Lin kept looking at the air beside her then me, the gears turning in her head. “I need an office!” She broke into a wild sprint, blowing the dividing curtain to the office off the doorway and skidding to a halt by the desk. “Just going to borrow this for a minute!”
Josh has lost a moderate quality office.
Lin has gained a moderate quality office!
Treasurer has outlying requirements, efficiency currently reduced.
“Hang on Lin, we don’t even know what it does-” I said, trying to follow her. When I found Lin she was in my chair and tapping the air in front of her. I scratched at my head, and leaned against the back of the chair. “Can you show me?”
Lin obliged and showed me what she saw. It was a unique window that had lots of little options about who worked for us, setting custom job titles and pay rates. It had plenty of similarities to spreadsheets I used to deal with. We started to dig through it, and found ways to stitch it into the minion work order queue to get an idea of coverage.
“What’s this second tax setting down here?” I asked, pointing over Lin’s shoulder to the pop up. “It’s blank.”
“It seems I can set it so when people gain experience in something called the ‘township zone of influence’ we can get a small slice of the pie. It doesn’t look like much, like every one hundred experience points we get one.” Lin said, dragging her nail down it, scrolling past settings. “We can also open it for tribute if we have a room for it. People who visit can offer gifts, experience, or skill points to us.”
“But why would someone…” I hummed, and felt stumped at this new development. Lin guided me to the influence zone setting, and it had a minimum area setting we had barely kicked over. Right now I was set as a hamlet, with a recommended area size, population and value before I would be a full fledged village. “The goblin tower must have done it.”
Lin just shrugged. “Maybe? Sorry Josh, like I said, I was being trained at a religious school, my brothers and sisters would know more about this management stuff. Best I can do is find good spots to hide our valuables you don’t want others to see.”
“It’s still kind of neat, and I think I now understand how villages can afford to give out quests. Wait, what’s that right there?” I reached over Lin to tap towards the bottom. “Quest giver?”
Lin’s ears shot up and her silver stud earring clipped me in the cheek. Lin didn’t even notice as she was completely engrossed as she started to fill out some kind of form. She swiped the window away from me and giggled to herself. All I could do was patiently wait for her to finish whatever she was doing.
Quest offer!
Call Lin cute and give her a pat on the head!
Reward : 5 XP and friendship!
I rested my head in the palm of my hand. “Lin, we have like what, a thousand from the tower? I didn’t even know we could access it, but I feel like this isn’t the best way to toss it around.”
I did however accept the quest and did as asked, I even threw in a kiss on the top of her head. Sure enough Lin smiled back at me and showed me she received a gold notification a quest was completed and the experience was going out. It took a few long drawn out seconds as we waited with baited breath, and then a new gold quest notification appeared, telling me of my new rewards.
We checked over the form again and found I was listed for a quest lock out for several days. I was quite intrigued, we could funnel experience to ourselves to close the gap when we were close to a level up. Then I started to wonder what level the rulers of a country would be.
“Yes, but it was an experiment, something I figured a wizard like yourself would appreciate. See the form? I can’t just throw out all the experience and skill points for nothing, I’m restricted based on what the quest has.” Lin explained, turning around to face me. She pushed on my cheeks and her eyes lit up. “So if we want those skill points we need to go on another date night adventure!”
Lin leaned ahead, resting her forehead on mine. Her eyes were closed, her tail lightly swayed behind her and she purred with delight, she was perfectly content. I gave her ears a scratch and poked at the menu some more. I could also hand out quests as the owner of the land, or anyone I deemed worthy of it. For now I left it at the two of us, and wondered how to add the rest of my friends, if they wanted.
“Sorry Lin, I think you're right. I have no idea how this quest stuff works, and there's quite a bit sitting around in the bank. Let’s experiment some more later, see what the limits are,” I said.
Lin let out a long yawn, this time not for show. “Yeah, but that’s a job for the new treasurer tomorrow. This kitty is tired.”
“Alright, alright,” I said, plucking Lin up in my arms. “Bed time it is.”
Lin settled into the princess' carry and examined me closely. “Oh, your strength really did go up. I guess wrestling will be more fun.”
…
What should have been a night of restful sleep snuggling up with Lin in bed ended up being us snacking on the couch and comparing notes for hours. We went over our quests, skill checks and talents, comparing who might need anything in the near future. Lin had finished far more quests than I did, yet most of them were simple fetch quests. In the thieves guild she was usually tasked with breaking into a manor and getting out with a single item some other noble wanted in secret. Most of her quests had resulted in a payout of a single gold piece and a few silvers instead of bundles of experience.
I was still on the couch feeling groggy, remembering the night before. I cracked open an eye to see several papers strewn beside me, most of them coated with toast crumbs or bits of jam. Lin was sitting beside me, a turned over cup and plate beside her as she lightly snored.
“Henienkia’s tits, I didn’t think this is the mess I’d find in the morning,” Rolada said from the entryway. She picked up an empty jug that once had juice and sniffed it. “What kind of weird party did you two have?”
“A research party. What’s with the snow pants?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. Rolada was in her full winter kit, with stag hare furs covering her head to toe. “Did the heater break in your mom’s room?”
“We are going to watch the first winter blizzard silly!” Rolada cheered, revealing a stack of neatly tied blankets behind her. “I wanted to go up in one of the observation towers with you two so we could watch the great frost eye move towards us.”
Now that got me up in a hurry.
After tossing on my gift scarf and a pair of offered mitts along with a matching coat I hurriedly followed Rolada. She had managed to rouse Lin, and by the time we hit the exit to the dungeon I found a waiting scout minion holding up a crude looking leather and fur hat. It was better than nothing so I set it on and opened the door.
It was a mild winter day with a light dusting of snow.
“Hardly a blizzard,” I said, feeling disappointed.
Burn was out in the street hauling a small craft of berry drinks while several drones carried hot bowls of morning porridge. I tabbed into the minion work order queue to see Lin had already busied herself with requests.
“That’s because you're looking the wrong way boss,” Burn said, nodding towards the distant mountains. “Here, use my old spyglass.”
I followed, and what I saw locked up my brain. I hesitantly raised the thin tube of copper and peered through the lens, getting a fish eye effect. Creeping between the clouds over the mountaintops was a spinning disc of white and blue. It looked like a spiral galaxy stretching its wispy arms out into oblivion, made of ice, sleet and crackling storm clouds. In the heart of it was a mind bogglingly huge floating sphere with a slitted eye like a lizard, scouring the countryside. A faint ray of energy came from its pupil, freezing the ground wherever it touched leaving a blanket of thin frost. The ray touched the far mountains and built up the snow until it started to shear off the glaciers, causing a distant avalanche miles away from us.
“What…the…f-” I gawked in disbelief. “Is it…alive?”
“It’s one of the great elementals!” Rolada beamed, throwing an arm out as if greeting the monstrosity that was as large as a city. “Hi Cul’Onimbus! Are you bringing us snow?”
“Rolada,” I whispered, holding out a hand. “Let’s not invite the giant monster please.”
I knew there was no way it could reach us, yet the hammering in my heart told me to run back down and hide. I glared at the eldritch horror of frost making its way to my neck of the woods and tried in vain to get anything. It had to be out of range for me to identify, and I quickly flipped between my menus until I reactivated the Golden Knowledge talent.
Scholar Livy
Greetings young students, it’s good to see you awake.
Oh, you have found one of the great ancient demigods that can walk the land, or should I say fly. Worry not, he is too far to cause harm directly.
“What do you mean by directly?” I whispered.
Side note by Scholar Bo
He might not be able to, but his summons can.
Rolada was already skipping and leading the way to the nearest above ground guard tower. I hurried behind them seeing the group slip away and followed them up to the top. Scott was up here tending a small stove with a can of beans set on the top and a teapot keeping warm. He was curious at our arrival, but when he saw the blankets he lent a hand to set it up. I was still at the top of the stairs in a state of mild shock. Here they were setting up a blanket for a picnic when an end of the world demon was coming straight at us.
Scholar Terrive
Oh I love picnics, this looks like a lovely research party. Make sure to try one of the little flaky pastries your foxy friend brought, they are to die for!
I crept towards the window and eyed our ballista. There was no way in hell it was going to reach up to the top of a mountain, but seeing a powerful weapon close at hand did put me slightly at ease. Just to be on the safe side I sent a request for someone to fetch my sword and armour, even just to give me some comfort.
“...and so Josh gave me a job,” Lin said, proudly sticking out her chest. “As the Royal Treasurer Lin I can now give quests. Burn, could you pour me a cup of tea please?”
Scott handed a pair of oven mitts to the goblin who made a big show of pouring Lin her tea straight into her mug. When he was done they were all smiles and pleasantries. Burn sat down and tapped at the air before pumping his fist sky high.
“Damn this place keeps getting better, signing up with you guys was the best decision I made,” Burn said. He ate a spoonful of breakfast before realization hit him. “Well besides the almost dying part, but that could happen anywhere.”
Rolada held out a plate to me with small flaky pieces of pastry with red sugary goo oozing out the sides solidifying in the cold air. “Jelly tart? My mom made them for our viewing.”
I reached out a shaking hand, my eyes never leaving the monstrous orb peering down at us like we were ants. “T-thanks Rolada, pass that along to your mom too.”
Burn flopped down beside me and opened up one of his brews. “Need a ‘Royal Alchemist’ in your crew too boss?”
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Uh huh,” I said.
I noticed a menu pop up and a floating quill appeared with Lin’s name beside it. She changed to the treasurer menu and added Burn down as an employee, giving him the title of ‘Master Soap Maker’.
“Hey, I make more than soap,” Burn said, shaking his fizzy drink. He took a swig and met Lin’s gaze. “Okay fair enough I might have spent another skill point to upgrade my soap mastery talent.”
As much as I wanted to know more about Burn’s crafting skill and how this new town system worked I just couldn’t even set my mind to it. I merely gazed at the presence of the floating being, high up in the clouds. I watched the lightning dance between its fingers, gathering into columns before one finger would twitch, and a split second later a bolt of pure blue struck the earth. Snow kicked up in the distance and as I counted my racing heart beat the speed of sound did its thing and the crack of thunder passed over us.
My friends cheered, calling out the demigod’s name. I felt the lines in my dungeon below pulse with blue icy power for a heartbeat before it returned to normal. I heard scraping coming up the stairs and felt a familiar presence beside me. It was George and he seemed content with the state of things. He barely registered I was seemingly lost, and he set about helping me. He put my sword onto my belt, checking to make sure the scabbard was secure, and got Lin to help me into my armour.
“Josh, hello,” Lin said, waving a hand in front of me. “Josh, listen it’s fine, ol’ stormy out there comes after the festival to make sure everything is good and frosty. It’s a sign of good luck if he blankets your streets in ice, most towns go ice skating once he leaves.”
Scholar Livy
She’s right, you know. He’s the son of the goddess of winter, and by that nature he follows the whims of his mother. He’s not here to usually cause harm because they only let him out to make sure the winter storms are in order.
Side note by Scholar Bo
Unless he thinks you need a little challenge.
Side-Side note by Scholar Terrive
Stop scaring and bothering our new student or he's going to turn off our connection again. He’s the most exciting person we have access to right now!
I took a small bite out of the jelly tart. It was pretty damn good and still had some heat to it, warming up my belly. I took a deep breath and calmed myself feeling tingles down to the ends of my fingers and toes. My friends were having a great time watching the stormy spectacle in the distance, so I sat back and watched the other worldly display.
Stormy as my friends liked to call him was quite the character. He would typically look at a patch of forest freezing the pines before checking on the mountain top, then going back. But when he would go away from the mountain he would quickly double back and toss a lightning bolt down, blasting huge chunks of ice off the sides. Then he would follow the trajectory of the flying bits and try to slam another bolt into them. When he hit it made a distant explosion of colours, white, yellow and blues, with a shockwave of water vapour. It was like watching fireworks, if each explosion had the power to level a house.
“That’s three in a row!” Lin exclaimed, claiming the last jelly tart. “I win.”
“Come on Stormy you had a pattern!” Rolada shouted. She crossed her arms and used her tail to turn up the clay heater beside her. “This is rigged.”
The others had bundled up more tightly into their winter gear, and we had fetched two more clay heaters out of storage. I felt mostly fine, but I attributed that to my white dragon scale armour along with the lovely scarf Rolada made me. I finally tore my eyes from the distant god to see frost collecting on the sides of the houses, the river banks and the ceiling of the roof in the tower.
“Maybe it’s best we head in,” I said. I peered at the forest and the shadow of the great being in the sky. “I think he’s rotating our way.”
A stiff gale of wind shook the town walls, which remained firm and strong. The winds rattled the smaller houses and the hidden entrance while the homes made of stone and the towers remained unmoving.
“Damn Sten wasn’t joking when he said this thing could take on siege weapon fire,” Burn said, tapping on the wall with a knuckle.
“If Stormy was back on Earth I would love to have an on demand demigod of snow days, but for now let’s head back underground,” I said. I swept the spyglass across the treetops once more, looking for the summons Scholar Bo had mentioned. “What’s that?”
A moving cloud was combing over the forest, nearly a mile wide and just barely over the tops of the trees. There were chunky shapes moving inside of it and I was unable to tell what was what. I passed the spyglass onto the others, and Rolada used her higher perception skill to hone in on it.
Rolada gasped, then she put a hand on her heart as her voice melted. “Aw, it’s a swarm of baby elementals. They look like flying ice snakes with armoured bodies and fangs with big heads. They look adorable.”
There was a frenzy as we all reached for the spyglass with Lin beating us. She held it up to her eye and spat. “Cute? Those look horrible. Uh Josh, I think they are coming for us.”
The cloud shifted directions, breaking apart into several clumps with one bit heading for us while the others headed towards the roadway near Wyrmbreath. The clump rushed towards us, making a beeline for our tower and Burn ran off to warn the others. Scott jumped onto the ballista and pulled at levers around his little seat moving it into position.
Seasonal Quest Active!
The test of Cul’Onimbus, the great blizzard elemental, has begun!
Several small elementals will arrive at your residence soon, fight them for a reward!
Quest rewards unknown, all members of the community will gain experience at the end of this quest. For each elemental slain that member will gain additional rewards. After 12 hours all elementals summoned by this quest will leave.
“Oh hey, a community quest,” Rolada said, “I forgot it was Stormy’s turn. Last year it was squash carving in autumn, and the demigod made them come to life to play games with people. The best looking one got a blessed sickle to harvest crops, which they gave to their carver.”
Lin pulled out her daggers and ran downstairs. “Winner gets a bounty from the treasury!”
Community Quest Active
Whoever contributes the most to the seasonal quest will gain a gold reward from the dungeon!
Reward : 50 gold pieces, if Lin wins it is increased to 75
“Lin you can’t do that!” I shouted running behind her. I sent warnings to the minions and skidded to a halt on the frosty street. I pulled out my sword and took a wide fighting stance as I watched the approaching mist cloud. “Come on, that's too many.”
The ground beneath me vibrated, as if the dungeon was waking up to the approaching threat. The dungeon lines glowed, and I quickly followed them seeing it was dumping more powering into heating the dungeon below. The lines that powered the magical boxes were their normal colour, except for the area beneath me, it pooled with smoke and shadows, as if watching me.
As if hearing me the eye of the distant demigod turned, looking straight at me. I felt the heat get robbed from my arms, the scarf around my neck collected ice shards and it stuck to my cheeks. I gripped my blade with one hand and summoned an orb of fire with the other, the blazing heat beating back the cold keeping me from feeling the worst of the chill. My core remained warm, and the white dragon scales glinted as a dusting of frost covered them.
The gaze of the eye went past us, towards the fortress up in the mountains with the hidden dungeon Lin and I went to. The cloud of elementals split again, with over half of them heading that way.
I heard jingling mail and Sten was at my side. The dwarf looked at the layer of ice on the ground then me, nodding with respect. “You are either one brave bastard or a fool staring down a divine like that.” I felt a hand strike my back, causing me to slide several feet ahead. “But hey, that’s going to look awesome in a mural!”
I couldn't even reply, the swarm flew over the walls and circled above the houses. Like Rolada said, they looked like flying snakes, but completely transparent, made of ice and what seemed like interlocking plates of darker frozen water for armour. They came in different sizes, from the length of my arm to taller than me. There were nearly a hundred of them, and they all hovered in the air, lazily floating.
“Sten, what are they doing?” I asked.
Sten hefted a hard packed ball of snow, and threw it with all his might. “Snowball fight!”
It turned into a warzone in a heartbeat. I threw myself towards the nearest snowbank, crashing through the hard layer on top to get to the softer stuff below. I dodged a dozen snowballs that struck where I had just been. I poked my head up out of cover to see my friends and the minions running around looking for their own cover. The elementals chased them, spitting out small snowballs that peppered people with snowflakes when they impacted. In turn when one of us scored a hit the elemental went stock still, as if freezing solid, and fell to the ground before shattering apart. I picked up a fallen piece of one and held it up.
Snow Snake, Summoned Elemental, Level 0
Strength 3
Constitution 3
Dexterity 10
Intelligence 3
Willpower 9
Charisma 3
These things were barely a threat. I felt a blast from behind as my hat got knocked off and I picked up a fistful of snow, clenching my hand and turning to throw it. One of the snow snakes twisted mid air, but I caught it on the tail and the creature fell, getting destroyed on impact with the ground.
“That’s one!” Lin shouted from a rooftop. “Come on Josh you're falling behind.”
A window from the quest appeared, it was a scoreboard with all of our names. It listed Lin, Burn and myself as being part of ‘an unnamed town’ while the others were independent. I shouted to Lin to give the others jobs, and she gleefully accepted as she flipped through the air to dodge a snow snake. As she landed back on the ground she threw a snowball with a light underhanded throw that had no right to land a hit, but she took out the snow snake that had just tried to hit her.
“Just remember it tracks getting hit too,” Lin said. She gave me a wink before holding up two snowballs and running off.
I kept my fire orb near, using it to melt the ice so I could get to softer snow beneath. Rolada saw me and did the same, but she had a little bit of a harder time concentrating on the spell and I caught her accidentally throwing the fire spell by accident, damaging a house.
I found Sten and Burn in a makeshift snow bunker with several minions. They were sending out drones to haul snow while others formed the snowballs that they gave to the dwarf and goblin. I ran towards the bunker as several snow snakes followed me, rapidly firing out snowballs.
“Sten, Burn I’m getting strafed here!” I shouted.
The two of them turned and tossed several balls in quick succession. Sadly their aim was not up to par, and I got struck twice, which counted on the scoreboard. Dan came to my aid, rising over the fortification, throwing a snowball with all his might. Yet because of his middling strength and short arms it sailed slowly into the air. He did manage to get one, and the other elementals split off, looking for easier prey.
“Whew,” I huffed, wiping my brow. “Was not expecting this.”
Burn threw another snowball, getting a hit, and sat down beside me. “It’s fun though. I’ll take these guys over getting shot by real weapons any day.”
“Yeah,” I said, grinning ear to ear. “Maybe I should learn to make them so we can do this more often.”
“I’d love that,” Sten said, using his beard to hold onto more ammo. “It’s great war practice. Also hi, I’m now the Court Poet Sten.”
“Perfect,” I said, clasping my hands. “Now can I have a few snowballs?”
Sten and Burn looked at each other, then me. “Get your own bunker.”
I was rudely ejected from the safety of the fortification, and the minions looked torn. I waved it off with a laugh, knowing it was in was all good fun. Sten and Burn lazily threw a few towards me, and I caught them mid air before running off. I ran down streets and used my wizard shoes' power to jump up onto the tops of the houses to find emplaced snow snakes. They quickly tried to fly away, but I managed to get a few more.
The snowball war was fun, but very taxing. I had to take off my hat and loosen the scarf because I was getting too warm. I could feel myself tiring from pushing myself constantly, so I decided to cheat a little.
“Mark of the Lover,” I whispered, tracing the magic over my arm. There was a fuzzy feeling that came from within, and a gold outline of a heart with a devil’s tail and horns appeared, twinkling in the light. I stood straight up and looked at my hands. “Damn, I feel like I can run a marathon now.”
I put the magic to use, pushing myself full steam ahead as I grabbed an armload of snowballs and looked for targets. I spied Lin creeping up on several snow snakes using the overhang of a roof to hide as they fired at Bent Plate. The ogre was following Yara and holding onto a makeshift shield. He used it to block attacks while Yara tossed snowballs back, making a powerful duo. Yara however moved stiffly, and I picked out she wore no less than three coats and scarves.
I picked up a snowball and let it fly, aiming right for Lin. It tumbled end of end, and just as it was about to make contact with her backside it was swatted away by a frying pan. There was a flash of magic I could feel, and I was struck right in the mouth. I spat and shook myself and when I looked up I saw Sliva in her stag hair snow clothes who wagged a finger at me.
“Tisk, tisk. Not very nice to pick on your lovers,” Sliva teased. She plucked a snowball from my arms and tossed it straight up, hitting one of the elementals that was speeding overhead. “Good luck Lord Hale.”
Sliva sauntered off and I checked the scoreboard. My mouth dropped as I saw her and Lin were neck and neck, both having avoided getting hit. I shook my head and took my remaining ammo to find the rest of the snow snakes.
As the hour drew to a close we dispatched the final summon, and my spell ended leaving me needing to sit down. I wasn’t the only one, nearly everyone but Sliva was spent. We waved goodbye to the great being in the sky who had flown over the mountains going elsewhere, and we headed down to the dungeon. I held the door open for Sliva and I heard a scuffle from the top of the shed. Before either of us could react Sliva let out a shrill cry of surprise as a snowball went down the front of her jacket making the fox woman dance around as she tried to dislodge it.
Lin jumped down and held her hands up in a heart shape. “I win!”
I checked the scoreboard and sure enough, she had, matching Sliva in points, but with Lin being untouched. I put a hand to my forehead and sighed. “Embezzlement from my treasurer already?”
“Lin! You bitch!” Sliva hissed furiously. “I already agreed to let you win so we could split the money. Now my breasts are freezing.”
Lin held a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I think that was a slushball-”
Lin didn’t finish her statement, instead the sly cat girl made a break for it, vanishing into the dungeon below. Sliva shook her head and let out a long held breath to compose herself. “Damn, I forgot what it was like dealing with sassy rogues.”