by Ember Lane
“Promote me to a vice, and I’ll have a look while you go and get yourself killed in that castle,” Allaise said. “I’ll go through all the menus and see if we can’t make it a condition of joining. If you’re here, you’re Mandrake and you have a rating. Me and Finequill can work out how it’ll work then.” Allaise looked up at Starellion. “If nothing else it’ll occupy my mind.”
“So, who’s going to do the building? Who’s going to plan the city?”
“Echo,” Lincoln said.
“Yes?” asked Echo, appearing by the table.
Lincoln looked up at his city guide. “Do you know if you can join a guild?”
Echo fell silent, the way he did when checking the game’s rules. “There’s nothing to say I can’t,” he eventually said.
“Then try and join.”
Echo has applied to join your guild, The House of Mandrake.
You have approved Echo. Echo is now part of your guild.
You have promoted Echo to Steward of Sanctuary. Echo now has the power to recruit members.
“There,” said Lincoln. “We now have the most impartial, incorruptible steward in Barakdor.”
“If I may,” Echo said, interrupting. “Bethe has applied to join, may I?”
Lincoln slapped his forehead. “Duh!”
You have approved Bethe. Bethe is now part of your guild.
You have promoted Bethe to Steward of Joan’s Creek. Bethe now has the power to recruit members.
“Echo, you and Bethe will need to build a council chamber where the influence of both cities overlaps.”
“How many will preside in the council?”
“Make it for eleven,” Lincoln said. “We can always adjust.”
Allaise coughed.
You have promoted Allaise to Vice-Leader. Allaise can now access the guild’s menus.
“Well?” Cronis barked from the tavern's doorway. “Do you want to know what we found or not?”
Lincoln made to get up, but looked at Allaise and Finequill. Allaise shooed him away. “We’ve got plenty to discuss. Echo, will you sit while we decide what to do first?”
Echo sat, and before Lincoln was more than a couple of yards away, they were hunched over in deep conversation. Cronis, on the other hand was already swaying, and he had spilled ale all down his front.
Lincoln realized his window of opportunity was going to be small. Cronis vanished inside and Lincoln followed. The inside of the tavern was heavy with pipe smoke, the conversation a low murmur. Belzarra was sitting in the farthest corner, her pipe in hand, and her coat collar up. Cronis stood at the counter ordering fresh ales, and so Lincoln sat with the witch.
“So, what did you find that needs drowning in ale?”
Belzarra snorted a laugh. “Like that one needs an excuse. It was not what we found—that is quite useless to us at the moment, more the implications of what we think it does—I’ll let him tell you. He hasn’t had enough limelight lately.”
Cronis sat with a grunt. “I don’t court fame and legend, it just follows me around like a bad smell. So, you’ve been in her cave?”
By her, Lincoln knew Cronis meant Poleyna. “You know I have.”
“Yes…” Cronis glanced from Belzarra to Lincoln. “Your choice of caster had been intriguing me. Did you know that Belzarra is but one in close vicinity? The Red Mountains, this band of land has power, and power attracts practitioners of magic, so you had plenty of choices. You could, for instance, have fetched The Catchkin Wizard—he lives just west of Zybond. Ma Lumin, she’s due west of here, and there are others too, and each one has their own qualities. Catchkin has the ability to mimic all manner of items. Ma Lumin had certain shifting abilities, though not the ones you’d think.”
“And you Belzarra, apart from the spells I’ve experienced, what specialty do you have?” Lincoln asked.
“I have far speak and far sight. I can communicate with others that have the same talent. It is a strange gift because it puts you in touch with the simplest movements of the land around you. Far speak, for example, lets me hear what no others could as the echoes travel on the wind or resonate through the land.”
“Okay…” said Lincoln, not overly understanding what Cronis was getting at.
“The table,” Cronis said, as if that explained everything.
“It still speaks,” Belzarra announced. “It still speaks, and the pools still hold reflections.”
“What are you telling me?” Lincoln asked.
Cronis huffed. “Are you dumb? The table is not a table—it’s a communication device. Nine pools in its surface and nine gods. There. Is that plain enough for you? Scholl had a room like that cave, one where he would vanish into. It’s entirely plausible that if we can work out how to tune the table, we might be able to communicate with her.”
Lincoln blinked hard. He vaguely remembered the table, but Alexa had been the one who’d lingered by it. At the time they first went into the cave, Lincoln had been more intrigued with sticking his hand through a solid rock wall, and then walking through it to be confronted by the vision of a god—her: Poleyna. So, he really hadn’t taken any notice of the table.
“Wouldn’t she need her own table to talk back?”
“That we don’t know,” Cronis said.
“What if you get it working and the other gods pop up, maybe even this Belved, or his second, ShadowDancer?”
“That’s a gamble I’m willing to take. You don’t understand; she’s everything; she’s Mandrake.” Cronis furrowed his brow. “And I hazard a guess that you lot know more about it than you’re giving away…”
Lincoln wondered what the hell Cronis was talking about until the stool next to his screeched as it was pulled out. Crags sat down, dumping his ale on the table and then priming his pipe. He completely ignored the wizard while he got himself settled and sorted. Soon puffing away, he appeared to contemplate Cronis’s words. “Yep, you’re right, ain’t you, there,” he finally said.
“So, you admit it?” Cronis asked.
“Stands to reason I’d know more about much than you know about little,” he grumbled, and took a long draft of ale. “After all, I am the only one to experience a chaos portal, so I would know more about it than all of you.”
“So, spill,” Cronis growled.
Crags crossed his knees and leaned back a little. “What part, wizard? What do you need to know? I told you why the day lit up the night—I told you the thief had unearthed the first bane. You didn’t know that, did you?”
“The rest; spill the rest.” If possible, Cronis’s face was a little redder than usual. If possible, it was a little more screwed up too.
Crags swayed forward, resting his ale back on the table before leaning away. “What if I don’t trust you? What then, eh?”
“Don’t trust me?” The old wizard reared. “I’m committed to Poleyna, to Scholl, to all that is peaceful.”
“Wouldn’t ShadowDancer tell me the same? Wouldn’t he tell me that he was committed to Belved and to ruling the world? What side would you pick?”
Cronis slammed the table with his fist. Lincoln smirked. Crags broke into a smile.
“See, wizard,” Crags said, “see how angry y’got when y’thought I thought you were on the wrong side? So, I ask you. What side am I on?”
Cronis sighed. “I’d have more chance of having serious discourse with a mantilee. You’re on…” Cronis ran out of words.
“Kill on sight in Irydia, at war with the dwarves, hated by the elves—that is what I have to live with every day, why? Why are my people so reviled? What side are we on?”
It struck Lincoln that Cronis hadn’t a clue and nor had Belzarra. Gnomes were evil. Gnomes were bad. So therefore gnomes couldn’t be on our side and had to be on the other side, dependent on whom you were talking too. It seemed that no one really knew what side they were on.
“So, who do you fight for?” Lincoln asked, out of curiosity and to break the silence.
“Me? fer you—House Ma
ndrake!” Crags said, his chest puffed with pride. “Digberts, I’d guess he was on the side of the man—The Thief, dwarf, elf, goblin, Troll…” Crags winked at Lincoln. “Y’get where I’m going with this?”
“Whoever treats them right and helps them?”
Crags swept Lincoln’s answer away with a swipe of his hand. “Nah. He’ll be on whoever’s side rescues Thadius Hawkwind. That there’s a favored uncle—that there’s Digbert’s uncle, and that there’s the one man who can truly control the chaos portal.”
“So, in order to ally the gnomes, we have to rescue Thadius Hawkwind?”
Crags nodded. “That y’do, and therein lies the problem. Thadius is being held prisoner in Shyantium. Now that’s a viper’s nest of backstabbing and betrayal. So, Cronis, whaddya gonna do? You want Digberts's loyalty, y’gotta deliver his uncle.”
“And how in Poleyna’s name am I to do that?”
Crags grinned an evil grin. “Just what do you know about chaos portals?”
“Explain,” Belzarra said, appearing to become interested. “I have a vested interest in portal magic.”
Lincoln signaled for more ale, even ordering up bowls of broth. Judging by the light streaming in through the windows, dusk and Griselda’s arrival were a way off yet. Once the ales, bowls, and some bread had been dished around, they all waited for Crags to explain the true nature of the chaos portal.
“It’s like this,” Crags whispered, “and if you repeat it—if you ever tell Digberts or Marngs I told—I’ll deny every word. Promise?”
Cronis waved his request away. “Just get on with it.”
“So, the gnomes and harpies are trapped in a portal that opens in random places…randomly. That about right?”
“It’s what we’re led to believe.”
“Then how come I could just get untrapped? Surely they could all escape if I could be thrown out?”
Lincoln stopped in mid-ale slurp. He’d seen it happen—he’d seen Crags getting kicked out of the portal. He’d also seen how it supposedly, randomly, reappeared right by Esmerelda’s cave.
“It’s not random,” he whispered.
Crags wagged his finger. “Oh yes it is, but not like you think. How many sides does a portal have?”
And there it was, Lincoln hadn’t even considered that the chaos portal was anything but some kind of holding flux that kept the gnomes and harpies trapped until such time as it opened.
“Two,” said Cronis. “One where they were, and one where it opened.”
Crag’s little finger wagged again. “That’s where you’d be wrong. That’s what everyone assumes, and that’s what we’ve let you all believe—mostly because it’s the fun of it, but it ain’t like that.” The gnome sat back, satisfaction plastered all over his face. “You all ferget the obvious. We gnomes like shiny shiny. We like treasure, and we like adventurers because adventurers like shiny shiny too.” Crags turned to Lincoln. “Where does Digberts put all the shiny shiny, if he lives in a portal?”
Belzarra’s throaty laugh broke the ensuing silence. “Oh that’s beautiful. So you’re saying that the gnomes actually live somewhere?”
Crags nodded. “Shabbledown—that’s what we call it. Lovely in summer, lovely in winter, and it has a chaos portal right in Thadius’s backyard. That’s where it becomes interesting. You see, Digberts can control it, but it is random.”
That made little sense to Lincoln, but he felt that if he interrupted Crags, the gnome might never open up again. “It’s like a hose under pressure,” Lincoln muttered to himself.
“Hose?” Cronis questioned.
“It’s like a fork of lightening,” Crags explained. “But it always comes from the same cloud—Shambledown, and can strike anywhere. We’ve learned, over time, to control it. We can influence it, but it has to be a special place. The troll’s lair, for instance, had enough energy radiating in it for us to open it there because of the tomb.”
“And where we were camped?” Lincoln asked.
“Not where—you, don’t forget, you had two city tokens on you—do y’know how much compressed magic they ‘ave in them? We could’ve found you in the middle of The Desert of Skulls if we’d had to.”
“So, what’s his end game?” Cronis asked.
“Whose? Digberts? See, you’re mistaken again. Marngs really runs the show. It’s her intentions you need to sway to turn Digberts’s head.”
“Hers?”
“Well, she’s had her head turned already—she’s erring on the side of Ruse,” Crags said, ominously.
11
The Shaft
Griselda’s entrance into Sanctuary had been nothing less than stunning, and nothing less than Lincoln had anticipated. She’d vaulted from the bridge, grabbing a nearby treetop, swinging around it and leaping from one to the next until she plunged to the ground just before The One Tree. Much to the elves glee, she’d knelt and prayed for a while, before marching toward the main settlement, flanked by ecstatic elves.
Then the celebrations had begun in earnest. Ale barrel after ale barrel had been drained, the streets packed with merry folks dancing to the beat of the dwarven drums and the blare of their horns. Lincoln managed to sneak away with Allaise, just a little after midnight, and they’d grabbed a spare seat in the back of a cart headed to Joan’s Creek.
The next morning, he woke and realized for once he was in no hurry. Echo’s bots wouldn’t be finished digging around the stone plug until the afternoon. Hopefully, all the wood would be cut and the ramp ready. He reasoned he could leave it until the next day to try raising the stone, but both settlements had this buzz at the minute. Griselda’s entrance had brought an air of expectation, and all the talk later in the evening had focused on the raising of the stone plug—the waking of Starellion. It was a momentum he was reluctant to let go. After the lazy morning in bed with Allaise, he finally emerged onto the stoop to see Bethe hovering close by.
“About this stewardship,” she said, without waiting for him to draw breath. “I need some parameters to follow, simple ones, but some structure. Do you, for instance, want this to become a city, a town, or remain a village? What?”
It was a question he’d been delaying answering. He looked at his booming village’s stat sheet.
Settlement name: Joan’s Creek. Population: 480.
Population capacity: 630
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Politics: (20, 0), Culture: (0, 0), Defense: (0, 0)
Build speed: +20%, Learning advancement: N/A, Defense bonus: N/A
Buildings: Amount - levels
Cottages: 14 – 5,5,5,5,5,5,5,4,4,4,4,4,4,4, Warehouse 3 – 7,7,7 Inn 1 – 3, Town Hall 1 – 5, Academy 1 – 6, Feasting Hall 1 – 6, Marketplace 1 – 1, Barracks 1 – 6, Forge 1 – 8, Workshop 1 – 7, Rally Spot 1 - 5
Production
Farms: 14 – 5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5 Sawmills: 3 – 6,6,6, Quarries: 6 – 7,7,7,7,7,7, Mines: 5 –6,6,6,6,6
Resources (Amount, Production rate, Current Consumption-food only)
Food: (760,400, 21,000/ph +40%, -4800p/h), Wood: (4,900, 6300/ph +40%), Stone: (109,009, 16,800/ph +50%), Ore: (356,108, 10,500/ph +40%)
He’d kept down the number of sawmills on purpose. Joan’s Creek just didn’t have the forests to sustain anymore than three. He doubted he’d raise them above six, and was actually thinking of destroying one of them. Food was fine—booming—even outstripping what they could consume, but he was storing most of the excess in Sanctuary; he just needed to find an army to eat it all. All the extra stone was being used by Sanctuary’s wall as was a good portion of the iron. Again, he expected that resources will come into play when he needed to equip the army. He was at a stalemate, and was nearly at bursting point. If this had been a true game—like the ones he’d played before—he’d be looking to spread his wings and expand—he’d be looking to attack in order to defend.
Something that was crossing his mind now, but again, if only he had the army.
He came full circle, back to
mulling over Bethe’s question. Lincoln had to protect Joan’s Creek from too much expansion, from its worst enemy—Lincoln himself. Sanctuary was a war machine in the waiting, a realization that had begun to creep up on him for a while. Sanctuary was his subconscious warrior coming into play, and as he began to accept that, his choice became easy.
“You must conserve it. Set a population cap. If possible, meld it better with the nature around. Once everything is built as high as we need, then the building must stop and the mills, quarries, and mines shut. While Echo needs resources, they stay open, though. The academy must get maxed—it’ll help with the resources. I’ll put in the hours to do the research.”
Bethe acknowledged his wish.
“Five more cottages,” Allaise suddenly said. “Can you build five more level-2 cottages—dotted around the glade? I…we… Finequill and me will need them for esteem rewards. We want it to be a reward for contributing to Sanctuary, in the same way trips to Sanctuary will be rewards for esteem in Joan’s Creek.”
“You got that far?” Lincoln was surprised. “You’ve got an idea on how to do it?”
“There’s a fame tab within the guild settings. It tracks an individual’s contributions to the guild, and we can change the description from fame to esteem, after we set everyone goals. So if you’re a farmer, it’s linked to produce: a smithy, well, you get the gist. It’ll be something along the lines of one hour’s work gives one esteem point—something like that, and the best thing is it is automatically tracked by the guild tab, so the only cheating can be in the settings of the individual esteem goals.”
“Cheating? Someone’s come up with a way to cheat a system that isn’t even invented?”