Dorden’s chest rose and fell while he considered. After a long moment, he glanced at his wife. She nodded, a small motion.
“For the good of my clan, I accept this arrangement,” Dorden said. He stuck out his hand and they shook.
***
It turned out Dorden was an advanced NPC, so he couldn’t be added to the settlement right away. Instead, Devon added the other dwarves one by one until she reached the population requirement for transitioning from an encampment to village. When she did, the buildings took on a subtle glow for a moment, and then a low chime filled the air.
Congratulations! Stonehaven is now a village.
Devon looked at Dorden. “Stonehaven is now able to accept another advanced citizen. Will you join?”
With a grin, the dwarf patriarch accepted. He clapped Devon on the back, causing her to stagger forward. The dwarf laughed. “Flimsy humans,” he said. “Can’t imagine what my forefathers would think of me joining up with the likes of you.”
Despite his words, a grin showed beneath his beard.
“Huh? Can you look up when you speak? It’s hard to hear you from way down there,” Devon said with a wink.
The dwarf laughed and stomped off toward the cook fire where Tom was busy concocting some sort of meal.
Devon opened the settlement interface.
Settlement: Stonehaven
Size: Village
Tier 1 Buildings - 17/50 (0 upgraded):
11 x Standard Hut
6 x Canvas Shelter
Tier 2 Buildings (2/5):
1 x Medicine Woman’s Hut
1 x Crafting Workshop
On the tab for advancement, she checked what she’d need for the next level:
Requirements for expansion to Hamlet:
- Advanced NPC: 3/7
- Tier 2 Buildings: 2/6
- Tier 3 Buildings: 0/3
- Population: 21/100
Having just scraped together the 20 citizens necessary for a village, the 100 needed for a Hamlet seemed nearly impossible. But that was a problem for later. Right now, they needed to make sure their village survived which meant fortifying the perimeter, strengthening the defenses, and preparing for onslaught.
She joined the others at the campfire, humans and dwarves laughing and gently ribbing Tom about how long it was taking to get a meal ready. She pulled Prester and Deld aside.
“Now that we’re a proper village,” she said, “we need to start building like one. Are both of you ready to work?”
The men grinned, nodding.
“Deld, I’d like you to start working on a forge. Our new villagers have quite a few ingots that could be worked into useful items, and I have a feeling we’ll soon need to repair weapons and armor.”
“And me, Your Gloriousness?” Prester asked.
“We’ll need some more advanced buildings soon, but before we start construction, we have safety to consider. I see that we can now upgrade our tier 1 structures—do you have any ideas for that?”
“Well yes indeed,” he said, touching his brow. “I propose we replace the huts with timber buildings—that would provide better protection from the weather and animals, and if we ever did have attackers within the village…” A look of concern passed over his face.
“I doubt it will come to that. An attack breaching the outer defenses isn’t likely. But yes, real wood buildings would keep our village safer. What about fortifications? Do you have access to any plans for defensive walls or guard towers?”
Prester chewed his lip as he thought. “I do know how to build a guard tower. It came with my tier 3 plans. As for the wall… I think I might be able to improvise something.”
Devon nodded. “Keep me appraised on your resources. I know the lumberjacks have been working consistently, and Bern’s been toiling away at the quarry.”
“I definitely have enough to start,” Deld said. “With no major surprises, I imagine the supply will keep up. Seem correct, Prester?”
The carpenter nodded.
“Speaking of the quarry… Will you keep making the trip with Bern?” she asked.
Deld nodded. “Fairly often. He asks for my opinion on what size blocks to cut. And I still need chips for the mortar.”
“I’d like you to start varying the path you take to and from. I realize that will slow your progress a bit, but the trail we’ve created nearly led a pair of starborn to Stonehaven. We were lucky they followed it in the other direction.”
The stonemason nodded, a grim look on his face. “A wise choice, Your Gloriousness.”
“Now go ahead and get some stew. It looks like Tom has finally declared his concoction edible.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Devon pulled Dorden aside as they were walking toward a meeting she’d called in the center of the village.
“A couple quick questions for you, if you don’t mind,” she said.
“What is it, lass?”
“I believe our ultimate security depends on exploring the surroundings. In particular, we need to find the source of the corruption that’s transforming the wildlife. And more importantly, we need to find a particular relic.”
“All right,” the dwarf said. “When I agreed to follow ye, I knew I was choosing to respect your judgment. If ye believe that this exploration is the best course, I won’t question ye.”
“Thank you, my friend. I’d hoped to get some advice from you on the implications of this plan.”
He couldn’t hide the prideful straightening of his spine at her words. “I’ll do my best to advise ye, lass.”
“You see, in order to assure there’s enough food to go around, I’ve been supplementing my hunter’s contribution with some hunts of my own. But I need to stop focusing on slaughtering wildlife to work on the other goals. Alone, Grey can’t keep up. I’ve asked Hazel, our scout, to add what she can by foraging. Still, I’m worried it won’t be enough.”
“Hmm,” the dwarf said. His bushy eyebrows trembled as he worked over the notion that there might not be enough food. She’d heard the way to a dwarf’s heart started with his stomach and hoped she hadn’t just undermined the trust between them.
“Our village can support four more advanced citizens,” she said. “I’m not opposed to teaching one of my lumberjacks to hunt game between chopping trees. But I thought maybe one of your clan would find it an honor to be raised to an advanced level. Provided they can keep from ruining the meat.”
Dorden stopped in his tracks about thirty paces from where the rest of the villagers were congregating. “If you’re serious…?”
“Of course.”
“Heldi has long wanted to learn the hunter’s craft. She’s always felt it was wasteful the way we fought without salvaging food from the spoils.”
Devon smiled. “Consider it done then, I’ll speak to her as soon as she’s feeling better.”
“She might feel better sooner if you spoke to her right after the meeting…”
Devon smirked. “Fair enough. As for my other question… The fight ahead may be difficult. I hope that no one will suffer mortal wounds—I’ll gladly take those blows if I’m able, seeing as I have the starborn ability to be resurrected. Even so, I’m worried some of you will get hurt. Hezbek can provide healing potions, but the recovery time is so long. I can’t imagine, given all the fighting your clan has done, that you’ve been forced to lie unconscious every time you get healed.”
“Ha!” Dorden exclaimed. “Thank Veia ye finally asked. I didn’t want to demand, ye know, but it is a rather annoying situation.”
“Then there’s a way around it?”
“Of course. Ye either need a priest who draws upon Veia’s blessing to grant the healing boon, or ye can get that blessing elsewhere.”
“And none of you are a priest, I assume?”
Dorden snorted. “A bit too eager for skull-crushing, these lot are.”
“Then how do we r
eceive this blessing?”
“With potions, ye gotta get them consecrated. But to do that, ye need a temple to Veia. Or at the very least, a shrine.”
“A shrine to Veia?”
Dorden nodded.
“And do you know how I might get one of these shrines?”
“Aren’t ye the one supposed to be making construction decisions for our little settlement?” he teased.
Right. She should have thought of that. Devon opened the settlement interface and scanned through the list of available buildings. The tier 2 offerings hadn’t changed, though it seemed that the forge could be upgraded to work with rare metals and the barracks could have an addition to sleep eight. She clicked on tier 3. Aha, there it was, tucked between Inner Keep and Stables.
- Shrine to Veia.
Bestows Veia’s blessing. Blessings vary based on offerings supplied and the items or persons receiving the boon.
Requires: Stonemasonry (Tier 2), 3 x Stone Blocks, Settlement leader sworn to Veia.
That seemed easy. By the time Deld was done with the forge, he’d probably have the skill to build it. Too bad it used up a Tier 3 building slot, but it would be worth it to have potions work on her followers without putting them to sleep. Plus, it seemed there could be other blessings.
“I’ll order it built as soon as we have the materials and expertise,” she said. “With good fortune, none of your clan will have to sleep off one of Hezbek’s potions again.”
“Unless the consecration process improves the taste, they may still want to,” he said with a laugh.
When they reached the gathering of villagers, Dorden stepped into the huddle and turned to face her. Devon climbed onto a boulder to help her voice be heard over the group.
“Greetings, my friends,” she said. “I’ll keep this short because we have much work to do. Today, every fighter in this camp will begin exploring the area. We’ll organize parties of two and three to move together through the jungle and finally uncover the secrets that lie out there. Dorden and I will work with you to set up a guard rotation at the village perimeter and quarry, but the protection will be thin. To achieve our aims, we must be bold. For the time being, there will be only one guard in each place so that we have the resources to tame this jungle. I’m appointing Greel—” The man jerked, startled. His eyes narrowed. “—as the official record keeper. Please report the results of your explorations and especially any sightings of red-eyed beasts. Fight if attacked but avoid combat otherwise. We want no unnecessary injuries. Within five days, I want there to be no remaining mysteries in this jungle. We’ll meet every evening to discuss our finds.”
After she gave the signal for the group to disperse, Greel came stomping toward her, snarling.
“So I’m the clerk now? The secretary?”
Devon shook her head. “You’re the only person with the brains to keep it all straight. I can’t be here all the time. I need you to help me keep track of our efforts. And… I need your knife in camp. I can’t stand leaving just a single guard, and while I don’t wish to post you as a fighter—I get the sense you’d rather not have your skills be known—I’ll feel better knowing you’re here.”
The man gave a beleaguered sigh. “Fine.”
He started to walk away.
“Greel,” she said, “keep my people safe.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
***
For the next few mornings, Devon joined the rest of the village fighters for a breakfast of something Tom called Stonehaven Scramble. Gray had found a bank downriver where some sort of mud-dwelling reptile laid daily clutches of eggs. Devon wasn’t so hot on eating alligator eggs or whatever they were, but the taste made up for it.
The taste and the buff. The morning meal gave everyone a +3 to their Constitution as well as a point in Strength. The strength didn’t do much for her, but she could almost see the added power in her followers’ weapon arms. And when she ventured out with Bayle to clear another handful of temples and random ruins, she noticed the difference in the fighter’s damage.
Unfortunately, clearing random ruins didn’t seem to be doing much but slowly uncovering the last major area on the map. The closer they moved to the center of the unexplored region, the more corrupted animals she and her followers encountered. So that was progress, but it was frustratingly slow. Over the course of the exploration, Devon finally leveled Flamestrike to tier 2, increasing the single target damage and adding splash damage to nearby enemies. The other high point came when Devon dinged 10. Hezbek taught her the Levitate spell, which she filed away as something to experiment with later.
On the fifth day, she and Bayle returned to camp early. It was just midafternoon, but after hacking through the jungle all morning, massacring a few low-level animals for their meat, they’d found themselves back at Uruquat’s original camp. Already, the jungle had swallowed most of the clearing, leaving just the remnants of the Leader’s Abode and the skeletons of a couple platforms in place. Except for the map sector assigned to Dorden and Heldi today, there was nowhere left to explore. Well, they could start retracing their steps to clear out catacombs and basements in ruins they’d previously cleared. Devon had figured it unlikely that an ancient relic of central importance to the region would be dumped off in some farmer’s basement, so they’d avoided going underground. But it seemed they might have to.
Between his mortar creation and his work on the forge, Deld had reached tier 2 in stonemasonry. He was taking a short break from forge construction to piece together the shrine to Veia on a flat pad of land between the stream and the cliff. It was a tranquil meadow, perfect for contemplation and—Devon hoped—pleasing to the game’s goddess AI. Devon lay down in the grass and watched him work after he assured her it would be no bother. She’d begun to drift off when shouts came from the far edge of the camp.
She sprinted through the collection of huts intermixed with wood-walled cabins and gasped at the sight of Dorden and Heldi staggering into camp, an echo of the scene following the player ambush. A gash had been opened on Dorden’s forehead, and blood streamed into his eye. His wife’s chainmail was torn, and she carried an arm awkwardly against her stomach. When they reached the brook, Dorden fell to his knees and splashed water on his face. Devon noticed that the shield he sometimes carried had been cracked nearly in two.
“What is it? What happened?” she asked as she ran over.
Heldi swayed as she turned. “Well, we found the source of your crazed monsters, at least.” The woman fell to a seat beside the stream.
Devon sighed. Another few hours, and the shrine would likely have been completed. “Get Hezbek,” she said to a dwarf who had hurried over. “And when the others come in, tell them to stay close. I’ll be heading out this evening, alone. No one else should endanger themselves until we can get our healing potions consecrated.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
FINALLY, A CHANCE to put these quests to bed. Devon crept closer to the site where the dwarf pair had run into trouble. Though Dorden had tried to describe what they’d found, Devon wasn’t quite prepared for the view. After hacking through the jungle for weeks, the simple sight of so much open air shocked her. Where the other ruins had been overgrown, strangled by foliage, the center of the corruption was all gray stone and tumbledown buildings. Like a circle stamped from the jungle, the streets of the ancient town converged like spokes to a massive central temple. In these outlying areas, red-eyed creatures shambled between crumbling buildings. At the nexus, the temple seemed to pulse with an odd energy. Black and purple currents swirled over the facade, and occasionally flares of light shone through windows and cracks in the old stone.
Devon set foot on a broken cobblestone street, and everything seemed to dim as if a pall hung over the city. Toppled buildings closed in on either side, feeling like jaws ready to clamp down. Shadows moved in rubble-strewn alleys. Ahead, a pack of massive, red-eyed monkeys screamed as they ran through an intersection.
; You have discovered: Temple of Sorrow.
Quest updated: What’s Wrong with the Wildlife?
Congrats, looks like you found the spot. Now what?
“That’s not helpful,” she muttered.
Quest updated: What’s Wrong with the Wildlife?
Fine, expunge the force that is corrupting the area’s animals. (Hint: it’s probably in the temple building.)
Clear enough for you?
Devon rolled her eyes and shoved away the notification.
Though the sun hadn’t quite set, the streets felt dark. As she crept forward, she waited for the roar of an attacking animal, but it seemed almost like she moved in a bubble of stillness. The area felt like a scene from a classic undead apocalypse movie, except instead of zombies, corrupted jungle creatures watched her from afar. Devon headed for the temple, shoulders tense, hand hovering over her dagger.
She walked for about a half an hour, checking each cross street and feeling more and more like something wasn’t right. At an intersection maybe three streets away from the temple courtyard, she stopped short. A pair of boars, looking much like she imagined the beast menacing Uruquat’s camp had, stepped into the alley in front of her. It was almost a relief to confront an enemy. Devon drew her dagger and made a quick Combat Assessment. Both were level 11, marked as “superior”, which she assumed meant they were tougher than an ordinary monster of the same level.
She stepped to the side of the street to put the wall at her back, and with a quick mental twist called a Flamestrike down on the closer boar. The beast squealed as its flesh set fire.
That was a relief. At least she’d become strong enough that they didn’t resist. With the last light of the sun, she summoned a Shadow Puppet and sent it lancing toward the injured boar. The spear pierced the boar’s neck and erupted between its shoulder blades before shattering. With a dying squeal, the boar staggered and collapsed. The knockback from the shattered shadow sent her into the wall, but she quickly recovered her balance.
Temple of Sorrow: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 1) Page 23
