“Kobold Leader, I don’t think it’s the best idea to join the two camps.”
“I must, yes-yes, a camp can’t be leaderless.”
“The blue kobolds need access to the surface. And that’s where the fridge is now. You don’t want the meat to spoil.”
The Kobold Leader was thoughtful. “No.” He admitted. “The bird meat is tasty.”
“See, just leave your wife here to manage the camp, easy.”
“Okay.” The kobold leader smiled. “But I’m still the Leader.”
“Yes-Yes.” He imitated the kobold. “Just think of it like this. Your camp is a Kobold Capital and from there, you rule all other camps.”
“Yes-Yes, I like it.”
“And if you struggle I will just lend you a few of my spiders, to pacify any rebels that is.”
“No-No, we Kobolds can handle this.” He patted a chest area of the segmented armour.
Indeed, his Kobolds were all greared up and judging from their recent performance they shouldn’t have a problem claiming other Kobold camps.
“Anyway, just remember to tell your new camp to concentrate on mining for ore.”
“I know, I promised you more ores, King, you will get them, yes-yes.” The Kobold assured.
With that he was done here, well there were still a lot of things to do in both of the kobold camps. Having access to ample food these guys bred quite quickly, which was a good thing, but housing might become an issue in the future. Also, the ever-expanding mine network was becoming inefficient, hence there was a need to improve the transportation system. The building of the ‘fridge’ facilities has just begun, those 100 tons of meat needed a lot of storage space and vigilant security so that opportunistic monsters don’t raid it; luckily the Blue Leader seemed competent to manage the task. In other words instead of micromanaging everything he left it to the kobolds, sure there will be mistakes made here and there, but they surely will learn from those.
And the mountain top expedition had a plus side, which was ice – a rare commodity, especially without access to modern refrigeration. He surrounded the meat chunks in ice blocks and then fungiwood chippings and loaded the bags on the spiders, it was rather primitive but it should keep the meat frozen until they reached the farm. So prepared, the spider caravan headed home.
His spiders were completely TomGrape-tarians so the meat he brought was solely for the Lamia and himself. Judging by the sparkle in their eyes his Rep with the Lamia went up by quite a few points, which was good, they were his people now, especially since Lamia Queen relinquished all command to him. The Queen in question seemed content to live a carefree life, which was both good and bad. It was he who wanted to live a life like that, one where he simply could do nothing, alas as a King he was not allowed such luxury and he accepted the King’s responsibilities fully and wholeheartedly.
That didn’t mean that he didn’t have time for hobbies and other trivialities. Currently, he was busy in his workshop where the Drow Assistant was giving him a hand in grinding the IceShard Bird Bones. Yes, Ice Attribute, was mightly useful and he already had produced several articles of interesting equipment.
The process was quite simple, grind the bones into the fine powder and use that in conjuration with Crafting and Magic+ to Enchant a desired item with Ice Attribute.
A few examples were:
Icy Spear > Elemental Damage, a chance for Frozen.
Icy Axe > Ice Slash (an elemental type attack)
Magic Scroll: Elemental Arrow: Ice.
Frost Arrow > Elemental Damage, a chance for Frozen.
For defensive equipment (armours, shields, etc), he had to use IceShard Bird Leather which would guarantee Ice Resistance: Medium as one of the passives. That passive protected against Elemental Ice Damage but not from the accumulative Frozen debuff.
To beat the debuff he had to use Extract: Reagent on either the bones to obtain IceShard Powder. Contrary to the name when mixed into a potion it gave a Resist Frozen Potion. The potion also protected against the frigid cold and frost, like some sort of edible antifreeze.
He needed all of those so that his spiders could walk at the mountaintop. Yeah, his spiders were very weak to Ice effects, but also Fire. So he had to think about how to dress them since he couldn’t protect the spiders from both. Incidentally, he’d used some Magic Scroll: Air/Earth Arrow on spider volunteers and those turned out to do a lot less damage. The Dark Arrow did barely any damage at all. To sum it up: weakness to Fire/Ice, resistance to Dark.
Another unexpected find was the effects of IceShard Plankton. It was similar to the bone powder but much more potent. Well, there were limitations, he couldn't use it with Enchant, but it still was a crafting ingredient. So he used that sludge-like goo to make Frost Grenade, and it was a very potent weapon which instantly Froze a target. This surprising find led to another revelation. Well, to be honest, it was a joint discovery…
“What if we make a box out of Enchanted Corrundum Ingot and flood it with IceShard Plankton?” The Drow Assistant proposed.
“That would make a very cold bath… or even a fridge. Yes! And we can insulate the outside with Ice Resistance to prevent the cold from escaping.” Yes, the leather prevented the transference of heat, or in this case cold.
The two of the crafted the prototype box.
“It works.” The Drow Assistant took out a Frozen TomGrape, “But submerging the food in the liquid doesn’t seem to be optimal.” She scraped the plankton off the fruit.
“That’s just a proof of concept. We just need to make another, smaller airbox and put it in the goo. The corundum metal should be able to conduct the Ice element and channel it to the air to cool it.”
“Yes. We should have made it so from the very beginning.”
She was right, at the moment it was just a reverse deep fryer – deep freezer… or something which instantly froze the food. They needed it cooled only so the two worked to improve the design.
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[You have crafted an IceShard Cooler of poor quality. Crafting +1000exp.]
[IceShard Cooler: afflicts the contents with debuff Chilled, debuff Frozen]
“Yes, the System recognised it as a ‘Cooler’.” He cheered and slapped the top of the box. The frozen metal shattered, and the box broke spilling the goo everywhere; frost covered the table. “Oops, it’s brittle. I should have reinforced it.”
“Ah, a weakness.” The Drow Assistant was making notes.
It took a few more tries and a superior IceShard Cooler was achieved. It was a two-compartment box, one for Chilled and the other for Frozen; the system refused to call it a fridge for some reason. The device didn’t work perpetually, while it didn’t need mana injection to work, what it needed was a supply of IceShard Plankton because it consumed that to produce the cooling effect. In a sense, it was fuel to power the Cooler.
“You’ve said you have a pile of meat sitting at the top of the mountain… We’ll need more of those, no?”
“Yeah… A bigger one perhaps, but not too big. A 100 units of meat should be enough to satisfy the Lamia needs. And I don’t have a lot of fuel…” He patted the box, no he slammed it. “Ha, Reinforce +3 seems to do it.”
The Drow Assistant made a note in her notebook.
“You know, with this we can make some ice cream.” He felt giddy just from the idea.
“I scream? I must have misheard it, sorry.”
“Ice Cream.” He voiced it out slowly. ”A chilled dessert made out of milk.”
The Drow Assistant was giving him an odd look. “Like mother’s milk?” She asked betraying confusion.
“No, not like that. Milk from a cow preferably. I wonder if humans have that.”
“A cow? Sounds like a formidable monster.” She made some more notes in that notebook of hers.
“Anyway, let's just finish a bigger cooler. We can think about where to get milk later.”
The never-ending quest for a bigger better meaner ‘Cooler’ just began. The two won’t stop until they make a perfect masterwork, an envy of the world.
Meanwhile, an IceShard Bird Core was hovering sadly in the corner, seemingly forgotten. A mundane fridge was evidently more important than the gravity-defying mysterious ??? item.
…
Far, far away, at the border of the forest, the one where the Great Ancestral Tree ruled supreme. Well, this wasn’t a border your average human would recognise, it just looked like a seamless forest with trees on the left and on the right. But it was a border never the less, one forest was ruled by the Great Ancestral Tree and the other by a different nature entity. The other one still had the elves in it and their guardian deity was still alive. Due to some unnatural twist of fate, and equally inconveniently random applications of [Chaos Blessed] (Which our Monster King might or might not be at fault for), the two forests were currently at WAR.
Great Ancestral Tree, knew that he was blessed with good allies, and he gave his thanks every day for that. The greatest ally of them all was his best friend commonly known as the Spider King. The spiders provided a tremendous boon to the forest, breathing in a fresh breath of change. And the King himself was no different. The two often exchanged gifts and other pleasantries. Their Alliance was just a budding sapling but it was as strong as a full-grown Iron Oak; the King of Spiders was willing to come and aid him in times of difficulties and even in times of war. However, the Great Ancestral Tree didn’t feel it was proper to be over-reliant, and that was for a reason. Sometimes Great Ancestral Tree would feel that he was the one who benefited the most from the relationship, he was even beginning to feel guilty.
The King of Spiders would often come and exchange the cave centipede souls for his Amber. The Great Ancestral Tree used those souls to seed the Sprigans he had grown. They were perfect for the job, perfect for the WAR of forests. Currently, he had no less than a thousand of the Sprigans, they were his personal army of diligent fearless soldiers. The cave centipede souls made the Sprigans extra vicious, and it was a good thing. He needed vicious and relentless to ward off the elf attacks. Recently they were prodding and pushing deeper into his territory. The Great Ancestral Tree was done with the elves, especially the ones who weren’t of this forest; their aggression was intolerable.
The Sprigan army marched into the elf forest, their goal was to exterminate the elf nest and stop their aggression permanently. And maybe, just maybe, as a side goal – to expand the influence and domain of the Great Ancestral Tree.
The elves weren’t shy to retaliate, no, it seems they were ready for attack. Actually, they probably provoked it consciously. The Sprigans were ambushed by the elf scouts, fire arrows rained from treetops setting everything ablaze. The Great Ancestral Tree floated above the battlefield in his wisp form and frowned at the reckless behaviour. It was super effective, the Sprigans burned in hot flames, but so did the parts of elf forest. The attack hurt both sides or so he thought.
There were more Sprigans than there were elves, so even at a loss the Great Ancestral Tree ordered the Sprigans to carry their duty. The Sprigans, even if burning, climbed on the trees to pursue the elves. They pummelled the elves with their fists to death. It was brutal, but also surprisingly effective; unlike the elves the Sprigans didn’t tire, didn’t feel pain and were fearless. Soon the tree tops were basked in fragments of what used to be an elf, the bark was dyed red, and whatever was left hung trapped in branches like some sort of macabre fruit.
That, and there was a similar but contrasting sight of a burned tree, below it were charred and motionless remains of the Sprigans. One of them, half charred, stood up, “[Heal],” it invoked one of the three spells in knew; the charred black bark glowed green and then returned to its normal texture. The sight repeated all over the battlefield, yes there were some losses, but not too many. The Great Ancestral Tree ordered his army to proceed.
They pushed deeper into the hostile forest. They were almost at the walls of the pesky Elf Nest. It was bigger than the Great Ancestral Tree remembered, and there were two kinds of elves, in common pale and brown variety; the sight most unusual. Both were forest elves but the two groups never mixed before, he wondered what was the reason. But did it matter? It did not, these elves were the aggressor here, defiling the border of the Great Ancestral Tree.
The Sprigans lined not too far from the walls, just out of reach of the balistas. An awful human contraption which had no place on the elven wall! The Great Ancestral Tree remembered the displeasure of being pierced by it.
The wisp floated just above the city, “Elves, both of you, where are your High Chiefs?” he boomed loudly so that everyone could hear.
He was right, almost right, because not two but three High Chiefs manifested in an alcove of their Ancestral Tree. This meant that there were three different groups of elves living here.
“Ah, a messenger of the Demonic Tree. Begone you foul spirit!” A slightly familiar elder spoke.
“We will chop you down and liberate the forest.” A woman spoke.
The third elder remained silent.
Just like in previous attempts, the elves refused to negotiate.
“Fools! I sense nothing but malice. If war you want, WAR you will get.” The wisp expanded in anger.
“[Dispel]” The third elf fired a purple projectile at the wisp. “Let's raise the shield, who knows what demonic magic it can cast.”
The wisp shrunk to a ball barely dodging the incoming spell. The elf nest formed a magical shield surrounding it.
If it was his forest, he could beseech The Spirit to dispel that shield, but alas, it was not. Even more so, the elves kept their Guardian Deity, the avatar of the forest, somewhere tightly locked within the walls, so the Great Ancestral Tree didn’t even have a chance to talk with it.
“As you want elves.” He commanded the Sprigans to attack the walls. His guys could pass the shield no problem, it was the spell-slinging that would get blocked.
The Sprigans marched unafraid of the great balista arrows flying at them. And all would be well, if not for the elves sallying out of the gate. There weren’t many, but they were most unusual. The elves, THE ELVES, had metal armour and were wielding axes; a perfect counter to the Sprigan army.
“Blasphemy! How dare you.” the Great Ancestral Tree was offended. Never in his long-long life did he see an elf wielding an axe. “No better than a human I see!” This was a bad change in elves, a change he could not allow.
The two armies clashed, the armour was dented and the helmets bent, hence several elves met their demise. However, the balistas fired, arrows flew and axes chopped the wooden flesh like butter; the Sprigans fell in droves. If not for the enchanted axes his army might have stood a chance, but alas, the victory was impossible.
“Retreat.” The Great Ancestral Tree commanded. However, the Sprigans were reluctant to obey, their centipede soul rejected the command. “Retreat!” He expanded the wisp form to project dominance. Finally, they obeyed. The retreat was not clean, and he was left with a mere hundred Sprigans left.
A very thin force distanced themselves from the pesky Elf Nest, luckily the elves, content by the safety of the walls, didn’t pursue it, but the safety of his own border was now compromised.
“Gather the elf scout corpses.” He urged the survivors. “We are short on guardians, let's put the diseased to use.” He will turn these corpses into Vine Men.
The Great Ancestral Tree wasn’t proud of this tactic but he was kind of desperate here, at least until the King of Spiders supplied him with more centipede souls. Well, he could put the squirrel souls there just like he did before, but those were innocent creatures unfit for the atrocities of WAR. And why should he sacrifice the souls of this forest? No, he wasn’t a Demonic Tree! He was a Regent Guardian here so he wouldn't sacrifice his forest's souls, definitely not, but if they came from outside his domain it was a fair play.
“I shall ask my ally for more souls.” That, and if push came to shove he’ll ask for the spiders’ help.
The wisp left the Sprigans and Vine Men to defend the border and then flew back towards its main body.