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Ascend Online

Page 44

by Luke Chmilenko


  “That wasn’t my fault!” I muttered, mostly out of reflex at this point.

  “No tears from me if it collapses on them in their sleep.” I heard Halcyon whisper to Sierra behind me.

  “Their accommodations are better than what they would find sleeping in the wild all night.” The Bann paused for a moment before continuing. “We’ll have to figure out what to do with them eventually.”

  “A problem for the future,” Sierra said copying my favorite phrase. She turned to look at Constantine, indicating the upper floor where the Scouts had been locked into separate rooms. “Did the Scout say anything about Graves specifically?”

  “Eh, the only other thing he mentioned was that Graves wasn’t always the way we saw him today,” Constantine replied. “He said he first started playing with Graves on Launch Day and he was a bit more… calm. If I recall right, his words were ‘Graves was always kind of a dick, but not ‘I’m a fucking King’ kind of a dick.’”

  “Well, that’s helpful,” Halcyon muttered sarcastically. “Did the scout know what race Graves chose? The way his eyes changed color, I bet he’s part demon or something.”

  “Yeah, that was fucking creepy,” Drace said quickly, glancing over at me. “Not the same as your glowing eyes, Lyr. His just made me feel on edge.”

  “I know what you mean.” I agreed, nodding at the warrior. “But his eyes weren’t the only thing I noticed, there was some sort of aura and spirit hovering around him.”

  “There was?” Halcyon asked, surprise evident on his voice. “I didn’t notice anything.”

  “I think it was something I could only see with my True Sight ability, it lets me see a hell of a lot more than just magic now…” I focused on a corner of the room as I recalled the thick red chains all wrapped around Graves. “I didn’t have True Sight activated before the fighting started, so I didn’t see it earlier, but towards the end of the battle, before Graves retreated, I saw him.”

  “He had all these crimson chains coiled tightly around him, pulsing with a strange sort of energy.” I tried to explain, using my hands to mimic what I had seen. “After a bit of time the aura formed into a ragged looking ghost that wore similar armor to what Graves was wearing.”

  “Maybe it’s a racial or class ability, or something like my Patron Demon?” Caius suggested. “He conjured that ball of crimson energy before Halcyon dropped the hammer on him.”

  Amaranth hissed in my head, his eyes narrowing at the memory of when he was under control of the Nemesis spirit.

  I replied, sending back a mental shrug.

 

  “Did it seem like he had a Base Class?” Sierra asked glancing between the five of us that were there.

  “Not particularly,” Drace replied, his brow furrowed as he searched his memories. “I really didn’t see him do anything, to be honest.”

  “Me either,” Caius chimed in with a shake of his head.

  “I think the armor he’s wearing is giving him some pretty sweet stat boosts,” I added, remembering Graves’s unexpected strength. “But nothing specific other than that.”

  “Hang on,” Constantine said, getting a faraway look in his eye. “Freya said he found the armor and sword he was wearing, right? Also, he somehow got enough money to buy all of his friends’ armor?”

  “Yeah…” I nodded slowly, recalling Freya’s story. “Something about a tomb they found.”

  “Okay, so Lyr saw a strange spirit hovering around Graves wearing similar armor, plus his personality isn’t quite the same as people remember it being.” Constantine quickly listed on his fingers. “To top it off he seems to have a pretty rare quest aiming to make him King.”

  “Where are you going with this Constantine?” Halcyon asked exasperation evident in his voice.

  “What if the armor or sword he found was cursed?” the rogue said with excitement. “What if it’s changing his personality or forcing him to behave a certain way?”

  That idea stopped everyone cold.

  “Shit.” I thought back towards our encounter with Graves. “I think the spirit hovering around him had a crown on now that I think about it.”

  “Maybe he dug up the spirit of a dead king?” Constantine suggested.

  “It fits,” I agreed. “I think it may have been controlling his actions or at the very least powerfully suggesting things.

  “That might explain how the slaving idea took root in Graves’s head,” Sierra said thoughtfully, before breaking into a wide yawn and changing the subject. “Moving on, before the sun comes up. What are we going to do about all of these Adventurers on our doorstep?”

  “It’s a pretty large group of people to just absorb into Aldford…” Caius motioned around the group. “Did anyone have a rough count of just how many there are?”

  “About sixty, maybe a little more,” Constantine replied, waving his hand back and forth in an unsure gesture. “Plus… how many prisoners?”

  “Three,” Drace replied. “Not including the scouts.”

  “Which I doubt would want to stick around if it was up to them,” Halcyon commented.

  “That’s nearly three times the amount of villagers we have already,” I said quietly.

  “That is, quite a considerable increase,” Aldwin said hesitantly, concern written on his face. “If nothing else it would put quite a strain on our resources.”

  “Not to mention having a place to physically put them,” Caius added. “If they want to camp outside, that’s fine we have plenty of space for that, but short of having everyone asses to elbows here in the Town Hall every night, we’d need to start building.”

  “Would definitely have the labor for that,” Drace said optimistically. “And incentive if they want their own space.”

  “But can we trust them to behave?” Halcyon asked, raising possibly the most important question. “I don’t know about you all, but I don’t want to be playing ‘Town Guard’ day after day.”

  “I definitely don’t want to be a prisoner in our own village.” I nodded at Halcyon. “Right now we’re likely the strongest Adventurers within a few days radius around Aldford, but as more players make their way out towards us and other players start to level, that gap will decrease, if not vanish entirely. But I don’t want to pass up this opportunity as well.”

  “Opportunity?” Constantine looked at me with a confused expression.

  “Yeah.” I motioned my hand in a circle, indicating the village around us. “Let’s face it, Freya’s group needs us a lot more than we need them. We can make that work for us.”

  “How exactly?” Halcyon asked skeptically. “They’re going to need to be fed and geared before they even come close to being useful. Even then the majority of them range from level four to six. If they’re anything like the ones we fought, they’ll barely know which end of their weapon they should be holding.”

  “That’s exactly it! Practically all of them are hungry and weak,” I replied, waving my hand towards the south. “You saw them, all huddled by the river. A third to a half of them still don’t have food and aren’t regenerating their wounds. Most are all still in shock.”

  “If we walk out there tomorrow with food and helping hands when they are at their weakest, they’ll remember it and appreciate it. They know how much it sucks to be stuck in the wild.”

  “All that is only temporary, though,” Sierra said. “Now that Graves isn’t holding them down, they’ll be able to hunt for their own food and support themselves.”

  “They probably could,” I replied, completely agreeing with Sierra. “But the longer they see us here, all cozied up in the village, while they struggle just outside, it’ll breed resentment. I know it would for me. Plus, we can offer them protection from Graves. Let’s not forget that he’s still out there after all.”

  “As concerned as I am about the safety of Aldford, there is wisdom in Lyrian’s words,” Aldwin spoke up,
having been lost in thought the last few moments. “When we were fleeing Assara, most of us only had the clothes on our back and very little of anything else. I know for certain that if it weren’t for those more fortunate helping us, while we were packed into those tight ships, we would have never made it.”

  “Helping I can agree is a good thing.” Halcyon nodded sympathetically at Aldwin. “That still doesn’t answer the question of how to get them to behave.”

  “We’ll need Laws,” Sierra said, looking at Aldwin. “System enforced laws. If we do this, Aldford isn’t going to be a Village anymore. It’s going to be a Town, well on its way to becoming a City even. If there are penalties that are above and beyond ones that require us to enforce, they’ll hesitate more in breaking them.”

  “We should also get them to buy-in, before formally joining the village. A special one-time offer to get a stake in the early development of the village,” Drace added. “If they feel a sense of ownership and belonging here, they’ll be less likely to cause problems. They also need to know that this will be a Frontier Town. They’ll need to earn their keep, one way or another.”

  “Have them buy-in with what?” Caius shot back at Drace. “They just trudged halfway through the wild under Graves’s thumb. They have nothing!”

  “Likely they don’t,” Drace agreed, holding a hand up as a placating gesture. “But I think Lyrian is onto something. If we go out there tomorrow with a few crates of food, enough to see them through the day and regenerate their wounds, they’ll be ready to go out and hunt again. It’s not like they’re going to sit on the edge of the river forever.”

  “I can also do a quick sharpen of any weapons they have to get them started,” I added. “That won’t take me long at all and I’m sure it’ll improve the weapon’s stats.”

  “After that, we can present them with our offer,” Drace continued, nodding at my idea. “If they want to join our village, then they’ll need to invest some supplies to help us keep Aldford running. I’m not thinking anything crazy, maybe a few chunks of meat, or an equivalent amount of leather, wood or ore. More than easy enough to get that much in a day’s worth of hunting.”

  “That… would actually help make sure that everyone is fed,” I said thoughtfully. “Plus give us a good reserve for materials, we’re going to need to start building houses sooner than later if nothing else.”

  “In exchange for that, we’ll allow them to set Aldford as their resurrection point and live within the village, with the understanding that they’ll be under Aldwin’s leadership, as well observing the basic rules of Law.” Drace started talking more confidently as the others started to nod in agreement. “They’ll need to agree to actively defend Aldford in time of need too.”

  “I like it,” Constantine stated, nodding his head empathetically. “We can offer them skill training too if they need it.”

  Everyone else quickly agreed with the bones of Drace’s proposal. There would be countless details that would still need to be worked out, but by majority, we felt that we had a good base to work from and present to the other Adventurers.

  “There is a way we can formalize their rights and responsibilities and have it bound by the weight of Law,” Aldwin stated, motioning towards the stairs. “Let us go to the study, I can explain more there.”

  Intrigued, we all followed the Bann upstairs stuffing ourselves into the smallish office once again. Moving behind the desk, Aldwin unlocked and opened a drawer, pulling out a rather ornate scroll case.

  Placing it on the desk, Aldwin carefully opened the case, removing a large scroll of vellum. He slowly unraveled it, pinning each corner down with a paperweight, shiny gold calligraphy glinting in the light of the room.

  “This…” Aldwin said reverently, “…is the Charter of Aldford. The legal document that recognizes Aldford as a legal settlement affiliated with Eberia, in addition to outlining both my rights and responsibilities as Bann, and the rights and responsibilities of those having signed it.”

  “Any who have proven their worth and wish to join our village can affix their name on this document and be counted as a citizen of Aldford with all the rights and responsibilities that come with it.” Aldwin gently turned the document to face me. “With this, we can enforce the Rule of Law for all those who live within Aldford and legally punish those who choose to break it.”

  I looked down at the intricately detailed document, recognizing the names of all the villagers in Aldford, including the handful that were killed in the goblin attack earlier last week. There was plenty of space left in the document to accommodate more names as Aldford grew before a new sheaf of vellum would be needed.

  This would work. I nodded to myself as I read over the charter. Despite the ornate design and scrollwork, the verbiage in charter was plain and concise, covering all the common points one would expect for a town. Any who broke the laws outlined in the charter could quickly find themselves declared as Outlaws at worse or merely shunned in all Eberian settlements as an Oathbreaker. Nodding in agreement, I spoke with excitement. “This is perfect for what we need and very clear to understand.”

  I looked up to see Aldwin offering me a golden pen, a smile across his face.

  “This is something that has been a long time coming and I wish I had gotten to this sooner,” he said, looking at me and the rest of the party. “You have all done so much for Aldford and truly are heroes in every sense of the word.”

  “Would you do me and Aldford the honor of being the first Adventurers to formally join our growing settlement?”

  Taking the pen from Aldwin, I couldn’t help but smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter 38

  Monday, February 11th, 2047 - 12:04 am

  Far East of Aldford

  Graves

  “Daniel, wait! I said I’m so-” Micken’s pathetic cries for mercy ended with brutal finality as his head toppled from his shoulders, blood spurting in the air as it thumped to the ground face down.

  Sidestepping the spray, I flicked the blood off my sword, barely having felt it pass through his neck. I turned to face the others gathered around me, cold anger written on my freshly healed face. Today had been a complete disaster.

  Not only did Isaac and his group fail to take Aldford like they had been told to, they didn’t even manage to stop other Adventurers from getting there in the first place, giving that fucking Adventurer, Lyrian, and the rest of his friends enough time to practically fortify the village.

  Then to top it all off, despite telling him to stay back and watch the slaves ‘no matter what’ and ‘so they don’t fucking escape’, Micken decided it would be a good idea to kill off half my troops by sending them into a suicidal charge against fixed defenses and let the slaves escape! God damn that idiot!

  Rage surged through me as I remembered my helpless terror watching all of them charge straight at Aldford, unable to call them back as my crushed throat healed itself. By the time I could make a sound louder than a whisper, it was too late.

  I had badly underestimated those Adventurers. Part of me expecting that by just showing up with a massive group of people would cause them to cave in and surrender. Did they somehow know I had no intention of keeping them alive? If I didn’t kill them, someone else in the group would have after hearing about Isaac.

  Now here we were, barely two dozen of us left, sheltering in the woods, like some sort of wounded animal desperately seeking a place to lick its wounds.

  “Not only did Micken disobey orders...” The words fell out of my mouth slowly, the combined light from a pair of Light spells and a large bonfire casting wicked shadows around me. “But he compounded that error by another one and needlessly wasted the lives of our friends, in a battle, he should have known not to fight. It is because of him that we are where we are right now and it’s going to be up to us to find a way to make this work.”

  My eyes scanned the crowd, searching and taking measure of my remaining followers. Micken was a popular presence wit
hin the group and I was worried that signs of rebellion or defiance would appear. Seeing nothing but hard and angry eyes, some nodding in agreement with my statement, made me relax. No matter how popular someone was, few would be able to forgive a screw up of this magnitude.

  Especially when it cost them tens of thousands of dollars.

  After a moment of silence, I was pleased to find that none disagreed with what I had just done, their minds already preparing for the next challenges to come.

  Wait. I saw a face staring at me in the crowd.

  A grey-skinned half-orc caught my eye, staring at me intently, with a crooked frown on his face. He shook his head at me slowly, his eyes flicking to the body on the ground then back to mine.

  A familiar voice slithered through my mind, causing me to frown.

  Damn, the fucking ghost woke up again.

 

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