Chapter 267: Sworn In

After a fruitful morning of hunting, Will and Jorn had some notes about Jorn’s class.

A riding secondary (if they could find one) would be welcome. A way to increase the potency of the bone arrow would be nice.

The only monsters that caused Jorn any problems were the ones who needed overwhelming firepower to put down. Anything less could simply be torn apart by the pack tactics of a swarm of razor-lizards.

They got twenty totems before Jorn ran out of charge. Each totem was about the size of a man’s fist, so Will was considering having a custom satchel made for Jorn. The size of dozens of totems added up quickly and became rather clumsy.

Maybe we can get an enchanted bag with dimensional properties?

Will was a little concerned that maybe Jorn would have to kill all the enemies with a direct attack, but his Totem Ability counted any kill by his summons as a kill by him.

As long as he had line of sight on the creature in question, he could make a totem of it.

They experimented with Will killing monsters, both by hand and with his Abilities, and neither worked, which was about as expected.

When they got back in the afternoon, Will sent Jorn off into the Sacrifice warehouse by himself to grab ones he thought would improve his hunting rate and report back to Will. They could discuss the pros and cons over dinner.

In the meantime, Will visited the giants.

The giants had begun their own settlement miles away from Will’s Burned Stronghold, on the other side of a mountain range.

Since they were about a hundred feet tall, if they lived on this side of the mountain, Will was concerned Climbers would see them moving about their daily lives every day and get weird about it.

They were adapting well to the outside world after being forced out of their safe haven inside Steve. Their only complaint was how hot it was, but aside from being uncomfortable, they didn’t seem to have any health problems.

They were currently carving a massive city out of stone, making pottery, and a couple of them were a few miles distant, wrangling an oasis out of the ground. The flatfish made excellent food for Will’s enormous guests.

Gods I hope they don’t run out of flatfish.

How much wheat would it take to feed even one of these titans?

Well, I suppose that’s why I made the experimental farmer Classes.

Will visited where Anna was working with the farmer kids. The ground was covered in a mishmash of fallen trees and crushed wheat from where the kids had been fireing off their abilities willy-nilly, more interested in practice than production.

“Mr. Oh, Mr. Oh, check this out!” A slender, light-haired pipsqueak said as he arrived, raising her hands to the sky.

RRRRRRR

The ground shook, and an instant later, an old-growth forest sprung up around them in the middle of the desert. Will could see the edge of the forest was about a hundred feet out in every direction.

With no kit on either? Will thought, studying the girl. That was several months work with a single Ability activation. With kit on, she might only have to trigger her primary ability once in her entire stay.

I suppose we could get some support upgrades that make logging easier so she’s not wasting her time waiting for everyone to deal with the wood.

“Whaddya think?”

“Awesome.” Will said, picturing valuable lumber, or an endless orchard of fruit trees in the future once they figured out the right upgrades.

“No, check this out!”

A wave of grass erupted outward from a boy and spread in every direction, blooming and withering in a matter of seconds. Once they got it to stick around, and the right kind of grass, then it would be remarkably helpful for beer and bread.

“You guys are gonna be the backbone of this Stronghold.” Will said with a nod, prompting a cheer from the farmers.

Will sat in on a class about breeding steak-bugs, which a few of the kids had Abilities for, care of Attrition. After that, he went back to his tower. Along the way, he spotted Ria teaching the new guardsmen about proper procedure, which amounted to a class in when to knock heads and when to de-escalate.

The only problem…

“Check this out.”

One of Will’s guardsman was whipping a ball of liquid metal around himself, changing its shape as he went to pull off tricks. The ball of metal was seemingly only loosely controlled, and it was whipping past other guardsmen.

He wasn’t the only one. Another pair near the back were chatting with each other while others were kicking each other where they thought Ria couldn’t see.

Will pointed at the kid playing with his Ability dangerously close to other’s heads and glanced at Anna beside him.

“…Why?”

“I made sure that all the boys I grabbed for the guardsmen were responsible older brother types, like Jorn.” Anna said with a sigh. “But that was back when they were in their own orphanages, now they’re crammed together with a bunch of other boys the same age. My mistake.”

“So their environment changed,” Will mused. “The solution then is to change the environment back. Make them care about something and then make them responsible for it. Like a building, festival, mascot, pet, or a particularly helpless selection of the farming group. It’s going to be tough because they haven’t put down roots yet. It would also be easier if you broke them up, but see if you can figure out something that motivates all of them. I don’t want rivalries among the guard.”

“I’ll see what I can do, milord.” Brianna said with a bow.

“I saw him earlier. Is that our Lord?” One of the taller boys asked one of his friends, tapping the other kid on the shoulder and craning his neck to watch Will and Brianna when he should’ve been listening to Ria’s lecture.

Stolen story; please report.

“He literally introduced himself.” His friend replied.

“Yeah but this guy has a hand.”

“Doesn’t look like much.” A third kid chimed in.

That’s another problem. Maybe it will rear its head soon. Will’s ‘guards’ would have Builds more tailored towards fighting Climbers than fighting monsters. That was one of the most basic requirements of being a Lord. They would eventually grasp that fact, consciously or unconsciously.

There was a good chance these young men would get a big head over the next few years when they realized they were more dangerous than most Climbers who came through Will’s Stronghold.

“When they start getting real cocky, arrange for me to fight them in front of their peers.” Will said.

“You got it,” Brianna said.

“Or Loth if she’s in town.” Will mused.

“I want them humble, not dead.” Brianna replied.

“There’s some overlap, right?” Will asked.

Afterwards, Will visited Badur and his Logistician group. Badur had sent the craftsmen off to apprentice under the Climbers that were working in those roles, and only had three actual logisticians working under him now, two girls and a boy who were feverishly scribbling in ledgers as they worked.

Naturally, they were accommodating to their roles the fastest, as organization was the exact reason they’d been chosen.

Having visited all the different groups, Will went back to his tower and sat down with the objects of his current study.

Choker of the Stolen Voice

+2 Strength

+12 Resistance