Blood Shaper

Chapter Sixty-one

Meten smiled sadly. "Normally, I'd be giving you a long, drawn-out story about my home and how it came to be, but sadly I'll skip that for now. It doesn't really have a name. We just call it "home" or "the village"; we've been pretty small for a long time. Oni and ogres don't have a high birth rate, and a combination of an isolated location and general distrust from others has kept our population low." He pointed towards the entrance to the valley. "The village is southwest of here, close enough to the edge of the unexplored lands to have traders visit us, but deep enough into the area to be dangerous. A monster we'd never seen appeared one day and attacked. We managed to kill it without losing anyone, but it had some kind of disease attack that festered in the people's wounds that it bit. At least, that's the best guess we have now. Even after our healer treated their injuries, the wounded still got sick really fast." His normal smile slowly drained off of his face. "Then it started spreading." We only had around sixty people before people started getting sick. There's only twenty-three of us left."

"I'm sorry for your losses," Kay murmured.

"Thank you." Meten sighed and stared down at his hands. "I… Fuck." He slumped in his seat.

Kay, Eleniah, and Ahthia sat there silently, letting him grieve without interruption.

Eventually, he sat back up. "So, we were slowly rebuilding from losing most of our people when the neighboring town started making trouble. They're about an hour or so walk from our village, and for a while, they were pretty neutral towards us. They let us visit and trade, and every once in a while, someone would marry into the village from there. Then the former leader's son took over, and he was a lot different from his father. His father only really cared that people were obeying the law and paying taxes. The son went to some kingdom called Nelam to the south of us and studied there for a few years at some kind of academy."

Eleniah and Kay shared a glance that Meten didn't seem to notice.

"I haven't been there myself," Meten continued, "Because everyone says Nelam is very human-centric, but the son didn't seem to pick that up from them. He just got learned their desire to rule over everything around them, apparently." He leaned back in the chair. "I can't really say he got that from Nelam, and it wasn't just how he's always been, but he came back, took over the town, and started being a total asshole."

"What did he do?" Ahthia asked.

"He hired a lot of mercenaries and started conquering every other group of people in range, basically." Meten put on hand over his eyes. "We were right at the edge of his effective range of control and weakened from losing a bunch of people. He sent a messenger to invite us to join the growing state he was building and gain his protection. In exchange for iron-fisted control over every detail of our lives, of course."

Kay frowned. "How bad was it?" He was curious to know, both from the perspective of someone listening to the story and from the perspective of a new leader. What's too much control? What's too little? Where's the line? That's the kind of thing I have to think about now, isn't it?

"Well, just to set the tone, he gets to decide what people choose for their first Class. And what Classes they take in the future. And what Skills they level. And so on and so on."

Eleniah snorted. "That'll never work. You'd have to have someone with a truth-telling Skill or high enough Inspect checking people constantly."

"Or an enchanted item that does the same," Ahthia added.

"Sure, but that doesn't change how much work it'd be." She shook her head, "That's ignoring the fact that he's going to get a revolt, or someone else will swoop in and take a perfect opportunity to steal a settlement from him since no one will support him if there's a chance of getting rid of him."

"True," Meten looked at them with a wry smile, "But that doesn't help my village since we're in his crosshairs right now, and none of us are willing to submit to something like that." He leaned back again. "Plus, he doesn't have a Noble Title, so the chances of some outsider coming in to take him out are a lot smaller."

"What does having a Title have to do with that?" Kay asked.

They all turned to look at him. "Not just a Title, a Noble Title," Meten said.

"And?"

Meten and Ahthia turned their stare on Eleniah. "You didn't teach him about Noble Titles?" Ahthia demanded.

"I thought I did."

Kay thought about it. "I don't remember anything like that, and I have Sharpened Memory now." He couldn't remember talking about Titles, but he could guess what they were based on previous knowledge.

Eleniah held her hands out against Meten and Ahthia's judging stares. "My bad." She turned to Kay, "Short version, Noble Titles are Titles that you get from certain rare items or from a Quest. Anyone with a Noble Title that has people following them gains bonuses, and having one unlocks special Classes or variants of Classes. The people doing following also gain bonuses based on who they're following. The more land they control, and the more people following them, the higher the Title and the more bonuses for them and their subjects. If you get the Title from an item, which is more common, someone can take the item and the Title from you under certain conditions. That's why people will sometimes show up places and try and take over, especially if they think they can get the populace on their side. Without anyone following you, the Title gets significantly less powerful, so Title Hunters will look for bad leaders that they can take out, and then they hope that the people left over will follow them."

"That's where the whole 'the strong lead' thing came from!" Kay exclaimed, "It's all about protecting the Title and making sure you and your subjects keep the bonuses it gives."

"The more powerful the Title Holder is, the easier it is to upgrade the Title too," Ahthia added, "Once you reach a certain level, some of the requirements to upgrade become more like personal quests with difficult targets. One of the Elders of the Weathered Clans is an Archduke. In order to upgrade his Title from Duke, he had to go defeat an Iron Eye Basilisk that had massacred a hill-town."

Kay glared at Eleniah. "You were telling me about how it was a safety and people joining under your banner from your strength alone type of deal."

She shrugged helplessly. "I thought I'd already told you about Titles!" She explained, "And it isn't like that's wrong, it's just that a portion of the threats are based around people wanting to take the Title, and people gather around strong people without Titles because they assume they'll end up with one eventually."

"It's also become sort of a societal thing," Ahthia continued to explain, ignoring Kay's annoyance for his teacher, "Because Title Holders become strong and are leaders, people mentally skip a step and go from 'Title Holders are strong and leaders' to 'strong people are leaders'."

Kay growled in annoyance. "Thank you for telling me about that." He glanced over at his teacher and adviser, "What's your cousin's Title?"

"Queen on the Raging Tides."

The other two gaped at her.

"Are Titles like that common?" Kay asked. He gestured at Ahthia, "That elder was only a Duke and an Archduke."

"If you have a Noble Title, you get a Noble Class. A person with a Mayor title gets offered a Mayor class at Leadership level five. No matter what your starting Title is, the Class is always tier one." Eleniah glanced at the two shocked people but kept her focus on explaining to Kay. "One of the requirements for upgrading a Noble Class is upgrading your Noble Title. Alahna's starting Title was Clan Head. She upgraded it to Clan Leader when she had three clans under her and Queen when she founded the Isles. Her fourth-tier Noble Class was Archipelago Queen, and when she made her tier five Class, it included Archipelago Queen in the merge and made Queen of the Raging Tides."

"If you manage to keep your Title long enough to get it to tier three, the Title starts to customize itself to you." Ahthia muttered in a dazed voice, "If you take your Title from someone else, it follows a standard path based on what it was when you took it from its original holder. If you make it to tier five and the Noble Class gets folded into your tier five Class, you can't ever lose the Title from then on. People who get their Titles from Quests don't have to worry about any of that." She shook herself. "Queen Selthoran of the Seramist Isles is your cousin?" She demanded incredulously.

Eleniah gave a half-bow from her seated position. "My full name is Eleniah Selthoran."

Meten stared at her, his expression as shocked as Ahthia's. "You're the Keel Breaker Fist."

Eleniah scowled. "I hate that name. I broke a boat with my fists one time. That isn't that impressive!"

"I'm from the other side of an entirely different continent, and I've heard of you!"

"Yes, I'm super famous, and every story you've ever heard about me is totally true." She replied sarcastically. "Let's let Meten finish his story now that we've explained things to Kay."

Meten blinked a few times and recovered. "Right. Um, so… Right. The town's new leader is a dick and trying to take control of my people, so we decided to leave. But running off with no plan seemed bad, so we retreated a little deeper into the wilderness to buy time, and I left to find somewhere safe to go. Darten came with me, and we ran into you guys. Now you're making a place, and I'm asking if my people can come here and join you."

Kay already knew about Eleniah's illustrious cousin, and Meten's request seemed more important at the moment, so he ignored Ahthia's demands of information from Eleniah and focused on Meten, a slight frown on his face. Crap. I want to say yes because I like Meten and Darten, but that isn't what a good leader would do. I think. Cronyism is bad. So I need to have good reasons to say yes… "Why did Darten come with you? Wouldn't it have been faster to go by yourself?"

Meten nodded. "It would have been, and that was the original plan. But right when we were packing up to hide everyone, some of the town's mercenaries showed up to make a nuisance of themselves. They started trying to shake us down for a bribe to not run and tell the town's leader what we were doing. One of them started suggesting that Darten's younger sister…" He snarled.

Eleniah copied him, and Kay and Ahthia scowled.

Meten took a deep breath and calmed himself. "Yeah. The mercenary tried to grab her and was trying to feel her up when Darten grabbed him, threw the fucker off his sister, and killed him."

"Good for him!" Ahthia cheered. Eleniah nodded emphatically in agreement.

Meten grinned savagely. "The rest of them were pretty focused on Darten after that, so he played bait and led them off from everyone else so they could get away. I followed, and we ended up taking care of the rest of the mercenaries, but by that point, we were far enough away from the rest of our people that I decided to just bring him with me." He glanced around at the building with a smile. "And it's good that I did. He's really grown a lot after meeting you."

Well, shit, that just makes me want to say yes even more! Fuck it, I'll just be upfront. "Why do you want to join us? And why should I say yes?"

Meten smiled, his face openly happy at the question. "Good. That's exactly what you should be asking me. I want my people to join you because I think it'll be worth it for us. We need somewhere new to live, and you seem like you'll be a good leader. Plus, getting in on the ground floor of building a new settlement will put us in a good position later if the settlement grows. We'd have the position of founding members to leverage. You should let us join because you'd be getting new people to help you build, including people with expertise you don't have right now. Two of us have truth-telling skills of different kinds; we have a hunter, a lumberjack, an actual healer, no offense Ahthia-"

"None taken; I'm really a Historian."

"-And more. You'd also be getting me and Darten too, and we're pretty valuable if I say so myself."

Kay nodded slowly and looked at Eleniah. "Adviser?"

"Yes?"

"Advise me."

"Do it. Make them all sign Agreements of loyalty and secrecy, but otherwise, take it. We need more people, and they need a new place to live. Win-win."

"We would all be willing to sign such Agreements," Meten told them.

"How can you know for sure?" Kay asked.

"We talked about what we'd be willing to do to find a new place before I left. That was one of the first things everyone agreed on. It's pretty common."

Kay thought about it some more. I was already tipping towards saying yes, and now I am even more, but… "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to be in charge for real. I'm not going to be some puppet or figurehead. If I'm leading, I'm doing it for real. Full tilt, head-on, the whole shebang. Especially if I'm going to have to worry about a Noble Title, since that's on the list for the future now," He glanced at Eleniah, who stuck her tongue out at him. "What I'm trying to say is, will your people be alright with that? Will they listen to me? Are any of them going to show up and try and take over or manipulate their way to power?"

"No."

"How can you be sure?"

"Besides the fact that I've literally known them all of their lives?"

"… That's a great point."

Meten smiled. "I became the temporary leader on account of age and tiers when we lost everyone. If they follow me here, they'll throw in with you, especially since I'll be backing you as leader."

Kay nodded once. "Alright. I'll accept you all."

Meten's smile became a huge grin. "Wonderful." He stood up. "I have an enchanted item that will send a magical message to the village and let them know to get ready and start heading in this direction at a safe speed. I'll go meet them and bring them the rest off the way."

"That fast?"

"Sooner started, sooner over. I want them where it's safe as soon as possible."

Eleniah stood up too. "I'm going to get an Agreement from my bag and get you to sign it before you leave."

"You have an Agreement like that ready?" Kay asked, surprised at her foresight. Or her scheming. She had said she'd been expecting something like this to happen eventually.

"No, I paid extra for blank ones that you can customize."

"Oh, well, I want to read over it before we finalize it."

"Good. I'll bring some blank paper to plan on." She speed-walked over to her room.

Kay looked across the table. "Ahthia-"

She waved her hand through the air. "We're staying. We'll all sign the same Agreements. Same reasons as Meten, with the added bonus of you knowing something about the powder that Karl is so nuts about."

"To be fair, I don't actually know all that much. I have some general surface-level knowledge about it. I can't make it at the level he's at right now, let alone the higher levels we had on Earth. I can't even tell him how to make better guns. I know a random fact or two but nothing else."

She shrugged. "That's better than books that literally say things like 'some Outworlder tried to tell us about how to make better blast powder, we told him to go away and destroyed all his notes."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, it's stupid. He'll take what you can give him and be deliriously happy that he can experiment with whatever he wants without people yelling at him and trying to make him stop."

"I might yell at him. Especially about safety."

"Will you try and make him stop for no reason than 'no one has done this before?"

"No."

"Then he'll be happy."

"Alright…"

She stood up from the table and started for the exit. "I'm going to talk to everyone, let them know you decided to go ahead with the whole 'founding a settlement' thing. They'll want to throw a party."

"We have a bunch of meat for that if they want!" Kay shouted after her.

She waved in acknowledgment.

Kay noticed Meten gesturing for him to come outside. He stood up to head over there, then paused. "Hey, Eleniah, where's Murunel?" He shouted over his shoulder.

"With Vened talking about how to make a good fishing pole last I saw her!" She called back.

"The dwarves know about her?"

"Yeah, I introduced her around while you were out mapping the other day. It's good for her to have more people to talk to."

"You're right; I just realized I hadn't seen her since yesterday."

"She's fine!"

Kay noticed Meten gesturing at him again, and he hurried outside to meet him. "What's up?"

"Well, first, since I heard you shouting just now, and I've heard about that enchanted item you have that might break Murunel out, I'll tell you that one of my people has a magic Skill that might help that item charge faster." He held up his hands when Kay's expression lit up, "Maybe! Maybe. I can't say for sure."

"Well, if they can, that's great; if not, Murunel said she'd been stuck for years, and waiting a few more months won't hurt her that much."

"Good. Anyway, I'm probably going to leave tonight, so I thought I'd add something."

"What?"

"The biggest reason I wanted us to join you."

"I thought you did already?"

"I said part of it." Meten grinned, and Kay suddenly felt a little nervous for some reason. "I said that getting in on the ground floor of a new place would help set us up for the future, which is true. But getting in on the ground floor of a new settlement founded by the next Rune Master will be even better for us."

Kay kept his now racing emotions off his face and coked his head to one side. "Huh?"

Meten grinned again. "Perfect! That was great. Most people would totally take that the way you wanted them to. Don't worry, you didn't give it away, and Eleniah didn't tell me. I just kind of figured it out. I met them once, you know, the Rune Master. I learned a Rune Magic Class that became part of my Ashblade Painter of their island. Something about how you carry yourself is similar to them and combined with Eleniah's confidence in you, I just guessed." He patted Kay on the shoulder. "I'm going to go get that item I mentioned. It's faster than me, but it'll still take a few days to get to them, so I best send it now." He clapped Kay's shoulders and strode off.

Kay stared at Meten's back as he walked off. He managed to keep his emotions from his face, but inside he was freaking out a little. He was glad that Meten hadn't said anything in front of Ahthia, which thinking about it, was probably on purpose. Kay looked behind him to where Eleniah was getting ready to make a draft of the Agreement for Meten. Let's make sure that secrecy part is really strict.

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