The Land: Predators Read online

  Richter looked back at the gnome woman, and repeated, “I am that man. Your husband was right. This village is not just a collection of buildings and people. It is a beginning. Every villager will have the chance to grow their power to the limit of their affinities. It will not be without risk. I will not promise that all of us will make it to the end, but those who do will have earned something more powerful than spells and stronger than steel. You will have earned your freedom from fear. No longer will you have to fear the might of those stronger than you. No longer will you have to fear that each day will bring someone stronger than you who will take your children. No longer will you have to fear being alone. They” he said extending a finger and swinging it above the heads of everyone present, as if to indicate the entire world, “will rue the day they challenged our might! We are not prey! We are predators! And they will fear us!”

  It was dead silent for a moment then one of the villagers shouted, “Through service, ascendance!”

  Richter unsheathed his sword and held it up in the air. Trusting Randolphus, he cast Weak Water Damage. A blue glow surrounded the blade, making it stand out like a beacon in the night, “Through dedication, transcendence!” he shouted back.

  Another villager took up the call, “Through service, ascendance!”

  Richter responded once again, and this time several other villagers took up the call, “Through dedication, transcendence!”

  Dozens of villagers shouted, “Through service, Ascendance!” Nearly half the crowd shouted back, “Through dedication, TRANSCENDANCE!”

  On the next iteration, almost every villager was shouting both the call and the refrain, while Richter stood before them, his green elementum blade held aloft and illuminated by his magic. Even the gnome woman who had questioned him was shouting while throwing her fist into the air. He could not have known that while his words were heartfelt, it was his recent victory and high Charisma and Fame that had made his people’s response almost a foregone conclusion. It didn’t matter though. All that mattered was this moment they all shared, and what it meant for the future.

  Hisako watched her fierce-eyed ally bathe in the reverence of his people. Even the meidon sprites that had been part of her own forces days before were caught up in the force of Richter’s personality and were chanting along with the villagers. The pixies circled above him singing a song of loyalty now, and Elora hovered before him, the jewel in his multicolored crown. Hisako still detected no evil within him, but long years of life had made her cautious. The Hearth Mother stood by her ally, but decided to keep one eye on him and the other on the future.

  CHAPTER 17 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 0 AoC

  Unseen by anyone in the village, a young but powerful creature fed nearby. The crystal stone marking the Dungeon’s southern border pulsed. It was still too weak to exert its power for more than a moment, but cold blue light kindled in the heart of the small mountain range, a siren song to animals and beasts alike. Only two animals were ensorcelled, but it was a start, and the Dungeon could not yet feel impatience.

  A jenit prowler sniffed and approached the mass of vines that covered the Dungeon’s eastern side. It did not know why it felt compelled to approach, but it did so nonetheless. It was cautious, but still entranced by the mesmerizing movement of the writhing plants. The magical beckoning of the crystal stone overrode its natural instincts and it crept closer, and closer, until it was too late.

  A mass of vines shot out and wrapped around the prowler’s head, legs, and body. It yelped and tried to pull away, but within seconds it had been dragged into the heart of the carnivorous plant. Tendrils shot first into its mouth, nose, ears, eyes and anus, rupturing and rending. Tears appeared in its hide and more green shoots pierced its body through these meaty pathways. A loud snap came as its spine fractured under the strain. Blood soaked the vines and was greedily lapped up by the predator’s roots. Even as the vines fed, the essence of the animal was absorbed by the Dungeon.

  On the western side of the Dungeon lay a broad swath of midnight-blue sand. It sparkled faintly in spots where no light touched it, but the light was a distraction evolved eons before to draw the curious and unwary closer. The koran tusker that had been beckoned by the glimmer of the crystal stone did not see a random scattering of light in the night. It saw the eyes of another tusker, challenging it.

  The monster squealed and raced forward to do battle, and in so doing crossed onto the sand. It sank like a stone through clouds, not even leaving an imprint to mar the smooth blue surface. While it plummeted downwards, the weight of the sand above it increased. Its body was crushed well before the pressure of the sand above should have been able to do so. The tusker’s flesh, blood and organs were all separated, pulped and mashed in a matter of seconds. Its energy was consumed and its pattern was learned.

  The Dungeon had fed. It was time to grow monsters.

  CHAPTER 18 – Day 142 – Kuborn 32, 0 AoC

  The funeral finished and they all reentered the safety of the village walls. The sadness of the pixies’ Song still held them in its grip. After the fervor of Richter’s speech had died down, all anyone wanted to do was sleep. Luckily, the guards watching the refugees were far enough away that they were not affected by the pixies’ Song. Some were retasked to maintain a watch on the walls. The mists themselves should keep the freed prisoners from causing any trouble. Even still, Richter summoned mist workers to stand behind the village gate. They wouldn’t fight, even to defend themselves, but if some beast attacked in the night, it would at least be slowed down.

  Richter went inside with the rest of his people. Once again, he offered his quarters to Hisako, but she refused, choosing instead to pass the night under the boughs of the Quickening. In fact, everyone, wood sprite and villager alike, decided the aura of the celestial tree might be exactly what they needed. Minutes later, the ground around and beneath the white tree was filled with slumbering forms.

  Richter’s Belt of Sustenance greatly reduced the sleep he required. His weary body and heartsick soul kept him asleep until the sun was well overhead though. An unofficial holiday, a concept that too many of the villagers were completely unfamiliar with, arose. Everyone stayed near the Quickening and spoke of the living and dead. In their sharing, the emotional wounds stayed open and continued to drain away the anger that might have poisoned the village as a whole. The healing continued. Even Richter remained lying on the grass after he awoke and dealt with the prompts he had earned the night before. He practiced his new technique of maximizing the prompts, though he read them as well just to be sure he wasn’t missing anything.

  Know This! Battles involving your village army have an effect on the day-to-day life of your villagers and the administration of your village.

  Master of the Mist Village, you have won your first Raid! Your village statistics have been adjusted accordingly.

  +25% total village Morale for having a 100% success rate in battle in your last 5 battles. This will last until your village suffers a military defeat.

  +100 Morale Points for winning your last battle. This bonus will last for one month and will fade by -25 Morale Points per week.

  -30 Morale Points for losing 6% of your total population. (Base -60, decreased by 50% due to Song of Honored Loss.)

  +500 Morale Points for adding a Dungeon to the village.

  Total Morale Points: +1,865. (Base: +1295 x 25% Undefeated + 9% Administrator + 10% Health)

  DING!

  Morale Rank of Mist Village increased from Delighted (rank 2) to Elated (rank 3). Morale bonus to Fighting Spirit, Population Growth and Productivity increased from 20% to 30%.

  “Your people are elated to have such a wonderful lord. They spend time finding ways to brighten your day. You can expect small gifts from time to time.”

  Richter stopped. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the battle would affect the village mechanics, but still, to see the actual effect was an education. On the one hand, battle could increase the Morale of his village. That
was nothing to take for granted. Every rank the village Morale rose increased Population Growth, Fighting Spirit and Productivity by +10%. It wasn’t an idle increase. Richter had seen more than a few baby bumps walking around the village.

  On the other hand, the boost in Morale was temporary. The loss of Morale from the deaths of his people was permanent though. The message was clear. In The Land, war could be a useful tool to grow one’s settlement, but it was not without risk. The simple fact was that luck had played just as much of a role in the battle as skill. Richter was lucky his entire force hadn’t been wiped out.

  The web traps from the assengai queen, the superior weaponry and potions of his forces, the foolish anger of the enemy commander; all had contributed to their victory, of course. Even with the many advantages they’d had, the combined forces of the wood sprites and Mist Village had only been able to fight the goblins to a standstill. The battle could have easily tipped either way. What had actually won the day was the creation of a new consciousness in the Bloodstone once it had been touched by raw Chaos. That same entity now resided within the Dungeon because of a deal Richter had made. Who knew what the long-term consequences of that decision would be?

  Everything had worked out so far, and they had gained a great deal from the battle. Still, Richter resolved not to forget that he had to be more than a warmonger. It also could not be ignored that Richter had burned thousands of gold coins’ worth of resources in that one battle. It was not a strategy he could replicate without end. Doing so could lead to anything from economic ruin to a full-scale revolt of his people. He remembered some of the first words he had heard upon coming to The Land, ‘You are not in a game.’

  He went on to the next prompts.

  +25% village Loyalty for having a 100% success rate in battle in your last 5 battles. This will last until your village suffers a military defeat.

  +50 Loyalty Points for winning your last battle.

  +25 Loyalty Points for your speech at the village funeral

  -15 Morale Points for losing 6% of your total population. (Base -30, decreased by 50% due to Song of Honored Loss.)

  +300 Loyalty Points for adding a Dungeon to the village

  Total Loyalty Points: +2,120. (Base: 1,472 x 25% Undefeated + 9% Administrator + 10% Health)

  DING!

  Loyalty Rank of Mist Village increased from Enthusiastic (rank 2) to Reliable (rank 3). Base Productivity of your villagers and village now increased from 20% to 40%.

  “You can trust your people to do their work without supervision. They begin to put the well-being of the settlement above their own.”

  Hmmm, Richter thought. The Loyalty boost from winning the battle was much smaller than the Morale boost, but it also looked to be permanent. It was nice to know that his speech the night before had also gone over well. He was a bit surprised to see such a bump in loyalty for adding a Dungeon to the village. As he thought about it though, he remembered a boost in Loyalty from adding both Core buildings and the Quickening. It seemed that adding monuments that made the village more powerful increased both the Loyalty and Morale of those living within it. Which again he supposed made sense. Who wouldn’t be loyal and happy to live in a place that had the potential to make them powerful? It’d be like wanting to leave a town that offered free housing, porn and milkshakes back on Earth.

  After internalizing the information, Richter accessed his village status screen to see how well things were progressing overall. There were still many tabs greyed out, but he was heartened by what he could see.

  VILLAGE MECHANICS

  Rank

  Effect

  Village Tenet #1 – An Honorable Ruler

  I

  +1 (Base +0.5 x 100% for 25% of population swearing fealty) Change in Loyalty per day (Max +500)

  Morale

  Total: 1,865

  Base: 1,295

  +200 Forge of Heavens

  +200 Dragon’s Cauldron

  + 500 celestial pixie birth

  -175 new villagers

  (added Kerult 22, 15,386 EBG)

  + 100 Goblin Raid

  -30 Population Loss

  (begun Kuborn 32, 0 AoC)

  +500 Dungeon creation

  x25% - Undefeated in Battle

  x9% - Richter’s Administration Skill

  x10% - Health

  Elated (rank +3)

  +20% Productivity, Population Growth and Fighting Spirit

  “Your people are elated to have such a wonderful lord. They spend time finding ways to brighten your day. You can expect small gifts from time to time.”

  Loyalty

  Total: 2,120

  Base: 1,472

  +30 Monument

  +100 Village motto

  +150 from planting Seed Core

  +200 Forge of Heavens

  +200 Dragon’s Cauldron

  +20 Terrod’s speech

  +52 Tenet: Honorable Ruler I

  (+1 Loyalty Point per day for max 100, begun Hacor 24, 15,386 EBG)

  -175 new villagers

  (added Kerult 22, 15,386 EBG)

  +30 Village quests

  + 500 celestial pixie birth

  + 50 Goblin Raid

  + 25 Funeral Speech

  +300 Dungeon

  x25% - Undefeated in Battle

  x9% - Richter’s Administration Skill

  x10% - Health

  Reliable (rank +3)

  +40% Productivity

  “Your people will believe your words and follow your commands more easily. Your words can even start to sculpt their ideas and beliefs. They begin to put the well-being of the settlement above their own.”

  Health

  Total: 300

  Base: 286

  +285 Job: Healer

  +1 for 5% of population knowing Cure Minor Disease

  x5% - Healer’s Hut

  Healthy

  (rank +2)

  +10% Population Growth, Morale, Loyalty, and disposition of your villagers towards you

  “Your people are healthy and hale.

  Fighting Spirit

  Total: 360 (456*)

  Base: 300 (380*)

  +200 Village leader being an Initiate in War Leader

  +100 Village leader being a Champion

  +80 Job: Captain of the Guard*

  x20% - Morale

  Aggressive

  (rank +1)

  +5% Damage dealt by your forces

  *Values adjusted only while defending the domain of the Mist Village

  VILLAGE DYNAMICS

  Population Growth

  +20% - Morale

  +5% - Song of Joy and Remembrance Charisma Bonus

  +1% - Health

  +30% - Bounty of Life

  +56% to population growth rate

  Current Village Population: 689

  Productivity

  +20% - Morale

  +40% - Loyalty

  +9% - Administration Skill

  +69% to village activities

  *not including Song of Honored Loss

  **additional +10% to constructing buildings due to Workshop level 1

  ***additional +5% to building ships due to Ship cradle

  Research

  1 Point per Ley Line: 4 Total

  0.1 Points per level of Research Skill*: 7.9

  *Normal research restrictions apply

  +10% for House of Scholarship

  Daily Earned Research: 13.1 RP/day

  Current Research Topic:

  Predict Auspicious Times I (Forge of Heavens)

  199.05/320 Research Points

  Projected Time to Completion:

  9 days 5 hours 35 minutes 16 seconds

  The Mist Village was young, but it was doing well. The bonuses from Morale and Loyalty meant they were primed for rapid growth. Richter reminded himself not to forget that the macro effects that were on his interface didn’t take into account individual feelings. Though the overall mood of the village was Elated, it didn’t mean there wasn’t one villa
ger plotting against him even now. Still, the increased Productivity, Population Growth and Fighting Spirit undeniably put his settlement in a good position for the future.

  Specifically, the +56% to Population Growth caught his attention. Richter still felt a little weird knowing that his Life Mastery was making his villagers knocka da boots more than they would be otherwise, but hey, he also wasn’t complaining! He did have one irrational fear that one day a mob of chronically pregnant women might murder him in his sleep if they found out his ability was why they kept ending up in the “family” way... but that was a concern for another day.

  A more serious consideration had come from one of Randolphus’ many reports. The chamberlain had found that not only were the village animals giving birth extremely quickly, but that the young animals were also growing and maturing faster than they should be. The same was true for crops. The benefit to the crops and animals was further increased by the Quickening having reached level two. The celestial tree increased the yield of all resources in his domain by +25%.

  Knowing that, of course, brought another irrational fear to Richter’s brain. Did his Bounty of Life ability or the Quickening bonus mean that the actual time women were pregnant would be shortened to something like six months? Somehow, he didn’t think expectant moms would just take a shortened gestation in stride. Then again, maybe he’d become their favorite person. That waddle they had at the end didn’t look fun, though it did look funny.

  Thankful that he’d never been dumb enough to voice that last thought out loud, he moved on to the next tile of the village’s status page. The Health of the group was something he really, really didn’t want to fall. Living as the lord of a medieval village was all well and good… as long as it didn’t actually get medieval up in here!