Openings

by Thomas Davidsmeier

  Chris was horrified as he watched the next two actions play out.

  Brother Aleksandr dashed back to Ku and put his hand down onto the fallen goblin’s chest. Warm light bathed the Man-at-Arms, and he was healed back to consciousness and well away from DEATH’S DOOR.

  Aleksandr casts Journeyman Healing on Ku for 29 Health.

  But, the Witch King took advantage of Brother Aleksandr’s lack of armor. Leaping across the distance, the monster reached back over its head with both its fists and slammed them down into Brother Aleksandr.

  The old man silently crumpled in a heap beside the healed goblin. The frogre form of the Witch King stood hunched forward, leering down at its latest victim.

  Frogre hits Aleksandr twice for 21 damage.

  Aleksandr has -6/58 Health.

  Chris let out a cry of animal rage as his legs pumped furiously in his charge. He reached back with his war hammer, held up his shield to camouflage the way he was going to strike, then twisted and spun at the last moment.

  Lord Christopher McKnight flung a vicious uppercut with his war hammer right at the Frogre’s jaw.

  It connected with a sickening crack. The propped open mouth of the monster suddenly snapped shut, and the chunk of spear was driven up into the beast’s brain.

  You have CRITICALLY HIT the Frogre for 54 damage. Its Swamp Hide absorbs 3 damage. Resists 4 damage by Dark Embrace. Back to the swamp, thing! It dies.

  As the monster fell, it transformed back into the Witch King. His mask was askew. Just as Chris was noticing this, he also noticed that his aura was not lighting up the ground around him. A sinking feeling accompanied his realization that it had timed out sometime after the end of the fight with the ghouls. He had just used up his action with an attack instead of restarting his healing aura. There was nothing he could do before the end of the round to help Brother Aleksandr.

  Turning toward the former monk, Chris was relieved to see Nathaniel already cradling the old man’s head, healing potion in hand.

  As Nathaniel popped open the flask and started to pour the potion into Aleksandr’s mouth, something clicked in Chris’s mind.

  Chris reached down and ripped the wooden mask off of the Witch King’s head. The notification he saw below the face did not surprise him.

  Nathaniel uses Healing Potion on Aleksandr. He heals 1 point.

  Aleksandr dies. The position of Tutor of Christopher McKnight is now OPEN.

  Hoarse with grief, Chris whispered, “It’s Marcus.”

  “What’s going on?” cried out Nathaniel. “How can a potion only heal one point?”

  “It was another one of Marcus’s duds.”

  “What? I’m going to kill that incompetent...”

  Chris put his hand down on Nathaniel’s shoulder. “You don’t have to. He’s already dead. And, I don’t think he was incompetent. No, he was just plain evil.”

  Chris pointed at the unmasked face of the Witch King. His short-cropped, ring of grey hair had blood in it. His blue eyes were already looking glassy and empty. But, it was certainly Marcus, Apothecary of Fenton.

  Nathaniel shook with rage and grief. “How can Aleksandr be dead?”

  Shaking off the effects of the battle, Ku sat up next to the kneeling Nathaniel and the old monk’s body. Garbled at first, Ku managed to recover his voice, “He... He died to save me. Just like the White God that he served.”

  Tears were already streaming down the goblin’s face.

  Chapter 20

  The town of Boiling Cauldron became the property of Lord Christopher. He changed the name to Aleksandria to honor Brother Aleksandr. They had given the priest a proper funeral and buried him in the church graveyard where Chris’s spawn point was. Another priest had spawned in the church, but he was not a Mage of Light, or indeed any Hero Class at all.

  They had found two identical magic rings, one on each ghoul. The rings were simple golden bands with a golden sun worked where the stone would have been. When Chris had taken one off a ghoul, he had gotten a prompt saying that he had recovered a magic ring. But, the prompt did not say what it was, or what it did. Try as he might, Chris could not detect any change in his stats when he put on and took off either of the rings.

  Nathaniel had the bright idea of seeing if Olivia could tell what the rings were. A few quick diplomacy sessions and trades, and Chris knew that he was in possession of two Rings of Days. These could extend the duration of any spell to 24 hours. Olivia had suggested that they were how the ghouls still had Dark Embrace on them even though they had been waiting for Chris for hours.

  It took Christopher a couple days to recover and sort out everything that had to be changed and updated. Managing the settlements alone was a huge job. But, Chris had managed to build Fenton up to town level with some Hero-assisted building projects. This attracted many more people from the countryside, and caused numerous babies to appear in cradles throughout the town.

  Robber’s Rest was renamed to Chrisopolis, but Fish Guts was stuck with its evocative name. A trade route had been started with the towns to the north, and Chris was planning to go and examine the ruined city that might be a suitable capital site for a truly huge kingdom. All of his goblin settlements had their huts upgraded to houses. It had used up a hefty amount of wood, but it increased their population limit and made the villages more attractive. Just that afternoon, Chris had welcomed a nomad goblin tribe out of the forest that wanted to settle in the fenland. They had come ridding wolves. Chris was excited about the possibilities.

  As Chris was sitting in the Town Hall of Aleksandria, he was sorting through all of his status updates and things he had not dealt with yet. The paladin ran across two items that caught his attention. The first one was a notification that he could appoint a new Tutor for himself. The second was that he had somehow made contact with a side called the Village of Pius. He spotted that fact in the Diplomacy Menu after ending a strange, short conversation with Leo.

  Nathaniel, Ku, and Scout were off leading their Longbowmen Troop from the new Archery Range in Fenton and converted Goblin Warrior Troops. The rather large military detachment was sent west to deal with some spiders that had been harassing the goblin lumber camp. Chris had watched on the battle map as they had successfully defeated the spiders with no losses. Olivia’s advice had been very helpful. Now, he could see on the map that the three undamaged units were on their way back.

  True, sending troops to deal with that threat had been overkill, but that was how Chris played his games. He had even sent the magic rings with them. One with Healing Light and the other with Soldiers. Ku had to wear one and Nathaniel the other or the auras would cancel out and not work. With his only other heroes gone, Chris would have to wait a few hours to deal with the issue of appointing his new tutor.

  So, it looked like he had a little time to find out what he could about the Village of Pius. He went to his Diplomacy Menu. It suddenly clicked how he had made contact with them. Their emblem was the same as the one on the ghouls he had fought a few days ago. Was this side an ally of Jeremy? Why would they have a name like Pius if they were on the evil side of the Divided Lands? Chris decided the easiest way to find out was to just ask. He selected the emblem and opened the connection.

  An oil portrait of a striking redheaded young woman filled his screen. Chris admitted to himself that she was quite pretty, though not as pretty as Olivia.

  “Hail and well met, Lord Christopher McKnight of Aleksandria. I beg your pardon for asking this so directly, but your emblem seems to say that you are a Christian kingdom... Have you any spare food to trade? We are under siege by a necromancer most foul, and I can say it no more politely, but we are desperately starving.”

  “Do you like fish?”

  “Lord Christopher, my people are eating shoe leather. Fish would be a Godsend. What can we give you in return? We have little, but...”

  Christopher broke in, trying to match her politeness. “I beg your pardon, Queen Theodora. But, is the necromancer named Jeremy
?”

  “Yes. He is a tall, blonde man who calls himself Lord Jeremy, King of Bones. I was forced to attend a dinner with him and listen to his witch skull recite Hamlet. The skull was not as bad as I had expected.” Theodora thought but did not say, nor was the necromancer to be honest. “That act caused him to give my people a few food units, but not nearly enough. He is trying to sell me more for exorbitant prices while holding my village in siege.”

  “Well, if you are tying up Jeremy’s troops in a siege, I would consider it an investment to supply your side. I don’t need anything in return, so long as you are holding out against Jeremy and making his life more difficult.”

  “I see. The King of Bones is your enemy as well? We will do our best to hold out against him, though we are quite limited in our resources. If it was not for my apothecary, we could not have lasted this long.”

  Chris saw an opportunity. “I’ve got a set of quite nice alchemy equipment. Master quality as a matter of fact. Seems our apothecary was holding out on us. Long story, really. Holding out isn’t exactly accurate. More like betraying and stabbing in the back over and over again. But on the bright side, he doesn’t need his potion making equipment anymore. I’ve got that a bunch of ingredients that none of us here can use. Would that be something you’d find useful?”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the connection. Finally, Queen Theodora whispered, “Yes. Yes, it would be very useful.”

  “Do you have a blacksmith that can repair equipment there?”

  Recovering a little, Theodora answered more normally, “Yes, Lord Aleksandria, we do. He has become quite skilled by making a steady stream of arrow heads that we fling at our enemies continuously.”

  “Very good. In exchange for the apothecary’s supplies, you could have him repair some armor and weapons of ours. Speaking of skills, what hero class are you, Queen Theodora?”

  “I am a Mage of the Light.”

  It was Chris’s turn to be silent for a long moment. That was Brother Aleksandr’s class. He was supposed to be teamed with a Mage of Light. That thought would just have to stew for a little while though.

  “Is there anything else, Lord Aleksandria? We could use 3 Food a day at our current population and military, if you could spare that much. Also, we will be more than happy to repair your equipment in perpetuity in exchange for the potion making supplies. Well, as long as we can maintain a working forge.” Theodora paused a beat, but decided to trust this man who seemed to be her enemy’s enemy. “We are tunneling out of our besieged city and trying to escape.”

  Chris leaned forward. “Here is my world map. Trade me yours. I will try to send troops toward your city if it is close enough. Otherwise, you can try to make it to my kingdom for protection.”

  Wordlessly, Theodora gave her map information to Christoper. With the new addition, Chris’s map suddenly changed scale. The two kingdoms looked like little green islands on a vast sea of black unknown. Chris could not even guess how far away the Village of Pius was, or what laid between it and his little land.

  Theodora’s cheery voice broke into his pessimistic reverie, “You have four settlements and two resource camps!?! You are ahead of the King of Bones for the moment. He has only two settlements, though he has a stronghold of sorts in the ruined city. That was where I had to endure the ‘Dinner and a Movie’ as he called it.”

  “At least it wasn’t Netflix and Chill,” laughed Christopher. Then, he realized he did not want to explain what that meant to such a regal person as this Queen Theodora. “Never mind, Queen, that was just a joke from my time on Earth. I think it is most likely a very different time from yours.”

  “Yes, so I had gathered.” Her voice was strangely neutral instead of the disapproving tone Chris had expected.

  “Well, I have to get back to taking care of those four settlements and those two resource camps. Let me know if you have any further needs or other ways I could help you make things difficult for Jeremy.”

  “Yes, Lord Christopher of Aleksandria, I most certainly shall. I am looking forward to your fish and the alchemy equipment. Until we speak again, may the Lord Jesus Christ guild your steps and may the Holy Spirit illumine your mind.”

  Chris felt a little uncomfortable at Theodora’s benediction to him. He realized that he rarely ever said much out loud about Jesus or God. He ran his hand back through his hair, wondering if he was too casual about his belief. It was the closest he came to self-examination for a long time. But, the demands of moment stole away the opportunity.

  Chris busied himself opening the inventory of his side and making the appropriate allocations. One trade portal opened up in the town hall there in Aleksandria. Goblin villagers seemed to automatically know what they were expected to put into it. He knew that villagers in Fenton were getting the apothecary equipment out of what used to be Marcus’s hut and feeding it into a trade portal that was there. The automatic transmission of commands had been a relief when Chris had discovered it. He had been worried that he was going to have to be present in person or send written orders.

  Chris checked on the villagers in the store room, but they were almost done sending the fish to the village Pius. So, he went into his map room next to his treasury. There, Chris’s battle map displayed the location of all his units. The map had a similar ability to send orders automatically to military units in the field. Chris had not seen the menu until after they had defeated the Witch King and taken over his Goblin Warriors. Militia could not be commanded in this way, and he had only ever had militia before that.

  At the moment, Chris was interested in the three military units moving around the northern edge of the fenlands. They were doing double duty by exploring while they returned from the spider squashing mission. It looked like they would be back about dinner time. Perhaps the first crops of rice would be in by then? Chris found plenty of things to occupy him while he waited.

  ***

  Nathaniel, Ku, and Scout came walking up the new road that connected Chrisopolis with Aleksandria. Nathaniel called out when he saw Chris looking down from atop the walls, “Let me guess what’s for dinner! Is it fish?”

  “Actually, I just gave a bunch of our fish away. I’ll explain in a bit. I want to talk to you. Let’s go for a walk.”

  Ku and Scout seemed happy they did not have to delay their evening meal for any discussions with their commander. Nathaniel did not mind. He was not really looking forward to more fish stew.

  Chris came down, and the two of them walked back along the fresh sawn logs of a new bridge.

  Nathaniel looked at Chris in the orange light of the setting sun. “What’s up, boss? Got another mission for your burgeoning army?”

  “I want you to become my Tutor.”

  “What? Why? Are you aware that I am less than two weeks old? How can I be your tutor?”

  “I think you get all the information just fed into your brain or some such. It says that I can appoint any willing replacement hero to the post. So, are you willing?”

  Even in the sunset light, Chris could see the understanding dawning on Nathaniel’s face.

  “Yeah, I guess I’m willing.”

  “Good.” Chris made the appropriate selections.

  Nathaniel’s hand went up to his head immediately. He began to babble. “Ow. Ow. Ok, that kind of hurts... Ugh, wait a second. Ok, I think I get it. Wow, that’s weird. Really? Ok, no, now I really get it. Yeah, it all just pops right in here. Wow. I’ve got like a full rules set up here. Boy, it is detailed. It will take awhile to figure all this out. I wonder what Brother Aleksandr even made of all this? He’d never played an RPG, or Civ, or anything like this before. Oh, that’s how Marcus was making potions. Witch’s Brew. It’s a class skill for them. They get bonuses for better alchemy equipment but don’t need it. So, you know, you could...”

  Chris interrupted the stream of consciousness that was pouring out of Nathaniel’s mouth. “So, are you Jack?”

  Confusion filled the battle mage’s f
ace. “Wait, what?”

  Chris beamed at the blue eyed man standing on the bridge with him. “You’re my Tutor now. In order to ease my transition to the Divided Lands, there’s no Out of Character penalty for you talking about your life on Earth. So, are you my little brother Jack?”

  Nathaniel started to laugh so hard he doubled over. When he recovered himself, he stood up, put his hands on both Chris’s shoulders, and looked him right in the eye.

  “Yes. Yes, I am. And, we are going to have so much fun winning this game together.”