by Aleron Kong
Richter shook his head and shouted after him, “Oh, don’t worry. I can do the rest on my own!”
“Yes, my lord,” came a distant reply.
Richter shook his head again and then picked up an empty pouch. He filled it with five hundred gold and then moved on to the next. He filled several more bags, stacking each on the shelves. He left himself with about two hundred gold in his own Bag of Holding. He didn’t know what he’d be spending it on, but he figured to use condom wisdom. Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
Then he started stacking all of the jewelry on a different shelf. He decided to keep several pieces from the Tefonim vault in his Bag in the end, though. None was enchanted, but he hoped that he could use the pieces to trade with Hafiz’s sons. After that, he carefully removed the large alchemical jugs that he had filled with the Waters of Clarity. Each jug held hundreds of doses, and he had eighteen in total. Every jug was placed carefully on the shelves. If any spilled, it would literally be pouring hundreds of gold down the drain.
When he was finally done, he walked to the middle of the room and looked at the growing wealth of his people. Richter chuckled slightly in greedy pleasure and then walked out of the room. A faint boom echoed as the treasury door closed itself, and he heard the sound of the door’s many bolts sliding into place. He walked over to Randolphus’s office and saw the chamberlain poring over the silver coins.
The chamberlain was bent over his desk, examining each silver with a furious concentration. A growing pile of silver coins was over to one side, apparently having already been ruled out, but seven coins were laid out singly in front of him. He kept reaching into the sack, pulling out another silver, examining it quickly, then placing it to the side. As Richter watched, though, the chamberlain examined one and exclaimed delightedly and placed it next to the other seven that had been set aside.
“Found something interesting?” Richter asked.
“My lord! This is miraculous. This coin is the 22nd Khan, Khan’Padir, and this one! This coin shows the 17th Khan, Khan’Nol! It is rumored that the King of Yves has these two coins, but you’ll not find them anywhere else in the kingdom. The fact that you have these, not to mention the other Dark Khans that I have already found, is amazing.”
Randolphus went back to feverishly searching through the sack. Richter smiled to see the usually stately and mature man acting with such childish enthusiasm. He walked over and picked up one of the coins his chamberlain had set aside. A prompt immediately filled his vision.
You have been offered a Quest: Reunite the Dark Khans.
Twenty-Five Rulers of darkness and might.
One Thousand years of rule out of sight.
What once was here, shall rise again.
Reunite the Dark Khans, when you wish to begin.
Will you find and reunite the visages of all 25 Dark Khans? Yes or No? Reward: The power of a Khan. You have found 1 of 25 coins.
Richter blinked away the notification. He looked at Randolphus in surprise. “I just got a quest when I touched the coin.”
“Yes,” Randolphus said distractedly without looking up. “The quest to reunite the Dark Khans.” He spoke as if he were discussing common knowledge.
“So you mean everyone who touches one of these coins gets this quest?”
Randolphus looked up. “Yes, my lord. Did I not mention that while we were in the treasury?”
“Uhhhh, no. Ya didn’t, Randy. Well, what is ‘the power of a Khan’?”
“No one knows, my lord. Some have thought it will unlock a mighty treasure. Others believe it will allow you to control a kobold army. One theory states it will teach one of their lost secrets—how to construct an onyx golem, a black highway, or possibly even planar magic.”
Questions were swirling around Richter’s head, and they multiplied with every word that his chamberlain said. “I thought they were just coins. So no one has ever completed this quest?”
“If they have, it has not become publicly known, my lord.”
“Why would getting some coins together do anything?” Richter asked. He looked at the coin in his hand a bit more closely, but it just seemed like a simple silver disc.
“I do not have a complete answer for you, my lord, but I do know that coins with the likeness of a Dark Khan emit a tiny amount of magic. This has been clearly proven by magical scholars. It is said that the coins were given as marks of favor during the reign of each Khan. The leading theory is that the Khans were keepers of a secret that they encoded into the coins. They form a key of sorts. Each Khan added to the magic.”
“So for the first Khan, you only needed one coin?” Richter asked. “That makes no sense.”
“That is the biggest hole in that theory, my lord. It is thought that the enchantment was started during the reign of the eleventh Dark Khan, which was the very height of the Trinar Empire, and the first ten coins were enchanted retroactively. No one knows for sure, however. That’s why it’s only a theory, my lord.”
Richter nodded. He really would need to get his hands on some history books if he wanted to be an effective leader. The Land was violent and contentious. He would be a fool to ignore centuries and millennia of tradition. He said as much to Randolphus, stating that history books would have to be added to the list of items to trade for. It was the first time that Richter saw his chamberlain hesitate to add to his endless list of notes. The man did break away from the coins long enough to jot down his liege’s order, albeit reluctantly.
“Okay, Randy. I’ll leave you to the coins, but is everything on track for tonight?”
“Yes, my lord. The feast is being prepared. The hunters have been able to bring in some good animals. A cow and a pig have also been slaughtered and are being prepared to your, ahem, specifications.”
Richter gave a delighted “hehehe” and rubbed his palms together.
“Unless there is anything else, my lord?” Randolphus asked. His eyebrows were slightly raised, and his hands were on the coins.
Is Randy getting a bit snippy with me? Richter asked himself with no small amount of humor. He decided not to make a point of it. A good ruler is magnanimous and forgiving after all. “Haha, okay, okay. I can see that searching through these coins is important to you. Why don’t I help out? It will go faster.”
Not waiting for a reply, he pulled up a chair and started searching through the coins himself. It might have occurred to Richter that leaving the room meant potentially leaving his chamberlain alone with objects of great power. A good ruler may be magnanimous, but a wise ruler never gave someone a gun and just hoped he wouldn’t be shot in the back.
CHAPTER 3
Richter and Randolphus went through the coins in about thirty minutes. The coins with a picture of a Dark Khan were easy to distinguish. Whenever Richter touched a new one, he would receive an updated quest prompt showing that the number of coins he had found had increased by one. When all was said and done, he had found seventeen of the twenty-five. Many of the Dark Khan coins even had duplicates.
“This is amazing, my lord. You may have a greater collection than the king. I know for a fact that no one has been able to find the coins for Khans two and seven for hundreds of years.”
“Good. So I’m thinking that if I show some of these coins during my negotiations with Hafiz’s sons, none of the extremely rare coins, mind you, but some of them, it will greatly increase my bargaining power.”
“It would indeed, my lord.”
“Which coins do you have in your collection?” Richter asked.
“Only Khans fourteen, sixteen, and twenty, my lord,” Randolphus said, looking at the coins with true appreciation.
“And fifteen,” Richter said. He picked up one of the duplicates and handed it to his chamberlain.
“My lord! I cannot take this. This coin would be worth hundreds of gold.”
“Randolphus,” Richter said, softly but firmly, “you are worth much more to me than gold. You have kept this village
running, while I have had to leave multiple times. I cannot promise that I will not have to leave in the future, but I will make more of an effort to be present. Right now, though, you will accept this small token of my appreciation.”
Randolphus thanked him with a bow of his head and accepted the coin.
“Now, point out the five most common Dark Khan coins that we have duplicates of. I may trade those to Hafiz’s sons along with the regular kobold silvers. I will put the rest of the coins back into the vault. Please have Roswan place a podium at the end of the feast area. All of the tables should be laid in front of it, so everyone has a clear line of sight of me when I’m up there. I want all of the new potential villagers brought to the tables.”
“They will not be able to see through the mists, my lord,” Randolphus reminded him.
“Only for a short time. I plan to make a central clearing in the mists again. These new people will not be given immunity to the mists until they have been both interrogated by Sumiko using the questions you devise and until they have lived with us for a short while.”
“And when you clear the mists and restore their sight, it will be good for them to witness the power of their new lord,” Randolphus said with a slight smile.
“The thought did occur to me,” Richter said with a cocky grin of his own.
“It will be done, my lord.”
Richter gave a nod and then scooped up the coins. He placed the regular ones into his Bag as well the duplicates Randolphus had pointed out. He made another short jaunt to the treasury to deposit the rest of the silver and then walked outside.
*Where are you, love?* he called out mentally once he was looking out over the village. Many of his villagers were working to prepare for the evening meal. Dragging tables into position, lighting candles and torches, placing jugs of water down beside cups. One of the villagers had even brought out a fiddle. A jaunty tune filled the air, bringing a smile to everyone’s faces.
A small shriek sounded above him as Alma zoomed by his head only an inch away from flying into him. He ducked involuntarily with a curse and looked up to see her doing a loop in the air while she trumpeted the success of her joke. He laughed in spite of himself.
*Get down here, you little beastie!*
Alma flew high and then did a tight corkscrew spiral downward before leveling out. His familiar was clearly in good spirits. A few seconds later, she had alighted upon his shoulders, her tail wrapped around his arm for balance. Richter reached behind him and poked her full belly. “I guess you’ve been having fun eating, huh?”
She blew a gust of air into his ear, but it was halfhearted. She immediately settled back down and purred contentedly. Richter smiled and walked down the slope to say hello to some of his people. First, he walked over to an area where he had seen some men training. Futen floated up silently beside him and kept pace with his lord. When he got closer to the impromptu training yard, Terrod hailed him.
“Welcome to training, my lord.”
The members of the militia had been paired off and were sparring with what looked to be blunted weapons. To Richter, it seemed like there was just a good amount of flailing around. Except for one pair, where one of the men was on the ground and his partner was just mercilessly pummeling him. Richter wasn’t sure, but he was fairly certain those two were married.
“Terrod,” Richter greeted him. “Should we be concerned about that?” he asked, indicating the man who was now just aiming some defensive kicks at his wife from the ground. It wasn’t working very well.
Terrod looked at them and said, “Ehhh, in a minute. Apparently Harn has been a bit too ‘friendly’ with some of the other female villagers. I figure this is healthy. Besides, my sergeant will stop it in a moment I’m sure.”
“Sergeant?” Richter asked.
Terrod just smiled and pointed. Richter looked where the captain indicated and saw an old familiar face, Caulder!
“That’s a sword, not your cock! Don’t play with it so damn much!” Caulder yelled at one of the guards. He took the blunted weapon from the man and showed him the proper grip. The guard took the rebuke well, and when Caulder handed the weapon back, the sparring began again.
“Caulder,” Richter yelled out with a laughing tone. “Get over here!”
The man jogged up. “Well! It is nice to see you again, my lord. You seem to have filled out a bit since last we met.”
Richter looked down at himself. The points he had added to Strength and Constitution had definitely changed his body stature. He was bulkier and, though he couldn’t be sure, he was pretty sure he was at least an inch taller than when he had first gotten to The Land. If the appraising glances he saw some of the villagers giving him were any indication, his face might very well have become comelier as well. Most likely because of his increased Charisma.
“I have been through quite a bit since we have seen each other,” Richter agreed. “So what do you think of our militia?”
“Do you mean this group of invalids behind me?” Caulder asked, hiking a thumb behind him. “I’m just surprised more of them aren’t shoving their weapons up their own bungholes!”
“Do you not think that is a bit harsh?” Terrod asked.
Caulder’s voice lost all joviality. “It’s not harsh enough, Captain. These boys and girls would be taken apart by any gang I ever ran across when I was a guard in Law. From what I have heard, the animals and monsters around here could be just as dangerous, if not more so. They need training and plenty of it.”
“What do you have in mind?” Richter asked. “Sword forms?”
“Ha! That might be good for lords like yourself, but for guards and soldiers, they just need to be the toughest sons of bitches around. We will get into the technical bits of fighting sometime soon, but for now they just need to start training. Every morning we will be doing runs and exercises. If you leave them in my hands, their Strength, Endurance, and Constitution will rise, I can promise you that.”
Richter was impressed, but was also surprised by the fervor he heard coming from the man. His impression of Caulder had always been that the guard was lackadaisical and relatively harmless. Not wanting to beat around the bush, Richter decided to express that. “It all sounds good to me, Caulder. I think we all need to get tougher, but I’m surprised to hear you speaking with such passion and determination.”
Caulder gave a knowing grin. “I know how I came across when we met in Leaf’s Crossing, but that was almost a retirement. The worst I ever had to deal with there was to drag a drunk to jail to sleep it off for the night. I didn’t get to level thirteen by drinking ale, though! I spent more than a decade in the king’s army, and I fought my share of bandits, goblins, and even the occasional wild troll.”
Richter quickly Analyzed the guard and was surprised that he was right.
Name: Caulder. Human. Level 13. Health 310. Mana 110. Stamina 300. Disposition: Pleased. Humans are one of the shortest lived, but most prolific breeders in the Land. Humans have a broader affinity for skills than other races. No special bonuses to race. Humans get four points to distribute per level.
Richter spoke up again. “I’m assuming you plan to include the guards that came with you in these daily exercises? If Terrod says you’re to be his sergeant, then that’s good enough for me, but I insist that everyone must be treated the same. I have no interest in breeding divisiveness among my guards.”
“Hmpf. Half of those that came with me are no better than what I see here. Don’t worry, Lord Richter. My father taught me a simple truth long ago. If someone has their head up their ass, you’re doing them a favor if you give them an ass beating. With luck, it just might be dislodged, and they might finally see the light. My pa wasn’t one to discriminate in helping people!”
Richter laughed. That sounded good enough to him. He didn’t forget that he had a Captain of the Guard now, though. Turning to Terrod, he asked, “Does the Sergeant’s plan work for you?”
“It does indeed, my lord,” Terrod said with
a smile.
“Carry on then. I might actually join you for some of these morning calisthenics.”
Both men looked at him in mild confusion.
“Never mind. I’ll run with you tomorrow morning. Just make sure that someone comes to get me. Now, unless there is anything else?”
Richter was already turning away when Terrod spoke up. “Actually, my lord, there are two things I would like to discuss.”
Richter nodded. “Go ahead.”
“If I am going to train my people effectively, then they need their own space. Each member of the militia will work a string of days, and I have seen that they need to be kept separate from distractions. This includes family and friends. If you want them to be an effective force as soon as possible, then we need a formal area to train.”
As soon as Terrod stopped speaking, a prompt appeared in Richter’s vision.
You have been offered a Quest: Strengthen Your Tribe I. Your fledgling military needs a building to train effectively. Will you build them a barracks? Reward: Societal bonus from building a barracks. Yes or No?
What societal bonus? These prompts could be so damn frustrating, Richter thought. Well, it’s not like he wasn’t already going to build a barracks. Maybe he would just make it more of a priority now.
“I’ll talk to Roswan about it,” Richter said. “Do you have a spot picked out?”
“On the hillock that’s on the other end of the village from the longhouses, my lord. It’s not much, but it should give some small amount of seclusion.”
Richter nodded. It would also put his militia nearer the armory. They would be able to quickly equip themselves if the need should arise. “Okay, so what’s the other thing?”
“You know that we have been seeing monsters and dangerous animals closer to the village lately. I was going to take a group out and do some hunting. If we leave in two hours, we can hunt for a good while and still be back before the feast.”