Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t see the interest in Neut’s eyes. This time there would be a new contender in Emerilia.
Part 2
Boran-al
Chapter 1: Silver
Boran-al looked over Emerilia, specifically a place between the Opheir city Omal and the Mithsia Mountains and Kufo’tel forest, just a few kilometers from the small trading outpost Cliff-Hill.
Through the forest, bands of travelers rushed toward the city and the Dark Citadel that had been the topic of talk for all of the travelers.
Boran-al smiled and watched the Dwarven army marching for the outpost, their Elven rangers providing scouting. As they moved, they killed wandering mobs.
The Earth Lord had indeed sided with the Dark Lord. His mobs and creatures were working to impede those who wished to wage war on Boran-al’s altar.
He smirked, closing his eyes and feeling the dark energy that was building in his altar. His cultists had done him proud. Their stalwart efforts would soon pay off.
He didn’t know why the Dark Lord wanted them to control this area. He did know that the Dark Lord had given him a boon that few others were allowed.
He should have been killed when the plan failed initially. Yet the Dark Lord and his later incarnations had let the matter slide.
Boran-al was eternally grateful that the Dark Lord had allowed him to live this long in order to see his plan come to fruition.
He looked at the travelers and the People of Emerilia. They were a powerful force. A cold smile crossed his perfect features, purple eyes shining in excitement and bloodlust.
With their lives, then I will show the Dark Lord that his power was not misplaced. I will show him the abilities of my mages. The name of Boran-al will be feared across the lands.
He had waited decades; he could wait a few more months as his cultists grew in strength and prepared for their citadel to once again rise from their earthen tomb.
Six more months, in the month of March, Boran-al’s cultists would rise.
***
Dave had finished his morning training with the Dwarven army. There were some two hundred Dwarven warriors in Cliff-Hill now.
Houses were being built at a furious pace. Dwarven mages and engineers were clearing and moving along the road to Omal. The idea was to build a road directly to the Dark Citadel.
At a Dwarven war march, it would take just a few hours to reach the place, instead of half a day.
A larger force of four thousand, eight hundred Dwarves and nearly a thousand Elven rangers were marching from Mithsia and Kufo’tel. It had taken time for the force’s supply route to be completed.
The road from Mithsia and Kufo’tel was being built at a furious pace ahead of the combined army.
Dave was hosting a Dwarven warband, their Elven ranger and his manager of the outpost’s kilns in his home.
Beside it, his smithy raged through the day and night. Another smithy had been added onto it and a well-worn path went from the site to the city center.
Dave rubbed his shoulders. It had been two months since they’d found the Dark Citadel.
Lox’s warband was washing up before going on patrol and checking their gear.
Wis’Zel had taken over managing the kilns Dave had created in order to make his own home. Dave wanted to focus on training and Wis’Zel loved the view from his home and loved to paint between firing bricks and tiles. Now the kilns had grown from small simple chimneys to two buildings half the size of Dave’s smithy. Dave had used and abused the Internet to make the best kilns. A team of twenty worked under Wis’Zel. Dave had been scared that the artistic Elf would leave the kilns in search of a more relaxed job. Instead, he’d cracked his knuckles, closed his stand and got to work.
Dave waved to Wis’Zel as he came out of the kilns, wiping his sweaty brow.
Wis’Zel gave him a smile and a wave back.
“You going to dawdle all day! We’ve got nails to make, boy!”
Dave turned to see a grumpy-looking dwarf at the entrance to the smithy. Here I was thinking that I owned the smithy.
“Coming, Mister Kol.” Dave headed over.
Kol snorted.
If he still had eyes, Dave wouldn’t doubt the old man would have rolled them. Dave grinned. Kol was a hard taskmaster but he was fair and a brilliant teacher.
“Gurren, you look after yourself, my boy,” Kol said, some of his hardened exterior opening as he talked to his grandson.
“Yes, Grandfather,” Gurren said, a flash of a smile under his Dwarven beard.
“Come on, you lazy lot!” Lox said, talking to his four shield bearers who made up his warband.
Dave waved good-bye to them. They were all close friends to him. They’d been in quite a few hairy situations together.
They grunted or waved back, heading through the small copse of trees that backed the kiln and separated Dave’s home from the main road.
Dave headed into the smithy. Heat from furnaces and magical torches blasted him. To the untrained eye, the smithy looked like chaos.
Dave weaved through it with practiced ease. He had lived and breathed in this forge for months. In that time, he’d introduced the idea of a production line. The Dwarves had grumbled about it but after a month, their production had skyrocketed. Dwarves were good at working in teams. Turning the smithy into a factory had been easier than Dave dared hope.
He pulled on his apron and gear.
“Follow me, boy,” Kol said.
Dave did as he was told, moving from the part of the smithy that was making nails to keep up with the needs of Cliff-Hill and into the area where Dwarves were working on the Dwarven army and travelers’ gear.
Dave didn’t need to look at the pieces to know which ones were enchanted or not. He constantly used a spell called Touch of the Land. It showed him not only what was around him, but what it was made up of.
“What do you think of this?” Kol pointed to a set of finely crafted armor in a pile of items to be worked on.
“Got a nasty dent right in the Magical Circuitry, won’t function properly. Also, the shoulders are messed up. Seems someone likes tackling boulders.” Dave shook his head.
Just months ago, he would have needed to close his eyes to search through the armor for its faults. Under Kol’s tutelage, he knew the faults and strengths of a piece without conscious thought. He remembered how he’d cut down a tree in three powerful strikes as he was able to enhance the weaknesses of the tree.
“Good. Now fix it,” Kol said.
“It’s made out of silver.” Dave looked to Kol. He’d only graduated to steel a little while ago.
“By the stones, there is something rattling around in your head!” Kol said. “I need more people capable of working with silver and ebony.”
“Silver as it is an inherent weakness of the undead; ebony as it is the easiest to enchant,” Dave said.
“Not just a dumb hick in a shack.”
Dave sighed and smiled at Kol’s antics.
“Don’t use up all the oxygen there—some of us are actually worth it! Now git this damn cuirass fixed and every other silver item we’ve got. You don’t leave until it’s all fixed!” Kol moved to his own anvil, which was unused by any other. On it, there were parts of greaves; the metal was a dull gray from decades of use. It gave off a faint blue hue, marking it as Mithril.
A number of the Dwarves glanced at the metal.
Mithril was not only rare but the strongest material known to Emerilia. It was also highly conductive to enchantments. A simple enchantment would not just stay the same. As the wearer used it longer and allowed their magic to bleed into it, then their enchantments would grow in strength.
Dave looked away from the famed armor and back to his own silver cuirass. He had a long way to go and he was happy to have reached the level needed to form silver armor.
Malachite was the next type of armor, which was stronger and harder to form. Only the Elves knew how to do it and Dave didn’t have the time to swi
tch masters. Gold was good for making runes and Magical Circuits but it was terrible for armor or anything practical.
Dave grinned as he pulled the cuirass apart. If Kol believed he was ready for it, the next he would be taught would be ebony armor.
Ebony was as dark as night and one of the weaker metals. Yet its armor and weapons were famed across Emerilia. Ebony was an enchanter’s dream. It evolved like Mithril armor and was three times more conductive. Ebony armor crafted by master smiths and enchanters was stronger than an expert’s best Mithril armor. They boasted enchantments like magical shield and magical defenses as well as stat boosts.
Dave finished pulling apart the silver armor. He had a long way to go until he was capable of even touching ebony armor. He identified the silver pieces on the worktable without looking at it.
“It’s going to be a long ass day.” He put some steel slivers into the forge to heat them up.
He tapped out the dent that was messing up the Magical Circuits and etched the markings back into the armor with a chisel. He could do it with magic but Kol had made it clear that later, when he was a master mage, he could. Till then, he would learn the forms through actions.
Dave went through the armor and blades. In the smithy, he forgot about the oncoming war and his other worries.
It was just him and his work.
Chapter 2: Impatience
Cassie looked at the outpost Cliff-Hill.
She and her party were riding their steeds, taking their time as people looked at the magical beasts that they had conjured or owned. She wore her ebony and gold encrusted armor with pride. It had taken her months to just track down where all the pieces for the armor were. It had taken even longer to get to a high enough rank with herself and her guild to secure it.
A messenger from the Lady of Light had shown its blessing on her guild, most of them being able to find something of high quality and power.
They were the Golden Sabres. The guild had paired with the Stone Raiders to open the portal to Alturaran. The loot and power that had come with claiming the new portal had elevated both guilds into the stratosphere.
They had continued to look for more portals and had created encampments and teams on the other side of the portal. It took coordination, but they had accepted the challenge with vigor.
She had received a message from her old friend, Jules. Long ago, they had been part of the same party looking to get gear and sell it to live. Cassie had been given an offer to game for a team. Jules had continued to grind out gear to support herself and pay her medical bills. Cassie was sour that she had been asked but Jules hadn’t because of her disability. She’d taken the job as she needed to support herself; Jules had supported her and been happy for her. Cassie owed the other woman a great debt.
When she had sent her a PM with what she had found in the forest outside of Omal, Cassie couldn’t believe it. No one had found a citadel yet: a bastion of power that fed the agents of the six Affinities, channeling power into their Affinities leaders.
The skeleton cultist at the front door to the enclosed citadel had been level 130. Cassie was only level 87, one of the highest in Emerilia.
A smile passed over her face as she saw three people moving down the road to greet her party. She dismissed her bear; it turned into smoke as she dropped to the ground.
“Jules, Esa!” Cassie’s human features broke into a smile.
“Still going with the white hair, I see.” Jules hugged Cassie.
“Ahh, I like it.” Cassie beamed.
“Good to see you again,” Esa said.
“You, too, Esa. We’ll have to get a drink sometime soon,” Cassie said.
Esa’s solemn face cracked into a smile.
“You two love your drinking,” Jules chided.
“And you love making fun of our drinking.” Esa’s hand entwined in Jules’s.
They were in-game lovers. They’d never met in real life but their relationship was solid. Esa had been more than a bit lewd the last time they’d drank in Omal together. It seemed that they were both taking full advantage of the VR’s immersive environment.
“You must be Mikal. Heard that you’re rather deft with a blade,” Cassie said.
“I have my moments,” the man said, a blade simply appearing in his hand as he cleaned his nails.
Cassie’s brow creased at the casual display of power. She squinted and checked his level again. Only 27 and he can make a blade appear as if by magic? I haven’t seen anyone do that.
“This is a quaint little village. How did you end up here?” Cassie asked, keeping half an eye on Mikal.
“That would be because of Dave,” Jules said.
“Oh?” Cassie said.
“Guildmaster, we will head to the camp,” Darvos, her second, said, knowing she could be awhile.
“Very well. I will catch up.” She waved them on. The column, forty of her highest-leveled guild members—all of them above level 60—moved forward. Their armor and steeds gleamed in the sunlight. They were a sight to behold.
“I will see the two of you later.” Mikal took off at a run, his speed surprising Cassie as he headed for the Elven camp located closer to the defensive wall, where a number of trees still remained.
“Is he really level 27?” Cassie asked, as they slowly made their way to the village.
“He’s an Evolution fighter. He doesn’t use the fighting command system; he trains his body and his mind to fight. Dave showed us,” Jules said.
“Who is this Dave?” Cassie asked.
“He’s a Player, we think.” Jules and Esa shared a look.
“You think?” Cassie asked.
“He’s level 3. We’ve never seen him log off, yet he is stronger than all of us. He treats the villagers with respect and is taught by them. We were as well…” Jules trailed off.
“Until we opened the door sealing the portal in.” Esa’s voice was harsh.
“Oh?” Cassie said, encouraging them to continue.
“We didn’t know what the door was and Esa accepted the quest without thinking about it. We weakened the defenses of the prison and now they are slowly coming apart as the citadel gains power and breaks free of its bindings.” Jules winced.
“They’re only NPCs.” Cassie shrugged.
“Have you ever really interacted with them?” Esa asked.
Cassie had to think about it for a moment.
“Not really, I don’t think.” Cassie shrugged.
“Well, I would start by going to talk with Wender. He’s in charge of the Dwarven warbands here. Talk to him like you would with us. You might be surprised. Whoever made this coding was smart—NPCs don’t come back from the dead here. You kill them, they’re gone. Mobs will come back and dungeons, but not NPCs or sentients,” Jules said.
“So?” Cassie asked. She noticed Jules and Esa tense at that.
“He and the NPCs know that we don’t care. Think if you had people ten times more powerful than you running around and not caring who they killed?” Jules said.
Cassie shrugged. It didn’t matter much to her what some NPCs thought.
“You shrug, but some of the Dwarven warbands are hundreds of years old. Mikal went and looked at them. They have formations made up of level 80s,” Esa said.
Cassie’s impeccable eyebrow rose. She had never seen those kinds of levels outside of a city center. She was more powerful than a level 80 by leagues. Once those Dwarves were in protected cities that were allied to them, they’d be powerful—powerful indeed.
“So where is this Dave?” Cassie asked.
“Down in his smithy.” Jules pointed to the smithy that had smoke pouring from its working furnaces.
“You’ll have to introduce us,” Cassie said, interested by the man who had got weaved into the NPC’s tale.
Weird, really. They’re just ones and zeroes but here he is, giving a rat’s ass. She looked away from the smithy. She’d see whether Jules was right about the man’s power.
***
Dave stomped to the back of his home. He covered a yawn as he waved at the people working at the kiln. He pulled off his shirt. The late night’s air cooled his sweat as he used his shirt to get rid of the majority of grime on his body.
With the spell Touch of the Land, he was able to see everything within a kilometer and a half, no matter what was around him. It extended into the ground and even behind him.
One moment, he could sense the air patterns on his deck; another, it seemed as if they had disappeared. It felt as though there was an annulment on all Affinities and power within just a few square meters.
The familiar smell confirmed Dave’s initial thoughts.
He sighed but under his groomed beard, he couldn’t hide the slight grin or the twinkle in his eye.
“You need to invent a damn shower,” Bob said.
Dave closed his eyes for a second. A showerhead appeared above Bob and water fell from it.
“Fuck, that’s cold!” Bob yelled, leaping from his seat.
Dave laughed as the shower head disappeared.
Bob muttered about damn mortals as thin wisps of smoke rose from his clothes.
“You look like a demon that just got a bottle of holy water to the face.” Dave took his seat, a nice chilled beer appearing in his hand.
Dave had needed a lot of sleep at the beginning of the game, six hours a night like clockwork. As his Endurance had increased, the amount he needed to sleep decreased. Now, he barely needed four hours. So, Bob made his nightly visits.
“I see that you’re working with silver.” Bob bestowed a smile on Dave.
“Thank you.” Dave conjured up a single malt Scotch for Bob.
Bob’s gnome features, with his large nose and unibrow, creased in Delight as he took the tumbler of liquor, sniffing it and taking a tasting sip. Bob let out a sigh.
The Trapped Mind Project (Emerilia Book 1) Page 25