The Land: Predators: A LitRPG Saga (Chaos Seeds Book 7)

by Aleron Kong

  He chose “Yes” again and told Randolphus to halt all farming of the garden until Sion could inspect it.

  Total Settlement Points Remaining: 3,865

  There was one other resource that could be upgraded: his quarry, the source of the village’s marbled quartz.

  Mist Village Quarry

  Stone Type

  Amount

  Marbled Quartz

  2,867 Tons

  Limestone

  150.5 Tons

  Slate

  3 Tons

  Marble

  1.2 Tons

  Richter had had no idea the quarry contained four different types of stone. He shared that information with the other R’s, but for the first time Randolphus didn’t have much to add. Roswan knew a great deal about different types of stone, and told Richter that marbled quartz was one of the best building materials out there. The chamberlain did add that he had heard of magical stones like Fire Agate, Dragonstone and Wizard’s Clay. He also pointed out that the Siren Rock that guarded one side of the Dungeon was also a magical stone.

  Richter tried to change 1% quarry for each of those, but received red prompts saying the ambient mana wasn’t strong enough for three of the four. The Siren Rock could only exist here because it was part of the Dungeon, apparently. He also received a red prompt about Fire Agate saying that it didn’t even exist, something he somewhat gleefully shared with Randolphus. The cultured man’s nonplussed stare was all the thanks Richter needed.

  Just for fun, Richter thought about changing 1% of the quarry into diamond. The cost was so astronomical he choked on his toast a bit and closed the window. Since only mundane stones were available to him and they already had one of the best, Richter closed the Resource tab and went on to the next category on the Settlement Points screen, Dungeon. The use of SPs was completely straightforward in this case.

  You may convert Settlement Points into Dungeon Points at a 1:10 ratio.

  There were no other options. Just a straight swap. Richter was tempted for a bit. He would have been lying if he’d said he wasn’t excited to get out into the Labyrinth. Even though the mauler and chupacabras had been deadly in the extreme, he couldn’t wait to see what adventure and treasure it offered. For a moment he wondered if the village’s Specialization was affecting him as well. The quote associated with reaching level three had said “Adventure is what we do!” after all. He had learned that the wording of prompts was not idle, and he fully expected his people to start having a more daring attitude in general going forward.

  Then again, he’d always loved treasure, so maybe he was just being himself. The point was, after having reached level three in the village’s Adventure Specialty, the Dungeon was making 30% more DPs than before. Every DP could be exchanged for ten Dungeon experience. With the barrow making two hundred and forty-five points each day and being able to funnel half of those into leveling, it would take the better part of a year for it to reach level ten. With the 10:1 conversion, each Settlement Point could buy a full one hundred Dungeon XP and greatly reduce that time.

  It was definitely tempting, but based on what Hisako had said, Settlement Points wouldn’t be coming his way again anytime soon. Best to use them where they would really count and not just to accelerate something that would happen on its own.

  Richter moved on to the last option, Terrain.

  You may use Settlement Points to alter the Terrain of your village. Think about the changes you want in order to know the cost.

  Of everything that had been offered, this one seemed the most… magical. He could alter the very landscape of his village! Once again, an overlay of the village appeared in Richter’s vision. Thinking about the prompt, he examined it. It was a perfect replica. All it lacked was the people. He could even turn the image so he could examine it from every angle. The first thing he examined was the hill the village was built upon. Richter thought about the hill getting steeper and the image changed. What had been a gently sloping hill became more of a steep incline.

  This change will require 437 Settlement Points. Do you which to commit to this change? Yes or No?

  Hmmm, Richter thought. Having the village on more of a raised plateau would make defending it a good deal easier. He dismissed the prompt and made the southern face of the hill even steeper. This time, he also added a thirty-foot escarpment to the south and east, leaving only the western slope as a means of easy access to village. The change was massive, and the cost matched.

  This change will require 18,511 Settlement Points and is beyond your current total.

  It was obviously too drastic and expensive of a transformation, but still Richter was enthralled by how easily defended his village would be with the topography change. So much so that he asked Alma to do him a small favor. The dragonling promptly jumped onto the breakfast table in front of Randolphus and stared into his eyes before the Spy could look away.

  “Gah!” the Spy exclaimed before he could help himself. He fixed a slight glare on his liege, “Could you please warn me, or even perhaps ask, before your familiar connects to my mind? If it is not too much trouble, my lord?”

  Richter hid a smile very poorly, “Did you get the image?”

  The chamberlain sighed, but answered, “Yes, my lord.” Randolphus’s face became considering as he contemplated the image in front of him. “It would certainly make the village much more defensible. Is this what you intend to spend the Settlement Points on?”

  “Settlement Points?” Roswan asked with a bit of yellow egg in his brown mustache.

  Instead of answering, Richter just gave the elf the rest of his bacon, which was apparently answer enough for the Dungeon Keeper who promptly started eating again.

  The chaos seed did answer his chamberlain, “No, it’s too expensive, and there are other places I want to use the points. What I was wondering is, could we do this ourselves?”

  Randolphus’s eyes widened, “You wish to cut the side off the hill? A distance that spans at least five miles?”

  “Yes,” Richter nodded simply. He hadn’t really ever considered altering the landscape around the village in such an extreme way before. Now that he was thinking about it though, he didn’t see any reason why not. He had always worried that even with the village wall, there was just too much distance to effectively defend the settlement. So far, they had only used a small part of the area inside of the walls for buildings. If he could limit the approaches to the entire village, he’d be as well protected as if the village were at the top of a mountain pass. The massive trench he wanted dug could even be connected to the river, letting the water serve as another barrier against an attacking army. “Can we do it?”

  “I do not know,” Randolphus replied honestly. “I have never seen a project of that magnitude undertaken.”

  “Remind me to tell you about the Panama Canal sometime,” Richter told him. “Get a mock-up of that image and talk to our new village Builder about this…,” he searched for the right word, “public works project. Between myself and Alma’s high Wisdom values, summoning hundreds of mist workers every day won’t be a problem anymore. They’re a resource going to waste at this point. Some even use them to scratch scales,” he added with mock heat, staring at Alma.

  The dragonling looked back with a draconian version of Richter’s own patented ‘You might be trying to shame me, but I’m awesome so fuck you’ look.

  Randolphus completely ignored the interplay between the dragonling and his liege. Instead, he was just looking slightly pained at the thought of having to speak with Lezli again. The blond gnome was the only person more in love with lists and schedules than he was. Like two schizos, they both thought the other one was buckets of crazy. He nodded his head anyway, “It will be done, my lord.” He put a fresh piece of paper on his clipboard and began sketching while the image was still fresh in his mind. Roswan looked at the parchment with interest.

  Changes in terrain were too expensive in Richter’s opinion, but then one more idea occurred to him.
Focusing on the image of the village still in his vision, he moved the view. Soon, he was looking down at the Quickening. To his delight, he found he could select it under the Terrain option. Unfortunately, his first attempt to alter it was red.

  Advancing the Quickening to Level 3 will require 36,329 Settlement Points and is beyond your current total.

  His second idea was apparently doable though.

  To move the Quickening to another area, visualize the new location. The amount of Settlement Points required will be based upon the new location.

  Richter didn’t want to move the Quickening, but there were a few changes he had been dying to make to the village’s setup. Before he committed to anything though, he ran the idea by Roswan. He quickly explained about the two bonuses he’d gotten from progressing the village Specialization, the epic one that gave three free Rooms and the mythic bonus providing the Master Node. Randolphus chimed in, repeating what he’d said about making the Treasury, and the elf agreed it was a good idea.

  “And the other two Rooms?” Roswan asked. “I was thinking we could make a room with wooden racks used to cure bacon. We could also make a silent Room.”

  “What’s a silent Room?” Richter asked.

  Roswan fixed him with the patented mustache glare of death, “It is a Room… where people can stand… silently… not talking.” A slow and childlike grin grew under the man’s stache.

  Richter closed his eyes and sighed heavily. He’d walked right into that one. “No. We won’t be doing that. This is what I was thinking.” He explained the plan that had occurred to him as soon as he’d heard about the Settlement Points. Randolphus was immediately on board, as it solved several problems he’d been worrying about. Even Roswan nodded appreciatively, though he mentioned something about still needing more bacon. Richter was pretty sure that mist workers would soon be hollowing out another Room. A Room that the scent of smoked meat would probably make quite easy to find.

  Talking to Roswan about priorities could come later, the chaos seed decided. Richter made his choices in quick succession and spent the points. First, he accessed the Dungeon interface. The Rooms tab was still blinking. Accessing it, he saw the top two slots were filled with descriptions for the Entrance Chamber and Egg Genesis Chamber. He shook his head again at the ridiculous grandiosity of the name. Beneath those two entries were three empty slots with nothing in them. Richter focused on making a Treasury.

  An image of a large room lined with smooth, blood-red stone appeared in Richter’s mind. He knew it wasn’t only stone, however. Somehow, he immediately knew there were layers of metal followed by layers of stone past what he could see. The Treasury was like the smallest nesting doll wrapped in larger boxes of dense materials. The Room, and the protective layers surrounding it, would be buried somewhere under the stone. Each layer of protection would be permeated with the magic of the Dungeon, further strengthening it; the Dungeon would be ready to repair any damage that might occur. There was no door, but in the middle of the ballroom-sized Room was a black spike with a gold ball on top rising from the floor. It was an exact replica of the first Node outside of the Dungeon mouth.

  Richter was disappointed at first, thinking there should be shelves, and to his surprise the picture changed to accommodate this idea. He went through other options, adding chambers off of the central space, each with more stout and lockable doors. Eternally burning lights sprang up along the walls at his thought. Heavy chests appeared: open, empty and waiting to be filled. Each had a heavy lock attached, easily sealed as another line of defense. When Richter tried to add a second floor though, he received a red prompt.

  You have exceeded the potential of this Room. Advancing the Room to a higher level may accommodate the desired transformation.

  Richter wasn’t bothered by the message. Instead he smiled, happy he’d realized that he could get more than just the “base model” of a Treasury. In fact, the name of the Room had changed from “Treasury” to “Multichamber Treasure Vault.” He asked both Roswan and Randy if there was a difference, but they shook their heads, indicating that they didn’t know. As the list of Room traits next to the picture hadn’t changed while he was manipulating the physical layout, that was good enough for Richter.

  He tried adding a few more items, traps, guardians, etc, but it all came back with the same red prompt. It wasn’t a problem. The Room he was seeing in his mind’s eye was exactly what he wanted. He made his choice.

  Congratulations! You have created a new Room: Multichamber Treasure Vault

  Multichamber Treasure Vault (Level 1)

  Provides a near-impregnable, hidden space to store valuables, only accessible by Node.

  Provides multiple rooms which can be individually sealed.

  Can set a Tax upon any collected Loot or Resources. Current Tax: 0% (Max 10%)

  Can specify Loot or Resources to be confiscated as soon as they are created with a coin-equivalent left in its place. If sufficient coin is not present in the Treasure Vault then the item will remain.

  Current List of confiscated items: None

  This is a SAFE zone. Aggressive monsters and Dungeon debuffs cannot affect anyone inside this room.

  Node Access: Restricted to Dungeon Master Richter and First Meidon Sion

  Current Contents: None

  Richter couldn’t deny that Randy had been right. Even if the only thing the Vault had done was collect chaos fragments it would have been worth it. The tax on all Loot and Resources was just sauce for the goose. He also liked that it could only be accessed by Node. Richter immediately began fiddling with the controls. The first thing he had done was to give access to Sion, trusting his friend above all others. Next, he brought up the topic of the tax rate again. Admittedly, after learning more about the village finances he was much more comfortable charging anyone that set foot in his Dungeon.

  He asked his chamberlain if the man thought maxing out the tax rate at 10% was a good idea. Randolphus’s bobblehead impression would have been answer enough, but the chamberlain also stressed that they would also need to apply further taxes to anyone allowed inside. Richter just nodded in agreement and set the tax to the max.

  “Can’t wait to see how this works,” Richter commented.

  “I may be able to help in that regard, my lord,” Randolphus told him. “After the battle, I reconnoitered the Dungeon while stealthed. Of the six slain chupacabras, four had reliquaries appear over their bodies.”

  “Reliquaries?”

  “Yes, my lord. They are the mechanism by which Dungeon and Labyrinth creatures leave loot behind upon their deaths. In the Barrow of the Chaos Serpent, they appear as a ball of blood. In the Hall of Elemental hunters, they can appear as spheres of flame, ice, lightning or rock.”

  “Oh,” Richter said. “The loot balls.”

  The century old noble sighed in response, “Yes, my lord. The ‘loot balls’. As I was saying, four appeared. Each looks like a four-sided pyramid lined with gold.”

  “Why don’t they look like the blood spheres?” Richter asked. “They died in my Dungeon after all.”

  “Labyrinth creatures are steeped in a much greater concentration of ambient magic than the beasts of your Dungeon. The particular blend of magic determines the appearance of their reliquary and also the value of the treasure they provide. You can expect to gain rewards much greater than what the barrow offers when you harvest its beasts.”

  “Hmmm. I definitely like the extra treasure part. Does the shape of their reliquaries give us some hint as to what part of the Labyrinth the chupacabras came from?”

  “It is theoretically possible, my lord. There are entire branches of research devoted to the study of reliquaries.” Randolphus’s face became somewhat long-suffering, “Honestly, I found the entire topic to be exhausting and pedantic when I studied it years ago.”

  That one statement was enough to put Richter off the topic for life. If Randy thought it was boring… he couldn’t even imagine. He gestured for the chamberlain
to continue.

  “As I was saying, my lord, there are reliquaries for you to collect which should allow you to see the immediate effect of your Treasure Vault. I would have never left reliquaries unguarded in the Hall of Elemental Hunters; they would have been stolen by another Adventurer almost immediately. I made sure to leave orders that no one else was to enter the Dungeon until further notice, however. I thought you might like to claim the loot from the monsters yourself. Also, I believe your Luck stat is among the highest in the village.”

  “Will that directly affect the loot I get?” Richter asked.

  “It has always been believed to be the case. However, as each,” he paused for a moment, “‘loot ball’ can only be opened once, there has never been a way to accurately test the hypothesis. Personally, I do believe that Luck can greatly affect the treasure that is dropped from a reliquary.”

  Well, that was something to look forward to, Richter thought. There was another question cycling through his mind though, “Four out of six of the chupacabras dropped loot? We were only averaging about 10% of the beasts dropping treasure before, though I guess that will go up now that I chose the Adventure Specialization for the village.”

  “Yet another reason why experienced Adventurers brave the dangers of the Labyrinth. The high mana concentrations of those monsters make them much more likely to provide treasure upon their deaths.”

  Big risk, big reward, Richter thought. Randy had basically told him that that was a rule of the Labyrinth from the beginning. He was looking forward to opening the reliquaries, but he still had one last change to make on the Treasure Vault’s interface. He focused on the restricted items that he wanted confiscated.

  The first were any elementum ingots.