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  I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘Thanks for the tip. I’ll add it to my to-do list. Mages want libraries, warriors want armouries, priests want churches, shaman want, I dunno, dirt or something, and hunters want kennels.’

  I hadn’t meant to come off as quite that big of a dick, but this was easily the heaviest conversation of my life. It certainly beat my previous major concerns with Daniel of “I stayed up too late modding my home zone, so what lie should I tell the edubot?”.

  The hunter bowed and turned away. ‘Come, boy.’

  The dog didn’t move, enraptured as it was by Bri’s thorough head pats.

  The hunter made it to half way through the inn before he realised something was wrong. He turned to find his dog unmoving.

  ‘Heel,’ he commanded.

  Still, Bri stroked the placid dog. I half turned to get a better look at the hunter, and I saw his face twist into a mask of anger.

  ‘How dare you!’ he shouted at Bri.

  ‘He snarled at a Geeko. I just calmed him down, relax.’ Then she muttered just so the table could hear her. ‘Maybe I need to cast it on him too.’

  The hunter looked to me. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to step in here?’

  I looked at my naterry. How out of it was I? I was totally lost.

  ‘Not to worry, citizen. I’ll handle this.’ I turned to Bri. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I used Charm Nature on the dog. But you know how I’m incredibly powerful, obviously, and it seems I did more than just calm the animal down. I seem to have mind controlled it to the point it is ignoring the natural bond from its handler.’

  Ixly added, ‘Rather the faux pas among hunters, if you couldn’t guess.’

  I wanted to ask why the translator missed “faux pas” but had more pressing concerns.

  ‘Bri. Undo it!’

  I heard an arrow being knocked behind me and turned to see the, now completely enraged, hunter doing just that. A testament to the game’s sound design.

  ‘Briar of Bark! You will release my companion at once, or I will defeat you.’

  Oh no. He had to phrase it like a challenge, didn’t he. He couldn’t have said “I will open fire” or “I will free him”. No. He challenged her power.

  ‘Bri,’ I said, putting as much sternness into my voice as possible. ‘Bri, there will not be a fight between my villagers inside this inn. Do you understand? No fighting.’

  Her hand now glowed green where she touched the dog. She was casting the spell over and over.

  She ignored me. ‘You think you can beat me, hunter?’

  ‘I think you have no defences up, and this arrow will pierce your heart before you can act.’

  ‘Big words for someone that can’t keep control of his dog.’

  ‘Bri, that retort doesn’t even make sense. Come on. Dispel the charm and apologise.’

  ‘I don’t need words. I’ve got an arrow pointed at your heart. Are you stupid?’ snarled the hunter.

  ‘This doesn’t matter, Bri,’ I said. ‘Think long term. Think of what not having you in the fight commanding your followers, will mean for Thanis.’

  That got her attention. Her eyes flicked to mine

  ‘Yes, that’s right. We can’t lose you now to some silly challenge.’

  Horace had my back and quickly added, ‘Even though you are clearly the superior fighter, luck always has a roll of the dice.’

  ‘We also can’t chase away newcomers to the village. We need everyone.’

  The green faded from her hand, and the dog gave a little whine before it growled. It didn’t know at what, but it could see its master was ready to attack, as the natural bond between them returned.

  Bri got to her feet, swayed a respectable amount thanks to the naterry, and moved towards the hunter whose bow was still up. ‘Good hunter, sir. It was not my intention to charm your companion. I sometimes forget just how much of a prodigy I truly am. I would like to offer both of you full access to any services my grove can provide. I think you’ll find the root caverns to be far superior to this inn. Free of charge, of course.’

  Okay, she managed to work a boast into her apology, and I had no idea that she had a network of root caverns beneath her quarter, but all in all, not too bad. Luckily, the hunter agreed and lowered his bow.

  Ego set aside, crisis averted, Bri sat back down.

  The earlier melancholy dispelled by the sudden tension, Bri said. ‘Pfft, hunters, am I right?’

  ‘Totally. So, you can charm animals?’

  ‘I’m a druid, what did you expect?’

  ‘Not all animals,’ Ixly said. ‘That Charm Nature. The default state of most creatures makes them count as nature, but if they were attuned to an element, then they wouldn’t be charmable.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks big guy. Not all animals. I can only charm, like, ninety five percent of animals.’

  I thought about that for a moment. ‘It wouldn’t work against my summonable pet, right? Because that’s shadow magic.’

  ‘Nope. All spells have an attunement. That’s how they work out resistances, so if I were using a damage shield, as all of my spells are nature, if someone attacked me with a nature attack, then it would hardly damage the shield. But if they used fire, it would do double damage.’

  ‘Almost,’ Ixly said. ‘Each element has one other element that it’s weak against and will take double damage from, and they also have one element they they are strong against and will take half damage from. And like equals like. A Fireball won’t damage a fire shield at all.’

  Bri gave him a death stare, her ego no longer in check. She spat out a venomous agreement. ‘Right.’

  ‘And physical damage…?’

  ‘Doesn’t work the same way as the magic system,’ Ixly said. ‘They tried to keep that as realistic as possible. That’s why a single spear thrust can kill.’

  ‘Yeah, but they also gave every class a magical damage shield to counteract that. Part of their idea to keep real world physics for immersion but add magic to it.’

  I knew about the one hit kill potential from when Koif had taught me in the tutorial, of course, and the different magical elements having strengths and weaknesses made sense. I wasn’t sure how I could use any of this information to fight off an entire army of glitchy monsters, though.

  Chapter 29: A Hunch

  We left the inn, and Horace went off to do whatever it was he did. Organise stuff. Write contracts. I wasn’t really sure.

  We’d continued talking and planned out the next phase of Operation “don’t get infested by The Eastern Empire, game glitch bugs, or light parasites”. The time of the great looting was upon us. The Lootening!

  The three of us would head into the dead wood and do battle with the undead. Horace had given us a set of directions centered entirely around trees that looked like different things. Left at the crow tree. Right at the badger tree. If you reach the phallic tree, you’ve gone too far and Freud would like a word because it’s just a tree, stop projecting. That kind of thing.

  Before that, we needed to set our followers to strengthening the village defences. With all three of our forces pulling together, they should be able to make short work of building a few walls.

  As we crossed my still sparse, barren ground half of the village, the Geeko that wore a pointy little hat burst from Ixly’s swamp and headed our way, a wispy trail of white arcane silver trailing behind him.

  A series of clicks, hisses, and slurping sounds later, Ixly turned to relay the message.

  ‘He has finished identifying the minor shadow gems. They are very strange, and he isn’t really entirely sure what to make of them. They’re unique, he says. They are containers.’

  ‘Containers?’ I asked. ‘As in, like bags of holding? Pocket dimensions allowing us to hold endless loot? That could be useful.’

  ‘No. They can hold magic.’

  The Geeko righted his pointy hat and clicked some more.

  ‘Infused. He says that infusing them with magic makes m
ore sense.’

  ‘Okay. So they can be infused with magic, and socketed into our spells in the Spell Crafting menu? And what effect will that have?’

  Ixly looked at the Geeko who shrugged. Ixly turned back to me and translated the shrug with a shrug of his own.

  ‘We’ll put that on the list of things to look into. But first, defences.’

  In Overseer mode, I took a look at what needed to be done. Number one issue was definitely the walls. Right now,we had a pretty flimsy looking twig fence. About as defendable as a wet paper bag – famously extinct now due to the lack of trees left in the real world. My Altar also needed an improvement. Bri had an underground root network, a giant awesome looking tree as her Altar. Ixly had a temple made of white marble. I had a poorly kept patch of dirt on the floor. It just wouldn’t do. It was only a small project, and it wouldn’t take more than a worker or two to get it done. We could spare the resources. And even if we couldn’t, I’d be sure never to mention that it was my vanity that caused our walls to not be built in time.

  I browsed through the “walls” section of my building tab. Right at the top, there were arcane, magical walls, that could be shaped on the fly. It required a crazy amount of mana, and resources I’d never even heard of. Below that, there were metal walls of various thicknesses and materials. Couldn’t get any of them. Next we came to stone – a bit more realistic for my budget. The magically formed stone was a no go. We didn’t have enough metal for any sort of defences or spiked ornamentation. We didn’t have enough time to build a shaped stone wall, as every block had to be hand carved into a uniform shape. What I could afford was a natural stone wall. Not enough resources to add anything fancy like watchtowers, but I could go four metres high and have crenelations for my ranged units to hide behind. Ooh, I could even have steps so we didn’t need to climb up the walls to man them. Good stuff.

  I sketched out what I wanted. The original fence had been built as far out as I could make it, and was almost in the tree line. I kept that where it was, because it would take time to demolish it, and I didn't need the wood as a resource. I built the stone wall fifty metres in from that tree line, and made it square. I didn’t want the enemy constantly line-of-sighting my units because of the shape.

  I hit build and… an error message popped up.

  “Resource negotiation required with tenants.”

  I had the required resources within range to build the wall I wanted. But they had a little padlock by the number.

  I found Horace, diligently standing guard by my hut.

  ‘Horace.’ He fell to his knees and praised me as the one true dark lord. ‘No, no, come on now, get up. We’ve just had a lot of character development. No need to fall back on scripted interactions.’

  He got to his feet and brushed his robe off. ‘Sorry, master. Old habits. How may I serve you, oh great one?’

  ‘Resources. It’s showing that I have enough resources in range to build what I want, but they seem to be locked away. What does that mean?’

  ‘I am but a lowly follower NPC, master, not a great construct and so my knowledge is limited. However, if this lowly worm were forced to make a guess to the Eyes, then it would be that the resources you require are owned by someone else. Most likely, the ones you call Bri and Ixly.’

  ‘That makes sense. All the stone I’ve seen in the area is on their land. But what about the inn? I managed to build that without needing to talk to them?’

  Horace bowed. ‘They pay you a monthly material tithe for the use of your land, master, as stipulated in the contracts they signed.’

  ‘Even in the face of having the village almost wiped out, you negotiated favourable rent?’

  ‘Indeed, master.’

  ‘Nice. Go rouse the troops, Horace. My hut doesn’t need guarding. Deliver a sermon or three. A happiness boost, although not really needed now as everyone is well above sixty percent, could prove invaluable during the siege.’

  Horace grovelled and went on his preaching way.

  I scrolled around until I saw a figure moving with imperial grace, poise, and purpose and leaving a slight trail of damp. I selected Bri, zooming my view onto her.

  She stopped moving, and her shoulders shot up to her ears. ‘What. The. Shit.’

  Oh dear. ‘Hi, Bri.’

  Her head snapped to look at my viewpoint. She shuddered, but slowly relaxed. ‘Have you ever been walking home alone, in the dark, and swear someone just turned down the same dark alley as you, but when you look, no one’s there?’

  ‘No, but I can imagine.’

  ‘Yes, well. That is how having you view me feels like. Like no one is there, but at the same time, you know they are. Creepy.’

  Oh hey. The first time a girl called me creepy. A real life milestone there.

  ‘I wanted to talk about your assets,’ I started.

  ‘Hey, how about you–’

  ‘Resources! I meant your resources, sorry. You seem to have a lot of stone under your control, and we need it for the defences. Would you mind donating them to the war effort?’

  She took a moment to compose herself. ‘Hmm. I suppose I could lend a portion of my resources to the defence of Thanis. For a small fee.’

  I rolled my eyes, which she couldn’t see because I was a disembodied viewpoint. ‘What’s your price?’

  She tapped her finger against her pursed lips. ‘Ten percent interest on the return of my materials.’

  I’d expected a lot worse. ‘Sure, sounds go–’

  ‘And I want gold. I want fifty percent of all the proceeds from the road income.’

  ‘Fifty percent?! That’s insane! You already get to keep eighty percent of what they spend on your land, now you want half of what they spend on my land?’

  She waved a hand dismissively, as if such things as facts were beneath her. Just when I thought we’d made progress, and learned about each other. She was still who she was.

  ‘I’ll give you ten percent of the profit. Not the net. For one year.’

  ‘Deal.’ She smiled happily.

  Damn it. She highballed me! Negotiations might not be my thing. I’d bring Horace to my chat with Ixly.

  I searched for Horace, but he’d already started a congregation, and their happiness levels were slowly ticking up. Didn’t want to break that up.

  I found Ixly, and he was near one of my cultists that was relaxing under a tree, doing a bit of gardening, digging around at its roots. I decided to use him, and it turned out to be Teint, the cultist from the gate guard, and the tree he was resting under was She Who Slays.

  ‘Hey guys.’

  Teint jumped up and moved away from She Who Slays. ‘Master! I didn’t feel you there. How long had you been watching?’

  ‘I just saw you and needed your help. Do you have a minute?’

  He was bent over a little bit. ‘Of course, master. What do you desire.’

  I looked to She Who Slays, who was slowly shuffling away, covering her trunk with her branches. Odd.

  ‘I’ll be honest, Teint, I just got thoroughly wrecked by Bri in a negotiation, and I need some mental backup. Ixly is smart, and I need a pedantic, lawyery mind.’

  ‘I live to serve. A small request however, master. Would it be at all possible to bring him to me? If not, I may need a minute. To, umm, prepare my thoughts.’

  ‘Yeah, no problem. I picked you as you were close to Ixly, so just a second.’

  I fetched Ixly. He had his two, ever present honour guard with him, but I wasn’t worried about the mental weight they’d bring to bear in this confrontation.

  He nodded politely to Teint. ‘Now, Severo, what is it I can help you with.’

  ‘Thank you for coming, Ixly. I’m ready to negotiate, and it will take as long as it takes for us to find a solution that benefits not only us, but Thanis too.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Very well. What is it you wish to negotiate for?’

  ‘Resources.’

  ‘They’re yours.’

  Not qu
ite the response I was braced for after Bri.

  ‘Umm, pardon?’

  ‘Anything on my land is free for you to use as you see fit. I trust you to be fair.’

  ‘I mean. Don’t you want anything?’

  Teint whispered. ‘Master, it’s a good deal. I’d counsel taking it.’

  ‘We must pull together to defend our lives in this game. Count my resources as your own.’

  ‘Well. Good negotiating, Ixly. Thanks.’

  I set the wall to build, and followers of all types darted off to start chopping trees, and mining stone. They all got a little happiness boost. Interesting. I guessed they’d get a boost from having one or two orders a day, but would lose happiness if they were told to do too much.

  I looked through the possible Altars. Much like the walls and buildings, I could set a quality level, and then an aesthetic within that. I went for a stone quality, and a suitably dark aesthetic. I stayed away from skulls. Too necromancer-like. I added plenty of glowy swirly bits, demonic gargoyles, and a throne of… oh, nope, didn’t have the mana for that– no throne that is actually a demon, yet.

  I had plenty of resources left over, but I wasn’t sure what to build next. Nothing else was mandatory, but whatever I built would give Thanis multiple benefits. For example, a firing range would allow everyone to level up their ranged weapons, and would spawn more archers on the road. Certainly, now that the walls were being built, ranged units were what I needed. An archery range, then.

  And yet… things started falling into place. A hunch, more than anything. My warlock on the character creation screen had a demon by its side. The hunter I was shown before had a wolf by his. So the mechanics must…

  I selected the companion housing tab. Calling it a kennel was just a theme. It could also be a stable, or a roost, hatchery, den, whatever. I checked the differences in quality level, and the higher the quality I built, the faster companions regenerated and gained experience, and they would be happier too.

  I checked out the crude metal quality. I could build a single tile at the crude metal level. I placed it down, half way between my Altar and the entrance to Thanis. It definitely looked a step above any other building I had placed yet. I’d gone with the stable theme, because hey, maybe I’d want to use it as a stable some day, and it’s not like something smaller couldn’t go in if needed. It was a series of wood, stone, and metal, chipped, hammered, bent, and roped together to create what was part art deco monstrosity, part functional and defendable home. It was a bastion in its own right. It was Brutalist.