YOU HAVE ACCEPTED BRIAN JEFFERSON AS ONE OF YOUR SWORN BANNERMEN. YOU MAY VIEW BRIAN’S STATUS THROUGH YOUR OWN STATUS. WHEN FIGHTING ALONGSIDE THEIR LORD, BANNERMEN RECEIVE +10% TO ATTACK AND +10% TO DEFENSE. WHEN FIGHTING ALONGSIDE A MEMBER OF THEIR LORD’S CLAN FAMILY, BANNERMEN RECEIVE +5% TO ATTACK AND +5% TO DEFENSE.
YOU HAVE ACCEPTED BRENT THIBERT AS ONE OF YOUR SWORN BANNERMEN. YOU MAY VIEW BRENT’S STATUS THROUGH YOUR OWN STATUS. WHEN FIGHTING ALONGSIDE THEIR LORD, BANNERMEN RECEIVE +10% TO ATTACK AND +10% TO DEFENSE. WHEN FIGHTING ALONGSIDE A MEMBER OF THEIR LORD’S CLAN FAMILY, BANNERMEN RECEIVE +5% TO ATTACK AND +5% TO DEFENSE.
YOU HAVE ACCEPTED TRENT THIBERT AS ONE OF YOUR SWORN BANNERMEN. YOU MAY VIEW TRENT’S STATUS THROUGH YOUR OWN STATUS. WHEN FIGHTING ALONGSIDE THEIR LORD, BANNERMEN RECEIVE +10% TO ATTACK AND +10% TO DEFENSE. WHEN FIGHTING ALONGSIDE A MEMBER OF THEIR LORD’S CLAN FAMILY, BANNERMEN RECEIVE +5% TO ATTACK AND +5% TO DEFENSE.
Loch dismissed the notifications, not wanting to stare at them any longer. He’d finally done it, accepting others beyond Elora as Bannerman. Part of him wondered if accepting Jenny as one would have made a difference. Would the 10% bonus to Attack and Defense have kept her alive? There was no way to tell, but she had asked to be made into a Bannerman. Just as Brian had.
He had refused, not sure yet if it was something he wanted to do. Something he wanted to have. Elora Seedspear was one thing. It had been a condition of releasing her. A way to be able to fully trust her. It had been her own choice, the only way forward for her.
But for humans? Loch didn’t like it. There were some great bonuses with the percentage modifiers but there were also huge negatives. He didn’t like having the Connection insuring loyalty or enforcing the contract in any way. He didn’t trust the Connected System and letting it have additional power over them was not a good idea.
In the end, he relented. It had been Brian that finally convinced him. Quiet, stoic.
“We’re not going to stop being part of your group,” he said over a campfire. “And you’re always going to be fighting the high Level monsters. We need to be stronger. Chances are we can’t catch up in Levels but we can get bonuses to make us stronger.”
Loch couldn’t argue with that. He could order them to stay back, to not come out with him, but that was impossible. He needed them. His job as the Clanchief was to take on the highest Level monsters and enemies. But he needed a team to take on the army, the hanger-ons, the guards and everything else that accompanied the higher Levels.
If Loch had been alone when confronting the Wendigo, he would have lost. He would have been overwhelmed by the lower Leveled monsters because of sheer numbers. Or he would have been severely weakened, out of Spirit, and unable to hold up against the Alpha Wendigo.
He needed people around him and they needed to be as strong as possible.
He could wait until they had Leveled higher, either slow down his or push them harder. But that had dangers. If he slowed down, the threats the Clan faced wouldn’t and would end up stronger. That would be a disaster. And pushing them could have a similar effect. They would confront things beyond their power, without help as Loch couldn’t aid them or he’d affect their Spirit gains, and most likely be killed.
It was a lose-lose. The Clan couldn’t afford for Loch to slow down his Advancement and it couldn’t afford to lose Brian or any of the other higher Leveled members.
The next morning, Loch gave in.
He almost didn’t accept the twins. They had been talking to Elora, pestering her about what it meant to be a Bannerman. Loch wasn’t sure they fully understood what it meant. They heard what they thought of as the cool parts but did they understand the negatives?
“We don’t care,” Trent said. At least Loch thought it was Trent. He still couldn’t tell them apart.
“You saved us,” Brent continued. “We would have died if not for you.”
“We want to help protect the people,” Trent added.
“But what about your mother?,” Loch had asked.
They had originally been with Stephanie’s group for added protection in numbers, their focus always on getting back to Pembroke and their mother.
When Loch asked the question, they looked at each other, the near constant smiles vanishing. One of them, Brent?, reached out and grasped the other’s shoulder. They both nodded, turning back to look at Loch.
“We can’t make it there on our own,” Brent started, reaching up and laying his hand over his brothers. “We know that. We’re not strong enough. And…”
“If she’s alive,” Trent said, taking a deep breath after, now forcing the words out. “If she’s alive, she’s most likely safe. We’ll go and find her but we can’t do that unless we’re stronger and you’re the best chance we have at getting there.”
“And in the meantime we can help protect people,” Brent said, forcing a smile. “Which is something she’d be proud of.”
“She’d be pretty mad if we let others get hurt just to go and save her,” Trent added, forcing the same smile.”
“When we can,” Loch told the twins. “We’ll go and find your mother.”
The twins high fived after getting the notification, moving off to their tent, jostling each other, which devolved into another fight. Stephanie ended up having to yell at them, getting them to stop and settle down, so everyone else in the camp could try to sleep.
There were a lot of ways that Loch could argue against them, but he hadn’t. Which bothered him. They were using him for a boost, and he was using them in return.
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He hated it, but he’d essentially vowed that the Clan had to get stronger. It was the only way to face the threats posed by the Silver Bark, the Hillgrowl and whatever else was out there.
Using a stick to poke at the fire, Loch wondered where else he’d messed up. Jenny’s death was on him. The deaths by the Gaunt’s attack were on him. He wasn’t a very good leader. He was doing a horrible job at protecting the Clan.
Deep down he knew it wasn’t true, but at that moment, he couldn’t help but believe it. If he’d only relented on the Bannerman thing earlier, Jenny could still be alive. It was only 10%, but that could still be a good amount. Her Level had Eleven or Twelve, the Silver Bark had been higher. Ten percent wouldn’t make up that kind of Level difference.
Equal Levels? Ten percent would have been a huge help. But against someone Level Thirteen or Fourteen? That ten percent was nothing. For Leveling up in a Dungeon or against monsters, that ten percent could make a difference.
He knew he wasn’t just trying to rationalize it, to make the loss of Jenny hurt less, and give him less guilt. It was the truth.
Loch just didn’t want to accept it.
Not then.
***
The wind pushed the stalks of wheat over, bending them in half. Farmers worked through the few fields, trying to harvest what they could. As they walked down the hill from the higher fields, Loch saw some new crops had been planted.
Thomas and the other farmers were working on rotating the fields to maximize the number of crops they could grow. With the few fields they had, it only worked because the plants reached harvesting age so much quicker under the Connection than they would have before.
Cerie said it had to do with the ambient Spirit. With so much of it moving around the world, always present, it affected the life cycle of everything. It was why there were so many mutated animals. Even those that didn’t get classified as Mutated would eventually find themselves stronger.
It was the only way they’d have any chance of survival.
From what Loch could see, there was a decent amount of food being harvested. But also from what he could see of the people moving around in front of the school, there were a lot more survivors. Two teams of lumberjacks were hauling large trees out of the woods. It only took four people, where before it would not have been possible. And most likely only took those four because the trees were long and awkward. They had been stripped of all their branches already.
A larger stack of trees was off to the side of the fields, teams of carpenters working on them so they could then be brought to the wall, which a team of laborers was doing. There were more laborers carrying the trees than lumberjacks. An obvious difference in Stats.
There was a larger pile of logs that had been stripped off the bark, which was piled to the side to be used for fire. Those logs were being cut and planed into beams and posts, along with boards of different sizes.
The wall was looking like a real wall now. Instead of some CMU block, logs and whatever else they could find, it was more uniform. The CMU blocks up the slope to the school were still there, but the overall length had been shortened, more blocks stacked on top of others. Before Loch had left, one of the laborers had unlocked a Mason Class and had been able to develop mortar and concrete. He had been working on getting someone else to unlock the Class as well.
The random desks and other things had been removed, most of them destroyed in the battle with the gaunts and now used for heating. Stacks of it lay by one of the doors closest to the stairs to the basement where the old furnace was being retrofitted to be wood burning. An inspection had shown that the ductwork still existed and looked to be workable. It wouldn’t fully solve the building's heat issues for the winter but would help.
In place of the random items were now logs stacked on top of each other, with smaller ones driven into the ground on the front and back to keep the larger in place. There were catwalks being assembled on the school yard side and a larger opening for a gate. Smaller watchtowers were being built on either side of the opening. The length had been increased, running down the hill toward the fields.
The yard to the side of the school was almost full of bunkhouses. The designs weren’t the greatest, they were more serviceable. The plan wasn’t for the entirety of Clan Brady to live at the school forever. Eventually people would move back into the neighboring houses, spreading out with the school and wall serving as a place to retreat if the Clan was ever attacked. When Loch had left, there had been four completed. There now looked to be six with a seventh under construction. Most likely there still wasn’t enough space. People had asked for smaller homes to house a single family and those would come, but the priority was getting enough housing for everyone in the growing Clan.
He had thought about moving into one of the bunkhouses with the girls, showing the people that not even their Clanchief had to live with other families. But that idea had been shot down by Ed Turner and the Council. Loch had thought Ed didn’t like the idea because it would make him look bad if he let his family have any kind of special privilege. The council thought it wouldn’t look good in the eyes of the people. Loch was the Clanchief. It was his power that was supposed to help protect the Clan. He and his family were the new nobles and deserved the privilege of having their own space.
Loch hated that idea but ended up agreeing. That was what the original nobility had supposedly been. People elevated up to as the caretakers of the rest of the community and as such, they were given rewards for their service.
Part of a wall had been started on the east side of the school. There wasn’t much to it currently but it would grow quick enough. The building over the dungeon entrance had been fully repaired after the damage taken in the gaunt’s attack. It was now a combination of the original building and new, the design changed and instead of just walls and roof, there was now a floor and a room created. It was serving as barracks for part of the guards with the eventual plan being for it to be the dungeon office from where all the Clan’s dungeons would be monitored and scheduled.
That was far in the future. The upcoming winter was the priority. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t plan ahead.
With the Mason, they had the ability to build fireplaces. Each bunkhouse would have one, the guard room over the dungeon had one as well. That was some kind of heat for the various outbuildings. With all of it being wood-fired, they were going to need a lot of logs. There were logs sized for burning being stacked by each of the completed bunkhouses as well as being brought around the back of the school to be used there.
It looked like there were a lot of busy people. Loch liked seeing that. He still hated that it meant a lot of people would get stuck with some kind of Laborer Class, even if they didn’t want it. But ultimately it was their choice. They had to contribute to the overall Clan somehow and if they didn’t want to be guards, hunters or adventurers then they had to be the laborers that were needed. It wasn’t glamorous but it was important.
There was so much that needed to be done and if the people with Profession Classes had to carry logs all over the school, they wouldn’t be able to build what they needed to.
Loch liked seeing what had been done in the few days they’d been gone. He looked over his shoulder to see the expressions of Stephanie and her people, now Loch’s new people. They were all surprised, in a good way, at seeing the Clan hard at work and the shelters that had been built. It wasn’t complete, and looked it, but the school did give off the feeling of a safe place. Not just that, but a place where the world was rebuilding.
Loch felt proud.
“Come on,” he said, picking up the pace. “Let’s get you to Kristin and get some lodging and food for you all.”