Felix had nothing else to do in what was once Tiki-Kahuna so he flew back to Tri-Peak and landed atop his tower. He stowed his surf board in his inventory and headed down to see if Noah or Henry had been waiting for him. When he stepped onto the kitchen floor though, he smelled something wonderful that made him stop. He followed the smell into the kitchen to find a tall man with long blond hair cooking something that smelled of exotic spices on a magical stove top.

[E - Common] Human (Lvl 71)

"Mike?"

"Oh hey man, good to see you again. Interested in some stew?"

"Sure? I'll take a bowl, it smells awesome. What are you doing here by the way?"

Mike placed a few finishing touches into the stew then scooped some out into a bowl for Felix and handed it to him with a spoon.

"With all the raiding happening, and the Grove being right next to us, we didn't really feel safe. Most of the other's had already moved so I just made it official and left with the rest of 'em. Hope you don't mind me crashing here, Noah said it would be cool once I told him we were buds."

I guess I don't really care. I don't want people permanently living in my tower, but what does it matter if he stays here for a few months. Especially if he keeps making me delicious food, wasn't he a bartender? Is he also a cook now?

"I don't mind at all. Which room are you sleeping in? Also when did you become a cook? This stuff is awesome."

"Glad you like it, I picked up some skills a few months ago and have been practicing ever since. It kind of became a necessity when people come to you for all their needs. I just took one of the rooms off of the kitchen, if that's alright?"

"Yeah that's totally fine. Where is the rest of your settlement staying? I hope it's not in my tower?"

"Hah, nah man, they'd never fit. They seem to all be integrating pretty well, finding jobs and getting back to the real world, kind of… you know what I mean. Speaking of… would you be willing to uh… combine settlements? At least until the end of the tutorial? I can be under you, like the manager of the vacation themed remote location."

As long as you don't want to co-own this city, why the hell not?

"Sure I guess."

"Sweet, thanks man. When the tutorials over we can split off again."

City Management

Tiki-Kahuna has offered to become a branch of the main city, Tri-Peak.

Tiki-Kahuna will be a settlement that exists under Tri-Peak, it will be subject to the same laws and tax rates as Tri-Peak unless a specific exception is made. The land occupied by Tiki-Kahuna will be owned by Tri-Peak and will be leased at no charge to Tiki-Kahuna, at the discretion of Tri-Peak.

Do you accept this offer?

Yes.

No.

"Why wouldn't I accept this? Why are you being so cagey about it?"

"I just wasn't sure if you wanted to take on my population, provide food and stuff like that."

Yes. Why would that matter?

Felix shrugged and Mike scrambled to explain, "It got kind of hard to provide food and drinks for everyone. We didn't have many sources ourselves, other than some fish and we started to run low on cash to just buy it. We are- were… kind of a sinking ship. Don't really have much to offer. So uh, thanks…"

Ah, pretty sure we could pay, as a city, to keep you afloat forever. Then you could just be the discount vacation destination for citizens. He could probably make a ton of credits if he charged more for drinks and lodging.

"Like you said, we're buds."

Felix licked his bowl clean and placed it on the counter, "Thanks for the stew by the way."

"No problem."

Felix left Mike to his own devices and went to go figure out what all the upgrades had done. He wasn't certain which upgrade had which effect, but talking to Noah, he cross referenced the timeline with their names and got a pretty good idea. Griffin's protection seemed to be a wind storm capable of blocking projectiles. Elk's crown was a larger parapet with arrow slits and spaces for cannons, that did in fact resemble a crown atop the walls. Desert Oasis protected the entire city from undesirable weather effects, though it had only been active for a minor drizzle at this point.

Yeti's Hide had almost doubled the thickness of the wall, though Felix doubted how useful that was given how thick they already were. Gator's Gate replaced the gate with an upgraded three stage gate that was both more defensive and more welcoming. Tropical Storm was a lightning storm the city could deploy upon attacking armies. Stone Giant's Living Stone allowed for the wall to slowly regenerate itself, which was actually accidentally tested when someone fired a turtle cannon straight upwards. Serpent's wrath was a set of fire hoses that could be used to put out fires, or attack an enemy.

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Overall, Felix thought the upgrades were pretty minor, but he would have killed the world bosses no matter what they were. Once he had figured that out with Noah, not that it was necessary, they moved on to discussions about the city. Henry had gotten so distracted with the metals and minerals up north, that he didn't even notice Felix was gone. After the world announcement about the final boss, people started getting scared because the current rumor is that The Grove and Icewatch teamed up to take them out. That meant they would raze the rest of the settlements and be all powered up to take on the Major City last. Felix had no intention of revealing himself but Noah wanted to assure them somehow.

Noah finally managed to convince Felix to let him spread a rumor that they had deployed a secret strike force to take out the world bosses. He wanted Felix to show off the corpses but Felix refused out of principle and because they could have useful materials on them. He doubted any of those would spoil with too much exposure to the air, but he was being safe and stubborn.

Apparently the mountain town north of the grove got invaded and almost immediately surrendered just a few hours ago. The rumor is that they deployed a small army of their best somewhere else and got decimated. Without them, the rest of the settlement was essentially defenseless. Icewatch had also claimed Bastion of Hope and the Oasis meaning the only settlements left in the entire tutorial were Tri-Peak, Icewatch and The Grove. Felix's population was about half of the people still alive in the tutorial though so he wasn't too worried. That and all of the upgrade tokens he had consumed reassured him.

At this point it was only a matter of time before The Grove and Icewatch combined, forcefully or peacefully and came after Tri-Peak. After thinking about it for a few minutes and talking it through with Noah, Felix was slightly worried. His town was built around crafters, even though a good number of combat focused individuals had migrated over, he was still felt like he alone was the last line of defense. If they were at all smart too, they would plan the siege for the day the seal broke on the final boss, or lie in wait for Felix to leave. It was unlikely they knew much about Felix, but if they heard and believed the rumors about a strike force taking out bosses, they would probably want to wait until they weren't around.

Even if they didn't know about Felix or hear about the rumors, they knew that they had collectively taken out the rest of the forts on the map and neither of them had killed any world bosses. Putting two and two together, the only other possibility was that Tri-Peak or an independent faction had taken them out. Either way, attacking when, whoever it was, was occupied with the final boss would just reduce the variables and increase their chance of succeeding.

The rest of the settlement was preparing for a siege. Those who wanted to fight were buying new gear and training. Those who didn't, were collecting and stocking up resources in warehouses.

Noah finally asked the question that had been eating at him the entire conversation, "You're going to try and fight the final boss, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Felix nodded.

"Figures… Henry is not going to be happy about it, and obviously I would prefer having you here to help. Do you think we can do it though? Survive? I know we have walls and cannons as well as projectile shields… but… is it enough?"

"They are probably preparing siege equipment, if they can. They have to know about the walls and cannons by now. They are probably coming up with as many countermeasures as they can. All we can do is prepare to the best of our ability and fight."

"Yeah… I guess. Any chance you could fight them off then go fight the final boss?"

"I'm not doing that. I am not flying around the tutorial to massacre large groups of people. Don't get me wrong, I will kill people to protect the city and the weak and all that, but I don't think I should go out of my way to kill people."

"I guess not. Maybe you could go scare them a little?"

"How?"

"You could visit them and give them a show of force."

"I would be the aggressor in that situation. As it is, they haven't done anything to indicate they're going to attack at all yet. They may just chill for the rest of the tutorial or fight each-other."

"Yeah… probably shouldn't do that. Could just scare then a little, you know? We are basically preparing for war, or at least that's what it feels like. We also have a large proportion of our population that have taken or are thinking about taking the pacifist option."

"I'll do everything I can to defend the city."

"Except be here yourself? What if it comes down to the city or the boss…"

"The city every time, but that's not the decision I'm making right now. It's between protecting the city or letting the city protect itself."

"If we can. Felix, you are a part of the city. We may or may not need you here to win, but how many lives would be saved if you were here? Just think about it, ok?"

Noah left to organize the people and assuage their concerns and Felix ascended to the top of his tower and wrote to Grim, "You can cast any of the spells I already know right?"

"Yeah, I don't exactly have a monstrous mana pool, but more or less. I also can't cast as fast as you can and I cannot cast as many spells at once as you can but, yes I can."

"I've got an idea."

"If it's what I think it is, I can do that, but you are going to need to give me a lot more mana."

"Is that all you need?"

"I think so. Everything else I should be able to manage. It's going to need to be a lot of mana though, like a stupid amount."

"That, I can do."

"If we're going to do this, I'm going to spend the next twenty days preparing the city for a siege."

"Coordinate with Noah and… Oh, take these, should help with the illusion." Felix handed Grim the silk robes he bought last time he was in the city along with the mask.

Grim took the robes and floated around inside the hood. Felix could easily tell there wasn't anything beneath the robes, but Grim had fooled people before with less.

"How are you going to communicate with people? I thought you couldn't understand our language?"

Grim wrote out a floating message in the air in front of him using a slightly convoluted light spell reading, "How's this? I've been working on that. I'm not perfectly fluent but your language isn't really that complicated. I think I can manage."

"I guess that works. Everyone already thinks of me as an eccentric, not like this is gonna hurt my image."

"Oh and can you give me the mask too?"

"Uh, sure I guess. I don't really need it to fight the boss. How are you gonna use it though? You don't exactly have a head."

"I think I can use the enchantment, with a little modification to make myself look like you."

Felix handed Grim the mask who took it by floating it out of Felix's hand and into the hood using a force spell. Felix immediately felt the effects of the mask on Grim. Instead of a flying robe with no legs, it looked like Felix with no legs. It didn't seem like that would be much of an issue though because the attention avoidance effect was active. It was like he couldn't see Grim clearly or mentally process what he was seeing. It felt like his brain was just glossing over everything that it found wrong with the image in front of him, which helped greatly with the fact that he was essentially staring at himself.

Felix nodded to Grim and Grim took his leave, floating out of the tower and into the city. . . . . .