“Well, what did he say?” Lila asked as she and Mike walked up to meet with the rest of her party. She had been waiting for him at the bottom of the tree, a bit miffed that he had gone up despite her signaling for him not to.
“He asked me if I would like to be a secondary leader of Gratsden. I declined, then he asked me to make him a sword in exchange for something I wanted.” Mike said. He purposefully left out what exactly said thing was, as he didn't know how much of a secret the nature cores were.
“Secondary leader? Wow, you must have shook him. He hasn’t asked anybody to fill the position yet, and now you come in and it is offered immediately. He probably wanted to make you a non-threat, and in his eyes making you secondary leader would accomplish that. Also, what in your right mind made you deny him? You would have gotten so many benefits from being the secondary leader to a settlement.”
“Wow, I thought leaders were supposed to be smart, making good choices and all that. As for why I declined, it's because I am already closely tied to the village I come from.” He saw no more reason to be keeping his secret, and to be honest he didn't know why he kept it a secret in the first place. “In fact, I am the leader of said village. Even came up with the name Thudfall for it.”
“Well, that makes sense then. I figured someone as strong as you wouldn’t just be someone who walks around not being involved in things. But given what a few people who have come here from Thudfall, leaders making good choices isn't exactly a rule.”
“First of all, fuck you. Second of all, I am not part of most decisions begin made in the village. Being a leader just has so many responsibilities tied to it, but I try and delegate where I can. By the way, why didn't you want me to go to the top of the tree with Roots?”
“He has been known to use some less than gentle methods when it comes to getting what he wants. I guess your level encouraged him to be more diplomatic than usual.”
“What kind of methods?” Mike asked, a little concerned.
“Threats, mostly. Though I have yet to hear about him acting on any of them. He is quite petty as well, and holds grudges.”
“Should someone like that really be running a settlement?” Mike asked, before realizing that he had the habit of being a bit petty sometimes. He decided not to bring that fact up.
“He made the place, so he gets to be in charge. We can’t even leave, since in the rules we signed it states that we must stay within the walls unless we are approved to leave for a specified amount of time.”
“The more I am hearing about this guy, the less I am liking him. He just seems like a guy who let too much power get to his head.”
Lila shrugged. “Yeah, well there isn't much we can do about it now. I don't know if you have tried taking off your bracelet, but you might find it to be pretty difficult.”
Mike tried to take the item off, pulling it off of his wrist with ease. “You were saying?”
Lila looked at him with a bit of shock, before pulling him behind a building, whispering at him in a hiss. “How did you do that?” She asked, her voice laced with suspicion.
“I accidentally broke the enchantments within my bracelet when I first equipped it. Am I not supposed to be able to just remove it?”
“No, you aren't.” She said, taking a moment to think. “Can you do that to other bracelets as well? Ones that other people are wearing?”
“I-” Mike said, pausing. “I’m not sure.”
Lila pulled a bracelet out of her pocket. “Here is my old one, since I am made of mana, I got a pardon to not wear it after it nearly killed me.”
Mike took the bracelet from her hand. He hadn't even noticed that she wasn't wearing one. ‘I should be paying more attention to small details like that’ He thought. He began infusing his mana into the item, with its enchantments gobbling it up. His mana swiftly and thoroughly destroyed said enchantments immediately after. “I guess I can.”
“Shit.” Lila said. “We need to keep this under wraps, understand?”
“Ok, but why?”
“Roots is already extremely uncomfortable with how strong you are and how much of a threat you could pose. If he learned that you could simply free people from their bracelets, he might turn to more drastic means of removing you as a threat.”
“Wow, I know you said he was petty but it's really that bad?”
“It is.”
Mike thought for a moment. “Well why don’t we try and free people one by one? If we do that then he might not notice for a long time.”
“Too big a risk. Another effect of the bracelets is one that Roots identify blockers hide. They store some mana in them while they drain their wearers. Not a huge amount, but enough to cause grave injuries if said mana was to be shot back within their systems.”
“And you know this how?” Mike asked. The mage seemed to know a lot more than she should, and he was beginning to get suspicious of exactly how she knew so much.
“He triggered the effect on my own bracelet when it was draining my life force. When the mana shot into my body it revitalized me long enough for the bracelet to be removed. It's part of the reason I am still alive.”
“You have a knack for surviving things that should have killed you.” Mike said. First, he had saved her out in the forest, and second she had been saved by what was meant to be a lethal attack. Actually, Mike didn't know if that was the order of events, or if the bracelet incident had occurred before he met her. It didn't really matter anyways. “So what are we going to do? I really don't feel like we should let him keep holding people hostage.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Well, the first problem we are facing is that many don't realize that they are being held against their wills. Very few have actually tried to leave the settlement, and the ones that have are almost always given permission, so they don't feel like they are being oppressed.”
“So, do we actually need to do anything? I mean we obviously should get these bracelets off people, but do we need to get them out of the settlement?” Mike asked.
Lila sighed at Mike's response, spelling it out for him. “I already told you, Once Roots figures out what we are doing he is likely to activate hundreds, if not thousands of bracelets if that's what it takes to get us to stop. He isn't hesitant to do it, and I have already seen him do it to several people who were breaking even the most minor rules he had. None have died from it yet, but it is only a matter of time before somebody too weak to handle the mana blowback is killed.” A scowl crossed her face. “It feels like you're not considering how many people your actions will be affecting. You need to think about what you are doing, because whatever you do will affect thousands of lives, for better or for worse.”
It wasn't until then that it had really been put into perspective for Mike just how influential he had become. He had known that some of the things he did were reckless, rash, naive, and not very well thought out sometimes. He didn't mind having that kind of mindset, as he felt he could own up to his mistakes when he made them. He had now been presented with the fact that his own actions were changing the course of so many lives.
If he hadn't met Jonas and his group of people early on, they likely would have fallen to monsters. If he hadn't arrived in time to kill Klint, or if Klint had killed him, the entire settlement and all of its inhabitants could have been killed. He made a currency that people all across two villages used in their daily lives now, and he had set his entire village up for success. If he made mistakes now, many people could suffer the consequences.
“You are right.” He said, sighing. “I don’t have enough experience with all of this to make good decisions all of the time, but what I can do is listen to people who know a lot more about this stuff than I do.” He looked Lila directly in the eyes. “I would like to ask that you and your party come to Thudfall, and help make a plan to save everyone here. I have plenty of smart people that I work with daily over there, and with the collaboration of people who know Gratsden inside and out, I am sure that we can figure something out.”
“I’ll have to ask my team, but I do think that is a good idea. First one I have heard from you at least.”
The two of them walked away from the building they were hiding behind, walking over to what looked like a neighborhood of wooden homes. Each one looked like a bush, with leaves covering their exteriors. The noise insulation clearly wasn't great on them, which was evident by the amount of conversations Mike had heard coming from the homes as they walked by. Having high perception was both a blessing and a curse sometimes.
They made it to one particularly large house, which was two stories tall as opposed to the one story most of the others had been. They walked inside, and not far past the door was a table that sat Isaiah, The man that Mike remembered as being their tank, and the archer woman who Mike had forgotten about. He felt a bit bad that he didn't have all of their names, but he was sure they would come up in conversation at some point. Isaiah stood up the second he saw Mike running over and shaking his hand.
“It is good to see you, friend. We have been waiting for you to come by and visit. What took you so long?” Isaiah said.
Mike shook the man’s hand, feeling a bit awkward about the gesture. “I got caught up in other affairs. Managing my village and all that.”
“Managing your village? You are its leader?”
“That I am. Sorry I hadn't told you when we first met.”
“Dont worry about it, it wasn't super important anyways.” Isaiah responded, though it did seem he didn't fully mean what he said.
“Well, it's relevant now.” Mike said. “Since you all have been regularly adventuring outside of Gratsden, I am sure you have realized how strong of a hold Roots has developed on the people living here, correct?” Everyone solemnly nodded their heads at his words. “Well I have decided to try and help. I wanted to ask you three, along with Lila, to come back with me to Thudfall and make a plan for helping get people out of this power hungry man's settlement.”
“I would be happy to help.” Isaiah said. “The corruption within that man is plain for all to see, unfortunately some are just not looking.”
“Corruption?” Mike asked. He knew the man was strict and a bit of a tyrant, but not that he was a corrupt leader.
“Yes, remember that healer that abandoned our party, leaving us to die to that earth elemental?”
“I remember, you all trashed talked him quite a bit.”
“Well as it turns out, he was a close friend of Roots even before the system. Roots usually hands out strict punishments for the most minor of infractions, but when the healer was found to have left us to die despite it being his sole job to keep us alive, he was just given a pardon. According to Roots the healer just ‘did what he had to do’. It’s not the first time he has pulled stuff like that either.”
“Damn, that sucks. All the more reason to help these people then.” Mike said. He looked to the tank and archer next. “Are you two on board with this? The more people we have on the inside, the better.”
The two of them spent several minutes thinking. The woman was the first to speak up. “I can help out, but I don't want to stay here and do recon. I can help map out the settlement if you would like.”
“That would be great, I don't want to make you stay here.” Mike said.
“I can stay and poke around for anyone else that could help us out.” The tank said. “I know for a fact that there are quite a few people who strongly despise Roots. The only people that I think are genuinely on his side are that healer, his coven of licensed nature mages, and whatever slimy friends he has picked up.”
“Thank you, that would be a great deal of help.”
“No problem. Just one thing though. How long do you think it will take to free everyone? I don't want to spend a year or two needing to stay under that asshole rule.”
“Honestly, I don't know. I may have no way to ensure everyone's safety during the process now, but that is priority number one. We can't have him killing off half of his subjects because we free the other half.”
“How do you plan to get me out of the gates?” The archer asked. “I know Lila doesn't wear one of these bracelets, but mine is still a bomb strapped to my wrist that is set to trigger the second we leave without permission.”
“I can handle that.” Mike said. He took her wrist and began infusing mana into the item, quickly destroying the enchantment within. He did the same to Isaiahs and the tank’s wristband, removing the risk that they would be injured by it.
“Alright, now with that done, I say we don't linger much longer.” Lila said. “We can't afford for Roots to think we are up to something.”
They said their goodbyes to the tank, and Mike, Isaiah, Lila, and the archer all left for the front gate. Getting through it was a bit of a hassle, as they didn't have the proper authorization to exit, but when they passed through and their wristbands didn't respond, the guards left them alone. They began the hike back to Thudfall, since Mike was the only one who could fly. For the first few minutes of the run, Mike could only think about how the name of the tank and the archer had not come up casually in conversation.