Spiteful Healer

Chapter 124: Fields No Longer

The party of five traveled with their new pets along the road over the next day, making a short pitstop in Orm before finishing their journey towards Rene. Along the way, Aegis and Pyri were sure to continue their unarmed combat training. Darkshot was so thankful for the news of having a dreamstate Simbox delivered that he thought it was time to start teaching them new, more advanced training poses, which the two quickly added into their strange walking-punching-kicking-posing movements.

When they finally arrived at the ledge overlooking the land, Aegis was blown away by what he saw. It was almost unrecognizable. The town square was surrounded by large shops and filled with market stalls. The eastern side was packed tightly with houses, some single story, some two story, and most with small gardens and farm fields around them. He knew right away just from looking that they had built slightly outside of his owned territory. The west, northwestern and northern areas were still open fields, leaving space around the training grounds and crafting halls for more buildings, but Aegis could see all of the crafting buildings fully in use.

The forge was puffing out smoke as various blacksmith NPCs and players hammered away on their crafts. The sawmill was spinning endlessly as they cut their logs into usable planks. People were going in and out of the tailoring hall, leatherworking hall, alchemy hall and scribe’s hall.

Most noticeable, however, was the large shop across from the giant tavern around the town square. The shop had the name ‘Yuki’s Threads’ hanging above the door, with a small group of players waiting eagerly to get inside. Aegis could see even from this distance that Yuki already had glass windows on the front wall with mannequins set up inside, displaying the fashion options she had shown Aegis back on the Airship.

Waiting for Aegis on the bridge, as if watching his stream in anticipation of his arrival, stood Ruffily, Tullan, Chax and Amlie. Once the four spotted Aegis’ party, they all looked up and waved excitedly with big smiles, and Aegis’ group looked down and smiled back. The group quickly rushed down the ramp and crossed the bridge to meet them.

“You’re back!” Amlie cheered excitedly at Rakkan. “Congratulations on your intermediate class, I watched you guys fighting in Kolz, it really suits you.”

“Thanks.” Rakkan smiled awkwardly at her.

“Come on, you have to check out what I did with the house, and the farm field!” She motioned Rakkan away excitedly and he followed her.

“Cya guys around.” Rakkan waved to the others and they gave him a nod as he left.

“Things look a lot different around here.” Aegis commented.

“Yup, woof!” Ruffily cheered with her wagging tail as she turned around and motioned to all of the buildings. “I am going for an intermediate builder class now, woof! I am having so much fun building here with all of the hard working Arallians. I hope that is okay, woof!” Ruffily said excitedly.

“No, that’s perfect, you’re doing a great job.” Aegis replied.

“We’re already pulling in decent profits due to the crafting goods the workers are producing. Ruffily constructed a granary and connected it to the public dining hall, and that’s been storing excess food we’ve traded for with Orm, thanks to Tullan. The rest has been going into the treasury funds. I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do with the gold, so I’ve been holding onto it for now.” Chax explained as he motioned to Tullan.

“Aye, and Josephine has been showin’ us the way to the Iron. Ye’ weren’t kiddin’ when you said it was a good place teh’ farm.” Tullan grinned. “Not teh mention yer forge is good stuff, we’ve been borrowin’ it to smelt the iron down before takin’ it back with us.” He motioned to the forge where Aegis could see a couple of the people using it currently were low level crafting players sporting the Night Hunter’s tabard.

“Good…” Aegis looked over the other crafting halls as they spoke. “I might need to use some of the crafting buildings sometimes though…” He added apprehensively.

“No problem, everyone here knows that if the Lord of Rene comes, he gets to use whatever he needs, no questions asked. Woof!” Ruffily smiled. “You could also buy some clothes from Yuki, her shop is amazing. Look!” Ruffily spun around to show off her stylish dark blue outfit with yellow stars of Eirene sewn into it. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“Yeah, it’s really nice. I need to pick some out too.” Pyri said excitedly as she and Lina eyed Ruffily’s outfit up and down with twinkling eyes.

“I’ll be gettin’ back to work, good seein’ ya again.” Tullan waved as he separated from the party, heading towards a market stall in the town square with the Night Hunters symbol on it.

“There’s a lot of other players here now.” Aegis commented as he followed Tullan with his eyes and saw the crowded players around the market stalls in the town square. It was interesting for Aegis to see the diverse mix of high and low leveled players standing around his fountain, not unlike the town square in Orm or Kordas.

“Yup. Since the Tavern was built, quite a few quests and bounties for the surrounding area started popping up. Eriskon and Josephine have done a good job managing them, and it’s been great for business.” Chax answered him.

“There’s a lot of requests for a portal site to get set up, but I didn’t want to start on that until you got back. Woof!” Ruffily added.

“A portal site, like a place where wizard players can open up portals, so they can teleport here?” Aegis confirmed.

“Yes. Tullan said once we’d built the base altar for it, he’d get one of the Night Hunter sages to enchant it for us. You’d have the option as land owner to disable and enable its usage, but otherwise it’d allow wizards to transport people quickly to Rene, it’d be great for business.” Chax explained.

“So you think it’s a good idea to build one?” Aegis looked at him.

“Yes. It has its security flaws, but its pros outweigh the cons. We don’t have many issues with thiefs, PKers or bandits in Kalmoore anyway. And worst case, you can just disable its usage. You’re pretty active and online often, so the chance of something happening and you not being on to change the portal status in your management menu is pretty low.” Chax reasoned.

“Okay, makes sense… We still need a barracks for the guards right?” Aegis asked as the six of them began walking forward through the city, taking in the scene around them. Aegis spotted a few of the Rene guards patrolling the streets wearing leather armor designed by Yuki.

“Yeah, that’d be good. The guards have their own homes, and the training grounds, but having a proper barracks and a jail would help things out. Woof!” Ruffily replied. “I also drew up some plans for constructing walls around the city to protect it, just in case. But we should wait until the land ranks up a bit more and you expand the territory before we decide where to build the walls.” Ruffily continued.

“Okay, that sounds good. Let’s build the barracks over there,” Aegis motioned beside the training grounds, “and once it’s completed, we can set up the portal altar beside it. Having it next to the barracks should discourage any wizard funny-business.” Aegis said and both Ruffily and Chax nodded.

“One problem with building more is, well… You explained to us that we couldn’t use any more stone from the ruined keep.” Chax motioned to the ruins on the north side of Rene. “Should I use the profits from the other trade goods to import high quality cut stone for the remaining constructions?”

“Yeah, do that for now. We’ll be sorting out the problem with those ruins soon, I think.” Aegis turned to Lina, Darkshot, and Pyri and they nodded at him.

“The boss, right? Woof!” Ruffily cheered. “Josephine told those of us on the council about it. So we made sure no one goes up the mountain besides Tullan, and he also knows about it too.” Ruffily said.

“So, they all know now, huh? Savika must’ve not liked that.” Aegis replied nervously while scratching the back of his head.

“She didn’t seem bothered, I think they all trust you to handle it.” Chax shrugged.

“Right…” Aegis mumbled to himself with uncertainty.

“Josephine also wanted to talk to you about a certain Drow NPC. Her name is Luryala, and she was trying to give out a quest that would send players below ground into the ruins to save her people, but Josephine convinced her to stop for now. She’s staying at the tavern, so you should probably go and talk to them about that.” Chax said as the group arrived at the town square. It became more difficult to communicate given the loud chatter of players all around them that were discussing trades or recruiting for parties.

“I never imagined Rene would look like this.” Aegis said in disbelief as he took it all in.

“Me either.” Lina added as she too looked quite amazed at what had become of it.

“You know what they say.” Pyri shrugged. ”If you build it, they will come.” She smiled and gently patted Aegis’ shoulder.

“Very true, woof! And you built it with good quality!” Ruffily cheered.

“Where’s Princess Savika now?” Aegis asked, and Chax motioned towards Yuki’s shop where a line had formed outside, very similar to how it’d been in Arallia. Aegis saw that standing out front, keeping watch over the line stood a level 55 Celestian, stoically attentive with his spear at his side.

“She’s been helping out Yuki as an apprentice tailor, in between managing her people’s needs, but the Arallian people haven’t had much to complain about, they’ve all been pretty busy and enthusiastic about rebuilding their lives here.” Chax explained.

“That’s good to hear.” Aegis nodded. “They look a little busy though, maybe we should talk to them later.” Aegis said apprehensively as he caught a glimpse of Yuki working on sewing something inside the shop through the front window. He saw her spinning around and casting her tailoring class skills with glows on her fingertips, smiling at Savika as Savika sat in a chair admiring her work.

As he watched her, he couldn’t help but recall their conversation on the airship, and her confession, and he still wasn’t quite sure how to act around her yet.

“You sure?” Chax asked him curiously.

“Yeah, we can catch up with them later. I’d like to head to the tavern first to talk to Erikson and Josephine about Luryala.” Aegis replied.

“I’m going to stop by the stables with Melon, should I take Snowflake with me?” Pyri asked as she motioned to the black mare and the gryphon following behind them, the latter of which was getting a lot of stares from nearby players and let out a squawk.

“Sure, he’ll need a place to get settled in.” Aegis nodded.

“I’ll come too, we can make a special gryphon resting spot just for him in the stables, woof!” Ruffily smiled, and with that, both Pyri and Ruffily headed off towards the Rene stables with Melon and Snowflake in tow.

“Ah, wait, I’ll come too. I need a special spot for Darkwing. He needs a special nest too!” Darkshot said urgently as he rushed after the two of them, Darkwing cooing excitedly on his shoulder.

Chax led Aegis and Lina into the tavern to see the interior for the first time. Aegis was blown away, thinking that just a few weeks ago this same spot was just a patch of grass. Now, it had a large bar on the far wall with a huge open floor, and a mezzanine on the right side. A staircase to the right of the door led up to the mezzanine, and there were doors and hallways leading further into the building where it looked like rooms for guests had been built.

Tables and chairs were scattered about and filled with many patrons holding wooden mugs, drinking and chatting it up. A bard player sat on a small stage on the right side of the tavern under the mezzanine playing a peaceful tune, but wasn’t getting much attention.

On the left wall of the tavern, flanked by two windows allowing sunlight in, sat a large bounty board. On it were dozens of parchments pinned to the board, some depicting images of scary looking monsters, others just written with plain text with titles like ‘WANTED’ or ‘HIRING’. A large number of players were spread out in front of the board and perusing its contents, being respectful of each other in giving enough space so that no one was blocking others from being able to read it.

Behind the bar taking orders, cleaning mugs and serving drinks, Aegis saw Erikson wearing a dirty apron with a great big grin on his face, talking cheerfully to a few patrons that sat at the bar. Aegis recognized that some of the players he was chatting with were other former White Flames members.

“It’s always pretty lively here, even though it’s only been in operation for about a week.” Chax said as he saw Lina and Aegis’ bewildered expressions. “I set up an arrangement with Erikson and Josephine so that 5% of their profits get added to the treasury. I think they’d be open to give more, but, I’ll leave that to you.”

“5% sounds fine, right?” Aegis asked Chax, and Chax shrugged. “It’s good for growth, which I assume is what you’re most interested in right now.” Chax replied.

“Yep, I guess. I mean, if we want to expand the territory we’re going to need a bigger population.” Aegis replied as the three walked through the tavern towards the bar and took seats. As they did, Erikson spotted them and broke off his conversation to approach.

“Aegis! You’re back! What do you think?” Eriskon said excitedly as he motioned to the tavern around them.

“This is pretty amazing. It’s just like the tavern I saw in Kordas.” Aegis said with an impressed look.

“I know, right? It’s not bad! This is so much more fun than being a guild leader and fighting off bandits all day. I do not envy those Night Hunters.” Erikson replied. “I can’t thank you enough for this opportunity, Josephine and Elric are also having a blast. We’re meeting all sorts of friendly and interesting players, and getting some interesting NPCs in here too.” Erikson motioned to the general vicinity of the tavern.

“Chax mentioned something about Luryala and Josephine?” Aegis asked him.

“Oh, right, yeah. The ‘you know what’, under the land.” He paused to nod at them suggestively. “Have a seat over there, order something if you’re hungry - I’ll let her know you're here and she’ll be out in a second.” Erikson said as he motioned to an empty table in the corner of the tavern, then began pressing buttons around in his interface. Aegis looked to Lina and Chax, and they shrugged, so they headed for the table and took a seat.

“The food is not bad. As Lord, if you need a place to level cooking, you can probably just hop in the kitchen and help out. Honestly, I’m jealous, you’ve got so many opportunities to level all of your crafting skills in a land like this.” Chax said as he sat across from Aegis, Lina sitting in a chair between the two which she pulled a bit closer to Aegis. “Though I guess I shouldn’t complain.” He motioned up to his level on display above his head with a smile, showing that he was now level 63.

“It’s just the issue of time.” Aegis replied as he opened up a menu on the table, it didn’t have much on it in the way of food or drink to choose from though. “Even with opening work projects, it’s hard to decide on what to improve next. Blacksmithing, cooking, architecture… or should we just go and level up.” Aegis pondered out loud.

“Do you know if you will need all of the same skills leveled up for your advanced class, as you did your intermediate?” Lina asked him curiously.

“No idea… I only know that I’ll need to find the Silver dragons.” Aegis sighed. “No clue where to start with that. You two wouldn’t happen to have any information about silver dragons, would you?” Aegis looked at Chax and Lina hopefully.

“Nope, hadn’t heard of them before your Hrath’mir quest. I can try and look into it though, barter for information, ect.” Chax shrugged.

“That’d be a good start.” Aegis replied hopefully as he leaned back in his chair and looked around the tavern. He began pondering on what his next steps were going to be to keep getting stronger. Even with his strong experience bonuses, he still had a long way to reach his goal - Makaroth was already above level 150. And not just Makaroth, over the last few weeks, notifications had been popping up from multiple players that had been reaching advanced classes for the first time. It was slowly becoming more and more common, and less surprising to see the notifications.

“We’ve got decent leather armor now, but iron is still just iron.” Aegis looked at the hilts of Lina’s dagger on her belt, as his shield was currently unequipped.

“Your iron is really good quality though.” Lina tried to encourage him with a smile, but as she did the tavern doors suddenly burst open. A player rushed inside and drew all eyes on himself while the sound of a loud bell could be heard ringing from outside in the distance.

“They’re coming, with an army!” The player shouted out urgently, causing all players in the tavern to turn and look at him in surprise. The player shouting out had the name [Quiver - Level ??] above his head. He had short wavy brown hair and a brown goatee. A human player with a muscular build wearing high level black leather armor and a very expensive looking bow over his shoulder, and a Blades of Kalmoore tabard overtop of his armor. Josephine and Luryala, who Aegis spotted across the tavern heading towards them, both stopped walking to look between Aegis and this player as the bard stopped playing music and the tavern fell silent.

“Who is coming with an army?” Aegis asked him as he, Lina and Chax all stood up, and Erikson stepped forward from behind the bar.

“Gnolls, from the west. I was scouting the area for dungeons when I spotted them.” He replied urgently, and thanks to the quiet, Aegis could now discern that the ringing bell was coming from the belltower in the monastery of the stars that he’d built up on the mountain. Aegis quickly rushed out of the tavern into the town square where he saw many players looking around confused, unsure of what the ringing bell meant, whilst Lina, Chax, and then most of the other occupants of the tavern all flooded out of the building behind him.

The mountain and land around the monastery to the north was clear of any gnolls. Despite it being evening now and the sun setting, it was still easy to see the surrounding lands around the mountain above their eye level, but there were too many players around to see anything clearly in the surrounding fields.

“Smokebomb,” Lina shot it up at the roof of the tavern. Once it exploded she shadowstepped into the smoke on the roof to get a better view of the surrounding area. “Aegis, he’s not lying, they’re coming from the west.” Lina shouted down to him, and all of the other nearby players listened in, looking up at her worriedly.

“How many?” Aegis asked her as he started pushing his way westward through the crowd.

“A lot…” Lina looked down into Aegis' eyes worriedly. Aegis glanced around to see if he could spot his companions in the crowds of players in the town square, instead he spotted Yuki and Savika as they stepped out of her shop to look back at Aegis worriedly.

“What should we do?” Celestian asked Princess Savika, and Aegis saw that several of the Arallian NPCs were turning their attention to her as Yuki shielded her from them.

“We do not need to worry, because the Lord of Rene has returned. It is lucky he came back just in time.” Savika smiled at him, turning attention onto Aegis - not just the NPCs but the players as well began looking at him expectantly.

“Yeah… lucky…” Aegis said with suspicion as he glanced around the crowd of players.