My mana was still low from reanimating the shaman, so I couldn't do anything with what was left of the boar meat yet. I mentally called over the larger Bark Spider, which moved rather quickly now that we were in the open clearing.
I decided to put the whole saving the world thing on hold for a day, and waited the time it took for my stamina to regenerate. Then I used it, along with the last of my leather and cordage, to make a sort of hammock that would fit onto my large spider. That way, it could help move things around like a pack animal.
"You are one ugly, beautiful son of a bitch aren't you?" I murmured as it kneeled down on the front half of its legs. Then, with only a little bit of arachnophobic hesitation, I climbed onto its back where I had sculpted a shallow groove for me to sit in.
"Where... to... Master?"
I winced at the thing's booming mental voice, and mentally commanded it to quiet down. Then, I told it to begin trailing my other creatures at a safe but reasonably close distance. My vision blurred and swayed as the spider stood back up to its full height and began lumbering after the rest of my creations.
The ride was surprisingly smooth, even if the spider's hard, barky carapace was less than comfortable. About an hour after we left the circle, my little band of creepy crawlies and equally creepy Shaman found trouble.
A trio of large, ape-like goblins to be exact. Their skin was a dark, glossy black that shone in the meager light of the forest. Even from here I could tell that they were all well muscled, and way too big to be average goblins.
They were five and a half feet tall easily, with arms that almost brushed the ground. The only thing that told me they were goblins, other than the tag my Hunter's Sight gave of Level 8 Tainted Goblin, was their almost comically stupid faces and copper weaponry. Unlike the others though, their short swords were actually decent quality.
Fortunately, aided by the Shaman's Blinding Flare, the spiders didn't have too much trouble with them. One of them was taken down instantly by two of them at once, and another spider had the Shaman's firepower to back it up. Unfortunately, that left one all alone. Still, with the element of surprise on its side, it escaped with only a broken leg that was easily mended by yours truly and some Tainted Goblin meat.
(Your Bark Spider has killed a Level 8 Tainted Goblin!)
(You have earned 137 Exp (50% of kill) from a Level 8 Tainted Goblin!)
(Your Bark Spider has killed a Level 8 Tainted Goblin!)
(You have earned 137 Exp (50% of kill) from a Level 8 Tainted Goblin!)
(Your Bark Shaman has killed a Level 8 Tainted Goblin!)
(You have earned 137 Exp (50% of kill) from a Level 8 Tainted Goblin!)
Hmm. I liked that I was getting Exp from their kills, but I felt that they deserved maybe just a little more for their efforts. They were sentient beings after all, even if the shaman was the only one with a mentionable amount of intelligence.
Without bothering to ask Shard whether I was able to or not, I mentally proclaimed that they should keep 85% of any Exp they earned.
(You have earned Respect with your followers! Higher Respect will make them more likely to follow, work, and fight for you. In the event that they are under your control, they are less likely to attempt a revolt!)
Fuck, man! Like I needed more shit on my plate right now. Though, I supposed that if I was going to start a Frankenstein community, I couldn't just control the whole populace. "Shaman, come here please." I made a conscious effort to treat it- no, him, like an actual being. Which is considerably harder to do to something that you literally pieced together like a puzzle than it is for another actual person.
"Yes, Master?" The Shaman knelt before my rather horrifying spider mount. "Do you have a name? Or would you like to choose one for yourself?" The Shaman thought for a moment, before responding somewhat meekly. "I- I wish for my name to be Murlough, sire." I smiled, and nodded. His name tag changed appropriately.
(You have earned Respect with Murlough! Because of your choice to grant him a name, you have given him a large degree of autonomy. In the end though, your word is law.)
"Good, Murlough. You may rise." The Shaman nodded and stood up, dusting the dirt off of his pants. As a whole, my creatures left in pursuit of more enemies while I tossed the strange goblins into the body hammock. Then, I hopped back onto my spider and followed the others.
Five or six hours later, the large spider was starting to get overwhelmed with the weight of the bodies it was carrying. I kept it and myself out of the battles, for now, so it didn't gain any Exp. The creatures that did fight gained a total of 3307 Exp. I got 496 of that, enough to Level up.
That left 2811 Exp for my creatures and Murlough, which was shared evenly among them because they fought as a group. Each of them earned 562 Exp, which was enough to Level them all but Murlough. I also noticed that, instead of increasing exponentially, my creations' Level up requirements only rose by 100 Exp per Level.
"Alright everyone, time to call it a day!" I said aloud for Murlough's benefit, while mentally commanding the spiders to begin heading back to the clearing.
The journey was uneventful, if a little long. I wasn't sure how to spend my points yet, so I held onto them for now. While we were traveling, I mentally recounted the supply of bodies we now had access to, aside from the occasional game that would serve as food rather than materials.
Tainted Goblin x8
Tainted Boar x2
Goblin Scourge x4
Goblin Runt x30
Goblin Brute x9
All in all, it wasn't a bad haul for only a few hours of work. The small spiders and Murlough Leveled like it was going out of style, and even the large spider gained a few. I was extremely excited about the boars (maybe I could finally finish a set of leather armor now), but what really piqued my interest were the Goblin Scourges.
They were about the same height as the Tainted Goblins, but were extremely thin to the point of emaciation. However, those atrophied limbs were much more dangerous than I had took them for at first glance. They had exceptionally strong ligaments and fast twitch muscle, despite their size. While they were still very weak, they were able to move and jump unexpectedly fast. On top of that, the Exp of the day bumped me up another 4 Levels.
Two of my small spiders almost died before I even knew what happened, and only the intervention of myself and the large spider had prevented disaster. That was fine by me, though. Stronger enemies meant better materials, and better materials meant stronger additions to my small but expanding... group? Empire? I wasn't really sure, and as of now I didn't really care.
"We... are... arrived."
The spider's voice thundered through my mind once again, though it was significantly less powerful than it was when we left. "Thanks bud, I couldn't tell." I said with no small amount of sarcasm as I hopped off the kneeling spider's back.
"Alright boys, time to go to work!" The smaller spiders quickly scuttled over to the larger one and reached in with their wickedly sharp claws to pull body after body out of the body hammock. They then arranged the bodies by size and approximate power. Unfortunately, I hadn't killed any magic users.
Still, it was going to be a long time until I ran out of building materials for the time being, which was a good thing. Hunts like the one I led today were fine, so long as I didn't go crazy. If I wasn't careful I could be just as much of a threat to this place as the planet self destructing would be.
Pushing those not so pleasant images out of my head, I went to work with my new materials with barely contained glee. First though, I put all of my free 25 points into Intelligent to boost my mana pool.
First, as much as I wanted more fighters, I needed a working class to build a foundation for my future escapades. I spent the next few hours planning and designing my new people. I wanted to get them as close as possible to perfect on the first go, so that I didn't create a sentient creature that would lead a miserable life.
In the end, I actually created a few different types of creatur
es (I tried not to think of it as a class system, but in the end one would likely develop). There were Weavers, Watchers, Gruffs, Handlers, and Crafters.
I couldn't afford to make multiple of all of them, so for now I made ten Gruffs and ten Crafters, and saved the other designs as a preset for future use. The Gruffs were large, hulking humanoids with two immensely muscled arms and two smaller, delicate arms for sensitive work. They had extremely high endurance and strength, as well as a decently high luck.
The rest of their attributes were at the very least average, and I made especially sure that their mental abilities were up to par. They also had extremely powerful night vision, in case they needed to work in an unlit mine or other dark area.
Then came the Crafters. They were also large, but more agile and wiry than the Gruffs. I made sure they had decently above average intelligence and wisdom as well, for they would be the architects, smiths, carpenters, and so on of the populace.
I blended bark and slight amounts of dirt into both of the types' skin, to give them a little more toughness and dilute the ugly green of goblin skin. They didn't quite have the defensive capabilities of my actual fighters, but I knew that they could sure as hell hold their own if it came to a fight. By the time I was done, they had a brown, gently mottled skin that looked somewhere between chocolate and tree bark.
I also made sure that there were a decent amount of both males and females. It wasn't a pleasant task creating gender, but it was something that had to be done. I couldn't be the sole creator of my populace forever, after all.
In place of hair, I gave them some of the thick, strong vines that covered the surrounding forest. And, of course, they were all at least a little bit unique. They all differed a little in size and fine details, but they followed the rough outline I had made for them.
Before I fully went through with creating them, I made sure all of them had clothing that more or less fit. With one last look at the empty husks of what would soon be the first of a new kingdom, a new race, I gave them the Spark of Life.
"Welcome, young souls, to the world! I cannot promise your life here will be perfectly safe, but I can assure you that together we can create something wonderful! Now, for orientation..." I started, going through the welcoming speech I had prepared for them. Through the combined efforts of myself and Murlough, we brought the creations up to speed on what life essentially was, even though Murlough was hardly a couple days old.
We also explained to them what their expected roles in our budding society were. I combined three of the small axes I got from the brutes into one larger axe that the Gruffs were capable of wielding. It also saved mana, because I wasn't drastically changing them. I repeated the process to make another axe, and turned the last of my stolen weapons into a pickaxe even though we hadn't found any ore yet.
After naming the creations, so that they possessed autonomy, I sent two groups out to start cutting down trees and collecting lumber with the newly crafted axes. Each group had a Gruff and a Crafter, with two small spiders for protection.
Another group of Gruffs moved the fallen trees into about the center of the clearing, where Crafters waited to trim branches using slightly modified versions of the Tainted Goblins' weapons. While they were working, Murlough offered to scout the surrounding woods, something that he said should have been done much earlier. I let him go, but made sure the large spider went with him.
Exhaustion weighed me down as my people worked, both from lack of sleep and constant mana expenditure. If I didn't stop soon, I would crash. But there were a few more things I had to do before I could cash in for a bit.
The Crafters, though their intended purpose was crafting, didn't know how to craft a whole lot yet. They were "born" with the basic concept of woodworking and carpentry, but other than that they were pretty much blank slates. The problem was that I was too, for the most part. I had taken a couple construction classes during my first two years of high school, but not much of it had stuck with me.
I knew it was in there somewhere, though, and Shard could get it out. Then, he could transfer the memory of that learning into the Crafters, and provide them with knowledge. Theoretically. If things went south, there could be just a tad too much brain melting for my liking.
"It is possible, though there is a problem. Your world uses copious amounts of metal nails in construction, something we are lacking in. I can modify the skills they learn to include methods for carpentry without metal materials. I would grant them Architect's Sight, but I cannot unless you relinquish your control over me to them."
"Wow. Um, thanks Shard. Glad to see you aren't angry any more."
"I still do not agree with your choices. My anger for you burns as hotly as ever."
"Fine then you toddler, throw a tantrum." I sighed, but was relieved that Shard was going to help out. "Alrighty then, let's get this over with." I called the Crafters over one by one, imbuing them with a combination of my and Shard's knowledge.
When that was done, I used the last of our spare weapons to make drills for the Crafters. Using those, they could drill holes into wood (obviously) but the thing that made it useful was that they could hammer wooden pegs into the holes to connect logs. With that done, I practically collapsed into a deep, but short rest.
"Sir Donovan, the first of the buildings has been finished." One of the Gruffs stood over me, Antuhr if I remembered correctly. His voice definitely matched his title of Gruff. It was a deep, powerful growl that reverberated in my chest.
"W-what? Already?" I stood up, rubbing sleep from my eyes as I followed Antuhr's gaze to a small but seemingly well made log cabin. It was about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long. "Who's it for?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
"You, of course." He said. I held my hand up to stop any further explanations from the Gruff. "You know I can't stay in a house while the rest of you sleep outside. We'll use it as a storage shed for now. Get started on a lodge for you and your comrades. Oh, and have you seen Murlough?"
The Gruff answered my question quickly, letting me know that he was with some of the less busy Gruffs. Then he left, with a salute and quick "Milord." Green light flashed in Antuhr's eyes, and he jumped as if shocked, then went off to do as he was told.
You have earned the Lordship title!
Lordship grants you and all followers to you within your kingdom limits +5 to all attributes and a 25% experience gain. Borders for your kingdom extend 50 miles beyond the center of Haven Clearing. You may adjust taxes, resource allocation, ideal population growth, and other aspects of your kingdom upon the creation of a throne room.
"No freaking way. Did all that happen because of Antuhr saying milord?" My minimap even showed the borders of my kingdom as a circle that was shaded light green. I went back to the Kingdom interface and selected Population.
Population-
Gruffs x10 (9 Level 5, 1 Level 8)
Crafters x10 (10 Level 5)
Small Bark Spiders x4 (4 Level 12)
Large Bark Spider x1 (1 Level 9)
Goblin Bark Shaman x1 (1 Level 14)
I closed the screen, and almost chuckled. This is basically like running the dungeon... only this is living, breathing creatures that have actual needs and wants. And they don't come back when they die. Not this time.
I shook those thoughts aways and made my way across the newly dubbed Haven Clearing to a large gathering of Gruffs. "Hey, Murlough!" I called, only to find that the small statured Shaman was already by my side.
"Holy hell!" I jumped, shaking my head. "Why in the hell would you...? Nevermind. We need more resources, so I'm heading out for the day to find any nearby ore deposits. When I gave you life, I noticed that you have the skill Unearthly Growth. I don't know what it is, but we really need a stable food supply now that we've got so many mouths to feed."
Lord of Creation Page 12
