32. <
Mage
So, I just had an encounter with the adversary.
Hail
Wait, what? What the hell happened?
Mage
I guess the dungeon I busted was important to some of her quests and she’s a little miffed with us.
Lord
Isn’t that a good thing?
Mage
I’m not certain. I also encountered five Mikal. They were doing something with the merman that spawn in the depths of the dungeon. They were killing them, but they weren’t despawning.
Hail
I don’t have time to focus on this right now. We’ll figure out what it means after we sleep. Or we won’t. But speculating without knowing all the facts is just stupid.
Mage
Yeah, I just thought you all should know.
Lord
So, this means that you were successful, right? How many cores did you get?
Mage
Nine. With the three that I got for evolving the other dungeon, that means we got twelve dungeon cores for helping out Eliyenia.
Lord
That puts us back up to 100 total cores, doesn’t it?
Hail
Yeah, if you don’t count the ones we’re going to be turning into battlegrounds over the next few days. But I’m serious when I said our Earth goals are going to be expensive. Kellen also says we can expect the value of our cores to depreciate over time as people get used to having battlegrounds and custom dungeons.
Lord
We’ll figure things out when we’re together.
Mage
Lord, I’ve got important news for you too.
Lord
???
Mage
Eliyenia and the Naiad court are officially announcing their support of Rain II for the throne.
Lord
Holy crap. I mean, we were hoping, but to get the entire court behind us is more than we were expecting.
Archer
It’s not entirely a good thing. If we have the Naiads, we lose Baron Ulmer and Count Roshon.
Lord
Screw those bigots anyway. Since we have Eolstree in our corner as well, that’s two of our major allied nations supporting our brother. Plenty of the fence sitters will be following the money, and trade with Crescentis is important economically. I need to make a trip to Marquis Peori and give him this news so that I can figure out what to do with it.
Mage
Best of luck.
Lord:
I finished [Scribing] the letter I was working on, affixed it with my [Magical Seal: Personal Crest], then put it in the outbox with the rest of the mail. It wasn’t a particularly important letter compared to the news that Mage had just delivered regarding an alliance with the Naiad Court, but I had been halfway through when the chatroom had opened up and didn’t see a point in rushing off and leaving the letter unfinished.
I heard Rain cry in the other room, and one of his goblin nursemaids quickly rushed in to soothe him. I recognized the cry, and decided to wait a few minutes to say farewell to my brother. For the stench to die down.
I rang the bell to summon a servant, and Grapple appeared, dressed in an immaculate suit in the style of earth, sized down to fit his goblin body. I admit it did make him look rather dapper.
“I’m done with my correspondence for the day, Grapple. You can divvy up the quest items to the messengers who are waiting for them. There’s only three marked urgent today,” I informed him.
“Wonderful! Is there anything else I can help you with?” Grapple asked in his excitable voice. For a Traveler, he was entirely too dedicated to playing my butler.
“Yes. I need to visit Marquis Peori. I need a mage to portal me back to Zhesa, and an escort on the other side to bring me to Peori’s mansion. Sooner would be better, I’ve gotten word of some news which I don’t think I should sit on very long.”
“I’ll get everything lined up right away!” The goblin picked up the basket full of letters and ran out of the room holding it over his head.
I shook my head in amusement and sighed. I glanced out the window at the vineyard. I had been spending most of my time as [Lord] in my estate in Thorn March with my mother and brother, while occasionally venturing to Zhesa City or Ebbyvale to deal with my duties in those places.
Everything was going well. I was slowly gathering allies among the nobility, drawing them over to my brother’s side with the weight of my Charisma. Dumping those free points into that stat was more significant than I had realized, and I now found it much easier to convince even stubborn Natives to see things my way. It didn’t seem to have any particular effect on Travelers, which was regrettable but not unexpected.
I took a glance at Guild Chat, quickly scanning through the various channels that I had been ignoring previously. I sighed. I really needed to talk to someone about my disenchantment with my guild, but I didn’t know who. Daemon wasn’t an officer anymore, but his word still carried too much weight with those who remained in charge. I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble or kicked from the guild. I just … I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
No, that wasn’t true. I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted them to respect me like an equal. And many of the Travelers in
There wasn’t any one big thing that had me upset. There was no one person who was bothering me. It was just a bunch of little things from different people. Some of whom were actually very nice to me when they knew I was paying attention.
I sighed again and decided to stop moping. Rain had stopped crying, so I went into the nursery to find him laying beneath the dreamcatcher and sucking his fingers. I picked him up and carried him around, bouncing him lightly.
<
<> Rain answered.
<
<
<
Rain hesitated. <>
<
<
It would be nice if someone had written a guide on how to bypass four candidates to put your younger brother on the throne, but unfortunately such was not the case. <
<>
<
<
I frowned. I had thought that the spirit of my grandfather would be proud of my actions, and I was about to explain further when Grapple came rushing into the nursery.
“Okay, My Lord, everything is all set for your journey. I’ve got a portal specialist on the way, she’ll be outside in just a moment, and your honor guard is all lined up on the other end to receive you.”
“Thank you, Grapple. I’m going to take a moment to check my clothes before I depart.” I said. I returned Rain to his cradle and smiled at him. “I’ll be back later, Rain. Don’t cause too much trouble for the nursemaids, okay?”
Rain didn’t respond, neither verbally nor through the system, except to shove his fist into his mouth.
I returned to the room I had claimed as my bedroom and examined myself carefully in the mirror. I was dressed in a three piece suit similar to the ones worn on earth, although I had left off the jacket due to the heat. I had been dressing more and more in Earth styles lately, although the reason was very practical. Those were the clothes that Travelers produced in order to boost Charisma, and I was stacking that stat as high as it could go. While I could get Native crafted gear which boosted Charisma as well, the stats were never as high as the stuff that Travelers made for some reason.
I noticed that I had an ink stain on my left elbow, but I didn’t see the point in changing. I would just wear the sweltering jacket to cover it up.
Satisfied, I checked my Status as well.
Name
Hail Jeoran
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Level
41
Guild
Nethersong Mavericks
Strength
42
Health
22812/22812
Dexterity
72
Mana
29487/29487
Vitality
56
Energy
1200
Endurance
37
Experience
120/36900
Intelligence
72
Age
15
Wisdom
50
Race
Human (blood of the travelers)
Charisma
210
Class
Lord
Armor
0
Rank
Earl
Attack Power
113
Titles
Dungeon Master I
Critical Damage
2.09
Veteran of Mooncrest Manor
Spell Power
12
Veteran of The Battle for North Shire
Weapon Damage Rating
C-
Oh. Completing my correspondence must have pushed me over the cusp of level forty and into forty-one. With my current rate of Charisma growth, that was an extra three points. I doubted I needed it to help me manage Marquis Peori, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.
It was also my habit as [Lord] to keep an eye on the progress of my other selves, so I pulled up my status sheet for [Placeholder] as well.
Name
Hail Jeoran
Active Classes
Level
Age
15
Lord
41
Race
Human (blood of the travelers)
Acolyte
27
Class
Placeholder level 6
Mage
40
Experience
0/2,000,000
Duelist
39
Job
Earl
Archer
32
Titles
Dungeon Master I
Free Points
Serpentbane
Experience
1,352,763
Veteran of The Battle for North Shire
Stats
16
Skills
9
It was fortunate that [Duelist] and [Mage] were keeping pace with [Lord], even with the rate that I was gaining experience in this class. Archer was proceeding quickly as well, and might soon catch up to my highest three classes. Acolyte was … I was uncertain what I would do with acolyte. With all of the free experience that I was getting from the other classes, I might just boost it up to level fifty once I reached that point on something else, then consume the class using the ability I had gained for leveling [Placeholder] to level 6, to see what sort of free points doing so would give me. Or I might bank that free experience instead and put the effort in to level Acolyte the hard way.
Satisfied that everything was in order, I followed Grapple out to the yard, where a young mage cast a portal to bring me to Zhesa City.