The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds Book 1)

CHAPTER 13

The sky began to lighten with colors of peach and amber. Sion and Richter once again stood at the boundaries of the meadow containing the Hearth Tree. “Once you return to your village, make your way due west. After several weeks of travel you should reach the boundary of the forest. There, you will find a road. The other travelers you meet can direct you to the city of Law. Be careful! There are many dangers in the forest. We are on the Northern side and there shouldn’t be any organized tribes between here and Yves, but sometimes the southern tribes send hunting parties up. They are not as kind as we are.” Turning to Sion, Hisako placed a cupped hand to his face. “Come back to us safely my son.”

Closing his eyes, he bowed his head, “Yes mother.”

Led by two sprites, a pair of ponies with saddle bags were brought to them. Checking the bags, they were filled with food stuffs and other useful tools including more Sprite Arrows of Nature. It was a welcome sight because they had only been able to recover a few after the fight with the goblins. Thanking Hisako a final time, they mounted the ponies and moved off into the forest. Riding in silence for the first ten minutes, Richter then looked to Sion asking, “So you’re a prince, huh?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sion replied curtly without turning his head.

Chuckling under his breath, Richter replied, “Whatever you say your highness,” and rode on next to his friend.

It took three days to get back to village. Each night they scouted for herbs, and Sion began to teach him the rudiments of potion making. The tools that Sion used were too small to be of practical use for Richter, but he did still obtain the Alchemy skill by assisting Sion. Unfortunately, knowledge was not enough to increase his skill level though, as he did not advance further than level one with 0% towards the next level.

The peace of the ride also let him focus upon an area he had been ignoring, his point allocation. He did not want everything randomly allocated and it had been almost a week since he had reached level 4. Based upon the battles he had fought so far, he would not last long in a stand up fight. Each kill he had made had been greatly aided by either surprise or poison already weakening his enemies. The large damage that just the edge of the bear’s strike had caused worried him. It was clear he needed more health. At the same time though, the power of both his Imbue Arrow and Focus skills meant his stamina and mana also needed to be higher. It served his playing style better to be well rounded anyway. He examined each characteristic carefully.

Strength – Improves damage with melee weapons or thrown weapons. Each point increases carrying capacity by 10 kg. Affects anything that requires brawn, i.e. climbing, wrestling, and intimidation. Other unknown effects to be discovered.

Agility – Improves accuracy with ranged or thrown weapons. Determines movement speed. Determines dodge. Determines balance. Affects ability to move without being detected. Other unknown effects to be discovered.

Dexterity – Determines attack speed. Improves damage with ranged weapons. Improves reflexes. Improves accuracy of melee weapons. Other unknown effects to be discovered.

Constitution – Determines Health. Each point increases Health by 10 points. Affects resistance to poison, illness, extreme temp, etc. Affects stamina regeneration. Other unknown effects to be discovered.

Endurance – Determines stamina. Each point increases Stamina by 10 points. Affects ability to perform physical exertions at peak efficiency. Other unknown effects to be discovered.

Intelligence – Determines mana. Each point increases Mana by 10 points. Affects resistance to mental attacks. Affects effectiveness of certain skills. Reasoning improved. Other unknown effects to be discovered.

Wisdom – Determines mana regeneration. Affects magical resistance. Determines perception. Other unknown effects to be discovered.

Charisma – Determines the likelihood others will like you or want to interact with you. A higher score may open certain quests that would otherwise be locked. Other unknown effects to be discovered.

Luck – It will affect you in a million different ways… or not. But as the man said, “I’d rather be lucky than dead.”

Each description was helpful save the last. Of course every game he had ever played had a crappy description for luck.

He had twenty four points to invest. He could definitely see the bonus from being a Chaos seed coming in handy. He would theoretically be 50% more powerful than other humans at an analogous level. He decided to invest half of his points equally into Constitution, Endurance and Intelligence, raising Health, Mana and Stamina by forty points each.

As his character seemed based on range attacks and speed, at least for now, he decided to forgo strength. Agility had already been increased. Though it pained him to put points in a “soft” area like Charisma, it was clear he could not look at his current situation as if he was playing a simple RPG. This was his life now. His upcoming interaction with a whole city meant that interpersonal interactions were going to be important. Also the advice of the hearth mother to make a community was something he took seriously. The comedy of having a four foot tall older woman dictating his life wasn’t anything new, his own mother was five feet of feisty fury.

Hating every moment of the decision, he invested six points in Charisma. Choosing yes on the final ‘are you sure’ prompt, he felt like he had just sacrificed six children! He also invested four points in luck, because… hey, what self-respecting southerner couldn’t win a hand of Texas Hold’em. At that thought, he made a mental note to invent Texas Hold’em. He was sure he could make a fortune cleaning out the medieval rubes that seemed to live around here. He put his final two points in Dexterity to get a bit more attack damage out of his archery.

In addition to the points from his leveling, his exertions during his quest to cleanse the forest had given him +2 Endurance, +1 Strength, +3 Dexterity. Looking at his character, he decided that despite his low level he liked how he was rounding out.

Name: Richter

Age: 24

Level: 6, 15%

Health: 140 Mana: 140 Stamina: 160

Strength: 11

Agility: 17

Dexterity: 26

Constitution: 14

Endurance: 16

Intelligence: 14

Wisdom: 10

Charisma: 16

Luck: 14

Abilities:

Limitless

Gift of Tongues

Skills:

Herb Lore Lvl 2; 81% to next level, 100% affinity

Alchemy Lvl 1; 0% to next level, 100% affinity

Analyze Lvl 1; 5% to next level, 100% affinity

Stealth Lvl 3; 44% to next level, 100% affinity

Archery Lvl 4; 23% to next level, 100% affinity

Imbue Arrow Lvl 1; 43% to next level, 100% affinity

Focus Lvl 1; 0% to next level, 100% affinity

Swordsmanship Lvl 1; 28% to next level, 100% affinity

Small Blades Lvl 1; 0% to next level, 100% affinity

Light Armor Lvl 2; 21% to next level, 100% affinity

Marks:

Master of Mist Village

Resistances:

Mental 15%

Spiritual 15%

Race: Human (Chaos Seed)

Reputation: Lvl 1 “Who are you again?”

Alignment: Neutral

Language: All

The last thing he had to decide was where to put the proficiencies. He had a total of 100% to increase any skill, in groupings of 25%. His strongest asset was now Imbue Arrow making it an easy decision. He placed all 100% into the skill and was shown the prompt.

Congratulations! You have reached skill level 2 in Imbue Arrow. +5% damage. +5% speed of mana flow.

One curious thing was that both his Focus and Imbue Arrow skills was offset on his status page. He had seen the same thing, when examining Sion’s status. Now that he was thinking about it, Richter remembered that both had been called ‘subskills.’ Asking the sprite about it, the explanation was fairly simple. Subskills were dependent on another main skill. As such increasing the subskill would increase the main skill slightly, but the subskill could never be of a higher level than the main skill. Richter nodded in understanding, and they rode on.

Midday on the third day after leaving the Hearth Tree, they arrived back at the Mist Village. The trip was much faster now that they knew exactly where they were going. As they came upon the ruins he was now the Master of, Richter chuckled silently thinking, could my life BE any more manga? He was pleasantly surprised however, upon his first sight of the village. A trench lined the outside of the ruined wall, six feet wide and six feet deep. The dirt from the trench had been lined up and packed on top of the stone remnants creating a four foot earthen wall. Hard packed dirt led across the trench in one area, leading to a break in the crumpled wall. Outside the trench, there were stacks of chopped down trees with the branches cut off and piled to the side. Three piles of stone were also present, delineated by size, presumably the loose rocks from inside the wall. All of the bodies had of course been removed, but even the stone had been scrubbed clean of some of the black blood stains. Only a trace of the previous foul odor remained. What was before him now was a plateau of grass pockmarked with freshly turned earth where the trees had been cut down and then the stumps removed. True to his instruction, Futen appeared several feet away, and glided to a stop in front of him.

“Welcome back, my Lord.”

Richter smiled, “You’ve done well Futen. How is our village?”

“We have had some exciting developments in the last week, my Lord,” the remnant said. The content of his message contrasted sharply with his emotionless tone. “Though we cannot erect external buildings as I stated, we have collected raw resources as you can see. I have also explored the floor where you claimed Mastery of the village. I have found several useful rooms. If you will come with me sir.”

Futen began gliding away at the speed of a normal walk. Climbing the hill to the cave entrance, Richter and Sion followed it inside. Grey lights cast a gentle glow over the tunnel. Periodically placed along the top of the hallway, globes of slowing mist could be seen.

“Where did these come from,” Richter asked.

“They are one of the improvements open to you my lord. The mana requirement for the mist lights is negligible. Once cast, they last for a year at a time, so I took the liberty.”

The tunnel opened into the chamber of their grand fight. The ceiling arched above their heads, this time illuminated by mist globes clearly showing vaulted ceilings. The blood had been cleaned from the floors along with much of the grime. A massive mosaic could now be seen in the floor consisting of four separate spirals that met in the middle. Each spiral was a different color. One spiral was gold and the opposing spiral black. The other two were blue and clear respectively. The center of the mosaic was a dark gray diamond. Opposite from where they entered the room, a staircase could be seen leading downward. The other entrances were also well lit.

“On this floor is a meeting hall, larder, storage room, armory, barracks and treasury, and several other empty rooms. The stairway leads to the first floor of the catacombs.”

Richter had been walking around the mosaic examining it. He nodded along as Futen spoke, but looked up sharply at the last. Treasury did you say? Realizing he had not asked aloud, most likely because his mouth had started watering, he tried again.

“Treasury did you say?”

“Yes my lord, I was going to show you that…”

“Let’s go now,” Richter said cutting the remnant off.

The remnant changed direction, gliding to a hallway on the left. At the end the hallway was a solid door. It appeared to be made of a steel with dusky black swirls set in the metal with a clear circle of glass set at head height.

“What is it made of?”

“This is Titan steel. Not harder and heavier than mithril.”

“Well open it Futen.”

“I cannot my Lord.”

“You said you had exciting news.”

“Yes, my Lord. The news is that I had found the treasury.”

Richter glared at the floating grey orb. The orb just floated impervious to his stare.

“It would be a lot more exciting if you could open the door!”

“That is why I was going to leave this door until the tour,” Futen said.

Fighting the urge to create a neck for the orb so he could strangle it, Richter said, “Are you telling me that I have a treasury but I can’t get into it?!”

“No, my Lord.”

Richter glared at the orb again, waiting for it to say more. He stared at it until he realized the futility of having a staring contest with an eyeless orb. Meanwhile Sion had fallen to the floor rolling on his back laughing. Transferring his stare to the sprite, it seemed to have about as much effect as it had on the orb.

“Then how do I get in!” His voice was nearly a shout.

“Oh, simply hold your Mark in front of the clear circle on the door, my Lord.”

“Why didn’t you tell me at first?”

“I was going to cover it during the tour, my Lord.”

One eye starting to twitch, Richter said, “If I ever find out that you’re messing with me, I will find a way to turn you pink!”

“Of course, my Lord,” the remnant replied in his almost deadpan voice.

Walking up to the door, Richter raised his left arm and held his Mark up to the glass circle. A soft voice spoke inside of his mind, “Do you wish the door to open Master?”

“Yes.”

“As you wish.”

A sound came from behind the door like the withdrawing of bolts. It then swung open, and Richter was greeted by the sight of an octagonal room with shelves lining the walls. Empty shelves. Sighing heavily, he swallowed the greedy lump in his throat, and moved into the room. As he stepped in, he realized that the shelves were not completely empty. Three small items were carefully positioned against the right side of the room, near the door. He hadn’t been able to see them until he was inside the room. Moving to the first item he opened it, and a mix of copper, silver and gold coins greeted his gaze. Even though the chest was only the size of a loaf of bread, there were hundreds of coins inside. There had to be dozens of gold coins present which were worth a hundred dollars each by themselves! Doing a little internal jig, he moved to the second chest. It held a scattering of gems which might be worth more than even the coins. Yup! His mouth was definitely watering now. Almost unable to tear his eyes from the second chest he moved on. The third item was a book. Picking it up, he attempted to read it, but the words swam in his vision. Examining the prompt associated with it,

You have found: Magic book

Groaning in frustration, Richter said, “Futen, identify this.”

The orb flared, and Richter looked again.

You have found: Book of Charm. You can convince an enemy that they are your friend. In battle they will fight for you. Casting this upon a creature lowers their regard for you after the spell wears off. Requirements: Intelligence 16, Charisma 18

Definitely a useful spell! Plenty of melee battles in games that Richter had played had been won by taking control of enemy units and making them fight each other. Turn your enemy’s strengths against them! He was pretty sure he had heard that in a Tarantino movie. It was a shame that he hadn’t met the requirement level yet. It was certainly a priority though! It also showed that Charisma was more versatile than he initially thought.

Despite the somewhat threadbare status of the treasury, this was certainly a start! Putting the book in his pack, he then picked up both chests carrying them under his arms. Leaving the treasury, he walked back to the center of the chamber. As he walked away from the octagonal room, he heard the door closing with a solid boom and the locks snapping back into place. Laying both chests down in the central chamber, Richter asked Futen, “What else should I know?”

“The armory is this way, my Lord.”

Following the orb, Richter and Sion made their way into another hallway. Again he was greeted by a door, though this door was only wood banded with iron. It also possessed a clear circle at head height. Raising his wrist he thought, Open. No voice chimed inside of his head this time, his intent was apparently clear. Moving into the room, lines of swords, axes and bows sat under massive amounts of cobwebs. Definitely the armory that time had forgotten. He closed the door and walked back.

“I am sure there are many things to explore, but is there anything crucial that I need to know?”

“I have followed your instructions my Lord, and have had the workers gathering raw materials and working on basic physical defenses. I would advise caution however, considering that you have not instituted any of the magical defenses.”

Richter looked blankly at the orb wanting clarification, until realizing that yet again, an eyeless orb might not be so good at picking up facial expressions.

“What defenses,” he asked.

“You have access to the village interface, my Lord. You simply need to focus upon the options which are available.”

Richter selected the icon for his village. A sprawling list of pull down menus filled Richter’s vision. Realizing how long this might take, he closed the menu in a fit of annoyance. “Can I get a chair?”

A short time later, both he and Sion were settled into the barracks. Really just a line of stone bed in a long room. There were no creature comforts, but it would serve. The ponies were tacked outside where they could graze. Sion settled down for the night, while Richter laid back and browsed through the interface. He first looked into defenses. It simply showed the status of current defenses. Next he checked Enchantments. This showed a host of options. Most were greyed out, but two at the top were available: Concealing Mist and Confusing Mist.

Concealing Mist: Cost 400 mana. Upkeep 200 mana per day. Generates a thick mist field at the borders of the village which extends to the boundaries of your domain. You may grant immunity to this effect to those of your choosing. Attacking or taking hostile action against a creature will negate the effects for a short period.

Confusing Mist: Cost 800 mana. Upkeep 400 mana per day. Generates a thick mist field which extends to the boundaries of your domain. Causes disorientation that will lead affected creatures in random directions. You may grant immunity to this effect to beings of your choosing. Attacking or taking hostile action against a creature will negate the effects for a short period.

The enchantments were passive, but he could easily see the power of them.

“What does it mean by the boundaries of the domain, Futen,” Richter asked.

“You are Master of more than just the village my Lord. Your power also extends ten miles in all directions. The boundaries will extend as you increase the village level.”

“You have mentioned increasing the village level several times. Just how do we it?”

“There are multiple requirements my Lord. You can see them on your interface.”

Letting his eyes unfocus again, he began searching. Ultimately, he found the tab, Settlement Level.

Level 1: Total Mana: 1000. Mana regenerates at (Total mana/24) per hour. Boundary of surrounding lands 10 miles from Great Seal. Requirements for level up: Increase population to at least 100. Build ten free standing buildings. Master three levels of the catacombs. Finish four quests of the Mist Village.

“Where do I get quests from?”

“I am tied to this Place of Power, my Lord,” Futen said. “As such I can read the needs of this land. There is one quest that is available now. As time goes on I will tell you of other needs of the village. You may also find information on quests in your Master’s interface.”

You have been offered a Quest: Unlock your Power I. Your village will increase your power, but you must care for it in turn. Currently there is a local dungeon that needs to be cleared out. Reward: Unlock one of the Powers. Yes or No?

As if there was any question! If Richter was right, this quest would increase his magic immensely! Choosing yes, he looked at Futen. “Any idea how I can find it?”

“I can move freely within the boundaries of the village. I will guide you.”

“How about it,” he asked Sion. “Ready to kick some monster butt?”

“That’s what I do,” his friend answered with a grin.

“In the morning then,” Richter responded with a grin of his own.