Bonded Summoner

Book 3. Chapter 13: Working Around the Clock

Jake’s question was met with some sadness, and they learned that the men, including the chieftain, had already died. Many of them had gone to aid the fallen Alliance HQ, Jake learned was called Life’s Haven, having been convinced to aid their brethren in its defense. Whether they joined the Framework or not, there were still many that came to aid in the defense of the other beastkin at the HQ. It was unknown whether any of them would have joined the Framework or not after they left.

He learned that there wasn’t even an Alliance Node here, and eventually was able to talk Damara into allowing one to be placed. Many integrated after Jake’s speech, and giving them a status update on the war. There were none willing to join Hearthtribe, leaving their home in defense of others, for now. Some children close to coming of age were interested, however.

It wasn’t only the men that left. Many of the more warrior focused women did, too. But this village was small, and their focus was on carpentry and woodworking. Jake learned that the biggest thing that they exported was furniture, and they would sort of ship it down the river, even down the waterfalls, strapping barrels to their works. Their work would arrive not far from Life’s Haven, and it would be carried the remainder of the distance and traded for there. There was some kind of elevator powered by animals or powerful beastkin that could carry up things onto the plateau, such as large furniture.

Jake let them know that if they came to Kenwodi, there were many other beastkin meeting there. They could use carpenters to rebuild and build houses, and they should think about selling their products on the Alliance Market. There was a way for them to sell locally, the products being transported within the world to other alliance nodes, for a significantly reduced transfer fee. They could also earn various woodworking skills and improve their crafts.

Damara responded to his offer, “We’d like to go, but there’s a problem. Many of us stayed to care for the children. There’s simply no way we could travel as we are now. We are not even two hundred adults, but there are over a thousand children below the age of 10 among us.”

Jake and the girls were shocked at this revelation. They must have sent more than half their adults. Jake did see a lot of children, but he had a hard time believing there were that many there, until Ira pointed out the pavilion tents with them in it near the center of the village, away from the fighting.

He would now need it to be a priority to get some kind of blimp or other method running sooner rather than later. Jake thought that leaving this village here would be quite the burden for defense, as every time a rift spawned on the plateau, him or his people would need to rally to here within a day to close it before anything spawned. Perhaps, once they retook Life’s Haven, it would be easier to move them there somehow. For now, the node had helped solve any food problems, though with the river it appeared this was hardly an issue for them. There were all sorts of fish for them to consume, the reduced population making it simple for them to live on that alone.

Jake said, “I see. For now, we’ll just have to help with clearing any rifts near you. You can use the Alliance Node to send my guild a message, if there’s trouble. We’ll go clear out the orc rift, and then we need to head to the next rifts and villages.”

Damara said, “I think you’ll find that those in the surrounding area are quite similar to ours. Some might have had better access to head to another village when the worst happened, but some plateaus nearby are smaller, and can’t support many.”

Jake had purchased a number of wooden weapons that they had spare from their crafting, for use in practice with his enchanting. He mostly purchased arrows, javelins and spears, but had purchased a number of other weapons as well.

They headed out, and took on the nearby rift. They faced an orc commander’s rift once again, Berri enjoying smashing everything. She became a veritable death blender, and they finally had gotten a good chance to really use the fiery counter that was on Sacrificial Barrier. When melee attackers hit the barrier, flames would peel off the barrier and harm them. Combined with Jake’s heavenly aura and Bloodberri’s armor, it was like the orc warriors were killing themselves by attacking her.

Jake and Ophelia just made sure to control the ranged orcs, and took them out safely. An Orc Commander spawned, and Bloodberri’s new [Maul of Hestia-Echidna] made quick work of the creature, while Jake and Ophelia turned the battlefield into a sea of flames with consecration. Jake had wanted to capture the Orc Commander, but found that [Rift Challenge] creatures could not be captured.

They moved on to other rifts, and cleared two more villages that were similar to Riverbend, and two more lone rifts besides. Jake’s stories of what’s happening to the other villages went a long way towards getting people to integrate, and they did find a fourth village crammed full of people from other villages. Jake watched as they quickly traded their hides and plants for food, and several entered their beginner incursions nearly right away, after Jake hammered home the importance of preparation and they got themselves set up.

These people were desperate, and Jake’s party arrived just in the nick of time. Some were very close to braving the dangers of the wilds to escape those assaulting their plateau.

It was now close to dusk, and they were traveling to their last rift of the day before they would move to their territory and portal home to their Refuge.

They ran into such a tribe, with skeletons chasing them. Ophelia quickly flew over the ridge Bloodberri was climbing when Ira spotted them, and she cut off the chasing army. There were nearly 200 beastkin fleeing, with almost half of them children.

Some warriors were fighting a retreating battle in the back, trying their best to give their people reprieve. Ophelia blazed past them in a near streak of light, and immediately set to work. She used her hearth of Hestia, and cut down the various undead in scores. She cleared out most of them before Jake and Bloodberri could even arrive, the beastkin watching on in awe as she did.

Jake met with the Elder of the village, and found that most of the area was already blighted, with many beastkin sick. They weren’t sure what they were going to do when they got to the ledge, but their hope was for many to climb down carrying children. Jake’s party quickly moved to heal those that were blighted.

The escaping tribe had killed off a few waves of the skeletons, and decided to escape before the latest one arrived. But they were cut off by the enemy, and had to fight through. It was a bear beastkin elder who was awakened that lead his people.

“I can’t thank you enough, Jake, for helping us in our time of need. We owe you a great debt.”

Both Ophelia and Jake smiled at the elder, Berri off talking with some kids.

Jake said, “I’m glad we were able to get here before the worst happened. If you want to repay me, I’d appreciate if you could convince others to join the Framework, and join the cause of fighting back this evil. I was sent by the Goddess Hestia, so you can thank her as well. We’re here to protect families, and fight off these invaders.”

This is largely what Jake had been offering, for people that were overly thankful. He required more warriors, but currently, he couldn’t travel with them. They also simply weren’t strong enough to provide meaningful assistance in a fight.

“We would go back to town after you clear the rift, but… The entire plateau is almost blighted now. I’m afraid we can no longer live here.”

Jake frowned. He had realized that Rookard’s plateau was blighted, but now his food was coming from an external source. They had managed to keep it out of their village proper originally for the most part, but it was certainly true that farming was not going to be something that would work for them until the blight was removed. Yet again, he had run into some people with the same problem, and it had ruined their home.

Jake would need to make it a priority to find an efficient way of removing the blight. The censers that they used simply took too long, and Jake’s party was effectively the vanguard. He couldn’t have Brock and the rest come here in a meaningful amount of time. His time was already pulled too thin for him to have Berri and Ophelia removing the blight from crops and things of that nature with their holy energies. Perhaps, he could make something with enchanting, and hope that the outcome served a dual-purpose in terms of being able to harm the undead.

“For now, if you make it over to Hunter’s Terrace, they will have plenty of room to accommodate you. They had sent many warriors off to defend Life’s Haven, and despite several villages joining them, they still have room.”

“That’s where we were headed. We should be able to make it before night fall if you just help us down. We’ll be able to get all the kids up on our own.”

Bloodberri carried many children down with her basket and hanging onto her, taking a few trips. Jake’s party continued to clear the rift they had planned on, and it was now getting dark out.

Jake looked over his [Menu Map] with a sigh. There were many new alliance nodes, and they were doing quite well. But he had really been hoping to be able to fight through and reach the Alliance HQ by now. They kept getting delayed, and even though they closed five rifts in one day, they saw three new ones appeared in the way.

Not only that, but rifts had spawned in the other direction, towards the city that was lost. This meant that they would need to clear these instead of making forward progress soon.

Jake saw that Tanda was in fact doing a lot of work, both clearing two rifts of her own, and adding many villages to the map, definitely outpacing Jake’s party in that aspect significantly. The number of integrated people was climbing rapidly, and Jake even had some numbers joining his guild. These people would need to brave the dangers of traveling to Kenwodi, and do it mostly on their own. It could be days before they arrived, to join his guild’s activities.

Blood said, “We’ll have to thank Tanda. She’s really reducing the burden on us, in her own way.”

Ophelia nodded. “She was against the Framework at first, and she could have pushed back and made things harder for us instead. But it appears that she had an open mind, and looked at things objectively, in the end. Some of those villages are a few hundred miles away, we’d have had to split up just to accomplish this.”

Jake had to agree. Not only was Tanda aiding them, but she was competent and taking her task seriously. Even with having lower leveled people, she was able to accomplish more than he would expect adventurers to. With the geography the way it was, he could expect a decent force of adventurers to close those rifts. But he bet that they never would have been able to arrive at that many villages, let alone convince any of them to join.

The good news about the rifts near Kenwodi was that they were close. They could wrap those up in just a few hours time, but Jake was really starting to feel there wasn’t enough hours in the day for his party to make a significant impact.

Ophelia said, “I think your thoughts are right, we need to push on to make enough impact, or we’ll take more than a week to reach the old Alliance HQ. I’m worried about champions arriving soon, too, with Bloodberri becoming one. Let’s clear two more tonight?”

Jake replied, “Traveling is going to get kind of dangerous without visibility. We could get ambushed? We don’t know if there isn’t already enemy champions here or not, after all.”

Ophelia was concerned, but she had some confidence. “Ira is watching, and Bloodberri can see just as good at night as during the day, you know. Dark elves have dark vision, and that includes her. My vision is a good bit better than humans, too.”

Blood said, “That albinism you told me about might have harmed my vision, but after my core was enhanced, I feel like that part of me has become even better than a regular Dark Lamia. We can fight at night just as well as during the day, as she says.”

They decided to clear two more as they were relatively close, to win back as much conquest as possible. They then did their work on the wall for Kenwodi for a couple of hours, making decent progress. It was late when they finally made it back to their [Refuge].

Fhesiah was locked away in her alchemy room, still doing experiments. Since this morning’s trials, she had not left. Jake had heard little from her, so engrossed with her task as she was.

Jake gave Ophelia and Bloodberri the raptor carcasses, where they were going to remove the hides and see about making some leather, keeping the meat. Bloodberri was going to work on that, while Ophelia was going to work on using the talons and bones. While most of her smithing up to now had just been with metals, there were all sorts of adjacent crafting and forging that involved monster materials, and she would gain a lot of experience trying to use everything here.

Jake was also planning on using some of their meat, to try to see how much life force he could capture while making the food at a later date. That was on his mind in the back burner, however.

It was time for some experiments of Jake’s own. First, he decided to check the market.

The Tier 0 censer, that Brock’s party was using, was effective at removing the blight. The problem, as Jake saw it, was that this tool would require too much time. It was perfect for the beastkin to use to remove their own blight, and Rookard’s plateau was already almost cleared, with many using the Tier 0 versions.

But if Jake wanted to clear a large area for the beastkin himself for the refugees that fled, it wasn’t good enough. He looked at a Tier 1 version on the market, and got a general idea for how they worked. While they were faster based on what he could find, it still wasn’t at the level he needed. It would still take Jake’s party nearly an entire day or two to clear a plateau. He sent the specifications over to Ophelia, and thought he would have her make him the container just a bit different.

She would craft him the item made of the materials he desired, when she had some time available. For now, he would work on his main project: enchanting auril weaponry.

The first thing he did was merely enchant an amberwood spear with his nordic runes, and found that the result was more or less like enchanting anything else. He thought the mana somewhat enhanced the life energy contained in the weapon, but he had doubts that anything would really be different, in terms of an awakened being able to activate it.

He thought the effectiveness of the overall weapon was quite good from what he could tell of the hardness. For how much the market deemed the minimum value he could sell the item for, he was quite satisfied with the item’s performance for the amount of effort he put into it. Still, the wood in his hand was only considered Tier 0. Perhaps, there was a stronger version of the wood, made from an older, or otherwise more hardy tree. From what he could tell, the village was mainly using wood from a tree farm, and so the trees would not be as old or as strong as they could be.

Next, was for him to try demonic runes. But he remembered that in order to activate them, he had required some level of understanding of the word used in order to use them. He thought about the beastkin people, and what could work well for them.

He added the demonic runes for claws and life to the spear, alternating them until he felt the item was permeated with mana, and was at its limits for how many runes it can accept. This reduced the efficacy of the item, but it would be pointless to make a rune formation with phrases that only Jake or his family could use.

That left his final experiment with enchanting for auril usage for now. He would now inscribe runes using their own words.

The nordic runes were powered by a number of things, but their power both came from rules and restrictions, as well as their faith and empowerment by their people’s worship, beliefs, conviction, and their deities; their gods empowering them. Something like writing in elvish would only be empowered by their faith and worship, but not so much as rules. It was somewhat surprising they could be used as runes at all, to Jake.

But what about the beastkin’s language? Their musical language was something they had faith and belief in, their voices and songs matching their own hearts, often being guided in their lives by them. Their own hearts were also reflected in the world, and their surrounding environment. Jake had some expectation that their language would be empowered by this faith and belief, at least.

So with that, he started. He had purchased a book of the language, to better visualize what he was making. He decided to follow the rules similar to what he had with demonic runes. First, he made several javelins just with the symbol with auril and life.

Their symbol for life was a circle made of vines, almost like Celtic rope or knots he’d seen. The symbol for auril, was the symbol of life, but with a heart inside. But their heart wasn’t like the ones humans made to symbolize love, and instead looked a lot like a triskele; a Celtic symbol with 3 spirals interconnecting, but he thought this one was more in the shape of a heart with two spirals on the top and one on the bottom, instead.

When Jake completed the symbols, they did activate and permeate into the item. Mana was not the most pure form of energy, but it was as close to it that Jake could get or use. He had some expectation that this would work, but he thought that if he could find some way to use ink with auril in it somehow, that it would work even better for them.

He couldn’t spend all day long enchanting javelins and arrows for beastkin to use, though his plan was that now he had some, he may be able to do some from Bloodberri’s back as she traveled. As he rode in her backpack, he was hardly even jostled unless she entered a fight, her upper body almost floating upright as her tail worked furiously behind her. It was only when climbing up or down that it was not very smooth riding, and he’d need to hang onto her.

Jake needed a repeatable method for the beastkin to follow. The runic etching tool could in fact be powered by mana crystals instead of Jake’s own mana, so if these worked, he could still teach the beastkin, or have them learn their own methods. But perhaps, there might be some way to make them a more appropriate tool, that used their own auril. Perhaps, on a certain level, they could just use their claws with ink and their own auril. A possibility for later.

He worked on enchanting various items with the demonic runes and beastkin language, making sure to have many things for beastkin to try.

He had one other thing he wanted to work on. Jake looked over the market, and found that he was far from the first person with the difficulty of requiring conveyance in the multiverse. Mobility was considered in the [Conquest Game], so something like an airship that could move potentially hundreds of people rapidly had a significant cost, way outside of Jake’s price range. Even if humans could make something with technology with Tier 0 materials, this was not allowed, just like building cannons.

The line on what was allowed was strange for Jake, as it wasn’t as simple as using chemicals or technology versus magic. Making magitech style items would not bypass the game’s rules. From what Jake could tell, only by purchasing an item close to what he wanted, and modifying it lightly to accomplish almost the same thing could he ensure that his actions were safe.

From what he noticed, anything that resembled a jet engine was not allowed, no matter how it was accomplished. Any propeller-style with a motor had strict limitations for Tier 1, but it looked to be possible as long as the motor was below a certain output. Jake had a thought of those strange swamp boats that were like a giant fan behind the rider they used down in the bayou, called airboats. From what he could tell, the best propeller and motor would be much weaker than that. josei

Something slow like a blimp with many smaller propellers was in fact possible. Jake could find a way to enchant it and power it himself, to make it a little faster than what the purchased item would be able to by itself. With this, he should be able to pick up and carry dozens of people. For now, the problem was carrying something large enough to fit many people on it. Jake could purchase an upgraded version of the storage bracelet that was actually a ring, that might be able to contain a blimp, but it was outside what he wanted to spend on such an item at this time.

He reasoned that he would have to get his guild working on using the blimps. While Jake didn’t have many hours to go picking up people with a blimp, perhaps, he could get people in his guild to do it. This would be a project for another night, to get something acceptable in his mind for conveyance.

He found that something like a permanent fixture for traversing landscape was more than affordable. He was able to purchase a package for making and building gondolas, buying several of them, and filling several storage bracelets.

Jake had bought some that cost T0 Credits, but left out an important, yet expensive, component. The power source for the engine, that propelled the gondolas forward. Jake wanted something a little more permanent, that wouldn’t require him running out and recharging mana crystals every few days. Jake also found he could save a significant amount of credits, spending just a short time on this.

He made six of the power sources for each of the places he needed to install, similar to the ones that went into Bloodberri’s necklace. They were a lot bigger, but because of that, he was able to use much cheaper gems. He tested the motor, and found that they would accomplish what he needed. As far as Jake could tell, this should last for months as it is now, instead of the other version that would have actually costed him more. The more expensive one would also require a refill of large, expensive mana crystals every few days if they saw a lot of usage, but this one would pull mana from the surrounding environment.

Jake still had some time before Ophelia would complete his request, but he himself was getting kind of tired. His body had improved significantly from his divine hearth, and he really only required a few hours of sleep in order to feel rested. But he still required three or four after a day filled with deathly combat, and it really felt like they didn’t have time right now. It was already the middle of the night, and if he wanted to be rested in time for morning training, he would need to sleep now. But Ophelia too was still working.

Fhesiah entered the room, surprising him out of his thoughts. She was carrying a large body pillow, and he looked at her in question.

“Aren’t you happy to see me, husband? So busy playing with your pen alone again, you didn’t even notice me coming. You ought to lock your door when you do that, you know.”

Jake was happy to see her, and he was surprised. She was holding a pillow, and wearing her cultivator robes, as she often did while doing her alchemy. With her joking around and the pillow, he’d think that she would be wearing lingerie trying to tease him for some action. It was her night tonight, after all. But he got the feeling that was not why she was here.

“You were running yourself ragged, so I thought that I should help. It is my night, but life is about a lot more than just having fun. Sometimes, we do have to work hard. That will make it all the better for when it’s time to enjoy.” She placed the pillow down, and kneeled next to it, patting her knees.

He laid down, his body on the pillow, and his head on her knees.

“What about you, though?”

“I’m more than alright, it will take more than a month or two of this before it would really bother me. My body doesn’t need rest beyond my cultivation each day, but the mind can always use it. This is why I hope this does not become a habit, for you. Take a nap, and I will do my best to remove the need for sleep from you. I should be able to win you back some time. It should only take but thirty minutes, but you’ll need to be asleep, first.”

Jake closed his eyes, and did his best to keep his mind from wandering. He had so much to do, and so little time to do it. Fhesiah shushed him, as she ran her fingers through his hair. Her nails on his scalp felt calming, and Jake felt his stress melt away, as he fell asleep.

Fhesiah then used her knowledge of the body, to remove the toxins that build up in his brain and body over the day, that are removed by processes that occur during sleep using her heavenly energy. She also rapidly stimulated the glands that produce the hormones to restore the body much more rapidly than it usually took to begin making them, often requiring people to enter REM sleep.

He woke up, when the door opened.

“Here you are, Jake. It was a little odd, but I was able to make this container. We only have a couple of hours before training begins, you know.”

Jake found that he actually felt well rested, he looked up to see Fhesiah’s smile.

“Thank you, Fhesiah. I appreciate it.”

“You’re very welcome, husband. Come here, sister– You’re next.”

“T-Thanks, Fhesiah. I could use a little shut-eye.”

She laid down the same way as Jake had, and Fhesiah once again ran her fingers through her scalp.

Jake said, “Thanks for your hard work too, Ophelia. I think with this, we should be able to make something to clear the blight. I guess Bloodberri is still working?”

“They don’t really need sleep, I guess they can sort of take turns? It’s weird, like everything else about them.”

She closed her eyes, and Jake could tell it wouldn’t take her long to fall asleep. He began working on what he hoped to be his Epic censer.