In02vasion2, page 5
“Master Bartulun told me about your problem and asked for help. I gather you need a castle?” asked the chief, tidying objects on his desk. He casually opened a small trinket box, demonstrated that it was empty', and moved it closer to me.
“Yes, your help would be most opportune,” I confirmed. The deputy’ glanced meaningfully at the box, then at the stage-prop purse on my belt, and back at the box.
“We must think about what can be done.”
“We will be indebted to you.” On Eredani’s hint, I counted out a thousand gold, hoping he hadn’t made a mistake with the local rates. The jangling purse hopped smartly into the box, and the speed at which the deputy’ raked it into the desk draw’er would have made a Formula One car envious.
Agreeability with the deputy’ of the province of Lok’dar increased to 30.
“It’s very good that you chose our province.” A contented smile spread across the leader’s face. He appreciated the size of the donation. “But before we turn to the question of the castle, I want to reward our heroes. When wre wore attacked by the demons, they did battle with the enemy and helped to fend off the attack, with no thought for their own hides...”
The deputy’s speech wras long and insincere. Had I heard it on the stage, I would not have believed one word, and would personally have rewarded such mediocre acting with a rotten tomato to the forehead.
Reward receiv ed for participation in local scene: Defence of Lok’dar
• Discount on all Lok’dar traders’ wares: 3% for 30 days.
No great shakes of course, considering the prelude was worth thirty percent.
“Now’ to the main business. I have been told w’here you want to build your castle, and I have looked at the papers. You made a good down payment when you created the clan. That wras very’ prudent. Otherwise I would have to give you a castle in a random location, as demanded by law.”
Eredani: Yes, yes. The law. No problems are anticipated with the law. He’d sell his motherland and his soul for gold.
Kvalen: Agreed. The deputy has an enviable appetite.
“Master Bartulun requested you be given a chance to show w’hat you can do to earn a castle better than is normally reckoned for novices. He assures us you are well-meaning folk and worthy of a trial. I unconditionally take his word for it, yet at the same time I have heard nothing serious about the Pareto clan. What will my residents say if I entrust the town to tieflings?”
I got it — one palm greased, present the other. A second trinket box appeared on the table, and another thousand gold skipped into it.
“However, when all is said and done, sometimes it’s worth giving youth a chance. As the saying goes: ‘Beauty’ before age.’ “
And the bribetakers shall have a separate cauldron in hell, I continued the phrase in my head.
“Good! The place you have chosen is teeming with pirates. Drive them all out, and I shall place into
your trust the six villages near the castle. That will give the castle level three right away. If you can’t... well, it happens. You’ll get by without the villages.”
“Do the villages come with a title attached?” Eredani asked ingratiatingly. Grudgingly I counted out another thousand and placed it openly on the table.
“A title?” asked the deputy thoughtfully, looking at the purse. “That’s for six villages, yes?”
“Yes, your grace, a title,” confirmed Eredani, nudging me to increase the sum to ten thousand.”
“Yes, I do recall there was a decree like that somewhere. I’ll have to look for it.” The deputy’s lips moved, and another ten thousand slipped into the purse.
“Ah, there it is.” The covetous pencil pusher threw up his hands. A file lying in front of him flipped open to reveal the document in question. The management of six villages is accompanied by the title of Baron. Howr could I have forgotten? In that case, all that remains for you to do is buy the castle and make a start for it. Pirates are attacking our province.”
The deputy' of the province of Lok’dar offers the Pareto Clan a nameless level-1 castle for 5,000 gold. Castle location (coordinates). Accept offer?
Time for making decision: 120 seconds.
According to the map, the coordinates in the description indicated the estuary of the Green River. He hadn’t been lving.
“Another five? “ I muttered my discontent, bored of counting out money.
Eredani: That’s a standard price for places with bare rocks. Don’t whine out loud. We still need to find out about movable property.
“Your grace, might I ask a question? How many people live in these six villages?”
“Two thousand four hundred eight sentient beings,” replied the deputy, checking with the papers.
“And how much will our taxes be?”
At that moment Bartulun coughed to remind us of his presence. The provincial chief looked sidelong at the dwarf and mumbled:
“The standard rate in the provinces is one hundred fifty' gold, but we make concessions for friends of a hero. One hundred gold per sentient head per annum.”
“That is satisfactory-for us,” Eredani hurried to say before I had the chance get wound up. Frankly, I did have reason, and not little. I could count quickly, and you don’t have to be Einstein to multiply 2,500 by 100 anyway. So, shit, that’s quarter of a million per year! What’s with the hellish taxes?!
Kvalen: A hundred gold?! Man, we’re the champions of speed impoverishment!
Eredani: Pay! Six villages will give us an income of twice that. As your advisor I insist.
Advisor? Yeah, sure! As soon as debts appear, advisors like that are the first to pack their bags. My hand wavered above the Decline button, and shifted with enormous difficulty to Accept. It was still a risk, mind. Perhaps I was putting my faith in another person for the last time, but Eredani hadn’t let me down yet.
The Pareto clan has gained an unnamed level-1 castle. Acquire ownership and naming rights from the deputy' of the province of Lok’dar.
“Congratulations on your ownership.” The deputy rubbed his hands and bestowed on us a blanket of system text.
Clan achievement received: Castle owner. Hire cost of work crews reduced by 10%. You must name the castle. Conditional to your ownership of a level-1 castle, you are obliged to pay a tax on the castle at a rate of 5,000 gold per level.
♦
Task received: Oust pirates from Lok’dar
Description: A unique task. Pirates are terrorizing the south of the province. Find them, destroy their hideout, and banish those vermin from the lands of Lok’dar. Minimal criterion fulfillment: destruction of 499 out of 1,000 pirates (levels 40 to 100). Deadline: one month from now.
Reward:
• Experience +5
• Reputation with Light of Barliona faction +1
• 6 villages; 2,448 inhabitants
• Title of Baron
• Tax; per capita: 100 gold per annum
• Bonus for destroying all pirates: +1 to all main characteristics
***
Attention player!
If the task to destroy General Ad’var is not completed, you will be stripped of your right to remain in your lands for one year, while still being liable to pay taxes.
***
Unnamed level-l castle named Mindfell.
We parted company with the deputy the best of friends. We were escorted from the reception room the same way Vardunas had been earlier — with a pat on the shoulder. I should think so too! Twenty’ two thousand gold would make anyone your buddy.
“I told you I’d get us a discount!” boomed the delighted dw’arf as we came out into the hall. “Nowt, about me. Ten thousand a wTeek plus rations. The clan supplies materials, one day off a week, and fifty men. That’s to start wi—”
‘Thanks, but I can’t afford you.” I cut the insolent fellow off. He batted his eyes uncomprehendingly and looked to Eredani for support. My partner shrugged and distanced himself from the problem.
“Well then, what is your offer?”
‘Thank you for your help with the castle, Master Bartulun,” I repeated. “But I cannot pay for your work. I have no money. If you like, you can help for free. If you don’t, I won’t keep you. Eredani, let’s go, wTe have a lot of work.”
Bartulun stood there like a stone statue, and I waved him farewell. Such a laborer would be very useful to the clan, but only if the clan was already firmly on its feet. Just then Bartulun would have been to
me like a new Merc to a poor student: expensive, pointless, and more likely to provoke derision than respect.
No sooner had we exited onto the central square than I seized Eredani by the hand and yanked him back into the building. There I clashed foreheads with Bartulun, who was on the way out.
“Aha, you pranksters! I knewT you wTere checking up on me!” The dwarf smiled widely and threatened with a finger. “I agree I went overboard with my demands. A thousand a wreek and it’s a deal. To begin with I’ll supply my own resources, but later I’ll need compensating. And I can’t do anything without men. You must understand.”
“You’re hired,” I muttered, just to be rid of the bore. Eredani nodded questioningly, and I motioned towards a window that looked out onto a square, where two familiar demon hunters were arguing with a guardian.
We watched the pantomime to the end: the lippy pair were arrested and bundled into a portal. And off to prison, I hoped. I wrondered wiiat the Vartalinskvs needed in Lok’dar.
Chapter 4
THE TRIP TO THE INDUSTRIAL guilds was a washout from the start.
“So. Bartulun of the Blue Dorks, tell me again what you want us to do!” The head of the Lok’dar guild of stonemasons cupped a hand to his ear and turned his head to the dwarf. Titters arose amid the masters who had organized the all-hands meeting for us. “Send you off with our apprentices and materials?”
The baldhead shrank, inasmuch as that was possible, and nodded.
“Well, well,” continued the head, stroking his thick whiskers. “Tell me, where did you lose your beard these past three hundred years, huh? Speak up!”
Bartulun looked so embarrassed I felt sorry for him.
“As I recall, before you disappeared, you took a good many orders, charging deposits from folk, enough for three mills. Then you began to court Von Vorlohov’s daughter, before disappearing without a trace!”
“Well, I... lost my memory—”
“Your conscience, Bartulun, is what you lost.” He was interrupted by another master.
“He drank it away, along with his beard,” said a third.
‘The whole community took the rap for you. You shamed us in front of the whole empire. What a scandal you brought on the Dork family! And now you stand here and make demands? This will not do! I, Tirlin of the clan Stonehead, will not sit with you at the same table!”
“Hear, hear! Chase the beardless one out with a broken pickaxe! His place is not among respected dwarfs,” the other masters consented. “Tirlin speaks sense. Banish him! And the tieflings with him. We don’t work with demons. He created just the one legendary, and brought a hundred legendaries’ worth of disgrace upon us!”
Bartulun, crushed by the consensual denunciation, looked hauntedly from one bearded mug to the next in search of support. He didn’t find it. All nine masters of the industrial guilds of Lok’dar were immovable. Banishment, and that was the end of it.
“Honorable masters!” I addressed the assembly. “Master Bartulun speaks the truth. My partner and I wTenched him from the claws of demons that would have eaten him alive. He was barely conscious and could not remember anything, even his own name.”
Everybody fell silent at once, unsure howr to react to an announcement by a tiefling, until the floor was taken by the owner of the most magnificent grey beard, master Bartil of the ore-mining and smelting guild.
“And what of it?” A heavy look from under bushy brows chilled the defense attorney in me. “Nobody chased him to the demons. He disobeyed his father, messed up, and ran away.”
The bald dwarf hung his head dejectedly and made no further attempt to justify himself.
“We cannot have anything to do with Bartulun.” Master Bartil delivered the verdict, and the remainder nodded their concord. “But since you saved a dwarf, albeit a good-for-nothing one, we shall not banish you immediately. We shall hear you out. We know there are no castles in the south, but there is much ore.”
Bartil was a fair dwarf, but he put the interests of the guild above public opinion. A dissatisfied murmur passed among the gathering.
“Quiet!” shouted Bartil, silencing the resentment at a stroke. “There’s not just much ore. Wood, fish, grass, hide. Enough for all. It is a favorable place, despite being far away. We could even organize seagoing trade.”
“Be in no hurry, Bartil, to hobnob with half-demons,” Tirlin retorted. “The place is favorable, but there is no shortage of pirates and demons. There’ll be no working calmly. That’s wrhat I think.”
“The pirates and demons will soon be annihilated! I promise you that, as the owner of Mindfell,” I said triumphantly, trying to make an impression. “And if you help me nowT, I shall give you the most favorable conditions on my land.”
This was met with deathly silence. It was clearly a case of taking the rough with the smooth. The dwarfs ruminated for a while, before a red-bearded individual boomed out:
“Bartil speaks true. We have no use for Bartulun. We can’t be sure what to expect from him. But the tieflings’ plan is good. And if they also clear the land, we’ll be rolling. Except that Kvalen will hold out until later for his spoils, while he’s asking for help now. It’s a risk, and for what?”
All nine masters stared expectantly at us. Eredani immediately faded. I looked round at the bald dwarf in the hope that he could help at least here.
“For the heart of Pimisti!” he exclaimed loudly before sticking his meaty nose in the air like a fishing
float.
The commotion recommenced, and this time they nodded unanimously and panted approvingly into their beards, as though it wasn’t they who wanted to banish us two minutes ago. Bartil alone did not hurry to agree to Bartulun’s proposal, and several tense minutes passed before he said:
“So be it! You have a week. If you should lay your hands on the heart of Pimisti, you shall have stone for building, and workers, and supervisors, all at affordable prices. I, Bartil of the clan Blast Furnace, give my word! Should you not succeed, not to worry. There is stone and land aplenty. And there are masters among the people, and the elves, and if worst comes to worst, the kobolds.”
“But nobody has masters like us!” Tirlin jumped in again, concerned we’d get off scot-free. “Well, are you in?”
‘That depends what the heart of Pimisti is,” I replied.
“Fifty kilometers to the north lie some mountains. Once we had a settlement there — Pimisti. Our foundation stone remains in its depths, delivered there from Sintana, our homeland. We call this stone the ‘heart.’ Bring us the heart of Pimisti, and we have a deal.”
“Who will we be up against?” Eredani sensibly inquired.
“Ghosts, monsters, beasties from the depths. The settlement has four levels. Nobody’s been lower than two. The level-one beasts are weak, level twelve. Level two is more serious, maybe fifties. What’s on three and four we have no idea. It’s been ten years since we lost the settlement, but everyone who goes there comes back empty handed.”
Task available: Heart of Pimisti
Description: A rare task. The Lok’dar industrial guild of dwarfs, in return for its assistance in building Castle Mindfell, demands the return of the foundation stone
of the settlement of Pimisti (take a pickaxe with you to dig the stone from the wall).
Get past the monsters occupying the village, and return the stone to the dwarfs.
Reward:
• Experience +5
• Reputation with Light of Barliona faction +1
• Assistance with building Castle Mindfell
• 1 supervisor, 2 masters, 50 apprentices
• Bonus for total clearance of settlement and destruction of source of threat: +3 to all main characteristics; reward from personal reserves of dwarf masters of Lok’dar
•
Kvalen: What is this nonsense? The continent was opened at the same time the demons appeared. How can there be dwarfs here? Dwarfs who lost a settlement 10 years ago?
Eredani: What do you care? The continent was opened for players, and it’s long since written into the history of Barliona. +3 to all characteristics. It’ll be hot in Pimisti, we won’t cope alone, we need a group.
Kvalen: You think it would be easier to go straight to other masters?
Eredani: It might be easier, but not right. We need the dwarfs.
As we left the industrialists, Bartulun gave a halfhearted wave and trudged off. I wanted to call him, but Eredani stopped me.
“Leave him. We’ll fetch him from the Unicorn later. He can’t help us anymore. We have to sort out the group and go for the heart.”
Figuring he was right, I took out my amulet.
“Yes?” Communication amulets didn’t display the caller’s name, so Matty didn’t know who was calling.
“Kvalen calling Kieron Marley!”
“Marley speaking!”
“Pack your inventory. I need you.”
“Right now?” Matty was flustered. “Bro, you... today...”
“Bro? Who is that?” A female voice came from the amulet. “Ah. it’s Mr. West, isn’t it?”
“Yes/’ whispered my friend. “Let me spea—”
“Mr. West, hello again!”
“And good day to you,” I muttered, so she wouldn’t hear. “So what about helping out?”
“You need help?” She wouldn’t let Matty-open his mouth.
“Yes!” I was losing my temper. “Helen, let me speak with Matthew! Alone!”
“Yes of course.”
“Don’t be like that! She’s not being malicious.” Matty-stuck up for the girl. “Tell me what’s going on at your end.”
“Dungeon. I can’t get through alone. I need you.”
