t they have a homeland anymore? Yes, I know, a terrible thing, that’s why I didn’t say it. Instead, I merely shrugged. “I don’t think it’s pride, ma’am. I think it’s just that our desire to help often clouds our judgment.”
Before we could continue this discussion, there came a pounding on the door. A man popped his head and began rapidly shouting in elven to Esha. I could make out a few words but got the impression that the Blind King was here to cause some trouble.
“Fuck,” Esha said in her native tongue. I certainly knew what that word meant. “There goes the farm,” she said, speaking back in Velecian. “A dozen carts spotted on the road. There’s no way we can repel them.”
An idea struck me, a strange and curious one, but I couldn’t push it away. “Ma’am, do I have your word, on your homeland that you’d return this to me?” I asked, pulling off my own signet necklace.
Esha looked back at me and raised an eyebrow. “You mean for me to wear your pendant? Why?”
“What if it’ll let you access your Grid? Long enough to put up some defenses?” I said. “I mean, it can’t hurt to try. As long as I have your word that you’ll return it to me.”
Maybe it was foolish to just hand over this amulet, but they had already saved my life. If I couldn’t trust Esha to return the signet, I doubt I could ever work with her. “You have my word,” she said after a moment of pondering. “To be honest, I have no idea if this will work. But…it’s worth a try.”
I handed the necklace to her and she quickly slipped it over her neck, wincing as if expecting it to shock her. The idea of this experiment being potentially deadly only occurred to me as the signet dropped down around her neck. But by then it was too late. There was a green flash from the amulet, blinding me for a second. I squinted, hoping to see that she still had a head.
Indeed, Esha was fine. But she was staring upwards at the ceiling, eyes darting left to right as if reading something.
“Interesting,” she mumbled. “Very interesting.”
“Can you access your Grid?” I asked. “Can you set up defenses?”
“It’s giving me three options. The first is to contact the Institute of Warfare and return this signet, if I had found it. The second is for me to issue a notification to you that I intend to claim this amulet within 24 hours…”
“And the third?”
The corner of the elven woman’s lips curved upwards slightly. “It’s giving me the option to authorize this Signet’s owner as a protectorate of my land.”
Chapter 8
Kinmother Esha and I had made a startling discovery. When nobles presented amulets to one another as a sign of trust, they could link their Grids together. Doing so allowed for the establishment of a “Protectorate” for a set amount of time. While the reasons behind such a feature’s existence eluded me, I was pleased with the discovery. It meant I’d be able to make up the trouble I had inadvertently caused to the elven folk.
By becoming a temporary protectorate (set by Esha for 4 hours), I was essentially connected into the Kinteli people’s Grid. I had access to all of their resources, territories and units. However, I couldn’t touch anything other than battlefields. I tried to access tabs but was quickly rebuffed by the words Protectorates may not perform any changes to the Kinteli Gentry.
Accessing a battlefield itself, however, was another story. I could see the enemy wagons making their way to the farm and was quick to select the area in question. Molen Farms was the name of the territory and it was composed of four lots, each lot a farm. Losing all four farms would more or less destroy the Kintelis’ food production, devastating them. But thankfully, once I was in the Molen Farms battle zone, the unit and tower tabs became available at once.
“What are you seeing?” Esha said. I could feel her hand against my back, gently rubbing it up and down.
“I can access the Grid,” I explained. “And all of your resources are available to me. I can spend them as I like. But only on defense.”
I glanced at what I had available.
Silver: 100,000
Mana Crystals: 1,000
Fire Spice: 250
“You have quite the stockpile,” I said, trying my best not to sound jealous. These elves were rich.
“Indeed. Please, mount an effective defense, but don’t spend too much,” she said. “The farm is valuable but we’ve no other enemies in the area. I’d rather keep our coffers full. One bright side to our miserable situation is that the production buildings maintain themselves and deliver easily enough.”
“Got it,” I said, rubbing my hands together. This was an excellent learning opportunity! Not only would I be able to take advantage of the new License Level 1 units, I’d also be learning on someone else’s silver!
“Would er, ten thousand be acceptable?” I asked.
“Can you make it five? We have Elrensung coming up soon,” she said. “Really, they’re just goons. A few towers ought to scare them off.”
“Sure thing,” I replied. With a deep, almost sinister chuckle, I opened up the towers section and prepared to hastily assemble a masterpiece defense. But first, I’d need to see what new towers were in my roster!
License Level 1 Towers
Thorn Spire
Cost: 500 silver
Health: 600
Range: Melee
Thorn Spires are heavy-hitting towers that fire armor-penetrating thorns when enemies pass by.
Strengths:
Armor Piercing: All Thorn Spire attacks ignore armor and deal damage directly to the enemy unit. These attacks do not reduce armor, they merely bypass it.
Burst Fire: Thorn Spires hit all targets within melee range.
Weaknesses:
Wilting: Fire deals triple damage to Thorn Spires.
Regeneration: A Thorn Spire generates 1 thorn cluster per 5 seconds, up to a total of 5 thorns clusters. The Spire can only attack when it has thorn clusters present.
Repulsion Tower
Cost: 150 silver
Health: 500
Range: 50 feet
The Repulsion Tower stores kinetic energy and releases it when a target falls within range. While the tower deals no damage, it can delay enemy movement by knocking them back.
Strengths:
Anti-Flight: Flying enemies are disabled by the Repulsion Tower. When hit, a flyer will fall to the ground, taking damage from the fall itself. Most weak flyers will be destroyed, but those who survive will be stunned for 2 minutes.
Stunning: If an enemy target is too big to be knocked back, they will be stunned for 10 seconds.
Weaknesses:
Toothless: The Repulsion Tower deals no damage.
Redundant: Multiple Repulsion Towers within the same area will yield no additional results.
Enervation Wall
Cost: 1,000 silver
Health: NA
Range: Melee
An Enervation Wall is a field of mana-draining magic that is fixed to one square. Whenever a golem, regardless of allegiance, passes through the enervation wall, they begin rapidly losing power. Unpowered golems deactivate and are worth double salvage.
Strengths:
Immaterial: The Enervation Wall uses two small silver mana reserves buried beneath the battlefield, making it impossible to destroy.
Draining: Golems passing through the Enervation Wall t
ake temporary damage equal to the damage they have already received. If the temporary damage is greater than the golem’s current health, it overloads and powers down for the rest of the match. If the temporary damage is lower or equal to the current health amount, the golem is unaffected.
Weaknesses:
Obvious: Intelligent golems will automatically avoid the Enervation Wall if they cannot survive passing through.
Undiscerning: The Enervation Wall will affect golems of either side.
Automated Boulder Dispensing Apparatus
Cost: 500 silver
Health: 200
Range: Straight line
The Automated Boulder Dispensing Apparatus generates boulders composed of earth mana. Once generated, the boulder waits until targets come within range, at which point the tower automatically releases the boulder to deal damage to any incoming golem.
Strengths:
Heavy Hitter: The boulders are composed of the same dense matter that golems are constructed with, allowing it to plow through most golems with ease. Larger golems take even more damage since the boulder will attempt to pass through them.
Unstoppable: Once rolling, the boulder will complete its course.
Weaknesses:
Construction Time: Generating new boulders takes a full minute.
Barricade Buster: The boulder stops rolling once it hits the first barricade in its way, after which it will destroy the barricade and disperse into thin air. Note: If no barricade blocks the boulder, it will continue rolling until it reaches the end of the battlefield or hits a tower.
Four new towers, four brand new ways to fight my foes. Armor piercing, energy draining and anti-air capabilities? These were exceptional additions. Already I was beginning to form a clever combo with the Repulsion Tower and the Boulder Dispenser. But before I could start building, I’d need to look at the new golems. After all, Esha had a great deal of mana crystals lying around!
Gentleman's Wars 2: A Tower Defense LitRPG Series Page 4