Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2019 04:28:24 +0000 From: wayne unknown Subject: Vainglorious chapter 17 Chapter 17 Building up Stage 1 Taking stock Okay, so when I said I was feeling a lot more sane, that might have been a little premature. I've spent too much time reacting to situations, bouncing from one crazy thing to another. It's about time for me to take stock of the current situation, make plans & get things done. I now have 2 monster towns under my control and they are both black holes of resources. At least Troll Town is semi developed, though currently too overcrowded & unorganized. Food is starting to become a real problem, too many minions to feed & no farms. It's got a residential area but no commercial or industrial zones. I have too many sub classes that I should be leveling up now that I'm level 100. Priest, necromancer, blacksmith, Mage, alchemist (maybe) should all be raised to level 100 so that I can make use of their free bonuses & skills. Ugh going to be a pain. Ren is a zombie with the intelligence of a dog. I need to level up my Priest class to Level 100 with Terminus so I can get some fucking answers about Ren and restore him to normal. I have 6 Necromancers provisionally on my side, most of which I can't really trust not to stab me in the back whenever it's convenient. I need to tie them to me by using better incentives than Steve can provide, which limits my options somewhat and may just bite me in the ass in the future. I have 2 Pet Companions, Dez & Angus. Dez needs more leveling so that he's better able to roll with me. Ideally he should be at least level 100. That should let him evolve again and gain a new ability based on other monsters. I've never heard of anyone raising a Demon bunny to level 100 so I don't know what kind of ability he'd gain from the evolution. I should let him gain some other abilities from other beasts like the devil snake and maybe the manticore when I have more time. I have 4 high leveled corpses from Ratede that should be converted into Liches & Death Knights. Should probably practice using [Death Knight] on some lesser corpses to level it up, so it's more useful. As for Liches, I won't get that till level 100, which is a downer, also I should have received Zombie after hitting level 50 as a necromancer. I guess there are downsides to getting a specialization from the system. It doesn't work the same as if I got it the proper way. I need to talk to Hugo, he's probably the most well informed about magic, so I can fix my skill tree/ class tree. It's all a mess at the moment. I have so many skills and spells from random classes that I've not properly sorted out. For instance I have [God's Eye] acquired from Lord Ratede's blood of which I have no idea which school of magic it's from. Based on observations of my minions over the last day or so, I've figured out some more practical details about the differences between Naming, Knighting & Vassals. Naming allows for those Named to develop more as individuals rather than generic monsters. This doesn't give them a massive power boost like some fantasy stories about demon kings and their named monsters. However it makes them less predictable than their unnamed brethren, they have more personality than is typically displayed. It's hard to notice with the Trolls as they don't or can't speak but the Lizard Men particularly Sisyphus & Morganna are radically more vibrant than their unnamed kin. Knighting allows for those Knighted to gain credit for previous soft skills which then grant them the Skills recognized and rewarded by the System/God of Order. Soft skills allows a Troll to learn how to use a weapon, say a club, while a Skill recognized by the system gives a 'magic' boost increasing damage of the weapon or an additional effect. Vassals is the simplest mechanic so far, allowing for loyal subjects to be granted land & also to raise a militia to protect their territory. All of which means I need to be careful about how I use these Nobility skills with Bestowal. So I have to work out my major priorities. Priority 1 Protect Ren's body by properly fortifying Troll Town (maybe work on Lizard Town so we have a fall back position if we get swamped... Pun is terrible, I can't help myself.) Priority 2 Find Ren's Mind/Soul by making contact with Terminus so I can put him back together again. Priority 3 Build up private army to ensure Ren won't need to be resurrected in future if members of the Helios Church show up again. Time to get the rest of the major players together & make some plans. Stage 2 Making Plans I gathered together everyone of importance who's available; Greg, Gulch, Bone Zone, Hugo, Max, Morganna, Sissy, Caleb, Spammalot, Ethan & Tim. We met up on the ground floor of the Stone Mansion since it was centrally located & everyone had a room there. "Ok everyone I've gathered you all here to start getting things organized. I want to get Troll Town to be more of a small city, with population control and proper logistics & stuff and I need all of your help to do so." "We should rename this place first, Troll Town is super generic." Max said, dressed in what appears to be the Necropolis uniform, a black magicians robe with white skulls on the shoulders and back. I sighed, not something high on my agenda but I figured I should hear him out. "What did you have in mind?" "Monster city!" Max said unapologetically. "That's lame." Tim said derisively "Yeah, got a better name?" Max asked "Hell Hole" Tim said "Pfft that doesn't even make sense." Max said "Sure it does, he's the Demon King & he's building underground layers and -" Tim said before being cut off. "What do you mean Demon King?" Hugo asked interrupting Tim's unfiltered explanation about naming rationales. I glared at Tim, who ducked his head with a rueful grin, for someone who chose a stealth advancement, that was a critical failure to appreciate the value of subterfuge and secrecy. I shrugged. "It's a mission I got when I took over this place, since I'm a dhampir and part demon, the more races who answer to me, the more bonuses I get from it. It's kind of buggy though, since despite how many Doom Wolves I have around & that Angus is a Doom Wolf King, they're not giving me any bonuses. No idea if it's a race specific thing or because they're beasts. I thought if I took command of the Zone's alpha, they might grant me another bonus but it was a total dud." The other necromancers looked a lot more interested all of a sudden. I imagined this news would drive Steve harder towards gaining the Vampire class, which is the only reason I answered honestly instead of lying. I wanted Steve to throw his lot in with Lord Ratede entirely, the better to deter the Helios Church from coming after Ren & me before I was ready for them. Hugo redirected the conversation though I doubt it'd be the last I'd hear about it. "What about Titan's Grasp?" "Why?" Tim & Max asked while the others simply watched with various expressions and levels of interest. "Because the city has mostly been built through Earth Magic and Gaea was originally the Titan of Earth." Max and Tim shared a look and said at the same time "NERDDDDDDDDDDDD!" then they started laughing. Hugo the necromancer scholar crossed his arms and practically pouted. Hugo dressed the same as the other Necropolis Necromancers, black robes, skull decorations but on him, it made him look comical instead of menacing. His robe was too big for him, so he looked more like a young teenager dressing up rather than someone that was part of a city of Necromancers that one should be afraid of. For someone who commanded the dead, he looked more like a nerd playing pretend which you know is fairly accurate. In a way we're all nerds playing pretend, but he looks the part... by not looking the part... Mmm sanity wherefore art thou? Max on the other hand filled out his robes nicely, mmm such manliness for a necromancer. Hugo's frustration at their juvenile antics amused me. Ethan the necromancer alchemist made a different suggestion "I vote for Nightshade because this place is deadly but has it's own sort of charm." "How about Death Valley?" Spammalot the necromancer enchanter asked. "This place is now on a small hill, no valleys about." Jesus, even I was getting bogged down by this silly argument. "How about Windsor?" Caleb the Necromancer Builder added. "It's got historical significance & a cool castle." "What about Monstropolis?" Asked Bone Zone, displaying his typically tragic naming sense. "Better yet Nerd central." Max added sarcastically which led to some further bickering between him and the other Necromancers. I ignored them and turned to Greg, Gulch, Morganna & Sisyphus who were seated on my left, while the Champions were clumped to the right of the giant round stable complete with chairs that I had created. I asked "Do you have any naming suggestions?" My monstrous minions looked uncomfortable and it was probably not just because stone furniture is hard on the butt. "Hell Hole seemed appropriate" Greg said sullenly "This feels like hell." Poor Greg had been all moody ever since our little outing against Manticores and soldiers led to him having to choose his own path to follow. I ignored that emotional quagmire to focus my attention to my Named Lizards instead. "Whatever you choose will be the best choice my King." Morganna responded making a little half bow while sitting, which was kind of amusing. "No need for brown nosing." Which got me a blank look, scatological references were oddly hard to avoid and didn't translate well for Natives. I moved on from my faux pas "I don't want or need blind obedience, this will be your home from now on. You should have a say in this decision. Not that your suggestion will necessarily be chosen but you should at least make an effort to join in." I honestly don't know why I wanted to drag this out, it was a silly topic and ultimately meaningless but these were the major players & I needed them all to be invested emotionally & financially in this place. I needed their blood, sweat & tears. Mostly their blood. Sweat would be good too, tears less important. Before Morganna could offer a name to be added for consideration Sisyphus spoke. "Will this place be my home as well sire?" "I need you to run Lizard Town as you have been previously as you have the most experience with that." I should probably chat to him privately later to find out more about his experiences, maybe get some tips. "Yet I also need you to stick around here for a day or two to learn from the others here ways to improve Lizard Town. Unfortunately I can't be in two places at once and my primary focus is this town, whatever it'll be named while I will have to rely on you to run Lizard Town. I will occasionally check in to make sure thing are running smoothly and to offer advice and support as necessary but ultimately you'll still be in charge there." There was a pregnant pause as they all processed that. Sadly the silence didn't last long. "So who will be running Troll Town when you're not around?" Asked Max. "I'm thinking that Greg & Gulch as my Knights should look after Troll Town while I'm gone or busy." "But Gulch doesn't even talk." Tim complained. "Yeah, that's a bit of a nuisance, I'll need to buy a Telepathy spell book for him. Speaking of I'm going to need some help from our resident Necromancers to get things going. So let's table the naming discussion for later and I'll address what I need from each of you." "You're talking like we report to you, we don't have to obey you. We report to Steve because we get something out of it. What do we get from you?" Max demanded. "That's an excellent point. You're not really obligated to do anything." The necromancers looked surprised that I would admit that I have no leash for them. "However I can provide you benefits that Steve simply cannot due to the size of Necropolis & it's population. I can give you land to build houses on, or shops or whatever. I can also assign you a team of say 50 Lizard Men & 50 Trolls to help with various tasks, which should speed up leveling up your classes one way or another. I can also provide you with a crazy stat boost through Blood Pact. Also I can turn you into Dhampirs, which while in some ways weaker than a vampire has less hazardous weaknesses. At that point you can gain extra stats, spells & skills through drinking the blood of your enemies or your monster subordinates, who when they level up will be able to be drained again for stats." "I don't think Trolls will be of much use for alchemy." Ethan said. "That's fine, you can have a hundred Lizard Men, they should have the right sort of stat build for being alchemists, they have high dexterity & intelligence after all." "Will I be able to sell my potions to other Necromancers?" Ethan asked. "Sure, I'm planning on making a Mall so that anyone who wants to can set up a shop for selling good and services. There's no real need to stick with this medieval marketplace concept after all. Caleb has given me some advice on the basics. Anything else anyone thinks we need to address, building wise?" Caleb interjected "Before we get too wrapped into the amenities, the defensive walls still need a lot of work, they'll survive attacks by monsters easily enough but it won't be of much use against Mages." "What would we need for that?" "Runic walls powered by full time mages or hundreds of magic stones." "Okay, I'll put you in charge of that since you're the builder, any ideas on how we can do it for cheap. This place is a money pit at the moment." "Well most of us who came here have enchanter as a subclass." "Really? How many of you?" "Everyone except Bone Zone & Ethan. It's useful to have enchantments on weapons & summons to increase attack power." "Nice. Well great, I'll leave that to you to sort out. What else do we need to work out to make this place better?" "Food. We're running low with so many mouths to fill." Tim said. "A place to train our summons." Max said. "A library & a Mage Guild." Hugo said "A temple." Bone Zone said "Things to entertain like an arena, a tavern, a whore house, music, games, hunts and festivals." Max said. "Those are all good points, so I'll build an extra couple of layers to the mansion and turn it into the city hall to better deal with influx of requests and stuff. I'll also have an arena & a Knights training hall next to it, on the other side I'll build a Mall & Library and then off to the side, I'll build a Temple. Of course I'll rely on Caleb to help me with the details. As I'm not an earth mage or a builder. The library can be the foundation of the new Mage's guild." "I could do with a proper place to make more weapons." Max said "I plan on letting you all have shops, so you can sell stuff at the front & do the work in the back or however you want the layout to be." I said gesturing to Caleb, Hugo, Max, Spammalot & Ethan. "What about me? I don't really want to sell stuff." Bone Zone complained. "As for you Bone Zone, I think you should run the Temple when I build it." "Well that will be something." "Anyway, I also have jobs for the rest of you. Sissy, you will be assigned to Tim so you can learn how to scout better. I suggest doing a scout of the nearby area as practice." "Easy enough, but I'll probably have to return to the army soon, I'm already getting messages wanting me to report for Manticore patrols and general military duties." Tim said. Fuck, more problems. "Well after you scout out Ogre Forest with Sissy, you can do whatever you need to elsewhere." "Guess I'll get this out of the way quickly, then head off." Tim said somewhat impatiently. I had no idea why he'd suddenly got so weird. Whatever. I'd find out later. "Follow me." Tim said to Sisyphus and they left quickly. "Okay Greg will be in charge of training a selection of the Named Warriors so they know how to fight with swords, shields pikes & what not. Greg have you learned Telepathy yet?" "Yes." "Have you chosen your path?" "Dark Crusader." "Great, welcome to the Dark Side, we have fun orgies." The new guys looked at me weirdly. Eh whatever. I'm a Demon King, a little weirdness is to be expected. "Anyway... moving right along. I'm going to assign you about 5 Named Trolls & Lizards to start with so they can learn some basics & be our elites. They should all have Warrior classes and should be able to pick up some of the basic skills quickly enough. Morganna & Gulch, I want you to gather 4 of your brethren to start training immediately. I'll come check on you guys later to organize more detailed work rosters." "Fine, whatever." Greg said snarkily, which made me wonder where he picked up the dismissive phrasing and attitude. Tim maybe? He left with Gulch & Morganna trailing behind. This left me alone with the Necromancer Champions. Yay me. "Now that we're alone it's time to get down to brass tacks. I'll turn you into Dahmpirs today if you're willing to agree to some terms." "What do you want?" Max asked. "Mostly goods and services. I'm planning on spending a couple of hours with each of you each day to progress my various sub classes, my current build is all over the place & I need to iron some of the kinks out. Also Troll Town needs donations of goods to get it up and running and I'm currently too broke to afford what I need right now." "I can't just give away all my stuff." Max protested, he was the most outspoken of the necromancers. "I don't expect you to, I just want you to provide me with equipment for my elites at cost price & I'll work out a way to pay for the rest of the army when I get more organized. In the meantime I'm going to assign you some Trolls & Lizardmen to watch you work and hopefully pick up something from it. I'll visit the Vampire city tomorrow and buy enough Telepathy books for the 7 of us so that communication with the Trolls isn't an issue. At some point I'll have to organize some kind of schooling for the Trolls when I have more time." There was a brief discussion that followed about everyone's schedules and when would we a good time to have 'training'. We arranged for training of 2 hour blocks with the 6 of them starting tomorrow to work on various aspects of my classes/subclasses or at the very least oversee their efforts on improving the town. I quickly assigned them as my Vassals, giving them property rights & the ability to raise militia as neeeded. There was also a more intense discussion as to everyone's classes now that I had them as citizens and Vassals and could get more information about their classes than I could from their basic bios provided by [Check Status]. Caleb Level 101 Necromancer, Builder, Enchanter. Main Class Mage, Specialization Necromancy; Sub Specialization Summoning & Poison. Necromancy Skills; Raise Skeleton, Zombification, Death Knight, Lich, Life Drain, Death Bolt, Soul Contract, Soul Slavery, Soul Apprentice, Poison, Plague, Pestilence, Necrosis, Corpse Explosion. Mana Shield. Second Specialization Earth Magic. Earth spells; Earthen Construction, Fissure, Earthquake, Stone Wall, Earth Golem, Sandstorm, Quicksand, Mineral Extraction & Earth Mastery. Third Specialization Spatial Magic. Spatial spells; Telekinesis, Shrink, Expansion, Alteration, Spatial Inventory, Blink, Teleport. Sub class – Builder level 100 Specialization; Cost Reduction, Structural Stability. Sub class – Enchanter level 65 Specialization Necromancy & Reinforcement Runes. Enchanter Skills; Imbue, Rune Craft. Hugo Level 102 Necromancer, Magic Scholar, Enchanter. Main Class Mage, Specialization Necromancy, Sub Specialization Summoning & Soul Dominion. Necromancy Skills; Raise Skeleton, Zombification, Death Knight, Lich, Life Drain, Death Bolt, Soul Contract, Soul Slavery, Soul Apprentice, Poison, Plague, Corpse Explosion, Soul Communion, Soul Steal, Soul Domination, Soul Inventory Upgrade, Soul Bind. Mana Shield. Second Specialization Mind Magic. Mind Spells; Telepathy, Confusion, Mental Barrier, Clairvoyance, Illusion, Instant Recall, Total Recall & Astral Projection. Third Specialization Spatial Magic. Spatial spells; Telekinesis, Shrink, Expansion, Alteration, Spatial Inventory, Blink, Teleport. Sub class – Magic Scholar level 100. Scholar Skills; Polymath, Spell Book & Scroll. Sub class – Enchanter level 60 specialization Necromancy & Spatial Enhancement Runes. Enchanter Skills; Imbue, Rune Craft. Max Level 111 Necromancer, Blacksmith, Enchanter. Main Class Mage, Specialization Necromancy, Sub Specialization Summoning & Poison. Necromancy Skills; Raise Skeleton, Zombification, Death Knight, Lich, Life Drain, Death Bolt, Soul Contract, Soul Slavery, Soul Apprentice, Soul Bind, Poison, Plague, Pestilence, Necrosis, Corpse Explosion. Mana Shield. Second Specialization Earth Magic. Earth spells; Earthen Construction, Fissure, Earthquake, Stone Wall, Earth Golem, Sandstorm, Quicksand, Stone Armor & Earth Mastery. Third Specialization Fire Magic. Fire spells; Fire ball, Flame Wave, Fire Wall, Furnace, Meteor, Fire Mastery. Sub class – Crafter, Specialization Blacksmith level 100 Skills; Sharpen, Smithing, Smelting, Repair, Metallurgy & Divine Inspiration. Sub class – Enchanter level 60 specialization Necromancy & Fire Runes. Enchanter Skills; Imbue, Rune Craft. Spammalot level 104 Necromancer; Mana Crafter, Enchanter. Main Class Mage, Specialization Necromancy, Sub Specialization Summoning & Curse. Necromancy Skills; Raise Skeleton, Zombification, Death Knight, Lich, Life Drain, Death Bolt, Soul Contract, Soul Slavery, Soul Apprentice, Soul Bind, Weaken, Blind, Curse of Madness, Fear, Necrosis. Second Specialization Air Magic. Air spells; Wind Blade, Haste, Tornado. Third Specialization Mind Magic. Mind Spells; Telepathy, Confusion, Mental Barrier, Clairvoyance, Illusion, Instant Recall, Total Recall & Astral Projection. Sub class – Mana Crafter level 100 Skills; Pulp, Mana Stone Infusion, Mana Stone creation Sub class – Enchanter level 100, specialization Necromancy & Mental Enhancement Runes. Enchanter Skills; Imbue, Rune Craft, Magical Programming. Ethan level 102 Necromancer, Achemist, Mana Crafter. Main Class Mage, Specialization Necromancy, Sub Specialization Summoning & Soul Dominion. Necromancy Skills; Raise Skeleton, Zombification, Death Knight, Lich, Soul Contract, Soul Slavery, Soul Apprentice, Poison, Plague, Corpse Explosion, Soul Communion, Soul Steal, Soul Domination, Soul Inventory Upgrade, Soul Bind. Mana Shield. Second Specialization Life Magic. Life spells; Heal, Recovery, Fertility. Third Specialization Air Magic. Air spells; Wind Blade, Haste, Tornado. Sub Class – Alchemist, specialization apothecary, level 100. Alchemy Skills; Alchemy, Dismantling, Herbcraft, Correction, Divine Inspiration. Sub Class – Mana Crafter level 60. Mana Crafter skills; Pulp & Mana Stone Infusion. Bone Zone level 105 Necromancer, Death Priest, Magic Scholar. Main Class Mage Specialization Necromancy, Sub specialization, Summoning & Poison. Necromancy Skills; Raise Skeleton, Zombification, Death Knight, Lich, Soul Contract, Soul Slavery, Soul Apprentice, Poison, Plague, Pestilence, Necrosis, Corpse Explosion. Mana Shield. Second Specialization Time Magic. Time spells; Slow, Hasten, Freeze. Third Specialization Dark Magic. Darkness Spells; Dark Barrier, Dark Shroud. Sub Class Magic Scholar level 70. Magic Scholar Skills; Polymath, Spell Book. Sub Class Priest of Terminus level 55. Priest Skills; Offering, Sacrifice. After that we worked out the personnel distributions. Ethan would get a hundred Lizard People to work under him to learn the basics of alchemy and help him mass produce potions. Caleb would get a handful of Lizard men and the remainder Trolls to work under him as low skilled construction workers Hugo would get supervision of half of the Lizard Mages of which there were over 200 (99% of the female Lizards were mages), so that they could learn how to be better educated Mages. I'd have to Bestow on them all Mage classes later on to improve their mana pools/recovery. Spammalot advised that he'd be splitting his time between helping Caleb with enchanting the walls & enchanting weapons for Max. I decided it would be too complicated for now to assign him monsters until the Lizard Mages were sufficiently educated or until we had more to spread around. Bone Zone got ten Lizard Men & Trolls to serve as Temple Guardians. Max got 50 Lizard Mages to help with enchanting with 50 Trolls to act as Blacksmith apprentices. "I know I'm asking a lot from you but I'm hoping to make this place self sufficient sooner rather than later and your help is essential for that. Once it's all up and running, this place will be a gold mine." "What about the food shortages?" Hugo asked. "I have a plan for that. That said, we have too many here, I'm limiting the population to two thousand of each, two thousand Lizard Raiders, two thousand Trolls. Everyone over that will be relocated to Lizard town." "The developers were really lazy with coming up with names." Max griped "Eh, it's not like its original residents really cared." I said. "What about all the new ones that show up wanting to live here?" Max asked "Any of the Wild Trolls that come here from now on will no longer be integrated with the current population, they'll all be shipped to Ratede to be drained or used up in the Arenas in exchange for gold." "Isn't that cruel to just send them off to die?" Ethan asked. "Life is hard, I can't afford to feed them all and since it's a time of war, they should be much more valuable as living captives than dead & frankly I'm desperate for the gold. It's not like the lives of monsters are valued highly, we use them up to level up & pulp them for mana stones & grind them down for potions. This world is cruel and unusual. Shall we start with the conversions?" Stage 3 Getting started. I converted the 6 Necromancers, the process is pretty simple, I drained them till they have about 10% blood left, then I use 20% of my blood to fill them back up. The Demonic/Vampiric blood overwhelms the remaining blood & triggers a cellular mutation in them, converting them into what's considered sub Dhampirs. All of them turn out to be average Dhampirs, with none of the affinities or weaknesses of Ren and myself. I'm not sure if it's good or bad yet but I'm in desperate need of using Blood Refill to up my stats after that. I probably should have used [Blood Filtering] beforehand so the stat loss wasn't as bad. Oh well, stats are easily replaced. I gave them two missions, to visit the Lizard men villagers on the outskirts of Lizard Town and drain a hundred each so they can gain a minimum of 200 intelligence each. Once completed they can work on helping the walls. They split up, Caleb, Spammalot & Hugo stay behind to work on the enchanting of the walls of Troll Town. While Max, Bone Zone & Ethan leave to raid the Lizard men villagers of their blood to embrace their new dhampir abilities. Caleb could be seen on the outer walls inscribing runes to channel [Reinforcement], [Life Drain] & [Mana Shield] on the very outside of the walls. Spammalot was producing a Mana Stone & Hugo along with 6 Liches & Death Knights were providing power to the runes. It wasn't nearly enough. More Necromancers, Death Knights or Liches would be needed to keep [Life Drain] & [Mana Shield] powered. There were two ways to keep these runes fed, through Mana Stones & Mages. If I was rich like Erand but didn't have sufficient Mages, I'd simply use a series of mana stones spread throughout the walls to provide a steady dose of mana to the runes. Mana stones could be used as self recharging mana batteries to power rune arrays. They would need to be replaced every once in a while to prevent mana disturbances from degrading Mana Stones. If I had more high level Mana Crafters like Spammalot, I could have them simply pump out fresh Mana Stones regularly. Spammalot could produce Mana Stones for [Life Drain] & [Mana Shield] but doing so was time consuming and mana intensive as it required him to drain his own mana to form a Mana Stone of the required type. Hopefully after he has a visit to the Lizardmen, his intelligence will get a boost & he can pump out Mana Stones faster and easier. At the moment while quite the other Necromancers had Enchanter which allowed them to build & power Rune arrays, they couldn't provide me with more Mana Stones. For that I needed more level 100 Mana Crafters or more monsters to pulp. As Level 50 plus Enchanters they had the level 1 Skill [Imbue] which granted a temporary effect to an item (like Bless did) and the level 50 Skill [Rune Craft] which allowed a more permanent effect to be placed on an item as long as it remained power by mana. Once I had the Lizard Mages trained by Hugo or Caleb, they should be able to provide raw power to the reinforcement runes to protect them from manipulation by hostile Earth Mages. Third option is to harvest more Mana Stones from Clears or monster hunts. Both of which is time consuming. I offered them my Premium Ogre Mana Stone to help with adding [Blockade] to the walls rune protections, it'd help slow down battering rams, somewhat. I'll have to organize teams of Lizard Raiders or Trolls to go harvesting for Mana Stones later. I visited Beast Forest with Tim and a half dozen Lizard Raiders and we collected a dozen Demon Bunny does for Dez. He will help me fix the food problem, though it's a little ruthless but morality does not feed empty bellies. I situate his bunny harem underground and provide him with the discarded vegetation from the Troll Town's expansion for food, mostly trees & small plants. I also planted a small selection of plants, some edible, some not. Angus is still mateless as Ren is currently incapable of activating his soul contract to resurrect Barta. I might have to invest in another Telepathy book in order to mind control Ren into resurrecting Barta. More nightmare fuel. Now my pets are somewhat sorted, I can focus on Construction efforts. I talked with Hugo & he helps me gain a second specialization under Mage, Earth Mage. It basically means that Earth Magic is even more mana efficient for me now. I could learn a third specialization but I leave it for later as I already have enough things to focus on as it is. I drank some Lizard Blood under the effects of [Blood Refill] to boost my stats and after I was done, I started work on redecorating. I had the central area of Troll Town evacuated, just in case my control over the earth slipped and had disastrous consequences. I built three extra layers to my Stone Mansion, redecorating the outsides to look more like a governmental building, all fancy and shit, I even put a statue of myself in front of it. Sadly the statue takes longer than the entire reconstruction of the mansion and it's not exactly a great representation, can't get my nose right. On the upside I do gain [Sculpting] from my failed attempts at beautification. [Sculpting: You can shape earth with greater control, allowing you to construct works of art with finer detail.] Then I built an Arena which is simple enough, a giant oval shape, which looks like a cross between a football stadium and the Coliseum. Then I built the Knight's Training ground, it's a rectangular building, inside there are long tracks for knights to practice jousting and cavalry charges with seperate rooms with stone dummies to practice sword play and other fun stuff on. I build an underground layer for the dorms, large enough to house several hundred 'squires'. Then on the other side of the City Hall/former stone Mansion I built the Mage guild/library. I built the first two stories above ground, in a square shape, to serve as Library, with an additional 3 stories underground for potential Vampire students. Then on top of the large square I build a 5 story high Mage Guild that looks like a Light House only brown instead of white. I need to find a way to color stone later, or get fancier stone to build with. Another thing to add to the massive to do list. It's admittedly an odd design, but I'm not an artist or an architect so it'll do. It's main purposes is to serve as a Town Library, Mage Guild & a Watch Tower if the town is under attack. Then adjacent to that I build a 5 story tall Mall with a couple underground levels, which should be able to house any kind of shops, commercial enterprises until something more specialized can be developed. The last building I work on is the Temple, because Bone Zone isn't around to ask, I ask Hugo for the details of what a Temple of Terminus should look like. I built the Temple to Terminus based off Hugo's advice. It's pretty simple, it just has an altar where corpses can be sacrificed directly to Terminus. Then for extra credit, I build a catacomb to store undead, so that the town's necromancers don't have to cram their inventories full of dead bodies all the time. I create a Dark Room within the City Hall as a private shrine to Abyss. He only wants one thing, the darkness to return and swallow up the light. I have no idea what kind of offerings he'd appreciate, maybe dead Priests? I'll figure it out later. I gained 10 Dark Power & 10 Levels of Priest class from Terminus & Abyss for building a temple/shrine for them to get new worshipers & offerings. I gained [Shadow Step] from Abyss & [Life Drain] from Terminus. [Shadow Step: Step from one shadow to the next without traversing the space in between.] I practiced it a little, [Shadow Step] was limited by range of sight, time of day & was mana intensive but I liked it, it would work well for me to improve attack speed and escaping. [Life Drain: With a touch you can steal the life of another.] This skill was the mainstay of Death Knights as they infused their weapons & bodies with this to steadily drain their enemies of their life force with every blow & block. I laid out the 6 major buildings of the town in a weird pentagram format, with the city hall in the center & the temple in the top most position. The final step was to make a tunnel system to the swamp & vampire cave & also to the ogre forest. They'd have to be rebuilt periodically, which is annoying but once I've gained more control over the areas, will be resolved by environmental control. Need millions more gold, have to be patient, which is not my strong suit. At some point I'll have the Lizard Mages learn Tunneling too and shift the responsibility of maintenance onto them. When Max returns from his outing, I plan on asking him to provide some bracelets for the Named Trolls & Lizards with their names so they can be recognized as leaders. For those who've accomplished something worthwhile, I'll give them a weapon that suits them. Those of the rank and file will get helmets to distinguish them from wild monsters. Dez should hopefully solve my food problem by tomorrow & soon the Wild Trolls will solve my gold problem once and for all. Things are starting to get more organised, life is looking up, I have a plan, I'm making headway and soon Ren will return and I can go back to indulging in sexy times with my man unworried by politics or logistics. Author's Note First of all I'm curious if anyone has a preference on the Names of Troll Town & Lizard Town or suggestions. Currently thinking Nightshade & Swamp Death but I'm not 100% decided on either name as of yet. Also curious, do people want to see more sexy times, kingdom building or epic battles? Working on chapter 18 now. So I got a question about classes so I decided to give a brief overview of how Classes & specializations work. This is a somewhat fractured nerd ramble, if you're not too worried about the game mechanics, feel free to skip. As said in chapter 2, (possibly poorly worded) 90% of Champions choose between 3 Classes to start off with; Mage, Warrior or Crafter which becomes their main Class. These could be considered the Major classes as they provide specific bonuses, however there are specialties within each of these Major classes eg Mage will pick a specialty to focus their efforts on, for example necromancy, they'll receive spells at certain milestones automatically, typically level 10, 50 or 60 (depending on the specialization or class) & 100. Some people choose more 'niche' classes such as Priest who follow certain gods Terminus (death), Abyss (darkness) Sharn (blood) Thrum (war). This doesn't includes those following Viridios as they're commonly known as Druids as their 'religion' is not as well structured as Helios. There are even those who worship the God of Order & the God of Chaos, though they're more commonly known as Acolytes. Acolytes of Order can grant quests which are rewarded with experience, money or skills/spells. It is unknown what Chaos gives his acolytes as they're usually considered threats to kingdoms and exterminated wherever found since they tend to range from being annoying agitators or full blown terrorists. Other niche choices are architect, bard, miner, priest, farmer, they're considered Niche because they are chosen less often, they have certain specific requirements & they have less structured bonuses & they're not derivative of the three Major classes. Derek has been using specialties and sub classes interchangeably which is how players tend to describe them. I'll give an example, a Player chooses from the three major classes, Warrior, at level 10 he gets an option to pick up a specialty like swordsman, archer or berserker. The Warrior class grants the bonuses to health, health recovery & level 100 aura mastery, however the specialties determine what skills they learn. These specialties within the major classes are often conflated or confused with sub classes as they grant similar milestone advancements. Most players refer to a players chosen specialty rather than their major classes. So a player will be known simply as an Archer, rather than a Player with Warrior Class with an Archer specialty. Similarly a player can choose their main class as a Mage then pick a Necromancer specialty, which most people consider them as being Necromancers which is less wordy. A player will get an additional subclass slot every 50 levels, eg 1, 50, 100,150, 200. If they've chosen from the 3 major classes, eg Mage, they can pick a specialty from the various schools of magic, eg elemental (wind,water,fire, earth), space, time, light, dark, life, death (mostly considered necromancy) every 50 levels. Vampires have access to a 'unique' Magic, Blood Magic. So a level 100 Mage, theoretically can have 3 specialties eg wind water fire, along with 2 sub classes. Typically Champions choose a specialty based on the random affinities they get at character creation. This means while a level 100 Champion Mage could learn and use spells from 3 different schools of magic, they usually focus on a spell from their first choice of magic as the effects tend to be higher and the level of difficulty lower. The reason they pick secondary and tertiary specializations is so they have more versatility in spells in different circumstances. Fire spells are known for their offensive might, earth spells for their defensive capabilities & area effects, air for speed & stealth & water for its wide range of effects (scrying, attack range & crowd control). Champions get it much easier than Natives as they can assign their stats however they want, which gives them more options for classes. They also have experience advantages, allowing them to progress faster than their Native counterparts, resulting in them being equivalent to Native Geniuses or Heroes. Specializations under Mage typically affect mana cost, the effect (range & damage) & advancement (spell selection & how quickly someone gains the next spell in a series). Affinities determine the general ease of attaining a specialty and its overall value while aptitude effects how quickly someone picks up a school of magic. Aptitude isn't considered too important for Champion Mages as they get spells at milestone levels regardless of their magical comprehension while Natives have to learn things the hard way with learning and practice and hard work. Sucks to be them. I'm not really sure how much more detail I should get into. I might produce an appendix chapter at some point, just to provide some more detail and clarification about the various systems & schools of magic... but I've probably bored and confused anyone who actually read this section so I'll leave it for now. Honestly Derek is probably a bad viewpoint character to understand the usual process of classes and specialties as he's been gaining random classes, specialty spells & monster abilities from drinking blood. Derek has [Bind], which is considered a basic druid spell along with [Thorns] but he's not a druid, so he doesn't get any of the cool Druid specialization options. I also don't want to bog the story too much with info dumps as those can get tedious. Super long author's note this time around... I'm going to shut up now and work on some action sequences in chapter 18 and think about some downright nasty sex scenes for chapter 19. Obligatory note: If you feel like it you can donate to Nifty through http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html