Ray took a look through the notification a couple of times again. Ten people minimum to create a faction. A nine-person party sounded a bit large—imagine managing eight different people in one group, Christ—but who was Ray to argue against the disembodied entity of the System.
“I hope no one has picked yes yet,” Ray said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Maya said. “Some of them accidentally did already, but as you can see, nothing’s happened. From what I’ve gathered, I think everyone in the potential Faction needs to accept yes and only then will we get this Base Node.”
That was another thing that intrigued him. Base Node. Tower Node. Were there other sorts of Nodes? He had a strong suspicion most people weren’t even aware of the Tower Nodes in the first place.
“You’ve looked into it a lot already, huh?” Gritty said.
“Yes, I have.” Maya offered a hand. “I’m Maya, by the way. It’s nice to meet you, Patricia.”
“Gritty.” She grasped Maya’s proffered hand and didn’t shake it so much as squeezed it like she wanted to crush it. “Same here. Thanks for the assist.”
Maya winced a little as she retracted her hand. “No problem. I’m just glad we found more people.”
“No, you don’t get it. Now that there’s someone like you to take charge, I can finally kiss this whole business goodbye and do what I need to.”
Maya frowned. “You’re… leaving? Right when we’re actually making a Base and a Faction and everything?”
“Yep! All this ain’t for me, chief. You’ll be doing me a tremendous favour by taking them off my hands.” Gritty elbowed Ray hard. He winced, feeling quite sympathetic towards Maya. “You’re leaving too, wingman, aren’t you? Don’t lie. I can tell it just by looking at you. You don’t want to be tied down. You don’t want to—” She grinned. “Get your wings clipped.”
Ray stared at her. Wingman?
Maya turned her frown to Ray. Wild how she could make it look like he had gravely disappointed her, like she had raised him better than this. Like she really was his mom or something.
But Ray understood Gritty’s angle. He understood where she was coming from.
Ray was actually surprised that she had stuck by her group’s side all this while rather than going off and doing her own thing. Now that she had a ticket out of needing to manage a group of people, she wanted to cash it in immediately and fucking bolt.
Honestly, he got it.
“We should set up the Base Node,” Ray said. “But probably not here. We should put some more distance between us and the Sylvans and find a more defensible location before we establish a Base.”
Maya didn’t look satisfied with that answer, and Gritty laughed low. Ray tried not to glare at the latter of them.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking too,” Maya said. “We’ll keep moving. But this communal Mana thing. We don’t have communal Mana, do we?”
Ray was a little perplexed by it too. “I’m not sure. But I have a feeling even if we don’t have it, the System might just take it from our total pool of Mana.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
At least, that was what Ray suspected would happen.
They kept moving. Gritty didn’t trike up any conversation just then, which was fine with Ray. It let him observe the group a bit more, let him gather his own thoughts as he did so.
The kids were being overseen by a couple of young adults who actually looked like a couple the way they acted. They weren’t that young either. Maybe mid-thirties? Well… maybe not exactly young adults any longer, then.
Ray morosely wondered if they had lost their actual child—maybe even more than one—and had volunteered to look after the only kids in the group. At least they seemed to be doing a good job.
Maya wasn’t ever alone. When she wasn’t at the head of the group, she was being hounded by other members who always had something to say.
Ray didn’t catch everything they talked about, but he got the gist of it pretty easily.
Ray: You guys know what they’re saying?
Dory: Anything and everything you can think of.
Ray: That explains everything, thanks.
Randall: They want to know how we’re going to get food, where exactly we’re heading towards, what are we going to do about monsters and Sylvans… so basically what Dory said.
Dory: Told you!
Ray: Huh. Thanks.
They didn’t meet any monsters along their paths. Not directly, at least. Ray and a few others did see creatures that had to be monsters in the distance.
A flock of huge, pterodactyl-like monsters flying off in the distance. A wild, thunderous grunt from somewhere far off none of them had heard before. Even the earth shook for a while, like something gigantic was passing under their feet.
That last one had sent them scurrying away. Someone was even screaming at them to move diagonally and not make vibrations. Crazy.
Interestingly, the group did recognize one set of monsters they saw in the distance. A familiar herd of kangaroo-like deer set them immediately moving in the opposite direction. Ray was curious about what exactly the problem with them was but all he got was that they were “bad news”. He supposed he would have to find out later.
Eventually, they reached another of the old ruins on a hill. Usually, they formed dungeons across the First Floor, so far as Ray had spotted, but this broken-down keep wasn’t one.
They found a location within that looked like a large, indoor courtyard. Everyone was a little tense, keeping an eye out to see if they really were alone. Maya started directing people to use skills similar to Ray’s Lifeblood Sense and sending them off in pairs to check the entire edifice.
After about half an hour, they were sure it was indeed unoccupied and mostly harmless. No traps, no secrets they could find. Nothing dangerous.
Maya gathered everyone in the central courtyard again. “Since we’re more or less certain this will work, we’ll be using this location as our Base. So please go into your System notification and accept yes.”
They did so. Ray followed suit. Since almost half of his Mana proceeded to disappear, it was clear everyone else had done the same too.
Gritty winced a little. “Well, there goes my Mana.”
“How much did you lose?” Ray asked.
“I don’t know, almost seventy percent? What about you?”
“At least half. A little more, actually ”
“Great, I’ll need to get more Mana crystals.”
More loot, for both items and gear they could use and for consumables, was definitely a concern. But that could wait until his Base business was done.
The Node that appeared in the middle of the hilltop was familiar to Ray. The same diamond-shaped construction of pure white. He was really starting to wonder what material that was. It floated in the centre of the group, with everyone looking on it with differing levels of awe.
They let Maya take charge of it. Ray was curious how it differed from his Tower Node, but at the same time, he wasn’t willing to claim responsibility for the whole group.
Besides, he could poke Maya about it in their party cha—
[Base Node]
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Your Party is now a Faction!
Faction Title: [Available]
Faction Rank: Tier 1
Faction Population: 30
Faction Leader: Maya Volta
Faction Base: Sector 59 hilltop
Faction Holdings: Sector 59
Faction Objectives: 0/5
Ray didn’t get much information beyond that. He focused on the Faction Objectives out of curiosity but couldn’t make it show more information. Huh. Well fine, all the more reason for Maya to deal with it as the Faction leader.
[New Personal Achievement—First Faction!]
You’ve joined your first Faction! A cooperative is far stronger than any individual could ever be. Unless, of course, said individual is ridiculously overpowered.
Reward
* New Faction Role available: Fist
* Reputation: +15 Cooperative
For reaching the 50-point threshold, your Cooperation now boosts all your stats by +10 when in any group.
Ray had crossed another Cooperative threshold, but unlike with Knowledge, the +10 wasn’t added on top of the original +5 to all stats. It simply replaced the original.
That wasn’t really much of a bummer since he didn’t see himself working with any parties for long. Although, throwing away that interesting bonus just because he liked the idea of working on his own didn’t sit completely well with him either.
Hmm, was there a way he could manipulate the System into giving him the bonus without needing an official party? Could he manipulate with Lifeblood Construct somehow…
Ray would need to test that at some point.
Also, he had something called a New Faction Role now. Ray tried to focus on it, and a popup… well, popped up to enlighten him.
[Information Request—Faction Role]
Below is the Faction Role that has been made available for you to occupy.
Fist
The Fist of any Faction is often the strongest person in the Faction. It is the Fist who takes charge during battle, the Fist who drives the Faction’s mailed gauntlet into the face of its enemies. A Fist gains a variety of combat bonuses in this role, as well as the ability to create and command a war party.
Hmm. That was quite interesting, if truth be told. Ray was definitely intrigued as to what these combat bonuses were going to be, though he had a feeling they wouldn’t be as beneficial as the ones he already had through his items and Reputation Points. Still, every little bit added up, and he wouldn’t be averse to more bonuses.
However, the threads of potential responsibility were already cutting against him. A role in the Faction itself meant he was an official part of it. Someone who had a job,
Why would he take up yet another job again? Why would he pick yet another chore he was forced to complete day in day out, after this whole apocalyptic mayhem had given him an opportunity to just not deal with that shit?
Come to think of it, had he even explicitly consented to being a member of the new Faction?
The grin he got from Gritty to his right was all too knowing.
Shuttering his expression, Ray declined the option to be the Fist. He wondered if Maya was going to be even more disappointed. Sure, he could have accepted the Faction Role, enjoyed the bonuses, then refused to do anything actually responsible with regards to the Faction. But he wasn’t that much of a dick.
If someone was going to take a Faction Role, they had better be prepared to work for the Faction. Even if Ray hated the idea of being responsible for them, he understood that there might be people who could fulfil that role within this new Faction.
“We need a name,” Dory said from somewhere farther ahead. “Anybody got any cool suggestions?”
That stared a hot debate among everyone gathered there as to what their official Faction Title was going to be. At least, for those who weren’t too tired. A lot of people had decided to just plop down and take a break.
Ray decided those people had the brighter idea. Now that they appeared relatively safe, he needed some rest and recuperation before he got going.
A plan of action was forming in his head. Part of it was informed by what he had learned from Virko and part of it was what he himself needed next for his growth and forward journey. So for now, after excusing himself from Maya and the others, Ray found an isolated spot on the hillside where he could get some rest. Thankfully, no one, not even Gritty, followed.
----------------------------------------
The human screamed. Again.
Kredevel sometimes wished he could reduce his ears’ sharpness and sensitivity. Were human ears like that too? The Brighthorn ears certainly were, which was why most had left the Floor Lord’s playing field, though the Lord’s prized Brighthorn was too interested in playing to let the noise bother it.
“Fetch!” the Floor Lord shouted, chucking the forearm he had just ripped off the human far into the distance. The human’s fingers danced as the torn-off limb soon disappeared into the distance, leaving a trial of raining blood.
With a happy yelp, Stone Digger bounded off. At level 23, the Brighthorn was so big, it made the earth shake as it ran.
The Floor Lord laughed in pleasure. “Look at him go! Never gets tired, that one.”
“You can’t do this to me!” the human wailed.
Kredevel tried not to look at the man, but his eyes were inexorably drawn to the chained new Denizen.
The human looked dead, yet alive too. His skin was pale as their corpses tended to be, his eyes shot with blood and drooling rather disgustingly, just as his nose and mouth were doing. The human’s clothes were similarly dirty, robes that were now smudged with dirt, daubed with spittle and blood.
Thanks to the Mana-disabling chains keeping the man tied to a cross-post, his struggles didn’t have much effect. Having his arm reduced to a stump probably didn’t help either. It was gushing copious blood to the ground. There was an enormous pool of it around the cross-post.
Kredevel looked away. The man’s first experience as a Denizen of the Towers was now filled with torture. That was a terrible introduction by all means.
But then, he had seen the broken condition of poor Fruit Gobbler.
The Brighthorn had been alive when the human had brought it in, but it had soon expired afterwards. Just thinking of the terrified, tortured state the poor hound had to have been in, all while being dragged by this idiot of a man, made his Clusters clench in his chest.
Kredevel shook his head. His sympathy was limited.
But despite that, Kredevel wasn’t suited for this kind of thing. Harsh justice? No, this was vile torture.
Had it been up to him, he would have made it clear to the poor human where he had erred, then would have had him executed. Death was preferable. Cleaner, for both the body and the soul.
“I succeeded,” the man choked out. “I completed the challenge. I deserve to go to the next floor!”
“Of course,” the Handler said airily. He waved away the human’s words with one big, meaty hand. “As the Lord of the First Floor, it is my duty to let all qualified Denizens climb the Tower of Forging, should they prove themselves by meeting the condition of the challenge.”
“Exactly.” The man shook his chains. “So let me go!”
“I will. Once I am done with you, you’ll be free to head up and face the challenge of the Second Floor.”
“But—”
“Nothing in my duties says I can’t decide when your challenge is complete.” The Floor Lord’s laugh sounded like axes chopping off heads. “So long as you go face your next challenge in the same health you completed my challenge with.”
With a snap of his fingers, spiral growths began shooting out of the ground. They snaked up and punctured the chained man’s legs. He screamed some more. Though, soon enough, the shrieks gained a confused note.
His arm was whole again, thanks to the horned roots of the Floor Lord feeding the man his Recovery.
Of course, they all knew it wasn’t over.
“If I hadn’t stopped that thing,” the man said, the cadence of his voice growing shriller by with every word as his captor walked over. “I would’ve been torn apart by—”
The Floor Lord leaned down, and with a short tug, ripped off the man’s leg below the knee. Their poor captive screamed.
At the same time, Stone Digger returned. Its mouth was bloodied, but salivating. Kredevel smiled. Big old hound was hungry for its next treat.
“Ho, boy.” The Floor Lord chucked the torn-off limb far into the distance. His shimmering cape rippled as he did so. Sometimes, Kredevel envied the man’s Strength. “Fetch!”
With a happy yelp, the enormous Brighthorn dashed off.
“It’s nice we have a lot of these idiots running around,” he said, jerking his chin at the chained man wailing at his new wound. “Makes harvesting the Mana fruits so much easier.”
“That it does, Lord Olgolair,” Kredevel said, keeping his head bowed, as was appropriate.
“Now then.” The Floor Lord turned his full regard on Kredevel. Kredevel did his best to keep his shoulders from tensing. “I am disappointed in you, Kredevel. You actually failed to retrieve Brick Licker alive. Was a Tier 7 tutorial zone too tough even for you?”
“No, my lord. I wasn’t expecting another new Denizen there, so I had to halt my original plan and—”
“I don’t want your excuses, Kredevel. A Brighthorn lies dead. Someone must take the responsibility.”
Someone like Kredevel. “Of course, my lord.”
The Floor Lord turned away. “Where was this again?”
“Sector 68, my lord. The Marauder’s Caves.”
“I see.” He paused for just a moment. “I want you to raze it to the ground. That will teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget.”
At that, Kredevel finally looked up. The command was a little too shocking. A little too strong. “My lord, if we destroy the Marauder’s Caves, then the Marauder himself will be notified. A Paragon’s attention might not be something we wish to deal with.”
“What would you do instead, you fool? Allow them to get away with such a vile transgression? Never. Do as you’re told, Kredevel. The Marauder is a new Paragon. Weak. This Tower is new as well, as is the tutorial zone. The chances of a Paragon being notified of a location that most would consider beneath them are miniscule. Destroy it.”
A fool for considering all the implications of their actions? Kredevel didn’t think so. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the Floor Lord here. He was a mere instrument, a tool to be used by his “betters”.
You deserve better.
For some reason, Ray’s words rang clear through his head. Maybe Kredevel really did. But the only way to get his deserved better was by doing what he was told to the best of his capabilities.
“As you wish, my lord,” he said.
Kredevel rose, ready to head out on his new mission, but the door to the play pen opened. The gate silently slid apart, revealing two Sylvans striding through.
He noted them with a frown. Those two were assigned to the sixty-first sector, if he remembered right. But they looked quite harried for two Sylvans who were supposed to be in a relatively calm Sector.
“Apologies for barging in, my lord,” the one at the front said.
“What’s the matter?” the Floor Lord asked, clearly noticing their distress.
“We were attacked,” said the second one. Tension spiked through them all a that statement. “We were killed.”
The Floor Lord’s lips thinned. “Where?”
“Sector 62, my lord.”
“By whom?”
“Humans. And… and Feathered Imps.”
The Floor Lord’s eyes cut straight to Kredevel. He shook his head, unable to fathom what in the world was going on.
What in the Burgeoner’s name have you done, Ray?