Experience: 3,700
Health: 112/127
Mana: 80/91
Primary Power: Fighter - Defense
Secondary Power: None selected
Strength: 76/100
Agility: 51/100
Charisma: 9/100
Intelligence: 23/100
Special: 68/100
Perk: Trained at the Royal Guard’s Academy.
As I stared at Sheila’s Stats, her powers struck me as odd because unlike Gwen, who had the powers of Wishing and Fire, Sheila had only one, and it was labeled Fighter - Defense.
I had no idea what that meant, so I waved my hand over the Primary Power box.
Fighter - Defense: User has the Ability to learn defensive related fighter trees. None have currently been selected.
Sure enough, a list of powers filled my screen. They scrolled down so long that I couldn’t really make heads or tails of them.
“Um, Gwen, what’s a Magical Power or Skill people use defensively?” I asked, glancing at the succubus as she watched the lizardmen continue to throw themselves at the wall. Each time they hit the barrier, concentric lines of force would ripple across it. I wasn’t sure how much damage it could take, but I didn’t want to find out. If those things got inside, who knew what would happen?
“What?” she asked, turning to look at me. “Uh, I’m not sure.” She shrugged. “I know some of the castle guards in the Royal Centre have an Ability called Defensive Aegis, but I don’t really know what it does. I’m told it’s formidable, why?”
“I have a stupid Idea,” I said, turning back to the Ability Menu and thinking about the Ability. As I did, the Ability Menu began to scroll along until it highlighted Defensive Aegis.
Defensive Aegis: This Ability allows the user to temporarily double the Health of all friendlies within a one-hundred meter range. Ability causes all enemy units to focus fire on the user for thirty seconds unless resisted with an Intelligence check.
Requirements: Special: 50+, Strength: 50+, Charisma: 10+
Cost: 1500 Experience
“Perfect,” I whispered, selecting the Ability. As I did, another menu opened displaying a message that hovered in front of my face in glowing text.
Requirements not met. Charisma Stat too low. Would you like to upgrade? Cost of Stat upgrade: 10 Experience.
I took a quick glance at Sheila’s total Experience. She had more than enough to purchase the Ability and the Stat upgrade. I quickly confirmed my choices, and the sword in my hand flared with sapphire light.
More light wrapped around Sheila as she sprinted toward the two lizardmen fighting Agatha. As it did, she stopped in her tracks and looked over at me.
“What’d you do?” she asked, confusion filling her voice. “How… I mean…”
“I’ll explain later!” I called back, causing Gwen to look over at me. Before she could say anything, Sheila planted her spear in the soft earth and raised her shield high.
“Defensive Aegis!” she cried, causing a ripple of scarlet energy to explode out of her in a wave that crashed across the entire battlefield.
As it hit the lizardmen, they all went glassy-eyed. They stood there, trying to shake their heads before screeching like their gods had been affronted. Then they broke off all their attacks and sprinted toward Sheila, mouths agape.
The loss of concentration allowed Agatha to plant her short swords in the back of one of the creature’s skewering it. As the tips of her blades burst through its chest and it collapsed to the ground, its partner, along with the three who had been attacking the gate, ran for Sheila.
“Gwen, burn them down!” I said, pointing my sword at the monsters.
“But what if we attract them?” she asked, shaking her head at me. “I can’t risk it.”
“As long as you kill them in the next thirty seconds, it won’t matter.” I nodded to her. “Trust me.”
“But…” she started to say, but I cut her off by waving Clarent in front of her.
“Listen, who has the magic sword?” I asked before pointing my blade back at the monsters. “Now attack!”
She did as she was told, lobbing fireballs at the creatures. Her blasts hit one, knocking it to the ground and allowing Agatha to catch it. The guard leaped through the air and came down on its back, driving her swords down through its skull like she was Link in Legend of Zelda.
As it went still beneath her, the others reached Sheila, and the big woman smacked one in the chin with her spear, knocking it flat on its ass. Its two friends regarded her angrily as she dropped down behind her shield in a defensive stance, completely oblivious to everyone else.
Gwen threw another fireball. This one struck the left lizardman, sending it stumbling forward toward Sheila. The guard wasted no time, stepping forward and driving her spear through the creature’s throat. As gore splattered across the battlefield, its friend attacked.
Its curved khopesh arced through the air, slicing into Sheila, but if the blow bothered her, it didn’t show. Instead, she shoved it backward with her shield as its compatriot started to rise.
“I’m too tired to throw more fire,” Gwen said as Agatha flung one of her swords. It sailed through the air and cracked the lizardman Sheila had knocked down earlier in the side of the head. As the creature fell to the ground, Agatha launched herself into the air.
Completely oblivious to her, the lizardman reared back to attack Sheila, only it never got the chance because its head was reduced to a fond memory by the force of Agatha’s attack. As its body tumbled to the ground, the big guard turned and drove her spear through the prone lizardman, finishing off the final creature.
“We did it! Thanks for the help, Builder,” Sheila said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of one hand. As she spoke, the bodies of the lizardmen burst into green flame before dissolving in an instant, leaving behind only small, fist-sized spheres of glowing emerald.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the six spheres as Gwen turned to look at me.
“Did you teach Sheila Defensive Aegis?” she asked, and the intensity of her gaze was astounding.
“Yeah. I saw she had an open Ability slot, so I spent her Experience to buy it.” I smirked. “She’s also more charming since I had to spend some Experience to raise her Charisma to ten.”
“Good, maybe she’ll chew with her mouth closed,” Agatha said with a snort as she picked up her fallen sword and sheathed it.
“What other things can you upgrade?” Gwen asked as the two guards began picking up all the glowing emerald spheres.
“I’m not sure.” I shrugged. “Stats and Abilities, it seems, but I don’t know enough about the system to make good choices. I need to do some more research. I could just upgrade their base Stats, but it’d cost Experience, and then we might not be able to buy a really good Ability.”
“That sounds really complicated,” Sheila said as she came over and offered the spheres to Gwen. “I’m glad you have to figure it out while I just have to punch stuff.” She grinned at me. “Though if you ever wanna go a few rounds, you look me up. You look like you could use a good workout.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as Gwen took the glowing orbs and shoved them in a pouch that was hanging off a belt at her waist. I hadn’t even noticed it before. “So, what are those?”
“Dark Blood,” Gwen said, holding one out to me, and as I stared at the glowing orb, a window popped open next to it.
Dark Blood
Material: Gemstone
Grade: D
Contains the essence of a fallen warrior of Darkness.
“Um, what’s it do?” I asked, gesturing at it with one hand. “The menu isn’t giving me any ideas.”
“Menus?” Gwen shook her head and waved off the question. “It’s a crafting material. You can use them to empower different objects, usually weapons and armor, but typically we sell them to make repairs and what not. It’s our only way of making money out here.”
“Are they worth
a lot?” I asked, glancing at the two guards. “It didn’t seem like the two of you had much trouble with the lizardmen.”
“Sometimes.” Gwen shrugged. “They went down a lot easier than normal thanks to what you did to Sheila.”
“Oh,” I said, glancing at the two guards and feeling strangely satisfied. I’d already made a difference, and I’d been here only a few minutes. Imagine what I could do once I better understood what we were up against. “Well, I’ll be happy to help some more once I figure out what’s what.”
“Great. I look forward to it,” Agatha said, smiling at me. “If this doesn’t prove you’re the Legendary Builder, I don’t know what does. I’ve never seen anyone do what you just did.”
7
“So, when you said this was a town, you were, uh, exaggerating things,” I said as we made our way through Lustnor. Ever since Agatha had declared me the Legendary Builder, I’d started to feel more responsible than ever before. As I looked at the place, I couldn’t help but think we might be better off leaving the place and going elsewhere.
The roads, if you could call them that, were more potholes than anything else. Actually, that wasn’t quite true because that would imply they had been paved, which they had not been. No, instead, the path appeared to have been made by people walking in the same general way, their traffic alone having eventually packed down some of the soil.
“It is a town,” Gwen affirmed, glaring at me. “Well, sort of.” She sighed and gestured toward the empty trio of buildings to our right. “We have space for a bank, a general store, and even a haberdashery.”
“Yeah, but they’re all empty,” I said, glancing around the town. There was a set of what looked like thatch houses to the left, and I could see people milling about over there, and by people, I meant women of varying age from small girls to old ladies. “If the Darkness is as close as you say, there should be way more guards here.”
“We aren’t able to recruit anyone here. There’s not enough money in the town’s coffers to purchase more.” Gwen looked up at the cloudy sky and watched the lightning crackle for a moment. “We don’t have enough people for commerce, and even if we did, we don’t have any way of supporting more than we have.” She gave me a sad smile. “We were always more of a waystation between the front lines and Royal Centre but because the front lines fell a few days ago, we’re all that stands between the Darkness and the main city now. If we leave, they’ll be at the doorstep of the Royal Centre in no time. So even though we should evacuate, the moment we did, we’d be executed for abandoning our post.”
“Well that’s heavy,” I replied, feeling even more responsible than before. If we couldn’t leave, we’d just have to make this place a fortress. I just wasn’t sure how. “But if the situation is so dire, why are those people here?” I waved a hand toward the demons by the thatch houses. “They don’t seem like they’re guards or tradesfolk.”
“The Stained? Yeah, there’s a few, but we tolerate them because they’re like canaries. As long as they’re here, we’re safe enough.” Gwen shrugged, gaze barely registering the demons she’d called the Stained.
“Um… why did you call them the Stained?” I asked, confused.
“They have been exiled from the Royal Centre and can no longer enter its walls. Their faces bear a mark to indicate their crimes. Some have tried to burn them off, but it shows up even through scar tissue. It truly is a stain that can never be removed.” She took a deep breath, focusing on the group now. “They come in when a border town falls and stay until the next one falls. They come to towns like this because we tolerate them for the most part. As I said, having them here is a warning sign.”
“Why not imprison them? Hell, why not execute them?” I shook my head. “This punishment doesn’t make any sense.”
“According to the Heads of the Guilds, imprisonment and death are both escapes and, therefore, are inadequate punishments. There is no greater punishment than to live with your disgrace, to see your shame every time you gaze at your own face, to learn to hate your own visage as much as everyone else who happens upon you, to know that you will never be anything beyond the stain of your crime on society. That’s what the Heads say, at least.”
I sensed she was holding something back. “Do you not agree?”
She took a deep breath before elaborating, “I think the Heads of the Guilds are not so naïve as to discount the possibility that they may one day have need of the Stained. They are, after all, still bodies capable of aiding in the battle against the Darkness.”
“Doesn’t it cost a lot to take care of them? Do they have skills that make them useful?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “That seems like a drain on your resources, to be honest.”
“It would be, but we actually get a bit of money from the Royal Centre depending on how many we have. They’d rather pay us to deal with them so they don’t have camps of Stained in the forests beyond their walls. That, combined with the Dark Blood we’re able to harvest from attacks makes up most of our economy.” She tried to smile at me, but sort of failed and looked at her feet. “That’s why we don’t have a cobbler to make you shoes.”
“What do you have?” I asked, rubbing my face with my hand. This situation seemed hopeless. Not only was there no economy of any kind, but there were no people. So far, in addition to Gwen and the two guards, I’d seen maybe a dozen peasants. That did not bode well because even if I upgraded them all, what good would that do against an entire horizon of Darkness?
“We have a blacksmith,” Gwen said so quickly, I thought she might be trying to hide something.
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” I asked suspiciously as we turned a corner, and the blacksmith’s shop came into view. “Oh.”
It was a squat building about the size of the empty general store, and I could see black smoke pouring out a chimney. It had doors and windows, but they were open and more black smoke billowed out from them. In front of it stood a woman with pink hair clad in overalls.
She had her back to us and was busy cursing up a storm and flailing at the smoke with her hat. “Goddamned forge is on goddamned fire again. I don’t know how I’m expected to work in these conditions. It’s a goddamned outrage.” She threw her hat onto the ground and jumped on it in frustration.
“And that’s Samantha, but everyone calls her Sam.” Gwen looked sheepishly at me. “She’s from the Royal Guild of the Blacksmiths. They usually rotate in every few months, but I guess she pissed someone off because she’s been here for three terms, and her contract has already been renewed for another three…”
“Okay,” I said, sighing. “So, we have a blacklisted smith. Still, that doesn’t mean she’s not a badass.”
“Do you see the same shop I do?” Gwen asked, looking at me and waving a hand toward it. “There’s smoke pouring out of it.”
It was a fair point, but since I didn’t know anything about blacksmiths, I just hoped it was good smoke.
“I can hear you,” Sam snarled whirling to look at us. She had one finger raised like she’d been about to do some serious pointing in our general direction, but before she could, her eyes widened, and her mouth fell open.
It was good because it took me a minute to catch my breath. Sam was a fucking knockout. She had one of those bodies I’d seen in rap videos. Her unblemished skin was white as snow, and she had one of those innocent, pixie faces that made her look barely a day over eighteen.
Her pink eyes sparkled as she looked me up and down. “Who in the blue hell are you?”
“I’m Arthur.” I nodded to her. “Arthur Curie.”
“You don’t seem very tall,” Sam said, taking a step forward and seizing my chin in her hands. “Hmm, he has good teeth.” She shrugged. “So, plusses and minuses.”
“He’s also the Legendary Builder,” Gwen said offhandedly before gesturing at the sword in my hand. “He’s literally holding Clarent.”
“It must be defective then,” she said, releasing me and looking down at
the sword. “His teeth aren’t that good.”
“I’m not a horse,” I said, starting to get annoyed. Who did this chick think she was?
“Quiet,” Sam said, glaring at me. “The women are talking.” She harrumphed and turned to regard Gwen. “My shop is on fire because the piece of shit forge you have keeps spewing fire onto the walls.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Use your fire magic and fix it.”
“You could be a little nicer,” I said. “You'll find you get what you want more often.”
“This isn’t your problem, Arthur. It’s hers.” Sam glared at me for a second before turning her ire to Gwen. “What’s taking so long, Gwen?”
“Sometimes, I think I understand why you’re here,” Gwen said, moving past the woman and toward the blacksmith. She raised one palm, and as she did, the smoke buffeted a bit. “Give me a few minutes,” she added over her shoulder before stepping into the smoking building.
“So, what can the Builder do?” Sam asked, and when I didn’t respond to her, she raised an eyebrow. “Do you not speak English?”
“Oh, am I allowed to talk now?” I replied in a mocking voice. “I feel like you should apologize to me, but I don’t think you have it in you, so let’s try this again.” I held out my hand to her. “I’m Arthur, pleased to meet you.”
She stared at my hand like it was made of dog shit before sighing so hard it would have made a teenager ask for tips. “I’m Samantha, sixth level blacksmith of the Royal Guild of the Blacksmiths.” She took my hand, and I found her flesh was strangely cool.
“Sixth? Is that a Rank?” I asked as she squeezed my hand hard enough for it to hurt before relinquishing it.
“Yes. First Rank is the best, tenth is the worst. I was a third Rank before I got sent out here…” She shook her head. “I’m not telling the story.”
“It’s cool,” I said, shrugging. “We all have pasts with things we don’t want to discuss.”
“That’s very understanding of you,” Sam said, watching me closely like it was a trick. Then she settled her hands on her hips. “So, what can the Builder do?”
The Builder's Sword (The Legendary Builder Book 1) Page 4
