“In the mountains in the north of the island there are level 100 mobs,” Irita told me. “The kobolds lost two while hunting for mountain boars. Then the troggs came and clobbered both the boars and a hairy spider that came out of nowhere. Although the spider did still manage to bite off a trogg’s leg. While he was being healed, a giant eagle carried off a kobold cub hanging around nearby. The scream brought Morena’s cultists out. They performed a search ritual, determined the cub’s location and sent off a rescue party. I’ll keep you up to date.”
“Stephanie has taken over the Pig and Whistle, I transferred control to her,” Crawler said. “I refused our share and she agreed to feed the clan workers for free.”
“How’s she supposed to make money?” Bomber asked in confusion.
“I said feed, not water. She’ll make so much money from alcohol that she’ll get to be a citizen. Plus, she’ll make work for our hunting and gathering parties. She’ll need a lot of meat — we have a ton of NPCs too, remember. At least her craft will level up well.”
“All our workers will have plenty of room to grow now,” Irita said. “Fishing, herbalism, woodcutting, construction, hunting, cooking… People in this town can do whatever they want.”
“What about our farm? We need to feed my pets too!”
“We need a high-level farmer. I’ll ask the workers who wants to do it. They have a limitation, no more than a dozen animals per farm at rank zero, so we’ll need a few farmers.”
“Or we could just hire a grand master,” Crawler suggested. “We need to feed the guardians too, don’t forget. Flay and Nega cost more in alcohol, but the other two eat like…”
“Oh, that reminds me!” the girl cried. “Anf and Ripta really miss Crash and want to go visit him in the desert. Can anyone take them there?”
“How did you understand them?” I asked in surprise. “I thought our master of tongues was off on a honeymoon with Nega. Well… I mean… Looking for a mortal who sold his soul.”
My friends nodded. I had told them about the Inferno.
“Ripta already speaks the common tongue pretty well,” the girl answered. “You can make out what he means if you listen close. So you’re going to let them go?”
“Both of them? Who will protect the miners from mobs then?”
“I will,” Bomber volunteered. “I’ll take the guardians to the temple too.”
“By the way, how’s that kraken of yours?”
“Same as usual,” the warrior waved a hand. “Never stops eating. I need to get started on his quest, but it’s hard to find the time. Once you and Infect are off at the Games, I’ll get to it then. Do you know when Flay and Nega will be back? We could sure use their help on Mengoza.”
I shook my head. Nega hadn’t contacted me, but I saw in the clan tab that they were in Darant.
“About Mengoza. We’re going to put a full-fledged fort there,” the gnome informed us. “So that the miners don’t have to go from island to island. We’ll send all the newcomers there, no point them hanging around here. Can keep an eye on them that way. And another thing, Scyth — we need a fly-by around the islands to find ore deposits. We’ll have so many hands soon that there won’t be enough work to go round.”
“You need me to do it? That’s all I needed. The archipelago is huge. It’ll take me a month to look round all of it.”
“Nah, we can handle it,” Crawler. “Just keeping you up to speed. Cali Bottom is home to three million people, and a third of them work in Dis. You could have warned us before you opened up hiring…”
“Can we even bring that many people into the clan?”
“We can add as many clan members as we want,” the mage sighed. “But not followers of the Sleepers. What’s your limit on that now?”
“Oh, that reminds me!”
I placed my hand on Irita’s next to me and ordained her as a priestess of the Sleeping Gods. Her eyes widened and she gasped as her stats skyrocketed.
“There. That’s better! I need to make Gyula a priest too.”
“Us too, while you’re at it!” Crawler demanded.
Bomber whispered something into his comm amulet, then turned to me.
“Infect is on his way. Along with Gyula. They’ve both followed the Sleepers around for long enough!”
The builder’s name reminded me of what Trixie had done. We discussed our opinions on the poor little guy, sympathizing with him and at the same time understanding that his ignorance could have killed us. A few minutes later, the bard and the builder swept into the room, nearly knocking over Aunt Stephanie. Patrick was holding her by the arm and managed to pull her out of the way just in time. The couple went to meet their colleague Grand Master Olivier, then sat down at a table in the corner. I caught O’Grady’s eye and winked, and he nodded back to me.
I was starting to get the feeling that life had finally stopped revolving around just me — the castle, though only just built, was already beginning to take on a life of its own.
Four Touches of the Sleeping Gods later and Behemoth and Tiamat had four more priests. Unlike Irita, the newly minted priests felt no great effect — they were already among the first followers, which meant they got almost the full bonus from Unity as it was.
“The troggs are asking for help,” the builder said. “They want to occupy the caves in the mountains, build a settlement there. I don’t mind giving them some builders, but I need your go-ahead, Alex.”
“First the fort on Mengoza,” Crawler butted in. “Seriously, it’s more important. The troggs lived in the sewers for years, what’s another few days without special comforts?”
“Alright,” I agreed. “How’s your work crew doing, Gyula? You taken on more volunteers?”
“Sure have,” he sighed. “But they have a lot of levels to get. I think I’m going to have them build a road on Mengoza from the fort to the mine and the fishing jetty we’re going to build.”
We talked longer, but Gyula didn’t sit down and have lunch with us. Infect didn’t stick around long either, just grabbed a few plates and a bottle of wine, reclaimed his precious artifacts from Bomber, then took the builder to Mengoza. The archeologist was in a hurry, burning with the desire to find the last fragment of the diagram for the Sanctuary of the Departed before the Demonic Games.
After they left, I opened up the adepts tab in the interface. I didn’t have to read it out; the priests could see it too.
Priests (28/39): Patrick O’Grady, Manny, Tissa, Dekotra, Ranakotz, Grog’hyr, Ryg’har, Movarak, Ukavana, Sithanak, Yemi, Francesca, Babangida, Sarronos, Kromterokk, Kusalarix, Hinterleaf, Pecheneg, Horvac, Yary, Sayan, Cannibal, Hellfish, Irita, Crawler, Bomber, Infect, Gyula.
Adepts: 12036/28561.
My gaze froze on the name of my ex. It was high time I kicked her out, but… Damn, that would look so petty! Anyway, while she was still a follower of the Sleepers, Behemoth’s block against revealing our secrets was still active. Would it remain if I removed Tissa’s rank and follower status? Besides, she was still in the Awoken. I’ll decide when we get closer to her leaving the sandbox, I thought and went back to studying the numbers.
The number of adepts went up by a few as I watched. Must be the work of one of the priests. We needed a third temple, and soon!
“I wonder what the limit will be with three temples,” Bomber mused.
“Don’t you see the pattern?” Crawler chuckled. “One temple is a hundred and sixty-nine adepts. That’s thirteen times thirteen. Two temples is twenty-eight thousand five hundred and sixty-one adepts. That’s a hundred and sixty-nine multiplied by itself. Three temples…”
“I can’t multiply numbers that big in my head,” Bomber said.
“A little over eight hundred and fifteen million,” Irita said. “If you multiply the number of adepts by itself. But I think the formula might be different: it might be to multiply it not by itself, but by thirteen. And as many times as you have temples.”
“Around sixty million?” I guessed.
> “Sixty-two,” she nodded. “And change.”
“Three temples, millions of adepts…” Bomber scratched the back of his head. “With the Unity bonuses, we’ll be able to capture the whole Commonwealth on our own! But where do we find that many adepts?”
“That’s why the temple in the desert pissed off Nergal so bad. With three, the followers of the Sleepers will be so strong that everyone will abandon the other gods for us.” My mouth went dry and my voice hoarse as the possibilities opened up to me. I took a big gulp from my glass. “Isis’ Blessing has cooled down. Time for me to go to Terrastera.”
However, as I stood up from the table, I remembered something else I hadn’t told my friends yet.
“Another Threat wants into the fold. High potential, and seems a good guy…”
Chapter 29. Path of Spirit
CRAWLER HANDLED the question of Hiros. We decided that Hairo would meet with the ninja in a private room, talk to him and make his own decision as to whether he could be trusted. If it was a yes from Hairo, then Hiros would be taken to Cali Bottom and placed under a mental contract, and then Crawler would ordain him to the Sleepers and take him to Kharinza. That was, of course, only if the man accepted our conditions. All I had to do was convey them to Hiros, and if he agreed, set him up a meeting with Crawler in a special room at the ASS.
I wrote to Hiros right away, then remembered another promise I’d made. Big Po had held up his end of the deal, but I’d totally forgotten about him. Bomber got along well with Wesley, so he volunteered to go to Tristad to, as he put it, ‘bring that fatty into the clan and make him an adept, and scare the hell out of some noobs in the sandbox while I’m at it.’ To make sure he could, the warrior tried to teleport through the depths to the sandbox, and it worked. The ‘junior’ debuff took down health faster than the frost on Holdest, but Bomb would have time to make Poly… um… Polydeuces into a priest.
These issues decided, I went off to my room to fetch my artifact. The room was now called ‘Scyth’s Chambers,’ but I renamed it to ‘Scyth’s Place.’ ‘Chambers’ was a little high and mighty for me.
The apartment was impressive. It obviously unfolded into a separate dimension, because it was bigger than the Pig and Whistle, even its new version. This was the highest possible upgrade for a private room, costing a million and a half gold. ‘Royal’ standard. Twelve rooms, each with a Ball of Egeria, the Dis version of three-dimensional television. In the center of the hall, a pool with its own small waterfall cast reflected light up to the ceiling. The pool was surrounded by tropical trees, as if a small forest lake had been magically transported there.
In search of my personal chest, I looked into one of the bedrooms and saw a bed bigger than my room in my parents’ apartment. The fluffy pillows beckoned to me, but I suppressed a yawn and silently closed the door. There’ll be time to relax, I thought, and blushed imagining exactly how one well one could relax on that bed.
I blushed even more when Gruzelix, one of the bosses of the haulers’ guild, chose that moment to call me.
He stuck his head through the portal window, looked around in a businesslike manner. “Hey, you’ve been busy, kid! Great digs! They are yours, right?”
“Thanks to Madame Kusalarix. Any news?”
“Yeah, but not good,” Gruzelix darkened. “It’s about your order to deliver a portal beacon to the South Pole. We lost four giants…”
“How?” I interrupted him.
“Good question, we asked it too. The first three disappeared without a trace, the fourth managed to activate a portal and leave. Before he turned into one of the living dead and tore down the guild building, he said he was attacked by Eileen. The Supreme Legate of the Destroying Plague, as far as I know. In light of what happened, the haulers’ guild regrets to inform you that we cannot complete your order. We’re breaking contract. The penalty fee will be transferred to your personal account at Disgardium Bank. We offer our humblest apologies, Mr. Scyth.” The goblin wiped away a tear. “I can’t send our giants to die. Especially not like that!”
I accepted his apologies, of course, and expressed my sympathies. The giants were gentle creatures who wouldn’t hurt a fly. And the race itself was dwindling; the loss of each was a heavy blow not only to the guild, but to the entire Goblin League as protector of the giants.
There was still something left before I could go to Terrastera. Before I set foot on enemy ground, I had to figure out the moves I’d learned from Oyama, understand how they worked and how quickly my spirit would restore. Without finding that out, it would be hard to build strategy to battle the barakatas.
I opened the description of my combat skill:
Unarmed Combat level 1
Rank: II.
Damage dealt without a weapon increased by 5100%. Attack accuracy increased by 505%.
Path of Justice (completed): You completely ignore penalties in battle against enemies above your level.
Path of Spirit: unlimited growth, for the sentient spirit knows no bounds!
Spirit: 100.
Spirit restoration rate: 2 per second.
Beast protector: owl (doubles your spirit restoration rate).
Patron element: air (combat abilities that depend on the element of air are far more deadly when you use them).
Focusing on my spirit restoration rate, I brought up the calculation formula: it restored as many spirit points per second as my level of Path of Spirit. In my case, that was one. My protector-owl doubled that value.
Next I studied the techniques:
Spirit-Crushing Hammerfist of Justice level 1
Your fist turns into a sledgehammer. Deals 6100% of standard damage.
Ignores armor: 100%.
Cost to use: 20 spirit to activate and an additional 10 spirit for each yard of distance to the target.
Spirit-Stunning Kick of Justice level 1
A simple strike, but no less powerful for it. Deals 5100% of standard damage. Has a 60% chance to stun the enemy for 3 seconds.
Ignores armor: 99%.
Cost to use: 30 spirit to activate and an additional 15 spirit for each yard of distance to the target.
Spirit Fast Combo level 1
A combat technique that combines striking abilities into an uninterrupted sequence of attacks.
Slots in sequence: 33.
Cost to use: 100 spirit to activate and an additional 50 spirit for each yard of distance to the target.
Storm Fists level 1
Passive ability of the air element.
Your standard strikes gain power, transforming into Hammerfists at current grade of progress.
This move costs no spirit, but cannot be used at range.
The ability levels were back at 1. Probably because now they were spirit-based, which meant they were new.
The main thing was that the damage was the same as at level 100 of the first rank. I already knew what to base my grinding on: striking a balance between kiting the cockroaches and still dealing decent damage from range. I could aggro them with Sleeping Vindication explosions.
I remade my Combo, filling all the slots with good old Hammerfists and Kicks. Damn, it’d be nice to get some cleave damage — the ability to hit several targets at once.
Next I moved onto the mantras, which had to be learned, but I had no trouble with that. The text was simple:
Restoration Mantra: “Spirit fills me!”
Restores your spirit by 30% for 3 seconds.
You can have no more than one mantra per rank of Unarmed Combat (currently available: 3).
Healing Mantra: “Life fills me!”
Restores your spirit by 30% for 3 seconds.
You can have no more than one mantra per rank of Unarmed Combat (currently available: 3).
Retribution Mantra: “Taste your own rage!”
Returns 30% of damage you take to the enemy for 3 seconds.
You can have no more than one mantra per rank of Unarmed Combat (currently available: 3).
Ma
ntras couldn’t be used more than once per minute — that was a cooldown they all shared. In addition, each mantra could be used only once per battle.
I repeated the mantras several times, making sure that I’d memorized them by heart. All I had to do was find that damn personal chest, pick up Isis’ Blessing and jump to Terrastera.
I searched for five minutes before I realized my mistake. I was looking for the chest from the cheap version of the private room. It might look different in these ‘Royal’ chambers. On the writing table in the lounge, I found a fresh interior design catalog. I flicked through to the right page and then clapped a hand to my forehead. Of course! The chest had turned into a secret safe vault with access from the bedroom. To open it, I had to move two paintings hanging opposite each other. I could configure the method for opening it separately.
Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series Page 30