Court of Thorns: A LitRPG Story Read online

  “Kassia,” the Hunter said with a sigh. “Never thought I would see her again.”

  “I figured you should know.”

  “Some years ago, I would have been wroth. Foaming at the mouth and cursing her name, most likely. Many a time I did just that, while learning how to support a family and raise two children, one barely past his toddling years.”

  “I don’t blame you one bit.”

  Kinto shrugged. “But time has a way to soothe even the worst tempers. I have seen those children grow up and do me proud, which Kassia did not, and consider myself the better off in that bargain. I know them, which she never will, except for names, vague memories, and perhaps the adults they now are, if she cares enough to try.”

  “You have always done right for Tava and Gosto.”

  “I still fear for them, but at least they’ll never shirk their duties or abandon their own to follow the Path to Power. I taught them better than that.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “So no, Hawke. I will not quarrel with my former wife. I divorced her publicly after she left, and no longer mourn that marriage, or the woman she once was. Whoever she may be now, she is a stranger to me, to be treated in accordance with her current deeds and not my fading memories, for good or ill.”

  That’s a pretty nice way of saying ‘she’s dead to me,’ Hawke mused. It was also one of the longest speeches he had heard Kinto give.

 

  Blaze said. The Drakofox was flying over the town, but was close enough to pick up the thoughts and emotions of those he cared about.

  Grown-up stuff, Hawke told him. Don’t go bothering him about it.

 

  In some ways, sure. But not all. Now go off and chase some sparrows or something.

  “Does Tava know?” Kinto asked, unaware of the mental conversation.

  “She’s off in the Foothills with her apprentices. I was going to fly over and tell her in person. I have business to conduct there as well.”

  Arranging a conclave with the Evergreen Circle had taken some finagling to arrange, and if he didn’t see them that evening, arranging another time would conflict with all the wedding preparations. Life got complicated when you were running a small kingdom while trying to have a personal life.

  “And speaking of meetings, I think I’ve kept the Merchants’ Association waiting for long enough,” Hawke said. “If you’ll excuse me…”

  “Of course.”

  Hawke headed to the former audience chamber, now partitioned into offices, with the largest one used as a meeting room.

  Oh, well. At least a boring, uneventful meeting will be a change of pace.

  As it turned out, he was wrong.

  Four

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hawke said, trying hard not to yell. People got upset when he lost his temper.

  “I do not jest, Lord Hawke,” Ovido replied nervously. “The city authorities were clear on the matter, and I bear letters with Akila’s official seal saying as much.”

  Ovido had been part of the big caravan Hawke had led to Akila back in May, but had stayed behind after it returned, helping put together a follow-up group of traders and immigrants. But there had been a snag just before they left: the travelers had been detained and extorted. The official version was that a new tariff on goods and people leaving for Orom had been decreed.

  “I was there last week, and nobody mentioned a tariff to me.”

  Traveling back and forth between his domain and the neighboring city had become a lot easier now that Blaze had been exempted from Akila’s anti-dragon wards. A two-day trip on a tireless horse – a week for wagons or ordinary mounts – was now a forty-five minute commute for him. He had been to the city fairly often, and nobody had bothered to tell him the city was imposing taxes on trade between Akila and his Domain. That was either a purposeful insult, or a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. Maybe some mid-level bureaucrat had decided to line his own pockets. Or maybe the honeymoon between Akila and the guy who had saved the entire miserable burgh from a zombie apocalypse was over.

  “I’ll have to fly over there and demand an explanation. And a refund. Meanwhile, how much did they squeeze you for?”

  “I personally paid six hundred silver for my goods, which will erase any profit from my journey, unless I raise my prices far more than I normally charge. The other merchants and travelers paid a great deal more. And over thirty crafters and their families had to stay behind, unable or unwilling to meet the tax. The guardsmen who collected it treated it as more of a fine, as if bringing wealth and prosperity to Orom and the Domain at large was some kind of criminal activity.”

  “Okay. Give me names. The guardsmen involved, whoever signed off on the new tariffs, and everyone affected.”

  “I have already begun a list,” Mistress of Coin Antana Setes told him. The scarily efficient woman would no doubt give him all the information Hawke needed and more. “My initial assessment is that an additional thousand silver denars were collected in tolls and tariffs, or close to it. I will have the exact number by the end of the day.”

  There goes my honeymoon.

  “I’ll go pay them a visit the day after the wedding. Tava will probably forgive me for that. But I won’t forgive them, whoever they are. Meanwhile, we’ll reimburse everyone for the fines.”

  “I will make sure to secure receipts from everyone and compare them with the city’s actual excises,” Antana noted, and Hawke nodded appreciatively. The Mistress of Coin would ensure nobody tried to rip off the town. He might be flush with gold, and the town’s income had increased a great deal, but if you didn’t treat money with respect, it would leave you for the pockets of those who did.

  The rest of the meeting was uneventful, mainly concerning things like fixing a couple of country roads linking small villages to the main highways crossing the Sunset Valley, or allowing a second trading post to be built in Serenity. Hawke agreed to both proposals. The current owners of the Serenity trading post wouldn’t be happy, but competition would help ensure that the Arachnoids wouldn’t get gouged, which was important, since their goods were becoming a major factor in trade. A new tribe had begun to offer silk fabric for trade, made from a domesticated giant spider, and that had the potential to bring in as much taxable revenue as the gold mines the Stern Company was exploiting. But only if the Arachnoids felt they were getting a fair deal.

  After the meeting was over, Hawke walked over the Domain Interface. Time to spend some extra Structural Mana and make some improvements. Before he started, he activated his Title ‘Lord of the Sunset Valley,’ which not only made him look important but also gave him a 5% discount on improvements purchased with Structural Mana.

  Sunset Valley (Level 5 Domain)

  Current Population/Maximum Pop.: 6,809/30,000

  Population Required for Level 6: 10,000.

  Warning: If its population decreases below 6,000, the Domain’s Level will be reduced to 4.

  Available Mana/Mana Pool: 15,000/18,000

  Mana Recharge/Day: 3,577. Net Recharge: 877

  Mana Sources:

  Big Web (Arachnoid Town): Level 1 Meeting House: 50. Level 2 Temple of Tenebra: 200. Total: 250.

  Orom (Human Town): Level 2 Keep: 247. Level 3 Temple of Shining Father: 300. Level 2 Temple of Triune Goddesses: 200. Level 1 Mana Node (Life, Temple of Shining Father): 20. Total: 767.

  Serenity (Stronghold): Level 5 Mage’s Tower: 500. Level 10 Mana Node (Death): 200. Level 3 Death Temple: 300. Level 2 Darkness Temple: 200. Total: 1,200

  Stern Mining Settlement (Dwarven Village): Level 1 Meeting Hall (100). Level 1 Temple of Gaon (100). Total: 200

  Other: Level 10 Mana Node (Darkness): 200. Level 10 Celestial Node: 200. Level 5 Mana Node (Nature): 100. Level 4 Grove of Cerunnos: 400. Level 2 Templ
e of Triune Goddesses: 200. 3 Level 1 Life Mana Node: 60. Total: 1,160

  Current Mana Expenditures: 2,700/day. Minions (Serenity): 1,450. Processes: Light Runes (Serenity, Orom, Big Web, Tunnels): 650. Greater Ley Line Portals (2): 200. Ley Line Portals (4): 100. Enchantments: 300 (Serenity: Undead, Demonic and Fae Wards. Orom: Undead, Demonic and Fae Wards). Projects: 0.

  Enchantments Available: Arcane Appointment, Call to Arms, Demonic Ward, Empower Champions, Empower Defenders, Fae Ward, Undead Ward.

  Ongoing Projects: None.

  Hawke smiled. Thanks to the Mana Lens he had built in Orom’s Keep, he could use his personal pool for structural projects at a 10-to-1 ratio; his level five Steward improved that to 5-to-1, which had allowed him to keep the town’s Mana up to full while he used his own Mana to improve the Domain. Orom and Big Web now enjoyed public lighting fixtures set up along all their main streets and a few magic runes on every street corner, a luxury few locales ever enjoyed; even in wealthy Akila, nighttime lighting was available only on the wealthiest districts. While the Arachnoids didn’t need light as much as humans, the inhabitants of Big Web appreciated the gesture. And travelers using the tunnels linking those communities did so even more.

  That wasn’t all. There were two Greater Ley Line Portals linking Serenity to Orom, unlimited passengers and cargo to travel between them every day. A regular portal linked Orom to the Guild Headquarters, a fourth one led from the town to Gosto’s Grove, and two recent improved portals connected Serenity to a brand-new fort built on the western edge of the territory, overlooking Trader’s Rut as it crossed the mountains toward the Imperial highway network and half a dozen cities. While using the portal was useful for trade, their main purpose was military. If necessary, he could send shift most of his forces to the western border on a few minutes’ notice, for example.

  He’d improved most of the temples, had a standing army of over a hundred Elite clockwork automatons, and gotten all the main roads repaired, as well as built a beautiful arched bridge over the Auric, turning the trip between the Stronghold and the Town into a two-day journey for those who couldn’t afford or didn’t want to pay the portal fees. All in all, he’d gotten a lot done in the past few days. Time to do a little more.

  Mana flowed from him through the crystalline oval incorporated into the Domain Interface. The Mana Lens converted the five thousand points he delivered into one thousand Structural Mana points. He used them to fix and improve ten rural roads, turning them into wide two-wagon lanes with good ditches on both sides and nicely graded foundations. In his mind’s eye he saw the land changing. Magic did in a matter of seconds what would have taken hundreds of thousands of man-hours of regular labor, not to mention massive amounts of materials and logistical support. The process never failed to leave Hawke in awe. It might not be as flashy as dropping fireballs, but the effects were much longer-lasting. He imagined that being a god probably felt a lot like he did during the process.

  He drank a Master Mana Potion which restored his pool to fifty percent immediately and the remaining fifty percent over thirty seconds. Burning all of it added another five hundred Structural Mana to play with. He decided to put them into the new Triune Goddesses’ Temple:

  Temple of the Triune Goddesses (Level II)

  A temple provides a link between mortals and the pantheons they worship. The gods gain the devotion of their worshipers, which they can return in the way of Mana and even miraculous gifts. Temples provide the settlement with 100 Mana per level each day. To raise the Temple to the next level, you need to add four Upgrades. Note: The Arcane Official in charge of the settlement must have no worse than a Neutral Reputation with the deity or pantheon in question.

  Current Upgrades (8): Divine Presence I, Monument II, Power Focus I, Priest Investiture, Priesthood School I, Reliquary, Sacred Architecture I.

  Upgrades Needed for Next Level: 8/12.

  Available Upgrades: Divine Presence II (250 Mana), Monument III (300 Mana), Power Focus II (200 Mana), Sacred Architecture II (200), Sacred Vessel (250 Mana).

  The temple had grown in size from a small chamber at the end of a narrow tunnel to a structure with a nice marble façade, rooms for the resident Priest (a fifth-level Eternal by the name of Sister Mary Elephant) and her three students, and an expanded central chamber where the statues of the three goddesses replaced the rest of the gods that had been there when the place had been a simple shrine to the Olympians. The other gods were probably miffed at that but he owed his patronesses that much, if not more. He selected two new improvements:

  Monument III (300): A work of art depicting or celebrating the deity’s likeness or aspects.

  Power Focus II (300): While fighting or casting spells inside the Temple, worshipers of its deity can raise their effective level by the Power Focus level.

  The Domain Interface generated a floating screen that showed him the changes take effect in real time. Sister Mary gave out a shriek when the three statues in the worship area grew larger while the roof above them rose to accommodate their new size. Maybe he should have warned her of the upcoming modifications, but he knew that magical structure modifications never harmed the people inside them. Still, it must have been an unnerving surprise. He would have to apologize to her next time he saw her.

  The five percent discount he got from his Title amounted to a hundred Mana all told; he ‘deposited’ it into the Domain’s Mana Pool. He could add energy directly to the Pool at the same rate as when he purchased Improvements, but with a limit equal to his total Mana Pool per day, well over a thousand Structural Mana in his case.

  That would have to do for today. He had to fly over to Gosto’s Grove and tell him and Tava about their mother.

  And, shortly after that, he would speak in front of the Evergreen Circle.

  Interlude: Daggers in the Shadows

  Desmond the Destroyer didn’t like being a pet. And he positively hated being the pet of someone with dangerous enemies.

  They had been walking down a side street on Crystal City’s waterfront when everything went to hell. Desmond followed his mistress and her master, looking around for possible threats. The town was full of amazing stuff, but here by the docks, it was as grubby and low-rent as anywhere on Earth. Probably worse than most. The area was filled with narrow streets that sneaked between three-story warehouses with an occasional bar or house of ill repute added to the mix. Side alleys between the buildings crawled with rats or even more obnoxious small Elementals. Desmond grimaced at the sight of a bug-shaped Water-Earth mix, a muddy green thing that crawled up a wall not too far away and stared back at him with a single eye that kept shifting positions on its gelatinous body.

  The kinds of Elemental that made a home in garbage were nothing you wanted to play with, and some were nasty enough to swipe at passersby, seeking to steal a bit of Mana or even a chunk of flesh before scurrying off. So far none of them had tried their luck at his group, which made them smarter than they looked. But he kept an eye out. They were off to meet with an informant in a bad part of town. You couldn’t be too careful.

  Funny thing was, he didn’t spot the threat. His bosses did.

  Do you see them, Panadel? Leara asked telepathically.

  Three behind us. Two on the rooftops. One around the corner, alone. Well cloaked; I can’t tell who or what they are.

  Desmond kept walking behind the two Fae while he extended his supernatural senses. He detected nothing. Whoever was about to ambush them was using high-level Glamours that could fool his abilities. That made them powerful Fae, most likely, and dangerous as hell, whatever they were. This wasn’t a mugging. This was an assassination attempt.

  The Unseelie Court agents and their slave made an unusual sight: two tall and unnaturally beautiful humanoids, glimpses of their fine Ether-Silk clothing flashing from under their hooded Elementium-Felt cloaks, trailed by a shorter, squatter, half naked human who was covered in tattoos and decorative scars and had an oversized sword resting on one shoulder, ready for use
.

  See to the ones behind us, will you, Desmond dearie? Leara told him. On Panadel’s mark.

  As you wish, he said, waiting for the order.

  Now! Panadel (a.k.a. Saul Valentino) ordered, and the trio sprang into action like the springs of a bear trap.

  Desmond whirled around, his left hand rejoining his right around Spell-Cleaver’s handle even as his combat Engravings came to life. The invisible assassins were fifty feet away; when they reacted to the sight of the glowing human rushing toward them, their veiling Glamours fell apart, revealing three seven-foot spindly humanoids in black mithril chain mail that was as flexible as a wool sweater except when struck by physical or magical force, when it would harden into something nearly unbreakable. Their names were hidden, but he didn’t care about that. All he cared about were the stats of the Circle agents he was about to kill:

  High Elf

  Level 32 Shadow Assassin

  Health 4,317 Mana 4,426 Endurance 4,188

  Their numbers weren’t identical, but all were within ten percent of each other. He headed straight for the closest one in the bunch. Elves weren’t exactly voluptuous, but the skin-tight armor left little to the imagination. He pictured all the women he hated as he rushed toward her with inhuman speed and grinned when his target set herself to meet the charge while the other two spread out to flank him. They figured the human barbarian would barrel on like a prodded bull and get skewered from both sides.

  The joke was on them.

  As soon as he covered half the distance between him and the female assassin, he triggered a magic tattoo, unleashing a flash of light. The Major Flash spell burned through the Elves’ defenses, something which should have been impossible except for the fact that all of Desmond’s magical tattoos had an effective level of 40, a gift from Leara. All three High Elves were dazzled and stunned. The effect would only last a couple of seconds, however. He’d better make the most of that time.

  Two long strides put him within striking distance of the Elf to his left. Desmond pivoted and swung Spell-Cleaver with all his augmented strength, triggering Mighty Blow, Deadly Strike and Flame Blade at the same time. The combined Warrior abilities turned the sword strike into a critical hit. The blade dispelled every magical defense and protection it touched and sank deeply into the Elf’s shoulder, wiping off all but a couple hundred Health from the target. The Fire effect cauterized the wound, but not before sending a burning Elemental pulse right into the Elf’s bloodstream for an additional 800 damage per second for three seconds. The assassin was dead, he just didn’t know it yet.