A Mage Rising
(The Chronicles of Herst 2: A litRPG Saga)
Synopsis
Vol has brought the people of Efftin to a new place they can build upon and protect. A new place they can call home. It’s a place others can join them in their freedom of oppression. With this new place to live, Vol understands the responsibility he has to protect those that reside there. But in Herst, if you wish to keep anything you must be willing to fight to hold onto it. What challenges will he face, and will he be strong enough to resist the unknown threats that he will encounter.
Copyright © 2018 Thomas L Whipple
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This is the second book in the series and it is highly recommended that you read the first installment if you have not already.
Prologue
“Welcome everyone, to your new home!” I tell all the enthralled villagers.
I drop my arms from their pose to my side. The council members are the first ones to come to themselves and join me. “This does look like an ideal spot Lord Adare.” This comes from Dolan and I am a little surprised by the title. Seeing my confusion he continues, “This is your land and now that we are here I figured it is only proper.”
“Please don’t worry about it, just Vol is fine” I tell him. Having him call me that is a little weird to me. Especially from someone I have come to see as a friend. At my words he shakes his head and looks me in the eye. “In private I will, but in public it is only proper.” Looking around I can see the agreement of the other council members, if somewhat begrudging in the case of Laurissa. Seeing that I am outvoted already I just sigh and start leading the long train of villagers. We move over toward the cliff wall across the grassy plain from the river we just crossed.
Along the way I start to talk to the council members again. “We can camp out in front of the cave entrance that I sealed and bring some of the people in. There isn’t enough room for everyone inside though.” After I say that they all discuss it with each other. They decide to let everyone that has children in temporarily, while tents will be used for everyone else until we can build places for them. That works for me, and I think that being near to the Altar inside might be helpful for some of the younger ones that are still classless.
At the entrance to what I would like to make the keep portion of the village I use my Shape Earth spell, dropping the slab of rock I used to seal it. I then turn to the council. They are giving instructions to a couple of the younger guard members that they use as runners. Waiting for them to finish, I hear them telling the runners to gather those with children under level 10 at the entrance where we are. There are also instructions to have everyone else set up camp a little ways from the entrance. When they are done giving their orders they turn to me and see that I am waiting for them. “I would like to clear the place first before we start bringing kids in here. If it is alright with you I can use the opportunity to show you all around?”
Looking a little anxious, Dolan is the first one to speak. “I think that is a great idea. Plus we will be able to see what areas to restrict the rest of the villagers from.” I already explained a lot of what we found here so I am pretty sure he is excited to see the areas we will restrict the others from for his self. I would show him all of it but I won’t be opening the vault and the armory for everyone to see. I guess he will just have to be disappointed today.
While the families with children begin to gather I lead Azzaria, my companions, the council and myself into the keep. We start on the bottom floor clearing the place one room at a time to make sure that nothing has found its way in. Enora mentions that the rooms here are small but the majority of the families with children are small, so they will be able to stay here. The small family size is probably due to the birth rate for most non-human races being low. Azzaria and I had a discussion one night during the trip about this. She thinks that life span may have something to do with it since beastkin races have similar life spans and birth rates to humans.
I theorized that both of those things are just the symptoms of a different cause. My guess is mana. Azzaria mentioned that mages often have much longer life spans than their race norms. I think longer lived races may be like that due to the saturation of mana in their bodies. I don’t mean that they have more mana in their pool, but actually absorbed into the flesh. Mages, like me, have more mana and use it far more than skill activations used by the physical type fighters. I think this use of larger quantities has some leakage and thus permeates the body with more mana than usual. The results, according to my theory, make the cells in a person’s body age and degrade slower. The con though is reduced fertility.
When we reach the end of the first, and central, hallway of the bottom floor Bolden takes a look at the large room. “This is a communal shower room. It doesn’t have any of the mana stones needed but I have plenty and the fixtures and everything are already here. I can have this place set with running water later tonight.”
At first I didn’t see the importance with the showers, but then I realized something. “That is great. Hopefully we can get some of the temporary residents to clean it out better once that is done.” It should allow us to prevent disease from spreading if people can get clean in such cramped quarters.
We moved on to check the hallway on the left. Nothing was waiting for us in the rooms in that direction but dust and the remnants of the fight from my first visit. When we got to the larger room at the end of this hall Dolan was the one to speak up. “This is a crafting room. You have work tables and over there you can see where a forge was. The vent in the roof gives it away.” He is getting excited I think. I usher him out and lead everyone back to the first hall before he can get too side tracked making plans for the crafting room.
We head down the right hallway and get to the end room. This is the one that has all the mana crystals in it. When the council entered their eyes got wide at all the crystals sprouting up. None more than Bolden though. “This is amazing!” Bolden’s head is swiveling left and right as he yells out. “With this much crystal we may never need any more!”
“I think the Mana Fount causes them to grow here so I doubt we will ever run out” I tell him. His eyes get huge when I say this and I have to stifle a laugh at the comical expression. I am saved when Faulst speaks up. “What is that?” He is pointing at the locked door in the back of the room.
“That door was locked when we first entered but I unlocked it to take a look before we left. It goes to a cave that is dark so we didn’t explore very far and I locked it again. Speaking of which, I plan to restrict access to this room too if it will lock.”
All of the council members nod at this. “That is probably for the best Vol” Dolan tells me.
We move on to the second floor and check the kitchen off the left side of the hall. We check the suites to the right next. I check the antechamber in front of the armory and treasury but refuse to open them for the council. After a little begging I distract them all by showing them the Altar. We got stuck there for a while as the council members all gawk at the unique, nebulas starscape within.
When we finally leave the Altar room they finally notice the mural on the door. “What is this?” Jerick asks pointing to the door. Looking back to it again I answer, “I don’t know. The next morning after claiming the Mana Fount this door and the one to the master suite looked like this.” I shrugged m
y shoulders at their looks and lead them up the stairs. The master suite of the keep was also clear. “Nice place you got here Vol” Dolan tells me after he looks around. I was worried that I would need to put my foot down to claim the master suite but everyone seemed to just expect that it was mine. Azzaria’s too by extension. After everyone snooped around a little we walked back down to the entrance.
On the way down I spoke to the council. “There is still some time in the day so I would like to talk to you all about how we want to design the city layout. That way we can get started in the morning with building. Say, in the main hall on the second floor after the families are getting settled?” They all agreed and they started organizing the people that were moving in. I turn to Azzaria and find that Hildre has joined us. “Hi Hildre. I was just about to go back upstairs to unload the village food stores. Do you want to come with? I can also show you where the suites are. I think that the council members were going to take those along with the larger families.”
“Sounds good. I can start some food then as well. It will be dinner time soon and everyone has had a long trip” she tells me.
My stomach chimes in with a growl. The simple fair during our trip has me craving a good meal. “That sounds good. If we can clean up the kitchen and food storage rooms real quick we can try and get a meal started for everyone. The kitchen is pretty big but it should be doable.” The five of us head upstairs again and I show Hildre the hall with the suites. “The others mentioned that there are plenty of rooms here for the council and the few beastkin families with more than one child. I think Dolan wanted the last door on the left while everyone insisted Enora take the biggest one at the end. She refused and said that it had to be Bolden and his family, since he has the biggest one of all of them. I think she will have the room at the end on the right though.”
Hildre smiles like she knew what would happen when I mentioned the room assignments. “It will be good to have Enora close by. Now where is the kitchen? We have a lot of tired people to feed and the lord must provide.” She gives a chuckle at her little joke and turns back to the main hall. I follow and lead her across the hall where the kitchen is. She immediately gets to work checking everything out. She puts me and Azzaria to the task of dusting off the counters and the couple of tables in the middle. Timbre is lounging over by the door, and I am pretty sure she is trying to avoid looking at me. She doesn’t want me to ask her to change into her other form to help clean. I let it go since it shouldn’t take us long. Finished with the kitchen I then go to one of the storage rooms. We dust that too and I use my Buffet spell a couple times to blow the loose dust out of the kitchen.
“We’re done cleaning, now for the cooking appliances. Is there anything that is working?” I ask Hildre.
After a few minutes of inspecting everything, including the storage room, she shakes her head. “This setup is great, but it looks like all the mana stones are gone.”
“Bolden!” Azzaria’s shout startles us and we turn to hear what she has thought of. “He said that he had plenty of mana stones when we were in the showers downstairs. I bet he could have this place running in no time.” Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Well I was a little distracted about what I am going to propose to the council, but that is no excuse. “Great idea Azzaria, lets go see if we can drag him away for a few minutes.”
Turns out we didn’t have to go far. When we left the kitchen Bolden was just coming up the stairs. “Hey Bolden. We want to cook for everyone tonight so that they can get settled in, but the kitchen is missing all the mana stones. Can you help us out? I can even help do it if you show me how.” Nodding his head he suddenly stops when I mention helping him. Looking at me he says “I can do it but someone should pay for the stones. And if you want me to show you how to do the utility enchantments you will have to pay for that as well.”
“That seems fair Bolden. I will pay for the stones since this place is mine, and the training.” After the confirmation of payment Bolden leads me back into the kitchen. Turns out he grabbed different mana stones from his things outside while we were cleaning the kitchen. I ended up paying him a couple hundred in gold for the stones in the kitchen and the training he then started me on. He had me study the patterns that were worked into the different appliances in the kitchen and explained how each one worked. Apparently that is all it takes to learn these simple enchantments since their sole purpose is to interact with a mana stone.
After learning all the ones in the kitchen I gained 3 new utility enchantments. One was for the sink so that water flows from it and used a water stone. The other two used fire stones. The stove used it to create fire beneath a grate to cook, and was pretty simple. What surprised me was that the last and most complicated enchantment for me to learn was on the food storage rooms. They were cold storage the size of walk in freezers! It took multiple fire stones to keep cool but the complexity of the enchantment came from how it worked. Heat was drawn from the room they were attached to and stored in the stones. Once the mana stones were full of fire mana they could be switched with the ones in the stove that were expended.
As for actually installing them, all I had to do was focus on the purpose of the enchantment and put the stone in the socket designed for it. My enchanting profession did the rest. Bolden said that in the future I would need mana crystals as well if I was going to do it from scratch. When we were finished with everything Azzaria and Hildre started to cook right away. They had been chopping and preparing everything while Bolden and I worked.
We quickly leave the kitchen at that point because they tell us we are getting in the way. When we enter the main hall we see the rest of the council is there waiting for us. They are all standing around, so I call Thia off of Timbre. When she landed on my arm I told her what I wanted using our bond. A second later there was a table and chairs in the middle of the room. These were from the town hall of the village that we helped move. Everyone took a seat and we started talking about the future.
The first thing I had to do was to convince them that a wall was needed to help defend the town. When I brought it up there wasn’t much resistance but Laurissa had voiced her opinion on how unnecessary it was multiple times. “I still don’t see what the issue is. We are deeper in the forest than we were before and the human kingdom doesn’t know where our new location is. I believe it was you Vol that insisted on using some of the scouts to conceal our passage. Now this endeavor, on top of everything you want to make this defensive wall before anything else. It will take up time better spent building homes for all the displaced villagers.” The rest of the council is just watching the back and forth between me and Laurissa at this point, not wanting to get involved.
Before she can take another breath and continue I take a new tact and speak up. “First, you’re right. We do need to build housing for the villagers, and soon. I’m willing to split the work evenly between housing and the wall. But the wall is absolutely necessary. I doubt that the human kingdom of Plora will just forget about us, but that is a distant problem that shouldn’t be an issue for a long time if at all. What I’m most concerned about is the local wildlife.” When I say that Laurissa opens her mouth to object but I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “Yes I know we didn’t encounter much on the way here, but that was with a group of hundreds and guard patrols keeping tight watch. I have also been told that farther into the forest the threats tend to get stronger. Do you want to be responsible when some stealthy monster sneaks into the dark village and takes a child in the night?”
With that, Laurissa’s mouth snaps shut with an audible click. While they are all thinking I drive my point home. “Also, I think that part of the reason we didn’t encounter many creatures, other than our group size, is that the Corpse Driver Beetles had driven away many of the local creatures. Things are returning to the area now that the beetles have been neutralized.” Finished with my little speech I sit back down and watch the expressions of those at the table, especially Laurissa’s. Coming out of her
thoughts, she looks around at her fellow council members. Seeing the way they are looking back at her, she sighs and addresses me. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought about why it was so easy to get here before. It is going to take a very long time for us to house everyone though.”
This part I was ready for. “I don’t think it will be as long as you are assuming. As another part of our defenses I want to make all the buildings in town from stone.” Before I can continue there is a burst of noise from the seated council. Most of them shouted about how that will take even longer and about needing to quarry the stone. I raise my hand and wait for everyone to quiet down. “I plan to use magic to get the work done quickly. You all saw the Shape Earth spell I used to create the bridge. I can use that, and I was hoping that there are a few more that have the spell and are willing to help.”
I’m surprised a little that everyone turns to Bolden when I finish talking. He clears his throat and addresses me “My son and I know it, but we don’t work for free.” I like Bolden but that really ticks me off. Charging me for teaching or for materials is fine, but for housing his people?
Well, two can play at that. “That is fine. Just so you know then, I am the lord of this land and you reside here at my discretion. Also, you will need to pay for time to use any crafting facilities that I build here in my keep. And I think that the mana crystals stored downstairs might be more expensive than I originally thought they would be. I mean, they will grow back, but I’ll always have a use for it somewhere, right?” This whole time I am staring into Bolden’s eyes. The expression on his face starts off angry and then as he looks around at all the scowling council members around him his face falls.
A Mage Rising: (The Chronicles of Herst 2: A LitRPG Saga) Page 1
