by Jez Cajiao
Oren immediately broke into a huge smile, punching Barrett in the hip and getting a clip across the back of the head in return, Cai simply smiled his faint smile and inclined his head once.
“What this will mean, really, is that you all get to argue over who got the most thankless job, as it’s not going to be the party you thought it was; you especially, Oren!”
“We’re going to be getting the ship sorted as quickly as we can. I mean in the air today, if at all possible, so we need to go through the ship’s old crew and see if any of them are okay, or if they’re all assholes.”
“We also need to win the ship’s engineers around to joining us, preferably by talking, but if not, with bribery or whatever else we need to use, in order to get them working on the ship. Once it’s air-worthy, space-worthy…what do you call it?” I asked Oren, my train of thought momentarily derailed.
“Flyin’, laddie; we call it flyin’ or able to fly,” Oren said, his gravelly voice laced with amusement.
“Well, it’s feckin ‘flight-worthy’ from now on,” I shot back at him, getting a wink from Cai as Barrett and Oren grinned at me.
“So, once it’s flight-worthy, we will be taking a quick trip out to find your mate Decin and see if we can recruit him. This is where it gets a bit harder, though, as we can’t have him returning to Himnel if he’s not willing to swear to me, and that includes his crew. If we can convince him to join us, help us get things sorted here, and help defend the Tower, that’ll be great. If not, well, we might have to take measures to make sure he doesn’t return to help Barabarattas."
"I’d prefer that be by grounding or taking his ship and making them walk back, but if it means shooting him down, then so be it. I’m sorry.” I clapped a hand on Oren’s shoulder and made sure he knew it wasn’t my preferred choice.
“After we’ve got him taken care of, one way or the other, we need to head to the village that the ship raided before coming here, to see if we can help people, and convince them to join us. If they won’t, that’s fine; it’s their choice, as they’re not in command of anything that’s a threat to us, or—hopefully—close enough to the cities to spread any word. With luck, they’ll join us, though, and we can take some of the villagers that have sworn with us to help convince them. Also, we need to empty the ship as much as possible, in case they want to bring furniture or larger amounts of goods. God knows we need it.” I met Oren’s eyes, getting a sigh from him, but he nodded his understanding at the same time.
“Aye, laddie, that do make sense. Decin do be a prick at times, but he does no’ love Himnel or Barabarattas. He be doin’ this fer his family, same as I were.”
“Well, hopefully he’ll be amenable to joining us, then. We’ll be trying to get your families out of Himnel as soon as we can, after all.” I turned my attention to Cai, and he straightened as I did.
“Cai, I want you to start organizing the people. Their first task is to help clear and fix the ship up as quickly as possible, then to start turning the Tower into a home. I want a list of recommendations from you and Isabella as soon as possible, with skills and abilities of our new people."
"We need to organize the farmers and get the food sorted out and get cooks to take charge of the food and arranging meals.”
“We’ve all just mucked about in the last few days because we’ve had no time to do anything else. Once we have a team to begin getting a kitchen in order, then we’ll need to prioritize bedrooms and comfortable sleeping arrangements. God knows our morale will take a dip fast enough if we don’t take care of that soon.” Cai nodded once and spoke up quickly.
“The kitchen is being taken care of already. Two of my fellow ex-slaves were skilled kitchen assistants until they fell afoul of an employer. They’ve been clearing out a large room on the twentieth floor; it’s close enough to the gardens on the sixteenth and twenty third floors that it’s not too hard to transport food to, and it’s low enough in the tower that its manageable to get meat up if the hunting parties are successful.” He coughed and looked a little embarrassed. “As to Isabella and the skills of the villagers, well, I shall look into that. I haven’t really had the chance to talk to her yet.” Oren grinned at him and elbowed him in the thigh hard enough to stagger him.
“Really? Ye looked t’ be talkin’ plenty afore.” The dwarf would be in serious danger of losing the top half of his head if his grin grew any wider, so I stepped in to move the conversation along quickly, trying to hide my smile at Cai’s discomfort.
“Well, there’s a baker called Krillek in the group that just joined us from the villagers, so there’s a bonus as well. Barrett, you are gonna absolutely hate me, but hell, I’ll be right there with you at least some of the time."
"I want you to take our soldiers and make them into two teams of fighters. I want the hunters training at first with the fighters, as I want them able to fight, so they can look after themselves. Then they’re going to learn to hunt to feed us all. The fighters are going to be in two teams, because one will be here to defend the people at any time. The other, well, they’re going to be on the ship with me, or roaming the wilderness with the hunters. I’ll be joining you each morning for the workout, whenever my other duties permit. The most important person on this side of things will be you. I need you to be the strongest, the fastest, and the meanest. Take some time and tell me what you need; if you need skills, tell me. I’ll sort it out.” With that, I turned back to the other two, and had to bite back a smile at seeing them both straighten to attention.
“That goes for you both as well. If you’re going to be my advisors, helping me to keep everyone safe, they need to respect you. They need to know that you are where you are for a reason, as eventually more will join us that don’t have personal experience of you and your shared past here. If you need skills or magic, tell me. We have enough, and while I don’t want to waste it needlessly, I’d rather use it than not. Lastly, we need a healer; a real one, not just my magic and Oracle’s.”
“I want a dedicated healer for the Tower, and they need to be someone we can power-level, as I have a personal need for them to be strong as soon as possible.”
“Power-level?” Cai asked, and I grimaced at realizing I’d not even thought about the concept being alien to them.
“It’s a phrase from my home, it means to push them up the ranks fast, such as taking them with us when we go to kill things and sharing the experience gains with them, that kind of thing.”
“Ah! We have the concept here, though it’s usually something that guards do for the nobles or richer people. I just hadn’t heard it put that way before,” said Cai.
“Okay then, any questions?” I asked, and Barrett raised a hand hesitantly. “Seriously, dude,” I said shaking my head. “Just speak. No need for that crap when it’s just us.”
“Okay, Lord J...”
“And none of that! Just Jax, unless there’s a good reason to use more!”
“Okay…Jax…what about gear for the fighters and hunters? And you said soldiers one minute, then fighters the next, so which do you want? You can’t have both. I served as Guard Sergeant before I signed on with Oren. It was a long time ago, but I remember enough. People either fight as a unit, or as an individual, with different strengths and weaknesses.”
“Well, we’re going to teach them differently. Everyone gets the same basic training; that’s why they’ll be soldiers. They’ll learn to fight the same, and then they get to specialize. Each team will have one dedicated healer, a tank and damage dealers; they’ll need both a ranged and a melee fighter. Last of all, we’re going to train those that have the aptitude to do magic as well, but keep that quiet, as I haven’t figured out all the details yet.”
“Okay, we’ve got plenty of weapons and other equipment, and the soldier’s armor, but most of the gear from the armory upstairs is junk. Literally. The metal was safe from the weather, and it’d been treated and oiled, but anything that isn’t metal is useless. The leather has either rotted away, or
it’s so hard, it might as well be sharpened and used as a weapon itself now.”
“Well, you have anyone that likes working with that kind of stuff?” I asked, getting irritated. Always, there were more details. I wanted to do something, not sit around talking.
“Aye, there be Iken. He loves to tinker wi’ stuff, but we need ‘im on the ship! Especially if you’re sayin’ Barrett no be flyin’ wi’ me goin’ forward!” Oren spoke up, looking agitated as he gestured at his former first mate.
“Iken? And no; while you’ll occasionally fly together, of which I’ve no doubt, Barrett is now in charge of the security side of things for the Tower,” I said, shaking my head regretfully.
“He’s the big, furry engineer, Jax. You’ve met him a few times, but he doesn’t really speak unless you speak to him first. He’s a bit…shy,” Barrett said, looking uncomfortable.
“The big lad? The ginger Ewok looking dude? Damn.”
“I don’t know about ‘ee-wok,’ but yes, the big ginger one that doesn’t fight. He’s a Krill. His people survive primarily on nuts and berries. He’s basically eating his way through the gardens at the minute. Never seen the big bugger as happy as he’s been the last few days, despite the fights.”
“And he’s needed on the ship?” I asked Oren directly.
“Aye, laddie, ya canna take ‘im! I need ‘im; well, iff’n ya want the ship t’ run, anyway!” Oren said, folding his arms across his barrel chest.
“Hmmm, okay. Well, we will see… for now, he’s yours; maybe see if we can recruit from the engineers or existing ship’s crew. Make that a priority, please, guys. Get through them, sort out who can be trusted, and arrange for them to take the Oath this afternoon. The rest, we need to get rid of, so I’m going to have to have a think on that. We don’t have the setup, manpower, or any damn desire to have prisoners’ long term.”
“What will ye do?” Oren asked, and I shrugged, sitting back in my chair.
“I’m not sure. Either give them some basic supplies, and we can drop them off somewhere and point them in the right direction for the cities, or maybe something a bit more permanent. I honestly don’t know. I’d much rather not hurt people if I don’t have to, and they did surrender, at least some of them. As I say, I’ll think about it,” I said, and the three of them took the hint, saluting with a fist to their chests and heading out of the room.
I sat for a long minute, thinking. I knew what I had to do, but that didn’t make it any more fun.
I took a deep breath, straightened up, and let it out in a long sigh, squaring my shoulders as I put my hand on the Creation Table, calling out in my mind to all three of the Tower’s wisps.
It didn’t take long for them all to respond. It felt strange as both Heph and Seneschal joined my mind. Oracle was always there, to some degree, but the other two dropping in was weird.
It felt like a mixture of sensing someone coming up behind you, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up before you consciously knew they were there, and being on a video call when someone joined it without activating their own camera, with that weird…echo…of another line joining your own.
Oracle was coming closer. I could feel her approach, so I didn’t start yet, instead relaxing as we chatted idly for a few minutes. Heph began telling me about a small child that had braved the dark at the bottom of the Tower, stumbling around until he sent a Golem Servitor to collect him and take him out. I grinned as Seneschal brought up a representation of the boy on the table. I knew exactly who it was, even before the visual reference had solidified. Caron. There were only maybe a dozen kids in total in the Tower, at the minute, anyway, but Caron had stood up to me on the first day. He was tiny, ragged, and, at the time, a slave. Half my size, and with me covered in blood and viscera after slaughtering his former captors, he’d still stood up to me to protect his friend, a girl called Kayt.
The kid had spunk, I’d give him that, and now he was off exploring the Tower on his own? Picking the darkest section of the entire place to go wandering? He either had a bright future as an adventurer ahead of him, or a truly short one as a meal for something.
I liked him.
“We’re here!” called a voice from the doorway, and Oracle rode in on Bob’s head. The massive skeletal minion clattered and shook like a shitting dog as he walked, and I sighed, looking him over.
We’d been in such a rush yesterday, making sure that everyone was okay and safe, that I’d not had time to ‘fix’ Bob yet.
I got up and walked to him, putting one hand on his shoulder in apology, and looking into the fire that burned steadily in his eye sockets.
“I’m sorry, Bob.” I said, shaking my head, “I should have helped you earlier. Once we’re done here, we’ll fix you, okay?” Bob just stared at me stoically and I turned back to Oracle, frowning.
“I know I asked you to come up when you were done, but what about that prick, Lorek? I thought you’d be a while playing with him yet?” I said.
“I decided that he’d learned his lesson or will have soon enough. They were falling over every root and branch out there as they disappeared, and unless you actually want them dead, they’re never going to get out of range before the time runs out. I let them go once they were out of sight. I don’t think they’re going to stick together long out there; such a shame!” she said, grinning darkly.
“I found the Golem sealing up the ground floor and gave it an order to kill them if they came back; otherwise, I just let them run on.” I couldn’t help but grin at that mental image and resumed my seat, even as Oracle landed on the side of the Creation Table, blurring, and then growing to her full-size form.
She stood a little under six foot, with her hair blonde today, a faint golden tan to her skin, and green eyes. She was slim, but very busty, with enormous beautiful wings that slowly fluttered as though caught in a slight breeze.
She was also wearing a bikini so tiny, I knew instinctively that it was physically impossible. There was no way straps so slender could hold that kind of pressure; it would have snapped when she tried to put it on. Oracle coughed, staring at me when I guiltily met her eyes, and grinned like the crazy bugger she was.
Oracle was a wisp, but she was also bonded to me, and had decided, after watching people long ago, that she really wanted to try sex out. She’d gone through my mind when I’d met her, picking up on certain… movies… and memories, and now took great delight in shifting her shape to the most sexually attractive forms I could imagine, while casually dissolving and reforming her outfits for maximum effect.
I had only recently found out that she could become human sized, rather than remaining a foot tall, and I was still a bit weirded out by it all. On one hand, she was literally every straight male fantasy rolled into one body; on the other, she was childlike in her innocence, bonded to serve me, and it just felt wrong to take advantage of that.
Years of being conditioned by the western world into not looking… well, not too overtly, anyway… and feeling embarrassment if you were caught looking, warred with Oracle’s blatant offers, and I knew if I gave in, that’d be it, so for now, until I could sort out my feelings for her, I was keeping my distance. One of the few rules I’d managed to stick to over the years was ‘Don’t shit where you eat,’ and that translated into never having sex with someone you had to see every day, unless you were damn sure about them. I was going to behave myself… sort of, anyway.
My damn traitorous eyes were roaming every chance they got, and as to other parts of my anatomy…down, boy!
I shook myself and refocused on the table before me, seeing Oracle’s clothes shimmer and disappear, reforming slowly into a new outfit and I focused with laser-like precision to keep from looking.
“Okay, then…” I said, a roughness to my voice that I tried to cough away. “We need a plan here. I’m getting Cai, Oren, and Barrett to help me, with Cai focusing on people and organization, Oren on the ship, and Barrett on our security, and for now our hunters. I need some informati
on on the Tower now.”
“I know we’ve talked about it before, and how it’d take years to repair it all. That’s fine for things we don’t need, but we need it to be safe, secure, and actually stay upright through storms and shit. What can you give me?”
“Well, the Tower is primarily my responsibility Jax,” Seneschal said, appearing to grow from the liquid silver of the table until he stood straight, and a half dozen inches tall. Heph appeared next to him, short, barrel-chested, and giving an impression of solidity, despite his also diminutive size. “Structurally, we have two choices, I can go floor by floor repairing to the minimum realistically acceptable level, then moving on. This would result in more livable areas being available quicker. The second choice, and this is the one I favor, is that I work on the most damaged and dangerous areas first, spreading out the work across the entire structure."
"This means you will see less effect, day to day, but there is a significantly reduced chance of the entire Tower falling over in a high wind.”
“Okay, ‘collapsing Tower’ is definitely on my list of things to avoid,” I stated calmly. “That said, we don’t need a great deal, Seneschal. How about a hybrid approach? You concentrate, say ninety percent on the overall structure, then put ten percent of your available mana into making the few floors we need more usable?”
“This is your choice, of course. Simply be aware that even with one hundred percent of the mana being invested, I cannot guarantee the Tower’s survival. I do not recommend resources be used elsewhere, but you are the Master. I will obey.”
“Look, Seneschal, I understand this, but had I not killed that thing and reawakened you all, the Tower would have collapsed anyway. We need to secure the walls and ground floor at a minimum. I want you to divert five percent to the ground floor, get the walls and doors back up and safe.” I said, determined to get on with things. “The other five percent I want you to use on the floor with the armory, where the ship is parked; it’s what, the twenty-third?”
