《Blood Shaper》 Book 1 Chapter 1 Looking around, Kay was, to be frank, really pissed off at what he was seeing. Spread around him was a fairly beautiful field of green grass, interspaced with nice flowers of varying colors. A few hundred yards off behind him was the start of a forest that kept going as far as he could see, and very far off in the distance ahead he could see the edge of what was probably a mountain. The entire scene was gorgeous, just the kind of place he would love to travel to. The reason for his anger was simple, at least in his mind. He expected to wake up in his damn apartment! Not some random field! He lived in Arizona dammit! There wasn¡¯t scenery like this for hundreds of miles! ¡°Where the hell am I?¡± He muttered, doing yet another slow spin to try and find some landmark he might recognize. The sun hit his eyes as he slowly shifted around, exaggerating his headache. He covered his eyes with his hand. ¡°If those idiots dropped me off in the middle of nowhere¡­¡± He growled, but internally he was very worried that wasn¡¯t the case. The last thing he remembered was getting together with his friends in his apartment to hang and out and drink. The first few hours had been the normal thing, playing games, talking, and just having a good time. After that things got¡­ blurry. As much as he wanted to imagine that this was all some dumb prank, his friends weren¡¯t the type of people to do things like that, hence why he was friends with them. Also, logically thinking, there was no way that he¡¯d drank enough to keep him unconscious long enough to travel out to a place like this without waking up at least once. He could have been drugged but¡­ No, that wasn¡¯t it. ¡°Alright.¡± He said to himself, looking down at his hands. ¡°I know what this could be. No, that¡¯s wrong. I know what my immature kid-self wants this to be. So let¡¯s go ahead and debunk that theory so I can move on.¡± Kay was, by his own admission, a nerd. Possibly also a geek depending on how one defined the term, but his personal choice of title was nerd. He liked video games and comics, fantasy and sci-fi stories, manga and anime, the whole thing. He was a nerd¡¯s nerd and didn¡¯t care much about what other people thought about his hobbies. One thing he hadn¡¯t gotten super into was a newer trend in anime and manga called ¡°Isekai¡±. Japanese for ¡°Other World¡±, the genre was all about regular people from Earth getting sucked into various kinds of fictional worlds. While he wasn¡¯t a massive fan of the genre, he¡¯d read his fair share and had a few favorites. Waking up in a strange place with no memory of getting there was a big trope, and the excitable child in him was clamoring in joy at the thought of it happening to him. Stolen story; please report. The mature adult part of him was much more reasonably worried about the issue, and decided to just get it over with and check for it. There were some easily identifiable tropes to this sort of thing, so he decided to just run down the list of them, prove to himself that wasn¡¯t what was happening, and move on. First of all, he looked himself over and ran his fingers over his face. The clothes he was wearing were the same as he had been wearing when his friends came over, and it felt like his face when he touched himself. So he was still himself, no new body or reincarnating inside someone else. Next he looked up into the sky, blocking the sun with his hand again. No extra moons or suns in sight, no floating islands, and no giant creatures that shouted ¡°fantasy world!¡± anywhere in sight. Finally he tested what he thought was the least likely of the three big tests to prove his ¡°theory¡± wrong. A good number of the stories, especially the more western ones, were LitRPG, or ¡°Literary RPG¡± stories, where the world had some form of RPG mechanics in it, in one form or another. He quite liked those stories, but his more rational side was once more insisting on all the reasons that could be really bad, so he dashed the nascent hopes stirring in his chest and prepared for nothing to happen. ¡°Status.¡± He said out loud, staring directly ahead of himself. Kay had so convinced himself of the impossibility of being suddenly dropped into another world, one containing some kind of system or mechanics with a status page and such, that the partially-translucent screen that appeared in front of him startled him so much, he tripped and fell over. Kay pushed himself upright and stared at the screen. It had followed his field of vision, staying in the exact same spot relative to him as he fell. He stared at it, sitting on the ground for awhile. Then, in reaction to what the screen said as much as the fact that it existed, he shook himself and cursed. ¡°Well¡­ fuck.¡± [Status Locked] Book 1 Chapter 2 Pushing off the ground and wiping the dirt off his pants and back, Kay ignored the screen floating in front of his face as he desperately tried to calm down. Eyes closed, he took a few deep breaths before opening his eyes and looking at the screen. ¡°Alright, in moments like this, it¡¯s best to ask, what would Raph do?¡± Kay asked himself. He stood there and thought for a moment. ¡°I guess he¡¯d differentiate between what is known and what is just a guess.¡± Kay closed his eyes again, blocking out the now slightly scary view of the landscape around him, as well as the mostly terrifying image of the floating screen. ¡°So what do I actually know? I know that I¡¯m not home, or anywhere near it, because of the landscape. I know that I¡¯m probably in another world, because of the status thing.¡± He paused. ¡°Well, hypothetically, I could be on Earth and there is some kind of technological explanation for seeing a screen in front of me, but if the tech is advanced enough that it can do that, it¡¯d be a whole new world anyways, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± Off in the distance, around the edge of the silhouette that he was pretty sure was a mountain, a tiny speck lifted off and started flying away. ¡°¡­Never mind.¡± Kay stared at the dot until it flew out of sight, then he stared down at his hands. ¡°What the fuck do I do?¡± He groaned. Minutes passed as he stared mindlessly in front of him. The grass rippled as a breeze passed by, snapping him out of his trance. At some point while he stared, the screen had vanished. He smacked himself in the face, just enough for it to sting. ¡°Alright. I do the only thing I can right now, which is do my best to stay alive.¡± He started walking away from the forest. I just have to hope this is the right direction to go. He thought. ¡°Away from the dark forest is hopefully a better decision to find people. Because as scary as people in a different world could be, I will starve to death on my own.¡± He muttered to himself, pushing doubts out of his head. The field, or meadow or whatever, was mostly enclosed by trees around the edges, and walking in the direction that had the least trees led him to a wide open plain of tall grass and low sloping hills. As he crossed the top of one of those hills Kay saw what might have been a road. It was definitely a patch of dirt snaking between two of the hills, but he couldn¡¯t see enough of it to tell for sure, thanks to those same hills. Changing his direction, he kept walking. ¡°At least I haven¡¯t run into any predators. Or hell, any dangerous animals at all.¡± He glanced out into what looked like an endless sea of green-gold grass. ¡°This feels like the perfect place for magical buffalo or something.¡± Three more hills later he finally got a good enough view to definitively identify the patch of dirt as a road. He could also see the mounted party headed straight towards him. ¡°¡­¡± He stared silently at them for awhile. ¡°I really hope this goes well.¡± He started walking down the hill towards the road, muttering to himself. ¡°Please don¡¯t be slavers. Or cultists. Or¡­ There¡¯s too many bad things they could be. Please just be nice people. Actually nice people.¡± Stopping at the bottom of the hill he waited for the party to round the curve. In his head he kept going over different situations and possibilities. What to do if they got mad at him for stopping them, how to react if they wanted payment, all kinds of potential responses and conversations ranged through his mind, from the mundane to the inane. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. As the first rider came into view Kay froze as a very important thought that he¡¯d forgotten popped into his head. Why would people in another world speak English? The fourth and final person rode into view, and catching sight of Kay, the group pulled to a stop. One of them pushed himself up in his stirrups and waved. ¡°Hello!¡± Kay gaped at him. Seeing Kay¡¯s response, or lack thereof, the man turned to one of his companions, who looked down into their lap, then nodded back. Following the one man¡¯s lead, the whole group rode up to a few feet from Kay. ¡°Hello.¡± The leader greeted Kay again. ¡°I¡¯m fairly certain we have the right person, but just to be sure, you¡¯re the Outworlder, yes?¡± Kay continued gaping as he stared up at the man. ¡°Hello?¡± The man leaned forwards on his horse, ¡°Are you deaf?¡± The rider¡¯s annoyed tone snapped Kay back into working order. ¡°No, I¡¯m not deaf, I just-¡± ¡°Great!¡± He sat back up. ¡°So?¡± ¡°So¡­ what?¡± The man¡¯s voice got testy again. ¡°Are you the Outworlder or not?¡± ¡°Uh¡­ Well, what¡¯s an Outworlder?¡± He glared at Kay and spoke as if to a small child. ¡°A person from another world.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Normally Kay would be annoyed at the guy¡¯s attitude, but after the day he¡¯d had so far, Kay didn¡¯t have enough mental energy to bother. ¡°Well then yeah, that¡¯s me.¡± ¡°Then, let¡¯s get going!¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°We need to-¡± The furious pounding of more galloping horses cut off whatever the man had been about to say as another group of riders came galloping around the bend. ¡°Coultron!¡± One of the new riders shouted as they stopped some distance away. ¡°What do you think you¡¯re doing?!¡± The first group that had approached Kay had been fairly uniform. Four men on horseback, three of them wearing what looked like chain mail to Kay¡¯s untrained eye, and the fourth, the man who¡¯d been consulting something in his lap, wearing some kind of robe. The five people that had just shown up were much more eclectic in look. The one who¡¯d shouted was probably a man based off their voice, but the full plate mail covering them made actually figuring out what they looked like impossible. Next to the armored one, on Kay¡¯s right was a shorter, lithe man decked in leather armor by the looks of it, with a large bow held in his hands. Next to him was a woman, and Kay couldn¡¯t help staring at her in shock. That¡¯s an elf! A willowy woman with similar armor to the man on her left, her blond hair was slightly the wrong shade to Kay¡¯s eyes, and her eyes were a touch too blue. And her ears were pointy! Not incredibly long and pointy like the elves of a certain MMO, but they had a distinct point where a human¡¯s ears would curve. Kay dragged his eyes to the next person. To the left of the center rider was another woman, and Kay jerked in even more shock as he saw her. She had animal ears on top of her head! Kay blinked furiously as he stared at her. She had on mail similar to three of the four men from the first group, and a shield hanging from her saddle, but Kay barely noticed as he stared at the round, furry animal ears sitting on top of her head. The last person of the new group shifted in their saddle as they glared at Kay. Looking back at him, Kay saw this man had animal ears as well! What the fuck? Kay started backing up the hill away from both groups. The weapons and armor had drawn his attention as he looked them over, but the sight of three very obviously not human people was starting to break Kay¡¯s already fragile psyche. He didn¡¯t have any experiences even remotely like this to draw on in order to cope, and he was getting very close to loosing himself in a panic. The expression of the last group member, the one who¡¯d glared at Kay¡¯s staring, shifted into something more concerned as he said something to the rest of his party. The initial four had spun their mounts to face the newcomers as they approached. Grasping at the sword at his side, the leader, Coultron, shouted back, ¡°Performing the job I¡¯ve been assigned!¡± ¡°Bullshit!¡± One of the new people, the man with the bow, shouted as he gesticulated with his weapon. ¡°The BOA contracted the Adventurer¡¯s Guild to locate the new Outworlder, not you Graceful Success pricks!¡± Kay kept backing up. ¡°We were assigned to retrieve the Outworlder by our guildmaster!¡± Coultron proclaimed with a haughty air. ¡°He doesn¡¯t have the authority for that!¡± The elf woman snapped. The two groups kept yelling back and forth at each other, but Kay stopped paying attention as he kept backing up deeper and deeper into the tall grass. As he reached about halfway up the hill, Coultron¡¯s patience snapped. ¡°I don¡¯t answer to scum and race-traitors!¡± He yelled as he drew his sword. That prompted every other person to draw some kind of weapon. Kay froze for a moment, then dropped to the ground, praying that he would be hidden by the grass, and desperately tried not to panic. Book 1 Chapter 3 ¡°Go fuck yourself, Coultron.¡± Kay heard the elf woman shout. ¡°I don¡¯t give two silver for who you do or don¡¯t take orders from!¡± The armored man from the second group chimed in. ¡°I just know that you can¡¯t take us on. Leave.¡± ¡°But we don¡¯t need to fight you!¡± Coultron shouted, ¡°We just need to grab¡­ Where the fuck did he go!?¡± ¡°He¡¯s¡­ over there!¡± A voice he hadn¡¯t heard yet shouted out. The shapes of two people walked between him and Coultron¡¯s group. ¡°Leave, all of you.¡± One of the two people near Kay calmly called out. ¡°This can only end badly for you at this point.¡± There was some more shouting and posturing, but all of Kay¡¯s focus was on his breathing. I think I¡¯m having a panic attack. He didn¡¯t have a huge amount of experience with them, but he was pretty sure he was having one. Or I¡¯m about to have one? His own personal mental health issue had been depression, so while he¡¯d discussed the concept with his therapist once or twice before, he couldn¡¯t ever remember having one. The dizziness, shaking, trouble breathing, and the complete and total sense of panic running through him seemed symptomatic though. As Kay took deep breaths and tried to calm down he vaguely heard someone walk closer to where he was lying in the grass. ¡°Guys? He¡¯s freaking out.¡± ¡°He just got yanked into a different world and there was almost a fight right in front of him right after that, I¡¯m not surprised.¡± More people gathered around him. ¡°Well what do we do? None of us are mind healers.¡± There was the rustling of clothing moving. ¡°We have this.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± ¡°It¡¯s the same spell most mind healers use in situations like this, apparently. The BOA person gave it to me in case something like this happened.¡± ¡°Is it safe?¡± ¡°Why would the BOA give us a dangerous item to use on an Outworlder who¡¯s panicking?¡± ¡°Good point.¡± To Kay the conversation the people around him were having was mostly a background noise to his own rushing thoughts as he frantically tried to slow his breathing. As he lay there, a soothing warmth spread over his skin. His breathing started to slow as he stopped shaking, and he slowly calmed down as the warm feeling seeped into him. ¡°Should we be surrounding him like this? Doesn¡¯t that look kind of threatening?¡± One of the voices asked. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°Damn, yeah, you guys come over here.¡± Another one of them ordered. Kay slowly sat up and looked over at the voices. The five people that had confronted Coultron¡¯s group stood a few feet back from him, close to the road. The group stared at Kay as Kay stared at them, until eventually the elf took a hesitant step forward. ¡°Hi?¡± Kay slowly stood up and gave a small wave. ¡°Hello.¡± She smiled softly at him. ¡°Sorry about that. You probably have no idea what¡¯s happening, and us almost getting into it with those pricks probably didn¡¯t help.¡± Kay glanced around and saw that Coultron¡¯s group was nowhere to be seen. ¡°Uh, thanks?¡± ¡°My name¡¯s Delilah. What¡¯s yours?¡± ¡°I¡¯m Kenneth, but you can call me Kay.¡± ¡°Well Kay, it¡¯s a little late, but welcome to the world of Torotia.¡± Delilah spread her arms out and gestured around them. ¡°My companions are Torren,¡± The man in full plate armor, ¡°Arlen,¡± The man with the bow, ¡°Dema,¡± The woman with animal ears, ¡°And Dorian.¡± Dorian was the man with animal ears. Kay nodded along with each introduction, but couldn¡¯t help but stare at the ears on the two¡¯s heads. He couldn¡¯t tear his eyes away. Noticing the silent staring at her head, Dema waved her hand at him. ¡°You okay?¡± ¡°You have bear ears! On your head!¡± Kay blurted out. Dema nodded. ¡°Yeah, I do. Do you not have bear beastkin on your world?¡± The mention of ¡°his world¡± dropped Kay¡¯s heart into the pit of his stomach again. He crouched down and started scrubbing at his face with both hands. ¡°We don¡¯t have beastkin at all!¡± He groaned. ¡°Or elves! I mean, there are all kinds of stories and things, but they aren¡¯t real!¡± The five shared concerned looks, then turned back to watch Kay. His mind racing, Kay suddenly remembered something his friend Raphael had told him once. Always the most logical and analytical of his small group of friends, Raphael was always the man with the plan. During what Kay had thought at the time was a trivial hypothetical conversation about the most important thing when getting transported into a different world, Raphael¡¯s answer had seemed too logical and ¡°not fun enough¡± as their friend Noah had said. ¡°The thing with the characters that get isekaied is that you never see them reacting to the fact that they¡¯ve been sucked into a whole different world. Probably ¡®cause it¡¯s not interesting to the people reading or watching. But your normal everyday, non-main character person would freak the fuck out. The problem is, depending on what kind of world you end up in, that¡¯d totally get you killed. So the most important thing in my mind is keeping it cool till you¡¯re somewhere safe. Have a meltdown when you¡¯re sure you can afford to.¡± Kay grabbed onto Raphael¡¯s suggestion like a lifeline and forced himself to be calm. He knew it wouldn¡¯t last forever, but it wasn¡¯t supposed to. ¡°Sorry.¡± Kay said as he looked up. ¡°I¡¯m just a bit-¡± Delilah interrupted him with a shake of her head. ¡°Don¡¯t apologize. I honestly have no idea what you must be going through right now, but you don¡¯t need to apologize for it. You literally just got taken out of the world you knew and thrown into another one.¡± ¡°I¡­ Thanks.¡± ¡°We should go.¡± Dorian said, looking around. ¡°Coultron¡¯s a prick and a coward, but if he finds some reinforcements he might try and push the issue again. Let¡¯s get back before that can happen.¡± ¡°Right.¡± Torren, the man in armor, stepped forward. ¡°We-¡± ¡°Take your helmet off.¡± ¡°Oh, right.¡± He reached up and pulled it off, revealing him to be a handsome human man with brown hair. ¡°We¡¯re the Oaken Five, a silver ranked party from the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. We¡¯ve been contracted by the local BOA chapter to bring you back to the city.¡± Most of what Torren had said fit into the collection of knowledge from random stories and games he¡¯d consumed in the past, and Kay didn¡¯t have enough in him to start questioning what was going on in detail right then, so he just hoped his understanding was close enough for now. Except for one thing. ¡°What¡¯s the BOA? How did they even know I was here? And why would they send anyone to get me?¡± ¡°Well, they¡¯re the Bureau of Outworlder Affairs. It¡¯s kind of their job.¡± ¡°¡­ They¡¯re the what?¡± Book 1 Chapter 4 Sitting on the extra horse the Oaken Five had brought for him to ride, surrounded by the five adventurers as they headed down the road, Kay was very glad for the random horse riding trips Noah had insisted they go on over the years. He knew he¡¯d be sore tomorrow, but at least he wouldn¡¯t be as bad off as a complete amateur. ¡°Alright,¡± Arlen pointed at a rectangular post made of rock, about three feet tall, driven into the ground next to the road. ¡°Only a few more miles. I think we¡¯re good now.¡± Dorian and Arlen had insisted that they start heading back to the city before Kay started asking questions. Without many options, Kay went along with it. Apparently Coultron getting reinforcements and coming back to fight over him was a real concern for some reason. And he¡¯d been kind of a dick, while the Oaken Five had been pretty polite. Also, Kay was pretty sure that anyone who would call someone else ¡°¡¯scum and race-traitors¡¯¡± was not the kind of person he wanted to spend time around. So he kept his questions to himself and tried to enjoy the nice scenery. ¡°So, is it alright if I ask questions now?¡± Delilah turned towards him. ¡°Sure, go ahead.¡± ¡°Although,¡± Dorian interrupted, ¡°Keep in mind that the BOA knows a lot more about Outworlder things than we do, so they¡¯ll probably have a lot more answers for you.¡± ¡°Well, some of my questions are about them too. Are there really enough Outworlders coming here that your government has it¡¯s own division to deal with it.¡± ¡°Well, no.¡± Dorian replied, ¡°I mean, yes, there are some, but no.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°The BOA is an independent organization, they aren¡¯t part of the city government. They have branches in every nation I know of.¡± Delilah clarified. ¡°There are enough Outworlders showing up to make them needed, but they don¡¯t answer to any government.¡± Kay frowned. ¡°How does an independent organization that can operate in multiple countries come about?¡± Dorian shrugged. ¡°The same way the Adventurer¡¯s Guild did. It happened so long ago that most people don¡¯t remember and no one who knows is talking.¡± ¡°And that doesn¡¯t seem¡­ ominous?¡± ¡°Nah, the BOA only really deals with Outworlder stuff, and the only Outworlders talking bad about it I¡¯ve heard of were crazy, criminals, or both.¡± ¡°And the Adventurer¡¯s Guild?¡± Dorian snorted. ¡°No, they aren¡¯t ominous. They work really hard at fostering trust with everyone. Plus, what they do as an organization is just too damn important for anyone to hate them.¡± ¡°Except for those idiots in the Hierarchy.¡± Delilah muttered. ¡°Well¡­ yeah.¡± Dorian sighed. To Kay that sounded a lot like politics, and he had enough on his plate already. He would leave learning about the politics of this world till later. ¡°So where are we headed? A city?¡± ¡°Right.¡± Delilah pointed in the direction they were headed. ¡°The city of Tumbling Rapids. The largest independent trading city in the region. Most people just call it The Rapids. We¡¯ll be able to see it, just over that hill up ahead.¡± At the top of said hill they paused as Kay took in the view. To the left a large canyon suddenly ended in a flat faced cliff that opened up into a massive valley, which in turn gave way to more plains stretching out past the horizon. The fast moving waterfall tumbling out of the canyon filled up a large lake with docks and slipways stretching into the water from multiple directions. The lake became two different rivers that traversed the plains in the distance, cutting off in two different directions. Kay could see many ships moving in both directions on both rivers, and even more leaving or docking on the lake. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Surrounding the lake was a city. A pretty large one, even for Kay¡¯s standards of modern day living. Some areas had spread out buildings in neat rows, others had cramped, rickety looking dwellings that were probably slums. The cliff face was about four stories tall, and had stairs carved out of it, plus a few large channels that looked like elevator shafts. As he watched, a platform started moving up one shaft, covered in people and cargo. Huh, a magical elevator, I guess. At the top of the cliff was a wall with multiple gates in it. Just behind the wall Kay could barely make out the tops of a few large buildings. ¡°That¡¯s amazing.¡± Kay muttered. ¡°Pretty great isn¡¯t it?¡± Arlen bragged, finally taking his view off of the surroundings long enough to reply. ¡°C¡¯mon. It¡¯s less than an hour down the side of the valley and into the city proper.¡± The road gradually sloped downward and it was a fairly easy ride towards the city. As they got closer, Kay could make out the wall surrounding the lower portion of the city, much smaller than the one above. Standing in line behind a few other groups of travelers, and some carts loaded with goods, they waited to be let through the gates. It didn¡¯t seem to be a slow line, each group had a short conversation with the guards and the cargos of each cart or wagon were given a cursory inspection, then they moved on through the gate. Still, there was enough people waiting that it would be a few minutes before they made it inside. ¡°Look, Kay.¡± Dema, the bear-beastkin woman, sidled her horse closer to Kay, ¡°The others are going to dance around saying this because they don¡¯t know how to bring it up, so I¡¯ll just say it straight.¡± Kay jumped a little as she addressed him. He¡¯d been busy staring at the people ahead of them in line that were obviously not human. There was another elf a few groups in front of them, but Kay was staring at the woman next to him, who seemed to have a pale green tone to her skin. An orc perhaps? ¡°Sorry! What?¡± ¡°From what you said earlier, do you only have humans on your world?¡± She continued. ¡°Uh, yeah. At least, I¡¯d only ever met humans. There are lots of stories of different kinds of non-human people from around the world, but no one I¡¯ve known has ever met one. A lot of people just think they¡¯re myths.¡± ¡°Well this world has lots of different kinds of people besides humans. Is that going to be a problem for you?¡± Dema leaned in close, giving him an intense look. ¡°Honesty?¡± Kay leaned back a little before replying. ¡°Probably? I got taken out of the only world I knew and thrown into a new one. Whatever you guys did to keep me calm probably won¡¯t last forever, and the reminder that I¡¯m here and not home from every non-human person I see will hurt for awhile.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ fair.¡± Dema nodded slowly. ¡°What about interacting with them? Talking to them, spending time with them?¡± Kay gave her a confused look. ¡°What about it?¡± ¡°There are people that hate people that aren¡¯t like them, and-¡± ¡°Oh, racists.¡± Kay nodded. ¡°Like Coultron?¡± ¡°Him, and people like him. Recently there¡¯s been a lot of human supremacists coming into the city and trying things. There¡¯s some political stuff tied into it too, but I don¡¯t know if you care about that right now. Mostly, I just wanted to know what kind of person you are, and how you¡¯d react.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have any reason to hate people just because they might be different that me, and I¡¯m not really interested in spending time with people like that.¡± He told her, echoing his earlier thoughts. An introspective thought made him pause. ¡°If¡­ well if there are people that look like something that¡¯s scary to me, or something completely unexpected, my first, instinctive reaction might not be great.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fair.¡± Dorian answered from his other side. Giving him a good look, Kay realized he and Dema were probably related. ¡°There are species out there that look kind of scary, and some people react badly. It¡¯s not exactly polite, but most people understand. And since you¡¯re an Outworlder, you¡¯ll probably get a bit of extra slack.¡± ¡°There are also groups and individuals out of every kind of person out there that think what they are is better than what others are, too.¡± Added Arlen from a position slightly behind Dorian. ¡°There are elven supremacists, dwarven ones, you name it. Don¡¯t think it¡¯s only humans.¡± ¡°And, since it¡¯s tangential and important, there are races of people out there that are dangerous.¡± Delilah said with a low, serious voice. ¡°Some because of their culture, some because that¡¯s just how they are, whether that¡¯s because of how they act or what their bodies are like. There are species that literally cannot co-exists with others.¡± ¡°Is that something I need to worry about?¡± Kay asked. ¡°No, but it¡¯s better to know ahead of time than to find out something like that on the fly. Beings like that aren¡¯t allowed in places that belong to other races, like The Rapids, so you won¡¯t run into any here. And depending on what you end up doing in this world, you might never run into any.¡± Just then they reached the front of the queue and Torren, who¡¯d been mostly quiet during the ride glanced back at Kay. ¡°The BOA should go over anything really important you need to know, so don¡¯t worry if you still have questions. It¡¯s only a few minutes past this gate, so we¡¯ll be there soon.¡± As one of the guards stepped towards them, Torren handed him a small sheet of paper out of a bag on his saddle. The guard read it over, glancing over each person, his gaze lingering on Kay. With eyebrows raised, he handed back the paper and waved them through, into the city of Tumbling Rapids. Book One Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited Book One has been pulled from RR as part of the Kindle Unlimited exclusivit... deal? Terms? Whatever the right word is. The book is available here! https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0C9N1G6SY Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. An audiobook version will be available some time in the coming months, although a specific date isn''t ready yet, mostly because of the narrators schedule. Thank you to everyone who has enjoyed my story and continues to read it. I love making this tale of adventure for people to read and will continue to post it here until book six, and then even more stories beyond that. Book 2 Chapter 1 ¡°So that¡¯s all the basics you need to know to set up camp.¡± Eleniah gestured around at the tent, fire pit, and basic latrine she¡¯d made while Kay watched and helped a little. ¡°You remember it all?¡± ¡°I think so. Basics we need, things we sometimes won¡¯t do and when we won¡¯t, and things to watch out for. Pretty sure I remember it all.¡± ¡°Good, we¡¯ll go over everything together a few more nights before I start leaving you to it.¡± She wandered over to the rocks they¡¯d commandeered for seating. ¡°Now, we¡¯re going to talk about your training.¡± ¡°You waited a while before bringing it up.¡± Kay sat across from her. ¡°We needed the right environment for it.¡± She glanced up into the tall trees. ¡°You got taken in broad daylight in the middle of an at least somewhat busy street.¡± She waved off what he was about to say, ¡°I¡¯ve lectured; you¡¯ve apologized and promised to do better; I¡¯m just saying this as a fact.¡± Kay nodded and shut his mouth. ¡°We¡¯re going to be doing the training out here in the forest where it¡¯ll be harder for you. If you learn to deal with ambushes and sneak attacks here, in places like cities and towns, it¡¯ll be a lot easier.¡± He glanced around at the shadows made by trees of various heights in the light of the moon, the tangles of undergrowth and root, and the way trunk after trunk seemed to line everything he could see until it formed a massive wall of bark to his vision. ¡°I understand.¡± ¡°Good. Starting tomorrow, I¡¯m going to be vanishing on you.¡± Kay gave her a worried look. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not going to tear off on my own or anything; I¡¯ll just be trying to hide while I follow you. If you notice me ¡®escaping¡¯, then I¡¯ll stay until I try again. When you lose me, I¡¯ll follow along slightly behind or ahead and try and ambush you. Your job is to detect me coming before I hit you. If you don¡¯t manage to do that, I¡¯ll attack. If I get you with a ¡®fatal¡¯ attack or manage to ¡®capture¡¯ you, you lose. Then we¡¯ll go over what you did wrong and what you need to improve on, then keep going.¡± ¡°What happens if I lose?¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m going to smack you around to simulate a real fight as best I can without actually hurting you too much, and your face is going to get ground in the dirt when I ¡®capture¡¯ you.¡± She glanced around the camp. ¡°As for an actual punishment? I¡¯ll think of something annoying but not terrible to try and motivate you.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I thought.¡± She shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s motivational.¡± She smirked at him. ¡°You¡¯ll get much better at it, eventually. And then you won¡¯t have to worry about the punishment.¡± ¡°What do I do when you vanish?¡± ¡°What? You try and find me and not get ambushed; I just said that.¡± ¡°No, I mean like outside of the ambushing. Do we have a goal we¡¯re after, a place we¡¯re heading to? What are we doing?¡± ¡°Oh, right.¡± Eleniah straightened out her posture and looked directly at him with a severe expression. Kay instinctively mirrored her. ¡°Congratulations!¡± She burst out with a cheesy smile and some jazz hands. ¡°You¡¯re now in charge of our two-man expedition into the wilds!¡± Kay stared at her. ¡°What?¡± ¡°You¡¯re in charge. Go wherever you want to. See something cool, and you want to check it out, do it. Randomly decide to change directions? It¡¯ll be your call.¡± He shook his head. ¡°Why am I suddenly in charge? I don¡¯t know anything about what¡¯s out here!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t either, and since I¡¯m literally going to be following you around trying to get the jump on you, it only makes sense for you to pick where we go.¡± He scrubbed at his face with his hands. ¡°Alright, so I just go?¡± ¡°Pretty much.¡± She pulled out a pot from her travel bag and started sorting small pouches. ¡°We¡¯re out there looking for adventure, and we¡¯ll find some eventually.¡± ¡°What do I do if we run into enemies?¡± ¡°When you run into something that wants to fight, deal with it however you think is best in the moment. I¡¯ll always be close by, so I¡¯ll jump in as necessary. But if you don¡¯t need my help, I¡¯m not going to join in. So act like you¡¯re alone when you¡¯re making decisions.¡± He took a deep breath, then let it go. ¡°Alright. It¡¯s more of a safety net than I had back when I was running jobs by myself.¡± Eleniah grimaced. ¡°Yeah, like I said, I wasn¡¯t the best teacher I could have been. Anyway, once I think you¡¯re getting better at situational awareness, I¡¯ll start traveling with you like a regular person instead of acting like some kind of creepy stalker, and we¡¯ll start getting you used to be in charge of more than one person.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Kay moved a little on his rock to get a sharp point out of him. ¡°When will I ever be in charge of people?¡± She gave him a serious look, ¡°With your title? It¡¯s basically guaranteed.¡± She held up a finger to stop his reply. ¡°You are going to be powerful enough, both in personal strength and influence, to lead people. The only situations where you aren¡¯t going to be the person in charge are if you¡¯re alone, if you¡¯ve been captured and made to serve your captors, or you willingly subordinate yourself to someone else.¡± She waved him off again. ¡°The first one might happen, but I¡¯m hoping and assuming we¡¯re going to stick together, so that¡¯s out. Getting captured and bent to service is something we want to prevent, and there aren¡¯t a lot of people that both of us would be alright with bending the knee to, so I¡¯m saying that¡¯s unlikely to happen.¡± Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°Wait, why aren¡¯t you in charge if it¡¯s just the two of us, you¡¯re way more experienced!¡± Kay complained. ¡°Because I don¡¯t want to be,¡± Eleniah smirked at him. ¡°And,¡± She continued with a more serious look, ¡°I¡¯m pretty bad at it. I can identify the things a person needs to be a good leader and teach someone to be a leader, but when it comes to leading? I¡¯m just not that good at it. If it was just the two of us, it¡¯d probably be fine. But we¡¯re likely to gather more people as time goes on.¡± Kay frowned. Why does she say that so much? Wait, had he ever actually asked her? ¡°Why do you say that? It¡¯s not the first time you¡¯ve mentioned it.¡± ¡°Because people are going to want to learn from you.¡± She pointed at him with the cooking spoon in her hand. ¡°You¡¯re going to be the teacher for Blood Manipulation, as well as anything else you discover and are willing to teach people. You will be the only place they can learn those Skills without randomly trying things and stumbling onto the Skill. Which is possible but doesn¡¯t happen much. You already had that healer from Tumbling Rapids asking to be taught Blood Transfusion. You¡¯re going to have students unless you never teach anyone anything, which I don¡¯t recommend. So you¡¯re going to be in charge of your students because you¡¯ll be teaching them. So, that alone is a reason to learn how to lead. Then there¡¯s the fact that there will probably be an organization that springs up around you, in one form or another.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Like the Rune Master. They started as just a hermit on an island, experimenting with what they discovered. Then they got a student, then more students. All the students needed places to live and food and such, and a town popped up. The town grew into a city and then a city-state that controls that entire island. Unless you go the hermit route and only take one or two students at a time, or never teach anyone, which again, I don¡¯t recommend, you¡¯re going to be in charge of a small group of people at minimum.¡± She shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s better to start now and learn how to do it, so you¡¯re ready when the time comes.¡± Kay looked at her with a furrowed brow and a frown. ¡°I don¡¯t know if I like that idea.¡± She shrugged again. ¡°Then be a hermit with only a couple of students, or teach no one. I¡¯m not going to command you to take one path over another. I¡¯m just going to teach you the skills you¡¯ll need for the most likely outcome, then the ones for the successively less likely outcomes. What you do with what I teach you is up to you.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± He sighed. ¡°I want to complain because I don¡¯t really want to be in charge of a bunch of people, but that¡¯s an excellent approach to teaching.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± She chuckled, ¡°I actually am good at it.¡± After a dinner of soup made from dried meat and preprepared spices, Kay sat cross-legged in the tent staring at the dimensional bag from the Nelamians when a thought suddenly hit him. ¡°Hey, how are we protected from attacks right now?¡± ¡°Huh?¡± Eleniah glanced up from the stitching she was doing on a blanket. ¡°Oh, I put up a barrier when you were scrubbing the dishes.¡± She opened the tent and pointed at a glowing purple stone in the middle of the fire. ¡°See that? It makes a barrier that makes it harder to detect us and prevents people from getting inside. Anything that wants to get at us would have to destroy the barrier, and if that happens, the stone screams loud enough to wake the dead.¡± She closed the tent flap. ¡°We¡¯ll practice camping without barriers or other helpful enchanted items later. In the wilderness with no real idea of what¡¯s around us, I want to use every protection we have. Once we have a good place to set up a base for a while and get to know the local threats, we¡¯ll work on things like that.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to set up a base?¡± Kay asked. ¡°And why is it in the fire? ¡°Eventually, yeah,¡± Eleniah replied, ¡°Even if it¡¯s just to practice things like that. We can wander around forever if that¡¯s what ends up getting decided, but we¡¯ll need to stop for a time here and there to teach you things. And it charges from the heat of the fire. If we ever camp without a fire, we¡¯ll need to keep it in direct sunlight for a while to make sure it can still run. ¡± She looked back down and went back to repaired the blanket. ¡°When did this tear like this?¡± She grumbled to herself. Kay, in turn, went back to looking at the dimensional bag. ¡°What do you think is in here?¡± ¡°Who knows? Bags like that react to you thinking about what you want. If it¡¯s not in there, it won¡¯t give you anything.¡± ¡°So if you get a dimensional bag, you just have to guess whether it¡¯s empty or has stuff?¡± Kay turned the bag over and shook it. Nothing came out. ¡°No, you can empty the whole thing at once. We¡¯re just not going to do that right now because we have to idea what¡¯s in there. It could be a bunch of poison that kills us, or we get crushed by million of copper coins. That¡¯s one of the things we can do when we have a safe base established for a time.¡± Kay slowly put his hand in the bag. ¡°Can I try and pull things?¡± ¡°Uh¡­ sure? Just don¡¯t think of anything dangerous.¡± Kay¡¯s mind drifted to the tiny, trapped dragon currently hibernating in Eleniah¡¯s regular pack. Murunel had reconfirmed her decision to sleep the time away instead of interacting with the world in the limited way she was forced into having. Only being able to pantomime and not affect the world around you in any way really wore at the dragon¡¯s spirit. Kay put his hand all the way in the bag and thought of an item that breaks enchantments. His hand closed around something. Slowly, with a look of surprise on his face, Kay pulled out a metal wand with a large blue stone halfway down its length. The metal of the wand wrapped around the stone like a spider web, leaving only bits of the glowing blue color visible. Eleniah stared at the wand. ¡°What did you think of?¡± ¡°Something to break Murunel free.¡± Eleniah blinked a few times, then reached into her bag and pulled out Murunel¡¯s ball after a few moments of digging. Silently she held out her hand for the wand. Kay scooted closer and gave it to her. She stared at it for a second. ¡°Touch to the magic you want dispelled. Easy enough.¡± With Murunel in the ball in one palm, Eleniah slowly lowered the tip of the metal wand to touch the glass ball. Clink! They stared at it for a moment before deflating as nothing happened. ¡°Well, it was worth a shot,¡± Eleniah muttered. ¡°Maybe this,¡± She held the wand out point up, ¡°Isn¡¯t powerful enough to dispel the enchantment trapping her in there.¡± ¡°Oh, is that what you guys were trying?¡± A voice Kay had never heard asked. ¡°That sucks. But hey, you guys are the first people to even try and free me, so I¡¯m not going to cry over the first try not working.¡± The voice was female and kind of young-sounding. It also seemed to emanate from the small glass ball in Eleniah¡¯s hand. Kay and Eleniah stared down at the dragon. ¡°Oh, they aren¡¯t putting me away.¡± A sigh. ¡°I¡¯ll just go back to sleep.¡± ¡°Murunel?¡± Kay took the ball and held it up to his face. ¡°Yes, Kay?¡± The tiny dragon bent her flexible neck to look at him. ¡°Is that you talking?¡± ¡°Is that¡­¡± Murunel froze, so still, she looked like a statue. ¡°You¡­ you can hear me?¡± Eleniah leaned in close. ¡°It looks like the wand wasn¡¯t enough to free you, but it removed the magic preventing us from hearing you.¡± She looked at the wand again. ¡°Can it be used more than once? Oh, recharge time of¡­ oof. That¡¯s a long time.¡± She held up the wand in front of the ball. ¡°We might be able to use this again to get rid of the rest of the magic trapping you, but it recharges slowly from ambient magic in the local area. If we can find someplace with a lot of ambient magic, it¡¯ll go faster, but as it is right now, it¡¯ll take a few months.¡± In the ball, Murunel stared at the wand, then slowly turned to look between Kay and Eleniah. ¡°You can hear me. You managed to break the magic at least that much.¡± ¡°Yes, we can,¡± Kay replied. ¡°And you have a real possibility to free me that will take a few months at the longest.¡± ¡°Right.¡± She stared at them for a moment, then burst into sobs. Book 2 Chapter 2
Kay held his hand in front of the ball on his neck, and Murunel immediately stopped talking. After she¡¯d managed to stop crying in a combination of relief and joy the night before, the dragon had turned into quite the chatterbox. Forty years of not being able to talk were coming out all at once, not that Kay or Eleniah had a problem with it. Just being able to speak to someone had turned Murunel¡¯s mood around considerably. Thankfully, as Kay scanned the environment around him, looking for Eleniah¡¯s ambush, she was perfectly fine with shutting up when it was needed. Something had made Kay¡¯s burgeoning instincts sit up and take notice, and he tried to pick up what his subconscious had noticed. After a couple of minutes had passed without him noticing anything, in particular, he cursed and started walking forward again. A few more seconds passed, and the attack he expected when he let his guard down didn¡¯t occur. ¡°Alright,¡± He tapped Murunel¡¯s sphere once, ¡°Either that was a false alarm, or she was there; I missed her, and she¡¯s waiting for another opportunity.¡± ¡°Mmmm.¡± Murunel made a noncommittal noise, and Kay chuckled. After some discussion, it had been decided that Murunel would ride with Kay while they traveled since she wanted to talk, and Eleniah would need quiet to sneak up on Kay. She¡¯d insisted, however, that Murunel couldn¡¯t help Kay with the actual training part, so if Murunel had seen something, she wasn¡¯t saying anything. Eleniah also thought it would be good for him to have something else to focus on other than expecting ambushes. Having to watch out for attacks and talk to Murunel would hopefully up the difficulty a little in a way that would make it better training. ¡°Anyway, I think it¡¯s a little weird that we found the exact item we¡¯d need to free you in a bunch of stuff stolen from a Nelamian group when you were imprisoned by a Nelamian noble.¡± Kay continued their previous conversation as he scrambled up a dirt slope. ¡°I don¡¯t care!¡± Murunel replied cheerfully. Kay looked down at her in surprise, then started laughing. ¡°No, I guess you really wouldn¡¯t, would you?¡± ¡°Nope! I just want out!¡± Kay laughed again as he pulled himself back to his feet at the top of the slope. Looking out into the practical sea of massive trees in front of him, he sighed. ¡°What the hell should I even be doing out here?¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± Murunel spun around to look up at his face. The angle to look straight down at her hurt his neck, so he picked up the necklace and let it hang in front of his face. ¡°I¡¯m supposedly the leader of our little band now, right? So I thought I should have a goal. Something to look for or head towards, instead of just wandering at random looking for nonspecific adventure.¡± He gestured at the view in front of them. ¡°But this is unexplored territory. I have no idea what¡¯s out there besides a forest that goes as far as I can see. So what kind of goal should I set?¡± ¡°I have two ideas!¡± Kay smiled at the cheerful tone she had. He¡¯d thought it many times today, but he was impressed by Murunel¡¯s resilience. He wasn¡¯t sure he¡¯d be able to deal as well with the situation she was in, and the way her spirits were lifted by the simple act of being able to communicate reliably showed how tough she was mentally. ¡°What are they?¡± ¡°Something interesting and a place to set up a good base!¡± ¡°Okay, the first one is really broad, and I¡¯m not sure if I know what the other one would look like.¡± ¡°Well, of course, it¡¯s broad!¡± She rotated around to face the same direction as him and spread her arms out, ¡°We have no idea what¡¯s out here! So we look for anything interesting at all! A Dungeon, ruins, a tree bigger than the rest, a cool resource, a big monster to kill, a mysterious magical item that we don¡¯t know how it ended up here, anything!¡± If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Kay smacked at a bug that landed on his neck. ¡°Okay, so we look for interesting things. That doesn¡¯t really help with a direction, though.¡± ¡°Do you think explorers have detailed plans of what they¡¯re going to do? No! They react to their circumstances! Walk onward, brave adventurer, into the unknown! Search the unexplored, see that which has yet to be seen! Go find cool stuff!¡± Kay laughed again. Murunel was fun. ¡°Is one of your classes Poet?¡± ¡°Nah, but my older sister is. I learned how to talk all awesome sounding from her.¡± Kay started looking for a good way down. He¡¯d made his way to the top of this hill to get a good view of the area, but he¡¯d only seen trees, trees, and more trees. The face of the hill in the direction they were going seemed a little dangerous to go down, what with the sharp-looking rocks and multiple drops. ¡°I think we need to backtrack and go around now.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the person doing all the moving; I¡¯m just a passenger.¡± ¡°Not forever, though.¡± Kay started slowly lowering himself down the same slop he¡¯d just climbed up a little while ago. ¡°Yeah, but I have wings! Who walks when they can fly?¡± He brushed the dirt off his pants. ¡°I meant that I would be the passenger then.¡± ¡°You think I¡¯ll let you ride me? Keep dreaming. You¡¯ve got to earn a Dragon Rider class.¡± ¡°There are Dragon Rider classes? That¡¯s so cool! Do you just have to-¡± A burst of movement from the edge of Kay¡¯s vision had him drawing his halberd and jumping back. He¡¯d been practicing getting his weapons ready as quickly as possible when he had the time, and there weren¡¯t enough trees to hinder the longer weapon. Eleniah swept towards him, her body held low to the ground as she dashed towards him. Kay had a moment of relief that he wasn¡¯t getting taken to the ground with total surprise like she¡¯d gotten him a few hours ago, then she was on him. He slashed at her from the side, and she jerked back. The ¡®combat¡¯ became Kay trying to hit her with various attacks and her dodging easily. He managed to hold her off for a few seconds, though, and that was what he¡¯d been hoping for. Murunel wasn¡¯t allowed to help him spot any ambushes, but she was still a good source of advice for dealing with them. The few drops of blood he¡¯d spread under the cap of his enchanted canteen pushed it open, and blood flowed to hover next to Kay. Eleniah saw the tides turning; as little as this would affect actual combat, it would make their training session a lot easier for Kay, and she charged. Forgoing the time needed to make a real attack, Kay just sprayed blood at her face, trying to blind her. She quickly got her hand up to block the stream of liquid, but it made an opening for Kay to take several steps back. He started throwing blades and needles made of blood at his opponent as he backed up, using the number and variety of attacks to hold his would-be abductor at bay as he ¡®escaped¡¯. ¡°Alright!¡± Eleniah called out, and he stopped his attacks. She lowered her arms and looked at him appraisingly. ¡°That was good.¡± She went to shake the blood of her arms, then stopped and gestured at him. Kay gathered up all the blood he could and sent it back into his canteen. When she was clean again, Eleniah walked over. ¡°So you were actually paying attention to some of my lessons.¡± Her appraising expression turned into a glare, ¡°Which makes your absolute failure to use them earlier even more of a problem.¡± ¡°Maybe I just learned really quickly today?¡± She snorted and shook her head at him. ¡°I¡¯m mostly kidding. We still need to work on spotting ambushes, though. You managed to defend yourself when I attacked this time, but I gave you three opportunities where you could have spotted me if you had been looking in the right place, and you definitely should have seen me approaching before I cleared that brush.¡± She pointed at where she¡¯d just sprung from. They went over all the places she¡¯d purposefully made herself visible, as well as the places Kay had stopped because he thought he¡¯d noticed something. She asked about his thought process for the decisions he¡¯d made and went over the different ways he could improve the decisions he¡¯d made and the actual execution of his choices. Eleniah grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it when they¡¯d finished. ¡°In total, though, that was good. You¡¯re one for two for your first day. Keep it up.¡± ¡°Good job, Kay!¡± Murunel cheered. He grinned and patted her sphere. ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°Now then, which way are we going, leader?¡± Eleniah asked. ¡°Well, I went up there to try and get a better view, but it¡¯s more forest for as far as I can see from here. There might be some mountains off that way and that way,¡± He pointed in two directions about forty-five degrees apart, ¡°But I¡¯m not one hundred percent on that.¡± ¡°We can just go sort of between them and see if there¡¯s anything cool we can see from a distance?¡± Murunel suggested. Kay shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t have any better ideas. Any direction is as good as any other at this point.¡± He glanced at his teacher. ¡°Any suggestions, second in command?¡± She chuckled and shook her head. ¡°No, I haven¡¯t seen anything worth checking out either.¡± ¡°Then we go that way!¡± Kay pointed straight through the hill. ¡°Of course, we have to go around first and left looked easier from the top of it. So we go that way, then that way!¡± Book 2 Chapter 3 ¡°Does this count as something interesting?¡± Kay asked as he stared at the tower, overgrown with clinging vines. It was tilted to one side, a bit like pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa Kay had seen once. ¡°Ruins were on my list, so yeah, totally,¡± Murunel replied. Kay could see her stretching out in the sphere as she tried to get a better view. ¡°Is there anything else?¡± ¡°All I see is the tower.¡± Kay turned his head to one side, keeping his eyes on the structure. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯re over that way, and this feels like something we should investigate in a group.¡± Eleniah stepped out from behind some trees, shaking her head as she approached. ¡°Trying to skip out on training won¡¯t help you in the long run.¡± Kay scowled at her smirk. ¡°Funny. I¡¯m serious though, ruined buildings in the wilds aren¡¯t something I want to investigate at anything less than full strength.¡± She dropped the smirk and nodded. ¡°Good decision. A thought though, is it worth investigating at all?¡± ¡°Um¡­¡± Kay scanned the area, ¡°There are no signs of other people being here that I can see, and the wildlife seems to be acting normally. I mean, it isn¡¯t weirdly quiet or anything. Since there aren¡¯t any definite threats, and we don¡¯t have a clearly defined goal, I¡¯d say yes, because there isn¡¯t really anything to lose, even if it turns out to be a bust.¡± ¡°Sound logic.¡± Eleniah smiled, ¡°Let¡¯s go check it out.¡± With her in the lead, they walked towards the tower. It had been pretty easy to spot from the distance since the trees had been thinning considerably over the past few hours. Kay was grateful that they were starting to leave the forest. The last couple of weeks, being entirely surrounded by trees was kind of wearing on him. Like, I appreciate trees and the woods as much as the next regular person, but I¡¯d really like some open spaces to look at! Thankfully, it looked like he¡¯d be getting open spaces sooner rather than later. Up close, the cylindrical tower was made of evenly cut gray stone blocks with the faintest hint of mortar holding them together visible in the seams. They circled around it, then stopped as they completed an entire circuit. ¡°There¡¯s no door?¡± Eleniah muttered as she stared at it. Kay shrugged and walked closer. ¡°Maybe it has a hidden entrance?¡± He pointed upward, ¡°Or you¡¯re just supposed to go in the balcony up there.¡± ¡°Why would anyone make a balcony all the way up there the only entrance?¡± ¡°Maybe they could fly?¡± ¡°It would make more sense to put the entrance on the roof then; it¡¯d be easier to land on,¡± Murunel commented. ¡°Maybe there is an entrance on the roof, and we just can¡¯t see it from here.¡± They shared a look. ¡°I¡¯ll go check it out.¡± Eleniah decided, and she began jogging off. ¡°Wait!¡± She stopped and turned to look at him. ¡°Let¡¯s stick together, please. Like I said earlier, it¡¯s better to be at full strength in unknown territory like this.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± She walked over and stopped next to him. ¡°Do we go look together?¡± Kay glanced up towards the top. ¡°It¡¯s not tilted that much. Will we even be able to see it without walking for too long?¡± ¡°I was going to jump off that and see if I could get a glimpse.¡± Eleniah pointed at a tall tree in the direction of the tower¡¯s tilt. ¡°It¡¯s almost as tall as the tower, and I can jump really high.¡± ¡°Before you guys do that, can you scrape some of the dirt away from the bottom?¡± Murunel asked. Kay looked at her with confusion evident on his face. ¡°Sure?¡± ¡°I want to see if maybe this is just the top, and the rest is buried. Many ruins and old cities have buildings or entire sections that are underground because dirt keeps piling up. If this is an old ruin, most of it could be beneath us.¡± Kay frowned at the structure. ¡°We¡¯d have to dig down really far to see if it¡¯s more tower and not just the foundation.¡± ¡°Or,¡± Eleniah gestured at the exposed balcony. ¡°I could go look inside.¡± Kay glanced at her and the balcony. ¡°Can you jump that high? That¡¯s almost thirty feet up.¡± The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°No, but that incline is enough for me to run up it if I¡¯m fast enough.¡± Kay walked up to the tower and put his hand flat on it, then pulled his hand back to straight up and down. There was about an inch between his fingertips and the wall. ¡°That¡¯s like fifteen degrees at most. You can run up that?¡± ¡°With some fifth-tier leveled Monk skills, I can.¡± Eleniah took a few steps back and stretched her legs. ¡°Ready?¡± ¡°Is this a good idea?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a bad idea. I¡¯m just running up there real quick and sticking my head in. If there¡¯s trouble in there or out here, I can just jump out.¡± ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure splitting up is still a bad idea.¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t splitting up. I¡¯m going to be less than fifty feet away.¡± Kay sighed and made sure he was out of the way. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m trusting your decision.¡± ¡°Thanks!¡± Eleniah stretched on more time, then sprinted at the wall. Moving fast enough to blur in Kay¡¯s vision, she rocketed up the side of the wall. She pushed off and flipped over the edge of the balcony, landing easily on its edge. She spun around with one foot and stepped backward off the edge onto the balcony itself, bowing as she did so. Murunel cheered as Kay clapped for her performance. ¡°Right! Stay there, obviously. I¡¯m just going to peak inside.¡± She turned around and entered the tower through the open archway. Moments passed, then a few more. Before a full minute had passed, she stepped back out. ¡°Watch out below!¡± She stepped up on the ledge and flipped off it. She landed with both feet on the wall and slid down it like she was surfing. Right before the bottom, she jumped off and somersaulted forward, landing on her feet. Kay applauded again as Murunel laughed excitedly. ¡°That was so cool!¡± ¡°Thanks!¡± She jogged over to them. ¡°I love getting to do stuff like that.¡± ¡°When I get out, I¡¯ll show you guys some cool flying tricks!¡± ¡°I¡¯ll look forward to that.¡± Eleniah looked up from Kay¡¯s neck. ¡°It¡¯s empty. Remains of some furniture on the floor and a stairwell down. It¡¯s definitely buried further down; good call Murunel. The lower end is blocked by rubble, and the stairs are all destroyed, but t definitely goes down further than the ground before it¡¯s impassable.¡± ¡°There could be a whole town buried here!¡± Murunel swiveled in the ball to look down at the ground. ¡°We could dig it up and find cool stuff!¡± ¡°Um, just the three of us?¡± ¡°Err, yeah, that would be hard. Oh well.¡± She turned around to look up at Kay. ¡°On to the next adventure!¡± Kay and Eleniah both chuckled. ¡°Before we leave, I¡¯m going to mark this down,¡± Kay said as he reached into their travel bag. ¡°Someone with more time and manpower might want to unearth this, but even if they don¡¯t, it will make a good landmark.¡± He pulled out a flat piece of wood, some charcoal, and the map he¡¯d started drawing a few days into the trek. Eleniah stared over his shoulder as he started to draw. ¡°That¡¯s looking good.¡± ¡°Thanks, my drawing is up to level four now.¡± ¡°You get the Cartography skill yet?¡± ¡°Not yet; I think I need to make this more map-like.¡± He gestured at what he was drawing. It was mostly just a collection of landmarks with some distance markers measured out in days it took them to get there. ¡°I see what you mean. The actual drawings are good, though. You just need some time to turn it into a real map.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll do that when we set up that base, you say we need.¡± ¡°Having a place to come back to is better than wandering around. Trust me, I¡¯ve done both. Even if it¡¯s just a hut we make in a hidden spot, it¡¯s better.¡± Kay shrugged. ¡°Alright. I guess I haven¡¯t gotten tired of the wandering around part yet.¡± ¡°You will trust me.¡± ¡°Well, let¡¯s get back to the wandering until we find something interesting or a place to make a base.¡± He rolled up his papers and slipped everything back into Eleniah¡¯s dimensional bag. ¡°Onward!¡± Murunel cheered. ¡°Are you wanting to get a class-based around making maps?¡± Eleniah asked as they resumed their travels. ¡°I wasn¡¯t really thinking about it. Shouldn¡¯t I focus classes that sync together for tier five?¡± ¡°No! That¡¯s boring!¡± Murunel complained. ¡°How old are you?¡± Kay asked, laughing as he glanced down at her. ¡°Three hundred and fifty-seven!¡± ¡°You¡¯re older than Eleniah!¡± ¡°Dragons mature pretty slowly. She¡¯s uhh.¡± Eleniah did some math on her fingers. ¡°She¡¯s like nineteen or so? If you compare her to humans at least.¡± ¡°So ha!¡± The dragon girl gloated. ¡°I can be as childish as I want when I declare that only spending your energy focusing on making ¡®the best¡¯ tier five class is boring!¡± Kay chuckled. ¡°How do you know what age she compares to if people on this world get their lifespans extended by tiering up?¡± ¡°Getting to higher tiers doesn¡¯t stop aging; it just slows it down a lot. So if you¡¯re experienced enough, you can look at someone¡¯s body and tell roughly how old their body would be if they didn¡¯t have all the mana from their class keeping them from aging.¡± ¡°And!¡± Murunel added, ¡°She wasn¡¯t talking about age or physical development; she was talking about maturity! Tiering up doesn¡¯t affect how people mature mentally!¡± ¡°So you¡¯re admitting you¡¯re immature.¡± Kay rebutted. ¡°Back to the subject!¡± Eleniah cut off their teasing laughingly, ¡°Some people focus entirely on making their classes line up fr tier five, while others don¡¯t. And there isn¡¯t some list of all the classes you can make, so no one knows what will or won¡¯t combine. With your advantages there, I¡¯d say don¡¯t worry about it and take classes you¡¯re interested in.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t forget that when you hit tier five, the combined class only takes up one slot, so you have the freedom to start building the next one.¡± Murunel added, ¡°Just because a class doesn¡¯t perfectly fit in with the current build you¡¯re working on doesn¡¯t mean that it won¡¯t work with the next one!¡± Eleniah nodded in agreement. ¡°That¡¯s true. I worked on my tier five combat class and my tier five non-combat class at basically the same time.¡± Kay looked over at her. ¡°You know, you told me the name of your combat class, but what¡¯s the name of your tier five non-combat class?¡± ¡°Influential Instructor. It¡¯s a Teacher class, obviously. I get a lot of bonuses to help my students learn faster and remember more.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the class skill do?¡± ¡°It¡¯s called Influence Instruction, and it¡¯s a passive skill that lets a student learn something significantly faster if I¡¯m teaching something related to my own experiences. It¡¯s my knowledge literally influencing the instruction that I give. It¡¯s really useful for teaching skills directly.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t all teaching influenced by the teacher¡¯s experiences?¡± ¡°I mean, yeah, but that¡¯s not what the skill means.¡± ¡°How is it different?¡± They continued talking about classes and skills in particular and generally as they continued to walk deeper into unknown territory. Book 2 Chapter 4 ¡°That¡¯s pretty!¡± Murunel exclaimed as they looked down the cliff to the glittering lake below. ¡°It really is.¡± Kay agreed quietly. When the forest had finally ended, the land started to rise as they traveled. After passing through a very hilly area, the group of three had found a valley sloping downward. Kay had decided that they¡¯d go up to get a better view of the area before deciding whether or not to go down into the valley itself. Eleniah leaned forward as she looked down. ¡°That looks like a good place to make a base. The lake¡¯s a good source of water, I bet, the trees over there and that mountain,¡± She pointed into the distance across the lake, ¡°Will make it easy to get resources we need.¡± ¡°Are you planning on having us settle here?¡± ¡°I mean, we could if we wanted to, but I was just planning on making us a base for a couple of years.¡± ¡°A couple of years?¡± She looked at him with confusion in her eyes. Slowly understanding dawned. ¡°Oh. Kay, you¡¯re going to live hundreds of years longer than you would have on your homeworld, as long as nothing kills you. A few years living in the wilds to train you up and get you some experience isn¡¯t that long now.¡± ¡°I¡­¡± Her smile was small. ¡°There¡¯s a lot more time in the world now, at least from your perspective.¡± Kay stared down into the valley, his thoughts running a marathon. ¡°I need¡­ I need some time to process that.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Eleniah looked slightly guilty, ¡°Sorry, that¡¯s something most people just, well they just know it. I forgot you wouldn¡¯t.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± He waved her off. ¡°I¡¯ll think about it for a bit.¡± He retreated back to a safer topic, ¡°We climbed up here and took a good look around. There¡¯s nothing down in the valley that I¡¯m too worried about, and I can¡¯t think of a good reason to stay up here on the side of the mountain right now. Anything I¡¯m not thinking of, or should we just head down?¡± ¡°There are all kinds of reasons to explore mountains,¡± Murunel replied, ¡°But I don¡¯t think we¡¯re prepared for it at the moment.¡± ¡°Alright, down into the valley it is.¡± It had taken them most of a day to climb up to that point, so they found a good spot to set up camp. Eleniah decided that his punishment for failing to locate her before she ambushed him and sometimes for not reacting to her attacks adequately was to do all the camp chores by himself. So he set up camp by himself, tore it down in the mornings, cooked, cleaned, all of it by himself. It was an effective punishment to him since it was annoying as all hell to do all that work with no help. He handed Eleniah her portion of the simple meal he¡¯d made out of some small game they¡¯d hunted on the way up the mountainside. ¡°Thanks.¡± She stared at him as she took a bite. He ignored her for the moment as he started in on his dish. He slowly chewed as he thought over the topic he¡¯d been avoiding while he worked. ¡°I¡¯m going to live a lot longer than I was going to before all this.¡± ¡°Right.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ That¡¯s both fantastical and a little scary.¡± ¡°Why scary?¡± She asked, ¡°I can see how it could be fantastical, but why scary?¡± ¡°Because what do you do? The deadline of mortality that pushed you to complete your goals is just gone. What drive is there to-¡± ¡°Whoa whoa whoa!¡± She waved her hands in front of her as she interrupted him. ¡°That¡¯s not right. You are still going to die. This has not made you immortal.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the difference if I¡¯m going to live hundreds and hundreds of years?¡± She leaned back against the rock as she looked at him, a pensive expression on her face. ¡°Okay, you were going to live around a hundred years before this, right?¡± ¡°Probably closer to eighty or ninety, but one hundred isn¡¯t that rare with the advance of health care.¡± ¡°You¡¯re still going to die; you¡¯re just going to die five or six times later than you would have, at least right now. By tier six, you start getting into the thousands of years, but that¡¯s not important right now. Everything dies eventually, even if it¡¯s not for a long time. You still have that looming specter of death coming your way; it¡¯s just longer off now. You shouldn¡¯t lose motivation to finish things just because you now have time to finish them and then do, even more, you should just be grateful you have the time.¡± She tilted her head to one side and grimaced, ¡°This topic is part of a philosophical debate that I fall to one side of, so you obviously don¡¯t have to take what I say as the truth, but I believe that turning into a person that does nothing, or does very little, just because they can afford to do so, is wasteful. If you have a long period of time to finish a goal, it doesn¡¯t mean you have to stretch your work over that entire period. You can finish in however long it would take normally and use the remaining time for something else. Or even use it to make whatever goal you achieved or thing you made even better.¡± Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Kay stared up into the sky as he listened. Originally, the incredible cosmic sky-scapes had freaked him out when he looked at them for too long, triggering existential crises similar to what he was having now. He¡¯d only seen the stars in all their glory like this once before, out in the middle of the Arizona desert, and even then, that didn¡¯t compare to the completely unsullied glory of staring up into an entire galaxy twinkling in the night, every night. A few months in, he¡¯d eventually become used to looking into the stars and realizing that he was small compared to all of reality. ¡°I understand what you¡¯re saying, and I think I agree. It¡¯s probably going to take me a while to get used to the idea of having that much time on my hands.¡± ¡°Alright. Do you have any problems with setting up a base of operations to stay in for however long we¡¯re out here?¡± ¡°No, but¡­ Years still seem like such a long time to spend just doing whatever we want in the wilderness. I¡¯m used to needing to work and get money in order to pay your bills and get food and necessities.¡± Eleniah waved her hand lazily. ¡°Welcome to a different set of circumstances. It can be weird jumping from one end of a dichotomy to the other, but you get used to it. Or choose to go back to the other side, but that¡¯s up to you.¡± ¡°So what kind of criteria do we need to look for to find a good spot?¡± Kay asked, changing the subject. ¡°Clean water and defensible are the two really important ones. The lake will probably be a good source of water, so somewhere close enough to the shore to transport some is probably best unless we find a good spring or something similar. Defense would be easier if we find somewhere with a geographical feature we can take advantage of, but if we need to, we can build walls and make our own defenses.¡± ¡°Wouldn¡¯t we make walls even if we find a place to put something at our back or whatever?¡± ¡°Sure, but I mean all around us.¡± They discussed what they felt was or wasn¡¯t necessary when looking for a site, with Murunel chiming in now and again about defending from flying creatures and other things she knew about. The next morning before the sun rose, Kay got up and started cleaning up the camp. Eleniah woke up and got out of his way when he started pulling down the tent. ¡°It¡¯s a little chilly up here,¡± Eleniah commented as she stared at the top of the mountain they were on. She glanced over at Kay cheekily, ¡°Maybe I should wear a sweater.¡± Kay rolled his eyes. ¡°This again? Really? I thought you said there wasn¡¯t anything wrong with liking women in sweaters.¡± ¡°I also said I was still going to tease you!¡± She laughed. ¡°Leave me alone while I pack everything up!¡± ¡°No, it makes your punishment that much worse.¡± She laughed again when he glared at her. ¡°Don¡¯t be mad, you¡¯ve only got what, ten more days backed up? You¡¯ve been doing well recently. Pretty soon, we¡¯ll have you all trained up properly.¡± He grumbled as he continued to clean up, and they made their way back down towards the valley as the sun rose in front of them. They paused and watched the sun soar into the air in a beautiful and glorious display. ¡°We need to do that again.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± They continued on after the show ended and made their way into the valley proper. Kay didn¡¯t really have anything back on Earth to compare it to. The valley itself was oval-shaped, with the lake taking up a large portion of the northern edge. The rest of the northern part was wooded, with the edges of the valley making a softer bowl shape compared to the sides that made it hard, difficult to climb walls in their own ways. The western side was the mountain they had climbed part of the way up, with some difficulty, while the eastern and southern sides were¡­ plateaus? They were flat, and the valley went down and then came back up. Maybe they were just¡­ ground? Kay wasn¡¯t bad at geography; he was actually pretty good at it, which was part of his interest in making maps, whether that became a class for him or not. But he wasn¡¯t really sure what the correct terminology here was. Either way, the northern and southern sides had gentler slopes, the eastern side was basically a cliff, and the western side was a mountain. If you came at the mountain from the side, it wasn¡¯t that difficult to make your way up and around a bit, but coming straight up from the bottom of the valley would be an exercise in high-level rock climbing. Getting into the valley was easier than getting above it since there was a path down into it, formed by various animals and monsters wanting to get to the water most likely. They made good time to the valley¡¯s floor, and they decided to look in the northeastern side for a good location first. Eleniah hoped to find a good spot to use the cliff as a natural wall to their backs. As they walked, Kay glanced around the valley, a frown forming over his face. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Murunel asked, looking up at him from around his neck. ¡°This valley is triggering my instincts somehow.¡± Eleniah glanced back at him from the small boulder she was climbing. ¡°In a ¡®there¡¯s danger¡¯ way?¡± ¡°No, in a ¡®something is weird¡¯ way.¡± He turned to look at the eastern cliff. ¡°I feel like something about it isn¡¯t natural. Like valleys aren¡¯t supposed to be like this.¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± ¡°No. But it¡¯s bugging me.¡± ¡°Well, maybe you¡¯re wrong. Or maybe there¡¯s a magical explanation.¡± Kay opened his mouth to complain about that idea, then stopped. There really wasn¡¯t anything saying there couldn¡¯t be a magical explanation. For all he knew, lots of geographical formations could be magically based here on Torotia. ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much about it for now. We can always look into it later.¡± He shrugged in agreement and started going around the boulder. ¡°Why did you climb up there?¡± ¡°It¡¯s fun!¡± Book 2 Chapter 5 Kay ate slowly, taking his time to enjoy the meal he¡¯d made for their breakfast. Since they were planning on being in the area for a while, he¡¯d used their better supplies to make breakfast as a kind of celebration for finding a good spot. It certainly tasted a lot better than dried meats and long-lasting travel bread. As he ate, he stared up at the mountain across the lake. It wasn¡¯t that far away, the lake was thinner at the northern part, where they¡¯d finally found what Eleniah called ¡¯a fantastic spot¡¯, and it wasn¡¯t that massive of a lake to begin with. The lake that made Tumbling Rapids into the trade city that it was, since it, combined with the two rivers, allowed maritime trade to travel that far inland, was maybe eighty to one hundred square miles based on Kay¡¯s math. Having looked at it from above, this one was probably only forty square miles at the most, half the size or less. The base of the mountain was only about a mile away from them at this point. Near the top of the mountain, he could see shapes moving, slightly darker than the gray of the stone. ¡°Do you have any binoculars?¡± Eleniah looked up from scooping seconds onto her plate. ¡°Any what?¡± ¡°Oh, uh, a device for seeing things that are far away?¡± He pointed at the tiny shapes, ¡°I was wondering what those are.¡± She twisted around to look. ¡°You mean like a spyglass?¡± ¡°That would work. Binoculars are just two spyglasses connected together, so you look with both eyes at the same time.¡± He thought about what he¡¯d just said, ¡°It¡¯s actually probably more complicated than that, but that¡¯s the basics.¡± She squinted at the far-off movement. ¡°I don¡¯t have a spyglass or any bi-noc-u-lars. Whatever those are, they¡¯re really far off, so I wouldn¡¯t worry about it for now.¡± She twisted back around and went back to loading her plate with more food. ¡°That¡¯s a really weird word. Why not just call it a double-spyglass or something?¡± ¡°It¡¯s Latin, I think it means¡­ two far-seeing? Double far-seeing? Something like that.¡± She frowned at him while she chewed. ¡°What? What¡¯s Latin?¡± Kay was blindsided once again by the random realization that obviously, people wouldn¡¯t know basic cultural facts from Earth. This could take a while. ¡°Okay, Latin is a language that comes from very a successful and culturally influential people from a few thousand years ago on Earth. Many scientific things have ¡®proper names in Latin, then common names in whatever language you speak. But there¡¯s a lot of stuff where for whatever reason that I generally don¡¯t know, the Latin name just stuck, and we use that in day-to-day use too.¡± She chewed slowly, slowly nodding. ¡°I think I get it. Your language is one of those ones that just grabs random words and vocabulary from other languages and walks around like it isn¡¯t a hodgepodge of weird.¡± ¡°Yeah, totally. You have languages like that here?¡± ¡°Yuahah, from the western part of this continent is like that. A couple of trading languages are like that too, although those are like that on purpose.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t it translate it for you, though?¡± Kay wondered. She looked back up at him. He read the confusion on her face and explained, ¡°Binoculars. Once I explained it, you understood the base concept easily, so why didn¡¯t whatever it is that translates our words back and forth for me just call it a double-spyglass for you, or something similar?¡± She finished another mouthful of food, then sat forward with her ¡®teacher expression¡¯ on. ¡°The...¡± She waved a hand, ¡°Whatever it is that translates for you probably can¡¯t translate words that don¡¯t exist in one of the languages it¡¯s translating. I just stuck two words together that would kind of make sense; that doesn¡¯t make it actual vocabulary for the concept you¡¯re describing. For example,¡± She said¡­ something. It was simultaneously melodic and airy and also sounded like waves hitting a rock. It was obviously a word, but it wasn¡¯t in any language Kay had ever heard. ¡°That¡¯s the word for a type of cooking used by Merpeople near my home island back home in their own language. Since it only works underwater and your world doesn¡¯t have it, there¡¯s no way it translates.¡± ¡°I thought the translation magic only works with one language? From English to Sha¡¯ken?¡± ¡°No, it should translate everything, as long as both languages have a word for what you¡¯re saying, as we¡¯re figuring out.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a little broken.¡± ¡°What? It¡¯s working just like it should.¡± ¡°Sorry, that was slang. That¡¯s really useful and maybe a bit too powerful.¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Oh,¡± She nodded in understanding and agreement, ¡°A little, yeah. It¡¯s good for you Outworlders, though, because it means you can communicate no matter what part of the world you land in. And you make great translators for different groups,¡± She added, ¡°As long as you focus on who you¡¯re talking to, whatever you say will be in a language they understand.¡± ¡°That¡¯s weird.¡± ¡°Right?¡± ¡°Ooh, ooh! Kay!¡± He looked down at where Murunel was sitting next to him. ¡°Oh, sorry, Murunel, I didn¡¯t mean to wake you up.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s fine! Concentrate on me and say something!¡± ¡°What should I say?¡± ¡°Anything!¡± ¡°Um¡­¡± He glanced around the camp, looking for a topic. ¡°What¡¯s your favorite food?¡± ¡°My mom makes this delicious baked dish with beef and vegetables, but that was still Sha¡¯ken. Concentrate on me!¡± She narrowed her tiny eyes at him. ¡°Oh, is that what we¡¯re doing?¡± Kay shifted in his seat to face her directly and focused on speaking whatever language she wanted him to be speaking. After a moment, he said: ¡°I think your scales are beautiful, especially when they glitter in the light.¡± ¡°Ohh!¡± She curled up into a ball, with only one eye peeking out from behind the curve of her neck. ¡°You¡¯re speaking Ghrdak! And your accent is perfect!¡± Her voice was a little muffled. ¡°Also, thanks! I like my scales too!¡± ¡°How are those noises coming out of you?¡± Eleniah asked. Kay glanced over at her to see a worried look on her face. ¡°What?¡± ¡°It sounded like¡­¡± She shuddered a little. ¡°Like growling and roaring and noises that your body looks too small to make.¡± ¡°That¡¯s Ghrdak!¡± Murunel exclaimed happily, ¡°Most people just call it Draconic, though. Ghrdak is hard to pronounce if you don¡¯t speak Ghrdak. But Kay can speak it perfectly because of some mysterious magic that translates things for him! And you hadn¡¯t even heard anyone speak it before this! That¡¯s so cool!¡± ¡°I just hear English. I can¡¯t even hear whatever Ghrdak sounds like or even Sha¡¯ken. It all comes through as English.¡± Eleniah set down her empty plate, a small frown forming. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ that could be bad, maybe? I can¡¯t think of a reason why not hearing what language you¡¯re speaking could be a problem, but I¡¯m sure it could be. Try concentrating on not having the words translated?¡± ¡°Uh, alright?¡± He thought really hard about not hearing the translation of what was said; he wanted to hear the actual words spoken. After he felt like he probably had it, he nodded at Kay. Sha¡¯ken had a lot of consonant sounds in it, with multiple glottal stops and throat noises that he associated with Cyrillic languages for some reason. ¡°Okay, I can definitely hear you speaking, Sha¡¯ken now.¡± Eleniah jerked back a little, confusion and shock on her face. Kay¡¯s eyes got wide. Oh, please let it come back if I concentrate on it. I really don¡¯t want to learn a new language on top of everything else in my life now. He focused as hard as he could on having the translation come back. ¡°Can you understand me now?¡± Eleniah sighed in relief. ¡°Yes, I can. Ooh, that could have been bad.¡± ¡°Not being able to talk to you? Yeah, that would have been terrible,¡± Kay agreed, ¡°Let¡¯s not mess with the completely unknown translation thing anymore for now.¡± ¡°I totally agree. And since we¡¯re done with breakfast, this is a good time for you to clean up, and we¡¯ll start our tasks for the day.¡± After he finished cleaning up, he stopped next to Eleniah, who was waiting in the same seat. ¡°So, what are we doing today?¡± She stood up and walked over to her dimensional bag. ¡°I¡¯m going to scout the area around us for resources and threats. You are going over to the edge of the woods there and felling a few trees.¡± She pulled a large axe out of the bag. ¡°Here.¡± Kay stared at the axe. ¡°I¡¯m not a lumberjack.¡± She raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°What kinds of trees am I supposed to cut down?¡± He gestured at the axe. ¡°I can swing an axe and do all the labor, but I don¡¯t have enough experience to make good decisions on what to cut.¡± ¡°Oh, just make sure it¡¯s at least a few feet wide, and you¡¯ll be fine. Even if you get some that aren¡¯t amazing for construction standards, we can still use the wood for something.¡± ¡°Construction standards?¡± Kay glanced around the camp. They were close to the cliff face of the western side of the valley and the forested area that made up the north end of the valley. The lake¡¯s shore was maybe a quarter of a mile to the east. ¡°We¡¯re building here? And right now?¡± ¡°Well, not this instant, the wood has to dry before we can build with it, and there¡¯s a little bit of other prep, but why not?¡± She gestured around them, ¡°This is a great spot, and there¡¯s no time like the present.¡± Kay thought for a moment, then shrugged. ¡°Alright.¡± She patted him on the shoulder. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯re still in charge. I¡¯m just being an outstanding adviser.¡± He raised an eyebrow at her. ¡°Is that what you¡¯re doing? Advising, not steamrolling me with decisions?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Pushing me into doing what you want.¡± ¡°What? Noooo. I¡¯d never.¡± Kay snorted a laugh. ¡°Right. Anyway, I wasn¡¯t worried. Take back the leadership any time you want.¡± ¡°Nah.¡± She sauntered off towards the tent. ¡°Go chop wood, leader!¡± He laughed again and started to head towards the trees, the axe over his shoulder. He paused and looked down at Murunel. ¡°Want to come with me today?¡± ¡°Sure! I don¡¯t know anything about woodcutting, but hard labor is more interesting than skulking around!¡± ¡°Skulking around? Isn¡¯t she going to be looking for resources and threats? Not spying on people.¡± ¡°Meh, skulking is skulking. Let¡¯s go knock things over!¡± Kay laughed again and put the necklace over his neck. He trekked over to the trees and started looking for one good-sized enough to take down. ¡°Should I make sure I¡¯m not destroying something¡¯s home before I start chopping?¡± ¡°That sounds like a good idea to me!¡± ¡°Alright¡­¡± He gazed up into the canopy of the large tree he¡¯d picked, looking for nests or moving animals. ¡°This is probably a lot more complicated than I assumed it was.¡± ¡°Most things are.¡± Kay was going to respond when he heard something coming from deeper among the trees. The sound of fighting. As he stopped to listen, he heard the sounds of grunts and a weapon being swung. A person, or people, fighting. He stared in that direction, then turned and started jogging back to the camp. ¡°Running into an unknown fight alone is a bad idea, right?¡± ¡°I¡¯d say so.¡± ¡°Good. Let¡¯s see what miss ¡®I¡¯m totally not railroading you into anything¡¯ thinks. Hopefully, she¡¯s still nearby.¡± ¡°She should be; it¡¯s only been a few minutes.¡± He saw her twist her neck around to look up at him in the corner of his vision. ¡°What¡¯s ¡®railroading¡¯?¡± Book 2 Chapter 6 Kay jogged back into camp, just catching Eleniah as she was walking off. ¡°Hey!¡± ¡°Back so soon? Where¡¯s the tree?¡± ¡°We heard fighting coming from past the trees, and I decided to come back and ask for your advice.¡± The last part he said with some sarcasm attached. ¡°I heard weapons, so it¡¯s people of some kind.¡± She turned and started jogging. ¡°Good thinking. In some cases, it can be a bad idea to go towards the sounds of fighting, but since we have exactly no information about what kind of threats there are, we should check it out.¡± She glanced over her shoulder, ¡°Good idea coming to get me too.¡± ¡°I like sticking together more than I like splitting up, especially when there¡¯s a potential danger.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t complain when I sent you off to cut wood by yourself.¡± ¡°You kind of gave me orders and then walked off; there wasn¡¯t much I could do about it.¡± She glanced back again with a thoughtful look on. ¡°We¡¯ll come back to that.¡± They stopped just inside the tree line, and the sounds of fighting were still audible. Carefully they snuck closer, trying to see between the trees. Just ahead, the space opened up, and they saw two people fighting a pack of monsters. One of them was around Kay¡¯s height, six feet tall, and gracefully slicing his attackers to pieces with a glaive. His hair was salt and pepper with dark black streaked through with various shades of gray, and interestingly, his skin was also light gray color. The other person was big. Eight feet tall, with massive muscles, and even darker gray skin, he towered over the, admittedly small, battle. He crushed the beetle monsters swarming the pair with a large staff. ¡°Stupid, fucking, miserable bugs!¡± The massive man shouted. ¡°I will crush all of you and desecrate your corpses!¡± ¡°That¡¯s a bit more hostile than usual!¡± The smaller man called out as he bisected a beetle with one smooth swing. ¡°They ruined my breakfast, Uncle! Look!¡± He pointed with one hand at a large overturned bowl on the ground. ¡°Ruined it!¡± The smaller man chuckled and shook his head as he stabbed downward, impaling the last of the monsters. With a flourish, he removed the blade from the corpse and flicked the creature¡¯s ichor off. ¡°We can make you another breakfast, Darten.¡± ¡°I know, but all that good food, wasted!¡± He sighed and shook his head sadly. ¡°Such a waste.¡± ¡°Yes, well, such is life. Before we cook you something else, though¡­¡± The shorter man turned to look in Kay and Eleniah¡¯s direction. ¡°Hello there!¡± Eleniah exhaled and stepped forward out of the trees. ¡°Hello.¡± She greeted them. The smaller and presumably older man flicked his eyes at Kay with a small smirk on his face. Eleniah sighed and gestured at Kay. ¡°Next is working on your stealth.¡± She muttered as he walked up. The larger man watched them warily as the other chuckled. ¡°Don¡¯t be too harsh on him; I just got lucky and saw a flash of his sleeve. Is there anything we can help the two of you with?¡± Eleniah looked them over for a minute before shrugging. ¡°We heard the commotion and decided to check out what was happening near our camp.¡± ¡°A wise precaution¡­¡± He stared at them for a minute. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind me asking, what¡¯s your purpose in being in the area?¡± ¡°We¡¯re exploring the untamed lands.¡± Eleniah replied dryly, ¡°Searching for adventure and glory.¡± The larger man, Darten, grunted and looked down at his companion. After a moment¡¯s pause, ¡°I¡¯m Meten, and this is my nephew Darten. We¡¯re doing similar, although it¡¯s as much to train my nephew on how to survive as it is anything else.¡± He stared at them for a minute more, stroking his short white-flecked beard. ¡°Again, this might be presumptuous of me, but might you have any Agreements?¡± Eleniah raised her eyebrows in surprise. ¡°That is a bit presumptuous. And surprising.¡± Meten glanced up at his gigantic nephew. ¡°It¡¯s is, as they say, safer in greater numbers. I would rather cooperate and do better than be alone and do worse.¡± Kay sidled closer to his teacher, ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± He whispered. Eleniah reached down and pulled a scroll out of the travel bag she¡¯d grabbed before they¡¯d run out of camp. She pulled it open and read it over, then rolled it back up and tossed it underhand in a large arc. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Meten caught it and nodded at her before pulling it open and reading it over. ¡°This is exhaustive. Very nice.¡± He reached into a pouch on his side and pulled out a pen and some ink. He dipped the pen and signed on the scroll, then passed both of them on to his large nephew. ¡°Sign.¡± ¡°Uncle?¡± Darten trepidatiously took them from his hands. ¡°Remember what I told you about meeting people? Sign the Agreement.¡± Slowly, glancing at his uncle multiple times, Darten signed. Meten took the scroll back and tossed it back to Eleniah, who signed with her own pen and then wordlessly handed it over to Kay. Kay actually took the time to read over the Agreement before signing anything. It was short and relatively simple. Anyone who signed the Agreement guaranteed no hostile action towards anyone else who signed, with the punishment for doing anything potentially harmful being that the attacker would be lit up with a bright glow to show that they were a threat the instant they began any hostile action. It also bound the signers not to share any secrets they learned about other parties without permission for two years. Kay looked over at Eleniah. ¡°Why are we signing this? No, actually, you had one pre-prepared. Why are we doing this?¡± She looked at him from the side of her eye. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ complicated. The short version is that these particular strangers in the wilderness are definitely strong enough to be a threat if they aren¡¯t friendly, and they quickly offered friendly terms. We can break the Agreement by giving them notice if we need to, so we sign it now and talk to them in relative safety from each other. Basically, it¡¯s a non-aggression pact.¡± ¡°Why the secret-keeping part then?¡± ¡°It comes standard when you order them for no extra cost. They actually charge more to take it out, so I just had it left in.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Kay looked down at it again. ¡°So basically it¡¯s a ¡®lets talk without being worried about an ambush¡¯ type Agreement?¡± ¡°Exactly. Don¡¯t tell any secrets if you don¡¯t have to. I¡¯ll make sure we avoid the topics we don¡¯t want to address. They¡¯ll almost definitely do the same.¡± Kay awkwardly signed the Agreement using his leg as an impromptu table. ¡°This is an incredibly convenient thing to have with you.¡± ¡°Right?¡± She grinned at him, keeping her eyes on the other pair. ¡°Apparently, before Agreements came around, the world was a whole lot more perilous every time you met strangers.¡± Kay handed her back the scroll. ¡°Why is it a scroll, by the way?¡± ¡°It¡¯s easier to throw to people as opposed to just a sheet, and the bound versions are more expensive.¡± She nicked her finger and let a drop of blood hit the surface of the Agreement. The scroll glowed a silvery sheen, then it dissipated. Eleniah rolled up the scroll and put it away in her bag. With a smile on his face, Meten walked up to them. He stopped about a foot away from them both with his hand outstretched. ¡°Wonderful. It¡¯s much nicer to meet strangers that are at least willing to talk. The ones that attack you or the ones that stare all suspicious like from a distance are¡­ Well, I like them less.¡± Eleniah snorted and shook his hand. ¡°I¡¯m Eleniah; this is my student, Kay.¡± ¡°Ah!¡± Meten shook Kay¡¯s hand too. ¡°So we are very similar in our goals. Adventure and training for our disciples.¡± Eleniah sorted again. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t call him a disciple.¡± Meten glanced up and back towards his nephew, who¡¯d stopped behind him. ¡°No, I wouldn¡¯t call Darten a disciple either, but it¡¯s more fun to say than just ¡®student¡¯.¡± Darten bent down a little to shake both their hands. ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Darten. Don¡¯t pay much attention to my uncle if you don¡¯t have to; he¡¯s a bit of a weird one.¡± Meten laughed loudly. ¡°I¡¯m Kay; nice to meet you.¡± Darten¡¯s hand was three time¡¯s the size of Kay¡¯s, but he was quite gentle as they shook. ¡°So, I heard that your camp might be nearby? Would you mind, now that we¡¯re at least on neutral terms if we borrowed your fire?¡± He gestured at the empty bowl that Darten now held. ¡°My nephew could use another breakfast.¡± ¡°My food.¡± Darten mourned. ¡°It¡¯s your own fault for walking and eating instead of just finishing before we broke camp.¡± His uncle chided. ¡°You eat too quickly and then demand we leave! I need more food than you do!¡± Eleniah chuckled at their antics and led them back to their camp. Darten had a little bit of trouble moving through the dense trees a time or two, but he didn¡¯t need to rip any of them up to get through. Not that Kay thought he could. They weren¡¯t the giants of the forest they¡¯d passed through to the south on the way here, but the trees on the northern edge of the valley were still bigger around than Kay was, for the most part. As big as he was, he didn¡¯t think Darten was that strong. When they made it back to their camp, Kay stoked the fire while Darten pulled out some supplies from a large back and started making himself another meal. After he finished, they sat around the small fire and looked at each other. ¡°I guess we¡¯ll go first since we¡¯re partaking in your hospitality. Once again, I¡¯m Meten, and this is my nephew, Darten. We¡¯re looking for some adventure and interesting escapades while we get Darten a little more life experience.¡± ¡°I¡¯m Eleniah, and this is Kay, and we¡¯re basically doing the same, without the family part.¡± She looked up at Darten. ¡°If it isn¡¯t rude, why are you so much smaller than your nephew?¡± Meten laughed, ¡°I¡¯m an Oni, and Darten is an Ogre. My sister is on the taller side for an Oni, and she ended up marrying my brother-in-law, who is an Ogre.¡± He looked at his nephew with evident fondness in his eyes. ¡°Darten here came out Ogre, while my other niece and nephew are both Oni.¡± He saw the look of surprise and confusion on Kay¡¯s face. ¡°What? Something the matter?¡± Kay, remembering Alice and the others telling him to be better at keeping secrets, glanced over at Eleniah. She shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s fine. You run into a few here and there. Not a big deal.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡± Meten glanced between the two of them, and Darten looked up from his cooking. ¡°I¡¯m an Outworlder,¡± Kay told them, ¡°The names for your Ogre and Oni just translated interestingly in my native language.¡± While Darten was huge and muscular, he wasn¡¯t a grotesque monster with low intelligence and an appetite for all things meat, based on the vegetables he was cooking into his meal. And Meten wasn¡¯t a massive blue or red-skinned monster with horns and a tiger skin loin-cloth, although those were more traditional Oni if he remembered right. He shrugged mentally. This wasn¡¯t a mythological Earth, and all translations across languages were going to have difficulty now and again. Better to just accept that things would be exciting and move on with it. ¡°Oh, an Outworlder, you say?¡± Meten smiled widely, ¡°It¡¯s my first time meeting one! What was it like to end up in another world?¡± Kay glanced at Eleniah again and got another shrug. Kay nodded at her and settled in to describe his time on Torotia, hopefully keeping all his secrets intact along the way. Book 2 Chapter 7 ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Darten said, his head bowed. ¡°That sounds¡­ terrible.¡± ¡°Still, it sounds like you ran into some good people,¡± Meten said as he smiled at Kay. ¡°Uncle!¡± ¡°What?¡± He glanced at Darten, ¡°He met Eleniah and those other adventurer friends; it¡¯s a good thing!¡± Darten sighed, ¡°It sounds like you¡¯re downplaying the bad parts of what happened to him. He got sucked away from everything he ever knew and thrown into a world with a lot more danger.¡± ¡°I was not! I was pointing out the silver lining.¡± ¡°People don¡¯t need you telling them about the silver linings; it¡¯s their life.¡± ¡°People would live better lives if they just listened to me all the time.¡± Darten groaned as he put his face in his hands. He looked up at Kay. ¡°Sorry, he¡¯s really annoying sometimes. He¡¯s not trying to be rude, but sometimes he is anyway.¡± Kay tried not to chuckle. ¡°It¡¯s not a big deal. It did suck, and sometimes still does, but not everything was bad, and I¡¯m doing alright now.¡± ¡°See?¡± Meten smacked his nephew on the arm, ¡°He gets it!¡± ¡°It did come across as you downplaying what I experienced, though.¡± Kay countered. The Oni threw his arms up dramatically, ¡°It doesn¡¯t help anyone to ruminate on the negatives in life! It¡¯s better to focus on the good things!¡± Eleniah smirked, ¡°It¡¯s still rude to act like someone¡¯s suffering is no big deal, though.¡± ¡°You¡¯re all against me,¡± Meten muttered, ¡°Whatever! We were doing introductions before we went off on that tangent, so let¡¯s get back to it, shall we?¡± He touched his chest, ¡°Once again, I¡¯m Meten, [Ashblade Painter].¡± Kay couldn¡¯t help twitching as the Voice of the World grated at his ears. He noticed Darten doing the same thing and felt a little better about it. He glanced over at Eleniah, trying to gauge what to do. She gazed at Meten levelly before nodding. ¡°Eleniah, [Indomitable Fist].¡± Meten grinned at her, then nudged Darten with his elbow. Darten looked uncomfortable and glanced a few times at his uncle with a worried look on his face. Kay was relieved; he wasn¡¯t the only one not knowing what was going on. ¡°I¡¯m Darten, and I¡¯m an [Earth Mage].¡± They both turned to look at Kay, who stared at Eleniah. Agreement or not, shouldn¡¯t he stick to saying he was a Swordsman? But if one of them could Inspect him, then they¡¯d know he was lying. But telling random people he¡¯d just met about his secret class was a bad idea, right? She nodded at him encouragingly, and he stared at her some more. Seriously? She thinks this is a good idea? His thoughts wavered as he internally debated what to do. Fuck, it just comes down to trusting her or not, doesn¡¯t it? He sighed. ¡°I¡¯m Kay. [Blood Manipulator].¡± Darten startled and edged away slightly, but Meten just nodded, making Kay think he was right; they had Inspected him already. ¡°That¡¯s a pretty rare class,¡± Meten said as he patted Darten on the shoulder a few times. ¡°I haven¡¯t ever run into a Blood Manipulator before. Of course, that¡¯s probably because a lot of people will automatically equate it with Blood Mages, even though that isn¡¯t necessarily true.¡± The last part he said while looking directly at his nephew, who slowly and visibly calmed down. ¡°You¡¯re right, sorry,¡± Darten said. Meten smiled, ¡°I don¡¯t think Kay will mind much. Sad as it is, it can¡¯t be the first time he¡¯s dealt with that kind of reaction. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t have hesitated the way he did.¡± ¡°Right.¡± Kay nodded in agreement, ¡°People have freaked out before. As long as you aren¡¯t attacking me or screaming in shock, I¡¯ll call it a win.¡± Eleniah stared at Meten for a moment. ¡°Kay, grab the axe and cut down that tree I asked for, please. Meten and I are going to chat.¡± Kay sighed. ¡°Alright.¡± He grabbed the axe and started off. ¡°Darten, you go too.¡± He heard Meten say, and a moment later, the ground shook the tiniest bit as Darten ran to catch up. They walked in silence towards the tree line until they were out of earshot. ¡°If it helps, I have no idea what¡¯s going on either.¡± Darten said, ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting Uncle to give out our information like that.¡± Kay looked up at him, ¡°Was I that obvious?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know about obvious; I could just tell we were feeling the same way.¡± He carefully maneuvered around some bushes to avoid trampling them. Kay set the axe down and leaned on it. ¡°I¡¯m confused, yeah, but a little annoyed too. She¡¯s been harking on me about how I¡¯m in charge now because I need to learn how to be in charge for later or something. Then as soon as important decisions come up, she¡¯s telling me what to do without any explanation.¡± He sighed. ¡°I wish she would just make up her mind.¡± ¡°Why is she saying you need to learn to be in charge? Do you have a leadership class?¡± ¡°No, I don¡¯t even have the skill. She¡¯s insisting I¡¯m going to be powerful in the future, and that means I¡¯ll be a leader for some reason.¡± Darten crouched down so they could be on similar levels while talking. ¡°Well, if she¡¯s right, then she¡¯s right.¡± Kay shot him a confused look. ¡°What?¡± ¡°If she¡¯s right about you becoming powerful, then she¡¯s right about becoming a leader.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Kay asked with a frown, ¡°Being powerful isn¡¯t intrinsically connected with being a good leader.¡± Darten shook his hand back and forth, ¡°With being a good leader, no. With being a leader in the first place?¡± He shrugged, ¡°The strong lead. That¡¯s how it goes.¡± He stopped and looked at the expression on Kay¡¯s face. ¡°Is that not how it is in your world?¡± Kay rubbed his neck. ¡°¡­ I can¡¯t say that none of them are, but at the same time, some random guy isn¡¯t going to become a leader just because he¡¯s a powerful fighter.¡± Darten looked at him for a moment. ¡°Here on Torotia, you need strong leaders to survive a lot of the time. There are monsters and other people in the world that will destroy anything someone else has built, whether it¡¯s from hunger, rage, or just because they can.¡± ¡°Why does that mean the strong people are in charge? I can understand needing them, but why do they automatically become leaders? Why can¡¯t the leader be the person best suited for it, and the strong people follow them?¡± Kay interrupted. ¡°Because of perception. That¡¯s what I got from all the explanations I¡¯ve gotten from Uncle and my parents. Because other people have strong leaders, they think that anyone that doesn¡¯t must be weak. Even if you have a great leader with strong subordinates, other people will assume you¡¯re all weak because your leader is.¡± He shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s pretty cyclical.¡± This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°So it¡¯s all to make people think you¡¯re strong?¡± Kay scrubbed at his face with one hand. ¡°What¡¯s the point?¡± ¡°Deterrence.¡± Kay groaned. ¡°So the whole world is in a cold war? It¡¯s all mutually assured destruction with leaders of nations as the nukes?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t understand all of that¡­¡± Darten replied slowly, ¡°But from what I did understand, yes. Not always, some groups and nations ally with one another, and some aren¡¯t going to attack anyone else without a good reason, weaker or not, but there are enough threats out there that make it necessary to have someone strong at the helm.¡± ¡°And it has nothing to do with the people in power perpetuating their rule so they can keep being the strongest?¡± Kay asked sarcastically. ¡°I think that¡¯s one of the reasons the system perpetuates, but I think it develops in newly formed groups for the first reason, safety.¡± ¡°¡¯ Those who give up essential Liberty, for a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.¡¯¡± Kay quoted. Darten grunted and made a thoughtful face. ¡°Interesting, and I can see where you¡¯re coming from, but I think that¡¯s a flawed response. First of all, you can¡¯t have any liberty if monsters eat you. Second, you¡¯re assuming that the powerful assuming leadership means there will be no liberty for the people they lead. That¡¯s a flawed assumption. If you¡¯re going to be in charge, would you start taking people¡¯s liberty from them?¡± ¡°No¡­¡± Darten shrugged. ¡°Then don¡¯t assume that others will. I mean, there are absolutely people who will, but not everyone.¡± ¡°What¡¯s stopping some more powerful person walking in somewhere and just taking control?¡± ¡°Nothing. And a lot, at the same time. Sometimes that happens, but most of the time, the people of a group or a nation band together and defeat the one stronger person. Good nations aren¡¯t comprised of oppressed people squashed by powerful leaders who are only seeking more power. Good nations have strong leaders actually leading their people to become better and stronger as a group.¡± He paused. ¡°It sounds to me like some of this is from your own worries about your teacher insisting you¡¯re going to be in charge of something or someone eventually.¡± Kay thought about that, then sighed. ¡°Yeah, probably.¡± He grabbed the axe and put it back over his shoulder. ¡°Let¡¯s go chop down a tree.¡± ¡°I accept your changing of the subject and your reminder that we should get back on task.¡± Kay looked up at Darten. ¡°You¡¯re pretty well educated on the subject.¡± He commented. Darten chuckled. ¡°My family is connected to our village¡¯s leadership. I mean, it¡¯s a small village, so everyone knows everyone, but my dad is close friends with our village chief. I¡¯ve heard and participated in a lot of conversations like that.¡± He laughed again, ¡°My brother likes discussing subjects like that with anyone that¡¯ll listen. His first-class was Philosopher.¡± ¡°Is that a good class?¡± ¡°It¡¯s good if you¡¯re going to become a scholar of some kind. Not great for combat.¡± They stopped in front of a relatively large tree. ¡°You know anything about cutting down trees? I have no idea if this one is good or not.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve done the actual chopping a few times, but someone else always told me what to cut down.¡± ¡°Then let¡¯s just go with this one.¡± Kay pulled the axe off his shoulder and went to grab it for a nice chop. ¡°Kay! Move!¡± Murunel shouted from around his neck. Kay was already rolling forwards, just barely avoiding the massive branch aimed right at him. He¡¯d noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and thrown himself out of the way. He spun himself around and saw an oddly shaped tree that hadn¡¯t been there a moment ago. As he watched, the bark in a few places split open, revealing two glowing orbs. Below the eyes, a thin crack opened, filled with sharp, wooden teeth. Another branch swung at Kay, whip-fast. Before it could land, a pillar of stone rose from the ground. The branch smashed into the pillar, sending rock and sticks flying in every direction. Kay blocked the debris from hitting with one arm and opened the cap of his canteen with the other. With a growing pool of blood floating under his control, he pulled his halberd free. He guessed that the best weapon to kill this thing was the axe he¡¯d already dropped, but he didn¡¯t really know how to fight with that. Instead, he hoped that his halberd¡¯s spiked end would hack into the monster. Darten gestured, and a small boulder ripped loose from the ground and flew at the tree monster. It smashed into the ting¡¯s face and rocked it backward. Kay took the opportunity to rush forward to swing his halberd into the enemy. He kept his swings short to avoid hitting other trees or the monster¡¯s swinging appendages and managed to drive the spiked end into it four times in quick succession before he had to back off, dodging the retaliatory strikes. The holes oozed a weird purplish liquid, but the monster ignored the wounds and kept fighting. A swinging branch managed to pull itself over another rising pillar of stone meant to block it and whipped down at Kay. With a thought, Kay surrounded his arm in blood and pushed it outward, forming it into a shield with Shape Blood. The branch slammed into his blood shield, driving him back and making his arm ache like mad. He changed the shape from a shield to a sharp blade and swung at the creature as it retracted its branch. He managed to make a small gash in it that leaked the same viscous liquid that he couldn¡¯t control. ¡°This thing¡¯s tough!¡± Kay rolled away as he shouted to Darten without looking. ¡°I don¡¯t think hitting it with rocks is doing much!¡± The mage shouted back, ¡°If I can hold it still can you hit it hard?¡± Kay threw a sharpened needle of blood at the monster¡¯s eye, but it just pulled the eye closed, and the attack bounced off the rugged bark. ¡°Do it!¡± The ground rumbled, and more and more pillars of stone shot out of the ground, slamming into the monster and holding it in place. Even more struck the tree¡¯s branches, forcing them into awkward angles it couldn¡¯t attack with them from. Kay ran in close and swung his halberd upwards. He gathered his blood around the spike of it, making it longer and sharper as he solidified the blood. Combining his strength with his ability to pull the blood magically, he hammered the spike through the bark eyelid of the creature. It screamed in pain, a loud screech that sounded like trees creaking in the wind magnified a hundred times. Kay separated the blood from his weapon so he could pull it back faster, then set up for another swing. Still shrieking, the monster smashed one of the pillars and swung down at the tiny human who had caused it so much pain. Kay formed a hardened ramp that the branch skidded upwards and over him. As he gathered up the blood to make another strike, another one of the branches got free and rocketed down towards him. Dammit, I can¡¯t hit it like this! A massive from shot past him and took the attack from the monster on crossed arms. Kay watched as Darten, covered in a layer of stone armor, started grappling with the creature. ¡°Hit it again!¡± Kay swung back and slammed another blood spike into the creature¡¯s other eye. It shrieked even louder, but its struggles started to slow as more and more purple sap ran down its face. Kay jumped back and gathered his magic blood right in between its eyes. ¡°I really hope you have some kind of brain there!¡± He unleashed his pressure attack, punching a small hole through the entirety of its body. The monster gurgled and stumbled. Darten pulled back a fist and slammed it right over the hole Kay had just made. With a ripping noise, his stone-covered fist suddenly expanded, tearing the hole wide open. The monster made a strange choking noise and slowly tumbled over backward. Kay and Darten stared at the monster, both breathing heavily. After watching it for a while, the stone flaked off of Darten, turning him from a ten-foot-tall stone giant back to his usual seven-foot-tall normal Ogre self. ¡°Is this thing a Treant or an Ent?¡± Kay asked as he panted. ¡°It¡¯s a Treant. Treants are monsters. Ents are people.¡± ¡°Not trying to be rude, I¡¯m an Outworlder who doesn¡¯t know stuff. How do you tell the difference?¡± ¡°Ents are tree-like but don¡¯t look entirely like trees. Treants disguise themselves as trees, and also they eat people.¡± He stretched his back as he looked away from the monster¡¯s corpse. ¡°At least, that¡¯s what Uncle says about Ents; I¡¯ve never actually met one.¡± He glanced around the area. ¡°Do you see my staff?¡± Kay looked around and pointed it out when he saw it. ¡°There it is. Why¡¯d you drop it?¡± Darten grimaced. ¡°I¡¯m not that used to using it yet; I picked it up recently because Uncle suggested I learn a weapon that complimented my magic.¡± He looked over at Kay after grabbing his staff. ¡°Did I hear someone shouting at you to move right before it attacked?¡± Kay sighed and fished Murunel¡¯s necklace out of his shirt. He held her out so Darten could see. ¡°This is Murunel. She¡¯s trapped in the ball.¡± ¡°Hi!¡± Murunel greeted him. ¡°We were keeping me secret, but Kay not dying is more important than people not knowing about me.¡± ¡°I saw it coming!¡± ¡°Better safe than sorry!¡± Murunel retorted. Kay sighed again. ¡°Fine.¡± He looked over at the Treant¡¯s corpse. ¡°You think this counts as a tree? I really don¡¯t want to cut one down after that.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve heard of people making things out of Treant wood. Let¡¯s take it back. Also, I¡¯ll accept the tiny dragon in the ball for the moment, but I¡¯d like an explanation when we get back.¡± ¡°Yeah, no problem. It¡¯s really not that long of a story.¡± Kay looked at the size of the dead monster. ¡°It¡¯s going to be a pain to drag. How was I supposed to bring a tree back by myself anyway?¡± Darten shrugged. ¡°By yourself? No idea. But with a little Earth Manipulation¡­¡± He gestured at the corpse, and a clump of dirt and stone formed over the body before lifting it up in the air. ¡°I can float it back to camp.¡± Kay stared at the clump. ¡°You have Earth Manipulation too?¡± ¡°Yeah, at level sixteen. Four more, and I can get Apprentice Earth Manipulator tiered up.¡± Kay glanced from the lump containing the Treant corpse to Darten and back. ¡°Wait. You have two different magics that can control dirt and rock?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Why the hell are we chopping trees to build with then?¡± Kay shouted, ¡°You can just pop them out of the ground!¡± ¡°Oh, yeah. Earth Mages and Earth Manipulators build stuff all the time.¡± Kay groaned as he stalked over and grabbed the axe. ¡°Back to camp!¡± Kay made it a few feet before he heard Darten mutter. ¡°Well, you¡¯re certainly taking charge here.¡± ¡°Shut up!¡± Book 3 Chapter 1
Kay, Blood Mayor of the Town of Avalon, glanced up from the form he was filling out and resisted slamming his head into his desk. "How is there this much paperwork to do?" He picked up the stack of papers and dropped it down to hear it thump. His secretary sighed, "Sir, there isn''t that much. There are only two forms to sign and then two plans to confirm before we start implementing them." Kay looked from the young human woman to the thick stack of papers and back again. "Why are there so many damn papers then, Mandy?" "It''s Amanda, even to you, sir, and¡­" She stepped over to the desk, took the top two papers off, and then took away almost all of the remaining papers, leaving only three of them. "These," She held up the stack in her hands, "are those diagrams from Mr. David again. He said you needed to see all the changes drawn out to make your decision." Kay sighed in a different way and rubbed at his forehead. "David is great at planning out buildings, but he is so neurotic about making decisions. I saw those plans three days ago, and he''s only supposed to have made minor changes, right?" Amanda glanced through the documents and nodded, "Yes, it looks like it''s just the planned changes. The first idea had the placement of a stairwell modified slightly, and the changes to the other two ideas were mostly cosmetic.'' Kay grabbed his official pen and wrote "Approved" on the last pages of David''s planning document. "Done, he can start construction whenever he''s ready." Kay glanced out one of the windows in his office. "It''s nice that we''re finally using all the space on the cliff." He looked at the area they''d decided to start building onto and into and then glanced down at the streets of Avalon that surrounded his office building. Avalon had grown significantly in the last year and a bit, at least compared to where they''d been, and the village was on the cusp of being able to call itself a town. Hell, in terms of pure infrastructure and buildings, they probably already could be considered one. After defeating the Eldritch Being and ensuring the safety of Avalon, Kay had settled down into growing the new village and leading it as best he could. They''d expanded out a little bit to contain the new citizens that had come back with Meten, but that had only put them at around fifty or sixty people at most; they hadn''t taken up much space. With enough people to hold down the fort when certain tier five fighters had left, he''d sent Meten off on a shopping trip to Tumbling Rapids, since it was the closest large city, to acquire things they could use or just wanted. Someone that had gone with him hadn''t kept their lips sealed because a traveling merchant showed up in Avalon a few months later, having heard about the village founded in the wilderness from somewhere. They didn''t need to keep themselves super-secret, and there were other people that had heard about them at that point, so Kay decided that killing the trader to keep themselves hidden was a bad idea. He was pretty sure it had been brought up only for the sake of exploring all options anyway. So the trader sold some things and bought some things, and left. That was when the people wanting to come live in Avalon started trickling in, to Kay''s surprise. Apparently, there were people that wanted a new start, even as precarious as the situation was when starting a new community in the middle of the wilderness. Poor people wanting a new start, people running away from their problems, criminals wanting to exploit people or escape bounties, and more all showed up asking, or even demanding, to be allowed to stay. The people asking nicely that didn''t have any harmful intentions were allowed to stay, because why not? They signed Agreements of loyalty that kept them from being spies or saboteurs, and more workers could always find something useful to do in a growing village. All of the criminals were found out, as far as anyone could tell, and sent away, or in a few cases killed during fights when they were told to leave. The people who demanded that they be allowed to stay were usually of some kind of status from wherever they had come from, and they somehow assumed that meant they''d be important in a new place. They were given a chance to correct their attitudes, and those that didn''t were told to leave. All in all, Avalon had grown from less than one hundred citizens to almost five hundred in basically a year, which had required a sudden boost to their infrastructure and housing. David had gained a bunch of subordinates in the new Office of Planning. Darten had fallen in love with using his Earth Magic and Earth Manipulation skills for construction and led all of the Stone and Earth Mages or Manipulators in their Office of Building. Leya had kept with the combat aspects of Earth Magic, but she still pitched in with building when she had time. With David and Darten at the head, Avalon had grown into a town worth being proud of. Even Kay had gotten an upgraded office building that had two stories and multiple rooms. For some System reason, it couldn''t be a Town Hall until they reached actual System status as a Town instead of a Village, but that''s what it was in function, if not in fact. There was a knock on the door, and Kay turned away from the window to respond. "Come in!" Meten stuck his head through the door and grinned at Kay and Amanda. "Mr. Mayor, Mandy, how is this day treating you?" "Hey Meten, what''s up?" Kay greeted him and gestured for him to come in. Amanda sighed. "Father, I have asked you so many times to stop calling me that. I''m not a child anymore." With a smile, Meten stepped over to her and slung an arm off her shoulders, "You''ll always be my little girl." She rolled her eyes at him. "Wonderful. Is there something you need, father? The Mayor still does have more work to do today." "I have a report from some of the scouts, but it can wait a little bit, its interesting and probably good news, but it''s not urgent." "I only have three more things, so-" "Mr. Mayor, the last planning item is for you to decide on who is going to be the Commander of the Guard for Avalon, and the remaining candidates are waiting to see you." Amanda interrupted. She turned to Meten and gently pushed him towards the door, "You can wait, you said, so come back later, father." "Why didn''t you say that earlier?" Kay asked. "Because there is an order for things to happen! That was the last thing for you to do today because the meeting is probably going to take the longest! Stop resisting me, father!" She scowled at Meten, who was holding onto the door frame with one hand and chuckling. Kay shook his head at their antics and asked a question he''d been sitting on for a while. "Why do you call him ''father''?" "Because my birth parents are my mom and dad, and he''s my father." She answered immediately as she strained against Meten''s higher tier strength. "Sometimes, when she''s in a good mood, she calls me ''Da''." Meten grinned and kissed Amanda on the forehead. "I''ll talk to you both later." Amanda staggered when he suddenly moved and took a moment to straighten her clothes as she resumed her professional demeanor. Kay chuckled at the shift in her personality when she was around her loved ones and grabbed another piece of paperwork. "So the people that are left to be Head Guard are-" Amanda gently but firmly took the paper from him. "That is last. The other two forms come first." "Who is in charge around here?" She ignored him. "Alright, whatever. Let''s see here." He read the proposal submitted by a citizen over and nodded. "Sure, this is fine. Searching for more resources for Avalon to use or sell is always good. I approve their expedition." He signed the paper and handed it to Amanda. "I wish them luck beating Cindy''s people out though, they''ve brought in a huge majority of our findings for resources." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. "They do have a person capable of using skills to find what they want, form what I''ve heard, specialized to locating certain specific resources," Amanda informed him. "Oh, that''s good." He grabbed the last remaining submission and started reading. Almost immediately, he groaned and tossed it aside. "Rejected, again! For the same damn reason as last time and the time before that. I don''t have a high enough Noble Title to start appointing lower Nobles! Tell," He grabbed the paper to read the name so he could remember it, "This Aprasen person that they are not required to spend a few hours at the school getting lectured on what different Noble Titles can and can''t do. Maybe that''ll get it through their head that I am literally incapable of doing what they want me to do." Amanda nodded once. "Noted. I''ll have it scheduled with Ms. Eleniah." "I''d say that''s mean, but she''s a fantastic teacher, so maybe that will get it through to them. It''s not like he''s getting combat training from her." Eleniah still went on adventures and helped with other combat-related tasks, but she wasn''t that good of an administrator compared to some of the people they''d picked up in the last year, so Kay had half let and half ordered her to spend her open time with her other true love besides fighting, teaching. She helped with lots of tasks at the school they''d built, but she especially loved teaching the younger children and helping the older ones get ready for having a Class. "Ms. Aprasen is a tier two Merchant Class from a somewhat powerful mercantile family to the west. My reports say that she moved into the area of Tumbling Rapids in order to make a name for herself and came to Avalon for the same reason, hoping for less competition. She apparently wants Avalon to succeed so she can grow alongside, and thinks becoming a Low Noble can help push her past others of her generation from her family." Kay slowly looked up at her from the paper. "Do we have spies?" "No. Not yet. But like you''ve said before, planning ahead of time saves effort later. You have¡­ potential spies." "¡­ Right¡­" Kay stared at her poker face for a moment, then turned to the last paper. "There are only two candidates for Head Guard?" "The Commander of the Guard position is prestigious but also demanding. Most of the original candidates were removed as possibilities." "I''m only a Mayor, so it''s Head Guard. Once I get a higher Noble Title, it''ll be Commander of the Guard. And I should unlock some other Position Titles to appoint." "Commander of the Guard sounds better." Kay snorted a laugh and read the paper describing the two candidates and their Classes and Skills. "This is informative, but I should really meet them first. You said they''re waiting here?" "Yes, sir. I''ll go get them." Kay waited a few minutes, and then Amanda led two women into the room. One was a Human woman with long brown hair tied into a braided ponytail and ghostly gray eyes. She was shorter but lithe and muscular, and she quickly glanced around the room, taking in everything there. Kay noticed a series of sharp, mostly hidden spikes braided into her hair. The other woman was more than a foot taller than the first woman and a few inches taller than Kay. She was an Orc, with dark green skin the color of leaves from an old forest giant and small tusks pointing up from her lower lips. The Orc woman was ripped, and she walked with a confident stride. Mentally comparing the two, Kay figured that they both walked confidently but in different ways. "Hello. We''ve reached the number of people in Avalon that I can''t for sure say that I''ve met everyone now. I''m Mayor Kay." He nodded in greeting from behind his desk. He would have stood up and shaken their hands, but apparently, that wasn''t the right move in professional settings as a Noble. "Hello, sir." The Human woman made a tiny bow in his direction. "I''m Sarah Hunteo." "I''m Grace Sharmon. Greetings, Mayor Kay." Grace, the Orc woman, did the same tiny bow but with a clenched fist held up in front of her sternum. "Nice to meet you both. I assume you''ve been told why you''re here?" Kay actually did assume that, which is why he was surprised when they glanced at each other, then both shook their heads. "No, sir, we haven''t," Sarah answered him. Kay shot Amanda a look, and she furrowed her brow and shrugged from behind the two women. "They were supposed to know!" She mouthed at him. Kay restrained a sigh. "My apologies then; someone was supposed to tell you that you were brought here as the last two remaining candidates to become Head Guard for Avalon." They looked at each other in surprise. "Seriously, sir?" Grace asked. "Yes, I''m being serious." "Then, I withdraw. Sarah would make a way better Head Guard than I would." "Grace!" "Don''t snap at me, especially when I''m right! I''m no good at ordering people around, and you are. I forget to pay attention to people." Sarah sighed. "You do just assume that people will do what you tell them. Which is a weird trait for a guard." "I trust other guards to do their jobs! It''s everyone else I watch." Sarah gave her friend, because, with the bickering, you could tell they were friends, a look and turned back to Kay. "Mr. Mayor, since Grace doesn''t want to, I can be Head Guard for Avalon. I''d be proud to do it too." "Wonderful, that makes my life easier." Kay focused on her and his Noble Title. "I name you Head Guard of the Village of Avalon." He felt a bit of energy go from him to her, and his notifications icon lit up as he appointed the one and only Position Title he had to give out as a lowly Mayor. "Thank you, sir." "Thank you for taking the job. Now, based on that little conversation the two of you had, you''ve been guards before?" "Yes, sir." She replied, "Grace and I were Tumbling Rapids guards before we moved here." "Oh! Do you know Captain Armis? He helped me quite a bit while I was there." They glanced at each other. "Yes, sir, we worked under him, and we heard about some of the things you were involved with. Grace was actually there when you were recovered from the Nelamian building." She waved. "I didn''t see you then, sir; I was on the other side hitting a back door." "Captain Armis is actually why we left, sir." Sarah continued, "He''s been encouraging the good guards to get out of the city if they can since the political situation is devolving there. He''s trying his best to protect everyone from corruption and fallout, and it''s easier if those of us without many attachments find other work." She shrugged, "We heard about Avalon and decided to see what''s up." "And now you''re Head Guard!" Grace cheered. "As much as I''d love to hear more about the politics in Tumbling Rapids, and I really mean that, let''s focus on your job for now." "Yes, sir. Once you upgrade your Title, I can become a Guard Captain, and that lets me have two Guard Lieutenants-" "I thought it was Commander of the Guard next?" Kay interrupted her, then internally winced. Even if she was her boss, being rude was being rude. She shook her head, "No sir, that''s the one after Guard Captain." "Oh, sorry, please continue." "I''d like to start forming a guard structure with the assumption that you''ll upgrade your Title sooner rather than later. Even if it takes you some more time, we''ll have a good structure in place that will work either way." Kay nodded in agreement, "I don''t have a problem with that." "Very good. That being said, I''d like to nominate my two picks to eventually be Guard Lieutenants." "Go ahead, who are they." Sarah pointed at the Orc next to her. "Grace and a woman named Julia Gallows. She''s a former bounty hunter from the Tumbling Rapids area that got one of the City Councilmembers angry at her for not doing what he wanted." Kay glanced at Amanda, who flipped through a list. "Julia Gallows, Bugbear. Known for her distinctive rare white fur and being very efficient when it comes to hunting down bounties. Removed from consideration because she''s known to beat criminals to death on occasion." "That was only once, and everyone agreed that they had it coming," Grace replied loudly. Kay shot her a look with one eyebrow raised. "He was accepting money like he was taking hits on people, but to rape them instead like some kind of completely fucked assassin." Grace explained. "He was going to pay off his bounty and get away with it, and Julia lost it." "Normally, she''s tough but pretty fair in general." "You trust her?" Kay asked. "Yes, sir." "Then she''s in. If she does something like that again, we''ll talk about it. But I''m not inclined to let rapists get off the hook, and I''m in charge, so I think we''ll be fine." "Yes, sir." They continued talking about making an effective guard force for Avalon for a few more hours. "Great, I think we''ve got a working plan going. We''ll talk more about this later, but I think we''re at a good stopping point, and I''ve got another meeting after this." Kay thanked them for coming and dismissed them. "Alright, fetch Meten for me, please, will you?" Amanda went and got her father, who sat down in one of the chairs across from Kay''s desk. "So, what did you find?" Kay asked him. Meten was leading what was effectively Avalon''s military, even though it wasn''t really a military at all, just a collection of Combat Class holders willing to help out for pay. Once they didn''t have a working military, Kay was sure Meten wouldn''t be part of it. He was too free form for that, but that made him good at leading what was basically a group of adventurers on scouting expeditions into the tunnels and surrounding areas. "Well, first of all, regular reports. Still, no finds in the tunnels, and we still can''t get that door you found open. Besides the door and the markings everywhere, they''re still empty rooms and tunnels." "Alright, still weird, but that''s what I''ve been hearing for ages now. What''s the new thing?" Meten grinned widely and leaned in close. "We think we''ve found a Dungeon nearby."
Book 3 Chapter 2 "So, why is there a Dungeon here?" Meten gave Kay some side-eye and chuckled. "Seriously? I know that Eleniah''s given you more than one lecture about Dungeons by now." "I''m not asking you to suddenly prove one of the hypotheses of Dungeon creation. Why is there a Dungeon here? I thought we''d moved out past this area." Kay was standing next to Meten around the backside of the mountain that loomed over Avalon''s valley, close to where that curving passage that led out from the northern side of the valley and dumped back out into the wilderness ended. There were a few members of Meten''s group hanging around as guards a few feet away. "We," Meten gestured from himself to his subordinates, "Have only been moving outward and scouting new areas that we haven''t touched yet. We''ll need to change our approach and re-search areas every once in a while. No one thought about something like this happening." "Well," Kay muttered, "It is pretty rare for dungeons to form in general, so having one show up in our'' back line'' is surprising." One of Meten''s people stepped forward. He was a young human man with coarse brown hair and leather clothes that looked flexible. "Sir?" Both Meten and Kay glanced over, but the man was looking at Meten, so Kay held his tongue. "Yes?" Meten responded. "Sir, I was the one who scouted this area originally. I don''t think it formed recently; I think I missed it the first time." He glanced down at the ground, shamefaced. "Why do you say that?" "Because there was a small hole that led in the same direction the passage does." The man pointed at the obvious doorway sitting in the middle of the rocky side of the mountain. The dark passage led deeper in towards the center of the mountain before turning enough to cut off sight further in. "I marked it down as a possible den for some unknown creature, but nothing changed about it, and I didn''t find any signs of anything living in it, so I stopped checking on it after a handful of times." Kay watched Meten as he glanced from the opening to the scout. After a moment, Meten shrugged. "You came back and checked on it multiple times and had no evidence it was a dungeon. It''s not like you could have fit yourself inside the hole from the sound of it. There is no need to worry about it." The man nodded once and stepped back. "Alright, so it didn''t just appear here, it already was here, and we just found it," Kay continued, "So what''s the plan?" "No idea yet." "What?" Kay gave him an incredulous look, "I know you''ve been in more dungeons than I have. Do we need to destroy this one, or is it worth keeping around?" "No idea," Meten repeated himself and shrugged. "No one has gone in yet." "Why not?" "Two reasons. One, there is a group we have that has much more experience than me or anyone else in Avalon with Dungeons. And we want you getting the First Clear bonus." Kay sighed. "The first one I get, but really? I don''t need to get the First Clear." "It will not hurt to let you get it." Meten looked away and scanned the end of the passage from the valley. "I wonder where they are?" Kay stared at the oni man''s blank expression. "Is there something else going on?" Meten turned and looked at him, then grinned slyly. "Well, I might be wanting to pass on the responsibility of what to do with the Dungeon to someone else." Kay groaned and rolled his eyes. "Really?" He nodded, still grinning, "Of course. Something as important as whether we keep a Dungeon around Avalon should be up to someone with a little more responsibility than little ol'' me." He turned back towards the channel, perking up as he saw a small group approaching them. "Ah, there they are!" Stephen, Claudia, and Leaf walked up to the group and exchanged welcomes with Kay and Meten. "So, what''s going on?" Claudia asked, "We heard there might be a Dungeon around?" "There''s definitely a Dungeon." Meten pointed at the entrance. "We had someone run in to confirm, then they came right back." "And you want us to check it out? Deal!" Claudia grinned at Kay and stepped closer, "Let''s talk compensation." Kay pushed down a smile. "What do you want?" "A Blood Gem with one of my skills! Same for Stephen and Leaf!" "Can I get you to accept money instead?" He grumbled in reply. "Not a chance!" With a sigh, Kay nodded. "Fine. But you''ll have to wait a day or two before I start, and there''ll have to be a day or two in between them." "Why?" "Because I''m going with you, and it''s incredibly draining to make them." Claudia glanced from the Dungeon entrance back to Kay, "Oh, bringing you in for the First Clear? That''s a good idea. Done." She held out her hand. Kay reached out and shook her hand. "You know, you''re citizens of Avalon too, aren''t you willing to help out for the good of the Village?" Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Leaf scoffed at him, "You''re the one who insisted that we have a real economy." "Because it''s important! And that''s why I wanted you to make money!" "You have been offering to make Blood Gems as a service in exchange for payment," Stephen added, "So we''re really just skipping a step of having to get the money from you and then bring it back." "Oh, you guys were already planning on getting some?" "Now that there are enough people to guard Avalon that we can send trade caravans to Tumbling Rapids, we were going to go with the next one and commission some gear." Stephen told him, "We already had some materials before we got here, then we got more from that hydra, and then the addition of your Blood Gems gave us a great opportunity to get powerful gear." "Well, I can''t really complain since it''ll help Avalon," Kay muttered. Claudia frowned, "That''s not a good reason to power up adventurers." "Huh?" "Adventurers can leave and head to another city or country whenever they want. You should only help them grow stronger if they''re in service to you or Avalon." "You mean like the three of you are?" They, along with every other person from the first three groups that had joined to form Avalon, were sworn citizens of Avalon, bound by oaths. About a third of the newcomers that had shown up in the last year had decided to swear as well. It didn''t actually change much about someone''s life to swear the oaths, at least in Avalon. There were some jobs that you couldn''t hold without taking that oath, along with others depending on the job, like being a guard, part of Meten''s group, or becoming a teacher at the school. For most countries, the only people who needed to swear oaths like that were powerful or had influential jobs or positions. Kay thought of it as having a security clearance. People with oaths to Avalon or Kay had higher clearance than regular citizens and thus got more information or better stuff. "Don''t worry," Kay told them, "I won''t be giving out Blood Gems to random people or even selling them. They''re a limited resource to help us. Not anyone else." "Good. I''m glad you get that because we''re going to have more people coming into the area, as long as we don''t destroy this Dungeon." Kay sighed and turned to face the Dungeon. "The easiest of the five ways to get magical items." "I think just finding one is easier," Leaf commented, "But Dungeons are more reliable than that, and they''re certainly cheaper than buying one and easier than most Quests or making your own." "Once word gets out that a little village like ours has a dungeon, adventurers will flock here looking to exploit it and us. The Adventurers Guild will follow since they''ll want a cut of the adventuring in the area, as well as the Dungeon. People will show up to try and profit off the influx of adventurers, and the next thing you know, we have a population boom ten times the size of the one we just had." Kay sighed and shook his head. "Meten." "Yes, sir?" Meten glanced over, shifting to a more formal tone. "After we get back, if we haven''t destroyed the Dungeon, you''ll send someone into town. We need a detachment from the Planning and Building Offices to get down here and make fortifications. A group of your people will be on guard duty rotations until further notice. Then we''ll have to start ramping up our plans to start a military." "The guards will have to be increased as well." "It''s good that I picked a Head Guard today, then." Kay stopped in his plans and frowned. "Wait, what am I doing? We have to go see if this Dungeon is even worth keeping." He gestured at the three Adventurers and started walking towards the entrance. He walked slowly for a few steps so they could catch up, then glanced at each of them. "Do you guys know what skills you want me to gem?" At some point, at Eleniah''s insistence, Kay had begun experimenting with his Skills. She''d made a giant list of ideas and pushed him to try everything. One of the ideas had actually led to a real discovery. By taking a lot of blood from someone and then using Enhance Blood, Meld Blood, and Shape Blood all at the same time on it, Kay could condense the blood down into a gemstone. Those Blood Gems were all magical items that had effects related to one Skill from the person whose blood Kay used. As far as he could tell, Enhance Blood and Meld Blood somehow combined to make the blood embody the skill, and then Kay shaped it into a solid gem that could be used. Most active Skills got turned into a passive effect that boosted that one Skill, but passive Skills became weaker versions that stacked with the Skill itself. It also turned out that you could take the Blood Gems and use them to create magical equipment if you had skilled enough crafters to make the equipment. Meten had said that he''d heard the Rune Master could do something similar, and Eleniah knew of two others that could make similar items back in her cousin''s country. They didn''t have good enough crafters in Avalon yet, which was why the three adventurers would have to head to Tumbling Rapids to get the items made. "I have a passive skill that decreases how much mana I use in fire spells," Claudia replied to his question, "So I''ll get that." "Two of my Classes share a skill that lets me absorb force from attacks and use it later in different ways. I''m hoping you can make a gem that buffs both." Stephen said. "I''ll try?" Stephen shrugged, "That''s all I can ask." "Leaf?" "I''m not sure yet. I still have a few options to narrow down." "Then we should do yours last." They stopped in front of the entranceway. "Any tips?" "Watch out for traps. Some Dungeons have them, some don''t. Other than that, it depends on the Dungeon itself." "Alright then." Kay stepped inside the Dungeon and started walking. For the first time, Kay felt the unique pressure that he''d been told about from being inside of a Dungeon. He understood why everyone had called it pressure because that was the closest thing he could think of next to what it really felt like to him. Without ever having the experience of pressing a vacuum cleaner to their skin and yanking it off, there weren''t many ways for people in this world to feel suction. Maybe fighting a few different kinds of mages, but how many people did that? The sensation felt as if a minuscule vacuum was right above the entirety of his body. Kay cataloged the feeling and put it with the rest of the data he was collecting about the world of Torotia. This specific piece of data might support his hypothesis. But that was for later. They got thirty feet in before the tunnel started to curve. "At least this gets dark like normal," Kay muttered as he pulled out a glowstone to see by. "Speaking of, has anyone found out why those tunnels do that?" Stephen whispered a question. "Nope. We don''t really have any magical researchers, so it''s still a mystery." They traveled another hundred feet before the passage widened from six to ten feet wide. Ahead of them, a few piles of rocks lay scattered across the floor. Kay deliberately made a wide circle around the first pile, watching it closely. So closely that he almost missed the sharpened stake of rock that dropped down from above. Leaf''s warning shout got Kay''s attention, and he jumped back out of the way. The stone spike slammed down into the floor right where Kay had been standing and shattered, sending a spray of sharp shrapnel in every direction. Kay held his arms up and formed his blood armor into shields to block the stone fragments, then glanced at the top of the remaining stalactite. Are those legs? With a sharp crack, part of the stalactite snapped off of the top of it and flipped over. The creature that had had the stalactite growing from its back flipped onto its stomach and growled at the group. It had an ovular body that was cracked in places and jagged from where the stone had broken off of it; it had four scaly legs with clawed feet and an alligator-like head, all colored a dark gray. It hissed and growled, then leaped at Kay''s throat. Kay swung down with the spiked end of his halberd and slammed the creature into the ground. The spike from his weapon cracked its body, and it fell into pieces that lay unmoving. "Well, that wasn''t much of a threat." Kay commented as he scanned the ceiling for more dangers, "At least not in direct combat. I think it landing on me would have hurt a little." He glanced down at the pile of rocks. "Do you think that these are supposed to be distractions or something else?" "I don''t know." Leaf replied, "But I''m telling Eleniah you didn''t look up." "Well, that''s just rude!" Book 3 Chapter 3 It turned out that some of the random piles of stones weren¡¯t distractions. Hell, all of them might not have been distractions. But some of them rose up from random piles into roughly animalistic forms and threw themselves bodily at Kay. He watched as one of them continuously bounced off of his leg armor repeatedly, looking something like a tortoise made of pebbles as it rammed its ¡°head¡± into him ineffectively. ¡°So¡­ what¡¯s with this?¡± ¡°Part of the Dungeon¡¯s defenses, obviously.¡± Nudged a few immobile piles with her feet as she walked closer. ¡°Weaker ones too, although that¡¯s about what I expected.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Kay decided to just kill the thing, and he slammed the haft of his weapon into it, scattering the rocks, which rattled across the floor and stopped. ¡°Yeah, this Dungeon seems new. The pressure isn¡¯t that strong, and the creatures are weak.¡± Stephen nodded. ¡°Definitely a newer dungeon.¡± He crouched next to the first creature Kay had killed and inspected it. ¡°Even this thing was pretty weak; it just attacked in a smart way. Or the Dungeon made it attack in a smart way, or whatever.¡± ¡°What does that mean for us?¡± Kay asked, glancing around and above for more attackers. Stephen stood up and walked over. ¡°It means that higher tier people like us won¡¯t have much use for it, but it could make a great training ground for weaker people who want to grow combat skills. Especially if you want to grow a crop of Soldiers or other good military classes.¡± ¡°¡­ Is there any way to keep this a secret from the wider world?¡± ¡°Forever? No.¡± Leaf replied in his usual short way. ¡°But long enough to work some of the advantages for as long as possible? Sure. And you can set up a schedule for Avalon¡¯s people and make anyone else obey it. It¡¯s our Dungeon, after all.¡± ¡°If we keep it.¡± Claudia reminded him. ¡°Is there a reason we wouldn¡¯t, at this point?¡± Kay wondered. She shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s possible. I mean, we haven¡¯t seen any strange corruptions, undead, or other immediate ¡®kill it now¡¯ types of threats, but there could still be something further in.¡± She pointed down the wide hall. ¡°Onwards, noble Noble!¡± Kay looked at her, then glanced at the other two. ¡°Are you guys making me solo this Dungeon?¡± ¡°Yeah, totally. We¡¯ll jump in if you need it, but if you can solo it, the First Clear reward is better. That should hopefully make up for the fact that it¡¯s a weak enough Dungeon that you can solo it.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± He started walking along. ¡°Do stronger Dungeons give better rewards.¡± ¡°Yup.¡± Claudia drifted behind him as they walked. ¡°So if a Dungeon has been running for a long time with no clears, the First Clear reward is fantastic. It would be even better if you could solo it, but that doesn¡¯t often happen with stronger Dungeons.¡± The hallway rapidly narrowed to the point that anyone moving through it had to turn themselves sideways to fit and then widened into a room. Kay morphed his weapon from a liquid back into its halberd shape, just in time to block a stone needle that had been thrown at him. Ahead of him was a group of three large boulders with smaller rocks serving as legs. They didn¡¯t have any appendages resembling heads, but they did have thin needles of stone sprouting in every direction from the top of their bodies. ¡°Weird rock hedgehogs?¡± Kay muttered to himself as he waved his hand and sent a wave of blood to cling to them. With their legs held down in his red magical grip and the needles so covered in thick liquid they couldn¡¯t shoot out, it took very little time to hammer them into small pieces. There wasn¡¯t anything interesting in the room after that, although Stephen muttered that some of the rocks were interesting looking after Kay had smashed them up. They pushed on Kay, still in the lead, and he fought three more different types of enemies on the way. The first was another alligator-looking stone creature, but this one slammed its tail into the ground and threw bits of rocks it pulled up with magic at him. These were a little harder than the porcupines to beat, but he managed easily. That pattern continued with each type of enemy being a little bit harder than the last. There were a few more of the stalactite trap monsters here and there, but the next real threat was a stone armadillo thing that threw itself into a ball and tried to run him down. The last type of monster was a rocky badger that tried to tear him to shreds. ¡°That one was almost a bit hard.¡± Kay took a few deep breaths as he stood on top of the dismantled stone animal. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°This seems like a great Dungeon for training!¡± Stephen cheered. ¡°There¡¯s a progression of stronger enemies as you advance deeper, and the enemies have enough variation to make each one a learning experience!¡± ¡°He¡¯s right.¡± Leaf said from near the exit. ¡°This is a lot like the training Dungeon the Guild runs near my hometown. New adventurers flock there, and they might look to have the same setup here.¡± ¡°So we can fleece them for the rights to use it at all and get some good concessions?¡± Kay asked. ¡°Damn straight!¡± Claudia exclaimed cheerfully. ¡°Make them manage access and take a cut of what they charge, plus get deals on usage for Avalonians.¡± ¡°Avalonians?¡± ¡°We have to call ourselves something.¡± ¡°Point.¡± Kay peered into the next hallway. ¡°Think we¡¯re almost done?¡± ¡°Unless this Dungeon is some perfect setup for training people to higher and higher tiers, yeah, probably. Should be a Boss up here somewhere.¡± ¡°Great, I¡¯m going to go find it.¡± Kay headed off with the other three following. He felt his somewhat dramatic moment was ruined by the next room only being a few feet farther through the tunnel. ¡°Why is there a door?¡± They all shrugged. ¡°Don¡¯t know.¡± Claudia replied, ¡°Boss rooms have big doors.¡± ¡°I really hate that answer now.¡± He muttered. ¡°I¡¯d really like someone to be able to answer questions about why things are the way they are.¡± ¡°Suck it up. You aren¡¯t going to get to know what¡¯s behind the veil of reality all the time.¡± Leaf told him seriously. ¡°Yeah, but one time? I can expect it to happen one time, right? Also, the way you worded that was a bit creepy, and-or eerie.¡± Leaf sighed and rolled his eyes. Kay grinned and pushed the doors open. They were large double doors set into the rock around them, made out of the same rock, with only the small gaps that showed they could be opened, differentiating them from the surrounding wall. They swung open slowly, stone grinding on stone with a loud scraping noise that made Kay shudder. With glacial speed, the doors opened up into a large circular room with three large spherical boulders sitting in the middle. The center of the three was at least four times the size of the others, and as Kay stepped in, they started to float. The two smaller boulders bobbed in the air next to the large one as it began to spin in midair. The other two started following along, keeping their relative positions to the big one, and within moments there was a giant spinning death top in the middle of the room. Kay stepped back a few steps as he gathered blood and his mana. As the death top started floating towards him, he swung his hand at it, a high-speed vibrating line of blood hanging from the edge of his finger. The vibrating blood whip sliced through the stone and landed below it. Kay watched for a moment, waiting for the thing to react to his attack. The variation of his pressurized blood cutter attack had worked pretty well against the armadillo things, although he thought it might still need work. A tiny piece of the top fell to the ground, and then all hell let loose. The top literally exploded outward, pieces of it cut free from Kay¡¯s attack flying out in every direction as they finally worked themselves free of each other. Kay threw up a blood shield, then stumbled as Stephen threw himself between Kay and the incoming barrage. After a massive clanging noise, like being caught in a giant hailstorm, everything stilled. ¡°That did not go how I thought it would,¡± Kay commented as he looked around at the cracked walls and ceiling. ¡°It¡¯s not the first time I had to jump in front of something exploding unexpectedly, so don¡¯t feel too bad,¡± Stephen replied. ¡°Although, I¡¯m not sure what you were expecting to happen, other than that. Things keep going.¡± ¡°I thought I¡¯d only get a chunk off of it; I didn¡¯t think it¡¯d lose all stability.¡± ¡°None of the monsters have been magically reinforced,¡± Leaf said as he slowly crept up closer, glaring at Kay as he did, ¡°Which supports our theory that this is a newer Dungeon. The only reason you haven¡¯t been completely wrecking these enemies is that you¡¯re up against literal rocks.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Kay decided to change the subject. ¡°Any reason to kill this Dungeon?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°It should be fine.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t burn any of it?¡± They all turned to look at Claudia. ¡°What? I got bored.¡± ¡°So we¡¯re keeping it. Awesome. I can envision all kinds of problems.¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah, you¡¯re an awesome overlord of all us tiny villagers; you have all kinds of problems. Go get your reward.¡± Claudia pointed towards where the Boss had died, and Kay saw a thick bracelet sitting on top of the pile of shredded rocks that had slammed directly down into the floor. ¡°There¡¯s no window?¡± ¡°No, there isn¡¯t,¡± Leaf sighed, ¡°And we don¡¯t know why. Go get it.¡± [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Bracelet of Stone Levitation - An enchanted bracelet made of porous, light rock, it allows the wielder to magically levitate up to one ton of stone by pointing the limb with the bracelet on it and concentrating. Moving the limb too quickly away from the stone will cause it to drop, while moving it slowly will cause the stone to follow the movement. Smaller amounts of stone can move faster and allow for quicker movement. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°Well, fuck me!¡± ¡°No.¡± All three of them replied at once. Kay ignored their dumb joke, ¡°This is fantastic! Darten is going to love this!¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to give it up?¡± Leaf asked. Kay shrugged at him. ¡°It¡¯s fantastic, but I can¡¯t use it to compliment my build, so why not? It¡¯ll be great for building, I think.¡± He started walking towards the entrance. ¡°Come one. I¡¯ll tell you what it does on the way back. There¡¯s a lot of planning I have to get started on if we¡¯re keeping this Dungeon.¡± On the walk back, there were no more enemies, and he left the three of them gaping after he explained what the bracelet did. ¡°That¡¯s great!¡± Claudia exclaimed. ¡°Damn, I¡¯d heard that First Clear items are amazing, but that¡¯s way beyond what I¡¯d expected.¡± ¡°You guys haven¡¯t first cleared any Dungeons?¡± ¡°No, we never ran into a new or untouched one, so haven¡¯t had the chance.¡± Kay glanced at her out of the side of his eye. ¡°Why aren¡¯t you cursing as much?¡± Claudia blushed and looked away. Stephen grinned widely as he leaned in close. ¡°She¡¯s been spending a whole lot of her free time with David and his kids, so she¡¯s been working on cleaning up her language.¡± Kay smiled at her. ¡°That¡¯s great! And now I¡¯m going to tease you.¡± They stepped into the sunlight a few minutes later, with Claudia still not looking at them and blushing deeply as they covered their eyes, and Meten ran to meet them. Book 3 Chapter 4 Kay looked up as Eleniah walked into his office. "Hey! How''s your day been?" "Fine?" She looked over at Meten, who was sitting down in front of the desk, then back to Kay, "What''s going on?" "Did no one tell you?" Kay frowned and leaned a little to look out the door. No one was there, and he scowled a little. "That''s twice in one day. We need to talk to our message runners about giving people all the details." "What''s going on?" Kay waved his hand in Meten''s direction. "Our still unnamed scouting slash adventuring group found us a lovely Dungeon nearby, which seems to be perfectly set up to training up Combat Classes." Eleniah slowly walked up to the open chair next to Meten''s and sat down. "Seriously¡­ That''s¡­" "It''s something." Kay finished her sentence. "It could be bad or good, and I don''t think we have any way of knowing till we get to the end of it." He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. "Mandy''s going to yell at you," Meten warned. "She''s off for the rest of the day." Kay idly wondered if he could get someone to make him something like his old leather desk chair from back home. He then actually decided to write that down because what if someone could? "So, the two of you have the most experience dealing with the Adventurer''s Guild out of everyone here, at least at a higher level, so I brought you in to plan how we''re going to deal with them about this Dungeon." "Deal with them? Are we going to try and kill their representative or something?" Eleniah asked with an incredulous look. "No, deal with as in making a deal with them." He corrected her. "Oh, right, that makes sense." "You thought I''d be stupid enough to even think that might be a good idea?" "Let''s just blame that on me spending half my time recently dealing with kids almost old enough to get their classes all thinking they''re going to be the next Sapphire Crusader or The Merchant or someone like that." She sighed and shook her head. "I love teaching, but sometimes¡­" She trailed off as she stared into space, then shook her head. "I''m just glad I can take time off and go beat things up." "Who''s the Sapphire Crusader?" "Old high tier person from far enough back that no one is really sure if they''re real." Meten answered, "They ''solved''," He made air quotes, "a lot of problems with brute force. The tales make them out to be some kind of heroic figure, so a lot of younger kids look up to them, even if they don''t make the best choices in the stories." "Like destroying entire towns to prevent the spread of plagues that might have been treatable. Or not real." "Or the uncountable number of times they attacked and killed goblins for no apparent reason." Eleniah nodded. "Yeah, did the same thing to a few dragons too." Kay stared at them, agog. "And these stories get told with the Sapphire Crusader as a hero?" "Not those stories," Eleniah explained. "They did do a lot of actually heroic things too. They saved a region that was being terrorized by a tier six giant toad monster, killed a lot of bandits and raiders that were hurting people, and they even destroyed a fortress full of Necromancers by themself." "That last one is bullshit." Meten cut in. "Huh?" Eleniah looked over at him with a confused expression. "Every version I''ve heard of that story has them doing it solo." He shook his head. "Not that part. The part about it being a heroic deed. They destroyed a chapter of the Order of Bone with no provocation and roped them into the war against Necromancy by blaming them for a bunch of things that didn''t even happen." "I feel like we''re going off track here." Both of them ignored Kay. Eleniah frowned. "The Order of Bone isn''t real." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. "I''ve been to one of their chapters, they are very real, and they are very serious about their oaths." "Since we''re going off-topic," Kay said loudly enough to get them to pay attention to him, "Mind explaining?" "The Order of Bone is a fictional..." Eleniah started to say, then paused and glanced at Meten, "Or I guess, believed fictional group of Necromancers said to take oaths that bind what they can do with their Classes, kind of like what you did when you got your first Class." "Necromancy is not evil." Meten continued the explanation, "People just hate it because it is disgusting." "And because people don''t want their body or the bodies of their loved ones being desecrated like that," Eleniah added. He nodded, "Very true. The Order of Bone realizes that, but their members do not want to give up their Classes. So they take oaths to limit what they can do and make them less of a target. They refuse to work with the corpses of intelligent beings, and they only use bone, not rotting flesh. They also don''t make intelligent undead like Liches and such." "Alright," Kay held up his hands and cut off the explanation, "So the Order of Bone sounds chill, but I have several questions. Necromancers can make intelligent undead?" "At higher tiers, yes. They can also form without a Necromancer being involved, though." "Are they considered people?" The two of them shared a look, then Meten shrugged. "It depends. Certain types are basically insane and need to be put down to keep people safe. Others are just intrinsically dangerous due to things like miasmic effects around them. The ones that aren''t immediately dangerous to living beings are sometimes treated like regular people in certain regions or nations." "Alright, that''s good information to know. Back to the main topic, though, the Adventurer''s Guild and the Dungeon we have now." "Right." Meten pointed at Eleniah, "She''s your best bet there. I just did some harder jobs for them; I never had any policy-level interactions with them." "I wouldn''t say any of the interactions I''ve had were policy level either," Eleniah protested, "I just got yanked around a lot." "Well, the level of yanking you''ve been through is above anything anyone else from our people has dealt with, so you''re the best we''ve got." She sighed. "Fine. What is our position going to be?" Kay leaned back in his chair again and rested his head against the top. "The problem is I don''t know what stance we should take. I''m still pissed at them for using you the way they did, and I feel like we''d be seen as weak once it eventually gets out that we let them get away with that. But at the same time, the Adventurer''s Guild is way too strong to antagonize." "And they are incredibly useful." Meten offered more information to make a decision with, "Especially because we''re a small village, we don''t have the administration, infrastructure, or manpower to really run access to a Dungeon well. We''d have leaks all the time, and it would waste time and resources. Letting the Adventurer''s Guild control access and collect fees for us reduces all the hassle." "So we let them do what they normally do but demand some kind of lower percentage of fees or something in exchange for their messing with Eleniah?" "They were doing it at the behest of my cousin." "At her behest?" Kay frowned deeply, "I thought they both had issues with Nelam." "Well¡­ yeah, you''re right about that. It just seems weird to me that the Adventurer''s Guild would act like that on their own. They''re known for their strict neutrality." "Neutrality in fights between other factions is not the same thing as fighting their own enemies. Besides, we already know that they did what they have done in using you as a tool, so we don''t need to debate whether or not it happened, just how to react to it." Meten leaned forward and organized some of the paperwork on Kay''s desk. He pushed Kay''s feet off the desk as he finished laying down some of the documents. Kay frowned at him and opened his mouth. Before he could say anything, the door opened without a knock. Meten smirked as Amanda walked into the room and paused just inside the door. "Sir, we have a bit of a problem." "What''s wrong?" Kay asked, giving Meten a small nod of thanks. "There''s a merchant that''s shown up outside the northern gates." Kay frowned. The territory that Avalon had inside the walls extended from the southern entrance to the valley, which was the same slope Eleniah and Kay had first entered through to partway through the wooded area to the north. There were work crews taking down the trees that had been walled inside, making more room and gathering wood to use for building and crafting. The lake wasn''t walled off since the waters made a good enough defense for the time being. They hadn''t made walls farther north than that and didn''t have constant eyes on the passage out of the valley, although that was going to change since the finding of the Dungeon. "Why is that a problem? And how did they get past our scouts?" He looked at Meten, "I thought we sent people to watch the Dungeon and the passage in." "The scouts you sent are the ones who spotted the merchant first," Amanda informed him before Meten could speak, "They sent one person back to report, and the rest went to their posts. The merchant made it to the gates right after they finished reporting to me. They appear to be traveling quite quickly." "Alright, why is this merchant a problem?" Amanda grimaced. "They''re a slave trader." Kay''s frown morphed into a snarl, and he saw Eleniah''s expression make a similar transition. Meten''s face turned stony, and his eyes had a dangerous light in them. Kay thought silently for a moment, then made a decision. "Let them in the walls." Everyone snapped their gaze to Kay. "Have them taken to a secluded location, and keep everyone away." He started walking towards the door, and a wave of blood crept over his clothes, solidifying into armor with each step. "Meten, grab some of your people. Eleniah, you''re with me. Amanda, send a runner to get Head Guard Huento and anyone she''s got recruited at this point." "What are you going to do?" Eleniah asked quietly from next to him. Kay paused after opening the door. He took a deep breath and turned his head to look at her. "Slavery is illegal in Avalon. And since we don''t have a court system yet, it''s my job to judge criminals." Book 3 Chapter 5
Someone ran up to Kay¡¯s group as he stalked towards the small area the slave trader had been led to. The man was dressed in unassuming clothing and fell in step with the group. ¡°Sir, report about the trader.¡± Kay glanced over at the man he had no memory of ever meeting and grunted. ¡°We need to start formalizing things.¡± The man glanced from him to Amanda, then back. ¡°Sir?¡± Kay chuckled darkly and glanced back at Amanda. ¡°What position do you want to have?¡± He asked her. ¡°Being your aide is fine with me, sir.¡± She replied. ¡°So, like a grand vizier type of deal?¡± ¡°No, sir. I mean-¡± He waved her off. ¡°Titles don¡¯t really matter right now. You¡¯re one of my chief administrators, and you¡¯ve already gathered some power to yourself. Since you¡¯ve been using it in ways that help Avalon and me, it¡¯s good.¡± He raised an eyebrow at her. She glanced off to the side. ¡°I was trying to be helpful, and things got a little away from me.¡± Meten laughed quietly. ¡°I¡¯m glad I waited to peel off. Has my daughter been playing power behind the throne?¡± Amanda scowled. ¡°No. And anyone spreading those kinds of rumors has been thoroughly dissuaded of that.¡± She looked directly at Kay, ¡°I am incredibly grateful for all the help you¡¯ve given my family and original home and for the opportunity you¡¯ve given me specifically. I¡¯m loyal to you.¡± Kay considered making this into a moment where he could lecture about how being directly loyal to a leader instead of the nation they led could be bad, but he had enough on his plate at the moment. ¡°Good. Like I said, we need to formalize things. Set up a military, set up more departments, give people titles and a chain of command, all the works.¡± He turned back in the direction he¡¯d been moving and stormed off again. ¡°That¡¯s for later, though. What¡¯s the report?¡± Amanda¡¯s spy, or informant, or whatever, stiffened. ¡°Sir. One trader, four guards, eleven slaves. The trader is a tier four but doesn¡¯t appear to have a combat Class. The strongest of the guards is a tier three, and he¡¯s some sort of partner based on the conversation I overheard. The other guards are all tier twos at best and seem to be newer hires. As far as we can tell, this trader split off from a larger group relatively recently.¡± ¡°We?¡± ¡°My partner stayed behind to keep watch.¡± ¡°Amanda?¡± ¡°Yes, sir?¡± ¡°Where did the spies come from?¡± She looked away again, and he saw her fighting down a blush. ¡°I might have recruited some people while I was on my study trip.¡± Kay blinked a few times, then dismissed the topic for later. ¡°Alright, Meten, get your people for backup like I said, just in case. Amanda, did you send someone for- Never mind.¡± Avalon¡¯s newly appointed Head Guard and her two subordinates ran up to the group. ¡°You sent for us, sir?¡± Head Guard Huento looked like she wanted to stop and salute or something but fell in with the procession instead. ¡°Trader showed up at the north gate,¡± Kay told her shortly. ¡°His merchandise is problematic.¡± ¡°Sir?¡± ¡°He¡¯s selling slaves.¡± All three women hissed in surprise and anger, and he saw the immediate rage in the eyes of the fur-covered woman that he hadn¡¯t met. The bugbear, Julia Gallows, tightened her grip on her quarterstaff and snarled, her sharp teeth poking from behind her lips as she did. Grace looked over and tapped Julia on the head with her mancatcher. ¡°Calm down.¡± She nodded sideways at Kay, ¡°Boss is going to take care of it.¡± Julia looked over and met Kay¡¯s eyes. Whatever she saw was enough for her to visibly calm her anger. She nodded. ¡°Sorry, boss.¡± ¡°It¡¯s Mayor.¡± Sarah corrected them. ¡°Right now, it¡¯s not important. Slaving is a crime in Avalon. I¡¯m not entirely sure what we¡¯re going to do with them since we haven¡¯t actually sorted out a constitution or any real system of laws, but I sure as hell can have them held for as long as it takes to figure that out and try them.¡± He suddenly stopped in place, and his gathered group of followers had to part around him to avoid causing a pileup. ¡°Do we have a jail?¡± Everyone glanced around, looking at each other for the answer. ¡°We don¡¯t.¡± Sarah Huento piped up, ¡°A small set of cells is on my plans for a guard headquarters since we don¡¯t have a lot of people or crime yet, but it¡¯s still a few days off till they can get started on it.¡± ¡°Amanda, go find Darten and get the Head Guard¡¯s plans done today. Cells first if possible.¡± She nodded and opened her mouth to tell her spy to take the message. Kay cut her off with a swipe of his hand. ¡°No. Go yourself. You don¡¯t need to be here for this next bit, and I want you personally impressing on anyone who would argue how serious I am about this.¡± ¡°Yes, sir.¡± She spun on her heel and took off at a jog towards the Office of Building. ¡°Spy person.¡± ¡°Sir?¡± ¡°Go do¡­ spy things. I don¡¯t know. Just be not here, so I don¡¯t have to explain to people who you are.¡± ¡°Yes, sir.¡± The man, whose name Kay purposefully had not asked for, smirked and walked off. ¡°Meten¡­ already left. Good.¡± Kay glanced around. His entourage had dwindled down to just himself, Eleniah, the three guards, and the first messenger that had brought word to Amanda from the gates. ¡°Do you have anything better to do?¡± Kay asked the man. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Uh,¡± He glanced around wildly, ¡°No?¡± ¡°Fantastic. Any problems with standing witness to what¡¯s about to go down?¡± ¡°Oh, no, I¡¯d be happy to help, sir.¡± ¡°Great. Just watch what happens unless I say otherwise.¡± Kay took off again. ¡°Head Guard.¡± ¡°Sir?¡± ¡°A slaver has arrived at your city with eleven souls in captivity and four guards. The slaver is a tier four noncombat Class, the head guard is a tier three, and the rest are tier twos. How do you recommend we deal with this?¡± She glanced over at him with a cautious look, ¡°Arrest them, sir.¡± Kay smiled mirthlessly. ¡°Yes. I meant the arresting part. I don¡¯t want them getting a chance to harm their victims or anything.¡± ¡°Oh, right.¡± She looked at Eleniah pointedly and shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t think we have anything to worry about, sir. If the slaver was a tier four combat Class, I might be more cautious, but as it is, Miss Eleniah should be able to deal with this herself.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have to worry about them ordering the slaves to do anything to themselves?¡± ¡°What?¡± She looked at him for a moment, and then her eyes widened with understanding. ¡°Oh, no, sir. Slave collars are just a variation on an enchantment that just prevents people from accessing mana with a pain application function added in. Slaves are made to obey through force and threat of pain; the stories about the collars controlling people aren¡¯t true.¡± Kay sighed in relief. ¡°That is a weight off my mind.¡± He pointed at Eleniah. ¡°I¡¯m in the door first, and we talk to them, but you¡¯re free to act how you see fit.¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to talk?¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t storming in and smacking them around first thing. If everything goes the way I want, we go in, tell them they¡¯re under arrest for their crimes, and they come along peacefully.¡± He nodded along at the various eye rolls and scoffs her got. ¡°Yes, I know, but I¡¯m still going to start out that way.¡± They arrived at a small open area near the edge of the walls that had been set aside for building purposes but hadn¡¯t actually been used yet. Kay frowned at the lack of space near the gate. ¡°How are we going to get trade in and out of her with so little space?¡± Eleniah leaned in close, ¡°These are planned to be the inner walls; the outer walls are going to be geared towards trade more.¡± She whispered. ¡°How is that supposed to work?¡± He whispered back. ¡°The Office of Planning wants to limit cart sizes in the inner walls to prevent accidents and save space. It¡¯ll slow down commerce a little bit, but they think it¡¯s manageable and worth it.¡± ¡°We should talk about this later,¡± He realized as the three guards stared at him while they waited. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Kay stepped over to and past the wagon that was parked against the wall, making a sort of impromptu barrier. He maneuvered past where the animals that pulled it would be yoked, and the four women spread out behind him. ¡°Ah, hello!¡± A jolly-looking younger human man walked over with a wide smile. ¡°Are you the Mayor I¡¯ve heard was going to meet me?¡± Kay inspected the man as he stepped closer. He was about Kay¡¯s age, early thirties at the oldest, and he was short and fat. That was all Kay really saw about the man because he was too caught up in trying to stare at the line of people leaning against the wall in chains, staring at him and his group with a mix of fear and curiosity. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m the Mayor here.¡± He forced his gaze back onto the slaver. ¡°Wonderful! It¡¯s nice to meet you. My name is Quinterius Maxalminan. I¡¯m a relatively newly independent trader coming down from a supply run up north! Imagine my surprise when I run into a new town where there wasn¡¯t one a few years ago.¡± ¡°Yes, we¡¯re a new founding.¡± Kay opened his mouth to continue, but the man kept talking. ¡°Yes, I can see! And I¡¯m sure a new locale such as yourself can see the usefulness in my merchandise,¡± He gestured grandly at the line of chained people. ¡°As the first sale in a new town, I can offer you a generous discount.¡± Kay noticed a burly-looking older man off to the side step away from three other armed people and start making his way closer. He eyed Kay and the four women with some suspicion and fingered his weapon. He saw Julia step forward slightly with her eyes on the guy, and he turned back to the trader. ¡°I¡¯m afraid you¡¯re under a bit of a misapprehension.¡± Kay told the fat man, ¡°I¡¯m not here to buy anything.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± Something moved behind the slave trader¡¯s eyes, and Kay discarded the jolly little man as a persona. ¡°Then how can I help you today?¡± ¡°I¡¯m here to inform you that slaving is illegal in Avalon.¡± The slaver¡¯s guards all pushed themselves up from their seated or leaning positions where they¡¯d been eating and chatting and started moving closer. The older man adjusted his mace so that he could draw it easier. ¡°Oh, is that so?¡± Maxalminan drooped theatrically and sighed, ¡°Oh, well. If you¡¯ll allow me to pass through your town and be on my way, I¡¯ll get out of your hair.¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°No? It would be quite a trek to have to go back out the way we came and go around your settlement. You¡¯ve walled off the best travel route through the area.¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid I might have not been clear enough. Absolutely everything related to slaving is a crime here. Owning slaves, selling slaves, capturing slaves, buying slaves, all of it.¡± Kay gave Maxalminan a cold look. ¡°So you are all under arrest for your crimes.¡± The small trader¡¯s face turned ice cold. ¡°I see. And the reason you think you can do that to me is¡­ what, exactly?¡± ¡°Besides the right to do what I want in my territory?¡± Kay looked up at the thin woman from the guards idly scooting her way towards the line of slaves with a knife hidden badly in her hand. ¡°Eleniah.¡± With a whoosh of rushing air, Eleniah vanished from next to Kay and appeared next to the woman. Seconds later, her knife clattered across the ground as Eleniah easily disarmed her and slammed her to the ground with one hand. ¡°I have tier five Combat classes.¡± Kay continued. ¡°And my people outnumber yours by quite a margin.¡± He paused dramatically as the sound of onrushing feet got closer in the distance. Maxalminan stared up at him with undisguised rage and hatred but didn¡¯t move. The rest of the guards reacted much more poorly. The oldest guard, and presumably the tier three, drew his mace and charged. Julia met him immediately with her quarterstaff, slamming it into his weapon hand and driving him back with her longer reach. Grace lept forward and caught one of them that was charging the line of slaves around the arm with her mancatcher and dragged him towards her. The last one looked around worriedly, then got knocked off their feet by what looked like a Jujitsu move by Sarah. Kay looked back down at the trader. ¡°So, as I was saying. You are under arrest for your crimes, namely slaving. Depending on the results of an investigation into your crimes, you may be charged with more. You will be held until such time as a trial may be brought against you, and the sentence for your crimes is decided upon.¡± He turned his head to look over at the wagon, and the slaves lined up against the wall. ¡°At the very least, your possessions will be seized by Avalon, and all of your victims here will be freed.¡± The slaves, former slaves, looked back at Kay with expressions that ranged from disbelief to stricken hope. Meten and a group of his adventurers ran up. ¡°Sir!¡± Kay gestured at the trader and his guards. ¡°Help the Head Guard round them up and all that. If The Office of Building isn¡¯t done with the job I set them on yet, put them somewhere secure until they are done.¡± ¡°Yes, sir.¡± Meten acknowledged the order and strode towards the still struggling older man. His arrival ended the last bit of fight left in the guy. Kay stared at the collars on the necks of the now-former slaves as the criminals were taken away. He waited until Eleniah stepped up next to him. ¡°We have some things to think about for the future.¡± ¡°Like what?¡± She muttered back. ¡°Criminals, what punishments are acceptable, that kind of thing. How do we keep powerful criminals from escaping or wreaking havoc without using enchantments like these?¡± He nodded at the collars. ¡°And, is making criminals work as part of their sentence count as slavery?¡± He sighed, ¡°Those kinds of questions that I wanted to avoid for a bit longer.¡± Kay straightened his posture and nodded again at the line of people. ¡°This next part, at least, I have zero problems with. I¡¯ll even enjoy it.¡± He popped open his magical blood canteen and addressed the line of people. ¡°This next bit might look alarming or feel weird, but please don¡¯t freak out.¡± He paused and looked at Eleniah. ¡°I can just break these like other enchanted items, right?¡± ¡°Oh, sure. Break ¡¯em, and you¡¯re done.¡± ¡°Fantastic.¡± Kay reached out and covered all of the collars with blood that he flowed from his canteen to cover the people¡¯s necks. Some of them gasped and twitched, while a few tried to dodge or jump away. More than one opened their mouth to shout something, but Kay ignored all of it. With a clenched fist and burst of will, he crushed all of the collars at once. Pieces of blackened metal fell all around the former slaves as Kay withdrew his blood into the canteen. Kay took one step forward towards them and gave a small bow. ¡°Welcome to Avalon. My name is Mayor Kay. I hope your stay, however long it might be, is pleasant.¡±
Book 3 Chapter 6 The former slaves stared at Kay after he welcomed them. A few of them clustered together into small groups, but most of them just stared at him. Eventually, one of the men in the group shook his head. "What''s happening? Did a Blood Mage just free us from slavery?" "I''m not a Blood Mage," Kay corrected him. He gave Kay an incredulous look in return. "Do you think we''re stupid? I know what blood looks and smells like, and you just ripped those collars off of us with floating blood." "I did," Kay nodded in agreement, "But I''m not a Blood Mage; that wasn''t a spell. I used Blood Manipulation." That gave some of the group pause, and he noticed one of them mutter "Blood Melder" to the person standing closest to them, so he knew at least one of them had Inspect at a decent level. Kay watched the former slaves stare at him and whisper and realized that this wasn''t a task he needed to handle himself; he had people now. He glanced over to the messenger he''d used as a witness. "Go get Amanda." The man nodded and ran off. Next, Kay looked over to where the guards and Meten''s adventurers were working to restrain the slavers and drag them off to a secure location, whether that was the cells that might be done by now or not. He waited until his Head Guard saw him trying to get her attention and waved her over. She handed over the manacles she was putting on one of the criminals to someone else and walked over, "Did you need me, sir?" "Yeah, I want you to interrogate the prisoners and interview these folk," He gestured at the former slaves, "I want to know all the crimes that those fuckers committed in our territory, so we can try them for that. They probably did a whole lot of stuff we consider crimes outside of the area we control, but we can''t really punish them for that." Sarah Huento nodded and then stopped and opened her mouth to ask something. She paused again, then looked at Kay with a curious expression. "What area does Avalon control, exactly?" "Hmm." Kay stared into space for a bit. "You know what? Just tabulate all the crimes they''ve committed in this area and when they happened. We''ll narrow them down into crimes we''ll actually punish them for after that." "Um, what does ''tabulate'' mean, sir?" He realized that he''d said that in English. He thought about it for a second and realized that there wasn''t a good translation for the concept. "Record. Record all their crimes in the area." "Yes, sir." She gave him a salute, which he realized must be from the Tumbling Rapids guard force. He made a mental note of yet another thing to decide on. He noticed Amanda walking up out of the corner of his eye, and he turned back to the group of former slaves who were still watching him warily. He waved to indicate Amanda as he started talking to them. "This is Amanda, my assistant. Or maybe adjunct is the best title?" He glanced at her, then shrugged. "Either way, she''s in charge of a lot of stuff. She''ll be handling getting you somewhere to stay while we deal with them." He pointed at the restrained criminals. "If you want to go home or somewhere else and it''s possible for us to help you with that, we''ll do our best. If for any reason you guys want to stay here, that can be discussed. At some point, Amanda will arrange for you to talk with our guards at some point." He shared a nod with Amanda, then bowed to the group of people and walked off. He grabbed Meten''s shoulder and dragged him along as he left, and Eleniah fell in next to them. "You aren''t staying?" Meten asked. "No, there''s not much I can do to be useful, so I''m going back to my office, and we''re finishing that meeting we were having." "What were we doing?" "We were discussing what to do about the Adventurer''s Guild when they show up, then we were going to talk about starting a military, and then about formalizing your adventurers or whatever we''re going to call them." "Oh, right." Hours later, Kay stared at the growing list of decisions to make and issues to solve in dismay. He scrubbed at his face with both hands. "Right, what''s the next thing after deciding if we''re allowing all genders into our new military?" He glared a little bit at Eleniah. She raised her hands up. "Look, my opinion on the answer is obvious, but I think we should put it out there officially so no one can try and fuck things up by insisting one way or the other." "Fine." Kay sighed and looked at Amanda. "What''s next?" If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Amanda looked down at the list she''d brought with her after she''d finished getting all of the freed slaves settled for the rest of the day at minimum. "Well, the next thing is-" "Wait." Kay interrupted her, "Why am I writing all of this down if you have it all on a list already?" He pointed at the sheet in her hands, "You can just give me that one, and things will go much faster." "Sir!" She threw her head back in comical dismay, "This is my list! I can''t just give you my list!" Meten and Eleniah laughed at her dramatics. Kay rolled his eyes. "Alright, sure. But for real, why?" "This is just the list of things I thought of," She told him seriously, "It''s not the actual list of everything that needs to be thought of." "Oh, okay." He grabbed his pen again, then paused. "Why am I writing up the main list?" "Because my hands are full." She gestured with her free hand at the hand holding the paper. Kay glared at her with narrowed eyes, and Amanda stared back with an innocent expression. "¡­Fine. What''s next?" "You need to determine the focus of the initial training for the military." "What?" Meten jumped in, "Are we going to have cavalry or infantry to start? What weapons should our people use? That kind of thing." Kay stared at him with his mouth open. "How am I supposed to know that?" "You are in charge." "Yeah, but I don''t know what the best choice for weapons to start our tiny military on are!" Kay sighed again and gently set his head on the desk. "Amanda." "Yes?" "Add to the list that we need to find someone for me to delegate military things to since Meten already refused." Amanda glared at her dad and sniffed at him in a derogatory way as she made a note on a different piece of paper. He rolled his eyes back at her. Kay actually chuckled at the exchange, as annoyed as he was at life. "Right. Table that idea and move on to the next one." He mentally ran through the topics he''d thought of to discuss. "I think we move on to Meten''s people, right?" "This is the fifth topic you''ve pushed off for later, sir." Amanda informed him, "But yes, next would be that." He shrugged it off, "I can''t answer every question in every meeting. What am I supposed to say? Give them all longswords? That could be a terrible idea! It probably is a terrible idea." He mused, "Anyway, I don''t know what would be best, and we can''t afford to fuck that one up. So we leave it for when we can learn more or have someone who knows more here to advise me." Eleniah nodded in agreement as she grabbed a drink from the tray sitting on a side table, "He''s right. Since we''re not in a massive rush for the military, we can afford to wait to make good decisions." Kay gave her a thankful look. "Good, we''re in agreement. For the next topic, can you guys give me an overview of what other countries do?" Meten took the drink Eleniah held out to him and paused in the motion of taking a drink, "What do you mean?" "So there are three types of¡­" Kay paused and looked up at the ceiling while he formatted what he wanted to say, "I guess, tools for fighting for countries, right? Adventurers, their own military, and then groups like Meten''s people. But we can''t keep calling them ''Meten''s People'' all the time, so what do other countries call them? How are they organized? Stuff like that." "Why make completely original ideas when you can just copy someone else?" Eleniah smirked at him. Kay shrugged, "You don''t have to innovate everything." "Well, I don''t know what a lot of countries call them, but they''re all essentially the same thing." Kay cocked a brow at her and waited. "Household troops of the Nobles in charge." "¡­ Okay¡­ I think I have enough background to get the gist of that, but tell me in detail." "Once a Noble reaches the Lord level with their title, they gain the ability to create a House, which is a bit like a settlement in that members of the House get bonuses from being members that stem from the leader of the house, but other powerful House Members with titles can also confer bonuses on other House Members." Eleniah saw Kay''s questioning expression and shook her head. "We can talk more about that later; what''s important for now is that once you create a House, people can swear to the House and join it via an oath of service." "Okay¡­?" She smiled at him. "The short version is that adventurers sworn to a Noble House serve that House. Nobles will use their House Members as personal adventurers to go achieve goals they want to beat others to, are secret, or any of the other numerous reasons they couldn''t trust regular adventurers. The household troops of the leader of the entire nation often complete missions on behalf of the entire nation since the leader is invested in the nation, but they can also be used to complete personal tasks. Same with every other noble." Amanda frowned and stepped forward. "That might be how some nations do things, including the Seramist Isles, but many nations have a separate group of people that work directly for the nation. The Isermani Concord calls them Servants of the Concord, multiple nations call them National Adventurers, and so forth. It''s basically the same thing, but they serve the nation directly instead of serving the leader and helping the nation because they choose to." She saw Eleniah''s surprised look and continued: "I''m sure they still have household troops; they just also have some kind of National Adventurers as well." Eleniah frowned and looked off. "That''s¡­ Huh. I can see why that''s a good idea." She scratched her chin with a finger and nodded. "I can see why my cousin wouldn''t do that, though; it would mean she''d have to loosen her control." She gave Kay a serious look, "I suggest we go with that idea." "Just from listening to the concept, I agree with you." He looked up from making some notes and got Amanda''s attention. "The Isermani Concord, that''s one of the two massive countries west of here, right? The one that Cindy and the others came out of?" "Correct. The Isermani Concord is northern of the two larger countries in the area, and the Bannerthrust Empire is to the south, on the other end of the Upper Heart Strait." "Right!" Kay made sure his mental map was correct, then noticed Meten''s considering expression. Kay was pretty sure he could predict what that look was about, but he decided not to broach the topic yet. "Let''s come back to the household troops topic when it''s relevant and agree that we''re going to make our own version of National Adventurers for Avalon?" Everyone agreed verbally or through a nod in Meten''s case. "Great, let''s brainstorm then. We need to have a rough idea of what responsibilities and duties we want included for when we eventually make a real constitution for ourselves." Book 4 Chapter 1
The Parliament of Avalon¡¯s physical location had shifted several times in less than a year. Originally it had been a coopted meeting room in the government building that had contained Kay¡¯s office. When the first round of elections finally finished they¡¯d moved into a building made for them near the cliff face that had enough seating for the two dozen or so members that they¡¯d had at that time. It was a fairly simple building with seating for everyone and a small balcony above the actual floor that representatives would go to in order to speak, which was really just a space in between the tables. When the third or fourth population boom hit Avalon, they¡¯d needed a lot more space in a short time in order to properly represent everyone, and several members of the Ministry of Building were taken off other less vital projects to create an actual Parliament. A few months of feverish work and another wave of elections led to The Parliament of Avalon, a massive half-dome shaped building that stuck out of the cliff face that the city sat below and inside, with half of the inside space of the construction inside the cliff and half in the dome that hovered over the ground about three hundred feet below. Kay had already been nervous about having a government building hanging over a fatal drop, making it an even bigger target than it already was to any enemies who wanted to wipe out a big portion of Avalon¡¯s government, but then people had started arguing over who got ¡°the privilege¡± of building their homes and businesses underneath the building. He¡¯d been in more than one long standing argument with several people over the need for safety and over the need grandeur before the tumultuous week that had culminated in him being abducted and turned into a vampire just a couple of weeks ago, but the predicted consequences of his transformation had led to him putting his foot down. Upheaval and conflict were coming their way. And Kay was not going to have a big building floating over part of his city that would come crashing down to destroy anything beneath it when an enemy shot at it. He¡¯d had Earth Mages and Earth Manipulators from the Ministry of Construction use the materials from the parliament building to help make the defenses they were construction on the plateau at the top of the cliff and had another parliament building made farther down the valley, inside the cliff, and much closer to the ground. The new Parliament was just as grand as the last one, which was to say it was decent and getting better as Avalon had more money and time to devote to luxuries like better decorations, and wasn¡¯t a massive hazard in form. They¡¯d kept the same spherical design, with tiers of seats spreading out in a circle and balconies above that with more space for representatives. Kay sat on his own balcony at the mid point of where the sphere started to curve up again, right above the entrance. Where the other balconies were rounded platforms with space for a fews seats and a table, identical to the seating areas on the ground, Kay¡¯s was twice as wide and had elegant engraving on it, making it look like it had been assembled together out of impressive materials instead of being extruded from the surrounding stone with magic. Kay sat in a comfortable chair that could be called a throne if you were feeling generous. It was big and relatively fancy, but Kay had made sure it was a chair and not a throne. He¡¯d gotten away with that because the seat for him in the audience hall that was being built for his palace was definitely a throne, and none of his bitching about that had changed a thing. At least he¡¯d gotten his way in making sure that the palace was as much a government building as it was his private residence. Behind him and to either side were a semi-circle of other chairs that were less fancy, but just as comfortable, that sat a step lower than Kay¡¯s chairs, set aside for his Ministers. While Kay wanted to set up a democratic republic for the government of the city he¡¯d founded that was well on its way to becoming his own nation, he¡¯d had to adapt to the realities of the world he¡¯d found himself in and the desires of the people from that world. In Torotia, might still made right in many ways, and the ruler of a place most often was the strongest person there. A massive majority of the time that was balanced with that same strongest person being a literal defender of the place they ruled over. As massive as the planet was, there had to be a whole host of exceptions to that simplistic rule, but it was broadly accurate none the less. Kay wasn¡¯t technically the strongest person in Avalon, though he¡¯d definitely reached top ten of people physically there and top three of people who were citizens of Avalon, but he had some extra oomph in his pocket that had led to him being in charge. Not only was he one of the founding members, but he was a Class Line Progenitor, a person with the title of the same name that indicated him as discovering a brand new Class under the System, giving him access to new sources of power and Skills that weren¡¯t known before and giving him a built in shortcut that let him skip a lot of the tedious grinding people needed to do in order to discover good Class advancements or combinations. All of that had led to his baby country being a constitutional monarchy with him and his Ministers as the executive branch of Avalon, the representative Parliament as the legislative branch, and an appointed judicial branch that was being expanded and tweaked as Avalon grew in size and population. Kay wasn¡¯t a huge fan of parts of the constitution, such as the bits where he could veto any law he wanted with there being no way to overturn the veto, make any he law he wanted with no way of getting rid of it, make any judgment on any criminal or person accused of a crime at any time he wanted, or overturn the constitution any time he wanted and rule as an absolute tyrant at any moment with no real consequences. Sadly for him, that was pretty much the way of the world of Torotia. The fact that he was letting any of his citizens have any kind of representation at all was seen as a good thing, and was similar if not identical to what most of the larger nations In this part of the world did, but it wasn¡¯t the norm if you were looking at every polity out there. Might made right, the strong ruled, and the weak obeyed. It didn¡¯t help that the System had a system in place that oversaw leadership of nations, including noble titles, Noble Titles, capitalized because of system shenanigans, bonus to individual people based on their leaders, and bonuses to entire nations based on their leaders that all focused on one single person being at the top. The System literally didn¡¯t recognize forms of government that didn¡¯t have one person in a position of power giving orders to everyone else. That didn¡¯t mean that you couldn¡¯t have a government like that, it just meant the world was heavily skewed towards having a king, tyrant, despot, lord, or whatever you wanted to call them. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Thus, Kay was the Blood Mayor of the city of Avalon and was probably going to become Blood Lord or Blood King or something as Avalon expanded from being a city with a few towns and villages around it into a capital city of a nation. The former pirate port that Kay and his military had taken over was growing quickly and would soon be the first full city under Kay¡¯s rule outside of Avalon itself, and that would probably trigger the transition of his title and Title. So all of that to say that Kay had absolute power if he wanted to, and he didn¡¯t. As part of showing that he didn¡¯t want absolute power, he made sure that he actually listened to his parliament and gave them real legislative power. A large portion of that showing included physically attending sessions of Parliament when he didn¡¯t have some kind of emergency getting in the way. And a majority of the time that was boring. The biggest reason Kay had dropped out of college and stopped trying to become a politician back home on his version of Earth was that the version of America he¡¯d been born in and lived in had been incredibly corrupt, and he¡¯d decided he didn¡¯t want to be part of that cesspool. A smaller, key part of it, was that it¡¯d involved sitting around listening to other people argue about the most inane things that didn¡¯t actually seem to matter any. He understood that the representative of the section of Avalon that was next to the large lake down in the valley with them felt that the regulations around fishing in said lake were important, since a big portion of his constituents were fishermen or women, or otherwise involved in the fishing trade from the lake. He also knew that the species representative for the Seafolk, a species of people that shapeshifters who could switch between a from that was basically human and one that was very similar to a mermaid, not to be confused with the Merfolk who were mermaids and mermen, who¡¯s entire species needed to go swimming on the regular and didn¡¯t want to get hurt by people fishing in the lake, felt the fishing regulations were equally as important but for different reasons. Both had very good justificatons to be passionate about the topic. Neither of the reasons they were passionate about it had anything to do with who was allowed to construct fishing boats in the limited number of building slips they had on the lake shore! The two things they both had stock in, when and where people where allowed to fish by trawling or with nets, had been dealt with to the apparent satisfaction of both parties! But now they were fighting about a topic that was only tangentially related to their focuses, with no benefit for anyone. Who cared if someone needed a more specific Class like Boat Building over Ship Builder? It only changed very small details about what the final product was or could do, and honestly seemed like discrimination against people for not having the ¡°perfect¡± Class for any given situation, and- Wait a second, Kay leaned back in his seat and furrowed his brow as he thought to himself, Isn¡¯t that Class discrimination? He leaned over to his Prime Minister. ¡°Hey, doesn¡¯t what they¡¯re arguing about count as being Class discrimination?¡± He asked, checking with her to be sure before he spoke up. ¡°Yes it does,¡± Amanda whispered back, ¡°That would be considered unconstitutional as discriminating against less specific Classes in an area that both Classes work in.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say anything?¡± ¡°You need to pay attention to what¡¯s happening and be able to make realizations and decisions about things like this on your own. What are you going to do if I¡¯m not here during a session and something like this comes up again?¡± Kay restrained a sigh and the argument that Amanda was always at Parliament when it was in session, because she was right. Just because she¡¯d been to every session so far didn¡¯t mean she¡¯d be at all of them. He leaned forward and grabbed his gavel, ganging it twice against the spot on his chair made for that. The argument on the floor halted and everyone turned to look at him. ¡°Trying to limit specific actions, jobs, careers, sales, or any other expression of one¡¯s Class to only be done by certain Classes is illegal, outside of requiring a Class to be involved in the action in the first place. It is legal to require that someone has a related Class, you can insist that someone with only a Baker Class can¡¯t build your boat, but saying that a Boat Builder can and a Ship Builder can¡¯t is discriminatory. I¡¯m settling this in Representative Keel¡¯s favor.¡± Kay turned to look at the Seafolk representative, ¡°Representative Pearlfloater, if you are that worried about fishing boats being built that could be unsafe for any swimming races we have, speak to the Ministry of Construction¡¯s vehicle department. All boats, carts, ships, and such are inspected for safety, and we can make sure that includes safety for anyone that is swimming near them as well.¡± She blinked at him once, the nictitating eyelid that was the one giveaway that she wasn¡¯t a human briefly flashing into view, before she bowed to him, ¡°Thank you, my lord.¡± ¡°Safety is an important factor in all facets of life, and we won¡¯t devalue the safety of one species that lives here over another, but we also will not engage in discrimination either.¡± Kay look around the room, ¡°Are there any more topics of discussion for this portion of the agenda. No? Well, then,¡± He glanced down at the schedule he had to see what came next, ¡°That actually brings us to the end of the agenda and scheduled topics of discussion. Does anyone have another topic to add outside of the agenda?¡± No one lit the small magical lamp at the edge of their table to ask to be recognized. ¡°Very well, then I hereby call this session of Parliament to be adjourned.¡± He banged his gavel three times and stood up. All the representatives stood and bowed to him once, he returned a much smalled bow to them and headed for his private entrance and exit behind his balcony, with the two ministers who¡¯d come with him to the session following behind and his detail of Blood Guard, his combination bodyguards and personal troops, spread out around them. ¡°What¡¯s next on my schedule?¡± He asked Amanda. The young human woman pushed a small lock of her brown hair out of her face and gave him a stony-eyed glare. ¡°If you had accepted one of the numerous applicants I had gathered to be your personal assistant you could ask them instead of making your Prime Minister keep your schedule.¡± ¡°And how many of them actually made the cut to be my personal assistant?¡± ¡°Two of them!¡± ¡°And both of them were so focused on the other one being their rival that picking one of them would have made the other one useless. I¡¯d rather wait to pick my personal assistant and keep both of them as excellent members of my staff than to lose one of them.¡± He countered, ¡°Not what¡¯s next on the agenda?¡± ¡°That meeting that you wanted to have with everyone.¡± ¡°Oh good, we finally get to talk about the world shaking information I got when the System ambushed me in my bath.¡± Book 4 Chapter 2 There had already been a meeting with Kay¡¯s closest set of advisers, Eleniah, of course, Meten, Ahthia, and Isla. While the rest of his council of advisers and his Ministers were important parts of the decision making process and he definitely heeded their expertise and advice, but when he needed to make immediate decisions he talked to his teacher, the leader of his Sentinels, and the two people that handled getting information for him. The fact that two of those people were the two tier fives in Avalon that he knew about besides himself, one of the people he suspected was a tier five and just wasn¡¯t telling him, and the person in Avalon who had the most historical knowledge memorized, he felt pretty good about just talking to them. But he did need to keep the rest of his council in the loop and get their feedback on the more widespread decisions they had to make based on the information the System had brought him, so he¡¯d scheduled a meeting with all of them. The architect and builders working on the palace thought that the council meeting room wasn¡¯t done yet, but that was focusing on decorations and less important things. The room itself was functional, as was the large circular table they¡¯d selected for the meeting room without any input from Kay. He chuckled at it every now and again. ¡°What¡¯s this about?¡± Isla¡¯s illusion asked once everyone had seated themselves. ¡°I didn¡¯t get a schedule for this meeting.¡± Kay kept his eyes from rolling. His spymaster was all about the flow of information, whether it was giving it or taking it, but her antics at making sure things went the way she thought they should sometimes got on his nerves. ¡°A couple days ago after I got back and things started to calm down, the System contacted me.¡± The already quiet room went dead silent. They all knew about the conversation Kay had had with the System during and after the fight with the Eldritch Hunger back in the early days of Avalon, and the implied seriousness that came with such a claim had everyone paying attention. ¡°Apparently it was only a portion of the System, at least as far as I can understand, but it-¡° ¡°What do you mean ¡®a portion of the System¡¯?¡± David, the Minister of Construction, interrupted, ¡°What does that mean?¡± ¡°Well the way it explained it-¡° ¡°Is the ¡®personal System¡¯ theory correct then? Do all of us have our own personal System that works for us but talks to everyone else¡¯s?¡± One of the Ministers that Kay didn¡¯t know very well asked. The Minister of Growth was a thin weasel beastkin woman who spent most of her time out in the wilderness mapping out everything she could. Kay wanted to spend more time with her talking about cartography but she wasn¡¯t available most of the time. Another Minister, a human man that the Adventurer¡¯s Guild had helped him recruit to handle the Ministry of Communication, ¡°No, that¡¯s stupid! Just like Twin Scholars of Cormourent said in their Discourse on Existence, it doesn¡¯t make any sense for it to work like that, because how do you explain monsters and their access to mana? They aren¡¯t sapient beings, so they can¡¯t have a System attached to them like the personal System theory says, but they have to be part of the System in some way to have mana like they do!¡± ¡°That¡¯s implying that the System is the only way we can access mana!¡± ¡°Of course it is! Do you think-¡± ¡°Quiet!¡± Eleniah leaned forward and glared, ¡°Let him tell us what happened and you can argue about theories on how life works after! Besides, you,¡± She pointed at the Minster of Communication,¡± should know that the Twin Scholars disavowed most of their first few works after they moved to Horath,¡± and you,¡± She pointed at the other Minister, ¡°Should know that Henry the Wizened ended up disproving the basis of his original personal System theory when he wrote-¡° ¡°Eleniah.¡± She jerked back n her seat, a chagrined look on her face at Kay¡¯s chiding, ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°Right, I¡¯m going to say the whole thing and you all can ask me questions after,¡± Kay told them all, ¡°It started when I was in the bath-¡° ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j Kay stared at the floating words in front of his face, without a System box around them. Silver in color and faintly shining, they just sat there, menacingly. We need to talk. There are issues to be solved. Issues that you have been positioned to deal with. ¡°Umm¡­¡± His arms, braced to push himself out of the bath in alarm when the words had appeared and startled him slowly relaxed, ¡°Can it wait till I¡¯m done with my bath?¡± The first set of text faded away and was replaced by more. The System does not care about your nudity or lack thereof. The System is aware of the state of everyone¡¯s bodies at all times. The System is unaffected by the concept of ¡°modesty¡±. ¡°That¡¯s not really what I meant¡­ But I also don¡¯t think I can do anything about you making text pop up in my face so, continue, I guess?¡± A number of your theories regarding the behavior of the System and the motivation behind certain events, both those you have shared and those you have not, are marginally correct. I have decided to share more information with you in order to properly direct your full efforts into dealing with the aforementioned issues. ¡°Did you just refer to yourself in first person?¡± Kay asked, the surprise of that overriding his other feelings momentarily. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. There was a pause of the words vanished over a period of a few seconds. For a moment the air was empty, until the conversation continued. Your previous summary during your original communication with the System was basically correct, if laking a number of key details that change the answer completely. The System is similar to a computer in many ways. Your previous communication was with local System architecture in charge of Torotia. I am a separate portion of System architecture dedicated to troubleshooting. My processing power is not as occupied as the local System architecture. This allows me to use processing power for minor tasks, such as communicating in ways that are more comfortable for the receiver of the communication. ¡°The part of the System that runs things here on Torotia is so bust it can¡¯t speak in first person about itself?¡± Kay whispered, starting to get worried. The local System architecture is experiencing issues that require my presence. All free processing power is being diverted to stabilization of Torotia and the local System architecture. All non-vital tasks, including communication, are being run at System defaults to conserve processing power. Kay stared at the words in horror. ¡°...What¡¯s going wrong?¡± He managed to eventually ask. That will be covered. First will be important background information. Specifically, your belief that certain events that have occurred to you have not been coincidental. Your have successfully answered your sporadic question of ¡°Am I some kind of Chose One?¡± correctly. You are not. There is no fate or predestination driving events in your existence. Your theory regarding interference by the System is also correct, to a degree. The System has directly influenced events after your arrival in Torotia, although not to the degree you theorize at times. ¡°I knew!¡± Kay shot up out of the bath, spilling water all over as he stood there, glaring at the words. The sudden rush of exultation overwhelmed his worry as he griped at the System. ¡°Things have been adding up too well! The connection between my original Class and all this shit with the vampyr being heavy on Blood Mage Classes, running into that eldritch thing under the cliffs and then using the Skill I got then to deal with the vampyr infection, it was all too streamlined!¡± You are correct, although not to the degree you believe you are. You were used as an attempt to gain information that resulted in positive results with an efficient use of resources, so more resources were committed. This resulted in more efficient use of resources to gain positive results, so more investment occurred, and was repeated. The level of efficiency and ¡°streamlining¡± as you put it, were not expected results, although those results are appreciated. Kay slowly sank back down into what was left of his bath. ¡°Well, that¡¯s interesting but doesn¡¯t really tell me much, so keep explaining as much as you want.¡± Your theory that the System assigns Classes to Outworlders that arrive in Torotia is correct. The event of choosing one¡¯s Class given to natives of this world is resource intensive for the System. The System gains resources from natives of Torotia as they grow, and uses those resources to complete their first Class choice. Outworlders have not generated resources, but all sapient beings over the age of adulthood must have a Class on Torotia, thus one is assigned. The System assigns Classes that may benefit the System in some way, if possible. ¡°How do native Torotians generate resources for the System as kids?¡± You do not have authorization to be given that information. The text that flashed into existence for just a moment was a dull gray color compared to the silver text that Kay was talking too, and the System continued on without pause. I was dispatched to Torotia to support local System Architecture eighty-seven point three nine local years ago following reports of high levels of corruption and unusual amounts of processing power being used. Slightly before your arrival on Torotia, problems with the local Blood Mage Class Line were located. Following the acquisition of this information, multiple Outworlders were assigned the Blood Mage Class on arrival, including yourself, in order to potentially gain more information on the problems and their potential source. You Oath and editing of the Blood Mage Class was allowed due to the possibility of gaining more information. Following this, you encountered the worshipers of the eldritch entity near your settlement. One of the main sources of System corruption in this region of the System is due to eldritch contamination, thus removal of eldritch contamination is encouraged. Your Skill was improved in order to increase the odds of removal of eldritch contamination. You then encountered the vampyr, and discovered the eldritch source of their existence. While these events may seem directly connected, they are only connected in that your behavior has been encouraged to benefit the System. However, through your actions you have- ¡°Wait!¡± Kay interrupted the text as it filled itself out in front of him, ¡°You didn¡¯t know that vampyr were eldritch?¡± Correct. ¡°How is that possible? Aren¡¯t you scanning for ¡®eldritch contamination¡¯ all the time?¡± That is correct. The reason for this lack of data is unknown. The eldritch nature of the vampyr was inferred by your use of your improved Skill to remove the corruption, however that information should have been known before that point. Scanning of local System architecture shows no previous results from scan of vampyr. Direct scanning of vampyr independent of local System architecture resulted in detection of eldritch contamination. Your theory that the connection between the major use of Blood Mage Classes by vampyr being connected to your assigned Class has been deemed likely. Eldritch corruption connected to vampyr has been determined to be the most likely source of problems with the Blood Mage Class Line. I was aware that local System architecture contacted the Administrators following your query regarding the Blood Mage Class having the wrong associated Skill. Administrators responded to the emergency bug report generated from this query. Following this Administrator response, no further Administrator contact has occurred. This has been deemed a problem. I have disconnected from local System architecture to prevent any possible contamination of my architecture. I have taken direct control of all vital tasks necessary to the continuation of Torotia. The most prevalent theory is that a large portion if not all of the total System corruption in Torotia¡¯s local System architecture is related to the vampyr. Due to your connection to the most likely source on the System corruption, you are being recruited to deal with the corruption of local System architecture if possible. ¡°Holy fucking shit.¡± Kay breathed out. Kenneth Davis. Find vampyr. Destroy vampyr. Remove any eldritch corruption you encounter. Locate ¡°the Lord of the vampyr¡± if possible. Remove ¡°the Lord of the vampyr¡± if possible. Removal of vampyr and eldritch corruption should reduce overall corruption of local System architecture, allowing more processing power to be devoted to fixing current issues and increasing stability of local System architecture. You will be contacted again if necessary. The intensity of the glow of the floating text increased until it was almost blinding, then vanished and the faint sense that he was being watched that Kay had had vanished. He hadn¡¯t even noticed it was there until it was gone. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j Everyone in the meeting room stared at Kay in total shock as he finished telling them what the System had told him. Then everyone but the four people he¡¯d already talked to erupted into noise as everyone lost their collective minds. Book 4 Chapter 3 ¡°So, you¡¯re a vampire now?¡± Cindy asked, leaning in and trying to pull Kay¡¯s top lip up to see his teeth, ¡°How are you outside right now, then?¡± He smacked her hand away, ¡°Stop touching my mouth! And by being the not melting in sunlight kind of vampire.¡± ¡°I wanna see your fangs, though.¡± She reached for his face again, ¡°Show me!¡± ¡°For fucks sake,¡± He stepped back and bared his teeth at her, flicking his fangs down with a flex of the new muscles in his mouth. ¡°There, happy?¡± She scooted closed, her eyes locked on the new additions to his mouth, ¡°So you drink blood now?¡± Kay sighed and prepared himself for an actual question-and-answer session. With vampires not being native to Torotia, the only people that would be able to question him about how his new species stood against other versions of vampirism would only come from other Outworlders. ¡°Yes, I drink blood now.¡± ¡°Like drink blood?¡± ¡°What?¡± She poked him in the stomach, ¡°Does it actually end up in here, or are you one of those weird vampires that use their fangs like needles and suck it up into their veins directly?¡± Kay stared at her, a look of discomfort on his face, ¡°There are vampires like that? That¡¯s weird as hell. No, it goes in my stomach.¡± ¡°I read a couple of books that had them like that,¡± She shrugged, ¡°Do you pee?¡± Kay groaned and started walking away from her, ¡°Why are you asking me about that?¡± ¡°Because I¡¯m curious! Do you still eat regular food and drink water and stuff, or is it only blood? If it¡¯s only blood, do you pee blood? Wait, no, pee is the leftover bits. Do you digest, like, the hemoglobin and piss plasma or something?¡± ¡°For-¡°Kay stopped and glared at her, ¡°I¡¯m eating real food still and drinking regular drinks. I still get hungry and regular thirsty; there¡¯s just a new extra thirsty that I have to drink blood for. And yes! I still go to the bathroom, you nut!¡± She opened her mouth to keep talking, but Kay cut her off. ¡°No! I¡¯m not doing any analysis of my pee to see what the waste product of blood is; stop asking me shit like that!¡± ¡°Fine.¡± She pouted. ¡°Ugh, how bored have you been?¡± He demanded as they resumed walking towards the R&D section of the facility. ¡°Meh,¡± Cindy waggled her hand back and forth, ¡°A bit, mostly recently while we waited for you to show. There¡¯s been quite a bit of work, and I¡¯ve been doing a lot of training and hunting monsters to try and level my Skills.¡± She grinned up at him with a glint in her eye, ¡°Care to spar with me?¡± ¡°Later, let¡¯s finish this walkthrough.¡± ¡°Welcome to the Research and Development section, then!¡± She nodded at the two guards, one of which opened the door for them, and they stopped inside a small room with two more guards. There was a brief examination with a few magical items, expensive ones that had been imported specifically for this, and the two guards checked over their identity badges, Cindy¡¯s permanent one and Kay¡¯s guest pass. ¡°Quol spends about half of his time in here and another half overseeing training for his ¡®bevy of apprentices¡¯.¡± She made air quotes and rolled her eyes as they walked deeper into the complex. ¡°We¡¯re not really set up for large-scale manufacturing, for all number of reasons. Lack of properly trained people, we need more resources, we haven¡¯t developed a weapon good enough to start giving to anyone we can, and we¡¯re delaying training new people in my Class Line so I can grab a few more of the low-hanging Classes, the entire setup of this world promotes craftsmanship over assembly line style manufacturing because multiple people working on a single item can lead to no Class bonuses working if you split it up too much¡­ All kinds of stuff. So it¡¯s a lot of Quol working with his ¡®apprentices¡¯, me training, and us working together to make the best guns we can.¡± They stopped at another checkpoint, this one with less magical tools but more personal scrutinizing, Kay didn¡¯t remember everything from the various security briefings, but he was pretty sure some of Isla¡¯s people she¡¯d trained to see through disguises and illusions were here as guards. ¡°Why do you keep using air quotes for apprentices?¡± He asked Cindy after they made it through into the actual facility proper. ¡°¡¯Cause they¡¯re all those pen pals he told you about, the other gun enthusiasts that didn¡¯t care that it wasn¡¯t a Class before. All of them but one rushed over here after they got the letters you let Quol send to them.¡± She looked over at him with a grin, ¡°Semi-related side note, good job jumping on the issue when you did because three of them showed up with the Novice Gunsmith Class, and from what I heard, at least one of them might have gotten it the same day Quol got the Class Line Progenitor Title.¡± ¡°Damn¡­¡± Kay froze in place for a moment, his eyes wide, ¡°That would have been¡­¡± The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Something. Not sure what kind of something, but something.¡± ¡°Yeah¡­¡± He shook his head after another moment of shocked silence, ¡°Damn. Well, good job me.¡± They resumed walking, now heading between workbenches and around forging setups that reminded Kay of the secret underground they¡¯d originally been using beneath Avalon. ¡°Anyway, Quol¡¯s been calling them his apprentices, and they¡¯re mostly putting up with it, but they¡¯re really contemporaries. I¡¯m straight up assuming that all of them are going to end up with one or more Class Creator Titles before too long, just because they¡¯re all working in different directions most of the time. They¡¯ve all got their own passion projects, and their life experiences are a bit different. One¡¯s a bowyer, and she¡¯s trying to make a bow-gun hybrid thing, which is weird to me, but whatever, it¡¯s a fantasy world, let¡¯s see what happens; one¡¯s a jeweler so he¡¯s making really intricate detailed work, which will be great for ceremonial pieces, and so on and so on.¡± ¡°Does Quol have any problems with that? Most of the books I¡¯ve managed to read about Class Line Progenitors say they mostly try and horde as many Class Creator Titles as they can.¡± Cindy shrugged, ¡°We talked about it; he said he¡¯s fine, and I believe him. He¡¯s been so excited to have this dream of his finally come true with benefits, and now he gets to share it with his friends who shared the same dream all while working together in person when they were limited to letters before. I don¡¯t think he begrudges them any ¡®lost¡¯ Titles.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good to hear.¡± They stopped at a specific workbench near the back of the building that was tucked away behind a small wall. Sitting on it was a wooden box that had been shaped to sort of resemble a handgun case from back on Earth. Cindy stepped forward and flipped open the lid. Sitting in it was an interesting mix between a modern gun and a historical one. The handle was polished wood that curved like a stereotypical image of a flintlock, but there were grooves carved out for someone¡¯s fingers to rest in. The barrel was a standard metal cylinder that stuck out from the blockier portion that contained the firing mechanism. The lever was to the side of the mechanism instead of above, and it was positioned to swing in towards the side. The end of the lever wasn¡¯t a flint or something else to make sparks fly on striking; it was a thing needle that had a slight orange tinge to the metal. Its trigger was a long curved piece of metal with a tip that pointed at the barrel, but it had a trigger guard around it. Cindy picked up the gun and grabbed a small protrusion at the very back of the mechanism. Pulling backward on it after a slight twist on the protrusion had a portion of the gun pulling back out of the mechanism, revealing a small hollow that was roughly bullet-shaped. She held out the weapon in her hand to show it off. ¡°Introducing the Dovomoss Mark Three.¡± She turned it around so he could see all the sides of it, then handed it over to him to hold, ¡°Quol named it; he called dibs since he¡¯s the Class Line Progenitor. It¡¯s an interesting combination of knowledge between Earth and Torotian ideas and technology, with a bit of magic and alchemy mixed in as well.¡± Kay tested the heft of it, finding it noticeably heavier than his own gun back home had been but not much heavier than he¡¯d expected. ¡°Show me?¡± ¡°Of course,¡± She grinned excitedly and took the gun back to close it up in its case, ¡°Let¡¯s go to the range. I¡¯ll explain the interesting details while I show you how it handles.¡± The demonstration and the explanation that went with it were enlightening, both on how the gun worked and on how Earth ideas could be mixed with Torotian ones to make something badass. Kay wasn¡¯t the inventive type, and he hadn¡¯t had much time to do anything crafting-related outside of his Cartography Skill and doing things with transmutation, so he¡¯d not really realized the levels it could reach. The first thing she explained was why they¡¯d made what was essentially a breach-loading handgun. A lot of the reason was that the better options weren¡¯t allowed, thanks to the restrictions the System had. Magazines and clips both failed to work, as did every other method they could think of to make a gun that could hold more than one bullet at a time, including revolvers. So they¡¯d had to work with single-shot options, and they¡¯d tried quite a few. In the end, the option they¡¯d chosen had succeeded over the others for a simple reason that Kay admitted he¡¯d never have thought of. While the breach loading mechanism they¡¯d gone with was bulkier and a little more complicated than a bolt-action, that was actually a good thing in this case because it meant that there was more material in the weapon itself, which made enchanting easier. Kay had never really learned about ¡®standard¡¯ enchanting too much, and that was the kind that they had access to. That type, as compared to runic enchanting, one of the many Class Lines that the Rune Master controlled, involved the enchanted directly imparting mana into the item, and what enchantments ended up being part of the item could be affected by different circumstances, including the enchanter¡¯s experience, knowledge, and power, the materials used in the item being enchanted, and the circumstances the enchantment took place in. Have an enchanter that¡¯s done a ton of fire enchantments, enchanting something with fire that contains lots of fire-related or fire-aligned materials in a fiery place? Powerful fire enchantment. Same circumstances but an ice enchantment? It would be much weaker. So a slightly bigger and more complicated mechanism meant that they had more options to put different materials in to make better magical guns, plus more mass of the object meant there was more to push mana into, which meant stronger enchantments in general. All of that, combined with the fact that Torotian crafting meant more time on individual items to make them of higher quality instead of faster, less precise work to push out more and more items, meant that everything had pushed towards the bulkier answer over the more streamlined one. Plus, Cindy had added, it meant that the mechanism could pull back the gun¡¯s lever as you reloaded instead of doing it manually each time, which saved a couple of seconds every time you reloaded. That lever, with the needle on the end, actually worked through magic as well, although in this case, it was the magic that was part of the material itself, combined with a bit of alchemy. The needle was made out of a specific type of iron that naturally radiated small amounts of heat. Combined with a quick alchemical processing and the swinging motion of the lever moving made it heat up to the needed temperature just long enough as it pierced the paper cartridge they¡¯d developed and light the powder. All in all, it was an interesting, fun weapon that worked quite well during the demonstration while Kay fired it himself. ¡°Well!¡± Cindy exclaimed after they¡¯d each shot off a few dozen rounds, ¡°Wasn¡¯t that fun? That concludes today¡¯s tour and the demonstration of our newest product! Up next on our itinerary me kicking your ass in a delightful sparring match!¡± She hurried him out of the range and towards the other edge of the building. ¡°Hurry up! I want to try shooting through your armor while you¡¯re in it!¡± Book 2 Release! The Eldritch Underneath: Book 2 of Outworlders Blood is now live!!! Love the art I keep getting for these covers! You can find it here! https://a.co/d/0Zz8C3C Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Just as a reminder, with it going live on Amazon as part of KU, only the first 10% of the book is going to remain here on RR, the rest has been taken down. Book 3: Lord of Spilled Blood is also available for preorder starting today, will go live Feb 20th, and is available here: https://a.co/d/4m8zVFE Thanks to anyone who buys or reads the KU version of the book, and if any of you do, please stop and leave a review or rating of it for me on Amazon, it really helps out. Book 4 Chapter 4
Cindy twirled a pair of pistols around each of her index fingers like an old wild west trick shooter. She slotted them into a bandoleer that crossed her chest, lining them up with two others so that the four guns trailed down her front with every other one facing the opposite direction. ¡°Ready?¡± ¡°How is this sparring?¡± Kay asked, staring nervously at her from down range. ¡°Me being a target does not count as sparring.¡± ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be a moving target!¡± She insisted, while lining him up with a finger gun and mining shooting him, ¡°I¡¯m practicing my shooting, and you¡¯re getting better at dodging and blocking!¡± ¡°I get that you think this is going to help us get better, but it¡¯s not sparring. Also, I¡¯m not entirely cool with being shot at!¡± Cindy shot him a confused frown, ¡°Why? You¡¯re tier five now; you could probably tank a regular bullet, let alone these training ones I¡¯m using.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± Kay sidestepped so he wasn¡¯t straight in the line of fire, ¡°I¡¯m not going to suddenly get over years of gun safety lectures just because I have superpowers now.¡± ¡°On an ¡®I¡¯m also from Earth and shot guns a lot¡¯ level, I¡¯m very proud of you; on the newer, ¡®you can absolutely take a few bullets without dying because we¡¯re in a fantasy world with overpowered magic¡¯ level, stand still and let me get some experience off of you!¡± A small section of Skin on Kay¡¯s palm split open, and blood spilled out, forming a plate that he floated off to the side as he walked back behind the firing line. ¡°Shoot at that for a bit, and we¡¯ll move on to shotting at me if I feel like it¡¯s safe.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± She waited until he was behind her, then drew the top pistol on her bandoleer; she fired, replaced it, grabbed the next one, and fired, then did it twice more. All of the rounds hit near the middle of the floating plate, leaving small cracks that radiated from the point of impact. ¡°Where¡¯d the rounds go?¡± Cindy held up a dark brown bullet. ¡°These are the wooden training rounds we developed for sparring and other tests with live targets. We don¡¯t want to hurt anyone, so I had some of the enchanters and material experts you sent my way work on something we could use.¡± She tossed it to him, ¡°They aren¡¯t made of the right kind of materials to hold a strong enchantment at that small of a size, but a slight variation of a durability enchantment can be made weak enough that it sticks to these and lets the stay intact when they get fired, after that, the enchantment fails, and they basically dissolve on impact. One of these could still kill a tier zero or a really weak tier one, but they¡¯ll only injure tier twos and up, and at tier five, they aren¡¯t going to do more than break the skin.¡± Kay turned his head slightly to look at her, taking his eye off the bullet, ¡°How do you know what it¡¯ll do to a tier zero or tier one?¡± ¡°We tested it on animals and monsters, which isn¡¯t a perfect comparison, but it¡¯s close enough. And Meten let me shoot him a couple of times too.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± He said after thinking it over for a moment, ¡°I¡¯ll let you shoot me. But after that, we¡¯re actually sparring.¡± ¡°Whaaat?¡± Cindy whined, ¡°I don¡¯t have half the things I need to actually fight up close yet! I need a way to reload faster, I¡¯ve been looking into Metal Manipulation or straight-up telekinesis to help me there, and I still need more training to develop gun katas!¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to make real gun-fu?¡± ¡°Why not? We can do all kinds of unrealistic bullshit now. I can dream and see bits and pieces of the future; you¡¯re a vampire, Eleniah can punch dinosaurs so hard it breaks the laws of physics, and so on. Why can¡¯t I do cool martial arts with guns?¡± She mimed hitting someone with her pistol, ¡°Once we can get some good enchanted ones with higher-end materials that can really take a beating, I want to beat a monster with one!¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ something?¡± She let out a dismissive snort, ¡°Yeah, I know. But I¡¯ve had enough of being one of the people in the back of the caravan, being protected while other people fight. I want to actually help in fights, and now I have my chance. And,¡± She added, ¡°There¡¯s the actual concerns about the number of Class Slots people have. Most archers or crossbowmen have to switch to a different weapon if someone gets close enough to them, at least at lower tiers. So if we can figure out a Class or Skill that lets someone use a gun as a close-in weapon, it¡¯ll make things a little more streamlined and helps keep parity with other ranged weapons.¡± ¡°You think that¡¯ll be necessary?¡± Cindy shot him a look, ¡°Of course I do, and you do too!¡± ¡°I want to know your thoughts about it,¡± He shrugged as he leaned against a table, ¡°I know my thought process, but you know a lot more about the history of guns.¡± Cindy walked over and hopped up to sit on the table, ¡°Guns aren¡¯t going to be that big a deal here, at least compared to Earth.¡± She gave him another annoyed look, ¡°I¡¯ve already heard your speech, but I¡¯ll go over those bits too. Magic, Classes, and Skills immediately remove most of the advantages guns have over other man-portable ranged weapons from before guns. Crossbows started outperforming guns because they took less work to train someone to be decent with them, and guns beat out crossbows for the same reason, plus they¡¯re more deadly. The way the System works here, though, you have to train for ages at whatever weapon you¡¯re trying to learn to get a decent level of power. When we get things at a higher production rate and start making guns faster, can we pump out more tier twos than someone training with bows could? Probably, but I¡¯d bet my Title that it¡¯ll take us just as long to get someone to tier five, not including those of us with built-in cheat codes.¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. She pulled out one of her guns and started cleaning it, ¡°Then there¡¯s production since I brought it up already. Making a bow takes a lot of time, and making guns takes less, at least if you do it assembly-line style. But producing a bunch of the same thing over and over again to specific tolerances, AKA one of the most important parts of mass production, is shit for experience for crafters. Even if we push through all the bitching and resistance to actually make a group of people mass-produce guns, we¡¯re going to end up with more weapons that are categorically worse than anything made by ¡®traditional¡¯ crafters, thanks to the System. So that¡¯s another point not in our favor.¡± ¡°The last thing is actual firepower. Modern guns, and the weapons that came after that, are better than bows and crossbows. A machine gun can fire faster, a sniper rifle can hit a target from farther away and do more damage, and so on and so on. But that¡¯s on Earth. Here, a high-tier bowman can probably kill a gnat from a mile away or punch through feet of armor. Then there¡¯s ranged magic, bonuses from related Skills or Classes, and so on and so on.¡± She shrugged, finishing up the polish on one of the pistols and slipping it away. ¡°All the things that made guns a replacement for other weapons aren¡¯t going to happen here. People are still going to use swords, daggers, bows, spears, and all the other implements of death that are still out there.¡± Kay nodded in agreement, ¡°You¡¯re right. Now why are we investing so much money in you and all of this?¡± He gestured out at the shooting range and the growing industrial area. ¡°Seriously?¡± She groaned, ¡°You¡¯re testing me?¡± Kay ignored her pouting and the glare she gave him, looking at her calmly with one raised eyebrow. ¡°You¡¯ve been practicing that,¡± Cindy muttered. ¡°Fine! I¡¯ll dance to your tune, puppet master. We¡¯re doing it because even with the tech limits we discovered, guns are still a good weapon, even here. We¡¯re still going to be shooting sharp bits of metal at people at very high speeds. Not as high of speeds as I¡¯d like or near as often, but still deadly. You can fire guns from prone much better than bows, too, so that gives us a slight advantage on stealthy attacks. Magic is generally flashy, so we¡¯re beating them out there. Even if we¡¯re only as good as the limited number of stealthy long-distance magical attacks, that¡¯s still a good place to be. Next, there¡¯s the psychological aspect of it being a brand-new weapon. Change is scary to most people, and killing people in a brand new way compounds the fear of change with the fear of us killing people. Even if that wears off eventually, it¡¯s still useful.¡± She hopped off the table and started counting reasons on her fingers, ¡°Having a second Class Line Progenitor and also a third, but I know you want to keep that secret if we can, makes us look a lot scarier to everyone else in the world. It paints a slightly bigger target on our backs, but the target was already there, so let¡¯s look at the silver lining. We¡¯re going to be the only major producer of a brand new type of weapon for some time, so that¡¯s going to rake in the money for us and gives us another avenue for our people to get Classes and tier them up, which is always good.¡± She stopped and stared at her fingers, ¡°There¡¯s a few more, but they¡¯re smaller ones.¡± ¡°Cannons is a big one I¡¯ve been thinking about.¡± Cindy stopped pacing and turned to look at Kay. ¡°I¡¯ve been talking to Eleniah since she knows a lot about sea travel, and almost every ship out there uses mages or manipulators to protect their ships. Ballista and the other kinds of big projectile weapons that exist on Torotia right now take up too much space. But there are entire regions of the ocean that have monsters that are highly magic-resistant. Cannon-armed ships would be able to deal with those types of monsters a lot more easily, and that opens up several trade routes that only we would be able to use, at least until cannons become more widespread. Same thing with other ships; most of them are focused on defending from magic, so we¡¯d be able to deal with them much more easily with heavy balls of metal flying at them. They¡¯d also be good for sieges and defending fortifications, although not as much as on the water since people do use physical attacks more often against cities and forts.¡± ¡°Huh. I never really focused on naval stuff, but yeah, I can see that working.¡± Her eyes narrowed as she stared at one of her pistols, ¡°Hey¡­¡± ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°Since you just brought it up, where is all the money that¡¯s getting invested in this project coming from?¡± ¡°Well, we have this thing called a treasury, and we-¡° ¡°No, seriously,¡± She cut off his joke with a roll of her eyes, ¡°We¡¯re pumping a lot of money into this; where are we getting it from?¡± ¡°Well, besides the fact that we actually tax people now, and Cyrus is some kind of financial genius, Tumbling Rapids is a fucking gold mine.¡± Kay sighed dramatically as he leaned further against the table, ¡°I get why Nelam is so focused on annexing them. Hell, I want to annex them if we could get away with it.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°They¡¯re the heart of the largest trading network this side of the continent. Something like eighty to ninety percent of the trade that goes to the city-states and smaller nations down south goes through Tumbling Rapids, as well as roughly half of the Clans trading and like thirty or forty percent of Nelam¡¯s. That¡¯s imports and exports too.¡± ¡°What does that have to do with Avalon making money, though?¡± Cindy asked trepidatiously. ¡°We export a lot of stuff there. We¡¯ve got a decent number of in-demand materials and resources in our territory that its hard to find in this region, outside of our lands at least, so we can undercut the people who are exporting those resources from farther away. We¡¯re not making as much per sale since we aren¡¯t jacking up the price to account for transportation costs, but we more than make up for that by selling a lot of materials that people want in a market that has had limited access to those materials in the past. Cyrus has been harping on me that it''s all going to balance out eventually, and he¡¯s definitely right, but we¡¯ll make a ton of money until then.¡± Kay pushed off from the table and headed back towards the firing line, ¡°We also have more normal stuff that we send their way, but we¡¯ve been making normal amounts of money from those.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Cindy looked mildly stunned from that short lecture. Kay chuckled and started forming his armor over himself, beads of red liquid pooling across his skin and hardening over him in layers. ¡°C¡¯mon, I¡¯ll let you take some shots at me, and then I get to smack you around for a few hours.¡± ¡°A few hours!?¡± Book 4 Chapter 5
¡°A few of the smaller businesses we invested capital in have started seeing higher profits recently,¡± Cyrus told the table, continuing his report on Avalon¡¯s economy, ¡°So we¡¯re getting higher returns from that sector. Overall, we¡¯re seeing slightly more growth than I expected, but otherwise, it¡¯s been following the trends I predicted.¡± He sat back and placed his hands on top of each other in his lap, ¡°That finishes my report for today.¡± ¡°Great,¡± Kay gestured at the next Minister at the table, ¡°David?¡± David, the Minister of Planning and Building, nodded and glanced down at a set of notes he¡¯d brought with him, ¡°In terms of the city itself, nothing new to report. The construction that¡¯s underway is going well, everything we¡¯re doing has been within acceptable realms in terms of time to completion and budget, and the private construction going on has been inspected and either been given the go-ahead to continue or some small issues were dealt with. Nothing major there. When it comes to the building and expansion of the palace and other government buildings and facilities, it¡¯s similar news. We¡¯ve had a few people make some unwise decisions about accepting money or favors to do things they shouldn¡¯t, but they¡¯ve been dealt with.¡± He nodded at Anthony, the illusion that Isla, Kay¡¯s spymaster, used to hide her real form, who nodded back from the chair next to David¡¯s. ¡°What about the military construction?¡± Kay asked. ¡°It¡¯s going¡­ well? I¡¯ll be honest, most of the ¡®defensibility¡¯, if that¡¯s even a word, of what we¡¯re building is beyond me. What we¡¯re making is sturdy, but I couldn¡¯t tell you much about how useful it will be in battle. Commander Crucius¡¯ people are telling me everything¡¯s good there, though, so I¡¯m not worrying about it. In terms of meeting the deadline¡­ probably. Things are a little strained, time-wise, but we¡¯re right on the edge of making it or missing it. I can move people off of other projects that will be finishing soon, which should make up for some of the loss. Finally, we¡¯re over budget.¡± ¡°Over the budget that you were asked to stay within or over the actual budget you were given?¡± Cyrus asked, nonchalantly picking at one of his fingernails without looking at anyone. ¡°The first one. Transporting everyone to the top of the cliff and back down costs more than the original estimates showed, so we had to dig into the rest of the funds to cover that. The actual construction of the walls up there is within budget; it¡¯s just the transport that¡¯s bringing us a little under.¡± ¡°Will you be staying at or under the full budget?¡± Kay cut off Cyrus¡¯ triumphant speech before it could begin. ¡°Of course! I¡¯d have said something much earlier.¡± ¡°Good.¡± Kay shot Cyrus a glance when he started to dramatically inhale again, ¡°No. You already told us all we don¡¯t need a repeat. There are no issues with Parliament asking for projects to attempt to stay within a lesser budget if we make sure that they have access to more funds if they need it. Next time you get a chance, you can use this to browbeat them into listening to you more; we don¡¯t need to hear the entire lecture a fourth time.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± The man, who was at least six times Kay¡¯s age, sat back in his seat with a huff, looking away and pouting. ¡°David, keep up the good work. We need those defenses ready sooner rather than later, although I¡¯m not expecting anything this week. Anthony?¡± The illusion nodded deeply and started speaking in its mild-mannered voice, ¡°My lord, I¡¯ve received no new reports regarding the movement of any Vampyr hunting organizations, including the Shatterplate Order. My last reports had all the major ones acting as usual, and the minor ones we have any information on weren¡¯t heading in this direction. Nothing of import from or about any major nations either, although some of the city-states to the south are having political upheaval that doesn¡¯t have much to do with us. Also, Nelamian interests are still playing games in Tumbling Rapids, with little success so far. The setback they had during your time there put them in a hole that they haven¡¯t recovered from, although not for lack of trying.¡± The illusion of a human man slipped one illusionary piece of paper behind another and continued, ¡°Here in Avalon, we¡¯ve had no major incidents, although we have had several minor ones. More than one worker from the Ministry of Planning and Building was caught by several of the traps we have set out, including the fake plans of various buildings. A smaller number were found planting small enchanted items made to allow eavesdropping or other information gathering in areas in the palace that are still under construction as well. Only one of those has spilled anything under questioning so far, and she claims to be working for a criminal organization that wants to expand in our direction. A few other criminals or potential spies have been found or are suspected as well, although none are worth reporting in detail at this time.¡± Kay nodded, keeping his expression blank as he listened to the heavily sanitized report. There was a lot more going on under the surface in Avalon, but they weren¡¯t going to be spreading that about in public meetings, restricted to certain officials or not. There were multiple spies for major powers in the city and at least one active espionage operation underway. Thankfully it wasn¡¯t targeting Avalon, so Kay had Isla gather more information before a decision was made to interfere or not. So far, it seemed to be a play to change the succession of a noble family in one of the smaller nations to the west, which would allow a son who supported a certain country over another to gain more power. If that¡¯s all it was, Kay wasn¡¯t going to have anyone stick their noses in, but it could always be more. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Also, the part of the report that Kay really cared about hadn¡¯t been changed at all; no one major was making dangerous moves in their direction. It was going to happen eventually, Avalon was growing too fast, and he personally was getting too powerful for someone not to try something, to say nothing of his change into a Vampire, but it didn¡¯t seem like it was happening soon. He definitely wanted those walls and new defenses done before it came to that, though. With a nod and a short ¡°thank you¡± to the illusion, Kay moved on to the newest member of the meetings. ¡°Next, Judge Corea. Welcome to our regular meetings; thank you for coming.¡± ¡°It isn¡¯t as if I could refuse, my lord,¡± The older beastkin woman replied with a small smile. The judge was a wolf beastkin with sleek black fur that was starting to ever faintly go gray. That meant she was either significantly older than Kay thought or had gotten to a higher tier later in life, like Cyrus. ¡°Although in the conversations we¡¯d had before, it made it sound like you didn¡¯t want to¡­ insert yourself too much into the judiciary, if I may be so bold?¡± She asked slowly. Kay waved a hand as if flicking the idea away, ¡°I definitely don¡¯t. You aren¡¯t here to report to me about any decisions made, or sentences passed. I merely want reports on the actual running of the judiciary. Budget issues, need for more space or requiring more cells, whatever. The same reason that Representative Sapveins is here to speak about how Parliament is running.¡± The younger elven man, a representative of a section of Avalon City, lazily waved, the bright green light of his veins standing out among the rest of his hand. ¡°Ah, then, in that case, I have no issues or matters of import to report. Things are going well so far, and we¡¯ve been managing to keep pace with the expansion of Avalon up to this point.¡± ¡°Very good! Commander Huento?¡± Kay gestured for the Guard Commander to report while also following her request to use her title and last name when around others. She bowed fractionally in her chair, ¡°Nothing to report at this time, my lord. We¡¯ve been working closely with the judiciary, of course, and my report matches Judge Corea¡¯s. Obviously, there¡¯s been minor crime to deal with, but no large events or truly heinous acts recently, and we¡¯ve also been expanding with the growth of the city, both in population and physical size. Recruiting has been at pace, and we¡¯ve added two new guard stations in the last month to deal with the creation of new neighborhoods.¡± There were a few more reports from various people. The newest Ministry they were setting up, the Ministry of Diplomacy, didn¡¯t have enough people for there to be a minister yet, but Amanda handled that report, which was pretty much the same as it had been in the last two meetings, which amounted to: ¡°We¡¯re still working at coming into existence¡±. While there were topics to be discussed and business to be handled, none of it was of note; it was just the continued bureaucratic necessities of running a political entity of any form outside of anarchy. ¡°Alright, that seems to be everything for today. Thank you, everyone, and I¡¯ll see you all at the next meeting.¡± Eleniah grabbed onto his shoulder as he was gathering up his supplies and passing them on to one of his various administrative assistants. Amanda was still trying to get him to take on a personal assistant, but he was still resisting. What was the point of having an assistant that followed him around all the time if none of them were any good in combat? It didn¡¯t make sense to only have them around for part of his life. It was looking more and more like he needed a majordomo or whatever the right title for that job was. Someone that followed him around, in fights and off them, and worked to make his life a little easier, whether that was administration or anything else. Of course, finding someone for that position was going to be a pain in the ass. ¡°Hey,¡± Eleniah shook him a little knocking him out of that line of thought, ¡°You have something to do.¡± ¡°Uh, yeah, I have a class to teach after this on Blood Manipulation now that we¡¯re actually allowing people beyond the Blood Guard to learn it. I¡¯m a little concerned about how that¡¯s going to go. I¡¯m still in agreement that acting like everything is normal is a lot better plan than going around shouting about how everything is alright, and don¡¯t be afraid; I¡¯m really not a monster now because that will backfire, but I¡¯m still a bit worried.¡± He handed another pile of papers off without looking, ¡°Maybe that¡¯s more that I¡¯ve never actually taught as large of a class as this. Three hundred people? It¡¯s a lot.¡± ¡°I can help you with that kind of stuff; teaching to large groups isn¡¯t that bad with some practice, and I have some tips, but that¡¯s not what I¡¯m talking about. You, Lauren, and Alice need to talk. You¡¯re the first people of a brand new species in this world, and none of you have addressed that or the violent way it happened to you!¡± Kay looked at her silently. After a moment, his shoulders slumped as he sighed, ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± ¡°Then let¡¯s go.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± He tapped at his wrist where a watch would go, an expression that Eleniah understood after he¡¯d explained it, ¡°The class starts in half an hour, and I know talking about this with them is going to take a lot longer than that. Plus, I can¡¯t exactly reschedule a class that has three hundred attendees and still keep the whole ¡®everything is fine¡¯ campaign going.¡± She stepped in close, her nose touching his, ¡°After, then? You promise?¡± Her stare was intense and demanding. ¡°I promise I¡¯ll have an actual talk with them, in-depth without leaving anything out, about becoming vampires together.¡± Book 4 Chapter 6
Lauren walked next to Kay as they headed for the room that''d been set aside for Alice. Kay''s normal contingent of guards was slightly reduced as per his mandate that he didn''t need a full set of bodyguards while they were in his palace, and the Blood Guard controlled almost every aspect of the security. They were still covered in the normal crimson armor formed with Blood Manipulation and Blood Shaping, which made them look like identical faceless red golems marching about. They were even creepier than Kay''s own simulacra he made since those at least had some semblance of facial features. His guards looked like implacable juggernauts formed into simple yet intimidating shape out of an unknown crimson material. Looking at the red sheen of the armor as the Blood Guard patrolled, stood sentry, or just walked around, it was difficult to tell that their arms and armor were made out of blood if you didn''t know better. They were made even more intimidating by their identical form, barring height for a few exceptionally tall or short members, and any enemy couldn''t know who they were attacking until they decided to do it, making planning counters much harder since while each Guard had shared Skills, all of them having at minimum Blood Shaping and Blood Manipulation, they all had their own skill sets to compliment their shared abilities, making some nasty combinations. The best part of all of it was that even if one Blood Guard actually preferred lighter armor compared to the heavy plate-like version they were currently in, they could just shift it mid-combat to suit their needs. While Kay was used to the expressionless figures following him around, seeing Lauren out of her armor was refreshing. She was currently on leave, and Kay was going to insist that she take another week off minimum, whether she liked it or not. Thankfully she hadn''t argued at all when he''d originally forced her into taking a vacation after their shared ordeal, but she''d recently stopped doing vacation things and had started to act like she expected to get back to work soon. The fact that she had subordinates who were both experienced and trustworthy had helped her be at ease with taking leave, but apparently, that ease was coming to an end. Kay thought of Lauren as a friend as well as the leader of his personal troops, and he was both proud of and in awe of how well she''d done at building up the organization of the Blood Guard after he''d stolen her away from her previous life of being an adventurer. And while he knew being part of a rapidly growing city-state that was going to transition into a nation relatively soon meant no one near the top really had time for breaks, he personally thought that being attacked by a vampyr and being turned into a vampire deserved more than just two or three weeks off. The fact that as leader of said city-state, they couldn''t afford for him to take some time off, and he wanted to live vicariously through Lauren had no bearing on his as-of-yet unsuccessful attempts to convince her to stay away from work for a little longer. "How''s she been?" Kay asked, glancing over at Lauren. "It''s been¡­" She pulled a pensive face, "She''s not really opening up to me, which isn''t surprising, but things have been cordial. She''s been appreciative of the information I''ve passed on about what we''ve learned about our new species," She reached up and absentmindedly tapped one of her fangs that descended for a second, "She''s taken it pretty hard, though. She''s been putting on a brave face when anyone is around, but I can tell it''s shaken her." "I''m not surprised, she''s part of a group that hunts vampyr, and now she''s been turned into something that is at least visually incredibly similar. I''d be taking it pretty hard too." Lauren stared at him out of the side of her eye, "¡­Honestly, I''m not sure why you aren''t taking it harder than you are. I''ve had some bad moments here and there, and I''ve had you to lean on. You''ve had to be the strong person for me; you haven''t had anyone." Kay shot her a somewhat sad somewhat amused grin, "I already had my entire life as I know it uprooted and turned on its head less than three years ago, and I''ve had to rebuild basically my whole existence. This?" He gestured at his body, "This is just a new twist. And it doesn''t hurt that I actually have some level of information about what vampires are." He admitted, "The two of you are coming at this with only one comparison, and it''s a pretty shit one." "Ah¡­" She stopped for a moment, then took a larger step to keep up, "You know, it''s kind of hard to remember that you''re an outworlder all the time. You''re just part of my life at this point. Well, no, that''s not really what I mean, is it? I remember that you''re from another world; you mention ideas or words or concepts I''ve never heard of enough that you can''t really forget, but I never really think about how¡­ well, fucked up that must have been for you." "Good!" Kay grinned at her, and this time it was entirely amused, "I''ve worked hard at adapting and getting used to my new life, and it''s one of the things I''ve tried to put behind me, like bitching all the time about being in charge." "Thank you for doing that last one; it was getting annoying." Kay was going to snark back at her, mostly about how she was becoming one of the snarky people he relied on her to defend him from when he heard shouting coming from the direction they were headed in. Frowning, he picked up the pace. Outside of the door to Alice Ravenhome''s room was a diminutive woman wearing Shatterplate order armor. She was in the midst of pounding on the door and shouting into it, with one of Kay''s Blood Guard trying to calm her down. The Blood Guard, who was the woman''s escort, had his faceless helmet pulled back into his armor so Kay could see the nervous look on his face as they approached. "Alice, you open this fucking door right this instant, or I will beat it down!" This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. "Ma''am! I can''t let you beat down any doors in here!" She whirled on the Guard, "Is that so? Then open this fucking door for me!" She punched it once, then pointed at the lock. "Hunter Ravenhome has been given this room as her own for the duration," The Guard replied, pulling himself up in an attempt to be stern, "She has every right to privacy within her own room, and I won''t be opening it for you without her permission. If she doesn''t want to see you, she doesn''t want to see you." "Then I''m breaking the fucker down!" She took several steps back and prepared to rush forward. The Guard braced himself to interrupt the charge but instead stiffened to attention when he saw Kay. "My lord!" Kay nodded in acknowledgment to him, then looked at the woman, "What, exactly, is going on here?" "My lord-" "So you''re the Lord here then?" The woman was suddenly in Kay''s face, peering at his eyes and mouth, "Interesting, there are a number of immediately identifiable signs that you''re displaying, but the eyes are quite different, and I don''t see any pronounced veins. Of course, those aren''t always present, so- No, wait!" She jerked back out of Kay''s space before he could move her or step back himself, and she pointed at the door, "Alice is more important than research at the moment. Let me in to see her!" At this point, Kay recognized the small half-elf woman as one of Alice''s command staff from her hunting team, although he hadn''t had a chance to actually meet any of them. "I''m here to have a conversation with Hunter Ravenhome. If she''d like to speak to you, then I''ll obviously not get in the way of that, but I''m not going to be making her do anything or opening her door to you without permission." She scowled up at him, "That isn''t the answer I want from you. But I also appreciate that you''re treating her well, so I''ll accept it. For now!" She stepped off to the side, out of the line of sight from the door, and stopped nearby. The Guard escorting her cautiously followed. Kay knocked on the door, ignoring the passionate stare from the woman. "Will you please go away, Zeia?" Alice called from inside, "I''m not really feeling like having company right now." "I''d appreciate it if you overcame that feeling for a little bit so we can talk now that I''m free, although I won''t force you into anything, so I can come back later. This is Kay, by the way, not Zeia. She is still here, though." After a moment of silence, the door swung open. Alice was dressed in normal-looking clothes, although now that he had more experience, he could tell it was clothing that was designed to be worn underneath her armor. Her dark brown bordering on black hair used to blend nicely with her tawny skin, but now it contrasted with her paler color. You could still tell what her skin had originally looked like, but there was just less color to it now as if some of it had been leached away. Her eyes hadn''t changed color, but they did have a faint sheen to them that Kay recognized from the mirror, and oddly enough, she smelled familiar. One of the things he''d noticed after his change was his heightened senses, including smell, and Alice smelled¡­ like family? It was the only way he could think of to describe the scent, and he realized now that Lauren smelled the same way. It was a faint addition to their individual scents that stood out to him. For a moment, Kay wondered if it was how the version of vampires they had become could identify their vampiric relations. Before either of them could say anything, Zeia pushed past him in a blur, taking him off guard and knocking him into the door jam as she slammed into Alice with speed as she wrapped her up in a tight hug. "Are you alright? Have you been eating well? Has anyone been giving you trouble? Are they treating you alright? Everything I''ve seen so far makes me think that these are alright people, but that''s no guarantee! Why haven''t you come to see us?" "Zeia." "Why haven''t you let us come see you? I know everyone else is freaking out, but me and Dan have been trying to visit you for days, and you keep sending us away!" "Zeia!" Alice pushed her back and held her at arm''s length, "Calm down!" "I will not!" Zeia glared back at her, "I''ve been worried about you! Something horrible happened to you, except it didn''t, and now things are all weird! And you wouldn''t let me see you!" Alice shut her eyes, "I didn''t¡­ It''s¡­ Gah! Things are already fucked up, and I don''t know what to do or what''s going to happen. I couldn''t deal if anyone if you looked at me like¡­" Zeia jerked back, offended, "You thought I''d look at you like a monster? You thought I would? That-" "I look like a fucking vampyr!" She snapped, "I look almost exactly like the monsters we have trained to hunt and kill, and I¡­ I don''t know what to do! Everything has fallen out from under me and-" "So you were worried I''d what, let logic go out the window and-" "I thought you''d do the perfectly reasonable thing and think that I was trying to fool you, or that they were trying to fool you," She threw an arm out in Kay''s direction, "And that I was a pawn or whatever. This is brand new; it''s literally never happened before. I have no doubt that people, our people, are going to think that it hasn''t happened and will come for me. That¡­¡± She trailed off, and Kay could see tears start to come to her eyes. "Fuck¡­ Alice, you can''t think¡­" "I can! It''s the obvious thing to do. Do you really think after all this time, after all those hunts across all those years, that he would just believe in this miracle without actually seeing it?" "So we just have to show him then!" "How? When? And how can we do it fast enough in the brief window we''ll have?" They stared at each other, Alice demanding an answer and Zeia searching for one. "I''m sorry." Both of them jumped, taken out of their private world by Kay''s interruption. "I don''t want to intrude on what''s becoming a private conversation, so I can come back later." "No." Alice shook her head. She let go of Zeia and looked away for a moment to wipe her eyes. "We need to talk. We really need to talk about more than one thing. And most of what we just said is going to be your problem, too, if I''m right, so let''s talk." She looked from Kay to Lauren and sighed, "Everything''s gone sideways in such a short time." She muttered. "I''m coming too!" Zeia insisted, glaring at Kay. Alice sighed again and shrugged at him, "It''d be helpful if you''ll allow it." "I don''t have a problem with you coming," Kay replied to Zeia''s demand. In reality, he kind of didn''t want to have her along, but he also wasn''t going to make things harder on Alice. Plus, he was interested in what they''d just been talking about since he was pretty sure it intersected directly with more than one topic he wanted to discuss. If bringing this intense half-elf along made that easier, he''d ignore his own preferences. "We can go to my office to talk if that''s alright? It''s a better setting than your bedroom for this." Book 3 Release and Stubbing The day has come! Book 3: The Lord of Spilled Blood is now live on Kindle and KU! Audiobook is coming soonish! Thus, the stubbing has occured and 90% of Book 3 has been taken down from RR! Look at that cover! I''m so happy with all the art I''ve been getting for these covers. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Anyway, the only thing left to say is that if you''re a big fan of my work, or even if you''re a lesser fan and have KU, please go and check out the kindle unlimited version of the book and get me some of those sweet sweet page reads that help bump my ratings. If you don''t want to, don''t feel like I''m trying to pressure you though. Oh, and as always, good reviews help me so much on Amazon, so I won''t turn down any of those either. Thanks to you all and happy reading! Book 5 Chapter 1
The view from high up above Avalon city was both beautiful and added a sense of scale to Kay¡¯s thoughts. He was multiple stories above the ground, looking down at the city in an office he¡¯d had made at the outer edge of the cliff face his palace and domicile were built into. The large glass window he looked through was enchanted in several ways to prevent attacks or forced entry but still allowed a clear view of the small figures of people going about their business in the streets below. It was like sitting in a plane and looking down at the tiny ants of cars driving around, but he wasn¡¯t as high and those were individuals, not vehicles moving around. The comparison and contrast between his memories and this moment highlighted many of the differences between Torotia and Earth, and many of the concepts he was struggling with. Thanks to planes, travel on Earth was much easier, with people being able to move across the globe in hours. Torotia was much larger and flying was much less accessible or reliable, making journeys a matter of weeks and months. Skyscrapers as tall as the cliff he was standing inside were common in cities all over Earth, but to have an office like his was a rarity reserved for the most powerful people in the largest of cities here on Torotia. Not that Torotia was the loser in all of the comparisons he had. His version of Earth had no magic, as far as he knew, which he now considered a massive drawback. Without his Classes, Skills, and the magic they granted Kay would never have been able to defend his city and his people like he had a few weeks ago. That was the topic that was really occupying his mind and was the source of the comparisons he kept making. Just under three weeks ago the army they¡¯d been expecting had shown up and a battle had taken place, thanks to the manipulations of the king of Nelam. When Crusader General Stonegnawer Eahn, the leader of the army, had asked for parlay he¡¯d been attacked by an assassin, which was immediately blamed on Kay and started the fight. Even after the battle had ended in Avalon¡¯s victory, they¡¯d found no proof of who the attacker actually worked for, but everyone assumed it was Nelam. The battle was now being called ¡°The Shatterplate War¡± according to the few people Kay had talked to once he¡¯d managed to stay awake for more than an hour at a time, which he personally found a bit distasteful. There had only been one battle and it had lasted only a few hours, which he felt disqualified it from being called a war, but he also remembered an obscure history fact his friend Chase had told him about a war that had only lasted forty-five minutes back on Earth, so he¡¯d kept his peace. Blaming it all on the Shatterplate Order felt like it was more wrong than calling one battle a war though. His friends and advisers had said that it was being called that because there wouldn¡¯t have been an army without the Shatterplate Order gathering one up, but that felt disingenuous. Until he would have been able to prove the difference between vampires and vampyr to the world, someone would have tried to kill him. Just because the Shatterplate Order had been the ones to make the biggest and most noteworthy attempt during which he¡¯d been able to show that he wasn¡¯t a vampyr didn¡¯t make them the villains of the piece, they¡¯d been driven by misunderstandings, a debatably healthy sense of paranoia, and an understandable fear of what kind of problem a vampyr ruling over Avalon would have been. Being wrong didn¡¯t make them evil. But maybe that was his compassion speaking. He tried not to let it show, but he felt guilty for some of the lives he¡¯d ended during the battle. Not all of them, the Nelamian troops who¡¯d come to pillage and possibly enslave his citizens deserved everything they¡¯d gotten, but many of the soldiers he¡¯d killed had been there truly believing they were contributing to stopping a monster from coming into power. Kay¡¯s emotions on the subject were a mess. Part of him felt bad for the people he¡¯d killed, part of him was annoyed he felt bad, they¡¯d been the enemy. Another portion of him was worried that he didn¡¯t give a shit about killing some people and was worried he was becoming a monster. He had time to work through those thoughts and emotions though, and there was work to be done. While Avalon would have won the battle without the sudden interference of a giant eldritch monstrosity breaking through the sky and causing havoc, it¡¯d still changed the direction of how things went. Instead of a totally defeated army running away in a rout he had a rough grouping of organizations and collections of soldiers all arguing about what happened next camped outside his walls. The end of the battle had come at the same time that the most influential leaders of the army had finally realized that Kay had been telling the truth the whole time when he¡¯d said he wasn¡¯t a vampyr. With the driving force behind the army taken away, many of the leaders of soldiers who¡¯d agreed to ally and become part of the campaign to kill Kay refused the authority of the Crusader General and demanded to negotiate their own terms with Kay. Some of them tried to foist the blame of their actions on to others, a few claimed that Kay had no right to dictate terms to them at all, and some even claimed that they deserved to be rewarded for aiding in the fight against the eldritch leg-proboscis thing. None of that was helped by the fact that Kay had only woken to full consciousness yesterday after multiple days of side effects from being pulled into an antithetical reality at the end of the fight. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. A knock at the door jolted him loose from his thoughts and he stepped back over to his seat. ¡°Enter.¡± The short form of Ahthia, one of the Ministers he¡¯d appointed for his government, specifically the Minister in charge of information, research, history, documentation, and those sorts of tasks, came through the door and shut it behind her. ¡°Good day, my lord.¡± ¡°Hello Minister,¡± he replied with a short sigh, ¡°Do we have to have the formalities every time we see each other?¡± ¡°Yes, we do.¡± The dwarven woman walked over to the chair on the other side of Kay¡¯s desk and pushed herself up into it. She placed a small sheaf of papers in front of her before taking a moment to look out the window. ¡°I admit, it really was a good idea to have this extra office made for you. The other official offices lower down are nice, but there¡¯s something special about being able to look out and see the sky.¡± ¡°They¡¯re nicely furnished and decorated,¡± Kay agreed, ¡°But being cooped up underground all the time isn¡¯t for me.¡± ¡°We dwarves can go for longer periods than most without seeing the sun or the stars, but we still need to be outdoors too. Speaking of, now that the war is over hopefully we¡¯ll be able to pull more builders and Earth Mages off of expanding the walls and can finally get that public balconies project you thought up going.¡± ¡°That would be nice. Sadly we¡¯ll need to get rid of the unwelcome guests camping on the lawn, so tell me what you¡¯ve found.¡± ¡°Right!¡± She shuffled through her papers, reading them and getting her thoughts in order before she began. ¡°There are quite a lot of precedents on what terms were exchanged between victories and defeated armies in the past, including ones that had an exchange of war reparations. Sadly, the fact that most of the actual governments that contributed troops to the enemy army did so through cats paws or nobles who ¡®acted on their own¡¯ makes things complicated. Unless we can get anyone in power in those nations to admit that this attack was purposefully ordered to happen we aren¡¯t going to get anything out of them. We¡¯ll have to enact any punishments and reparations on the actual participants we have on hand.¡± Kay tapped his fingers on the desk in annoyance. ¡°That¡¯s not optimum for us right now. Beating back the attack on us is great for our public image, but we need to keep that up. The big countries, specifically the Bannerthrust Empire and the Isermani Concord just poked us with a stick. If all we do is break the stick, they¡¯ll just look for another one. We need to smack their hand so the pain teaches them not to do it again.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have that option in this case. If we insist on taking our demands to the Empire or the Concord themselves instead of the nobles and generals that actually led the attack they¡¯ll just say they weren¡¯t involved and paint us as over-dramatic whiners. Anyone with a brain will know the truth, but part of the way the game is played is that there¡¯s the ¡®truth¡¯ and the truth, and too many people fall for the first one.¡± She pulled out the bottom sheet of paper and passed it over to him. ¡°However, while we can¡¯t hit them in the hand, but we can kick them in the shins a little later.¡± Kay read through the list of weaponizable political gaps, economic attacks they could make, and favors that could be called in. ¡°I see. We aim within whats feasible for the reparations and surrender terms, then come at the puppet masters from another direction. We still show the skulkers among the big countries that they shouldn¡¯t mess with us without giving them an opening to turn it around on us. Well done.¡± He handed her back the list, ¡°Work on narrowing that down to our best options. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve already thought of this, but aim for moves that make it clear why we¡¯re biting back at them so anyone who¡¯s paying attention gets the message too.¡± ¡°Not a problem.¡± She set that page aside and broke the rest of the papers into stacks. ¡°Now, this pile represents what I believe are the best options for the Shatterplate Order, the Itarian Crusade, and the groups that are still accepting orders from the Crusader General. These are the options for those who won¡¯t follow the original structure of the campaign while remaining relatively reasonable, and the last stack is our problem cases and my recommendation for those.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s start with your first pile. If the healers allow it, I¡¯ll be having a meeting with the Crusader General and his people this evening, so it¡¯s best if I at least have an overview of what I¡¯m going to be offering him.¡± Book 5 Chapter 2
Stonegnawer Eahn, the dwarven Crusader General of the Itarian Crusade, was still looking a bit weak from the poisoned weapon that he¡¯d been stabbed with during the assassination attempt that¡¯d started the recent battle, but he was much recovered compared to how he¡¯d been on the day. He was still a bit pale and was moving gingerly, like his joints ached with each movement, but he was far from death. He sat back in the chair that¡¯d been provided, leaning against the backrest to keep as much weight off of his own body as he could while still keeping a proper posture. To be fair, Kay wasn¡¯t looking much better. His already pale skin was waxy looking and he was slightly too thinner than was healthy. During the coma he¡¯d been in, it¡¯d been hard to get any nutrients into him, especially with the seizures. He hadn¡¯t been conscious for any of them, but according to his healers he¡¯d had a concernedly regular number of seizures that thankfully hadn¡¯t caused any permanent damage. The healers theorized that they had been a result of his brain trying to process his memories of being in that other universe and failing. The seizures had faded over time, as had his memories of that place that wasn¡¯t a place. It was all a blur of confusing sensations that meant nothing to him now. Trying to actively think about that brief stint of time had him instinctively flinching away, so he continued with his original plan right after being recovered, he wasn¡¯t going to think about it at all. The two leaders looked at each other quietly while the Crusader General¡¯s entourage took their seats and some refreshments were set in front of everyone. Kay wasn¡¯t entirely sure if Commander Ravenhome should count as part of someone else¡¯s entourage, since he was the ultimate leader of his own organization, but everyone¡¯s body language marked Stonegnawer as the definite leader of this group. The elven woman who was a Crusade officer was also there, Kay recognized her from when he¡¯d marched into their command tent and she¡¯d physically put herself between him and the Crusader General. The orcish man he¡¯d sent Eleniah to beat on wasn¡¯t there, in fact Kay hadn¡¯t seen him since he¡¯d shouted for everyone to kill Kay and then gotten blasted off out of sight. Does one person with two escorts even count as an entourage? Kay wondered as he thanked the servant who set down a drink in front of him. Is Alice with them or with me right now? The way she¡¯s sitting doesn¡¯t really tell me anything. Kay was on one side of the medium sized conference table, the three representatives of the surrendered army were sitting across from him, and Alice Ravenhome of the Shatterplate Order, who was both Commander Ravenhome¡¯s daughter and Kay¡¯s vampiric ¡°child¡± was sat in her own chair pulled up to the side of the table, right between Kay and her father. With Ahthia sitting to Kay¡¯s left and the Blood Guard standing in the corner the room was moderately crowded, and that wasn¡¯t even considering that Isla was hiding somewhere while invisible. Stonegnawer took a sip of his drink and set it down before looking up at Kay. ¡°Good day to you, your majesty.¡± Kay raised one eyebrow. ¡°Good day to you as well, although that isn¡¯t the correct address. I¡¯m still a mere lord.¡± ¡°Oh? I assumed you received a quest to upgrade your title when an invading army appeared on your doorstep, that tends to be an event that jumps most cities and towns into suddenly gaining nation status, even if they¡¯re still small. I believe its something to do with being recognized as an entity worth invading.¡± Kay decided it wasn¡¯t worth hiding at this point. ¡°I did get a quest like that, but it hasn¡¯t completed yet. The success condition was to defeat or drive off the invading army, and I guess that since I haven¡¯t officially accepted your surrender that its still counting you as an enemy army camped outside my gates.¡± ¡°Hmm, interesting. I would assume the System would count de facto surrender or defeat as well, but I¡¯m not a System scholar.¡± He took another sip of his drink. ¡°Well if your quest wants official surrender, lets discuss terms and allow you to become a king. That is what we¡¯re here for after all.¡± ¡°Indeed.¡± Kay nodded at Ahthia and she passed out copies of the starting terms they¡¯d decided on to the three of them. The elven woman skimmed over it but didn¡¯t seem to be paying much attention to the document, she kept glancing over at the Crusader General and checking his condition. The two men dug deep into each of the terms, and it took them several minutes to read through the multi-page document. ¡°Do I get a copy?¡± Alice asked. Kay squinted at her. ¡°Do you need one?¡± ¡°Not really, but I¡¯m interested if what you¡¯ve put in there intersects with why I¡¯m here.¡± ¡°Why are you here?¡± She waved him off, ¡°We¡¯ll get to that.¡± Stonegnawer set the papers down with a thoughtful expression on his face. ¡°These terms are¡­ more generous than I expected. Although some of them are¡­ interesting and I¡¯m not sure if they¡¯ll work.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be honest with you,¡± Kay told him, ¡°We¡¯re being generous because I think without Nelam¡¯s intervention in events things would have gone quite differently. If we¡¯d been able to successfully parley and you¡¯d accepted the truth, we¡¯d have bled your coffers a little to pay for the evacuations we had to do, but that would have been it. On the other hand, if you¡¯d just attacked immediately we¡¯d be smashing you into the ground with reparations and punishments for it. Since things didn¡¯t go as badly as they could have, and since you seemed to be operating on something relatively similar to good faith, I decided to lean on the kinder side of things. And while we¡¯re open to negotiation on some terms, others are not open to negotiation.¡± Commander Ravenhome flipped back through several pages and began rereading a section with a baffled look. ¡°Would you please explain which terms are non-negotiable?¡± Stonegnawer looked at the document uneasily. ¡°I don¡¯t know if some of these are possible to accomplish as you have them. I¡¯m not certain if I have th authority to agree to a number of these, let alone actually assuring that they¡¯ll be carried out.¡± Kay shared a look with Ahthia. ¡°Personally, I very much want to insist on those irregular conditions, but I¡¯ve been convinced to be more flexible for those for the reasons you just mentioned. Let¡¯s say I¡¯m personally invested in those happening but we aren¡¯t going to pitch a fit if we have to tweak them to fit reality. The terms we¡¯re firm on are the payments to offset the evacuations we undertook, reparations to replace lost income and production, funds to enact repairs, and the weregild for the death of my people.¡± Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Stonegnawer let out a short relieved breath. ¡°Oh good. Those are actually the easy ones to address. I¡¯m not skilled in anything economic or related to trade, but these look like standard figures pulled from historical treaties I¡¯ve read, which adds the weight of precedent to this. Unless there¡¯s anything egregious mixed in there that I missed I can guarantee those will be paid.¡± ¡°They have been.¡± Ahthia told him, ¡°We pulled them from the relatively standardized set of treaties that stemmed from the last time the Bannerthrust Empire expanded it¡¯s borders. As far as we could find many of the recent treaties since then pulled most of the generalities from there.¡± ¡°Yes, that¡¯s where I thought you¡¯d sourced from.¡± Stonegnawer nodded decisively. ¡°I can easily accept those terms without any question or negotiations.¡± ¡°Good.¡± ¡°As for the rest¡­¡± He frowned at the papers while he moved to the section they were talking about. ¡°These individual sets of terms for each organization and noble that contributed or led troops here. Most of them seem standard, forced trade agreements , reductions of tariffs when traveling their lands, generally accepted punishments for invading someone and losing. Those who continue to acknowledge my authority have already agreed that I will accept the final terms we agree on for all of them, as long as nothing too insane is added. The rest of them¡­¡± ¡°Any of them that are acting reasonably and like they have a brain in their head will also receive terms we believe are still merciful, if not exactly the same as the one¡¯s we¡¯re presenting here.¡± Ahthia¡¯s eyes went cold. ¡°Those acting unreasonably will be receiving much less merciful terms.¡± ¡°Ah.¡± He tilted his head back a bit asked asked, ¡°Are the Clans still being-?¡± ¡°Complete fucking assholes?¡± She snarled, ¡°Yes. We are not going to shut our borders to immigrants from the Clans and force them to go back. Nor will we, what was the bullshit they were spouting? Right, we won¡¯t be ¡®limiting the spread of our untraditional ways and ideas so that they don¡¯t pollute the sacrosanct lands and peoples of the Clans.¡¯ Fucking idiots acting like they won and can dictate what we do! I¡¯m going to find out which of the Elders gave them their orders and I¡¯m going to-¡± ¡°Ahthia.¡± She cut off mid rant and looked away while coughing to hide her embarrassment. ¡°My apologies. As I meant to say, we understand that anyone who has decided they no longer need to listen to you will feel they aren¡¯t bound by the terms we agree to. We will be dealing with them separately.¡± ¡°Thank you for your understanding. The terms I don¡¯t know if I have the authority to agree to are the one¡¯s specific to the Crusade and the Shatterplate Order. Those are=¡± Commander Ravenhome dropped his copy of the terms on the table as he stared at Kay. ¡°You want us to move our headquarters here. And agree to oversight from your government. And give you control over some of our training. And hand over all of the individuals we have in our care that have been infected by vampyr over to you.¡± Alice perked up with a sparkle in her eye. ¡°Oh really?¡± Ravenhome ignored his daughter as he continued speaking. ¡°The first three are one thing, but the last is ridiculous! We promised our protection to those people and the hope of some day finding a cure! We can¡¯t just release them to-¡° ¡°To someone who has a cure?¡± Kay replied archly. ¡°Anyone who isn¡¯t too far gone can be saved form becoming a vampyr by becoming a vampire. It will still be a change, but they won¡¯t have to become and insane monster with an eldritch corruption puppeting their bodies.¡± Ravenhome¡¯s eyes which had been bright with annoyance and righteous indignation shifted into deep shock as Kay spoke. ¡°Oh shit. Oh fuck.¡± He whispered. ¡°That means¡­ That means¡­¡± Alice leaned toward him, ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯ve been telling you dad.¡± He gestured at her own body, ¡°I¡¯m not the same as I was, but its so much better than it might have been.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t¡­ I couldn¡¯t- I was so caught up in you being okay I didn¡¯t get the implications.¡± He breathed out, his eyes full of wonder. ¡°We can save so many people.¡± ¡°The other three sets of terms, moving your headquarters, being open to supervision or at least some level of monitoring, and letting my people have some amount of say in your training, is to avoid anything like this fiasco that we¡¯re dealing with the aftermath of. While the intentions that started this nonsense might have been pure, or at least close enough, the fanaticism of many of your people led to the deaths of my people. Innocent people who didn¡¯t deserve to die fighting you over something you were wrong about. Vampires are going to continue to be a thing, even if its only infected people that we save. We have no idea if we can procreate in normal ways or if that¡¯s the only way to become a vampire. But either way I don¡¯t want overzealous vampyr hunter killing innocent vampires.¡± ¡°You¡¯re assuming any vampires will be innocents,¡± The elven woman countered, speaking for the first time. ¡°I mean innocent of bing vampyr not innocent of anything at all. Of course they could still be or become criminals or murderers or what have you.¡± ¡°Uh, Kay.¡± Alice leaned in like she was confiding with him, ¡°Anybody with the right parts can have kids with people with the other set of matching parts. It¡¯s been like that forever.¡± Kay rolled his eyes, ¡°I know that. I¡¯m talking about being vampires. The System is calling us a race, but we¡¯re technically people of different species that have been changed by a disease or a mutagen or whatever it actually is. Will we spread that to any children we have? Can we even have children that way? In a lot of the legends my original world has about vampires, they¡¯re undead beings and if they aren¡¯t they¡¯re generally infertile. I know we aren¡¯t undead, but are we fertile? Has the System made it so we¡¯re a full fledged species of people and will breed true? We don¡¯t know yet.¡± ¡°Oh, I hadn¡¯t thought about any of that.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve talked to Zeia about it and I guess she didn¡¯t bring it up with you. That¡¯s not relevant to the topic right now though, we can talk about it later.¡± ¡°This is a good opportunity for me to jump in with my thing.¡± She turned to look at her dad. ¡°Dad, I was going to push for us to move a lot of the Order here anyway. The opportunity to learn from the people here about Blood Manipulation to counter the Blood Magic Skills a lot of vampyr have is a great opportunity, and so is learning about the eldritch stuff we didn¡¯t know about! Kay made me an actual new Bane in the middle of a fight against a vampyr that got all mutated on us.¡± She pulled out the red dagger Kay had created for her. ¡°If we agree to Kay¡¯s terms and move everything here, we can probably negotiate for the training he wants to control to include the new thigns we want to learn!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sitting right here.¡± ¡°Yes, but you¡¯ve already agreed to teach me and my team things, this would just be including a few extra lessons in with the training you already want to happen.¡± He shrugged one shoulder in acknowledgment. ¡°True.¡± ¡°While that sounds like a very good opportunity for the Order, and likely the Crusade as well if I think about it,¡± Stonegnawer said as he stared at the dagger Alice held with a bit of wonder mixed with a tinge of avarice, ¡°I still don¡¯t believe I have the authority to unilaterally agree to those terms on behalf of the entire Crusade.¡± ¡°I might command the Order,¡± Ravenhome added, ¡°But that would still be uprooting a lot of lives. I¡¯d have to talk to my people about it.¡± ¡°Well then, while we¡¯re here, let¡¯s discuss what could be done to make these terms more palatable for the rest of your organizations to make them more likely to be accepted, and what concessions could be made instead if they never go through.¡± Book 5 Chapter 3
Amanda signed off on the last sheet of many in the pile of paperwork she was working on and handed it off to one of her many assistants without looking up. ¡°Take this to the Treasury, please.¡± ¡°Of course, ma¡¯am.¡± Amanda was already working on the next stack. There was a lot of work to do in the aftermath of the very short war Avalon had found itself a part of, and Amanda was in the lead for how much her workload had increased. As the Prime Minister, it was her job to sign off on a large portion of the work the other Ministers had to do, which involved checking over each piece presented to her and making sure everything was workable. Planning to return the evacuated civilians to their homes, rebuilding the villages that had been damaged, restoring their fledgling road network, getting trade restarted, and more tasks beyond that passed through her office for her to prioritize, double check the execution of, and coordinate with the Treasury to ensure that everything stayed within budget. She also had duties related to the terms of surrender being presented to the smaller factions that had broken off from the main army after the battle, though she wasn¡¯t directly involved in any of it. Unsurprisingly, many of the nobles and leaders that had received secret orders to join up in order to test Avalon were among the people who decided they didn¡¯t have to listen to the Crusader General anymore, which meant there needed to be extra work put into those specific terms. The terms given to the Crusader General and anyone who still recognized his authority were boilerplate, if you ignored the ones specifically for the Itarian Crusade and the Shatterplate Order, and she¡¯d only needed a short time to go over them and formally agree with Ahthia. What was left after that was much more work. Amanda immediately agreed with Ahthia¡¯s point that trying to directly punish the other nations who¡¯d decided to covertly prod at Avalon¡¯s defenses was a poor idea, and her follow up to punish them in other ways to show that Avalon wasn¡¯t a weakling to be picked on was a fantastic idea. The extra work came from tailoring each specific set of terms based on the recipient. Avalon didn¡¯t want, and couldn¡¯t afford, to keep anyone who didn¡¯t agree to terms imprisoned while they waited for someone to pay a ransom for their release, so they needed the terms to be acceptable, while also helping to set up for the follow up blow. Nobles with control over useful trade routes would be made to reduce tariffs for trade from Avalon and in a few months or years Amanda would see to it that those trade routes were used to destabilize their national economy. Generals and other officers would have to give up secret training regimens, Class paths, ways to gain useful Skills, and more, to bolster Avalon¡¯s military. Even mercenary groups would be punished by making them sign agreements to not work for certain groups or individuals, lowering their prospective incomes but also making prominent merchants and nobles from the countries who¡¯d been naughty to scramble to find replacements. And those were only the easily planned surface level schemes, there was so much more to work on in detail. If Amanda had her way, and she would, the backroom double-dealing nobles and politicians who¡¯d decided to test Avalon would rue the day they made that decision and anyone else with similar thoughts would know to back off. It would take time, but with Isla¡¯s help it would get done. The first step would be to locate who was involved, then find where their power came from. Amanda would be the official face, moving trade, making deals, and currying influence as Avalon¡¯s Prime Minister, all of it helping Avalon as she went, but also tearing down their targets. At the same time Isla would strike from the shadows, with workers hired out from under businesses at inopportune moments, scandals and illegal acts coming to light suddenly, and even tragic accidents if necessary. Eventually it would become obvious to the world that no one should fuck with her people. Of course, they would all probably think of it as not fucking with Kay¡¯s people, but Amanda had chosen him as one of her people as much as everyone else in Avalon, and she¡¯d make sure people didn¡¯t fuck with him either. The ones that he couldn¡¯t kill, she¡¯d deal with politically, and the one¡¯s that couldn¡¯t be dealt with that way would get to meet some of the lovely people Isla was working so hard at training. She finished with several more items that needed to be addressed and moved on to the last stack of paperwork that was physically on her desk at the moment. It took her mere seconds to read the title, then toss it in the ¡°later¡± bin with several other documents that said basically the same thing. They were all either applications to work as Kay¡¯s personal assistant, servant, majordomo, butler, maid, secretary, or other titles for basically the same job, or people wanting to know why the position hadn¡¯t been filled yet. Annoyingly, that was one of the gaps that needed to be filled that was so much more complicated than it had originally seemed. Putting it simply, the person who would become Kay¡¯s right hand in everything that Eleniah didn¡¯t handle, because she¡¯d complain otherwise, needed to be several cuts above every applicant they¡¯d received and everyone Amanda has tried to personally recruit. The problem had shown itself with Kay¡¯s first persona servant. He¡¯d been a nice older gentleman who was skilled and had good Skills for the position, but he¡¯d had to step away for a family emergency. While that was a perfectly reasonable thing to take time off for, it wouldn¡¯t fly with for someone who stood at the right hand of the Lord, and soon to be King, of Avalon. Perception was important at every level of society, but especially at the top. Kay¡¯s assistant, maid, butler, whatever, needed to be someone at the absolute pinnacle of the job, but they also needed to always be present no matter the circumstances. Battle, inclement weather, family emergencies, or the end of the world, whoever stood next to Kay waiting to make sure his orders and whims were carried out needed to be there. Kay himself would probably disagree, but this was one of the things he was wrong about. It didn¡¯t help that no one was hitting the target for how good they needed to be at the job. Ignoring the rest of it, the candidates were good but not exceptional. What was acceptable for the Mayor of a village or town wasn¡¯t the same as what was reacquired for a King. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Seeing her subordinates had everything else handled for the moment, Amanda ended up grabbing the stack of applications back out of the box and going through them. Even if they didn¡¯t meet the grade to get hired at the position they were aiming for, they could still be good employees for the palace or the government itself. It was too bad that none of Cindy¡¯s butler¡¯s contacts seemed to be panning out. She¡¯d asked him to send work asking if anyone of his level was looking for work, but no one had responded positively yet. Amanda also regretted that he¡¯d shown up and attached himself to Cindy instead of Kay, although she wasn¡¯t ever going to say that. He was exactly what they were looking for, but he¡¯d decided to swear life-long loyalty to Cindy. The man had just popped up out of the blue one day, following one of the more interesting Skills Amanda had heard of, ¡°Find Worthy Service¡±. Apparently it directed someone with a Class based around serving others to the perfect person to swear oneself to. While it wasn¡¯t perfect that the Skill¡¯s target hadn¡¯t been Kay, it wasn¡¯t a bad thing that Cindy had a trustworthy butler, since she was definitely going to be a noble at some point in the future. No matter how much she whined about it, there was no way Avalon¡¯s second Class Line Progenitor was going to be ¡°just a normal person¡±. Amanda didn¡¯t need a Skill like Find Worthy Service like that herself, since she¡¯d already found the leader she would follow till the end, but it would be an interesting thing to experience in her opinion. Just knowing that a place for you to use your Skills in a worthwhile way and having an internal sense leading you there. Maybe someone with a Skill like that would show up targeting Kay. It was worth hoping for. As competent as she was, Amanda would always be happy to have her workload reduced. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j At last, all the terms of surrender had been decided on, debated, changed where necessary, and signed. Most of the army sitting on Avalon¡¯s doorstep would be leaving over the next few days. Anyone who hadn¡¯t continued following Crusader General Stonegnawer, Kay had learned that the culture the dwarven man was from did family name¡¯s first like what he remembered about Japan, was given separate terms of their own. Most of them had argued with the terms, trying to blame the Itarian Crusade and the Shatterplate Order for ¡°misleading¡± them on the campaign against Kay. They claimed that they never would have come to Avalon at all if not for that and all punishments should go to those two organizations. Kay had told them he didn¡¯t really care for the reasons why they¡¯d attacked him and his people, only that they had. The options were to accept the generous terms Kay was giving them or they could go back to fighting. Only a few of them actually needed to be shown that Kay wasn¡¯t bluffing. No one had died, but the holdouts quickly learned that Kay was perfectly willing to crush them if they didn¡¯t sign. The pair of idiots who demanded rewards for helping fight against the eldritch anomaly that had appeared needed a bit more convincing than the leaders trying to cover their own asses, but one minor noble with no real power or influence and the leader of one small mercenary group weren¡¯t much trouble to handle. Neither of them died, but from the murmuring Kay overheard as he left, the mercenary company might not exists for much longer after the confrontation he¡¯d had. The Nelamian army that had attacked, led by King Glowl, had run from the battle while everyone else fought the eldritch creature, and there had been no point in hunting them down after the creature was driven off. Because of that there were no official surrenders terms from them, and Avalon was technically still at war with Nelam. Or maybe not, since there¡¯d been no official declaration of war, but to Kay that mean nothing. A surprise attack meant war as much as a fancy piece of paper saying it. Kay knew that they¡¯d have to deal with Nelam again in the future, but that would be the future. In the moment, there were more important things to handle. ¡°Everyone ready?¡± Kay asked, glancing from person to person in the meeting room. All of his Ministers, plus Eleniah, Meten, and Cindy sat around him. Once he¡¯d confirmed that they were all prepared, he acknowledge the small flashing light in the corner of his eye. ?¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T? Quest Complete! You have successfully defeated the attacking army, beating them to a standstill in only a single battle and forcing them to surrender. The unexpected arrival of an eldritch incursion changed what might have happened, but you were well on the way to victory before hand and your immediate action to solve the new problem shows your leadership skills and ability to adapt to new situations! Rewards: Noble Title Updated to King, Avalon upgraded to Nation status, Noble Title bonuses for populace increased, Noble Title bonuses for populace strengthened ?¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T? ¡°Huh.¡± ¡°What happened?¡± Cindy asked. ¡°Nothing, well, I mean the quest finished and I got the rewards, but the notification is, I don¡¯t know it¡¯s different some how. Like it¡¯s changed it¡¯s tone from super formal to a little more informal.¡± ¡°Analyzing the System and how it does things can come later!¡± Ahthia snapped, ¡°We have things to do right now!¡± Kay startled at the excitement and urgency in Ahthia¡¯s suddenly loud voice. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Your coronation! We have to plan your coronation!¡± Kay groaned. ¡°We don¡¯t have to put that much thought into it, it¡¯s just a ceremony. We¡¯ll need-¡° ¡°Completely wrong.¡± Amanda cut him off, ¡°This needs to be planned to the last detail. It¡¯s the first big even we¡¯ll have as a nation It needs to go perfectly on more than one level.¡± Kay looked at the serious expressions on everyone¡¯s faces, except for Cindy who looked like she was trying not to laugh at his misfortunes. Kay silently vowed revenge. ¡°Can I make some of the decisions, at least?¡± ¡°Your requests will be considered.¡± Amanda replied. Cindy snorted a laugh and looked away. Kay glared at her and her trembling shoulders. ¡°Can I have a simple crown? We don¡¯t need-¡° ¡°Absolutely not. You may have a simple presence crown for day to day use, but the official crown and crown jewels of Avalon must meet the expectations of the people and those watching us from the outside.¡± The trembling of Cindy''s shoulders turned into full on shaking as she stood up and power walked out of the room. Everyone inside was at a high enough tier to hear her laughs through the door. I¡¯ll get you for this, Kay thought at her, I¡¯ll get to control the ceremony where I¡¯ll give you your own noble title! He looked at Amanda as she started marshaling the Ministers into a unified force to make sure his coronation went the way she wanted. Or maybe not. I¡¯m definitely going to get you back though. Book 5 Chapter 4
It wasn¡¯t much longer until what was left of the invading army marched away from Avalon. The now-independent factions moved away in drips and drabs, some of them banding together for protection as they left, but most watched everyone else warily and moved separately, timing it so that no one left in close succession to each other. The force that had agreed to continue following the Crusader General left last, still a modestly unified force. Stonegnawer led them all home, he himself carrying the terms that Kay had given to the rest of the Itarian Crusade¡¯s leadership. They¡¯d trimmed Kay¡¯s original demands in some places and twisted them to look better in certain lights in others, but overall, it remained close enough to the original. Stonegnawer still wasn¡¯t convinced that the demands would be followed, but other options were at least the bare minimum of what Kay would accept. While the army left, not everyone from the army went with them. Stonegnawer had dragged off his orcish subordinate Vexler, muttering about reeducation at least one time when he¡¯d had to literally drag him away, and his other direct subordinate, High Crusader Hearthbreaker, remained behind. Officially, she and the other soldiers of the Crusade were hostages to ensure that the Crusade kept to at least one of the demands Kay had for them. While Kay understood the practicality of the practice, he didn¡¯t plan on doing anything to them. He would certainly restrict their movements and deny the manpower to the Crusade if they balked, but he wasn¡¯t going to hurt them. Stonegnawer seemed to understand that without anything being said and seemed at peace with it all. Commander Ravenhome, or just Edric as Kay had gotten to know the man a little better, had also left, taking Alice with him. While other members of the Order had been left behind as well, Edric had insisted his daughter come home with him to see her mother and siblings. While the feeling of the instinctive tether between him and Alice thinning as she got further and further away wasn¡¯t a pleasant one, it didn¡¯t hurt either, and overall, Kay was not only fine with her going but actively encouraged it. Her getting to go home and see her family served multiple purposes for Kay. As a young man who¡¯d lost his family and then his close friends, who were his brothers in all but blood, he knew how much it would mean to both Alice and her family to see each other again, and he couldn¡¯t bring himself to encourage any other course of action. The practical King he was becoming with a people to protect and the interests of a nation to push forward also got something out of it. The smaller and less influential impact of Alice going home was that she was a strong supporter of Kay¡¯s terms to the Shatterplate Order and would campaign for the Order to move to Avalon without him having to do anything. Her being the daughter of the Order¡¯s Commander and founder and a popular member of the Order herself made her opinion impactful enough to hopefully sway other members. The other, significantly more influential impact would be Alice¡¯s existence as a vampire becoming more well-known. While the various species of people on Torotia had many things that set them apart from humans, whether that meant local Torotian humans or humans from Earth, there were many things Kay found were the same across species, things he chalked up to the shared trait of sapience. One of the larger shared traits was the instinctive fear of the unknown. What could be explained or identified became immediately less terrifying than an unknown threat. Having Alice go home would slowly increase the amount of experience the world had with Vampires outside of Avalon. They were a completely new species, one derived from vampyr, at least to the perception of anyone from Torotia; trying to explain that technically vampires had come first and the first vampire to arrive in Torotia had become corrupted into the first vampyr would be too much to get through. By letting people actively see that vampires were just people with different traits, just like so many other people of this world, it make vampires into a known quantity and lessen how much people were automatically scared of them. Zeia had remained behind as part of the Order¡¯s contingent of ¡°hostages,¡± as well as a man named Leon, who was one of Edric¡¯s direct subordinates. Alice had given instructions to Zeia and the other members of her hunting team to ¡°start setting the groundwork for the Order to move here,¡± while Edric had just told Leon to watch over the other members and see what he could learn about Avalon. During the farewell Kay had witnessed between those leaving and those left behind, Kay had witnessed Leon apologizing to Alice for something at least seven to ten times, while Zeia had sent every moment Leon was in her field of view sending him the most vicious glares. Kay was both interested in seeing what would happen while they lived in his city and mildly worried. Those weren¡¯t the only people who had remained behind. Murunel¡¯s cousin and his wife had stayed as well, although Kay hadn¡¯t seen any of the three of them since he¡¯d woken up. Apparently, they¡¯d flown off into the untamed areas of Avalon¡¯s territory after getting permission from Amanda while Kay was still in a coma and hadn¡¯t returned. Murunel had made sure her relatives promised to behave, and they¡¯d returned one time to check in before Kay had gotten back to consciousness. They seemed to be fine, although he was curious to know what was going on with them. The last group to remain behind were prisoners, specifically, the Legion from the Shattered Clans. Their leader had categorically refused any and all terms of surrender and had repeatedly demanded that Kay kill them all to the last. Not that the battle continued even though Avalon¡¯s military would surely crush them if they fought unsupported, but that Kay personally executed all of them one by one, starting with the lowest-ranking soldier and ending with the general who was making those demands. It was one of the strangest and most frustrating conversations he had ever had, and by the end of it, Kay was sure that he was going to have to have them all killed, even if he wasn¡¯t going to do it all himself or in the manner the general had demanded. However, Ahthia asked him to hold off on killing them. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The labyrinthine explanation of the Shattered Clans political system, who the Elders were, what the Elders did, who was in charge of what, which clan among the Clans was important, and why Kay should care about any of it flew over his head only a few minutes in. What he did eventually understand after Ahthia simplified her explanation was that there was a good chance they could get what they wanted out of the Clans, including an agreement to leave Avalon alone and stop bitching at them about people migrating out of the Clans, if they kept the soldiers alive and did what Kay wasn¡¯t interested in doing, keeping them prisoner and demanding a ransom. In this specific case, since the ransom would be everything Kay wanted out of the Clans anyway, plus the costs of keeping their soldiers alive and in decent conditions while a messenger was sent and a reply was brought back, he decided to go for it. In addition, the thing with the general demanding he execute all of them screamed ¡°make us into martyrs so more of our people come to kill you!¡± to Kay, and that seemed like a terrible decision to go with. That was the last immediate thing Kay had to deal with from what had now been officially codified in Avalon¡¯s history as the Shatterplate War. He¡¯d personally apologized to Edric for the naming, but the other man had waved it off, claiming that they really had instigated everything into happening, and there hadn¡¯t been any massacres or atrocities committed, so having their name attached to a short war wouldn¡¯t hurt their reputation that badly. That left Kay plenty of time to deal with the other big project he¡¯d been saddled with. His own coronation. The preparations on his part ended up being a lot of doing what he was told. The attitude he ended up with after having his fifth request mercilessly shot down was similar to what he remembered from a former coworker getting ready for his marriage. This event wasn¡¯t about him; it was about other people, and he only had to go through it once. Kay thought that was a horrible mindset to go into for your own wedding, but the coronation really wasn¡¯t about him personally. It was about him as a symbol, and the practical king side of Kay was willing to be a symbol in order to get something out of it. A guardian and protector to his people, a threat to outsiders to not mess with his people, a strong force to stand against the machinations of other nations, and more, Kay would sit pretty on an uncomfortable throne and make a grandiose speech in order to give the right image and have others make the right connections. Amanda had brought it up more than once that leadership was as much about perception as it was about actually leading. Someone with great ideas but a poor method of communicating them would probably be ignored. If Kay looked like he was weak, other leaders would think he was and act accordingly. So he silently bemoaned the ostentatious crown, the expansion of his throne room, and the detailed plans for a multi-day celebration in his honor while actively participating in making sure it all went off without a hitch. All the while, he was helping with the preparations, including sitting or standing for fittings, using blood as both a decorative and structural building material, sending out invitations to various leaders or organizations to attend the event, and giving orders on behalf of Amanda, which was a fun reversal of the normal way of things, Kay was also secretly plotting. Deep behind his calm, obedient facade was a devious mind awhirl with possibilities for insidious schemes. Not a one of those who had wronged him would be safe from his dark vengeance! Isla did most of the work, of course, especially since it was all secret. Kay couldn¡¯t get away from any of the coronation planning to do any of it himself, so Isla sent her various agents. It was apparently a good set of exercises for some of the newer agents that still needed some training and added a bit of extra spice to the ever-shifting world of espionage. Kay was sure Isla used the opportunity to help advance some other plan she had simultaneously, but all he cared about at the moment was acquiring the tools of his vengeance. In the tight confines of a secure room deep inside his secret lair, also known as a private office in the palace during a break, he finally beheld the first piece in his plan of malicious reckoning! ¡°This looks fantastic!¡± Kay cheered as he picked it up and looked it over. ¡°I¡¯m really impressed.¡± ¡°You should be; recruiting the people we needed to make this was a pain in my ass, not to mention getting them to team up with our people to make this under everyone¡¯s nose,¡± Isla complained. She flitted through the air to be closer and hovered just above the item he held in his hand, ¡°I¡¯m not sure how this gets back at Cindy for all the teasing she¡¯s been sending your way over the coronation, though; this is a fantastic gift.¡± ¡°Exactly! It¡¯s a fantastic gift she¡¯s going to both love and hate! She won¡¯t be able to not use it since it¡¯s so good, but she¡¯s going to despise every minute of loving it!¡± ¡°I still don¡¯t get it.¡± ¡°Look, it¡¯s a-¡° ¡°Nope.¡± She held a hand up to cut him off, ¡°I don¡¯t want to try and have children¡¯s stories from Earth explained to me again. I¡¯m just going to believe you and take the win.¡± Kay stared into the shiny surface and smiled, imagining the look on Cindy¡¯s face when he presented it to her. ¡°It¡¯s good that this is taking your mind off of how stressful this whole thing is. I know you¡¯re not looking forward to all the speeches and grandstanding for and from the guests.¡± He dropped the gift into it¡¯s case and shot Isla an exasperated glare. ¡°You just ruined it.¡± ¡°Did I?¡± She asked with a cheeky grin, ¡°How sad.¡± ¡°Why do all of my best people give me such snark?¡± He demanded to the air. She flew up to his face and patted his cheek like an older woman complimenting her grandson, ¡°Because you enjoy it.¡± Laughing heartily, she flew out of the office and vanished. Book 4 Release and Stubbing Hello everyone! Book 4 of the series Outworlder''s Blood: The Shatterplate War, is now live! If you''re noticing that it''s not the day I said it was coming out in the last chapter, that''s because I messed up! Either I completely got it wrong and don''t know how to read or I just mixed it up and totally typed the wrong thing and then decided that must be right. My deepest apologies for this mistake. But yeah, it''s out today not next week. The stubbing of Book 4''s content here on Royal Road will take place after this post. Big Cover Art Here! If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. It''s now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Paperback! (Audiobook will be out in the future.) https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0CVZ2PLB4 If you''d like to read all of book 4 in its best edited and cleaned up format, please grab a copy. If you''re feeling even more generous, and you like the sereis, please leave a good review! Reviews are a huge part of how Amazon books get seen, recommended, and just generally bought more, which helps me out on so many levels. And that''s all I''ve got for now! I''ll see you all in 11 hours or so for today''s posting, two chapters of Book 5! Tah tah! Book 5 Chapter 5
Visitors arrived in drips and drabs of small groups as the day of Kay¡¯s coronation drew closer. Some were envoys there to be the official presence of the cities, smaller nations, or other organizations they represented. While arriving for the coronation of Avalon¡¯s first king and founder didn¡¯t automatically make them allies, it implied that they wanted friendly relations. Most of the independent city states and tiny nations scattered throughout the contested areas in the center of the continent sent representatives or at least a missive apologizing that they couldn¡¯t afford to send a presence for one reason or another and congratulating Kay. The larger nations beyond that to the west were a mixed bag. The only official response from any country of size were letters. Some of them claimed that the distance from Avalon and the speed that they were moving forward on Kay¡¯s coronation prevented them from having anyone arrive on time, which was understandable, since the journey from most of those nations would take several months at minimum. A few brought up the idea of sending delegations in the future, but those were in the minority. The rest of the letters were bland perfunctory missives obviously sent because it was the ¡°proper¡± thing to do, but none of the senders actually cared. From the contents of the letters many of the western nations believed that Avalon would either be another of the very small countries that never went anywhere further or the kind to reach too far and collapse under the weight. A notable handful of nations sent nothing at all. Even further west were the giant nations, the juggernauts that changed politics with their every move. The oldest and most powerful countries on the continent after the last round of calamities drove the civilizations of the past into ruin, the two main standouts of the group were the Concord and the Empire, two nations Avalon was already familiar with. There were a few other countries mixed in there and seen as close seconds to the power of those two countries, but the Concord and the Empire were the main contenders for most powerful nation on the continent. Both of them sent perfectly polite letters congratulating Kay on his coronation. Neither addressed the troops covertly sent to attack Avalon as part of the recent Shatterplate War, but Kay didn¡¯t really mind. The government scribes tasked with writing the letters most likely had no idea such a thing had even happened, and the comeuppance for whatever masterminds truly deserved punishment would be delivered eventually. Governments and nations weren¡¯t the only people who sent people to represent their interests, many influential organizations did as well. The Adventurer¡¯s Guild sent someone separately from their home nation, the Three Stars Alliance, although they did send a small delegation themselves. Many powerful merchant groups sent people, as well as well known academies, research groups, mage towers, and other groups with influence and a budding interest in new and growing nation. Kay had heard of exactly none of the groups who had sent people, other than the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, but they were influential enough to send invitations to in order to try and form a good relationship with whether it was to get access to rare trade goods, make connections to trade teachers and information, or to get a chance to recruit members to aid Avalon. Outside the organizations and nations sent invitations to officially attend the coronation was everyone else who wanted to attend for reasons of their own. Multiple mercenary groups showed up looking for someone to pay them to solve problems. Independent researchers, artists, small merchants looking for opportunity, and more all looking for patrons to support them started coming in droves. There were even warriors, knights, adventurers, bodyguards, and fighters of all kind arriving in Avalon to see if they could earn a place in Kay¡¯s service. Some of those were just looking for a job, while others had philosophies or Classes that demanded they find a worthy person to serve, and came looking to test Kay. Arrivals like that weren¡¯t new to Avalon, many had come during the original founding of Avalon once word had spread that this new place existed, and even more beyond that when Kay had become a Lord and Avalon grew into a town and then a city. This wave of new people were the less desperate or more pessimistic, the ones who waited until Kay was a King and Avalon was a nation before they took their chances and made their moves. They were also the heralds of a new flood of immigration. One of the duties Kay had had to work on in preparation for the coronation was the expansion of Avalon City¡¯s infrastructure, the expansion of the villages and towns already built, and the planning for several more in anticipation of the people who would arrive for the ceremony and just never leave, as well as the increased number of people coming after that. The larger and more established nations of the world had immigration policies and laws that were similar to what Kay could remember from Earth. Many required testing of some kind, looked to see if the people trying to move into their countries would be good citizens, and were more lenient toward people who would be valuable to the nation. Eventually Avalon would have to develop similar laws, but at the moment it was a lot looser. The land Avalon claimed was large and mostly undeveloped, left to grow and change hundreds and hundreds of years ago when the countries that had existed in that area had fallen. With large tracts of land and mountains of unused resources waiting to be exploited, Avalon needed the manpower. Potential citizens were no longer required to swear binding oaths backed by the System to join, but they were still required to learn Avalon¡¯s laws and promise to follow them, as well as passing basic tests to make sure they weren¡¯t a threat to others. Anyone that wasn¡¯t a criminal of a particular variety, including murderers, slavers, rapists, and arsonists were allowed in Avalon, although the criminals who hadn¡¯t gone to that level were still given very strong talkings to about the consequences of continuing a life of crime in Avalon¡¯s territory would be. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. As the day drew closer and the work everyone had to get done drew to a peak, some of the more interesting arrivals started to show up. The Shattered Clans sent an Elder, as Ahthia had demanded of them through Kay, who showed up, checked on the status of their imprisoned soldiers, then locked themselves in their provided rooms and refused to speak to anyone. The only communication they sent was a short missive to Kay saying they would attend the coronation and speak to Kay afterward. It was a bit rude, but it wasn¡¯t outside of Ahthia¡¯s expectations, so Kay let it slide. Around the same time as the Clan¡¯s envoy arrived, a delegation from Tumbling Rapids also made it to Avalon, and the most interesting thing about them was the information they brought. Nelam had been heavily pushing to have the trading city be brought into the fold as part of the kingdom, and the arrival of King Glowl had increased that tenfold. The city councilmembers already in Nelam¡¯s pockets started making even more moves to bring their peers to their side with bribes, blackmail, political pressure, and other underhanded moves. The neutral councilmembers had been quickly forced to join up with the anti-Nelam faction in order to form a bloc capable of keeping Tumbling Rapids independent, but they were slowly being pushed out. That all changed when the campaign to take out Kay arrived in the city and Glowl left with them to kill Kay. Mere days after they¡¯d left a series of scandals came to light that undermined the the authority and standing of the pro-Nelam councilmembers, in some cases severely enough to warrant arrest. The sudden shift in political power allowed the rest of the councilmembers to remove or at least weaken those who supported annexation by Nelam and destroy any chance of that happening. Another intriguing piece of information to note, immediately after the scandals had broken all at once Kurtis Nel, Nelam¡¯s representative in Tumbling Rapids and the confusing man who¡¯d spoken to Kay after he¡¯d been kidnapped and seemingly deliberately leaked all of Nelam¡¯s plans in the city at that time, vanished from Tumbling Rapids. Rumor was that the Nelamian embassy and the token forces left behind when Glowl left had no idea where he was. All in all the councilmembers who came to Avalon as part of the delegation were very interested in being allies with Avalon in order to keep Nelamian influence out of Tumbling Rapids, and were looking forward to opening negotiations. Of course, that would have to wait until after the coronation like everything and everyone else, though they would be higher on the list than several others. The last notable arrival was from Eleniah¡¯s homeland, the Seramist Isles. A ship arrived at Avalon¡¯s single port with a delegation sent by Eleniah¡¯s cousin, the Queen of the Seramist Isles. Word came of their arrival via messenger through the distance shrinking passage of the Many Trial Halls, the color challenged dungeon south of Avalon City, which sent Eleniah into a foul mood and had Isla starting a quiet spy hunt. They¡¯d sent an invitation to the coronation to the Isles by boat, purposefully timed so that the invitation would arrive too late for anyone from the Isles to attend, and yet here a delegation was. It had been Eleniah¡¯s plan, in order to keep the amount of meddling her cousin could get up to to a minimum, but they¡¯d been thwarted. The delegation was set to arrive only a few days before the coronation and Kay wasn¡¯t looking forward to it. From Eleniah¡¯s tales of her cousin¡¯s manipulations and plots as well as his own minimal experience with it, he wasn¡¯t looking forward to why the Queen had allowed one of her spies to be even partially revealed in order to send a delegation to arrive on time. As the day got closer and closer and more and more people arrived in Avalon City, the streets started to fill with early celebrations and impromptu parties as visitors mingled with residents and stores, stalls, and merchants made a high profit from the increase of people. Underneath all the celebrations and build up to the actual ceremony of the coronation however, there was a current of unease running through some of the newly arrived. Tales of strange creatures appearing out of no where and ravaging villages and towns spread from some of the visitors. Others had gossips about strange cults pushing out from their hiding places with new powers or performing unknown rituals with powerful effects. There were other stories too, of people suddenly vanishing in front of crowds, people twisting and changing into monsters, and foul diseases that seemed to ignore the normal rules of sickness and health. The cheery mood muffled the disquieted rumors and stories, but they were still heard by many, including information gatherers and spies working for multiple factions. Many of them, knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly, worked for Isla and the worrying information coming from the rest of the world reached her ears. Unfounded tales with no proof weren¡¯t enough to take to Avalon¡¯s new King, but they were enough to send out agents hunting for more. As crowds looking to make connections, sell their goods, find like minded folk, grasp opportunities, or just attend a good party flooded into Avalon City, others trickled out, looking for information or proof to bring back to Avalon¡¯s spymaster. Weaved throughout the reports that Isla received was a thread of very interesting information that she found faintly alarming. Sprinkled into every rumor that got passed along about strange happenings and every story about grotesque never before seen monsters attacking cities and caravans out of thin air was a very specific belief. Every report spoke of Avalon being safe. Even the smallest and most benign phenomena reported ceased as soon as you got close to Avalon. That was a good thing, since it meant that they didn¡¯t have to worry about whatever it was happening in their lands, but weird things happening every but Avalon was worrying in it¡¯s own way. Without real information to go on though, Isla set those reports aside to wait for verification and focused on the more immediate problems, such as spies trying to infiltrate Avalon using the chaos of the coronation celebrations or foolish assassins from the Coalition of Fang¡¯s End. The one¡¯s in it for the money were easier to dissuade or run off, but the moronic fanatics who truly believed they were performing some heroic act needed to be dealt with much more force. She scowled in annoyance as she sent one of the Blood Guard she¡¯d trained the location of an idiot who wanted to try and kill Kay during a fitting. The weakling would never make it close enough to try, but the attempt would disrupt Kay¡¯s schedule and that could not be allowed this close to the coronation. If anything went wrong Amanda would lose it, and that was a terrifying prospect. Book 5 Chapter 6
The throne room in the palace wasn¡¯t large enough for everything that was planned for the coronation. Sure, the typical thoughts of a monarch being crowned invoked images of a king kneeling before their throne at the end of a long and luxurious carpet, usually purple with gold embroidery, the crown being placed on their head after they swore their oaths as the king or queen of their nation and their people. At least it did for Kay, but that wasn¡¯t really going to fly for this. While there were multiple reasons for that the main one was that Kay wasn¡¯t going to make this a ceremony limited to only the influential who would jockey their way through a short invitation list limited by the size of the venue. Kay wanted his people to be involved, all of them. Without television to broadcast the event to the citizens of Avalon, the only way to let them be involved was to have the coronation be in the largest outdoor space possible. Visiting dignitaries, potential assassinations, and just pure logistics meant that the event had to happen inside the city walls. As the final days before the coronation approached, the final preparations began and the city¡¯s traffic began to change. The very first public square in Avalon City would be the most impactful place to have the coronation occur, symbolically at least, but it wasn¡¯t big enough. Instead the largest public square was cordoned off and business alongside it and the main roads that ran through it were paid to be closed for the next several days. The streets were cleaned, any chips or ruts were repaired, and temporary structures were built. Spectator seating was the first thing to be erected, with a focus on the fancier areas for dignitaries first. The less expensive, less gaudy, seating for everyone else was no less safe, but it took less time and thus got started on later. Tables and chairs were also gathered, donated, or bought from all over the city and stored inside the empty businesses, ready to be pulled out after the formal ceremony ended and the party began. There needed to be enough to seat thousands of people, and most if not all of the chefs and cooks from the restaurants around the square were getting paid twice, once to have their businesses be closed for the event and again to cook for the party after it. The very center of the square, where all of the action would take place, was left empty. Kay needed to show off his might as a Class Line Progenitor as much as anything, and a massive display was planned in advance. The Blood Guard and a few of the other citizens of Avalon who had started to learn Blood Manipulation and try it out in other facets of life were going to be involved, but Kay would be doing the heavy lifting. On the day of the coronation crowds began to gather before the fainest glitter of dawn was even visible over the horizon. Guards, including members of the Blood Guard, the Wardens, and the Sentinels were already deployed and began directing foot traffic. The early birds and go getters got the best seats available and the rows and rows of stands began to fill as the sun crested over the mountain to the east. Thankfully the sun was coming from the other direction than the mesa that loomed above the city, so there was plenty of natural light available. Keeping with the plan for the event to be a celebration as much as it was a political move, prearranged entertainment started, with dancers, acrobats, and more drawing the attention of the spectators. Displays of strength and magical power were shown off to the delight of the crowd, including a few displays of Blood Manipulation. Salespeople and food vendors began to hawk their wares, and while most were allowed to go about their slightly dubious business, a vast majority of those selling products among the stands had failed to follow the proper procedures and get licenses to do so, others were firmly apprehended and led away. Technically breaking a few rules and selling food without a permit was one thing, publicly selling illicit substances or stolen goods was another beast entirely. As the morning passed the last available public seats, obviously the ones farthest from the center, were quickly filled and the remained of the square and the streets became thronged with more and more people. Even more guards of all kinds were out in force as the criminals started to work their trade in the significantly more crowded areas. Pickpockets stole wallets and valuables from unwatched pockets, the smarter fences and dealers sold their wares to those unlucky enough to miss the better seating, and conmen and grifters began making new friends and peddling wondrous opportunities. When possible those taking advantage of the overworked upholders of the law were caught, but the main focus was on making sure people didn¡¯t get crushed in the crowd, thats fights didn¡¯t start and deaths didn¡¯t happen. The foreign dignitaries and official representatives of dozens of powerful organizations began to arrive generally all at once, with a few stragglers here and there, as they¡¯d been asked to. They were escorted through the crowds using the smaller roads that had worse visibility of everything going and were thus less full. They all took their seats without much issues and while a few among them began jockeying for position or trying to make deals most merely sat and waited tor the show to begin. Exactly at noon, with the sun high in the sky and the crowds buzzing with anticipation, the sheer force of so many people talking shaking the seats, armored Blood Guard began marching out of opposing buildings across the square simultaneously. Their movements weren¡¯t perfectly in sync, the Blood Guard existed as a functional force not a ceremonial one, they were close enough especially for the many spectators too far away to make them out perfectly. They marched toward each other in the large gap between the spectator stands and turned to head up along the seats for the more influential guests and visitors, forming a red wall of faceless armored figures along the bottom of the stands. They turned to face each other again and brought down the butts of their weapons, all halberds in honor of their king, and slammed them down against the ground. There wasn¡¯t complete silence, there were far too many people present for that to ever happen, but the almost overwhelming wave of sound dropped to an indecipherable murmur of thousands speaking to each other in low tones. Dancers began to stream into the square, swirling about gracefully in red accented costumes as they moved toward the center. When they came level to the line of Blood Guard they began releasing bundles of red flower petals from small pouches and baskets they carried making it look like there¡¯d been a rain of flowers that broke apart of a sudden windstorm that had ripped through a field and deposited its stolen bounty there. The petals drifted to the ground as the dancers continued on, leaving even more behind as they kept going until they were out of sight, dipping into other buildings that had been left empty for them. Piles of petals sat there for a moment before suddenly transitioning into liquid. All of them dripping and ran, spreading out to create a massive sheet that covered the ground, a glistening red carpet that stretched from the line of Blood Guard to its end. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The petals left beyond that gathered together and rose in the air, turning into droplets that ran together then solidified to become a solid platform. Government officials, notable bureaucrats, and members of Avalon¡¯s Parliament strode out to take the places on the platform. As the last few of them took the small set of stairs up, another set began to grow from the platform and a second layer formed at the top. Thing drips of blood became solid columns that supported it and higher ranking officials and members of Parliament who had made slightly better deals with their fellows or just got lucky on the original random draw for spots took their places, and a third staircase began to grow. The third and final level was filled with Kay¡¯s Ministers, Meten the head of the Sentinels, Curcius Mapsight the leader of Avalon¡¯s military, and Eleniah, Kay¡¯s first teacher and oldest friend on Torotia. Cindy strode alongside them and took her own place at the edge of the tallest platform, generating new whispers and questions among the dignitaries and representatives that didn¡¯t know about her, or only knew she was another Outworlder. Her presence in a position of importance was a surprise and curiosity to those trying to suss out the flow among Avalon¡¯s halls of power. At that point the conversations dropped into an even quieter lull as everyone awaited the star of the show. Several moments passed as the anticipatory hush spread throughout the crowd and was quickly broken as people began to notice the pool of blood spread across the ground, mimicking a carpet, began to ripple. Small waves began to radiate out from the end farthest from the platforms and an armored head rose from within. Like Venus in her shell, Kay¡¯s armored figure rose from the pool, red frothy waves pulsing around him as he ascended. His armor was the same as ever, making him into a faceless figure, visibly more of a red statue than a man. He began to walk forward as he became level with the ground and upon reaching the front of the stairs he stepped up, completely missing them. Without stopping he rose into the air, taking step after step above the staircase, rising up to the level of the third and highest platform with no visible support under his feet. Upon reaching the highest level his armor began to flow around him. It cascaded down from around his head first, his helmet dripping into his breastplate, then that too became liquid and flowed around his body. Some of it rising up and some of it dropping down as it formed a red cape that trailed behind him as he approached the end of the platform. He stopped at the very end of it and turned, revealing to the spectators the subdued and dark colored outfit he was wearing. He turned his head from one side to the other, surveying the crowd and everyone quieted down until it was as close to true silence as it could be with this many people in one place. ¡°Greetings to all, both citizens of Avalon and our guests.¡± He began, his voice amplified through magic so everyone could hear. ¡°Today is a momentous day for all of us, a grand step in the endless march of progress. But the march we¡¯re on didn¡¯t start anywhere great. Before I came to Torotia I was an average man. I worked an average job, I made an average income, I lived in an average home. The only thing about my life were the people in it who I cared about, because each and every one of them are special to me. My life was eminently normal. That changed when I was suddenly brought here, to a world that, to me, is fantastic and wonderful. The Earth I come from had no System, no levels, no Skills, no Classes, and no magic. Every moment was as fascinating as it was terrifying, What started me on this path that all of you have joined me on was not my drive to succeed or my desire for power, it was pure random chance. The Class I happened to be assigned as an Outworlder was Blood Mage.¡± He kept speaking over a wave of raised voices. ¡°My first and only Class was to be burned out of me immediately, but the Bureau of Outworlder Affairs official who was with me gave me another option, to swear to the System that I would never use my Skills on another person to control them or take their free will from them. The System heard my oath and considered my words, and from that the Class I will have until the day I die became mine. That was how I became a Blood Manipulator, and that was how I became a Class Line Progenitor. This is the example I want to show to you, to exemplify to all of you, as the man who will be your king. When an opportunity comes to you, seize it, even if it is not exactly what you planned for or expected. I did not plan to be moved into another reality, I did not plan to become a Class Line Progenitor, and I didn¡¯t even plan to found a city, which today becomes the capital of our new nation. I came into the wilderness with my mentor to train, to learn, and to test myself against what monsters we could find. But upon meeting new people with wants and needs of their own, who saw my title and looked to me for guidance, I decided to step up. I am not perfect. I have made mistakes and I will again, but I will always learn and grow in their wake. I will not be a standard ruler. I will bring ideas and thoughts from my first world and mix them with the thoughts and ideas of my second world, and together we will bring about something new, something greater than the sum of it¡¯s parts. That is who I am, that is who I will be, and that is the man that will be your king.¡± Kay reached to the side where Eleniah handed him the shining crown of Avalon. Newly made, its base was a solid band of gold with two thinner bands in the center made of shining platinum. The top of the crown had a circle of peaks inlaid with tiny rubies and in the center, between the strips of platinum, were even larger red gems. Although they looked like more rubies they were in fact gems of blood made to enhance Kay¡¯s Skills, created by his own hand. They were secretly removable so that they could be exchanged with others, whether that was for Kay to supplement new Skills he gained later on or a successor some day in the hopefully far off future. Kay took a moment to look it over as he held it between his hands before looking back to the crowd. ¡°On this day I swear before all of you, that I shall, to the absolute best of my ability, rule with wisdom, with mercy, with strength, and with courage. I swear, not only to all of you that are my people now but to all of those who will also be my people in the future, that I will not only be your guardian against the monsters that roam this world, the dark powers that seek ruin and terror for any they come across, and other people who would scheme against you and cause pain and suffering. I will not only be your leader through times of plenty and times of loss. I will strive every day to be an example to all who look this way, to show all of you what can be done if you reach out and grasp the opportunities to grow and become better that appear in front of you, whether through luck or through your own hard work.¡± Kay raised the crown above his head and gently brought it down so that it rested just over his ears. Behind him the cape made out of blood stretched out and detached from his shoulders, transforming into a tall throne that sat on a thin dais on the platform. He glanced around at the massive gathering of his citizens as they began to cheer. ¡°On this day I am crowned as King Kay the First of Avalon.¡± He declared, then sat into the constructed throne behind him. For decades later people would claim that the cheers that erupted could be heard in distant towns, hundreds of miles away. Book 6 Chapter 1 Waves crashed against the hull of the Royal Avalon, tossing its occupants about. The storm wasn¡¯t enough to capsize the ship or to send anyone but the most careless overboard, but it wasn¡¯t anything to sneeze at either as it battered the vessel about. Sailors dashed across and below the decks, lashing down everything to make sure objects didn¡¯t break loose, keeping the rigging furled and intact, and ensuring that the powder on the gun deck didn¡¯t get soaked. The storm had brewed up around them suddenly and it was on them before they could change tack and make their escape and the ship hadn¡¯t been properly prepared. Barrels of gunpowder were hustled to the magazine and anyone non essential to keeping them afloat was sent below to dry off. Kay, King of Avalon, Class Line Progenitor of Blood Manipulation, the first vampire on the world of Torotia, and Lord of Spilled Blood, wasn¡¯t involved in any of that. He¡¯d been below decks in his cabin spending time with Eleniah, his former teacher, current adviser and partner in most things violent, and now girlfriend. The tumultuous events they¡¯d dealt with at her birthplace, the Isle of Sel, capital of the Seramist Isles, had been threatening enough to prompt them to move their relationship from friends with some occasional flirting to something officially romantic. Kay wasn¡¯t sure if the word ¡°girlfriend¡± was technically correct since he didn¡¯t actually speak the language, but the magical translation provided to him by the System that either managed or secretly ruled over this world used the world girlfriend when it changed people¡¯s speech into English for him, so he wasn¡¯t sweating it. As the storm raged on and the Royal Avalon was brought to a relative standstill to avoid the worst damage an ocean storm could do to the ship, Kay and Eleniah bunkered down in Kay¡¯s cabin, staying out of the way of anyone rushing to get work done. The shaking and tossing of the boat, exacerbated by the taller waves, made the game of chess they¡¯d been working on ill-advised to continue and Kay quickly packed it away. When that was done he carefully maneuvered his way around the table between two seats and sat down on the couch next to Eleniah. ¡°What?¡± He asked, noticing her grin at him. ¡°Nothing, you just look funny when you¡¯re trying to balance against the waves. Like a drunk clown stumbling through his performance.¡± Kay scowled at her theatrically. ¡°Oh? Well if that¡¯s how I look to you I¡¯ll take my stumbling self back to the other couch.¡± Eleniah laughed as she yanked him down next to her. ¡°It¡¯s funny to watch anyone without experience stumble around while they get their sea legs. You¡¯re too high tier for it to effect you too much regularly, so a storm like this is the first chance I¡¯ve had to tease you on it.¡± ¡°And you¡¯ve been holding out for an opportunity?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± Kay chuckled and leaned against her. They spent some time just relaxing, chatting occasionally but overall not saying much. In one of the quiet moments, Kay spoke up. ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°For what?¡± ¡°For being brave and speaking up.¡± He shifted so he could look her in the eyes. ¡°I¡¯m happy with this, really happy. If you hadn¡¯t said something, if you hadn¡¯t taken the step to see if we could have a relationship like this, I don¡¯t know if I ever would have. I¡¯m trying all the time to live up to the expectations everyone has for me as a leader, including the expectations I have for myself. I¡¯ve always found you attractive, both physically and as a person, but I don¡¯t know if I would have been able to push past the what ifs and concerns about pressuring you with my position or making things weird between us. So thank you, because I¡¯m really happy that we¡¯re here.¡± Eleniah gazed back at him. ¡°I¡­ You¡­ Dammit!¡± She looked away, her cheeks coloring as she blushed. ¡°I¡¯m hundreds of years old and have been in relationships before, I shouldn¡¯t be blushing like a maiden!¡± Kay grinned at her, as she huffed and puffed at him. After a moment she turned back to him. ¡°I¡¯m happy too. I wasn¡¯t planning for things to go this way, but I¡¯m glad they did. I don¡¯t know if we can say that you¡¯d never make a move yourself though, you¡¯re pretty good at going after what you want.¡± ¡°Maybe. Outside of having fun with it I don¡¯t think discussing those kinds of hypotheticals is useful, there¡¯s no way to know what would have happened in an alternate time where things went differently. I might have, I might not have.¡± ¡°How about hypothetical questions about things that could happen in the future?¡± Eleniah asked, ¡°Because there¡¯s a topic we should address while we¡¯re alone and are already on a related topic.¡±Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡°Yeah? What¡¯s that? And that¡¯s why I said ¡®those kinds of hypotheticals¡¯,¡± Kay added, ¡°Because planning for the future and things that could happen is important.¡± ¡°The future of our relationship. We¡¯re taking things slow, but with our positions we need to look forward on this.¡± Kay stilled in response to Eleniah¡¯s serious tone. ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to have a fling, or have this be something temporary even if it¡¯s longer than a fling would be. I want a real relationship where we¡¯re planning to go the distance. Is that what you want?¡± ¡°Yes it is. It¡¯s to early to talk about marriage, or permanence in any specific form, but that¡¯s the goal.¡± ¡°Good.¡± She smiled and took his hand. ¡°Then we¡¯re on the same page there. We¡¯re dating, but not just to date, we¡¯re seeing if we mesh together with an eye on building this relationship toward marriage in the future.¡± ¡°Would it be better to say that we¡¯re courting instead of dating? It makes it sound more formal, in English at least, and it¡¯ll add a little gravitas to the situation that we might need to use, especially with nobles and such.¡± Kay made a moue of distaste. ¡°Not that I want other people thinking they can poke their noses into our relationship, but they will anyways.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good idea,¡± She replied, ¡°And is a nice segue into what I was going to say next. What¡¯re your plans for having multiple spouses in the future.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to.¡± Eleniah laughed. ¡°Can you be a little more detailed than that? We¡¯re planning out the future, both our plans and our responses to the plans of others. If someone powerful appears in front of you wanting to marry you off to some connection of theirs to make a bond with you, ¡®I don¡¯t want to¡¯ isn¡¯t a good enough answer. It makes you look immature, which isn¡¯t a look a kind can afford most of the time.¡± ¡°Alright, I can break it down.¡± He started listing reasons on his fingers, ¡°The idea of dynastic rule is tempting to me on an individual level, but that¡¯s now how Torotia works, at least not with the System being involved in titles and ruling, I¡¯d have to invest time and effort into making sure any kids I have end up as my heir or replacement, so why not focus on a smaller number of children instead of making a lot of them with multiple women and spending more money trying to make any of them pan out? I also don¡¯t think the affinity theory that¡¯s going around has much merit. The more I hear about it the more it sounds like someone¡¯s trying to create a classist culture using the idea of people being talented as a base, but they¡¯re attaching the idea of ¡®talent¡¯ to ¡®good breeding¡¯. The proponents seem to be focusing on polygamy as one of their merits, or foundations, or whatever and following that kind of behavior might make people think I¡¯m supporting that theory. Lastly,¡± He counted off on his third finger, ¡°And this one might not work in your scenario, is that I don¡¯t want to. I¡¯ve never been attracted to the idea of being with multiple partners, outside of teenage sexual desire, and I haven¡¯t changed my mind. It¡¯s hard enough to build a good relationship with one person, let alone multiple. Then there¡¯s the jealousy and arguments that could happen¡­ I could go on and on with all kinds of hypothetical problems that I just don¡¯t want to deal with.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s bad answer to use. Some people will argue that marriage isn¡¯t about love their about connections and alliances.¡± ¡°I disagree. There¡¯s no point in getting married to someone just to build an alliance, or to make sure there¡¯s some connection that can¡¯t be broken, because assuming that¡¯s the kind of connection you¡¯re going to make is ridiculous. We¡¯re going to live for hundreds of years, who says a spouse won¡¯t die, or leave, or kill you, or anything else? There are better ways to make alliances, and frankly, I don¡¯t care if anyone disagrees. I want a loving relationship with my one spouse, and that¡¯s what I¡¯m going to have!¡± Eleniah leaned in and kissed him lightly, breaking off his tirade. ¡°We¡¯ll need to polish it up a little to be more kingly,¡± She said after pulling back a hair, ¡°But those are reasonable and workable reasons to not want multiple spouses. It¡¯s not all jealousy and fighting, though. Alahna is quite happy with three husbands.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not Alahna-¡± ¡°Thank goodness.¡± Kay grinned at her. ¡°I¡¯m not Alahna, thank goodness, and what makes her happy isn¡¯t going to be what makes me happy. Without needing an heir of my body to reign after me, the strictures imposed on me for marriage by my role and responsibilities are much smaller than they would have been for a king back on Earth. I¡¯m planning to marry someone, hopefully, when the time comes, that ensures a good connection with another powerful nation, is strong in her own right, and will be a good queen someday. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anything anyone can do to argue against my choices here.¡± Eleniah gave him a pitying look. ¡°Of course they can. There¡¯s always someone that will argue, no matter how reasonable your stance is, because they aren¡¯t getting their way. I happen to agree with you, though, so anyone that tries to tell you you¡¯re wrong can go pound sand.¡± They scooted close together, interlacing their fingers as they held hands. ¡°At least no one we care about is going to balk when we tell them.¡± ¡°Of course they won¡¯t,¡± Eleniah snorted, ¡°Amanda¡¯s going to give us looks like she knew this would happen all along, someone¡¯s going to pull out a book of bets on who you¡¯d end up dating first with additional bets on if we get married, and Cindy¡¯s probably going to be all blase about it because she dreamed it was going to happen three years ago.¡± ¡°You think someone¡¯s running a book on my dating life? Who?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know who specifically, but once you get enough people together there will be people making bets, and someone¡¯s going to be running the book. It might not be for profit, but someone has to keep track of who bet what with who.¡± They debated who it was that was the bookie, but before long Kay¡¯s face trailed into a pensive one as he stared at the wall of the cabin. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°I¡¯m worried about home. Some of the stuff in those letters¡­¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much.¡± She squeezed his hand. ¡°You left very capable people behind to keep things running. Besides, this storm will blow over soon enough, and then we¡¯re only a few days out.¡± Book 6 Chapter 2 The scrambling, maddened vampyr scraped at Cindy¡¯s armor, desperately trying to pull itself closer to sink it¡¯s fangs into her neck. The one hand she had pressed against its forehead was the only thing keeping it from tearing out her throat. Her nails were sinking into it¡¯s skin with the force of how hard she was pushing to keep it off of her, drawing sickly ichor instead of blood from the tiny abrasions. Doing her best to keep calm Cindy drew one of her sidearms from the bandoleer on her chest and shoved the pistol¡¯s barrel into the gaping maw of the vampyr. In a scene directly out of a movie she blew the brains out of the monster and it slumped on top of her. Gagging, Cindy tossed the dead vampyr off of her and struggled to her feet. The battle around her was dying down as she looked. Here and there the Sentinels accompanying her cut down one of the stragglers, but most of the attacking vampyr were dead on the ground and Avalon¡¯s forces were cleaning up the mess. Panting slightly, Cindy pulled back the mechanism of her pistol, clearing the spent shell as she scanned the environment for more threats. There was only one vampyr she could see that was still moving, a legless torso dragging itself across the grass with it¡¯s mouth wide open and it fangs dripping with toxic saliva. It inched closer and closer to the nearest source of blood, a nearby adventurer that was beheading the vampyr he¡¯d just killed. With a dull thud sound it¡¯s head exploded. Cindy finished reloading her pistol almost absentmindedly as she shared a quick nod with one of her trainees. Not that they were trainees anymore, but the first wave of people she¡¯d trained up into getting gun related Classes were still arguing about what to call themselves. That group had approached her en mass after she¡¯d gained her title and had informed her that they were going to be her version of Kay¡¯s Blood Guard, her bodyguards and personal troops. With Colen¡¯s, her personal butler who¡¯d just shown up one day before the Shatterplate War and told her he wanted to serve her, help she¡¯d managed to talk them down a little. They were still going to be her personal troops, since practically everyone was telling her she had to have some, but they weren¡¯t suited to be bodyguards. They¡¯d agreed after some convincing, and the settled right in to arguing over what they should be called as a group. ¡°Arquebusier¡± was currently winning, against Cindy¡¯s strong objections. They didn¡¯t carry arquebuses dammit! Her soldier, since she didn¡¯t have a better term yet, looked around for threats, his hand against the butt of a pistol. With single shot weapons it was definitely faster to switch to a pistol over reloading, even if they could reload in a matter of seconds. Everything was clear, so he pulled his rifle around and started reloading, and Cindy did the same. After slinging her long gun over her shoulder she looked down at herself and sighed. She was covered in sweat, muck, blood, and the ichor that vampyr bled instead of blood. It felt incredibly gross to be standing there in her own skin, but she wasn¡¯t going to be able to clean off for a few hours at least. Her group didn¡¯t have any Water Mages or Manipulators and there was still work to be done. The vampyr bodies were piled up and burned, the wounded were healed or sent back home with a light escort, there hadn¡¯t been any infections thank goodness, and then they were off, continuing their patrols along the edge of Avalon¡¯s territory, searching for packs of vampyr. The most animalistic of the vampyr were chasing refugees from Nelam and the surrounding areas hundreds of miles in mindlessly dedicated hunts. The flood of refugees and escaped slaves that had gushed into Avalon, and into Tumbling Rapids to a lesser extent, had slowed to a dirty, exhausted trickle. But the vampyr were still coming. Cindy¡¯s grip on her gun tightened. They were coming, but they wouldn¡¯t be allowed a single step further into Avalon. The civil war that had sprung up had wrent Nelam into pieces, and the vampyr attack tore those already fragile shards into tiny shreds. It was like they came out of nowhere, spreading waves of bloodshed and madness that just appeared in the midst of the fighting. Small cities and nations on Nelam¡¯s borders that had invaded, looking for a bigger piece of the pie or vengeance for Nelam meddling in their lives were hit first, with vampyr popping up in the middle of their attacks on villages and towns. Days later a score of vampyr attacked a fortified outpost between two of the warring factions of nobles that had both proclaimed that they were the true inheritors of Nelam. Then one of the groups fighting to reclaim their conquered nation had gone silent. No battles, no messages, nothing. Then vampyr had erupted from their fortifications, hundreds of their soldiers and leaders turned into monsters and now terrorizing the countryside. The chaotic mess only continued to devolve from there. People had stepped up even as death and terror destroyed everything in sight. Adventurers, soldiers, and leaders had all set aside their enmities and wars to protect the innocent. Many died in heroic last stands letting people escape the oncoming vampyr. The smugglers and abolitionists that had helped slaves escape Nelam became guides to safety for hundreds instead of handfuls, using their knowledge of safe paths and monster territories to bring entire villages out of the vampyr infested east. People opened their homes to others, donated or gave away supplies and foodstuffs, and gathered stragglers and orphans into their own groups and families as they ran for safety. Tens of thousands of people managed to make their way to freedom and escape the imminent threat of death or turning. Hundreds of thousands had died, or were still trapped, holding out as best they could against the vampyr that besieged them. Amanda¡¯s secret position as the shadowy leader of many anti-slavery groups that worked in Nelam was out in the open now. There was no point in keeping it hidden any more. Originally Amanda had kept it a secret to protect herself and her people from Nelamian attacks. After becoming Prime Minister of Avalon and Kay¡¯s right hand woman they¡¯d continued to keep it a secret, at least publicly, to keep Avalon from being dragged into a war with Nelam. It became something of a moot point when they ended up at war with Nelam anyways, and now it mattered even less. Nelam was gone. Every report they could get their hands on said that King Glowl was dead and everything else that remained were tiny outposts and fortified towns surrounded by a sea of hungry vampyr.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The first refugees and escaped slaves had come following the normal smuggling paths Amanda had created that led into Avalon, already designed to free any slaves that made it there and send them on to other lives, whether in Avalon or even further from Nelam. When the war broke out many smugglers started increasing the size of their loads, bringing more and more people running from the fighting. Then the vampyr hit and it became a race for everyone¡¯s lives. Only half of the total people that Avalon¡¯s government had confirmed made it out of danger had come to Avalon itself, but that was still tens of thousands of people that needed food, homes, and to feel safe, most of them with nothing to their names but the clothes on their backs. Sometimes not even that much. It had been, and still was to a smaller extent, a complete mess. People made demands and tried to take over, whether it was the town or village they were staying in, parts of Avalon City, or in two cases a direct attempt to take over Avalon entirely. A few different bands of escaped slaves that had been in fights against multiple factions of Nelam¡¯s civil war fled the vampyr and made their way into Avalon. Two different leaders of some of those bands decided that they were in charge now, and tried to take over. One of them just started telling people what to do and refused to listen to multiple people telling him to stop. When some random citizen of Avalon had disobeyed an order he¡¯d given them, he started beating them and got arrested. His followers almost rioted and had to be arrested with him. The other leader who wanted Avalon as his own had been sneakier. He¡¯d made friends and connections, doing his best to seem calm and helpful. He managed to use several connections to get within range of Cindy and challenged her for her title as King of Avalon. It didn¡¯t work, both because challenges didn¡¯t work exactly like that, anyone with a title greater than ¡°Lord¡± or ¡°Lady¡± couldn¡¯t be challenged completely out of the blue like that, and also because Cindy wasn¡¯t King of Avalon. When it hadn¡¯t gone the way he¡¯d planned, the man attacked. Cindy shot him dead before he made it halfway to her. After that Amanda stepped in to take control of the devolving mess. Publicly revealing herself as the leader of many of the groups who¡¯d evacuated to Avalon, she¡¯d started giving orders and using them to restore public order. Many people had protested it, denying that their leader was some high placed official in a foreign nation. Direct meetings with Amanda had calmed down several of the recalcitrant and Amanda¡¯s push to keep people safe, fed, and healthy got everyone else moving the way she wanted. Avalon had already been expecting a population increase after Kay had been crowned king, and that allowed them to keep everyone¡¯s heads above water while construction crews scrambled to build more homes and farmers did their best to pump up the production of food. A huge amount of the treasury ended up getting sent to Tumbling Rapids to buy enough food and other supplies to bridge the gap, but they¡¯d made it. No one had died of starvation or exposure and things were starting to settle back down. Slums that had sprung up around Avalon city and other towns were being removed and replaced with real housing and the government was doing its best to make sure every new citizen had a job and an income to support themselves with. Many people were still considered refugees, refusing to swear fealty to Avalon and become citizens. Those that just wanted the nightmare to end so that they could go back to their homes were fine for the most part, it was the people who wanted things that were still causing trouble. None of that was really Cindy¡¯s problem to handle though. She¡¯d given speeches, fought would-be usurpers, helped suppress riots as peacefully as possible, in many cases just by being there, and had led countless patrols to find refugees and get them back safely or to kill vampyr but the social and political problems that Amanda was dealing with were still beyond her. She wasn¡¯t Kay¡¯s figurehead, but she was only his temporary placeholder, representing the might of Avalon¡¯s monarch to it¡¯s people and the rest of the world. She was getting a lot of experience from listening, watching, and learning from everything that was going on, but she still wasn¡¯t ready to make decisions of that level. Finishing their sweep for the day, Cindy led her patrol back to the camp that¡¯d been setup along the edge of the forest that Avalon claimed as their southernmost border. She couldn¡¯t guarantee it but Cindy was pretty sure the camp would grow into a fortress and potentially a city in time. It was well placed to defend Avalon¡¯s borders and she didn¡¯t think they¡¯d be giving it up anytime soon. She was just finished cleaning herself off in her quarters, erected by an enterprising Earth Mage, when Colen knocked on the door and stepped inside. ¡°My lady,¡± He greeted her, ¡°A messenger has arrived from the capital. Prime Minister Amanda is calling you back to Avalon City.¡± ¡°Is it important? We¡¯re heading back after tomorrow¡¯s patrol anyway, so if it can wait a day¡­¡± ¡°The Royal Avalon docked two days ago and a messenger made it to Avalon City yesterday. His Majesty King Kay has returned.¡± Cindy sagged in place, her eyes closing. ¡°Thank goodness.¡± She took a deep breath and pulled herself together. Straightening up she resumed the persona Colen as helping her build, one worthy of a Duchess of Avalon. ¡°If we leave tomorrow as planned will we beat Kay back?¡± butlers name smiled at her with no small amount of pride before slipping back into his own professional mien. ¡°It¡¯s possible, but unlikely, especially since his majesty will likely be moving quickly as well. We¡¯d probably get back the day after him.¡± ¡°A messenger made it here in a day.¡± Cindy pointed out. ¡°One person with Classes and Skills built around moving quickly to deliver a message did.¡± Colen replied. ¡°Good point. Actually, the messenger doing alright?¡± ¡°They¡¯re fine, milady. Tired, but eating and resting.¡± ¡°Good. Alright, grab the command staff and let¡¯s let them know what¡¯s happening. We¡¯ll prep everyone as best we can to be ready without me, since reinforcements to replace me aren¡¯t going to be here until tomorrow afternoon.¡± ¡°Of course, milady.¡± Book 6 Chapter 3 Kay tapped his fingers against the thin railing that ran underneath the windows of the carriage he and Eleniah were in. The expansion of roads between Avalon¡¯s cities had gone well and continued to progress, letting people move with vehicles and mounts and not being forced to walk between settlements. That meant they could get back to Avalon City from the port at a much quicker pace than it had once taken to walk there. Somewhere along the way the port town had gotten an official name, Breakport, referencing how the pirates that had once lived there had been broken and the port had been rebuilt into something better. Or so Kay had been told. Personally he found the name a bit jarring, but other people had complained about his naming sense so he kept his thoughts to himself. Eleniah glanced over at him from across the carriage and noticed his impatient fidgeting. ¡°You going to be alright?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be fine. I¡¯m just worried.¡± He shot her a quick smile that didn¡¯t reach his eyes. ¡°The letters were one thing, but getting even more up to date reports when we got back¡­ It¡¯s not looking good.¡± She reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it tight. ¡°Don¡¯t work yourself up. Things don¡¯t look great, but they¡¯re not looking terrible either. Amanda, Cindy, and Meten have managed to hold the fort down and prevent anything from getting worse. Not we just need to work together to make things better.¡± Kay took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± He squeezed her hand. ¡°I just¡­ it feels wrong to not be there when things are going wrong, you know? I could have been helping this entire time.¡± ¡°You could have, but what would have been the consequences? It might sound a little selfish of me, but if you hadn¡¯t left to go help the Isles my family would be gone and there would be a threat to the whole world out there gaining power.¡± He reached out and grabbed her other hand. ¡°That is not selfish of you. What it is is manipulative because you¡¯re making me look at this in the point of view you want.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± She smiled and cocked a brow at him. ¡°I left good subordinates here and delegated the jobs that needed doing to them. All the reports we¡¯ve gotten so far say they¡¯ve done a great job, and I was probably the only person that could have cut those nanomachines off at the pass the way we did. I did what I could do where I needed to and the people I trusted did good jobs, proving my trust in them.¡± He leaned back against the wall of the carriage, still holding her hands. ¡°I can work through the logic and see that I made the right decision, but that doesn¡¯t completely erase the emotions that say I could have been here to help.¡± ¡°As long as you¡¯re aware of all that I think you¡¯ll be alright. You know,¡± She said after a pause, ¡°I can¡¯t help but to think you feeling bad right now is kind of my fault.¡± ¡°How?¡± ¡°Because if I hadn¡¯t pushed you down this path you wouldn¡¯t be feeling responsible for people.¡± ¡°Pfft.¡± Kay waved her comment away. ¡°That¡¯s the same level of dumb thinking that I¡¯ve had about not being good enough instead of focusing on becoming good enough. You didn¡¯t push me down any paths, you gave me an option and I took it. My feelings are my own responsibility. Plus, we wouldn¡¯t be together if you hadn¡¯t thought this was a good idea, so bonus points to you for that.¡± ¡°What do you say that?¡± Eleniah asked. ¡°Because if we had kept adventuring around just the two of us with you constantly being my teacher it would have cemented us into those roles so firmly we would never be able to get past it.¡± She looked at him consideringly, ¡°Huh.¡± ¡°You see? I think that catalyst that let us push past that was me getting power of my own in a way that couldn¡¯t afford to have you as a perceived authority figure above me. That let us even out as equals, which is important to any healthy relationship.¡± She sat back, still looking at him. ¡°I never thought of it like that.¡± ¡°So don¡¯t try and feel like my feelings are your fault. Unless you deliberately try and make me feel some kind of way, then it is your fault.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve caught me! I¡¯m trying to make you feel lime you¡¯ve failed people by not being there when you needed them by highlighting how you haven¡¯t done that! The powers of my reverse psychology truly are immense!¡± Kay grinned and squeezed her hands again before letting go. ¡°I just wish we could rush ahead by ourselves, but the arguments for moving together with everyone are good ones.¡± ¡°What are those?¡± ¡°Your basic premise about why I shouldn¡¯t be too worried is one, everyone¡¯s doing a good job so we don¡¯t need to be rushing at a breakneck pace and potentially make mistakes. We don¡¯t have every part of this route completely pacified yet even with the road and regular patrols and pulling me out of the caravan means the Blood Guard leaves to, which will decrease the security for everyone else. The last big one was that getting everyone back in a timely manner will let the officials with us get back to work sooner, which means a little less work for Amanda and the rest of her people when these ones are ready to take up their previous jobs.¡± He scratched at his head. ¡°I get all that, but I still want to be gone.¡±If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Eleniah pulled back the curtain over the window and peeked through. ¡°Things are moving at a good pace, we should be leaving when we expected to or a little earlier.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a small relief.¡± The door swung open and someone swung themselves into the carriage, sitting next to Eleniah. Kay glanced over, expecting it to be Lauren and froze in shock when he saw who it actually was. Lauren was there, sitting next to him after the first person had cleared the doorway. After staring at the new occupant and her little smile for an extended period, Kay finally managed to kick start his brain and say something. ¡°¡­ What?¡± The young looking human woman who was at minimum a hundred or so years older than him smiled at his confusion. ¡°To be honest, I was hoping for a little more of a reaction than that.¡± Teasing Kay was one of the best ways to get his brain working, even if it was just for a comeback and he managed to put together an actual sentence. ¡°Miri, what the hell are you doing here!?¡± ¡°Why, I¡¯m here to place myself into your service you majesty.¡± Miri, the maid and member of Clan Selthoran that he¡¯d met back in the Seramist Isles replied evenly. ¡°I thought you would have figured that out by now.¡± ¡°You¡¯re here to¡­ How was I supposed to figure anything out when you and everyone else that knew something were working together to keep me guessing. What do you mean ¡®place yourself in my service¡¯?¡± ¡°Exactly what it sounds like. You need a personal servant of some kind, someone to handle the smaller details of your life so you can focus on the big ones. My life back home was getting stagnant and becoming your aide or whatever title you wish to apply to me seemed like the perfect job for me. I have all the necessary qualifications, I¡¯m loyal to a fault, and I¡¯m embarking on this new life path seems like an excellent way to resume my progression with my Classes and Skills.¡± Kay gaped at her, caught completely off guard. ¡°Do you remember the conversation we had during that dance, your majesty? The one about my goals?¡± He thought back to what she was talking about and nodded to her once he remembered. ¡°I want to be known. Not for any silly things like scandals or heroic deeds, but for being absolutely fantastic at what I set myself to. What better spot is there for me than beside you? Not only will I get to do exactly what I want to and show everyone around how good I am at my job, I¡¯ll be able to do that in service to someone I respect and think of as a good leader. It¡¯s a very big win for me, and I think you get a win out of it too, especially since you won¡¯t have to spend any of your time or anyone else¡¯s looking for someone to take the position, since it will already be filled.¡± Kay looked to Lauren who was sitting quietly next to him. ¡°Did you know about this?¡± ¡°I figured out her goal while we were still in the Isles,¡± She replied. ¡°I assumed she was going to ask for the position before we left and I thought she had a good chance of you saying yes. When she didn¡¯t say anything and then we left I assumed that Queen Alahna had convinced her to stay or that she was going to follow after us later when recovery and repairs were done on Sel. I didn¡¯t know she was on our ship until a week into our journey back, and I was convinced not to say anything about it until now.¡± She gave Eleniah some side eye when she shared that. ¡°You were, were you?¡± Kay shot his girlfriend a look. ¡°I wonder why?¡± ¡°Because it was funny.¡± She smiled at him and shrugged. ¡°I also expected Miri to ask you to let her into your service before we left, although I predicted that she was going to spring it to you on the gangplank before we departed. I also didn¡¯t find out that she¡¯d snuck on board until after we¡¯d left, although she revealed herself to me on day three. At that point we weren¡¯t going to be turning around so I thought I might as well run with it.¡± ¡°The two of you let someone sneak onto our ship and just hang out for the entire journey?¡± ¡°Of course not.¡± Eleniah scoffed. ¡°Lauren and I both made her swear multiple oaths of loyalty and good behavior before either of us let her move a single inch out of striking distance. She made all the oaths without a problem and was completely honest about wanting to serve you so,¡± She shrugged. ¡°I¡­¡± Kay closed his eyes and let the emotions seep out of him. The main one was surprise, but the one after that was annoyance. Some of it was at Miri for doing this and Eleniah for enabling it, but most of it was at himself. Miri¡¯s goal had been obvious, he¡¯d just been too preoccupied in not wanting to see it that he hadn¡¯t seen it. The thought of having a personal servant was still weird to him, among a number of other ¡°perks¡± that came with being a king. He¡¯d promised that he¡¯d work past those issues and do what needed to be done though, so was any of this that bad? The prank was a little bit in bad taste with how stressed he was over what had been going on at home without him, but that wasn¡¯t Miri¡¯s fault since she¡¯d had no way of knowing what they were going to find when they arrived. Besides being mischievous and springing this on him at an inopportune moment though, Miri really was the best candidate they¡¯d found so far, and the level of dedication necessary to uproot her entire life to enter his service was one of the qualities his people, Amanda chief among them, had been looking for. ¡°Fine.¡± Kay told her after thinking it all through. ¡°You¡¯re right on all counts, although I¡¯m annoyed at how you went about this.¡± As he said that, he realized that that was probably the point. Miri had been quite demeaning toward those she thought weren¡¯t worth serving, and reacting too over the top at something that was an annoyance at best, I only because of the oaths she¡¯d sworn, would probably be a black mark in her estimation of him. Being tested by someone that was supposed to be serving him felt a little backwards, but Kay wasn¡¯t interested in surrounding himself with simpering yes-men who would do what they were told, including stupid things. ¡°Alright, Miri, you¡¯re in. You can use whatever total you want for your job, but just be warned that you¡¯ll have to do all those oaths over again in front of Amanda and the rest of my Ministers before they¡¯ll trust you.¡± ¡°It will assuredly take more than just oaths before they really trust me, your majesty, but I will make sure to show them that they can.¡± She bowed as deeply as she could to him in the confines of the carriage. ¡°I will serve you dutifully for the rest of my days, your majesty.¡± Kay couldn¡¯t think of anything to say that would be appropriate, especially in the face of the gravitas she¡¯d just used, so he just nodded. ¡°As my first official duty, allow me to report that all luggage has been loaded and the last person we were waiting for has boarded their vehicle.¡± Miri told him. ¡°We will depart for Avalon City shortly.¡± Book 6 Chapter 4 and Book 5 Release! There was no grand parade welcoming Kay home, which was exactly how he wanted it. It was more a matter of expediency than anything else, but he also wanted to set a precedent as well. Parades and celebrations take time and clog up streets, with important issues pressuring Avalon Kay didn¡¯t have time to wave from a chariot with a slave whispering in his ear that this too will pass and he too was mortal, even if he maybe wasn¡¯t strictly mortal anymore and he didn¡¯t have any slaves. Additionally though, he was trying to think of the future, he¡¯d planned for there to not be a triumphant return with a celebratory crowd before he¡¯d left and the sudden urgency of his return just compounded the reasons behind his initial plans. In deserved moments when it was called for parades and similar events could be both fun and useful, but setting the precedent of one happening every time Kay returned could cause lots of problems down the line. Celebrating every time he came back to Avalon City automatically made it a big deal that he¡¯d left. It would also be a burden on the citizens to shut down business and travel so often. Finally, he¡¯d look like a grandiose self-obsessed prick. Not that a single event would set that kind of precedent but¡­ there was always the chance that it could. Do it one time and the next time he came back a few people would ask if it was time to go again and then it was tradition. Better to cut it off at the pass now. They passed through the gates without issue after a normal search. Amanda had insisted when Avalon had still been a tiny village of less than two hundred people that guards should check everyone and their luggage or transports, just in case. Kay had agreed, and the policy hadn¡¯t changed since. He was pretty sure that was how Amanda¡¯s secret subordinate slave smugglers got their precious cargo out to freedom, which was how she knew of the security risks. The guards were polite, brisk, and very thorough and after they finished with the last carriage they all rolled into Avalon City. They moved through the streets in the area¡¯s set aside for vehicle traffic, passing many people who watched the caravan of carriages make their way toward the palace with interest or confusion. It wasn¡¯t common to have that many coordinated vehicles moving together and their intended destination raised many questions in people¡¯s minds. A few savvy individuals connected the blood guard posted on the outside of a couple of the carriages to Kay and figured out that he was back, but Blood Manipulation had become much more common in Avalon and Avalon City in particular so for most the red armor wrapped around the people guarding the vehicles didn¡¯t scream ¡°the king is back¡±. The carriages made it through the defenses around the palace and then they disembarked and headed inside. There were clusters of people waiting to take up their various duties centered around Kay. ¡°Miri, you can start showing off where you are in the pecking order after we introduce you to the Ministers and a few other people, so stay with me for now.¡± He go the attention of his guard detail and gestured at the other Blood Guard who were gathering nearby. ¡°Switch with them and go get some rest. Excellent job everyone.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be staying with you for now, your majesty.¡± Lauren replied. ¡°Tyuah isn¡¯t going to be available for a bit and I need to debrief with her before I go off shift.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± Kay waved the waiting servants and workers forward and they rushed at the carriages, gathering luggage and people alike and whisking them off to wherever they needed to go. The senior members of the delegation Kay had taken with him to assist in trade negotiations and similar high level wheeling and dealing were taken to wherever the head of their departments were, and in some cases directly to the Minister they reported to, to brief those who needed to know about the results of those negotiations and the deals that had been struck. Everyone else got to go home to rest. The seat of higher power came with higher levels of responsibility. Even with the issues that were going to immediately become Kay¡¯s problems ominously floating in the direction of his office Kay could feel some of the tension he was feeling seep out of his body as he stepped into the palace and began down familiar hallways. No matter what was happening, it was always good to be home after a long trip. There were several offices littered throughout the building that were Kay¡¯s and he could use any of them he felt like for mundane business and day to day operations, but he was sure there would be secret things to discuss so he made his way to the right by his personal quarters which was both one of the most secure spots in the palace but also the office he truly considered to be ¡°his¡± office. He pulled the seat back and dropped down into it. Eleniah took a seat in one of the couches off to the side as Kay turned to Miri. ¡°I¡¯m sure that you won¡¯t want to sit down, but where are you going to be?¡± He gestured around the room. ¡°Might as well figure out the simple things while we wait on everyone to show up.¡± Miri looked back at him with a level expression. ¡°You¡¯re assuming that the people you want to see are just going to show up?¡± ¡°No,¡± Kay shook his head with a smile, ¡°That would be ridiculous, I just wanted you to start thinking about it now.¡± He glanced over at Lauren. ¡°Send someone for Amanda, Cindy, and anyone else they think should attend.¡±Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± She stepped out of the room for a moment before returning. ¡°You use your guards as messengers?¡± Miri asked. ¡°Sometimes. We¡¯re a still a small nation in terms of absolute manpower, and while that¡¯s changing, especially with the current situation based on the reports I¡¯ve managed to read, we don¡¯t always have someone around to just be a messenger for me. My Blood Guard are always around and are all trusted, so sometimes it¡¯s better to just send one of them instead of having them hunt around for a messenger to then send after whoever I need to find.¡± ¡°I see. Then my first task as your seneschal will be recruit a staff, including some dedicated messengers.¡± ¡°That¡¯s it!¡± Kay pointed at Miri in triumph. ¡°That¡¯s the word I was trying to think of!¡± He glanced to the side. ¡°I wonder if there¡¯s an actual difference in this language or if the translator is being nice to me?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a different word than we¡¯ve been using.¡± Eleniah commented from her spot on the couch. ¡°It¡¯s older and not used as commonly anymore, which is why it hasn¡¯t come up before now.¡± ¡°Good to know. Excellent word choice Miri, you¡¯re now my seneschal.¡± ¡°Thank you, your majesty.¡± ¡°Anyways, Amanda¡¯s search for people before this turned up a number of decent candidates that didn¡¯t quite make the cut for your spot, but a lot of them are still around in other positions or just waiting until we found you. You¡¯ll have full discretion over who you chose for your staff but it might save time to start with them.¡± After a few moments Miri decided to put off the decision on where ¡°her spot¡± would be and instead started exploring the space. She mapped out the office then headed to Kay¡¯s quarters, with a Blood Guard trailing her just in case. Not in case she did anything, but in case someone discovered her in off limits areas and decided she was a spy or assassin. Kay and Eleniah chatted while they waited and a short time later Miri returned with snacks and a pot of tea. ¡°Where¡¯d you get this?¡± Kay asked as he peered at the tray of small sandwiches and other snacks. ¡°There¡¯s a kitchen attached to your quarters with food and drink.¡± She said, giving him a look as she set down the pot on a side table and began grabbing cups. ¡°I was surprised there was no one there.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no point in keeping a chef around when I won¡¯t be here, and honestly I thought having a private kitchen was a bit of a stretch anyways. I can always have someone go fetch me food from the main kitchen.¡± Miri let out a small sigh. ¡°I¡¯ll have to recruit a chef as well then.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t go that far. If you feel the need then hire a few people that have a decent level Cooking Skill but there¡¯s no need to get a full time chef to be on hand at all times or even most of the time. Like I said, I can just send someone to get food from the main kitchen if I¡¯m hungry.¡± ¡°Very well.¡± They settled in, with Miri eventually picking a spot slightly behind Kay, almost mirroring Lauren¡¯s normal spot when she was part of his detail. They discussed what kind of roles Miri needed for her staff, including those that were generally necessary for anyone in the role she was taking on and those that were specifically needed because of the unique needs of Avalon¡¯s people and their ruler. As a Class Line Progenitor he needed people to assist him in training others including coordinating when and where training could take place and vetting people that were allowed to learn directly from him. As a vampire it was necessary to find people that would be willing to let Kay drink some of their blood in an emergency, which would be a difficult ask given the still present threat of the vampyr and how they¡¯re predations had shaped the public consciousness of Torotia for centuries. After twenty or thirty minutes of waiting Cindy slipped into the room with her own butler Colen and a single guard who was covered in pistols that hung from every open inch of fabric. The guard shared a nod with Lauren as he stepped off to the side. Kay smiled at Cindy and pointed at a chair. ¡°Go ahead and sit. We¡¯re still waiting on Amanda and anyone else she wants to bring.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± Cindy glanced at Miri with a confused expression but sat without saying anything. ¡°How are you?¡± ¡°¡­ It¡¯s been hard.¡± She sagged in her chair. ¡°Everything could be so much worse, but its been hard. I understood a little bit of why you were so against all the pomp and circumstance we were throwing around at you, but now I really get it. We¡¯re just doing our best, and sometimes that¡¯s good enough, but there¡¯s always those times where you reach out and just miss. People die, or worse, and there was nothing you could do. And then they celebrate you as if you¡¯re someone special!¡± She buried her face in her hands for a second before looking up with bloodshot eyes. Kay nodded slowly. ¡°It¡¯s hard. Neither of us have been there yet, I don¡¯t think, but it¡¯ll be worse when they¡¯re looking up at us like some kind of amazing hero and then we fail them because we aren¡¯t infallible. The looks and the vitriol we¡¯ll one day get will haunt me. Probably.¡± ¡°We just have to¡­ keep going.¡± Cindy muttered. ¡°That¡¯s all there is.¡± Kay opened his mouth to respond but got interrupted by Amanda opening the door and stepping inside. ¡°We¡¯ll come back to this conversation later. Amanda, good to see you.¡± ¡°And you as well, your majesty.¡± She replied, not looking in Miri¡¯s direction but obviously aware of the presence of someone she didn¡¯t know. She made a small gesture that indicated that Isla was with her, which is what Kay wanted. ¡°Go ahead and sit down, and we¡¯ll get started.¡± He waited until she complied before speaking again. ¡°Before anything else, I want to say that I¡¯ve read all of the messages you both sent and caught up on all the reports I¡¯ve been able to get my hands on since we got back home. All I can say is well done. You kept everything running when faced with a sudden and dangerous catastrophe spilling in over our borders, and everything I¡¯ve seen says you¡¯ve both handled it with grace and excellence. You¡¯ve both held up to the expectations I had for you. Thank you. Now tell me everything so we can start solving issues and do our best to make things better.¡± Book 6 Chapter 5 Kay set aside another set of reports that contained the details of what Amanda and Cindy reported to him. Amanda had the government and civil matters handled, while Cindy was going over what military and adventurer related items she knew about. Kay would need a more detailed report both from General Curcius, the leader of Avalon¡¯s military, and Meten, the oni who was in charge of Avalon¡¯s directly controlled force of Adventurers, the Sentinels, in the future but both of them were busy and Cindy had been involved in fighting back vampyr incursions fir the last few months, so she knew enough to give Kay a summary. ¡°A civil war breaks out in Nelam, a flood of refugees show up begging for sanctuary, then vampyr attack everyone to our west and more people run to us for safety, all while I¡¯m gone.¡± Kay shook his head. ¡°Thanks to that we¡¯ve got rampaging vampyr everywhere and a horde of people to deal with.¡± He tipped back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. ¡°If it wasn¡¯t crazy talk I¡¯d say someone is after us.¡± ¡°Looking for an enemy pulling the strings isn¡¯t wrong necessarily,¡± Amanda grabbed the papers Kay had set down and organized them before setting them back down, ¡°But spending too much time on the idea might lead to madness. The level of power someone would need to engineer all of this just to strike at Avalon would be able to attack us on their own.¡± ¡°True.¡± Kay let the moment pass and sat up, his back straight and his posture open, doing his best to portray himself as a confident leader. ¡°Alright. I¡¯ve got the top level summary, so let¡¯s talk details. What¡¯s most pressing?¡± Amanda shuffled through her documents and pulled out a sheet that she handed to him. ¡°The refugee issue is the one most likely to boil over quickly or turn into something that needs handling. They¡¯re inside our borders and can make plans of their own, which makes dealing with them the first thing to handle in my opinion. Foreign policy can wait until we have our domestic issues solved and the military side of things is holding to my knowledge.¡± Cindy nodded when Kay glanced at her. ¡°She¡¯s right. Curcius has built the army up enough that we can train new recruits in relative safety and still have forces to deal with threats. Our territory is basically a peninsula so we¡¯ve only got one land border to deal with. Thanks to that the army has been able to concentrate along the edge most of the vampyr are coming through and have been holding them off there. Sentinel forces have been filling in the gaps between larger deployments and picking off anything that tries to move inward.¡± ¡°We¡¯re pushed out that far?¡± Kay drew out some blood and shaped it into a floating map of Avalon¡¯s territory. The rounded shape looked a bit like a fish¡¯s fin from an angle. Kay pointed at the Kay pointed at the far western end of the map. ¡°That¡¯s the edge of what we claim, but that¡¯s hundreds of miles away. We don¡¯t have that many soldiers.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right, we don¡¯t. We don¡¯t need that many right now though.¡± Cindy tapped at two different points on the map. ¡°That¡¯s where our two deployments are right now. On our side of the border that¡¯s all undeveloped land but both of those spots are close to large roads that lead west. A lot of the refugees take the roads for speed and then have been cutting over the border as soon as possible. We aren¡¯t facing an actual invading army, the vampyr we¡¯ve been seeing are animals chasing prey. We don¡¯t need to defend the border, just where the people are coming.¡± ¡°My people were originally using less obvious paths,¡± Amanda added, ¡°When it was better to be slow and draw less attention. Now that its more important to get as many people out of danger as quickly as possible I¡¯ve been ordering them to abandon stealth and head for our army.¡± ¡°Your people?¡± ¡°My smugglers, abolitionists, and rescuers.¡± She replied. ¡°When it was just the civil war I had them ramp up their efforts into getting slaves out of danger without breaking completely into the open, but when things escalated there was no point in keeping it a secret any longer. Nelam is gone and so are almost everyone that gives a shit about finding the secret mastermind that¡¯s been foiling so many of everyone¡¯s plans. Not everyone who worked for me was pleased when they found out who I really am but,¡± She shrugged and a small satisfied smile graced her face, ¡°I showed those who wanted to be ornery the error of their ways.¡± Kay followed all of her logic and couldn¡¯t see anything to argue against. The only reason he hadn¡¯t officially known what Amanda was doing was to keep them out of war with Nelam. That was pointless now on two fronts. ¡°You¡¯re still using them?¡± ¡°Of course! They¡¯re still useful after all. I¡¯ve officially brought all of them that didn¡¯t run off into service of Avalon and I¡¯ve been using them in a number of roles so far. Most of the people who reported directly to me are going to get moved into administrations and other bureaucratic positions, the smugglers are all working at evacuating everyone they can out of the danger zones or keeping lines of communication open with the limited number of settlements that are still holding out, and all of the speakers, orators, cell leaders, and such are doing their best to keep things calm among the refugees.¡± ¡°Speaking of, let¡¯s get back on that topic.¡± Kay dismissed the map and let it sink back into his veins. ¡°Indeed. A vast majority of those who have fled into our lands aren¡¯t going to be a problem. They¡¯re grateful that we¡¯ve let them in and given them food, places to stay, and a measure of safety. Most of them either fine with what we¡¯ve managed to do for them so far or are accepting that we can¡¯t make anything perfect for them this quickly, and a large number of them are considering or already have sworn fealty to Avalon and become citizens.¡± She pointed to the paper she had and showed him some figures. ¡°Thankfully we were already expecting population growth through immigration following your coronation so we had some infrastructure ready and more under construction to deal with that surge in place. We weren¡¯t ready for this many people all at once, but we were able to hold on long enough to get back into the green. By the end of the month we should be finished with all the emergency construction and can move back to regular expansion.¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°That¡¯s all good news. Where¡¯s the problem coming from?¡± ¡°The people who aren¡¯t simply grateful that we¡¯ve helped them at great expense for no direct benefit to ourselves, of course.¡± Amanda scowled as she pulled out the next page. ¡°They vary from group to group and person to person, but it all varies down to them wanting something that we don¡¯t have or haven¡¯t given them. Some of them,¡± She tapped a few names on the list she showed him, ¡°Are just annoying and not really a threat. Nobles who are demanding better treatment and similar nonsense are the majority of that category. Then we have the opportunists that see all the chaos and want to carve a portion out for themselves. Some of them are moving inside the framework of our nation and range from annoyances to thorns in my side, including criminal networks or organizations that are trying to reestablish themselves, but there are some that have been or look like they¡¯re making moves against Avalon. Cindy dealt with a couple of those.¡± Avalon¡¯s only other noble grimaced. ¡°It wasn¡¯t pleasant, but they didn¡¯t really give me a choice. The less violent or just more reasonable few are in jail and the rest are dead. A few tried to challenge me, and at least one of them just went straight for an assassination attempt.¡± ¡°Are you alright?¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m fine. Only one of them got anywhere near injuring me and they gave up when everyone around me came down on them like a sack of bricks. According to Amanda and the others the actually threatening ones are waiting to make their moves instead of rushing ahead.¡± ¡°Good, glad to hear you haven¡¯t been hurt covering for me. It sounds like you have at least one more category of problem though, who¡¯s left?¡± Amanda nodded, ¡°Two more. There are armed groups of escaped slaves that followed the flow of people once the vampyr made it ridiculous to try and keep fighting. Some of them are my people, were my people and I¡¯ve gotten control of them again, or were just bright enough to see where things are headed and are behaving. We¡¯re working on integrating them into our armed forces if they can be trusted or just letting them have normal lives if they want them. The one¡¯s that aren¡¯t behaving are either rabble rousing or pushing to commit atrocities.¡± ¡°They suffered so now they should be able to wreak their vengeance against anyone from Nelam that they feel deserves it?¡± Kay asked acidly. ¡°Essentially. We¡¯ve been trying to get help for the ones that are just hurting or broken and lashing out, but they have to want the help. The rest¡­¡± Amanda shook her head. ¡°As much as I can sympathies with people that have been treated so terribly for so long, I can¡¯t let them kill people for the crime of having been around atrocities or evil and not doing anything. Random civilians who grew up in Nelam might not have tolerated slavery or just not fought against it but that doesn¡¯t make it right to massacre them.¡± ¡°We can¡¯t let that happen.¡± Kay insisted. ¡°Repaying the evils of slavery with more evil will just start a cycle of hatred and pain that will burn everyone around. As long as they are within my lands there will be no counter atrocities.¡± Amanda bowed her head. ¡°Who are the last group of potential problems?¡± ¡°The factions of the civil war who made it out as well as some of the polities that weren¡¯t involved by still had to flee the vampyr. As with everyone else, some are fine and some are problems. A few tried to claim some of our lands for their own and had to be spoken to or smacked down. Others are demanding we help them reclaim their territories or give them this aid or that resource. The most problematic of them have been unwilling to wait for you to return or Parliament to make decisions.¡± ¡°Speaking of, how is Parliament?¡± ¡°Split on most of the remaining issues. The majority have had no problem with accepting refugees or any of the refugees becoming citizens, but opinions are roughly split on what kind of aid beyond that that we should be giving. Some are interested in pushing the vampyr back and reclaiming territory for those who have lost it other believe it isn¡¯t our problem and we shouldn¡¯t commit to fighting monsters for people who were our enemies until recently.¡± Her lips quirked to the side. ¡°Even if they aren¡¯t all Nelamian most of our citizens aren¡¯t seeing much difference between Nelam and those around them, since they didn¡¯t do anything to hinder Nelam¡¯s attack on us.¡± She shrugged lightly. ¡°And while I know that most of the region was tied up in Nelamian manipulations and string pulling I can understand the emotional reaction.¡± ¡°When we eventually decide on the best course of action I¡¯ll have to work on convincing Parliament to side with me.¡± Kay muttered as he thought it over. ¡°Even if I am technically a tyrant who can do whatever I want without asking anyone, I don¡¯t want to be and Parliament isn¡¯t supposed to be a rubber stamp or an excuse to hold up and show I¡¯m being a good boy.¡± ¡°I am both in agreement and happy that you¡¯re thinking about it in such a way.¡± Amanda told him. ¡°However, before we go any farther, perhaps you could introduce your guest?¡± She gestured at Miri who was standing behind Kay and a little off to the side. ¡°I understand that you wanted to get to work quickly, but some of the topics we need to discuss are sensitive ones.¡± ¡°Oh, you won¡¯t need to worry about me.¡± Miri stepped closer with a smile on her face. ¡°The two of us will be working together quite closely in a very short period of time.¡± ¡°Prime Minister Amanda, Duchess Cinderella, meet Miri, my seneschal.¡± Kay waved back and forth between the woman at his side and the two sitting in front of him. ¡°We picked her up in the Isles and she not only made a good impression and an impassioned speech about why she wanted to serve me, she also comes with the necessary skills and some fantastic recommendations. Lauren spoke to me about how I was causing problems with your search for someone to serve that role,¡± He told Amanda, ¡°So when someone perfect for the position appeared and wanted it I went ahead and filled it.¡± ¡°Is that so?¡± Amanda turned a steely gaze to Miri and looked her up and down. ¡°Well then, if you pass muster it seems we will be working closely together.¡± Miri met Amanda¡¯s cold gaze with the same cheerful smile. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me Prime Minister, I¡¯m absolutely sure that I¡¯ll more than meet all of your expectations. I am very good at my job.¡± Book 6 Chapter 6 After introductions were made in depth and Miri demonstrated her loyalty to Amanda¡¯s tentative approval they dived back into the meeting, going over some of the subjects Amanda considered sensitive. They ranged from the plans and desires of various factions and leaders they¡¯d discovered through espionage of one form or another to more specific information about the movement of their troops. Hearing Amanda¡¯s take on reports Kay knew came from Isla was amusing but he did his best to keep a straight face. The obvious changes to certain words combined with a shift from Isla¡¯s normal mischievous tone into Amanda¡¯s no nonsense tone was made it a stilted recitation but all of the key information was there. Kay thought Ilsa was probably getting a laugh or two out of it as well and wished he could see where she was at the moment. His spymaster was a pixie, a race of tiny people with wings not unlike Earth¡¯s myths of similar creatures, and a skilled illusionist as well. She was probably tier six, she¡¯d never said it outright that he remembered but had made several allusions to it, and liked to hide herself both physically and under layers of illusions making it next to impossible to find her when she didn¡¯t want to be found. She could be sitting right on Kay¡¯s nose and he¡¯d have no idea. She could make auditory illusions as well as was most likely pumping her report right into Amanda¡¯s ear to recite, along with some teasing to go with Amanda¡¯s deliberate changes. Eventually his new seneschal would need to meet his spymaster, and not just the illusion of a bland human man she used in meetings to help throw off any trace of her real existence. Miri was going to be his right hand in everything to do with his day to day existence and making sure everyone in his inner circle knew when to go to her instead of heading directly to Kay was going to be important. Avalon was a growing nation, and Kay was going to keep getting busier as his country grew. There was a time coming where Kay would not have time for a direct report from Isla or Isla wouldn¡¯t have time to give him a report and either way they would need Miri to bridge those gaps. Additionally, Miri had some experience that would meld well with Isla¡¯s expertise. Miri had spent a large portion of her early life training to be a spy for the Seramist Isles until she¡¯d decided she didn¡¯t want to spend her life working in the shadows and had moved to working as a maid in Queen Alahna¡¯s palace. Now she was Kay¡¯s seneschal and though she didn¡¯t want to be a spy, what she¡¯d learned in that vein would serve Kay well. Just imagining the person in control of his schedule, who everyone who wanted a piece of him would have to go through, working hand in hand with his spymaster was both exhilarating and terrifying. The amount of information they could gain, and the havoc they could wreak¡­ The amount of bullshit that anyone was going to be able to pull with his schedule was going to become extremely diminished before it ever became a problem, and it was glorious. But it wasn¡¯t time for that yet. It would take some time for Isla to reveal herself in all her tiny glory to Miri, and Miri needed time to get her feet under her. Until then they¡¯d have to keep having invisible pixies whisper the secrets of others into their ears. Moving past the confidential portions of the update Amanda started going over what they¡¯d done to work with and around the heavy number of people that Avalon now had to take care of. Even in the details things were going pretty well there. As she¡¯d already said they¡¯d been expecting people to start moving into Avalon in the future so they¡¯d been preparing, the only real problem was that all these people were coming at once instead of the steady flow they¡¯d planned for. Still, the infrastructure they had already built or had been in construction had softened the initial blow and resources had been diverted to speed things up. Only a few villages worth of people were still in temporary camps and those camps weren¡¯t a terrible place to be either. Kay remembered news videos about refugee camps back on Earth that were little better than slums, with people having to constantly struggle to get enough to eat or drink. That wasn¡¯t a problem here, thanks to his excellent subordinates. Order was maintained, careful control of resources kept people form hoarding or trying to steal from others, and the regular flow of people out of the camps into better living conditions helped keep people calm. The projections Amanda showed him indicated that they could have everyone living in an actual home within the next few months at the earliest, once again showing the power of magic, Skills, and Classes. Hundreds of homes and the infrastructure to support them built in a few months would never happen back on Earth. The people still in the camps were the ones who didn¡¯t want to become citizens of Avalon but also weren¡¯t causing problems. The troublemakers had been relocated first, ending up in what were basically open air prisons. Kay wasn¡¯t comfortable with what sounded quite close to concentration camps, but no one was being abused thankfully, and people were free to leave as they pleased. That being said, if they did leave they were subjecting themselves to Avalon¡¯s laws as long as they remained in Avalon and had to support themselves. If they remained in their prison camps they¡¯d get food and drink provided to them and could basically do as they liked outside of any criminal activities. Leaving the camps opened them up to the rest of society and made them have to figure out their own housing and how they would get food to eat.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. None of it made Kay happy, but there were no perfect solutions. Those people had arrived in his country, used their resources, and then tried to overthrow his government, take over land or towns that belonged to Avalon, or create criminal organizations to prey on his people. Well, they¡¯d made poor attempts or had been caught in the planning stages at least. He wasn¡¯t going to execute them out of hand, the people guilty of real crimes were already in jail or had been tried, but he wasn¡¯t going to give them more than a second chance. Anyone that hadn¡¯t been arrested was guilty of minor crimes at worst, or they¡¯d been planning to do worse but hadn¡¯t gotten around to it and as much as he wanted to Kay wasn¡¯t going to start punishing people for crimes that hadn¡¯t happened yet, and at least some of them had been driven by desperation or the trauma of what had happened to them. A little bit of shouting at people, rabble rousing, or setting up pickpocketing rings wasn¡¯t the worst of what people had tried. Kay was willing to go with what his people had decided, which amounted to a short stay in jail, to punish them, but that was the limit of his generosity. If they left they had to fend for themselves and if they committed more crimes they were getting the full punishment that the law called for. On the other end of the spectrum were the people who saw Avalon as a potential new home and wanted start new lives in the wake of the devastation they¡¯d suffered. For many of them their old homes were gone, wiped out in the civil war or destroyed by slavering packs of vampyr, they had no other place to go and were happy to be part of a country that could and would keep them safe. They were all polled and their specialties, expertises, and desires were learned to sort them out and then they were resettled in new or existing settlements. Areas of land worth using had been identified and sites for villages or towns had been identified years ago, with the population growing Amanda and Kay¡¯s other ministers had pushed Avalon¡¯s workers hard. Empty sites and settlements that only existed in plans and blueprints sprung up basically overnight, and now people lived in them. Some villages were basically transplants, with the entire population having escaped from the carnage together. Others were comprised of bits and pieces stitched together into a new whole. Families were kept together as best they could be and the needs of both individuals and the groupings were kept in mind as they placed people together and moved them to their new homes. Work hadn¡¯t started in most of the new villages as the new citizens were encouraged to decompress and learn their new homes, but there were a few that had already started doing what they could, focusing on work to get through the pain of their losses. It would take years for each village to become self-sufficient and a few more to turn a profit but Avalon could afford the investment now to earn the future benefits. Providing all of this for the people that needed it was no only a good thing to do for its own sake but benefited Avalon heavily. More citizens meant more of everything, but especially the good things like production, resources, and potential recruits for the military, Sentinels, and Wardens. Amanda liked to divide her briefings into categories and sub-categories and they were in the ¡°population¡± category. The only subcategory left was the former slaves and Amanda¡¯s professional expression was tainted with sadness. The people who had escaped slavery during the civil war were, for the most part, doing alright. They were just as divided into groups that wanted to stay in Avalon, those that didn¡¯t, and those causing trouble, but a majority of them were able to function. Many of those that were freed at the last moment before an oncoming wave of vampyr could kill them weren¡¯t that stable. A huge number of healers and therapists were needed, and thankfully they had access to just enough, with Amanda¡¯s preparedness coming in clutch again. It was taking time, as anything of this nature did, but eventually they would be able to put themselves back together. Those that needed healing weren¡¯t really an issue though. They were and would continue to provide what they needed without issue. The problem came from those that wanted revenge. Specifically, the former slaves that wanted revenge against everyone. Kay couldn¡¯t allow people to start massacring others so the former slaves who had tried were being kept separately, in camps similar to those holding the other problem people. Counseling was available and Amanda¡¯s reported showed that many were taking the help offered and toning down their demands that anyone from Nelam die in a bloody fashion, but many weren¡¯t. For some, their drive for blood was the only thing keeping them going and they refused to let go of it. They couldn¡¯t keep those people there forever though, and one of Kay¡¯s problems was to figure out what to do with them. It was an issue he had to set aside for later though. He had never been a slave and was not able to empathize with the people who had. He could sympathize with them, but he would never be able to truly understand what they had been through, and he wasn¡¯t going to start making decrees from a place of ignorance. He planned to gather people who had been through slavery to help him figure out the best path forward, but that would take tie both to figure out who was best suited for that role and to gather them together. All Kay could do was what he could do, and in this case that meant tabling the problem for later. ¡°Alright, that¡¯s the people covered.¡± Kay stretched out his arms and flexed his fingers. ¡°What¡¯s next?¡± Amanda shuffled her papers to bring the next set of reports to the front while Miri moved to a new set of blank notes, ready to transcribe, and Eleniah and Cindy just waited, ready to put in their own thoughts or observations. Kay knew that out of everything that had happened to him, the luckiest he had ever been was when he¡¯d acquired such good friends and allies. The Prime Minister of Avalon finished shuffling her papers and looked up at Kay, her serious expression more intense than usual. ¡°We need to discuss what Avalon is going to do about what¡¯s going on to our west, in the ruins of what was once the nation of Nelam.¡± Book 6 Chapter 7 ¡°That¡­ was a little dramatic but I think it conveys the level of gravitas we¡¯re dealing with here.¡± Kay replied, unable to hold back some levity. Amanda¡¯s lips curled up slightly at the edges. ¡°Thank you. We¡¯re currently in a holding pattern and only reacting to what happens, we¡¯re not making any decisions about what to do ourselves. Not only are a number of groups and interests pushing us about what our stance is going to be, being reactive to a situation of this level is a poor decision in my opinion. I believe we should pick a direction, whatever it may be, and commit to that.¡± ¡°I agree. If there¡¯s on thing my mentor has taught me, it¡¯s to be decisive.¡± Hey shot Eleniah a grin, which she returned. ¡°Who¡¯s been pressuring you, and what to they want us to do?¡± ¡°Multiple groups and each wants something different. Tumbling Rapids is one, and they just want this entire situation to stop. Not everyone fleeing what used to be Nelam are coming here, enough are headed to Tumbling Rapids that its quickly becoming a problem for them. They¡¯re already straining to care for the people who made their way there and they don¡¯t have a lot of military force to deal with vampyr attacks.¡± Amanda gave him a level look. ¡°They would love for us to go deal with the problem, but they aren¡¯t in a position to do much for us in return. If we do end the vampyr threat from the west in one way or another the most we¡¯ll get from Tumbling Rapids is goodwill. They were already reeling from the events that you and Eleniah caused when the next round of the Nelamian campaign to take them over hit and caused more chaos among their politicians. Rooting out the leaders that supported Nelam immediately after we ended the Shatterplate War gave them a little bit of stability, but this has sent them spiraling again. They will need quite some time and effort to pull themselves back up.¡± She took a moment to gather her thoughts. ¡°Frankly, it might be in our best interests to not let them gain the stability they need. Or at least not help them with it.¡± ¡°Explain.¡± ¡°Tumbling Rapids has reached a point where they¡¯re only going to decline if they don¡¯t rapidly change their approach, and their leaders are focusing more on personal power and factional fighting to do anything about the problems their facing. If we give them assistance they should be able to dig themselves out of the hole they¡¯re in, but if we don¡¯t they¡¯ll devolve further and further. In a few years the city will be ripe for annexation without any blood spilled, they¡¯ll be so desperate that they might even come to us asking to become part of Avalon.¡± Kay stared across the table at his Prime Minister. ¡°How does that make us any different than Nelam was?¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t actively trying to make their situation worse or force anyone into untenable positions to make them work with us, we would just refrain from any charity and let them deal with the consequences of their own actions.¡± She replied without missing a beat. ¡°If we actually made harmful moves under the table we¡¯d have Tumbling Rapids sewn up within two to three years minimum. Leaving them as they are will take longer, but there¡¯s also less chance of harsh feelings down the road.¡± She set out three packets. ¡°This is a plan moving forward under the assumption that we won¡¯t volunteer to help Tumbling Rapids with non-emergency problems and will see if we can annex them once they reach a point of no return, without any interference from us. It includes the assumption that we will help if they ask and offer suitable payment. This one,¡± She tapped the on in the middle, ¡°Assumes we do help when they have issues and take a very long term stance toward annexing them using goodwill and negotiations without letting them drive themselves into a losing position. And this final one involves us actively maneuvering to take the city quickly through some mild sabotage and espionage.¡± Kay reached down and grabbed the first packet of papers. ¡°Why are you focused on us annexing Tumbling Rapids at all?¡± ¡°Two reasons. The first is to take control of trade on this side of the continent. With Nelam gone we have the only working port on the western side of the continent, that we know of at least. There might be a handful of smaller ones on the opposite side of us to the south, but we have no information about that. Either way, taking control of Tumbling Rapids will but us in a commanding position for all trade to this side of the continent and will not only massively increase our revenue but also connect us directly to more nations. Second, it helps with out isolation problem.¡± ¡°Isolation problem?¡± Eleniah stood up from the couch off to the side and circled round to lean against the desk near Kay. ¡°What do you mean by that?¡± ¡°The territory Avalon controls isn¡¯t quite a peninsula, but we¡¯re hemmed in fairly effectively by the ocean to our north and west and eventually the mountains to our east, leaving the souther border where our territory buts up against Tumbling Rapids territory as our only real border. That¡¯s fantastic for defensive purposes, but it limits us in other factors. That includes trade and contact with other nations, but the main ones I¡¯m worried about are immigration and future threats.¡± Kay nodded. ¡°I can see those. If everything you have seen says Tumbling Rapids is likely to collapse in on itself, then someone is going to either take over or replace it as a polity, which means we¡¯d have an unknown neighbor at our doorstep, one that might be hostile. There¡¯s no reason to leave that opportunity for someone else to take. Immigration wise¡­¡± He trailed off for a moment as he thought, but started nodding before he spoke again. ¡°Yeah. Getting here by sea is basically impossible for most people. We¡¯re far enough from other ports to make anything but large scale shipping worth the cost, and that won¡¯t change for years. By land is the only real way to get to us, and we¡¯re all isolated in the corner of the continent. How many people are put off by the level of work it takes to get to us and just¡­ don¡¯t.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°Exactly,¡± Amanda agreed with him, ¡°The amount of territory we claimed as being part of our borders is quite a bit of land, and we don¡¯t have enough people to really control it all. I know why you claimed all that land for Avalon and I agreed with your reasoning then, and I still do now, but there are still consequences to that. We have the authority to run off any ¡®squatters¡¯, destroy pirates and bandits, and take control of dungeons, ruins, or other valuable finds but we want to prevent more problems from cropping up, which means actively taking control of all our land. And that takes people. We need more people, and we can¡¯t rely on just births, that would be too slow. Making immigration to Avalon more palatable is just one step toward solving that.¡± ¡°More people let¡¯s us do a million other things too.¡± Eleniah muttered. She reached out an tapped the plan Kay was holding. ¡°I say we go with this one. We don¡¯t make things worse but we don¡¯t help without them asking us to. Because you¡¯re right, there¡¯s no point in leaving a tasty target out there for other people to take if its going to make itself available.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll need to discuss this a bit more before I make any final decisions, but I agree for now.¡± Kay handed the proposal back to Amanda. ¡°That took us a bit off topic though, who else is making demands about how we¡¯re going to react to this?¡± ¡°Refugees and escapees that don¡¯t want to join Avalon, of every flavor, want us to go wipe out the vampyr and then leave and let them build their own nation from the ashes, whether that¡¯s remaking what was lost or letting them build their ideals from scratch. The few holdout cities we¡¯ve been able to contact through some of my people want the same thing, just without building new countries.¡± ¡°So we roll up, solve the problem, and then leave with nothing?¡± Kay cocked an eyebrow. ¡°That¡¯s presumptuous of them.¡± ¡°A few of those with brains are offering us trade deals, alliances, and the like, but most don¡¯t have anything to offer. They do essentially want us to throw ourselves into a war and then not keep any of the land we take.¡± Kay snorted and shook his head. ¡°If we decide it¡¯s the best move to start dealing with the vampyr where Nelam used to be then we can discuss if we take any land. My current thought is that we don¡¯t, mostly because of what you just said about having too much territory already, but that¡¯s a later conversation. Is that the last of the people wanting things of us?¡± ¡°No, there¡¯s still the Shatterplate Order and the Itarian Crusade.¡± Both of Kay¡¯s eyebrows jumped to the top of his head. ¡°They¡¯re making demands of me?¡± Cindy raised her hand and wiggled it side to side in a ¡°sort of¡± gesture as she verbally entered the conversation for the first time. ¡°It¡¯s mostly Alice¡¯s friend Zeia, but the Itarian Crusade people that are here have been adding their two cents.¡± ¡°The correspondence that arrived before you left was still mostly ambiguous about whether the rest of both organizations were going to accept your demand that they move there bases of operation here following the war, but we got more after you left and Zeia¡¯s¡­¡± Amanda trailed off before huffing slightly and rolling her eyes, ¡°Vociferous arguments to me and everyone else that she gets a hold of seemed to have changed things. As far as we¡¯ve been able to tell, the events that have occurred have changed the minds of several of the hold outs. Both the Order and the Crusade are marching this direction in force, led by Commander Ravenhome and Crusader General Eahn. The messages they¡¯ve sent are insistent that they be allowed to sortie once they arrive and get settled in.¡± ¡°That does tip the scales in one direction, doesn¡¯t it? Add a meeting with Zeia and whoever they Crusade wants to represent them to my schedule. I¡¯ll see what thoughts they have from a local perspective and if we haven¡¯t made a final decision before then we can bring Ravenhome and Eahn into it.¡± ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± Miri replied, cutting off Amanda who was about to say something similar. Amanda gave Miri a look before a small smile graced her face. ¡°Well, that will save me quite a bit of work, now won¡¯t it? We¡¯ll have to speak after this, Miss Miri so that I can give you access to a few different resources you¡¯ll need.¡± ¡°Thank you, Prime Minister.¡± ¡°Of course.¡± Amanda turned back to Kay. ¡°That¡¯s the last group of people making demands of any kind, although quite a few others have suggestions of various levels. Whether that involves us invading too and fro and bring back spoils depends on how stupid the person making recommendations is, but sadly the roaming packs of mad vampyr haven¡¯t rid us of idiotic fops that think they¡¯re important.¡± ¡°Unless they become much more annoying then they are now, they aren¡¯t my problem. Is there anyone I should actually speak to before we move on to other topics? I can go ahead and get Miri to start working on scheduling them in.¡± ¡°Regarding what we¡¯re going to do about the west, no. In general, yes. Murunel¡¯s two family members are still here, her cousin and his wife. You didn¡¯t get a chance to speak with them before you left, correct?¡± ¡°No. Well, technically I did when I accepted their surrender and they promised not to do anything, but other than that, no. They were holed up with Murunel arguing about something if I remember right.¡± ¡°You do. Her cousin, the red dragon whose name is Azred, was insisting that she leave and return to the rest of her family and Murunel and her cousin¡¯s wife were working on shutting him down, which she told me they did eventually. Then they had to talk him out of starting a one dragon punitive campaign against Glowl for capturing Murunel and throwing her in that glass ball thing you¡¯ve all spoken of.¡± Amanda rolled her eyes. ¡°Nelam ceasing to exist and Glowl dying seems to have taken all the wind out of his sails, but he¡¯s sticking around. Apparently he¡¯s decided that if he can¡¯t out shout Murunel and make her go home with him or physically remove her, he¡¯s going to do his level best to convince her to leave on her own.¡± ¡°Is that working?¡± ¡°No, he¡¯s just been pissing her off. She¡¯s been aggravated and snappy for weeks and every meeting with her is turning into a pain. As your Prime Minister I¡¯m officially requesting your majesty to make him go away so that our friendly and efficient Minister of Resources comes back.¡± Book 6 Chapter 8 Wrangling enough free time to go have a talk with ornery dragons wasn¡¯t difficult, but it was tedious. There¡¯s always something to do in running a government and after returning home from an important trip to find things going sideways that was more true for Kay than ever. Everyone wanted a meeting with him to update him on progress, get his thoughts on what they should be doing, or just schmooze. The schmoozers were moved as far down on the list of priorities as possible, but the people who needed to make reports or ask for direction had varying levels of importance and meetings needed to be arranged correctly. That was where having competent subordinates made his life easier. Amanda was especially skilled in prioritizing what needed to be dealt with first and after the first few meetings with some of his Ministers and chunks of the representatives from Avalon¡¯s Parliament were over Kay had a stretch of time set out to speak with Murunel and her family. No one really knew where Murunel was from, all she¡¯d said about it was that she was from ¡°the west¡±, which wasn¡¯t helpful for figuring out customs, means of address, and what kind of refreshments to lay out for visiting dragons and their spouses. Murunel had never made a point of mentioning anything as being especially desired or despised, so Kay eventually overrode everyone and had a normal spread of drinks and foods laid out. He wasn¡¯t all that concerned with Murunel¡¯s relatives being happy with their reception or not. They¡¯d shown up as part of an invading army and whether their objectives were much more positive than any of the rest of the army¡¯s that was still a big black mark on their record. The three of them came in as a group, with Murunel in the lead. She gave him a big smile as she walked through the door and looked like she was going to come around and give him a hug before pausing. She turned her head slightly to glare at the man walking behind her, and quite obviously debated if giving Kay a hug was worth dealing with her relative being annoying. She eventually decided it was and walked past the chairs set out for visitors. Kay pushed himself up to return the hug. ¡°It¡¯s great to see you.¡± ¡°You too. Thanks for holding things together while I was gone.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t do too much,¡± She glared over her shoulder again, ¡°I was too busy keeping hold of this idiot to put too much work in. Amanda and Cindy did a vast majority of the heavy lifting.¡± ¡°Well you did a good job too, even if they were carrying the brunt of it.¡± Kay gave her a look that was meant to convey that keeping an angry dragon from running around taking that anger out on nearby bystanders was an important and valuable job too. He thought she got it based on the small smile and eye roll she gave him back. ¡°I appreciate you appreciating me.¡± ¡°Well of course-¡° ¡°You shut up!¡± Murunel snapped at her cousin. ¡°No one was talking to you yet, so don¡¯t push your way into conversations you aren¡¯t part of.¡± A small plume of smoke blew out of both of the man¡¯s nostrils as he snorted in displeasure. ¡°I-¡° He stopped mid word to stare down at his wife, who was glaring up at him. Kay knew from a combination of reports and his fight against the two of them that Murunel¡¯s cousin¡¯s wife, her cousin in law? cousin by marriage?, had mind or mental magic of some kind. He didn¡¯t know the exact details of her abilities but she was obviously capable of willing telepathy at minimum. While she was scolding her husband Kay took the time to look them both over. Murunel¡¯s cousin was also a dragon, obviously, but he¡¯d come in his humanoid form, which was different enough from Murunel¡¯s in more than one way to be interesting. He was taller than her, and much more muscular, which stood out because mining wasn¡¯t easy work and Murunel was ripped on her own. His muscles weren¡¯t the muscles of someone who did manual labor though, he was built like a warrior. Kay didn¡¯t know how much of a dragon¡¯s transformation into a humanoid shape was controllable, but it said the same thing about the man either way, he was a fighter and saw himself as one. His skin has a faint reddish tint to it similar to Murunel¡¯s gold coloration and Kay wondered if that came from their scales in their other forms or was a choice. His hair was also red, almost the same shade as his scales and his eyes were a dark, dark red that bordered on black. They glowed faintly from behind and it was a little like looking into a pool of lava with a plug of obsidian floating on it. Moving over to his wife, who was still holding the staring contest and probably the mental tongue lashing from what little he¡¯d heard about her from Murunel, she was much shorter than her husband. He was just under six feet tall and she was at least a foot shorter than him. She could have been human or elven, she had the graceful stance that elves were known for, but it wasn¡¯t a requirement that all elves were like that nor were they the only people that could. Thankfully, in Kay¡¯s opinion, there was a lot more variance and overlap between the various humanoid species on Torotia. There was no perfect racial box that anyone fit into, and Kay found that actually more comforting than entire species of people all being similar enough to identify on sight. With a skin tone that indicated a naturally pale person who spent a lot of time outdoors in the sun, a lithe and graceful body that showed off her physical fitness, her body shape also pointed toward a life of combat, and medium length brown hair that covered her ears she could be an elf, a human, one of the mildly rarer half-elves, or some other species Kay hadn¡¯t run into before. Both of them were wearing normal looking clothes that could have come from a shop in Avalon or anywhere else in the world and while it wasn¡¯t obvious, Kay could tell that not having their weapons or armor made both uncomfortable. The argument, lecture, stand off, or what have you continued for long enough that it started to get awkward sitting there in silence while the two of them obviously were talking. Murunel looked used to it and resigned to not being included, but Kay was debating whether or not to clear his throat or get their attention some other way when they finally broke eye contact. Murunel gave both side of the married pair a look, and while her cousin ignored her and stoically stared off into the middle distance, his wife nodded at her. Turning back to Kay, Murunel took a fortifying breath before beginning introductions. ¡°Kay, err¡­ Your Majesty, this my cousin, Azred, and his wife Vivien. They uh¡­¡± She tilted her head back and tried to search for the right words. ¡°They have come to¡­ Um, they have arrived to demonstrate¡­ Urgh.¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°You can be casual, Murunel.¡± Kay told her, holding back a smile. ¡°Formality and precise speech is useful sometimes and a hindrance at other times. If your relatives don¡¯t have a problem with it, sticking to normal speech is fine.¡± Azred¡¯s brow furrowed but he said nothing. Vivien chose that moment to speak for the first time. ¡°Being informal will be fine, your majesty.¡± She kept her voice low, but it had undertones to it. Not like she was leaving something unsaid or her emotions were leaking into her speech, but literal tones under her voice. It was something Kay immediately decided was a magical effect, especially since the sounds layered into her speech didn¡¯t seem to be physical. It wasn¡¯t having any effect on him he could notice, so he marked it as an effect of a Class or Skill she had and reminded himself to keep an eye on it, just in case it was doing something to him. Kay used her speaking up to shift the bugeoning conversation to his topic instead of having Murunel try to explain anything. He¡¯d let her say her side of things in a minute but he wanted to hear this pair¡¯s responses without any biases first. ¡°Good. I would say welcome to Avalon, but you¡¯ve been here some time and your arrival wasn¡¯t the best. Instead, I¡¯ll say good morning, Azred and Vivien.¡± Azred grunted in reply. ¡°Good morning, your majesty.¡± Vivien said, ignoring her husband, ¡°How can we assist you today?¡± Murunel looked interested as well, although the way she was holding herself hinted that she might know what they were meeting about. ¡°I¡¯m going to skip over your arrival and the immediate consequences, because I don¡¯t think rehashing that will be useful at the moment. We¡¯ll handle all of the aftereffects of that, but now isn¡¯t the time. I called you both here to ask you a question. Why are you here?¡± Azred shot him a derisive look and opened his mouth, but Kay beat him to it. ¡°Why are you still here? As I just said, I am perfectly aware of how you came to be here and why, and I¡¯m sure I don¡¯t need to remind you of how that ended.¡± He looked back at Azred with a hint of derision of his own mixed with not so small dose of threat. If the dragon wanted to get into another fight with him, he¡¯d let him, and then teach him why picking fights in other people¡¯s houses was a bad idea. ¡°Your punishment-¡± Kay paused at Murunel¡¯s stricken expression, ¡°Your recompense for participating in an attack on my nation was deferred because of your relationship with Murunel, but you have been here for months after your, surrender shall we say, and you have made no attempts to even bring up the topic in order to leave after handling it. That tells me you want something. What is it? While not a major one, you are still a drain on our resources and a source of consternation for my subordinate and friend at best. Why are you here?¡± ¡°Murunel is not your subordinate!¡± Azred snarled as he jerked forward in his chair, rising partway to standing. ¡°She¡¯s coming home with us!¡± Vivien dipped her head, her eyes closing momentarily with pure, unhidden consternation and embarrassment. Murunel turned a look of distilled anger and disbelief. ¡°You stupid moron! Will you stop trying to-¡° ¡°Murunel is an adult,¡± Kay cut in. ¡°She is free to return to your home any time she likes, whether that¡¯s just for a visit or permanently. She is also free to choose to be my subordinate in addition to being my friend, and may stay in Avalon or leave as she likes.¡± He turned to look directly in her eyes. ¡°I don¡¯t think it needs to be said, but I¡¯ll support what ever decision you make.¡± ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m not a damn hatchling, Azred! I don¡¯t care what you think I should do or what traditions say! I¡¯m an adult and I¡¯ll make my own decisions. This is my new home and I¡¯m staying here. I like it here, and I like my job.¡± ¡°You aren¡¯t just any adult who can make decisions without affecting anyone else!¡± Azred shouted, the volume shaking the room slightly as he practically roared his words. ¡°You have responsibilities, duties! You are too important to be the subordinate of some little-¡° ¡°Some little what, Azred?¡± Vivien spoke up with menace in her tone. ¡°Some little human? Is that what you were going to say? Are we going to have to have another talk about-¡° ¡®No, no, no!¡± The angry dragon was vanished as he waved his hands in front of his face in denial and there was only a husband who¡¯d said the wrong thing in front of his wife. ¡°I was going to say ¡®some little king with a brand new, petty kingdom!¡¯ It wasn¡¯t about his species!¡± ¡°It better not have been.¡± She shot back. ¡°I apologize for my husband, your majesty. I love him dearly, but he can be¡­ bullheaded on occasion. Having Murunel keep with her family traditions is one of the things he¡¯s quite stubborn about.¡± ¡°Is this about her mother?¡± Kay asked. All three shot him looks of surprise. Azred¡¯s was angry surprise, the kind where someone has found out something they don¡¯t like, Murunel¡¯s was the pleased surprise of somone remembering something she thought they¡¯d have forgotten, and Vivien¡¯s was just surprise without any additions. ¡°She told you about that?¡± ¡°Nothing in detail, just that her mother has an important position and the tradition is that Murunel will inherit it as her daughter. I don¡¯t know anything about what the position is or where your home is, which I think is the biggest secret you¡¯re trying to hide, but she spoke about her distaste for the position and the duties that come with it.¡± Vivien ignored the family drama as her husband shot his younger cousin a hurt look and she glared back at him defiantly. ¡°Enough to understand the basic then. Yes, that is what it is about for my husband. I personally believe that forcing someone into doing anything is a bad idea and it¡¯s a terrible one when what you¡¯re forcing them to take a position of authority and responsibility. There¡¯s not many better ways to make sure they¡¯ll do a terrible job than making them.¡± Her completely ignoring the mention about where Murunel¡¯s original home was proved Kay¡¯s point, but he didn¡¯t interrupt. ¡°Azred wants to make Murunel come back with him to take up the position tradition demands of her as her mother¡¯s apprentice and heir, Murunel does not want to leave, and I¡¯m not going to leave my husband here in a foreign country that¡¯s already annoyed at him, so I¡¯m stuck.¡± ¡°Stuck?¡± Her husband asked, sounding indignant. ¡°Yes. I want to leave and am held here by my love for you, I would call that stuck.¡± He looked away grumpily, crossing his arms. Vivien sighed gently before turning forward to face Kay again. ¡°Your majesty, I can absolutely promise you that Azred will not even attempt to use force to force Murunel into returning with him. However, as pointless as I believe it is, I don¡¯t think he¡¯s committing any wrongs by trying to convince her.¡± Kay pointed an arched brow at Azred. ¡°I would never try to force her into anything!¡± He insisted. ¡°Why did I hear about you trying to physically restrain her when she left to come back here after we freed her then?¡± ¡°That was actually something else.¡± Murunel informed him, ¡°We already talked about it and Azred apologized, but it turns out that I interpreted it badly in the moment and assigned him some motives he didn¡¯t actually have.¡± She shot her cousin another glare. ¡°Of course, trying to literally drag me off to make sure I go to talk to my parents because they asked him to fetch me isn¡¯t much better, but he did apologize and promised not to do it again.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± Kay put the blood hidden throughout the specially prepared meeting room as decorative objects and inside disguised tubing back into its original position and let go of it all. He¡¯d grabbed a large mass as soon as Azred had jerked to his feet and snapped at him the first time and had held it ready in case the situation escalated. Vivien seemed to be the only person to notice the faint movements as everything was put back in place and she watched Kay with a little more caution. ¡°I won¡¯t force Azred to stop trying to convince Murunel of his position, and he¡¯s not likely to give up soon. You have the ability to make him stop by demanding that we leave, but Murunel¡¯s descriptions of you make me think that is an unlikely outcome, at least as a first resort. That being the case, I¡¯d like to negotiate both our payment for our poorly thought out actions in the past and for permission to remain for the foreseeable future.¡± Book 6 Chapter 9 Kay considered the pair for a moment. ¡°I do think it would be too tyrannical of me to force you to stop trying to convince Murunel of your point of view by demanding that you leave Avalon, and I agree that allowing you to remain here indefinitely without any form of recompense would be a bit much¡­¡± He frowned as he considered the situation. After a moments thought, he turned his head slightly to stare at Azred. ¡°I think the deciding factor in this case is you. Do you have a limit? Is there a point where you will accept Murunel¡¯s decision to remain and give up, or will you continue to badger her forever? Because if you¡¯re continuing until she returns with you permanently and does what you think she should without being willing to accept any other outcomes, then I will lean on my powers and get rid of you, for the sake of my friend.¡± Azred¡¯s deepening sneer as Kay spoke turned into a grimace under the power of his wife¡¯s disproving stare. ¡°I agreed to a time limit that Murunel came up with. I have until then to try and convince her that I¡¯m right, if I fail in that time then I have to stop.¡± ¡°Permanently?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not agreeing to forever silence myself, I have a right to keep and express my opinions about my family.¡± He firmed his posture, giving Kay a defiant glare. After a few seconds his grandstanding deflated. ¡°But if I fail to convince her, if!, then I won¡¯t make any campaigns of it like I¡¯m doing now.¡± ¡°That is an acceptable compromise, but I will add one addendum.¡± Kay raised a finger, not flinching under Azred¡¯s sudden glare or the two women¡¯s questioning looks. ¡°No bothering Murunel while she¡¯s working. Her job is important and I don¡¯t need her arguing with you when she¡¯s supposed to be working.¡± The red dragon in his humanoid form scoffed at the idea of Murunel¡¯s duties as one of Kay¡¯s Ministers, obviously thinking that whatever duties she would have as her mother¡¯s heir were much more important, but he didn¡¯t argue. ¡°As for payment or service to offset the costs of you staying here, I do have a thought.¡± ¡°How can we assist the Kingdom of Avalon?¡± Vivien asked. ¡°Your atonement for attacking us will be decided later, but the cost of staying with us will be assisting us with our current problem. Namely the vampyr incursions coming out of former Nelam.¡± The tense air in the room stemming from the arguing dragons took an entirely different air. ¡°While the specifics haven¡¯t been set in stone, and don¡¯t spread any of this around, but we¡¯re going to have to take direct action in the future to stem the tide. We¡¯re not going to be able to sit back and let any vampyr that come close bash themselves on our defenses while we wait out the problem, so we¡¯ll be dealing with it ourselves. I¡¯ll have the two of you help us with the fighting, both defensively while we make plans and then on the offense when we push to the east.¡± The married pair shared a glance and a silent conversation that might or might not have involved mental magic. ¡°We aren¡¯t opposed,¡± Vivien said after a few seconds, ¡°I would like to ask, why not make that the price for our atonement and require something else to stay? There¡¯s a certain poetry in having us fight against real vampyr after coming after you when you aren¡¯t one.¡± Kay favored them with a sly grin. ¡°Because when it comes to that, I have you over a barrel and I don¡¯t plan on letting you get off that easily.¡± His grin grew as Vivien glanced away, ¡°You were willing to come all this way to get in a giant fight to help your cousin and deal with what you thought was a dangerous vampyr. Well now I¡¯m asking you to still help your cousin and to fight against much weaker vampyr while traveling a shorter distance. Should perform any exemplary deeds or make yourselves incredibly useful, I might give you a little bit of slack when it comes to paying Avalon back, but I¡¯m not going to let you off for free.¡± ¡°I told you not to underestimate him,¡± Murunel pointed out. ¡°He¡¯s young, but he¡¯s not stupid and he¡¯s been getting training from some of the best schemers around. ¡° ¡°We agree.¡± Vivien said, ignoring the scolding. ¡°We¡¯ll help you deal with the vampyr.¡± ¡°Good. The details will have to be sorted out with my military leaders, I don¡¯t know where you¡¯ll be of best use at the moment. You can keep doing what you have been, as long as you don¡¯t cause any problems but I¡¯m sure Murunel¡¯s impressed you of that, and I¡¯ll send word once we know what we¡¯ll be using you for.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. They took it as the dismissal it was and left the office after a minor amount of departing pleasantries. Murunel stayed behind as her relatives left the room. When the door swung behind them she hurried around the desk again, sweeping Kay up into another hug. ¡°It really is great to see you.¡± Laughing quietly, Kay hugged her back. ¡°I didn¡¯t think you were lying the first time.¡± ¡°I know, but I missed you. You and Eleniah are the first friends I made during and after that whole debacle with that fucking ball, and I missed you both.¡± She leaned back so she could look at him, with a cheeky grin on her face. ¡°Speaking of, you and Eleniah huh? You two just made me a lot of money in some of the betting pools.¡± Kay rolled his eyes and playfully pushed her away from him. ¡°The gossip¡¯s gotten around that quickly?¡± ¡°I¡¯m absolutely sure it has, but I haven¡¯t been in on the loop, I¡¯ve been dealing with grouchy pants the smoke breather. But I can smell her on you.¡± He pulled up his shirt to sniff it, ¡°These are new clothes.¡± ¡°Not your clothes, your skin.¡± She tapped her nose, ¡°I can smell a lot better than any humans without a Class for it. You two have always smelled faintly of each other because you¡¯re together so much, but now its different.¡± She waggled her eyebrows at him. ¡°Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.¡±He waved his hands down his body. ¡°You could have had all this but you didn¡¯t want to be my Queen.¡± Murunel barked out a laugh. ¡°Still don¡¯t, thank you. I could get that kind of treatment if I left to go back with Azred, and you can see how that¡¯s going.¡± Her jovial expression darkened a little, ¡°How is Eleniah taking the idea?¡± ¡°It¡¯s come up, here and there, and we¡¯ve talked about it a little.¡± He shrugged, ¡°We haven¡¯t set anything in stone or made any permanent decisions, we¡¯re working on really getting to know one another deeply and seeing if we fit. She knows its a potential end point, though. We¡¯re talking about it.¡± ¡°Good.¡± She stepped in to give him another hug. ¡°I¡¯m happy for you two.¡± ¡°I¡¯m happy too. Once I have a handle on the more immediate problems we¡¯ll do a dinner with the three of us.¡± ¡°That sounds great! I¡¯ll make sure I¡¯m free.¡± ¡°If its necessary I¡¯ll make sure you¡¯re free. I am king around here after all.¡± After Murunel left Kay grabbed some of the paperwork that he¡¯d been working on before the meeting had started and got back into it. There was a shift change among his guards and a pair stepped in and swept through the office before stepping back outside to watch the door. Shortly after they were gone Kay felt a pair of tiny feet land on his head. ¡°After some of the arguments he¡¯s gotten into with Murunel, I half expected her cousin to erupt on you and start something.¡± ¡°Can you not sit on my head?¡± Kay pulled a globule of blood from the lining hidden beneath his clothing and formed it into a doll-sized chair atop the desk. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how much of it is an act,¡± He said as he felt Isla climb down his shoulder and along his arm, ¡°But Vivien seems to be the thinker keeping her hot-headed husband under control. He can¡¯t be too much of an impulsive idiot though, he never would have survived long enough to make it to tier five.¡± Avalon¡¯s pixie spymaster appeared sitting in the chair Kay had made. ¡°My observations plus what data I¡¯ve been able to scrounge up about him say he¡¯s much more emotional when it comes to family than he is in a fight. So the circumstances seem to be driving a lot of his anger and frustration.¡± ¡°Murunel refusing to do what he personally sees as the right decision isn¡¯t helping either.¡± Kay signed the bottom of a page and put it in his out pile. ¡°I wonder why he didn¡¯t go off to try and kill Glowl. Locking Murunel in that evil ball was a million times worse than her working for me. If I found out any of my family were or had been in a situation like that I¡¯d be out for revenge.¡± Isla smirked up at him. ¡°He did, once he found out. Of course Murunel shouted him down, with Vivien¡¯s help, because she thought that any attacks on Nelam originating from our territory would spark more troubles.¡± ¡°Good thinking on her part.¡± ¡°It was. They managed to keep him from running off, and then the news came in that Glowl had fallen at some point during all the fighting. The noble family that had been keeping the ball locked away also vanished into the chaos at some point, so without any legitimate targets to take his anger out on he was forced to leave it be.¡± ¡°You figured out who they were?¡± Kay cocked an eyebrow at her. ¡°You need to practice that a bit more,¡± She replied, ¡°It works against anyone awed by your position or the power you¡¯ve managed to accumulate, but it has less of an effect on anyone with enough status or power to hold their own. And of course I did. You just said it, didn¡¯t you? If someone did that to your family you¡¯d be out for revenge. What kind of spymaster would I be if I couldn¡¯t find my lord¡¯s targets for him?¡± ¡°Ha.¡± Kay chuckled and shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t know, but you are an excellent one.¡± ¡°Why thank you.¡± She stood and curtsied, an illusionary dress appearing around her and vanishing as she sat. ¡°Anything to report?¡± ¡°Nothing new. A few irons in the fire that might get hot enough to do something about soon, but otherwise we¡¯re as we have been.¡± ¡°Good. That gives me some room to maneuver.¡± ¡°Anything specific planned?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯m going to handle anything pressing, and then I¡¯m headed to the border. I want to see these vampyr myself.¡± ¡°Ah. Well, more than a few people will be happy to hear that. Our Shatterplate and Crusade ¡®hostages¡¯ threw themselves into it as soon as we found out about all this and they¡¯ve been impatiently waiting your return. I believe they have some things to say to you.¡± Book 6 Chapter 10 For a moment Kay considered bringing his two new allies with him to the border, but a number of factors stopped him. There was no formal agreement in place yet, just their word. While he didn¡¯t think Murunel¡¯s cousin¡¯s would break their word and run off on him, he needed to think like the king he was and err on the side of caution. The point of Kay heading to the border was more of a fact finding missions than an attack anyway, and bringing a dragon along would make hi more conspicuous than he planned on being. And from what Isla had told him, Avalon¡¯s ¡°hostages¡± from the Shatterplate Order and the Itarian Crusade might take up most of his time, which would leave the dragon and his rider sitting around twiddling their thumbs uselessly. He decided to just take a contingent of his guards with him, leaving everyone else behind. They all had work to do and being able to kill more than one bird with one stone was great, but Kay¡¯s real goal in this was for his own benefit. Sitting off to the side in safety while his people were fighting felt disgusting. He knew that he¡¯d have to get used to it, there would be points in the future where he would have to hold back to be the trump card against enemy elites, but that didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t going to take the chance to be a part of things where he could. Torotia was a massive planet, one large enough that only the System messing with things kept the gravity from crushing everything on the surface into paste, and traveling from place to place took a lot of time. Focusing on speed and forgoing comfort let Kay and his guards make it to the edge of the border on the northern side of Avalon¡¯s territory in only two days. That level of speed was a testament to his people¡¯s Skills and mana enhanced bodies but also to the level of investment and work Avalon had put into its expanding road system. They only slowed down during the trip when they passed the work crews building out the network and had to travel through wild areas that had only been cleared by the troops who ad previously moved through there. The faint sound of a fight could be heard as they approached a hastily erected fort that was in the middle of being upgraded. Construction workers and mages were all glancing off to the side as they worked, cautiously watching whatever skirmish was taking place even as they moved stone slabs into place and anchored them to the existing structure. Kay was pleased to note that while the noncombatants were distracted by the potential danger of the ongoing fight, the guards and sentries keeping an eye out were not. One of them spotted the approaching group as soon as they were clear of the trees that had been cut back from the fort and blew a whistle. The sentry pointed and a detachment of soldiers rushed forward to meet Kay and his guards. The approaching soldiers were wearing gear that marked them as regular soldiers of Avalon¡¯s army and the their movement changed from a spirited push toward a potential enemy to a measured march toward an unknown when they saw there weren¡¯t more vampyr coming to attack the fort. The detachment¡¯s officer pushed their way to the front and called out. ¡°This is a restricted area, entry is permitted to authorized personnel only! Identify yourselves!¡± Kay laughed to himself at the ¡°modern¡± way the officer was talking and wondered if Cindy had introduced those terms while he¡¯d been gone. One of the Blood Guard stepped forward in response. ¡°His majesty, King Kay of Avalon with guards!¡± ¡°You may approach to confirm your identity!¡± It only took a few moments to prove he was who he claimed to be and the soldiers got through it with minimal bowing and scraping, which he appreciated. They escorted him inside the fort and to the edge of the walls facing the ongoing fight. Zeia and Leon, the two leaders of the Shatterplate Order members that had been left behind while Edric and Alice Ravenhome went back to their headquarters to explain Kay¡¯s demands were there, looking down at a group of soldiers fighting a pair of vampyr. Zeia was staring intently at the fight while muttering under her breath and didn¡¯t notice Kay approach. Leon did, but shut his mouth when Kay shook his head at him. He watched as, under the guidance of Shatterplate order members, soldiers from his army trained to fight vampyr. The vampyr they were fighting were obviously completely maddened, showing no signs of coordination, skill, planning, or any rational thought at all and were fighting like cornered animals, which in a way they were. This was training for those who were completely new to the post to get them ready for the unpredictable way vampyr acted in every situation, but in battle specifically. One of the two vampyr suddenly rotated its neck around like an owl and bit at the arm of the soldier trying to stab it in the back. It took two spears to the front when it¡¯s attention wavered but it slammed its fans into the surprised soldier¡¯s arm. Everyone atop the wall flinched or tensed up. The soldier cursed and ripped her limb away as fast as possible staring at it in dismay as her comrades piled on the vampire and ruthlessly stabbed it to death.Stolen story; please report. ¡°Bite on the-¡° Zeia¡¯s shout cut out as she noticed a man in stereotypical mage robes with red trim run from just below the gate to the bitten soldier, pulling out a vial filled with red liquid as he ran. He slid to a stop next to her, one hand clamping tightly at her arm and the other holding out an open vial. A trail of blood shakily rose from it and ran into the bite marks on the soldier¡¯s arm. She grimaced and shook as the tendril of blood seeped into her, then grunted in pain as it pulled back out, dragging a clump of dark solidified blood that faintly reeked of the flavor of eldritch corruption that came with vampyr. ¡°That¡¯s smart.¡± Kay commented, ¡°I¡¯m glad someone thought about that.¡± ¡°What? Of course we though about¡­¡± Zeia¡¯s waspish tone trailed off as she noticed who was speaking. ¡°What? When did you get here?¡± Kay ignored her and leapt off of the fort¡¯s wall, controlling the armor around him so that he sank at a quick but uneventful speed, preventing a superhero landing. He walked over to the soldier and presumed Blood Manipulator who noticed him coming and stared nervously. ¡°Ah, uh, ah, your majesty!¡± Kay nodded back at the man, then paused. ¡°I don¡¯t know you¡­ Did Blood manipulator classes that aren¡¯t taught by me finally get started while I was gone?¡± ¡°Yes your majesty! I passed all of the vetting necessary and graduated top of my class!¡± ¡°Excellently done, then.¡± Kay patted the man on the soldier. ¡°And it looks like you¡¯re doing a good job here too.¡± He leaned in close to the clump of infected blood, studying it with both mundane and magical senses. After looking it over for a moment he turned to the soldier. ¡°Do you mind if I take a quick look inside? I shouldn¡¯t need to rip anything out so it should be less unpleasant.¡± She looked pale, but nodded resolutely. ¡°Of course your majesty.¡± She held out her arm. Kay pulled a very thin line of blood out of his finger and dipped it into one of the holes, using the connection to scout around inside the wound. There was a lingering trace of taint but it was the residue left by something that had already been removed, nothing to worry about normally. Since he had the opportunity he destroyed it, then looked around at the various cells and tissues. Being able to see inside someone¡¯s body like this was still a novel thing for Kay and he made a note to look into more healing Classes in the future. He could see why that Adventurer¡¯s Guild healer had been interested in his Classes back in Tumbling Rapids. There were traces of damage and clumps of cells that had been attack and begun to change lingered, but her immune system was already dealing with the damages. White blood cells were destroying the leftover bits a piece at a time and Kay idly noted that meant the corrupted pieces were dissimilar enough from regular bits of the body that people¡¯s bodies saw them as a threat. It looked like her body would be able to recover without issue even without further intervention. After taking a moment to get rid of all the remaining damaged bits Kay gently withdrew his tendrils and absorbed them back into his body. ¡°Good. As long as its done soon enough that level of treatment is enough to remove any problem of infection. Well done.¡± ¡°Th, Thank you, your majesty!¡± Kay turned back toward the fort and saw Zeia still where she¡¯d been, but now staring down at him and absolutely fuming. Wondering what she was so annoyed about he floated himself back up to the top of the wall. ¡°Nice to see you again Zeia.¡± ¡°Where have you been?¡± She demanded, stepping in close and looking like she was about to grab his shoulders and start shaking him before the guards on either side of him made her reconsider. Kay cocked an eyebrow at her. ¡°The Seramist Isles. I don¡¯t think I talk to you about it personally, but I know you were told.¡± ¡°And while you were gallivanting off on vacation in a tropical paradise we were dealing with this!¡± She thrust an arm out and waved it around to indicate everything that was going on. ¡°Ah yes,¡± Kay replied dryly, ¡°Getting roped into finding shapeshifting body snatchers that were the forefront of an invasion by eldritch monstrosities that could have consumed the entire world if left unchecked is definitely my idea of a vacation. I did so much gallivanting when the giant monster smashed me into the ground and we had to blow up its power core to kill it and the resulting explosion almost killed me, that was such fun.¡± ¡°I¡­ what?¡± ¡°A lot happened and I came back as soon as I could. What are you so worked up about?¡± Zeia¡¯s face shut down as her taken aback expression shifted to one of complete focus. ¡°You¡¯ve been updated on what¡¯s been going on?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Right. Well, there have been several waves of refugees, and more than one had one or more people that¡¯d been bitten and infected. We¡¯ve got most of them stabilized, but no one has been able to permanently remove the infection from those that are too far gone.¡± ¡°It¡¯s unfortunate, but isn¡¯t that when you turn them into vampires?¡± Kay asked with a frown. ¡°It¡¯s not the best experience, I can tell you that myself, but it beats turning into an insane monster.¡± ¡°No one¡¯s been able to.¡± She said flatly. ¡°We¡¯ve had multiple of your Blood Manipulators try, those with the healing Class you have and without. The best they¡¯ve been able to do is keep the infection fought back and the patients stable. No one¡¯s turning completely yet, but no one¡¯s been healed either.¡± Kay¡¯s frown deepened. ¡°Are any of them here?¡± ¡°Yes, there¡¯s a handful from the last group of refugees we managed to help that haven¡¯t been moved back yet.¡± ¡°Take me to them. I¡¯ll see what I can do and try and figure out what¡¯s going on.¡± Book 6 Chapter 11 A small family was clustered together while seated at a low table, and two other individuals that could have been guards or adventurers rested wearily against the walls of a room inside the fortifications. A pair of robed figures that Kay faintly recognized were checking over the two children of the family, with streamers of blood descending into small cuts in the kid¡¯s arms. The two people dressed in worn and in some places battle damaged armor glanced over as new people entered the room and stiffened as they took in Kay and his escort. There was no reason for them to recognize him, but unimportant people didn¡¯t have personal guards. The family and the two Blood Manipulators, who had been in some of Kay¡¯s early classes on the Class now that he took a moment to look at them closely, didn¡¯t look away from the two children. The parents¡¯ faces were pale and drawn, while the kids looked somewhere between uncomfortable and the boundless curiosity of the young. One of them kept trying to peek inside his own arm and frowning when he couldn¡¯t see through the blood trailing into him. Kay watched what was happening with both his eyes and his magical sense, although the former didn¡¯t tell him much and he didn¡¯t get a ton out of the latter either. The only way he could see into another person¡¯s body was to send blood under his control in, so all he could sense was the blood in the air between the children and the Blood Manipulators. The tiny conglomerations of cells tainted by eldritch corruption being siphoned out of the kids told him that the taint wasn¡¯t being purged like what he did, but it didn¡¯t give him any clues on why that was happening. The procedure ended quickly after that and an explanation combined with reassurances had the worried looking parents calmed down a little bit. It was when the two Blood Manipulators turned toward the two people leaning against the wall that everyone else noticed Kay and his entourage. ¡°Your majesty!¡± The family of four all huddled together with nervous expressions, even the children looking at Kay with hints of fear. The two fighters that had been watching him silently while he¡¯d watched the examination stiffened even more while doing their best to keep their expressions blank. They failed, looking worried and anxious. Kay gestured for his two citizens to rise from their bows. ¡°Hello, I hear you¡¯re doing good work but things aren¡¯t going the way they were expected to. I¡¯m here to see if we can figure out why.¡± ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± The more senior of the two Blood Manipulators, a male elf that Kay vaguely remembered from the earlier classes he¡¯d taught, nodded as he rose from his bow. ¡°How would you like to proceed?¡± ¡°First I want to see what differences you¡¯re seeing compared to if I was doing it. I¡¯ll send a little of my own blood in with yours during your next examination to shadow you, and then we can try more after that depending on what we figure out.¡± ¡°Of course.¡± He gestured at the two fighters, ¡°We were going to continue on with these two, so we can do so now if you¡¯d like.¡± Kay glanced over at the pale-faced man and woman who were staring at him with trepidation. ¡°If that¡¯s alright with you two?¡± The woman swallowed nosily and stepped forward, partially shielding the man behind her with her body. ¡°I- I- I¡­ Yes, of course¡­¡± She stammered before trailing off. ¡°Your majesty!¡± She rushed out, eye wide. ¡°Right then. Is this the first time you¡¯ve been through this?¡± ¡°No, your majesty, we¡¯ve been seen to a few more times¡­¡± ¡°Good, this shouldn¡¯t be any different, I¡¯m just looking this time.¡± A small cut was made in the woman¡¯s arm and Kay sent a tiny thread of blood alongside the thicker stream from his subordinate into the limb. Kay watched as corrupted cells and bits of the tainted vampyr virus were cut and dragged out of the woman¡¯s body, bit by bit. What seemed to be lacking was the inimical power that lurked in Kay¡¯s blood, the sheer destruction wreaked against anything eldritch when blood Kay held power over came into contact with it. With a thought he sent a single drop racing to collide with some of the infected flesh that hadn¡¯t been dealt with yet, and just like normal it melted away as Kay¡¯s blood fought against the corruption. ¡°Oh. There¡¯s been some debate over how you deal with the infection your majesty but that¡­ That is indeed quite different than anything I¡¯m capable of.¡± ¡°Which is where I think the problem is coming from,¡± Kay replied grimly. ¡°Go ahead and finish up, then we can discuss.¡± After stepping back from the woman Kay watched as the samples of the contamination were extracted and stored in small vials that were labeled with the date and the person they¡¯d been removed from. After that the woman was questioned regarding how she¡¯d been feeling, if she¡¯d experienced any mental or physical signs that she was being corrupted faster than could be treated, and about her general well being. Everything was apparently within expectations so they healed the incision in her arm and let her step back. Once the samples were safely stored Kay gestured at the two Blood Manipulators to step closer. ¡°Show me the descriptions of your Purify Blood Skills, please.¡± [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª]This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Skill: Purify Blood (Level 11) - Born in battle against a deadly venom coursing through you, this skill purifies that which would kill you through your blood. This skill gives you a passive purifying effect to your blood that helps you resist poisons, venoms, and diseases in your body. The active effect of this skill uses magic to combat venoms, poisons, and diseases in your blood. Giving your blood to another person through Blood Transfusion gives the receiver a weakened version of the passive purifying effect with less power that only targets blood-based venoms, poisons, and diseases for a limited period. Using the active effect of Purify Blood while transferring blood via Blood Transfusion gives the same effect you receive from active use of the skill for a higher mana cost, until you stop activating the effect at which point it will revert to the time-limited passive effect. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] The two descriptions were the same, and they were both lacking a key line that Kay¡¯s description for the same Skill had. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Skill: Purify Blood (Level 11) - Born in battle against a deadly venom coursing through you, this skill purifies that which would kill you through your blood. This skill gives you a passive purifying effect to your blood that helps you resist poisons, venoms, diseases, and eldritch corruption in your body. The active effect of this skill uses magic to combat venoms, poisons, diseases, and eldritch corruption in your blood. Giving your blood to another person through Blood Transfusion gives the receiver a weakened version of the passive purifying effect with less power that only targets blood-based venoms, poisons, diseases, and eldritch corruption. Using the active effect of Purify Blood while transferring blood via Blood Transfusion gives the same effect you receive from active use of the skill for a higher mana cost, until you stop activating the effect at which point it will revert to the time-limited passive effect. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay¡¯s Purify Blood Skill dealt with venoms, poisons, diseases, and eldritch corruption, while the others¡¯ did not. Kay had been hoping since all of this eldritch nonsense had been showing up more that the upgraded version of the Skill had been the one he¡¯d taught to his Blood Manipulation students, but that turned out to not be true. The entire reason he¡¯d survived the attempt to turn him into a vampyr and why he¡¯d become a vampire instead was because of that one little line of text that he¡¯d earned while battling that original eldritch monstrosity below Avalon. Kay displayed his description so that the two healers and Zeia could see. The forceful Shatterplate Order researcher voraciously read through the description before stopping and pointing at a point in the air. ¡°This part here, that¡¯s how you do everything. You improved your Skill to work against the corruption. Why didn¡¯t you just teach this version of the Skill to everyone.¡± She shook her head, ¡°Oh, if you improved it afterward then you couldn¡¯t have, I guess. You can just teach it now and solve the problem.¡± ¡°No, I can¡¯t.¡± She whipped her head around to glare at him, ¡°Why not!?¡± ¡°I had this version of the Skill when I started teaching my Class Line and the Skills that go with it, and it obviously didn¡¯t get passed on. I don¡¯t know any way to teach anyone how to improve the Skill this way either, because I got it as part of a Quest.¡± ¡°¡­ Shit!¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Kay stared down at the description for a moment before dismissing it with a thought. ¡°Let¡¯s table that for a second and deal with the other issue.¡± He gestured minutely at the six people in the room. The parents pulled their children closer and the two combatants tensed up completely like they were expecting a fight. Kay kept an eye on them but didn¡¯t comment or openly react. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to say but our research into dealing with the vampyr infection isn¡¯t going as well as we¡¯d like and right now I¡¯m the only person that can permanently remove it from anyone who¡¯s been bitten and didn¡¯t get the infection removed early enough.¡± The mother of the family¡¯s eyes widened and she leaned forward, still clutching her children. ¡°Sir, I mean, your majesty. We¡¯ll do anything to-¡° ¡°No, I¡¯m not charging for this. It¡¯s completely free without any cost or expectation of obligation to you or anyone else for me to remove the infection from you if you chose for me to do so.¡± ¡°That¡­ that sounds like there¡¯s a reason we might not let you?¡± The woman from the two fighters asked quietly.¡± Kay nodded. ¡°That¡¯s because there is. You probably haven¡¯t heard about it, or if you have you wrote it off as nonsense or lies, but the only way to permanently remove the infection that will painfully change you into a vampyr is to be changed into something else, a vampire.¡± He opened his mouth and pointed as his fangs and gently put them away when they all reared back. ¡°When used my Skills to purge the eldritch corruption that was injected into me by a vampyr bite, it left behind piece of what made up the original vampires, what they should have been without something from beyond turning them into nightmarish monsters. The only way we know of to make it safe for all of you is to do the same thing, remove the corruption and leave behind the pieces of true vampirism that will slowly make you into vampires too.¡± They all shared glances and the two pairs of adults whispered to each other while the children looked on, obviously confused by everything that was being discussed. ¡°Can we¡­ think about it?¡± The mother asked. ¡°Of course you can. I will say to you, though, I personally won¡¯t give you a time limit for you to decide by but there might be one anyway.¡± Kay grimaced as he told them, ¡°We don¡¯t know if the infection might overwhelm the attempts to cut if back, and at that point you have very little time to decide before its too late.¡± He gestured at the two healers. ¡°Everything we know will be explained to these two as we attempt to refine and improve our treatments, so they¡¯ll be able to answer any questions you might have.¡± Without saying anything else he left, taking Zeia and his guards with him. When they were far enough away that even a tier three couldn¡¯t overhear them he glanced down at Zeia. ¡°Are they from Nelam itself?¡± She nodded. ¡°They are, and they¡¯re the last refugees we¡¯re expecting from that area. Everything¡¯s slowed down to a trickle, but most of the people that are coming this way lately have been from isolated areas or have Classes suited to navigating hostile areas to get to safety. Or like those folks, they got incredibly lucky.¡± ¡°So they¡¯re still stuck seeing me as some kind of villain because of propaganda and all that.¡± ¡°It¡¯s likely.¡± Kay followed Zeia after she took the lead, taking him to a room deeper in the fortifications that was obviously a research lab of some kind. The door slammed shut behind himm and Kay turned around to see Zeia staring him fiercly in the eyes. ¡°I want you to turn me into a vampire.¡± Book 6 Chapter 12 ¡°I¡­¡± A number of responses ran through Kay¡¯s head, immediate denial, accusations, questions about her sanity, and more. The look in her eyes was dead serious, which removed some of the questions about her sanity at least, and as excitable and chaotic as Zeia could be, Kay¡¯s experience was that it was usually well thought out chaos. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Do you know what my goal is?¡± ¡°The permanent removal of all vampyr from existence.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s¡­ Oh. Yeah, alright, that fits. Do you know what the smaller goal necessary to achieve the main goal that I¡¯m focusing on is?¡± ¡°Based on the questions you¡¯ve asked me and the projects you¡¯re involved in, you want to figure out how to inoculate people against being transformed into vampyr so that they can¡¯t reproduce.¡± Zeia let out a rueful chuckle. ¡°It is kind of obvious, isn¡¯t it? Whatever, it isn¡¯t like I¡¯m keeping anything secret. Yes, that¡¯s what I¡¯m aiming for. Technically, if we killed every single vampyr before they can spread their curse, or infection, or whatever it is to others then they¡¯ll be dead permanently as a kind, but that¡¯s pretty unfeasible. Eventually we¡¯ll kill them all, but not in the kind of coordinated, widespread way we¡¯d need to prevent any further victims from turning into insane monsters.¡± ¡°It¡¯s more likely that it¡¯ll turn into a protracted hunt to search out and destroy the smarter or less crazy ones, the ones that will run and hide and plot instead of charging out to meet any threat or exposing themselves by glutting on blood.¡± Kay agreed. ¡°They¡¯d lurk in hidden places and at least some of the ones that survive will infect others as time pass. There¡¯d be years or decades of more victims, there would be less of them, but people would still suffer.¡± ¡°Exactly! No one¡¯s going to stop wiping out any vampyr they encounter, certainly not the Order or the Crusade, but the sooner we come up with a cure, a vaccine, something to help those that are bitten and not helped before its too late the less people that will suffer needlessly.¡± She turned her face away as it flashed with a look of deep and long-term hurt. ¡°A family member?¡± Kay asked gently. She scoffed. ¡°No. I¡¯m an ¡®only survivor¡¯ type. My family, my people, all got killed pretty quickly. But I¡¯ve seen a lot of the people left behind, a lot of the people who cooperate wit us after being bitten, how they descend into the madness bit by bit or at a devastating speed, and then the person who was there is gone and all that¡¯s left is a monster that has to be put down.¡± She sighed and shook her head. ¡°We keep our distance and don¡¯t get attached so that it doesn¡¯t hurt as much, but there have been so many people that I know I could¡¯ve been fantastic friends with, or were just so wonderful or amazing that never deserved to have that snuffed out.¡± She turned back to him, her eyes once again steely with determination. ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m so insistent. And it¡¯s why I want you to turn me. Into a vampire.¡± Kay put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her out of his personal space. ¡°I get that impacting your¡­ the way you interact with people and me specifically, but what does that have to do with turning you?¡± ¡°The racial characteristic you have as vampires, becoming anathema to vampyr and other eldritch things, I think that might be the key to making it so more than just you can cure the vampyr infection. As much as part of me wants to shout at you that the only thing you should be doing is spending all day every day curing people and saving lives, that¡¯s a ridiculous thought. Besides the fact that you¡¯re only one person and can only do so much at a time, you have responsibilities and duties. You save lives all the time in ways that have nothing to do with vampyr, and I can¡¯t diminish that. Which why we need to make it so others can do what you can.¡± ¡°We were just talking about that in the other room, but why-¡° ¡°Showing us the differences between your Skill description and the ¡®regular¡¯ Skill description only cemented my idea,¡± She said, whirling away and beginning to pace back and forth as she interrupted him, ¡°Vampires, vampirism, I think you called it? Whatever, being a vampire is the solution. I¡¯ve been doing a lot of research while you were gone, basing some of my inquiries off of some of the things you taught us or theorized about vampyr and everything eldritch in general and some of my own theories based on recent events. Your experiences interacting with the System directly firmly put me in the category that it has some kind of intelligence. Whether it¡¯s alive or not isn¡¯t important, just that it can think. It isn¡¯t a set of natural laws or just how things work, it has the ability to think and plan. Combine that with you receiving the upgrade to Purify Blood while completing a Quest for the System, the racial effects you gained upon becoming a vampire, and the fact that eldritch corruption is a problem for the System tied it all together.¡± ¡°Alright, but that still doesn¡¯t explain-¡°This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°Eldritch corruption is a threat to the System. It obviously wants it dealt with, but its been doing a pretty bad job of it in the last few centuries, at least in my opinion. Vampyr attacks and turnings are steadily increasing over time, although not by huge amounts thanks in part to the Order, the Crusades, and everyone else, but the numbers are growing not shrinking. Then you enter picture and suddenly the perfect weapon against vampyr exists where it hadn¡¯t before. The System turned you into its anti-vampyr weapon.¡± ¡°It didn¡¯t happen exactly like that and there was a lot more free will on my side of things,¡± Kay corrected her, ¡°But you¡¯re not technically wrong.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care about why things happened I just care that they did happen. You¡¯re the anti-vampyr person, if being called a weapon hurts you, but like I was saying you can¡¯t be everywhere, and a System that can think and plan has to know that.¡± She stopped in the middle of pacing and stared into the middle distance. ¡°You were the test case with the Purify Blood upgrade and then you proved the usefulness of it when you stopped yourself from becoming a vampyr. For whatever reason the System couldn¡¯t just permanently upgrade every single Purify Blood Skill, so it had to do something else. It used the moment it codified vampires as a species as it¡¯s opening, making you, you as in vampires, the source of a permanent solution to vampyr.¡± Trying not to get annoyed, Kay asked her, ¡°What does that have to do with you becoming a vampire?¡± ¡°I think that the only way to stop people from becoming vampyr is to have them become vampires, and I think the way that someone other than you does that is to have a vampire bite them and infect them with the vampire virus. My hypothesis is that the vampire virus, like the rest of your existence, has been empowered against eldritch taint and will destroy the corrupted vampyr body in people¡¯s bodies.¡± She pointed a finger at him, ¡°You explained when you were talking about vampires as a folktale from your world that vampires bite people to turn them into more vampires, just like the vampyr do. If you really are what vampires should have been without the first one on Torotia being touched by something eldritch then you should be able to turn people by biting them too.¡± ¡°Yes I know!¡± Kay bit out. ¡°And I was planning on brining that up when we discussed the issue, what does that have to do with you specifically turning into a vampire?¡± Zeia pulled back looking mildly insulted. ¡°I¡¯m not one of those assholes who rants about the greater good then demands that other people sacrifice themselves or take the risks, if people have to get turned into another species to save everyone then I¡¯m going to be first in line, dammit!¡± He had to resist the urge to put his face in his hands. ¡°I¡¯m not turning you into a vampire Zeia. Not right now!¡± He corrected himself when she looked ready to argue. ¡°There are so many more things that need to be done before we take that step. Like proving that I can turn someone into a vampire with a bite,¡± He started counting on his fingers, ¡°that other vampires can do that, if we all can do that that the virus from vampires does overwhelm the vampyr virus, and more.¡± ¡°We should start those tests with me,¡± She insisted, ¡°We can have-¡° Kay interrupted Zeia this time. ¡°No, we can start by testing things that aren¡¯t that big first. Like getting some of those samples of vampyr crud you¡¯ve been collecting form people¡¯s bodies to study and seeing how they react to vampire¡­venom? I¡¯m not actually sure what we have. And that¡¯s another thing to figure out, how exactly any of this works. Jumping straight to trying to trun you into a vampire is the definition of going off half-cocked.¡± Zeia¡¯s face screwed up in annoyance. ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± She said after a moment. ¡°Being methodical is better than running without looking where I¡¯m going. Urgh! Alright fine!¡± She stomped over to a cabinet and pulled out some vials. ¡°We can start by doing some easy tests right now.¡± She shoved one of the vials at his face. ¡°Gimme some venom, or spit or whatever.¡± The other one got thrust at Lauren. ¡°You too! We¡¯ll need to see if there¡¯s any appreciable difference in the samples.¡± ¡°I¡­ We, uh¡­ In some stories it¡¯s the vampire¡¯s blood that does the changing.¡± Kay said, giving in to her demands. She grabbed two more vials. ¡°Then a sample of that too!¡± Giving her a little of his blood was easy with his Skills, and Lauren cooperated without question. Getting a bit of venom was a bit harder. When neither of them could get anything to come out of their fangs Zeia gave them more vials and demanded some saliva as well. Lauren and Kay had never bitten anyone to get blood from them, with the ease of their magic and the fact that biting someone to drink their blood was an act still entirely associated with vampyr in people¡¯s minds it made it a smart move to avoid it. Since they were two of the three vampires that existed right then and the third probably hadn¡¯t tried biting anyone either, no one had any idea how it worked. Eventually image training proved to be the solution. Imagining biting into someone and drinking their blood, after taking a long series of minutes deepening the imaginary picture and adding sights and taste to it, Kay managed to get a few drops of clear liquid to drip from the tips of his fangs and into the vial. It also woke up some feelings, some instincts, that felt deeply predatory to Kay, something he¡¯d been working on suppressing ever since the first time he¡¯d started to feel thirsty for blood. ¡°Good.¡± Zeia took the last two vials after Kay coached Lauren through coaxing the venom out and put them in a rack next to the first four. ¡°Now go away. You oh so logically demolished my plans for the day and now I have to mock up plans for an entirely new research study. I need space.¡± Kay turned and left without trying to talk anymore with the infuriating, driven, and admirable researcher. With his guards following him he headed back toward the center of the keep. ¡°What are your plans now, your majesty?¡± Lauren asked as she reformed her helmet around her head. ¡°We¡¯re going to find the fort¡¯s commander and ask some questions, then we¡¯re headed out beyond the borders for a little while. I want to see what things look like deeper in where more vampyr are likely to be. And after that mildly infuriating conversation I really want to kill something that needs killing.¡± Book 6 Chapter 13 Amanda stared at the problematic woman sitting across from her, who was looking back blandly without any outward reaction to the several minutes of silence that had gone by. Amanda¡¯s first impression of Miri was of someone that could take it. What ¡°it¡± was could be any number of things, but the woman who was Kay¡¯s new majordomo had tenacity and grit somewhere underneath everything else she showed to the world. Sitting in silence wasn¡¯t going to affect her at all and while it made Amanda look like the kind of person who enjoyed petty power plays like waiting for someone else to speak as some kind of test or to ¡°put someone in their place¡±, she didn¡¯t much care. She wasn¡¯t that kind of person, though she would use that tactic and any other when they were necessary or useful, and the opinion of a stranger wasn¡¯t going ruin her day. The silence helped her organize her thoughts, and if the other woman was going to let her take her time doing that she wouldn¡¯t turn down the opportunity. After a few more minutes Amanda reached a point where she felt she had everything in hand. ¡°You are problematic.¡± ¡°I understand why you would feel that way,¡± Miri replied easily, ¡°I would probably feel that way if I was in your position and had to deal with someone like me, too.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t trust you.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t believe you if you said you did. You have more reasons to distrust me than you do to trust me.¡± ¡°How am I supposed to deal with you, then?¡± Amanda asked her directly, ¡°How am I supposed to treat you, to interact with you as someone working for the same leader, with the added position as the person making this all run?¡± She waved her hand around her office but she was really indicating all of Avalon. ¡°You¡¯re going to be his majesty¡¯s majordomo, which takes a good amount of work off of my plate, but it places you in a position of influence that I don¡¯t know I should let you have. You¡¯re saying that you can commiserate with my position, so what would you do if you were in my spot?¡± Miri grinned at her, ¡°I¡¯d start exactly where you are and try and sound out the other person and form an idea of who they are, what they want, and how they¡¯re going to act. Personally, I¡¯d be a bit more circumspect about it, but the straight forward approach probably works better for you.¡± ¡°Why would you say that?¡± ¡°It¡¯s likely experience. I haven¡¯t had the time to really gather background on you, but what little I do know combined with meeting you in person, I have the feeling you¡¯ve done this a lot. Going with the method you know the best Is often better than mixing and matching methods to match the people you¡¯re interacting with, especially if you aren¡¯t as experienced with whatever method matches that person best.¡± Miri tilted her head as she gazed at Amanda for a moment. ¡°You approached this openly and with a little bit of aggression, almost daring me to prevaricate or hide from anything from you. It felt¡­ dominant, like you were establishing that you are strong and have nothing to fear from me or this conversation. I bet you¡¯ve dealt with a lot of fighters, the type that either don¡¯t do well with following orders or just haven¡¯t been in any type of military unit. Adventurers, singleton combatants, and the like, the kind who¡¯s reputations and potential as a leader are based on how good they are in a fight, because that means they¡¯ll be most effective and obviously know what to do.¡± Amanda narrowed her eyes as she stared back at Miri. She wasn¡¯t right, but she wasn¡¯t fully wrong either. Adventurers weren¡¯t the people she¡¯d had to figuratively crush to establish a working hierarchy, it had been rebels, the leaders of future slave revolts, and abolitionists. Only some of them had used fighting capability as a leadership metric, but too many of them had needed an attitude readjustment when they¡¯d discovered who they really worked for or followed. Quickly establishing a sense that she was in charge no matter what they would try was incredibly valuable. Miri was also right, sticking to what you already know was the better decision more often than not. ¡°You¡¯re insightful, which is a good trait.¡± Amanda stopped for a moment, an impulse leading her to burying what she¡¯d been about to say. ¡°You know what? I can¡¯t get rid of you at this point, so the only real option I have is to give you enough rope and see what happens. Give me your pitch, or your speech and we¡¯ll let that settle the opening exchange.¡± ¡°Well, it isn¡¯t going to be a speech.¡± Miri murmured back, ¡°I¡¯m certainly not planning to monologue, so don¡¯t feel like you can¡¯t ask questions. I appreciate you letting me say my part.¡± She stopped for a second to scoot her chair closer to the desk and lay her arms in the edge. ¡°First of all, I am not beholden to any other individual, organization, or nation. Not anymore at least, I severed my last permanent ties of obedience before I followed his majesty here. I am still loyal to people that I consider family or close friends, but not to the point of betraying anyone.¡± ¡°I understand you were a spy for the Isles for many years, they just let you go?¡± She scoffed. ¡°Of course they didn¡¯t. I¡¯m bound by oaths, promises, spells, Skills, and more to not tell anyone what I learned in that service, the parts that could ruin anything or set back any plans at least, they didn¡¯t bind me not to share what I could do or that kind of thing. But one of the oaths I got from them was that they would leave me alone. Professionally of course, I¡¯m still related to several of them. I don¡¯t owe them anything, they don¡¯t owe me anything.¡± ¡°That¡¯s quite something to pull off.¡± Amanda said with her brows raised. ¡°How did you pull that off?¡±Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. ¡°Being related to many of the decision makers helped, even if its distantly.¡± Miri¡¯s normal affable smile slowly grew into a much sharper expression. ¡°I also made sure they knew what a problem I could be for them if they didn¡¯t do as I wanted. So in total, a mix of personal loyalty, a dash of family loyalty, a sprinkle of earning quite a bit of leeway with excellent work, and a generous helping of mutually assured destruction bought me my freedom from a life I no longer wanted.¡± ¡°And now you¡¯re here.¡± ¡°There were steps in between then and now, of course. But yes, now I¡¯m here because this is where I want to be, and it¡¯s where I think is best suited toward me achieving me own goals.¡± She drummed the fingers of one hand against the back of the other. ¡°The issue here, as I see it, is one of loyalty. Even if you perfectly trusted my declaration that I have no other loyalties binding me, which you rightfully shouldn¡¯t, I have no real reason to be loyal to you and yours. At the very least I don¡¯t have one sturdy enough to trust. Am I correct in thinking that?¡± ¡°That is one consideration,¡± Amanda replied with a nod. ¡°Good, then I¡¯m not talking out my ass. I don¡¯t have any institutional loyalty to Avalon as a nation or a concept, which many of your people do. I haven¡¯t been here learning about what you stand for and what you seek to achieve, I only have second hand exposure to some of your people, which means that isn¡¯t a tie binding me to Avalon and its people to ensure I don¡¯t betray you. There also hasn¡¯t been enough time to gain personal loyalty to his majesty King Kay, which is another common reason to be part of Avalon I presume. If I have developed the level of loyalty to him to follow him from my home to a brand new one in this short a time it means that I¡¯m either crazy or a zealot, neither of which you can afford to have in a position of power of influence. That leaves only my own personal goals driving my behavior, and you don¡¯t know what those are or how the intersect the plans of your enemies or enemies that are yet to come, leaving me as a potential vulnerability.¡± Miri stopped speaking for a moment after that, letting the silence sit and for Amanda to process her points, even if it wasn¡¯t actually necessary. ¡°I see King Kay as a massive ship, one of the ones that uses magic to propel itself and creates a great wake behind it that drags other smaller ships along. He¡¯s formed a great fleet that follows him, and that fleet happens to be sailing in a direction I want to go, so I¡¯d like to join in, for a time at least. I have resources and expertise to pay my way as we go, and I¡¯ll contribute to the fleet as a true member while I remain with it. At some point my destination will arrive and I¡¯ll decide whether to stop sailing there or continue on with the rest of the fleet, should I have become a true believer one way or another before we reach my stop.¡± She shrugged. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ an acceptable way reason to join up with a fleet, I suppose.¡± Amanda replied slowly, ¡°But what is your actual destination? Just because you want to go there and the fleet is headed in that direction doesn¡¯t mean the¡­¡± She hunted for a word, ¡°¡­Admiral, leading the way will be inclined to shift the fleet in the direction that gets you there best, or that what you have to offer is worth the risks you bring with you.¡± ¡°Thank you for playing along with the metaphor,¡± Miri said with a smile, ¡°We do love to reference ships and the ocean in the Isles. But yes, my goals.¡± She leaned forward, resting her weight on Amanda¡¯s desk. Her eyes lit with determination as she looked directly into Amanda¡¯s. ¡°I want to be the best. The utterly dominant best at what I do, and I want everyone to know that I¡¯m the best of them all. I want to create a staff for King Kay that every other ruler in the world envies with all they have. I want queens and dukes to try and poach me and I want lesser nobles to send their majordomos, butlers, and maids to learn from me to try and get a tiny fraction of my capabilities.¡± It wasn¡¯t often that Amanda felt the need to shy away from someone else¡¯s intensity. She didn¡¯t of course, that wouldn¡¯t be professional nor would it uphold the gravitas of her position. ¡°So it¡¯s all about your ego?¡± Miri resumed her original position quite quickly. ¡°To an extent. It¡¯s not all of it, but it is a major driving force. The reasons I left my job as an intelligence agent are the same as why I¡¯ve pushed to be here in these circumstances. I want to be acknowledged for what I do, and I want to strive for the absolute peak of excellence. I want to reach that peak and let everyone see that I did. That would never happen as a spy. The better you are the less people know about you, the real you. And to be honest, I didn¡¯t like the work.¡± She glanced to the side, a distant look on her face. ¡°The practice, the planning, even the act of achieving my goal were all fulfilling, but having to lie to so many people about so many things was draining.¡± She shook her head minutely and looked back to Amanda. ¡°While trying to figure out what I really wanted I discovered that what really fulfilled me was making things happen correctly, that I really enjoyed directing and managing things so that all the constituent parts and pieces came together to make the best possible whole.¡± ¡°And that made you want to be a majordomo?¡± ¡°Why not? Managing people is an excellent challenge, and being of service is a worthy cause. By serving his majesty I can make his life easier and ensure that things go well for other people because he¡¯s more capable of doing his duties well. I suppose I could use my skills and desires to be evil or manage wars, trade, smuggling, piracy, theft, political aspirations, or so much more, but I played a servant¡¯s role many times, and I came to quite like it. The best of the best are acknowledged no matter what they happen to be best at, so why not strive for excellence doing something that fulfills me and that I like on the day to day?¡± She smiled widely. ¡°My goal, the reason I want to travel with Avalon¡¯s metaphorical fleet, is to be so amazing at my job that no one can naysay me, including you. My personal code will keep me from betraying you on top of the fact that the best majordomo would never betray their lord. And¡­¡± She chuckled under her breath. ¡°I would be very surprised if I don¡¯t end up being personally loyal to his majesty in the next year or two at minimum.¡± ¡°Why is that?¡± ¡°Because I don¡¯t think Lady Eleniah will allow for any other outcome.¡± Amanda mulled it over for a while more before reaching a hand out to shake. ¡°I look forward to working with you, should everything be as you say.¡± ¡°And if it isn¡¯t, the rope you¡¯re stretching out for me will be more than enough, won¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Why of course it will.¡± Amanda watched her new potential ally with her own fierce eyes and burning passion behind them. ¡°You aren¡¯t the only one grabbing excellence with all you have. You may become the best majordomo the world over, but Avalon¡¯s Prime Minister will be one whispered about with awe in every court the world over and then some.¡± Book 6 Chapter 14 The lone vampyr making it¡¯s way in the general direction of Avalon¡¯s border was unmistakably an ¡°it¡±. Dehumanizing the enemy was an old tactic to make it easier for your soldiers to be able to kill other people, it¡¯s not ¡°murder¡± it¡¯s ¡°putting down dangerous animals¡± and such. Kay hadn¡¯t been huge on real life military history and tactics back on Earth, he¡¯d mostly focused on fictional military history and tactics, but he was pretty sure he remembered it being generally discouraged, and it had been heavily discouraged by Eleniah and other teachers of specific topics that had been brought in to help him become a well rounded King. In was somewhat useful in the short term, but in the long run it encouraged your military to underestimate the enemy, which was always a terrible idea. It also gave your enemy a driving reason to fight to the death without surrender. Treating people like animals meant you had no reason to stand by treaties or hold back from war crimes, so why would they surrender or stop fighting and why wouldn¡¯t they escalate to atrocities of their own, maybe even before you could? Vampyr as a whole lacked the intelligence to make that kind of logical leap and once the infection reached a certain point a vast majority of vampyr descended into something less than true sapience, their bodies and minds twisted into a state so feral they really did stop being people. The purpose of dehumanizing them was also to make it easier to kill them, although for a different reason. The person that had been warped into the monster was dead, even with the ones that still looked like the same person, and putting down the vampyr they¡¯d become was a mercy, not murder. This particular vampyr didn¡¯t need any extra dehumanizing, it¡¯d already become something so monstrous that there was barely anything left of the person it had been. It was still vaguely humanoid, with four limbs, a head, and a torso in roughly the right configuration, but the legs had shriveled and partially melted together into a small tail that dragged behind the body, two ignored feet bouncing off of the rocks and roots the vampyr dragged itself over. It¡¯s upper arms had pulled back and solidified into wider shoulders, and the forearms had stretched out in jagged growths that made them both longer and covered in thorns of bone. It¡¯s hands Were covered in smaller bone spikes and it had more growing from the tips of it¡¯s fingers like claws. The head was the most unsettling part. The neck had shrunk back and pulled the head back into the torso. It was flat, like a lizard¡¯s head, with the eyes where the poor person that had been killed and turned into this thing¡¯s temples would have been. The two empty eye sockets in between where the eyes now sat quivered like nostrils as it swung its head back and forth, questing for the trail it had been following. ¡°That is the most warped vampyr I¡¯ve seen that hasn¡¯t actively seemed to dive into its corruption to try and kill me.¡± Kay muttered quietly, resisting the persistent urge to go over to the creature and stamp it out. ¡°Inspecting it doesn¡¯t say too much,¡± Lauren told him from where she was crouched next to him. ¡°But it is interesting and mildly informative.¡± Kay looked for himself. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Twisted Vampyr Spawn Tier ? Equivalent Monster - A vampyr that failed to retain any semblance of intelligence as it was warped by the eldritch corruption that creates vampyr from sapient being, it¡¯s body was further twisted into a new form by a large quantity of eldritch essence that was far too great for it¡¯s body to contain. It has become a monstrosity of unknown power, potentially having abilities beyond those of the being it was created from. Caution is recommended. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°That does tell us something new.¡± Kay stopped for a second and scoffed lightly. ¡°The Shatterplate or Crusade might already know that¡¯s a possibility, but learning it is good either way. Anything else we need from it?¡± ¡°No, your majesty.¡± ¡°Then here.¡± Kay floated some of his blood up to her and let her take control of it. Lauren shaped it into a massive arrow, then formed a bow as tall as she was to fire it from with her own blood. The creature paused in its ascent of the slope it was climbing, one spiked hand digging furrows into the tree it¡¯d grabbed. It turned about, looking for whatever had changed, and managed to just glimpse Lauren as the arrow drove into the center of it¡¯s head. Kay seized back control of the blood as it hit and detonated the arrow, sending it surging through the creature. The vampyr screamed in pain and it sounded completely inhuman as it thrashed. The bone spines on its arms and hands grew several inches, making it look like it had erupted with spikes. After rolling about screaming for several seconds it¡¯s cries of pain suddenly stopped and it went still. Kay wrapped the thing¡¯s corpse in blood and began to dissolve it. ¡°I¡¯m sorry this is how we have to dispose of your body,¡± He whispered to the person who this had once been, ¡°But we can¡¯t risk this tainting someone or something.¡± When the last traces of the vampyr were destroyed he stored the blood back inside himself. ¡°We¡¯ll keep going in this direction,¡± He pointed down the obvious path the vampyr had left. ¡°I want to see more before we head back.¡± They roamed for several more miles, picking off stragglers and small groups of vampyr as they encountered them, until they reached the site of the closest settlement to Avalon¡¯s borders. What had once been a small town or a village was now a muddled mixture of burnt husks and demolished buildings. Figures dug through the rubble, occasionally stopping to fight each other, biting, kicking, and scratching in animalistic combat. One figure pulled out something from under a collapsed wall and greedily shoved it into their mouth. Kay was glad that they were far enough away that he couldn¡¯t make out exactly what they were eating.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Kay stared down at the vampyr swarming the ruins of the town they¡¯d destroyed. There were dozens of them clustered near the edge of the ruined buildings that weren¡¯t digging through the rubble. Some where fighting each other, some were screaming or ranting at other vampyr or just the air, and some where just sitting in place, barely moving. Deeper in there was more movement, evidence of a greater number of vampyr present than just those that Kay could see. ¡°Let¡¯s get closer and see if there¡¯s anything we need to discover before we start wiping them out.¡± ¡°Is there anything we¡¯re looking for in particular?¡± Lauren asked. ¡°Evidence of planning or a direction to what they¡¯re doing. You were there for the parts that have gotten me wondering, and worried. The one vampyr in that village closer to Tumbling Rapids said something about a ¡°Great One¡± and the one that tried to turn me had some similar epithet for the person who apparently ordered them to capture me. If there¡¯s a vampyr with most of their brain intact controlling all the rest, or even just a large amount of other vampyr, we need to know about them so we can kill them better.¡± They snuck closer to the destroyed town, killing the lone vampyr that had a decent or better chance of detecting them as they approached. None of the vampyr they encountered displayed any evidence of cognizance, they were all the kind that had been degraded into predatory instincts wrapped in a humanoid shell. A few of them had visible manifestation of the corruption that had made them into monsters, but none were as twisted or warped as the one they¡¯d first run into. The closer they got to the center of the strewn piles of rubble that had once been a place to live, the more activity there was and the more purpose was behind the movement of the vampyr. Vampyr that could talk and ostensibly think to some degree ordered about packs of lesser vampyr as they demolished what was left of the destroyed buildings and carried the debris away somewhere while an entire squad of upright vampyr marched past in something resembling organization, although a few of them started hitting each other and it devolved quickly. Kay wasn¡¯t that stealthy and the Blood Guard with him were bodyguards, not scouts or infiltrators, but the vampyr were easy to maneuver around even for them. They were easy to distract and more than once completely failed to notice another vampyr disappearing entirely. After passing by or eliminating several ¡°patrols¡± Kay and his Blood Guard found their way to a building that was only missing a few chunks instead of being completely leveled and that wasn¡¯t currently being worked on by anything or anyone. They moved inside and Kay and Lauren moved to the wall closest to the center of the activity. They both peeked out a window to see what was going on. A circle of vampyr stood around two more of their kind who were viciously arguing. At some point it had devolved into a physical fight as both were covered in slowly healing wounds and the ground around them was torn up, but at some point before Kay and his people had arrived they¡¯d moved to fighting with words. Most of it was unintelligible at the volume and intensity they were shouting at each other, but some random words made their way to Kay¡¯s ears. One of the vampyr, who resembled an old human woman with long white hair snarled like a wolf at the other, who looked like an unnaturally tall and skinny man with a domino mask over his face, and gestured at the crowd of watchers. They cleared away as a pair dragged a third into the circle. The vampyr they were dragged struggled to get free, snapping like a trapped animal at the hands holding them in place and shrieking wordlessly. The female vampyr stalked over to a piece of rubble, grabbed it, and slammed it into the ground between her and her adversary. With a better view of it Kay saw it wasn¡¯t a piece of rubble, it was some kind of obelisk or pillar with unnatural runes carved across the surfaces facing him. The female vampyr grabbed the struggling one¡¯s neck and slammed it¡¯s head into the top of the object, holding it there. The runs began to glow with unseemly light that flickered with nauseating colors. The struggling vampyr shrieked again and violently increased their efforts to be free, before suddenly slacking and lying still. All of the other vampyr watched as the one being subjected to this twitched and began to smoke, before it¡¯s body suddenly began to twist and change, growing larger and more muscular as it¡¯s body swelled. ¡°You see!?¡± The female vampyr yelled out, ¡°Direct application is the best way!¡± ¡°Fool!¡± The lanky one cried back, ¡°You number your alligators before they hatch! Don¡¯t assume that all will be well before it is done!¡± The swelling paused in a single second and the body of the changing vampyr began to literally twist as their limbs cracked and broke. Their arms and legs tried to make spiraling shapes but couldn¡¯t as the bones supporting the limbs broke into tiny pieces. They then began to compress inward toward the torso and it¡¯s head shifted to sprout from the middle of its chest. Large vent-like openings rent themselves in it¡¯s skin and began leaking brown and green smoke that was timed with each labored breath that the newly corrupted creature took. ¡°There!¡± The tall vampyr cried, ¡°It is useless as a soldier now! It best if we harness the power of the relic in bursts not in a single application!¡± The female vampyr sneered at the twisted monstrosity in disdain. ¡°A weakling! One of the stronger ones would be changed into true weapons with ease!¡± ¡°It matters not! You have had your chance, so now it is my turn!¡± ¡°Fine!¡± She spat at him. She gestured dismissively at the twisted spawn. ¡°Herd that toward the enemy, same as the rest.¡± Kay pulled back from the window and gestured at Lauren to join him. ¡°I think that¡¯s more than enough. There¡¯s a level of planning involved, and whoever¡¯s doing the planning considers Avalon an enemy. Turns out that any bargaining anyone wanted to try and drag us into this mess has been a moot point, we¡¯re already involved whether we like it or not.¡± ¡°What next, your majesty? Straight back home?¡± ¡°No, I think we¡¯ll stop to grab Zeia and bring her back with us. We¡¯re going to need her for any real planning what¡¯s next. Do you want the lanky one or the one with the white hair?¡± Lauren glanced in the direction of the window. ¡°I¡¯d prefer we see what they¡¯ve got before we make any permanent decisions about who takes which one.¡± ¡°Practical, if a bit boring. Anyone got any issues to bring up before we start?¡± The Blood Guard all shook their head, weapons already out and ready. ¡°Fantastic. If anyone runs into one that¡¯s particularly strong make sure to take it together, I¡¯d prefer if no one got infected or dead while we¡¯re here.¡± He turned and held up one hand toward the wall. A pressurized blast of blood erupted outward and destroyed half of the building they¡¯d been hiding in and sending the vampyr closest to it sprawling. The entire congregation of vampyr watching another of their kind get warped by the obelisk being repeatedly pressed against there chest spun toward the commotion. ¡°Kill them all.¡± Kay ordered calmly. ¡°Try not to touch that thing they¡¯re using on each other while you¡¯re at it.¡± Book 6 Chapter 15 Dozens of vampyr died in the first strike as arrows, blasts, blades, and a variety of other attacks all made of blood erupted from Kay¡¯s forces. Kay himself sent two shaped harpoons at the two vampyr that seemed to be leading the rest, aiming to drag them to him for questioning. The lanky male vampire frantically grabbed at the unmoving unfortunate that it¡¯d been repeatedly pressing against the strange object they¡¯d all circled around and threw them in the path of the attack. It slammed into and then through the mutated vampyr, which flailed erratically, but the delay was enough for the elongated vampyr to jump out of the way. The female vampyr with the long gray hair whipped out a pair of large needles from somewhere on it¡¯s person and held them crossed in front of it. The blood harpoon slammed into it¡¯s block and held there. With a grunt of effort it directed the harpoon to the side where it slammed into the ground, throwing up a cloud of dirt. When the impromptu smokescreen cleared the female was gone and the male was charging forward with his arms straight back behind itself, it¡¯s torso held low toward the ground, and two elongated hooks in it¡¯s hands. After seeing the harpoon punch right through the vampyr that¡¯d been used as a shield Kay decided to use less immediately lethal means of capturing his prey, so he sent out cables to entangle the vampyr. They extruded out from his back and raced toward the approaching enemy, who dodged between them with inhumanly fluid movements. The ends turned around to chase after the vampyr while smaller cables branched off from the main strands to wrap around it. The vampyr weaved and slipped through the forest of strands trying to tangle it up, getting closer to Kay with every move. When it was only a few feet away he planted his feet and threw itself forward as it pulled it¡¯s arms close to it¡¯s torso. Kay stood in place, unmoving as the vampyr approached him and watched as the strands and cables of blood he was controlling all congregated together to completely surround the vampyr. Right as the vampyr was completely enclosed it threw it¡¯s arms outward, sending itself into a mid-air spin. It¡¯s bladed meathooks glowed with metallic colored light as it rotated at high speeds and shredded the filaments surrounding it into red mist. The vampyr came out of the spin with both weapons swinging directly at Kay¡¯s face in an impossible attack that defied gravity and momentum. Kay solidified one of his gauntlets and backhanded the attack, sending the meathooks off to the side and leaving the vampyr¡¯s head on a direct course for Kay. He reached forward to grab the vampyr around the neck but it kicked down on empty air and somehow threw itself to the side. It did a flip to orient itself with the ground and landed a few feet away. Staring at Kay with wide eyes it began to pace to the side, circling around Kay. It shook its shoulders and its arms as it working the kinks out of its muscles as it it¡¯s steps curved it around Kay. Taking the chance while the vampyr seemed to be studying him, Kay glanced around the rest of the battlefield. While a few were struggling here and there it wouldn¡¯t be untrue to say that the Blood Guard were dominating the fight. Dead vampyr covered the ground and several more died as Kay watched, impaled, shot, or crushed by the Blood Guard who were systematically hunting down the enemy. One of the red-armored figures that was quaking as they held back a hulking, muscled vampyr that was practically foaming at the mouth while it shrieked and clawed at them was relieved when one of their comrades came up behind the vampyr and beheaded it in a single blow of their greataxe. The tide did shift as more vampyr flooded in from the outskirts of the ruined village, but only enough for it to go from a rout to a winnable battle. Maddened vampyr threw themselves against experienced warriors capable of planning and positioning and promptly broke against them. Monstrosities made from twisted and mutated spawn attacked with numerous body parts altered into unnatural weapons but even those eldritch abominations didn¡¯t do more than force some of the Blood Guard back a few steps before dying. Quantity has a quality all its own, but wave tactics only work when there¡¯s enough bodies to trample over the enemy, and the vampyr didn¡¯t have anywhere near the numbers for that. The acrobatic vampyr leapt into the air when Kay wasn¡¯t looking directly at it and brought its weapons back for what could have been a devastating overhead blow amplified by the height it was falling from. Kay wasn¡¯t nearly as distracted as he let himself seem and pillars burst from bellow to intercept. The vampyr whipped its torso to the side to dodge and slammed its hooks into the side of of the closest pillar, spinning around it like it was doing a pole dancing performance while it descended. Once it was below all of the pillars of blood it launched itself off, once again raising its hooks to slam them deep into Kay. Tired of its circus performance, Kay launched a much bigger attack. All of the pillars looming above detonated into waves that fell from the sky, all the blood in them changed from a solid state to a liquid one in an instant. Sheets of red liquid collapsed inward toward the both of them, and try as it might the vampyr couldn¡¯t escape. It slammed one foot down onto the air, using whatever invisible platforms it could create to throw itself backward, but the blood chasing it was empowered by Kay¡¯s mana pool and will. It swarmed around it and grabbed onto its limbs, tugging them in different directions and keeping it from running away. It thrashed and tried to slice the blood away with it¡¯s hooks, but even with a Skill empowering them they did little more than swirl the blood around them, there was just too much of it. With a thought Kay forced the vampyr¡¯s fingers away from the weapons and tossed the off to the side out of reach. The vampyr continued to struggle futilely, glaring at Kay while it tried to escape.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°What are you doing here?¡± Kay asked as he slowly walked up to it. He was fairly certain he already knew the answer but seeing what the vampyr might spill could be worth it. It spat at him. ¡°Foul interloper, you know not what you¡¯ve done! You have fouled plans most imperative! We, the true chosen ones, must act unopposed to combat the enemy most foul!¡± Kay quietly stared up at the vampyr suspended by viscous tendrils of blood for a long moment, debating if questioning it actually was worth it. ¡°What¡¯s that thing?¡± He asked, pointing at the discarded object that had been infusing vampyr with eldritch energy. The foot tall obelisk looking thing was behind the vampyr and he wasn¡¯t letting it move so he rotated it enough that it could see. ¡°That is the grand device entrusted to us by the Visionary, oh the grand Visionary! The one who sees the depredations the horrid enemy seeks to enact! Only through his grand plans will we be free of them!¡± ¡°Why are you repeating words?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°It¡¯s probably impossible, but if we figure out how the corrupted infection that turns people into vampyr affects the brain and makes what¡¯s left of people¡¯s brains go insane we might learn more about stopping it, so I was wondering why you¡¯re repeating words like that. You said ¡®foul¡¯ three times in the first answer you had for me and ¡®grand¡¯ in the second one, but you weren¡¯t doing that when talking to that other vampyr with the needles earlier. So why are you doing it now?¡± The vampyr¡¯s face visibly distorted in reaction to tis emotions as it listened to Kay¡¯s questions. It stopped with it¡¯s brows deeply furrowed and its cheeks pulled back in aggravated confusion. ¡°What is it that you speak¡­¡± It trailed off, the suddenly roared with rage. ¡°You are of the enemy! You seek to understand the secrets of the Visionary¡¯s blessing, which marks you as the enemy!¡± ¡°Does that count?¡± Kay wondered to himself, ignoring the angry vampyr. ¡°You did say ¡°you¡± three times, but-¡° The vampyr¡¯s arms stretched out like rubber bands being pulled on and forced their way out of the bloody restraints holding it. They grabbed the discarded hooks and swung at Kay¡¯s neck. The two limbs went slack and the weapons dropped to the ground again as Kay severed the vampyr¡¯s arms where they were still held by his blood. The vampyr screamed in pain as its thrashing resumed with even more violence than before. ¡°Well, I guess that¡¯s all I¡¯m going to get out of you, but I think it confirms my suspicions.¡± A whip-fast line of blood cut into the vampyr¡¯s neck and sliced off its head. The rest of the blood surged up around the vampyr¡¯s unresisting corpse and began to dissolve it. Glancing around again Kay saw the Blood Guard mopping up a decreasing stream of vampyr rushing into the fight. Lauren hadn¡¯t returned from chasing after the gray haired female vampyr and there wasn¡¯t much else to do, so he walked over to the rune covered obelisk looking object. It had fallen on it¡¯s side after the now dead lanky vampyr had thrown it¡¯s test subject up as a shield. It was two feet tall and made out of dark stone. It was shaped like a miniature obelisk but with the pointy top cut off, leaving a flat surface. There were twisted symbols carved into its sides that made Kay uncomfortable when he looked at them. The faint emotion of rage and a need to destroy that came with his new vampiric being urged Kay to take the obelisk and smash it to bits, and the closer he got the more that feeling intensified. He reached out with a wire made of blood and poked it, eliciting a spark of energy made of impossible colors that burnt away a bit of the blood. Lauren returned about ten minutes later. She jogged into view around one of the piles of broken building to find Kay staring up at a sphere of blood floating above him. Kay noticed her approach and smiled at her. ¡°Ah, you¡¯re back. How did it go?¡± ¡°It wasn¡¯t too difficult,¡± She replied. ¡°The fight itself was interesting, the vampyr had some Class that let it knit magical effects into being that was quite versatile, but it wasn¡¯t too strong, just tricky. I think someone with a Class like that could be a real threat with some forethought and planning but¡­¡± She shrugged. ¡°But vampyr tend to lack both of those.¡± Kay agreed with a nod. ¡°Mine was fairly maneuverable but didn¡¯t have any way to get out once I surrounded it. Learn anything useful?¡± ¡°No, just a lot of screaming.¡± ¡°Mine said a few things when I stopped to ask it questions, which cements my belief that there¡¯s some leader type with at least half a brain left in its head driving them.¡± He pointed up at the sphere held above them. ¡°I got the thing they were using to make monsters with, I¡¯ve got it wrapped in dirt to keep my blood from destroying it and then extra layers of blood to keep it from leaking its eldritch bullshit into the air around us. Let¡¯s clean up, grab Zeia, and head home testing.¡± Book 6 Chapter 16 ¡°The decision about whether or not Avalon will intervene in the crisis affecting the region to our west has been taken out of our hands.¡± Kay addressed the assembly of his ministers, advisers, and other important minds needed for this discussion. ¡°Evidence that has been uncovered suggests that there is someone or something with an actual intelligence directing the vampyr, and they¡¯ve flagged Avalon as their enemy. We don¡¯t have any clear information about their goals, but I have no intentions of sitting around and acting passively while vampyr are continuously sent to harry us. I¡¯m not making any decisions about the final consequences of our actions, whether we take control of any of the territory is still up in the air, but we will be eliminating the vampyr threat.¡± A few people exchanged worried glances, but no one protested, not that Kay expected anyone would. His people were loyal, which was good, but even better than that they were smart, smart enough to know that leaving a growing threat to fester at their doorstep was a bad idea. ¡°I¡¯m not much of a fighter, as you all know, so I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be contributing all that heavily to this discussion, but what do we know about this supposed leader of vampyr?¡± Kay¡¯s Minister of Planning, David, was one of the original refugees that had come with Cindy to what would become Avalon. ¡°Everyone knows that vampyr are completely mad, I wouldn¡¯t think any of them could keep themselves together enough to direct anything, let alone other vampyr struck by their own madness.¡± Zeia leaned forward so everyone at the table could see her. ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Zeia and I¡¯m with the Shatterplate Order. I¡¯m one of the two leaders left behind to manage our contingent here while our highest leadership deals with moving our headquarters to Avalon.¡± She conveniently skipped over how the people left behind were technically all hostages and that whether or not the Shatterplate Order or the Itarian Crusade actually capitulated to Kay¡¯s demands was still up in the air. Zeia herself was completely behind the move, since it would mean she could remain close to Kay and his eldritch purifying powers, but she wasn¡¯t in charge of her entire organization. ¡°I¡¯m also one of our leading researchers, which is why I¡¯ve been included in this meeting. To answer you question, sir, you¡¯re correct to say that all vampyr are mad, but not that all of them are completely mad. And that is the important distinction here.¡± ¡°You¡¯re saying that some of them hold on to some of their sanity?¡± ¡°Yes, exactly. The worst off among vampyr when it comes to sanity descend into being totally feral beasts. They attack anything that moves, they have little to no survival instincts, and they tend to die off the fastest.¡± She held up a second finger as she continued to list the different conditions among vampyr, ¡°The second up the scale and the most common, are the ones that most fit the general descriptor of ¡®mad¡¯. They all have some kind of insanity that presses on them and directs their behavior. No vampyr like this is exactly the same, although they can fall into many broad categories, but on the whole they tend to experience psychoses, delusions, or hallucinations, all of which make it very hard for them to interact in concert with one another.¡± She held up a third finger, ¡°The type that we¡¯re worried about are the least common but are the most dangerous. Vampyr that retain some sanity and sense of self.¡± Murunel made a face. ¡°Are you saying that some vampyr have th person they used to be inside of them somewhere?¡± ¡°No, not at all.¡± Zeia shook her head violently, ¡°We know for a fact that the person that is infected and becomes a vampyr dies, all of them.¡± She glanced at Kay with a look asking him for permission. He wasn¡¯t sure exactly what she was going to bring up, but he wasn¡¯t aware of her knowing anything that needed to be kept secret, so he nodded. She nodded back. ¡°His majesty has allowed me to accelerate my research into preventing the vampyr from spreading by supplying me with samples from his own body. We know that vampyr are the result of a vampire being corrupted by heavy exposure to eldritch energy, which is why they retain many characteristics of vampires, albeit many of them twisted. Thanks to my study of samples from a real vampire I¡¯ve been able to make many discoveries, including definitively proving that the infected victims die when their bodies become vampyr.¡± She smiled sadly. ¡°We¡¯ve always said that, and made ourselves believe it, but its nice to have real proof of it.¡± She took a deep breath and slowly released it. ¡°Apologies. Are you all aware of the fact that a vast majority of species can be dead for a short time and be resuscitated without lasting harm done? The exact time varies from species to species and tiering up increases how long someone can be physically dead by noticeable amounts, but its possible even with a child that has no Class.¡± There was a general spattering of acknowledgments and nods from around the room. ¡°Good. Well, I¡¯ve discovered that the transformation from another species into a vampire uses that to effect that transformation. The actual change into a vampire is quite traumatic physically and to prevent any long term damage, the virus temporary kills the individual being changed and revives them after the transformation is complete. With vampyr, the victim dies in the same way, but is never revived. The eldritch taint just, takes over the body and starts driving it.¡±Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°That explains why vampires are thought to be undead back home,¡± Kay mused. ¡°I would presume so, yes. Returning to the previous topic though, vampyr that don¡¯t entirely fall into madness retain a portion of who the original person used to be, just contorted into a monster. They can still have a portion of the original person¡¯s memories or continue to have some of their goals. Because they¡¯re actually insane monsters fueled by energy from outside out reality though, they almost always act in completely monstrous ways to enact those goals or react to the memories they still posses in deranged ways.¡± ¡°All of which combined allows some vampyr to act intelligently. That explains one part of the issue, but how do they manage to control other vampyr that don¡¯t have those same capabilities?¡± David asked, ¡°As you¡¯ve said, most vampyr are too mad to work together and from what I know most of the vampyr attacking us are those type.¡± ¡°Getting the news from your wife?¡± Eleniah asked teasingly. David glanced away with a blush. ¡°Fiancee, thank you.¡± ¡°Ah, congratulations?¡± Zeia said haltingly. ¡°Um, anyway, the answer to that is a combination of observed evidence and supposition. We know from observing vampyr that the more put together ones can control those that are less stable and a hierarchy tends to form when vampyr gather together that¡¯s based on strength or combat ability. Since the ability to actually think when you fight most often beats strength with no thought behind it the vampyr¡¯s that are more sane tend to end up on top. While the relationship is ofter fraught with conflict and many subordinate vampyr rebel frequently and/or end up dead, the vampyr leaders are able to give them orders that are generally followed to the best ability of the subordinate vampyr. That isn¡¯t saying much in a vast majority of cases, but it does explain how vampyr can act in coordinated ways. The thing we don¡¯t know is the actual mechanics of how that relationship works, but I do have ideas.¡± Zeia glanced in Kay¡¯s direction again, but this time she seemed to just be gathering her thoughts. ¡°Based on his majesty¡¯s description of folklore and myths around vampires from his world I¡¯ve come to theorize that what we¡¯ve seen among vampyr hierarchies is another bastardization of natural vampire traits. Vampires seem to flock toward forming groups of multiple vampires, usually led by a particularly powerful vampire with said powerful vampire often being the originator of many or all of the vampires beneath them. I believe that some portion of that is retained by vampyr and they form a hierarchy because of this.¡± ¡°Alright,¡± Kay took back the conversation, ¡°So know that it can happen and we also have evidence that says it has. Multiple vampyr involved with what¡¯s happening have made reference to some kind of leader, including titles such as ¡®Great One¡¯ and ¡®the Visionary¡¯. We don¡¯t know if there¡¯s only a single leader and the vampyr in their madness call them by many names or if there¡¯s more than one, but they¡¯re targeting Avalon, and we won¡¯t be sitting back to let them do as they like. This shorter meeting was just to inform everyone where we are with this new information. There will be additional meetings regarding what we¡¯ll need from people or their ministries as we determine exactly how we¡¯re going to act.¡± The meeting broke up as Kay dismissed everyone, and Eleniah took the opportunity to scoot her seat closer to his. ¡°You didn¡¯t mention the other one.¡± He looked back at her out of the corner of his eye. ¡°You mean the one who turned me?¡± ¡°I do. He also talked about a ¡®Great One¡¯ or something like that, and said he had orders to bring you to him.¡± She stared at him sternly, ¡°I won¡¯t let you do anything stupid like blame yourself for what¡¯s happened. What evil people do-¡° ¡°I¡¯m not blaming myself.¡± She raised one eyebrow at him. ¡°I¡¯m not. I understand why you¡¯d think I am, I¡¯ve definitely acted like that before, but I¡¯m not this time. There¡¯s too much going on with this ¡®Great One¡¯ for everything happening to be aimed at me. I think I was targeted as part of whatever greater plan they¡¯re trying to enact, not the other way around. The vampyr set off rituals that caused the world¡¯s defenses against eldritch incursion to break all over the world, distracting everyone, and then while no one can respond to it they take out Nelam and everything around it? That sounds like whoever this ¡®Great One¡¯ or ¡®Visionary¡¯ is, they were aiming for that spot from the beginning. I think I became a target because happened to be a new threat in the region they wanted to act in.¡± Eleniah nodded along as she processed what he was saying. ¡°If they¡¯ve got enough left up in their head to plan at this level, they could be able to predict that you¡¯d be a problem to their future plans and look to take you out. That definitely makes sense. Why not bring the attack on you up to further prove the point, then?¡± ¡°To avoid messy optics. I became a vampire because I was attacked by a vampyr that was likely working for our enemy, and that wouldn¡¯t be hard for those with a grudge against me, or just Avalon in general, to turn into a nasty rumor that hurts our credibility when we can¡¯t afford it.¡± He nodded subtly at Zeia, ¡°I¡¯d bet money that she¡¯s already sent a dozen or more messages telling the Order to get their asses down here to help out with this, and I¡¯ll be getting her and the Itarians to send a dozen more. The vampyr wiped out an actual nation and the equivalent of at least one more. We can¡¯t afford to do this alone, and the people who are going to be our best allies in this are going to come in already doubting me. Just beating them in one tiny war isn¡¯t going to change the mind of the really hard core people who want me dead just for being sort of like a vampyr. We don¡¯t benefit anything from reminding people exactly how I came to change species, but we could lose by doing it.¡± Eleniah stared at him as he talked, and her expression changed over the course of his explanation from a curious look to a very wide grin. ¡°Can I pick ¡®em or what?¡± Kay looked over with a frown. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Did you just hear yourself? You¡¯ve still got work to do on some subjects, sure, but you are already showing that you¡¯re an excellent leader and king.¡± She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. ¡°I am so good at spotting talent, it amazes even me.¡± ¡°¡­ I¡¯m glad I can make you look good.¡± ¡°Perfect, that¡¯s going to be your job in our relationship for a long time, so I¡¯m happy you¡¯re finding joy in it already.¡± Everyone still in the room turned to look as Kay burst out laughing, and couldn¡¯t stop for an extended time. Book 6 Chapter 17 The benefits of having competent subordinates were many, but the biggest one in Kay¡¯s opinion was that it was much easier to get things going from a sudden start. With barely any notice planning sessions were scheduled and went underway, missives and messages were sent out to gather everyone necessary, and a million other tiny details were shoved into line or our of the way to make everything run as smoothly as possible. People obviously knew about the threat of the vampyr to the west, but knowing that they existed was different than knowing that we needed to get working on dealing with them right now, thank you and shifting into that kind of mindset quickly was appreciated. The messages to the Shatterplate Order and the Itarian Crusade that Kay had told Eleniah about were also sent out, telling them to get their asses in gear. He was sure that everyone from both organizations that didn¡¯t want anything to do with him and his demands would use the opportunity to say that they were ¡°paying back¡± and that their debts to Avalon after unfairly attacking Kay¡¯s nation would be gone after helping deal with the threat, but he was prepared for that. Having the majority of both organizations present to actually interact with as he slowly convinced or cajoled them into doing what he wanted would make getting what he wanted much easier, and that wasn¡¯t including Zeia and her convictions, or that the leader of the Order and one of the more influential Crusader Generals already agreed with him. The two most powerful vampyr slaying organizations weren¡¯t the only places Kay was going to turn to for help in dealing with such a wide-spread problem though, which is why he scheduled a meeting with the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, specifically Guildmaster Gemglass, who remained the Avalon branch¡¯s Guildmaster even after everything that had gone down in the last year or two. Specifically scheduling an appointment meant there was no need to wait and a functionary guided Kay up to Gemglass¡¯ office as soon as he arrived. The Guildmaster was sitting behind her desk when he stepped inside and it was obvious that she¡¯d been waiting for him. She inclined her head at him as he entered. ¡°Your majesty, welcome to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. I believe I¡¯ve said this before, but wouldn¡¯t it be more proper to summon me to your office instead of setting an appointment with me and coming to mine? Some might say that it¡¯s beneath you to travel to meetings yourself.¡± ¡°And I would say that anyone who thinks something like that doesn¡¯t what ¡®work¡¯ really means.¡± Kay replied dryly. ¡°One thing I¡¯m going to make sure is built into the culture of this nation is that being a noble of any stripe doesn¡¯t mean you can be a dick to people. The most important part of being a leader is one¡¯s duty, not one¡¯s privileges. Besides, I¡¯m just the first king of a tiny, newborn kingdom and you¡¯re the representative of the entire Adventurer¡¯s Guild for this region.¡± The Guildmaster chuckled and shook her head, ¡°That¡¯s significantly downplaying yourself. And while I agree with leaders focusing on their responsibilities long before they look at any benefits they get from their positions, having someone come to you for a meeting doesn¡¯t really fall under that category as much as it does showing off the pomp and circumstance of your position.¡± ¡°Ugh. I hate that going to those ends even when they suit me, I¡¯m not going to chose to do it when I don¡¯t want to. Honestly I¡¯m coming to you because I respect your time and the work that you do, so throwing off your schedule would be quite rude of me, but more importantly I don¡¯t want to give anyone the impression that I¡¯m calling you to me to express my displeasure, or anything like that. I know that that¡¯s the kind of thing monarchs get up to here as much as it was back on Earth.¡± He shrugged lightly, ¡°Even if you and I know from the contents of the meeting we would have that there¡¯s no issue, other people might assume there is one and that could cause trouble I don¡¯t need.¡± ¡°I see. What about the trouble caused by people who think they can make demands of you, since you¡¯re obviously too weak and malleable to really make the demands a king should?¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°I¡¯ll sic Amanda on them and then listen to their wails of lamentation.¡± Gemglass grinned back at him. ¡°An effective punishment. Well, now that we¡¯ve exchanged courtesies, what can the Adventurer¡¯s Guild help you with?¡± ¡°I¡¯d like the Guild¡¯s assistance in setting up a coalition force do deal with the vampyr problem west of us. Like the army that came to kill me, but actually going after real vampyr.¡± ¡°Ah¡­¡± She gave him a concerned look. ¡°You know that the Guild doesn¡¯t support wars that aren¡¯t definitively to end massive threats against most of the world or things like that, that¡¯s why we didn¡¯t help with either side of the Shatterplate War.¡± ¡°As much as too many people would like me to say otherwise, what¡¯s going to happen to what used to be Nelam and the surrounding regions is still up in the air. I¡¯ve yet to make a final decision about whether Avalon is going to take control of any of that territory, if we¡¯re going to support anyone in taking any land, or if we¡¯re going to let the survivors fight it out for themselves. I doubt that those decisions are going to come even after we deal with the vampyr, there¡¯s just too much to decide there, and I am specifically not asking the Adventurer¡¯s Guild to get involved in any of that. I¡¯m asking you to assist in dealing with the large scale problem of hordes of vampyr pushing out of that area into the rest of the world.¡± ¡°And you have proof of this?¡± Kay pulled a folder out of his Inventory Skill and gave her time to peruse the contents. She slowly looked back up at him after reading it all. ¡°This¡­ None of this is definitive proof, but together it paints an alarming picture. The Avalon branch will definitely be supporting your¡­ expedition?¡± ¡°We¡¯ll figure out a term eventually.¡± ¡°Sure. Anyway, I¡¯ll support this and I¡¯ll send what influence I have up the chain to get adventurers and other resources moving in this direction.¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± Kay replied. He took a long breath as he looked at her with a grave expression. ¡°Guildmaster, how deeply would you say that you¡¯re in your Founder¡¯s good graces?¡± She looked startled by his sudden subject change. ¡°¡­ I would say I¡¯m as deep into their good graces as one can get, why do you ask?¡± ¡°Would you perhaps have access to certain information that they might not tell others?¡± ¡°¡­ Perhaps.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry for beating around the bush, I just don¡¯t know what level of detail they might have told you about things, and I don¡¯t want to stepping on their toes.¡± ¡°If I haven¡¯t already heard something from them they aren¡¯t going to be annoyed if I learn it from someone else, they aren¡¯t those kind of people.¡± She told him, her eyes narrowed at him. ¡°Good. Do you already know that there is some kind of intelligence behind the System. And I mean know not suspect or believe.¡± Some of the tension in her shoulders bled away. ¡°Yes, I know. It occasionally speaks directly to people that are powerful enough or are involved in momentous events. We know that you¡¯re one of the people it¡¯s spoken to as well.¡± ¡°And your Founders are included in that group?¡± ¡°They are.¡± ¡°Are they currently working for it to clean up everything that got summoned and couldn¡¯t be dealt with locally when all of those eldritch things appeared? It directed me to head to the Seramist Isles to deal with one of those issues, and I¡¯m guessing they were called on to do the same.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± Gemglass said slowly, ¡°Because I haven¡¯t heard from them in a little while, but I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if that was true.¡± ¡°Could you please put a little extra effort into trying to get a hold of them? We need more information on all levels and having people available that the System talks to more than it does me would be a boon. You saw the part in there about how we¡¯re pretty sure all of the rituals that broke the barrier around Torotia and let those eldritch things in came from whoever¡¯s leading these vampyr?¡± He pointed at the folder still on her desk. She nodded. ¡°Like we concluded there, I think that all of that is a distraction. And if they¡¯re going to the trouble of making distractions that big, what the final outcome they¡¯re after? And what else are they going to do to try and make sure we can¡¯t get in their way?¡± Kay tilted his head back a fraction and let out a breath. ¡°I¡¯m concerned about what¡¯s going to happen if we fail. Having access to the famed Founders of the Adventurer¡¯s Guild would be a boon not only for the information they could provide, but as a backup in case I can¡¯t get it done.¡± He tilted his head back and flashed Gemglass a tired smile, ¡°Above all, I¡¯m worried about the same thing those fools who brought an army were, but I¡¯ve actually got proof of a real threat. A high tier vampyr with an army is terrifying.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ Yes, I can do that. I¡¯ll send a message to Honor as well so she can try and get word to them herself. Between the two of us and some messages through our Headquarters, we¡¯ll get to them somehow.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± Book 6 Chapter 18 ¡°It¡¯s time to move on to full testing,¡± Zeia said as soon as her meeting with Kay started. They were in one of the many meeting rooms available in the palace, specifically one of the ones deeper in the complex that were easier to secure. The fact that they were working on countermeasures to the vampyr taint wasn¡¯t a secret, in fact it was a useful morale booster to let the news spread, but the details were a little more restricted. Like Kay had told Eleniah, fighting people¡¯s transformation into vampyr by turning them into vampires was a good thing, but many people would refuse to see the benefits or use that knowledge to further their own goals. Someday, if Kay had his way, vampires would be seen as perfectly normal citizen of Torotia, but until the stigma of the vampyr was ripped out the newly rediscovered species was going to face prejudice and distrust. ¡°It feels like it¡¯s too early for that. You¡¯ve been working with¡­¡± Kay¡¯s face scrunched up in a mixture of embarrassment and distaste, ¡°You¡¯ve been experimenting on my bodily fluids for what, a week or less? That¡¯s nowhere close to long enough to determine what¡¯s dangerous and what¡¯s safe.¡± ¡°What else would you have me do?¡± Zeia asked, ¡°Every test I¡¯ve done shows that we can safely transform someone into a vampire using the methods you¡¯ve described from your original world¡¯s folklore. Without actually trying the process I don¡¯t see how else we can proceed. With your unique version of Purify Blood not being passed down to any of your students, even Lauren who also became a vampire, the only way I¡¯ve been able to find that will allow wide spread treatment of vampyr infection is through changing the victims into vampires.¡± Eleniah put a hand on Kay¡¯s arm, ¡°Somewhere along the line this became my permanent job, research into different fields can go a lot faster here than on Earth, thanks to Skills and magic. Many researchers have Skills that tell them if certain attempts or theories will be dangerous and at higher tiers there are even Skills that can simulate experiments. No one¡¯s rushing into this without as much preparation as possible.¡± Zeia nodded in agreement. ¡°All of my non-combat Classes are research or study based Classes, and all my Skills plus my knowledge tell me that this will be as safe as possible. The only warning I¡¯ve been getting is that allowing large amounts of your ¡®venom¡¯ will kill me. Which we already know about.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t help.¡± Kay groaned as he dropped his head into his hands. ¡°It doesn¡¯t confirm your theory about the transformation resuscitating the person infected?¡± ¡°Ah. Sadly, no. That Class is only tier three and all warnings I get end with death, it doesn¡¯t tell me anything that would hypothetically happen to my body afterward, even if I¡¯d only be a dead body for a few moments.¡± Eleniah squeezed his arm. After a few moments of rough internal debate, Kay glanced up from his hands. ¡°Tell me about your preparations.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve already secured a handful of volunteers. They¡¯re fighters that got bitten while performing rearguard actions to get the refugees they were protecting to safety. They all managed to win by the skin of their teeth or just survive somehow and make it to safety, but they¡¯re all infected. All of them are right on the edge of turning, the healers with Classes from your line have been able to stave it off, but they¡¯re losing ground. These people are the ones that attempting to make them into vampires would help the most and they have the least to lose right now.¡± ¡°And if you¡¯re wrong and this kills them?¡± ¡°Then they died fighting to the end, just like they planned to go. From my end of the table that¡¯s a million times better than being mercy killed before you become a monster.¡± Kay stared into Zeia¡¯s eyes, judging her. What she was doing made him think of the doctor who has developed a way to artificially produce insulin. The story of him going from child to child in a ward, where all of them were expected to die soon, and injecting them with the insulin he¡¯d made. Dozens of comatose children on their death beds woke up that day instead of fading away. What she was doing was right there with that heroic discovery in Kay¡¯s mind, and all he could see in her eyes was an almost desperate need to help people that were suffering. ¡°Alright. Walk me through your plans. I want all of them, step by step, but¡­ Yes, you have my permission and my cooperation in continuing.¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Zeia pushed back from her chair and bowed deeply to him, the first time she¡¯d ever shown that level of outward demonstration of respect. ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Did you think I¡¯d say no at this point?¡± She looked like some kind of looming giant filled with purpose as she rose back up, for all the foot or so shorter she was than Kay. ¡°No, I can tell you care about helping people, too. It¡¯s very gratifying to be proved right, though.¡± Hours later Kay watched as three people locked against restraints meant to hold them in place vacillate between bouts of rage, paranoia, and delusion and lucidity. When they were lucid they were cordial and cooperative, if also stressed out and afraid. When they were raving¡­ Well, they were textbook examples of people descending into becoming a vampyr. All three were locked down so that they couldn¡¯t lash out or try to escape when they weren¡¯t lucid, with tough metal rods connecting the manacles locked around their ankles and wrists. Two of them were human women, guards from one of the villages along Nelam¡¯s border that had been flattened by the horde of vampyr that had spread from the doomed nation. The third was a beastkin man with slitted eyes, rough scales all along his limbs, and a set of incredibly sharp teeth in a strong jaw. He had been a slave that had escaped during the ongoing multi-way war that had erupted after the now deceased King Glowl has been defeated by Kay during the Shatterplate War and he¡¯d become one of the protectors of his band of escapees as they too had fled the vampyr. Kay waited off to the side as Zeia managed her assistants, the medical professionals and healers that had been selected to attend, and the guards on hand in case things went sideways. Technically Zeia had no official assistants, but members of her squad from the Shatterplate Order has experience helping her in other attempts to save people from the vampyr taint and had volunteered to help. Together with Kay being there, the odds of the experiment ending that badly were low. The worst outcome Kay could imagine actually happening was the three volunteers dying. ¡°Alright everyone!¡± Zeia called out once things were prepared. ¡°I¡¯m going to go everything one more time before we begin! Our three volunteers will be going to become vampires so that they don¡¯t become vampyr. Seeing as this is out first test of doing this via vampire venom instead of his majesty¡¯s Skills, we will be doing this as closely to our limited sources as we can. His majesty is going to bite our volunteers and inject a large amount of his venom into them, which should begin the process of turning them.¡± She glanced over at Kay, ¡°I know that this is going to be a first for you and we¡¯re not going to be able to get it perfectly line up but please try and give them all the same amount, your majesty.¡± Kay nodded his acceptance. ¡°Our healers, doctors, and medics are on standby in case something goes wrong and our volunteers can be healed. Our combatants are on standby in case things go the worst possible way.¡± ¡°And I will be on standby after I finish my initial duty in case the turning does not look like it will be successful.¡± Kay looked directly at the three volunteers and hoped they were able to understand him. ¡°Should it look like the venom isn¡¯t enough, I will be using my Skills to ensure our volunteers come out the other side either way.¡± Zeia bowed her head for a moment before she looked up and panned her gaze across the room. ¡°Does anyone have any questions or concerns before we begin? This is the one and only chance to say something.¡± No one spoke up. ¡°Very well, your majesty, if you will.¡± Kay stepped forward and grabbed the first woman¡¯s neck. The potentially intimate action was completely robbed of that kind of feeling thanks to the dozen or so people watching and the context of what was happening, which somehow helped. Guided by instincts that had come with his transformation and that were very hard to explain, Kay sunk his fangs into the woman¡¯s neck. Those same instincts told him when he¡¯d injected ¡°the right amount¡± of venom, however much that happened to be, and he gave it two more seconds just to be sure. After that he stepped to the other woman, then the man. A handful of minutes passed as everyone observed the three volunteers. During their moments of lucidity they began to look uncomfortable, then one of them began groaning in pain. Soon the room was filled with the sounds of agony and the volunteers were no longer struggling against their restrains because they were being driven by madness, but because what was happening to them hurt so badly. Some of the healers rushed closer and began laying spells and Skills on them, which seemed to dull the pain but didn¡¯t remove it. Still, Kay knew that less pain was infinitely better than feeling all of it in that situation. At times it looked like something was shifting beneath the skin of the three of them, like something was burrowing through their bodies but the longer it went on the less that happened. Small, subtle changes in their bodies, almost unnoticeable marks of eldritch corruption, were eaten away and erased, returning their bodies closer to their original state. The moments where madness and rage were visible behind their eyes in addition to the pain decreased, until there was only sanity visible next to the agony. Kay could feel the need to destroy and eradicate everything eldritch fade away, bit by bit. After almost and hour, the beastkin man slowly stopped screaming, his cries become quieter whimpers and moans that petered out themselves soon after. He sagged against his his restraints before slowly lifting his head up. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped as he glanced off to the side, obviously reading a System notification. ¡°Miss Zeia, I¡­¡± His voice was harsh from all the screaming and his eyes started welling with fresh tears. He tried to clear his throat before continuing. ¡°I do believe it worked.¡± Book 6 Chapter 19 Even facing against a horde of nightmarish monsters most likely led by an incredibly powerful, if mad, antagonist, Kay¡¯s job was not ¡°go and pick fights with the enemy¡±. One single person capable of overwhelming power wasn¡¯t going to be able to wipe out several cities worth of vampyr, not all at once at least, and Kay throwing himself into that kind of battle would be foolhardy, especially since they had no knowledge of what the enemy¡¯s elites were like. Kay had singlehandedly shifted the Shatterplate War because he¡¯d been able to counter several key part¡¯s of the slapped together army¡¯s threats and because he¡¯d only faced limited numbers of peer strength enemies at once. WIth a seemingly unlimited number of Classes out there for the taking, there was always a chance that he could be countered or at least severely disadvantaged against an enemy. That meant the first step was information gathering, which in turn meant that Kay didn¡¯t have anything useful to contribute for a while, at least not immediately or directly. He had no way to back up or help the scouts, infiltrators, spies, and other intelligence gatherers under Isla¡¯s command, because even if they didn¡¯t know it Isla was pulling the strings of everyone that had a good chance of grabbing information for Avalon, so he did his best to focus on preparation. With competent subordinates handling the what they were best at and their subordinates taking care of the details and particulars that left Kay with only a handful of objectives to handle. One of those was being there for the newly turned vampires, a group that was slowly but steadily growing as more tests were done followed by Zeia leading an undertaking to cure everyone facing the horrendous transformation into a vampyr that she could get a hold of. Zeia had discovered that the change the System had made to vampires had made it so that the venom of all vampires fought back against the corrupted version that made vampyr, and she theorized that the transformation into a vampire could eliminate or at least reduce other eldritch taints as well. Once she¡¯d proven that to her satisfaction, she¡¯d gone from just using Kay to save people to using any vampire she could get her hands on. Kay and Lauren both volunteered a lot of their time in the beginning, along with a few of the people from the village in Tumbling Rapids¡¯ territory that had been saved from vampyr and changed the original way with Kay¡¯s Skills. They¡¯d been eager to pass along the kindness of being saved from a gruesome fate, and so were almost all of the people that were rescued via vampire venom. Zeia took ruthless advantage of those feelings and new vampires that had been given adequate time to recover from their ordeal were then almost press-ganged into helping the next people down the line that were doing their best to resist the eldritch plague inside of them. Dozens of people were transformed into vampires and that then ballooned into hundreds as fighters and civilians that had fled the collapse of Nelam and the wave of vampyr attacks just far enough ahead to stay alive but not enough to stay untouched all had that daunting sword of Damocles removed from over their heads. With there always being more than enough volunteers available to help Zeia with venom production and bites, Kay and Lauren were able to go back to their regular duties. Kay made sure that there was someone he trusted to be impartial watching everything, though. The full truth of what it was to be a vampire was still unknown, but there definitely was some kind of connection between ¡°sire¡± and ¡°child¡± vampires. Anyone that was definitely untrustworthy was cut from helping others, but where there was power over someone else there was always temptation, and people weak enough to give in to that temptation. Until they knew whether or not that connection between a new vampire and the one who changed them could be exploited or misused there would be someone, or many someones, checking in to make sure that it wasn¡¯t. Zeia was too focused on saving everyone she could to pay attention to anything else, so some of the sneakier Blood Guard were tasked to blend in and keep an eye out. Even after moving on to other projects, Kay still took time to regularly stop by and check in on the new vampires. Besides being the king of the nation they were taking refuge in, Kay was also the first of the new species they¡¯d all become and something of an automatic leader. The entirety of the slowly growing web of connections between the vampires was open to him, whether that stemmed from him being the first vampire on Torotia and the connected title or because he was the progenitor of their vampiric bloodline, he could sense all of them in a distant and unexplainable way. All of that came with a sense of responsibility and he did his best to help everyone get back on their feet and recover.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Some of the new vampires saw him as a threat, especially those who had been from Nelam, others saw him as some superior being that they needed to respect, while others were fairly normal. He couldn¡¯t personally help everyone, but he appreciated every time someone would stop him or ask for him in order to talk about what he¡¯d learned about being a vampire, or just to talk about it. Being able to help someone, even if it was just one person sometimes, was uplifting for Kay and helped him get through the daunting proposition of what was to come. The other major task Kay was involved in was one he hadn¡¯t expected. ¡°Sorry, what?¡± Cindy turned and gestured once more at the rows and rows of barrels behind her, all collected in one of the secret underground warehouses that had supported Avalon¡¯s gunsmithing project before it had been moved out of Avalon City. ¡°We need you to fill these up with your blood, and we¡¯ll get more of them as you fill these up. We need as much as possible, and it needs to be your blood, not just blood you have. Blood actually from your body.¡± Kay looked over her shoulder at several hundred barrels. ¡°What do you need this much blood for?¡± ¡°Not just blood,¡± She replied, ¡°Your blood. And I¡¯m still in charge of Avalon¡¯s military R&D aren¡¯t I? It¡¯s for weapons and munitions development.¡± ¡°Are you still in charge of that? Don¡¯t we have people working directly for our military handling that now?¡± ¡°The publicly known stuff is being handled that way, sure, but I¡¯ve still been running the secret side of things.¡± She shot him a small frown, ¡°Did you not know that? Do you want me to stop?¡± ¡°Uh¡­ You know I¡¯d bet that I was told and them forgot about it with all of the other shit going on. Isla can probably pull up the exact date and time she told me, too.¡± They both paused to see if Isla would say anything, but if she was hanging around them invisibly she didn¡¯t reveal herself. ¡°And no,¡± Kay continued, ¡°I¡¯m not asking you to stop, I just wasn¡¯t thinking about it. What kind of weapons are you going to make using my blood though?¡± ¡°Anti-vampyr ones,¡± She replied, the ¡°Duh¡± clear in her tone. ¡°You¡¯re the best source of guaranteed anti-vampyr material we have and you make more of it constantly and at a high rate. Even if we just make bullets that do a lot of damage to them and spread them out among my gunners we¡¯ll do a lot more damage than we would have without them. And I have much higher hopes than just situationally better bullets.¡± She told him with a big grin. ¡°¡­ Do I want to know?¡± Kay asked tentatively, not entirely liking the excitement behind Cindy¡¯s eyes. ¡°Definitely not yet. You don¡¯t need to know the details on what are basically just a bunch of theories, and we still don¡¯t have a hard limit on where exactly the System is limiting outside technology. I¡¯ve got people plugging away at it, but I wasn¡¯t a scientist and I don¡¯t remember everything I learned in school so it¡¯s not going that fast. Add that to the fact that different sciences or paths to technology seem to have different limits makes it really hard to say if something will work before we actually try.¡± ¡°But you aren¡¯t going to do anything crazy?¡± ¡°Some of my ideas might end up needing some in depth conversations about when they should and shouldn¡¯t be used, if they end up working at all, but nothing that we absolutely can¡¯t ever use for fear of what they might do. They¡¯ll be like nukes. Actually, they¡¯ll be way less dangerous than nukes, but you get my point.¡± ¡°Uh¡­ most everyone I know would consider nukes something we can never use for fear of the consequences.¡± ¡°Really, how did you deal with the Red Plague?¡± ¡°The what?¡± ¡°Oh, right.¡± Cindy reached up and mimed smacking herself on the head. ¡°Different history and timelines of our worlds and all that. Not really important now, it was a thing that happened back on my Earth that you¡¯ll never get to visit but the only thing that could permanently end the threat was a small nuke. Guess you never had any events like that.¡± ¡°No, no we didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Well kudos to that Earth. But yeah, the ideas I have aren¡¯t actually like nukes, they won¡¯t have anywhere near the damage potential or long term consequences. They¡¯ll be closer to I don¡¯t know, traditional ICBMs then? With high explosive warheads and not nuclear ones. Really dangerous and you have to make sure you¡¯re limiting their use to the right situations, but no actually nuking people.¡± ¡°I¡­ You know what? Sure. Bring me a proof of concept that actually works for something and then I¡¯ll get growly about ¡°what the hell have you made!?¡±, there¡¯s no point yelling at you about a thought that hasn¡¯t been tested.¡± ¡°I appreciate that. Now fill all of these barrels with your blood.¡± Kay paused before willing some of his blood out of his arm and into the nearest barrel. ¡°Ever think about how weird your life has gotten after ending up getting isekai¡¯d?¡± ¡°All the time!¡± Cindy cheered, ¡°Isn¡¯t it great?¡± Book 6 Chapter 20 ¡°That¡¯s done,¡± Kay muttered as he tossed another ream of paperwork into his outbox. He had no idea where the idea of Earth inspired filing systems and methods to control paperwork had gained popularity on Torotia, but he cursed that place under his breath regularly. He didn¡¯t want an outbox or an inbox to toss papers in and take them out from when he was ready to move on to the next task. Most of the annoyance he felt stemmed from not wanting to deal with loads of paperwork in general, not the specific method of organizing it, but then he¡¯d be whining about the job he agreed to take on, which was beneath him. Complaining about how doing the job he agreed to do was likely also beneath him, but everyone deserved to have some small vices, didn¡¯t they? ¡°Very good, your majesty, I¡¯ll send that out for you.¡± Kay looked up to see Miri standing next to his desk with her normal slight smile. She was dressed in clothing that was similar to the range of styles that served as Avalon¡¯s palace uniform but in better materials, a contrast to the traditional clothing from the Isles Kay had seen her in since their arrival. ¡°When did you get here?¡± ¡°Just now, your majesty. I am now ready to serve directly at your side.¡± ¡°You¡¯re done setting up everything you needed, then?¡± ¡°Your personal staff isn¡¯t quite complete yet, there are a few roles I¡¯d like to fill out still, but those aren¡¯t required for day to day functioning and we¡¯ll want specialists that will be difficult to recruit anyways, so that can wait.¡± Miri informed him, ¡°But other than that, yes, I¡¯ve completed all the preparations and dealt with the little tests Prime Minister Amanda and your spymaster laid out for me.¡± ¡°Tests?¡± ¡°Yes, the normal little things that all employees in a sensitive area have to go through, making sure I won¡¯t take bribes, checking that I¡¯m not an agent for another power, determining whether I have any addictions or connections that would make me a vulnerability, that sort of thing. The real tests as someone they don¡¯t know being in close proximity to their king daily will come later, and I¡¯m sure they won¡¯t be nearly as obvious.¡± She straightened her back with a grin, ¡°It should be a fun little challenge to spice things up.¡± ¡°You¡¯re looking forward to my Prime Minister and spymaster teaming up to randomly test your loyalties? I can see why you expect it and I¡¯m not going to get involved, but you¡¯re excited about it?¡± She shrugged one shoulder, ¡°Why not? I know that I¡¯m on the same side as them, and since they¡¯re not sure where I stand they won¡¯t be setting up anything too dangerous because it¡¯d be a problem if I am on their side, which I am. It¡¯ll be a nice diversion from what I¡¯m sure is going to be tedious work at multiple points. Additionally, while I haven¡¯t seen enough of your spymaster¡¯s work to figure out if I know them or of them yet, I can tell they¡¯re a professional, which means that mixed into the tests of my loyalty will be tests of skill, which are always enjoyable. I¡¯ll be able to show off in front of someone that can really appreciate my talents in that regard.¡± Her grin grew sizeably, ¡°And while I¡¯m not going to get directly involved in any intelligence activities, as your majordomo I¡¯ll certainly be involved in some light counterintelligence acts directed at and around your in particular, so it¡¯ll be good to prove my bonafides early.¡± Kay considered that and decided it was fine. ¡°Alright, as long as there isn¡¯t any harm directed at each other then I¡¯ll assume you¡¯re all experienced adults and let you get on with it. Moving on¡­ I haven¡¯t had a majordomo before, which you know already. What do I do with you?¡± ¡°You continue to do what you did before I started serving you, you just also keep me informed of what you¡¯re doing and why. I in turn will do my best to remove any blockages and streamline anything you need to happen. If you need to have a meeting with someone you let me know and I¡¯ll deal with scheduling it and informing the person you want the meeting with. If you¡¯re going over a proposal from one of your nobles and you need documentation to verify something, you let me know what documents you need and I¡¯ll make sure they¡¯re retrieved in a timely manner. Tell me what you want or need, and I¡¯ll make it happen. Within reason of course.¡± Kay tapped at his desk with one finger while he listened. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m sure that it¡¯ll take some practice but we¡¯ll get there. Talk to Amanda about some of the curriculum that she and Eleniah have been setting up to make me into a better leader, I¡¯m sure you can help with teaching me some of that where it intersects with your duties.¡± ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± She bowed slightly and nodded sideways at the door. ¡°Will that be all?¡± ¡°Send in the clerk on duty to refresh my paperwork, and then go speak to them. I don¡¯t have anything I need done right this moment.¡± ¡°Very well.¡±This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j ¡°I am Salash the Heart-Siezer, he who brings the pain upon the enemies of-!¡± The sharp kick to the back of the head of Salash the Loud and Obnoxious would have killed most people below tier four in one blow, but Salash was a tier four and happened to be a vampyr in addition to that, which meant he only toppled forward onto his face. The raised foot poised to come down and crush his skull definitely would have killed him, but the ever-present malignant thing that had ruined Martha¡¯s existence broke past the barrier she¡¯d erected to keep it at bay and resumed control over her magic, her body, and her minions. The composite zombie formed of hundreds of mangled corpses all rammed into each other without a single point of grace or beauty and nothing like Martha would have made if she had control of herself turned and moved away from the annoying vampyr, sparing his life. The eldritch nastiness that lived in Martha didn¡¯t even bother trying to punish her as it mentally commanded the mount carrying her body forward, it¡¯d learned the futility of that a mere decade into fighting her for control of herself and it had stopped a decade more after that. Now it just resumed control and moved on, or cleaned up if she managed to really ruin its plans. Mildly injuring one vampyr it didn¡¯t care about wasn¡¯t worth it delaying its task, and so Martha¡¯s body marched on under the will of an alien being. Martha herself sat back to watch and wait for more opportunities to stymie the thing. Trying to wrest back control of part of herself multiple times in short succession was much more difficult than saving her strength for powerful bursts, so she hoped that nothing interesting happened too soon. She wished she could just wait for actually important moments to fight back, to ensure that she¡¯d be in the best condition she could, but she learned as much from the twisted relationship she had with the thing as much as it did. It was a twisted, conniving thing and it was always on the lookout for the knife in the back. Simultaneously, it was so outside of the existence it had been born into that it acted like a total idiot at times. Occasionally breaking out of its grasp and lashing out in some small way made it confident that she had wasted her strength on something minor and it moved on. Biding her time for a perfect moment made it nervous, and then it started doing things Martha really didn¡¯t want it to, like deciding to try and permanently root her out of body again. So that was how a tier five necromancer who¡¯d secretly ruled over an entire island chain spent her days, waiting in one of the tiny corners of her mind that wasn¡¯t too riddled with eldritch taint and madness and waiting for a moment to strike back against her captor, tormentor, and corrupter. Her life, what little she had of one, was objectively terrible. Which meant nothing of course, she was Martha the Empty Grave, She Who Marches Past Death, and no sniveling little eldritch infiltrator, body snatcher thing was going to make her give up. She was patient, she was cunning, and she was oh so incredibly mad. Existing in a tiny portion of one¡¯s own mind while the rest of it was eaten away by something from beyond this realm did that to a person of course, but she was more than capable of channeling a little thing like madness. She worked every moment of every day of turning it into a specific kind of madness, an unending drive to tear down the enemy no matter what the cost was. Since ruining everything for the thing that had ruined her life was the only goal left to her it all worked out. The thing turned her head from side to side, constantly scanning for something. The undead horde that it used as minions followed along behind it, occasionally bumping into the vampyr following along. They were all ugly things, the undead it had raised with her magic and it stoked her rage to see mashed together abominations and shambling zombies where there should have been proper death knights and other undead actually worthy of being created. She¡¯d raised a lich once, and now her magic was being used for the kinds of rubbish you¡¯d see in a bad story from the times before the First Grand Necromancer had risen up to battle the mutated fish people that had come from the sea to wipe all surface life away and shown that necromancy wasn¡¯t inherently evil. Or in a place like this where that kind of display had never happened. The necromancers she¡¯d seen as the thing had driven her body across this cluster of continents had been pitiful. They were all hardened and bitter men and women that blamed the world around them for their own actions. Necromancy required bodies, yes, but nothing said that you had to go and make the bodies! That was murder! And stealing them from proper graves was almost as bad! The only shining light she¡¯d seen was that one brief meeting with someone from something called the Order of Bones. It wasn¡¯t the most creative name, but all the rumors had said that they were actual proper necromancers with morales and honor. She¡¯d been very glad when the cloaked individual had almost immediately realized something was wrong and ran for it. She¡¯d have been quite sad if the thing had killed yet another decent necromancer using her body. Martha had no idea why the thing had decided to ally with the vampyr and their strange leader. The poor dear was quite mad and didn¡¯t even seem to know it, but that wasn¡¯t really Martha¡¯s problem. The thing had been traveling all over the world, even to this isolated corner that didn¡¯t seem to know the rest of the world was out there, seeking a way to finally rid itself of Martha and her interference. She clung on to her body with her mastery of necromancy, and it was seeking other necromancers to learn enough to force her out and take full control. Coming here to ally with the vampyr didn¡¯t further that goal, so Martha was concerned. The brief flashes of communication she¡¯d caught when the thing had spoken with her voice to the vampyr¡¯s leader had made her flinch back from them, they were so filled with the very essence of eldritch. Thus, Martha waited and watched, as she always did. She was an enemy of the thing that puppetted her body and to a lesser extent all other things eldritch. Ruining the things plans would likely also ruin the vampyr¡¯s plans, odd and sad creatures that they were, and that would be a nice little bonus. Since it was looking like there might be a fight coming up, Martha started conserving her strength to really cause chaos. If she was lucky, whoever the thing had allied with the vampyr against would kill her. Book 6 Chapter Twenty-One ¡°We believe we¡¯ve found what the vampyr are planning.¡± Isla¡¯s illusion of a man that served as her stand in told the assembled meeting solemnly. ¡°Or at least, a major move they¡¯re making that we cannot allow.¡± The illusion gestured and aides started handing out documents to the assembled leaders of Avalon and the allies they had available. Zeia was obviously there, as was High Crusader Hearthbreaker, representing the two major vampyr hunting orders, who had finally sent missives back indicating that they were on their way to Avalon. Guildmaster Gemglass was present as she would be coordinating the Adventurers Guild¡¯s assistance, which she had managed to secure. Murunel¡¯s cousin and his wife were there as their own little pair, while they were subordinate to Kay in this endeavor their experience and insights could be useful, useful enough to let them attend the meeting. ¡°While we¡¯ve managed to confirm that packs, and what we can only refer to as units or small armies, of vampyr continue to besiege the settlements that have managed to hold out and hunt down any stragglers or those fleeing falling settlements, that doesn¡¯t appear to be their main goal.¡± Isla waited until everyone had a set of documents. ¡°Long range reconnaissance through a variety of means has discovered that the vampyr are once again creating ritual sites.¡± She flipped to the second page of the report and pointed at the figures drawn there. ¡°We only managed to document one site of the previous rituals that were carried out y vampyr, the one we presume allowed the eldritch incursion here at Avalon during the Shatterplate War, and the ones we¡¯ve managed to document that are being created now are similar enough for me to confidently say they are for the same purpose, if perhaps a different target.¡± Intricate circles and designs were drawn on the paper, creating a pattern that seemed to oscillate and shift as Kay tried to look at it. ¡°Even reproductions seem to be affected by the nature of the ritual they¡¯re meant to allow, as seen by the difficulty our people faced even trying to record them, which to me indicates the powerful nature of what the vampyr intend. It is my belief that we cannot allow them to complete whatever it is they seek from these rituals.¡± Eleniah looked up form her perusal of the document. ¡°How many sites do we know of?¡± ¡°We¡¯ve confirmed the existence of five and believe there are more.¡± The illusion seemed to take a deep breath and slowly release it. ¡°And each circle that they¡¯re creating is significantly larger than the example we have from the previous ritual.¡± Grim expressions passed around the room at that piece of news. ¡°It¡¯s not always true,¡± Meten told everyone, ¡°But larger circles usually mean more powerful rituals. It works that way with runic magic too.¡± ¡°So what we assume to be a summoning ritual for much larger or more powerful eldritch beings compared to the previous incursion is being prepared by a large group of seemingly in control vampyr all working toward a single goal.¡± Kay could see that Zeia was physically restraining herself from being much louder and aggressive as she looked at everyone around the table. ¡°Is there any reason to not deal with this as soon as possible?¡± ¡°No, there isn¡¯t.¡± Kay announced, shutting down even the thought of anyone having an objection. ¡°No matter what their actual goal is, we cannot let the vampyr succeed. Even if we had no evidence of what their goal might be we would still have to intervene, because anything a coordinated group of intelligent monsters do on this scale is too much of a threat to leave alone.¡± He looked directly at the illusion, catching it¡¯s nonexistent eyes with his own. ¡°Anyone that can safely sabotage the vampyr so they don¡¯t finish those circles needs to be doing so as soon as possible.¡± The illusion bowed, and a tiny winged figure that Kay knew only he could see appeared off to the side and copied the motion before vanishing. ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± ¡°What can we expect in terms of resistance?¡± Isla¡¯s illusion flipped to the next page of the report. ¡°Just to make sure you all know before I answer that question, the vampyr are using devices or objects similar to the one his majesty recovered as a piece in creating the ritual circles. The exact nature and use of them varies across the five sites we have eyes on, but there is one such object at each. That¡¯s what we¡¯ll have our agents target for the first wave of sabotage.¡± They all moved onto the next page at the illusion¡¯s direction. ¡°Each site has a different level of protection, and what seems to be an amount of effort put into completing each site that¡¯s comparable to how much work they¡¯re putting in to guarding it. Of the five we¡¯ve identified, two of them are outside of Nelam¡¯s former borders and have the elast amount of manpower working on them. We have no way to realistically try and figure out why that¡¯s the case, since this is a plan being put together by vampyr, and I¡¯m not going to make an attempt. The three other sites are inside of where Nelam was, and one is situated in the former capital.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. There were murmurs and whispered questions across the meeting room. Isla¡¯s illusion shrugged in response. ¡°There¡¯s no way to know if that¡¯s important or a coincidence, but the capital site is the most heavily guarded of the five and they¡¯ve been doing the most work there. A small portion of the vampyr also seem to be rebuilding Nelam¡¯s palace as well, although our agents couldn¡¯t get close enough to find out if there¡¯s any important reason that they¡¯re doing that.¡± ¡°They probably need a base.¡± Cindy commented absently, ¡°Or whoever their leader is is a megalomaniac.¡± She looked a little startled when she noticed everyone staring at her. ¡°What? They leveled most of the country right? The really crazy and animalistic vampyr won¡¯t care about clothes or shelter, but the more together ones will. So they¡¯ll need a base of some kind just to stay out of the weather in. And even if they¡¯re more sane than the rest, that doesn¡¯t mean they¡¯re actually sane. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if one or more ¡®important¡¯ vampyr think¡¯s their a king, or a god, or something similarly egotistical.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ surprisingly possible,¡± Isla admitted through her fake voice, ¡°We can¡¯t dismiss the idea that repairing the castle is more impactful than that, but there¡¯s a very good chance that¡¯s the case. Either way, we¡¯ll have people try and make their way in undetected to find out for sure.¡± ¡°Are there any further questions at this time for our intelligence branch?¡± Kay asked. ¡°Pertinent ones that might change what we¡¯re doing, in particular. Less important questions can always be brought up later.¡± If anyone had any questions they didn¡¯t think it was right to bring them up at that moment. ¡°Very well. General Curcius, began making plans for the best way to gather our military back into a cohesive whole and march east. Meten, the same but for the Sentinels. A portion of each needs to be left behind for security, but we¡¯re taking the majority of both with us. Coordinate as you need with Guildmaster Gemglass to include independent adventurers.¡± Kay nodded at her, ¡°Guildmaster, I am most grateful for your assistance in this.¡± ¡°Of course your majesty, a threat this large is a threat to us all.¡± ¡°Ahthia, work with Zeia in researching these ritual circles, both in general and specifically these ones. Anything that can be used to mess them up can be given to our saboteurs to buy us more time. Zeia, I know you want to work more on your other projects but they can wait, literally. You¡¯ve already given us a way to save people from turning into vampyr, we can figure out a vaccine for it later.¡± ¡°¡­ Yes your majesty.¡± She agreed, with no small amount of contrition in her voice. ¡°Before you help Ahthia, though, I need you and the High Crusader to send more letters to both your organizations to move their asses. Based on what we¡¯re hearing, Avalon isn¡¯t going to be able to hit all of these sites on our own.¡± He glanced at Isla¡¯s illusion, which nodded in agreement. ¡°We need the manpower and the combined expertise of the two best vampyr hunting groups. They need to get here yesterday.¡± Both of them nodded, and High Crusader Hearthbreaker saluted with one fist over her heart. ¡°Everyone else, keep our world turning as normal. We¡¯re doing this to save Avalon, and by extension everything else around us, so I want our people to have a home to come back to.¡± The meeting broke up after that, with the oncoming disaster that needed to be prevented dominating everyone¡¯s minds there was no real desire to have tedious meetings about less important things. It was made worse in Kay¡¯s mind by the uncertain nature of what they faced. They thought the threat was invasion by bigger and more powerful eldritch monstrosities, but they didn¡¯t know that for sure. What if the ritual circles turned everyone into vampyr instead? The unknown was scary and a directly threatening unknown was worse. ¡°You don¡¯t have an important job for me?¡± Eleniah asked teasingly as people vacillated between leaving or hanging around in small groups. ¡°I do,¡± Kay replied quietly, ¡°I just didn¡¯t want to blare it out for everyone to hear.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± The look in her eyes went from joking to deadly serious. ¡°What do you need?¡± ¡°I want you to gather up every vampire we have now and see if any of them are worth giving some training, and then I want them turned into the best fighters we can make them in a short amount of time. Better we build as many failsafes for every potential problem as early as we can. Even if they¡¯re just decent enough to not immediately die any fighting, having other vampire besides me, Lauren, and presumably Alice available could save lives.¡± ¡°I understand.¡± ¡°Good.¡± Kay leaned in subtly and gave her a quick kiss. ¡°Thank you. Grab Zeia if you need her to wrangle any of them, but keep it on the down low.¡± ¡°Still worried about some idiot from the Order or the Crusade throwing a fuss?¡± ¡°Better to cut any problems off at the pass then give them a chance to cause problems.¡± Eleniah leaned in and kissed him back. ¡°I knew I made a good choice.¡± ¡°Which time?¡± She frowned at him. ¡°Don¡¯t be a jerk, you know I was feeling out of sorts then.¡± ¡°¡¯Oh no, it¡¯s not romantic, I just wanted to train a partner and traveling companion¡¯,¡± Kay whispered in a sing song voice. ¡°¡¯Oh, but Kay, I-¡° Eleniah smacked him in the shoulder with a scowl. ¡°Stop that!¡± Kay grinned back at her, luxuriating in the playful mood as a balm against the stress. She rolled her eyes at him but didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°What are you doing to be doing during all this?¡± ¡°Besides answering any questions and metaphorically stomping on anyone that tries to cause problems? Jumping between giving training in my Class Line to any of the vampires you think are worth it and donating blood to Cindy¡¯s weapons project. It should be fun, in between the moments of extended boredom as I fill barrels with my vital fluids and yell at idiots who think too highly of themselves.¡± Book 6 Chapter 22 The number of vampyr approaching Avalon increased as time passed and singletons and small packs became less and less common as larger swarms and groups with almost military precision began making their way into Avalon¡¯s territory. No one knew if they were distractions, probing attacks, genuine attempts to take out Avalon, random wanderings, or some other plan made by maddened minds, but they couldn¡¯t be allowed to survive, for multiple reasons. Most importantly was the threat to anyone nearby, but the longer term issue was having the planned incursion against the vampyr being slowed down. The agents and infiltrators doing their best to stall the vampyr building the ritual circles could only slow things down so much and the eventual push into what used to be Nelam couldn¡¯t afford any delays. Smaller groups of vampyr that needed to be crushed would just waste an armies time, so it was up to more mobile fighters to deal with them. Which is why Cindy ended up taking her trail of heavily armed ducklings out to kill some vampyr. That was what she was calling her personal guard, in her head at least. They were all so cute the way they trailed after her like they were her duck babies and she was the duck mama. It totally wasn¡¯t a coping mechanism to deal with the fact that she had people poking their noses into every second of her life at all times, not at all. Outside the sanctity of her head, her personal ducal troops still didn¡¯t have a formal name, although she was happy to report that ¡®Arquebusiers¡¯ had finally gotten shot down with her fervent support. As much as she rocked between annoyed that she was constantly surrounded by people and aggravated that they wouldn¡¯t leave her be, which weren¡¯t the same thing no matter how much Colen said they were, her miniature army was a very useful group of people. Having minions to aid her in testing her new weapon prototypes saved all kinds of time! ¡°How¡¯re the grenades looking?¡± She asked without turning away from the swarm of vampyr that had gotten stuck in a small ravine. At some point the idiotic things had started fighting each other and the loosely collected group of vampyr had gone from a potential threat to the countryside to an internally aimed orgy of violence that wasn¡¯t going anywhere anytime soon. A perfect target! ¡°Troops are saying everything¡¯s fine,¡± The stout dwarf next to her reported. ¡°Took some getting used to but the weight¡¯s not terrible for any of ¡®em, and the special ones are holdin¡¯ together.¡± Cindy glanced down at Gundar, the overall commander of her personal troops. At some point the gruff-spoken dwarf had just shown up, ready to go and already armed with some decent firearms. Some quick asking around had told her that the people she¡¯d recruited for the first weapons project to develop guns for Avalon had known of him, he¡¯d been one of the few people from the other side of the continent that liked to experiment with guns and traded letters back in forth with the rest, and he¡¯d gone looking for whoever had gotten the Class Line Progenitor title for guns as soon as he¡¯d found out that Cindy existed. As soon as he¡¯d met her he¡¯d literally bent the knee and sworn fealty to her, and somewhere along the way he¡¯d ended up as her right hand man, with Colen as her left. She couldn¡¯t make fun of Kay anymore for somehow gathering an eclectic cast of characters around him like the protagonist of a shounen anime anymore, not without being a hypocrite. The worst part of it to her was that her tweaks to her precognitive Class had made it so she¡¯d had no idea either of them were coming! ¡°Right, have whoever¡¯s our best throw to get one of the special ones right in the middle of them, then follow up with a volley of regular ones.¡± Cindy ordered. ¡°On it.¡± Gundar grunted. He stalked off to the waiting line of troops, all standing in a row with their weapons ready and making Cindy constantly nervous about how vulnerable firing lines were to guerrilla attacks. Reassuring herself that her people weren¡¯t forming firing lines and they had sentries in place to keep an eye out for ambushes helped a little bit. One figure stepped forward holding a red sphere about the size of a baseball, with a metal mechanism sticking out one side. They twisted a tab protruding out of the mechanism until it had completed a full rotation, then chucked it into the seething mass of fighting vampyr. It landed right on one¡¯s head, temporarily confusing it for long enough that one of it¡¯s rivals in the melee managed to get a good bite into it. A second later, the timed fuse that had been lit in the experimental grenade finished burning it¡¯s way into the powder charge. A dull thumping noise that Cindy had long gotten used to at this point accompanied a wave of carnage as a hardened sphere of Kay¡¯s blood shattered and turned into shrapnel, ripping through the vampyr. Those that didn¡¯t die instantly started shrieking and writhing with pain and there were a few that had skin sizzling where the shrapnel had cut through them. ¡°The blood seems to be workin¡¯ the same even after its been away from his majesty for a time!¡± Gundar called over to her, while at the same time a dozen more blackened spheres rained down on the cluster of vampyr. A series of explosions rippled through them, killing and maiming the ones that had survived the initial explosion. ¡°The regular grenades are doin¡¯ about as well as we expected them to, too!¡± ¡°Right!¡± Cindy shouted back, ¡°Finish off the stragglers, then we¡¯re moving on to the next group we know of!¡± ¡°Yes, your grace!¡± Cindy rolled her eyes at the reminder, which was part of Colen¡¯s plan to remind her that she was a duchess now. She, a true blooded American, was a duchess. The world was weird.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. While her troops bogged themselves down in the charnelhouse the ravine had become to cut down any surviving vampyr, Cindy took a look at her status. Nothing had changed from this tiny battle, which was to be expected since she hadn¡¯t done anything, but she couldn¡¯t help staring at it. There were only a few more levels left on the last Skill she needed to bring up to the edge of tier four before she would finally get the tier five Class she wanted, and she was getting impatient. She pulled up the description of the Class that was lagging in a separate window from the rest of her status and stared at it angrily. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Dreaming Seer - Seeing the future, knowing the flow of fate, and learning to avoid the pitfalls of what will be, those are the dreams of many. Some have visions telling them of what¡¯s to come, others spout prophecy while remembering none of the details, and some dream of what might happen, learning the mysteries of the future in the shifting and evanescent realm of sleep. This Class is one that grants the power of the later kind of seer, where what could be and what may be in conveyed to a sleeping dreamer, who must do their best to interpret their hazily remembered dreams in order to stave off disaster and call fortune to themselves and those around them. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Skill: The Future in Dreams (Level 37) - Dream of what is to come and know that it can change in a moment. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] The Class description actually said something about the Class, but the Skill description was pointless. The only good thing about it was the lovely little number at the top, telling her she was only three more levels from being done with it. She didn¡¯t want anyone getting the wrong idea, the Dreaming Seer Class had led to her to what she was pretty sure was the best possible outcome for herself and the other people she¡¯d picked up on her way to Avalon, but she was tired of it! The Class had made her a target for the greedy, the unscrupulous, and the power hungry the minute she¡¯d accidentally let it slip that she was a seer, and she didn¡¯t want to deal with people constantly coming to her, desperate to know their future. Like she actually knew the future of some random person who¡¯d thrown themselves at her feet, all of her dreams were about her or things that would affect her, not some rich merchant who wanted to know how to handicap his rivals. She was incredibly grateful that Kay and the other leaders of Avalon hadn¡¯t tried to turn her into the state seer or anything like that, they¡¯d let her do her own thing and warn them of what she knew might happen when anything came up. Overall Cindy was finding the Class less useful and not what she wanted though, so she was working on changing it. She¡¯d studied with Ahthia and gone to Eleniah for help and had gotten a few techniques and ideas from them to shift the Class into something different. Through meditation and effort she¡¯d worked to make her visions of the future happen less with dreams while she slept and more with daydreams. She¡¯d also focused on significantly narrowing the distance forward she saw from potentially years out to only a few moments. Cindy wanted to turn herself into a precognitive gunslinger who could see where people would be aiming in a few seconds, or which bullets would hit and which wouldn¡¯t, instead of a seer able to do foretellings. She wasn¡¯t completely certain it was possible, but the vague feelings she got from her Class Line Progenitor title told her it could work. She¡¯d spoken with Kay and a few others about it, and they all accepted what she wanted to do, even if there were a few hints of unease at losing the advantage her dreams could give Avalon. Not that her dreams were actually that useful, although she wouldn¡¯t be sharing that around before or after she lost access to them. Her first set of dreams telling her that it was a good idea to flee east away from the people trying to exploit her had been a jumbled bunch of nonsense. Some had shown her as queen of Avalon, although it didn¡¯t have that name in those dreams, some showed Kay there as king but with a bunch of different Classes and no Class Line Progenitor title, some had Amanda at the helm of a very interesting young nation, and a sparse few even had a horde of dragons descending from the sky to burn Nelam to ashes, leading to a very different set of futures. In the end, a variant of all of those ended up being what happened and the exact circumstances of what she ended up discovering had never been part of any of her dreams. The fact that none of her dreams were guaranteed to come true was a relief given what some of the recent ones had been like. She had hope that her plans were coming to fruition with the Class, she had more and more visions close to what she wanted to and less and less dreams of what might be, but the ones she was still having were dire. The worse part was how the obviously eldritch bits in all of them were tampering with how well she could remember them and warn people of what might happen. Her mind trying to protect itself from things it couldn¡¯t handle left her with a confused jumble of impressions and flashes of images that didn¡¯t mean much of anything. The vast majority of the feelings she got were of fear and despair though, and the bits of pictures she could remember added some terrifying spice to those feelings. Something about the dreams was making her really uncomfortable around eels recently, which was both strange and annoying since she¡¯d finally gotten a chef in Avalon to recreate her favorite eel sushi from back home, and still didn¡¯t provide her any hints that she could give out to stem off something horrifying from happening. What was she supposed to say, ¡°What out for eels!¡±? She¡¯d sound like an idiot. Also, why was she thinking so fondly of tortoises recently? She hadn¡¯t even seen a tortoise in years, even before she¡¯d been yanked into a fantasy world it¡¯d been years, so why did she keep imagining- ¡°Your grace, we¡¯re ready to move!¡± Gundar called out to her as he dragged himself out of the ravine. Cindy shook off her weird train of thought and started over to him, taking a quick look over her people as she did to make sure none of them had been injured. There would be time for woolgathering and trying to decipher the bits of her frustrating dreams she remembered later. She had vampyr to test new weapons ideas on, and vampyr were the best kind of test subjects. It wasn¡¯t a war crime if the thing you were testing on was an eldritch abomination made of a dead person mixed with mutated vampire virus that had to be destroyed to keep people safe, after all! Book 6 Chapter 23 Eleniah lounged on a bench against the far wall, watching Kay as he exerted himself. ¡°Aren¡¯t you pushing yourself a bit too hard? If you exhaust yourself training you aren¡¯t going to be as useful in what¡¯s to come.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I am, no.¡± Kay replied, before triggering the training dummy with the gesture he¡¯d told it to react to. The deep black stone golem took a massive step forward, slamming it¡¯s foot down in a move that would have cracked a weaker floor and thrust forward with all four hands gripping it¡¯s spear. Kay bent to the side, using the twin punch daggers he formed around his fists as guides to channel the weapon up and around him. When the golem had fully extended Kay spun and lashed out at it¡¯s neck. When the ¡°deathblow¡± hit the construct¡¯s head it disengaged, stepping back and settling into a waiting position. The sequence took less time to finish than it did for Eleniah to eat one of the grapes she had in a bowl on the ground next to her bench. ¡°I feel like you¡¯re doing too much,¡± She insisted, her tone countermanding how relaxed she was physically. ¡°The closer we¡¯ve been getting to having everything prepared to move the more worked up and tense you¡¯ve been getting. What¡¯s going on?¡± Kay ran through two more exchanges with the training dummy while he thought about her question. He had the prize from the dungeon boss in the Isles starting every exchange with different weapons and attack patterns so that he had to react in a single moment to a completely unpredictable assault. He was training to get more levels in his Dual Daggers Wielder (Punch Daggers) Class but also to be prepared for any eventuality. Ambushes, surprise attacks, someone getting their body taken over, and more, there was no telling what the vampyr could spring at Kay and his people, and he needed to be ready. After the golem reset again Kay sucked his weapons and armor back into his veins and went to sit next to Eleniah. They were in his private training area, one of his private training areas, the more time passed the more palatial his palace got and the more rooms and wings that were dug into the mountain, and it had nice furnishings that could also stand up to a little bit of roughhousing. No longer did anyone visiting or not sparring have to sit on the floor or on hard stone chairs, now there were divans and sofas available along with padded benches. Kay sat down on the edge of the bench Eleniah was laying on after moving some of her hair out of the way. Eleniah grabbed his leg and dragged him over before laying her head in his lap. Kay smiled slightly and dug one hand into her hair. ¡°You¡¯re hair¡¯s growing out.¡± He commented quietly. ¡°I like to let it get long every once in a while, although I don¡¯t tend to keep it longer than this for very long. With my fighting style it¡¯s a bit of a detriment to keep it long enough for someone to grab at it.¡± She twisted her body so that she was looking directly up at his face. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± ¡°Do you ever get the feeling of something bad looming on the horizon, like the edge of a storm cloud you can see peaking over the mountains, ready to sweep down on you?¡± ¡°Sure. I used to feel like that a lot right after I ran away from home and cut ties with my cousin. I was convinced she or one of her agents was lurking behind every corner, just waiting to drag me into something or trick me into doing what she wanted.¡± Kay shut his eyes and turned his face upward. ¡°It¡¯s like that, kind of. It started¡­ I think I started feeling like this after I first went out to scout things and found that ruined settlement, that place where I found that obelisk or stele or whatever it is that he vampyr are using for their rituals. The feeling has been building and building since then, like the storm clouds I can¡¯t quite see are getting bigger and more dangerous, but they aren¡¯t getting any closer.¡± He looked down at her. ¡°Does that make any sense?¡± Eleniah reached up and pressed her hand to his cheek. ¡°Of course it does. I¡¯d say it¡¯s just stress building up. You¡¯ve got a lot of responsibility now and there¡¯s a lot riding on your shoulders. With something big coming, whether that¡¯s leading a sort-of invasion or having to deal with a potentially massive threat it¡¯s perfectly reasonable to feel the suspense and the tension that comes with all of it.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not it.¡± Kay denied. ¡°I mean, it is, but that isn¡¯t just it. There¡¯s something else to it. Something¡­¡± Kay¡¯s nostrils flared, his eyes flashed red for a brief second, and his fangs dropped down before retracting back upward. ¡°Something eldritch. Like the scent of decay on the wind that I¡¯m not consciously detecting but my body knows it¡¯s out there and is screaming warnings.¡± Eleniah dug a nail into his cheek for a half second, drawing Kay out of the funk she could see coming. ¡°Alright, so there¡¯s something eldritch coming. We kind of knew that already, so what¡¯s the big deal? You¡¯ve dealt with eldritch bullshit before, and you¡¯ll do it again. It¡¯s almost your specialty at this point.¡± ¡°I know it is, and I¡¯ve told you how done I am with it.¡± He let out a half-grunt half-groan as he settled himself into her palm. ¡°It feels like it¡¯s been eldritch thing after eldritch thing happening to me or me running into them since I landed on this world, and I¡¯m really tired of them. Can¡¯t they go find someone else to bother? And why is this all happening right after I showed up?¡± ¡°Well, I did tell you that outworlders tend to have interesting things happen to them, and eldritch anything is definitely interesting in the vein of that curse you told me about. As for why it¡¯s been happening in bulk since you arrived¡­¡± She lazily shrugged one shoulder. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s a coincidence, just a matter of two different and unrelated sets of events coinciding with timing. Maybe it¡¯s related and your arrival punch a hole in the fabric of reality keeping Torotia cut off from everything out there in existence. I don¡¯t think the second one is a thing because vampyr have been a problem for so much longer than you¡¯ve been here, but who knows? At the end of the day, none of that really matters. Whether life is all fated and we have no choice in things, there¡¯s a puppetmaster pulling the strings and maneuvering events and enemies your way, or it¡¯s all just a series of really weird coincidences, you just have to keep doing your best. That¡¯s the only thing you can do, and it¡¯s one thing that¡¯s entirely in your control.¡±If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Right now my best doesn¡¯t feel like it¡¯s enough.¡± Kay flicked a hand upward as he summoned his status screen, getting dramatic with it as he mentally commanded it to be visible to Eleniah too. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Name: Kenneth ¡°Kay¡± Davis Race: Vampire Age: 27 Highest Tier: V Total Tiers: 46 Class Slots: 14 Combat Class Slots/7 Non-Combat Class Slots 9 Combat Class Slots Used/5 Non-Combat Class Slots Used Classes: Combat: - Lord of Spilled Blood: Tier V - Skills: Manipulate Blood - Level 47 Shape Blood - Level 46 Meld Blood - Level 44 Create Simulacrum (Blood) - Level 45 Blood Transfusion - Level 40 Healthy Blood - Level 43 Purify Blood - Level 49 Blood Regeneration - Level 49 Enhance Blood - Level 43 Blood Boost - Level 44 Leadership - Level 47 Domain of Blood - Level 30 Create from Blood - Level 21 Identify - Level 20 Appraisal - Level 15 Inspect - Level 18 Mandate to Blood Spilled - Level 14 Folded Veins - Level 36 Lord¡¯s Bloody Domain - Sublime - Blood Manipulator: Tier IV - Skills: Manipulate Blood - Level 47 - Blood Shaper: Tier IV - Skills: Shape Blood - Level 46 - Blood Melder: Tier IV - Skills: Meld Blood - Level 44 - Expert Swordsman (Bastard Sword): Tier IV - Skills: Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) - Level 39 - Expert Polearm Wielder (Halberd): Tier IV - Skills: Polearms (Halberd) - Level 39 - Blood Champion Originator: Tier V - Skills: Create Blood Champions - Level 12 Manipulate Blood - Level 47 Shape Blood - Level 46 Meld Blood - Level 44 Create Simulacrum (Blood) - Level 45 Blood Boost - Level 44 - Blood Army General: Tier V - Skills: Create Blood Army - Level 16 Manipulate Blood - Level 47 Shape Blood - Level 46 Meld Blood - Level 44 Create Simulacrum (Blood) - Level 45 Blood Boost - Level 44 Leadership ¨C Level 46 - Novice Dual Dagger Wielder (Punch Daggers): Tier III - Skills: Punch Daggers - Level 29 Dual Wielding - Level 27 - Empty - - Empty - -Empty- -Empty- -Empty- Non-Combat: - Cartographer: Tier IV - Skills: Spatial Determination - Level 39 Expanded Sight - Level 39 Sharpened Memory - Level 38 Stable Footing - Level 39 Drawing - Level 39 Cartography - Level 39 - Expert Mapmaker: Tier IV - Skills: Effective Communication (Drawing) - Level 38 Drawing - Level 39 Cartography - Level 39 -Empty- -Empty- -Empty- -Empty- -Empty- Non-Class Skills: Writing - Level 5, Reading - Level 5, Running - Level 5, Sprinting - Level 5 Titles: Class Line Progenitor, Class Creator X, System Access (Minor), Blood King of Avalon, First Vampire [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°I don¡¯t feel like this is going to be enough. That this,¡± He waved his hand at his status, ¡°Will be enough. The feeling that¡¯s bothering me is getting worse, like whatever we¡¯re going to face is getting more powerful or more dangerous. Any moment I can I need to spend getting better, or harder, or more powerful so that I¡¯m ready to face whatever it is that¡¯s coming at us.¡± Eleniah grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down so that their foreheads were touching. ¡°You aren¡¯t lacking in any way. You¡¯re going to pull through this. You¡¯re going to get everyone of us through this.¡± ¡°Can I afford to assume that, though? Even without this foreboding feeling, it¡¯s my job to stand between my people and the threats against them. I can¡¯t assume that I¡¯ll win, I have to ensure that I will. The threats we¡¯re set to face are unknown. Even if it¡¯s just leveling my Dual Wielding and Punch Dagger Skills up and hitting tier four with that Class, it¡¯s something. If I can work it all the way up to the end of tier four and get another tier five Class that would be even better.¡± He slowly closed his eyes and sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t think we have the time for me to do that, though.¡± ¡°Do you know what we do have time for?¡± Eleniah whispered to him. ¡°Time for me to take a break?¡± ¡°Damn straight we have time for you to take a break. Working yourself into a melted puddle of blood will be even worse than not training every moment of every day to get ready. And training yourself isn¡¯t the only thing you¡¯re doing to prepare! You¡¯re giving Cindy time and resources to develop new weapons, you¡¯re creating standard weapons out of your blood as often as possible to give our regular fighters more of a chance, and you¡¯re even supplementing my training of all these new vampires to make some of them Blood Manipulators! You can afford to take a break for your health, both because it¡¯s necessary and because you are working as best you can to get everyone ready for this, and you will be enough.¡± She pushed his head up so he could see her scowl. ¡°You¡¯ve even given up on playing with your floaty maps you¡¯ve been making while trying to get you non-combat Classes to tier five!¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t given up, I¡¯ve just pushed it back in my priority queue. It¡¯s not going to be as effective as growing my combat power.¡± ¡°Maybe not, but spending time with your girlfriend while she bugs you about your hobby is a damn fine way to take a break in my opinion, and my opinion is automatically a good one.¡± She jumped to her feet, grabbed Kay¡¯s arms, and started dragging him toward the exit. ¡°Let¡¯s go do that now, and then we¡¯ll have some food.¡± ¡°What about the golem?¡± Kay protested half-heartedly, a break really did sound nice and as much as it had started as just something to do with his non-combat Class slots he really had grown to like making maps with and without his blood Skills. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t I grab it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s underground in a private area of your palace which is full of guards, just let it live here.¡± Kay hurriedly wave a hand over one of the enchanted sensors that controlled the lights before his much physically stronger girlfriend, if neither of them used Skills, dragged him off to relax and think about anything other than the impending sense of doom that was hanging over him. Book 6 Chapter 24 ¡°There¡¯s no need to rush,¡± One of the figures huddled in a shadowed spot between tents whispered to their fellows. ¡°Why are we being pushed to move this quickly?¡± ¡°It isn¡¯t like there¡¯s actually a threat to deal with,¡± Another agreed, ¡°We¡¯re going to stomp on some backwater little ¡®king¡¯ who thinks they¡¯re big enough to demand terms from the Order after some little scuffle. Honestly, who do they think we are? A two-bit band of mercenaries that have killed a random vampyr or two? We¡¯re the Shatterplate Order!¡± ¡°No, no,¡± A third jumped in with a falsely sweet tone, ¡°We aren¡¯t going to stomp on anything, we¡¯re just showing the concerned king who had some little vampyr problem they couldn¡¯t deal with on their own how powerful the Order actually is. There won¡¯t be any violence just a show of why they should be grateful for the Order¡¯s assistance instead of being pissy about things not going how their ruler wanted.¡± The fourth figure standing in the shaded, out of the way area of one the Shatterplate Order¡¯s many camps as they marched toward Avalon said nothing. The other three didn¡¯t notice the silence, or if they did they didn¡¯t care. ¡°You¡¯re right though,¡± The third speaker continued, ¡°Who do they think the Order is? Because they have to be completely out of the loop to think that we¡¯d actually move the entire organization including our training centers into some little hodunk one city ¡®kingdom¡¯. The farther east you go the worse everything seems to get. They probably don¡¯t even get that the Order is back by nations hundreds of times larger than theirs.¡± ¡°Do you know what actually happened? There¡¯ve been all kinds of rumors floating around, but no one has given me a straight answer. I even bugged my team leader, and he just told me to ¡®shut up and keep moving¡¯! Can you believe that.¡± ¡°It¡¯s been the same for me! Everyone¡¯s been on edge this entire time, I wonder if they think we¡¯re actually going to get in a fight when we get there?¡± One of the three leaned in closer and whispered excitedly, ¡°Well I heard it involves the Commander¡¯s daughter.¡± The other two scooted closer to hear the juicy gossip. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Really. The minor king or whatever they call themselves out there apparently had a vampyr causing problems, one the Commander¡¯s daughter was tracking down with her hunting team, and the king fell in love with her, but she didn¡¯t want to shack up with some petty little mid-tier calling themselves a ruler. The guy got so mad he caused a bunch of problems, got in a fight with her team and then had to run off to lick his wounds when the hunting team kicked his ass. Then he made some demands like there was a real fight and talked all this shit to the Order, that¡¯s why we¡¯re going to show him what¡¯s up.¡± ¡°Are you actually fucking stupid?¡± The fourth figure asked. All three of the rumormongers jumped back in shock. ¡°Who are-¡° ¡°Nope.¡± The fourth figure was suddenly in their face, staring at them with disdain. ¡°I asked you a question, and I want an answer. Are you fucking stupid?¡± ¡°Ah¡­ um¡­ No, ma¡¯am?¡± One of them answered. She turned a hard stare on them. ¡°No¡­ Hunter Ravenhome?¡± ¡°Close enough.¡± She swept her glare back on to the other two, who had thought her attention being leveled on their fellow for a second might actually give them a moment to escape. ¡°If you¡¯re not complete morons like I think you are. How can none of the three of you have any idea what the hell we¡¯re doing out here or why we¡¯re going to Avalon? I¡¯ll allow some level of nonsense and rumors to taint your idea of things, but to literally have only the most basic of bullshit ideas of anything that went on? There was a mandatory gathering where the Commander told everyone what happened! Where you not there for some reason?¡± The three young idiots, arrogant noble brats that had set out in the world to ¡®make a name for themselves¡¯ or some other such nonsense when they hadn¡¯t inherited their families entire fortunes from the look of them, all did their best not to look sheepish. Alice suppressed a sigh and kept her best ¡®you¡¯ve done bad things and I¡¯m an angry superior¡¯ look on her face. It wasn¡¯t hard, the tripe they¡¯d been spouting was complete and utter bullshit of the highest order. Toning down what had gone on to make the Order look better? Fine, even some of the highest ranking hunters were trying to do that, not that they were getting away with it much with her and her father calling them on their bullshit. But saying that Kay propositioned her and she shot him down was the entire reason for the ¡®scuffle¡¯ that had happened at Avalon? That annoyed her. There were bigger things at stake here and these three were worried about banal and incorrect gossip! ¡°You three are to report to your camp¡¯s quartermaster for punishment detail for the rest of the week. You¡¯ll also be given a written record of the Commander¡¯s speech about what happened in Avalon and when I come to check on you three in a week you better have it damn well memorized. You understand me?¡± ¡°Yes ma¡¯am!¡± The three of them shouted before scampering off. Alice let it, and them go, even if it wasn¡¯t the correct form of address. ¡°Really?¡± She muttered to herself as she stalked toward the camp quartermaster¡¯s tent to make sure he knew not to let the idiots sneak around their punishment. ¡°I turned Kay down and he started acting like a bully? Obviously he¡¯s not that kind of person, which I can allow for them not knowing him, but really? Half the world was accusing him of being some terrifying vampyr king and between the three of you you didn¡¯t have an inkling? Do all three of you get cotton in your ears while living under that rock? I mean, they aren¡¯t wrong that I¡¯d shoot Kay down if he asked me anything like that, but to make it an excuse for this?¡± She threw her arms out, gesturing at the camp, which was surround by even more of the same layout, all a product of the Shatterplate Order marching to do basically what Kay had demanded of them. ¡°Idiots.¡± ¡°Talking to yourself? That¡¯s not a good sign.¡±Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Alice tensed, then slowly relaxed, forcing herself not to spin around with her weapon drawn. ¡°Dad, I asked you not to do that.¡± Edric Ravenhome, Commander and founder of the Shatterplate Order threw his arms over his daughter¡¯s shoulder and started pulling her along. ¡°And I believe I told you I was going to do what I wanted anyways.¡± ¡°What¡¯re you doing here?¡± Alice asked, ¡°I thought you were coordinating our march with the Crusader General?¡± ¡°I was, but he¡¯s much more experienced with handling large bodies of people on the move, while my specialty is definitely small groups moving much more furtively, so he ended up doing most of the work. I¡¯ve been learning a lot from him, and hopefully he¡¯s learning a lot from me, so everything¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great, but why are you here?¡± ¡°Oh, same reason you are I supposed.¡± Her dad¡¯s face went hard for a moment. ¡°Some of my subordinates who should know better decided they could get back to stirring the pot, as long as I wasn¡¯t looking of course, and I came to instruct them in the error of their ways. You beat me to it, and I decided to grab you after you were done.¡± He was right, that was why Alice was in that specific camp. ¡°Did I do alright?¡± ¡°You did fine,¡± He reassured her, ¡°Handled it professionally, gave him the exact same punishment I would have and for the same reasons, and you didn¡¯t do it in front of his subordinates or drag it out for too long. Well handled all around.¡± ¡°Thanks!¡± Alice couldn¡¯t help but perk up at the praise. It didn¡¯t matter that she was a fully fledged adult, a trained hunter of vampyr, and had gone some really harrowing things including having her species forcibly changed, she still loved her parents and wanted to make them proud. The group leader in question had really pissed her off though, in a completely different way than those three idiots that had needed their own scolding. The general body of the Order¡¯s hunters were divided into three levels, ordinary hunters were part of hunting teams, led by team leaders. That¡¯s what Alice had been doing when she¡¯d first gone to Avalon. A group of ten hunting teams was a hunting group, led by a group leader and those were the majority of the Order¡¯s combat officers. There were a handful of higher ranking figures that handled even larger gatherings of hunters, but those happened rarely. The Order handled hunting and tracking down individual vampyr or small groups of them, the Crusade were the ones who showed up when an army was needed to root out the monsters. With group leaders being the main leadership position in the Order they were heavily vetted and had to be both skilled and trusted to reach that position. In turn they were given a lot of leeway within the most rigid guidelines that the Order had for all of it¡¯s hunters. That trust however was being tested by more than one group leader, who definitely should all know better. The Order wasn¡¯t a noble¡¯s private army, or even a national army. They weren¡¯t a mercenary group or an adventuring party, they were the Shatterplate Order. The Order had been founded and was still led by the same man who had built it from the ground up after the day her father had come home to find his home town destroyed by vampyr and the shatter plates Alice¡¯s grandmother had prepared dinner on spread all about the family¡¯s home. Her father was in charge of the Order, there were no ifs ands or buts about it. What he said went when it came to his organization, and she completely agreed with the ultimatum he¡¯d given the detractors among the Order¡¯s leadership when he¡¯d announced that they would be acceding to Kay¡¯s demands. They could stay in the Order and do as he said, or they could leave. So the fact that some of those that had stayed, they¡¯d only lost a handful which had actually been surprising to Alice, were now doing their best to sow dissent was incredibly aggravating. It¡¯s not like they were the multi-headed hydra that was the Itarian Crusade, with different cults of personality headed by different Crusader Generals making up the leadership. That was looking like it would end up being a long term problem. The old-school Crusader Generals that were now being led by Crusader General Stonegnawer seemed ready for a schism between the two main factions that the Crusade had clustered around. Stonegnawer¡¯s faction was willing to accept Kay¡¯s demands, with a few codicils, and were looking to use them as a means to break the power of the other faction, which was growing too reactionary for many of the Crusader Generals who had been with the organization for a long time. The other faction was led by younger officers, who were angrily refusing to have anything to do with anyone even remotely related to vampyr in any way, and many were still pushing for the entire Crusade to gather and burn Avalon to the ground. Which wasn¡¯t going to happen for a multitude of reasons. Alice wasn¡¯t going to be surprised if the Crusade broke into at least two different factions in short order, and one of those was going to be a threat to the safety of others. That wasn¡¯t her problem though. Her problems were many, but controlling someone else¡¯s idiots wasn¡¯t one of them. She had to deal with her new position as he dad¡¯s protege, one she¡¯d never actually planned to have, learn to function with her new species that had an interesting new dietary requirement, and figure out how to finally get the Vampyr Hunter Class she¡¯d been busting her ass off to make come to fruition. ¡°So, you¡¯d turn down King Kay if he propositioned you?¡± Her dad asked with fake casualness, ¡°It¡¯d be a good way to connect the Order to Avalon and make sure we can stay relevant in our new home.¡± ¡°Dad!¡± Alice protested. ¡°That¡¯s not funny, you know I wouldn¡¯t do that.¡± She paused for dramatic effect, ¡°If Eleniah asked though¡­¡± Edric chuckled and shook his head. ¡°Sadly for your romantic fantasies, we both know she and Kay are going to end up together in the end.¡± ¡°Sure, but they¡¯re both being so obtuse about it, I might be able to slip some nice nights in there with her, you never know.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll see. Good luck if you see and opportunity but I wouldn¡¯t hold my breath.¡± He glanced over at her as they walked back to their shared tent. ¡°How¡¯re you doing at¡­ ah¡­¡± ¡°Acquiring blood to drink?¡± She couldn¡¯t blame him for his hesitation in dealing with the topic. They¡¯d both dealt with too many damn vampyr to treat the idea of drinking blood casually. ¡°It¡¯s been fine. Kay and Lauren¡¯s message to me that they included in the general ones to you and the Order gave me a bit more information than I¡¯d figured out and I don¡¯t think they know that animal blood is fine as long as we drink it in larger amounts than blood from people.¡± She stopped in place for a moment before forcing herself to keep walking. ¡°I don¡¯t think they know that we can go into blood lust if we don¡¯t drink enough either.¡± Edric stopped, turned to her, and dragged her into a hug. ¡°You didn¡¯t hurt anyone. You literally didn¡¯t even touch anyone. You found out it was happening, kept yourself totally in control, and dealt with it by finding an animal to drink a bit from. You literally proved you aren¡¯t a vampyr with that. Those monsters literally can¡¯t control themselves when their blood lust hits.¡± ¡°I know. I¡¯m just worried about it happening to them and it causing problems.¡± They both scowled at the thought of giving the rage fueled or just damn stubborn idiots who wanted to keep insisting that Kay, and now Alice, were monsters to be eradicated more fuel for their pyres. ¡°Kay knows quite a bit about vampires from his world, remember? I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be fine.¡± Alice let out a sigh, then squeezed her dad tight before letting go. ¡°You¡¯re right. And besides, with the Crusader General setting the pace, we¡¯ll all get there in no time, both to support them with this new problem and I can tell them all the things I¡¯ve figured out about being a vampire since I¡¯ve seen them.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good attitude. Plus you¡¯ll get to see Zeia again!¡± ¡°Dad, that isn¡¯t funny.¡± ¡°What?¡± He asked with all the false innocence in the world, ¡°She has to have been studying vampires and different things we can learn about the vampyr from them this whole time! I was being topical!¡± ¡°Right, that¡¯s totally what you meant.¡± Book 6 Chapter 25 An oblong, egg-like shape floated in the air. It was red, since it was made out of blood, and it slowly expanded until it was about the size of a human head. Pieces of it began to stretch out and twist, becoming branching structures that pointed in multiple directions with smaller pieces branching out even more as they traveled outward. Then in one smooth motion, the object shrunk back in on itself and became a cube. That grew another cube from its side, then both of them together extruded two more. That repeated over and over until the one singular cube became dozens that all formed together into one massive cube, before it too changed its shape. The cycle of starting as one shape, growing in some way, then shrinking down and starting as another shape repeated over and over. Kay stared blindly at the floating , twisting, changing shape as he perceived the blood he was manipulating with his Skills with his magical senses and not his eyes. He made it into ridiculous shapes that would only work in zero gravity or with magic that defied gravity, repeating the same process but with different shapes and patterns of growth over and over again. More than once some part of the mass he was shaping and forming with his magic grew too large, hitting the ceiling or walls or even running into him and that was when he started shrinking it instead of the original limit he¡¯d set for himself. He had done his best to take Eleniah¡¯s well-meaning and completely correct nagging to heart and let himself relax. Kay was disappointed in himself that he had needed her to come and poke him about it. He wasn¡¯t sure if it was a perfectly normal thing to do, if he just hadn¡¯t grown as much as he thought he had, or if it was just a personal failing, but whenever crisis seemed to come around he felt like he started backsliding and reverting to a much less useful version of himself, the version that had fought against the idea of being a leader. That older state of himself didn¡¯t fight against it out of dislike for the position or the idea of it, although there was some dislike for some of the additional factors, most of which he still hated, like sycophants and ass-kissers, but out of a fear of failure. That was what he realized the more he looked in at himself and learned who he was and what he stood for. Fear of failure was certainly standard among everyone Kay had ever met to some extent, but letting it overwhelm you and dictate your choices was cowardly and served no one. Now that he was in the position that he had originally fought against as the leader of many people, the fear was even stronger than before. Before he¡¯d become mayor, then lord, and then king of Avalon, the idea of failing and letting people down was merely a hypothetical. It wasn¡¯t a hypothetical anymore, it was a real possible consequence of his choices and actions. Even more than just disappointment, there was a chance that people could die, that everything they had built and sacrificed could be destroyed if he failed. He wasn¡¯t just their leader, because of how Torotia¡¯s System and the nature of society here worked, he was also their champion. He was the strongest man around as far as anyone was concerned. He was their king, their guardian, and their champion all rolled up into one and if he failed the fallout could be terrible. That was the fear that drove Kay in the complete opposite direction from his previous behavior. Instead of running from the problem and the conflict, he dove into it at reckless speed, so concerned with doing everything he could for the people he¡¯d sworn to protect that he never stopped to consider if he was going too fast or doing too much. Eleniah was right, he was once again driving himself unto the verge of burning out, of becoming a lifeless husk with no more to give long before he was needed most. His fear was driving him into desperation instead of making a wise, considered, and balanced choice. He was thankful that he had people in his life who didn¡¯t fear standing up to him and could tell him he was being an idiot, and he refused to be someone that refuted those voices and kept being stupid against good advice. So he was taking a break and working on a personal project. Originally Kay had gotten two map-making related non-Combat Classes just to fill in slots. Even if they didn¡¯t have Skills suited to killing monsters or other foes, they at least pumped a bit more mana into him every time he tiered them up and they increased his overall total tiers as well. One of the two Classes he¡¯d ended up with also did come with a nice Skill that helped in fights, Stable Footing, which helped him keep his balanced in all kinds of terrain. Later on after working on them to tier up the Classes, he¡¯d found he actually enjoyed the work. Making maps was important in a world that couldn¡¯t just use satellites to take pictures of what the ground looked like and it was also relaxing, so by making it his hobby Kay got to kill two birds with one stone. He¡¯d set it to the side because it didn¡¯t immediately help him kill vampyr, but now that he was taking a break he¡¯d decided to try and make something new that involved his Expert Cartographer and Expert Mapmaker Classes. He didn¡¯t have anyone to teach at the moment, no decisions had to be made, and as much of a break as it would be to flirt with his girlfriend, so trying to make a modular, changeable magic map out of blood was his goal for the moment. He¡¯d never heard of anything quite like what he was trying to create being made on Torotia before, Ahthia hadn¡¯t found any stories or documents about it and no one else he¡¯d asked had ever heard an inkling, so he was working purely on instinct and guesswork. He wanted his blood-map-artifact thing to be able to morph itself and show off any layout, so he was trying to imprint the blood with all kinds of shapes as he slowly pumped mana into it, all while using Blood Manipulation, Shape Blood, Create from Blood, and Meld Blood simultaneously. The first two were doing the actual work of changing the blood¡¯s form and shape, the third was what he was using to try and make it into a System recognized item, and the fourth he was using to try and connect his two map making related Classes to the item and make it a map as opposed to some kind of blood based shape memory substance.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Once he¡¯d changed the mass of blood into every variation of every shape and configuration he could think of more than once he pulled out some maps he¡¯d made before this, including paper maps with regular ink, paper maps with blood as ink, maps made out of blood in their entirety, both two-dimensional ones and three-dimensional topographic maps, and some weird experimental things he¡¯d tried with various media. Carefully and making as few mistakes as he could Kay shaped the floating mass of blood into copies of those maps as he thought carefully about what each one represented and what they were trying to convey. After making the blood mimic every map he had on him Kay started the last stage he¡¯d though of. He detached tiny pieces of the mass and floated them out of the lounge he was in, sending them off on what amounted to a scouting mission. Each tiny piece was smaller than a drop of rain and they flew through corridors and around rooms in the palace in unseen formations. An invisible red mist scoured every inch of Kay¡¯s palace, sneaking into secret corridors and air vents, covering every inch of every room, and mapping out the palace section by section as they flew. The massive range of his magical senses which had been increased by his Classes and his tiers let him feel every time one of the minuscule droplets touched something and the map formed a three dimensional map of the entire complex as Kay moved it into the shape of the palace. When every square inch of the palace had been mapped out and the mass was now a miniature floating copy of Kay¡¯s domicile it began to twitch and ripple, solid parts becoming liquid again even under Kay¡¯s control. The entire thing began to vibrate and Kay could feel the mana in it running out of control. He clamped down on it with all his force and slammed more of his own mana into it with Create from Blood in an effort to finalize the completed enchantment. The wobbling, vibrating, twisting, shaking lump of blood stilled all at once, then sucked in on itself. A small red orb the size of a golf ball floated for a few more seconds before it fell into Kay¡¯s waiting palm. He held the orb up to his face and used Inspect. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Unnamed Enchanted Artifact - A unique artifact made of blood. This mapping item constantly detects the region around it through the movement of blood. Any living being or other source of blood in its range serves as a beacon to constantly update its charts. If activated it will display a three-dimensional rendering of the area under its influence, with the ability to shit its form to that of any area, building, or location in its range. While it uses blood, including that of living things, it has no ability to display the location or movement of anything in its range that does not count as topography. As the creator of this unique item, you may choose to name it at any time. If you choose not to, a name may be applied to it by the System or by a large number of individuals calling it by the same name. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°¡­Wow.¡± Kay was about to activate the orb, then realized how close it was to his face and held it farther away before sending some mana into the orb to activate it. It floated off his hand and unfurled like origami until there was a thing sheet of blood two feet wide hovering over his hand. There was a slight pause then the sheet began rising up in thin column that drew a detailed map of Avalon city and a few miles outside the city itself. Kay could see tiny, intricate details carved into the half-inch tall buildings, each one perfect replicas of the real thing as far as he knew. There was a tiny feeling of presence inside of the map, around the section where the face of the palace was carved into the cliff-face that loomed over Avalon. Kay concentrated and the map shifted, becoming a rendering of the palace itself, just like it had been before he¡¯d created this magic map. There in the room Kay was in was a floating orb that felt like the sense of ¡°here¡± somehow. It looked like even the distance the map was from the floor was to scale. He spent a long time playing with it, just zooming in and out and diving into the layout of different buildings. ¡°This might actually be a game changer.¡± He muttered to himself as he started looking closely over a number of buildings to see if he could find any tiny homes tucked away in secret places that an illusive spymaster might live. ¡°I wonder if I can make more of these?¡± A small flash in the corner of his vision interrupted him and he looked at it in surprise. With help from Eleniah, Ahthia, and Amanda he¡¯d spent a lot of time modifying when the System sent him notifications about things, because a detailed report every time he got a Skill from level one to two or eleven to twelve wasn¡¯t really worth looking at every time. Only certain things would pop up now. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] - One or more of your Classes are ready to tier up! - Tier V Classes Available! [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Book 6 Chapter 26 Kay blinked down at the notification. He¡¯d thought there were at least one Skill in both Expert Cartographer and Expert Mapmaker that hadn¡¯t reached level thirty-nine and neither of those Skills were related to making a magical blood mapping artifact. Those were the only Classes he had that were even close to tiering up too, so it had to be them. He mentally focused on the notification and made it expand to give him more information. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] - For creating a new type of enchanted item you receive one free level up in a Skill of a related Class! - Skill: Effective Communication has reached level 39! - Class: Expert Mapmaker is ready to tier up! - Tier V Classes Available! - For creating a new unique artifact you receive one free level up in a Skill of a related Class! - Skill: Sharpened Memory has reached level 39! - Class: Expert Cartographer is ready to tier up! - Tier V Classes Available! [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay¡¯s eyes went wide. ¡°That¡¯s a thing?¡± He demanded of the empty air, or maybe the System. Like usual, it didn¡¯t respond, which was both annoying and worrying. His Quest to help or save the Seramist isles had vanished at some point when he was on the ship back to Avalon, but he hadn¡¯t received a reward for it and trying to get the System¡¯s attention about it hadn¡¯t done anything. Shaking off that line of thought, since there literally wasn¡¯t anything he could do about it, Kay turned his attention back to his notifications. Effective Communication and Sharpened Memory had both been giving him trouble with the last level up he needed to get to thirty-nine, because both of them were aggravating Skills that were hard to use. Effective Communication made it easier for Kay to create things that could be easily read or otherwise interpreted, but since it came with one of his map making Classes, it mostly only worked with maps. There was some overflow into other areas of his life, like giving orders or writing messages, but it mainly worked on maps and charts, which made it hard to level. There was only so much that a map really needed to convey and finding new ways to convey that information or new things to convey had gotten harder and harder the more he¡¯d leveled the Skill. The same was true of Sharpened Memory, for mostly the same reasons. His memory overall was generally better thanks to it, but he really remembered terrain, topography, geography, and locations with the Skill, and remembering the same places better didn¡¯t give him any levels. He needed to find new places and explore them in order to remember how they were and then he would level the Skill, at least from his experiences so far. Creating a brand new kind of item and also a new unique artifact giving Skill levels as a reward was a brand new thing he hadn¡¯t heard of before this, but he wasn¡¯t going to look the gift horse in the mouth. A new tier five Class, even if it wasn¡¯t a Combat Class, was a big boost to his effective power for the fight to come. He happily opened the list of possible tier five Classes to peruse. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] - Available Tier V Classes: - Self-Possessed Mapper - Blood-Ink Mapmaker - Blood-Ink Cartographer - Blood-Ink Mapper - Blood-Scrawl Mapmaker - Blood-Scrawl Cartographer - Blood Scrawl Mapper - Blood-Sight Mapper - Master of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact - Heart-Pulse Surveyor [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] The fact that so many of the names repeated core sections immediately told Kay something. The first option, Self-Possessed Mapper, was obviously the combination of Expert Mapmaker and Expert Cartographer. Anything that had ¡®Mapper¡± in it was likely a Class that combined both with something else. The one¡¯s that ended in ¡°Cartographer¡± or ¡°Mapmaker¡± were Classes that combined just one of those two with another Class that wasn¡¯t the other. The only two options that stood out from that pattern were the last two, Master of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact, which was hilariously named but Kay was pretty sure why, and Heart-Pulse Surveyor, which Kay didn¡¯t have a single clue about. He likely wasn¡¯t going to choose one of the Classes that didn¡¯t combine both of his tier four Non-Combat Classes, since he didn¡¯t have the easy cheat to get back the base Classes like he did tanks to being Class Line Progenitor of Blood Manipulator it was better to free up at least one Class Slot for later use. Or was it? As long as he chose one of the Classes that used a blood-based Class for the combination he¡¯d get a new slot from the title upgrade¡­ ¡°Let¡¯s just look at the options first. No use trying to second guess potential decisions before I even see what¡¯s available.¡± He muttered to himself before popping open the description of the first Class.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Self-Possessed Mapper (Combination of Expert Mapmaker + Expert Cartographer) - There are those who go out into the world to see what is there and ensure that others may follow them, with charts and maps that guide them to destinations that were once unknown. There are those that take the notes, scribbles, and recollections of those first people and make them into works of art, maps that would be the centerpiece of any king¡¯s office and wanted for the war rooms of generals across the world. With the ability to traverse the terrain, see it¡¯s wonders, and then bring them back for others to learn the paths and ways, this Class is for those who reject that false dichotomy and will both see the world that they chart and make their maps into glorious works of art! Class Skill: Mapped Memories [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Mapped Memories - This Skill transfers memories of places, paths, routes, ways, allies, streets, roads, and more that the user has seen themselves into a map, chart, or other visual depiction meant to guide others, adding detail, information, and assistance in traveling through the area depicted based on the memories provided. The mana cost of the transfer grows the more memories provided and the larger the area depicted. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay mentally shrugged at the first option. It was interesting, but it wasn¡¯t something he really wanted himself and it wasn¡¯t a Class he could see himself using that often. As much as he wanted to sometimes, his job wasn¡¯t to explore and seek out new places so he¡¯d only use the Class to create new or update old maps of places he traveled to while doing his duties. It didn¡¯t sound like something he was after. He skipped the next two options to read over the fourth and get a general idea of what ¡®Blood-Ink¡¯ referred to, since he was sure he already knew what the difference between the three would be. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Blood-Ink Mapper (Combination of Expert Mapmaker + Expert Cartographer + Blood Manipulator) - Draw the world in a bloody ink. The wilderness is vast and at times, deadly. A mapper who would see and describe every inch of it must be ready at all times for threats and to work his art. Ink is valuable, and hard to transport, why use it at all? You could make ink from the plants around you, but you aren¡¯t a herbalist, you spill blood. Draw your ink from the foes you best, the prey you hunt, and if need be your own veins to depict the world and your travels in brilliant detail. Class Skill: Depict the World with Blood-Ink [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Depict the World with Blood Red Ink - This Skill automatically activates when the user uses any form of blood as ink to draw a map, chart, or any other medium through which navigational data is conveyed visually. This Skill provides permanent effects to the medium created based on the medium, they type of blood used as ink, the being the blood was sourced from, the location of the being at the time the blood was sourced, and the area being depicted. This Skill constantly draws mana at a slow rate while being used. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Doubts crept back up as Kay read about Blood-Ink Mapper. Should he take two tier five Classes? They¡¯d probably synergize pretty well, he¡¯d get two bursts of mana infusing his body, and he¡¯d get the Class Creator title to upgrade twice¡­ Shaking his head Kay overturned his previous decision and went back to read Blood-Ink Mapmaker and Blood-Ink Cartographer. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Blood-Ink Mapmaker (Combination of Expert Mapmaker + Blood Manipulator) - Maps are an art form, as much as any painting, any drawing, or any tapestry. There is art in telling those who see your works that ¡°here be dragons¡± whether that is with words or pictures and whether or not there are literal dragons there. Maps show safety, passage, travel, danger, opportunities, victories, losses, and so much more. Maps are life, and so is blood. Why would you not use the very source of life to transform art into majesty? Class Skill: Paint the Map with Blood [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Paint the Map with Blood - This Skill automatically activates when the user uses any form of blood as ink to draw a map or chart. This Skill provides permanent effects to the map or chart based the type of blood used as ink, the being the blood was sourced from, the location of the being at the time the blood was sourced and the area being depicted. This Skill constantly draws mana at a slow rate while being used. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Blood-Ink Cartographer (Combination of Expert Cartographer + Blood Manipulator) - Your blood pounds in your veins as you climb that next hill, summit that next mountain, and cross that next river. Each new place seen is a new place to depict so that others can follow and see the same beauty that is out there. Your blood carries in it the mark of every view you¡¯ve ever seen, and the same can be said of any other living thing. Those marks, yours and others, should be spread to the world for all to see, with the blood that carries those marks as the tool to convey the sights. Class Skill: Sketch Your View in Blood [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Sketch Your View in Blood - This Skill automatically activates when the user uses any form of blood as ink to draw a map, chart, or any other medium through which navigational data is conveyed visually, while the area being depicted is in sight of the user. This Skill provides permanent effects to the medium created based on the medium, they type of blood used as ink, the being the blood was sourced from, the location of the being at the time the blood was sourced, and the area being depicted. The closer the being that the blood used as ink was sourced from was to the area being depicted when the blood was sourced, excepting the user, the stronger the effects may be. This Skill constantly draws mana at a slow rate while being used. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay had definitely been right about what the differences between the various options were, at least when it came to the Classes that used only Expert Cartographer or Expert Mapmaker as opposed to both. The differences in their Class Skills centered around the same concept that divided the variants. Maps as art meant versus maps as only a means of navigation or a third point that refused the divide and tried to do both, or perhaps one or the other when circumstances forced one¡¯s hand and it wasn¡¯t possible to do both. He quickly looked at the ¡°Blood-Scrawl¡± options and saw that they were combinations in the same vein as the Blood-Ink Classes but they included Blood Shaper in the mix and focused on making the entire map out of blood, not just as the ink. Otherwise they were identical to the Blood-Ink variants. All of the Classes were good, but none of them really spoke to him. Thankfully, he still had two options left to check before he had to really start thinking about what he was going to chose. Book 6 Chapter 27 [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Master of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact (Combination of Expert Mapmaker + Expert Cartographer + Blood Manipulator + Blood Shaper + Blood Melder, Additional Requirement: Owner of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact) - Though rare there exist Classes that devote themselves to certain powerful unique artifacts, similar to Classes that revolve around particular magic weapons. This Class takes the unique artifact Unnamed Enchanted Artifact and permanently binds it to the one who has this Class. With it the artifact becomes part of them in a bond of magical symbiosis. Due to each artifact that triggers a ¡°Master of¡± Class being unique, each ¡°Master of¡± Class is similarly unique, requiring practice and discovery to find the true potential of the Class. Class Skill: Mastery of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Mastery of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact - This Skill permanently binds the eponymous artifact to the user and unlocks abilities with said artifact beyond its use by another. This Skill also prevents the artifact from ever being removed from the user. This Skill costs a large amount of mana upon activating, which is automatic upon receiving the Skill and does not cost mana after the binding is complete. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay read through the vacuous description with a frown. He¡¯d been excited for the Class as an option and his excitement had been quickly sunk. The entire concept of the type of Class that had just been revealed to him was weird. How did it work with other artifacts out there in the world? He¡¯d gotten lucky, since he created the item in question he automatically had the required Classes to get the tier five Class, but what about people who found their artifacts later on in life? Did the System account for that and allow tangential Classes? Why was such a Class tier five anyways? The Class as a whole was entirely focused on the artifact, unlike any other tier five Class he¡¯d seen which worked as some variation of a combined focus of the Classes that made it up which magnified the whole based on the parts. These ¡°Master of¡± Classes didn¡¯t seem to match that pattern at all. Really, all the new information did was tell Kay that there was still so much more in the world for him to discover and learn. He¡¯d definitely be reporting this to Ahthia and Eleniah, but the Class wasn¡¯t something he was interested in. The artifact he¡¯d made was quite cool, but it was only a map at the end of things. An incredibly useful map that he wasn¡¯t going to throw away or under-use, but it wasn¡¯t going to slay vampyr and the effects of the map artifact didn¡¯t synergize with the rest of his build enough to devote an entire Class Slot to a Class that was entirely devoted to the artifact! As it was he was banking on the last Class option being a good one and if it wasn¡¯t he¡¯d have to decide between one of the Blood-Scrawl Class options. They were direct upgrades to the Blood-Ink variations that required more materials than just blood, and he wouldn¡¯t get a Class Creator Title upgrade from Self-Possessed Mapper which meant no new Class Slot. That brought him all the way back around to deciding whether it was better to get two Classes that somewhat contradicted each other in order to get two more Class Slots and a bit more mana pushed into him or get one Class that combined the abilities of the other two into one sleek package. It was really down to the last Class being better than the others or not, so he shrugged and pulled open the description. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Heart-Pulse Surveyor (Combination of Expert Mapmaker + Expert Cartographer + Blood Manipulator, Additional Requirement: Posses the Skill Domain of Blood) - There are as many ways to see existence as there are beings that can behold it¡¯s beauty, merely referred to as ¡°senses¡± by so many species. To sense reflected wavelengths of light is sight, to sense the vibrations through the surrounding medium is hearing, to sense tiny particles of existence in a particular body part is smell, and the list goes on forever. This Class is for one who has unlocked senses beyond those of their physical form, using magic to see the world in a new way. Blood is life, life is to be, and to be is to experience. Experience the world through the flow of blood and see through the beat of each heart. Class Skill: Sanguinelocation Class Skill: Blood-Sight [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Sanguinelocation - Echolocation is purposefully sending out waves of sound to detect how they interact with the world around them when they return to their source. Sanguinelocation is detecting the world is sensing the world through the pulse of blood and the beating of hearts. It is not hearing, it is not sight, it is it¡¯s own magical sense that lets the user experience the world and gain information based on how blood interacts with existence. For a steady mana cost, the user may activate this Skill, activating a new magical sense that informs them of the world. The more blood that flows through the veins of living creatures the more detailed information the user gains about that area. Activating the Skill with larger amounts of mana, paid continuously, will expand the range of this magical sense. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Blood-Sight - This Skill and those similar to it are the purview of masters of their element, substance, or material, and accompanies Classes that grant new senses based on such. Wherever the material the user has mastered touches, they can see. For a large up front mana cost the user may see through any of their material that is exposed to light, within range, as if they were present. This Skill does not help the user process too many sensory inputs. Higher levels of this Skill will increase the range of the Skill. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay fully gaped at the final Class for over a minute. It was broken. If he were speaking to his old friends back home about something like this appearing in a game he¡¯d call it OP and either bitch about someone else getting it or cry in joy at getting it himself. He had no idea how two map Classes turned into a broken ¡°see through Blood¡± Class, but he wasn¡¯t about to turn it down. That Class was the exact kind of game changer he¡¯d been hoping for. It would let him see through walls if there was blood anywhere that light touched, within whatever range he had, but still, and as long as there were living things with blood around he could make out the area around them. He could use this to spy on people, not that he was interested in that but it was worth considering, navigate the battlefield, avoid ambushes, find enemies that were fleeing, and so much more. If he activated Blood-Sight with his simulacra running around and fully pumped up his Lord¡¯s Bloody Domain he could turn an entire section of a battle, or maybe the entire thing, into his own personal playground. This one Class would help turn him from a one-man army to a one-man calamity. That definitely outweighed the question of two Classes being maybe better than one. Right as he was about to accept Heart-Pulse Surveyor, he paused. Not out of doubt or indecisions, but out of curiosity. The requirements to get Heart-Pulse Surveyor were a little too coincidental, and the extra Skill tacked on that seemed to be it¡¯s own thing separate from the Class was a bright blinking beacon of ¡°too good to be true¡± on it¡¯s own. The System had said that it didn¡¯t control anyone directly, it just incentivized them to do what it wanted. Was this more of the same? It¡¯d allowed his original Oath to it so long ago to change his Class into Blood Manipulator because it thought having that Class back in the world might be useful against the vampyr, which were causing System corruption thanks to their eldritch origins. Now, when he was about to go to war against more of them and destroy their plans, which would likely result in even more System corruption if they succeeded, he was getting a sudden out of character power boost. That reeked of the System meddling. Kay thought about it for a moment and then accepted it. So what if the System was meddling? He didn¡¯t like the concept and it had led to some very agonizing moments in the past of him trying to figure out if he was just a puppet having his strings pulled, but it wasn¡¯t like that anymore. There were always going to be more powerful forces than him out there and dealing with those forces and the effects they had on the world was just part of living. He was one of those forces to so many people at this point, was he pulling people¡¯s strings like a puppet master, making them dance to his tune? He didn¡¯t feel that way, and honestly, unless he really was working to remove people¡¯s free will, did it matter? He had the same issue as so many others, his was just coming from an even higher level of power, and that¡¯s where the racing thoughts, cursing the System, and trying to think of ways to get out from under its thumb came from. It was all about control. With another being, person, or force limiting your options, or even just making you feel like your options had been limited, it could feel like you weren¡¯t in control, but that was an illusion to hide the fact that you aren¡¯t all powerful. No matter what Kay did, his choices were going to be restrained by something even if that something was just the basic laws of how reality functioned. He wasn¡¯t a god to reshape anything he wanted, and there was nothing wrong with that. Wailing about feelings brought up by looking at the world with the illusion that he could do anything he wanted was silly and childish. With a push of his willpower Kay accepted the Heart-Pulse Surveyor Class and amazed in the feeling of mana rushing into him once again, fortifying him and making him one step closer to whatever the end goal of the tier system was. His circumstances were even better than the people who looked up to him as their king, he was getting reward to do the thing he was already going to do anyways! His oaths and duties meant that the vampyr threat to the east couldn¡¯t be allowed to stand, so if the System gave him more powerful Class options to deal with them, good. He¡¯d take the power, crush his enemies, and go about with his life the way he wanted to. The sheer lack of contact from the System was worrying though. He felt like he was at the point in it¡¯s machinations that it could just tell him that¡¯s what was happening, like it had done when it had sent him off to the Seramist Isles. It not getting back to him after that, or even during, and not receiving a reward for finishing that Quest had him worried that something else was going on, something bad. Sadly, without it telling him about any such thing, there was nothing he could do. His working hypothesis was that it was dealing with incursions elsewhere in the world and couldn¡¯t devote processing power to talking to Kay, but what did that mean? Talking to Kay should take so little power that it could do it with the world literally ending right then, he assumed, so what was happening right then if it couldn¡¯t even push a button to send him a Quest reward IOU? At the end of the line of logic though, it didn¡¯t matter. Kay would keep doing what he had to until everything was destroyed around him or his life eventually ended. He spent half a second debating using one of his new Skills from his new Class, but decided to wait on that. Eleniah would never forgive him if he tested out two new awesome Skills without her, and he could spend the rest of his break telling Ahthia about the new information he¡¯d gotten. Book 6 Chapter 28 ¡°You made an artifact and it got you up to a new tier five Class?¡± Eleniah watched Kay playing with the blood map artifact while she pouted a bit. ¡°That¡¯s so unfair. The rest of us have to work our butts off to get to high levels, and you¡¯re already sitting at what, six tier five Classes?¡± Kay looked up. ¡°I¡¯m only at four, thank you.¡± Eleniah threw up her hands. ¡°That¡¯s still insane! I knew that being a Class Line Progenitor was a massive cheat but¡­¡± She shook her head despondently. ¡°I¡¯m hundreds of years older than you and I have two tier five Classes.¡± ¡°I thought we weren¡¯t going to bring up the age difference because it makes you uncomfortable sometimes?¡± Kay responded calmly. He already knew that most of the dramatics were fake. ¡°And didn¡¯t you take a big break from one of your Classes while also not working on getting a new one? That¡¯s not my fault.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bring up the age difference when it suits me! I¡¯m getting over it!¡± She whirled to face him and stomped over. ¡°And I¡¯m your girlfriend, that means that it is your-¡° She cut off her tirade with a giggle. ¡°Nope! Can¡¯t keep that going, it¡¯s too ridiculous.¡± Kay pulled the artifact back to him and let it collapse back into an orb. He gathered Eleniah in his arms and just held her. ¡°I¡¯m proud of you. A little annoyed, because you were supposed to be taking a break and you started working on your Classes instead, but you¡¯ve been doing amazing. Overall and in this one case of getting a totally overpowered Class.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± He squeezed her tighter. ¡°Are you my girlfriend?¡± ¡°What?¡± Eleniah pushed against his chest so she could look at him. ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± ¡°Is that the right word? We¡¯re in a romantic relationship for sure, but are we girlfriend and boyfriend? That feels a little¡­ I don¡¯t know, childish?¡± The annoyed expression on Eleniah¡¯s face faded into a confused one as Kay talked. ¡°What do you- Oh, wait, how is that word translating for you when say ¡®girlfriend¡¯?¡± ¡°I hear ¡®girlfriend¡¯, what do you mean? No, wait, you¡¯re right the translation is probably grabbing the closest word again. ¡®Girlfriend¡¯ is a word for someone you¡¯re dating, like, you¡¯re in a romantic relationship but you¡¯re not necessarily moving toward marriage. That¡¯s specifically the term for a woman that you¡¯re dating, the other side of it is ¡®boyfriend¡¯.¡± He let out a breath. ¡°The culture where I¡¯m come from has been shifting since I was a kid, but there¡¯s still a lot of focus on marriage and being in a permanent relationship. Being girlfriend and boyfriend and using those labels, being in the ¡®just dating¡¯ stage of things, implies that you might not be together for the whole run. Again, that¡¯s changing and there are people that don¡¯t like marriage as an institution or have other reasons not to get married, so they¡¯re together permanently and still call each other that as opposed to picking other terms, but in my head it¡¯s still kind of what two teenagers or people in their twenties that don¡¯t know what they¡¯re doing would call each other.¡± ¡°Both of those are coming to me as the same word, which is ¡®girlfriend¡¯.¡± Kay mostly heard ¡®girlfriend¡¯ but ¡®boyfriend¡¯ was layered in there too, with both of them in Eleniah¡¯s voice. It was an odd experience and it made it harder to hear what she was actually saying under the translation effect. He tried a few more time with her help to hear it and then repeat it back to her. ¡°Does that sound right?¡± ¡°Yeah, you¡¯ve got it.¡± She smiled happily at him, ¡°It makes me happy that you¡¯re trying to learn to speak my language even if you have the translation effect.¡± ¡°Outside of making you happy it should also help cut down on errors like this one.¡± ¡°True. I can kind of see what you mean with the word we¡¯re using. If you break it down it¡¯s something like ¡®dating-partners¡¯? It does come with an implication of¡­ Impermanence? If we were going to be together permanently or at least as long as we can last together then we¡¯d use ¡®life-partners¡¯ if we didn¡¯t marry, if we were courting and planned to wed that¡¯d be another thing, and then there¡¯s marriage.¡± She leaned back against his chest. ¡°What does marriage mean to you? Because it sounded like that was the crux of what you were getting to.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯d say it is. It¡¯s important to me, probably because of how I was raised and what I saw growing up, but being married is a¡­¡± He struggled to find the right words to convey what he was getting at. ¡°It¡¯s a formalization of a promise. Back on Earth, especially back in the States, things were all starting to blend together culturally and people were changing how they thought about things or what they chose to do, but I guess I¡¯m still a little old fashioned when it comes to this. Getting married is supposed to be willingly tying yourself to someone else. It¡¯s a promise to each other that you¡¯re together and will work together to stay that way and also a declaration to the rest of the world that you¡¯ve done so.¡± Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ¡°Hmmm. That sounds nice.¡± ¡°What does it mean to you?¡± Kay asked her. ¡°It¡¯s probably a lot different here in all kinds of ways, but what does it mean to you?¡± Eleniah¡¯s chuckles vibrated against his chest. ¡°There are a lot of differences thanks to different cultures and there being so many more species of people here compared to your Earth, but there are institutions and ceremonies and such that are similar in a lot of places. In the Isles it¡¯s pretty similar, although there¡¯s less of a focus on monogamy than some cultures here on the continents or like you talked about.¡± Kay let out a sigh. ¡°That¡¯s fine for some people and I get why a lot of people are going to push me to take multiple spouses, but that isn¡¯t going to work for me. Besides just being generally not attracted to the idea, it sounds like a lot of work. Dealing with you is hard enough, imagining having to divide my attention between others?¡± He shuddered. ¡°That sounds like a nightmare.¡± Eleniah looked up at him with narrowed eyes. A moment later pinching fingers by his ribs had him jumping away from her. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean it as a dig at you!¡± Kay insisted, backing slowly away from her raised fingers. ¡°I meant that while I love you and want you to be with me, we¡¯re not the same person and sometime compromise is difficult!¡± Eleniah stopped in place and gasped dramatically, ¡°You¡­ you love me?¡± ¡°Will you stop? That isn¡¯t the first time I¡¯ve said that to you.¡± She grinned and walked back over to him and wrapped him in a hug again. ¡°So, marriage isn¡¯t as formal in the Isles. A lot of people just decide that they¡¯re together like that and then they are, no ceremony or legal anything to it. Some people do small parties or something, but it¡¯s only when you get into forming alliances and tying powerful interest together that you get the formalities mixed in. Growing up I didn¡¯t really expect anything big or fancy, just to fall in love with someone and decide that we belonged together. Then Alahna decided to conquer the archipelago and become queen.¡± Eleniah rolled her eyes. ¡°That changed things a little, although I never felt like my choices got limited or I¡¯d end up marrying someone for political gain, thank goodness. It just meant I¡¯d have to be fancy about it when I did meet my person. I¡¯m not really interested in polygamy either, I¡¯m a one person at a time woman.¡± They stood there quietly for a time before Eleniah eventually looked up at him. ¡°Do you want to get married? To me, specifically, not just in general.¡± ¡°¡­ Yeah, I do. We¡¯ve only been romantic for a few months, but we¡¯ve been basically joined at the hip for years now and I think you¡¯re the person for me.¡± ¡°I feel the same way.¡± ¡°So in the Isles we¡¯d be married now?¡± ¡°Basically, yeah.¡± ¡°I like that.¡± A few hours later, after sending the guards out of the room and spending some quality time together affirming their choices, Kay and Eleniah stared at the artifact again as it slowly drew out the shape of the entire city of Avalon once again. ¡°What are you going to name it?¡± Eleniah asked. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. All the names I can think of are¡­ kind of lame, honestly. ¡®Blood Map¡¯ is ridiculously simple and also not really true, calling it ¡®something of Avalon¡¯ or ¡®Avalon¡¯s something¡¯ seems worthless when I don¡¯t know what the ¡®something¡¯ would be and ¡®Kay¡¯s whatever¡¯ or the ¡®thing of Kay¡¯ are too self aggrandizing and sound kind of dumb.¡± Eleniah kicked the blankets off of her and rolled over to press her side against Kay¡¯s. ¡°You can¡¯t leave it as ¡®Unnamed Enchanted Artifact¡¯ though, that will kill your prestige.¡± ¡°I know, I know. Should I just ram some syllables together and make it sound like a name? The Carnestophul!¡± He proclaimed grandly, holding the orb up before them. ¡°No.¡± ¡°Yeah, I didn¡¯t think so. I wish I knew more languages besides English right now,¡± He grumbled. ¡°A bunch of cool names for things come from Latin or ancient Greek or other languages I don¡¯t know. They all take bits and pieces from each other that mean something related to what the thing being named is and then it¡¯s a word. Even the names of famous things from legends or history are usually just descriptors that sound cool because they¡¯re in a language you don¡¯t know. You remember the King Arthur myths I told you about that my sister loved? The ones that I named Avalon after and why my nickname is Kay?¡± Eleniah placed a gentle kiss on his shoulder. ¡°I remember. I would have loved to meet your family.¡± Kay smiled. ¡°Thanks. We¡¯ll have to time it better next time we go to the Isles so we can meet your parents. Or we can have them come here. Either way, King Arthur had a dagger named Carnwennan, which sounds really cool, right? My friend who¡¯s getting a¡­¡± He trailed off. ¡°Well, Noah was getting a degree in folklore and mythology and I hope he still is. But he wouldn¡¯t let me just enjoy the stories and the names and had to ruin it by telling me that Carnwennan literally means ¡®little white hilt¡¯, because the dagger had a white hilt.¡± He tossed the expanding map up, using Blood Manipulation to have it hover in the air for a moment and then let it float back to his palm. ¡°I don¡¯t know any Welsh though, so that doesn¡¯t help.¡± ¡°You could just go with random sounds mashed together then.¡± ¡°I thought you said no to that?¡± ¡°No, I said no to calling it The Carnestophul, that sounds ridiculous.¡± ¡°Too bad that there¡¯s no easy description of what it does, then we could just call it that.¡± With a though Kay collapsed the artifact back into the small sphere that it was whenever it wasn¡¯t being a map and set it on a small table next to the bed. ¡°Oh well. I have time to think of a name. As long as no one knows about it there won¡¯t be enough people thinking of it by a name for it to get automatically named. I can hold on to it until after we deal with all the vampyr and name it then. Maybe something will come to me at that point.¡± Book 6 Chapter 29 Martha felt the thing puppeting her body twist her neck a bit too far as it suddenly started listening to something she couldn¡¯t hear. It was a novel event to Martha. The thing had often reacted to stimuli she couldn¡¯t perceive even had she been in control of her body, but it had never been like this. Some other thing was communicating with the creature she detested so much and that had never happened before it had dragged her body across the sea and met these vampyr creatures that were similar to it. That was why it had come here it turned out. It hadn¡¯t just been seeking new necromancers to question in an attempt to permanently rid itself of Martha, although it still made a few ¡°inquiries¡± when it had the chance. It had been seeking out the vampyr, drawn by some scent or sense that they existed across the sea, because they were like it but different. The thing that controlled Martha¡¯s body was a parasite that hid within its host until it could devour them and take their body, transforming itself into something new in the process. The vampyr were like an infection that destroyed the original owner of the infected body and becoming a new thing in the process. Both were twisted, unnatural things from a universe outside of this one and Martha¡¯ thing wanted to learn from the vampyr, for the same reason it had sought out necromancers. Unlike so many past victims, Martha was still there. She was pretty sure she was some kind of lich at this point, although she was a strange, broken one. Permanently binding one¡¯s being into an undead form with your mind and magic intact was seen as the work of someone who had mastered the art of necromancy, no other could accomplish it. In Martha¡¯s opinion it was also the move of the desperate or stupid. To even try it without a Master Necromancer Class or one of comparable power was a n elongated and ritualistic form of suicide, and if you already had a tier five Class, what was the point? You were practically immortal at that point anyway and becoming a lich meant giving up so many good things that came with being alive. She only knew of two people that had gone through with it that she didn¡¯t find foolish had been afflicted with a virulent poison and a particularly deadly curse that neither had been able to escape otherwise. Martha obviously counted as one of the desperate. She¡¯d been able to sense her own death coming, the being that had been lurking in some other dimension or fold of reality while it ate her body gave up on stealth when it started to consume her, and she¡¯d done everything she¡¯d could to beat it back. Then, when it all seemed lost, she¡¯s tried to turn herself into a lich freehand, an impossible task. Surprisingly, it had worked better than she¡¯d expected, which had been not at all. She was still there after all, although twisted, broken, and mad, hanging magically as clusters of cells and bits of flesh woven throughout her own body. The madness was undeniable, any lich that didn¡¯t have a full body went mad and she had so much less than that, but there was also the corruption and perversity that was the being that had killed her in all ways but the last. It did not belong in this realm any more than it belonged in her body. But even as the thing had traded its service to the vampyr so that it could study them and try to learn how to become more like them, so too had Martha been studying. The puppeteer was different sideways from the world than the vampyr were, so it could not look at them there. It was limited to the mean¡¯s of Martha¡¯s body, and if her body was there so was she. In every narrowing of her eye, in every twitch of her ears, and in every flare of her nostrils she was there, learning too. Learning how best to destroy the vampyr. There was an information war going on, one the thing inside of her body didn¡¯t know was happening, and Martha was winning. She could tell by the bouts of frustration and the increasing number of times it was sweeping her body each day, searching for her in her holdouts and hideaways, that it wasn¡¯t learning what it wanted to. It was from a universe that was different than this one and the one where the vampyr spawned from, which meant it had so much farther to go that Martha did. Martha just wanted to kill the vampyr quickly so that the thing never had the chance. Which is why she cursed as the thing turned her body and started moving. The undead horde it had started fashioning after it allied itself to the vampyr, a horrendous cavalcade of random zombies and abominations without a single shred of grace or artistry, shambled after it. It was heading away from the ritual circle that the vampyr had been fashioning, away from the chaotic roil of destruction that the vampyr had created when they¡¯d destroyed the nation that had once sat in these lands. Martha had been taking control of some of the horde and making a few changes to the massive circle using the crumbling undead as her limbs. It was much harder for the thing to detect her interference with so many shamblers around dividing its attention. With just a few more tweaks she could rig the entire thing to explode, damning the vampyr to fiery deaths and maybe even freeing Martha from her torment if the thing kept her body close enough to the circle. But now it was leaving, headed somewhere else with all of the undead and preventing her from making those final changes. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. She cursed the thing manipulating her flesh, whatever it was that had communicated with it and sent it away, and herself for ever touching the forbidden artifact the thing had been so deviously tucked away in. It had been her own curiosity and unwillingness to accept the warnings of others that had doomed her, and all the more tragically the undoing she had brought down on herself hadn¡¯t come to be until she¡¯d long since realized her foolishness and changed her ways. With her plan foiled by unfortunate timing, Martha went back to her normal status, watching and waiting. She had picked up tinges of truth in the maddened cacophony of the vampyr, bits of reality among the torrent of illusions and hallucinations. There was a threat not too far away, one that could unmake the vampyr with a surety that only the most maddened and feral among the vampyr didn¡¯t worry about it. She¡¯d never heard of a ¡°Kinkay¡± before, but she also couldn¡¯t think of anything else that her thing and the army it was leading could be sent to deal with besides a threat the vampyr feared facing. Perhaps, if it was strong enough, she could foil the thing inside her body at the most inopportune moment and this ¡°Kinkay¡± creature could kill them both. That had been her aim in so many battles before this one, and if it failed, well¡­ If Martha had control over a pair of shoulders she would have shrugged them. She had suffered all this time fueled by spite and defiance, having vowed so many centuries ago to foil everything that the thing wanted as best she could. She would accept her freedom and the embrace of whatever came after death, but only when she knew she was taking the being from beyond the stars with her! ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j ¡°I¡¯ve got it!¡± Kay crowed, holding the orb that was the passive state of his new artifact in the air between his thumb and forefinger. Eleniah looked up from her breakfast. ¡°Did you drop it?¡± ¡°No,¡± Kay replied with a chuckle, ¡°The name for it.¡± ¡°Oh, is it good?¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s stupid and ridiculous, but it¡¯s true and it reminds me of Earth, so I like it. Plus, I plan to keep this baby a secret so not that many people will know the name.¡± Eleniah stared at him for a moment before shrugging and going back to her food. ¡°Looks like there¡¯s no point in trying to convince you to pick a cooler name, so go ahead and tell me.¡± ¡°I name this artifact ¡®The Sanguine Positioning System!¡± A screen appeared acknowledging the name before it vanished. ¡°¡­ Why?¡± ¡°Back on Earth there was this web of devices that floated above the sky that could tell you where you were on the planet as long as you had a device that could connect to the ones above the sky. People used them for navigation all the time, and as the technology improved you could even use it to tell you where you were in a building or on the street.¡± Kay looked down at the orb. Sadness and regret tinged his next words. ¡°You know, that technology eventually led to the creation of the self-driving vehicles that killed my family.¡± He lifted the artifact to his eye level and spun it slowly, looking at every piece of the uniform orb. ¡°I¡¯ll have to make sure this and anything like it aren¡¯t abused here.¡± He tossed it into the air at the same time he sent it into his Inventory Skill, making it vanish like a magic trick. Setting down her fork and rising to her feet, Eleniah made her way to Kay. ¡°I think-¡° She didn¡¯t have a chance to finish her thought as someone hurriedly opened the door and a messenger flanked by two of the Blood Guard stumbled into Kay¡¯s private dining room. ¡°My apologies, your majesties, but there¡¯s an emergency!¡± The young dwarven woman, one of several youngsters that were new to messenger or courier Classes that had been recruited to the palace panted and trembled as she held out a missive. ¡°The details are there, but there¡¯s an army of the undead moving on Avalon . The scouts say there¡¯s some kind of half-undead monstrosity leading them out of Nelam.¡± Book 6 Chapter 30 An army marched from Avalon, headed east. Standard soldiers, led by officers, all commanded by the General of Avalon Curcius marched following the roads that had been built headed to the border, all workers and materials originally earmarked for building new towns and villages shifted to make it easier to move eastward. The soldiers weren¡¯t peak fighters for their tiers and possessed no extreme builds with varied Classes that built themselves into something amazing, they were standardized, with each soldier being as similar as possible in build to those they fought side by side with. They were uniform and unremarkable and together they were a powerful fighting force ready to defend their homes and their families, just like every other true army on Torotia. In front, behind, at the sides of, and even quite far away from the army traveled Avalon¡¯s Sentinels. Combatants and adventurers that couldn¡¯t fit within the uniform environment of an army but wanted to serve the nation of Avalon directly. Split into small parties like every adventuring team they moved as best fit their members, making the fastest time they could to the mustering site. Scouts, sneaks, rogues, and explorers led their parties through paths and trails that no army could take while less mobile groups simply kept pace with the troops. Independent adventurers brought to the fight by the Adventurer¡¯s Guild¡¯s call or simply in the area and willing to pitch in moved similarly, but with less efficiency. The Sentinels were organized and methodical under the command of Meten, even if they weren¡¯t as organized as the army. The independent adventurers didn¡¯t have that and many fell behind as they got lost, embroiled themselves in minor conflicts with each other, and in some cases just couldn¡¯t keep up. Kay, King of Avalon, didn¡¯t march along the roads or travel through rough trails. He didn¡¯t walk on the ground at all. He formed a massive shell out of blood that he filled with his Blood Guard, Eleniah, and himself that he picked up with Blood Manipulation and flew toward the looming battle. ¡°Why does this feel like cheating?¡± He muttered, keeping his focus on his S.P.S artifact as he essentially levitated his craft forward. Having the artifact had solved the issues that had cropped up before with this idea and allowing him to actually use it. He was also curious to use his new Blood-Sight Skill to literally see through the outer edges of the craft he¡¯d made, but the part in the description about ¡°sensory overload¡± made him unwilling to experiment with it at the moment. ¡°I get that it isn¡¯t cheating, but something about moving so much fast than everyone else is bugging me.¡± ¡°It¡¯s because we can¡¯t start the fight until we have everyone there.¡± Eleniah told him. She turned in place on the red couch sitting across from Kay, frowning as she tried to shift to a more comfortable position and failed. ¡°These couches aren¡¯t right.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll focus on making more comfortable furniture on the fly later. Why is that bothering me? The reports we got said that it¡¯s one monster or creature empowering and leading the undead, so if we take it out we win, right? Why not just fly right past everything and kill it?¡± ¡°Quality versus quantity. I mean, there¡¯s no guarantee that killing the thing makes all the other undead just stop, they might just go wild, which would be a big problem without more people there to mop them up and make sure none of the stragglers escape, but it¡¯s more about the fight itself. Can you guarantee that you¡¯re stronger than the necromancer creature? Enough to destroy it before it can do anything.¡± ¡°No, I can¡¯t.¡± ¡°So it having and army becomes a mitigating factor. If you can¡¯t kill it in the first attack you then have to fight it and it¡¯s army. Your army is coming to keep the enemy army off your back while the elites fight. It¡¯s pretty standard fare.¡± She finally decided to just sit up instead of lounging. ¡°It¡¯s what happened in the Shatterplate War even if you weren¡¯t really processing that and the same thing happened against that goop back in the isles. Most of the goop came after you in the end but all the other fighters there helped keep it back long enough for you to cull it. Our army and ¡®lesser¡¯ elites fought their army and similar elites while you took care of a dragon and Glowl back home.¡± Kay shifted the craft higher to make sure it didn¡¯t clip some particularly tall trees they were passing over and made a mental note to check and see if anyone had looked them over yet. Massive trees didn¡¯t necessarily mean anything interestingly magical or powerful was in that location, but giant trees were cool on their own, and just because they didn¡¯t always equal a good find didn¡¯t mean they never did. ¡°Okay. You¡¯re right that I wasn¡¯t really processing what I was doing during the fighting in that kind of analytical way. It also explains the way the System and the cultures of the world have made leadership into a power contest if I think about that aspect. If you don¡¯t have elites around you¡¯re going to get bodied by anybody that does in a fight, and what¡¯s the best way to keep the strongest guy around?¡± ¡°You give them enough privileges that they want to stick around out of self interest then slowly whisper about duty and responsibility into their eats until they think it¡¯s their own idea to be a guardian.¡± She grinned cheekily at him. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°But why do I feel uneasy about it?¡± ¡°Because of the duty part. You¡¯re big and strong and want to solve all the problems so the people weaker than you don¡¯t get hurt, but that¡¯s not possible. You know that the right thing to do is bring the lower tiers along to fight their battles but you want to sweep away the threat yourself. Too bad that you aren¡¯t all-powerful.¡± She leaned forward and tapped him on the nose, drawing Kay¡¯s attention away from the artifact. ¡°Don¡¯t lose that feeling.¡± Her grin became wry and a little sad. ¡°Without that feeling of discomfort and those regrets you¡¯ll turn into a heartless monster of some variety. I¡¯ve seen it many times. It sucks to watch people die, but people have to have the opportunities to grow.¡± Kay grunted in acknowledgment and went back to focusing on the artifact, letting the conversation die out. Isla¡¯s expertise combined with Amanda¡¯s control over a number of abolitionist groups, rebellions in Nelam that now had no purpose, and other similar organizations of freedom fighters, troublemakers, and dissidents had expanded Avalon¡¯s supply of people good at going undetected and a large number of them had been sent into the desolation caused by the vampyr attack. Some of the people Amanda had been manipulation, directing, or controlling had been in the game of toppling a kingdom for power or other selfish goals, but she¡¯d weeded out those folk as best she could. Those that were left were dedicated to making the world a better place and while marauding eldritch monster weren¡¯t what they¡¯d been preparing to face the saboteurs, spies, and scouts sent into what used to be Nelam were just as dedicated. The most skilled among them had been sent to find and delay the creation of the ritual circles that they vampyr were dumping most of their resources into, but too many cooks could spoil the broth and the majority of the stealthy people in hostile territory were tasked with less vital jobs. Some were sent to contact or directly support the handful of towns and small cities that had survived the eruption of vampyr while others were doing their best to find and rescue any survivors outside those isolated refuges. The most vital of them, in Kay¡¯s mind at least, were out among the desolation acting as an early warning system for Avalon. Their theory that the ritual circles were there to cause another breach and allow more eldritch horrors through into Torotia was just that, a theory. With madness driving any planning that the vampyr could do there was no way to perfectly predict them and the real threat could be anything. Thus the large numbers of people good at hiding themselves that also had some means of quick communication spread out in a relay across the border. They were the ones to notice and alert Avalon of the incoming horde of undead early enough for Avalon¡¯s forces to march out to meet it away from Avalon¡¯s territory. From what the reports he¡¯d managed to read before the marshaling of troops had taken most of his time Kay knew that the undead army marching toward his nation wasn¡¯t eldritch in nature, which raised several questions. The necromantic creature that was leading the horde didn¡¯t outwardly seem to be a vampire, but it was also half-undead somehow according to the reports which sounded like eldritch bullshit to Kay. If it wasn¡¯t somehow a vampyr or controlled by one, why would a necromancer of any sort, monstrous or not, work with the inherently world-wrecking creatures? Either way, the threat not being made up of vampyr or otherwise eldritch in some way made it automatically harder for Kay to deal with and reinforced Eleniah¡¯s point that he needed his armies and troops for the battle. The hills and forests began to peel away beneath them, marked in red by the Sanguine Positioning System and a tiny line in the representation of the ground marked the end of Avalon¡¯s borders, which was a surprise to Kay. He hadn¡¯t realized that the artifact would be able to mark geopolitical boundaries like that. After flying over the border the landscape became more flat with the cliffs and plateaus that began at Tumbling Rapids dominating the area for a short time before those too were passed and there was flat, open ground everywhere. Most of the far east of the continent, at least this portion of that region, was marshy and contained many swamps. This was Kay¡¯s first visit to the area but it certainly reminded him of his one trip in the distant past to the Florida Everglades with his family. There were bodies of water everywhere and the S.P.S showed deep holes disguised by much and tree branches that could swallow entire segments of the army whole. The stretch of solid ground less than half a mile across that Kay located was the only easily navigable land in sight, and it was the best spot in the path of the undead army to make a stand against it short of Avalon¡¯s lands. Kay set down the Blood Guard and Eleniah before lifting the craft back into he sky and shooting back the direction they¡¯d come from. With powerful fighting forces in place to keep the area clear of threats, Kay was headed back to grab the next group of people. Earth Mages and Manipulators as well as fortification experts from the army were standing ready to get picked up from where they were marching and would start building a fort once Kay dropped them off. After that were a group of Water Manipulators and Mages who would hopefully be able to expand the solid land they had to allow for more troops to be brought to bear when the fighting began. Kay had only fought in a handful of big battles, really only two, but the differences in between how the two had gone were massive. With a wall, solid planning, and the home field advantage the Shatterplate War had been short and decisive in his favor. The battle against the eldritch nanomachine beings had been just as short, but only because that had been a fight to stay alive against something that could not be allowed to live. This would be something in between with an horde of undead being a lot less adaptable and dangerous than magical nanomachines but also unable to surrender or see reason. The main thing Kay had learned from those experience was that fighting unprepared sucked. The early warning they¡¯d gotten from the scouts in the east had given them time to prepare the battlefield and Kay wasn¡¯t going to let a single second of that head start go to waste. Besides, he wasn¡¯t all that traditional of a ruler and playing taxi wasn¡¯t a problem for him. Book 6 Chapter 31 ¡°¡¯Temporary fortifications to hold back an undead invasion¡¯?¡± Meten grinned as he looked down at the ground form the top of the walls. ¡°How is any of this temporary?¡± Walls half as tall as Avalon¡¯s which had been built with more people over a longer period loomed over a twenty foot deep and thirty foot wide moat filled with spikes and barbs. Large crenelations were placed evenly along the walls to provide areas to shoot and retreat into cover, channels had been carved to allow the defenders to pour hot oil or other liquids on the enemy, and a handful of cannons were being slotted into place as scouts reported that the undead horde was in sight. The fortifications only stretched for a couple thousand feet, which was a minuscule distance compared to the length of Avalon¡¯s walls or those outside other major cities, but they were obviously not temporary fortifications just for one battle. Kay shrugged but didn¡¯t turn away from staring in the direction the enemy was going to come from. ¡°This area wasn¡¯t directly controlled by any one polity before all of this, it was contested between Nelam and a few cities that don¡¯t exists any more. None of the remnants of different groups that want us to do all the work reclaiming their lands but take nothing from them have no reason to protest us building a wall here, not if they want us to keep doing their dirty work for them. If we decide we want to expand out in this direction when everything is done, this makes it less difficult. And if we decide to expand even farther east¡­¡± He shrugged again. Eleniah shook her head. ¡°Don¡¯t we already have a huge swath of territory that¡¯s only gotten a surface level of exploration and investigation? Avalon doesn¡¯t need more land.¡± With the large scale preparations for intercepting the undead army complete the three peak elites that Avalon had were gathered atop the walls to wait. ¡°Most of the untamed area we control is to the north of Avalon City, and the capital is closer to the border than I like. If there¡¯s more conflict coming our way I think a buffer zone between us and the rest of the world would keep any armies from marching directly to Avalon without being stopped.¡± Kay gestured behind himself. ¡°We didn¡¯t have the defenses we needed to keep out an army and people had to flee their homes. Their was pillaging and looting that ruined villages and set back people¡¯s lives. If we push out the territory we claim, build defenses there, then build more defenses at the older border we can have two lines to hold back any enemies.¡± ¡°That sounds¡­¡± Eleniah peered at Kay¡¯s profile. ¡°That sounds more militaristic than usual.¡± ¡°Hmm?¡± Kay finally looked away from the horizon. ¡°I¡¯m not saying that that¡¯s what we¡¯re definitely doing, but I decided it was better to have the option.¡± He tapped his foot on the wall they stood on. ¡°This serves, what, three purposes? Good for this fight, good excuse to push the border if we want to, staging area for if we need to invade the east.¡± ¡°Why would we do that?¡± ¡°Because it might be necessary.¡± Meten turned and leaned back against one of the crenelations. He took a puff from his pipe before continuing. ¡°While it isn¡¯t exactly the same, Nelam¡¯s collapse is going to have many of the same consequences as when empires and nations collapse when dark ages come and the cycle of history begins to repeat itself. History has seen it hundreds of times by now. Whether the cities and towns that have managed to hold out against the vampyr become local powers, the parasites that are demanding Avalon return them to power in exchange for nothing are the ones that come out of it the best, or this entire region ends up a wasteland that people try and make new fortunes in, the result of this is going to be chaos and war. Small wars, but people will be fighting over everything of value that¡¯s left.¡± He paused when he noticed Eleniah¡¯s incredulous look. ¡°What? I pay attention when my daughter tells me things! I¡¯m surprised you haven¡¯t thought of this, miss high tier Teacher.¡± ¡°There¡¯s been other things on my mind,¡± She replied, glancing quickly at Kay. ¡°Oh, planning the wedding, eh?¡± he said knowingly. ¡°We¡¯re not engaged yet!¡± ¡°Good to see you¡¯re confident.¡± He chuckled at her blush. ¡°As I was saying though, there¡¯s going to be chaos in this region. Unless¡­¡± He pointed at Kay with his pipe. ¡°Someone does something about it, like our fearless leader here.¡± Kay shot him some side eye. ¡°Been learning phrases from Cindy?¡± Meten grinned at him. He shook his head before responding. ¡°He¡¯s right, and I¡¯m sure you would get there yourself if you took time to think about it. We¡¯ll wipe out the vampyr because they¡¯re a direct threat on multiple levels to us, but then what? Ware and fighting on our border is just as bad as a powerful hostile state. Just leaving it all alone and letting everyone sort themselves out is too risky. The two plans I can think of right now are pushing out our borders and cracking down hard on any threats that pop up, or just doing what very few people from this area want and take it all over.¡± He narrowed his eyes as he looked back to the east. ¡°Now isn¡¯t the time to decide though, or even the time to discuss. Our quests are here.¡± Through the wetlands a line of undead monsters began to appear in singletons and small groups, until a line of them almost as long as the wall emerged, followed by more and more and more. There was no organization to them, they moved as a horde not as an army. Clumps of undead formed and split apart as they watched the monsters approach, some stumbling as they hit dips or rises in terrain, some just stopping in place for a time before randomly resuming their forward progress, and some just vanished into the deep pits and watery hazards that littered the area. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! There was no semblance of coordination as they approached and no uniformity among the undead themselves. There were mobile corpses of monsters, animals, and beasts alongside the bodies of people, some still dragging their weapons behind them. What looked like centaurs from a distance were actually hodge-podge amalgamations of bodies held together with necromantic magic. Hulking behemoths that squelched as they walked, their limbs made of corpses joined in long chains of bodies, loomed over twisted amalgams of bone that skittered up and over slower undead. The entire horde resembled nothing more than a wave of pestilence and decay formed into physical shapes like a child with no notion of what is ugly playing with clay. A voice called out from along the wall and more followed, echoing the order shouted by General Crucius. There was a momentary pause as the swarm of undead moved closer and then another order rang out. Cannons roared and a multitude of Skills were launched all at once, a tide of devastation falling down onto the undead and wiping entire segments of the approaching horde from existence. Magic, empowered arrows, javelins thrown too far to be anything but magical, experimental cannon balls, and the esoteric and unidentifiable attacks rained down like an angry heaven punishing sinners, but the undead still marched closer without cease. ¡°How many are there?¡± Kay muttered as undead were destroyed and more than that continued to approach. ¡°How many people and animals were killed when the vampyr attacked, and how long has the necromantic thing controlling them had time to raise corpses?¡± Meten asked in return. Kay grunted and shook his head sadly. The three of them stood there and waited for the enemy elites to make their presence known. Eleniah had helped reinforce the idea and the importance of it as strategy and tactics. Elites existed to fight other elites, not throw themselves at the rank and file among their enemies. Kay was there to kill the monsters too powerful for regular fighters and to destroy the thing powering all the zombies and other undead monsters. A lumbering monstrosity of stretched skin and bloated limbs was the first to reach the wall and it tumbled into the moat without even seeming to notice the drop. It slammed down onto the spikes, hooks, and barbs littered at the bottom and began to drag itself forward, tearing it¡¯s body apart as it continued toward the wall. More undead began to topple down without stopping, seemingly unable to even notice the impediment to their path. ¡°It¡¯s going to fill up eventually.¡± Eleniah noted, ¡°They¡¯ll be able to walk right over the other bodies.¡± ¡°Disposable pawns of large numbers are a problem for a reason.¡± Kay glanced down to see one of the skittering bones amalgams dodge and weave around the spikes and start climbing the side of the wall before a glowing spear lanced out of a hidden hole as one of the defenders impaled it and sent it flying back to the ground. ¡°Even if there¡¯s enough of them to completely clog it up and make it solid ground it still will have eliminated a large number of them.¡± An immense form surged forward from the rear of the undead army, knocking other zombies out of the way and trampling over others as it rushed forward. As it got closer Kay could make out hundreds of thin, pale arms scratching at the dirt in place of legs as a monstrous millipede shaped abomination formed of screaming corpses melded together into a disgusting hole slammed down into the moat and continued up the side of the wall without slowing for a moment. In the mouths of the endlessly screaming cadavers he could make out the barest hint of fangs. The monster heaved itself up the wall, using it¡¯s bulk and speed to ignore gravity for a moment as countless hands scrambled to make purchase against the top. Screaming mouths began to thrash and snap at the closest defends as it began to haul it¡¯s bulk up until a sudden wall of gray ash pooled beneath it¡¯s limbs and threw it off the wall. It crashed down among the sea of undeath and crushed a swathe of zombies as it struggled to get back up. Meten stepped up to the edge of the wall and tipped his head at Eleniah and Kay. ¡°Hope you don¡¯t mind, your majesties but I¡¯ll be taking the first one.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a majesty!¡± Eleniah protested. ¡°That thing looks like it¡¯s made of vampyr corpses,¡± Kay told them both, ignoring the lighthearted bickering. ¡°Be careful.¡± ¡°Oh? Then this might be a more interesting fight than I thought.¡± Meten stepped forward into midair, a platform of ash forming under his foot just long enough for him to take another step as he started sprinting downward. A rune made out of ash formed over his shoulders and began to glow with a volcanic red light as he drew his weapon and began sending burning strikes at the creaming monster that was pulling itself upright. Eleniah pointed forward. ¡°There¡¯s another one.¡± The next undead elite was moving with the same ferocity as the abomination Meten was fighting, but it was much smaller, almost the size of a normal person. It had the thick legs of some kind of monster joined to a humanoid torso that contained too many arms growing from it¡¯s back, shoulders, and even from other arms. Each limb was tipped with weapons made out of tarnished gold, from spear tips and sword blades to hammer and mace heads. One more torso jutted out from where a neck should have been, this one with only two arms in their normal positions which stretched into two golden scythe blades. The silently raging head atop the monstrous body was familiar. ¡°Well, we can confirm that Glowl¡¯s dead.¡± Kay muttered after shooting an Inspect at the thing. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Failed Experiment: Glowl - Tier IV Equivalent - A failed experimental subject from testing for an unknown purpose. This undead monstrosity is formed of multiple bodies in varying states and may contain unknown abilities. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°I¡¯ll-¡° ¡°No,¡± Eleniah cut him off. ¡°I hate to say it, but you¡¯re more dangerous than I am right now.¡± She stepped up to him and dropped a quick kiss on his lips. ¡°I won¡¯t let it stay like that forever, but for now, I¡¯ll deal with that and you wait for the necromancer thing to appear.¡± She turned to sneer at the Glowl monster that was forcing it¡¯s way through the other undead. ¡°Besides, I have some aggression to take out on Glowl¡¯s corpse, since I couldn¡¯t hit the real thing.¡± She stepped up to the wall and dropped down. Kay leaned over to see her using one hand and boot to slow her descent as she slid down the wall, before launching herself out and over the moat with a powerful leap. Roiling with frustration, Kay went back to sweeping the battle, looking for any sign of a necromancer monster shaped like a hunched old woman. Book 6 Chapter 32 The thing swept Martha¡¯s eyes back and forth across the battlefield, internally fuming that the defenders were holding their own against the undead it was throwing at them. It had gathered so many corpses from the departed that littered the land after multiple wars had brewed and then the vampyr had massacred so many of those who¡¯d been left, and it had been sure that it¡¯s unending horde would defeat anything it brought them to destroy. Martha laughed at it¡¯s displeasure and kept looking for an opportunity to strike. The was no such thing as an unending horde, which the thing would have known if it had actually tried to learn anything about necromancy. It had never truly learned her art, to it necromancy was just another tool. It was true that quantity had a quality all it¡¯s own, but quality was quality and the thing had made such poor servants that most of them started falling apart as soon as they¡¯d risen. It was a waste of bodies and a waste of their deaths, and it made Martha rage more than any other time the thing had defiled those who had passed. True necromancy was to use what the dead had left behind in service to the living, not this mockery and disgrace to their memories! The thing sent the twisted abominations made from the corpses of the vampyr it had been studying forward as shock troops, but most of them fell apart before reaching the wall. They were either trampled beneath other marching undead, fell apart when their own movements tore the combined bodies apart, or were blown to bits by incoming fire. Only the worst monstrosities actually made it into the fray, but both were quickly engaged by the defender¡¯s elites. The twisted centipede made form hundreds of vampyr bodies was attacked by a wielder of gray dust while a woman was punching the gold limbed creature repeatedly in the face. Neither would last long and Martha laughed at the thing¡¯s attack falling apart. Seething with rage, the thing gathered up Martha¡¯s body and started lumbering forward. Martha forced the cells and strands of muscles she inhabited to stop vibrating with laughter so she could focus on her goal. It was difficult to stop, the madness pulling at her was so tempting to dive into so that she could forget the horror that was her existence, but she managed it. She kept repeating her oldest mantra to herself over and over while she waited for her moment. This fight might kill her. Oh, how she prayed that this fight would be the one that killed her. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j The trees to the rear of the the undead army began to shake and bend. Kay braced himself, ready to jump into the fight. A hunched shape, taller than the abomination that had been made with Glowl¡¯s body shuffled into sight. A thin cloak draped over the figure¡¯s body, obscuring most of their features. A thin, disjointed arm held onto a towering white staff topped with a bulbous skull that was too large to be natural. Either that or it had belonged to a giant. A single clouded eye peered out form under the cloak¡¯s hood and the empty hand of the being swung up to point in Meten¡¯s direction. From the other side of the battlefield a deep purplish-black beam of energy erupted from the hunched creatures hand and speared at Meten¡¯s side. A ripple in the air intercepted the beam and the purplish energy splashed against a glowing orange rune made of ash that appeared from inside the ripple. Meten glanced to the side as the hidden rune protected him, then vaulted over the crawling vampyr centipede monstrosity, pushing it into the path of the attack as the rune buckled and failed. The bar of energy broke through and impacted the side of the undead abomination, sending it tumbling. It crawled back to it¡¯s many feet a moment later, looking slightly dented on the side it had been hit but otherwise unharmed by the necromantic energy. Kay had already leapt off the wall and was charging forward. He extruded thin platforms from the soles of his boots in midair less than a second before each step which let him run through the sky at full speed. He reached the oversized figure as the beam stopped. He threw himself down at highs speed as a halberd formed in his hands, the hardened blade of blood aimed directly at where the figure¡¯s neck should be. The cloak covering the thing rustled and a third arm sprang from inside it to intercept the attack. Kay¡¯s blade pierced the palm of the hand twice as tall as Kay was and sliced down through the arm, stopping at the elbow as it jarred against the bone there. Hundreds of grasping arms bloomed from every inch of the bisected limb, trying to wrap Kay up. He turned his armor into a bladed whirlwind that gave him enough space to leap free. He jumped from the platforms he made until he was high enough in the air to evade the creature¡¯s long arms and stared down at it, cataloging what he saw for the fight that would resume shortly. The necromancer, monster, or whatever it was was so much more grotesque up close. Like the two other abominations that Meten and Eleniah were fighting it was made of a multitude of corpses combined together into one disgusting whole, but instead of being fused together so that flesh and bone merged into each other this thing was weaved from pieces of dead bodies. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of arms and hands were braided together into a coil to make the three arms coming off the disfigured body. The same was true for it¡¯s legs, but those were made of legs and feet. It¡¯s torso was created from a graveyard¡¯s worth of torso¡¯s stitched together at the shoulders and hips with what looked like intestines, and the head and face were made of uncountable smaller faces, all stretched out in a way that made them look like they were screaming in agony. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Kay grimaced as he realized the cloak the massive, stitched together hag was wearing was a patchwork of flayed skin. The only part of the thing that didn¡¯t look like it was made from a mass number of the deceased were the cloudy eyes as big around as the palms of the hag¡¯s massive hands, and bile rose in Kay¡¯s throat at what they might actually look like if he was closer to them. The twisted, heinous creation figuratively screamed with the amount of misery and suffering necessary to create it, but that might not have been the worst thing. Kay¡¯s vampire instincts, the ones implanted in him by the System to incentivized him to hunt down the eldritch, were snarling and snapping at him to unmake a part of the hag, meaning that this enemy was not just an evil that had to be eradicated for past crimes, but potentially a threat to the world as well. He juked to the side as crackling bolts of purple lightning erupted from the arms that made up the third arm growing from the center of the ¡°chest¡±. He sidestepped and spun to avoid getting struck while returning the bombardment with sharpened spikes that dug in and tried to cut and dig into the undead flesh. The areas with hands had those hands grow sharp nails and dig at the shredded flesh, shedding what was compromised while sections grew and covered the wounds with weeping scars that oozed putrid pus. Kay focused his attacks on the chest area where there was nothing to dig out his tendrils. Heavy spears and quick daggers spread out around him in a cloud that rained down on the necromancer. Dead flesh sloughed off the creature in waves and avalanches that dripped down among the stamping feet as it tried to maneuver around Kay. Three giants hands tried to grab him, smash him, or slap him to the ground. Kay danced to the side as each blow came at him and he replied with slashes and blasts of compressed blood. If he hadn¡¯t had the experience of fighting the asura miniboss in the Seramist Isles¡¯s capital city¡¯s dungeon the large multi-limbed monster might have been more difficult to fight, but the asura had been much more deadly and Kay was even more skilled than when he¡¯d fought that. As the fight continued and Kay peeled away more and more dead mass from the necromancer¡¯s body, he began to get a better reading from his instincts. He¡¯d been right the first time, the feeling of taint from outside this world was coming from something inside the monstrous body, not from it as a whole. There was a core somewhere controlling the greater whole, and that¡¯s what he needed to target. He began sending more pointed attacks, driving deeply into the monster in an attempt to burn away the outer shell. The necromancer resisted as best it could, shifting it¡¯s core away into other parts of the bod while thickening other sections into deeper armor with dead hair and nails sealing together into a protective casing. The movement didn¡¯t matter when Kay could track the feeling of the core though, and he chased it determinedly. Right before Kay could impale the twisting core on the end of his halberd the back of the monstrous construct burst open and a smaller form flew outward from it. That didn¡¯t end the fight Kay was in though as the undead construct that had been operating as some kind of flesh-mech lost all sense of self-preservation and started attacking Kay en mass. The construct began collapsing on top of him, both grabbing at him with individual pieces and trying to crush him with its entire weight. He tore his way through with a focused detachment, carving out an empty space around him until the dead flesh slumped against the ground and he was free. Wasting no time Kay threw himself forward at the source of the corruptive feeling, which was retreating away form the battle at high speed. The mass of flesh behind him rippled and threw itself at him in a storm of tentacles and pseudopods of mixed together corpse bits but Kay blasted past all of that. The fleeing core had hit the ground and was running as fast as it can away from him as undead began tracking him instead of marching forward mindlessly and began trying to slow him down as well. It did nothing, and he quickly caught up, then passed, the necromancer. He slammed to the ground in front of them and lashed out with three different attacks, each coming from one of his primary weapons as he shifted what he was wielding between blows. Bits of the necromancer shifted, as if there was something wrong with their body, as they dodged back and Kay got a good look at them. The necromancer¡¯s true from was very similar to the giant construct they¡¯d been piloting. They looked like an older woman with gray hair and unseeing white eyes. She was naked, but that didn¡¯t matter as much as the rot and putrefaction parts of her body displayed. There were rotting muscles showing form beneath translucent or torn skin and bones were poking out in other places. There was an alien intelligence that Kay could sense behind those seemingly blind eyes, the eldritch corruption Kay had sensed was easily identifiable as somehow controlling the woman. Kay braced himself, ready to fight again in earnest against what had to be a difficult opponent, when part of one of her arms twitched. The woman¡¯s head turned to look down at her arm in anger, then the other one suddenly rose up and slammed into her own neck, drawing blood and causing her to stumble back. Kay watched in shock as the necromancer started literally fighting herself before his eyes. ¡°What are you waiting for?¡± A desperate, crackling voice asked. The necromancer¡¯s mouth moved disjointedly as she choked out the words. ¡°Kill me before it¡¯s too late!¡± Book 6 Chapter 33 Kay stopped in place as the necromancer began squabbling with herself. Unintelligible screeches mixed with garbled curses poured out of her mouth as different limbs and pieces of her limbs began attacking each other. Her left hand began scratching at her own eyes while her right arm tried to drag it off, but when the right arm suddenly began helping the left hand it turned and attacked the right hand and wrist. She twisted in place as she appeared to actively try and kill herself while also fighting to stay alive. It ranked fairly high on Kay''s list of weirdest encounters and he wasn''t sure what to do. It screamed "trap" at him, but he also wanted to kill the necromancer and end the threat anyways... After watching one of her hip bones break through the skin and began stabbing at her stomach Kay decided to test the waters. He slashed out into the air with a sword strike and sent out a faux magical slash with blood. Three of the fingers on one of the necromancer''s hands twisted around and fired purplish necromantic attacks to try and intercept the slash while other bits and pieces tried to obstruct the pieces that were defending. The "flying slash" burst into harmless droplets when the attacks hit it. One wrist suddenly snapped around and a beam of magic similar to the one the undead mech had fired lanced out, but the other arm punched the attacking hand and sent the attack off to the side. Underneath the nonsensical noises coming from her mouth Kay could hear a faltering rant that she spurted out in bits and pieces, about how she would die taking something with her, how it would rue the day it had stolen her body, and how she was so much better than whatever it was she was addressing. As close as he''d gotten Kay could feel the corruption of whatever eldritch taint the necromancer had, and the feeling was lining up with the desperate call for death and the tirade the necromancer was shouting. There was eldritch corruption woven throughout the woman''s body, but it wasn''t complete. As she fought herself Kay could feel the foulness surge into a limb or a piece of the body that began to fight other parts or suddenly switched sides and when the tide turned or a part changed allegiances again the corruption felt like it had been pushed back. Throughout all of that, the feeling or taste of this brand of eldritch was noticeably different than that of vampyr. Kay made his decision and started launching real attacks as he approached the necromancer. Patchwork shields appeared around the woman to block a hail of darts, but some failed or were redirected and the salvo hit true in many places. Kay sent tendrils of blood into her body, ripping and tearing as they went. Parts of her internals began to help the attack as the pieces of her that didn''t have any eldritch taint in them started working with even higher ferocity. Piece by piece and bit by bit the necromancer''s body was torn to shreds, the untainted pieces gladly sacrificing themselves to destroyed the eldritch touched ones. Sidestepping a wildly fired orb of purple lightning that killed the grass where the bolts randomly struck, Kay stabbed through one of her legs. The blade expanded under his will and shattered the leg bone which severed the limb completely. Without missing a beat the splintered extremity rose up under it''s own power and began bludgeoning the rest of the body. Taking that as a signal he sliced off the other three limbs which all joined their comrade in attacking the torso that slumped to the ground. The woman''s skin began to twist and grow in unnatural ways as those sections began to fill with corruption but faster than they could mutate under the effects of otherworldly power they began to wither and die as necrosis grew throughout the body. A wave of death and decay consumed the torso from multiple spots that spread and joined each other until they were a single wave of the cessation of life. The blackening spread up to the neck as the necromancer began cackling and calling out about her victory. "Finally! Finally I''ll be free of-" Her milky eyes widened in shock and she cried out, "No! Don''t let it get-" One of her eyes exploded. A flickering string made of colors beyond the human spectrum that Kay could still see twisted in impossible ways as it threw itself at Kay''s forehead. He surrounded it with blood and threw up barriers between himself and it, but it flew through them without stopping, as if it didn''t really exist or it was on some other level of existence. Completely ignoring everything Kay did to try and capture or destroy it, it touched the skin of his forehead and vanished inside of him. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j The being was old and experienced. It wasn''t one of the lesser of it''s kind but neither could it call itself one of the greater. Nonetheless, it was well beyond it''s first host and it''s first world, and the fact that the host it had been stuck in for so long had stymied it so was aggravating beyond measure. The foolish lesser-dimensional being had dared resist it and had somehow remained even as the being had destroyed the inferior life. It had clung on and in doing so had changed itself to be just a fraction closer to the greatness of the being as the being reshaped the body to be closer to it''s own perfection. By becoming more like it the remnants of the host became able to affect it, and the being had not liked that at all. Instead of being able to freely shed the host for a new, better one, the being had instead been trapped. Anything that could touch it would be able to harm it in the place it existed in as it went from host to host. It could not afford to be weak in the face of a lesser being that could actually cause it pain and perhaps even end the being. So it had remained, trapped in an unacceptable host body, searching for a way to rid itself of the remnant even as it was forced to keep the body functioning. It could not exist fully in this lesser reality for long without a host to protect itself, forcing it to avoid the pitiful beings that lived in this reality that would seek to destroy it''s host while it sought out the magic of the remnant in order to destroy the remnant. It had traveled all across the physical space the inhabitants called "the world" searching for power similar to the remnant''s, but something about it''s host alerted each of them and forced it to fight them to keep it''s host functioning. All the while the remnant tried to rid itself of the being in a reversal of how things should be! Every time the being made a plan or fought an enemy, the remnant tried to ruin everything, and it succeeded often. No matter how much the being tried to spread itself through the host to push out or crush every last trace of the remnant, some tiny fragment survived and rebuilt itself into the remnant. But then it had felt the breaches open across this reality, the holes into other. Some led to realities similar to its own and some even led beyond, a most frightening though. He avoided any trace of beyond as best it could while it tracked down whatever had breached the defenses of this reality. This reality had a guardian that interfered with every moment of existence and anything that could surpass or avoid that guardian could surely assist the being in escaping it''s purgatory of being trapped in a single, decaying host. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. It had followed the trail and it had found the partials and scoured that carried a hint of beyond. It had felt the closest thing to fear that it could comprehend as it had approached the most complete of the partials and it looked in ways that were beyond the beings of this existence and say something beyond, as it had feared. It saw I?????T?????. It learned I?????T????? had a use for the being, and told the being that I?????T????? would ensure that it was no longer trapped in the horrible host one way or another. It could study I???T???''???s??? toys while I???T???''???s??? plan went ahead in exchange for the being''s assistance in those plans and if I?????T????? succeeded then even that wouldn''t matter. The being complied. The was no resisting beyond if anything beyond set it''s sight on something less, like the being, so it complied. Plus, the being would benefit no matter what happened. It no longer cared about it''s original goals in coming to this reality, it just wanted to leave. But here, finally, the being was free as it had so long desired! The remnant had destroyed itself with the help of the being''s new host, trying to destroy the being. Thus the remnant was unable to harm the being as it fled to the new host! Victory after so long, and achieving victory by spiting the remnant and destroying the victory the remnant thought it had won was so sweet. The being would have to figure out what to do about I???T???''???s??? plans now that it had a host it could work with but- The being froze. Why was it thinking about the past and it''s own plans? Why was it thinking at all? The being was beyond thinking, it was as far beyond this reality as beyond was to it, so why was it processing existence in the way that- It turned in ways that beings of this reality could not conceived and screamed with terror in a voice that would never be heard. It was becoming less! It was reducing, becoming something of this reality! How could this be? What was turning it from itself to some shrunken facsimile of it''s true existence!? It turned to run, to flee, because even ceasing to be as the reality outside of a host wore away at it until it dissolved would be a better cessation than becoming less than it had been! It moved in the ways that... But it didn''t for it was no longer such a being! It could not experience or move in the manner of those outside of this reality for it had devolved into something of this reality! It was trapped in this horrible form, never again to- A white blood cell that Kay''s immune system sent to destroy whatever foreign body had made it into Kay''s blood steam engulfed the being and began to dissolve it. Kay''s anti-eldritch blood had already done most of the work and the being was reduced to protoplasmic cell goop in a matter of seconds. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j "What the fuck?" Kay blinked and looked down at his hands as the visions and strange, alien thoughts died out. In killing the thing with his existence he''d somehow seen it''s last thoughts, or something? "That was weird." "No, no!" A strangled scream snapped Kay out of his distraction. "After all this, it get''s away!? I won''t let it, I won''t let it, I won''t let-" "Calm down." Kay snapped at the still moving decapitated head of the woman, which was somehow screaming without lungs. "That thing couldn''t take me over if it had a year. It''s already dead." "... What?" The necromancer''s head gaped at him. "How is that possible?" "I''m basically the antithesis of anything from outside of Torotia''s reality. I''m basically poison to them." "... Ha. Hahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Black tears dripping from one eye and one empty socket as the head twisted back and forth in hysterical laughter. "You mean there was a cure, or an inoculation against such things all this time? Oh, how foolish I was..." She trailed off into a whisper. Kay dropped down into a crouch near her. "I... I don''t know how long ago that thing got into you, but I''ve only been on Torotia a few years, and I''ve only been like this," he waved a hand up and down his body, "For a little less than that." "An Outworlder bringing a new thing into out world, eh? Well then, I don''t feel as bad. I was still a fool mind you, but I wasn''t a fool that missed a precaution I could have taken." She sighed. The head shifted and her one eye snapped down to see the fraction of her neck she was supported by was disintegrating. "Oh thank the ancient bones, I''m actually dying. Being a madwoman trapped in what''s left of my skull would have been an upgrade from dealing with that thing, but only a small one." She looked up at Kay and the skull pulled itself into a rictus smile, the bone underneath getting exposed as the skin on her head began to decay into dust. "Thank you young man, for freeing me from that nightmare." "I''m happy I could help." He replied earnestly. She closed her one eye and began humming to herself as she faded away. It wasn''t a tune that Kay had ever head and her humming was terrible, but it was beautiful in what it represented in that moment. The bottom of her jaw faded away and she dropped down, clattering against the ground and breaking a few of her remaining teeth. Her eye popped open and looked around wildly. "Wait! Shit I forgot to warn the boy!" "I''m still here." "Oh, good. Those vampyr fuckers, they''re up to something with some oversized ritual circles! I couldn''t listen all the time and most of them are as mad as I''ve been a few times, but they-" "We know." Kay interrupted her. "We''ve been watching them while we amass enough power to deal with it all at once, that''s how we knew you were coming." "Oh. Well, bonus points for me that I got to fight alongside someone powerful and competent in my last moments." Kay heard a sigh that shouldn''t have been possible. "Anything else I can help you with before I fade away? I don''t have much of anything to give but I won''t let it be said that Martha of the Pristine Bones was less than thankful to her savior!" Kay pondered it for a moment before saying, "I don''t know what comes next, but if there is something after and you run into my family, let them know I love them please." The entire skull had blown away in a light wind that picked up, leaving only a single white coated eye that pointed at Kay. "Oh? A real request. Well, boy, Martha will do her very best!" Her voice faded away as she completed the sentence and the eye began to wilt like a flower without water. A whisper of a voice floated into Kay''s ear. "Oh, dammit, I spent however long that was going mad as some kind of part-lich trapped in my own body without rhyming my sentences, and I end on that? Damn..." The solemn moment was immediately broken as Kay burst into laughter at the woman''s parting words. After a few minutes he pushed himself to his feet and nodded at the spot where she''d ceased to be. "I didn''t get the chance to really meet you, Martha of the Pristine Bones, but I think I would have liked you." He turned around, already making plans for a grave marker that would either go in that spot if Avalon did push it''s borders out or somewhere interesting in Avalon when he noticed the ring of collapsed undead around him. He''d been caught up in speaking to Martha and hadn''t noticed them. Looking out across the battlefield he saw a sea of unmoving corpses, unable to continue without the necromancer who''d made them providing magic to keep them going. He started moving back toward the wall, mincing up bodies into tiny fragments with large constructs of blood that followed alongside him. There would be no chance they could identify any of these people, and they didn''t deserve to be buried as part of the monstrosities the eldritch thing had made while controlling Martha''s body. They would be forced to make a mass grave for them all. Eleniah jogged up to him, her body covered in glittering flakes of gold. "They all stopped when you killed the necromancer," She reported. "We''ve had some casualties, but nothing terrible." He turned and looked all around him at the victims of the depravity of eldritch things mucking in other worlds. He remembered the massive twisted blank spot the thing had feared and the plans it supposedly had. "We need to clean this up quickly and get moving. I need to find a fast messenger too, the Crusade and the Order need to get to Avalon yesterday." Book 6 Chapter 34 Kay gathered up his companions and anyone else that would be more useful back home and flew them back to Avalon. Making mass graves and cleaning up battlefields wasn¡¯t the best use of his time and the Earth Mages and Earth Manipulators who¡¯d made the defensive wall would be able to finish the job quickly. Kay had also left orders for a marker to be raised where Martha the necromancer had faded away. He had no idea who¡¯d she¡¯d been or what the title she¡¯d called herself meant, but the woman didn¡¯t deserve to go unrecognized for the battle she¡¯d fought for so long. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Eleniah asked. The two of them were in a small private chamber Kay had made in the construct he flew them with. ¡°You¡¯re tense.¡± ¡°¡­ I had a¡­ call it a vision, I guess. The necromancer woman, she had something controlling her, something eldritch. I told you that, right?¡± ¡°You mentioned it, but we didn¡¯t have time to go over the details. Was it like Blood Puppetry?¡± Kay shook his head. ¡°No, although that¡¯s another topic that¡¯s bothering me, but we can come back to that. It was some kind of parasite that took over her body after killing her, but she didn¡¯t die and it ended up being a standoff, I think? I¡¯ve only got a little bit of the story and it¡¯s disjointed.¡± ¡°She told you before she died?¡± ¡°No, the parasite tried to take me over and I got some a vision of it¡¯s memories. I¡¯m not really sure why, but there were bits of it¡¯s thoughts like I was watching it think about what was going on bundled up with older memories, and it confirmed we¡¯ve got a problem.¡± She stared at him blankly for a moment. ¡°An eldritch parasite tried to take you over and you saw it¡¯s memories and thoughts. Yes, I would call that a problem.¡± Kay waved her off. ¡°Not like that. I felt it die, it couldn¡¯t deal with my biology or something. Whatever the System did to me when I became a vampire killed it.¡± ¡°Right¡­¡± She got up and moved quickly for the door. She came back in pulling Lauren behind her. ¡°Lady Eleniah, what¡¯s going-¡° ¡°I¡¯m not a lady!¡± Eleniah shoved Lauren at Kay who caught his foremost guard when she stumbled. ¡°Check him!¡± ¡°What?¡± Lauren¡¯s hair whipped around as she looked between the two of them. ¡°Check him for what?¡± ¡°Eldritch things taking him over!¡± ¡°I¡­¡± Lauren slowly looked him up and down and even sniffed at him a little. ¡°I don¡¯t sense anything. Is it even possible for that to happen?¡± ¡°It¡¯s worth checking! He says some kind of eldritch parasite tried to take over his body and he¡¯s only just now mentioning it!¡± Eleniah spat, looking incredibly displeased. Lauren¡¯s grasps on Kay¡¯s shoulders tightened. ¡°Wait, this is something we¡¯re actually worried about?¡± Her expression firmed up as she caught on to what was happening and she stared at every inch of him intently for several long moments. ¡°I really don¡¯t sense anything.¡± She slowly took a step back. ¡°Your Majesty, you should have informed us about such a thing immediately.¡± She scolded. Kay opened his mouth to rebut, but actually thinking about what he was about to say killed his momentum. ¡°¡­ Alright, yes I should have. I got caught up in what I learned and didn¡¯t think about it as a security risk, I apologize.¡± Eleniah pushed past Lauren and grabbed him by the collar. ¡°A security risk? You¡¯re calling the idea of you dying and your body turning into the mindless husk of some otherworldly parasite a security risk?¡± ¡°¡­ What else should I call it? A health hazard? It¡¯s something we should test for because there¡¯s no way to guarantee I¡¯m right about killing it, right?¡± He turned to look at Lauren for help. ¡°I don¡¯t know what else I¡¯d call it.¡± Lauren turned away from him. Eleniah¡¯s fists vibrated as she glared at him, opening and closing her mouth repeatedly. Eventually she said, ¡°You dying would be a tragedy to us personally, not just because we¡¯re your guard or part of Avalon!¡± If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°Oh.¡± He slowly reached up and took her hands. ¡°I know that. I wasn¡¯t saying you¡¯re right just because of the political implications or anything like that, I just couldn¡¯t think of a better thing to call it.¡± He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers while maintaining eye contact. ¡°I understand the mistake I made fully, not just the ¡®I¡¯m a leader¡¯ part of it.¡± She stared back at him suspiciously until the glare in her eyes faded. ¡°Good.¡± She glanced over her shoulder at Lauren. ¡°You¡¯re sure he¡¯s okay?¡± ¡°As much as I can be. It¡¯s not something we¡¯ve ever had to deal with but even with a heavy grain of salt for safety I don¡¯t know if anything eldritch could affect him like that, if at all. Not only is he a vampire with all the inbuilt anti-eldritch stuff put into us by the System, but he¡¯s also got his blood running through him, which might be even stronger.¡± Eleniah still looked tense and nervous but she slowly let go of Kay¡¯s hands and drifted back toward her seat. ¡°¡­Fine.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I really didn¡¯t mean to worry you.¡± She let out a deep breath. ¡°I accept your apology. What are you worried about that you found out?¡± Kay took the subject change and went with it. ¡°The parasite thing was looking for a way to get away from Martha, that was the necromancer, without leaving itself open to an attack from her when it left. Apparently she turned parts of her body into some kind of partial lich and was fighting it from since it took her over.¡± ¡°What¡¯s a lich?¡± Lauren asked as Kay took a breath. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°We haven¡¯t had many necromancers around for a long time,¡± Eleniah muttered, ¡°There were some purges and people still tend to kill them when they pop up.¡± ¡°Alright. Well, liches are necromancers that turn themselves into powerful undead.¡± Lauren frowned. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°¡­ I don¡¯t know? In fiction and mythology back home it was generally to escape death, but people live a lot longer here. There has to be a reason¡­ But that¡¯s beside the point. The parasite was looking for a way to rip her out or become more part of her body or something and it started studying the vampyr because they¡¯re a different kind of eldritch and that was going to help somehow.¡± Kay shrugged when they both gave him confused looks. ¡°I don¡¯t know the real details either it¡¯s pretty spotty. But the real problem was something I saw in it¡¯s memories. It negotiated with something to help it with a plan of some kind, and I think its the ritual circles.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°It met the lead vampyr, and it thought it was bigger than it somehow? Like it was scared of it but also worshipful. I think that we might be up against the first vampyr.¡± Eleniah was still frowning. ¡°¡­ What?¡± Kay shook his head. ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s all¡­ jumbled up in there. It didn¡¯t look at the world the way we do, obviously, and converting it¡¯s fucked up memories into something I can experience¡­ It med the lead vampyr-¡° ¡°You said that.¡± ¡°I did, right. The vampyr leader felt more real to the parasite, in the way that eldritch things exist outside of the world somehow. It felt like the vampyr was more powerful, and the parasite made a deal with it in exchange for more vampyr to study, which is where those vampyr undead things came from. It also was thinking that if it helped the vampyr then it didn¡¯t matter if the parasite got out of Martha or not, it could just leave. But then right before it died inside me when it thought it had gotten a new host, it wanted to stop whatever the vampyr are doing because a new host meant it didn¡¯t need to leave the world?¡± He looked up at them and they still had very confused looks on their face. ¡°Sorry, I¡¯m rambling, it¡¯s all-¡° ¡°Jumbled up, you said.¡± Eleniah interrupted, ¡°But I think I get understand what happened, just not your conclusion. Why do you think it¡¯s the first vampyr that we¡¯re up against?¡± ¡°Because it¡¯s probably the most powerful one. The first vampyr was a vampire that somehow got tossed into an eldritch realm before landing on Torotia, wouldn¡¯t that mean it has the most eldritch,¡± He waved a hand around, ¡°Stuff? Power, corruption, whatever?¡± ¡°Why would the first vampyr want to open a bunch of gates to other realms?¡± Lauren asked. ¡°That is what we think it¡¯s plan is, right?¡± ¡°I definitely think that¡¯s it¡¯s plan based on what the parasite was thinking. If gates open it could just throw itself into one and Martha would burn away wherever it landed because she would be eldritch to that place, but with a new host it wanted to stay around and stop the vampyr¡¯s plan, probably because more eldritch things here would get in its way. And who knows why it would want to open a bunch of gates? Maybe because it was in a true eldritch reality for so long it became more like them and now it wants to bring that here? It doesn¡¯t really matter why, what matters is we need to stop it.¡± ¡°So, to summarize,¡± Eleniah said after a long pause. ¡°There¡¯s a super powerful vampyr doing something we really don¡¯t want it to do that we¡¯re going to stop so that the world doesn¡¯t turn to shit?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°How is that different than what we already thought was going on?¡± Kay opened his mouth to respond and then just let it hang there. There was something on the edge of his tongue, some reason that it was important¡­ ¡°I don¡¯t remember, but something is different and it¡¯s a big deal.¡± Eleniah sighed. ¡°Fantastic. That means its going to spring out at us at the last second and be a giant problem. Fantastic. I¡¯m assuming the reason you wanted to bring it up is that you¡¯re going to say we need to speed up all our preparations and move as soon as possible?¡± ¡°We do.¡± ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll tell everybody to hold onto something and then you start rocketing us back home as fast as you can. If you say it¡¯s a problem, it¡¯s a problem.¡± Book 6 Chapter 35 A mobile swarm of people roamed around a marching block of soldiers in ranks, looking surprisingly like the forces Kay had led to the east just a few days ago. Even if Kay hadn¡¯t been able to see the banners held aloft in the center of the march he¡¯d know that these weren¡¯t his people, they were coming from completely the wrong direction. Scouts and sentries had picked them up a few days ago after Kay had arrived back home and the border guards had been alerted to let them through into Avalon¡¯s territory. The Itarian Crusade and the Shatterplate Order had returned to Avalon, but not as enemies. Messengers led the way with news of their peaceful intentions and at least one of them was a trusted subordinate of the Order¡¯s commander, who freely gave over some information Kay was looking forward to dealing with. It was a mixed bag, as expected. There was dissension in the ranks of both organizations about what to do with Kay¡¯s demands. The Shatterplate Order was more unified in their response, since Commander Ravenhome was the person in charge, but there were still some that protested bowing down to ¡°some upstart¡±. More than that though, people could see the writing on the wall. Kay¡¯s demands didn¡¯t technically give him any control over either organization, merely some oversight that would keep them from running off and attacking innocent people again, but anyone with eyes could see that that was merely the beginning. Oversight would become someone being inserted into their leadership, as a simple adviser of course, but they would grow and grow in power until; both groups were subordinate forces in Avalon¡¯s power. That was the vision of the future the people that didn¡¯t want to give in to Kay foresaw. And they were entirely right. That hadn¡¯t been the plan when Edric Ravenhome and Crusader General Stonegnawer back home with demands of reparations, but plans changed. Kay had long ago cast aside his trepidation and fears over his own growing power and responsibilities, and those were larger than ever. He wasn¡¯t some chosen hero of the age, but he had been given a mission by the System itself. That mission was lower on the list than his other duties, but it was still there and he was going to milk it for every drop of influence he could. He was the weapon the System had created to eradicate the vampyr, and he was going to drag along anyone that could help him with that. If they happened to end up as part of Avalon along the way and became pillars of support for his people and nation, well, those were the inside thoughts that didn¡¯t get spoken out loud. Especially since the ¡°side benefits¡± were his real goal and dealing with the vampyr was the actual side benefit. Kay stepped off one of Avalon¡¯s internal walls that had afforded him a better view of the visitors and dropped to the ground. Amanda was waiting at the closest entrance to the palace, flanked by a number of her direct subordinates. She turned to follow him as he began walking. ¡°How do you want this handled?¡± ¡°We¡¯ll try it the easy way first. Diplomacy, convincing arguments, allowing our allies to help. If we have to in order to get things moving, that¡¯s when we move to the hard way.¡± Kay felt a tiny hand pat his neck in acknowledgment and noted that Isla had once again slipped past the measures he was implementing to find her. ¡°Very well,¡± Amanda replied. ¡°A delegation of their leaders will be allowed to approach directly, where we¡¯ll bring them up to speed. The messengers we sent to find them had reports with them for Commander Ravenhome and Crusader General Stonegnawer, but we can¡¯t guarantee they managed to read them or what their subordinates know.¡± They moved to Kay¡¯s public office where Miri was already waiting with a large binder in her arms. ¡°Ah, your Majesty. I¡¯ve prepared a number of potential outfits for you to form for your meeting.¡± ¡°Hmmm.¡± He glanced over at the bureaucrats following Amanda and raised one eyebrow to her. She nodded back and quickly dismissed her people with instructions for those who needed them. After they left Kay transformed his layered blood armor into a simple outfit that resembled jeans and a t-shirt and started looking over the options he¡¯d been presented. Isla appeared on his desk, already sitting at a small table with snacks and a tea kettle which she poured into a cup sized for her. ¡°Is that real?¡± Kay asked, looking down at the setup. Isla smirked up at him. ¡°Define ¡®real¡¯.¡± He ignored the attempt at mysteriousness and tapped the edge of the miniature table with his finger. ¡°You know exactly what I mean. How did you carry all of that in here? It can¡¯t have been sitting there the whole time, I would have destroyed it by now.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you leave me to some secrets?¡± She asked with a put upon sigh and sipped her tea. ¡°I¡¯m your spymaster, I have to be aloof and inscrutable or I¡¯ll lose my job.¡± ¡°Ha! Fat chance of that, you¡¯re doing too good a job. What have we heard from our agents among our visitors.¡± The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Isla scoffed as she picked up a teacake. ¡°You overestimate me, my king. We sent off the straggling survivors of a failed invasion back home with a treaty of reparations and stipulations of submission, do you really think I could recruit any agents in such a time? And to think that I would somehow be able to insert-¡° ¡°Okay, now you¡¯re just bragging.¡± ¡°And?¡± ¡°And we don¡¯t have time for me to indulge you, as fun as it would be for all of us.¡± Kay grew out a long tailcoat with short sleeves and a high collar, immediately getting twin looks of disgust from Miri and Amanda. That outfit was removed from contention and he turned back to Isla. ¡°What do we have?¡± ¡°Most of those against submitting to us either have their own irons in the fire they¡¯re worried about losing or work for another power.¡± She responded promptly. ¡°There are the various greedy or power hungry folk at low ranks that think we¡¯ll take what they think is theirs or who dread ending up even a single rung down the ladder of power, and those we can ignore. The ones that work for another nation are more annoying, but still nothing that we can¡¯t deal with.¡± ¡°What countries are involved?¡± ¡°The Empire and the Concord of course. Ravenhome is from the Empire and most of the Order is based there. While they¡¯ve managed to remain independent since Ravenhome founded them, that¡¯s mostly because the organization is relatively young. The Order¡¯s explosive growth and effectiveness have drawn eyes, and the Empire very much wants to make the Order an official part of their military. Young nobles and military veterans have been joining for years now in record numbers, and many of them are agents of the Empire looking to draw the order closer to the imperial bosom.¡± ¡°And the Crusade?¡± ¡°Similar, but coming from the Itarian Concord. The Crusade is older and more established, but the main point is that they lack a centralized leadership, making them much more susceptible to being seduced into coming directly under the Concords control. A number of their High Crusaders and Crusader Generals already answer to one or more Itarian nobles. The only reason they¡¯ve managed to retain most of their independence is the canniness of some the Crusader Generals and the Concord¡¯s own laws making it difficult for them to drawn the Crusade in as part of their military.¡± An outfit that made Kay think of his history lessons about the French aristocracy was also discarded. ¡°Why don¡¯t we need to worry about them interfering?¡± Isla pointed out into the rest of the world. ¡°Because they¡¯re too far away. Once the Crusade and the Order were headed this way both governments lost too much control to make either of them stop. Having a notable nation and it¡¯s surroundings be destroyed by the largest vampyr attack in recent history also kept the scales balanced in our direction. Nothing the political string pullers could do was going to stop either group from coming to deal with that. The leaders who¡¯s loyalty belongs to someone other than their own organizations will be obnoxious, but a few figurative hard smacks will get them in line. Without any backup from their masters they won¡¯t be able to afford to really fight with us.¡± ¡°Who does that leave?¡± ¡°Any loyalists to either Ravenhome himself, the Crusader Generals who are moving as we want, and those who follow the stated principles of the Crusade and the Order can be considered one group. They¡¯ll work with us, which is all we really need at the moment. Which leaves the scattered troublemakers mixed in.¡± The tiny pixie woman sighed. ¡°There¡¯s a handful of zealots or other flavors of true believer who still won¡¯t accept that you aren¡¯t actually a vampyr and plan to cause trouble in one way or another, and then there are those with real influence that don¡¯t want to lose their spot in the hierarchy. Both types of nuisance on the Order¡¯s side will be dealt with. Zeia is more of an influential figure than I expected and with her fully on our side combined with the general support we have from the Ravenhomes there¡¯s no question that we¡¯ll own the Shatterplate Order by the time this is done. They¡¯ll shed a few people that don¡¯t agree with what¡¯s going to happen, but the organization as a whole will remain.¡± ¡°And the Crusade?¡± ¡°The Crusade is going to shatter.¡± Amanda answered. She shook her head at Miri to give her opinion on the most recent of Kay¡¯s attempts at a formal outfit before looking back into Kay¡¯s eyes. ¡°There¡¯s no stopping it, mostly because the Crusade¡¯s decentralized leadership.¡± ¡°Oh, that one isn¡¯t bad.¡± Isla mused. ¡°Maybe with a different cuff though. But Amanda¡¯s right, the Crusade isn¡¯t unified enough to deal with all the sudden shocks they¡¯ve been taking. They¡¯re more of a group of private armies that team up to deal with vampyr threats more than a single Crusade. They haven¡¯t been truly united for a handful of decades now.¡± ¡°While that worked for them to deal with multiple fronts at once on a military basis,¡± Amanda cut back in, ¡°The current situation makes that from a benefit to a flaw. Each Crusader General has their own troops and factions that follow them, and we expect the Crusade to lose at least half of their Generals in the schism to come.¡± They all paused to look Kay over as he finished his outfit, an outfit that resembled slacks and a dress shirt from Earth, but with deeper sleeves that billowed just enough to fit a hand in and stitching up the side of his legs. Miri nodded happily. ¡°I think you should go with this one, your majesty.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± He looked over at Amanda. ¡°The Crusade having a schism can¡¯t be stopped, you said. Can it be delayed?¡± She held out a sheaf of papers. ¡°Reports on the Crusader Generals that need to be¡­ dealt with in one way or another to delay the Crusade as a whole fracturing into pieces.¡± Kay started memorizing faces and names. ¡°They can split into pieces and go become private armies of Itarian nobles or hunt vampyr elsewhere in the world after we deal with this problem. Until then they¡¯ll get in line and do as they¡¯re told. There¡¯s too much at stake to allow petty bullshit or rock-headed stubbornness to get in the way.¡± ¡°As you say, your majesty. Would you like to make a plan to ensure they all toe the line?¡± ¡°I would. Which Crusader General is likely to be mouthy who we can also afford for them to not be very useful in the future?¡± Book 6 Chapter 36 Leaders and influential figures among the Crusade and the Shatterplate Order marched into the meeting room one at a time or in twos or threes. In a display of power Kay had forbidden any guards to accompany those attending the meeting which meant that the groups were allies staying together or lackeys following behind the real power in their groups. Their weren¡¯t that many attendees, a little over a dozen from the Crusade and just over half as many from the Order, which meant that all but two of the loners were in heavier armor with Crusade markings over it. Commander Ravenhome came in followed by his entourage, which included his daughter Alice and Zeia, who¡¯d joined the group after their arrival. Almost immediately after him came Crusader General Stonegnawer who was flanked by the High Crusader Hearthbreaker, who he¡¯d left behind in Avalon as a hostage, and another High Crusader that Kay didn¡¯t recognize. Kay nodded in greeting at the people he¡¯d met before and waiting as everyone else filed in and took a seat. The briefing he¡¯d gotten from Isla and Amanda let Kay identify everyone as they came in, and he noted where the problematic individuals were sitting. Where people sat, the looks they gave each other, and who made small talk with whom all let him identify the balance of power inside the organizations. The two members of the Order that didn¡¯t enter with their commander were notable because they were making themselves stand out as not being in line with Ravenhome¡¯s plans. One of them also seemed to be quite friendly with a member of the Crusade that they¡¯d identified as working for the Concord, which was interesting on it¡¯s own. Finally, all but one person was seated and waiting, and it wasn¡¯t long until Guildmaster Gemglass form the Adventurer¡¯s Guild appeared and took the final seat. Once she was ready Kay stood and addressed the gathering. ¡°As you all know, since you¡¯ve already been formally welcomed, I¡¯m King Kay of Avalon, your host for this little gathering. I¡¯m sure you already all know each other as well, but we¡¯re joined by most of the Crusader Generals of the Itarian Crusade with attendant High Crusaders and the Commander of the Shatterplate Order with his staff.¡± The two rebellious Order members looked displeased, but they were ignored. ¡°Finally, one individual most of you would not have had the opportunity to meet, Guildmaster Gemglass, out local representative of the Adventurer¡¯s Guild will also be present.¡± ¡°Why is she here?¡± Someone asked, interrupting Kay before he could continue. A thin elven woman in the Crusade¡¯s colors turned toward Gemglass. ¡°No offense Guildmaster, but I was under the impression that that we were going to discuss the¡­¡± She trailed off for a moment. ¡°Terms that Avalon has presented out organizations. The Adventurer¡¯s Guild didn¡¯t participate in the battle, so why is their representative here?¡± ¡°The terms of surrender issued to the Crusade and the Order are one of the topics that will be discussed,¡± Kay acknowledged, ¡°But they aren¡¯t the only topic and the Guildmaster is present for that discussion.¡± He paused until the Crusader General nodded that she understood. ¡°Were circumstances different we would immediately begin discussions of the terms and whether your organizations will accept them or resume hostilities, but things have changed since Commander Ravenhome and Crusader General Stonegnawer left Avalon. I assume that you¡¯re all informed, but in case you are not, are there any of you that don¡¯t know about what¡¯s happened to Nelam and the surrounding area?¡± There were some glances exchanged and a few short whispers, but no one looked surprised or uninformed. There were a few sneers that Kay wished he was surprised about, but the general reaction was stoic or unhappy looks. One of the ones who¡¯d sneered opened his mouth. ¡°What does that have to do with us?¡± Kay leveled a flat look at the man. He was the orcish High Crusader that had done most of the initial work stirring up fears about Kay and gathering the army that had attacked Avalon. Kay didn¡¯t remember his name since he¡¯d done nothing in the battle but get beaten up be Eleniah and didn¡¯t have any power of his own. He was acting as the mouthpiece of the Crusader General he was accompanying though, which meant Kay would have to pay attention to him. ¡°I was under the impression that the Crusade was dedicated to purging the world of vampyr and making it safe for everyone else. An entire nation getting destroyed by hordes of them seems like something the Crusade would be interested in dealing with. Is that no longer the case?¡± The orc was about to reply, with some idiocy most likely, when he was cut off by a Crusader General across from him, who was glaring angrily at the orc. ¡°Of course the Crusade still exists to deal with the vampyr threat. But how does that influence the terms you¡¯ve set?¡± ¡°They change things, because I am willing to adjust some of the terms in exchange for your services.¡± Anyone who hadn¡¯t figured out which way this was going suddenly perked up. Everyone who did just nodded along. The Crusader General who the orc was with planted both hands on the table and leveraged himself up a bit. ¡°You¡¯re offering to rescind your demands,¡± He stressed, ¡°In exchange for the Crusade saving you from the vampyr?¡± The youngest Crusader General present, a human man by the name of Jaben, looked down the table toward Kay with a smirk. ¡°Of course not.¡± Kay¡¯s tone was even, and faintly implied that Jaben¡¯s statement was ridiculous. ¡°I said that I was willing to adjust the terms somewhat, not remove them entirely. Nor did I say anything about Avalon needing to be saved by you. In exchange for the services of the Itarian Crusade and the Shatterplate Order working alongside Avalon in purging the vampyr wreaking havoc where Nelam once stood, certain terms of your surrenders can be lightened or removed, but there are some terms that will remain no matter what you decide. Your organizations attacked a peaceful nation and endangered it¡¯s citizens, my citizens, without cause or notice. You will not be let off without some form of recompense.¡± Edric Ravenhome leaned forward. ¡°Which terms would those be and how would they change?¡± He asked, not letting Jaben regain any momentum. Kay waved Miri forward, and she started handing out documents with everything written out on them. ¡°These are the new terms given under the assumption that both your groups will be assisting Avalon in taking on an enemy that you already would.¡± Everyone, except Gemglass who didn¡¯t get one, began reading them as they received a copy. Some of them went through each section line by line, some skimmed, and a few, including Jaben, flipped furiously back and forth through the three page packet, looking for specific entries. Jaben slammed a half-curled fist into the table, crumpling his copy as he did so. ¡°These changes say nothing about your ridiculous demands about moving our headquarters and allowing you to install oversight on us!¡± Kay held back a sigh as he looked at Jaben. As much as he wished it were so, Crusader General Jaben wasn¡¯t the person he was going to be making an example out of today. Jaben was the youngest Crusader General in many years, commanded respect among his subordinates and many of his peers, and led the most zealous of the factions among the Crusade. He was the one who¡¯d made connections with the maniacs from the Coalition of Fangs End, the lunatics who attacked anyone they thought was a vampyr, usually on spurious or outright false evidence, and Jaben was starting to shift his own personal efforts in a similar direction. He was also the man who was spawning most of the disconcerting rumors around the Crusade sacking entire towns to get to one relatively weak vampyr and other whisperings about atrocities. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Unfortunately Jaben was too influential and had too large a force under his command to turn into an example, even if he would leave the room totally unharmed. Even if he didn¡¯t like the man and had no long term plans that involved him retaining any power, Kay still needed the asshole and his army to deal with the vampyr. They didn¡¯t have unlimited time until the vampyr overcame the ongoing sabotage efforts against their ritual circles and Kay needed as powerful a force as possible hitting them as soon as possible, which meant that Jaben wouldn¡¯t be the one getting verbally crushed into paste. It would help if he wasn¡¯t stealing the lines of the person I do need to lambaste! Kay thought to himself as he glanced over at said person. Isolde Vannera was also a Crusader General, though she wasn¡¯t a particularly notable one outside of the fact that she mostly used her army as a mercenary force while not slaying vampyr with it, and she had a large stake to lose if Avalon had oversight over the Crusade, let alone slowly took control as was the dear among the Crusader Generals. There was no chance that Kay would let a mercenary army roam about unchecked, because no sane ruler would. The only reason she¡¯d been getting away with it in her normal hunting ground of the Bannerthrust Empire was that she could pretend that she was hunting vampyr when in reality she was taking her army down to siege an annoyed noble¡¯s neighbors in exchange for some cash. She was the one supposed to be up in arms about not getting out from under Kay¡¯s thumb and Jaben was supposed to be focused on killing vampyr! ¡°I told you that only some terms would change and that there wouldn¡¯t be an escape from the consequences of your actions.¡± Kay replied to Jaben¡¯s accusations. ¡°The terms that were reduced or removed were those about direct compensation from your attack on my country, yes, because those are the easiest to set aside. The provisions that call for structural changes in your organizations won¡¯t be going anywhere.¡± ¡°That¡¯s ridiculous!¡± Jaben shouted, shoving himself to his feet. ¡°Who do you think you are!?¡± With things going off script, Kay had to improvise. He leaned forward, subtly shifting his clothing as he did so, turning it from regular clothing, if made of blood, into battle armor. ¡°I am King Kay of Avalon. I am the ruler of the nation your Crusade attacked unprovoked and on the basis of false claims. I am the lord of the people who you harmed, who¡¯s villages and towns you destroyed, who¡¯s lives had to be rebuilt after you marched through our lands and left ruin in your wake. Do you think their suffering can be repaid in coin? The reparations paid to assuage their pain won¡¯t be in money or material, but in ensuring that such a thing never happens at your hands again.¡± ¡°I have done no such thing!¡± Kay stabbed a finger at the crest on his armor. ¡°The Itarian Crusade did, and you are of the Crusade! The man sitting next to you is your subordinate and he not only led troops of the Crusade against my nation, he¡¯s the one who started the battle during a parley!¡± Jaben ground his teeth against each other. ¡°There was an attack against Crusader General Stonegnawer that provoked the attack.¡± ¡°Yes, an attack deliberately done with that goal in mind carried out by the allies your people gathered on the way to attack us.¡± Kay rebutted instantly. ¡°Your man did nothing to try and keep the peace or negotiate and immediately attacked at the first opportunity. He came into my lands seeking bloodshed and made sure that he found some.¡± Kay shot the orc a contemptuous look. ¡°But it was his blood that was shed in the end, wasn¡¯t it?¡± The man looked away without saying anything. ¡°The terms being modified aren¡¯t changing that much,¡± Crusader General Vannera said, finally joining the conversation. ¡°The cost of fielding this many armies is high, and the amounts that you¡¯re reducing certain payments aren¡¯t enough to cover the expenses. Perhaps we can negotiate some kind of scale? Say, a greater reduction in reparations if the Crusade is able to perform better then expected.¡± ¡°I am not hiring the Crusade or the Order to act as mercenaries.¡± Kay put some extra disdain on the word to press the point home. ¡°I am calling on you to join Avalon in dealing with a threat that all of you have sworn oaths to defeat! Each and every one of you are where you are because you kill vampyr. You are the Crusader Generals of the Itarian Crusade, which exists to kill vampyr. You are the Commander of the Shatterplate Order and hunters of that same group because you have sworn to hunt down and end the vampyr menace.¡± He swept his gaze across everyone except Guildmaster Gemglass and his own people with harsh eyes. ¡°I should not have to buy your assistance in this, you should be doing it anyways! My modification of the terms set down for your surrender aren¡¯t payment, they¡¯re an acknowledgment of the importance of your duties and a demonstration that we are on the same side against an enemy that wants all of us to cease to be!¡± Kay leaned forward, bracing himself with both arms against the table. ¡°Each and every one of you should be aware, because I sent you all a full report of what my people have discovered, that the vampyr are led by one of their own that is more powerful than any encountered in memory and it is driving them to create massive ritual circles we surmise will bring even more abominations from beyond our world, like the one that arrived and ended the Shatterplate War. Both of your forces joined with me to deal with that threat, because it is against everything that we are trying to achieve, a safe world for people to live in.¡± He pointed forcefully at the wall. ¡°Out there is the largest incursion of vampyr in known history, and you are in here arguing with me about money and acting like you are the wronged parties in a war you started over complete bullshit!¡± He glared furiously at Jaben and Vannera. ¡°Will the Order and the Crusade be joining me and my people in killing fucking vampyr as you¡¯ve sworn to do¡­!?¡± He looked at each of them one more time and whispered, ¡°Or will I be doing it all myself?¡± Edric Ravenhome, Commander of the Shatterplate Order stood. ¡°The Order will be joining you, your majesty, change in terms or no. You¡¯re completely correct. It is our duty that we willingly took up ourselves to slay vampyr, and we will join you in doing so.¡± Crusader General Stonegnawer stood as well, his dwarven height leaving him peering over the edge of the table. ¡°I will be joining as well, with or without the Crusade. I do not go back on my oaths.¡± Another Crusader General stood and pleged their support, then another, and that shifted the tide. The cascading weight of more and more leaders calling their support forced more to come along or risk being left behind and losing insane amounts of face. Vannera joined in somewhere in the middle after seeing how things were going, leaving only Jaben scowling at Kay. After a few seconds he too stood. ¡°The Crusade is with you, your majesty.¡± It took visible effort from him to keep himself calm. ¡°We will march east and rid the world of any vampyr scum.¡± The look he gave made it evident that he still thought that included Kay. ¡°Good. Now, while the Order has only a single leader, the Crusade is split between many Crusader Generals. I¡¯ll be appointing one of you to serve as overall commander of your forces for this, in order to cut down on the chaos of having so many generals. I choose Crusader General Stonegnawer for this, as I¡¯ve already gotten to know him and I trust him personally.¡± Jaben choked with rage as Kay swiftly undercut his attempt with that ¡°The Crusade is with you¡± bit. It was a blatant attempt to seize more control over the Crusade by seeming to be it¡¯s representative, and Kay wasn¡¯t having that. Things had already gone sideways from his planning with Jaben being too focused on Kay as an enemy and not enough on the actual vampyr, and Kay wasn¡¯t going to let things shift any more. Jaben was too busy choking to protest and the other Crusader Generals had no leg to stand on to stop Kay from putting Stonegnawer over all of them after they¡¯d so dramatically joined up. Stonegnawer coughed into his fist. ¡°Very well. I will accept temporary command over the Crusade as a whole during this campaign.¡± ¡°Good. There isn¡¯t any time to waste. Commander Ravenhome, Crusader General Stonegnawer, if you¡¯ll join me and my advisers we¡¯ll began planning our advance immediately.¡± Book 5 Chapter 43 ¡°Nanomachines?¡± ¡°That came across in, uh, what¡¯s your language called? Anglish? No, English. That doesn¡¯t match a word we have. Also what do you mean by ¡®gray goo scenario?¡¯ Hasn¡¯t all the goo we¡¯ve seen so far been black?¡± ¡°Right¡­¡± Kay started breaking down the concepts to make sure he go the information across. ¡°¡¯Machine¡¯ obvious translates, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Okay, does ¡®nano¡¯?¡± The two women quickly glanced at each other then shook their heads. ¡°No.¡± ¡°This is interesting, I¡¯ve never investigated language with an Outworlder before. I can hear what you¡¯re saying, the noises of it, but I don¡¯t know what the word means. It¡¯s so easy to just fall in to knowing that the Outworlder you¡¯re speaking to will understand you without thinking about them having their own language from another world.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s not dive into that right now. Kay, what does ¡®nano¡¯ mean?¡± ¡°I think it has more than one meaning, maybe? But for this its a prefix that means ¡®very small¡¯, like incredibly smaller. Several times too small to be seen by the naked eye.¡± ¡°So ¡®nanomachines¡¯ mean incredibly tiny machines? Why is that scary? We could just step on them.¡± Eleniah shook her head. ¡°Could you just step on the big blob thing that they all transformed into?¡± ¡°No, I guess not. So these nanomachines are working together and combining into one larger creature?¡± ¡°Yes they are. That isn¡¯t the problem that I¡¯m worried about, but if they¡¯re as malleable as we¡¯ve seen so far it explains how they¡¯re able to take on the different shapes they have, they just change the outer surface of the shape they make to match. The thing I¡¯m worried about is¡­¡± Kay sat forward as he started to explain. ¡°Okay, so on the world I came from nanomachines didn¡¯t exist, they were a hypothetical technology that people were working towards. I read about some scientists and companies developing very small machines for medicine, but those were more like ¡®micromachines¡¯ than real nanomachines, they weren¡¯t as small. There are people there, mostly writers and storytellers from what I¡¯ve experienced but probably beyond that, that try to think of what the future could be like, what people might make or do.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t speak for all worlds, but I¡¯d called that a fairly universal trait.¡± ¡°Someone out there thought up the existence of nanomachines that could make more of themselves and how that could become a problem. If they were left alone long enough and had enough materials they could create an endless amount of themselves, enough to wipe out everything. Who ever thought that up coined the term ¡°gray goo¡± to describe that happening. Somewhere along the way the idea of nanomachines that could reproduce using any material got added, and a lot of horror stories were born.¡± Alahna¡¯s eyes slowly widened. ¡°You think we¡¯re dealing with something like that.¡± ¡°I am. When I was investigating the substance, if I concentrated hard enough and dove down deep enough, I could feel incredibly tiny constituent parts that all seemed the same. Additionally, the two guards we spoke to told us the other pair entered the room and no one else went in or out afterward. The substance in the container looked and felt like it was the same volume that we left behind the other day, and nothing else was missing in the room. I¡¯m guessing that it killed the two guards, consumed their bodies, and made replacements using them as materials.¡± ¡°What do we even do about a threat like that?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯re unbeatable, or we¡¯d already be dead.¡± Kay replied, ¡°There¡¯s no point in sending out scouts if you can just eat everything and turn it into yourself.¡± ¡°You think the replacements were scouts?¡± ¡°That makes sense,¡± Eleniah mused, ¡°The first thing I would do if I got thrown into a new reality is go looking tor information.¡± ¡°Exactly. There¡¯s obviously some kind of intelligence behind the nanomachines or else it wouldn¡¯t know to send out scouts or to hide. Knowing that, and knowing that it is taking precautions instead of just eating every thing to grow tells us that whatever it is exactly, it knows it can be killed.¡± Alahna nodded along. ¡°I see the logic. Any being that thinks it can¡¯t die won¡¯t act with caution.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t need to worry about it ending the world without being able to fight back, but we do need to find all of it. The main thing that makes it a threat is that it can spread potentially forever and the main weakness is probably how long it takes to make new copies of the nanomachines. The goo in the storage room had several hours to kill the two guards and replace them but it didn¡¯t do anything beyond that. If I was in control of endlessly replicating nanomachines and had enough time, I¡¯d have turned that entire room into a trap and then start spreading out. It only made two new guards, and that indicates an upper limit on how fast they can replicate. If we let any of it escape there¡¯s the risk of it springing up again later.¡± Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°That¡¯s not as bad as I thought, although I get what you¡¯re worried about.¡± Alahna said. ¡°If we can weaken it enough, it becomes just another monster that can appear randomly as a threat. The real problem would be letting these nanomachines hide away and build themselves into massive numbers that we can¡¯t deal with. If we occasionally find them and prune them down it should keep things manageable.¡± ¡°Except most monsters are animalistic. They act on instinct, not planning. Anything that replaces people to act as scouts, sneaks into secure areas for information, and can adapt to changing conditions like it can will be able to think of the same plan you just did. We need to wipe out all traces so that it doesn¡¯t do exactly that.¡± Alahna squeezed her eyes together. ¡°Right. Sorry, I haven¡¯t slept much in the last few days. I know we can run for longer as high tiers without really sleeping, but it doesn¡¯t help me think straight at all times. I¡¯ll gather up everyone we can to start searching all over the island. We¡¯ll start searching everyone trying to leave as well, using the excuse of the attack on me. Is there any way to test them besides your Skills?¡± ¡°I think hurting them will work, they were fairly obvious about not being real when they got caught up in the fight. Maybe lightly scratch them or something? I can also try giving you some blood that I¡¯ve charged with my Skill, but I have no idea if that will last. Also, we don¡¯t know if these things can swim or float, so we might have to search beyond Sel.¡± ¡°It¡¯s worth trying, and if we have to cause small wounds to test people I¡¯ll make sure healers are available Searching Sel is the first priority, since using all our available manpower here before moving on will go faster. If we don¡¯t find the enemy close by we ca start expanding our search after that. Lastly, I think I should also include a barrier mage or two with whoever we send out, just in case. If we can capture some nanomachines to give our trackers a sample it will help the search immensely.¡± ¡°If you do that you¡¯re going to need to be incredibly careful.¡± ¡°Can you be on sight to help with that?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± ¡°How do we kill these things?¡± Eleniah asked, ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m most worried about.¡± ¡°My best guess is overwhelming force, something that will scour them away no matter how small they are. Really powerful fire, the right kinds of acid, lightning, things like that. Anything that can put out enough damage to destroy them utterly.¡± Eleniah held up a clenched fist and looked at it. ¡°How hard do I have to hit to disintegrate a nanomachine?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, but it looks like we¡¯re going to find.¡± Alahna stood to leave, the conversation obviously over. She paused at the edge of the couch Kay and Eleniah were sitting on. ¡°Thank you,¡± She said, bowing her head deeper than protocol allowed. ¡°Thank you for coming and helping me. Beyond the trade agreement stuff and anything with the System, I owe you for this.¡± ¡°Back on Earth a lot of people subscribed to the idea of ¡®found family¡¯. I had one, I lost it, and now I¡¯ve built a new one with this lady in it.¡± He grabbed Eleniah¡¯s hand and held it up. ¡°You¡¯re her family, and I chose her to be part of mine, so you¡¯re close enough to count at this point.¡± ¡°I know about found families, and I appreciate it. Still, I owe you, and I won¡¯t forget that.¡± She paused in the doorway. ¡°Since Miri¡¯s so stuck on following you around, she can handle anything you need while we track down the enemy. We¡¯ll send word when we find anything.¡± ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j The intelligence in the black sphere sent yet another harsh message to the young ones now hiding near it to shut up and stop giving away their positions. Assuming that the enemy couldn¡¯t trace radio signals just because they hadn¡¯t been seen using them was idiotic. The people of this world could control water with their mind and somehow turn blood into acid that seemed to only melt the n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s????. It was a world of madness and underestimating the inhabitants just because they didn¡¯t show signs of advanced technology was foolish. For what must have been the hundredth time the intelligence debated whether it was lucky or unlucky to have fallen into this new world with the others. It was good because there was an abundance of resources to utilize, which the old world had been lacking. But it was also stuck with a bunch of younglings, intelligences raised in scarce times that were now high as kites on the exuberance of getting to expand as they liked. The material here was strange, lacking a few of the more common resources from the world before, and the all too important s???t???r???a???n???g???e??? ???m???a???t???t???e???r??? the n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s???? needed most was missing entirely, a very strange phenomena. The elder that had come through with them had managed to mock up- a s???t???r???a???n???g???e??? ???m???a???t???t???e???r??? extrusion device, but they only had the one, severely limiting the speed of their growth. Events having gone the way they did, there was no way the enemy didn¡¯t know about their limitations, the vehemence of the reaction to the few young ones who had been sent to scout and infiltrate escaping meant they had to know something about what the intelligences were. The sphere turned a sensor toward a specific member of the young scouts with anger. Sabotaging a rival to take their resources was well and good when the only enemies around were other rivals, but doing it when up against an outside enemy was a poor choice. The intelligence had already sent a report up the chain to its superiors. It was patient though, and soon it wouldn¡¯t have to deal with the blasted younglings anymore. The leaders had made the decision it had expected. The enemy knew what they were, to some extent, and were now hunting them, seeking to destroy the intelligences before it was too late. Instead, the intelligences would attack before they were ready and wipe them out, establishing a beachhead to grow on. An entire world full of materials was much too valuable to let organic lifeforms run around wasting them all. Book 5 Chapter 44 The hunt for the eldritch nanomachines spanned several days before Alahna started having people head off the island of Sel to broaden the search. With no known dopplegangers to test the blood Kay gave them with Purify Blood in it the people involved in the hunt were unable to know for sure if it would reveal any fakes. They resorted to the other option of making small cuts into people, which made those that were being investigated unhappy, but the attached healers sealed any injuries caused during questionings. Apparently several other criminal acts were uncovered and perpetrators arrested, but there were no nanomachine replacements discovered. As hunters, trackers, and others with discovery, finding, or tracking Skills were able to make it to Sel from other islands, they were set up into teams and sent to scour everywhere. Teams were directed to cover areas that had been already covered using new Skills or methodologies to recheck over every inch of ground. Investigators that had already been used were sent outward in an expanding circle, covering areas measured in feet over the course of several hours, carefully checking over every inch of sea floor and beneath to make sure nothing was missed. With the exception of a few trips to covertly check powerful adventurers that Alahna¡¯s government didn¡¯t want to offend, Kay was mostly left alone. The first two days he sat on edge in between hiding in shadows to drip blood on adventurers from a safe distance, waiting for the next shoe to drop. When that didn¡¯t happen he slowly let himself relax, settling in to wait for a later occurrence. He spent a little time trying to figure out what was up with Miri, which continued to elude him since no one was being helpful, but most of his time was divided between working with the negotiating team he¡¯d brought with him on the trip, who were creating and dealing with trade proposals with Alahna¡¯s government, and training. His training heavily focused on Purify Blood. The part of it that allowed him to purge eldritch corruption had come straight from the System, and he had no idea if it could be taught. Many hours passed in both his suite and the training grounds with Kay trying to break down the Skill so he knew how to pass it on to others. He wanted the powerful weapon against the eldritch to be accessible to more than just him. Eleniah worked with him on trying to figure out which parts of the Skill had the effect they did on eldritch corruption on some days, but she also spent a lot of time with Alahna when the queen wasn¡¯t working. They apparently had the long talk about Alahna¡¯s past behavior that they¡¯d been planning and Eleniah had accepted her apology. After that they¡¯d chatted and shared stories, getting to know one another again after so long apart. Kay was grateful that while Eleniah was definitely going to be visiting Alahna and the rest of her family much more often than she did in the past, she wasn¡¯t going to be leaving him. Alahna made multiple comments about it, but it felt like she was joking to bleed off her actual desire for Eleniah to return permanently, rather than seriously trying to convince her. ¡°I wish I had a cellphone,¡± Kay muttered to himself. ¡°Then I could ask Alice if that sword I made her was still working.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± Eleniah asked him. ¡°Nothing, just complaining about how things could be better for me.¡± Kay dropped another sample of blood that he¡¯d melded Purify Blood in to and dropped it in a container. With no eldritch subjects to test it on he was resorting to preparing for when a subject did appear, whether that was a vampyr, some nanomachines, or something else. The jars ended up in his Inventory, since it slowed down time inside. Time wasn¡¯t perfectly stopped, not until he leveled up the Skill a lot more, but slower was better than the regular flow of time. ¡°Isn¡¯t that true always? Something could always be better for everyone.¡± ¡°Sure, but I was whining about a specific thing I¡¯d like improved right now. It isn¡¯t going to happen though.¡± The training area they had been given was attached to Kay¡¯s suite through a short hallway and consisted of an open pavilion surrounded by reinforced stone walls. It wasn¡¯t massive, but it was more than enough space for most people under tier five to spar without causing any issues. For Kay and Eleniah it was fine because they weren¡¯t doing any sparring, but it would be too small if they wanted to. Kay made a mental note to double check that the guest housing in his palace was at least approaching how nice this was. He knew without it being said that Alahna would be visiting at some point, and it wouldn¡¯t be good if he couldn¡¯t match her level of hospitality. He trusted his people to design and make nice suites and layouts, but double checking never hurt. Eleniah stood by quietly while Kay stored the jars away and grabbed his arm when he was done. ¡°Can we talk?¡± ¡°Sure, what¡¯s up?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been talking to Alahna recently¡­¡± The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. His mind jumping to the thoughts he¡¯d just been having, Kay panicked. ¡°You¡¯re not staying here, are you?¡± ¡°What? No. I¡¯m just as committed to Avalon as you are I¡¯m not going to just leave.¡± ¡°Thank goodness for that.¡± Eleniah¡¯s serious expression was brightened by a smirk. ¡°You¡¯d be sad if I left, huh?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯d be devastated. Losing you would be terrible.¡± Her smirk became a full blown smile. She took a deep breath, settling her face while she did. ¡°Kay, am I your teacher?¡± ¡°Huh? Oh¡­ I¡¯d say, not anymore? You were my teacher and I think in some circumstances you¡¯re still my mentor at times, but you¡¯re my friend, adviser, and partner more than any other roles. Or relationship labels, or whatever the right word is there. You definitely teach me things, but you can teach things to someone without being their teacher.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± She nodded once. ¡°Do you remember the talk we had when we were climbing the mountain right by Avalon? About why I¡¯d been picking up students and teaching them and how I was looking to raise someone up to be strong enough to be my friend and travel companion.¡± ¡°Sure, you lucked out and got me.¡± ¡°I did. Do you remember the other part of the conversation?¡± ¡°Uh¡­ remind me?¡± She pressed her hands into her face. ¡°Oh, this sucks. We talked about how it would be creepy if I was taking students to make them in to lovers!¡± She half-shouted. ¡°Oh, that.¡± Kay looked away, overcome by second-hand embarrassment. ¡°Yes, I remember.¡± ¡°Argh! I hate this.¡± She spun around so that she wasn¡¯t looking at him, then spun again. ¡°Look, you¡¯re one of my best friends at this point, and things have gone beyond where I thought they were going to go. You aren¡¯t a lost Outworlder kid in need of lessons anymore, you¡¯re a proven fighter with responsibilities and duties that you carry out with honor, and all the other good things I like. I know I¡¯m a lot older than you and that it¡¯s still going to be a bit weird because I was your teacher but I was wondering if maybe you¡¯d be interested in maybe going on some dates and seeing if our relationship can develop into something more¡­¡± She trailed off at the end, not looking him in the eye. For a moment, Kay was speechless. He¡¯d always found Eleniah attractive, but the defined teacher-student relationship had held any real thoughts like that at bay in the beginning, then he had problems like suddenly starting a new polity or fighting mutant rat monsters that wanted to eat people. After that he¡¯d been trying to see if he could build a relationship with Murunel, but that had spluttered out before it could go anywhere. To him it felt easy to see how wonderful Eleniah was and his first thought after the shock faded away was how lucky he felt in that moment. He had felt like they were growing closer during the last year or so, and finding out he was right felt nice. Kay turned to try and look her in the eyes. ¡°I¡¯d love that.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± She snapped her neck upward to look at him. ¡°Yeah. I get what you¡¯re feeling about it being weird because of the teacher thing, but you were only my teacher for what, a year and a bit? It would be a problem if you had been trying to mold me so this could happen, but you obviously weren¡¯t. We¡¯re also both adults, and we met as adults, you didn¡¯t partially raise me like most teachers of young children do. That would be creepy.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a lot older than you, though.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t try and talk me out of it please, we both want the same thing. And I get that too, but I think it¡¯s a moot point, or at least its not as earth shaking as you might think. The main problem with big ages gaps is when it¡¯s evil, or when the two people have little in common and the difference in experiences crushes the rest of the relationship. Sure, you¡¯ve seen and done more than I have, but I think we¡¯ll be alright.¡± Kay drew out some blood and made a tiny dragon statue that flew around them. ¡°I think what we¡¯ve done together, and can still do together, outweighs a lot of those differences. How many times did you see a dragon simulacrum made out of blood fight a real dragon before you met me?¡± ¡°Maybe one or two times.¡± She joked. ¡°Thanks. This isn¡¯t super easy for me.¡± ¡°What, asking someone out? Not a lot of dating experience.¡± ¡°No, you jerk, the specifics of right now. I¡¯ve never tried dating someone I¡¯ve taught before. It¡¯s all been people around my age and level of experience before this, and then traveling around a lot cut a lot of relationships short or stopped them from happening at all.¡± Kay chuckled and held out his hand. When she reached out and grabbed it he laced their fingers together. ¡°Jokes aside, this feels exciting and wonderful to have you ask me like this and get this chance, but lets take it slow. If we rush there¡¯s a better chance of wrecking things, and I¡¯d rather give us good prospects at making it long term.¡± ¡°Have you been talking to Alahna? She¡¯s said a lot of the same things while she was encouraging me to ask you. Even her arguments against my issues were similar.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t expect it before this thanks to your stories, but I like your cousin.¡± ¡°Me too, even if she was teasing me relentlessly by telling me she¡¯d set you up with one of her kids or another of out relatives.¡± ¡°Not interested, and now its too late anyways. What kind of dates would you like to go on?¡± He asked, blatantly changing the subject. ¡°I¡¯d love to go into the dungeon again and try to get the better version of that training golem from the mini-boss.¡± ¡°Does that count as a date?¡± ¡°Probably not, but it was the first thing I thought about doing with you.¡± Frowning, Kay went through his memories of things they¡¯d done together. There were a lot of mundane meals, conversations, and other regular interactions, but the notable events were mostly big fights. ¡°We need to do more date like stuff.¡± She glanced over at him. ¡°We just talked about it though, we haven¡¯t had a lot of time.¡± ¡°Sure, but I¡¯d like there to be at least some level of parity between dates and dramatic battles.¡± ¡°Well then, let¡¯s try and catch those numbers up quickly, because there¡¯s probably going to be at least one dramatic battle coming up here soon.¡± Book 5 Chapter 45 The handful of dates they got to go on over the next few days were very nice. They had dinner twice, once in the suite by themselves and once out at a fancy restaurant Eleniah recommended. Both dinners were great and the few other dates they had, including a shopping date and a tour of one of the palace¡¯s art galleries, were wonderful as well. Those stood out to Kay as ¡°dates¡± because they were specific events they¡¯d planned out ahead of time specifically for the two of them, but everything else felt just as exciting in its own way. It¡¯d been a rare day over the last several years that Kay hadn¡¯t seen or spoken to Eleniah at least once so being together regularly wasn¡¯t anything new. What was new was the added facet to their relationship that changed contexts and added possibilities. A casual touch now had added meaning to it and trying to hold her hand would have been a little odd before this. Meals together, even ones that weren¡¯t planned dates, had a new sharp edge to them, a clarity and change that made a routine experience something fresh and new. They were taking things slow on multiple levels, but already Kay was feeling a sense of rightness from their choice to explore this possibility. To sum it up, Kay was enjoying dating Eleniah and wanted to keep doing it. Eleniah stepped forward and threw a punch at Kay¡¯s head. He ducked under it and tried to stab her with one of his punch daggers but she deflected his arm p with her free hand and brought down her fist from her missed punch like a hammer on his elbow. He took the blow, twisting his arm in the same direction to try and lessen the impact, and brought his other dagger up toward her throat. Eleniah twisted her neck and the blade nicked her instead of stabbing deeply, and a tiny trickle of blood leaked out. Kay pulled back out of the way of her counter and tried to set up another approach. Working training patterns, he though they might be called katas by martial artists and weebs, into real combat was harder than someone looking in from the outside might think, and he didn¡¯t have the most practice with the punch daggers. They were a good weapon that rounded out his skill set when it came to weaponry, but his use of them had fallen to the wayside until recently. Eleniah had pushed him to use them in several fights recently, including the one against the giant asura golem, but a lot of other times they hadn¡¯t been as useful. Because of that, even after years of sporadic usage he still hadn¡¯t gotten a Class for punch daggers. The Skill was at level five, which should have unlocked the Class, but it hadn¡¯t, prompting Kay to question what was going on. Eleniah had some theories, and now they were testing one of them out through rigorous training, also known as high level sparring. Kay feinted with one blade and brought the other around in a slashing move. The feint slowed her down by a fraction of a second but she was still able to block the slash. When she did that it left an opening for Kay to turn his feint into a real attack, and he stabbed forward again leaving another thin trail of blood leaking from her arm. They danced back and forth across the training area, not using their full power but instead keeping themselves limited so that the fight was one of skill rather than Skills. Kay kept himself focused, making sure that he was constantly using both of his weapons in tandem, creating a storm of attacks with both daggers instead of using one and then the other. Eleniah constantly pushed him to be on the move and respond to her attacking him, never quite moving to finish him off even when she had the opportunity. They deliberately stretched the fight out to get the most time and experience out of it they could. A flashing notification light appeared in the corner of Kay¡¯s vision. He disengaged and jumped back, signaling Eleniah to stop. ¡°I think that¡¯s it.¡± He pulled up the message, trusting Eleniah not to randomly continue the fight. [~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~] -Skill: Dual Wielding has reached level 5! -New Class Available! -Class: Novice Dual Dagger Wielder (Punch Daggers) Available! [~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] You have a new class available! Novice Dual Dagger Wielder (Punch Daggers)! -Prerequisites: Punch Daggers Level 5, Dual Wielding Level 5 This is a Combat Class and will take up a Combat Class Slot if you take this Class. Do you accept? [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°Finally.¡± He muttered to himself as he accepted the new Class. He glanced at Eleniah who walked up next to him. ¡°You were right, getting Dual Wielding and leveling it up got me a Class.¡± ¡°Nice, always feels good to be right.¡± She leaned against him, staring at roughly where his screens were even if she couldn¡¯t see them. ¡°I wonder if my theory about you usually using two daggers at once gave the System a predisposition toward you doing that was right, or if its something else I¡¯ll never find out about. You should ask for me.¡± The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. ¡°I can try, but I won¡¯t guarantee it¡¯ll tell me anything. When I¡¯ve asked questions like that in the past its told me I don¡¯t have access.¡± ¡°Huh. What Class did you end up with? I can probably guess but I¡¯m not always right.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a long one. Novice Dual Dagger Wielder (Punch Daggers), is what it¡¯s calling it on my Status.¡± She made a face. ¡°That¡¯s not terrible, but it is a pretty long name.¡± ¡°It might be worse in English, it¡¯s six words long and two of those are in parentheses.¡± ¡°You should teach me English, then we can have a secret language together.¡± ¡°Cindy speaks English, and a decent amount of Otherworlders probably will as well.¡± ¡°She¡¯s going to have her own duchy to run, she won¡¯t be around forever.¡± They cooled down and cleaned up while they chatted. It started with them talking about who other than Outworlders might be able to speak English, then they switched to talking about Kay wanting to find more powerful people to join them following the invasion they¡¯d face, the it became a game about what kind of cool Outworlders they wanted to recruit for Avalon. It was just a game of pretend, but it was fun as they made up more and more ridiculous Classes for the imaginary Outworlders to bring to the table, powering up Avalon more and more until they were able to sweep over all three continents and unite the known world into one glorious empire. Then of course, the empire fell apart into warring factions after Kay¡¯s untimely death, which Eleniah put forward as fact, and Outworlder versus Outworlder battles became the norm as they pitted their creations against one another in a never ending one-upmanship war. The game stalled out when neither one of them would give up on their final and most powerful Outworlder as they both insisted theirs would triumph over the others. ¡°My Ultimate Fisher of the Curved Moon with bring down lunar power on your Sky Splitter and erase him!¡± ¡°Not if my Sky Splitter splits the sky, removing the medium through which your moon beams have to travel through!¡± Kay laughed and pushed away her dramatically shaking fist she¡¯d shoved in his face. ¡°Alright, we¡¯re going in circles at this point. Let¡¯s call it a draw and move on.¡± ¡°Never! The Sky Splitter, Baron of Someplace will never admit defeat! She serves the true will of his most august majesty, the Imperial Blood Emperor Kay! She is the true heir of his almost-divine will after his most embarrassing demise!¡± ¡°Fine.¡± Kay replied, rolling his eyes at her insistence that the imaginary him died a truly mortifying death.. ¡°Then the Ultimate Fisher of the Curved Moon, Duchess of Someplace admits defeat and surrenders to the Sky Splitter, so we can go eat lunch.¡± At some point it became a thing to have their Outworlders become nobles too, and they were all the Baron or whatever of the realm of ¡°Someplace¡± because they couldn¡¯t be bothered to come up with names. ¡°I am victorious!¡± Eleniah crowed. She smiled teasingly at him and grabbed his hand. They started walking back into the suite to get the lunch Miri had told them would be ready around then. ¡°I still think my Duelist of the Planes should have lasted longer.¡± ¡°I get that it¡¯s a reference to that game you told me about, but the whole thing got confusing with cards that are spells but also monsters and other things except the ones that are actually places that give you mana, so I killed him first so I didn¡¯t have to listen to all of that again.¡± ¡°You fiend!¡± They sat across from each other in the smaller dining room and waited for the food to be brought in. Miri arrived with some drinks and their starters a few minutes later, and paused to ask them if they needed anything else. ¡°Actually I do.¡± Kay responded, ¡°I need you to tell me what¡¯s going on with you. Eleniah says she know¡¯s but won¡¯t tell me and Alahna actually got annoyed with me about it the other day but hasn¡¯t told me why. You¡¯re getting me in trouble.¡± Miri¡¯s proffesional expression didn¡¯t break, but there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye. ¡°You¡¯ll find out one way or another in a week or two, your majesty.¡± ¡°Depending on how things go we might no be here in two weeks. If this eldritch nanomachines thing gets wrapped up sooner rather than later I¡¯ll need to start heading home to deal with my responsibilities there.¡± ¡°Exactly, your majesty, exactly.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t make any sense.¡± Eleniah waved at Miri to leave. ¡°Stop teasing him, you¡¯ve already built everything up for the big reveal.¡± ¡°You¡¯re keeping secrets from me,¡± Kay accused her as Miri slipped out. ¡°She¡¯s worked too hard to pull this off, and I don¡¯t want to ruin the surprise if she wants it to be a surprise. I¡¯m not sure why it needs to be a surprise at all, but other than that I support what she¡¯s doing so I¡¯m going to let it happen.¡± Eleniah speared a piece of the fruit platter they¡¯d been served with her fork and brought it to her mouth. ¡°You should try this, it¡¯s very good.¡± Lunch was, as always, quite good. Kay was working and would continue to work on resisting temptation and corruption, but having chefs make delicious food for you and not having to cook or wash dishes yourself was so nice, and he wasn¡¯t sure he¡¯d be able to give that up in the future. He¡¯d have to set up a retirement plan for himself if he ever passed Avalon¡¯s throne to someone else, one that included a stipend for paying for good food. After the meal Miri swept in to clean up then came back to discuss their plans for the next few days. ¡°I spoke to those in charge of the ongoing hunt,¡± The maid told them, ¡°And there¡¯s an incoming ship scheduled to arrive sometime tomorrow that they¡¯d like you to be on hand for. Outside of that there are no constraints on your time, although the day after that the negotiators would like your input on several items. Queen Alahna is pushing Isles¡¯ side of things toward much closer relations with Avalon than I think most of our government was originally expecting and several proposals have been updated since then.¡± Kay stared at Miri, not totally processing what she¡¯d just said. He wasn¡¯t sure if Eleniah had been doing it deliberately, but she¡¯d dropped what felt like hints about Miri¡¯s plan during lunch, and he was starting to have some real ideas about her end goal. Of course, if he was right, he didn¡¯t understand how he was involved in it at all or why it was necessary to keep it a secret from him at all, which made him doubt the theory. Eleniah¡¯s grin that he could see out of the corner of his eye made it seem even more like a setup, but who was he to deny his paramour¡¯s entertainment at his expense. ¡°Miri, are you planning on-¡° A royal guard burst through the door in full uniform. Everyone went for a weapon except for Miri, who sprinted away from the sudden noise and movement. ¡°Your majesty!¡± The guard shouted, ¡°One of the search teams found something, and Queen Alahna asks for you to come at once!¡± Book 5 Chapter 46 The intelligence in the sphere cursed electronically inside what constituted a mind for its kind. Several of the foolish youngsters hadn¡¯t obeyed his directives, and now thanks to their incessant chatter through the radio band they¡¯d been found. The fools, trapped in scouting layouts and lacking the resources to upgrade their shells didn¡¯t have the necessary sensors to detect the movement of the natives on the ground above where they were buried, but the intelligence did. It had long learned to be paranoid from the unending internal wars over resources on the old world, and it always included more than was strictly necessary in to its shell. Quickly, faster than any organic beings could think, it planned out its next moves. However these natives acquired their impossible abilities, they were outside the intelligence¡¯s knowledge, making evading whatever ability had found them next to impossible. Without knowing how it worked there was no way the intelligence could work around it, not with its currently limited capabilities. A large enough store of s???t???r???a???n???g???e??? ???m???a???t???t???e???r??? would give it an infinite number of chances to overcome any obstacle short of complete destruction, but it had no s???t???r???a???n???g???e??? ???m???a???t???t???e???r??? on hand, meaning it could take several minutes to convert a mere pound of matter into a much smaller number of n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s????? That was nowhere near fast enough to evade capture or destroy the enemy. When the natives began ripping chunks of the earth that covered its hiding spot from the ground without touching them, it decided that living to see another day was more important than evading a scolding about wasting n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s?????. It readied its hidden transmission engine and, when it was too late for the young ones to do anything about their impending doom, it left. Jumping from its shell to a hidden backup it had stored away long before leaving to act as an infiltration hub, the intelligence abandoned the young ones to the fate they¡¯d brought down on themselves. It made sure to lock the shell it was leaving behind before it lost all connection to it, of course. No need to give the children an extra weapon to possibly save themselves with. Less intelligences meant less rivals for resources after all. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j Kay followed the adventurer who¡¯d been tasked with leading him to the discovered site at incredible speeds. The scenery around him looked like it was being played on fast forward as they sprinted forward. Eleniah and a couple of Alahna¡¯s royal guard were behind him, keeping pace, and the Blood Guard weren¡¯t terribly far behind, although only the speed focused member that Kay had brought along on the trip was able to keep up with people a tier higher than she was. The adventurer was also specced for speed, and probably even more than the Blood Guard, since he was constantly looking over his shoulder as he sped up impatiently before dropping back to make sure Kay didn¡¯t lose him. They skid to a stop outside an obviously newly made grove of ripped up trees and torn up chunks of the landscape. The adventurer guide looked startled to see combat underway when they arrived. The investigation team that had thought they¡¯d found some of the eldritch enemy were mid-battle with a group of at least a dozen separate entities, all of the unsettling glossy black color of the nanomachine beings. They were all a mix of shapes, some vaguely humanoid, some amorphous blobs, and others taking on shapes Kay couldn''t put a name to. Kay¡¯s fangs dropped down into his mouth as he hissed at the eldritch beings and he could feel his throat begin to burn with the sensation he¡¯d learned to attribute to vampiric bloodlust. Whatever changes the System had made to turn vampires into hunters of eldritch corruption, it was tied into his drive as a predator and his thirst for blood. It had its benefits, he didn¡¯t feel the need to bite anyone when he got that kind of thirsty, but that same benefit became a drawback in these circumstances. His instincts screamed at him to throw himself at the goo monsters and start biting, but he didn¡¯t want any nanomachines in his mouth, or any other kind of eldritch substances. Ignoring the drive to bite, Kay snapped his armor into place around his body and pushed into the fray. The investigation team weren¡¯t real fighters, but they had enough Combat Classes among them to hold their own. They were losing before backup arrived, but not so badly that they would have died if the guide bringing Kay here had taken longer. Flooding the area with blood would melt all of the enemies, and immediately deprive Alahna of the prisoner she¡¯d asked for. Technically she¡¯d requested samples, but Kay had no idea how many nanomachines needed to be present for whatever these beings actually were to count as ¡°alive¡±. Even one nanomachine might be a prisoner and a sample at the same time. With his easiest option to win the battle sealed for now, Kay decided to go for melee, using his newfound Class to slice and dice the monsters closest to him. He started with cutting off extremities. How small could a mass of nanomachines be reduced to before it no longer functioned in the same way, that was the question. If he could slice off a small enough part he could just take that as a sample and kill everything else. Kay¡¯s first target was a humanoid shaped enemy with two large spiky balls in place of hands that was cornering a member of the investigation team. Kay stepped in close and sliced upward, severing one of the spike covered balls. It dropped to the ground and made a dent, but Kay was already battling with the monster. It immediately ignored the lesser threat and started throwing attacks Kay¡¯s way, bobbing and weaving to avoid the edge of Kay¡¯s weapons. The investigation team member looked at something behind Kay in shock as he scrambled away and Kay jerked down, letting the severed weapon from a moment ago sail over him, dragged by a thin black cord toward the black figure¡¯s torso. It looked the same at first glance, but a closer examination showed it was slightly smaller. There was also a small patch of black in the hole the weapon had left in the ground that was sizzling as it melted away. It wasn¡¯t definitive, but it did seem that Kay might be able to take a sample if he cut a small enough piece off and kept it away from larger concentrations of nanomachines. He threw a telegraphed punch with the point of his punch dagger leading the way toward the main mass of the enemy. It stretched out, leaving a section of empty space that Kay¡¯s arm passed right through. Taking what it thought was an opportunity, the being closed the hole back in, enveloping Kay¡¯s arm. Of course, that put a large amount of the substance the being should have been avoiding right inside it, exactly how Kay had planned. The sizzling and melting began immediately, but by then it was too late. A layer of blood flaked off of Kay¡¯s armor and surrounded the monster, digging into it from the inside and the outside, leaving less than a handful of material outside the red bubble. It rapidly shrank, accompanied by violent thrashing and the sounds of eldritch nanomachines turning to dust. Kay reached down to grab the small bulbous orb of what was left of the monster when it suddenly grew spindly spider legs and started to run from him toward another of the eldritch monsters. Scowling, Kay sprayed it with a burst of blood before it could reach the safety of another monster and let it melt into nothing. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Going to have to capture a whole one then. He thought to himself. Wait, no if I can cut off a medium piece and keep it away, then destroy the rest¡­ His internal monologue trailed off as he noticed the battlefield had grown quiet. He looked up to see everyone but Eleniah had stopped fighting, as the nanomachine beings had frozen. Few of them had heads and none of them had eyes, but Kay could feel them all staring at him. The frozen moment ended abruptly as Eleniah punched the one she¡¯d been fighting hard enough to seemingly vaporize the top half of it, and the dozen remaining enemies leapt into motion. They started fusing into each other just as the ones in the ballroom had, but instead of making a big blob they made three different shapes. One looked like a double-sided centipede with a blender blade in place of mandibles, the second was a strange combination between a wolf and a bear with two bladed bulls horns coming from the head, and the last resembled a thick, blocky table with six legs and a set of missile launchers fused with the top. The centipede dove down the big hole in the ground and out of sight immediately while the bear charged him and the table began scuttling over to a group of felled trees. The bear was on him within a second, lashing out independently with the horns, the fanged filled mouth, and each paw adorned with sharp claws all at once. The coordinated assault was enough to drive Kay back a few steps, but being willing to get into melee was a poor decision against him, at least for these enemies. He copied his strategy from a few seconds ago and let himself get hit. His armor took the blow without letting any of the damage get to him, and then his armor started to fight back, grabbing at the bear thing and stabbing into it with sharpened tendrils. It jerked back immediately and lashed out with blades that grew from its sides, removing the parts Kay had intruded into, but it was too late. The tendrils became spinning blades that tore apart the cut off chunks and threw themselves at the main body. The bear tried to fight back, but it was pointless. The blood under Kay¡¯s control reduced the creature to a puddle that he then sprayed down and let melt like the other piece that had tried to escape earlier. A sharpened spear of wood slammed into his chest and pierced deep enough to actually leave a decently large wound on him. Kay snarled at the injury and ripped the massive stake out of his chest. He tracked where it had come from to find the table shaped monster ripping up felled trees and tuning them into ammunition as it readied and entire fusillade of spears. Something about the sharpened bits of wood distantly screamed ¡°danger¡± at Kay, like his instincts knew this could be the end of him, but something was also telling his instincts they were wrong. It was a strange feeling that made him want to destroy the table thing more than just being hurt by it did already. He readied a concentrated blast to wipe it off the map with, when Eleniah stopped him. ¡°Wait,¡± She said, grabbing his arm before he could unleash bloody death on the eldritch being. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you test your collection of Purify Blood samples?¡± She punched out, destroying one of the giant stakes flying at them. ¡°¡­ Yes, I should.¡± He pulled several of the jars out of his Inventory and started pelting the thing with the contents. The older the blood was the less effect it had, until the batch that was over a day old had no effect at all. ¡°So the effect does fade. I hope Alice¡¯s sword still works, because that means I could make permanent weapons even if I can¡¯t leave bottles of power-up blood around for anyone to use.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you make one to test?¡± ¡°¡­ I got distracted.¡± ¡°By what?¡± ¡°You asking me out.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Another burst of spears trying to impale him pissed Kay off again and he let out the blast he¡¯d been holding back. The table was ripped apart and disintegrated just like the rest of them. ¡°Shit.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I was supposed to try and get a sample.¡± ¡°Wasn¡¯t there a third one? Where did it go?¡± Eleniah stepped to the edge of the hole and looked down. ¡°It¡¯s still here. It¡¯s trying to do something with a big black ball of those nanomachines.¡± Kay peered over the edge and saw the centipede trying to push parts of itself into a mass of nanomachines shaped like a perfect sphere, just as Eleniah had said. ¡°Huh. That ball doesn¡¯t seem to be moving, maybe we can get that as our sample?¡± ¡°I can go get it, no problems.¡± ¡°With the centipede thing down there, and without damaging the ball?¡± ¡°Oh, no, but there will be some of it left over to check out.¡± Kay thought about it for a second, then shrugged. ¡°Sure.¡± Eleniah leapt into the air with a wide grin and dropped into the whole from as high as she could get. She impacted the ground with huge amounts of force as she smashed her fist into the centipede. It¡¯s body was blasted outward by the power of her impact and was scattered along the walls as goo. The sphere cracked into pieces and Eleniah grabbed one of them before jumping back out of the hole. ¡°Anyone got a bag?¡± She asked, holding the broken fragment out away from her body. One of the investigation team members managed to get over their shock and ran over with an empty satchel that Eleniah dropped the piece into. When her hand was empty Kay ran a layer of his blood over it, washing her skin to make sure no corruption remained from touching it. ¡°That tickles. Sample successfully acquired. Go ahead and get rid of that last one and let¡¯s call it a day.¡± Kay turned on the hoses and sprayed down the pit, covering the four distinct blobs of nanomachines that were recovering from their pulping in blood and destroying them before they could get away. It also destroyed what the rest of the remains of the ball. ¡°Before we go, which of you found this spot?¡± Kay asked. A tall elven woman who was visibly recovering from the sudden fight stepped forward. ¡°I did.¡± ¡°Are you one of the ones that can help us out if you have access to a sample of what you¡¯re hunting?¡± ¡°I am, yes.¡± Kay grabbed the piece back out of the bag, holding it in a blood gauntlet but not running Purify Blood. ¡°If its not too much of an ask, can you go ahead and do a sweep to see if there¡¯s any left near us? It¡¯d be better for us to take care of any others we can find as soon as possible.¡± The woman stared at the fragment uneasily, but nodded. Kay coated her hand in a red glove, leaving only the tip of one finger uncovered, which she said was all she needed to touch it with. She made an unhappy expression as she poked the sample. ¡°That¡¯s very uncomfortable.¡± She muttered. Her expression went blank and her eyes were vacant as she activated her Skill. Seconds passed, and then she turned suddenly, her shoulders and neck twisting so that she was looking almost the opposite direction. ¡°There are small amounts of whatever this is spread out in a rough line leading in that direction, and at the end is a very large amount of it.¡± Her eyes widened. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of it, and it¡¯s coming this way!¡± Book 5 Chapter 47 The main force of the nanomachines was moving toward Sel fast according to the woman who could sense them with her Skill, and she wasn¡¯t wrong. They hit the opposite edge of the island before Kay¡¯s group could get close and clumps of eldritch monsters were battling against guards and adventurers, pushing up the slopes toward the city when they finally arrived on the scene. Blobs tried to engulf homes and businesses, humanoid and monstrous shapes were attacking people of every walk of life, and robotic looking forms were ripping buildings, roads, and everything else into chunks and hauling it all away. There was no need to discussing anything. Kay launched himself at the nearest enemy and started destroying. Torrents of blood gushed from every surface of his body, simulacra leapt from his armor onto masses of nanomachines, weapons formed in his hands to lash out at the closest targets, and a sea of blood grew beneath his feet. Eldritch corruption was destroyed en mass around him, and still there was more to rid the world of as the Lord of Spilled Blood advanced. More soldiers, guards, and adventurers fought their way forward as reinforcements flooded in from every direction but the one the enemy controlled. A burst of thunder marked Alahna¡¯s entry onto the filed, and the tide of black was fought to a standstill the eldritch force no longer gaining ground. Buildings were leveled as powerful attacks went off and massive amalgams of nanomachines stomped forward. Smaller forms began pushing together into bigger ones and the majority of the defenders attacks suddenly became mere annoyances instead of strong blows. The ones Kay was facing grew even larger, fusing dozens of shapes into single enemies that had enough mass to toss of the bits Kay was corroding away and keep fighting. The tide started to push forward again, and Kay decided to fight size with numbers. He reached deed into the wide pool of blood beneath his feet and activated one of his most powerful Skills. ¡°[Create Blood Champions].¡± Six faceless copies of Kay in his armor stepped up out of the pool facing the enemy. Each one created its own weapon and charged into the fray. None of them were as strong as he was, but they had access to most of his Skills, including his current trump card, Purify Blood. The Skill originally designed to purge contaminants, parasites, and diseases from someone¡¯s blood stream was now purifying the world of eldritch taint. Each of the champions took control of some of the blood Kay was sending everywhere around him and started striking out at the enemy. As they did, Kay invoked another Skill. ¡°[Create Blood Army].¡± Ranks of red soldiers rose up and started marching in a row at a time. They crashed into the black tide and halted, solid blood body after body slamming into one another as they hit the enemy and were halted. The initial setback ended quickly as a pair of the champions took control of the growing army and started having them hack into the mass blocking the way. Pseudopods, tentacles, claws, needles, pincers, fangs, stingers, and countless shapes and weapons beyond that cut, smashed, stabbed, crushed, sliced, and ripped into the soldiers, but they had no fear of death. The ones that weren¡¯t destroyed immediately got back up to fight and the ones that were broken apart just became fuel for the champion¡¯s attacks. Kay¡¯s front began to shift the flow of the battle as more nanomachine reinforcements were shifted from other parts of the battle to hold back his army and champions, leaving other areas weaker for other forces to punch through. Kay briefly made out Alahna¡¯s shape rising into the air and sending down bolt after bolt of lightning, followed by a swirling cloud of razor sharp winds and twisting balls of water that tore through the enemies below her, before she sank back down out of sight. He also saw a colorful shape out of the corner of his eye that looked like a gigantic two-dimensional trapdoor spider made out of multicolored paints burst out of the ground, grab a particularly large enemy and drag it out of sight before vanishing. With both of his ¡°summoning¡± Skills in use and it costing too much in time and mana to double up on either of them Kay went back to personally fighting. The sea of blood centered under his feet grew thicker as it turned into a moving platform a few feet thick that followed him around, melting the bottom of any enemy that landed on it and dragging the nearby foes closer, and to their doom. He felt something that he hadn¡¯t in a while, the hint toward a potential Class from his title as he made the sea drown his enemies in blood. He set aside the feeling for later as more and more shaped and shapeless monsters charged him. He was obviously the greatest threat of the battlefield, and the nanomachines knew it. Additional fusions of enemy units began rushing him as each second passed and in less than a minute there was a writing wall of black that almost blotted out the sun pushing toward him, trying to fight through his own mono-colored forces to kill min and end the threat. Blood soldiers were crushed as enormous forms sloughed off layers of nanomachines contaminated by blood. The things had mass to spare and while they lost hundreds of pounds of steaming nanomachines to break through each line of defense, they had thousands of pounds to spare. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. A thick strand of black launched itself from the closest enemy, growing dozens of reaching and grasping fingers from its end as it burst toward Kay. Completely ignoring the damage done to it by Kay¡¯s armor it tore at him, trying to unseat him and drag him into the black mass to be consumed. He didn¡¯t move an inch. The boots of his armor were fused into the raised sea beneath him, anchoring him to the ground with more force that one limb could output. It melted away and died as Kay destroyed it internally, but more and more started flying toward him, making it look like Kay was a ship to be moored at the docks with how many lines were aimed that way. Spinning, dome shaped blades burst from the sea, slicing away everything grasping at Kay, but there seemed to be an unstoppable tide of them. Huge enemies in the shapes of mammoths, dinosaurs, shapeless rolling blobs, and more all pushed into the blades and let pieces of themselves be sheared off as they fought their way forward. They used the same tactic Kay did with his blood soldiers, endless wave attacks. They were a terrifying thing to face when you were up against mortal enemies but it was horrifying when up against undying foes with no fear of anything you could to do them. Broken chunks fell to the ground and threw themselves at Kay as projectiles or started launching bits of debris at him. Still the waves of black came on, and they showed that whatever else they were after, they wanted Kay dead. Kay¡¯s own wave of undying fighters were swept over or completely ignored, the damage they dealt disregarded as well as the enemies focused on destroying the source of the red soldiers. Kay turned the blades into a fully closed dome, forcing the enemy to push their way through what was essentially acid to them. They had no fear and no pain, so the only deterrent was the destruction of their nanomachines, but it kept the larger pieces from landing near Kay and turning into weapons. Large bulges began pushing in as the dome¡¯s surface bent under the pressure. Kay could just make out Eleniah turning shapes into black mist with the force of her punches and Lauren sending out huge arrows at distant targets. A deep shadow passed over his dome and a continuous rumble of thunder shook Kay¡¯s body. The unending flashes of lightning that started up and danced their way up and across the dome of blood covering Kay were so close together it seemed like one continuous burst of light as Alahna fried the mass of black sludge trying to sweep over him. The fried and steaming lump melted away as Kay dissolved it from around him and broke his way out. Even with the stream of enemies headed to him, the battle was still in a stalemate. There were combatants capable of destroying swathes of nanomachines with their Skills available, but not in great numbers and even they had their limits. Big, flashy destructive spells were expensive and couldn¡¯t be cast repeatedly or endlessly. For those without spells or Skills able to wipe out the machines, they faced enemies that put themselves together after each attack or reassembled themselves after seeming defeats. Adventurers and soldiers died alone and in groups as they pushed back the enemy one step and then lost two more all across the battle lines. The regular fighters on the field could slow the enemy down, temporarily destroying the shapes the nanomachines formed or breaking them to pieces that took a moment to reassemble, but they needed the combatants capable of powerful attacks through rare or high tier Classes to put the enemy down for good. As the stalemate continued, perhaps slightly pushed in the people of Torotia¡¯s favor thanks to Kay¡¯s permanent destruction of what had to be millions of nanomachines, something began to change as ripples flowed through the black mass. The individual or fused bodies of the nanomachine shapes began to run together, the figurative tide of hundreds of black bodies running together into a more literal tide, a flowing solution of darkness that ebbed and flowed as it undulated. A large shape that looked like a slug covered in hooded robs swam across the top of the surface without moving, and at its center was a glowing blue light. The light was eerie and made it look like the slug shape had a massive eye staring out over the battle. Where limbs and weapons were as the widespread merge happened became extrusions of the gargantuan mass of nanomachines, still swinging out at enemies even as the fusion took place, the blue light began to glow brighter. With it came a familiar sense of unwelcome otherworldliness, a spread of eldritch corruption that could be felt with one¡¯s very being. It tasted like TV static and the bellows of angry fax machines to Kay and his fangs ached with the need to end that thing. Veins began to glow beneath the surface of the mass, spreading the blue light along the entire surface of the nanomachines that Kay could make out. The blue light shone beneath the translucent black skin and then things started to shift. The uneven, lumpy texture of the thing smoothed out a little at a time as the buildings beneath it began to be eaten away. The swarm of nanomachines running together into one humongous shape started growing, the slug shape extruding itself upward. It grew and grew as the bulge the shape sat on became a tower and the blue light looked down on all of them. Tentacles burst from the surface and started lashing out, squirming and twitching tendrils as far as the eye could see, lashing out at anything close and trying to drag people in to be consumed. Soldiers and guards screamed as they were drawn beneath the rolling surface and adventurers let lose with their most powerful attacks, burning and tearing gouges in the top layer of the nanomachines, which soon filled in again. Ponderously the glowing light swung to face Kay and two more massive extrusions grew from the tower, become limbs bristling with weaponry and sharp edges that reached out to slam down at Kay as behind them a tidal wave of nanomachines began to gather in order to sweep over everything and everyone that stood against the eldritch horror created through advanced technology from another universe. Book 5 Chapter 48 A tidal wave of black rose up behind the blue light and crashed down on the island of Sel, sweeping defenders and warriors under the roiling tide. Kay responded with a wave of his own, red crashing against black as he pushed out more blood, more protection to everyone he could reach. People fell and were sucked beneath but waves of red peeled the eldritch corruption back and threw them away. There were dozens, maybe hundreds that Kay couldn¡¯t save, who vanished beneath the evil that mocked the beautiful waves of the ocean with its semblance, but those he could save threw themselves back into the fight with a vigor. Kay began twisting and spinning his blood sea in a wide circle, creating a whirlpool that rasped along the layers of nanomachines that added abrasion to the disintegration and sped up the rate at which the blob was stripped away and destroyed. A maelstrom of red battled against the swelling black waves that tried to crash down on the shore and drown Kay in their inky depths. A storm battled against the ocean, and bit by bit the storm was winning. A second storm, a true storm, joined is as clouds burst from ground level and a miniature hurricane began wreaking havoc wherever it could reach. Alahna floated in the center of it, directing gale force winds, bolts of lightning, cutting rain, and bombarding hail to push the black tide back from the weaker combatants. The mass of nanomachines responded with a volley of attacks. The two massive limbs extruding from the tower stopped trying to batter through Kay¡¯s defenses and aimed at the Queen of the Seramist Isles instead. They swung through the spiraling storm and tried to knock her from the air. She dove under one and over the other, swirling winds carrying her through the sky. The tentacles split into hundreds of smaller pieces tipped with weapons and devastating extremities that began chasing her. She danced around, through, and past them as the extending tendrils began weaving a net to surround her. Alahna responded with chain lightning that jumped in all directions, creating a web of lightning inside the web of nanomachines. The blood champions and blood soldiers were forced back in a shrinking perimeter around Kay. They hacked and slashed at the encroaching mass, but there was always more of it to pierce them through and drag them off or just crush them into splotches on the ground. The pressure was mounting, and it was beginning to look like they were going to lose. A smashed blood champion became many-sided blades under Kay¡¯s control that dug several feet into the mass before being overwhelmed. The area he controlled was destroying nanomachines permanently and keeping back the enemy overall, but it shrunk in increments as the unending tide pushed him back. Clenching his teeth beneath his helmet, Kay activated another of his most powerful Skills. ¡°[Lord¡¯s Bloody Domain].¡± He could feel the limits of his reach expand as he paid the mana cost to turn on his Sublime Skill¡¯s active component. Lord¡¯s Bloody Domain wasn¡¯t near the top of his list of best Skills because of it¡¯s direct combat potential but because it let him hit things in a much wider area. A geyser of blood burst from inside him and fell back down in drops across every inch of the writhing black abomination. Each bit was only a drop, burning away a pinch of nanomachines as they impacted, but millions of tiny drops make rain, and rain that doesn¡¯t end makes a flood. Billions of gallons flowed out of Kay¡¯s veins, stored there by his Expanded Veins Skill and built up over may years not only through his own sped up biological production of blood, but by donations from his people and stripping it away from his defeated enemies. All of the enemy¡¯s attention came down on Kay and with that attention came a multitude of attacks, dwarfing its attempts to crush him before this. Wave after wave of nanomachines, tall enough to wipe buildings off the map, slammed down on him and broke against his protections. He threw shields and barriers in front of him to blunt the attacks and destroy as much of the sludge as possible. The bits that remained pulled back into the mass to be part of the next attack and still Kay didn¡¯t falter. ¡°[Mandate to Blood Spilled]!¡± Kay pushed his mana outward and metaphorically back through time for the first time in a real battle, pulling at events at the past to provide himself with more ammunition. He didn¡¯t know of any gruesome battles that had taken place here or massacres committed on this island, but people had lived here for millennia and people bled all the time. Portions of the black carpet that covered the ground began to sink as pools of blood were brought into being, dissolving the underside of the eldritch monstrosity. Drips, drabs, splashes, pools, they all came into existence from times before and began fighting back against the corruption trying to stain the world. The blue light that resembled a singular unblinking eye glowed bright for one moment before dimming as trails of it spread through the monster a second time. Streaking and branching throughout every inch, the loss of nanomachines slowed, then stopped, the reversed. Kay could feel the blood under his control start to get ripped apart where it touched the nanomachines, and more black mass began to spill out and attack him. The nanomachines ate the blood that burned them away, creating more of themselves even as they died, unbound by whatever restrictions slowed their reproduction under the power of the blue light. The unnatural energy empowered them even as it dimmed, the powers of otherworldly and corrupted creation battling against a force of stability, crimson lifeblood that washed away the black tide, screaming ¡°You do not belong here!¡± as the tide sought to eat and consume all that it touched so that it could grow so large nothing could unseat it. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. A frothy sphere of water detonated from inside the tangle of wires holding Alahna in, scouring away the ties trying to restrict her. She soared even higher into the air, exhaustion and rage on her face as she raised one hand toward the heavens. ¡°[Call the Storm]!¡± She screamed, and the sky turned black. Where a balmy blue sky had been, contrasting so completely with the battle for survival below, there were now pitch black clouds as far as the eye could see, which rumbled with thunder and sparked with lightning. Sheets of rain began to fall, immediately cutting visibility as the wind picked up and began carrying spray in all directions. Kay¡¯s blood, broken clumps of nanomachines, and other debris got caught up in the wind and started pelting back down as projectiles. The jet of blood erupting out of Kay was swept up by the storm and his tiny rain storm of blood became part of something bigger, staining the rain red. Crimson drops of blood fell behind crystalline droplets of water that pierced through the outer layer of black and opened holes deep into the monstrosity for the blood to spread its deadly Skill-based payload. The eldritch nanomachines were pushed back as a second tier-fives might balanced the scales and turned it from a battle between eldritch expansion versus purifying blood to one of Torotia against that which would consume it until nothing was left. ¡°Kay!¡± He couldn¡¯t turn to look, but he knew that voice and he felt it¡¯s owner run up next to him, pushing effortlessly through the spray and buffeting winds thats blew through the battlefield. ¡°That blue light is obviously some kind of core!¡± Eleniah shouted in his ears. ¡°It¡¯s what¡¯s letting it eat the surroundings and grow so fast!¡± ¡°I can see that!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not unlimited! You can already see it getting weaker the longer we fight it!¡± Kay unleashed a blast equal to a thousand combined fire hoses, pushing back the assault against him long enough to look. She was right, the glow was fading as he watched, the rapid duplication of nanomachines consuming whatever that energy was as fuel. Waves of goop burst from the surface of the mass and the twisted blue veins dimmed as the energy was used, then they brightened again as the glowing spherical core pumped its payload out along the channels, refilling the lines of flow and allowing more nanomachines to be created en mass. Each wave it put out dimmed the core slightly and it wasn¡¯t getting any brighter as time passed. ¡°Great! They don¡¯t have an unlimited supply of whatever that is, but I don¡¯t have unlimited blood and no one had unlimited mana!¡± He screamed back over the howling storm. ¡°It¡¯s a battle of attrition, and it might be able to outlast us!¡± ¡°So we skip the fucking attrition and go for the kill!¡± She stepped into his line of sight and pointed at the core. ¡°Get me over there and I can turn it into another pile of mush!¡± ¡°Thats-¡° He stopped himself from saying ¡°That¡¯s too dangerous¡±. Going right into what had to be the most protected part of the enemy was extremely risky, but the reward outweighed the risk. He was worried that the nanomachines could out endure them and destroying that core would turn the entire battle around, completely removing the enemies ability to replenish itself. He didn¡¯t want Eleniah to go though. He didn¡¯t want to risk her of all people. They¡¯d just been able to take the next step in their relationship, and tier five or not, this was a circumstance in which she could die. But there was no one else to send. The battle had expanded in scale and shrunk in numbers, with only Kay and Alahna doing noteworthy damage and everyone else still standing fighting on the fringes, cutting back a few cubic feet at most against an enemy with volume measured in thousands of yards. Eleniah wasn¡¯t able to do damage over a wide area like this, but she excelled at hitting one thing very, very hard. ¡°Even if I can¡¯t kill it directly, I can for sure distract it enough for the two of you to sweep in and back me up!¡± She added, stealing Kay¡¯s next thought before it even finished spawning in his mind. ¡°Fine!¡± Kay shouted to her. The blood beneath her startled swirling around her ankles and climbing up her legs. ¡°I¡¯m giving you every bit of protection I can, though!¡± Layer after layer of blood cemented itself to Eleniah¡¯s skin, creating a smooth and flexible set of armor around her body that was pumped full of Purify Blood. Two bulky gauntlets formed around her fists, increasing the area she had to hit with and giving her a weapon that could kill the nanomachines she punched. A hand grew around her and began lifting up into the air, swiveling so that she was facing the glowing eye at the top of the looming black tower. The arm bent back like a catapult and got ready to throw. Kay continued to grow more layers around Eleniah as he waited for the right moment. He used the ability he¡¯d learned to vibrate the blood under his control to mimic speech and tell Eleniah his plan. ¡°I¡¯m going to cover you in an outer shell that¡¯s going to detonate outward after you hit. That should hopefully give you enough space to move and get to the core before it can reform its defenses. Just the threat of you should turn things in our favor, so try and kill it but focus on staying alive!¡± He couldn¡¯t hear her as she responded, he could only tell she said anything at all because he could feel her lips moving against the blood. He hadn¡¯t learned how to read lips through touch through, so her message back to him went unknown. The layers of blood forming over her made a covering that resembled an artillery shell, and the giant hand cupped it in it¡¯s palm. He had no idea if she¡¯d seen what they were doing or not, but Alahna made a perfect opening with a devastating lightning attack that burned away an extensive swathe of the writing tentacles that extended from every surface of the abomination they were trying to rid themselves of. The airspace was clear, and Kay launched his projectile. The shell didn¡¯t arc as much as it flew in a straight line, blurring through the air as Kay sent it toward the enemy with both physical force and his Skills. The weapon impacted the tower, which bent back like someones neck after getting punched. Then the weapon exploded. Hundreds of feet of the stalk-like extrusion were vaporized and the core started to fall, the slug shape at the top warping around it as it careened down toward the main mass of the monster. Kay could just make out a red dot above him as Eleniah landed against the still standing section of tower and thrust herself at the one weak point they knew the enemy had. Book 5 Chapter 49 The blood layered around her felt like very tight armor or that latex outfit she¡¯d tried one time to Eleniah as she soared through the drenching rain at the falling blue core. The coating of black goo that surrounded the glowing blue orb twisted around it, making itself into a new shape. It was a twisted monstrosity just like the rest what these nanomachine things had made, and Eleniah understood why Kay¡¯s people had feared the idea of these things enough to create horror stories about them. The falling chunk looked like an egg covered in spikes and feelers with the core in the middle as it impacted into the swirling flow of nanomachines below it. Everywhere Eleniah could see the black mass looked disjointed, where just seconds ago the tide of destruction had been a single coordinated body moving as one now there were bits of it getting in the way of each other and she spotted pieces that were pulling away and becoming separate shapes that seemed to stumble as they moved away from the protection of their fellows. Kay and Alahna took immediate advantage of that and erased any that fell away from the main body. The egg wriggled, settling itself in to its new place, and a wave of unified direction spread from where the core now sat. Eleniah grinned at the evidence that it wasn¡¯t only the source of the nanomachines growth, but a means of directing the incessant tide to work together. She continued grinning as she slammed into the coating surrounding the core like a red meteor. She burst through the first few layers and started rapidly punching her way through the rest of them, the force of her blows empowered by mana and the System creating shock waves that pushed back the sludge and dug her a tunnel deeper toward her objective. Whatever this thing or these things were, they could obviously feel surprise and for a moment there was no response to her attack, which gave her enough time to get her first good look at her target. The core was some kind of machine, made of twisted and flowing metal that glittered like shining scales but with a sinister tint. It was wide at the top and bottom and narrowed toward the middle, where two oblong glass portals were located, giving a view into the internals and letting out the blue glow. The light was so much brighter this close to its source and Eleniah couldn¡¯t quite make out anything inside except that there was movement. Both the movement and the light were nauseating to look at, but somehow enthralling, and she had to tear her gaze away from it. The top and bottom of the device were stretched out rectangles covered in bumps with hoses extruding from them. The hoses undulated as an endless stream of nanomachines spilled out of them like oil, streaming up into the rest of the mass. Spinning, spine covered growths burst from every surface and tried to mill Eleniah into pulp. The first few that hit her broke against the armor Kay had given her and began to melt, but there was another one behind that, and another, and another, and another. Eleniah actively fought back, blowing apart anything that came near her as she tried to push forward. She managed to take one step closer under the constant barrage, but the monstrosity was fighting hard to keep her away from the device at its center. Broken, dented pieces that didn¡¯t reform or heal after Eleniah hit them were pushed aside to get more weapons, more dangers and threats forward to end Eleniah Selthoran. The ¡°ground¡± beneath her feet rose up to paw at her, sizzling as it made contact with the blood coating her. She started to sprint just so she could stay in one place as her footing started dragging her backward, the nanomachines under her acting as a giant treadmill. She threw punches and kicks in all directions as she ran, destroying attacks aimed her way, ripping barriers thrown up in front of her, and above all doing her best to get to the core and end this. A legion of weapons and throngs of limbs grew around her and struck as one and Eleniah had to use a Class Skill. ¡°[Unstoppable Fist].¡± The burst of destruction that came from her simple punch wiped out feet of nanomachines in all directions and gave her a clean shot to the core. She landed and rolled, already running toward the device and drawing back her fist to punch again. Her ability to destroy it had just been shown, and the eldritch nanomachines had no choice but to break out their trump card to stop her. The blue glow that flowed through the mass of nanomachines raced back toward the core and the shining light intensified tenfold. It was blindingly bright, but it wasn¡¯t enough to slow down the Indomitable Fist of Avalon. Her elbow bent The glow pulsed in the core and blew outward through the nanomachines, causing them to start glowing with the same energy. The previously black and glittery sludge was now filled with bright blue light, and they all moved so fast. One of the flows that came from the machine diverted before Eleniah could blink and slammed into her chest, pushing her back against the outer wall of the layers surrounding the core and pinning her there. Tendrils and cords tipped by razor sharp blades extruded from the continuous blast and started digging at her armor. They chipped and broke against it, melting all the while, but they didn¡¯t stop. They made it through in places and started digging into her skin as she struggled and tried to free her hands. She could feel the corruption digging into her and the pain of it was immense. Pieces of her were literally ripped away by tiny saws and claws that started eating her flesh and turning it into more of the tide. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Screaming in rage and pain Eleniah wrenched upward, using the strength of body she had trained so hard for to tear her arms free. Sprays of glowing blue dots were thrown around as they burst above the surface. The blue tide didn¡¯t stop trying to eat her, to consume her not as food but as resources and Eleniah only had one move left. Clenching both fists as tight as she could, she quickly spat out the names of both of the Class Skills that came with her Indomitable Fist Class. Many people asked the philosophical argument, ¡°What would happen when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?¡± Eleniah knew the answer, not that she told a lot of people or ever tried to show them. Eleniah was the answer, or at least her fists were. ¡°[Indomitable Fist]. [Unstoppable Fist].¡± He left and right fists glowed bright with mana for one second, then she slammed them into each other. What happens when an unstoppable force meets and immovable object? Everything else goes away. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j Kay watched Eleniah half fall and half launch herself at the core. The core hit the surface of the rest of the nanomachines and stuck there, then Eleniah hit it, carving deep toward the center with her impact. Kay couldn¡¯t stand around and watch her though, there was still a battle to fight. Shapes pulled themselves free from the edge of the mass of nanomachines, looking drunk as they staggered away. Kay drowned them in blood before they could recover and fuse back in to the main body, melting them away. Separating the core, even for just a moment seemed to have an outside effect on the battle as Kay was able to push dozens of feet forward, destroying huge swathes of sludge while it seemed to struggle against itself. All coordination was lost, with limbs and tentacle blocking each other and getting tangles up and waves of black that dropped down on Kay splitting into pieces and flowing in different directions. It was a perfect opportunity, and Kay wasn¡¯t going to let it go to waste. He stormed forward, the still spinning red maelstrom eroding away everything it touched with physical force and mana fueled Skill. The blood sea rose up and ended the black tide, forcing the lines of battle closer to the core, and Eleniah. Alahna flew through the air above, crushing with clouds made solid, unleashing foot wide bolts of lightning that danced through the black mass leaving scorched ruins in their wake, and showering down spiraling vortexes of frothing water that split piece from piece and dashed them against the ground. The storm that hovered ominously above continued to pour down rain for her to use as a weapon and for a moment the sky cleared as all the rain gathered together. Alahna reached out and mimed condensing the rain into a giant ball, which began to rapidly shrink. It went from being larger than most buildings to the size of a basketball in the blink of an eye, and then it fell. It landed and immediately detonated, clearing enough nanomachines away to be able to see the churned up ground which had been scoured clean, for just a moment before the black tide poured back in. The rain resumed pouring down and Alahna started forming spears and pressurized blasts that she threw down at the enemy, and Kay decided not to be outdone. A titanic form rose beneath him, the blood streaming around him before reforming into shape after passing over his body. A copy of the asura golem miniboss from the local dungeon loomed over the scene, half as tall as the black tower that had just been felled. Kay wasn¡¯t able to create a simulacra that copied the Skills or abilities of something without blood, but he could freely shape them as he wanted with Blood Manipulation. It was meant to be a distraction as much as it was a useful weapon, but the simulacrum didn¡¯t care. It slammed its fists into the enemy in front of it and started tearing with its fingers, throwing chunks of black goo around as it bulldozed a path forward. The egg shaped lump wrapped around the core that Eleniah had dissappeared into bulged outward as if an explosion had gone off inside of it, and the battle changed. The blue energy empowering the nanomachines rushed toward the egg and the goo near Kay started to die at high speeds. It wasn¡¯t just dying on its own, but every bit of protection it had against Purify Blood and the speedy duplication that let the nanomachines sustain against his power to destroy them cut off with the lack of the energy, and everywhere Kay¡¯s blood touched the enemy began to melt. The shape around the core began to glow with the same blue energy, bright enough to be seen clearly through the pouring rain. Kay¡¯s eyes widened in surprise and concern and he started mowing down all of the goo in front of him desperately pushing closer to try and assist. Even with the increased speed at which he could now destroy the nanomachines it was slow going, because there was just so much of it in his way. He ran behind a continuous stream that he blasted forward, cutting a path forward. A bright flash lit up everything, and time seemed to stand still. It looked just like the old film of atomic testing he¡¯d seen in history class, and it was right on top of him, coming from where the core was. Where Eleniah was. Time seemed to stand still and Kay felt like he was perceiving faster than the speed of light as the flash sprung from the center and spread out. At the center of the light was the blue energy of the nanomachine core and Kay couldn¡¯t help but stare into it. As he did he felt part of himself that shouldn¡¯t have existed, something born of his journey into that space that wasn¡¯t a space, a hostile universe beyond this one, reach out. He saw flashes of imagery, tasted strange tastes, and knew the stories of a million lives, all in that instant while the blast wave traveled toward him. And then the moment ended, Kay forgot everything but the tiniest glimpse of what he had just experience, and the explosion reached the barriers Kay had instinctively thrown up around himself, turning them all into dust. The force lifted him off the ground and slammed him back down into it, destroying the blood sea he¡¯d been walking on and burying him beneath the soil of the Island of Sel, his skin blackened and charred, unmoving. Book 5 Chapter 50 Kay woke up. He didn¡¯t remember falling asleep, and a good chunk of his body felt really sore, which was weird. He tried to remember what he¡¯d been doing to end up feeling like this, but it as all kind of a blank. The last thing he remembered clearly was¡­ huh. Not much at all. He knew his name, he remembered his family, and his friends, but there was a large blank where everything else should be. He frowned, his eyes still shut as he tried to work his way through what he did remember. High school, college, work after that¡­ There was a sharp pain in Kay¡¯s side and he could feel a slice cut out of him sealing itself shut. The pain caused him to jolt, and his memories came flooding back. He¡¯d been shunted into another world, and now he was a king. And a vampire! How weird was that? He had magic powers too, ones that could really help with this whole ¡°in pain¡± thing. He directed mana into his healing Skill and relaxed as his body began to put itself back together even faster. How was I healing without using my Skill? That¡¯s not something that should work like that¡­ Oh right, vampire! As long as I have blood I can put myself back together, can¡¯t I? I¡¯m glad I had enough to deal with whatever just happened to me. He took stock of the blood stored within him and frowned when he realized how low it was. He couldn¡¯t remember what had eaten into his stockpile like that, but he¡¯d either been next to death or fighting something insane. Or both. He only had a few dozen gallons left, which was incredibly low compared to how much he¡¯d had the last time he topped up. He mentally reached out to his Inventory and tried to pull out one of his emergency canteens, but it didn¡¯t appear. He got the feeling like something was in the way. Frowning even deeper he tried to open his eyes and see what was going on but found he couldn¡¯t, something was pressing down on his eyelids and keeping them shut. In fact, something was pressing down on his entire body. It felt like he was completely enclosed. He shifted his fingers slightly, feeling the coarse grains of dirt and small rocks. I¡¯ve been buried? Did I die? Or did someone try and kill me? That would explain how much blood is gone, especially if they did a really good job in trying to put me down. The System did say that I could potentially regenerate from anything as long as I had enough blood, I must have been cut to pieces and then regenerated from a few scraps. He tried to remember what had happened. Being in a fight felt right, and he followed that feeling. It had been a desperate fight, one that he¡¯d thought he might lose. An image came to him of a crazy storm, with a giant dark shape looming above him. Endless attacks coming from every angle, a bright blue light suspended in the air¡­ The fucking nanomachines! He remembered the fight in its entirety now, the investigation team finding that one sample, killing the enemies there, then rushing to the other side of the island to join the defense against the enemies climbing from the ocean. Destroying countless eldritch beings, the core arriving inside its slug, all of the nanomachines fusing into one and the fight against it. He¡¯d been pushing t back under the cover of Alahna¡¯s storm, and he¡¯d thrown Eleniah at the core to take it out, or at least distract it so he could get closer. Eleniah, who¡¯d been at ground zero of a massive explosion. Kay drew the remaining dregs of blood out of himself and pushed the dirt away from him. He dug to the surface, the wrapping around his body vibrating to move through the soil. He wedged an arm out and pushed, forcing himself above ground. Looking around Kay saw he was at the edge of a deep crater. Bits of black sludge were all over the ground near him, but they were barley moving where they were moving at all, and he didn¡¯t have time for clean up. Ignoring the injuries he still had he threw himself down the slope of the crater and started running toward the center. She was lying on the ground near the center, her clothes ripped away and bleeding sluggishly from multiple lacerations. The black sludge leaked from cuts that crisscrossed all over her and Kay couldn¡¯t tell if she was bleeding. Slamming to the ground next to her Kay made the layer covering him up collect at his hands, and he roughly laid them across her, sending the blood deep into her body. She was breathing faintly, so he focused on her wounds. He started by pushing all the sludge near the surface of her skin away from her then he began moving further in. There were nanomachines laced throughout her system, although they were just as listless as all the others, and it wasn¡¯t a problem to destroy them from within. When all of the contaminants were gone Kay started sealing over her woulds, forcing blood to clot while his Skills stimulated her natural healing drive. He forced her heart to keep pumping at a steady rate just in case and bit by bit her bleeding wounds healed over to the point where he believed she wasn¡¯t in immediate danger. After a few moments more worriedly starring at her and evaporating any nearby clusters of nanomachines, she opened her eyes with a gasp. It took a moment for her eyes to focus, but when she did she looked right into his eyes. ¡°Kay?¡± ¡°Hey.¡± He reached down and cupped her face. ¡°What the fuck was that?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Sorry, something blew up right by the core and I¡¯m still panicking. Are you alright?¡± ¡°Oh, that was me. It did some power up and I ran out of other options.¡± She tried to sit up and Kay backed off to let her. She glanced down at her arms and twisted the back and forth to see all sides. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± ¡°Nothing, I just thought I¡¯d be paler.¡± ¡°¡­ Why?¡± ¡°The nanomachine things were digging into my body at the end. I assumed if I was still alive you had to turn me into a vampire.¡± Kay¡¯s head drooped down and he sighed. ¡°No. That¡¯s if a vampyr gets you because their bullshit transforms your body. This was just trying to kill you so I did some healing.¡± ¡°Awe, I was kind of hoping we¡¯d match.¡± ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j The intelligence was not happy. Not at all. It had agreed with the leadership that they needed to strike first, to eliminate any threats, including the red one, and establish a base to being growing. It even agreed with the orders to send everything and everyone, to make sure they had everything they needed to take the island. It had not agree with the decision to take the s???t???r???a???n???g???e??? ???m???a???t???t???e???r??? extrusion device with them. The leadership had overruled it¡¯s protests, and now the device was gone. This world, this universe, seemed to lack s???t???r???a???n???g???e??? ???m???a???t???t???e???r??? entirely, meaning the only source of it the intelligence would ever be able to use to rebuild with was gone forever. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. It knew for sure that it had been unlucky to fall into this world now. There had been nothing but setbacks since arriving here. The intelligence started to pull itself together, gathering up all the n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s???? it could reach into its shell. It even stole from any of the others nearby. They weren¡¯t able to fight back and protect their n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s????, they¡¯d been knocked silly by the death of the entire leadership, including the elder. The intelligence was the paranoid type and had made sure to keep the connection to the leadership disguised, it hadn¡¯t been nearly as deep as the leadership had demanded, and thus it hadn¡¯t been as hurt as all the others. It collected the n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s???? it could and began moving away. It had no destination in mind, just away. The intelligence and its kin had been clumped together, making them susceptible to attacks like the explosion that had ended the battle, but the natives hadn¡¯t been. They would come soon and it had no desire to stay where it could be caught and killed. There was no s???t???r???a???n???g???e??? ???m???a???t???t???e???r??? matter here, but there might be alternatives or other resources to find that it could adapt to, as long as it continued to live. Even if there wasn¡¯t, enough time would let it convert whatever it wanted into more n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s????, enough to destroy anything that threatened it. There was movement in the crater, and the intelligence saw something throw itself down. It tracked the movement, making sure it stayed undetected while it left. Then it realized. It was the red one! The being that could completely unmake n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s????, with its powers! The red one was the only true threat that the intelligence had if it wanted to harvest all the resources this world offered. Even with millions of years to build up, with no s???t???r???a???n???g???e??? ???m???a???t???t???e???r??? the red one or any others that might have the same powers could just undo everything the intelligence tried. It had to kill the red one. It gathered its shell up and moved closer oh so slowly. It used dead shells and still those that were still stunned for cover, stealing n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s???? as it went. It gained more mass and density as it got closer and it prepared the strongest weapon it could with the time and resources it had. As it approached, the one that had killed the leadership awoke and they both started to move. It had to act now, there was no time to increase its chances of success. The intelligence readied the projectile weapon, the gathered n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s???? that were shaped into sharpened ammunition ready to fire. It aimed at the uppermost limb, the one it knew these natives needed to survive, and fired. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j A searing sharp pain struck Kay and the same time that his head was thrown back by an outside force. He felt the lower right half of his jaw tear off as something struck him at high speeds. He reeled back in pain and shock but his training was already taking over. He was up on his feet and facing the enemy within a second with a weapon in his hands. He saw an ovoid shape made out of the black sludge pointing a barrel that jutted out of it at him. Readying his weapon he sealed the wound in his face with blood to keep it closed and charged the enemy. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j If the intelligence had had lungs or a mouth it would have screamed a curse. It hadn¡¯t had time to run proper diagnostics on the weapon it had made, and it had missed! The red one was injured, but not enough to ensure death. The intelligence made its shell leap back, growing limbs from the bottom to travel on. The red one was charging it, not just blasting away as it had previously, which meant it was low on resources. But the intelligence was too and it would lose a battle in close proximity. But the intelligence was canny. It had seen how the red one healed the other, and knew it cared. The intelligence swung the barrel of its weapon toward the explosive one which was still on the ground. It was bluffing, for it had no more ammunition, but it was all the intelligence had. Without the necessary organs it could not crow with satisfaction, but it wanted to when the red one skid to a halt. It tried to use its body to block the intelligence¡¯s aim, but rotating and moving places stymied that effort. Stuck in the stand off, the intelligence began working on its escape. It¡¯s assassination had failed, and it had even less of a desire to stay here now. It needed the red one to stay back long enough for it to finish preparing, so the intelligence started working on a distraction. The intelligence had felt the big thing, the thing that lurked outside, when it had fallen into this world with its brethren. It was a big thing, one that waited. But it was also a thing with plans and those plans had made the cracks that had brought the intelligence here. It hated that thing, because it hated this place and part of its plans were to grow big enough to kill that thing itself. But it had no qualms with getting someone else to do the job for it, so why not turn two threats against each other? Deep in its memory the intelligence had stored records from the past. It had studied all it could to learn how to avoid the predations of those more resourceful than it and to outwit its own rivals. Among those record were a time of when communication had been done through vibrating the atmosphere, like these natives did. This method was called ¡°speech¡± and something called ¡°language¡± was used to convey meaning. One of those ¡°languages¡± was very similar to the one it detected the red one using, and it pulled that ¡°language¡± up, translating its own thoughts into it and using its n????a????n????i?????t???e?????s???? to vibrate the air. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j Kay shifted back and forth, trying to put his body between the monster and Eleniah. She was yelling at him from behind, telling him to just attack it, but he couldn¡¯t. He didn¡¯t know if, after taking the damage from the insane explosion she¡¯d made plus her injuries before that, she could tank a hit that had blown part of his skull off. The damn thing kept shifting so that it had a clear shot on her every time he tried to interpose himself, keeping it a standoff. The blob crackled, like the fake person they¡¯d caught trying to escape the palace, and then words came out of it. They were garbled and jumped pitches weirdly, but they were understandable words. Understandable English words. ¡°We were brought here. We did not wish to be here.¡± The thing crackled and spat. ¡°The shapes of power, the ¡°ritual¡±, it cracked the barriers and opened a hole that we could not escape from. You protect this place from things outside. If you wish to keep protecting them then you should seek-¡° A cannon burst out of the back of the ovoid shape, aiming at the sky. It depressed and fired, launching a sphere of the black goo into the sky where it grew blades from its middle that started revolving. The ovoid body below that collapsed into goo as the other piece began to fly away. Before it could get away a bolt of lightning rained down from the clear sky, frying it and causing it to hit the ground. It landed on the edge of the crater and slid down, rolling and bouncing as it went. It hit the bottom and just lay there, unmoving. Alahna landed next to Kay with a heavy thump. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t let the enemy distract you like that.¡± She straightened up and brushed dust off of her clothing. ¡°At least, that¡¯s what I would say normally, but it looked like your main goal was protecting Eleniah, which I endorse. Also, your lips are closed but I can see inside your mouth from the side, so I¡¯m going to cut you extra slack. Let¡¯s get the two of you to some healers. I¡¯ll grab Eleniah.¡± Book 5 Chapter 51 Kay stared down at the Royal Avalon as it was being loaded to set sail. He was on top of the stairs leading down to the docks, waiting on Eleniah to finish saying goodbye to everyone she needed to. ¡°Sure you can¡¯t stay longer?¡± Alahna asked. ¡°I wish we could, just to let Eleniah spend more time with you and the rest of her family, but the messages from home are worrying me and these were written months ago.¡± He held up the letters that had arrived a couple of days ago. ¡°Who knows what¡¯s going on now? I need to get home and help.¡± ¡°I get it. I would never want to be away while something happens to my people.¡± She turned and looked behind them at the city that was being rebuilt. They¡¯d had a little over a week of relative peace after the last battle against the nanomachine menace, and rebuilding had begun quickly, aided by mages and manipulators that could almost grow buildings from the ground. Kay deeply understood why Earth Manipulators and Earth Mages were generally seen as some of the wealthiest magical Classes, but scenes like this really drove the point home. Kay turned as well and watched workers haul supplies and building blocks while mages and manipulators floated them around, assembling them into recreations of the buildings that had been lost. When the nanomachines had been energized by that blue glow they had leveled everything as they consumed more and more to fuel their propagation, leaving bare dirt behind. He explosion Eleniah had made with her two Class Skills hadn¡¯t helped either, and almost half a square mile of buildings and possessions had been lost. The empty space made it easy to rebuild since there was no rubble to clean for most of the city, but it also meant there was nothing to bury when it came to the people that had been lost. The causalities had been low according to everyone Kay had spoken too, only a few hundred in total and less than a dozen of those being civilians. Someone in the know had spotted the black shapes breaching the surface of the ocean as they approached Sel and had immediately started an evacuation. Only a few civilians hadn¡¯t left, the stubborn kind that would have refused to leave in the face of any disaster. Everyone was telling Kay that they were so lucky to lose so few people, but all he could feel was shame for letting any die at all. Two of the deaths were his own people, members of the Blood Guard. He¡¯d been separated from them during the battle, as much from his own reckless charge into the fray as anything else, and they¡¯d been unable to fight there way to him. They¡¯d ended up retreating from the growing mass with everyone else that couldn¡¯t burn away huge swathes of nanomachines, and two of his had fallen protecting other while they¡¯d made their escape. Lauren had lost her entire lower half trying to keep them both alive and had only survive thanks to the surviving Blood Guard and some other¡¯s donating blood to her so she could heal. Kay took a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I could-¡° ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± Alahna clapped a hand over his mouth. ¡°This is a hard lesson to learn, especially for people who end up being leaders, but don¡¯t let this get to you. Don¡¯t blame yourself. It¡¯s harder to do than it is to say it, but its true. When it comes to fights you¡¯ve picked, battles you¡¯ve started, or wars you declare where you are knowingly sending people to die, that¡¯s when it is absolutely on you and you should never let yourself forget those lives lost. But this?¡± She shook her head. ¡°They came to us with no warning and no attempts at diplomacy, actively scouting us out to do violence to us. They would have come here and killed people even if you had been on the other side of the world. You saved lives by being here to push that monster back and slow it down enough to let Eleniah kill that core. Without you we¡¯d have to worry about another one of those things coming back in years or decades instead of erasing them all entirely. Don¡¯t take the blame for this, because you did nothing wrong, and everything right.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say that.¡± ¡°Fine. You did the best you could with what you had and what you knew.¡± ¡°I can take that.¡± He closed his eyes and tried to let the feelings wash over him. She was completely right, it was much easier to say than to do, but he heard the truth in her words. He felt someone step up next to him and take his hand and he looked to see Eleniah gazing a few inches up into his face. ¡°You alright?¡± ¡°No, but I¡¯ll get better.¡± They were both healed up, Eleniah after seeing a few healers and Kay after receiving a copious amount of generously donated blood and seeing a few healers. His jaw was still tender and Eleniah still grimaced when she walked now and then, but they were tier five, they¡¯d be back in top shape after a few days. ¡°Alright, Alahna, this is it. We¡¯ll be seeing you.¡± ¡°Damn straight you will, you¡¯re going to be visiting, the both of you and I¡¯ll be coming to visit you once things calm down on both our ends. Or if you need big help with anything. Would never do to not return a favor.¡± She took a step toward Eleniah, then paused. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t forget to send some of that anti-eldritch knowledge your going to be developing when you get something stable working. That¡¯s the kind of thing every nation needs to have.¡± Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡°It¡¯s all in the trade deals,¡± Kay replied, gesturing at the negotiators down below that were starting to board. ¡°But I won¡¯t forget.¡± ¡°Thank you. With this level of trade and the connections between out dynasties there¡¯s a good chance we¡¯ll end up in a full alliance sometime soon.¡± ¡°No promises, we don¡¯t have that kind of formal connection yet.¡± Kay very purposefully didn¡¯t look at Eleniah when he said that. Alahna grabbed a hug from her cousin and they traded ¡°I love yous¡± and some more personal promises about correspondence. The Alahna stepped forward and shook Kay¡¯s hand. ¡°Thank you, your majesty King Kay of Avalon. Without your help everyone here would have been completely fucked. As I said before, completely separate from anything the System has offered you or any rewards or favors traded between our nations, I owe you one.¡± She nodded over his hand deeply enough that it was almost a bow. ¡°I won¡¯t forget that either. I¡¯m happy to have been able to help, but I will call you on that in a time of need.¡± ¡°I expect nothing else. Eleniah, King Kay, have a safe trip home.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll do our best. And tell Miri I said goodbye, please. I would do it myself but I haven¡¯t been able to find her the last couple of days.¡± Both of the cousins shot him disbelieving looks. ¡°What?¡± ¡°You¡¯ll figure it out,¡± Alahna sighed at him, shaking her head. ¡°I¡¯ll tell her you said that next time you see her.¡± She nodded deeply to him again, then turned and left, ranks of her royal guards closing in around her as she moved out of sight. Eleniah pushed in close so that she was up against his side while they walked down. ¡°Hey, Kat?¡¯ ¡°Yeah?¡± ¡°Make sure you don¡¯t leave my side until after we¡¯ve set off.¡± He glanced down at the top of her head. ¡°Sure? I mean, I¡¯m always happy to spend time with you, but why?¡± ¡°You¡¯ll figure it out.¡± ¡°Why are you both saying that to me?¡± ¡°Do you know what I¡¯m about to say to you?¡± ¡°I can guess, but that doesn¡¯t explain- You know what. Never mind. I¡¯ll figure it out.¡± ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j Glowl, King of Nelam, roared with rage as he slammed a gold mace into one of the beastkin trying to climb up his armor to get to his head, crushing their ribs. He swung out in every direction, the gold ripped from the walls and decorations of his castle fashioned into arms and armor to replace the sets he had already lost in what felt like an unending series of battles to fight off the hordes trying to kill him. His nobles had betrayed him, his citizens had abandoned him, and he only had a handful of his most loyal retainers and servants left with him. Even they might leave soon, as this most recent incursion from a mob of escaped slaves after his head had pushed back his line of control from the district surrounding his castle to just the castle itself. Still bellowing, Glowl threw out a wave of sharpened metal then pulled it back to him, slicing through beastkin going out and coming back, decimating the enemy in front of him. It cleared up enough space for him to start pushing the front further back and a few seconds later the beastkin started to rout. Roaring in triumph and picking off the slower ones at the edge of the retreating mob, Glowl brandished his weapons and shouted expletives at them as they ran, cementing his place above them. A jolt of pain radiated through his shoulder and down his arm, and Glowl cursed as the toxic wound that still lingered from that traitor¡¯s attack flared up again. It had been months, and all throughout the tumultuous upheaval and the steady loss of territory, it refused to heal more than it had. It festered and wept pus constantly and the pain from it was agonizing at times. He needed constant healing items to keep it under control, and his last remaining healer was getting worked to the bone keeping his troops alive and treating the infected stab. Glowl swore his vengeance once again against the traitor Kurtis Nel, that Outworlder brat that had started all this, and all the others that had failed him, turned against him, or stymied him on his eventual rise to ultimate power. He was the Glowl, King of Nelam, and nothing would stop him! Nothing! He would reclaim his nation, he would punish those set against him, he would regain his former power from his Class, then surpass it, and he would never. Be. Stopped! His troops jostled uneasily, drawing Glowl out of his internal world and he opened his mouth to scream at them. He froze when he saw what they did, what had actually driven the swarm of escaped slaves to run. A horde of maddened vampyr rushed at them, the leading elements stopping to chomp and rip at each soldier and knight who fell, tearing them apart and supping at the blood that spurted from their limbs. Hundreds came, enough to outnumber Glowl and his people ten to one, and all Glowl could see was a sea of glowing red eyes before they swarmed him and started to drag him down to the ground. He managed to kill two or three of them before they completely covered him and stopped him from moving, and then the bites began. They burned! Oh, how they burned! It was beyond any pain he had ever experienced, beyond even the cursed wound in his shoulder at its worst, for it burned not only at the site of the bites but throughout his body as well, tainted corruption bleeding through him. He didn¡¯t have words to describe the horror he could feel wracking his body without stop as the vampyr bit him over and over again. Things inside him were twisting and changing as dozens of vampyr pumped their venom into him and drank his blood. He desperately drove the gold under his control into his body, using the gaping holes bitten into him to chase after the corruption flowing into him. Fangs and gaping maws were driven back as he filled himself with liquid metal, burning, ripping, tearing, and grasping at every bit of venom he could reach as he frantically tried to save himself. He wouldn¡¯t die here, he wouldn¡¯t! But even as he did his best to crush his problems with force, the way he always had, the venom sunk deeper into his body. It began ignoring the gold trying to destroy it, and then it began corrupting the gold too. The last things he felt as the pain overtook him and everything faded to black were the injury from the traitor¡¯s dagger starting to burn with the same pain as the vampyr¡¯s bites, the gold he¡¯d forced inside himself begin to twist and change into something else, and his teeth growing longer in his mouth. The edges of his mind began to feel warped, twisted beyond anything he could have imagined. In a desperate attempt to save itself, his brain shut down, hoping to conserve energy as his body battled this new infection it had no experience with. A useless maneuver in fighting the vampyr infection, but it did keep Glowl from having to feel the pain and horror of his body twisting and warping as he died and a tainted, golden monster grew from the husk that used to be him. Book 6 Chapter 1 Waves crashed against the hull of the Royal Avalon, tossing its occupants about. The storm wasn¡¯t enough to capsize the ship or to send anyone but the most careless overboard, but it wasn¡¯t anything to sneeze at either as it battered the vessel about. Sailors dashed across and below the decks, lashing down everything to make sure objects didn¡¯t break loose, keeping the rigging furled and intact, and ensuring that the powder on the gun deck didn¡¯t get soaked. The storm had brewed up around them suddenly and it was on them before they could change tack and make their escape and the ship hadn¡¯t been properly prepared. Barrels of gunpowder were hustled to the magazine and anyone non essential to keeping them afloat was sent below to dry off. Kay, King of Avalon, Class Line Progenitor of Blood Manipulation, the first vampire on the world of Torotia, and Lord of Spilled Blood, wasn¡¯t involved in any of that. He¡¯d been below decks in his cabin spending time with Eleniah, his former teacher, current adviser and partner in most things violent, and now girlfriend. The tumultuous events they¡¯d dealt with at her birthplace, the Isle of Sel, capital of the Seramist Isles, had been threatening enough to prompt them to move their relationship from friends with some occasional flirting to something officially romantic. Kay wasn¡¯t sure if the word ¡°girlfriend¡± was technically correct since he didn¡¯t actually speak the language, but the magical translation provided to him by the System that either managed or secretly ruled over this world used the world girlfriend when it changed people¡¯s speech into English for him, so he wasn¡¯t sweating it. As the storm raged on and the Royal Avalon was brought to a relative standstill to avoid the worst damage an ocean storm could do to the ship, Kay and Eleniah bunkered down in Kay¡¯s cabin, staying out of the way of anyone rushing to get work done. The shaking and tossing of the boat, exacerbated by the taller waves, made the game of chess they¡¯d been working on ill-advised to continue and Kay quickly packed it away. When that was done he carefully maneuvered his way around the table between two seats and sat down on the couch next to Eleniah. ¡°What?¡± He asked, noticing her grin at him. ¡°Nothing, you just look funny when you¡¯re trying to balance against the waves. Like a drunk clown stumbling through his performance.¡± Kay scowled at her theatrically. ¡°Oh? Well if that¡¯s how I look to you I¡¯ll take my stumbling self back to the other couch.¡± Eleniah laughed as she yanked him down next to her. ¡°It¡¯s funny to watch anyone without experience stumble around while they get their sea legs. You¡¯re too high tier for it to effect you too much regularly, so a storm like this is the first chance I¡¯ve had to tease you on it.¡± ¡°And you¡¯ve been holding out for an opportunity?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± Kay chuckled and leaned against her. They spent some time just relaxing, chatting occasionally but overall not saying much. In one of the quiet moments, Kay spoke up. ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°For what?¡± ¡°For being brave and speaking up.¡± He shifted so he could look her in the eyes. ¡°I¡¯m happy with this, really happy. If you hadn¡¯t said something, if you hadn¡¯t taken the step to see if we could have a relationship like this, I don¡¯t know if I ever would have. I¡¯m trying all the time to live up to the expectations everyone has for me as a leader, including the expectations I have for myself. I¡¯ve always found you attractive, both physically and as a person, but I don¡¯t know if I would have been able to push past the what ifs and concerns about pressuring you with my position or making things weird between us. So thank you, because I¡¯m really happy that we¡¯re here.¡± Eleniah gazed back at him. ¡°I¡­ You¡­ Dammit!¡± She looked away, her cheeks coloring as she blushed. ¡°I¡¯m hundreds of years old and have been in relationships before, I shouldn¡¯t be blushing like a maiden!¡± Kay grinned at her, as she huffed and puffed at him. After a moment she turned back to him. ¡°I¡¯m happy too. I wasn¡¯t planning for things to go this way, but I¡¯m glad they did. I don¡¯t know if we can say that you¡¯d never make a move yourself though, you¡¯re pretty good at going after what you want.¡± ¡°Maybe. Outside of having fun with it I don¡¯t think discussing those kinds of hypotheticals is useful, there¡¯s no way to know what would have happened in an alternate time where things went differently. I might have, I might not have.¡± ¡°How about hypothetical questions about things that could happen in the future?¡± Eleniah asked, ¡°Because there¡¯s a topic we should address while we¡¯re alone and are already on a related topic.¡± Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°Yeah? What¡¯s that? And that¡¯s why I said ¡®those kinds of hypotheticals¡¯,¡± Kay added, ¡°Because planning for the future and things that could happen is important.¡± ¡°The future of our relationship. We¡¯re taking things slow, but with our positions we need to look forward on this.¡± Kay stilled in response to Eleniah¡¯s serious tone. ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to have a fling, or have this be something temporary even if it¡¯s longer than a fling would be. I want a real relationship where we¡¯re planning to go the distance. Is that what you want?¡± ¡°Yes it is. It¡¯s to early to talk about marriage, or permanence in any specific form, but that¡¯s the goal.¡± ¡°Good.¡± She smiled and took his hand. ¡°Then we¡¯re on the same page there. We¡¯re dating, but not just to date, we¡¯re seeing if we mesh together with an eye on building this relationship toward marriage in the future.¡± ¡°Would it be better to say that we¡¯re courting instead of dating? It makes it sound more formal, in English at least, and it¡¯ll add a little gravitas to the situation that we might need to use, especially with nobles and such.¡± Kay made a moue of distaste. ¡°Not that I want other people thinking they can poke their noses into our relationship, but they will anyways.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good idea,¡± She replied, ¡°And is a nice segue into what I was going to say next. What¡¯re your plans for having multiple spouses in the future.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to.¡± Eleniah laughed. ¡°Can you be a little more detailed than that? We¡¯re planning out the future, both our plans and our responses to the plans of others. If someone powerful appears in front of you wanting to marry you off to some connection of theirs to make a bond with you, ¡®I don¡¯t want to¡¯ isn¡¯t a good enough answer. It makes you look immature, which isn¡¯t a look a kind can afford most of the time.¡± ¡°Alright, I can break it down.¡± He started listing reasons on his fingers, ¡°The idea of dynastic rule is tempting to me on an individual level, but that¡¯s now how Torotia works, at least not with the System being involved in titles and ruling, I¡¯d have to invest time and effort into making sure any kids I have end up as my heir or replacement, so why not focus on a smaller number of children instead of making a lot of them with multiple women and spending more money trying to make any of them pan out? I also don¡¯t think the affinity theory that¡¯s going around has much merit. The more I hear about it the more it sounds like someone¡¯s trying to create a classist culture using the idea of people being talented as a base, but they¡¯re attaching the idea of ¡®talent¡¯ to ¡®good breeding¡¯. The proponents seem to be focusing on polygamy as one of their merits, or foundations, or whatever and following that kind of behavior might make people think I¡¯m supporting that theory. Lastly,¡± He counted off on his third finger, ¡°And this one might not work in your scenario, is that I don¡¯t want to. I¡¯ve never been attracted to the idea of being with multiple partners, outside of teenage sexual desire, and I haven¡¯t changed my mind. It¡¯s hard enough to build a good relationship with one person, let alone multiple. Then there¡¯s the jealousy and arguments that could happen¡­ I could go on and on with all kinds of hypothetical problems that I just don¡¯t want to deal with.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s bad answer to use. Some people will argue that marriage isn¡¯t about love their about connections and alliances.¡± ¡°I disagree. There¡¯s no point in getting married to someone just to build an alliance, or to make sure there¡¯s some connection that can¡¯t be broken, because assuming that¡¯s the kind of connection you¡¯re going to make is ridiculous. We¡¯re going to live for hundreds of years, who says a spouse won¡¯t die, or leave, or kill you, or anything else? There are better ways to make alliances, and frankly, I don¡¯t care if anyone disagrees. I want a loving relationship with my one spouse, and that¡¯s what I¡¯m going to have!¡± Eleniah leaned in and kissed him lightly, breaking off his tirade. ¡°We¡¯ll need to polish it up a little to be more kingly,¡± She said after pulling back a hair, ¡°But those are reasonable and workable reasons to not want multiple spouses. It¡¯s not all jealousy and fighting, though. Alahna is quite happy with three husbands.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not Alahna-¡± ¡°Thank goodness.¡± Kay grinned at her. ¡°I¡¯m not Alahna, thank goodness, and what makes her happy isn¡¯t going to be what makes me happy. Without needing an heir of my body to reign after me, the strictures imposed on me for marriage by my role and responsibilities are much smaller than they would have been for a king back on Earth. I¡¯m planning to marry someone, hopefully, when the time comes, that ensures a good connection with another powerful nation, is strong in her own right, and will be a good queen someday. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anything anyone can do to argue against my choices here.¡± Eleniah gave him a pitying look. ¡°Of course they can. There¡¯s always someone that will argue, no matter how reasonable your stance is, because they aren¡¯t getting their way. I happen to agree with you, though, so anyone that tries to tell you you¡¯re wrong can go pound sand.¡± They scooted close together, interlacing their fingers as they held hands. ¡°At least no one we care about is going to balk when we tell them.¡± ¡°Of course they won¡¯t,¡± Eleniah snorted, ¡°Amanda¡¯s going to give us looks like she knew this would happen all along, someone¡¯s going to pull out a book of bets on who you¡¯d end up dating first with additional bets on if we get married, and Cindy¡¯s probably going to be all blase about it because she dreamed it was going to happen three years ago.¡± ¡°You think someone¡¯s running a book on my dating life? Who?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know who specifically, but once you get enough people together there will be people making bets, and someone¡¯s going to be running the book. It might not be for profit, but someone has to keep track of who bet what with who.¡± They debated who it was that was the bookie, but before long Kay¡¯s face trailed into a pensive one as he stared at the wall of the cabin. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°I¡¯m worried about home. Some of the stuff in those letters¡­¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much.¡± She squeezed his hand. ¡°You left very capable people behind to keep things running. Besides, this storm will blow over soon enough, and then we¡¯re only a few days out.¡± Book 6 Chapter 2 The scrambling, maddened vampyr scraped at Cindy¡¯s armor, desperately trying to pull itself closer to sink it¡¯s fangs into her neck. The one hand she had pressed against its forehead was the only thing keeping it from tearing out her throat. Her nails were sinking into it¡¯s skin with the force of how hard she was pushing to keep it off of her, drawing sickly ichor instead of blood from the tiny abrasions. Doing her best to keep calm Cindy drew one of her sidearms from the bandoleer on her chest and shoved the pistol¡¯s barrel into the gaping maw of the vampyr. In a scene directly out of a movie she blew the brains out of the monster and it slumped on top of her. Gagging, Cindy tossed the dead vampyr off of her and struggled to her feet. The battle around her was dying down as she looked. Here and there the Sentinels accompanying her cut down one of the stragglers, but most of the attacking vampyr were dead on the ground and Avalon¡¯s forces were cleaning up the mess. Panting slightly, Cindy pulled back the mechanism of her pistol, clearing the spent shell as she scanned the environment for more threats. There was only one vampyr she could see that was still moving, a legless torso dragging itself across the grass with it¡¯s mouth wide open and it fangs dripping with toxic saliva. It inched closer and closer to the nearest source of blood, a nearby adventurer that was beheading the vampyr he¡¯d just killed. With a dull thud sound it¡¯s head exploded. Cindy finished reloading her pistol almost absentmindedly as she shared a quick nod with one of her trainees. Not that they were trainees anymore, but the first wave of people she¡¯d trained up into getting gun related Classes were still arguing about what to call themselves. That group had approached her en mass after she¡¯d gained her title and had informed her that they were going to be her version of Kay¡¯s Blood Guard, her bodyguards and personal troops. With Colen¡¯s, her personal butler who¡¯d just shown up one day before the Shatterplate War and told her he wanted to serve her, help she¡¯d managed to talk them down a little. They were still going to be her personal troops, since practically everyone was telling her she had to have some, but they weren¡¯t suited to be bodyguards. They¡¯d agreed after some convincing, and the settled right in to arguing over what they should be called as a group. ¡°Arquebusier¡± was currently winning, against Cindy¡¯s strong objections. They didn¡¯t carry arquebuses dammit! Her soldier, since she didn¡¯t have a better term yet, looked around for threats, his hand against the butt of a pistol. With single shot weapons it was definitely faster to switch to a pistol over reloading, even if they could reload in a matter of seconds. Everything was clear, so he pulled his rifle around and started reloading, and Cindy did the same. After slinging her long gun over her shoulder she looked down at herself and sighed. She was covered in sweat, muck, blood, and the ichor that vampyr bled instead of blood. It felt incredibly gross to be standing there in her own skin, but she wasn¡¯t going to be able to clean off for a few hours at least. Her group didn¡¯t have any Water Mages or Manipulators and there was still work to be done. The vampyr bodies were piled up and burned, the wounded were healed or sent back home with a light escort, there hadn¡¯t been any infections thank goodness, and then they were off, continuing their patrols along the edge of Avalon¡¯s territory, searching for packs of vampyr. The most animalistic of the vampyr were chasing refugees from Nelam and the surrounding areas hundreds of miles in mindlessly dedicated hunts. The flood of refugees and escaped slaves that had gushed into Avalon, and into Tumbling Rapids to a lesser extent, had slowed to a dirty, exhausted trickle. But the vampyr were still coming. Cindy¡¯s grip on her gun tightened. They were coming, but they wouldn¡¯t be allowed a single step further into Avalon. The civil war that had sprung up had wrent Nelam into pieces, and the vampyr attack tore those already fragile shards into tiny shreds. It was like they came out of nowhere, spreading waves of bloodshed and madness that just appeared in the midst of the fighting. Small cities and nations on Nelam¡¯s borders that had invaded, looking for a bigger piece of the pie or vengeance for Nelam meddling in their lives were hit first, with vampyr popping up in the middle of their attacks on villages and towns. Days later a score of vampyr attacked a fortified outpost between two of the warring factions of nobles that had both proclaimed that they were the true inheritors of Nelam. Then one of the groups fighting to reclaim their conquered nation had gone silent. No battles, no messages, nothing. Then vampyr had erupted from their fortifications, hundreds of their soldiers and leaders turned into monsters and now terrorizing the countryside. The chaotic mess only continued to devolve from there. People had stepped up even as death and terror destroyed everything in sight. Adventurers, soldiers, and leaders had all set aside their enmities and wars to protect the innocent. Many died in heroic last stands letting people escape the oncoming vampyr. The smugglers and abolitionists that had helped slaves escape Nelam became guides to safety for hundreds instead of handfuls, using their knowledge of safe paths and monster territories to bring entire villages out of the vampyr infested east. People opened their homes to others, donated or gave away supplies and foodstuffs, and gathered stragglers and orphans into their own groups and families as they ran for safety. Tens of thousands of people managed to make their way to freedom and escape the imminent threat of death or turning. Hundreds of thousands had died, or were still trapped, holding out as best they could against the vampyr that besieged them. Amanda¡¯s secret position as the shadowy leader of many anti-slavery groups that worked in Nelam was out in the open now. There was no point in keeping it hidden any more. Originally Amanda had kept it a secret to protect herself and her people from Nelamian attacks. After becoming Prime Minister of Avalon and Kay¡¯s right hand woman they¡¯d continued to keep it a secret, at least publicly, to keep Avalon from being dragged into a war with Nelam. It became something of a moot point when they ended up at war with Nelam anyways, and now it mattered even less. Nelam was gone. Every report they could get their hands on said that King Glowl was dead and everything else that remained were tiny outposts and fortified towns surrounded by a sea of hungry vampyr. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The first refugees and escaped slaves had come following the normal smuggling paths Amanda had created that led into Avalon, already designed to free any slaves that made it there and send them on to other lives, whether in Avalon or even further from Nelam. When the war broke out many smugglers started increasing the size of their loads, bringing more and more people running from the fighting. Then the vampyr hit and it became a race for everyone¡¯s lives. Only half of the total people that Avalon¡¯s government had confirmed made it out of danger had come to Avalon itself, but that was still tens of thousands of people that needed food, homes, and to feel safe, most of them with nothing to their names but the clothes on their backs. Sometimes not even that much. It had been, and still was to a smaller extent, a complete mess. People made demands and tried to take over, whether it was the town or village they were staying in, parts of Avalon City, or in two cases a direct attempt to take over Avalon entirely. A few different bands of escaped slaves that had been in fights against multiple factions of Nelam¡¯s civil war fled the vampyr and made their way into Avalon. Two different leaders of some of those bands decided that they were in charge now, and tried to take over. One of them just started telling people what to do and refused to listen to multiple people telling him to stop. When some random citizen of Avalon had disobeyed an order he¡¯d given them, he started beating them and got arrested. His followers almost rioted and had to be arrested with him. The other leader who wanted Avalon as his own had been sneakier. He¡¯d made friends and connections, doing his best to seem calm and helpful. He managed to use several connections to get within range of Cindy and challenged her for her title as King of Avalon. It didn¡¯t work, both because challenges didn¡¯t work exactly like that, anyone with a title greater than ¡°Lord¡± or ¡°Lady¡± couldn¡¯t be challenged completely out of the blue like that, and also because Cindy wasn¡¯t King of Avalon. When it hadn¡¯t gone the way he¡¯d planned, the man attacked. Cindy shot him dead before he made it halfway to her. After that Amanda stepped in to take control of the devolving mess. Publicly revealing herself as the leader of many of the groups who¡¯d evacuated to Avalon, she¡¯d started giving orders and using them to restore public order. Many people had protested it, denying that their leader was some high placed official in a foreign nation. Direct meetings with Amanda had calmed down several of the recalcitrant and Amanda¡¯s push to keep people safe, fed, and healthy got everyone else moving the way she wanted. Avalon had already been expecting a population increase after Kay had been crowned king, and that allowed them to keep everyone¡¯s heads above water while construction crews scrambled to build more homes and farmers did their best to pump up the production of food. A huge amount of the treasury ended up getting sent to Tumbling Rapids to buy enough food and other supplies to bridge the gap, but they¡¯d made it. No one had died of starvation or exposure and things were starting to settle back down. Slums that had sprung up around Avalon city and other towns were being removed and replaced with real housing and the government was doing its best to make sure every new citizen had a job and an income to support themselves with. Many people were still considered refugees, refusing to swear fealty to Avalon and become citizens. Those that just wanted the nightmare to end so that they could go back to their homes were fine for the most part, it was the people who wanted things that were still causing trouble. None of that was really Cindy¡¯s problem to handle though. She¡¯d given speeches, fought would-be usurpers, helped suppress riots as peacefully as possible, in many cases just by being there, and had led countless patrols to find refugees and get them back safely or to kill vampyr but the social and political problems that Amanda was dealing with were still beyond her. She wasn¡¯t Kay¡¯s figurehead, but she was only his temporary placeholder, representing the might of Avalon¡¯s monarch to it¡¯s people and the rest of the world. She was getting a lot of experience from listening, watching, and learning from everything that was going on, but she still wasn¡¯t ready to make decisions of that level. Finishing their sweep for the day, Cindy led her patrol back to the camp that¡¯d been setup along the edge of the forest that Avalon claimed as their southernmost border. She couldn¡¯t guarantee it but Cindy was pretty sure the camp would grow into a fortress and potentially a city in time. It was well placed to defend Avalon¡¯s borders and she didn¡¯t think they¡¯d be giving it up anytime soon. She was just finished cleaning herself off in her quarters, erected by an enterprising Earth Mage, when Colen knocked on the door and stepped inside. ¡°My lady,¡± He greeted her, ¡°A messenger has arrived from the capital. Prime Minister Amanda is calling you back to Avalon City.¡± ¡°Is it important? We¡¯re heading back after tomorrow¡¯s patrol anyway, so if it can wait a day¡­¡± ¡°The Royal Avalon docked two days ago and a messenger made it to Avalon City yesterday. His Majesty King Kay has returned.¡± Cindy sagged in place, her eyes closing. ¡°Thank goodness.¡± She took a deep breath and pulled herself together. Straightening up she resumed the persona Colen as helping her build, one worthy of a Duchess of Avalon. ¡°If we leave tomorrow as planned will we beat Kay back?¡± butlers name smiled at her with no small amount of pride before slipping back into his own professional mien. ¡°It¡¯s possible, but unlikely, especially since his majesty will likely be moving quickly as well. We¡¯d probably get back the day after him.¡± ¡°A messenger made it here in a day.¡± Cindy pointed out. ¡°One person with Classes and Skills built around moving quickly to deliver a message did.¡± Colen replied. ¡°Good point. Actually, the messenger doing alright?¡± ¡°They¡¯re fine, milady. Tired, but eating and resting.¡± ¡°Good. Alright, grab the command staff and let¡¯s let them know what¡¯s happening. We¡¯ll prep everyone as best we can to be ready without me, since reinforcements to replace me aren¡¯t going to be here until tomorrow afternoon.¡± ¡°Of course, milady.¡± Book 6 Chapter 3 Kay tapped his fingers against the thin railing that ran underneath the windows of the carriage he and Eleniah were in. The expansion of roads between Avalon¡¯s cities had gone well and continued to progress, letting people move with vehicles and mounts and not being forced to walk between settlements. That meant they could get back to Avalon City from the port at a much quicker pace than it had once taken to walk there. Somewhere along the way the port town had gotten an official name, Breakport, referencing how the pirates that had once lived there had been broken and the port had been rebuilt into something better. Or so Kay had been told. Personally he found the name a bit jarring, but other people had complained about his naming sense so he kept his thoughts to himself. Eleniah glanced over at him from across the carriage and noticed his impatient fidgeting. ¡°You going to be alright?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be fine. I¡¯m just worried.¡± He shot her a quick smile that didn¡¯t reach his eyes. ¡°The letters were one thing, but getting even more up to date reports when we got back¡­ It¡¯s not looking good.¡± She reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it tight. ¡°Don¡¯t work yourself up. Things don¡¯t look great, but they¡¯re not looking terrible either. Amanda, Cindy, and Meten have managed to hold the fort down and prevent anything from getting worse. Not we just need to work together to make things better.¡± Kay took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± He squeezed her hand. ¡°I just¡­ it feels wrong to not be there when things are going wrong, you know? I could have been helping this entire time.¡± ¡°You could have, but what would have been the consequences? It might sound a little selfish of me, but if you hadn¡¯t left to go help the Isles my family would be gone and there would be a threat to the whole world out there gaining power.¡± He reached out and grabbed her other hand. ¡°That is not selfish of you. What it is is manipulative because you¡¯re making me look at this in the point of view you want.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± She smiled and cocked a brow at him. ¡°I left good subordinates here and delegated the jobs that needed doing to them. All the reports we¡¯ve gotten so far say they¡¯ve done a great job, and I was probably the only person that could have cut those nanomachines off at the pass the way we did. I did what I could do where I needed to and the people I trusted did good jobs, proving my trust in them.¡± He leaned back against the wall of the carriage, still holding her hands. ¡°I can work through the logic and see that I made the right decision, but that doesn¡¯t completely erase the emotions that say I could have been here to help.¡± ¡°As long as you¡¯re aware of all that I think you¡¯ll be alright. You know,¡± She said after a pause, ¡°I can¡¯t help but to think you feeling bad right now is kind of my fault.¡± ¡°How?¡± ¡°Because if I hadn¡¯t pushed you down this path you wouldn¡¯t be feeling responsible for people.¡± ¡°Pfft.¡± Kay waved her comment away. ¡°That¡¯s the same level of dumb thinking that I¡¯ve had about not being good enough instead of focusing on becoming good enough. You didn¡¯t push me down any paths, you gave me an option and I took it. My feelings are my own responsibility. Plus, we wouldn¡¯t be together if you hadn¡¯t thought this was a good idea, so bonus points to you for that.¡± ¡°What do you say that?¡± Eleniah asked. ¡°Because if we had kept adventuring around just the two of us with you constantly being my teacher it would have cemented us into those roles so firmly we would never be able to get past it.¡± She looked at him consideringly, ¡°Huh.¡± ¡°You see? I think that catalyst that let us push past that was me getting power of my own in a way that couldn¡¯t afford to have you as a perceived authority figure above me. That let us even out as equals, which is important to any healthy relationship.¡± She sat back, still looking at him. ¡°I never thought of it like that.¡± ¡°So don¡¯t try and feel like my feelings are your fault. Unless you deliberately try and make me feel some kind of way, then it is your fault.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve caught me! I¡¯m trying to make you feel lime you¡¯ve failed people by not being there when you needed them by highlighting how you haven¡¯t done that! The powers of my reverse psychology truly are immense!¡± Kay grinned and squeezed her hands again before letting go. ¡°I just wish we could rush ahead by ourselves, but the arguments for moving together with everyone are good ones.¡± ¡°What are those?¡± ¡°Your basic premise about why I shouldn¡¯t be too worried is one, everyone¡¯s doing a good job so we don¡¯t need to be rushing at a breakneck pace and potentially make mistakes. We don¡¯t have every part of this route completely pacified yet even with the road and regular patrols and pulling me out of the caravan means the Blood Guard leaves to, which will decrease the security for everyone else. The last big one was that getting everyone back in a timely manner will let the officials with us get back to work sooner, which means a little less work for Amanda and the rest of her people when these ones are ready to take up their previous jobs.¡± He scratched at his head. ¡°I get all that, but I still want to be gone.¡±Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Eleniah pulled back the curtain over the window and peeked through. ¡°Things are moving at a good pace, we should be leaving when we expected to or a little earlier.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a small relief.¡± The door swung open and someone swung themselves into the carriage, sitting next to Eleniah. Kay glanced over, expecting it to be Lauren and froze in shock when he saw who it actually was. Lauren was there, sitting next to him after the first person had cleared the doorway. After staring at the new occupant and her little smile for an extended period, Kay finally managed to kick start his brain and say something. ¡°¡­ What?¡± The young looking human woman who was at minimum a hundred or so years older than him smiled at his confusion. ¡°To be honest, I was hoping for a little more of a reaction than that.¡± Teasing Kay was one of the best ways to get his brain working, even if it was just for a comeback and he managed to put together an actual sentence. ¡°Miri, what the hell are you doing here!?¡± ¡°Why, I¡¯m here to place myself into your service you majesty.¡± Miri, the maid and member of Clan Selthoran that he¡¯d met back in the Seramist Isles replied evenly. ¡°I thought you would have figured that out by now.¡± ¡°You¡¯re here to¡­ How was I supposed to figure anything out when you and everyone else that knew something were working together to keep me guessing. What do you mean ¡®place yourself in my service¡¯?¡± ¡°Exactly what it sounds like. You need a personal servant of some kind, someone to handle the smaller details of your life so you can focus on the big ones. My life back home was getting stagnant and becoming your aide or whatever title you wish to apply to me seemed like the perfect job for me. I have all the necessary qualifications, I¡¯m loyal to a fault, and I¡¯m embarking on this new life path seems like an excellent way to resume my progression with my Classes and Skills.¡± Kay gaped at her, caught completely off guard. ¡°Do you remember the conversation we had during that dance, your majesty? The one about my goals?¡± He thought back to what she was talking about and nodded to her once he remembered. ¡°I want to be known. Not for any silly things like scandals or heroic deeds, but for being absolutely fantastic at what I set myself to. What better spot is there for me than beside you? Not only will I get to do exactly what I want to and show everyone around how good I am at my job, I¡¯ll be able to do that in service to someone I respect and think of as a good leader. It¡¯s a very big win for me, and I think you get a win out of it too, especially since you won¡¯t have to spend any of your time or anyone else¡¯s looking for someone to take the position, since it will already be filled.¡± Kay looked to Lauren who was sitting quietly next to him. ¡°Did you know about this?¡± ¡°I figured out her goal while we were still in the Isles,¡± She replied. ¡°I assumed she was going to ask for the position before we left and I thought she had a good chance of you saying yes. When she didn¡¯t say anything and then we left I assumed that Queen Alahna had convinced her to stay or that she was going to follow after us later when recovery and repairs were done on Sel. I didn¡¯t know she was on our ship until a week into our journey back, and I was convinced not to say anything about it until now.¡± She gave Eleniah some side eye when she shared that. ¡°You were, were you?¡± Kay shot his girlfriend a look. ¡°I wonder why?¡± ¡°Because it was funny.¡± She smiled at him and shrugged. ¡°I also expected Miri to ask you to let her into your service before we left, although I predicted that she was going to spring it to you on the gangplank before we departed. I also didn¡¯t find out that she¡¯d snuck on board until after we¡¯d left, although she revealed herself to me on day three. At that point we weren¡¯t going to be turning around so I thought I might as well run with it.¡± ¡°The two of you let someone sneak onto our ship and just hang out for the entire journey?¡± ¡°Of course not.¡± Eleniah scoffed. ¡°Lauren and I both made her swear multiple oaths of loyalty and good behavior before either of us let her move a single inch out of striking distance. She made all the oaths without a problem and was completely honest about wanting to serve you so,¡± She shrugged. ¡°I¡­¡± Kay closed his eyes and let the emotions seep out of him. The main one was surprise, but the one after that was annoyance. Some of it was at Miri for doing this and Eleniah for enabling it, but most of it was at himself. Miri¡¯s goal had been obvious, he¡¯d just been too preoccupied in not wanting to see it that he hadn¡¯t seen it. The thought of having a personal servant was still weird to him, among a number of other ¡°perks¡± that came with being a king. He¡¯d promised that he¡¯d work past those issues and do what needed to be done though, so was any of this that bad? The prank was a little bit in bad taste with how stressed he was over what had been going on at home without him, but that wasn¡¯t Miri¡¯s fault since she¡¯d had no way of knowing what they were going to find when they arrived. Besides being mischievous and springing this on him at an inopportune moment though, Miri really was the best candidate they¡¯d found so far, and the level of dedication necessary to uproot her entire life to enter his service was one of the qualities his people, Amanda chief among them, had been looking for. ¡°Fine.¡± Kay told her after thinking it all through. ¡°You¡¯re right on all counts, although I¡¯m annoyed at how you went about this.¡± As he said that, he realized that that was probably the point. Miri had been quite demeaning toward those she thought weren¡¯t worth serving, and reacting too over the top at something that was an annoyance at best, I only because of the oaths she¡¯d sworn, would probably be a black mark in her estimation of him. Being tested by someone that was supposed to be serving him felt a little backwards, but Kay wasn¡¯t interested in surrounding himself with simpering yes-men who would do what they were told, including stupid things. ¡°Alright, Miri, you¡¯re in. You can use whatever total you want for your job, but just be warned that you¡¯ll have to do all those oaths over again in front of Amanda and the rest of my Ministers before they¡¯ll trust you.¡± ¡°It will assuredly take more than just oaths before they really trust me, your majesty, but I will make sure to show them that they can.¡± She bowed as deeply as she could to him in the confines of the carriage. ¡°I will serve you dutifully for the rest of my days, your majesty.¡± Kay couldn¡¯t think of anything to say that would be appropriate, especially in the face of the gravitas she¡¯d just used, so he just nodded. ¡°As my first official duty, allow me to report that all luggage has been loaded and the last person we were waiting for has boarded their vehicle.¡± Miri told him. ¡°We will depart for Avalon City shortly.¡± Book 6 Chapter 4 and Book 5 Release! There was no grand parade welcoming Kay home, which was exactly how he wanted it. It was more a matter of expediency than anything else, but he also wanted to set a precedent as well. Parades and celebrations take time and clog up streets, with important issues pressuring Avalon Kay didn¡¯t have time to wave from a chariot with a slave whispering in his ear that this too will pass and he too was mortal, even if he maybe wasn¡¯t strictly mortal anymore and he didn¡¯t have any slaves. Additionally though, he was trying to think of the future, he¡¯d planned for there to not be a triumphant return with a celebratory crowd before he¡¯d left and the sudden urgency of his return just compounded the reasons behind his initial plans. In deserved moments when it was called for parades and similar events could be both fun and useful, but setting the precedent of one happening every time Kay returned could cause lots of problems down the line. Celebrating every time he came back to Avalon City automatically made it a big deal that he¡¯d left. It would also be a burden on the citizens to shut down business and travel so often. Finally, he¡¯d look like a grandiose self-obsessed prick. Not that a single event would set that kind of precedent but¡­ there was always the chance that it could. Do it one time and the next time he came back a few people would ask if it was time to go again and then it was tradition. Better to cut it off at the pass now. They passed through the gates without issue after a normal search. Amanda had insisted when Avalon had still been a tiny village of less than two hundred people that guards should check everyone and their luggage or transports, just in case. Kay had agreed, and the policy hadn¡¯t changed since. He was pretty sure that was how Amanda¡¯s secret subordinate slave smugglers got their precious cargo out to freedom, which was how she knew of the security risks. The guards were polite, brisk, and very thorough and after they finished with the last carriage they all rolled into Avalon City. They moved through the streets in the area¡¯s set aside for vehicle traffic, passing many people who watched the caravan of carriages make their way toward the palace with interest or confusion. It wasn¡¯t common to have that many coordinated vehicles moving together and their intended destination raised many questions in people¡¯s minds. A few savvy individuals connected the blood guard posted on the outside of a couple of the carriages to Kay and figured out that he was back, but Blood Manipulation had become much more common in Avalon and Avalon City in particular so for most the red armor wrapped around the people guarding the vehicles didn¡¯t scream ¡°the king is back¡±. The carriages made it through the defenses around the palace and then they disembarked and headed inside. There were clusters of people waiting to take up their various duties centered around Kay. ¡°Miri, you can start showing off where you are in the pecking order after we introduce you to the Ministers and a few other people, so stay with me for now.¡± He go the attention of his guard detail and gestured at the other Blood Guard who were gathering nearby. ¡°Switch with them and go get some rest. Excellent job everyone.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be staying with you for now, your majesty.¡± Lauren replied. ¡°Tyuah isn¡¯t going to be available for a bit and I need to debrief with her before I go off shift.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± Kay waved the waiting servants and workers forward and they rushed at the carriages, gathering luggage and people alike and whisking them off to wherever they needed to go. The senior members of the delegation Kay had taken with him to assist in trade negotiations and similar high level wheeling and dealing were taken to wherever the head of their departments were, and in some cases directly to the Minister they reported to, to brief those who needed to know about the results of those negotiations and the deals that had been struck. Everyone else got to go home to rest. The seat of higher power came with higher levels of responsibility. Even with the issues that were going to immediately become Kay¡¯s problems ominously floating in the direction of his office Kay could feel some of the tension he was feeling seep out of his body as he stepped into the palace and began down familiar hallways. No matter what was happening, it was always good to be home after a long trip. There were several offices littered throughout the building that were Kay¡¯s and he could use any of them he felt like for mundane business and day to day operations, but he was sure there would be secret things to discuss so he made his way to the right by his personal quarters which was both one of the most secure spots in the palace but also the office he truly considered to be ¡°his¡± office. He pulled the seat back and dropped down into it. Eleniah took a seat in one of the couches off to the side as Kay turned to Miri. ¡°I¡¯m sure that you won¡¯t want to sit down, but where are you going to be?¡± He gestured around the room. ¡°Might as well figure out the simple things while we wait on everyone to show up.¡± Miri looked back at him with a level expression. ¡°You¡¯re assuming that the people you want to see are just going to show up?¡± ¡°No,¡± Kay shook his head with a smile, ¡°That would be ridiculous, I just wanted you to start thinking about it now.¡± He glanced over at Lauren. ¡°Send someone for Amanda, Cindy, and anyone else they think should attend.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± She stepped out of the room for a moment before returning. ¡°You use your guards as messengers?¡± Miri asked. ¡°Sometimes. We¡¯re a still a small nation in terms of absolute manpower, and while that¡¯s changing, especially with the current situation based on the reports I¡¯ve managed to read, we don¡¯t always have someone around to just be a messenger for me. My Blood Guard are always around and are all trusted, so sometimes it¡¯s better to just send one of them instead of having them hunt around for a messenger to then send after whoever I need to find.¡± ¡°I see. Then my first task as your seneschal will be recruit a staff, including some dedicated messengers.¡± ¡°That¡¯s it!¡± Kay pointed at Miri in triumph. ¡°That¡¯s the word I was trying to think of!¡± He glanced to the side. ¡°I wonder if there¡¯s an actual difference in this language or if the translator is being nice to me?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a different word than we¡¯ve been using.¡± Eleniah commented from her spot on the couch. ¡°It¡¯s older and not used as commonly anymore, which is why it hasn¡¯t come up before now.¡± ¡°Good to know. Excellent word choice Miri, you¡¯re now my seneschal.¡± ¡°Thank you, your majesty.¡± ¡°Anyways, Amanda¡¯s search for people before this turned up a number of decent candidates that didn¡¯t quite make the cut for your spot, but a lot of them are still around in other positions or just waiting until we found you. You¡¯ll have full discretion over who you chose for your staff but it might save time to start with them.¡± After a few moments Miri decided to put off the decision on where ¡°her spot¡± would be and instead started exploring the space. She mapped out the office then headed to Kay¡¯s quarters, with a Blood Guard trailing her just in case. Not in case she did anything, but in case someone discovered her in off limits areas and decided she was a spy or assassin. Kay and Eleniah chatted while they waited and a short time later Miri returned with snacks and a pot of tea. ¡°Where¡¯d you get this?¡± Kay asked as he peered at the tray of small sandwiches and other snacks. ¡°There¡¯s a kitchen attached to your quarters with food and drink.¡± She said, giving him a look as she set down the pot on a side table and began grabbing cups. ¡°I was surprised there was no one there.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no point in keeping a chef around when I won¡¯t be here, and honestly I thought having a private kitchen was a bit of a stretch anyways. I can always have someone go fetch me food from the main kitchen.¡± Miri let out a small sigh. ¡°I¡¯ll have to recruit a chef as well then.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t go that far. If you feel the need then hire a few people that have a decent level Cooking Skill but there¡¯s no need to get a full time chef to be on hand at all times or even most of the time. Like I said, I can just send someone to get food from the main kitchen if I¡¯m hungry.¡± ¡°Very well.¡± They settled in, with Miri eventually picking a spot slightly behind Kay, almost mirroring Lauren¡¯s normal spot when she was part of his detail. They discussed what kind of roles Miri needed for her staff, including those that were generally necessary for anyone in the role she was taking on and those that were specifically needed because of the unique needs of Avalon¡¯s people and their ruler. As a Class Line Progenitor he needed people to assist him in training others including coordinating when and where training could take place and vetting people that were allowed to learn directly from him. As a vampire it was necessary to find people that would be willing to let Kay drink some of their blood in an emergency, which would be a difficult ask given the still present threat of the vampyr and how they¡¯re predations had shaped the public consciousness of Torotia for centuries. After twenty or thirty minutes of waiting Cindy slipped into the room with her own butler Colen and a single guard who was covered in pistols that hung from every open inch of fabric. The guard shared a nod with Lauren as he stepped off to the side. Kay smiled at Cindy and pointed at a chair. ¡°Go ahead and sit. We¡¯re still waiting on Amanda and anyone else she wants to bring.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± Cindy glanced at Miri with a confused expression but sat without saying anything. ¡°How are you?¡± ¡°¡­ It¡¯s been hard.¡± She sagged in her chair. ¡°Everything could be so much worse, but its been hard. I understood a little bit of why you were so against all the pomp and circumstance we were throwing around at you, but now I really get it. We¡¯re just doing our best, and sometimes that¡¯s good enough, but there¡¯s always those times where you reach out and just miss. People die, or worse, and there was nothing you could do. And then they celebrate you as if you¡¯re someone special!¡± She buried her face in her hands for a second before looking up with bloodshot eyes. Kay nodded slowly. ¡°It¡¯s hard. Neither of us have been there yet, I don¡¯t think, but it¡¯ll be worse when they¡¯re looking up at us like some kind of amazing hero and then we fail them because we aren¡¯t infallible. The looks and the vitriol we¡¯ll one day get will haunt me. Probably.¡± ¡°We just have to¡­ keep going.¡± Cindy muttered. ¡°That¡¯s all there is.¡± Kay opened his mouth to respond but got interrupted by Amanda opening the door and stepping inside. ¡°We¡¯ll come back to this conversation later. Amanda, good to see you.¡± ¡°And you as well, your majesty.¡± She replied, not looking in Miri¡¯s direction but obviously aware of the presence of someone she didn¡¯t know. She made a small gesture that indicated that Isla was with her, which is what Kay wanted. ¡°Go ahead and sit down, and we¡¯ll get started.¡± He waited until she complied before speaking again. ¡°Before anything else, I want to say that I¡¯ve read all of the messages you both sent and caught up on all the reports I¡¯ve been able to get my hands on since we got back home. All I can say is well done. You kept everything running when faced with a sudden and dangerous catastrophe spilling in over our borders, and everything I¡¯ve seen says you¡¯ve both handled it with grace and excellence. You¡¯ve both held up to the expectations I had for you. Thank you. Now tell me everything so we can start solving issues and do our best to make things better.¡± Book 6 Chapter 5 Kay set aside another set of reports that contained the details of what Amanda and Cindy reported to him. Amanda had the government and civil matters handled, while Cindy was going over what military and adventurer related items she knew about. Kay would need a more detailed report both from General Curcius, the leader of Avalon¡¯s military, and Meten, the oni who was in charge of Avalon¡¯s directly controlled force of Adventurers, the Sentinels, in the future but both of them were busy and Cindy had been involved in fighting back vampyr incursions fir the last few months, so she knew enough to give Kay a summary. ¡°A civil war breaks out in Nelam, a flood of refugees show up begging for sanctuary, then vampyr attack everyone to our west and more people run to us for safety, all while I¡¯m gone.¡± Kay shook his head. ¡°Thanks to that we¡¯ve got rampaging vampyr everywhere and a horde of people to deal with.¡± He tipped back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. ¡°If it wasn¡¯t crazy talk I¡¯d say someone is after us.¡± ¡°Looking for an enemy pulling the strings isn¡¯t wrong necessarily,¡± Amanda grabbed the papers Kay had set down and organized them before setting them back down, ¡°But spending too much time on the idea might lead to madness. The level of power someone would need to engineer all of this just to strike at Avalon would be able to attack us on their own.¡± ¡°True.¡± Kay let the moment pass and sat up, his back straight and his posture open, doing his best to portray himself as a confident leader. ¡°Alright. I¡¯ve got the top level summary, so let¡¯s talk details. What¡¯s most pressing?¡± Amanda shuffled through her documents and pulled out a sheet that she handed to him. ¡°The refugee issue is the one most likely to boil over quickly or turn into something that needs handling. They¡¯re inside our borders and can make plans of their own, which makes dealing with them the first thing to handle in my opinion. Foreign policy can wait until we have our domestic issues solved and the military side of things is holding to my knowledge.¡± Cindy nodded when Kay glanced at her. ¡°She¡¯s right. Curcius has built the army up enough that we can train new recruits in relative safety and still have forces to deal with threats. Our territory is basically a peninsula so we¡¯ve only got one land border to deal with. Thanks to that the army has been able to concentrate along the edge most of the vampyr are coming through and have been holding them off there. Sentinel forces have been filling in the gaps between larger deployments and picking off anything that tries to move inward.¡± ¡°We¡¯re pushed out that far?¡± Kay drew out some blood and shaped it into a floating map of Avalon¡¯s territory. The rounded shape looked a bit like a fish¡¯s fin from an angle. Kay pointed at the Kay pointed at the far western end of the map. ¡°That¡¯s the edge of what we claim, but that¡¯s hundreds of miles away. We don¡¯t have that many soldiers.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right, we don¡¯t. We don¡¯t need that many right now though.¡± Cindy tapped at two different points on the map. ¡°That¡¯s where our two deployments are right now. On our side of the border that¡¯s all undeveloped land but both of those spots are close to large roads that lead west. A lot of the refugees take the roads for speed and then have been cutting over the border as soon as possible. We aren¡¯t facing an actual invading army, the vampyr we¡¯ve been seeing are animals chasing prey. We don¡¯t need to defend the border, just where the people are coming.¡± ¡°My people were originally using less obvious paths,¡± Amanda added, ¡°When it was better to be slow and draw less attention. Now that its more important to get as many people out of danger as quickly as possible I¡¯ve been ordering them to abandon stealth and head for our army.¡± ¡°Your people?¡± ¡°My smugglers, abolitionists, and rescuers.¡± She replied. ¡°When it was just the civil war I had them ramp up their efforts into getting slaves out of danger without breaking completely into the open, but when things escalated there was no point in keeping it a secret any longer. Nelam is gone and so are almost everyone that gives a shit about finding the secret mastermind that¡¯s been foiling so many of everyone¡¯s plans. Not everyone who worked for me was pleased when they found out who I really am but,¡± She shrugged and a small satisfied smile graced her face, ¡°I showed those who wanted to be ornery the error of their ways.¡± Kay followed all of her logic and couldn¡¯t see anything to argue against. The only reason he hadn¡¯t officially known what Amanda was doing was to keep them out of war with Nelam. That was pointless now on two fronts. ¡°You¡¯re still using them?¡± ¡°Of course! They¡¯re still useful after all. I¡¯ve officially brought all of them that didn¡¯t run off into service of Avalon and I¡¯ve been using them in a number of roles so far. Most of the people who reported directly to me are going to get moved into administrations and other bureaucratic positions, the smugglers are all working at evacuating everyone they can out of the danger zones or keeping lines of communication open with the limited number of settlements that are still holding out, and all of the speakers, orators, cell leaders, and such are doing their best to keep things calm among the refugees.¡± ¡°Speaking of, let¡¯s get back on that topic.¡± Kay dismissed the map and let it sink back into his veins. ¡°Indeed. A vast majority of those who have fled into our lands aren¡¯t going to be a problem. They¡¯re grateful that we¡¯ve let them in and given them food, places to stay, and a measure of safety. Most of them either fine with what we¡¯ve managed to do for them so far or are accepting that we can¡¯t make anything perfect for them this quickly, and a large number of them are considering or already have sworn fealty to Avalon and become citizens.¡± She pointed to the paper she had and showed him some figures. ¡°Thankfully we were already expecting population growth through immigration following your coronation so we had some infrastructure ready and more under construction to deal with that surge in place. We weren¡¯t ready for this many people all at once, but we were able to hold on long enough to get back into the green. By the end of the month we should be finished with all the emergency construction and can move back to regular expansion.¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°That¡¯s all good news. Where¡¯s the problem coming from?¡± ¡°The people who aren¡¯t simply grateful that we¡¯ve helped them at great expense for no direct benefit to ourselves, of course.¡± Amanda scowled as she pulled out the next page. ¡°They vary from group to group and person to person, but it all varies down to them wanting something that we don¡¯t have or haven¡¯t given them. Some of them,¡± She tapped a few names on the list she showed him, ¡°Are just annoying and not really a threat. Nobles who are demanding better treatment and similar nonsense are the majority of that category. Then we have the opportunists that see all the chaos and want to carve a portion out for themselves. Some of them are moving inside the framework of our nation and range from annoyances to thorns in my side, including criminal networks or organizations that are trying to reestablish themselves, but there are some that have been or look like they¡¯re making moves against Avalon. Cindy dealt with a couple of those.¡± Avalon¡¯s only other noble grimaced. ¡°It wasn¡¯t pleasant, but they didn¡¯t really give me a choice. The less violent or just more reasonable few are in jail and the rest are dead. A few tried to challenge me, and at least one of them just went straight for an assassination attempt.¡± ¡°Are you alright?¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m fine. Only one of them got anywhere near injuring me and they gave up when everyone around me came down on them like a sack of bricks. According to Amanda and the others the actually threatening ones are waiting to make their moves instead of rushing ahead.¡± ¡°Good, glad to hear you haven¡¯t been hurt covering for me. It sounds like you have at least one more category of problem though, who¡¯s left?¡± Amanda nodded, ¡°Two more. There are armed groups of escaped slaves that followed the flow of people once the vampyr made it ridiculous to try and keep fighting. Some of them are my people, were my people and I¡¯ve gotten control of them again, or were just bright enough to see where things are headed and are behaving. We¡¯re working on integrating them into our armed forces if they can be trusted or just letting them have normal lives if they want them. The one¡¯s that aren¡¯t behaving are either rabble rousing or pushing to commit atrocities.¡± ¡°They suffered so now they should be able to wreak their vengeance against anyone from Nelam that they feel deserves it?¡± Kay asked acidly. ¡°Essentially. We¡¯ve been trying to get help for the ones that are just hurting or broken and lashing out, but they have to want the help. The rest¡­¡± Amanda shook her head. ¡°As much as I can sympathies with people that have been treated so terribly for so long, I can¡¯t let them kill people for the crime of having been around atrocities or evil and not doing anything. Random civilians who grew up in Nelam might not have tolerated slavery or just not fought against it but that doesn¡¯t make it right to massacre them.¡± ¡°We can¡¯t let that happen.¡± Kay insisted. ¡°Repaying the evils of slavery with more evil will just start a cycle of hatred and pain that will burn everyone around. As long as they are within my lands there will be no counter atrocities.¡± Amanda bowed her head. ¡°Who are the last group of potential problems?¡± ¡°The factions of the civil war who made it out as well as some of the polities that weren¡¯t involved by still had to flee the vampyr. As with everyone else, some are fine and some are problems. A few tried to claim some of our lands for their own and had to be spoken to or smacked down. Others are demanding we help them reclaim their territories or give them this aid or that resource. The most problematic of them have been unwilling to wait for you to return or Parliament to make decisions.¡± ¡°Speaking of, how is Parliament?¡± ¡°Split on most of the remaining issues. The majority have had no problem with accepting refugees or any of the refugees becoming citizens, but opinions are roughly split on what kind of aid beyond that that we should be giving. Some are interested in pushing the vampyr back and reclaiming territory for those who have lost it other believe it isn¡¯t our problem and we shouldn¡¯t commit to fighting monsters for people who were our enemies until recently.¡± Her lips quirked to the side. ¡°Even if they aren¡¯t all Nelamian most of our citizens aren¡¯t seeing much difference between Nelam and those around them, since they didn¡¯t do anything to hinder Nelam¡¯s attack on us.¡± She shrugged lightly. ¡°And while I know that most of the region was tied up in Nelamian manipulations and string pulling I can understand the emotional reaction.¡± ¡°When we eventually decide on the best course of action I¡¯ll have to work on convincing Parliament to side with me.¡± Kay muttered as he thought it over. ¡°Even if I am technically a tyrant who can do whatever I want without asking anyone, I don¡¯t want to be and Parliament isn¡¯t supposed to be a rubber stamp or an excuse to hold up and show I¡¯m being a good boy.¡± ¡°I am both in agreement and happy that you¡¯re thinking about it in such a way.¡± Amanda told him. ¡°However, before we go any farther, perhaps you could introduce your guest?¡± She gestured at Miri who was standing behind Kay and a little off to the side. ¡°I understand that you wanted to get to work quickly, but some of the topics we need to discuss are sensitive ones.¡± ¡°Oh, you won¡¯t need to worry about me.¡± Miri stepped closer with a smile on her face. ¡°The two of us will be working together quite closely in a very short period of time.¡± ¡°Prime Minister Amanda, Duchess Cinderella, meet Miri, my seneschal.¡± Kay waved back and forth between the woman at his side and the two sitting in front of him. ¡°We picked her up in the Isles and she not only made a good impression and an impassioned speech about why she wanted to serve me, she also comes with the necessary skills and some fantastic recommendations. Lauren spoke to me about how I was causing problems with your search for someone to serve that role,¡± He told Amanda, ¡°So when someone perfect for the position appeared and wanted it I went ahead and filled it.¡± ¡°Is that so?¡± Amanda turned a steely gaze to Miri and looked her up and down. ¡°Well then, if you pass muster it seems we will be working closely together.¡± Miri met Amanda¡¯s cold gaze with the same cheerful smile. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me Prime Minister, I¡¯m absolutely sure that I¡¯ll more than meet all of your expectations. I am very good at my job.¡± Book 6 Chapter 6 After introductions were made in depth and Miri demonstrated her loyalty to Amanda¡¯s tentative approval they dived back into the meeting, going over some of the subjects Amanda considered sensitive. They ranged from the plans and desires of various factions and leaders they¡¯d discovered through espionage of one form or another to more specific information about the movement of their troops. Hearing Amanda¡¯s take on reports Kay knew came from Isla was amusing but he did his best to keep a straight face. The obvious changes to certain words combined with a shift from Isla¡¯s normal mischievous tone into Amanda¡¯s no nonsense tone was made it a stilted recitation but all of the key information was there. Kay thought Ilsa was probably getting a laugh or two out of it as well and wished he could see where she was at the moment. His spymaster was a pixie, a race of tiny people with wings not unlike Earth¡¯s myths of similar creatures, and a skilled illusionist as well. She was probably tier six, she¡¯d never said it outright that he remembered but had made several allusions to it, and liked to hide herself both physically and under layers of illusions making it next to impossible to find her when she didn¡¯t want to be found. She could be sitting right on Kay¡¯s nose and he¡¯d have no idea. She could make auditory illusions as well as was most likely pumping her report right into Amanda¡¯s ear to recite, along with some teasing to go with Amanda¡¯s deliberate changes. Eventually his new seneschal would need to meet his spymaster, and not just the illusion of a bland human man she used in meetings to help throw off any trace of her real existence. Miri was going to be his right hand in everything to do with his day to day existence and making sure everyone in his inner circle knew when to go to her instead of heading directly to Kay was going to be important. Avalon was a growing nation, and Kay was going to keep getting busier as his country grew. There was a time coming where Kay would not have time for a direct report from Isla or Isla wouldn¡¯t have time to give him a report and either way they would need Miri to bridge those gaps. Additionally, Miri had some experience that would meld well with Isla¡¯s expertise. Miri had spent a large portion of her early life training to be a spy for the Seramist Isles until she¡¯d decided she didn¡¯t want to spend her life working in the shadows and had moved to working as a maid in Queen Alahna¡¯s palace. Now she was Kay¡¯s seneschal and though she didn¡¯t want to be a spy, what she¡¯d learned in that vein would serve Kay well. Just imagining the person in control of his schedule, who everyone who wanted a piece of him would have to go through, working hand in hand with his spymaster was both exhilarating and terrifying. The amount of information they could gain, and the havoc they could wreak¡­ The amount of bullshit that anyone was going to be able to pull with his schedule was going to become extremely diminished before it ever became a problem, and it was glorious. But it wasn¡¯t time for that yet. It would take some time for Isla to reveal herself in all her tiny glory to Miri, and Miri needed time to get her feet under her. Until then they¡¯d have to keep having invisible pixies whisper the secrets of others into their ears. Moving past the confidential portions of the update Amanda started going over what they¡¯d done to work with and around the heavy number of people that Avalon now had to take care of. Even in the details things were going pretty well there. As she¡¯d already said they¡¯d been expecting people to start moving into Avalon in the future so they¡¯d been preparing, the only real problem was that all these people were coming at once instead of the steady flow they¡¯d planned for. Still, the infrastructure they had already built or had been in construction had softened the initial blow and resources had been diverted to speed things up. Only a few villages worth of people were still in temporary camps and those camps weren¡¯t a terrible place to be either. Kay remembered news videos about refugee camps back on Earth that were little better than slums, with people having to constantly struggle to get enough to eat or drink. That wasn¡¯t a problem here, thanks to his excellent subordinates. Order was maintained, careful control of resources kept people form hoarding or trying to steal from others, and the regular flow of people out of the camps into better living conditions helped keep people calm. The projections Amanda showed him indicated that they could have everyone living in an actual home within the next few months at the earliest, once again showing the power of magic, Skills, and Classes. Hundreds of homes and the infrastructure to support them built in a few months would never happen back on Earth. The people still in the camps were the ones who didn¡¯t want to become citizens of Avalon but also weren¡¯t causing problems. The troublemakers had been relocated first, ending up in what were basically open air prisons. Kay wasn¡¯t comfortable with what sounded quite close to concentration camps, but no one was being abused thankfully, and people were free to leave as they pleased. That being said, if they did leave they were subjecting themselves to Avalon¡¯s laws as long as they remained in Avalon and had to support themselves. If they remained in their prison camps they¡¯d get food and drink provided to them and could basically do as they liked outside of any criminal activities. Leaving the camps opened them up to the rest of society and made them have to figure out their own housing and how they would get food to eat.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. None of it made Kay happy, but there were no perfect solutions. Those people had arrived in his country, used their resources, and then tried to overthrow his government, take over land or towns that belonged to Avalon, or create criminal organizations to prey on his people. Well, they¡¯d made poor attempts or had been caught in the planning stages at least. He wasn¡¯t going to execute them out of hand, the people guilty of real crimes were already in jail or had been tried, but he wasn¡¯t going to give them more than a second chance. Anyone that hadn¡¯t been arrested was guilty of minor crimes at worst, or they¡¯d been planning to do worse but hadn¡¯t gotten around to it and as much as he wanted to Kay wasn¡¯t going to start punishing people for crimes that hadn¡¯t happened yet, and at least some of them had been driven by desperation or the trauma of what had happened to them. A little bit of shouting at people, rabble rousing, or setting up pickpocketing rings wasn¡¯t the worst of what people had tried. Kay was willing to go with what his people had decided, which amounted to a short stay in jail, to punish them, but that was the limit of his generosity. If they left they had to fend for themselves and if they committed more crimes they were getting the full punishment that the law called for. On the other end of the spectrum were the people who saw Avalon as a potential new home and wanted start new lives in the wake of the devastation they¡¯d suffered. For many of them their old homes were gone, wiped out in the civil war or destroyed by slavering packs of vampyr, they had no other place to go and were happy to be part of a country that could and would keep them safe. They were all polled and their specialties, expertises, and desires were learned to sort them out and then they were resettled in new or existing settlements. Areas of land worth using had been identified and sites for villages or towns had been identified years ago, with the population growing Amanda and Kay¡¯s other ministers had pushed Avalon¡¯s workers hard. Empty sites and settlements that only existed in plans and blueprints sprung up basically overnight, and now people lived in them. Some villages were basically transplants, with the entire population having escaped from the carnage together. Others were comprised of bits and pieces stitched together into a new whole. Families were kept together as best they could be and the needs of both individuals and the groupings were kept in mind as they placed people together and moved them to their new homes. Work hadn¡¯t started in most of the new villages as the new citizens were encouraged to decompress and learn their new homes, but there were a few that had already started doing what they could, focusing on work to get through the pain of their losses. It would take years for each village to become self-sufficient and a few more to turn a profit but Avalon could afford the investment now to earn the future benefits. Providing all of this for the people that needed it was no only a good thing to do for its own sake but benefited Avalon heavily. More citizens meant more of everything, but especially the good things like production, resources, and potential recruits for the military, Sentinels, and Wardens. Amanda liked to divide her briefings into categories and sub-categories and they were in the ¡°population¡± category. The only subcategory left was the former slaves and Amanda¡¯s professional expression was tainted with sadness. The people who had escaped slavery during the civil war were, for the most part, doing alright. They were just as divided into groups that wanted to stay in Avalon, those that didn¡¯t, and those causing trouble, but a majority of them were able to function. Many of those that were freed at the last moment before an oncoming wave of vampyr could kill them weren¡¯t that stable. A huge number of healers and therapists were needed, and thankfully they had access to just enough, with Amanda¡¯s preparedness coming in clutch again. It was taking time, as anything of this nature did, but eventually they would be able to put themselves back together. Those that needed healing weren¡¯t really an issue though. They were and would continue to provide what they needed without issue. The problem came from those that wanted revenge. Specifically, the former slaves that wanted revenge against everyone. Kay couldn¡¯t allow people to start massacring others so the former slaves who had tried were being kept separately, in camps similar to those holding the other problem people. Counseling was available and Amanda¡¯s reported showed that many were taking the help offered and toning down their demands that anyone from Nelam die in a bloody fashion, but many weren¡¯t. For some, their drive for blood was the only thing keeping them going and they refused to let go of it. They couldn¡¯t keep those people there forever though, and one of Kay¡¯s problems was to figure out what to do with them. It was an issue he had to set aside for later though. He had never been a slave and was not able to empathize with the people who had. He could sympathize with them, but he would never be able to truly understand what they had been through, and he wasn¡¯t going to start making decrees from a place of ignorance. He planned to gather people who had been through slavery to help him figure out the best path forward, but that would take tie both to figure out who was best suited for that role and to gather them together. All Kay could do was what he could do, and in this case that meant tabling the problem for later. ¡°Alright, that¡¯s the people covered.¡± Kay stretched out his arms and flexed his fingers. ¡°What¡¯s next?¡± Amanda shuffled her papers to bring the next set of reports to the front while Miri moved to a new set of blank notes, ready to transcribe, and Eleniah and Cindy just waited, ready to put in their own thoughts or observations. Kay knew that out of everything that had happened to him, the luckiest he had ever been was when he¡¯d acquired such good friends and allies. The Prime Minister of Avalon finished shuffling her papers and looked up at Kay, her serious expression more intense than usual. ¡°We need to discuss what Avalon is going to do about what¡¯s going on to our west, in the ruins of what was once the nation of Nelam.¡± Book 6 Chapter 7 ¡°That¡­ was a little dramatic but I think it conveys the level of gravitas we¡¯re dealing with here.¡± Kay replied, unable to hold back some levity. Amanda¡¯s lips curled up slightly at the edges. ¡°Thank you. We¡¯re currently in a holding pattern and only reacting to what happens, we¡¯re not making any decisions about what to do ourselves. Not only are a number of groups and interests pushing us about what our stance is going to be, being reactive to a situation of this level is a poor decision in my opinion. I believe we should pick a direction, whatever it may be, and commit to that.¡± ¡°I agree. If there¡¯s on thing my mentor has taught me, it¡¯s to be decisive.¡± Hey shot Eleniah a grin, which she returned. ¡°Who¡¯s been pressuring you, and what to they want us to do?¡± ¡°Multiple groups and each wants something different. Tumbling Rapids is one, and they just want this entire situation to stop. Not everyone fleeing what used to be Nelam are coming here, enough are headed to Tumbling Rapids that its quickly becoming a problem for them. They¡¯re already straining to care for the people who made their way there and they don¡¯t have a lot of military force to deal with vampyr attacks.¡± Amanda gave him a level look. ¡°They would love for us to go deal with the problem, but they aren¡¯t in a position to do much for us in return. If we do end the vampyr threat from the west in one way or another the most we¡¯ll get from Tumbling Rapids is goodwill. They were already reeling from the events that you and Eleniah caused when the next round of the Nelamian campaign to take them over hit and caused more chaos among their politicians. Rooting out the leaders that supported Nelam immediately after we ended the Shatterplate War gave them a little bit of stability, but this has sent them spiraling again. They will need quite some time and effort to pull themselves back up.¡± She took a moment to gather her thoughts. ¡°Frankly, it might be in our best interests to not let them gain the stability they need. Or at least not help them with it.¡± ¡°Explain.¡± ¡°Tumbling Rapids has reached a point where they¡¯re only going to decline if they don¡¯t rapidly change their approach, and their leaders are focusing more on personal power and factional fighting to do anything about the problems their facing. If we give them assistance they should be able to dig themselves out of the hole they¡¯re in, but if we don¡¯t they¡¯ll devolve further and further. In a few years the city will be ripe for annexation without any blood spilled, they¡¯ll be so desperate that they might even come to us asking to become part of Avalon.¡± Kay stared across the table at his Prime Minister. ¡°How does that make us any different than Nelam was?¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t actively trying to make their situation worse or force anyone into untenable positions to make them work with us, we would just refrain from any charity and let them deal with the consequences of their own actions.¡± She replied without missing a beat. ¡°If we actually made harmful moves under the table we¡¯d have Tumbling Rapids sewn up within two to three years minimum. Leaving them as they are will take longer, but there¡¯s also less chance of harsh feelings down the road.¡± She set out three packets. ¡°This is a plan moving forward under the assumption that we won¡¯t volunteer to help Tumbling Rapids with non-emergency problems and will see if we can annex them once they reach a point of no return, without any interference from us. It includes the assumption that we will help if they ask and offer suitable payment. This one,¡± She tapped the on in the middle, ¡°Assumes we do help when they have issues and take a very long term stance toward annexing them using goodwill and negotiations without letting them drive themselves into a losing position. And this final one involves us actively maneuvering to take the city quickly through some mild sabotage and espionage.¡± Kay reached down and grabbed the first packet of papers. ¡°Why are you focused on us annexing Tumbling Rapids at all?¡± ¡°Two reasons. The first is to take control of trade on this side of the continent. With Nelam gone we have the only working port on the western side of the continent, that we know of at least. There might be a handful of smaller ones on the opposite side of us to the south, but we have no information about that. Either way, taking control of Tumbling Rapids will but us in a commanding position for all trade to this side of the continent and will not only massively increase our revenue but also connect us directly to more nations. Second, it helps with out isolation problem.¡± ¡°Isolation problem?¡± Eleniah stood up from the couch off to the side and circled round to lean against the desk near Kay. ¡°What do you mean by that?¡± ¡°The territory Avalon controls isn¡¯t quite a peninsula, but we¡¯re hemmed in fairly effectively by the ocean to our north and west and eventually the mountains to our east, leaving the souther border where our territory buts up against Tumbling Rapids territory as our only real border. That¡¯s fantastic for defensive purposes, but it limits us in other factors. That includes trade and contact with other nations, but the main ones I¡¯m worried about are immigration and future threats.¡± Kay nodded. ¡°I can see those. If everything you have seen says Tumbling Rapids is likely to collapse in on itself, then someone is going to either take over or replace it as a polity, which means we¡¯d have an unknown neighbor at our doorstep, one that might be hostile. There¡¯s no reason to leave that opportunity for someone else to take. Immigration wise¡­¡± He trailed off for a moment as he thought, but started nodding before he spoke again. ¡°Yeah. Getting here by sea is basically impossible for most people. We¡¯re far enough from other ports to make anything but large scale shipping worth the cost, and that won¡¯t change for years. By land is the only real way to get to us, and we¡¯re all isolated in the corner of the continent. How many people are put off by the level of work it takes to get to us and just¡­ don¡¯t.¡±Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°Exactly,¡± Amanda agreed with him, ¡°The amount of territory we claimed as being part of our borders is quite a bit of land, and we don¡¯t have enough people to really control it all. I know why you claimed all that land for Avalon and I agreed with your reasoning then, and I still do now, but there are still consequences to that. We have the authority to run off any ¡®squatters¡¯, destroy pirates and bandits, and take control of dungeons, ruins, or other valuable finds but we want to prevent more problems from cropping up, which means actively taking control of all our land. And that takes people. We need more people, and we can¡¯t rely on just births, that would be too slow. Making immigration to Avalon more palatable is just one step toward solving that.¡± ¡°More people let¡¯s us do a million other things too.¡± Eleniah muttered. She reached out an tapped the plan Kay was holding. ¡°I say we go with this one. We don¡¯t make things worse but we don¡¯t help without them asking us to. Because you¡¯re right, there¡¯s no point in leaving a tasty target out there for other people to take if its going to make itself available.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll need to discuss this a bit more before I make any final decisions, but I agree for now.¡± Kay handed the proposal back to Amanda. ¡°That took us a bit off topic though, who else is making demands about how we¡¯re going to react to this?¡± ¡°Refugees and escapees that don¡¯t want to join Avalon, of every flavor, want us to go wipe out the vampyr and then leave and let them build their own nation from the ashes, whether that¡¯s remaking what was lost or letting them build their ideals from scratch. The few holdout cities we¡¯ve been able to contact through some of my people want the same thing, just without building new countries.¡± ¡°So we roll up, solve the problem, and then leave with nothing?¡± Kay cocked an eyebrow. ¡°That¡¯s presumptuous of them.¡± ¡°A few of those with brains are offering us trade deals, alliances, and the like, but most don¡¯t have anything to offer. They do essentially want us to throw ourselves into a war and then not keep any of the land we take.¡± Kay snorted and shook his head. ¡°If we decide it¡¯s the best move to start dealing with the vampyr where Nelam used to be then we can discuss if we take any land. My current thought is that we don¡¯t, mostly because of what you just said about having too much territory already, but that¡¯s a later conversation. Is that the last of the people wanting things of us?¡± ¡°No, there¡¯s still the Shatterplate Order and the Itarian Crusade.¡± Both of Kay¡¯s eyebrows jumped to the top of his head. ¡°They¡¯re making demands of me?¡± Cindy raised her hand and wiggled it side to side in a ¡°sort of¡± gesture as she verbally entered the conversation for the first time. ¡°It¡¯s mostly Alice¡¯s friend Zeia, but the Itarian Crusade people that are here have been adding their two cents.¡± ¡°The correspondence that arrived before you left was still mostly ambiguous about whether the rest of both organizations were going to accept your demand that they move there bases of operation here following the war, but we got more after you left and Zeia¡¯s¡­¡± Amanda trailed off before huffing slightly and rolling her eyes, ¡°Vociferous arguments to me and everyone else that she gets a hold of seemed to have changed things. As far as we¡¯ve been able to tell, the events that have occurred have changed the minds of several of the hold outs. Both the Order and the Crusade are marching this direction in force, led by Commander Ravenhome and Crusader General Eahn. The messages they¡¯ve sent are insistent that they be allowed to sortie once they arrive and get settled in.¡± ¡°That does tip the scales in one direction, doesn¡¯t it? Add a meeting with Zeia and whoever they Crusade wants to represent them to my schedule. I¡¯ll see what thoughts they have from a local perspective and if we haven¡¯t made a final decision before then we can bring Ravenhome and Eahn into it.¡± ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± Miri replied, cutting off Amanda who was about to say something similar. Amanda gave Miri a look before a small smile graced her face. ¡°Well, that will save me quite a bit of work, now won¡¯t it? We¡¯ll have to speak after this, Miss Miri so that I can give you access to a few different resources you¡¯ll need.¡± ¡°Thank you, Prime Minister.¡± ¡°Of course.¡± Amanda turned back to Kay. ¡°That¡¯s the last group of people making demands of any kind, although quite a few others have suggestions of various levels. Whether that involves us invading too and fro and bring back spoils depends on how stupid the person making recommendations is, but sadly the roaming packs of mad vampyr haven¡¯t rid us of idiotic fops that think they¡¯re important.¡± ¡°Unless they become much more annoying then they are now, they aren¡¯t my problem. Is there anyone I should actually speak to before we move on to other topics? I can go ahead and get Miri to start working on scheduling them in.¡± ¡°Regarding what we¡¯re going to do about the west, no. In general, yes. Murunel¡¯s two family members are still here, her cousin and his wife. You didn¡¯t get a chance to speak with them before you left, correct?¡± ¡°No. Well, technically I did when I accepted their surrender and they promised not to do anything, but other than that, no. They were holed up with Murunel arguing about something if I remember right.¡± ¡°You do. Her cousin, the red dragon whose name is Azred, was insisting that she leave and return to the rest of her family and Murunel and her cousin¡¯s wife were working on shutting him down, which she told me they did eventually. Then they had to talk him out of starting a one dragon punitive campaign against Glowl for capturing Murunel and throwing her in that glass ball thing you¡¯ve all spoken of.¡± Amanda rolled her eyes. ¡°Nelam ceasing to exist and Glowl dying seems to have taken all the wind out of his sails, but he¡¯s sticking around. Apparently he¡¯s decided that if he can¡¯t out shout Murunel and make her go home with him or physically remove her, he¡¯s going to do his level best to convince her to leave on her own.¡± ¡°Is that working?¡± ¡°No, he¡¯s just been pissing her off. She¡¯s been aggravated and snappy for weeks and every meeting with her is turning into a pain. As your Prime Minister I¡¯m officially requesting your majesty to make him go away so that our friendly and efficient Minister of Resources comes back.¡± Book 6 Chapter 8 Wrangling enough free time to go have a talk with ornery dragons wasn¡¯t difficult, but it was tedious. There¡¯s always something to do in running a government and after returning home from an important trip to find things going sideways that was more true for Kay than ever. Everyone wanted a meeting with him to update him on progress, get his thoughts on what they should be doing, or just schmooze. The schmoozers were moved as far down on the list of priorities as possible, but the people who needed to make reports or ask for direction had varying levels of importance and meetings needed to be arranged correctly. That was where having competent subordinates made his life easier. Amanda was especially skilled in prioritizing what needed to be dealt with first and after the first few meetings with some of his Ministers and chunks of the representatives from Avalon¡¯s Parliament were over Kay had a stretch of time set out to speak with Murunel and her family. No one really knew where Murunel was from, all she¡¯d said about it was that she was from ¡°the west¡±, which wasn¡¯t helpful for figuring out customs, means of address, and what kind of refreshments to lay out for visiting dragons and their spouses. Murunel had never made a point of mentioning anything as being especially desired or despised, so Kay eventually overrode everyone and had a normal spread of drinks and foods laid out. He wasn¡¯t all that concerned with Murunel¡¯s relatives being happy with their reception or not. They¡¯d shown up as part of an invading army and whether their objectives were much more positive than any of the rest of the army¡¯s that was still a big black mark on their record. The three of them came in as a group, with Murunel in the lead. She gave him a big smile as she walked through the door and looked like she was going to come around and give him a hug before pausing. She turned her head slightly to glare at the man walking behind her, and quite obviously debated if giving Kay a hug was worth dealing with her relative being annoying. She eventually decided it was and walked past the chairs set out for visitors. Kay pushed himself up to return the hug. ¡°It¡¯s great to see you.¡± ¡°You too. Thanks for holding things together while I was gone.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t do too much,¡± She glared over her shoulder again, ¡°I was too busy keeping hold of this idiot to put too much work in. Amanda and Cindy did a vast majority of the heavy lifting.¡± ¡°Well you did a good job too, even if they were carrying the brunt of it.¡± Kay gave her a look that was meant to convey that keeping an angry dragon from running around taking that anger out on nearby bystanders was an important and valuable job too. He thought she got it based on the small smile and eye roll she gave him back. ¡°I appreciate you appreciating me.¡± ¡°Well of course-¡° ¡°You shut up!¡± Murunel snapped at her cousin. ¡°No one was talking to you yet, so don¡¯t push your way into conversations you aren¡¯t part of.¡± A small plume of smoke blew out of both of the man¡¯s nostrils as he snorted in displeasure. ¡°I-¡° He stopped mid word to stare down at his wife, who was glaring up at him. Kay knew from a combination of reports and his fight against the two of them that Murunel¡¯s cousin¡¯s wife, her cousin in law? cousin by marriage?, had mind or mental magic of some kind. He didn¡¯t know the exact details of her abilities but she was obviously capable of willing telepathy at minimum. While she was scolding her husband Kay took the time to look them both over. Murunel¡¯s cousin was also a dragon, obviously, but he¡¯d come in his humanoid form, which was different enough from Murunel¡¯s in more than one way to be interesting. He was taller than her, and much more muscular, which stood out because mining wasn¡¯t easy work and Murunel was ripped on her own. His muscles weren¡¯t the muscles of someone who did manual labor though, he was built like a warrior. Kay didn¡¯t know how much of a dragon¡¯s transformation into a humanoid shape was controllable, but it said the same thing about the man either way, he was a fighter and saw himself as one. His skin has a faint reddish tint to it similar to Murunel¡¯s gold coloration and Kay wondered if that came from their scales in their other forms or was a choice. His hair was also red, almost the same shade as his scales and his eyes were a dark, dark red that bordered on black. They glowed faintly from behind and it was a little like looking into a pool of lava with a plug of obsidian floating on it. Moving over to his wife, who was still holding the staring contest and probably the mental tongue lashing from what little he¡¯d heard about her from Murunel, she was much shorter than her husband. He was just under six feet tall and she was at least a foot shorter than him. She could have been human or elven, she had the graceful stance that elves were known for, but it wasn¡¯t a requirement that all elves were like that nor were they the only people that could. Thankfully, in Kay¡¯s opinion, there was a lot more variance and overlap between the various humanoid species on Torotia. There was no perfect racial box that anyone fit into, and Kay found that actually more comforting than entire species of people all being similar enough to identify on sight. With a skin tone that indicated a naturally pale person who spent a lot of time outdoors in the sun, a lithe and graceful body that showed off her physical fitness, her body shape also pointed toward a life of combat, and medium length brown hair that covered her ears she could be an elf, a human, one of the mildly rarer half-elves, or some other species Kay hadn¡¯t run into before. Both of them were wearing normal looking clothes that could have come from a shop in Avalon or anywhere else in the world and while it wasn¡¯t obvious, Kay could tell that not having their weapons or armor made both uncomfortable. The argument, lecture, stand off, or what have you continued for long enough that it started to get awkward sitting there in silence while the two of them obviously were talking. Murunel looked used to it and resigned to not being included, but Kay was debating whether or not to clear his throat or get their attention some other way when they finally broke eye contact. Murunel gave both side of the married pair a look, and while her cousin ignored her and stoically stared off into the middle distance, his wife nodded at her. Turning back to Kay, Murunel took a fortifying breath before beginning introductions. ¡°Kay, err¡­ Your Majesty, this my cousin, Azred, and his wife Vivien. They uh¡­¡± She tilted her head back and tried to search for the right words. ¡°They have come to¡­ Um, they have arrived to demonstrate¡­ Urgh.¡±Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°You can be casual, Murunel.¡± Kay told her, holding back a smile. ¡°Formality and precise speech is useful sometimes and a hindrance at other times. If your relatives don¡¯t have a problem with it, sticking to normal speech is fine.¡± Azred¡¯s brow furrowed but he said nothing. Vivien chose that moment to speak for the first time. ¡°Being informal will be fine, your majesty.¡± She kept her voice low, but it had undertones to it. Not like she was leaving something unsaid or her emotions were leaking into her speech, but literal tones under her voice. It was something Kay immediately decided was a magical effect, especially since the sounds layered into her speech didn¡¯t seem to be physical. It wasn¡¯t having any effect on him he could notice, so he marked it as an effect of a Class or Skill she had and reminded himself to keep an eye on it, just in case it was doing something to him. Kay used her speaking up to shift the bugeoning conversation to his topic instead of having Murunel try to explain anything. He¡¯d let her say her side of things in a minute but he wanted to hear this pair¡¯s responses without any biases first. ¡°Good. I would say welcome to Avalon, but you¡¯ve been here some time and your arrival wasn¡¯t the best. Instead, I¡¯ll say good morning, Azred and Vivien.¡± Azred grunted in reply. ¡°Good morning, your majesty.¡± Vivien said, ignoring her husband, ¡°How can we assist you today?¡± Murunel looked interested as well, although the way she was holding herself hinted that she might know what they were meeting about. ¡°I¡¯m going to skip over your arrival and the immediate consequences, because I don¡¯t think rehashing that will be useful at the moment. We¡¯ll handle all of the aftereffects of that, but now isn¡¯t the time. I called you both here to ask you a question. Why are you here?¡± Azred shot him a derisive look and opened his mouth, but Kay beat him to it. ¡°Why are you still here? As I just said, I am perfectly aware of how you came to be here and why, and I¡¯m sure I don¡¯t need to remind you of how that ended.¡± He looked back at Azred with a hint of derision of his own mixed with not so small dose of threat. If the dragon wanted to get into another fight with him, he¡¯d let him, and then teach him why picking fights in other people¡¯s houses was a bad idea. ¡°Your punishment-¡± Kay paused at Murunel¡¯s stricken expression, ¡°Your recompense for participating in an attack on my nation was deferred because of your relationship with Murunel, but you have been here for months after your, surrender shall we say, and you have made no attempts to even bring up the topic in order to leave after handling it. That tells me you want something. What is it? While not a major one, you are still a drain on our resources and a source of consternation for my subordinate and friend at best. Why are you here?¡± ¡°Murunel is not your subordinate!¡± Azred snarled as he jerked forward in his chair, rising partway to standing. ¡°She¡¯s coming home with us!¡± Vivien dipped her head, her eyes closing momentarily with pure, unhidden consternation and embarrassment. Murunel turned a look of distilled anger and disbelief. ¡°You stupid moron! Will you stop trying to-¡° ¡°Murunel is an adult,¡± Kay cut in. ¡°She is free to return to your home any time she likes, whether that¡¯s just for a visit or permanently. She is also free to choose to be my subordinate in addition to being my friend, and may stay in Avalon or leave as she likes.¡± He turned to look directly in her eyes. ¡°I don¡¯t think it needs to be said, but I¡¯ll support what ever decision you make.¡± ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m not a damn hatchling, Azred! I don¡¯t care what you think I should do or what traditions say! I¡¯m an adult and I¡¯ll make my own decisions. This is my new home and I¡¯m staying here. I like it here, and I like my job.¡± ¡°You aren¡¯t just any adult who can make decisions without affecting anyone else!¡± Azred shouted, the volume shaking the room slightly as he practically roared his words. ¡°You have responsibilities, duties! You are too important to be the subordinate of some little-¡° ¡°Some little what, Azred?¡± Vivien spoke up with menace in her tone. ¡°Some little human? Is that what you were going to say? Are we going to have to have another talk about-¡° ¡®No, no, no!¡± The angry dragon was vanished as he waved his hands in front of his face in denial and there was only a husband who¡¯d said the wrong thing in front of his wife. ¡°I was going to say ¡®some little king with a brand new, petty kingdom!¡¯ It wasn¡¯t about his species!¡± ¡°It better not have been.¡± She shot back. ¡°I apologize for my husband, your majesty. I love him dearly, but he can be¡­ bullheaded on occasion. Having Murunel keep with her family traditions is one of the things he¡¯s quite stubborn about.¡± ¡°Is this about her mother?¡± Kay asked. All three shot him looks of surprise. Azred¡¯s was angry surprise, the kind where someone has found out something they don¡¯t like, Murunel¡¯s was the pleased surprise of somone remembering something she thought they¡¯d have forgotten, and Vivien¡¯s was just surprise without any additions. ¡°She told you about that?¡± ¡°Nothing in detail, just that her mother has an important position and the tradition is that Murunel will inherit it as her daughter. I don¡¯t know anything about what the position is or where your home is, which I think is the biggest secret you¡¯re trying to hide, but she spoke about her distaste for the position and the duties that come with it.¡± Vivien ignored the family drama as her husband shot his younger cousin a hurt look and she glared back at him defiantly. ¡°Enough to understand the basic then. Yes, that is what it is about for my husband. I personally believe that forcing someone into doing anything is a bad idea and it¡¯s a terrible one when what you¡¯re forcing them to take a position of authority and responsibility. There¡¯s not many better ways to make sure they¡¯ll do a terrible job than making them.¡± Her completely ignoring the mention about where Murunel¡¯s original home was proved Kay¡¯s point, but he didn¡¯t interrupt. ¡°Azred wants to make Murunel come back with him to take up the position tradition demands of her as her mother¡¯s apprentice and heir, Murunel does not want to leave, and I¡¯m not going to leave my husband here in a foreign country that¡¯s already annoyed at him, so I¡¯m stuck.¡± ¡°Stuck?¡± Her husband asked, sounding indignant. ¡°Yes. I want to leave and am held here by my love for you, I would call that stuck.¡± He looked away grumpily, crossing his arms. Vivien sighed gently before turning forward to face Kay again. ¡°Your majesty, I can absolutely promise you that Azred will not even attempt to use force to force Murunel into returning with him. However, as pointless as I believe it is, I don¡¯t think he¡¯s committing any wrongs by trying to convince her.¡± Kay pointed an arched brow at Azred. ¡°I would never try to force her into anything!¡± He insisted. ¡°Why did I hear about you trying to physically restrain her when she left to come back here after we freed her then?¡± ¡°That was actually something else.¡± Murunel informed him, ¡°We already talked about it and Azred apologized, but it turns out that I interpreted it badly in the moment and assigned him some motives he didn¡¯t actually have.¡± She shot her cousin another glare. ¡°Of course, trying to literally drag me off to make sure I go to talk to my parents because they asked him to fetch me isn¡¯t much better, but he did apologize and promised not to do it again.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± Kay put the blood hidden throughout the specially prepared meeting room as decorative objects and inside disguised tubing back into its original position and let go of it all. He¡¯d grabbed a large mass as soon as Azred had jerked to his feet and snapped at him the first time and had held it ready in case the situation escalated. Vivien seemed to be the only person to notice the faint movements as everything was put back in place and she watched Kay with a little more caution. ¡°I won¡¯t force Azred to stop trying to convince Murunel of his position, and he¡¯s not likely to give up soon. You have the ability to make him stop by demanding that we leave, but Murunel¡¯s descriptions of you make me think that is an unlikely outcome, at least as a first resort. That being the case, I¡¯d like to negotiate both our payment for our poorly thought out actions in the past and for permission to remain for the foreseeable future.¡± Book 6 Chapter 9 Kay considered the pair for a moment. ¡°I do think it would be too tyrannical of me to force you to stop trying to convince Murunel of your point of view by demanding that you leave Avalon, and I agree that allowing you to remain here indefinitely without any form of recompense would be a bit much¡­¡± He frowned as he considered the situation. After a moments thought, he turned his head slightly to stare at Azred. ¡°I think the deciding factor in this case is you. Do you have a limit? Is there a point where you will accept Murunel¡¯s decision to remain and give up, or will you continue to badger her forever? Because if you¡¯re continuing until she returns with you permanently and does what you think she should without being willing to accept any other outcomes, then I will lean on my powers and get rid of you, for the sake of my friend.¡± Azred¡¯s deepening sneer as Kay spoke turned into a grimace under the power of his wife¡¯s disproving stare. ¡°I agreed to a time limit that Murunel came up with. I have until then to try and convince her that I¡¯m right, if I fail in that time then I have to stop.¡± ¡°Permanently?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not agreeing to forever silence myself, I have a right to keep and express my opinions about my family.¡± He firmed his posture, giving Kay a defiant glare. After a few seconds his grandstanding deflated. ¡°But if I fail to convince her, if!, then I won¡¯t make any campaigns of it like I¡¯m doing now.¡± ¡°That is an acceptable compromise, but I will add one addendum.¡± Kay raised a finger, not flinching under Azred¡¯s sudden glare or the two women¡¯s questioning looks. ¡°No bothering Murunel while she¡¯s working. Her job is important and I don¡¯t need her arguing with you when she¡¯s supposed to be working.¡± The red dragon in his humanoid form scoffed at the idea of Murunel¡¯s duties as one of Kay¡¯s Ministers, obviously thinking that whatever duties she would have as her mother¡¯s heir were much more important, but he didn¡¯t argue. ¡°As for payment or service to offset the costs of you staying here, I do have a thought.¡± ¡°How can we assist the Kingdom of Avalon?¡± Vivien asked. ¡°Your atonement for attacking us will be decided later, but the cost of staying with us will be assisting us with our current problem. Namely the vampyr incursions coming out of former Nelam.¡± The tense air in the room stemming from the arguing dragons took an entirely different air. ¡°While the specifics haven¡¯t been set in stone, and don¡¯t spread any of this around, but we¡¯re going to have to take direct action in the future to stem the tide. We¡¯re not going to be able to sit back and let any vampyr that come close bash themselves on our defenses while we wait out the problem, so we¡¯ll be dealing with it ourselves. I¡¯ll have the two of you help us with the fighting, both defensively while we make plans and then on the offense when we push to the east.¡± The married pair shared a glance and a silent conversation that might or might not have involved mental magic. ¡°We aren¡¯t opposed,¡± Vivien said after a few seconds, ¡°I would like to ask, why not make that the price for our atonement and require something else to stay? There¡¯s a certain poetry in having us fight against real vampyr after coming after you when you aren¡¯t one.¡± Kay favored them with a sly grin. ¡°Because when it comes to that, I have you over a barrel and I don¡¯t plan on letting you get off that easily.¡± His grin grew as Vivien glanced away, ¡°You were willing to come all this way to get in a giant fight to help your cousin and deal with what you thought was a dangerous vampyr. Well now I¡¯m asking you to still help your cousin and to fight against much weaker vampyr while traveling a shorter distance. Should perform any exemplary deeds or make yourselves incredibly useful, I might give you a little bit of slack when it comes to paying Avalon back, but I¡¯m not going to let you off for free.¡± ¡°I told you not to underestimate him,¡± Murunel pointed out. ¡°He¡¯s young, but he¡¯s not stupid and he¡¯s been getting training from some of the best schemers around. ¡° ¡°We agree.¡± Vivien said, ignoring the scolding. ¡°We¡¯ll help you deal with the vampyr.¡± ¡°Good. The details will have to be sorted out with my military leaders, I don¡¯t know where you¡¯ll be of best use at the moment. You can keep doing what you have been, as long as you don¡¯t cause any problems but I¡¯m sure Murunel¡¯s impressed you of that, and I¡¯ll send word once we know what we¡¯ll be using you for.¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. They took it as the dismissal it was and left the office after a minor amount of departing pleasantries. Murunel stayed behind as her relatives left the room. When the door swung behind them she hurried around the desk again, sweeping Kay up into another hug. ¡°It really is great to see you.¡± Laughing quietly, Kay hugged her back. ¡°I didn¡¯t think you were lying the first time.¡± ¡°I know, but I missed you. You and Eleniah are the first friends I made during and after that whole debacle with that fucking ball, and I missed you both.¡± She leaned back so she could look at him, with a cheeky grin on her face. ¡°Speaking of, you and Eleniah huh? You two just made me a lot of money in some of the betting pools.¡± Kay rolled his eyes and playfully pushed her away from him. ¡°The gossip¡¯s gotten around that quickly?¡± ¡°I¡¯m absolutely sure it has, but I haven¡¯t been in on the loop, I¡¯ve been dealing with grouchy pants the smoke breather. But I can smell her on you.¡± He pulled up his shirt to sniff it, ¡°These are new clothes.¡± ¡°Not your clothes, your skin.¡± She tapped her nose, ¡°I can smell a lot better than any humans without a Class for it. You two have always smelled faintly of each other because you¡¯re together so much, but now its different.¡± She waggled her eyebrows at him. ¡°Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.¡±He waved his hands down his body. ¡°You could have had all this but you didn¡¯t want to be my Queen.¡± Murunel barked out a laugh. ¡°Still don¡¯t, thank you. I could get that kind of treatment if I left to go back with Azred, and you can see how that¡¯s going.¡± Her jovial expression darkened a little, ¡°How is Eleniah taking the idea?¡± ¡°It¡¯s come up, here and there, and we¡¯ve talked about it a little.¡± He shrugged, ¡°We haven¡¯t set anything in stone or made any permanent decisions, we¡¯re working on really getting to know one another deeply and seeing if we fit. She knows its a potential end point, though. We¡¯re talking about it.¡± ¡°Good.¡± She stepped in to give him another hug. ¡°I¡¯m happy for you two.¡± ¡°I¡¯m happy too. Once I have a handle on the more immediate problems we¡¯ll do a dinner with the three of us.¡± ¡°That sounds great! I¡¯ll make sure I¡¯m free.¡± ¡°If its necessary I¡¯ll make sure you¡¯re free. I am king around here after all.¡± After Murunel left Kay grabbed some of the paperwork that he¡¯d been working on before the meeting had started and got back into it. There was a shift change among his guards and a pair stepped in and swept through the office before stepping back outside to watch the door. Shortly after they were gone Kay felt a pair of tiny feet land on his head. ¡°After some of the arguments he¡¯s gotten into with Murunel, I half expected her cousin to erupt on you and start something.¡± ¡°Can you not sit on my head?¡± Kay pulled a globule of blood from the lining hidden beneath his clothing and formed it into a doll-sized chair atop the desk. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how much of it is an act,¡± He said as he felt Isla climb down his shoulder and along his arm, ¡°But Vivien seems to be the thinker keeping her hot-headed husband under control. He can¡¯t be too much of an impulsive idiot though, he never would have survived long enough to make it to tier five.¡± Avalon¡¯s pixie spymaster appeared sitting in the chair Kay had made. ¡°My observations plus what data I¡¯ve been able to scrounge up about him say he¡¯s much more emotional when it comes to family than he is in a fight. So the circumstances seem to be driving a lot of his anger and frustration.¡± ¡°Murunel refusing to do what he personally sees as the right decision isn¡¯t helping either.¡± Kay signed the bottom of a page and put it in his out pile. ¡°I wonder why he didn¡¯t go off to try and kill Glowl. Locking Murunel in that evil ball was a million times worse than her working for me. If I found out any of my family were or had been in a situation like that I¡¯d be out for revenge.¡± Isla smirked up at him. ¡°He did, once he found out. Of course Murunel shouted him down, with Vivien¡¯s help, because she thought that any attacks on Nelam originating from our territory would spark more troubles.¡± ¡°Good thinking on her part.¡± ¡°It was. They managed to keep him from running off, and then the news came in that Glowl had fallen at some point during all the fighting. The noble family that had been keeping the ball locked away also vanished into the chaos at some point, so without any legitimate targets to take his anger out on he was forced to leave it be.¡± ¡°You figured out who they were?¡± Kay cocked an eyebrow at her. ¡°You need to practice that a bit more,¡± She replied, ¡°It works against anyone awed by your position or the power you¡¯ve managed to accumulate, but it has less of an effect on anyone with enough status or power to hold their own. And of course I did. You just said it, didn¡¯t you? If someone did that to your family you¡¯d be out for revenge. What kind of spymaster would I be if I couldn¡¯t find my lord¡¯s targets for him?¡± ¡°Ha.¡± Kay chuckled and shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t know, but you are an excellent one.¡± ¡°Why thank you.¡± She stood and curtsied, an illusionary dress appearing around her and vanishing as she sat. ¡°Anything to report?¡± ¡°Nothing new. A few irons in the fire that might get hot enough to do something about soon, but otherwise we¡¯re as we have been.¡± ¡°Good. That gives me some room to maneuver.¡± ¡°Anything specific planned?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯m going to handle anything pressing, and then I¡¯m headed to the border. I want to see these vampyr myself.¡± ¡°Ah. Well, more than a few people will be happy to hear that. Our Shatterplate and Crusade ¡®hostages¡¯ threw themselves into it as soon as we found out about all this and they¡¯ve been impatiently waiting your return. I believe they have some things to say to you.¡± Book 6 Chapter 10 For a moment Kay considered bringing his two new allies with him to the border, but a number of factors stopped him. There was no formal agreement in place yet, just their word. While he didn¡¯t think Murunel¡¯s cousin¡¯s would break their word and run off on him, he needed to think like the king he was and err on the side of caution. The point of Kay heading to the border was more of a fact finding missions than an attack anyway, and bringing a dragon along would make hi more conspicuous than he planned on being. And from what Isla had told him, Avalon¡¯s ¡°hostages¡± from the Shatterplate Order and the Itarian Crusade might take up most of his time, which would leave the dragon and his rider sitting around twiddling their thumbs uselessly. He decided to just take a contingent of his guards with him, leaving everyone else behind. They all had work to do and being able to kill more than one bird with one stone was great, but Kay¡¯s real goal in this was for his own benefit. Sitting off to the side in safety while his people were fighting felt disgusting. He knew that he¡¯d have to get used to it, there would be points in the future where he would have to hold back to be the trump card against enemy elites, but that didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t going to take the chance to be a part of things where he could. Torotia was a massive planet, one large enough that only the System messing with things kept the gravity from crushing everything on the surface into paste, and traveling from place to place took a lot of time. Focusing on speed and forgoing comfort let Kay and his guards make it to the edge of the border on the northern side of Avalon¡¯s territory in only two days. That level of speed was a testament to his people¡¯s Skills and mana enhanced bodies but also to the level of investment and work Avalon had put into its expanding road system. They only slowed down during the trip when they passed the work crews building out the network and had to travel through wild areas that had only been cleared by the troops who ad previously moved through there. The faint sound of a fight could be heard as they approached a hastily erected fort that was in the middle of being upgraded. Construction workers and mages were all glancing off to the side as they worked, cautiously watching whatever skirmish was taking place even as they moved stone slabs into place and anchored them to the existing structure. Kay was pleased to note that while the noncombatants were distracted by the potential danger of the ongoing fight, the guards and sentries keeping an eye out were not. One of them spotted the approaching group as soon as they were clear of the trees that had been cut back from the fort and blew a whistle. The sentry pointed and a detachment of soldiers rushed forward to meet Kay and his guards. The approaching soldiers were wearing gear that marked them as regular soldiers of Avalon¡¯s army and the their movement changed from a spirited push toward a potential enemy to a measured march toward an unknown when they saw there weren¡¯t more vampyr coming to attack the fort. The detachment¡¯s officer pushed their way to the front and called out. ¡°This is a restricted area, entry is permitted to authorized personnel only! Identify yourselves!¡± Kay laughed to himself at the ¡°modern¡± way the officer was talking and wondered if Cindy had introduced those terms while he¡¯d been gone. One of the Blood Guard stepped forward in response. ¡°His majesty, King Kay of Avalon with guards!¡± ¡°You may approach to confirm your identity!¡± It only took a few moments to prove he was who he claimed to be and the soldiers got through it with minimal bowing and scraping, which he appreciated. They escorted him inside the fort and to the edge of the walls facing the ongoing fight. Zeia and Leon, the two leaders of the Shatterplate Order members that had been left behind while Edric and Alice Ravenhome went back to their headquarters to explain Kay¡¯s demands were there, looking down at a group of soldiers fighting a pair of vampyr. Zeia was staring intently at the fight while muttering under her breath and didn¡¯t notice Kay approach. Leon did, but shut his mouth when Kay shook his head at him. He watched as, under the guidance of Shatterplate order members, soldiers from his army trained to fight vampyr. The vampyr they were fighting were obviously completely maddened, showing no signs of coordination, skill, planning, or any rational thought at all and were fighting like cornered animals, which in a way they were. This was training for those who were completely new to the post to get them ready for the unpredictable way vampyr acted in every situation, but in battle specifically. One of the two vampyr suddenly rotated its neck around like an owl and bit at the arm of the soldier trying to stab it in the back. It took two spears to the front when it¡¯s attention wavered but it slammed its fans into the surprised soldier¡¯s arm. Everyone atop the wall flinched or tensed up. The soldier cursed and ripped her limb away as fast as possible staring at it in dismay as her comrades piled on the vampire and ruthlessly stabbed it to death.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°Bite on the-¡° Zeia¡¯s shout cut out as she noticed a man in stereotypical mage robes with red trim run from just below the gate to the bitten soldier, pulling out a vial filled with red liquid as he ran. He slid to a stop next to her, one hand clamping tightly at her arm and the other holding out an open vial. A trail of blood shakily rose from it and ran into the bite marks on the soldier¡¯s arm. She grimaced and shook as the tendril of blood seeped into her, then grunted in pain as it pulled back out, dragging a clump of dark solidified blood that faintly reeked of the flavor of eldritch corruption that came with vampyr. ¡°That¡¯s smart.¡± Kay commented, ¡°I¡¯m glad someone thought about that.¡± ¡°What? Of course we though about¡­¡± Zeia¡¯s waspish tone trailed off as she noticed who was speaking. ¡°What? When did you get here?¡± Kay ignored her and leapt off of the fort¡¯s wall, controlling the armor around him so that he sank at a quick but uneventful speed, preventing a superhero landing. He walked over to the soldier and presumed Blood Manipulator who noticed him coming and stared nervously. ¡°Ah, uh, ah, your majesty!¡± Kay nodded back at the man, then paused. ¡°I don¡¯t know you¡­ Did Blood manipulator classes that aren¡¯t taught by me finally get started while I was gone?¡± ¡°Yes your majesty! I passed all of the vetting necessary and graduated top of my class!¡± ¡°Excellently done, then.¡± Kay patted the man on the soldier. ¡°And it looks like you¡¯re doing a good job here too.¡± He leaned in close to the clump of infected blood, studying it with both mundane and magical senses. After looking it over for a moment he turned to the soldier. ¡°Do you mind if I take a quick look inside? I shouldn¡¯t need to rip anything out so it should be less unpleasant.¡± She looked pale, but nodded resolutely. ¡°Of course your majesty.¡± She held out her arm. Kay pulled a very thin line of blood out of his finger and dipped it into one of the holes, using the connection to scout around inside the wound. There was a lingering trace of taint but it was the residue left by something that had already been removed, nothing to worry about normally. Since he had the opportunity he destroyed it, then looked around at the various cells and tissues. Being able to see inside someone¡¯s body like this was still a novel thing for Kay and he made a note to look into more healing Classes in the future. He could see why that Adventurer¡¯s Guild healer had been interested in his Classes back in Tumbling Rapids. There were traces of damage and clumps of cells that had been attack and begun to change lingered, but her immune system was already dealing with the damages. White blood cells were destroying the leftover bits a piece at a time and Kay idly noted that meant the corrupted pieces were dissimilar enough from regular bits of the body that people¡¯s bodies saw them as a threat. It looked like her body would be able to recover without issue even without further intervention. After taking a moment to get rid of all the remaining damaged bits Kay gently withdrew his tendrils and absorbed them back into his body. ¡°Good. As long as its done soon enough that level of treatment is enough to remove any problem of infection. Well done.¡± ¡°Th, Thank you, your majesty!¡± Kay turned back toward the fort and saw Zeia still where she¡¯d been, but now staring down at him and absolutely fuming. Wondering what she was so annoyed about he floated himself back up to the top of the wall. ¡°Nice to see you again Zeia.¡± ¡°Where have you been?¡± She demanded, stepping in close and looking like she was about to grab his shoulders and start shaking him before the guards on either side of him made her reconsider. Kay cocked an eyebrow at her. ¡°The Seramist Isles. I don¡¯t think I talk to you about it personally, but I know you were told.¡± ¡°And while you were gallivanting off on vacation in a tropical paradise we were dealing with this!¡± She thrust an arm out and waved it around to indicate everything that was going on. ¡°Ah yes,¡± Kay replied dryly, ¡°Getting roped into finding shapeshifting body snatchers that were the forefront of an invasion by eldritch monstrosities that could have consumed the entire world if left unchecked is definitely my idea of a vacation. I did so much gallivanting when the giant monster smashed me into the ground and we had to blow up its power core to kill it and the resulting explosion almost killed me, that was such fun.¡± ¡°I¡­ what?¡± ¡°A lot happened and I came back as soon as I could. What are you so worked up about?¡± Zeia¡¯s face shut down as her taken aback expression shifted to one of complete focus. ¡°You¡¯ve been updated on what¡¯s been going on?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Right. Well, there have been several waves of refugees, and more than one had one or more people that¡¯d been bitten and infected. We¡¯ve got most of them stabilized, but no one has been able to permanently remove the infection from those that are too far gone.¡± ¡°It¡¯s unfortunate, but isn¡¯t that when you turn them into vampires?¡± Kay asked with a frown. ¡°It¡¯s not the best experience, I can tell you that myself, but it beats turning into an insane monster.¡± ¡°No one¡¯s been able to.¡± She said flatly. ¡°We¡¯ve had multiple of your Blood Manipulators try, those with the healing Class you have and without. The best they¡¯ve been able to do is keep the infection fought back and the patients stable. No one¡¯s turning completely yet, but no one¡¯s been healed either.¡± Kay¡¯s frown deepened. ¡°Are any of them here?¡± ¡°Yes, there¡¯s a handful from the last group of refugees we managed to help that haven¡¯t been moved back yet.¡± ¡°Take me to them. I¡¯ll see what I can do and try and figure out what¡¯s going on.¡± Book 6 Chapter 11 A small family was clustered together while seated at a low table, and two other individuals that could have been guards or adventurers rested wearily against the walls of a room inside the fortifications. A pair of robed figures that Kay faintly recognized were checking over the two children of the family, with streamers of blood descending into small cuts in the kid¡¯s arms. The two people dressed in worn and in some places battle damaged armor glanced over as new people entered the room and stiffened as they took in Kay and his escort. There was no reason for them to recognize him, but unimportant people didn¡¯t have personal guards. The family and the two Blood Manipulators, who had been in some of Kay¡¯s early classes on the Class now that he took a moment to look at them closely, didn¡¯t look away from the two children. The parents¡¯ faces were pale and drawn, while the kids looked somewhere between uncomfortable and the boundless curiosity of the young. One of them kept trying to peek inside his own arm and frowning when he couldn¡¯t see through the blood trailing into him. Kay watched what was happening with both his eyes and his magical sense, although the former didn¡¯t tell him much and he didn¡¯t get a ton out of the latter either. The only way he could see into another person¡¯s body was to send blood under his control in, so all he could sense was the blood in the air between the children and the Blood Manipulators. The tiny conglomerations of cells tainted by eldritch corruption being siphoned out of the kids told him that the taint wasn¡¯t being purged like what he did, but it didn¡¯t give him any clues on why that was happening. The procedure ended quickly after that and an explanation combined with reassurances had the worried looking parents calmed down a little bit. It was when the two Blood Manipulators turned toward the two people leaning against the wall that everyone else noticed Kay and his entourage. ¡°Your majesty!¡± The family of four all huddled together with nervous expressions, even the children looking at Kay with hints of fear. The two fighters that had been watching him silently while he¡¯d watched the examination stiffened even more while doing their best to keep their expressions blank. They failed, looking worried and anxious. Kay gestured for his two citizens to rise from their bows. ¡°Hello, I hear you¡¯re doing good work but things aren¡¯t going the way they were expected to. I¡¯m here to see if we can figure out why.¡± ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± The more senior of the two Blood Manipulators, a male elf that Kay vaguely remembered from the earlier classes he¡¯d taught, nodded as he rose from his bow. ¡°How would you like to proceed?¡± ¡°First I want to see what differences you¡¯re seeing compared to if I was doing it. I¡¯ll send a little of my own blood in with yours during your next examination to shadow you, and then we can try more after that depending on what we figure out.¡± ¡°Of course.¡± He gestured at the two fighters, ¡°We were going to continue on with these two, so we can do so now if you¡¯d like.¡± Kay glanced over at the pale-faced man and woman who were staring at him with trepidation. ¡°If that¡¯s alright with you two?¡± The woman swallowed nosily and stepped forward, partially shielding the man behind her with her body. ¡°I- I- I¡­ Yes, of course¡­¡± She stammered before trailing off. ¡°Your majesty!¡± She rushed out, eye wide. ¡°Right then. Is this the first time you¡¯ve been through this?¡± ¡°No, your majesty, we¡¯ve been seen to a few more times¡­¡± ¡°Good, this shouldn¡¯t be any different, I¡¯m just looking this time.¡± A small cut was made in the woman¡¯s arm and Kay sent a tiny thread of blood alongside the thicker stream from his subordinate into the limb. Kay watched as corrupted cells and bits of the tainted vampyr virus were cut and dragged out of the woman¡¯s body, bit by bit. What seemed to be lacking was the inimical power that lurked in Kay¡¯s blood, the sheer destruction wreaked against anything eldritch when blood Kay held power over came into contact with it. With a thought he sent a single drop racing to collide with some of the infected flesh that hadn¡¯t been dealt with yet, and just like normal it melted away as Kay¡¯s blood fought against the corruption. ¡°Oh. There¡¯s been some debate over how you deal with the infection your majesty but that¡­ That is indeed quite different than anything I¡¯m capable of.¡± ¡°Which is where I think the problem is coming from,¡± Kay replied grimly. ¡°Go ahead and finish up, then we can discuss.¡± After stepping back from the woman Kay watched as the samples of the contamination were extracted and stored in small vials that were labeled with the date and the person they¡¯d been removed from. After that the woman was questioned regarding how she¡¯d been feeling, if she¡¯d experienced any mental or physical signs that she was being corrupted faster than could be treated, and about her general well being. Everything was apparently within expectations so they healed the incision in her arm and let her step back. Once the samples were safely stored Kay gestured at the two Blood Manipulators to step closer. ¡°Show me the descriptions of your Purify Blood Skills, please.¡± [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª]Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Skill: Purify Blood (Level 11) - Born in battle against a deadly venom coursing through you, this skill purifies that which would kill you through your blood. This skill gives you a passive purifying effect to your blood that helps you resist poisons, venoms, and diseases in your body. The active effect of this skill uses magic to combat venoms, poisons, and diseases in your blood. Giving your blood to another person through Blood Transfusion gives the receiver a weakened version of the passive purifying effect with less power that only targets blood-based venoms, poisons, and diseases for a limited period. Using the active effect of Purify Blood while transferring blood via Blood Transfusion gives the same effect you receive from active use of the skill for a higher mana cost, until you stop activating the effect at which point it will revert to the time-limited passive effect. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] The two descriptions were the same, and they were both lacking a key line that Kay¡¯s description for the same Skill had. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Skill: Purify Blood (Level 11) - Born in battle against a deadly venom coursing through you, this skill purifies that which would kill you through your blood. This skill gives you a passive purifying effect to your blood that helps you resist poisons, venoms, diseases, and eldritch corruption in your body. The active effect of this skill uses magic to combat venoms, poisons, diseases, and eldritch corruption in your blood. Giving your blood to another person through Blood Transfusion gives the receiver a weakened version of the passive purifying effect with less power that only targets blood-based venoms, poisons, diseases, and eldritch corruption. Using the active effect of Purify Blood while transferring blood via Blood Transfusion gives the same effect you receive from active use of the skill for a higher mana cost, until you stop activating the effect at which point it will revert to the time-limited passive effect. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay¡¯s Purify Blood Skill dealt with venoms, poisons, diseases, and eldritch corruption, while the others¡¯ did not. Kay had been hoping since all of this eldritch nonsense had been showing up more that the upgraded version of the Skill had been the one he¡¯d taught to his Blood Manipulation students, but that turned out to not be true. The entire reason he¡¯d survived the attempt to turn him into a vampyr and why he¡¯d become a vampire instead was because of that one little line of text that he¡¯d earned while battling that original eldritch monstrosity below Avalon. Kay displayed his description so that the two healers and Zeia could see. The forceful Shatterplate Order researcher voraciously read through the description before stopping and pointing at a point in the air. ¡°This part here, that¡¯s how you do everything. You improved your Skill to work against the corruption. Why didn¡¯t you just teach this version of the Skill to everyone.¡± She shook her head, ¡°Oh, if you improved it afterward then you couldn¡¯t have, I guess. You can just teach it now and solve the problem.¡± ¡°No, I can¡¯t.¡± She whipped her head around to glare at him, ¡°Why not!?¡± ¡°I had this version of the Skill when I started teaching my Class Line and the Skills that go with it, and it obviously didn¡¯t get passed on. I don¡¯t know any way to teach anyone how to improve the Skill this way either, because I got it as part of a Quest.¡± ¡°¡­ Shit!¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Kay stared down at the description for a moment before dismissing it with a thought. ¡°Let¡¯s table that for a second and deal with the other issue.¡± He gestured minutely at the six people in the room. The parents pulled their children closer and the two combatants tensed up completely like they were expecting a fight. Kay kept an eye on them but didn¡¯t comment or openly react. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to say but our research into dealing with the vampyr infection isn¡¯t going as well as we¡¯d like and right now I¡¯m the only person that can permanently remove it from anyone who¡¯s been bitten and didn¡¯t get the infection removed early enough.¡± The mother of the family¡¯s eyes widened and she leaned forward, still clutching her children. ¡°Sir, I mean, your majesty. We¡¯ll do anything to-¡° ¡°No, I¡¯m not charging for this. It¡¯s completely free without any cost or expectation of obligation to you or anyone else for me to remove the infection from you if you chose for me to do so.¡± ¡°That¡­ that sounds like there¡¯s a reason we might not let you?¡± The woman from the two fighters asked quietly.¡± Kay nodded. ¡°That¡¯s because there is. You probably haven¡¯t heard about it, or if you have you wrote it off as nonsense or lies, but the only way to permanently remove the infection that will painfully change you into a vampyr is to be changed into something else, a vampire.¡± He opened his mouth and pointed as his fangs and gently put them away when they all reared back. ¡°When used my Skills to purge the eldritch corruption that was injected into me by a vampyr bite, it left behind piece of what made up the original vampires, what they should have been without something from beyond turning them into nightmarish monsters. The only way we know of to make it safe for all of you is to do the same thing, remove the corruption and leave behind the pieces of true vampirism that will slowly make you into vampires too.¡± They all shared glances and the two pairs of adults whispered to each other while the children looked on, obviously confused by everything that was being discussed. ¡°Can we¡­ think about it?¡± The mother asked. ¡°Of course you can. I will say to you, though, I personally won¡¯t give you a time limit for you to decide by but there might be one anyway.¡± Kay grimaced as he told them, ¡°We don¡¯t know if the infection might overwhelm the attempts to cut if back, and at that point you have very little time to decide before its too late.¡± He gestured at the two healers. ¡°Everything we know will be explained to these two as we attempt to refine and improve our treatments, so they¡¯ll be able to answer any questions you might have.¡± Without saying anything else he left, taking Zeia and his guards with him. When they were far enough away that even a tier three couldn¡¯t overhear them he glanced down at Zeia. ¡°Are they from Nelam itself?¡± She nodded. ¡°They are, and they¡¯re the last refugees we¡¯re expecting from that area. Everything¡¯s slowed down to a trickle, but most of the people that are coming this way lately have been from isolated areas or have Classes suited to navigating hostile areas to get to safety. Or like those folks, they got incredibly lucky.¡± ¡°So they¡¯re still stuck seeing me as some kind of villain because of propaganda and all that.¡± ¡°It¡¯s likely.¡± Kay followed Zeia after she took the lead, taking him to a room deeper in the fortifications that was obviously a research lab of some kind. The door slammed shut behind himm and Kay turned around to see Zeia staring him fiercly in the eyes. ¡°I want you to turn me into a vampire.¡± Book 6 Chapter 12 ¡°I¡­¡± A number of responses ran through Kay¡¯s head, immediate denial, accusations, questions about her sanity, and more. The look in her eyes was dead serious, which removed some of the questions about her sanity at least, and as excitable and chaotic as Zeia could be, Kay¡¯s experience was that it was usually well thought out chaos. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Do you know what my goal is?¡± ¡°The permanent removal of all vampyr from existence.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s¡­ Oh. Yeah, alright, that fits. Do you know what the smaller goal necessary to achieve the main goal that I¡¯m focusing on is?¡± ¡°Based on the questions you¡¯ve asked me and the projects you¡¯re involved in, you want to figure out how to inoculate people against being transformed into vampyr so that they can¡¯t reproduce.¡± Zeia let out a rueful chuckle. ¡°It is kind of obvious, isn¡¯t it? Whatever, it isn¡¯t like I¡¯m keeping anything secret. Yes, that¡¯s what I¡¯m aiming for. Technically, if we killed every single vampyr before they can spread their curse, or infection, or whatever it is to others then they¡¯ll be dead permanently as a kind, but that¡¯s pretty unfeasible. Eventually we¡¯ll kill them all, but not in the kind of coordinated, widespread way we¡¯d need to prevent any further victims from turning into insane monsters.¡± ¡°It¡¯s more likely that it¡¯ll turn into a protracted hunt to search out and destroy the smarter or less crazy ones, the ones that will run and hide and plot instead of charging out to meet any threat or exposing themselves by glutting on blood.¡± Kay agreed. ¡°They¡¯d lurk in hidden places and at least some of the ones that survive will infect others as time pass. There¡¯d be years or decades of more victims, there would be less of them, but people would still suffer.¡± ¡°Exactly! No one¡¯s going to stop wiping out any vampyr they encounter, certainly not the Order or the Crusade, but the sooner we come up with a cure, a vaccine, something to help those that are bitten and not helped before its too late the less people that will suffer needlessly.¡± She turned her face away as it flashed with a look of deep and long-term hurt. ¡°A family member?¡± Kay asked gently. She scoffed. ¡°No. I¡¯m an ¡®only survivor¡¯ type. My family, my people, all got killed pretty quickly. But I¡¯ve seen a lot of the people left behind, a lot of the people who cooperate wit us after being bitten, how they descend into the madness bit by bit or at a devastating speed, and then the person who was there is gone and all that¡¯s left is a monster that has to be put down.¡± She sighed and shook her head. ¡°We keep our distance and don¡¯t get attached so that it doesn¡¯t hurt as much, but there have been so many people that I know I could¡¯ve been fantastic friends with, or were just so wonderful or amazing that never deserved to have that snuffed out.¡± She turned back to him, her eyes once again steely with determination. ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m so insistent. And it¡¯s why I want you to turn me. Into a vampire.¡± Kay put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her out of his personal space. ¡°I get that impacting your¡­ the way you interact with people and me specifically, but what does that have to do with turning you?¡± ¡°The racial characteristic you have as vampires, becoming anathema to vampyr and other eldritch things, I think that might be the key to making it so more than just you can cure the vampyr infection. As much as part of me wants to shout at you that the only thing you should be doing is spending all day every day curing people and saving lives, that¡¯s a ridiculous thought. Besides the fact that you¡¯re only one person and can only do so much at a time, you have responsibilities and duties. You save lives all the time in ways that have nothing to do with vampyr, and I can¡¯t diminish that. Which why we need to make it so others can do what you can.¡± ¡°We were just talking about that in the other room, but why-¡° ¡°Showing us the differences between your Skill description and the ¡®regular¡¯ Skill description only cemented my idea,¡± She said, whirling away and beginning to pace back and forth as she interrupted him, ¡°Vampires, vampirism, I think you called it? Whatever, being a vampire is the solution. I¡¯ve been doing a lot of research while you were gone, basing some of my inquiries off of some of the things you taught us or theorized about vampyr and everything eldritch in general and some of my own theories based on recent events. Your experiences interacting with the System directly firmly put me in the category that it has some kind of intelligence. Whether it¡¯s alive or not isn¡¯t important, just that it can think. It isn¡¯t a set of natural laws or just how things work, it has the ability to think and plan. Combine that with you receiving the upgrade to Purify Blood while completing a Quest for the System, the racial effects you gained upon becoming a vampire, and the fact that eldritch corruption is a problem for the System tied it all together.¡± ¡°Alright, but that still doesn¡¯t explain-¡°The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°Eldritch corruption is a threat to the System. It obviously wants it dealt with, but its been doing a pretty bad job of it in the last few centuries, at least in my opinion. Vampyr attacks and turnings are steadily increasing over time, although not by huge amounts thanks in part to the Order, the Crusades, and everyone else, but the numbers are growing not shrinking. Then you enter picture and suddenly the perfect weapon against vampyr exists where it hadn¡¯t before. The System turned you into its anti-vampyr weapon.¡± ¡°It didn¡¯t happen exactly like that and there was a lot more free will on my side of things,¡± Kay corrected her, ¡°But you¡¯re not technically wrong.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care about why things happened I just care that they did happen. You¡¯re the anti-vampyr person, if being called a weapon hurts you, but like I was saying you can¡¯t be everywhere, and a System that can think and plan has to know that.¡± She stopped in the middle of pacing and stared into the middle distance. ¡°You were the test case with the Purify Blood upgrade and then you proved the usefulness of it when you stopped yourself from becoming a vampyr. For whatever reason the System couldn¡¯t just permanently upgrade every single Purify Blood Skill, so it had to do something else. It used the moment it codified vampires as a species as it¡¯s opening, making you, you as in vampires, the source of a permanent solution to vampyr.¡± Trying not to get annoyed, Kay asked her, ¡°What does that have to do with you becoming a vampire?¡± ¡°I think that the only way to stop people from becoming vampyr is to have them become vampires, and I think the way that someone other than you does that is to have a vampire bite them and infect them with the vampire virus. My hypothesis is that the vampire virus, like the rest of your existence, has been empowered against eldritch taint and will destroy the corrupted vampyr body in people¡¯s bodies.¡± She pointed a finger at him, ¡°You explained when you were talking about vampires as a folktale from your world that vampires bite people to turn them into more vampires, just like the vampyr do. If you really are what vampires should have been without the first one on Torotia being touched by something eldritch then you should be able to turn people by biting them too.¡± ¡°Yes I know!¡± Kay bit out. ¡°And I was planning on brining that up when we discussed the issue, what does that have to do with you specifically turning into a vampire?¡± Zeia pulled back looking mildly insulted. ¡°I¡¯m not one of those assholes who rants about the greater good then demands that other people sacrifice themselves or take the risks, if people have to get turned into another species to save everyone then I¡¯m going to be first in line, dammit!¡± He had to resist the urge to put his face in his hands. ¡°I¡¯m not turning you into a vampire Zeia. Not right now!¡± He corrected himself when she looked ready to argue. ¡°There are so many more things that need to be done before we take that step. Like proving that I can turn someone into a vampire with a bite,¡± He started counting on his fingers, ¡°that other vampires can do that, if we all can do that that the virus from vampires does overwhelm the vampyr virus, and more.¡± ¡°We should start those tests with me,¡± She insisted, ¡°We can have-¡° Kay interrupted Zeia this time. ¡°No, we can start by testing things that aren¡¯t that big first. Like getting some of those samples of vampyr crud you¡¯ve been collecting form people¡¯s bodies to study and seeing how they react to vampire¡­venom? I¡¯m not actually sure what we have. And that¡¯s another thing to figure out, how exactly any of this works. Jumping straight to trying to trun you into a vampire is the definition of going off half-cocked.¡± Zeia¡¯s face screwed up in annoyance. ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± She said after a moment. ¡°Being methodical is better than running without looking where I¡¯m going. Urgh! Alright fine!¡± She stomped over to a cabinet and pulled out some vials. ¡°We can start by doing some easy tests right now.¡± She shoved one of the vials at his face. ¡°Gimme some venom, or spit or whatever.¡± The other one got thrust at Lauren. ¡°You too! We¡¯ll need to see if there¡¯s any appreciable difference in the samples.¡± ¡°I¡­ We, uh¡­ In some stories it¡¯s the vampire¡¯s blood that does the changing.¡± Kay said, giving in to her demands. She grabbed two more vials. ¡°Then a sample of that too!¡± Giving her a little of his blood was easy with his Skills, and Lauren cooperated without question. Getting a bit of venom was a bit harder. When neither of them could get anything to come out of their fangs Zeia gave them more vials and demanded some saliva as well. Lauren and Kay had never bitten anyone to get blood from them, with the ease of their magic and the fact that biting someone to drink their blood was an act still entirely associated with vampyr in people¡¯s minds it made it a smart move to avoid it. Since they were two of the three vampires that existed right then and the third probably hadn¡¯t tried biting anyone either, no one had any idea how it worked. Eventually image training proved to be the solution. Imagining biting into someone and drinking their blood, after taking a long series of minutes deepening the imaginary picture and adding sights and taste to it, Kay managed to get a few drops of clear liquid to drip from the tips of his fangs and into the vial. It also woke up some feelings, some instincts, that felt deeply predatory to Kay, something he¡¯d been working on suppressing ever since the first time he¡¯d started to feel thirsty for blood. ¡°Good.¡± Zeia took the last two vials after Kay coached Lauren through coaxing the venom out and put them in a rack next to the first four. ¡°Now go away. You oh so logically demolished my plans for the day and now I have to mock up plans for an entirely new research study. I need space.¡± Kay turned and left without trying to talk anymore with the infuriating, driven, and admirable researcher. With his guards following him he headed back toward the center of the keep. ¡°What are your plans now, your majesty?¡± Lauren asked as she reformed her helmet around her head. ¡°We¡¯re going to find the fort¡¯s commander and ask some questions, then we¡¯re headed out beyond the borders for a little while. I want to see what things look like deeper in where more vampyr are likely to be. And after that mildly infuriating conversation I really want to kill something that needs killing.¡± Book 6 Chapter 13 Amanda stared at the problematic woman sitting across from her, who was looking back blandly without any outward reaction to the several minutes of silence that had gone by. Amanda¡¯s first impression of Miri was of someone that could take it. What ¡°it¡± was could be any number of things, but the woman who was Kay¡¯s new majordomo had tenacity and grit somewhere underneath everything else she showed to the world. Sitting in silence wasn¡¯t going to affect her at all and while it made Amanda look like the kind of person who enjoyed petty power plays like waiting for someone else to speak as some kind of test or to ¡°put someone in their place¡±, she didn¡¯t much care. She wasn¡¯t that kind of person, though she would use that tactic and any other when they were necessary or useful, and the opinion of a stranger wasn¡¯t going ruin her day. The silence helped her organize her thoughts, and if the other woman was going to let her take her time doing that she wouldn¡¯t turn down the opportunity. After a few more minutes Amanda reached a point where she felt she had everything in hand. ¡°You are problematic.¡± ¡°I understand why you would feel that way,¡± Miri replied easily, ¡°I would probably feel that way if I was in your position and had to deal with someone like me, too.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t trust you.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t believe you if you said you did. You have more reasons to distrust me than you do to trust me.¡± ¡°How am I supposed to deal with you, then?¡± Amanda asked her directly, ¡°How am I supposed to treat you, to interact with you as someone working for the same leader, with the added position as the person making this all run?¡± She waved her hand around her office but she was really indicating all of Avalon. ¡°You¡¯re going to be his majesty¡¯s majordomo, which takes a good amount of work off of my plate, but it places you in a position of influence that I don¡¯t know I should let you have. You¡¯re saying that you can commiserate with my position, so what would you do if you were in my spot?¡± Miri grinned at her, ¡°I¡¯d start exactly where you are and try and sound out the other person and form an idea of who they are, what they want, and how they¡¯re going to act. Personally, I¡¯d be a bit more circumspect about it, but the straight forward approach probably works better for you.¡± ¡°Why would you say that?¡± ¡°It¡¯s likely experience. I haven¡¯t had the time to really gather background on you, but what little I do know combined with meeting you in person, I have the feeling you¡¯ve done this a lot. Going with the method you know the best Is often better than mixing and matching methods to match the people you¡¯re interacting with, especially if you aren¡¯t as experienced with whatever method matches that person best.¡± Miri tilted her head as she gazed at Amanda for a moment. ¡°You approached this openly and with a little bit of aggression, almost daring me to prevaricate or hide from anything from you. It felt¡­ dominant, like you were establishing that you are strong and have nothing to fear from me or this conversation. I bet you¡¯ve dealt with a lot of fighters, the type that either don¡¯t do well with following orders or just haven¡¯t been in any type of military unit. Adventurers, singleton combatants, and the like, the kind who¡¯s reputations and potential as a leader are based on how good they are in a fight, because that means they¡¯ll be most effective and obviously know what to do.¡± Amanda narrowed her eyes as she stared back at Miri. She wasn¡¯t right, but she wasn¡¯t fully wrong either. Adventurers weren¡¯t the people she¡¯d had to figuratively crush to establish a working hierarchy, it had been rebels, the leaders of future slave revolts, and abolitionists. Only some of them had used fighting capability as a leadership metric, but too many of them had needed an attitude readjustment when they¡¯d discovered who they really worked for or followed. Quickly establishing a sense that she was in charge no matter what they would try was incredibly valuable. Miri was also right, sticking to what you already know was the better decision more often than not. ¡°You¡¯re insightful, which is a good trait.¡± Amanda stopped for a moment, an impulse leading her to burying what she¡¯d been about to say. ¡°You know what? I can¡¯t get rid of you at this point, so the only real option I have is to give you enough rope and see what happens. Give me your pitch, or your speech and we¡¯ll let that settle the opening exchange.¡± ¡°Well, it isn¡¯t going to be a speech.¡± Miri murmured back, ¡°I¡¯m certainly not planning to monologue, so don¡¯t feel like you can¡¯t ask questions. I appreciate you letting me say my part.¡± She stopped for a second to scoot her chair closer to the desk and lay her arms in the edge. ¡°First of all, I am not beholden to any other individual, organization, or nation. Not anymore at least, I severed my last permanent ties of obedience before I followed his majesty here. I am still loyal to people that I consider family or close friends, but not to the point of betraying anyone.¡± ¡°I understand you were a spy for the Isles for many years, they just let you go?¡± She scoffed. ¡°Of course they didn¡¯t. I¡¯m bound by oaths, promises, spells, Skills, and more to not tell anyone what I learned in that service, the parts that could ruin anything or set back any plans at least, they didn¡¯t bind me not to share what I could do or that kind of thing. But one of the oaths I got from them was that they would leave me alone. Professionally of course, I¡¯m still related to several of them. I don¡¯t owe them anything, they don¡¯t owe me anything.¡± ¡°That¡¯s quite something to pull off.¡± Amanda said with her brows raised. ¡°How did you pull that off?¡±Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°Being related to many of the decision makers helped, even if its distantly.¡± Miri¡¯s normal affable smile slowly grew into a much sharper expression. ¡°I also made sure they knew what a problem I could be for them if they didn¡¯t do as I wanted. So in total, a mix of personal loyalty, a dash of family loyalty, a sprinkle of earning quite a bit of leeway with excellent work, and a generous helping of mutually assured destruction bought me my freedom from a life I no longer wanted.¡± ¡°And now you¡¯re here.¡± ¡°There were steps in between then and now, of course. But yes, now I¡¯m here because this is where I want to be, and it¡¯s where I think is best suited toward me achieving me own goals.¡± She drummed the fingers of one hand against the back of the other. ¡°The issue here, as I see it, is one of loyalty. Even if you perfectly trusted my declaration that I have no other loyalties binding me, which you rightfully shouldn¡¯t, I have no real reason to be loyal to you and yours. At the very least I don¡¯t have one sturdy enough to trust. Am I correct in thinking that?¡± ¡°That is one consideration,¡± Amanda replied with a nod. ¡°Good, then I¡¯m not talking out my ass. I don¡¯t have any institutional loyalty to Avalon as a nation or a concept, which many of your people do. I haven¡¯t been here learning about what you stand for and what you seek to achieve, I only have second hand exposure to some of your people, which means that isn¡¯t a tie binding me to Avalon and its people to ensure I don¡¯t betray you. There also hasn¡¯t been enough time to gain personal loyalty to his majesty King Kay, which is another common reason to be part of Avalon I presume. If I have developed the level of loyalty to him to follow him from my home to a brand new one in this short a time it means that I¡¯m either crazy or a zealot, neither of which you can afford to have in a position of power of influence. That leaves only my own personal goals driving my behavior, and you don¡¯t know what those are or how the intersect the plans of your enemies or enemies that are yet to come, leaving me as a potential vulnerability.¡± Miri stopped speaking for a moment after that, letting the silence sit and for Amanda to process her points, even if it wasn¡¯t actually necessary. ¡°I see King Kay as a massive ship, one of the ones that uses magic to propel itself and creates a great wake behind it that drags other smaller ships along. He¡¯s formed a great fleet that follows him, and that fleet happens to be sailing in a direction I want to go, so I¡¯d like to join in, for a time at least. I have resources and expertise to pay my way as we go, and I¡¯ll contribute to the fleet as a true member while I remain with it. At some point my destination will arrive and I¡¯ll decide whether to stop sailing there or continue on with the rest of the fleet, should I have become a true believer one way or another before we reach my stop.¡± She shrugged. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ an acceptable way reason to join up with a fleet, I suppose.¡± Amanda replied slowly, ¡°But what is your actual destination? Just because you want to go there and the fleet is headed in that direction doesn¡¯t mean the¡­¡± She hunted for a word, ¡°¡­Admiral, leading the way will be inclined to shift the fleet in the direction that gets you there best, or that what you have to offer is worth the risks you bring with you.¡± ¡°Thank you for playing along with the metaphor,¡± Miri said with a smile, ¡°We do love to reference ships and the ocean in the Isles. But yes, my goals.¡± She leaned forward, resting her weight on Amanda¡¯s desk. Her eyes lit with determination as she looked directly into Amanda¡¯s. ¡°I want to be the best. The utterly dominant best at what I do, and I want everyone to know that I¡¯m the best of them all. I want to create a staff for King Kay that every other ruler in the world envies with all they have. I want queens and dukes to try and poach me and I want lesser nobles to send their majordomos, butlers, and maids to learn from me to try and get a tiny fraction of my capabilities.¡± It wasn¡¯t often that Amanda felt the need to shy away from someone else¡¯s intensity. She didn¡¯t of course, that wouldn¡¯t be professional nor would it uphold the gravitas of her position. ¡°So it¡¯s all about your ego?¡± Miri resumed her original position quite quickly. ¡°To an extent. It¡¯s not all of it, but it is a major driving force. The reasons I left my job as an intelligence agent are the same as why I¡¯ve pushed to be here in these circumstances. I want to be acknowledged for what I do, and I want to strive for the absolute peak of excellence. I want to reach that peak and let everyone see that I did. That would never happen as a spy. The better you are the less people know about you, the real you. And to be honest, I didn¡¯t like the work.¡± She glanced to the side, a distant look on her face. ¡°The practice, the planning, even the act of achieving my goal were all fulfilling, but having to lie to so many people about so many things was draining.¡± She shook her head minutely and looked back to Amanda. ¡°While trying to figure out what I really wanted I discovered that what really fulfilled me was making things happen correctly, that I really enjoyed directing and managing things so that all the constituent parts and pieces came together to make the best possible whole.¡± ¡°And that made you want to be a majordomo?¡± ¡°Why not? Managing people is an excellent challenge, and being of service is a worthy cause. By serving his majesty I can make his life easier and ensure that things go well for other people because he¡¯s more capable of doing his duties well. I suppose I could use my skills and desires to be evil or manage wars, trade, smuggling, piracy, theft, political aspirations, or so much more, but I played a servant¡¯s role many times, and I came to quite like it. The best of the best are acknowledged no matter what they happen to be best at, so why not strive for excellence doing something that fulfills me and that I like on the day to day?¡± She smiled widely. ¡°My goal, the reason I want to travel with Avalon¡¯s metaphorical fleet, is to be so amazing at my job that no one can naysay me, including you. My personal code will keep me from betraying you on top of the fact that the best majordomo would never betray their lord. And¡­¡± She chuckled under her breath. ¡°I would be very surprised if I don¡¯t end up being personally loyal to his majesty in the next year or two at minimum.¡± ¡°Why is that?¡± ¡°Because I don¡¯t think Lady Eleniah will allow for any other outcome.¡± Amanda mulled it over for a while more before reaching a hand out to shake. ¡°I look forward to working with you, should everything be as you say.¡± ¡°And if it isn¡¯t, the rope you¡¯re stretching out for me will be more than enough, won¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Why of course it will.¡± Amanda watched her new potential ally with her own fierce eyes and burning passion behind them. ¡°You aren¡¯t the only one grabbing excellence with all you have. You may become the best majordomo the world over, but Avalon¡¯s Prime Minister will be one whispered about with awe in every court the world over and then some.¡± Book 6 Chapter 14 The lone vampyr making it¡¯s way in the general direction of Avalon¡¯s border was unmistakably an ¡°it¡±. Dehumanizing the enemy was an old tactic to make it easier for your soldiers to be able to kill other people, it¡¯s not ¡°murder¡± it¡¯s ¡°putting down dangerous animals¡± and such. Kay hadn¡¯t been huge on real life military history and tactics back on Earth, he¡¯d mostly focused on fictional military history and tactics, but he was pretty sure he remembered it being generally discouraged, and it had been heavily discouraged by Eleniah and other teachers of specific topics that had been brought in to help him become a well rounded King. In was somewhat useful in the short term, but in the long run it encouraged your military to underestimate the enemy, which was always a terrible idea. It also gave your enemy a driving reason to fight to the death without surrender. Treating people like animals meant you had no reason to stand by treaties or hold back from war crimes, so why would they surrender or stop fighting and why wouldn¡¯t they escalate to atrocities of their own, maybe even before you could? Vampyr as a whole lacked the intelligence to make that kind of logical leap and once the infection reached a certain point a vast majority of vampyr descended into something less than true sapience, their bodies and minds twisted into a state so feral they really did stop being people. The purpose of dehumanizing them was also to make it easier to kill them, although for a different reason. The person that had been warped into the monster was dead, even with the ones that still looked like the same person, and putting down the vampyr they¡¯d become was a mercy, not murder. This particular vampyr didn¡¯t need any extra dehumanizing, it¡¯d already become something so monstrous that there was barely anything left of the person it had been. It was still vaguely humanoid, with four limbs, a head, and a torso in roughly the right configuration, but the legs had shriveled and partially melted together into a small tail that dragged behind the body, two ignored feet bouncing off of the rocks and roots the vampyr dragged itself over. It¡¯s upper arms had pulled back and solidified into wider shoulders, and the forearms had stretched out in jagged growths that made them both longer and covered in thorns of bone. It¡¯s hands Were covered in smaller bone spikes and it had more growing from the tips of it¡¯s fingers like claws. The head was the most unsettling part. The neck had shrunk back and pulled the head back into the torso. It was flat, like a lizard¡¯s head, with the eyes where the poor person that had been killed and turned into this thing¡¯s temples would have been. The two empty eye sockets in between where the eyes now sat quivered like nostrils as it swung its head back and forth, questing for the trail it had been following. ¡°That is the most warped vampyr I¡¯ve seen that hasn¡¯t actively seemed to dive into its corruption to try and kill me.¡± Kay muttered quietly, resisting the persistent urge to go over to the creature and stamp it out. ¡°Inspecting it doesn¡¯t say too much,¡± Lauren told him from where she was crouched next to him. ¡°But it is interesting and mildly informative.¡± Kay looked for himself. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Twisted Vampyr Spawn Tier ? Equivalent Monster - A vampyr that failed to retain any semblance of intelligence as it was warped by the eldritch corruption that creates vampyr from sapient being, it¡¯s body was further twisted into a new form by a large quantity of eldritch essence that was far too great for it¡¯s body to contain. It has become a monstrosity of unknown power, potentially having abilities beyond those of the being it was created from. Caution is recommended. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°That does tell us something new.¡± Kay stopped for a second and scoffed lightly. ¡°The Shatterplate or Crusade might already know that¡¯s a possibility, but learning it is good either way. Anything else we need from it?¡± ¡°No, your majesty.¡± ¡°Then here.¡± Kay floated some of his blood up to her and let her take control of it. Lauren shaped it into a massive arrow, then formed a bow as tall as she was to fire it from with her own blood. The creature paused in its ascent of the slope it was climbing, one spiked hand digging furrows into the tree it¡¯d grabbed. It turned about, looking for whatever had changed, and managed to just glimpse Lauren as the arrow drove into the center of it¡¯s head. Kay seized back control of the blood as it hit and detonated the arrow, sending it surging through the creature. The vampyr screamed in pain and it sounded completely inhuman as it thrashed. The bone spines on its arms and hands grew several inches, making it look like it had erupted with spikes. After rolling about screaming for several seconds it¡¯s cries of pain suddenly stopped and it went still. Kay wrapped the thing¡¯s corpse in blood and began to dissolve it. ¡°I¡¯m sorry this is how we have to dispose of your body,¡± He whispered to the person who this had once been, ¡°But we can¡¯t risk this tainting someone or something.¡± When the last traces of the vampyr were destroyed he stored the blood back inside himself. ¡°We¡¯ll keep going in this direction,¡± He pointed down the obvious path the vampyr had left. ¡°I want to see more before we head back.¡± They roamed for several more miles, picking off stragglers and small groups of vampyr as they encountered them, until they reached the site of the closest settlement to Avalon¡¯s borders. What had once been a small town or a village was now a muddled mixture of burnt husks and demolished buildings. Figures dug through the rubble, occasionally stopping to fight each other, biting, kicking, and scratching in animalistic combat. One figure pulled out something from under a collapsed wall and greedily shoved it into their mouth. Kay was glad that they were far enough away that he couldn¡¯t make out exactly what they were eating.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Kay stared down at the vampyr swarming the ruins of the town they¡¯d destroyed. There were dozens of them clustered near the edge of the ruined buildings that weren¡¯t digging through the rubble. Some where fighting each other, some were screaming or ranting at other vampyr or just the air, and some where just sitting in place, barely moving. Deeper in there was more movement, evidence of a greater number of vampyr present than just those that Kay could see. ¡°Let¡¯s get closer and see if there¡¯s anything we need to discover before we start wiping them out.¡± ¡°Is there anything we¡¯re looking for in particular?¡± Lauren asked. ¡°Evidence of planning or a direction to what they¡¯re doing. You were there for the parts that have gotten me wondering, and worried. The one vampyr in that village closer to Tumbling Rapids said something about a ¡°Great One¡± and the one that tried to turn me had some similar epithet for the person who apparently ordered them to capture me. If there¡¯s a vampyr with most of their brain intact controlling all the rest, or even just a large amount of other vampyr, we need to know about them so we can kill them better.¡± They snuck closer to the destroyed town, killing the lone vampyr that had a decent or better chance of detecting them as they approached. None of the vampyr they encountered displayed any evidence of cognizance, they were all the kind that had been degraded into predatory instincts wrapped in a humanoid shell. A few of them had visible manifestation of the corruption that had made them into monsters, but none were as twisted or warped as the one they¡¯d first run into. The closer they got to the center of the strewn piles of rubble that had once been a place to live, the more activity there was and the more purpose was behind the movement of the vampyr. Vampyr that could talk and ostensibly think to some degree ordered about packs of lesser vampyr as they demolished what was left of the destroyed buildings and carried the debris away somewhere while an entire squad of upright vampyr marched past in something resembling organization, although a few of them started hitting each other and it devolved quickly. Kay wasn¡¯t that stealthy and the Blood Guard with him were bodyguards, not scouts or infiltrators, but the vampyr were easy to maneuver around even for them. They were easy to distract and more than once completely failed to notice another vampyr disappearing entirely. After passing by or eliminating several ¡°patrols¡± Kay and his Blood Guard found their way to a building that was only missing a few chunks instead of being completely leveled and that wasn¡¯t currently being worked on by anything or anyone. They moved inside and Kay and Lauren moved to the wall closest to the center of the activity. They both peeked out a window to see what was going on. A circle of vampyr stood around two more of their kind who were viciously arguing. At some point it had devolved into a physical fight as both were covered in slowly healing wounds and the ground around them was torn up, but at some point before Kay and his people had arrived they¡¯d moved to fighting with words. Most of it was unintelligible at the volume and intensity they were shouting at each other, but some random words made their way to Kay¡¯s ears. One of the vampyr, who resembled an old human woman with long white hair snarled like a wolf at the other, who looked like an unnaturally tall and skinny man with a domino mask over his face, and gestured at the crowd of watchers. They cleared away as a pair dragged a third into the circle. The vampyr they were dragged struggled to get free, snapping like a trapped animal at the hands holding them in place and shrieking wordlessly. The female vampyr stalked over to a piece of rubble, grabbed it, and slammed it into the ground between her and her adversary. With a better view of it Kay saw it wasn¡¯t a piece of rubble, it was some kind of obelisk or pillar with unnatural runes carved across the surfaces facing him. The female vampyr grabbed the struggling one¡¯s neck and slammed it¡¯s head into the top of the object, holding it there. The runs began to glow with unseemly light that flickered with nauseating colors. The struggling vampyr shrieked again and violently increased their efforts to be free, before suddenly slacking and lying still. All of the other vampyr watched as the one being subjected to this twitched and began to smoke, before it¡¯s body suddenly began to twist and change, growing larger and more muscular as it¡¯s body swelled. ¡°You see!?¡± The female vampyr yelled out, ¡°Direct application is the best way!¡± ¡°Fool!¡± The lanky one cried back, ¡°You number your alligators before they hatch! Don¡¯t assume that all will be well before it is done!¡± The swelling paused in a single second and the body of the changing vampyr began to literally twist as their limbs cracked and broke. Their arms and legs tried to make spiraling shapes but couldn¡¯t as the bones supporting the limbs broke into tiny pieces. They then began to compress inward toward the torso and it¡¯s head shifted to sprout from the middle of its chest. Large vent-like openings rent themselves in it¡¯s skin and began leaking brown and green smoke that was timed with each labored breath that the newly corrupted creature took. ¡°There!¡± The tall vampyr cried, ¡°It is useless as a soldier now! It best if we harness the power of the relic in bursts not in a single application!¡± The female vampyr sneered at the twisted monstrosity in disdain. ¡°A weakling! One of the stronger ones would be changed into true weapons with ease!¡± ¡°It matters not! You have had your chance, so now it is my turn!¡± ¡°Fine!¡± She spat at him. She gestured dismissively at the twisted spawn. ¡°Herd that toward the enemy, same as the rest.¡± Kay pulled back from the window and gestured at Lauren to join him. ¡°I think that¡¯s more than enough. There¡¯s a level of planning involved, and whoever¡¯s doing the planning considers Avalon an enemy. Turns out that any bargaining anyone wanted to try and drag us into this mess has been a moot point, we¡¯re already involved whether we like it or not.¡± ¡°What next, your majesty? Straight back home?¡± ¡°No, I think we¡¯ll stop to grab Zeia and bring her back with us. We¡¯re going to need her for any real planning what¡¯s next. Do you want the lanky one or the one with the white hair?¡± Lauren glanced in the direction of the window. ¡°I¡¯d prefer we see what they¡¯ve got before we make any permanent decisions about who takes which one.¡± ¡°Practical, if a bit boring. Anyone got any issues to bring up before we start?¡± The Blood Guard all shook their head, weapons already out and ready. ¡°Fantastic. If anyone runs into one that¡¯s particularly strong make sure to take it together, I¡¯d prefer if no one got infected or dead while we¡¯re here.¡± He turned and held up one hand toward the wall. A pressurized blast of blood erupted outward and destroyed half of the building they¡¯d been hiding in and sending the vampyr closest to it sprawling. The entire congregation of vampyr watching another of their kind get warped by the obelisk being repeatedly pressed against there chest spun toward the commotion. ¡°Kill them all.¡± Kay ordered calmly. ¡°Try not to touch that thing they¡¯re using on each other while you¡¯re at it.¡± Book 6 Chapter 16 ¡°The decision about whether or not Avalon will intervene in the crisis affecting the region to our west has been taken out of our hands.¡± Kay addressed the assembly of his ministers, advisers, and other important minds needed for this discussion. ¡°Evidence that has been uncovered suggests that there is someone or something with an actual intelligence directing the vampyr, and they¡¯ve flagged Avalon as their enemy. We don¡¯t have any clear information about their goals, but I have no intentions of sitting around and acting passively while vampyr are continuously sent to harry us. I¡¯m not making any decisions about the final consequences of our actions, whether we take control of any of the territory is still up in the air, but we will be eliminating the vampyr threat.¡± A few people exchanged worried glances, but no one protested, not that Kay expected anyone would. His people were loyal, which was good, but even better than that they were smart, smart enough to know that leaving a growing threat to fester at their doorstep was a bad idea. ¡°I¡¯m not much of a fighter, as you all know, so I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be contributing all that heavily to this discussion, but what do we know about this supposed leader of vampyr?¡± Kay¡¯s Minister of Planning, David, was one of the original refugees that had come with Cindy to what would become Avalon. ¡°Everyone knows that vampyr are completely mad, I wouldn¡¯t think any of them could keep themselves together enough to direct anything, let alone other vampyr struck by their own madness.¡± Zeia leaned forward so everyone at the table could see her. ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Zeia and I¡¯m with the Shatterplate Order. I¡¯m one of the two leaders left behind to manage our contingent here while our highest leadership deals with moving our headquarters to Avalon.¡± She conveniently skipped over how the people left behind were technically all hostages and that whether or not the Shatterplate Order or the Itarian Crusade actually capitulated to Kay¡¯s demands was still up in the air. Zeia herself was completely behind the move, since it would mean she could remain close to Kay and his eldritch purifying powers, but she wasn¡¯t in charge of her entire organization. ¡°I¡¯m also one of our leading researchers, which is why I¡¯ve been included in this meeting. To answer you question, sir, you¡¯re correct to say that all vampyr are mad, but not that all of them are completely mad. And that is the important distinction here.¡± ¡°You¡¯re saying that some of them hold on to some of their sanity?¡± ¡°Yes, exactly. The worst off among vampyr when it comes to sanity descend into being totally feral beasts. They attack anything that moves, they have little to no survival instincts, and they tend to die off the fastest.¡± She held up a second finger as she continued to list the different conditions among vampyr, ¡°The second up the scale and the most common, are the ones that most fit the general descriptor of ¡®mad¡¯. They all have some kind of insanity that presses on them and directs their behavior. No vampyr like this is exactly the same, although they can fall into many broad categories, but on the whole they tend to experience psychoses, delusions, or hallucinations, all of which make it very hard for them to interact in concert with one another.¡± She held up a third finger, ¡°The type that we¡¯re worried about are the least common but are the most dangerous. Vampyr that retain some sanity and sense of self.¡± Murunel made a face. ¡°Are you saying that some vampyr have th person they used to be inside of them somewhere?¡± ¡°No, not at all.¡± Zeia shook her head violently, ¡°We know for a fact that the person that is infected and becomes a vampyr dies, all of them.¡± She glanced at Kay with a look asking him for permission. He wasn¡¯t sure exactly what she was going to bring up, but he wasn¡¯t aware of her knowing anything that needed to be kept secret, so he nodded. She nodded back. ¡°His majesty has allowed me to accelerate my research into preventing the vampyr from spreading by supplying me with samples from his own body. We know that vampyr are the result of a vampire being corrupted by heavy exposure to eldritch energy, which is why they retain many characteristics of vampires, albeit many of them twisted. Thanks to my study of samples from a real vampire I¡¯ve been able to make many discoveries, including definitively proving that the infected victims die when their bodies become vampyr.¡± She smiled sadly. ¡°We¡¯ve always said that, and made ourselves believe it, but its nice to have real proof of it.¡± She took a deep breath and slowly released it. ¡°Apologies. Are you all aware of the fact that a vast majority of species can be dead for a short time and be resuscitated without lasting harm done? The exact time varies from species to species and tiering up increases how long someone can be physically dead by noticeable amounts, but its possible even with a child that has no Class.¡± There was a general spattering of acknowledgments and nods from around the room. ¡°Good. Well, I¡¯ve discovered that the transformation from another species into a vampire uses that to effect that transformation. The actual change into a vampire is quite traumatic physically and to prevent any long term damage, the virus temporary kills the individual being changed and revives them after the transformation is complete. With vampyr, the victim dies in the same way, but is never revived. The eldritch taint just, takes over the body and starts driving it.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°That explains why vampires are thought to be undead back home,¡± Kay mused. ¡°I would presume so, yes. Returning to the previous topic though, vampyr that don¡¯t entirely fall into madness retain a portion of who the original person used to be, just contorted into a monster. They can still have a portion of the original person¡¯s memories or continue to have some of their goals. Because they¡¯re actually insane monsters fueled by energy from outside out reality though, they almost always act in completely monstrous ways to enact those goals or react to the memories they still posses in deranged ways.¡± ¡°All of which combined allows some vampyr to act intelligently. That explains one part of the issue, but how do they manage to control other vampyr that don¡¯t have those same capabilities?¡± David asked, ¡°As you¡¯ve said, most vampyr are too mad to work together and from what I know most of the vampyr attacking us are those type.¡± ¡°Getting the news from your wife?¡± Eleniah asked teasingly. David glanced away with a blush. ¡°Fiancee, thank you.¡± ¡°Ah, congratulations?¡± Zeia said haltingly. ¡°Um, anyway, the answer to that is a combination of observed evidence and supposition. We know from observing vampyr that the more put together ones can control those that are less stable and a hierarchy tends to form when vampyr gather together that¡¯s based on strength or combat ability. Since the ability to actually think when you fight most often beats strength with no thought behind it the vampyr¡¯s that are more sane tend to end up on top. While the relationship is ofter fraught with conflict and many subordinate vampyr rebel frequently and/or end up dead, the vampyr leaders are able to give them orders that are generally followed to the best ability of the subordinate vampyr. That isn¡¯t saying much in a vast majority of cases, but it does explain how vampyr can act in coordinated ways. The thing we don¡¯t know is the actual mechanics of how that relationship works, but I do have ideas.¡± Zeia glanced in Kay¡¯s direction again, but this time she seemed to just be gathering her thoughts. ¡°Based on his majesty¡¯s description of folklore and myths around vampires from his world I¡¯ve come to theorize that what we¡¯ve seen among vampyr hierarchies is another bastardization of natural vampire traits. Vampires seem to flock toward forming groups of multiple vampires, usually led by a particularly powerful vampire with said powerful vampire often being the originator of many or all of the vampires beneath them. I believe that some portion of that is retained by vampyr and they form a hierarchy because of this.¡± ¡°Alright,¡± Kay took back the conversation, ¡°So know that it can happen and we also have evidence that says it has. Multiple vampyr involved with what¡¯s happening have made reference to some kind of leader, including titles such as ¡®Great One¡¯ and ¡®the Visionary¡¯. We don¡¯t know if there¡¯s only a single leader and the vampyr in their madness call them by many names or if there¡¯s more than one, but they¡¯re targeting Avalon, and we won¡¯t be sitting back to let them do as they like. This shorter meeting was just to inform everyone where we are with this new information. There will be additional meetings regarding what we¡¯ll need from people or their ministries as we determine exactly how we¡¯re going to act.¡± The meeting broke up as Kay dismissed everyone, and Eleniah took the opportunity to scoot her seat closer to his. ¡°You didn¡¯t mention the other one.¡± He looked back at her out of the corner of his eye. ¡°You mean the one who turned me?¡± ¡°I do. He also talked about a ¡®Great One¡¯ or something like that, and said he had orders to bring you to him.¡± She stared at him sternly, ¡°I won¡¯t let you do anything stupid like blame yourself for what¡¯s happened. What evil people do-¡° ¡°I¡¯m not blaming myself.¡± She raised one eyebrow at him. ¡°I¡¯m not. I understand why you¡¯d think I am, I¡¯ve definitely acted like that before, but I¡¯m not this time. There¡¯s too much going on with this ¡®Great One¡¯ for everything happening to be aimed at me. I think I was targeted as part of whatever greater plan they¡¯re trying to enact, not the other way around. The vampyr set off rituals that caused the world¡¯s defenses against eldritch incursion to break all over the world, distracting everyone, and then while no one can respond to it they take out Nelam and everything around it? That sounds like whoever this ¡®Great One¡¯ or ¡®Visionary¡¯ is, they were aiming for that spot from the beginning. I think I became a target because happened to be a new threat in the region they wanted to act in.¡± Eleniah nodded along as she processed what he was saying. ¡°If they¡¯ve got enough left up in their head to plan at this level, they could be able to predict that you¡¯d be a problem to their future plans and look to take you out. That definitely makes sense. Why not bring the attack on you up to further prove the point, then?¡± ¡°To avoid messy optics. I became a vampire because I was attacked by a vampyr that was likely working for our enemy, and that wouldn¡¯t be hard for those with a grudge against me, or just Avalon in general, to turn into a nasty rumor that hurts our credibility when we can¡¯t afford it.¡± He nodded subtly at Zeia, ¡°I¡¯d bet money that she¡¯s already sent a dozen or more messages telling the Order to get their asses down here to help out with this, and I¡¯ll be getting her and the Itarians to send a dozen more. The vampyr wiped out an actual nation and the equivalent of at least one more. We can¡¯t afford to do this alone, and the people who are going to be our best allies in this are going to come in already doubting me. Just beating them in one tiny war isn¡¯t going to change the mind of the really hard core people who want me dead just for being sort of like a vampyr. We don¡¯t benefit anything from reminding people exactly how I came to change species, but we could lose by doing it.¡± Eleniah stared at him as he talked, and her expression changed over the course of his explanation from a curious look to a very wide grin. ¡°Can I pick ¡®em or what?¡± Kay looked over with a frown. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Did you just hear yourself? You¡¯ve still got work to do on some subjects, sure, but you are already showing that you¡¯re an excellent leader and king.¡± She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. ¡°I am so good at spotting talent, it amazes even me.¡± ¡°¡­ I¡¯m glad I can make you look good.¡± ¡°Perfect, that¡¯s going to be your job in our relationship for a long time, so I¡¯m happy you¡¯re finding joy in it already.¡± Everyone still in the room turned to look as Kay burst out laughing, and couldn¡¯t stop for an extended time. Book 6 Chapter 18 ¡°It¡¯s time to move on to full testing,¡± Zeia said as soon as her meeting with Kay started. They were in one of the many meeting rooms available in the palace, specifically one of the ones deeper in the complex that were easier to secure. The fact that they were working on countermeasures to the vampyr taint wasn¡¯t a secret, in fact it was a useful morale booster to let the news spread, but the details were a little more restricted. Like Kay had told Eleniah, fighting people¡¯s transformation into vampyr by turning them into vampires was a good thing, but many people would refuse to see the benefits or use that knowledge to further their own goals. Someday, if Kay had his way, vampires would be seen as perfectly normal citizen of Torotia, but until the stigma of the vampyr was ripped out the newly rediscovered species was going to face prejudice and distrust. ¡°It feels like it¡¯s too early for that. You¡¯ve been working with¡­¡± Kay¡¯s face scrunched up in a mixture of embarrassment and distaste, ¡°You¡¯ve been experimenting on my bodily fluids for what, a week or less? That¡¯s nowhere close to long enough to determine what¡¯s dangerous and what¡¯s safe.¡± ¡°What else would you have me do?¡± Zeia asked, ¡°Every test I¡¯ve done shows that we can safely transform someone into a vampire using the methods you¡¯ve described from your original world¡¯s folklore. Without actually trying the process I don¡¯t see how else we can proceed. With your unique version of Purify Blood not being passed down to any of your students, even Lauren who also became a vampire, the only way I¡¯ve been able to find that will allow wide spread treatment of vampyr infection is through changing the victims into vampires.¡± Eleniah put a hand on Kay¡¯s arm, ¡°Somewhere along the line this became my permanent job, research into different fields can go a lot faster here than on Earth, thanks to Skills and magic. Many researchers have Skills that tell them if certain attempts or theories will be dangerous and at higher tiers there are even Skills that can simulate experiments. No one¡¯s rushing into this without as much preparation as possible.¡± Zeia nodded in agreement. ¡°All of my non-combat Classes are research or study based Classes, and all my Skills plus my knowledge tell me that this will be as safe as possible. The only warning I¡¯ve been getting is that allowing large amounts of your ¡®venom¡¯ will kill me. Which we already know about.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t help.¡± Kay groaned as he dropped his head into his hands. ¡°It doesn¡¯t confirm your theory about the transformation resuscitating the person infected?¡± ¡°Ah. Sadly, no. That Class is only tier three and all warnings I get end with death, it doesn¡¯t tell me anything that would hypothetically happen to my body afterward, even if I¡¯d only be a dead body for a few moments.¡± Eleniah squeezed his arm. After a few moments of rough internal debate, Kay glanced up from his hands. ¡°Tell me about your preparations.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve already secured a handful of volunteers. They¡¯re fighters that got bitten while performing rearguard actions to get the refugees they were protecting to safety. They all managed to win by the skin of their teeth or just survive somehow and make it to safety, but they¡¯re all infected. All of them are right on the edge of turning, the healers with Classes from your line have been able to stave it off, but they¡¯re losing ground. These people are the ones that attempting to make them into vampires would help the most and they have the least to lose right now.¡± ¡°And if you¡¯re wrong and this kills them?¡± ¡°Then they died fighting to the end, just like they planned to go. From my end of the table that¡¯s a million times better than being mercy killed before you become a monster.¡± Kay stared into Zeia¡¯s eyes, judging her. What she was doing made him think of the doctor who has developed a way to artificially produce insulin. The story of him going from child to child in a ward, where all of them were expected to die soon, and injecting them with the insulin he¡¯d made. Dozens of comatose children on their death beds woke up that day instead of fading away. What she was doing was right there with that heroic discovery in Kay¡¯s mind, and all he could see in her eyes was an almost desperate need to help people that were suffering. ¡°Alright. Walk me through your plans. I want all of them, step by step, but¡­ Yes, you have my permission and my cooperation in continuing.¡±The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Zeia pushed back from her chair and bowed deeply to him, the first time she¡¯d ever shown that level of outward demonstration of respect. ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Did you think I¡¯d say no at this point?¡± She looked like some kind of looming giant filled with purpose as she rose back up, for all the foot or so shorter she was than Kay. ¡°No, I can tell you care about helping people, too. It¡¯s very gratifying to be proved right, though.¡± Hours later Kay watched as three people locked against restraints meant to hold them in place vacillate between bouts of rage, paranoia, and delusion and lucidity. When they were lucid they were cordial and cooperative, if also stressed out and afraid. When they were raving¡­ Well, they were textbook examples of people descending into becoming a vampyr. All three were locked down so that they couldn¡¯t lash out or try to escape when they weren¡¯t lucid, with tough metal rods connecting the manacles locked around their ankles and wrists. Two of them were human women, guards from one of the villages along Nelam¡¯s border that had been flattened by the horde of vampyr that had spread from the doomed nation. The third was a beastkin man with slitted eyes, rough scales all along his limbs, and a set of incredibly sharp teeth in a strong jaw. He had been a slave that had escaped during the ongoing multi-way war that had erupted after the now deceased King Glowl has been defeated by Kay during the Shatterplate War and he¡¯d become one of the protectors of his band of escapees as they too had fled the vampyr. Kay waited off to the side as Zeia managed her assistants, the medical professionals and healers that had been selected to attend, and the guards on hand in case things went sideways. Technically Zeia had no official assistants, but members of her squad from the Shatterplate Order has experience helping her in other attempts to save people from the vampyr taint and had volunteered to help. Together with Kay being there, the odds of the experiment ending that badly were low. The worst outcome Kay could imagine actually happening was the three volunteers dying. ¡°Alright everyone!¡± Zeia called out once things were prepared. ¡°I¡¯m going to go everything one more time before we begin! Our three volunteers will be going to become vampires so that they don¡¯t become vampyr. Seeing as this is out first test of doing this via vampire venom instead of his majesty¡¯s Skills, we will be doing this as closely to our limited sources as we can. His majesty is going to bite our volunteers and inject a large amount of his venom into them, which should begin the process of turning them.¡± She glanced over at Kay, ¡°I know that this is going to be a first for you and we¡¯re not going to be able to get it perfectly line up but please try and give them all the same amount, your majesty.¡± Kay nodded his acceptance. ¡°Our healers, doctors, and medics are on standby in case something goes wrong and our volunteers can be healed. Our combatants are on standby in case things go the worst possible way.¡± ¡°And I will be on standby after I finish my initial duty in case the turning does not look like it will be successful.¡± Kay looked directly at the three volunteers and hoped they were able to understand him. ¡°Should it look like the venom isn¡¯t enough, I will be using my Skills to ensure our volunteers come out the other side either way.¡± Zeia bowed her head for a moment before she looked up and panned her gaze across the room. ¡°Does anyone have any questions or concerns before we begin? This is the one and only chance to say something.¡± No one spoke up. ¡°Very well, your majesty, if you will.¡± Kay stepped forward and grabbed the first woman¡¯s neck. The potentially intimate action was completely robbed of that kind of feeling thanks to the dozen or so people watching and the context of what was happening, which somehow helped. Guided by instincts that had come with his transformation and that were very hard to explain, Kay sunk his fangs into the woman¡¯s neck. Those same instincts told him when he¡¯d injected ¡°the right amount¡± of venom, however much that happened to be, and he gave it two more seconds just to be sure. After that he stepped to the other woman, then the man. A handful of minutes passed as everyone observed the three volunteers. During their moments of lucidity they began to look uncomfortable, then one of them began groaning in pain. Soon the room was filled with the sounds of agony and the volunteers were no longer struggling against their restrains because they were being driven by madness, but because what was happening to them hurt so badly. Some of the healers rushed closer and began laying spells and Skills on them, which seemed to dull the pain but didn¡¯t remove it. Still, Kay knew that less pain was infinitely better than feeling all of it in that situation. At times it looked like something was shifting beneath the skin of the three of them, like something was burrowing through their bodies but the longer it went on the less that happened. Small, subtle changes in their bodies, almost unnoticeable marks of eldritch corruption, were eaten away and erased, returning their bodies closer to their original state. The moments where madness and rage were visible behind their eyes in addition to the pain decreased, until there was only sanity visible next to the agony. Kay could feel the need to destroy and eradicate everything eldritch fade away, bit by bit. After almost and hour, the beastkin man slowly stopped screaming, his cries become quieter whimpers and moans that petered out themselves soon after. He sagged against his his restraints before slowly lifting his head up. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped as he glanced off to the side, obviously reading a System notification. ¡°Miss Zeia, I¡­¡± His voice was harsh from all the screaming and his eyes started welling with fresh tears. He tried to clear his throat before continuing. ¡°I do believe it worked.¡± Book 6 Chapter 19 Even facing against a horde of nightmarish monsters most likely led by an incredibly powerful, if mad, antagonist, Kay¡¯s job was not ¡°go and pick fights with the enemy¡±. One single person capable of overwhelming power wasn¡¯t going to be able to wipe out several cities worth of vampyr, not all at once at least, and Kay throwing himself into that kind of battle would be foolhardy, especially since they had no knowledge of what the enemy¡¯s elites were like. Kay had singlehandedly shifted the Shatterplate War because he¡¯d been able to counter several key part¡¯s of the slapped together army¡¯s threats and because he¡¯d only faced limited numbers of peer strength enemies at once. WIth a seemingly unlimited number of Classes out there for the taking, there was always a chance that he could be countered or at least severely disadvantaged against an enemy. That meant the first step was information gathering, which in turn meant that Kay didn¡¯t have anything useful to contribute for a while, at least not immediately or directly. He had no way to back up or help the scouts, infiltrators, spies, and other intelligence gatherers under Isla¡¯s command, because even if they didn¡¯t know it Isla was pulling the strings of everyone that had a good chance of grabbing information for Avalon, so he did his best to focus on preparation. With competent subordinates handling the what they were best at and their subordinates taking care of the details and particulars that left Kay with only a handful of objectives to handle. One of those was being there for the newly turned vampires, a group that was slowly but steadily growing as more tests were done followed by Zeia leading an undertaking to cure everyone facing the horrendous transformation into a vampyr that she could get a hold of. Zeia had discovered that the change the System had made to vampires had made it so that the venom of all vampires fought back against the corrupted version that made vampyr, and she theorized that the transformation into a vampire could eliminate or at least reduce other eldritch taints as well. Once she¡¯d proven that to her satisfaction, she¡¯d gone from just using Kay to save people to using any vampire she could get her hands on. Kay and Lauren both volunteered a lot of their time in the beginning, along with a few of the people from the village in Tumbling Rapids¡¯ territory that had been saved from vampyr and changed the original way with Kay¡¯s Skills. They¡¯d been eager to pass along the kindness of being saved from a gruesome fate, and so were almost all of the people that were rescued via vampire venom. Zeia took ruthless advantage of those feelings and new vampires that had been given adequate time to recover from their ordeal were then almost press-ganged into helping the next people down the line that were doing their best to resist the eldritch plague inside of them. Dozens of people were transformed into vampires and that then ballooned into hundreds as fighters and civilians that had fled the collapse of Nelam and the wave of vampyr attacks just far enough ahead to stay alive but not enough to stay untouched all had that daunting sword of Damocles removed from over their heads. With there always being more than enough volunteers available to help Zeia with venom production and bites, Kay and Lauren were able to go back to their regular duties. Kay made sure that there was someone he trusted to be impartial watching everything, though. The full truth of what it was to be a vampire was still unknown, but there definitely was some kind of connection between ¡°sire¡± and ¡°child¡± vampires. Anyone that was definitely untrustworthy was cut from helping others, but where there was power over someone else there was always temptation, and people weak enough to give in to that temptation. Until they knew whether or not that connection between a new vampire and the one who changed them could be exploited or misused there would be someone, or many someones, checking in to make sure that it wasn¡¯t. Zeia was too focused on saving everyone she could to pay attention to anything else, so some of the sneakier Blood Guard were tasked to blend in and keep an eye out. Even after moving on to other projects, Kay still took time to regularly stop by and check in on the new vampires. Besides being the king of the nation they were taking refuge in, Kay was also the first of the new species they¡¯d all become and something of an automatic leader. The entirety of the slowly growing web of connections between the vampires was open to him, whether that stemmed from him being the first vampire on Torotia and the connected title or because he was the progenitor of their vampiric bloodline, he could sense all of them in a distant and unexplainable way. All of that came with a sense of responsibility and he did his best to help everyone get back on their feet and recover.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Some of the new vampires saw him as a threat, especially those who had been from Nelam, others saw him as some superior being that they needed to respect, while others were fairly normal. He couldn¡¯t personally help everyone, but he appreciated every time someone would stop him or ask for him in order to talk about what he¡¯d learned about being a vampire, or just to talk about it. Being able to help someone, even if it was just one person sometimes, was uplifting for Kay and helped him get through the daunting proposition of what was to come. The other major task Kay was involved in was one he hadn¡¯t expected. ¡°Sorry, what?¡± Cindy turned and gestured once more at the rows and rows of barrels behind her, all collected in one of the secret underground warehouses that had supported Avalon¡¯s gunsmithing project before it had been moved out of Avalon City. ¡°We need you to fill these up with your blood, and we¡¯ll get more of them as you fill these up. We need as much as possible, and it needs to be your blood, not just blood you have. Blood actually from your body.¡± Kay looked over her shoulder at several hundred barrels. ¡°What do you need this much blood for?¡± ¡°Not just blood,¡± She replied, ¡°Your blood. And I¡¯m still in charge of Avalon¡¯s military R&D aren¡¯t I? It¡¯s for weapons and munitions development.¡± ¡°Are you still in charge of that? Don¡¯t we have people working directly for our military handling that now?¡± ¡°The publicly known stuff is being handled that way, sure, but I¡¯ve still been running the secret side of things.¡± She shot him a small frown, ¡°Did you not know that? Do you want me to stop?¡± ¡°Uh¡­ You know I¡¯d bet that I was told and them forgot about it with all of the other shit going on. Isla can probably pull up the exact date and time she told me, too.¡± They both paused to see if Isla would say anything, but if she was hanging around them invisibly she didn¡¯t reveal herself. ¡°And no,¡± Kay continued, ¡°I¡¯m not asking you to stop, I just wasn¡¯t thinking about it. What kind of weapons are you going to make using my blood though?¡± ¡°Anti-vampyr ones,¡± She replied, the ¡°Duh¡± clear in her tone. ¡°You¡¯re the best source of guaranteed anti-vampyr material we have and you make more of it constantly and at a high rate. Even if we just make bullets that do a lot of damage to them and spread them out among my gunners we¡¯ll do a lot more damage than we would have without them. And I have much higher hopes than just situationally better bullets.¡± She told him with a big grin. ¡°¡­ Do I want to know?¡± Kay asked tentatively, not entirely liking the excitement behind Cindy¡¯s eyes. ¡°Definitely not yet. You don¡¯t need to know the details on what are basically just a bunch of theories, and we still don¡¯t have a hard limit on where exactly the System is limiting outside technology. I¡¯ve got people plugging away at it, but I wasn¡¯t a scientist and I don¡¯t remember everything I learned in school so it¡¯s not going that fast. Add that to the fact that different sciences or paths to technology seem to have different limits makes it really hard to say if something will work before we actually try.¡± ¡°But you aren¡¯t going to do anything crazy?¡± ¡°Some of my ideas might end up needing some in depth conversations about when they should and shouldn¡¯t be used, if they end up working at all, but nothing that we absolutely can¡¯t ever use for fear of what they might do. They¡¯ll be like nukes. Actually, they¡¯ll be way less dangerous than nukes, but you get my point.¡± ¡°Uh¡­ most everyone I know would consider nukes something we can never use for fear of the consequences.¡± ¡°Really, how did you deal with the Red Plague?¡± ¡°The what?¡± ¡°Oh, right.¡± Cindy reached up and mimed smacking herself on the head. ¡°Different history and timelines of our worlds and all that. Not really important now, it was a thing that happened back on my Earth that you¡¯ll never get to visit but the only thing that could permanently end the threat was a small nuke. Guess you never had any events like that.¡± ¡°No, no we didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Well kudos to that Earth. But yeah, the ideas I have aren¡¯t actually like nukes, they won¡¯t have anywhere near the damage potential or long term consequences. They¡¯ll be closer to I don¡¯t know, traditional ICBMs then? With high explosive warheads and not nuclear ones. Really dangerous and you have to make sure you¡¯re limiting their use to the right situations, but no actually nuking people.¡± ¡°I¡­ You know what? Sure. Bring me a proof of concept that actually works for something and then I¡¯ll get growly about ¡°what the hell have you made!?¡±, there¡¯s no point yelling at you about a thought that hasn¡¯t been tested.¡± ¡°I appreciate that. Now fill all of these barrels with your blood.¡± Kay paused before willing some of his blood out of his arm and into the nearest barrel. ¡°Ever think about how weird your life has gotten after ending up getting isekai¡¯d?¡± ¡°All the time!¡± Cindy cheered, ¡°Isn¡¯t it great?¡± Book 6 Chapter 20 ¡°That¡¯s done,¡± Kay muttered as he tossed another ream of paperwork into his outbox. He had no idea where the idea of Earth inspired filing systems and methods to control paperwork had gained popularity on Torotia, but he cursed that place under his breath regularly. He didn¡¯t want an outbox or an inbox to toss papers in and take them out from when he was ready to move on to the next task. Most of the annoyance he felt stemmed from not wanting to deal with loads of paperwork in general, not the specific method of organizing it, but then he¡¯d be whining about the job he agreed to take on, which was beneath him. Complaining about how doing the job he agreed to do was likely also beneath him, but everyone deserved to have some small vices, didn¡¯t they? ¡°Very good, your majesty, I¡¯ll send that out for you.¡± Kay looked up to see Miri standing next to his desk with her normal slight smile. She was dressed in clothing that was similar to the range of styles that served as Avalon¡¯s palace uniform but in better materials, a contrast to the traditional clothing from the Isles Kay had seen her in since their arrival. ¡°When did you get here?¡± ¡°Just now, your majesty. I am now ready to serve directly at your side.¡± ¡°You¡¯re done setting up everything you needed, then?¡± ¡°Your personal staff isn¡¯t quite complete yet, there are a few roles I¡¯d like to fill out still, but those aren¡¯t required for day to day functioning and we¡¯ll want specialists that will be difficult to recruit anyways, so that can wait.¡± Miri informed him, ¡°But other than that, yes, I¡¯ve completed all the preparations and dealt with the little tests Prime Minister Amanda and your spymaster laid out for me.¡± ¡°Tests?¡± ¡°Yes, the normal little things that all employees in a sensitive area have to go through, making sure I won¡¯t take bribes, checking that I¡¯m not an agent for another power, determining whether I have any addictions or connections that would make me a vulnerability, that sort of thing. The real tests as someone they don¡¯t know being in close proximity to their king daily will come later, and I¡¯m sure they won¡¯t be nearly as obvious.¡± She straightened her back with a grin, ¡°It should be a fun little challenge to spice things up.¡± ¡°You¡¯re looking forward to my Prime Minister and spymaster teaming up to randomly test your loyalties? I can see why you expect it and I¡¯m not going to get involved, but you¡¯re excited about it?¡± She shrugged one shoulder, ¡°Why not? I know that I¡¯m on the same side as them, and since they¡¯re not sure where I stand they won¡¯t be setting up anything too dangerous because it¡¯d be a problem if I am on their side, which I am. It¡¯ll be a nice diversion from what I¡¯m sure is going to be tedious work at multiple points. Additionally, while I haven¡¯t seen enough of your spymaster¡¯s work to figure out if I know them or of them yet, I can tell they¡¯re a professional, which means that mixed into the tests of my loyalty will be tests of skill, which are always enjoyable. I¡¯ll be able to show off in front of someone that can really appreciate my talents in that regard.¡± Her grin grew sizeably, ¡°And while I¡¯m not going to get directly involved in any intelligence activities, as your majordomo I¡¯ll certainly be involved in some light counterintelligence acts directed at and around your in particular, so it¡¯ll be good to prove my bonafides early.¡± Kay considered that and decided it was fine. ¡°Alright, as long as there isn¡¯t any harm directed at each other then I¡¯ll assume you¡¯re all experienced adults and let you get on with it. Moving on¡­ I haven¡¯t had a majordomo before, which you know already. What do I do with you?¡± ¡°You continue to do what you did before I started serving you, you just also keep me informed of what you¡¯re doing and why. I in turn will do my best to remove any blockages and streamline anything you need to happen. If you need to have a meeting with someone you let me know and I¡¯ll deal with scheduling it and informing the person you want the meeting with. If you¡¯re going over a proposal from one of your nobles and you need documentation to verify something, you let me know what documents you need and I¡¯ll make sure they¡¯re retrieved in a timely manner. Tell me what you want or need, and I¡¯ll make it happen. Within reason of course.¡± Kay tapped at his desk with one finger while he listened. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m sure that it¡¯ll take some practice but we¡¯ll get there. Talk to Amanda about some of the curriculum that she and Eleniah have been setting up to make me into a better leader, I¡¯m sure you can help with teaching me some of that where it intersects with your duties.¡± ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± She bowed slightly and nodded sideways at the door. ¡°Will that be all?¡± ¡°Send in the clerk on duty to refresh my paperwork, and then go speak to them. I don¡¯t have anything I need done right this moment.¡± ¡°Very well.¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j ¡°I am Salash the Heart-Siezer, he who brings the pain upon the enemies of-!¡± The sharp kick to the back of the head of Salash the Loud and Obnoxious would have killed most people below tier four in one blow, but Salash was a tier four and happened to be a vampyr in addition to that, which meant he only toppled forward onto his face. The raised foot poised to come down and crush his skull definitely would have killed him, but the ever-present malignant thing that had ruined Martha¡¯s existence broke past the barrier she¡¯d erected to keep it at bay and resumed control over her magic, her body, and her minions. The composite zombie formed of hundreds of mangled corpses all rammed into each other without a single point of grace or beauty and nothing like Martha would have made if she had control of herself turned and moved away from the annoying vampyr, sparing his life. The eldritch nastiness that lived in Martha didn¡¯t even bother trying to punish her as it mentally commanded the mount carrying her body forward, it¡¯d learned the futility of that a mere decade into fighting her for control of herself and it had stopped a decade more after that. Now it just resumed control and moved on, or cleaned up if she managed to really ruin its plans. Mildly injuring one vampyr it didn¡¯t care about wasn¡¯t worth it delaying its task, and so Martha¡¯s body marched on under the will of an alien being. Martha herself sat back to watch and wait for more opportunities to stymie the thing. Trying to wrest back control of part of herself multiple times in short succession was much more difficult than saving her strength for powerful bursts, so she hoped that nothing interesting happened too soon. She wished she could just wait for actually important moments to fight back, to ensure that she¡¯d be in the best condition she could, but she learned as much from the twisted relationship she had with the thing as much as it did. It was a twisted, conniving thing and it was always on the lookout for the knife in the back. Simultaneously, it was so outside of the existence it had been born into that it acted like a total idiot at times. Occasionally breaking out of its grasp and lashing out in some small way made it confident that she had wasted her strength on something minor and it moved on. Biding her time for a perfect moment made it nervous, and then it started doing things Martha really didn¡¯t want it to, like deciding to try and permanently root her out of body again. So that was how a tier five necromancer who¡¯d secretly ruled over an entire island chain spent her days, waiting in one of the tiny corners of her mind that wasn¡¯t too riddled with eldritch taint and madness and waiting for a moment to strike back against her captor, tormentor, and corrupter. Her life, what little she had of one, was objectively terrible. Which meant nothing of course, she was Martha the Empty Grave, She Who Marches Past Death, and no sniveling little eldritch infiltrator, body snatcher thing was going to make her give up. She was patient, she was cunning, and she was oh so incredibly mad. Existing in a tiny portion of one¡¯s own mind while the rest of it was eaten away by something from beyond this realm did that to a person of course, but she was more than capable of channeling a little thing like madness. She worked every moment of every day of turning it into a specific kind of madness, an unending drive to tear down the enemy no matter what the cost was. Since ruining everything for the thing that had ruined her life was the only goal left to her it all worked out. The thing turned her head from side to side, constantly scanning for something. The undead horde that it used as minions followed along behind it, occasionally bumping into the vampyr following along. They were all ugly things, the undead it had raised with her magic and it stoked her rage to see mashed together abominations and shambling zombies where there should have been proper death knights and other undead actually worthy of being created. She¡¯d raised a lich once, and now her magic was being used for the kinds of rubbish you¡¯d see in a bad story from the times before the First Grand Necromancer had risen up to battle the mutated fish people that had come from the sea to wipe all surface life away and shown that necromancy wasn¡¯t inherently evil. Or in a place like this where that kind of display had never happened. The necromancers she¡¯d seen as the thing had driven her body across this cluster of continents had been pitiful. They were all hardened and bitter men and women that blamed the world around them for their own actions. Necromancy required bodies, yes, but nothing said that you had to go and make the bodies! That was murder! And stealing them from proper graves was almost as bad! The only shining light she¡¯d seen was that one brief meeting with someone from something called the Order of Bones. It wasn¡¯t the most creative name, but all the rumors had said that they were actual proper necromancers with morales and honor. She¡¯d been very glad when the cloaked individual had almost immediately realized something was wrong and ran for it. She¡¯d have been quite sad if the thing had killed yet another decent necromancer using her body. Martha had no idea why the thing had decided to ally with the vampyr and their strange leader. The poor dear was quite mad and didn¡¯t even seem to know it, but that wasn¡¯t really Martha¡¯s problem. The thing had been traveling all over the world, even to this isolated corner that didn¡¯t seem to know the rest of the world was out there, seeking a way to finally rid itself of Martha and her interference. She clung on to her body with her mastery of necromancy, and it was seeking other necromancers to learn enough to force her out and take full control. Coming here to ally with the vampyr didn¡¯t further that goal, so Martha was concerned. The brief flashes of communication she¡¯d caught when the thing had spoken with her voice to the vampyr¡¯s leader had made her flinch back from them, they were so filled with the very essence of eldritch. Thus, Martha waited and watched, as she always did. She was an enemy of the thing that puppetted her body and to a lesser extent all other things eldritch. Ruining the things plans would likely also ruin the vampyr¡¯s plans, odd and sad creatures that they were, and that would be a nice little bonus. Since it was looking like there might be a fight coming up, Martha started conserving her strength to really cause chaos. If she was lucky, whoever the thing had allied with the vampyr against would kill her. Book 6 Chapter Twenty-One ¡°We believe we¡¯ve found what the vampyr are planning.¡± Isla¡¯s illusion of a man that served as her stand in told the assembled meeting solemnly. ¡°Or at least, a major move they¡¯re making that we cannot allow.¡± The illusion gestured and aides started handing out documents to the assembled leaders of Avalon and the allies they had available. Zeia was obviously there, as was High Crusader Hearthbreaker, representing the two major vampyr hunting orders, who had finally sent missives back indicating that they were on their way to Avalon. Guildmaster Gemglass was present as she would be coordinating the Adventurers Guild¡¯s assistance, which she had managed to secure. Murunel¡¯s cousin and his wife were there as their own little pair, while they were subordinate to Kay in this endeavor their experience and insights could be useful, useful enough to let them attend the meeting. ¡°While we¡¯ve managed to confirm that packs, and what we can only refer to as units or small armies, of vampyr continue to besiege the settlements that have managed to hold out and hunt down any stragglers or those fleeing falling settlements, that doesn¡¯t appear to be their main goal.¡± Isla waited until everyone had a set of documents. ¡°Long range reconnaissance through a variety of means has discovered that the vampyr are once again creating ritual sites.¡± She flipped to the second page of the report and pointed at the figures drawn there. ¡°We only managed to document one site of the previous rituals that were carried out y vampyr, the one we presume allowed the eldritch incursion here at Avalon during the Shatterplate War, and the ones we¡¯ve managed to document that are being created now are similar enough for me to confidently say they are for the same purpose, if perhaps a different target.¡± Intricate circles and designs were drawn on the paper, creating a pattern that seemed to oscillate and shift as Kay tried to look at it. ¡°Even reproductions seem to be affected by the nature of the ritual they¡¯re meant to allow, as seen by the difficulty our people faced even trying to record them, which to me indicates the powerful nature of what the vampyr intend. It is my belief that we cannot allow them to complete whatever it is they seek from these rituals.¡± Eleniah looked up form her perusal of the document. ¡°How many sites do we know of?¡± ¡°We¡¯ve confirmed the existence of five and believe there are more.¡± The illusion seemed to take a deep breath and slowly release it. ¡°And each circle that they¡¯re creating is significantly larger than the example we have from the previous ritual.¡± Grim expressions passed around the room at that piece of news. ¡°It¡¯s not always true,¡± Meten told everyone, ¡°But larger circles usually mean more powerful rituals. It works that way with runic magic too.¡± ¡°So what we assume to be a summoning ritual for much larger or more powerful eldritch beings compared to the previous incursion is being prepared by a large group of seemingly in control vampyr all working toward a single goal.¡± Kay could see that Zeia was physically restraining herself from being much louder and aggressive as she looked at everyone around the table. ¡°Is there any reason to not deal with this as soon as possible?¡± ¡°No, there isn¡¯t.¡± Kay announced, shutting down even the thought of anyone having an objection. ¡°No matter what their actual goal is, we cannot let the vampyr succeed. Even if we had no evidence of what their goal might be we would still have to intervene, because anything a coordinated group of intelligent monsters do on this scale is too much of a threat to leave alone.¡± He looked directly at the illusion, catching it¡¯s nonexistent eyes with his own. ¡°Anyone that can safely sabotage the vampyr so they don¡¯t finish those circles needs to be doing so as soon as possible.¡± The illusion bowed, and a tiny winged figure that Kay knew only he could see appeared off to the side and copied the motion before vanishing. ¡°Of course, your majesty.¡± ¡°What can we expect in terms of resistance?¡± Isla¡¯s illusion flipped to the next page of the report. ¡°Just to make sure you all know before I answer that question, the vampyr are using devices or objects similar to the one his majesty recovered as a piece in creating the ritual circles. The exact nature and use of them varies across the five sites we have eyes on, but there is one such object at each. That¡¯s what we¡¯ll have our agents target for the first wave of sabotage.¡± They all moved onto the next page at the illusion¡¯s direction. ¡°Each site has a different level of protection, and what seems to be an amount of effort put into completing each site that¡¯s comparable to how much work they¡¯re putting in to guarding it. Of the five we¡¯ve identified, two of them are outside of Nelam¡¯s former borders and have the elast amount of manpower working on them. We have no way to realistically try and figure out why that¡¯s the case, since this is a plan being put together by vampyr, and I¡¯m not going to make an attempt. The three other sites are inside of where Nelam was, and one is situated in the former capital.¡±Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. There were murmurs and whispered questions across the meeting room. Isla¡¯s illusion shrugged in response. ¡°There¡¯s no way to know if that¡¯s important or a coincidence, but the capital site is the most heavily guarded of the five and they¡¯ve been doing the most work there. A small portion of the vampyr also seem to be rebuilding Nelam¡¯s palace as well, although our agents couldn¡¯t get close enough to find out if there¡¯s any important reason that they¡¯re doing that.¡± ¡°They probably need a base.¡± Cindy commented absently, ¡°Or whoever their leader is is a megalomaniac.¡± She looked a little startled when she noticed everyone staring at her. ¡°What? They leveled most of the country right? The really crazy and animalistic vampyr won¡¯t care about clothes or shelter, but the more together ones will. So they¡¯ll need a base of some kind just to stay out of the weather in. And even if they¡¯re more sane than the rest, that doesn¡¯t mean they¡¯re actually sane. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if one or more ¡®important¡¯ vampyr think¡¯s their a king, or a god, or something similarly egotistical.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ surprisingly possible,¡± Isla admitted through her fake voice, ¡°We can¡¯t dismiss the idea that repairing the castle is more impactful than that, but there¡¯s a very good chance that¡¯s the case. Either way, we¡¯ll have people try and make their way in undetected to find out for sure.¡± ¡°Are there any further questions at this time for our intelligence branch?¡± Kay asked. ¡°Pertinent ones that might change what we¡¯re doing, in particular. Less important questions can always be brought up later.¡± If anyone had any questions they didn¡¯t think it was right to bring them up at that moment. ¡°Very well. General Curcius, began making plans for the best way to gather our military back into a cohesive whole and march east. Meten, the same but for the Sentinels. A portion of each needs to be left behind for security, but we¡¯re taking the majority of both with us. Coordinate as you need with Guildmaster Gemglass to include independent adventurers.¡± Kay nodded at her, ¡°Guildmaster, I am most grateful for your assistance in this.¡± ¡°Of course your majesty, a threat this large is a threat to us all.¡± ¡°Ahthia, work with Zeia in researching these ritual circles, both in general and specifically these ones. Anything that can be used to mess them up can be given to our saboteurs to buy us more time. Zeia, I know you want to work more on your other projects but they can wait, literally. You¡¯ve already given us a way to save people from turning into vampyr, we can figure out a vaccine for it later.¡± ¡°¡­ Yes your majesty.¡± She agreed, with no small amount of contrition in her voice. ¡°Before you help Ahthia, though, I need you and the High Crusader to send more letters to both your organizations to move their asses. Based on what we¡¯re hearing, Avalon isn¡¯t going to be able to hit all of these sites on our own.¡± He glanced at Isla¡¯s illusion, which nodded in agreement. ¡°We need the manpower and the combined expertise of the two best vampyr hunting groups. They need to get here yesterday.¡± Both of them nodded, and High Crusader Hearthbreaker saluted with one fist over her heart. ¡°Everyone else, keep our world turning as normal. We¡¯re doing this to save Avalon, and by extension everything else around us, so I want our people to have a home to come back to.¡± The meeting broke up after that, with the oncoming disaster that needed to be prevented dominating everyone¡¯s minds there was no real desire to have tedious meetings about less important things. It was made worse in Kay¡¯s mind by the uncertain nature of what they faced. They thought the threat was invasion by bigger and more powerful eldritch monstrosities, but they didn¡¯t know that for sure. What if the ritual circles turned everyone into vampyr instead? The unknown was scary and a directly threatening unknown was worse. ¡°You don¡¯t have an important job for me?¡± Eleniah asked teasingly as people vacillated between leaving or hanging around in small groups. ¡°I do,¡± Kay replied quietly, ¡°I just didn¡¯t want to blare it out for everyone to hear.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± The look in her eyes went from joking to deadly serious. ¡°What do you need?¡± ¡°I want you to gather up every vampire we have now and see if any of them are worth giving some training, and then I want them turned into the best fighters we can make them in a short amount of time. Better we build as many failsafes for every potential problem as early as we can. Even if they¡¯re just decent enough to not immediately die any fighting, having other vampire besides me, Lauren, and presumably Alice available could save lives.¡± ¡°I understand.¡± ¡°Good.¡± Kay leaned in subtly and gave her a quick kiss. ¡°Thank you. Grab Zeia if you need her to wrangle any of them, but keep it on the down low.¡± ¡°Still worried about some idiot from the Order or the Crusade throwing a fuss?¡± ¡°Better to cut any problems off at the pass then give them a chance to cause problems.¡± Eleniah leaned in and kissed him back. ¡°I knew I made a good choice.¡± ¡°Which time?¡± She frowned at him. ¡°Don¡¯t be a jerk, you know I was feeling out of sorts then.¡± ¡°¡¯Oh no, it¡¯s not romantic, I just wanted to train a partner and traveling companion¡¯,¡± Kay whispered in a sing song voice. ¡°¡¯Oh, but Kay, I-¡° Eleniah smacked him in the shoulder with a scowl. ¡°Stop that!¡± Kay grinned back at her, luxuriating in the playful mood as a balm against the stress. She rolled her eyes at him but didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°What are you doing to be doing during all this?¡± ¡°Besides answering any questions and metaphorically stomping on anyone that tries to cause problems? Jumping between giving training in my Class Line to any of the vampires you think are worth it and donating blood to Cindy¡¯s weapons project. It should be fun, in between the moments of extended boredom as I fill barrels with my vital fluids and yell at idiots who think too highly of themselves.¡± Book 6 Chapter 22 The number of vampyr approaching Avalon increased as time passed and singletons and small packs became less and less common as larger swarms and groups with almost military precision began making their way into Avalon¡¯s territory. No one knew if they were distractions, probing attacks, genuine attempts to take out Avalon, random wanderings, or some other plan made by maddened minds, but they couldn¡¯t be allowed to survive, for multiple reasons. Most importantly was the threat to anyone nearby, but the longer term issue was having the planned incursion against the vampyr being slowed down. The agents and infiltrators doing their best to stall the vampyr building the ritual circles could only slow things down so much and the eventual push into what used to be Nelam couldn¡¯t afford any delays. Smaller groups of vampyr that needed to be crushed would just waste an armies time, so it was up to more mobile fighters to deal with them. Which is why Cindy ended up taking her trail of heavily armed ducklings out to kill some vampyr. That was what she was calling her personal guard, in her head at least. They were all so cute the way they trailed after her like they were her duck babies and she was the duck mama. It totally wasn¡¯t a coping mechanism to deal with the fact that she had people poking their noses into every second of her life at all times, not at all. Outside the sanctity of her head, her personal ducal troops still didn¡¯t have a formal name, although she was happy to report that ¡®Arquebusiers¡¯ had finally gotten shot down with her fervent support. As much as she rocked between annoyed that she was constantly surrounded by people and aggravated that they wouldn¡¯t leave her be, which weren¡¯t the same thing no matter how much Colen said they were, her miniature army was a very useful group of people. Having minions to aid her in testing her new weapon prototypes saved all kinds of time! ¡°How¡¯re the grenades looking?¡± She asked without turning away from the swarm of vampyr that had gotten stuck in a small ravine. At some point the idiotic things had started fighting each other and the loosely collected group of vampyr had gone from a potential threat to the countryside to an internally aimed orgy of violence that wasn¡¯t going anywhere anytime soon. A perfect target! ¡°Troops are saying everything¡¯s fine,¡± The stout dwarf next to her reported. ¡°Took some getting used to but the weight¡¯s not terrible for any of ¡®em, and the special ones are holdin¡¯ together.¡± Cindy glanced down at Gundar, the overall commander of her personal troops. At some point the gruff-spoken dwarf had just shown up, ready to go and already armed with some decent firearms. Some quick asking around had told her that the people she¡¯d recruited for the first weapons project to develop guns for Avalon had known of him, he¡¯d been one of the few people from the other side of the continent that liked to experiment with guns and traded letters back in forth with the rest, and he¡¯d gone looking for whoever had gotten the Class Line Progenitor title for guns as soon as he¡¯d found out that Cindy existed. As soon as he¡¯d met her he¡¯d literally bent the knee and sworn fealty to her, and somewhere along the way he¡¯d ended up as her right hand man, with Colen as her left. She couldn¡¯t make fun of Kay anymore for somehow gathering an eclectic cast of characters around him like the protagonist of a shounen anime anymore, not without being a hypocrite. The worst part of it to her was that her tweaks to her precognitive Class had made it so she¡¯d had no idea either of them were coming! ¡°Right, have whoever¡¯s our best throw to get one of the special ones right in the middle of them, then follow up with a volley of regular ones.¡± Cindy ordered. ¡°On it.¡± Gundar grunted. He stalked off to the waiting line of troops, all standing in a row with their weapons ready and making Cindy constantly nervous about how vulnerable firing lines were to guerrilla attacks. Reassuring herself that her people weren¡¯t forming firing lines and they had sentries in place to keep an eye out for ambushes helped a little bit. One figure stepped forward holding a red sphere about the size of a baseball, with a metal mechanism sticking out one side. They twisted a tab protruding out of the mechanism until it had completed a full rotation, then chucked it into the seething mass of fighting vampyr. It landed right on one¡¯s head, temporarily confusing it for long enough that one of it¡¯s rivals in the melee managed to get a good bite into it. A second later, the timed fuse that had been lit in the experimental grenade finished burning it¡¯s way into the powder charge. A dull thumping noise that Cindy had long gotten used to at this point accompanied a wave of carnage as a hardened sphere of Kay¡¯s blood shattered and turned into shrapnel, ripping through the vampyr. Those that didn¡¯t die instantly started shrieking and writhing with pain and there were a few that had skin sizzling where the shrapnel had cut through them. ¡°The blood seems to be workin¡¯ the same even after its been away from his majesty for a time!¡± Gundar called over to her, while at the same time a dozen more blackened spheres rained down on the cluster of vampyr. A series of explosions rippled through them, killing and maiming the ones that had survived the initial explosion. ¡°The regular grenades are doin¡¯ about as well as we expected them to, too!¡± ¡°Right!¡± Cindy shouted back, ¡°Finish off the stragglers, then we¡¯re moving on to the next group we know of!¡± ¡°Yes, your grace!¡± Cindy rolled her eyes at the reminder, which was part of Colen¡¯s plan to remind her that she was a duchess now. She, a true blooded American, was a duchess. The world was weird.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. While her troops bogged themselves down in the charnelhouse the ravine had become to cut down any surviving vampyr, Cindy took a look at her status. Nothing had changed from this tiny battle, which was to be expected since she hadn¡¯t done anything, but she couldn¡¯t help staring at it. There were only a few more levels left on the last Skill she needed to bring up to the edge of tier four before she would finally get the tier five Class she wanted, and she was getting impatient. She pulled up the description of the Class that was lagging in a separate window from the rest of her status and stared at it angrily. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Dreaming Seer - Seeing the future, knowing the flow of fate, and learning to avoid the pitfalls of what will be, those are the dreams of many. Some have visions telling them of what¡¯s to come, others spout prophecy while remembering none of the details, and some dream of what might happen, learning the mysteries of the future in the shifting and evanescent realm of sleep. This Class is one that grants the power of the later kind of seer, where what could be and what may be in conveyed to a sleeping dreamer, who must do their best to interpret their hazily remembered dreams in order to stave off disaster and call fortune to themselves and those around them. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Skill: The Future in Dreams (Level 37) - Dream of what is to come and know that it can change in a moment. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] The Class description actually said something about the Class, but the Skill description was pointless. The only good thing about it was the lovely little number at the top, telling her she was only three more levels from being done with it. She didn¡¯t want anyone getting the wrong idea, the Dreaming Seer Class had led to her to what she was pretty sure was the best possible outcome for herself and the other people she¡¯d picked up on her way to Avalon, but she was tired of it! The Class had made her a target for the greedy, the unscrupulous, and the power hungry the minute she¡¯d accidentally let it slip that she was a seer, and she didn¡¯t want to deal with people constantly coming to her, desperate to know their future. Like she actually knew the future of some random person who¡¯d thrown themselves at her feet, all of her dreams were about her or things that would affect her, not some rich merchant who wanted to know how to handicap his rivals. She was incredibly grateful that Kay and the other leaders of Avalon hadn¡¯t tried to turn her into the state seer or anything like that, they¡¯d let her do her own thing and warn them of what she knew might happen when anything came up. Overall Cindy was finding the Class less useful and not what she wanted though, so she was working on changing it. She¡¯d studied with Ahthia and gone to Eleniah for help and had gotten a few techniques and ideas from them to shift the Class into something different. Through meditation and effort she¡¯d worked to make her visions of the future happen less with dreams while she slept and more with daydreams. She¡¯d also focused on significantly narrowing the distance forward she saw from potentially years out to only a few moments. Cindy wanted to turn herself into a precognitive gunslinger who could see where people would be aiming in a few seconds, or which bullets would hit and which wouldn¡¯t, instead of a seer able to do foretellings. She wasn¡¯t completely certain it was possible, but the vague feelings she got from her Class Line Progenitor title told her it could work. She¡¯d spoken with Kay and a few others about it, and they all accepted what she wanted to do, even if there were a few hints of unease at losing the advantage her dreams could give Avalon. Not that her dreams were actually that useful, although she wouldn¡¯t be sharing that around before or after she lost access to them. Her first set of dreams telling her that it was a good idea to flee east away from the people trying to exploit her had been a jumbled bunch of nonsense. Some had shown her as queen of Avalon, although it didn¡¯t have that name in those dreams, some showed Kay there as king but with a bunch of different Classes and no Class Line Progenitor title, some had Amanda at the helm of a very interesting young nation, and a sparse few even had a horde of dragons descending from the sky to burn Nelam to ashes, leading to a very different set of futures. In the end, a variant of all of those ended up being what happened and the exact circumstances of what she ended up discovering had never been part of any of her dreams. The fact that none of her dreams were guaranteed to come true was a relief given what some of the recent ones had been like. She had hope that her plans were coming to fruition with the Class, she had more and more visions close to what she wanted to and less and less dreams of what might be, but the ones she was still having were dire. The worse part was how the obviously eldritch bits in all of them were tampering with how well she could remember them and warn people of what might happen. Her mind trying to protect itself from things it couldn¡¯t handle left her with a confused jumble of impressions and flashes of images that didn¡¯t mean much of anything. The vast majority of the feelings she got were of fear and despair though, and the bits of pictures she could remember added some terrifying spice to those feelings. Something about the dreams was making her really uncomfortable around eels recently, which was both strange and annoying since she¡¯d finally gotten a chef in Avalon to recreate her favorite eel sushi from back home, and still didn¡¯t provide her any hints that she could give out to stem off something horrifying from happening. What was she supposed to say, ¡°What out for eels!¡±? She¡¯d sound like an idiot. Also, why was she thinking so fondly of tortoises recently? She hadn¡¯t even seen a tortoise in years, even before she¡¯d been yanked into a fantasy world it¡¯d been years, so why did she keep imagining- ¡°Your grace, we¡¯re ready to move!¡± Gundar called out to her as he dragged himself out of the ravine. Cindy shook off her weird train of thought and started over to him, taking a quick look over her people as she did to make sure none of them had been injured. There would be time for woolgathering and trying to decipher the bits of her frustrating dreams she remembered later. She had vampyr to test new weapons ideas on, and vampyr were the best kind of test subjects. It wasn¡¯t a war crime if the thing you were testing on was an eldritch abomination made of a dead person mixed with mutated vampire virus that had to be destroyed to keep people safe, after all! Book 6 Chapter 23 Eleniah lounged on a bench against the far wall, watching Kay as he exerted himself. ¡°Aren¡¯t you pushing yourself a bit too hard? If you exhaust yourself training you aren¡¯t going to be as useful in what¡¯s to come.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I am, no.¡± Kay replied, before triggering the training dummy with the gesture he¡¯d told it to react to. The deep black stone golem took a massive step forward, slamming it¡¯s foot down in a move that would have cracked a weaker floor and thrust forward with all four hands gripping it¡¯s spear. Kay bent to the side, using the twin punch daggers he formed around his fists as guides to channel the weapon up and around him. When the golem had fully extended Kay spun and lashed out at it¡¯s neck. When the ¡°deathblow¡± hit the construct¡¯s head it disengaged, stepping back and settling into a waiting position. The sequence took less time to finish than it did for Eleniah to eat one of the grapes she had in a bowl on the ground next to her bench. ¡°I feel like you¡¯re doing too much,¡± She insisted, her tone countermanding how relaxed she was physically. ¡°The closer we¡¯ve been getting to having everything prepared to move the more worked up and tense you¡¯ve been getting. What¡¯s going on?¡± Kay ran through two more exchanges with the training dummy while he thought about her question. He had the prize from the dungeon boss in the Isles starting every exchange with different weapons and attack patterns so that he had to react in a single moment to a completely unpredictable assault. He was training to get more levels in his Dual Daggers Wielder (Punch Daggers) Class but also to be prepared for any eventuality. Ambushes, surprise attacks, someone getting their body taken over, and more, there was no telling what the vampyr could spring at Kay and his people, and he needed to be ready. After the golem reset again Kay sucked his weapons and armor back into his veins and went to sit next to Eleniah. They were in his private training area, one of his private training areas, the more time passed the more palatial his palace got and the more rooms and wings that were dug into the mountain, and it had nice furnishings that could also stand up to a little bit of roughhousing. No longer did anyone visiting or not sparring have to sit on the floor or on hard stone chairs, now there were divans and sofas available along with padded benches. Kay sat down on the edge of the bench Eleniah was laying on after moving some of her hair out of the way. Eleniah grabbed his leg and dragged him over before laying her head in his lap. Kay smiled slightly and dug one hand into her hair. ¡°You¡¯re hair¡¯s growing out.¡± He commented quietly. ¡°I like to let it get long every once in a while, although I don¡¯t tend to keep it longer than this for very long. With my fighting style it¡¯s a bit of a detriment to keep it long enough for someone to grab at it.¡± She twisted her body so that she was looking directly up at his face. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± ¡°Do you ever get the feeling of something bad looming on the horizon, like the edge of a storm cloud you can see peaking over the mountains, ready to sweep down on you?¡± ¡°Sure. I used to feel like that a lot right after I ran away from home and cut ties with my cousin. I was convinced she or one of her agents was lurking behind every corner, just waiting to drag me into something or trick me into doing what she wanted.¡± Kay shut his eyes and turned his face upward. ¡°It¡¯s like that, kind of. It started¡­ I think I started feeling like this after I first went out to scout things and found that ruined settlement, that place where I found that obelisk or stele or whatever it is that he vampyr are using for their rituals. The feeling has been building and building since then, like the storm clouds I can¡¯t quite see are getting bigger and more dangerous, but they aren¡¯t getting any closer.¡± He looked down at her. ¡°Does that make any sense?¡± Eleniah reached up and pressed her hand to his cheek. ¡°Of course it does. I¡¯d say it¡¯s just stress building up. You¡¯ve got a lot of responsibility now and there¡¯s a lot riding on your shoulders. With something big coming, whether that¡¯s leading a sort-of invasion or having to deal with a potentially massive threat it¡¯s perfectly reasonable to feel the suspense and the tension that comes with all of it.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not it.¡± Kay denied. ¡°I mean, it is, but that isn¡¯t just it. There¡¯s something else to it. Something¡­¡± Kay¡¯s nostrils flared, his eyes flashed red for a brief second, and his fangs dropped down before retracting back upward. ¡°Something eldritch. Like the scent of decay on the wind that I¡¯m not consciously detecting but my body knows it¡¯s out there and is screaming warnings.¡± Eleniah dug a nail into his cheek for a half second, drawing Kay out of the funk she could see coming. ¡°Alright, so there¡¯s something eldritch coming. We kind of knew that already, so what¡¯s the big deal? You¡¯ve dealt with eldritch bullshit before, and you¡¯ll do it again. It¡¯s almost your specialty at this point.¡± ¡°I know it is, and I¡¯ve told you how done I am with it.¡± He let out a half-grunt half-groan as he settled himself into her palm. ¡°It feels like it¡¯s been eldritch thing after eldritch thing happening to me or me running into them since I landed on this world, and I¡¯m really tired of them. Can¡¯t they go find someone else to bother? And why is this all happening right after I showed up?¡± ¡°Well, I did tell you that outworlders tend to have interesting things happen to them, and eldritch anything is definitely interesting in the vein of that curse you told me about. As for why it¡¯s been happening in bulk since you arrived¡­¡± She lazily shrugged one shoulder. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s a coincidence, just a matter of two different and unrelated sets of events coinciding with timing. Maybe it¡¯s related and your arrival punch a hole in the fabric of reality keeping Torotia cut off from everything out there in existence. I don¡¯t think the second one is a thing because vampyr have been a problem for so much longer than you¡¯ve been here, but who knows? At the end of the day, none of that really matters. Whether life is all fated and we have no choice in things, there¡¯s a puppetmaster pulling the strings and maneuvering events and enemies your way, or it¡¯s all just a series of really weird coincidences, you just have to keep doing your best. That¡¯s the only thing you can do, and it¡¯s one thing that¡¯s entirely in your control.¡±Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡°Right now my best doesn¡¯t feel like it¡¯s enough.¡± Kay flicked a hand upward as he summoned his status screen, getting dramatic with it as he mentally commanded it to be visible to Eleniah too. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Name: Kenneth ¡°Kay¡± Davis Race: Vampire Age: 27 Highest Tier: V Total Tiers: 46 Class Slots: 14 Combat Class Slots/7 Non-Combat Class Slots 9 Combat Class Slots Used/5 Non-Combat Class Slots Used Classes: Combat: - Lord of Spilled Blood: Tier V - Skills: Manipulate Blood - Level 47 Shape Blood - Level 46 Meld Blood - Level 44 Create Simulacrum (Blood) - Level 45 Blood Transfusion - Level 40 Healthy Blood - Level 43 Purify Blood - Level 49 Blood Regeneration - Level 49 Enhance Blood - Level 43 Blood Boost - Level 44 Leadership - Level 47 Domain of Blood - Level 30 Create from Blood - Level 21 Identify - Level 20 Appraisal - Level 15 Inspect - Level 18 Mandate to Blood Spilled - Level 14 Folded Veins - Level 36 Lord¡¯s Bloody Domain - Sublime - Blood Manipulator: Tier IV - Skills: Manipulate Blood - Level 47 - Blood Shaper: Tier IV - Skills: Shape Blood - Level 46 - Blood Melder: Tier IV - Skills: Meld Blood - Level 44 - Expert Swordsman (Bastard Sword): Tier IV - Skills: Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) - Level 39 - Expert Polearm Wielder (Halberd): Tier IV - Skills: Polearms (Halberd) - Level 39 - Blood Champion Originator: Tier V - Skills: Create Blood Champions - Level 12 Manipulate Blood - Level 47 Shape Blood - Level 46 Meld Blood - Level 44 Create Simulacrum (Blood) - Level 45 Blood Boost - Level 44 - Blood Army General: Tier V - Skills: Create Blood Army - Level 16 Manipulate Blood - Level 47 Shape Blood - Level 46 Meld Blood - Level 44 Create Simulacrum (Blood) - Level 45 Blood Boost - Level 44 Leadership ¨C Level 46 - Novice Dual Dagger Wielder (Punch Daggers): Tier III - Skills: Punch Daggers - Level 29 Dual Wielding - Level 27 - Empty - - Empty - -Empty- -Empty- -Empty- Non-Combat: - Cartographer: Tier IV - Skills: Spatial Determination - Level 39 Expanded Sight - Level 39 Sharpened Memory - Level 38 Stable Footing - Level 39 Drawing - Level 39 Cartography - Level 39 - Expert Mapmaker: Tier IV - Skills: Effective Communication (Drawing) - Level 38 Drawing - Level 39 Cartography - Level 39 -Empty- -Empty- -Empty- -Empty- -Empty- Non-Class Skills: Writing - Level 5, Reading - Level 5, Running - Level 5, Sprinting - Level 5 Titles: Class Line Progenitor, Class Creator X, System Access (Minor), Blood King of Avalon, First Vampire [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°I don¡¯t feel like this is going to be enough. That this,¡± He waved his hand at his status, ¡°Will be enough. The feeling that¡¯s bothering me is getting worse, like whatever we¡¯re going to face is getting more powerful or more dangerous. Any moment I can I need to spend getting better, or harder, or more powerful so that I¡¯m ready to face whatever it is that¡¯s coming at us.¡± Eleniah grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down so that their foreheads were touching. ¡°You aren¡¯t lacking in any way. You¡¯re going to pull through this. You¡¯re going to get everyone of us through this.¡± ¡°Can I afford to assume that, though? Even without this foreboding feeling, it¡¯s my job to stand between my people and the threats against them. I can¡¯t assume that I¡¯ll win, I have to ensure that I will. The threats we¡¯re set to face are unknown. Even if it¡¯s just leveling my Dual Wielding and Punch Dagger Skills up and hitting tier four with that Class, it¡¯s something. If I can work it all the way up to the end of tier four and get another tier five Class that would be even better.¡± He slowly closed his eyes and sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t think we have the time for me to do that, though.¡± ¡°Do you know what we do have time for?¡± Eleniah whispered to him. ¡°Time for me to take a break?¡± ¡°Damn straight we have time for you to take a break. Working yourself into a melted puddle of blood will be even worse than not training every moment of every day to get ready. And training yourself isn¡¯t the only thing you¡¯re doing to prepare! You¡¯re giving Cindy time and resources to develop new weapons, you¡¯re creating standard weapons out of your blood as often as possible to give our regular fighters more of a chance, and you¡¯re even supplementing my training of all these new vampires to make some of them Blood Manipulators! You can afford to take a break for your health, both because it¡¯s necessary and because you are working as best you can to get everyone ready for this, and you will be enough.¡± She pushed his head up so he could see her scowl. ¡°You¡¯ve even given up on playing with your floaty maps you¡¯ve been making while trying to get you non-combat Classes to tier five!¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t given up, I¡¯ve just pushed it back in my priority queue. It¡¯s not going to be as effective as growing my combat power.¡± ¡°Maybe not, but spending time with your girlfriend while she bugs you about your hobby is a damn fine way to take a break in my opinion, and my opinion is automatically a good one.¡± She jumped to her feet, grabbed Kay¡¯s arms, and started dragging him toward the exit. ¡°Let¡¯s go do that now, and then we¡¯ll have some food.¡± ¡°What about the golem?¡± Kay protested half-heartedly, a break really did sound nice and as much as it had started as just something to do with his non-combat Class slots he really had grown to like making maps with and without his blood Skills. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t I grab it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s underground in a private area of your palace which is full of guards, just let it live here.¡± Kay hurriedly wave a hand over one of the enchanted sensors that controlled the lights before his much physically stronger girlfriend, if neither of them used Skills, dragged him off to relax and think about anything other than the impending sense of doom that was hanging over him. Book 6 Chapter 24 ¡°There¡¯s no need to rush,¡± One of the figures huddled in a shadowed spot between tents whispered to their fellows. ¡°Why are we being pushed to move this quickly?¡± ¡°It isn¡¯t like there¡¯s actually a threat to deal with,¡± Another agreed, ¡°We¡¯re going to stomp on some backwater little ¡®king¡¯ who thinks they¡¯re big enough to demand terms from the Order after some little scuffle. Honestly, who do they think we are? A two-bit band of mercenaries that have killed a random vampyr or two? We¡¯re the Shatterplate Order!¡± ¡°No, no,¡± A third jumped in with a falsely sweet tone, ¡°We aren¡¯t going to stomp on anything, we¡¯re just showing the concerned king who had some little vampyr problem they couldn¡¯t deal with on their own how powerful the Order actually is. There won¡¯t be any violence just a show of why they should be grateful for the Order¡¯s assistance instead of being pissy about things not going how their ruler wanted.¡± The fourth figure standing in the shaded, out of the way area of one the Shatterplate Order¡¯s many camps as they marched toward Avalon said nothing. The other three didn¡¯t notice the silence, or if they did they didn¡¯t care. ¡°You¡¯re right though,¡± The third speaker continued, ¡°Who do they think the Order is? Because they have to be completely out of the loop to think that we¡¯d actually move the entire organization including our training centers into some little hodunk one city ¡®kingdom¡¯. The farther east you go the worse everything seems to get. They probably don¡¯t even get that the Order is back by nations hundreds of times larger than theirs.¡± ¡°Do you know what actually happened? There¡¯ve been all kinds of rumors floating around, but no one has given me a straight answer. I even bugged my team leader, and he just told me to ¡®shut up and keep moving¡¯! Can you believe that.¡± ¡°It¡¯s been the same for me! Everyone¡¯s been on edge this entire time, I wonder if they think we¡¯re actually going to get in a fight when we get there?¡± One of the three leaned in closer and whispered excitedly, ¡°Well I heard it involves the Commander¡¯s daughter.¡± The other two scooted closer to hear the juicy gossip. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Really. The minor king or whatever they call themselves out there apparently had a vampyr causing problems, one the Commander¡¯s daughter was tracking down with her hunting team, and the king fell in love with her, but she didn¡¯t want to shack up with some petty little mid-tier calling themselves a ruler. The guy got so mad he caused a bunch of problems, got in a fight with her team and then had to run off to lick his wounds when the hunting team kicked his ass. Then he made some demands like there was a real fight and talked all this shit to the Order, that¡¯s why we¡¯re going to show him what¡¯s up.¡± ¡°Are you actually fucking stupid?¡± The fourth figure asked. All three of the rumormongers jumped back in shock. ¡°Who are-¡° ¡°Nope.¡± The fourth figure was suddenly in their face, staring at them with disdain. ¡°I asked you a question, and I want an answer. Are you fucking stupid?¡± ¡°Ah¡­ um¡­ No, ma¡¯am?¡± One of them answered. She turned a hard stare on them. ¡°No¡­ Hunter Ravenhome?¡± ¡°Close enough.¡± She swept her glare back on to the other two, who had thought her attention being leveled on their fellow for a second might actually give them a moment to escape. ¡°If you¡¯re not complete morons like I think you are. How can none of the three of you have any idea what the hell we¡¯re doing out here or why we¡¯re going to Avalon? I¡¯ll allow some level of nonsense and rumors to taint your idea of things, but to literally have only the most basic of bullshit ideas of anything that went on? There was a mandatory gathering where the Commander told everyone what happened! Where you not there for some reason?¡± The three young idiots, arrogant noble brats that had set out in the world to ¡®make a name for themselves¡¯ or some other such nonsense when they hadn¡¯t inherited their families entire fortunes from the look of them, all did their best not to look sheepish. Alice suppressed a sigh and kept her best ¡®you¡¯ve done bad things and I¡¯m an angry superior¡¯ look on her face. It wasn¡¯t hard, the tripe they¡¯d been spouting was complete and utter bullshit of the highest order. Toning down what had gone on to make the Order look better? Fine, even some of the highest ranking hunters were trying to do that, not that they were getting away with it much with her and her father calling them on their bullshit. But saying that Kay propositioned her and she shot him down was the entire reason for the ¡®scuffle¡¯ that had happened at Avalon? That annoyed her. There were bigger things at stake here and these three were worried about banal and incorrect gossip! ¡°You three are to report to your camp¡¯s quartermaster for punishment detail for the rest of the week. You¡¯ll also be given a written record of the Commander¡¯s speech about what happened in Avalon and when I come to check on you three in a week you better have it damn well memorized. You understand me?¡± ¡°Yes ma¡¯am!¡± The three of them shouted before scampering off. Alice let it, and them go, even if it wasn¡¯t the correct form of address. ¡°Really?¡± She muttered to herself as she stalked toward the camp quartermaster¡¯s tent to make sure he knew not to let the idiots sneak around their punishment. ¡°I turned Kay down and he started acting like a bully? Obviously he¡¯s not that kind of person, which I can allow for them not knowing him, but really? Half the world was accusing him of being some terrifying vampyr king and between the three of you you didn¡¯t have an inkling? Do all three of you get cotton in your ears while living under that rock? I mean, they aren¡¯t wrong that I¡¯d shoot Kay down if he asked me anything like that, but to make it an excuse for this?¡± She threw her arms out, gesturing at the camp, which was surround by even more of the same layout, all a product of the Shatterplate Order marching to do basically what Kay had demanded of them. ¡°Idiots.¡± ¡°Talking to yourself? That¡¯s not a good sign.¡±Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Alice tensed, then slowly relaxed, forcing herself not to spin around with her weapon drawn. ¡°Dad, I asked you not to do that.¡± Edric Ravenhome, Commander and founder of the Shatterplate Order threw his arms over his daughter¡¯s shoulder and started pulling her along. ¡°And I believe I told you I was going to do what I wanted anyways.¡± ¡°What¡¯re you doing here?¡± Alice asked, ¡°I thought you were coordinating our march with the Crusader General?¡± ¡°I was, but he¡¯s much more experienced with handling large bodies of people on the move, while my specialty is definitely small groups moving much more furtively, so he ended up doing most of the work. I¡¯ve been learning a lot from him, and hopefully he¡¯s learning a lot from me, so everything¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great, but why are you here?¡± ¡°Oh, same reason you are I supposed.¡± Her dad¡¯s face went hard for a moment. ¡°Some of my subordinates who should know better decided they could get back to stirring the pot, as long as I wasn¡¯t looking of course, and I came to instruct them in the error of their ways. You beat me to it, and I decided to grab you after you were done.¡± He was right, that was why Alice was in that specific camp. ¡°Did I do alright?¡± ¡°You did fine,¡± He reassured her, ¡°Handled it professionally, gave him the exact same punishment I would have and for the same reasons, and you didn¡¯t do it in front of his subordinates or drag it out for too long. Well handled all around.¡± ¡°Thanks!¡± Alice couldn¡¯t help but perk up at the praise. It didn¡¯t matter that she was a fully fledged adult, a trained hunter of vampyr, and had gone some really harrowing things including having her species forcibly changed, she still loved her parents and wanted to make them proud. The group leader in question had really pissed her off though, in a completely different way than those three idiots that had needed their own scolding. The general body of the Order¡¯s hunters were divided into three levels, ordinary hunters were part of hunting teams, led by team leaders. That¡¯s what Alice had been doing when she¡¯d first gone to Avalon. A group of ten hunting teams was a hunting group, led by a group leader and those were the majority of the Order¡¯s combat officers. There were a handful of higher ranking figures that handled even larger gatherings of hunters, but those happened rarely. The Order handled hunting and tracking down individual vampyr or small groups of them, the Crusade were the ones who showed up when an army was needed to root out the monsters. With group leaders being the main leadership position in the Order they were heavily vetted and had to be both skilled and trusted to reach that position. In turn they were given a lot of leeway within the most rigid guidelines that the Order had for all of it¡¯s hunters. That trust however was being tested by more than one group leader, who definitely should all know better. The Order wasn¡¯t a noble¡¯s private army, or even a national army. They weren¡¯t a mercenary group or an adventuring party, they were the Shatterplate Order. The Order had been founded and was still led by the same man who had built it from the ground up after the day her father had come home to find his home town destroyed by vampyr and the shatter plates Alice¡¯s grandmother had prepared dinner on spread all about the family¡¯s home. Her father was in charge of the Order, there were no ifs ands or buts about it. What he said went when it came to his organization, and she completely agreed with the ultimatum he¡¯d given the detractors among the Order¡¯s leadership when he¡¯d announced that they would be acceding to Kay¡¯s demands. They could stay in the Order and do as he said, or they could leave. So the fact that some of those that had stayed, they¡¯d only lost a handful which had actually been surprising to Alice, were now doing their best to sow dissent was incredibly aggravating. It¡¯s not like they were the multi-headed hydra that was the Itarian Crusade, with different cults of personality headed by different Crusader Generals making up the leadership. That was looking like it would end up being a long term problem. The old-school Crusader Generals that were now being led by Crusader General Stonegnawer seemed ready for a schism between the two main factions that the Crusade had clustered around. Stonegnawer¡¯s faction was willing to accept Kay¡¯s demands, with a few codicils, and were looking to use them as a means to break the power of the other faction, which was growing too reactionary for many of the Crusader Generals who had been with the organization for a long time. The other faction was led by younger officers, who were angrily refusing to have anything to do with anyone even remotely related to vampyr in any way, and many were still pushing for the entire Crusade to gather and burn Avalon to the ground. Which wasn¡¯t going to happen for a multitude of reasons. Alice wasn¡¯t going to be surprised if the Crusade broke into at least two different factions in short order, and one of those was going to be a threat to the safety of others. That wasn¡¯t her problem though. Her problems were many, but controlling someone else¡¯s idiots wasn¡¯t one of them. She had to deal with her new position as he dad¡¯s protege, one she¡¯d never actually planned to have, learn to function with her new species that had an interesting new dietary requirement, and figure out how to finally get the Vampyr Hunter Class she¡¯d been busting her ass off to make come to fruition. ¡°So, you¡¯d turn down King Kay if he propositioned you?¡± Her dad asked with fake casualness, ¡°It¡¯d be a good way to connect the Order to Avalon and make sure we can stay relevant in our new home.¡± ¡°Dad!¡± Alice protested. ¡°That¡¯s not funny, you know I wouldn¡¯t do that.¡± She paused for dramatic effect, ¡°If Eleniah asked though¡­¡± Edric chuckled and shook his head. ¡°Sadly for your romantic fantasies, we both know she and Kay are going to end up together in the end.¡± ¡°Sure, but they¡¯re both being so obtuse about it, I might be able to slip some nice nights in there with her, you never know.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll see. Good luck if you see and opportunity but I wouldn¡¯t hold my breath.¡± He glanced over at her as they walked back to their shared tent. ¡°How¡¯re you doing at¡­ ah¡­¡± ¡°Acquiring blood to drink?¡± She couldn¡¯t blame him for his hesitation in dealing with the topic. They¡¯d both dealt with too many damn vampyr to treat the idea of drinking blood casually. ¡°It¡¯s been fine. Kay and Lauren¡¯s message to me that they included in the general ones to you and the Order gave me a bit more information than I¡¯d figured out and I don¡¯t think they know that animal blood is fine as long as we drink it in larger amounts than blood from people.¡± She stopped in place for a moment before forcing herself to keep walking. ¡°I don¡¯t think they know that we can go into blood lust if we don¡¯t drink enough either.¡± Edric stopped, turned to her, and dragged her into a hug. ¡°You didn¡¯t hurt anyone. You literally didn¡¯t even touch anyone. You found out it was happening, kept yourself totally in control, and dealt with it by finding an animal to drink a bit from. You literally proved you aren¡¯t a vampyr with that. Those monsters literally can¡¯t control themselves when their blood lust hits.¡± ¡°I know. I¡¯m just worried about it happening to them and it causing problems.¡± They both scowled at the thought of giving the rage fueled or just damn stubborn idiots who wanted to keep insisting that Kay, and now Alice, were monsters to be eradicated more fuel for their pyres. ¡°Kay knows quite a bit about vampires from his world, remember? I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be fine.¡± Alice let out a sigh, then squeezed her dad tight before letting go. ¡°You¡¯re right. And besides, with the Crusader General setting the pace, we¡¯ll all get there in no time, both to support them with this new problem and I can tell them all the things I¡¯ve figured out about being a vampire since I¡¯ve seen them.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good attitude. Plus you¡¯ll get to see Zeia again!¡± ¡°Dad, that isn¡¯t funny.¡± ¡°What?¡± He asked with all the false innocence in the world, ¡°She has to have been studying vampires and different things we can learn about the vampyr from them this whole time! I was being topical!¡± ¡°Right, that¡¯s totally what you meant.¡± Book 6 Chapter 25 An oblong, egg-like shape floated in the air. It was red, since it was made out of blood, and it slowly expanded until it was about the size of a human head. Pieces of it began to stretch out and twist, becoming branching structures that pointed in multiple directions with smaller pieces branching out even more as they traveled outward. Then in one smooth motion, the object shrunk back in on itself and became a cube. That grew another cube from its side, then both of them together extruded two more. That repeated over and over until the one singular cube became dozens that all formed together into one massive cube, before it too changed its shape. The cycle of starting as one shape, growing in some way, then shrinking down and starting as another shape repeated over and over. Kay stared blindly at the floating , twisting, changing shape as he perceived the blood he was manipulating with his Skills with his magical senses and not his eyes. He made it into ridiculous shapes that would only work in zero gravity or with magic that defied gravity, repeating the same process but with different shapes and patterns of growth over and over again. More than once some part of the mass he was shaping and forming with his magic grew too large, hitting the ceiling or walls or even running into him and that was when he started shrinking it instead of the original limit he¡¯d set for himself. He had done his best to take Eleniah¡¯s well-meaning and completely correct nagging to heart and let himself relax. Kay was disappointed in himself that he had needed her to come and poke him about it. He wasn¡¯t sure if it was a perfectly normal thing to do, if he just hadn¡¯t grown as much as he thought he had, or if it was just a personal failing, but whenever crisis seemed to come around he felt like he started backsliding and reverting to a much less useful version of himself, the version that had fought against the idea of being a leader. That older state of himself didn¡¯t fight against it out of dislike for the position or the idea of it, although there was some dislike for some of the additional factors, most of which he still hated, like sycophants and ass-kissers, but out of a fear of failure. That was what he realized the more he looked in at himself and learned who he was and what he stood for. Fear of failure was certainly standard among everyone Kay had ever met to some extent, but letting it overwhelm you and dictate your choices was cowardly and served no one. Now that he was in the position that he had originally fought against as the leader of many people, the fear was even stronger than before. Before he¡¯d become mayor, then lord, and then king of Avalon, the idea of failing and letting people down was merely a hypothetical. It wasn¡¯t a hypothetical anymore, it was a real possible consequence of his choices and actions. Even more than just disappointment, there was a chance that people could die, that everything they had built and sacrificed could be destroyed if he failed. He wasn¡¯t just their leader, because of how Torotia¡¯s System and the nature of society here worked, he was also their champion. He was the strongest man around as far as anyone was concerned. He was their king, their guardian, and their champion all rolled up into one and if he failed the fallout could be terrible. That was the fear that drove Kay in the complete opposite direction from his previous behavior. Instead of running from the problem and the conflict, he dove into it at reckless speed, so concerned with doing everything he could for the people he¡¯d sworn to protect that he never stopped to consider if he was going too fast or doing too much. Eleniah was right, he was once again driving himself unto the verge of burning out, of becoming a lifeless husk with no more to give long before he was needed most. His fear was driving him into desperation instead of making a wise, considered, and balanced choice. He was thankful that he had people in his life who didn¡¯t fear standing up to him and could tell him he was being an idiot, and he refused to be someone that refuted those voices and kept being stupid against good advice. So he was taking a break and working on a personal project. Originally Kay had gotten two map-making related non-Combat Classes just to fill in slots. Even if they didn¡¯t have Skills suited to killing monsters or other foes, they at least pumped a bit more mana into him every time he tiered them up and they increased his overall total tiers as well. One of the two Classes he¡¯d ended up with also did come with a nice Skill that helped in fights, Stable Footing, which helped him keep his balanced in all kinds of terrain. Later on after working on them to tier up the Classes, he¡¯d found he actually enjoyed the work. Making maps was important in a world that couldn¡¯t just use satellites to take pictures of what the ground looked like and it was also relaxing, so by making it his hobby Kay got to kill two birds with one stone. He¡¯d set it to the side because it didn¡¯t immediately help him kill vampyr, but now that he was taking a break he¡¯d decided to try and make something new that involved his Expert Cartographer and Expert Mapmaker Classes. He didn¡¯t have anyone to teach at the moment, no decisions had to be made, and as much of a break as it would be to flirt with his girlfriend, so trying to make a modular, changeable magic map out of blood was his goal for the moment. He¡¯d never heard of anything quite like what he was trying to create being made on Torotia before, Ahthia hadn¡¯t found any stories or documents about it and no one else he¡¯d asked had ever heard an inkling, so he was working purely on instinct and guesswork. He wanted his blood-map-artifact thing to be able to morph itself and show off any layout, so he was trying to imprint the blood with all kinds of shapes as he slowly pumped mana into it, all while using Blood Manipulation, Shape Blood, Create from Blood, and Meld Blood simultaneously. The first two were doing the actual work of changing the blood¡¯s form and shape, the third was what he was using to try and make it into a System recognized item, and the fourth he was using to try and connect his two map making related Classes to the item and make it a map as opposed to some kind of blood based shape memory substance.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Once he¡¯d changed the mass of blood into every variation of every shape and configuration he could think of more than once he pulled out some maps he¡¯d made before this, including paper maps with regular ink, paper maps with blood as ink, maps made out of blood in their entirety, both two-dimensional ones and three-dimensional topographic maps, and some weird experimental things he¡¯d tried with various media. Carefully and making as few mistakes as he could Kay shaped the floating mass of blood into copies of those maps as he thought carefully about what each one represented and what they were trying to convey. After making the blood mimic every map he had on him Kay started the last stage he¡¯d though of. He detached tiny pieces of the mass and floated them out of the lounge he was in, sending them off on what amounted to a scouting mission. Each tiny piece was smaller than a drop of rain and they flew through corridors and around rooms in the palace in unseen formations. An invisible red mist scoured every inch of Kay¡¯s palace, sneaking into secret corridors and air vents, covering every inch of every room, and mapping out the palace section by section as they flew. The massive range of his magical senses which had been increased by his Classes and his tiers let him feel every time one of the minuscule droplets touched something and the map formed a three dimensional map of the entire complex as Kay moved it into the shape of the palace. When every square inch of the palace had been mapped out and the mass was now a miniature floating copy of Kay¡¯s domicile it began to twitch and ripple, solid parts becoming liquid again even under Kay¡¯s control. The entire thing began to vibrate and Kay could feel the mana in it running out of control. He clamped down on it with all his force and slammed more of his own mana into it with Create from Blood in an effort to finalize the completed enchantment. The wobbling, vibrating, twisting, shaking lump of blood stilled all at once, then sucked in on itself. A small red orb the size of a golf ball floated for a few more seconds before it fell into Kay¡¯s waiting palm. He held the orb up to his face and used Inspect. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Unnamed Enchanted Artifact - A unique artifact made of blood. This mapping item constantly detects the region around it through the movement of blood. Any living being or other source of blood in its range serves as a beacon to constantly update its charts. If activated it will display a three-dimensional rendering of the area under its influence, with the ability to shit its form to that of any area, building, or location in its range. While it uses blood, including that of living things, it has no ability to display the location or movement of anything in its range that does not count as topography. As the creator of this unique item, you may choose to name it at any time. If you choose not to, a name may be applied to it by the System or by a large number of individuals calling it by the same name. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°¡­Wow.¡± Kay was about to activate the orb, then realized how close it was to his face and held it farther away before sending some mana into the orb to activate it. It floated off his hand and unfurled like origami until there was a thing sheet of blood two feet wide hovering over his hand. There was a slight pause then the sheet began rising up in thin column that drew a detailed map of Avalon city and a few miles outside the city itself. Kay could see tiny, intricate details carved into the half-inch tall buildings, each one perfect replicas of the real thing as far as he knew. There was a tiny feeling of presence inside of the map, around the section where the face of the palace was carved into the cliff-face that loomed over Avalon. Kay concentrated and the map shifted, becoming a rendering of the palace itself, just like it had been before he¡¯d created this magic map. There in the room Kay was in was a floating orb that felt like the sense of ¡°here¡± somehow. It looked like even the distance the map was from the floor was to scale. He spent a long time playing with it, just zooming in and out and diving into the layout of different buildings. ¡°This might actually be a game changer.¡± He muttered to himself as he started looking closely over a number of buildings to see if he could find any tiny homes tucked away in secret places that an illusive spymaster might live. ¡°I wonder if I can make more of these?¡± A small flash in the corner of his vision interrupted him and he looked at it in surprise. With help from Eleniah, Ahthia, and Amanda he¡¯d spent a lot of time modifying when the System sent him notifications about things, because a detailed report every time he got a Skill from level one to two or eleven to twelve wasn¡¯t really worth looking at every time. Only certain things would pop up now. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] - One or more of your Classes are ready to tier up! - Tier V Classes Available! [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Book 6 Chapter 27 [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Master of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact (Combination of Expert Mapmaker + Expert Cartographer + Blood Manipulator + Blood Shaper + Blood Melder, Additional Requirement: Owner of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact) - Though rare there exist Classes that devote themselves to certain powerful unique artifacts, similar to Classes that revolve around particular magic weapons. This Class takes the unique artifact Unnamed Enchanted Artifact and permanently binds it to the one who has this Class. With it the artifact becomes part of them in a bond of magical symbiosis. Due to each artifact that triggers a ¡°Master of¡± Class being unique, each ¡°Master of¡± Class is similarly unique, requiring practice and discovery to find the true potential of the Class. Class Skill: Mastery of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Mastery of Unnamed Enchanted Artifact - This Skill permanently binds the eponymous artifact to the user and unlocks abilities with said artifact beyond its use by another. This Skill also prevents the artifact from ever being removed from the user. This Skill costs a large amount of mana upon activating, which is automatic upon receiving the Skill and does not cost mana after the binding is complete. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay read through the vacuous description with a frown. He¡¯d been excited for the Class as an option and his excitement had been quickly sunk. The entire concept of the type of Class that had just been revealed to him was weird. How did it work with other artifacts out there in the world? He¡¯d gotten lucky, since he created the item in question he automatically had the required Classes to get the tier five Class, but what about people who found their artifacts later on in life? Did the System account for that and allow tangential Classes? Why was such a Class tier five anyways? The Class as a whole was entirely focused on the artifact, unlike any other tier five Class he¡¯d seen which worked as some variation of a combined focus of the Classes that made it up which magnified the whole based on the parts. These ¡°Master of¡± Classes didn¡¯t seem to match that pattern at all. Really, all the new information did was tell Kay that there was still so much more in the world for him to discover and learn. He¡¯d definitely be reporting this to Ahthia and Eleniah, but the Class wasn¡¯t something he was interested in. The artifact he¡¯d made was quite cool, but it was only a map at the end of things. An incredibly useful map that he wasn¡¯t going to throw away or under-use, but it wasn¡¯t going to slay vampyr and the effects of the map artifact didn¡¯t synergize with the rest of his build enough to devote an entire Class Slot to a Class that was entirely devoted to the artifact! As it was he was banking on the last Class option being a good one and if it wasn¡¯t he¡¯d have to decide between one of the Blood-Scrawl Class options. They were direct upgrades to the Blood-Ink variations that required more materials than just blood, and he wouldn¡¯t get a Class Creator Title upgrade from Self-Possessed Mapper which meant no new Class Slot. That brought him all the way back around to deciding whether it was better to get two Classes that somewhat contradicted each other in order to get two more Class Slots and a bit more mana pushed into him or get one Class that combined the abilities of the other two into one sleek package. It was really down to the last Class being better than the others or not, so he shrugged and pulled open the description. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class: Heart-Pulse Surveyor (Combination of Expert Mapmaker + Expert Cartographer + Blood Manipulator, Additional Requirement: Posses the Skill Domain of Blood) - There are as many ways to see existence as there are beings that can behold it¡¯s beauty, merely referred to as ¡°senses¡± by so many species. To sense reflected wavelengths of light is sight, to sense the vibrations through the surrounding medium is hearing, to sense tiny particles of existence in a particular body part is smell, and the list goes on forever. This Class is for one who has unlocked senses beyond those of their physical form, using magic to see the world in a new way. Blood is life, life is to be, and to be is to experience. Experience the world through the flow of blood and see through the beat of each heart. Class Skill: Sanguinelocation Class Skill: Blood-Sight [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Sanguinelocation - Echolocation is purposefully sending out waves of sound to detect how they interact with the world around them when they return to their source. Sanguinelocation is detecting the world is sensing the world through the pulse of blood and the beating of hearts. It is not hearing, it is not sight, it is it¡¯s own magical sense that lets the user experience the world and gain information based on how blood interacts with existence. For a steady mana cost, the user may activate this Skill, activating a new magical sense that informs them of the world. The more blood that flows through the veins of living creatures the more detailed information the user gains about that area. Activating the Skill with larger amounts of mana, paid continuously, will expand the range of this magical sense.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Class Skill: Blood-Sight - This Skill and those similar to it are the purview of masters of their element, substance, or material, and accompanies Classes that grant new senses based on such. Wherever the material the user has mastered touches, they can see. For a large up front mana cost the user may see through any of their material that is exposed to light, within range, as if they were present. This Skill does not help the user process too many sensory inputs. Higher levels of this Skill will increase the range of the Skill. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Kay fully gaped at the final Class for over a minute. It was broken. If he were speaking to his old friends back home about something like this appearing in a game he¡¯d call it OP and either bitch about someone else getting it or cry in joy at getting it himself. He had no idea how two map Classes turned into a broken ¡°see through Blood¡± Class, but he wasn¡¯t about to turn it down. That Class was the exact kind of game changer he¡¯d been hoping for. It would let him see through walls if there was blood anywhere that light touched, within whatever range he had, but still, and as long as there were living things with blood around he could make out the area around them. He could use this to spy on people, not that he was interested in that but it was worth considering, navigate the battlefield, avoid ambushes, find enemies that were fleeing, and so much more. If he activated Blood-Sight with his simulacra running around and fully pumped up his Lord¡¯s Bloody Domain he could turn an entire section of a battle, or maybe the entire thing, into his own personal playground. This one Class would help turn him from a one-man army to a one-man calamity. That definitely outweighed the question of two Classes being maybe better than one. Right as he was about to accept Heart-Pulse Surveyor, he paused. Not out of doubt or indecisions, but out of curiosity. The requirements to get Heart-Pulse Surveyor were a little too coincidental, and the extra Skill tacked on that seemed to be it¡¯s own thing separate from the Class was a bright blinking beacon of ¡°too good to be true¡± on it¡¯s own. The System had said that it didn¡¯t control anyone directly, it just incentivized them to do what it wanted. Was this more of the same? It¡¯d allowed his original Oath to it so long ago to change his Class into Blood Manipulator because it thought having that Class back in the world might be useful against the vampyr, which were causing System corruption thanks to their eldritch origins. Now, when he was about to go to war against more of them and destroy their plans, which would likely result in even more System corruption if they succeeded, he was getting a sudden out of character power boost. That reeked of the System meddling. Kay thought about it for a moment and then accepted it. So what if the System was meddling? He didn¡¯t like the concept and it had led to some very agonizing moments in the past of him trying to figure out if he was just a puppet having his strings pulled, but it wasn¡¯t like that anymore. There were always going to be more powerful forces than him out there and dealing with those forces and the effects they had on the world was just part of living. He was one of those forces to so many people at this point, was he pulling people¡¯s strings like a puppet master, making them dance to his tune? He didn¡¯t feel that way, and honestly, unless he really was working to remove people¡¯s free will, did it matter? He had the same issue as so many others, his was just coming from an even higher level of power, and that¡¯s where the racing thoughts, cursing the System, and trying to think of ways to get out from under its thumb came from. It was all about control. With another being, person, or force limiting your options, or even just making you feel like your options had been limited, it could feel like you weren¡¯t in control, but that was an illusion to hide the fact that you aren¡¯t all powerful. No matter what Kay did, his choices were going to be restrained by something even if that something was just the basic laws of how reality functioned. He wasn¡¯t a god to reshape anything he wanted, and there was nothing wrong with that. Wailing about feelings brought up by looking at the world with the illusion that he could do anything he wanted was silly and childish. With a push of his willpower Kay accepted the Heart-Pulse Surveyor Class and amazed in the feeling of mana rushing into him once again, fortifying him and making him one step closer to whatever the end goal of the tier system was. His circumstances were even better than the people who looked up to him as their king, he was getting reward to do the thing he was already going to do anyways! His oaths and duties meant that the vampyr threat to the east couldn¡¯t be allowed to stand, so if the System gave him more powerful Class options to deal with them, good. He¡¯d take the power, crush his enemies, and go about with his life the way he wanted to. The sheer lack of contact from the System was worrying though. He felt like he was at the point in it¡¯s machinations that it could just tell him that¡¯s what was happening, like it had done when it had sent him off to the Seramist Isles. It not getting back to him after that, or even during, and not receiving a reward for finishing that Quest had him worried that something else was going on, something bad. Sadly, without it telling him about any such thing, there was nothing he could do. His working hypothesis was that it was dealing with incursions elsewhere in the world and couldn¡¯t devote processing power to talking to Kay, but what did that mean? Talking to Kay should take so little power that it could do it with the world literally ending right then, he assumed, so what was happening right then if it couldn¡¯t even push a button to send him a Quest reward IOU? At the end of the line of logic though, it didn¡¯t matter. Kay would keep doing what he had to until everything was destroyed around him or his life eventually ended. He spent half a second debating using one of his new Skills from his new Class, but decided to wait on that. Eleniah would never forgive him if he tested out two new awesome Skills without her, and he could spend the rest of his break telling Ahthia about the new information he¡¯d gotten. Book 6 Chapter 28 ¡°You made an artifact and it got you up to a new tier five Class?¡± Eleniah watched Kay playing with the blood map artifact while she pouted a bit. ¡°That¡¯s so unfair. The rest of us have to work our butts off to get to high levels, and you¡¯re already sitting at what, six tier five Classes?¡± Kay looked up. ¡°I¡¯m only at four, thank you.¡± Eleniah threw up her hands. ¡°That¡¯s still insane! I knew that being a Class Line Progenitor was a massive cheat but¡­¡± She shook her head despondently. ¡°I¡¯m hundreds of years older than you and I have two tier five Classes.¡± ¡°I thought we weren¡¯t going to bring up the age difference because it makes you uncomfortable sometimes?¡± Kay responded calmly. He already knew that most of the dramatics were fake. ¡°And didn¡¯t you take a big break from one of your Classes while also not working on getting a new one? That¡¯s not my fault.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bring up the age difference when it suits me! I¡¯m getting over it!¡± She whirled to face him and stomped over. ¡°And I¡¯m your girlfriend, that means that it is your-¡° She cut off her tirade with a giggle. ¡°Nope! Can¡¯t keep that going, it¡¯s too ridiculous.¡± Kay pulled the artifact back to him and let it collapse back into an orb. He gathered Eleniah in his arms and just held her. ¡°I¡¯m proud of you. A little annoyed, because you were supposed to be taking a break and you started working on your Classes instead, but you¡¯ve been doing amazing. Overall and in this one case of getting a totally overpowered Class.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± He squeezed her tighter. ¡°Are you my girlfriend?¡± ¡°What?¡± Eleniah pushed against his chest so she could look at him. ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± ¡°Is that the right word? We¡¯re in a romantic relationship for sure, but are we girlfriend and boyfriend? That feels a little¡­ I don¡¯t know, childish?¡± The annoyed expression on Eleniah¡¯s face faded into a confused one as Kay talked. ¡°What do you- Oh, wait, how is that word translating for you when say ¡®girlfriend¡¯?¡± ¡°I hear ¡®girlfriend¡¯, what do you mean? No, wait, you¡¯re right the translation is probably grabbing the closest word again. ¡®Girlfriend¡¯ is a word for someone you¡¯re dating, like, you¡¯re in a romantic relationship but you¡¯re not necessarily moving toward marriage. That¡¯s specifically the term for a woman that you¡¯re dating, the other side of it is ¡®boyfriend¡¯.¡± He let out a breath. ¡°The culture where I¡¯m come from has been shifting since I was a kid, but there¡¯s still a lot of focus on marriage and being in a permanent relationship. Being girlfriend and boyfriend and using those labels, being in the ¡®just dating¡¯ stage of things, implies that you might not be together for the whole run. Again, that¡¯s changing and there are people that don¡¯t like marriage as an institution or have other reasons not to get married, so they¡¯re together permanently and still call each other that as opposed to picking other terms, but in my head it¡¯s still kind of what two teenagers or people in their twenties that don¡¯t know what they¡¯re doing would call each other.¡± ¡°Both of those are coming to me as the same word, which is ¡®girlfriend¡¯.¡± Kay mostly heard ¡®girlfriend¡¯ but ¡®boyfriend¡¯ was layered in there too, with both of them in Eleniah¡¯s voice. It was an odd experience and it made it harder to hear what she was actually saying under the translation effect. He tried a few more time with her help to hear it and then repeat it back to her. ¡°Does that sound right?¡± ¡°Yeah, you¡¯ve got it.¡± She smiled happily at him, ¡°It makes me happy that you¡¯re trying to learn to speak my language even if you have the translation effect.¡± ¡°Outside of making you happy it should also help cut down on errors like this one.¡± ¡°True. I can kind of see what you mean with the word we¡¯re using. If you break it down it¡¯s something like ¡®dating-partners¡¯? It does come with an implication of¡­ Impermanence? If we were going to be together permanently or at least as long as we can last together then we¡¯d use ¡®life-partners¡¯ if we didn¡¯t marry, if we were courting and planned to wed that¡¯d be another thing, and then there¡¯s marriage.¡± She leaned back against his chest. ¡°What does marriage mean to you? Because it sounded like that was the crux of what you were getting to.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯d say it is. It¡¯s important to me, probably because of how I was raised and what I saw growing up, but being married is a¡­¡± He struggled to find the right words to convey what he was getting at. ¡°It¡¯s a formalization of a promise. Back on Earth, especially back in the States, things were all starting to blend together culturally and people were changing how they thought about things or what they chose to do, but I guess I¡¯m still a little old fashioned when it comes to this. Getting married is supposed to be willingly tying yourself to someone else. It¡¯s a promise to each other that you¡¯re together and will work together to stay that way and also a declaration to the rest of the world that you¡¯ve done so.¡±Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Hmmm. That sounds nice.¡± ¡°What does it mean to you?¡± Kay asked her. ¡°It¡¯s probably a lot different here in all kinds of ways, but what does it mean to you?¡± Eleniah¡¯s chuckles vibrated against his chest. ¡°There are a lot of differences thanks to different cultures and there being so many more species of people here compared to your Earth, but there are institutions and ceremonies and such that are similar in a lot of places. In the Isles it¡¯s pretty similar, although there¡¯s less of a focus on monogamy than some cultures here on the continents or like you talked about.¡± Kay let out a sigh. ¡°That¡¯s fine for some people and I get why a lot of people are going to push me to take multiple spouses, but that isn¡¯t going to work for me. Besides just being generally not attracted to the idea, it sounds like a lot of work. Dealing with you is hard enough, imagining having to divide my attention between others?¡± He shuddered. ¡°That sounds like a nightmare.¡± Eleniah looked up at him with narrowed eyes. A moment later pinching fingers by his ribs had him jumping away from her. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean it as a dig at you!¡± Kay insisted, backing slowly away from her raised fingers. ¡°I meant that while I love you and want you to be with me, we¡¯re not the same person and sometime compromise is difficult!¡± Eleniah stopped in place and gasped dramatically, ¡°You¡­ you love me?¡± ¡°Will you stop? That isn¡¯t the first time I¡¯ve said that to you.¡± She grinned and walked back over to him and wrapped him in a hug again. ¡°So, marriage isn¡¯t as formal in the Isles. A lot of people just decide that they¡¯re together like that and then they are, no ceremony or legal anything to it. Some people do small parties or something, but it¡¯s only when you get into forming alliances and tying powerful interest together that you get the formalities mixed in. Growing up I didn¡¯t really expect anything big or fancy, just to fall in love with someone and decide that we belonged together. Then Alahna decided to conquer the archipelago and become queen.¡± Eleniah rolled her eyes. ¡°That changed things a little, although I never felt like my choices got limited or I¡¯d end up marrying someone for political gain, thank goodness. It just meant I¡¯d have to be fancy about it when I did meet my person. I¡¯m not really interested in polygamy either, I¡¯m a one person at a time woman.¡± They stood there quietly for a time before Eleniah eventually looked up at him. ¡°Do you want to get married? To me, specifically, not just in general.¡± ¡°¡­ Yeah, I do. We¡¯ve only been romantic for a few months, but we¡¯ve been basically joined at the hip for years now and I think you¡¯re the person for me.¡± ¡°I feel the same way.¡± ¡°So in the Isles we¡¯d be married now?¡± ¡°Basically, yeah.¡± ¡°I like that.¡± A few hours later, after sending the guards out of the room and spending some quality time together affirming their choices, Kay and Eleniah stared at the artifact again as it slowly drew out the shape of the entire city of Avalon once again. ¡°What are you going to name it?¡± Eleniah asked. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. All the names I can think of are¡­ kind of lame, honestly. ¡®Blood Map¡¯ is ridiculously simple and also not really true, calling it ¡®something of Avalon¡¯ or ¡®Avalon¡¯s something¡¯ seems worthless when I don¡¯t know what the ¡®something¡¯ would be and ¡®Kay¡¯s whatever¡¯ or the ¡®thing of Kay¡¯ are too self aggrandizing and sound kind of dumb.¡± Eleniah kicked the blankets off of her and rolled over to press her side against Kay¡¯s. ¡°You can¡¯t leave it as ¡®Unnamed Enchanted Artifact¡¯ though, that will kill your prestige.¡± ¡°I know, I know. Should I just ram some syllables together and make it sound like a name? The Carnestophul!¡± He proclaimed grandly, holding the orb up before them. ¡°No.¡± ¡°Yeah, I didn¡¯t think so. I wish I knew more languages besides English right now,¡± He grumbled. ¡°A bunch of cool names for things come from Latin or ancient Greek or other languages I don¡¯t know. They all take bits and pieces from each other that mean something related to what the thing being named is and then it¡¯s a word. Even the names of famous things from legends or history are usually just descriptors that sound cool because they¡¯re in a language you don¡¯t know. You remember the King Arthur myths I told you about that my sister loved? The ones that I named Avalon after and why my nickname is Kay?¡± Eleniah placed a gentle kiss on his shoulder. ¡°I remember. I would have loved to meet your family.¡± Kay smiled. ¡°Thanks. We¡¯ll have to time it better next time we go to the Isles so we can meet your parents. Or we can have them come here. Either way, King Arthur had a dagger named Carnwennan, which sounds really cool, right? My friend who¡¯s getting a¡­¡± He trailed off. ¡°Well, Noah was getting a degree in folklore and mythology and I hope he still is. But he wouldn¡¯t let me just enjoy the stories and the names and had to ruin it by telling me that Carnwennan literally means ¡®little white hilt¡¯, because the dagger had a white hilt.¡± He tossed the expanding map up, using Blood Manipulation to have it hover in the air for a moment and then let it float back to his palm. ¡°I don¡¯t know any Welsh though, so that doesn¡¯t help.¡± ¡°You could just go with random sounds mashed together then.¡± ¡°I thought you said no to that?¡± ¡°No, I said no to calling it The Carnestophul, that sounds ridiculous.¡± ¡°Too bad that there¡¯s no easy description of what it does, then we could just call it that.¡± With a though Kay collapsed the artifact back into the small sphere that it was whenever it wasn¡¯t being a map and set it on a small table next to the bed. ¡°Oh well. I have time to think of a name. As long as no one knows about it there won¡¯t be enough people thinking of it by a name for it to get automatically named. I can hold on to it until after we deal with all the vampyr and name it then. Maybe something will come to me at that point.¡± Book 6 Chapter 29 Martha felt the thing puppeting her body twist her neck a bit too far as it suddenly started listening to something she couldn¡¯t hear. It was a novel event to Martha. The thing had often reacted to stimuli she couldn¡¯t perceive even had she been in control of her body, but it had never been like this. Some other thing was communicating with the creature she detested so much and that had never happened before it had dragged her body across the sea and met these vampyr creatures that were similar to it. That was why it had come here it turned out. It hadn¡¯t just been seeking new necromancers to question in an attempt to permanently rid itself of Martha, although it still made a few ¡°inquiries¡± when it had the chance. It had been seeking out the vampyr, drawn by some scent or sense that they existed across the sea, because they were like it but different. The thing that controlled Martha¡¯s body was a parasite that hid within its host until it could devour them and take their body, transforming itself into something new in the process. The vampyr were like an infection that destroyed the original owner of the infected body and becoming a new thing in the process. Both were twisted, unnatural things from a universe outside of this one and Martha¡¯ thing wanted to learn from the vampyr, for the same reason it had sought out necromancers. Unlike so many past victims, Martha was still there. She was pretty sure she was some kind of lich at this point, although she was a strange, broken one. Permanently binding one¡¯s being into an undead form with your mind and magic intact was seen as the work of someone who had mastered the art of necromancy, no other could accomplish it. In Martha¡¯s opinion it was also the move of the desperate or stupid. To even try it without a Master Necromancer Class or one of comparable power was a n elongated and ritualistic form of suicide, and if you already had a tier five Class, what was the point? You were practically immortal at that point anyway and becoming a lich meant giving up so many good things that came with being alive. She only knew of two people that had gone through with it that she didn¡¯t find foolish had been afflicted with a virulent poison and a particularly deadly curse that neither had been able to escape otherwise. Martha obviously counted as one of the desperate. She¡¯d been able to sense her own death coming, the being that had been lurking in some other dimension or fold of reality while it ate her body gave up on stealth when it started to consume her, and she¡¯d done everything she¡¯d could to beat it back. Then, when it all seemed lost, she¡¯s tried to turn herself into a lich freehand, an impossible task. Surprisingly, it had worked better than she¡¯d expected, which had been not at all. She was still there after all, although twisted, broken, and mad, hanging magically as clusters of cells and bits of flesh woven throughout her own body. The madness was undeniable, any lich that didn¡¯t have a full body went mad and she had so much less than that, but there was also the corruption and perversity that was the being that had killed her in all ways but the last. It did not belong in this realm any more than it belonged in her body. But even as the thing had traded its service to the vampyr so that it could study them and try to learn how to become more like them, so too had Martha been studying. The puppeteer was different sideways from the world than the vampyr were, so it could not look at them there. It was limited to the mean¡¯s of Martha¡¯s body, and if her body was there so was she. In every narrowing of her eye, in every twitch of her ears, and in every flare of her nostrils she was there, learning too. Learning how best to destroy the vampyr. There was an information war going on, one the thing inside of her body didn¡¯t know was happening, and Martha was winning. She could tell by the bouts of frustration and the increasing number of times it was sweeping her body each day, searching for her in her holdouts and hideaways, that it wasn¡¯t learning what it wanted to. It was from a universe that was different than this one and the one where the vampyr spawned from, which meant it had so much farther to go that Martha did. Martha just wanted to kill the vampyr quickly so that the thing never had the chance. Which is why she cursed as the thing turned her body and started moving. The undead horde it had started fashioning after it allied itself to the vampyr, a horrendous cavalcade of random zombies and abominations without a single shred of grace or artistry, shambled after it. It was heading away from the ritual circle that the vampyr had been fashioning, away from the chaotic roil of destruction that the vampyr had created when they¡¯d destroyed the nation that had once sat in these lands. Martha had been taking control of some of the horde and making a few changes to the massive circle using the crumbling undead as her limbs. It was much harder for the thing to detect her interference with so many shamblers around dividing its attention. With just a few more tweaks she could rig the entire thing to explode, damning the vampyr to fiery deaths and maybe even freeing Martha from her torment if the thing kept her body close enough to the circle. But now it was leaving, headed somewhere else with all of the undead and preventing her from making those final changes.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. She cursed the thing manipulating her flesh, whatever it was that had communicated with it and sent it away, and herself for ever touching the forbidden artifact the thing had been so deviously tucked away in. It had been her own curiosity and unwillingness to accept the warnings of others that had doomed her, and all the more tragically the undoing she had brought down on herself hadn¡¯t come to be until she¡¯d long since realized her foolishness and changed her ways. With her plan foiled by unfortunate timing, Martha went back to her normal status, watching and waiting. She had picked up tinges of truth in the maddened cacophony of the vampyr, bits of reality among the torrent of illusions and hallucinations. There was a threat not too far away, one that could unmake the vampyr with a surety that only the most maddened and feral among the vampyr didn¡¯t worry about it. She¡¯d never heard of a ¡°Kinkay¡± before, but she also couldn¡¯t think of anything else that her thing and the army it was leading could be sent to deal with besides a threat the vampyr feared facing. Perhaps, if it was strong enough, she could foil the thing inside her body at the most inopportune moment and this ¡°Kinkay¡± creature could kill them both. That had been her aim in so many battles before this one, and if it failed, well¡­ If Martha had control over a pair of shoulders she would have shrugged them. She had suffered all this time fueled by spite and defiance, having vowed so many centuries ago to foil everything that the thing wanted as best she could. She would accept her freedom and the embrace of whatever came after death, but only when she knew she was taking the being from beyond the stars with her! ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j ¡°I¡¯ve got it!¡± Kay crowed, holding the orb that was the passive state of his new artifact in the air between his thumb and forefinger. Eleniah looked up from her breakfast. ¡°Did you drop it?¡± ¡°No,¡± Kay replied with a chuckle, ¡°The name for it.¡± ¡°Oh, is it good?¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s stupid and ridiculous, but it¡¯s true and it reminds me of Earth, so I like it. Plus, I plan to keep this baby a secret so not that many people will know the name.¡± Eleniah stared at him for a moment before shrugging and going back to her food. ¡°Looks like there¡¯s no point in trying to convince you to pick a cooler name, so go ahead and tell me.¡± ¡°I name this artifact ¡®The Sanguine Positioning System!¡± A screen appeared acknowledging the name before it vanished. ¡°¡­ Why?¡± ¡°Back on Earth there was this web of devices that floated above the sky that could tell you where you were on the planet as long as you had a device that could connect to the ones above the sky. People used them for navigation all the time, and as the technology improved you could even use it to tell you where you were in a building or on the street.¡± Kay looked down at the orb. Sadness and regret tinged his next words. ¡°You know, that technology eventually led to the creation of the self-driving vehicles that killed my family.¡± He lifted the artifact to his eye level and spun it slowly, looking at every piece of the uniform orb. ¡°I¡¯ll have to make sure this and anything like it aren¡¯t abused here.¡± He tossed it into the air at the same time he sent it into his Inventory Skill, making it vanish like a magic trick. Setting down her fork and rising to her feet, Eleniah made her way to Kay. ¡°I think-¡° She didn¡¯t have a chance to finish her thought as someone hurriedly opened the door and a messenger flanked by two of the Blood Guard stumbled into Kay¡¯s private dining room. ¡°My apologies, your majesties, but there¡¯s an emergency!¡± The young dwarven woman, one of several youngsters that were new to messenger or courier Classes that had been recruited to the palace panted and trembled as she held out a missive. ¡°The details are there, but there¡¯s an army of the undead moving on Avalon . The scouts say there¡¯s some kind of half-undead monstrosity leading them out of Nelam.¡± Book 6 Chapter 31 ¡°¡¯Temporary fortifications to hold back an undead invasion¡¯?¡± Meten grinned as he looked down at the ground form the top of the walls. ¡°How is any of this temporary?¡± Walls half as tall as Avalon¡¯s which had been built with more people over a longer period loomed over a twenty foot deep and thirty foot wide moat filled with spikes and barbs. Large crenelations were placed evenly along the walls to provide areas to shoot and retreat into cover, channels had been carved to allow the defenders to pour hot oil or other liquids on the enemy, and a handful of cannons were being slotted into place as scouts reported that the undead horde was in sight. The fortifications only stretched for a couple thousand feet, which was a minuscule distance compared to the length of Avalon¡¯s walls or those outside other major cities, but they were obviously not temporary fortifications just for one battle. Kay shrugged but didn¡¯t turn away from staring in the direction the enemy was going to come from. ¡°This area wasn¡¯t directly controlled by any one polity before all of this, it was contested between Nelam and a few cities that don¡¯t exists any more. None of the remnants of different groups that want us to do all the work reclaiming their lands but take nothing from them have no reason to protest us building a wall here, not if they want us to keep doing their dirty work for them. If we decide we want to expand out in this direction when everything is done, this makes it less difficult. And if we decide to expand even farther east¡­¡± He shrugged again. Eleniah shook her head. ¡°Don¡¯t we already have a huge swath of territory that¡¯s only gotten a surface level of exploration and investigation? Avalon doesn¡¯t need more land.¡± With the large scale preparations for intercepting the undead army complete the three peak elites that Avalon had were gathered atop the walls to wait. ¡°Most of the untamed area we control is to the north of Avalon City, and the capital is closer to the border than I like. If there¡¯s more conflict coming our way I think a buffer zone between us and the rest of the world would keep any armies from marching directly to Avalon without being stopped.¡± Kay gestured behind himself. ¡°We didn¡¯t have the defenses we needed to keep out an army and people had to flee their homes. Their was pillaging and looting that ruined villages and set back people¡¯s lives. If we push out the territory we claim, build defenses there, then build more defenses at the older border we can have two lines to hold back any enemies.¡± ¡°That sounds¡­¡± Eleniah peered at Kay¡¯s profile. ¡°That sounds more militaristic than usual.¡± ¡°Hmm?¡± Kay finally looked away from the horizon. ¡°I¡¯m not saying that that¡¯s what we¡¯re definitely doing, but I decided it was better to have the option.¡± He tapped his foot on the wall they stood on. ¡°This serves, what, three purposes? Good for this fight, good excuse to push the border if we want to, staging area for if we need to invade the east.¡± ¡°Why would we do that?¡± ¡°Because it might be necessary.¡± Meten turned and leaned back against one of the crenelations. He took a puff from his pipe before continuing. ¡°While it isn¡¯t exactly the same, Nelam¡¯s collapse is going to have many of the same consequences as when empires and nations collapse when dark ages come and the cycle of history begins to repeat itself. History has seen it hundreds of times by now. Whether the cities and towns that have managed to hold out against the vampyr become local powers, the parasites that are demanding Avalon return them to power in exchange for nothing are the ones that come out of it the best, or this entire region ends up a wasteland that people try and make new fortunes in, the result of this is going to be chaos and war. Small wars, but people will be fighting over everything of value that¡¯s left.¡± He paused when he noticed Eleniah¡¯s incredulous look. ¡°What? I pay attention when my daughter tells me things! I¡¯m surprised you haven¡¯t thought of this, miss high tier Teacher.¡± ¡°There¡¯s been other things on my mind,¡± She replied, glancing quickly at Kay. ¡°Oh, planning the wedding, eh?¡± he said knowingly. ¡°We¡¯re not engaged yet!¡± ¡°Good to see you¡¯re confident.¡± He chuckled at her blush. ¡°As I was saying though, there¡¯s going to be chaos in this region. Unless¡­¡± He pointed at Kay with his pipe. ¡°Someone does something about it, like our fearless leader here.¡± Kay shot him some side eye. ¡°Been learning phrases from Cindy?¡± Meten grinned at him. He shook his head before responding. ¡°He¡¯s right, and I¡¯m sure you would get there yourself if you took time to think about it. We¡¯ll wipe out the vampyr because they¡¯re a direct threat on multiple levels to us, but then what? Ware and fighting on our border is just as bad as a powerful hostile state. Just leaving it all alone and letting everyone sort themselves out is too risky. The two plans I can think of right now are pushing out our borders and cracking down hard on any threats that pop up, or just doing what very few people from this area want and take it all over.¡± He narrowed his eyes as he looked back to the east. ¡°Now isn¡¯t the time to decide though, or even the time to discuss. Our quests are here.¡± Through the wetlands a line of undead monsters began to appear in singletons and small groups, until a line of them almost as long as the wall emerged, followed by more and more and more. There was no organization to them, they moved as a horde not as an army. Clumps of undead formed and split apart as they watched the monsters approach, some stumbling as they hit dips or rises in terrain, some just stopping in place for a time before randomly resuming their forward progress, and some just vanished into the deep pits and watery hazards that littered the area. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. There was no semblance of coordination as they approached and no uniformity among the undead themselves. There were mobile corpses of monsters, animals, and beasts alongside the bodies of people, some still dragging their weapons behind them. What looked like centaurs from a distance were actually hodge-podge amalgamations of bodies held together with necromantic magic. Hulking behemoths that squelched as they walked, their limbs made of corpses joined in long chains of bodies, loomed over twisted amalgams of bone that skittered up and over slower undead. The entire horde resembled nothing more than a wave of pestilence and decay formed into physical shapes like a child with no notion of what is ugly playing with clay. A voice called out from along the wall and more followed, echoing the order shouted by General Crucius. There was a momentary pause as the swarm of undead moved closer and then another order rang out. Cannons roared and a multitude of Skills were launched all at once, a tide of devastation falling down onto the undead and wiping entire segments of the approaching horde from existence. Magic, empowered arrows, javelins thrown too far to be anything but magical, experimental cannon balls, and the esoteric and unidentifiable attacks rained down like an angry heaven punishing sinners, but the undead still marched closer without cease. ¡°How many are there?¡± Kay muttered as undead were destroyed and more than that continued to approach. ¡°How many people and animals were killed when the vampyr attacked, and how long has the necromantic thing controlling them had time to raise corpses?¡± Meten asked in return. Kay grunted and shook his head sadly. The three of them stood there and waited for the enemy elites to make their presence known. Eleniah had helped reinforce the idea and the importance of it as strategy and tactics. Elites existed to fight other elites, not throw themselves at the rank and file among their enemies. Kay was there to kill the monsters too powerful for regular fighters and to destroy the thing powering all the zombies and other undead monsters. A lumbering monstrosity of stretched skin and bloated limbs was the first to reach the wall and it tumbled into the moat without even seeming to notice the drop. It slammed down onto the spikes, hooks, and barbs littered at the bottom and began to drag itself forward, tearing it¡¯s body apart as it continued toward the wall. More undead began to topple down without stopping, seemingly unable to even notice the impediment to their path. ¡°It¡¯s going to fill up eventually.¡± Eleniah noted, ¡°They¡¯ll be able to walk right over the other bodies.¡± ¡°Disposable pawns of large numbers are a problem for a reason.¡± Kay glanced down to see one of the skittering bones amalgams dodge and weave around the spikes and start climbing the side of the wall before a glowing spear lanced out of a hidden hole as one of the defenders impaled it and sent it flying back to the ground. ¡°Even if there¡¯s enough of them to completely clog it up and make it solid ground it still will have eliminated a large number of them.¡± An immense form surged forward from the rear of the undead army, knocking other zombies out of the way and trampling over others as it rushed forward. As it got closer Kay could make out hundreds of thin, pale arms scratching at the dirt in place of legs as a monstrous millipede shaped abomination formed of screaming corpses melded together into a disgusting hole slammed down into the moat and continued up the side of the wall without slowing for a moment. In the mouths of the endlessly screaming cadavers he could make out the barest hint of fangs. The monster heaved itself up the wall, using it¡¯s bulk and speed to ignore gravity for a moment as countless hands scrambled to make purchase against the top. Screaming mouths began to thrash and snap at the closest defends as it began to haul it¡¯s bulk up until a sudden wall of gray ash pooled beneath it¡¯s limbs and threw it off the wall. It crashed down among the sea of undeath and crushed a swathe of zombies as it struggled to get back up. Meten stepped up to the edge of the wall and tipped his head at Eleniah and Kay. ¡°Hope you don¡¯t mind, your majesties but I¡¯ll be taking the first one.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a majesty!¡± Eleniah protested. ¡°That thing looks like it¡¯s made of vampyr corpses,¡± Kay told them both, ignoring the lighthearted bickering. ¡°Be careful.¡± ¡°Oh? Then this might be a more interesting fight than I thought.¡± Meten stepped forward into midair, a platform of ash forming under his foot just long enough for him to take another step as he started sprinting downward. A rune made out of ash formed over his shoulders and began to glow with a volcanic red light as he drew his weapon and began sending burning strikes at the creaming monster that was pulling itself upright. Eleniah pointed forward. ¡°There¡¯s another one.¡± The next undead elite was moving with the same ferocity as the abomination Meten was fighting, but it was much smaller, almost the size of a normal person. It had the thick legs of some kind of monster joined to a humanoid torso that contained too many arms growing from it¡¯s back, shoulders, and even from other arms. Each limb was tipped with weapons made out of tarnished gold, from spear tips and sword blades to hammer and mace heads. One more torso jutted out from where a neck should have been, this one with only two arms in their normal positions which stretched into two golden scythe blades. The silently raging head atop the monstrous body was familiar. ¡°Well, we can confirm that Glowl¡¯s dead.¡± Kay muttered after shooting an Inspect at the thing. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] Failed Experiment: Glowl - Tier IV Equivalent - A failed experimental subject from testing for an unknown purpose. This undead monstrosity is formed of multiple bodies in varying states and may contain unknown abilities. [¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª] ¡°I¡¯ll-¡° ¡°No,¡± Eleniah cut him off. ¡°I hate to say it, but you¡¯re more dangerous than I am right now.¡± She stepped up to him and dropped a quick kiss on his lips. ¡°I won¡¯t let it stay like that forever, but for now, I¡¯ll deal with that and you wait for the necromancer thing to appear.¡± She turned to sneer at the Glowl monster that was forcing it¡¯s way through the other undead. ¡°Besides, I have some aggression to take out on Glowl¡¯s corpse, since I couldn¡¯t hit the real thing.¡± She stepped up to the wall and dropped down. Kay leaned over to see her using one hand and boot to slow her descent as she slid down the wall, before launching herself out and over the moat with a powerful leap. Roiling with frustration, Kay went back to sweeping the battle, looking for any sign of a necromancer monster shaped like a hunched old woman. Book 6 Chapter 32 The thing swept Martha¡¯s eyes back and forth across the battlefield, internally fuming that the defenders were holding their own against the undead it was throwing at them. It had gathered so many corpses from the departed that littered the land after multiple wars had brewed and then the vampyr had massacred so many of those who¡¯d been left, and it had been sure that it¡¯s unending horde would defeat anything it brought them to destroy. Martha laughed at it¡¯s displeasure and kept looking for an opportunity to strike. The was no such thing as an unending horde, which the thing would have known if it had actually tried to learn anything about necromancy. It had never truly learned her art, to it necromancy was just another tool. It was true that quantity had a quality all it¡¯s own, but quality was quality and the thing had made such poor servants that most of them started falling apart as soon as they¡¯d risen. It was a waste of bodies and a waste of their deaths, and it made Martha rage more than any other time the thing had defiled those who had passed. True necromancy was to use what the dead had left behind in service to the living, not this mockery and disgrace to their memories! The thing sent the twisted abominations made from the corpses of the vampyr it had been studying forward as shock troops, but most of them fell apart before reaching the wall. They were either trampled beneath other marching undead, fell apart when their own movements tore the combined bodies apart, or were blown to bits by incoming fire. Only the worst monstrosities actually made it into the fray, but both were quickly engaged by the defender¡¯s elites. The twisted centipede made form hundreds of vampyr bodies was attacked by a wielder of gray dust while a woman was punching the gold limbed creature repeatedly in the face. Neither would last long and Martha laughed at the thing¡¯s attack falling apart. Seething with rage, the thing gathered up Martha¡¯s body and started lumbering forward. Martha forced the cells and strands of muscles she inhabited to stop vibrating with laughter so she could focus on her goal. It was difficult to stop, the madness pulling at her was so tempting to dive into so that she could forget the horror that was her existence, but she managed it. She kept repeating her oldest mantra to herself over and over while she waited for her moment. This fight might kill her. Oh, how she prayed that this fight would be the one that killed her. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j The trees to the rear of the the undead army began to shake and bend. Kay braced himself, ready to jump into the fight. A hunched shape, taller than the abomination that had been made with Glowl¡¯s body shuffled into sight. A thin cloak draped over the figure¡¯s body, obscuring most of their features. A thin, disjointed arm held onto a towering white staff topped with a bulbous skull that was too large to be natural. Either that or it had belonged to a giant. A single clouded eye peered out form under the cloak¡¯s hood and the empty hand of the being swung up to point in Meten¡¯s direction. From the other side of the battlefield a deep purplish-black beam of energy erupted from the hunched creatures hand and speared at Meten¡¯s side. A ripple in the air intercepted the beam and the purplish energy splashed against a glowing orange rune made of ash that appeared from inside the ripple. Meten glanced to the side as the hidden rune protected him, then vaulted over the crawling vampyr centipede monstrosity, pushing it into the path of the attack as the rune buckled and failed. The bar of energy broke through and impacted the side of the undead abomination, sending it tumbling. It crawled back to it¡¯s many feet a moment later, looking slightly dented on the side it had been hit but otherwise unharmed by the necromantic energy. Kay had already leapt off the wall and was charging forward. He extruded thin platforms from the soles of his boots in midair less than a second before each step which let him run through the sky at full speed. He reached the oversized figure as the beam stopped. He threw himself down at highs speed as a halberd formed in his hands, the hardened blade of blood aimed directly at where the figure¡¯s neck should be. The cloak covering the thing rustled and a third arm sprang from inside it to intercept the attack. Kay¡¯s blade pierced the palm of the hand twice as tall as Kay was and sliced down through the arm, stopping at the elbow as it jarred against the bone there. Hundreds of grasping arms bloomed from every inch of the bisected limb, trying to wrap Kay up. He turned his armor into a bladed whirlwind that gave him enough space to leap free. He jumped from the platforms he made until he was high enough in the air to evade the creature¡¯s long arms and stared down at it, cataloging what he saw for the fight that would resume shortly. The necromancer, monster, or whatever it was was so much more grotesque up close. Like the two other abominations that Meten and Eleniah were fighting it was made of a multitude of corpses combined together into one disgusting whole, but instead of being fused together so that flesh and bone merged into each other this thing was weaved from pieces of dead bodies. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of arms and hands were braided together into a coil to make the three arms coming off the disfigured body. The same was true for it¡¯s legs, but those were made of legs and feet. It¡¯s torso was created from a graveyard¡¯s worth of torso¡¯s stitched together at the shoulders and hips with what looked like intestines, and the head and face were made of uncountable smaller faces, all stretched out in a way that made them look like they were screaming in agony. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Kay grimaced as he realized the cloak the massive, stitched together hag was wearing was a patchwork of flayed skin. The only part of the thing that didn¡¯t look like it was made from a mass number of the deceased were the cloudy eyes as big around as the palms of the hag¡¯s massive hands, and bile rose in Kay¡¯s throat at what they might actually look like if he was closer to them. The twisted, heinous creation figuratively screamed with the amount of misery and suffering necessary to create it, but that might not have been the worst thing. Kay¡¯s vampire instincts, the ones implanted in him by the System to incentivized him to hunt down the eldritch, were snarling and snapping at him to unmake a part of the hag, meaning that this enemy was not just an evil that had to be eradicated for past crimes, but potentially a threat to the world as well. He juked to the side as crackling bolts of purple lightning erupted from the arms that made up the third arm growing from the center of the ¡°chest¡±. He sidestepped and spun to avoid getting struck while returning the bombardment with sharpened spikes that dug in and tried to cut and dig into the undead flesh. The areas with hands had those hands grow sharp nails and dig at the shredded flesh, shedding what was compromised while sections grew and covered the wounds with weeping scars that oozed putrid pus. Kay focused his attacks on the chest area where there was nothing to dig out his tendrils. Heavy spears and quick daggers spread out around him in a cloud that rained down on the necromancer. Dead flesh sloughed off the creature in waves and avalanches that dripped down among the stamping feet as it tried to maneuver around Kay. Three giants hands tried to grab him, smash him, or slap him to the ground. Kay danced to the side as each blow came at him and he replied with slashes and blasts of compressed blood. If he hadn¡¯t had the experience of fighting the asura miniboss in the Seramist Isles¡¯s capital city¡¯s dungeon the large multi-limbed monster might have been more difficult to fight, but the asura had been much more deadly and Kay was even more skilled than when he¡¯d fought that. As the fight continued and Kay peeled away more and more dead mass from the necromancer¡¯s body, he began to get a better reading from his instincts. He¡¯d been right the first time, the feeling of taint from outside this world was coming from something inside the monstrous body, not from it as a whole. There was a core somewhere controlling the greater whole, and that¡¯s what he needed to target. He began sending more pointed attacks, driving deeply into the monster in an attempt to burn away the outer shell. The necromancer resisted as best it could, shifting it¡¯s core away into other parts of the bod while thickening other sections into deeper armor with dead hair and nails sealing together into a protective casing. The movement didn¡¯t matter when Kay could track the feeling of the core though, and he chased it determinedly. Right before Kay could impale the twisting core on the end of his halberd the back of the monstrous construct burst open and a smaller form flew outward from it. That didn¡¯t end the fight Kay was in though as the undead construct that had been operating as some kind of flesh-mech lost all sense of self-preservation and started attacking Kay en mass. The construct began collapsing on top of him, both grabbing at him with individual pieces and trying to crush him with its entire weight. He tore his way through with a focused detachment, carving out an empty space around him until the dead flesh slumped against the ground and he was free. Wasting no time Kay threw himself forward at the source of the corruptive feeling, which was retreating away form the battle at high speed. The mass of flesh behind him rippled and threw itself at him in a storm of tentacles and pseudopods of mixed together corpse bits but Kay blasted past all of that. The fleeing core had hit the ground and was running as fast as it can away from him as undead began tracking him instead of marching forward mindlessly and began trying to slow him down as well. It did nothing, and he quickly caught up, then passed, the necromancer. He slammed to the ground in front of them and lashed out with three different attacks, each coming from one of his primary weapons as he shifted what he was wielding between blows. Bits of the necromancer shifted, as if there was something wrong with their body, as they dodged back and Kay got a good look at them. The necromancer¡¯s true from was very similar to the giant construct they¡¯d been piloting. They looked like an older woman with gray hair and unseeing white eyes. She was naked, but that didn¡¯t matter as much as the rot and putrefaction parts of her body displayed. There were rotting muscles showing form beneath translucent or torn skin and bones were poking out in other places. There was an alien intelligence that Kay could sense behind those seemingly blind eyes, the eldritch corruption Kay had sensed was easily identifiable as somehow controlling the woman. Kay braced himself, ready to fight again in earnest against what had to be a difficult opponent, when part of one of her arms twitched. The woman¡¯s head turned to look down at her arm in anger, then the other one suddenly rose up and slammed into her own neck, drawing blood and causing her to stumble back. Kay watched in shock as the necromancer started literally fighting herself before his eyes. ¡°What are you waiting for?¡± A desperate, crackling voice asked. The necromancer¡¯s mouth moved disjointedly as she choked out the words. ¡°Kill me before it¡¯s too late!¡± Book 6 Chapter 33 Kay stopped in place as the necromancer began squabbling with herself. Unintelligible screeches mixed with garbled curses poured out of her mouth as different limbs and pieces of her limbs began attacking each other. Her left hand began scratching at her own eyes while her right arm tried to drag it off, but when the right arm suddenly began helping the left hand it turned and attacked the right hand and wrist. She twisted in place as she appeared to actively try and kill herself while also fighting to stay alive. It ranked fairly high on Kay''s list of weirdest encounters and he wasn''t sure what to do. It screamed "trap" at him, but he also wanted to kill the necromancer and end the threat anyways... After watching one of her hip bones break through the skin and began stabbing at her stomach Kay decided to test the waters. He slashed out into the air with a sword strike and sent out a faux magical slash with blood. Three of the fingers on one of the necromancer''s hands twisted around and fired purplish necromantic attacks to try and intercept the slash while other bits and pieces tried to obstruct the pieces that were defending. The "flying slash" burst into harmless droplets when the attacks hit it. One wrist suddenly snapped around and a beam of magic similar to the one the undead mech had fired lanced out, but the other arm punched the attacking hand and sent the attack off to the side. Underneath the nonsensical noises coming from her mouth Kay could hear a faltering rant that she spurted out in bits and pieces, about how she would die taking something with her, how it would rue the day it had stolen her body, and how she was so much better than whatever it was she was addressing. As close as he''d gotten Kay could feel the corruption of whatever eldritch taint the necromancer had, and the feeling was lining up with the desperate call for death and the tirade the necromancer was shouting. There was eldritch corruption woven throughout the woman''s body, but it wasn''t complete. As she fought herself Kay could feel the foulness surge into a limb or a piece of the body that began to fight other parts or suddenly switched sides and when the tide turned or a part changed allegiances again the corruption felt like it had been pushed back. Throughout all of that, the feeling or taste of this brand of eldritch was noticeably different than that of vampyr. Kay made his decision and started launching real attacks as he approached the necromancer. Patchwork shields appeared around the woman to block a hail of darts, but some failed or were redirected and the salvo hit true in many places. Kay sent tendrils of blood into her body, ripping and tearing as they went. Parts of her internals began to help the attack as the pieces of her that didn''t have any eldritch taint in them started working with even higher ferocity. Piece by piece and bit by bit the necromancer''s body was torn to shreds, the untainted pieces gladly sacrificing themselves to destroyed the eldritch touched ones. Sidestepping a wildly fired orb of purple lightning that killed the grass where the bolts randomly struck, Kay stabbed through one of her legs. The blade expanded under his will and shattered the leg bone which severed the limb completely. Without missing a beat the splintered extremity rose up under it''s own power and began bludgeoning the rest of the body. Taking that as a signal he sliced off the other three limbs which all joined their comrade in attacking the torso that slumped to the ground. The woman''s skin began to twist and grow in unnatural ways as those sections began to fill with corruption but faster than they could mutate under the effects of otherworldly power they began to wither and die as necrosis grew throughout the body. A wave of death and decay consumed the torso from multiple spots that spread and joined each other until they were a single wave of the cessation of life. The blackening spread up to the neck as the necromancer began cackling and calling out about her victory. "Finally! Finally I''ll be free of-" Her milky eyes widened in shock and she cried out, "No! Don''t let it get-" One of her eyes exploded. A flickering string made of colors beyond the human spectrum that Kay could still see twisted in impossible ways as it threw itself at Kay''s forehead. He surrounded it with blood and threw up barriers between himself and it, but it flew through them without stopping, as if it didn''t really exist or it was on some other level of existence. Completely ignoring everything Kay did to try and capture or destroy it, it touched the skin of his forehead and vanished inside of him. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j The being was old and experienced. It wasn''t one of the lesser of it''s kind but neither could it call itself one of the greater. Nonetheless, it was well beyond it''s first host and it''s first world, and the fact that the host it had been stuck in for so long had stymied it so was aggravating beyond measure. The foolish lesser-dimensional being had dared resist it and had somehow remained even as the being had destroyed the inferior life. It had clung on and in doing so had changed itself to be just a fraction closer to the greatness of the being as the being reshaped the body to be closer to it''s own perfection. By becoming more like it the remnants of the host became able to affect it, and the being had not liked that at all. Instead of being able to freely shed the host for a new, better one, the being had instead been trapped. Anything that could touch it would be able to harm it in the place it existed in as it went from host to host. It could not afford to be weak in the face of a lesser being that could actually cause it pain and perhaps even end the being. So it had remained, trapped in an unacceptable host body, searching for a way to rid itself of the remnant even as it was forced to keep the body functioning. It could not exist fully in this lesser reality for long without a host to protect itself, forcing it to avoid the pitiful beings that lived in this reality that would seek to destroy it''s host while it sought out the magic of the remnant in order to destroy the remnant. It had traveled all across the physical space the inhabitants called "the world" searching for power similar to the remnant''s, but something about it''s host alerted each of them and forced it to fight them to keep it''s host functioning. All the while the remnant tried to rid itself of the being in a reversal of how things should be! Every time the being made a plan or fought an enemy, the remnant tried to ruin everything, and it succeeded often. No matter how much the being tried to spread itself through the host to push out or crush every last trace of the remnant, some tiny fragment survived and rebuilt itself into the remnant. But then it had felt the breaches open across this reality, the holes into other. Some led to realities similar to its own and some even led beyond, a most frightening though. He avoided any trace of beyond as best it could while it tracked down whatever had breached the defenses of this reality. This reality had a guardian that interfered with every moment of existence and anything that could surpass or avoid that guardian could surely assist the being in escaping it''s purgatory of being trapped in a single, decaying host. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It had followed the trail and it had found the partials and scoured that carried a hint of beyond. It had felt the closest thing to fear that it could comprehend as it had approached the most complete of the partials and it looked in ways that were beyond the beings of this existence and say something beyond, as it had feared. It saw I?????T?????. It learned I?????T????? had a use for the being, and told the being that I?????T????? would ensure that it was no longer trapped in the horrible host one way or another. It could study I???T???''???s??? toys while I???T???''???s??? plan went ahead in exchange for the being''s assistance in those plans and if I?????T????? succeeded then even that wouldn''t matter. The being complied. The was no resisting beyond if anything beyond set it''s sight on something less, like the being, so it complied. Plus, the being would benefit no matter what happened. It no longer cared about it''s original goals in coming to this reality, it just wanted to leave. But here, finally, the being was free as it had so long desired! The remnant had destroyed itself with the help of the being''s new host, trying to destroy the being. Thus the remnant was unable to harm the being as it fled to the new host! Victory after so long, and achieving victory by spiting the remnant and destroying the victory the remnant thought it had won was so sweet. The being would have to figure out what to do about I???T???''???s??? plans now that it had a host it could work with but- The being froze. Why was it thinking about the past and it''s own plans? Why was it thinking at all? The being was beyond thinking, it was as far beyond this reality as beyond was to it, so why was it processing existence in the way that- It turned in ways that beings of this reality could not conceived and screamed with terror in a voice that would never be heard. It was becoming less! It was reducing, becoming something of this reality! How could this be? What was turning it from itself to some shrunken facsimile of it''s true existence!? It turned to run, to flee, because even ceasing to be as the reality outside of a host wore away at it until it dissolved would be a better cessation than becoming less than it had been! It moved in the ways that... But it didn''t for it was no longer such a being! It could not experience or move in the manner of those outside of this reality for it had devolved into something of this reality! It was trapped in this horrible form, never again to- A white blood cell that Kay''s immune system sent to destroy whatever foreign body had made it into Kay''s blood steam engulfed the being and began to dissolve it. Kay''s anti-eldritch blood had already done most of the work and the being was reduced to protoplasmic cell goop in a matter of seconds. ¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j¨m¨j "What the fuck?" Kay blinked and looked down at his hands as the visions and strange, alien thoughts died out. In killing the thing with his existence he''d somehow seen it''s last thoughts, or something? "That was weird." "No, no!" A strangled scream snapped Kay out of his distraction. "After all this, it get''s away!? I won''t let it, I won''t let it, I won''t let-" "Calm down." Kay snapped at the still moving decapitated head of the woman, which was somehow screaming without lungs. "That thing couldn''t take me over if it had a year. It''s already dead." "... What?" The necromancer''s head gaped at him. "How is that possible?" "I''m basically the antithesis of anything from outside of Torotia''s reality. I''m basically poison to them." "... Ha. Hahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Black tears dripping from one eye and one empty socket as the head twisted back and forth in hysterical laughter. "You mean there was a cure, or an inoculation against such things all this time? Oh, how foolish I was..." She trailed off into a whisper. Kay dropped down into a crouch near her. "I... I don''t know how long ago that thing got into you, but I''ve only been on Torotia a few years, and I''ve only been like this," he waved a hand up and down his body, "For a little less than that." "An Outworlder bringing a new thing into out world, eh? Well then, I don''t feel as bad. I was still a fool mind you, but I wasn''t a fool that missed a precaution I could have taken." She sighed. The head shifted and her one eye snapped down to see the fraction of her neck she was supported by was disintegrating. "Oh thank the ancient bones, I''m actually dying. Being a madwoman trapped in what''s left of my skull would have been an upgrade from dealing with that thing, but only a small one." She looked up at Kay and the skull pulled itself into a rictus smile, the bone underneath getting exposed as the skin on her head began to decay into dust. "Thank you young man, for freeing me from that nightmare." "I''m happy I could help." He replied earnestly. She closed her one eye and began humming to herself as she faded away. It wasn''t a tune that Kay had ever head and her humming was terrible, but it was beautiful in what it represented in that moment. The bottom of her jaw faded away and she dropped down, clattering against the ground and breaking a few of her remaining teeth. Her eye popped open and looked around wildly. "Wait! Shit I forgot to warn the boy!" "I''m still here." "Oh, good. Those vampyr fuckers, they''re up to something with some oversized ritual circles! I couldn''t listen all the time and most of them are as mad as I''ve been a few times, but they-" "We know." Kay interrupted her. "We''ve been watching them while we amass enough power to deal with it all at once, that''s how we knew you were coming." "Oh. Well, bonus points for me that I got to fight alongside someone powerful and competent in my last moments." Kay heard a sigh that shouldn''t have been possible. "Anything else I can help you with before I fade away? I don''t have much of anything to give but I won''t let it be said that Martha of the Pristine Bones was less than thankful to her savior!" Kay pondered it for a moment before saying, "I don''t know what comes next, but if there is something after and you run into my family, let them know I love them please." The entire skull had blown away in a light wind that picked up, leaving only a single white coated eye that pointed at Kay. "Oh? A real request. Well, boy, Martha will do her very best!" Her voice faded away as she completed the sentence and the eye began to wilt like a flower without water. A whisper of a voice floated into Kay''s ear. "Oh, dammit, I spent however long that was going mad as some kind of part-lich trapped in my own body without rhyming my sentences, and I end on that? Damn..." The solemn moment was immediately broken as Kay burst into laughter at the woman''s parting words. After a few minutes he pushed himself to his feet and nodded at the spot where she''d ceased to be. "I didn''t get the chance to really meet you, Martha of the Pristine Bones, but I think I would have liked you." He turned around, already making plans for a grave marker that would either go in that spot if Avalon did push it''s borders out or somewhere interesting in Avalon when he noticed the ring of collapsed undead around him. He''d been caught up in speaking to Martha and hadn''t noticed them. Looking out across the battlefield he saw a sea of unmoving corpses, unable to continue without the necromancer who''d made them providing magic to keep them going. He started moving back toward the wall, mincing up bodies into tiny fragments with large constructs of blood that followed alongside him. There would be no chance they could identify any of these people, and they didn''t deserve to be buried as part of the monstrosities the eldritch thing had made while controlling Martha''s body. They would be forced to make a mass grave for them all. Eleniah jogged up to him, her body covered in glittering flakes of gold. "They all stopped when you killed the necromancer," She reported. "We''ve had some casualties, but nothing terrible." He turned and looked all around him at the victims of the depravity of eldritch things mucking in other worlds. He remembered the massive twisted blank spot the thing had feared and the plans it supposedly had. "We need to clean this up quickly and get moving. I need to find a fast messenger too, the Crusade and the Order need to get to Avalon yesterday." Book 6 Chapter 34 Kay gathered up his companions and anyone else that would be more useful back home and flew them back to Avalon. Making mass graves and cleaning up battlefields wasn¡¯t the best use of his time and the Earth Mages and Earth Manipulators who¡¯d made the defensive wall would be able to finish the job quickly. Kay had also left orders for a marker to be raised where Martha the necromancer had faded away. He had no idea who¡¯d she¡¯d been or what the title she¡¯d called herself meant, but the woman didn¡¯t deserve to go unrecognized for the battle she¡¯d fought for so long. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Eleniah asked. The two of them were in a small private chamber Kay had made in the construct he flew them with. ¡°You¡¯re tense.¡± ¡°¡­ I had a¡­ call it a vision, I guess. The necromancer woman, she had something controlling her, something eldritch. I told you that, right?¡± ¡°You mentioned it, but we didn¡¯t have time to go over the details. Was it like Blood Puppetry?¡± Kay shook his head. ¡°No, although that¡¯s another topic that¡¯s bothering me, but we can come back to that. It was some kind of parasite that took over her body after killing her, but she didn¡¯t die and it ended up being a standoff, I think? I¡¯ve only got a little bit of the story and it¡¯s disjointed.¡± ¡°She told you before she died?¡± ¡°No, the parasite tried to take me over and I got some a vision of it¡¯s memories. I¡¯m not really sure why, but there were bits of it¡¯s thoughts like I was watching it think about what was going on bundled up with older memories, and it confirmed we¡¯ve got a problem.¡± She stared at him blankly for a moment. ¡°An eldritch parasite tried to take you over and you saw it¡¯s memories and thoughts. Yes, I would call that a problem.¡± Kay waved her off. ¡°Not like that. I felt it die, it couldn¡¯t deal with my biology or something. Whatever the System did to me when I became a vampire killed it.¡± ¡°Right¡­¡± She got up and moved quickly for the door. She came back in pulling Lauren behind her. ¡°Lady Eleniah, what¡¯s going-¡° ¡°I¡¯m not a lady!¡± Eleniah shoved Lauren at Kay who caught his foremost guard when she stumbled. ¡°Check him!¡± ¡°What?¡± Lauren¡¯s hair whipped around as she looked between the two of them. ¡°Check him for what?¡± ¡°Eldritch things taking him over!¡± ¡°I¡­¡± Lauren slowly looked him up and down and even sniffed at him a little. ¡°I don¡¯t sense anything. Is it even possible for that to happen?¡± ¡°It¡¯s worth checking! He says some kind of eldritch parasite tried to take over his body and he¡¯s only just now mentioning it!¡± Eleniah spat, looking incredibly displeased. Lauren¡¯s grasps on Kay¡¯s shoulders tightened. ¡°Wait, this is something we¡¯re actually worried about?¡± Her expression firmed up as she caught on to what was happening and she stared at every inch of him intently for several long moments. ¡°I really don¡¯t sense anything.¡± She slowly took a step back. ¡°Your Majesty, you should have informed us about such a thing immediately.¡± She scolded. Kay opened his mouth to rebut, but actually thinking about what he was about to say killed his momentum. ¡°¡­ Alright, yes I should have. I got caught up in what I learned and didn¡¯t think about it as a security risk, I apologize.¡± Eleniah pushed past Lauren and grabbed him by the collar. ¡°A security risk? You¡¯re calling the idea of you dying and your body turning into the mindless husk of some otherworldly parasite a security risk?¡± ¡°¡­ What else should I call it? A health hazard? It¡¯s something we should test for because there¡¯s no way to guarantee I¡¯m right about killing it, right?¡± He turned to look at Lauren for help. ¡°I don¡¯t know what else I¡¯d call it.¡± Lauren turned away from him. Eleniah¡¯s fists vibrated as she glared at him, opening and closing her mouth repeatedly. Eventually she said, ¡°You dying would be a tragedy to us personally, not just because we¡¯re your guard or part of Avalon!¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°Oh.¡± He slowly reached up and took her hands. ¡°I know that. I wasn¡¯t saying you¡¯re right just because of the political implications or anything like that, I just couldn¡¯t think of a better thing to call it.¡± He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers while maintaining eye contact. ¡°I understand the mistake I made fully, not just the ¡®I¡¯m a leader¡¯ part of it.¡± She stared back at him suspiciously until the glare in her eyes faded. ¡°Good.¡± She glanced over her shoulder at Lauren. ¡°You¡¯re sure he¡¯s okay?¡± ¡°As much as I can be. It¡¯s not something we¡¯ve ever had to deal with but even with a heavy grain of salt for safety I don¡¯t know if anything eldritch could affect him like that, if at all. Not only is he a vampire with all the inbuilt anti-eldritch stuff put into us by the System, but he¡¯s also got his blood running through him, which might be even stronger.¡± Eleniah still looked tense and nervous but she slowly let go of Kay¡¯s hands and drifted back toward her seat. ¡°¡­Fine.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I really didn¡¯t mean to worry you.¡± She let out a deep breath. ¡°I accept your apology. What are you worried about that you found out?¡± Kay took the subject change and went with it. ¡°The parasite thing was looking for a way to get away from Martha, that was the necromancer, without leaving itself open to an attack from her when it left. Apparently she turned parts of her body into some kind of partial lich and was fighting it from since it took her over.¡± ¡°What¡¯s a lich?¡± Lauren asked as Kay took a breath. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°We haven¡¯t had many necromancers around for a long time,¡± Eleniah muttered, ¡°There were some purges and people still tend to kill them when they pop up.¡± ¡°Alright. Well, liches are necromancers that turn themselves into powerful undead.¡± Lauren frowned. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°¡­ I don¡¯t know? In fiction and mythology back home it was generally to escape death, but people live a lot longer here. There has to be a reason¡­ But that¡¯s beside the point. The parasite was looking for a way to rip her out or become more part of her body or something and it started studying the vampyr because they¡¯re a different kind of eldritch and that was going to help somehow.¡± Kay shrugged when they both gave him confused looks. ¡°I don¡¯t know the real details either it¡¯s pretty spotty. But the real problem was something I saw in it¡¯s memories. It negotiated with something to help it with a plan of some kind, and I think its the ritual circles.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°It met the lead vampyr, and it thought it was bigger than it somehow? Like it was scared of it but also worshipful. I think that we might be up against the first vampyr.¡± Eleniah was still frowning. ¡°¡­ What?¡± Kay shook his head. ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s all¡­ jumbled up in there. It didn¡¯t look at the world the way we do, obviously, and converting it¡¯s fucked up memories into something I can experience¡­ It med the lead vampyr-¡° ¡°You said that.¡± ¡°I did, right. The vampyr leader felt more real to the parasite, in the way that eldritch things exist outside of the world somehow. It felt like the vampyr was more powerful, and the parasite made a deal with it in exchange for more vampyr to study, which is where those vampyr undead things came from. It also was thinking that if it helped the vampyr then it didn¡¯t matter if the parasite got out of Martha or not, it could just leave. But then right before it died inside me when it thought it had gotten a new host, it wanted to stop whatever the vampyr are doing because a new host meant it didn¡¯t need to leave the world?¡± He looked up at them and they still had very confused looks on their face. ¡°Sorry, I¡¯m rambling, it¡¯s all-¡° ¡°Jumbled up, you said.¡± Eleniah interrupted, ¡°But I think I get understand what happened, just not your conclusion. Why do you think it¡¯s the first vampyr that we¡¯re up against?¡± ¡°Because it¡¯s probably the most powerful one. The first vampyr was a vampire that somehow got tossed into an eldritch realm before landing on Torotia, wouldn¡¯t that mean it has the most eldritch,¡± He waved a hand around, ¡°Stuff? Power, corruption, whatever?¡± ¡°Why would the first vampyr want to open a bunch of gates to other realms?¡± Lauren asked. ¡°That is what we think it¡¯s plan is, right?¡± ¡°I definitely think that¡¯s it¡¯s plan based on what the parasite was thinking. If gates open it could just throw itself into one and Martha would burn away wherever it landed because she would be eldritch to that place, but with a new host it wanted to stay around and stop the vampyr¡¯s plan, probably because more eldritch things here would get in its way. And who knows why it would want to open a bunch of gates? Maybe because it was in a true eldritch reality for so long it became more like them and now it wants to bring that here? It doesn¡¯t really matter why, what matters is we need to stop it.¡± ¡°So, to summarize,¡± Eleniah said after a long pause. ¡°There¡¯s a super powerful vampyr doing something we really don¡¯t want it to do that we¡¯re going to stop so that the world doesn¡¯t turn to shit?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°How is that different than what we already thought was going on?¡± Kay opened his mouth to respond and then just let it hang there. There was something on the edge of his tongue, some reason that it was important¡­ ¡°I don¡¯t remember, but something is different and it¡¯s a big deal.¡± Eleniah sighed. ¡°Fantastic. That means its going to spring out at us at the last second and be a giant problem. Fantastic. I¡¯m assuming the reason you wanted to bring it up is that you¡¯re going to say we need to speed up all our preparations and move as soon as possible?¡± ¡°We do.¡± ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll tell everybody to hold onto something and then you start rocketing us back home as fast as you can. If you say it¡¯s a problem, it¡¯s a problem.¡± Book 6 Chapter 35 A mobile swarm of people roamed around a marching block of soldiers in ranks, looking surprisingly like the forces Kay had led to the east just a few days ago. Even if Kay hadn¡¯t been able to see the banners held aloft in the center of the march he¡¯d know that these weren¡¯t his people, they were coming from completely the wrong direction. Scouts and sentries had picked them up a few days ago after Kay had arrived back home and the border guards had been alerted to let them through into Avalon¡¯s territory. The Itarian Crusade and the Shatterplate Order had returned to Avalon, but not as enemies. Messengers led the way with news of their peaceful intentions and at least one of them was a trusted subordinate of the Order¡¯s commander, who freely gave over some information Kay was looking forward to dealing with. It was a mixed bag, as expected. There was dissension in the ranks of both organizations about what to do with Kay¡¯s demands. The Shatterplate Order was more unified in their response, since Commander Ravenhome was the person in charge, but there were still some that protested bowing down to ¡°some upstart¡±. More than that though, people could see the writing on the wall. Kay¡¯s demands didn¡¯t technically give him any control over either organization, merely some oversight that would keep them from running off and attacking innocent people again, but anyone with eyes could see that that was merely the beginning. Oversight would become someone being inserted into their leadership, as a simple adviser of course, but they would grow and grow in power until; both groups were subordinate forces in Avalon¡¯s power. That was the vision of the future the people that didn¡¯t want to give in to Kay foresaw. And they were entirely right. That hadn¡¯t been the plan when Edric Ravenhome and Crusader General Stonegnawer back home with demands of reparations, but plans changed. Kay had long ago cast aside his trepidation and fears over his own growing power and responsibilities, and those were larger than ever. He wasn¡¯t some chosen hero of the age, but he had been given a mission by the System itself. That mission was lower on the list than his other duties, but it was still there and he was going to milk it for every drop of influence he could. He was the weapon the System had created to eradicate the vampyr, and he was going to drag along anyone that could help him with that. If they happened to end up as part of Avalon along the way and became pillars of support for his people and nation, well, those were the inside thoughts that didn¡¯t get spoken out loud. Especially since the ¡°side benefits¡± were his real goal and dealing with the vampyr was the actual side benefit. Kay stepped off one of Avalon¡¯s internal walls that had afforded him a better view of the visitors and dropped to the ground. Amanda was waiting at the closest entrance to the palace, flanked by a number of her direct subordinates. She turned to follow him as he began walking. ¡°How do you want this handled?¡± ¡°We¡¯ll try it the easy way first. Diplomacy, convincing arguments, allowing our allies to help. If we have to in order to get things moving, that¡¯s when we move to the hard way.¡± Kay felt a tiny hand pat his neck in acknowledgment and noted that Isla had once again slipped past the measures he was implementing to find her. ¡°Very well,¡± Amanda replied. ¡°A delegation of their leaders will be allowed to approach directly, where we¡¯ll bring them up to speed. The messengers we sent to find them had reports with them for Commander Ravenhome and Crusader General Stonegnawer, but we can¡¯t guarantee they managed to read them or what their subordinates know.¡± They moved to Kay¡¯s public office where Miri was already waiting with a large binder in her arms. ¡°Ah, your Majesty. I¡¯ve prepared a number of potential outfits for you to form for your meeting.¡± ¡°Hmmm.¡± He glanced over at the bureaucrats following Amanda and raised one eyebrow to her. She nodded back and quickly dismissed her people with instructions for those who needed them. After they left Kay transformed his layered blood armor into a simple outfit that resembled jeans and a t-shirt and started looking over the options he¡¯d been presented. Isla appeared on his desk, already sitting at a small table with snacks and a tea kettle which she poured into a cup sized for her. ¡°Is that real?¡± Kay asked, looking down at the setup. Isla smirked up at him. ¡°Define ¡®real¡¯.¡± He ignored the attempt at mysteriousness and tapped the edge of the miniature table with his finger. ¡°You know exactly what I mean. How did you carry all of that in here? It can¡¯t have been sitting there the whole time, I would have destroyed it by now.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you leave me to some secrets?¡± She asked with a put upon sigh and sipped her tea. ¡°I¡¯m your spymaster, I have to be aloof and inscrutable or I¡¯ll lose my job.¡± ¡°Ha! Fat chance of that, you¡¯re doing too good a job. What have we heard from our agents among our visitors.¡± This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Isla scoffed as she picked up a teacake. ¡°You overestimate me, my king. We sent off the straggling survivors of a failed invasion back home with a treaty of reparations and stipulations of submission, do you really think I could recruit any agents in such a time? And to think that I would somehow be able to insert-¡° ¡°Okay, now you¡¯re just bragging.¡± ¡°And?¡± ¡°And we don¡¯t have time for me to indulge you, as fun as it would be for all of us.¡± Kay grew out a long tailcoat with short sleeves and a high collar, immediately getting twin looks of disgust from Miri and Amanda. That outfit was removed from contention and he turned back to Isla. ¡°What do we have?¡± ¡°Most of those against submitting to us either have their own irons in the fire they¡¯re worried about losing or work for another power.¡± She responded promptly. ¡°There are the various greedy or power hungry folk at low ranks that think we¡¯ll take what they think is theirs or who dread ending up even a single rung down the ladder of power, and those we can ignore. The ones that work for another nation are more annoying, but still nothing that we can¡¯t deal with.¡± ¡°What countries are involved?¡± ¡°The Empire and the Concord of course. Ravenhome is from the Empire and most of the Order is based there. While they¡¯ve managed to remain independent since Ravenhome founded them, that¡¯s mostly because the organization is relatively young. The Order¡¯s explosive growth and effectiveness have drawn eyes, and the Empire very much wants to make the Order an official part of their military. Young nobles and military veterans have been joining for years now in record numbers, and many of them are agents of the Empire looking to draw the order closer to the imperial bosom.¡± ¡°And the Crusade?¡± ¡°Similar, but coming from the Itarian Concord. The Crusade is older and more established, but the main point is that they lack a centralized leadership, making them much more susceptible to being seduced into coming directly under the Concords control. A number of their High Crusaders and Crusader Generals already answer to one or more Itarian nobles. The only reason they¡¯ve managed to retain most of their independence is the canniness of some the Crusader Generals and the Concord¡¯s own laws making it difficult for them to drawn the Crusade in as part of their military.¡± An outfit that made Kay think of his history lessons about the French aristocracy was also discarded. ¡°Why don¡¯t we need to worry about them interfering?¡± Isla pointed out into the rest of the world. ¡°Because they¡¯re too far away. Once the Crusade and the Order were headed this way both governments lost too much control to make either of them stop. Having a notable nation and it¡¯s surroundings be destroyed by the largest vampyr attack in recent history also kept the scales balanced in our direction. Nothing the political string pullers could do was going to stop either group from coming to deal with that. The leaders who¡¯s loyalty belongs to someone other than their own organizations will be obnoxious, but a few figurative hard smacks will get them in line. Without any backup from their masters they won¡¯t be able to afford to really fight with us.¡± ¡°Who does that leave?¡± ¡°Any loyalists to either Ravenhome himself, the Crusader Generals who are moving as we want, and those who follow the stated principles of the Crusade and the Order can be considered one group. They¡¯ll work with us, which is all we really need at the moment. Which leaves the scattered troublemakers mixed in.¡± The tiny pixie woman sighed. ¡°There¡¯s a handful of zealots or other flavors of true believer who still won¡¯t accept that you aren¡¯t actually a vampyr and plan to cause trouble in one way or another, and then there are those with real influence that don¡¯t want to lose their spot in the hierarchy. Both types of nuisance on the Order¡¯s side will be dealt with. Zeia is more of an influential figure than I expected and with her fully on our side combined with the general support we have from the Ravenhomes there¡¯s no question that we¡¯ll own the Shatterplate Order by the time this is done. They¡¯ll shed a few people that don¡¯t agree with what¡¯s going to happen, but the organization as a whole will remain.¡± ¡°And the Crusade?¡± ¡°The Crusade is going to shatter.¡± Amanda answered. She shook her head at Miri to give her opinion on the most recent of Kay¡¯s attempts at a formal outfit before looking back into Kay¡¯s eyes. ¡°There¡¯s no stopping it, mostly because the Crusade¡¯s decentralized leadership.¡± ¡°Oh, that one isn¡¯t bad.¡± Isla mused. ¡°Maybe with a different cuff though. But Amanda¡¯s right, the Crusade isn¡¯t unified enough to deal with all the sudden shocks they¡¯ve been taking. They¡¯re more of a group of private armies that team up to deal with vampyr threats more than a single Crusade. They haven¡¯t been truly united for a handful of decades now.¡± ¡°While that worked for them to deal with multiple fronts at once on a military basis,¡± Amanda cut back in, ¡°The current situation makes that from a benefit to a flaw. Each Crusader General has their own troops and factions that follow them, and we expect the Crusade to lose at least half of their Generals in the schism to come.¡± They all paused to look Kay over as he finished his outfit, an outfit that resembled slacks and a dress shirt from Earth, but with deeper sleeves that billowed just enough to fit a hand in and stitching up the side of his legs. Miri nodded happily. ¡°I think you should go with this one, your majesty.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± He looked over at Amanda. ¡°The Crusade having a schism can¡¯t be stopped, you said. Can it be delayed?¡± She held out a sheaf of papers. ¡°Reports on the Crusader Generals that need to be¡­ dealt with in one way or another to delay the Crusade as a whole fracturing into pieces.¡± Kay started memorizing faces and names. ¡°They can split into pieces and go become private armies of Itarian nobles or hunt vampyr elsewhere in the world after we deal with this problem. Until then they¡¯ll get in line and do as they¡¯re told. There¡¯s too much at stake to allow petty bullshit or rock-headed stubbornness to get in the way.¡± ¡°As you say, your majesty. Would you like to make a plan to ensure they all toe the line?¡± ¡°I would. Which Crusader General is likely to be mouthy who we can also afford for them to not be very useful in the future?¡± Book 6 Chapter 37 Yet again Kay floated above a marching army inside of a blood construct as they marched east. This time was different on numerous levels though. The army was much larger than before as it was made up of the combined might of Avalon¡¯s military, the Itarian Crusade, The Shatterplate Order, and any adventurers that could be recruited through the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. They¡¯d long passed the sight of the battle against the undead army controlled by the thing that had puppeted Martha¡¯s body. As the army finally began pushing out of the swamplands and onto solid ground Kay watched as the hundreds of mages, manipulators, and those with other Classes that could pave the way forward through the marshy terrain pulled back and reassembled into their respective units. Scouts and ambushers pushed farther afield once their mobility was less limited and began picking off lone vampyr that littered the way forward and leading mobile adventuring parties to deal with larger groups that would slow down the combined army. Kay stopped looking down at the ground through the outer edges of his construct and took several deep breaths with his eyes closed. Using Sanguinelocation or Blood-Sight was overwhelming and he needed time to recover after each session. The sheer amount of stuff he could see when his ¡°eyes¡± were as large as the outside surface of the construct they were traveling in gave him a headache as he tried to process it all, and Sanguinelocation gave him information in a way that he had no reference for, which made it even worse. The relatively safe and uneventful activity of floating through the sky in a red warship afforded him some time to practice, but they were getting closer to their goal and someone had called his name. When the headache and dizziness finally faded Kay turned to whoever had been calling him. ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°Your majesty, we¡¯ve gotten word back from the long distance infiltrators we sent to look for other ritual circles.¡± General Crucius reported. The leader of Avalon¡¯s military and former Bannerthrust Empire nobility looked professional in the uniform he¡¯d helped design, but his face was a fraction less put together than normal. ¡°We have a final count on the total number of circles that have been prepared.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the good news,¡± Kay replied as he stood up and started walking to the meeting room where the gathered leaders where making plans. ¡°Whats the bad news?¡± ¡°Waves of completely feral vampyr have been unleashed on and around all of the circles and the last reports we received from our spies indicated there was greater than normal activity at the circles themselves. They either know we¡¯re coming and are trying to speed up to counter us, or we somehow timed it perfectly to have a dramatic confrontation at the last moment.¡± The side of Crucius¡¯ mouth twitched upward in the tiniest wry smile ever. ¡°I¡¯m assuming the first and I¡¯ve signaled the army to be prepared for ambushes.¡± Kay stepped into the meeting room with Crucius on his heals. He waved down Stonegnawer and Ravenhome as they started to stand in respect and took his own seat at the table instead. ¡°You¡¯ve heard what Crucius was just reporting to me?¡± Eleniah nodded. ¡°We have. We were discussing what to do about it.¡± ¡°We¡¯re already in motion to hit them and we¡¯re moving as fast as we can to get in range. What else is there?¡± Edric Ravenhome shook his head sharply. ¡°We need to split up.¡± ¡°Alright. Why?¡± ¡°The new reports confirm that there are six circles, but only four of them seem to be actual threats.¡± He pointed at the map of Nelam and it¡¯s surroundings laid out on the table, tapping each of the six marks on it. ¡°These two are the ones we don¡¯t need to worry about as much according to your sources. The saboteurs you sent seem to have done their best work their and the circles in these locations are months behind compared to the other four. While activity has increased on them as well, they actually pulled a lot of their manpower away from them several days ago, which makes me think they¡¯ve been relegated to being distractions more than anything else.¡± A soft whisper drifted into Kay¡¯s left ear. ¡°He¡¯s coming to the same conclusion I did based on the information that we¡¯ve gathered. And don¡¯t make a fuss about me coming along when I¡¯m not a combatant, I¡¯m coordinating your military intelligence so that the rest of you can focus on the actual fighting.¡± Kay couldn¡¯t keep the frown off his face, he just hoped it looked more thoughtful than annoyed. ¡°Alright, we¡¯ve got four main targets and two distractions we¡¯ll have to clean up afterward. Where does splitting up come into play?¡± ¡°Because we can¡¯t afford for any of their ritual circles to go off.¡± Edric told him. ¡°If we had a clearer idea of what they did we might be able to prioritize them or we could afford to let one or two go off if we knew that we could deal with the effects, but with no clue on how dangerous they are we have to stop all of them.¡± Stonegnawer nodded in agreement. ¡°The only confirmed bit of data about them we have is that these vampyr once used ritual circles to call more powerful eldritch beings into Torotia. If these do the same thing then hitting one of the circles but allowing three unknown beings from beyond our reality to arrive here and potentially attack us all at once is too big a threat. And that¡¯s ignoring that they could do something worse than that.¡± Kay flicked a finger at the map, sending a bead of blood onto it that grew upward into a chess piece. ¡°I follow you. We have to split up to get to guarantee we get to them all in time.¡± The chess piece dived itself into four smaller copies that each slid across the map to land on the marked locations. ¡°Correct, your majesty.¡± Crucius said. ¡°If one area is more easily dealt with then any portion can move on to the next to reinforce our forces at other sites, but we¡¯ll have to be sure that they¡¯ve completely pacified the area and destroyed the ritual circle first.¡± ¡°Alright. How do we divide things up?¡± The three military leaders shared a look, with Edric glancing to Kay first. ¡°Because of my experiences and how the Order works, I¡¯m more of a small unit leader than a general, but we¡¯ve managed to agree on a general plan.¡± ¡°Not all of us agree.¡± Eleniah shot in, sounding testy. Edric nodded to her. ¡°I understand, but unless we come up with something better¡­¡± Kay leaned forward to break their staring contest. ¡°What is this plan?¡± ¡°We divide our forces into five. Four smaller armies dedicated to each of the ritual circles and one strike force to assault the Nelamian royal palace.¡± Edric pointed at the mark denoting a ritual circle that was drawn over Nelam¡¯s former capital. ¡°As you all already know the information Avalon¡¯s spies have gathered points toward Nelam¡¯s royal palace having been repurposed into a residence for the vampyr leader we suspect to be in charge of their side of this.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°The thing controlling Martha met with it in an area that looked like that.¡± Kay muttered, drawing interesting looks from Edric and Stonegnawer. After a long careful look at Kay Edric continued. ¡°We cannot allow the leader vampyr to escape. This entire event points toward it weaving plans and causing chaos for hundreds of years, minimum, and several events we thought were unrelated might actually have been part of it¡¯s long term planning. It¡¯s too dangerous to let it stay alive, so the strike force¡¯s goal will be to track it down inside the palace and destroy it. Due to it¡¯s combat power being unknown and your capability as a direct threat to it, we think you should be the main thrust for the strike team, your majesty.¡± A glance over at Eleniah to read her expression told Kay that that wasn¡¯t the part of the plan she was unhappy with. ¡°What else-¡° For the first time in months a completely unexpected screen flashed into existence in front of Kay¡¯s eyes and startled him into jumping backward. It was a dull metallic color Kay hadn¡¯t seen one of the System¡¯s screens be before and there was a pixelation effect around the edges that looked our of place. Concur. Previously unknown vampyr leadership must be destroyed. System corruption and instability for this world are reaching critical levels at unprecedented speed. The previously unknown vampyr leadership is likely to be a cause for multiple percentages of corruption. It¡¯s removal should allow for System resources to be allocated following defragmentaion and cleanup of corrupted resources, reducing instability. All other System assets are striking other sources of corruption and cannot be diverted. Any additional sources of corruption must be prevented while eliminating preexisting sources. A deep scowl crossed Kay¡¯s face as he read the message. ¡°Great. Anything else world shaking you want to drop in my lap, System?¡± There was no reply. ¡°Kay?¡± Eleniah leaned forward and grabbed his hand. ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± ¡°The System finally spoke to me for the first time in ages. Apparently it really agrees with Edric that we have to kill the vampyr leader, but we also need to prevent those circles from going off because they might cause mroe corruption.¡± He grit he teeth as he waved around to indicate the world. ¡°Seems like things are going badly all over the place and the System needs things toned down to manageable levels ASAP. It said all other assets it has have been sent after other corruption sources and can¡¯t be diverted our way.¡± ¡°That explains why the Adventurer¡¯s Guild Founders put so much emphasis on the Guild helping us but couldn¡¯t show up themselves.¡± Meten commented after a long moment of silence. He and Cindy were both in the meeting but had remained quiet until this point. ¡°If they aren¡¯t System assets I¡¯ll be very surprised.¡± ¡°It also explains why I haven¡¯t gotten any notifications or rewards for the Quest that sent me to the Isles. If the System¡¯s already spending a bunch of it¡¯s processing power to deal with whatever instability is going on actually paying me for helping with it is probably low down on it¡¯s list. If we win it can always pay me afterward and if it fails¡­¡± Kay shook his head to clear the dark thoughts. ¡°But it won¡¯t. We¡¯re already on the way to stamp out the vampyr, now we just have extra confirmation on why it¡¯s important. What part of the plan are you unhappy with, Eleniah?¡± ¡°The way we¡¯re being split up.¡± She shot Edric another glare. ¡°They want you by yourself.¡± Edric sighed and shook his head. ¡°Not by himself. We think it¡¯s best if your elites get sent with the armies going after the circles and me and my personal team are your strike force after the leader. Lady Eleniah would go with half of the Crusade¡¯s forces to one of the circles, Duchess Cinderella would take her personal forces with the other to the second, Sir Meten would take your Sentinels and the adventurers after the third, and you and my team would take the final army in to take control of the circle in the capital before pushing after the leader as soon as it¡¯s under our control.¡± Several people raised their voices in protest about one thing or another but Kay cut through all of it with a raised hand. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Because we can¡¯t assume that the enemy is going to be stupid, and if I were them I would have at least one elite at each of the sites.¡± He gestured at Stonegnawer, ¡°The generals are great at being generals but-¡° ¡°But I¡¯m not an elite combatant myself.¡± Stonegnawer declared easily. ¡°My main focus is on my General Class, and while I can fight personally it¡¯s not my forte. I focus on empowering my troops, ensuring clear lines of communication, and so forth. The same is true of my counterparts amongst the Crusade and other military leadership Classes overall. There¡¯s a reason why Lady Eleniah wiped the floor with one of our High Crusaders.¡± Kay glanced at Crucuis, who nodded in agreement. ¡°Alright. We assume that there will be at least one elite at each circle because we can¡¯t afford not to, so we have to send our own to counter them. I get that. Your division isn¡¯t perfect though.¡± He turned to look at his girlfriend. ¡°Eleniah, I love you, but he¡¯s right that you need to go with one.¡± Her face screwed up with all kinds of negative emotions, but Kay kept going. ¡°You¡¯re one of the best elites we have, we need you to go with one of the armies. I¡¯m sorry, but it¡¯s non-negotiable.¡± He turned away from her eyes, filled with so much at once, to Cindy. ¡°Cindy, you¡¯re not really an elite, no offense.¡± ¡°No, I was going to say the same!¡± ¡°You and yours are with me and whatever Strike force I¡¯m with.¡± He kept talking over Edric¡¯s protests. ¡°She¡¯s not tier five, she¡¯s not an elite combatant like that yet. I¡¯m not sending her up against someone stronger than her and getting her killed. Which of the four we have to deal with first is least defended?¡± Crucius pointed at the one furthest away from them. ¡°That one, your majesty. Likely because it¡¯ll take us longest to get there.¡± ¡°Right then. We send whichever force isn¡¯t going to have one of my three elites to that one, but we stack it with as many fighters that are close to that level as we can. Meten, is Cindy¡¯s old team with us?¡± ¡°They¡¯re working on becoming part of my vassals, or whatever you want to call them.¡± Cindy answered. ¡°Then sorry, they¡¯re going that way with anyone else we can spare. Meten and the Sentinels going with the adventurers still works, of course. But,¡± He looked at Edric. ¡°Why aren¡¯t you considered an elite? The generals I get, but you¡­¡± Edric let out a long breath that wasn¡¯t quite a sigh. ¡°Because I¡¯m an assassin.¡± Stonegnawer grunted in a way that conveyed a sense of ¡°I knew it¡±. ¡°Yes, I know it¡¯s a bit of an open secret. Before my hometown was destroyed I was an agent of the Bannerthrust Empire. I retired and formed the Order after vampyr killed my entire family, but the Classes and Skills I developed don¡¯t perfectly mesh with the ones I picked up hunting vampyr. I¡¯ve been working on combining them into a package that makes me a better direct fighter, but I¡¯m not close enough yet. My personal hunting team is geared toward getting me in range of the vampyr undetected so that I can assassinate them. That¡¯s why I think it¡¯s best that I go with you with my team to go after the leader. I doubt that me getting in a solid first strike will kill them, but it should make things much easier for you.¡± Kay thought about it quickly. ¡°Alright. We¡¯ll do it that way, but we¡¯ll prioritize the force without and elite fighter to get the best hunting teams and whatever units we can spare that are good at personal combat.¡± Cindy raised her hand and Kay pointed at her without commenting that she really didn¡¯t need to do that. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve seen all my reports on them, but some of the weapons I manage to make with your blood are devastating. We can probably take less people with us to the capital site and still take it easily.¡± ¡°And Kay can make his own army on the spot.¡± Eleniah said with a rough voice. ¡°We can devote more troops to the farthest site because of that too.¡± She stared down at the table without looking at anyone. No one else spoke up as Kay looked around at all of them. ¡°Alright. We have a plan.¡± He stood up and walked over to Eleniah where he took her arm. ¡°Figure out the best point for us to split up then start getting everyone in position to do it quickly and seamlessly.¡± Eleniah slipped her hand into his as he gently led her into the room he¡¯d originally been in and sealed the entrance behind them. The fact that nobody should disturb them until the last possible moment without an absolute emergency went unsaid, but everyone understood perfectly. Book Six Chapter 38 Volcanoes erupted across the world, the land shattered as earthquakes broke continents into fragmented pieces, tsunamis wiped away coasts and drowned mountains, and everything ended in tumultuous calamity as the world ripped itself to shreds. At least, that¡¯s what Eleniah felt like should be happening with how fucking angry she was. The part of her that remained professional and wasn¡¯t overwhelmed with emotion did it¡¯s best to keep her looking at worst mildly annoyed or aggravated since there was no point in letting the troops she was with think she was mad at them, but internally she was furious. The second to worst part of all of it was that she couldn¡¯t think of a good enough reason to change the plan. Dividing the elites up to escort the smaller armies so that each and every ritual circle was shut down in time was vitally important and there was every chance that the enemy would have elites that she would need to battle in position to stop their advance. Quantity had a quality all it¡¯s own, which meant most elite fighters couldn¡¯t single-handedly take on an army and win, but the end goal wasn¡¯t just killing whoever was in the way, it was killing whoever was in the way and making sure whatever bullshit the vampyr were trying to enact didn¡¯t happen. And the thought of the army she was working with taking out whatever elite or elites were station to defend the circle they were targeting without her help didn¡¯t include the numerous non-elite vampyr that would be defending as well. The worst part of the situation was that the rage was just a cover for the deepening fear that was coursing through Eleniah. Being separated from Kay was a problem on multiple fronts to her. She trusted him to make good decisions and knew that he was strong enough to take care of himself, but that didn¡¯t matter to her. They were stronger together than apart just by having each other¡¯s backs. She trusted Edric not to betray Kay, but she didn¡¯t know if he was strong enough to really defend her boyfriend the way she could. Eleniah had been in love before and she¡¯d lost people she¡¯d loved before. This was the first time she¡¯d been in a relationship she felt could really last the test of time, and she didn¡¯t want to lose Kay to what was coming. She wasn¡¯t worried about the world ending or the vampyr creating some kind of catastrophe, not in an immediate way. There was the general concern she normally felt when something big was going down, but focusing too much on the hypothetical situations that would occur if they lost drained too much energy and made fighting against those hypothetical harder. Eleniah was worried about what would happen to Kay while they fought against the vampyr¡¯s plan. Kay had been caught up in the idea of being some kind of ¡°chosen one¡± or having some kind of fate that stole away his effort and hard work. He wasn¡¯t one of those and there was no one directing his life so that he did certain things no matter what, but that didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t a hero. Kay was the kind of hero Eleniah had seen practically countless numbers of times before, the right person in the right place at the right time with the right strengths to save people from their troubles or to prevent some horrible event. There were hundreds of potential heroes of that stripe in every moment and dozens around the world that made the decision to stand up and risk themselves for the sake of someone else. Depending on your point of view Kay was either not special because of the number of people who¡¯s ranks he stood amongst or they were all special in despite of their numbers because of what they¡¯d chosen to do. Personally, Eleniah tended to lean toward the latter, but that wasn¡¯t the important part. The important part was that she¡¯d seen cast numbers of those heroes dying as a result of their choice to stand up and fight against the odds. Life wasn¡¯t a tale where heroes always won and evil always lost. Villains and scoundrels won all the time. Heroes were slain during their quest or had to sacrifice themselves to save the day all the time. Eleniah had actively worked with enough heroes or even been one enough times to see it with her own eyes over and over and to personally escape death by the skin of her teeth dozens of times, and she knew that the greater the danger the more likely the hero wasn¡¯t coming back to celebrate their victory with the people they¡¯d saved. If she had her way things would be going very differently. They¡¯d have more time to prepare and stack the deck in their favor, and there sure as shit wouldn¡¯t be any splitting up and dividing their strength into packets! But life never went perfectly the way anyone wanted and she had to deal with the hand she¡¯d been dealt. Even as she hated every second she spent moving away from Kay and they both approached deadly battles that could mean the death of either or both of them she knew that this was happening the way it was because Kay was serious about the oaths he¡¯d sworn to the people of Avalon, his people, and she loved him for that as much as anything else. Oaths were important, protecting your people was important, and destroying evil where you found it was important. He wouldn¡¯t be the man she¡¯d fallen in love with if he didn¡¯t agree with and do his best to uphold those principles she lived by. She scoffed sardonically at her own train of thought. It was as much her fault that they were in this situation as much as anyone else, she¡¯d been the one to point Kay¡¯s feet down the path that had led to this. Of course, if she hadn¡¯t the vampyr might have already turned the world into an eldritch hellscape, so it all balanced out in her mind. The soldiers around her continued to march on as she kept her easy pace. She wasn¡¯t a speed focused fighter but she had a couple of Skills that helped and she didn¡¯t have any armor or equipment to drag along, so she had to slow herself dramatically to make sure she got to the target with her assigned body of troops. The four divisions of Crusade soldiers led by their Crusader Generals with attached units of Shatterplate Order hunters and adventurer auxiliaries were making good time and she had no complaints about the mixed unit of trustworthy vampires and Blood Guard attached to her for this jaunt. She knew her mounting irritation and impatience about how slow the army was going was unreasonable, so she kept all her complaints about their speed internal. They were actually making better that good time, with the officer using their Classes to boost the speed the army was moving at they made it within rang of their target within a few hours of splitting away from Kay and the other troops. As scouts started reporting back the status of their target Eleniah cleared her mind of the worries and fears plaguing her and focused on the goal. She couldn¡¯t change what had happened, she could only affect what would happen from now on. And what would happen from now on was that the vampyr at this ritual circle were going to die as fast as physically possible so she could go make sure her lover didn¡¯t end up dead. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. She scowled as the army split into units and began advancing on the target location. The burnt and destroyed ruins of the town they were assaulting had been dragged away to create a clear area where esoteric designs and unnerving shapes had been carved into the ground. The debris had been piled to create makeshift walls and there were sentries and defenders lining the area acting like actual soldiers defending a key point instead of mad, ravening beasts. Those were there too but the fact that there were enough vampyr acting like people with a goal instead of lunatics to count on more than one hand was alarming. All of this pointed at there being a vampyr with more than half a brain left being present, and that meant Edric¡¯s worries had been right on target. The smarter and closer to sanity a vampyr was the stronger the more likely they were to survive into becoming an elite, which meant someone that could give Eleniah a run for her money was there. The makeshift walls were blasted apart by sappers or mages and demolished by powerful soldiers who literally ripped the piled debris into smaller pieces to clear the way forward. Soldiers flowed into the encircled area as they split into smaller units and started slaying vampyr that blocked the way. Eleniah kept her head on a swivel as she scanned the area for her opponent, or opponents if there were more than one elite to deal with. She slipped inside the wall with the Blood Guard and vampires following her. ¡°There¡¯s no need for all of you to babysit me!¡± She snapped at them. ¡°Some of you split off and start helping deal with the stronger vampyr! You!¡± She pointed at a Blood Guard officer nearby, ¡°Who¡¯s protecting those ritual experts we dragged along?¡± ¡°We left a number of the adventurers who specialize in defense with a portion of the Blood Guard who came with us, Lady Eleniah. A few units from each Crusader General¡¯s army also stayed behind to guard them.¡± She held back her customary knee-jerk response that she wasn¡¯t a lady. ¡°Good. Now find me a damn vampyr elite so that we can get this show-¡° ¡°Lady Eleniah!¡± Someone shouted from outside the circle of people listening to her, ¡°A more organized defense has formed near the center of the circle! There appears to by a vampyr leader there who-¡° The ground where she¡¯d been standing shattered as a foot wide crater formed where she¡¯d kicked the ground. A shockwave blasted air and grit around and almost knocked over several of the weaker or less well braced individuals that had been around her as she vanished. A ring of vampyr in a variety or eclectic armor and clothing surrounded an uncanny looking object at the center of the ritual circle, all them turned outward to defend against the soldiers pressing in on them. Some of them screamed or shouted nonsense or contextually inappropriate statements or cries as they fought, while others were dead silent or snarled like beasts but all of them fought with a level of coordination most vampyr lacked. In the center of the defensive circle a vampyr draped in fine silk robes stood protectively over the artifact and threw sickly bolts of energy at the attackers. Eleniah descended from the sky like a meteor, completely skipping over any defenders that were between her and her target. Her explosive landing sent ranks of vampyr tumbling away as she slammed into the ground and the attacking soldiers immediately took advantage to tear into the vampyr with gusto. ¡°No! No!¡± The vampyr in robes shrieked as Eleniah recovered from her landing. ¡°You don¡¯t understand what you¡¯re doing! The Great One¡¯s ascension is for the good of us all! You¡¯re only-¡° The top half of the vampyr disintegrated as Eleniah¡¯s fist punched through it¡¯s torso and the force of her blow unmade the eldritch tainted monstrosity¡¯s flesh. She looked down at the legs of the monster with a hint of confusion and disdain as they collapsed before snorting and glancing around. The Crusade¡¯s soldiers were still fighting the vampyr defenders, though a few of the monsters were coming her way, so she pitched in and started wiping out pockets of resistance. When only the stragglers were left to be finished off she found the nearest officer and started barking orders. ¡°Send some messengers to grab my people! They should already be on the way over here, but I want this damn thing locked up as soon as possible!¡± Two Blood Guard pushed through the milling soldiers. ¡°There you are! The leader was a waste of time, or maybe they were too busy being crazy and thought they could talk me down or something. Either way, we¡¯re mopping this shit up and moving on as soon as possible. I want a clear area for the ritualists and other experts to start dismantling this circle now, then start clearing out any vampyr within a mile of here! And tell the experts I want this thing nonfunctional in under-¡° ¡°Ma¡¯am the artifact!¡± Eleniah whipped around the see a tendril of unsettling flesh curl up from a hole in the ground and grab the twisted looking eldritch artifact the vampyr leader had been defending. It dragged the artifact down into the hole and then seconds later the ground beneath all of the erupted. A veritable forest of tentacle-like roots covered in bone plating burst from underneath them and began lashing out at absolutely everything. Eleniah immediately began returning the favor and roots began to explode as she destroyed every single one that she could reach. The roots reared back and vanished beneath the ground. Eleniah debated diving in after them to find the damn eldritch item that had been taken. The vampyr from before had been defending that more than the circle, and they didn¡¯t actually know what the vampyr¡¯s true plans were. The artifact could be just as or even more important than the ritual itself, which means she couldn¡¯t let it get away. Right as she was about to jump into one of the tunnels left behind by the retreating roots when the ground started to rumble again. A few hundred feet away the earth buckled as something massive pushed it¡¯s way out from underneath. A writhing tangle of roots heralded the rest of the monster that emerged, all of them growing in clusters from the four limbs extending out from the center. Each limb was as big as an ancient tree with abnormal joints along them that let them bend, tipped in warped paws with crooked claws growing from them. The four symmetrical limbs all grew thin near the center where they connected to a cocoon-like shape dangling between them all. Bulging shapes moved underneath a dripping liquid wrapping that completely covered everything that was inside. Sitting atop the cocoon and connected to whatever was inside it through a stalk rising up was a single human-looking head with a blank expression and empty eyes. Every bit of the monster except that solitary head was a deep blackish-brown color and had the texture of rotten wood. Despite everything else the head looked like a normal, if fairly pale, human child¡¯s head, if you ignored the fangs peeking out from behind the closed mouth. ¡°Change of plans!¡± Eleniah shouted. ¡°First I kill that thing, then we do everything else I said! Move your asses we¡¯ve got other places to be!¡± Book 6 Chapter 39 A swirl of ash pulled from the runes written unseen along the shaft of Meten¡¯s halberd gathered around the spiked tip of his weapon, adding range and burning heat to the thrust he sent in the direction of another skittering vampyr-thing. The more the fighting went on the less humanoid and more unnatural the enemies throwing themselves at him had become and it all felt like something meaningful was coming to a head. A new Class Line Progenitor appearing to the world, the rise of a new powerful nation, the appearance of a vampyr swarm that had devastated a nation, and now a missive directly from the System itself declaring the importance of their goal to the world as a whole. Most of Meten¡¯s focus was on what paints he would use to depict all of this as his body went through the motions of destroying the weak enemies flocking to him on it¡¯s own. It wouldn¡¯t be just one painting, there was too much going and each needed a canvas on their own, but he knew where to start. So many things had come to hinge on one young man, and his first meeting with Kay would be the first painting he made to tell the story. He hadn¡¯t been this inspired to paint in decades! One of the consequences of merging his original Expert Painter Class into his tier five Class was that painting became part of his fighting, and in turn fighting became part of his painting. He¡¯d worked to get a new painting related non-combat Class once he¡¯d freed up a slot for one, but so much of his inspiration and interest in painting had come from the battles he¡¯d participated in since his travels to the Rune Master¡¯s demesne. Years of defending his home village and relatives had been fulfilling, but rarely inspiring, struggling to deal with the plague that had spread across their lands and the surrounding areas had been neither, and destroying the occasional patrol sent by that bastard mayor to drag anyone non-human into Nelamian slavery had been cathartic, but had done nothing for his painting. After becoming part of Avalon, battling the occasional monster to make places safer for settlement had spawned a painting here and there, but it wasn¡¯t until the Shatterplate War that he¡¯d really started to churn with creativity. Kay creating a dragon simulacrum and completely overwhelming a real dragon with rider had been immensely fun to depict and while painting the physical image of the eldritch thing that had burst onto Torotia that Kay had driven off was impossible, he¡¯d done his best and was quite proud of what he¡¯d produced. These events though, were going to lead to his best paintings yet! He wasn¡¯t a master at his art by any means, but he was damn well going to make some masterpieces! Meten hoped that there would be something interesting to fight here soon though, or else most of the paintings would be about other people and he wouldn¡¯t have any new material to tease his lovely daughter with. She really hated when he put on the persona of a braggart and the faces she made when annoyed at him were just so cute! Large steps and sweeping strikes created temporary paintings in ash, each a gradient of gray and black that occasionally flared with red hot burning vampyr as Meten created draft after draft for the paintings he wanted to make. Runes formed in the wake of his strikes that released myriad effects, from temporary protections that shielded the adventurers and Sentinels backing him up to minor healing auras that closed small wounds and kept people alive long enough for real healers to get to them. To everyone but there Meten it was a display of awesome martial prowess but to him it was just sketching. An unexpected sensation of imminent danger made him start paying attention for real. He glanced around, looking for whatever was triggering his instincts, but nothing stood out among the ranks of twisted vampyr. They fought and died against the adventurers and he assisted here and there to keep anyone from being overwhelmed, but he didn¡¯t notice anything that seemed to be a real enemy worth his full attention. Yet the feeling of danger kept nagging at him. After not seeing anyhting after a third time checking the area, Meten slammed the bottom of his halberd¡¯s haft down onto the ground and began channeling a much larger amount of ash out of the weapon than normal. His weapon wasn¡¯t technically a storage item and he didn¡¯t have a Inventory Skill, but the halberd he wielded was a gift from one of the Rune Master¡¯s personal disciples and the mysterious runes carved into it let Meten pull out a volcanoes worth of ash each day. The ash began to swirl around the head of his weapon in a growing storm that spread out over the slopes of the abandoned quarry that the Sentinels and adventurers were battling their way to the bottom of. According to the scouts the ritual circle had been created at the very bottom of the spiraling ramp that led into the quarry, so he sent most of the ash that way while also coating the area directly around him in a liberal amount. Meten didn¡¯t have the kind of precise control and direction over his ash like Kay did over blood, but he could easily change it¡¯s temperature so that the people it flowed over weren¡¯t hurt. A film of ash covered something floating in front of his face that he couldn¡¯t see and he instantly incinerated it. A keening shriek that was somehow off-key rang out as heat immolated the creature and Metne¡¯s spreading ash found more and more of them, swimming in circles around people¡¯s heads. They weren¡¯t attacking or doing anything obviously threatening, but his instincts told him they were dangerous and he¡¯d learned to trust his instincts. Blankets of ash constricted around the hundreds upon hundreds of invisible creatures and one by one they began to burn. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Adventurer¡¯s stopped to clutch at their heads and some even sank to their knees as Meten killed the things, but he didn¡¯t have a chance to luxuriate in being right. Hundreds, maybe even thousands more of the creatures began to fly int view from below. They were no longer invisible, Meten had no way to know if it was because they no longer felt it was useful or that these new enemies were somehow different, and they were disgusting to look at. Twisted, spiked fingers hung from fish-like bodies in the places of fins, with human-like vampyr heads hanging from jointed, lizard like necks. The monsters flew using clusters of insectile wings that created an annoying droning noise that spread over the entire quarry as a warm of them began diving down to attack. They were immediately met by a wall of ash accompanied by ranged attacks of all sorts from the adventurers, and the first swarm was obliterated. But the second wave came in equal numbers to the first and some got through. The monsters used their entire bodies as weapons, slamming into people at high speeds and either biting down with their fangs or stabbing at people with their finger-limbs. They died in droves as adventurers slashed and stabbed them away from their comrades. Even being knocked to the ground killed most of them, that¡¯s how weak they were, but more and more came at every moment. ¡°Damn. Is this what fighting Kay is like?¡± Meten mused as he made a series of runes in the air that sent out a shockwave that decimated multiple rising swarms and bought the adventurers some time to recover. ¡°Sir!¡± One of his Sentinel subordinates ran over to him. ¡°Please go ahead and take out whatever¡¯s sending these things at us! They¡¯re individually weak and we can deal with them without you, but not forever!¡± Meten had originally accepted the position of leader of the Sentinels as a way to garner influence for himself and his family that had become refugees into Kay¡¯s lands. Even if they were counted among the foremost settlers of the new nation, there was always more that could be done to cement their position. At least, that had been the plan before Amanda had truly unveiled herself to the world and shown what an amazing daughter he¡¯d raised. Now he kept the job because he liked what he did for the most part and liked the people he got to work with. He wasn¡¯t however, very good at making battle plans or organizing things, which is why he had made sure to recruit many talented subordinates. ¡°Are you sure?¡± He shouted over the droning hum. ¡°I am, sir! Take out the source and we¡¯ll be fine!¡± ¡°Very well!¡± He tapped one of his horns in an informal salute and ran straight into the thick of the enemy. He allowed as many of the vampyr-chimera-things to surround him as possible before triggering one of his most destructive Skills. Pyroclastic Stroke turned a seemingly endless amount of monsters into molten bits that rained from the sky and then Meten was past them on the way to his destination. He sprinted down the ramp that led deeper while destroying chunks of monsters, both the annoying flying ones and any other vampyr that was still in his way, all the while with a grin on his face. The painting that came out of this battle would be amazing! He decided to hand it up in Amanda¡¯s home, somewhere nice and obvious. What was waiting at the bottom of the quarry killed his grin. A lump of spongey looking material covered in honeycomb patterns spat out a continuous flow of the fish-bug monsters from small holes at the connection point between each honeycomb shape. Inside the faintly hexagonal shapes were massive compound eyes that had each segment filled with more eyes in a descending pattern that glittered ominously in the light. The eyes all snapped to him as he stepped foot at the bottom of the ramp and three spongey legs flopped to the ground from the bottom of the mass. It pushed itself off the ground, rising up and up until it loomed a hundred feet or more over Meten, still spewing monsters all the while. At the bottom of it a sphincter of sorts began to spread open and a long snake-like appendage emerged. Three pairs of razor sharp mandibles extended from an inflated end point that vaguely resembled a head with one giant human eye that stared at Meten without blinking. He wasn¡¯t actually sure if it could blink, there didn¡¯t appear to be any eyelids. The bottom section of the abomination lunged forward at Meten like a striking viper and he instantly responded with a wave of blazing ash extending from the upward sweep of his halberd. The red hot particles swept up the appendage emerging from the bottom of the bulky hive portion of the body and began burning the thing from the inside. Thousands of the flying monsters spouting from the hive screamed in pain and rage, voicing the feelings of their creator that seemed to have no voice. It reared back on two legs and the third slammed down into it¡¯s own snake-limb over and over until it was ripped from the main body. Meten was please with the early advantage he¡¯d secured until the dangling leftovers of the severed limb began to froth. Within moments two identical copied of the limb grew out form the original stump, each new eye staring at him with obvious rage. ¡°This might actually end up being a painting actually worth bragging about!¡± With a ferocious grin Meten of Avalon charged into battle against an abomination that tainted the world, trailing ash and budding runes made for destruction and war. Book 6 Chapter 40 Lines of soldiers crashed into an absolutely menacing of vampyr. Cindy wasn¡¯t at the other locations to check her assumptions, but if there weren¡¯t more vampyr here than any other ritual site she¡¯d be incredibly surprised. Formations were slammed backward as the forwards lines collided with the enemy and reinforcements raced to relieve them and take the pressure off. Quasi-elites raced from spot to spot and engaged with stronger vampyr that menaced squads and lines. Blades flashed as men and women worked together in synchrony to tear down the monstrosities that would ravage the world. It all felt like a scene out of a history book. Well, maybe a historical fantasy. Cindy didn¡¯t remember a time when she wasn¡¯t interested in history. People joked about how often men thought about the Roman Empire and Cindy always found that a bit sexist. She thought about the Roman Empire all the time too! History was like the perfect story, there was drama and intrigue, grand battles and heroic victories, and often the tales of men and women coming from nothing to remake the world entirely. Not only that but it was all true! To an extent, history is written by the winner and the people in power shape narratives to make themselves look better, but if you peeled back the bias and the skewing then you could find the real nuggets of truth hidden within the schist of cover ups and falsity. The main thing that Cindy loved about history though, were the battles. Last stands, desperate charges, decisive victories based on skill or luck, the long slog through campaigns, she loved reading and learning about all sorts of battles and wars. But by the time her age had rolled around war had become boring. Not in a real sense, she knew she hadn¡¯t been in battles or anything like that until she¡¯d arrived in Torotia so she¡¯d never wanted to say that the changes were bad in terms of saving lives and preventing catastrophes, but having most militaries be made up of mostly automated units was boring historically. There was nothing interesting in writing or learning about this force of robots and drones destroying this force of robots and drones and then one side surrendering because of the cost of robot parts. Again, she was totally on board for less true bloodshed, but it was boring. Some distant part of her longed for the days of Spartan warriors holding back a Persian army that massively outnumbered them, of a massive armada being defeated by a freak storm and the courageous sailors of the navy being attacked taking advantage, or of Napoleon¡¯s crushing victory at the Battle of Waterloo, only to have his dreams of empire destroyed by one wounded English soldier killing him with a final bullet. Conflict was a key part of human existence and taking that conflict and reducing it to a fight between people with joy sticks that would never see the emotions in each others eyes as they battled to the death felt like something was lost. Technology and the advancement of the Earth Cindy had come from was destroying the romance of what once was, and she didn¡¯t enjoy that. Smiling softly, she let that tiny romantic side of her have a moment of wistful whimsy before crushing it remorselessly. War sucked, any advantage that could be taken over the enemy should be taken, and any measure that could save lives while keeping victory in sight was worth taking. She would kill for a robot army with energy weapons and railguns at that moment. People, her people, were dying against monsters made from the corrupted essence of something from outside of her reality and if she could give them joysticks and drones to pilot she would in an instant. A boring, safe war was the best war possible outside of the fanciful and romantic, and it was her job to make this battle as boring as possible. ¡°Status on the guns?¡± She demanded of her aide. Gundar replied immediately, ¡°The field guns are loaded and ready. The trebuchets will be ready to fire momentarily.¡± ¡°Good.¡± She drew a pistol and brandished it at the enemy. ¡°Fire.¡± ¡°Fire!¡± Gundar bellow and an instant later a series of cacophonous booms rolled across the battlefield as the field guns fired as close together as they could. Cindy stared as shells landed among swarming vampyr and began exploding, sending out waves of shrapnel that scythed through monsters and created open fields of dead and wounded enemies among the milling tide of eldritch monstrosities. The System, whatever it¡¯s goals were, didn¡¯t want technology to advance beyond a certain limit. Testing the limits by giving complete amateurs with no connection to Outworlders the right base level of education to head in the direction of more advanced weapons and other technologies saw them still fail in the exact same way Cindy¡¯s people did, meaning it wasn¡¯t even a limit on Outworlder¡¯s mucking up the speed and direction of progress here on Torotia but a true hard cap to what could be developed. That wasn¡¯t going to even slow Cindy down though. Guns were allowed which meant explosive shells were easily achieved. Making their outer shells that erupted into shrapnel entirely out of Kay¡¯s blood made them even more deadly to the vampyr. The same could be said of the basic grenades that¡¯d been made and the case shot that the field guns had in case they got rushed. Cindy¡¯s goal was to make her new home¡¯s version of the military industrial complex the most advanced one on Torotia. None of the technological limits or immediate System related ones were going to stop her. Bullets couldn¡¯t be enchanted that well or that much because they were too small? Make them out of magical materials and skip the middle man. It was hard to increase the power of guns using Skills because the propulsion method wasn¡¯t based on mana-infused bodies? Get better alchemists and make better powder. The limitations didn¡¯t matter, all that mattered was being the best there was. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Trebuchets ready ma¡¯am.¡± ¡°Fire.¡± ¡°Fire!¡± Counterweights swung down and tensioned arms released, throwing dozens of barrels into the air. Cindy watched those fly too, waiting for them to arrive at the exact part of their arc that they needed to. Guided by Skilled Artillerists, the barrels all traveled their designated trajectories perfectly and then, as one exploded. Driven downward by the shaped explosives, which were incredibly difficult to make with the magical version of black powder, gallons upon gallons of liquid blood sourced directly from the vampire King of Avalon¡¯s veins rained down on the vampyr and they all began to melt. What Cindy was really wanting to watch were the ¡°special¡± barrels and the blood rain cleared enough monstrosities out of the way for her to see one. Unlike it¡¯s ¡°regular¡± brethren it had landed directly on a vampyr, crushing it. A few heartbeats passed and then it began to shake and hiss as the timed enchantments mixed with precisely calibrated devices began to operate. From the seams of the wood that the barrel was made of, red gas began to spread at a rapid pace. Every vampyr that ran into the gas immediately began screeching and tearing at their skin as aerosolized blood coated their bodies that were tainted with and warped by eldritch corruption. ¡°Two regular barrels and one special barrel misfired ma¡¯am.¡± Gundar reported. ¡°That¡¯s within specified tolerances.¡± ¡°Excellent. Fire plan one, then!¡± ¡°As you command.¡± He spun in place and began barking orders at her personal troops. ¡°Fire plan one! Fire plan one! Field guns, focus on targets of opportunity, trebuchets go to full speed. I want this battlefield coated in out damn king¡¯s blood!¡± ¡°Should I be threatened?¡± Cindy turned her head to see Kay had walked up next to her. His tone of voice was joking as he obviously got what Gundar was saying, but his eyes were stone cold. Cindy didn¡¯t say anything and after a long silence he glanced at her without moving his head. ¡°Chemical weapons?¡± ¡°Technically? No. That is one hundred percent pure blood, sourced directly from you. We did extra testing just in case, and it has no noticeable effect on anything but vampyr.¡± She pointed at a pool of red liquid left by one of the regular barrels where only the stupidest or least conscious vampyr still made their way through and started to die. ¡°It¡¯s exactly what you do, just a few steps removed.¡± ¡°But it could be used for chemical weapons.¡± ¡°It could be. How much you want to bet that there are even more horrific things than our worlds have ever seen out there in the hands of alchemists and mages?¡± ¡°¡­ Point.¡± She turned to face him head on and let him see how serious she was. ¡°I am completely aware of how things could go badly with the techniques and technologies I¡¯m introducing and inducing into this world. Just like I¡¯ve told you before, I am and will continue to do my utmost to make sure they are not abused.¡± He stared back at her, his expression equally solemn. Eventually he nodded. ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m quite lucky to have you at my side.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t start talking like some fantasy protagonist, you¡¯re from Arizona.¡± She quipped back at him. He cracked a smile at that. ¡°Ha. Thanks.¡± ¡°No problem. Your gorgeous sweetheart who¡¯s way out of your league isn¡¯t here so someone has to keep you in check.¡± They both turned back to watch the battle continue. With the help of Cindy¡¯s artillery batteries and the munitions they used the vampyr were getting wrecked at every point and the coalition army, which skewed toward¡¯s Avalon¡¯s forces since Kay wanted people he could truly trust backing him up, began pushing faster and faster toward the center of the ruined capital city of Nelam. Cindy mused that she still didn¡¯t know the name of the damn place, but let that go since even the ruins that were currently standing probably wouldn¡¯t be around at the end of this. She noticed Kay clenching his hands repeatedly as he stared. ¡°Save your strength.¡± She told him. She pointed with her chin at the marching soldiers when he glanced at her questioningly. ¡°You want to get in there and fight. Well you can¡¯t. We all need you to go into the fight with the vampyr leader at peak form.¡± ¡°Oh, I know.¡± He turned hungry eyes on to the not so distant form of what had once been Nelam¡¯s palace. ¡°Part of my totally wants to be in there making sure our people don¡¯t die. But you and everyone else have successfully beat it into my head that that isn¡¯t my role. I¡¯m just waiting to get my hands on whoever this vampyr leader is so I can end this.¡± Edric Ravenhome sprinted toward them and skid to a halt in front of them. ¡°The first few detachments have started to reach the ritual circle!¡± Kay formed his normal suit of armor around him and a halberd began to grow between his palms. ¡°Then we just need to-¡° ¡°Wait!¡± Ravenhome cut him off, shaking his head wildly. ¡°There¡¯s almost no resistance there. We managed to located a few of your saboteurs who said that the vampyr that seemed to be elite fighters all retreated into the palace. They¡¯re likely holeing up with their ¡®Great One¡¯ inside.¡± Kay stood still, staring at the palace for a long moment. Then he turned to look at Cindy. ¡°Duchess.¡± She bowed her head. ¡°Your Majesty.¡± ¡°You¡¯re in command. Wipe these abominations from the face of this planet and destroy that ritual circle.¡± ¡°As you will.¡± He shot her a cross eyes look at that response but didn¡¯t take the time to chastise her verbally, even when she smirked at him. Instead he just turned back to Edric. ¡°Commander, get your team. Meet me and my Blood Guard forward from here. If there¡¯s no elites at the circle for me to fight then there¡¯s no reason we can¡¯t assault the palace immediately.¡±