by Ember Lane
Now, for possibly the first time, the land was hell-bent on making him suffer. He carefully got out of bed, untangling himself from Allaise’s arms, and stumbled outside where he tripped over Griselda’s prone body, waking the comatose dwarf up. She screamed and then screamed again as the daylight streamed into her sensitive eyes. A fog-filled Lincoln tried to skip out of the way, pirouetted on the narrow deck, and fell crashing through its balustrade, splashing into the lake. There, he floundered like a drowning child, laughing at the top of his voice.
Life was good.
Griselda jumped in, her eyes now bound in their black bandage, and Allaise ran out, tried do dive in elegantly, slipped and belly flopped with as much style as a drunk penguin.
The day had started well.
Later, as they sat drying on the deck, Lincoln realized he had nothing to do. That was provided that you discounted the new quests and his promise to accompany Flip, his need to make all his various civic appointments and choose his seven protectors; the exploration of a vast castle that they’d just brought back to life, and his apparent takeover of a castle called Zybond, that was by all accounts quite well run by a lord called Zybandian who, so Lincoln had been told, knew the art of warfare. Plus Estorelll, but that was a quest too. Apart from that, he had a free day.
“Where the hell am I going to start?”
He asked both of them and neither of them at the same time.
“With me,” a male voice called out, startling all of them. Flip approached from the path, a tray of meats and loaves in his arms. “You start with me because I am by far the most accomplished ruler-who-never-rules that the land has ever seen. You will listen to me because all the while I’ve been here, and before when I was with Alexa, I have never once fretted about my five little isles, and yet, I hear they are prosperous.” He set the tray on the deck and ruffled his hair. “First, I think I’ll have a swim and a bathe too. Those dungeons were filthy, the goblins fetid, and the mutant left a sour taste in my mouth. Eat,” he prompted. “Eat, eat.”
Flip turned away, sauntering about fifty yards back down the path.
“Why do you need to learn how to rule without being around?” Allaise asked, but Lincoln could already tell she knew the answer, knew that he was planning on leaving. She bowed her head. “The land made you emperor, and of course, you need to understand it.” Lincoln made to say something, but Allaise reached out and squeezed his knee. “Don’t fret. I’m not going to beg to come. This is my home now. This is your home. Someone must protect it.”
“I…”
She leaned forward, touching her finger to her lips. “So, what have we got to figure out?”
Lincoln pulled up his stat sheet, and was surprised it had been neatened—tidied up.
Name: Lincoln Hart. Race: Human. Type: Builder.
Age: 46. Alignment: Mandrake. XP: 31,995.
Level: 11 Profession: Emperor. Un/Al pts: 24. Reputation: Distinguished.
Health Points: 360/360 Energy: 230/230 Mana: 10/0
HP Regen: 20/Min EN Regen: 23/Min MA Regen: 1/Min
Personal Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Vitality: (13, 23), Stamina: (15, 8), Intelligence: (1, 0)
Wisdom: (1, 0), Luck: (12, 0)
Strength: (8, 10) Agility: (13, 10)
City Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Politics: (20, 0), Culture: (0, 0), Defense: (0, 0)
Build speed: +20%, Learning advancement: N/A, Defense bonus: N/A
Skills: Select to reveal
Delegation Tree: Select to reveal
Settlements: Joan’s Creek: Select to reveal
Sanctuary: Select to reveal
Historic Cities:Starellion: Select to reveal
Talents: None.
Quests: Cleanse Starellion. Status: Complete. Reward: 50% claimed
Clear the forest of fifty satanshrooms. Status: Complete. Reward: Claimed
Get the key and note to its rightful owner. Status: Complete. Reward: Unknown.
Add all the banners of the nine lands of Mandrake to the Hall of Banners. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Unknown.
Wake Estorelll. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Unknown.
Unclaimed reward: Choose 1 Skill to add to your skill set. Skill will be maxed. 36hr remaining.
“First thing, I’ve got 24 points to allocate, but can’t work out what to give them to. Should I up defense, ready for when Muscat, someone—anyone—attacks? Should I spend them on politics, so we can build the wall faster? What about culture? Then we can research Military Maneuvers, Archery, Medicine.” Lincoln knew he was rambling, but the stakes were so high.
“What about yourself?”
“Well, that’s another thing. Do I need more strength, agility, or even luck? Can’t I just get Jack to make me a ring, or a belt.”
“You’d look good in an anklet,” Griselda said, sniggering.
“Priorities,” Flip called, returning. He had his pants on and little else. Dumping his sack down, he laid out the rest of his clothes over the deck’s broken balustrade. “You should fix that,” he said, sitting, grabbing a heal of bread. “This is the way I look at it. What’s important to me? Me or the city? As the Five Isles is my base and my income, and home to my good lady, it is fairly important, but…and this is important…it's not everything. So, if it were me, I’d do fifty fifty, but you also have to consider this. Starellion is a Historic City. At the moment, you have woken The Hall of Banners, and that gave you a fine XP boost. Once the rest is restored, well, you could be a mini deity. Even each minimal room restored to a level 16 will give you 1360XP—don’t forget you get ten for level 1, twenty for 2 and so on. How much do you think the whole city will give you—and it's not a castle—never think of it as that. Starellion was the city. I believe it has a hundred quarters that can house...quite a few.”
“So, I’ll grow fast?” Lincoln asked, but he’d already worked that one out.
No self-respecting historic city is going to let itself be run by a feeble ruler, he mused.
“Very, even when you are away.”
“So, I should put all my points into building? Speed it up, level the city, and get back the points.”
“That would be my thought,” Flip said. “Provided we don’t encounter too many monsters on our way to The Forest of Ledges.”
Lincoln nodded, glanced at Allaise, and saw her nodding too.
“Build speed it is.” He allocated the points.
“So, next you have a meet, and you can’t decide anything else until you’ve met…her… I’m going to say her in the loosest sense of the word.”
“Who’s she?” Lincoln asked.
“She is…for want of a better word, is a fey, a faerie—take your pick. She was the devisor of the scenes and the architect of the graveling attack. She tested you to see if you were worthy of her domain, and it seems you passed with flying colors. Have you never noticed a fairy around and about this place? I know I did and thought she was just—”
“I did too,” Griselda exclaimed. “I saw her a few times.”
“And I,” Elleren said, coming from the direction of the forest with Jin. “And she’s waiting for you at the academy. She said she’s getting impatient. Asked us to tell you to…move it along?”
Allaise pushed Lincoln up. “You go, we’ll be at…”
“The feasting hall,” Griselda said. “I missed two days worth of meals—near enough.”
Lincoln stretched, suddenly nervous about meeting the custodian of Starellion. “So,” he said. “I’ll… Look… Does anyone want to come with me?”
“Not me,” Griselda said.
Allaise shook her head. “She doesn’t want to see me.”
“Jin? Elleren? You’ve already met her?”
Jin and Elleren took a step back, allowing him the room to leave.
“Not us, we’ve got a few days of catching up to do.”
“Flip?” Lincoln pleaded, now dreading the meet everyone appeared to want to avoid. What did they kn
ow about fairies that he didn’t?
“And leave these two ladies unescorted? I think not,” he said, and locked arms with each, following after Jin and Elleren.
Lincoln stood, alone. “I could order you all to. I am your emperor. You know that, don’t you?” he shouted, as they walked off.
He strolled into the forest, along the path that led to the academy, suddenly delighting in the peace of it all. Though his head felt positively scrambled, he knew no fairy could ruin his day. All the talk of portals and historic cities had befuddled his mind to a degree. He slowed his walk, cherishing the silence, the peace of the forest, but arrived at the academy all too fast. Bethe greeted him, and at first he was relieved to see her.
“Bethe! How are things?”
On every other occasion that he’d met Bethe, she’d been even, yes even described her. This time, she seemed agitated—to put it mildly.
“There you are,” she snapped. “Am I really… Do I have to… This is not how it’s supposed to run.”
Bethe spun around and pointed. Lincoln followed the line of her copper-colored finger. There was no doubt in Lincoln’s mind that the winged creature on the low table was, indeed, a fairy. It… She was possibly three feet tall, but it was hard to judge as she was sitting cross-legged, staring at her fingernails, tutting. For some reason, Lincoln had expected her to be blue-skinned or green, but her skin was yellow and orange and flickered like a flame. A plume of black hair angled back over her head, like it was slicked, and a white band across her face made it look like she had a mask on. Lincoln couldn’t remember seeing such a vibrant fairy in Joan’s Creek. In fact, come to think of it, he couldn’t remember seeing a fairy at all.
“My name is Morningstar, I am the custodian of the City of Starellion, and I am bound to your service,” she said, with a strangely resigned tone. “But let’s get one thing straight, this copper bot works for me; her settlement is under my influence. She doesn’t seem to understand.”
Bethe planted her hands on her hips. “She drafted eighteen of my workers.”
Morningstar waved her hand, dismissively. “Meh! Eighteen, I could have used a lot more. Your master will want his historic city up and functioning as soon as possible. As you know, I am allowed to draft five percent of your workforce or army every day. Is eighteen so bad?”
“That’s not the point,” Bethe said, haughtily. “You could have just asked. Apart from the extra bots being used on the quarries because the dwarves are too drunk to cut stone, I have some to spare. Joan’s Creek is a place of refuge, not industry.”
“So, I can have more? Mind you, you’ll need to up your food production,” Morningstar told her. “Once the armies start arriving, we’ll have more mouths to feed, and Sanctuary doesn’t produce any food...now,” she said, deviously.
“Hold on,” said Lincoln. “You’re still sending the food to Sanctuary, aren’t you? Tell me you are, even if the fields on top of Starellion are now yours?” Lincoln hadn’t considered the fields might revert to the Starellion automatically on its awakening. Mind you, he hadn’t considered Starellion a historic city until Flip mentioned it. A dread feeling passed through him. “You said, ‘Armies start arriving.’ Just how far is your field of influence?”
“One hundred miles square, so basically from here to Zybond, south to Brokenford, west to Midfort Cross and north, well there’s not much north of here until you reach Shyantium, and I can’t draft that, though the easternmost tip does reach Sea Dream, and Lakevale Pass barely comes into our influence.”
“Did you?” Lincoln squeezed his eyes shut. “Did you draft Brokenford?”
“I might have,” Morningstar replied.
“What?” Lincoln cried.
Morningstar rolled her narrow eyes. “I’m not stupid, you know. I haven’t been idle just waiting for my liege to come and rescue me. I sometimes think you adventurers have an over-inflated opinion of yourselves. I’ve watched this place grow, Sanctuary too, and—” She hopped off the table. “If I’m truthful, you’ve done a good job for one so…limited. I drafted swords from Muscat because we need them, and he doesn’t. They’ll just be there one minute and poof! Gone. Unless he immediately thinks ‘Hang on, someone’s woken a historic city that has power over mine’ we’re in the clear.”
“And if he does?”
“He’ll call his banners and march, or not, I think he’s a bit of a ditherer. Either way, there’s sixty odd swordsmen stuck in a room in Starellion getting mighty agitated. I’d get there quite quickly if I were you. Plus, you have a shaman to bury—I’ve let him rest in state as befits his station. The river needs diverting down the Spear of Vitality, and there’s the odd running repair associated with having an old building, nothing you shouldn’t get done in the next thousand odd years.”
It sounded gruesome. “Or?” Lincoln asked.
“Or, you could leave me to do all the bit parts. I could, for instance, let the food flow into Sanctuary while simultaneously arranging with Echo to supply me with wood. Did you know that a historic city like Starellion has a base production of fifteen thousand per hour food and storage for 1.5 million at level 16? And you have fifteen of them… You also have five quarry spots available, and five lumber on its southern face—the establishment of Sanctuary reduced that number significantly.”
“She’s angling to be steward—like me and Echo,” Beth said, a resigned tone laced into her words.
“Masterful,” Morningstar dripped. “A masterstroke that choice—appointing your guides as stewards. Yes, all these problems could go away, if…”
“So,” Lincoln pondered. “So, at the moment, apart from the drafting of the cities and village’s, your power is less—”
“Than theirs…yes, at the moment,” Morningstar said, sheepishly.
“Would you agree to work with them, rather than boss them around? Think of it as three settlements tucked so damn tight that you’ve all got to get on.”
Morningstar rolled her eyes again and looked up at the heavens. “I suppose.”
“And you’d join my guild and swear to uphold its aims and values?”
Bethe coughed. “You haven’t set any yet,” she whispered.
Lincoln shook his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he whispered, and made a note to do it later.
“Yes…” huffed Morningstar.
Morningstar has applied to join your guild.
You have accepted Morningstar into your guild.
You have promoted Morningstar to an officer.
You have promoted Morningstar to steward of the historic city of Starellion.
“Now,” said Lincoln. “That part completed the guild hall by the tunnel, I suggest we reconvene there at noon, then Echo can join us. If you could thrash out how this is all going to work by then.” Lincoln grimaced. “That’d be great.” He turned and left.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Morningstar shouted.
“The feasting hall. Gonna grab me a nice steak.”
He left, quite satisfied with the outcome, and soon joined Allaise and Flip in the feasting hall. The others had moved on to the tavern already, a full day of rest and relaxation in front of them. Lincoln grabbed a plate of food and didn’t look up until he’d scraped his wooden plate clean, drained his morning ale, and felt twice the man he’d been a moment ago.
“So, Flip, shall we get to it?” Allaise said, smoothing a piece of parchment onto the table. She scribbled Lincoln’s name at the top, then seven lines, then a farther three over where she wrote Starellion, Sanctuary, and Joan’s Creek. She traced a line down from all three. “Right, let’s start. So, I take it from the notifications we have Morningstar, Bethe, and Echo all as stewards.”
Lincoln nodded, and Allaise filled their names in. “While I’m at it, can I suggest Gillian as head of Joan’s Creek? She’s the one who brings everyone together.”
“Put her down,” Lincoln was surprised that she didn’t want the job herself, not that he’d have let her.
“Swift f
or master at arms—we discussed it.”
Lincoln nodded. “And you need to put the position of innkeep there, there, and there.” Lincoln pointed to each of the city names.
“Really?” Allaise looked up.
“Really—I’ll have to teach them how to brew.”
“Like your priorities,” Flip said, butting in. “Hey, I’ve just had a thought. You might have to conquer my little kingdom.” Flip leaned close. “How do you think that’ll work out for you?”
“Just a small cluster of islands?”
“A very-hard-to-attack, small cluster of islands…”
Lincoln scratched his chin. “I’d say….principality and tax haven in return for a nice holiday home.”
Flip grinned. “Agreed, my liege!” And raised his mug. “Cheers!”
“Can we get back to this?” Allaise asked. “Who’s next?”
“You are,” Flip said easily. “And before you protest, we—”
“Discussed it,” Allaise said, scribbling her own name, thinking, then adding esteem underneath. “But aren’t the seven supposed to be knight protectors?”
Lincoln shrugged. “It’s my choice, and I need more than just a strong arm. So, Griselda and Jin—but what part do they play?”
“Griselda could definitely be morale, Jin…law—sheriff?” Allaise proposed.
“Didn’t Jin have Pete as that?” Flip asked.
Allaise shook her head. “Give him Starellion’s inn. Banging soldiers' heads would definitely be his thing.”
They all agreed. “Elleren?” Allaise asked. “Finequill?”
A thought sprang into Lincoln’s brain. Hadn’t Finequill said that Pog had been looked after, yet Thadius had said that he’d sold Pog?
“I’ll need to speak to the mouse first, find out what his truth is,” Lincoln muttered. “Forgarth for one of the seven—and I know that makes two elves but I want a balanced point of view.”