Legacy of the Fallen (Ascend Online Book 2)

by Luke Chmilenko

  “We are but servants of Mithus, the God of Law.” I felt Dyre’s featureless gaze shift onto me. “We enforce the Laws of the Land where we are posted and maintain acceptable order as decreed in the local Writ or Charter.”

  “Completely neutral in all regard, the Justicars have served as an incorruptible force within Eberia and have been experts in all matters of law for decades,” Aldwin continued. “Their numbers have never been great, but their tenacity and ability has long outweighed that. To have one sent to Aldford so soon… it is an honor beyond measure.”

  “I had no idea…” I turned to look at Dyre, who seemed to be unaffected by Aldwin’s praise. “What exactly would your role be within Aldford?”

  “Since I am the only Justicar here, I would likely fill a variety of roles wherever my services are needed. I am able to adjudicate legal disputes and form contracts, in addition to every day peacekeeping duties. If our journey was any indication of what to expect from frontier life, I also expect to devote a large portion of my time to keeping Adventurers in check.”

  “Something we find ourselves in dire need of,” Aldwin commented bitterly, casting a glance at me. “While Lyrian and his friends have been a great boon to our settlement, others have not.”

  “So I saw this morning.” Dyre inclined his head ever so slightly in agreement while indicating the blood on his armor. “If you would present the Town’s Charter before me, so that I could place my seal upon it, I can begin my duties immediately.”

  “Certainly!” Aldwin replied, reaching into a pouch tied to his belt. “I have it right here.”

  “Hang on,” I said with a frown. “What do you mean, ‘keep Adventurers in check’?”

  “Since the appearance of so many Adventurers over the last month, Mithus has decreed that all Justicars are to ensure that Adventurers do not take advantage of their immortality and harm those who are not blessed with the same gift,” the Justicar replied patiently, “and to punish those who do so.”

  “Punish them how exactly?”

  “Depending on the scope of their crimes, a monetary fine may suffice in some cases, while others may warrant execution and their subsequent imprisonment for a set time.”

  “You can change where an Adventurer returns to life?” I asked, a hint of concern creeping into my voice as I pieced together the hidden meaning to the Justicar’s words.

  “I personally cannot. But should Mithus deem it necessary to punish an Adventurer with imprisonment, he can direct the Adventurer’s soul wherever he deems necessary,” Dyre stated crisply. “Be assured that if you follow the laws set forth in the Town Charter, then there is nothing to be concerned about. My duty is to ensure that all remains safe within the town limits.”

  “I see,” I said slowly mulling over the Justicar’s response in my head.

  It seems to me that Justicars are Ascend Online’s version of police and rule enforcement, I thought, watching Dyre touch a corner of Aldford’s Charter, causing a small symbol to appear on the paper. Much like how high-leveled town guards used to be in other multiplayer games – to keep players from griefing other players, or simply killing everyone in a city.

  “It is done,” Dyre said to Aldwin. “Aldford is now under Mithus’s watchful eye.”

  “Thank you, Justicar,” the knight replied earnestly, placing the Town Charter back into his pouch. “Your arrival could have not come at a better time.”

  Dyre silently nodded this thanks to the Bann before turning to look at me. “I would take custody of those prisoners now, it is past time that they answer for their crimes.”

  I looked towards Aldwin, seeing him give me a gentle nod. “Lyrian, you and Virtus have done more than I could have ever asked to keep the peace in Aldford. These bandits fall under the Justicar’s responsibility now. You may release them to any fate he deems fit.”

  “Well… I’m definitely happy to have less work on my plate for a change,” I replied, a little taken aback at how fast the Justicar had inserted himself into the town, but if Aldwin trusted him, I was willing to do the same. I motioned for the Justicar to follow me. “I’ll take you to the prisoners right away.”

  The Justicar nodded silently, turning to follow me as we walked back towards the crowd of settlers. To better keep the prisoners contained and protected from the settlers’ wrath, we had decided to keep them together in a spare wagon under strict guard.

  “What are you going to do with the prisoners?” I asked, curious to hear of Dyre’s plans. So far, he hadn’t asked if Aldford had a prison or given any sort of hint to what his intentions were.

  “I am going to sentence them,” Dyre’s voice was completely flat as he spoke.

  “To what exactly?”

  “They have been caught in the act of Banditry,” Dyre replied. “There is only one sentence available to them.”

  The Justicar paused for a split second.

  “Death.”

  Chapter 3

  “Welcome to Aldford. Please grab a rope and pull,” Halcyon muttered while all of us, minus Amaranth, looked at the six hanging bandits that Dyre had just unceremoniously hung from a tree just outside of the town. On seeing the hanging bodies, the cat had commented that he was getting particularly hungry, and excused himself to hunt for his meal. None of us dared to argue.

  “What else could he have done?” Caius asked with a slow shake of his head. “Each one of them were beyond guilty, they deserved to hang.”

  “No disagreement here,” Halcyon replied with a sigh. “I just expected something different.”

  “Like what? Cheerleaders?” Caius snorted. “Or maybe snacks and a parade?”

  “Well… I don’t know,” Halcyon’s eyes were unfocused while he looked at the hanging bandits. “A trial? Dyre just grabbed a handful of the caravan guards, gave them each a rope and strung up the bandits with barely a second thought.”

  “I don’t think a trial would have done anything other than waste time,” I said, casting a glance to the Justicar, who was standing beside Aldwin a short distance away. “You saw the blood on Dyre’s armor. He was there when the bandits attacked the settlers. There was no doubt of guilt.”

  “I guess…” Halcyon admitted. “It just caught me a bit off guard how fast it all happened.”

  “I think it was a warning to all of the Adventurers,” Sierra quietly added, speaking up for the first time since the bandits were executed. “Until now, it’s been up to us to enforce the rules, and thankfully we haven’t had to really do that, barring the whole thing with Graves last month. By hanging the bandits right in front of everyone, Dyre’s shown that there’ll be Game enforced penalties if they take advantage of people.”

  “Yeah,” Constantine agreed. “We’ve been pretty lucky so far with the Adventurers that joined us after Graves dragged them here. All we’ve had are growing pains or minor disagreements.”

  “How many Adventurers do we have in the new arrivals?” Drace asked, looking towards Constantine and Sierra.

  “Seventy-eight,” Constantine answered. “Though, a handful have already told me that they’re only looking to pass through Aldford and head further north to start their own settlement.”

  “Hrm, I wish them luck with that. They’ll definitely have enough work cut out for themselves,” Drace grunted in amusement, then nodded towards the massive group of settlers. “What about the settlers? Are they all here to join Aldford, or moving on too?”

  “I haven’t heard any talking about leaving,” Sierra replied. “Which means we’re going to have to find places to put a hundred and eleven people, not counting the thirty guards that survived the attack.

  There was a quiet pause as we digested those numbers.

  “So… counting the Adventurers, we’re looking at nearly tripling the number of people we have in the village, again…” I said, realizing that Aldford would be boasting nearly three hundred inhabitants, depending on how many Adventurers chose to stay with us.

  “Aldford’s come a long way fr
om being a little frontier village,” Constantine commented wistfully. “I guess it’s definitely a town now.”

  I nodded in agreement with Constantine, turning to look at all the Settlers and Adventurers who had paused to watch the execution of the bandits, feeling a little overwhelmed at just how many people were here now. In not even a day we had gone from being completely cut off and alone on the frontier, without a single new arrival to Aldford since Graves showed up on our doorstep, to scrambling and trying to somehow accommodate two hundred more souls.

  “Damn bandits…if we’d known so many were coming, we could have done more to prepare for all of them…” Drace said, reading my mind as he gave one last look at the hanging Adventurers. “Let’s get back to Aldford. We should give Léandre a heads up before everyone starts trying to cram themselves into the town and realizes that we have no place to put them.”

  “We have to go soon too, Lyr,” Constantine reminded me as we began to walk towards the town. “Our meeting is at three, and it’s probably a good idea to be there early.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I replied with a nod. “I just need to set up my offline tasks after we talk with Léandre.”

  “Right,” Constantine agreed, “I have a ton of leather I’ve been meaning to clean and have ready for crafting. I’ve ignored crafting for far too long.”

  “I’ll probably take my rest day tonight too,” I added after doing the mental math and realizing I had already been logged in for nine straight days. “Something tells me we might need the extra days once we get everyone settled in.”

  “That’s probably not a bad idea…” Sierra said slowly, rubbing her eyes. “I for one, want to sleep at least a solid twelve hours.”

  The party chorused their agreement, exhaustion visible on everyone’s expression. It had been a long and busy night, with little sleep to go around.

  As we walked towards the town, I found my mind focusing on the new settlers. I couldn’t believe how much had changed in Aldford since Launch Day, well over a month ago, where I’d found myself separated from the group and dropped completely naked into a veritable horde of goblins.

  Aldford’s come a long way since then, I thought as I looked up at a new building flanking the town’s southeastern entrance. Situated just behind the earthworks, stood the first of Aldford’s two watchtowers, which in its current, semi-finished state, measured twenty-five feet tall from ground to roof.

  At the moment, the watchtower was essentially a four-posted scaffold with a set of stairs twisting upwards to a semi-covered platform, where the militia or other Adventurers could easily watch the horizon for threats while also enjoying some level of protection from the worst of the elements.

  One of our long-term plans was to build a sister tower to match the watch tower on the southern entrance in order to maximize our visibility across the horizon and to better control access into the heart of Aldford. Should the need ever arise, the two watchtowers would be perfectly positioned to rain death and destruction on any who chose to assault the town from the southeastern bridge.

  The same applied for the northern entrance to Aldford, where a matching watchtower also stood, giving us a clear view of the land to the north of the town, and any who would approach from the direction of the northeastern forest.

  In time, we hoped to finish both sets of watchtowers guarding the two entrances to Aldford, which would then serve as a starting point to begin building the palisade I had originally envisioned circling around the town.

  That is if I can ever get Jenkins, Léandre and Drace to agree on a proper design for the finished defenses. I shook my head remembering the rather heated disagreements the trio had found themselves in over the last few weeks. Channeling his expertise from his Real Life career of being a Civil Planner, Drace had quickly become integral to the development of Aldford, happy to have a way to put his education to practical use, something that he’d been unable to do in Reality with the massive downturn in employment.

  Walking over the bridge and into the town proper, three large buildings came into view. Set in a row, side by side to one another, were three Viking style longhouses, all bearing noticeable architectural differences, despite each serving the same function.

  We had learned early that Léandre viewed using the same design for more than one building something akin to a mortal sin and so we eventually found it easier to give into his eccentricities, so long as it didn’t impact the building’s production time or the town’s defense.

  We’ll probably need to build a few more of these, I thought, silently admiring the Tul’Shar’s handiwork and the way that he had managed to have the three different designs blend seamlessly together. On second thought… we need to build more of everything. I haven’t the faintest idea where we’re going to find enough space to put everyone. I hope they’re okay sleeping outside for a few more days.

  Leaving the long houses behind, we cut through what was shaping up to be the residential section of Aldford and approached what once used to be the Workshop, now creatively renamed ‘The Crafting Hall’ after our countless renovations had drastically changed the single room building into a sprawling, multi-purpose crafting hub.

  It had taken a fair bit of arm-twisting and cajoling to convince Jenkins to allow us to modify his treasured Workshop, but as more Adventurers expressed interest in pursuing tradeskills and the demand for construction materials rose, he was forced to admit that the tiny little Workshop wasn’t enough to fulfill all of Aldford’s needs anymore.

  Well, that and we told Shelia that he was being an obstinate fool about the whole thing.

  So, with a hesitant Jenkins’ ever vigilant supervision and Léandre’s expertise, the Workshop had been drastically expanded into a massive, two-story building, with dedicated crafting areas set aside for Leatherworking, Tailoring and Carpentry. Due to its unique requirements, we had decided to move the original forge into its own adjacent and still-in-progress building that we had come to call The Foundry.

  Process on the new crafting hub for the town had advanced far enough that Adventurers were no longer tripping over one another as they worked, but as with practically everything in Aldford, we still had a long way to go until the Crafting Hall was considered complete.

  “Ah, our intrepid defenders return.” A silky-smooth voice pulled me out of my thoughts as a tan colored Tul’Shar, wearing a simple leather tunic with dark pants, walked out of the Crafting Hall. “You wake a tired old man with such a large ruckus in the night, and now I sense you are all here to bring him even more work, yes?”

  “Léandre.” I smiled while looking up to see the familiar lion-like form of Aldford’s Lead Architect striding towards us. “You know what they say about the reward for doing a good job…”

  “But, of course… more work!” the cat-man exclaimed with a laugh, causing the numerous tools he had looped along his waist to jingle. “This is how the world works for people such as us. We are destined to be forever busy!”

  Revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth, the architect grinned at us in anticipation as he clasped his hands together. “Now, tell poor Léandre what tasks you wish to pile on him, and he will tell you what he can do.”

  Drace took a deep breath, before starting to explain the events of the night, culminating with our battle against the bandits. “Now we need to find a way to house at least two-hundred and twenty people. At least for the short term until we can build a few more buildings.”

  “A daunting task…” Léandre replied, crossing his arms in thought for a few seconds before snapping his fingers with a nod, “…for anyone other than myself.”

  “Y-You came up with a plan already?” I couldn’t help but stammer in surprise. Despite having spent nearly a month working with the older architect-turned-gamer, I was often caught off guard by how the man thought and his creative approach to problems.

  “Of course!” Léandre waved dismissively. “For most of my life, I have traveled all over the world, volunteering with disa
ster relief organizations during crises. On several occasions, I have had to do much more… with much less than we find ourselves with today.”

  The architect paused, his expression falling for a second as his ears drooped, before springing up as he shook his head, “But that is all in the past, and we must worry about what we can do today.”

  Before any of us could comment on the ghost that we had seen cross Léandre’s face, he launched into explaining his plan, already having moved past whatever memory had haunted him. “We will take the entirety of that godawful burlap cloth piling up in the storage room and fashion it into a tarp, from there we will use a few of the timbers we have set aside to dry as supports and we will make ourselves a massive tent.”

  “A…tent?” Drace repeated slowly before a spark caught in his eye. “A tent! You mean like a circus tent! That’s a great idea! It’ll be perfect for the short term!”

  “Thank you, my friends,” the Tul’Shar purred with another toothy smile as we all echoed Drace’s enthusiasm. “There will be some work involved to create the needed bracing, fastenings and rope, but I am confident that with some help, I can complete the task by nightfall. If need be, we will conscript others for any additional labor we may need. Where do you wish this tent to be placed?”

  “Just outside the town to the north,” I replied, mentally trying to envision the size of the tent. “I don’t want it blocking our view towards the south, and the rivers will provide enough of a defense to keep any creatures away.”

  “You want to put them outside the northern defenses?” Halcyon asked. “Won’t they see that as a snub that we don’t trust them?”

  “I don’t see that we have any other choice,” I said, shrugging at the mage. “If we put the tent up within Aldford, they’ll be right on top where we’re going to be building their new homes anyway.”

  “Lyr’s right,” Drace agreed. “The fewer people we have underfoot, the better. If anyone has hurt feelings, tell them to grab a hammer or an axe and help out; we won’t turn them away.”