War Aeternus 3: The Culling

by Charles Dean

  “Well, that’s understandable. Anyway, Miller is definitely alive, but he’ll be very weak after what happened. Miller and I aren’t exactly native to this world, but whereas my kind dies when we die, his kind just reappear at the lowest level,” Lee explained.

  “He might have spawned at Level 1, but he’s not there anymore, not after Miss Perkier-than-Your-Coffee Breasts over here spent an entire day force-feeding him experience. It would be a miracle if he is still under Level 10,” Jade said. “I mean, I got a level off her, and I was 35.”

  “Hey, don’t insult her priority-healing tickets,” Dave remarked with a gruff laugh. “She gets preferential treatment after every fight thanks to those gravity-defiant, bouncy boons, and I likely wouldn’t have made it this far without the encouragement they provide.”

  “Well, of course she’d get priority. If gravity can’t defeat her, how can anyone else expect to?” Jade snickered.

  “I like this blue-haired girl you picked up,” Dave said, nodding at Jade approvingly. “But, next time you disappear and show up again with a girl under your arm, can you make it one who is closer to my own age? I’m just saying, us old men need a damsel we can rescue too.”

  “Aww . . . wise, old, male support character . . .” Jade looked at Dave wistfully. “Your future is bleak. I feel bad.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m just saying that your death has been foretold by the gods of repetitive story writing,” Jade explained sadly, patting him on the shoulder in a comforting way. “I can already see it now: There will be a really tough fight, we’ll be hard-pressed, Lee will be just about to die, and then--BAM!--you narrowly rescue him from the clutches of death with a noble sacrifice. It’ll be wonderful; trust me. Your death will make us all cry and the game developers all cheer at a successfully-written story.”

  “Welp, that’s pleasantly creepy,” Dave remarked as he backpedaled away from Jade. “You know what? On that note, forget what I said. Don’t get me a girl. Every single one you bring back is crazy.”

  “Yeah, well. Introductions. Dave, Ling, this is Jade. She’s the Herald of Mary, Goddess of Blood, who is a really nice deity,” Lee added, thinking back on how the few interactions he had managed with Mary so far had been rather positive.

  “See, his tastes are even better than yours,” Mary chimed in, reminding Lee that Augustus was not the only one watching him now.

  “Too bad we can’t trade,” Augustus grumbled.

  “It really is too bad, old man,” Jade agreed, and Lee wondered if the comment was directed at Dave or Augustus.

  “Well, I hate to be the one to break up the reunion,” Brigid began dryly as she pushed her mount over beside him, “but if you want to save that town of yours, we need to get a move on.” The two soldiers she had been talking with had already disappeared, heading off toward Birnefeld, and Lee was sure they were making a beeline for it as fast as their feet would carry them. “I suggest we talk while we ride.”

  “Right. I’ll ride with you this time,” Jade said. “I got plenty of sleep last night, so I can steer the six-legged thingy for us.”

  Lee didn’t know why Jade was being helpful, but he was fine with it.

  “Do you know the way?” Ling asked, stopping Jade. “If not, please allow me. I am also well-rested.”

  “She can ride with me,” Brigid said, patting the seat in front of her. “I’ll guide you. I’m used to pulling morning to morning shifts, so I can still go.”

  “But can’t I just follow someone who knows the way? Why must-- Ugh. Don’t steal my march!” Jade grumbled all the while, yet she still climbed up on the seat in front of Brigid. “Go to sleep, old lady. I’ll get us there.”

  Dave hopped on Jade’s now-empty Krunklerump and said, “Alright, let’s go back to town and get us some beer. I’ve been sober too long to deal with all of this.”

  Lee mounted the Krunklerump behind Ling and agreed. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, but he didn’t realize how tired he was. Not more than ten minutes later, he was passed out against Ling’s back.

  -----

  It was dark by the time he woke up again, and his face was buried in a pool of drool that had accumulated right at the spot where his mouth rested against Ling’s back. Yup, my finest hour . . . Lee leaned back and wiped the drool off his face and then did his best to clean up Ling’s back with a cloth. “Sorry about that,” he said as he dabbed a cloth he had pulled out of his inventory against the spot.

  “You clearly needed your rest,” Ling sighed patiently.

  “It was so cute!” Jade called from behind him. “You even snored cutely. I definitely didn’t expect that level of adorable gruff protagonist sleep attack.”

  Lee frowned at Jade’s comment but ignored the obvious bait. Instead, he asked, “Are we almost there?”

  “Almost there? We just stopped. I thought that’s why you woke up,” Jade said matter-of-factly as if she were stating the obvious and then hopped off her Krunklerump. “Like, you know, a little kid in the back of a car who wakes up when it comes to a stop.”

  “We would have been here sooner,” Brigid began, “but I had to take measures to avoid Meadhbh’s army. I didn’t know where they would be, but I figured we could use a detour with the Krunklerump’s speed and ensure our paths didn’t cross and still make it in time.”

  “That’s good thinking. Last thing I’d want is to find myself face to face with Meadhbh and her army of Phoukas before we’ve had time to prepare something,” Lee said, studying the town in front of him.

  “I don’t remember Satterfield looking anything like this,” Ling added slowly. Each and every one of them was staring at the giant wooden gates that hadn’t been there the last time they had left the town--which, in truth, had only been a few days prior.

  “I made a few changes while we were gone. It’s a long story,” Lee said as he admired his handiwork; or, rather, the results from his Spirit Builder’s handiwork. The welcoming, scenic, countryside view of a double hamlet that he had come to recognize on each return trip to Satterfield had been replaced by a formidable-looking gate with towers flanking each side and high walls which encompassed the town. Their view of the hamlet and everything that lay beyond was effectively blocked the fifteen-foot-tall barriers that had been erected in their absence. Judging by their arc and placement, it seemed as if the town was exponentially larger than before.

  “We’ve been expecting your arrival,” Henslee’s voice called out as the gates swung open, revealing her figure waiting behind them. “Miller has already filled us in on everything, so we have your rooms ready for the night, but everyone is still too busy working to greet you. We don’t know how you did it, but we cannot thank you enough for these improvements.”

  “Thank you,” Lee said. “But where is Miller? And what are the others working on?”

  “Chopping down trees, digging five-foot-deep ditches around the walls and then filling them with spikes. Miller said that it’s exactly what you’d want done and that we should consider it as a direct order from you. He said our lives depended on it . . . Is he telling the truth?”

  Lee didn’t much care for his name being used to justify ordering people around, but he wholeheartedly agreed with the Firbolg’s intentions. With how weak these walls were--as the system had been so kind to point out--the ditches and pikes would act as an additional layer of security against a heavy charge.

  Ling directed their Krunklerump into the town and past Henslee, and Lee was instantly drawn to the polybolos that were mounted atop the fortified walls. The large, defensive ballistae were spaced out about every fifty feet or so, and they were quite intimidating. Yeah, those are definitely going to come in handy . . . The only problem that they needed to solve now was where to station people. Meadhbh was smart, so there was a good chance that she’d circle the town and attack from random directions. Her current angle of approach put her arriving at the main gate, and that was simply too direct. Her attack would be
too obvious, and it was right where Lee was likely to station the most people defensively. The more pressing problem was that he didn’t have nearly enough people to cover every direction at once. Even if he tried using scouts to predict where the attacks would come, there was a good chance that he wouldn’t be able to respond in time.

  “How much progress has he made?” Lee asked Henslee. “Has Miller finished a side yet?”

  She sighed, somewhat plaintively before she answered. “No, but he’s making quick progress. They’ve almost completed a quarter of the wall. I honestly can't understand why you made the town walls so large. If they didn’t cover so much area, the men would be so much closer to being finished. Not that I’m questioning Augustus!” she added hastily. “I’m sure he knows best. I’m just . . . Is our town really going to be this large one day?”

  Lee turned and looked back at the rest of the town, taking it all in. There was a capped-off water pipe from his newly-created water reserve jutting from the ground, and it was about the best indicator of where a house should be built that he had ever seen. And there were dozens and dozens just like it that he could see from where he sat atop his mount. It appeared as if a construction crew had assembled the town and laid the foundations for expansions but only built 10% of the houses and buildings it could actually contain before quitting and moving on to a new project. Surprisingly, he could pick out additional spaces that were intended for other improvements, and there was even a section of land with no visible piping that Lee assumed would eventually become a park or some structure that didn’t need plumbing. The scope and scale of what the hamlet would eventually grow to become was magnificent, and now that he was finally able to see it for himself, he was fully able to appreciate exactly where all of the money he had spent with the system had been used.

  “Yeah,” Lee nodded. “Satterfield will be the holy capital of Augustus one day. It has to grow.”

  Henslee seemed inspired by those words, and a light seemed to push the doubt out of her eyes. She visibly brightened and perked up at his prediction, rolling her shoulders back and holding her head a little higher. “That’s exactly what I guessed. It will be amazing, which is why Augustus will take extra care of us. I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for the city. I thought that you would forget us when you started your hunt for other Heralds, but I see now that I was foolish to have ever doubted you. I will never make that mistake again.” She tightly clutched her hands together in front of her chest as if she were making a solemn vow.

  “Wow,” Jade said from the side. “That’s some dedication. You got real followers here. What did you bribe them with?”

  “Beer and bacon if it’s the same as Kirshtein,” David answered as he hopped down off the mount. “Although, I seriously doubt that I would be able to enjoy either after that ride. I understand now why the cavalrymen of Kirshtein are not known for having kids.”

  “I don’t think we’ll have time for either,” Lee answered, redirecting the conversation before it could get any further off topic. “We need to get to Miller and help him with digging the trenches. “Can you lead the way, Henslee?”

  “Of course,” she answered, swiftly dropping her hands and darting ahead of the group. “Right this way.”

  “Seriously?” Jade groaned. “Do I have to help with digging? No, that just doesn’t work for me at all. I’m a terrible digger. Can I do something else?”

  “Can you store bodies in your inventory for later?” Lee asked. “For your golem to use?”.

  “No, they have to be fresh kills. They don’t count if I throw them in an inventory,” Jade answered quickly. “Believe me, that was one of the first things I tried. I wanted to build up a huge stockpile of bodies to use, but even bathing in enough blood to double as the young blonde foreigner in a seinen, I still wasn’t able to preserve the bodies long enough to be used again. Nothing really rots away in the inventory, but stored bodies still won’t work for the golem. I don’t know why.”

  “I see,” Lee said. “Actually, you guys help Miller out--”

  “Nah,” Jade interrupted. “They can do that. I’m going to go kill stuff and sleep until the fight starts. Gotta be at my best, and I want to see if I can’t get another level. Not to mention, are we really going to be the best people for digging ditches? There has to be like a hundred-plus people in this town. Are you’re sure our time wouldn’t be better spent making sure we’re prepped? It’s not like these NPCs are going to be a high-enough level to be very useful against anything other than the weakest of the Phoukas.”

  Lee blinked. He hadn’t thought about it like that, but she was dead right. Miller was a low level at the moment, but he, Ling, Dave, Jade and Brigid were all at comparatively high levels. Jade was spot-on: their time would be better used doing something else.

  “Fair point. Okay, then. Jade, Ling, you two go have fun leveling. Brigid, you do whatever it is you feel will best prepare you for the fight. Dave, can I ask a favor of you then?”

  “No problem,” the old man grumbled. “Just so long as it doesn’t involve getting on another one of those Krunklerumps. I don’t think I could survive another day on the back of one of them.”

  “Fair enough. What I’m going to need is simple. You remember how you helped me in the colosseum?” Lee asked.

  “Yeah, it was easy enough,” Dave said with a curt and knowing nod. “Knock stuff down; let you finish it off.”

  “Go find someone in the village, have that person form a group, and then use him to level the rest of them,” Lee instructed. “I need them in the best fighting shape they can be in before the battle.”

  Dave shrugged, swung his flail once as if testing how limber he was and then nodded appreciatively as if he were satisfied with the result. “Yup. Easy enough. Don’t get yourself beat up again before we meet up this time.”

  “That seems easy,” Lee answered. Then, thinking back to the fight that had left him on death’s door, he remembered something he desperately needed to do: craft. His shield had been shattered during his last encounter with Meadhbh, and his sword had proven to be relatively useless against her. Without the means to either attack or defend himself, he didn’t have any hope of defeating her. She came with natural armor, natural weapons and a natural size and speed advantage. Fighting her would be just like an unarmed man fighting a tiger back home: without the proper weapons, there just wasn’t a chance in hell the man would win.

  Thankfully, Lee was confident that he could craft better gear than what he had been using so far. His skills were peerless compared to the blacksmiths he had met in Satterfield, and he had improved by leaps and bounds since he began crafting glass weapons for use in the arena.

  Actually, speaking of crafting, I should have enough time for another civic project too, Lee thought, and then, looking at his mana bar, decided against it. No, I need it for Spirit Smithing. One of the things that had plagued him was the annoyingly-high mana cost associated with his skill. Since his Spirit Smithing was currently only Initiate Level 9, that meant he could only shape 1,551 grams of metal at most with his current mana. That amount would inevitably go up as his skill leveled, but making progress was painstakingly slow.

  He had just woken up after sleeping the entire day, he hadn’t started a civic project yet, and he still had a full mana bar. So, if he was ever going to try crafting a sword, this was about as perfect of an opportunity as he was ever going to get. The average longsword was between 1,200 and 1,600 grams, with some of the larger war swords weighing over 1,800 grams, but he didn’t need one that big. Instead, he’d make one that was exactly 1,551 grams, using every point of mana he had, and then he’d look into civic projects. As the others all left to prepare for the fight in their own way, Lee went off to a nearby shop with a workspace to forge his blade.

  Lee pulled out all the iron that he still had on him. His inventory was still flush and overstocked with ingredients because of the musical machine he had been making, which was actually pretty close
to completion now. Somewhat surprisingly, steel wasn’t actually an unknown metal in this empire. In fact, there was a ton of it available--if you could afford it. The smelting process was complicated, so rather than bothering with that, Lee bought a lot of coal and planned to process and purify it himself. Lee broke open the Book of Augustus and looked through the options presented. Okay, this one should give me exactly what I need, Lee decided, picking out one of the purification methods for the two types of coal he wanted to use and then activating the book’s autocomplete to finish the function.

  He then used the book to find a set of instructions for making steel. There were actually a few sets of instructions, but they each required roughly the same level of Spirit Smithing or Metal Working. The methods would have required him to have Novice Level 5 Metal Working if it weren't for the fact that he already met the alternate requirement of Initiate Level 4 Spirit Smithing. Clearly, Metal Working was what people who didn’t have his divine powers used to make these items. Thinking about it, he closed and reopened the book while thinking about glass products and found that Glass Smithing was an equivalent to the normal Glass Blowing skill. Huh, does that mean that Carpentry and the others still might have a divine-power-based equivalent? Laying aside that tangent, he created his steel using Spirit Smithing. He was able to run through the entire process with the added iron and make over 4 kgs of steel using the book.

  Lee couldn’t help but be impressed with the quality of the steel when he was finished. The metals that the kingdom produced weren’t crude, but they also had imperfections in them. The ones he had produced with the Book of Augustus were flawless. The only thing he was curious about was the durability. Since he had employed Spirit Smithing, the steel’s strength should have improved by 22.5% due to the bonus the skill gave. He wasn’t sure if this was the case though. It was possible that the bonuses stacked. That seemed too broken to be possible, but Lee still hoped it was the case.