by Aleron Kong
Know This! There is a one week penalty for losing your Tenet, but once this moratorium has passed, you may choose another. If you wish, you may choose that Tenet now and it will be instituted in seven days.
A Tenet is achieved when a preset series of conditions are met. The Tenet will provide certain qualities or privileges to your settlement. At the current level of your village, you may have one Tenet. At the next level, you may have two Tenets. All previous Tenets can be replaced at the time of the village leveling.
The current Tenets you have available are:
Don’t Mess with the Mist I. You have been attacked, and taught those fools a serious lesson. Specifically, less than 10% of those who started the attack lived to see another day. Defense +10% in future attacks, small chance of future attackers acquiring ‘Fear’ status when faced with your merciless forces.
Enchanting Times I. Your village has enchanted many powerful artifacts. Specifically, you enchanted more than 1,000 items in a single month. +10% Enchanting Strength and +10% Soul Points per captured soul.
Experienced Dungeoneer I. You have founded a Dungeon on your Settlement. +10% Experience gained from Dungeon- and Labyrinth-related sources. +10% Dungeon Points.
Would you like to assign a Tenet now? If you do not, then one will be randomly assigned in one week. Yes or No?
Richter weighed the options, but only one of the choices was really jumping out at him. The +10% defense was tempting, as was the Fear status. It wasn’t a proactive choice though. The enchanting tenet was also a plus, but Richter could honestly mimic those effects through his Profession. It was Experienced Dungeoneer I that caught his eye. Not wasting further time on deliberation, he chose.
Your Tenet will be assigned in one week’s time. Do not betray your Tenet again or the consequences could be dire.
There was one more prompt awaiting him, and to Richter’s delight, it was a quest.
You have been offered a Quest: Code of Laws I
Your settlement is growing and Crime has inevitably wormed its way into your forest village. Your people need guidance and a clear set of laws. The time has come to create the rules that your people will live by. The Mist Village could be a beacon for law and justice, or a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Be warned, choosing laws that are incongruent with your populace may lead to unrest and further Crime and Corruption.
Success Conditions: Create a Code of Laws for your people
Reward: Decreased Crime and Corruption. Settlement bonus for having a Code of Laws.
Penalty for Failure or Rejection of Quest: A worsening of the Corruption and Crime in your settlement.
Timeframe: One month. Failure to complete this quest within the allotted time will cause worsening of Corruption and Crime in your settlement and possibly other consequences.
Do you accept? Yes or No?
Richter had never really gotten a quest that was so clearly screaming, “Take this seriously!” He didn’t even know why he was being given a choice. He chose “Yes,” and closed the prompt.
He rubbed his eyes, looking around the Forge. When he had woken up that morning in the aftermath of a fivesome, he hadn’t thought he would be condemning some of the very people he had just saved to death. As the dwarf and human smiths worked around him, he searched his feelings. Did he feel remorse for their deaths? Was there some nagging doubt inside of him regarding his choices? Did he even regret the loss of life?
“Are you well, my lord?” one of the smiths called out, seeing the searching look on his face.
Richter looked at the dwarf, and a large, genuine smile broke out over his face, “I feel good. Let’s enchant some shit.”
CHAPTER 43 – Day 143 – Kuborn 33, 0 AoC
The two men were thrown through the portal into the Dungeon. Lieb lay on the ground, a fresh scream coming from his raw throat as he fell to the ground. Paulen immediately turned around and tried to go back through the shimmering energy field. What he did not know, what Richter had only just found out himself, was that the chaos seed’s Mastery of the Dungeon was nuanced. The two rapists had been given access to the Dungeon, but they did not have permission to leave. The portal Paulen beat against was as unyielding as stone.
A howl made him whip his head around. Red light peeked around red columns, and the sounds of movement could be heard. Paulen looked down at Lieb, who had heard exactly the same things. The castrated man called out weakly, “Please.”
All Paulen could do was sneer. He had raped that girl and done many other terrible things, but it was nothing compared to what he had seen Lieb do countless times. Now the man that he had feared for so long was whining and crying on the ground like so many of their victims. He made eye contact and spoke the true words of his heart. “I hope they take their time when they eat you.” Then he took off at a run.
Paulen stayed along the side of the cavern. Thirty seconds later, the screams began. Lieb cried out in pain and wailed for his mother. The sound of snuffling was punctuated by the crack of bone. There were more screams, and then the sounds of animals feeding. Tears ran down Paulen’s cheeks as he ran. He knew he had wished for Lieb to suffer only a minute before, but the cries of agony and the loud, wet eating sounds were worse than he could have imagined. He wasn’t feeling any actual sympathy, but he couldn’t help but think that the same thing was about to happen to him.
The bestial sounds he had left behind with his mad dash began to get louder. Tears flowing even faster, Paulen tried to move more quickly through the gloom of the cavern. He tripped over a fold in the ground, sprawling hard. A ragged “Nooo,” ripped its way from his throat when the snuffling and baying grew louder. He scrambled back onto his feet and kept running.
His heart thudded in his chest as he continued to feel his way around the edge of the cavern. Then his worst fear came true: the sounds of beasts echoed from in front of him as well as behind. He stopped running for a moment, sobbing, his head darting around like prey, then realized there was a patch of blackness darker than the rest. It was a tunnel.
Paulen took off again, rushing down the tunnel. The cries of beasts continued to spur him forward. He kept running as fast as he could. He careened into walls, losing blood on the rough rock, doing anything he could for just one more minute of life. The snarls continued to echo behind him and he ran ever deeper into the Dungeon. An errant thought occurred to him that he should have died already. It was like he was being driven forward, but why would the monsters do that? With that thought rattling around his brain, his head struck a low hanging shelf of stone. He fell to the ground, stunned.
He lay on his back blinking. He had lost the light of the central chamber a minute before. Paulen lay alone in the black, utterly bereft. It took his addled mind a few moments to realize that it was quiet. The snarls, grunts, and howls had faded away, leaving nothing but silence.
For a man that had resigned himself to experiencing a quick but horrible death, the waiting was worse.
Paulen’s breath sounded harsh in his own ears. Blood continued to trickle down from a scalp wound that had opened when he bashed his head into the rock. It was hot and thick on his skin, filling his nose with the scent of warm metal. If he could smell it, what else could smell him? Fear blossomed in his heart again, and he stood up hurriedly, looking around.
He couldn’t see anything.
Every direction was the same as another. Striking his head on the low ceiling had removed any sense of orientation. The only other sound besides his short, panicky breathing was the thudding of his heart. Both hands extended out in front of him, he blindly reached for a wall.
Shhhhht.
The dry scraping sound came from somewhere to his left. Paulen spun, eyes searching the blackness. Rationality had long since fled. “Who is that? Hello?” He paused. Fresh tears started flowing down face. “Please,” he sobbed into the stillness of the Dungeon.
There was no other sound for long minutes. The flow from his head wound had made a thick paste on the left side of
his face. His tears mixed with the red sludge and brought the taste of his own blood into his mouth. Paulen had remained still since he’d heard the noise, but enough time passed that he convinced himself it had only been his imagination. If he just kept going he could find another way out. He was not going to die here!
A hiss sounded only inches from his face.
The man whose name had been stricken had time to whisper one word, “Mama,” and wet himself, before a powerful set of reptilian jaws crushed his left shoulder. He let loose a scream that became a blood curdling yowl when the monster ripped his arm clear from his body.
Great gouts of blood shot over the ground and walls, immediately consumed by the greedy Dungeon. The blood was not powerful enough to trigger a new ability in the Dungeon, but it was still gratefully accepted. The man fell down, eyes wide in shock, but it took too long for his body’s reflex mechanism to set in. If he had lost consciousness, he would have been lucky enough to miss the faint grinding of bones that heralded the Chaotic reptile unhinging its jaw. He could have avoided the warm, wet feeling of a giant snake’s maw swallowing his head. Soon, it was quiet in the Dungeon once more. Not because Paulen had stopped screaming, but because the sounds couldn’t escape the Harbinger’s gullet.
The Dungeon feasted. The soul energies of the men were satisfying on a level that it had never imagined. Absorbing the bodies of the koran tusker and jenit prowler had sped its growth, but the taste of it was like comparing a draught of stale water to a glass of chilled white wine. The nuances in the energy were fascinating, and the Dungeon now intrinsically understood part of its own nature. It had to consume!
The infusion of energy was instinctually routed into areas consistent with its Motivations. More monsters were grown, a lair was developed, its tunnel system grew more extensive, loot and resources were generated; all done with the singular dominant purpose of luring more food into its depths.
CHAPTER 44 – Day 143 – Kuborn 33, 0 AoC
While the story of the forsaken men came to an end, Richter enchanted weapons and armor. In three hours he was able to complete two more dual enchantments. After asking someone to time him, he learned that it wasn’t just his imagination that dual enchantments took longer to create. While solo enchantments normally only took a minute or less, his dual enchantments could take up to thirty minutes depending on the enchantments being combined. Richter hadn’t yet found a way to predict how long it would take. Time-consuming or not, he was making serious progress on his new Profession quest.
Quest Update: The Power of Two I
Dual enchantments created: 8/10
Seeing his progress made the stupid quest name more bearable. Richter already had plans for the Talent Points he would earn from the quest and planned to finish tomorrow. He also gained another 1% progression towards his next skill level in Enchanting by creating the dual enchantments. He had to pay close attention each time, but it really wasn’t too different than working with power tools. If you knew what you were doing and paid attention, you shouldn’t be in too much danger. Even if you had been working with a power saw for ten years though, one moment of inattention could turn you into a left hand jacker for the rest of your life. Of course, the upside to that scenario was that fisting suddenly got a lot more polite.
There was another awesome perk to the difficulty of creating dual enchantments. Namely that his rank progressions for the various enchantments he knew had skyrocketed in the past two days.
Congratulations! You have unlocked Rank III of the enchantment: Life Defense, Level I.
Congratulations! You have unlocked Rank II of the enchantment: Durability, Level I.
Congratulations! You have unlocked Rank IV of the enchantment: Sonic Damage, Level II.
Congratulations! You have unlocked Rank II of the enchantment: Ignore Defense, Level I.
For the first time, Richter was making serious progress in his Profession. It was with great surprise that he realized his Limitless ability might actually have been working against him. Having a high affinity had let him progress in his skill ranks quickly, but it also made whatever he did come relatively easily. It was pretty clear now that to advance his skills he needed to push himself. His 100% affinity in Enchanting meant that lower level enchantments came too easily. That had stalled his skill progression. As dual enchantments required him to pay exponentially more attention, he was finally getting some traction!
He was also happy to see that the village hunters and Hisako’s sprites were already putting the Soul Trap arrows to good use. They came to the Forge periodically to drop off soul stones glowing with captured spirits. The smiths, in turn, were making high steel arrows as quickly as possible.
As happy as he was with the progress, Richter couldn’t spend his whole day in the Forge. There were practical matters that also required his attention. When he was done, he whistled for Alma. She had returned from her murderous task some time ago, much to his relief. He had been waiting to ask her a very important question.
After her safety, Richter’s biggest concern was over the warning he’d received about possible consequences if his people found out about the executions. If one of the hunters stumbled across the bodies, it could lead to serious problems. When he had asked her about the remains, the dragonling had just licked his cheek and told him not to worry. She had already thought about how that could be a problem and had summoned mist workers. In her travels she had found a monster’s nest. There was a cave with freshly gnawed bones scattered in front of it. There were also furrows in the ground to indicate clawed animals had taken up residence inside.
The constructs had been ordered to drag the bodies to the cave. Whatever dwelt within would dispose of the evidence. Richter had been flooded with affection and appreciation for his deadly little familiar. She told him that she had considered burying the bodies, but feeding them to the forest creatures seemed like a better option. He was struck by just how diabolical his little predator could be. She really was his soul familiar.
Richter made a note to send Terrod with no less than two strike teams to examine the den. He wouldn’t do it for a few days though, more than enough time for the monsters to do their thing. At that point, any evidence should be destroyed. He thanked his familiar for her actions and her information. Monster nests were nothing to be trifled with and he planned for the strike teams to be kitted out with enchanted gear and potions. After battling the assengai spiders, Richter had learned the folly of letting monsters proliferate unchecked in his lands.
After the debrief, Alma had taken up residence in front of a nearby hearth while he enchanted, enjoying the heat. At his call though, she launched into the air before settling right back down on his shoulders. In what had become a customary exchange, Richter thought to her affectionately, *Lazy thing.*
She just yawned expansively in response and squirmed slightly to get more comfortable atop her perch. Richter walked over to the elementum chest and removed several items. They went into his bag, and he left the Forge. The dwarves said they would continue working around the clock and would be ready for him to enchant more items in the morning.
Richter had sent a mental call to Futen before he left the smithy. The remnant floated up not long after.
“My lord?” the remnant asked.
“Do me a favor and say, ‘You rang’ from now on, okay?” Richter said with a faint smile.
The orb just pulsed while it floated in the air.
“Well… give it a try.” Richter ordered, enjoying messing with the monotone nightlight.
The remnant didn’t sigh, but Richter felt like there was an unvoiced one as the orb just continued to float along. After a few seconds though, Futen said, “You rang?”
It was spot-on Lurch.
Yes! Richter felt supreme vindication. Nailed it. After he’d had his fun, he sent the orb to fetch his Companions to meet him by the village gate in half an hour. There were other stops he needed to make first. Richter jogged to the Quickening.
&
nbsp; “Elora,” he called out once he was beneath the white and silver boughs of the celestial tree.
The pixie children called out to Alma, but she was not in the mood for a game of chase. They all started whining, a multicolored cloud that spun above Richter’s head. Their mother shooed them away and came to hover in front of the chaos seed. She curtsied in midair.
“How may I serve you, Lord Richter?” Her voice was as musical as ever.
Richter smiled at the small queen. Then asked his question, “Is there a way to harvest some leaves or branches without causing damage?” As he had been walking to this corner of the meadow, it occurred to him that he had never seen any broken branches or fallen leaves around the silver tree. Even in summer, other trees had deadfall around them, but the Quickening was a tree from a higher realm. By the same token, he was positive that coming anywhere near the tree with an axe would cause both the pixies and the sprites to abandon him as allies. Not that he would ever do such a thing anyway.
He also knew that the pixies sometimes made clothes from the Quickening’s leaves though. They had to have a way to harvest at least the velvety white foliage.
Elora’s face grew quite serious, “Asking a pixie for clippings from her tree is a very intimate thing, my lord. Asking for clippings from a celestial tree, even more so. Though you are my lord, I must ask why.”
Richter nodded slowly to show he took her words to heart. He wasn’t bothered in the slightest by her question. Though he was indeed lord of these lands, he was not so arrogant as to think that he had full control or even extensive understanding of the powerful forces it contained. The Quickening, the Core buildings, the Dungeon, and the very magics that made up his Place of Power tapped into energies he had the barest control over. Pixies were, by their very nature, tied to trees, and no creature in existence had a closer bond to the Quickening than Elora. When she gave a warning, he wisely listened.