[There aren't missing chapters, I redid some early stuff and split some chapters]

 

Chapter Forty-Three: Home Is Where Trouble Comes Looking For You

           

            “Ah, cave sweet cave!” Hugh cried as he hurled himself off the deck of the River Darter into the river with a huge splash.

            He was now heavy and strong enough that his leap slightly altered the course of the ship’s travel. Thankfully, the ship managed to pull into the bay on the north end of Elgin Isle without much issue.

            Tea and Cal soared through the sky and then slammed into the river even harder than Hugh, covering the deck of the River Darter, and its cussing oarsmen and captain, in a spray of water.

            “Idiots,” Zun, who was in the center of the boat and also subjected to the spray, muttered.

            The galley inched to the pier, and Hugh clawed his way out of the water. When the sailors threw the rope, he caught it, and with his huge strength and size, was able to pull the ship close enough for it to drop a gangplank and for its sailors to finish tying it off.

            Leo was happy to be home, frankly. It had been a rough trip, and far less fruitful than he would have liked. A terrible ‘deal’ that would certainly lead to trouble in the future and three dragons, only two of whom could fly, wasn’t a great trade for what had been three weeks of his time and a lot of danger.

            But the trip hadn’t been a total waste. In the ruins of Zadrid’s Hallow, Leo had managed, over a week of intensive training and adventuring, to make Level Ten while helping Zun level up—although she wasn’t yet at the point of the Telekinetic Field.

Auras normally didn’t become available until Level Thirty, but Leo had two stacking modifiers that made Wyld auras available early. He’d gotten two auras as options, a ranching aura and a pure agricultural one. He’d decided to take the agricultural one and leave the ranching one for later, as his realm had few animals yet. And he had taken Bestial Toughness, rank I, because it added a lot of health, which he desperately needed.

Because of his other, earlier picks, he’d gotten another two options as well—one Mind ability from cognitive learner, which he’d used to take inertial weapon, rank I, and one Soul, which he’d used to raise his Magic stat.

            Leo quickly glanced at his new abilities.

Inertial Weapon, Rank I*	Based on high Intelligence, the telekinesis ability, and cognitive learner, this unusual power modifies kinetic force. This adds 10% damage to kinetic attacks, modified to higher percentage damage by magic score.
Soul of Magic, Rank II	+2 Magic Stat.
Aura of Growth, Rank I	+10% base agricultural modifier within 5 miles of the mage.
Bestial Toughness, Rank I	+4 Toughness

 

Then Leo pulled up a sub-chart he’d managed to call forth from whatever entities controlled the status charts. It told of his potential damage with his sword.

Leo’s attack with Lesser Light blade. 3-12 base damage (Damage 1-8 + 2-4 Light damage). Modified by Strength (x1.55 with items), Skill (x1.27), and Inertial Weapon ability (x1.2 ((1.1 base) x1.18 occult x1.56 magic stat x1.1 Mind affinity))   Damage 7-28, crit rate x3

 

            That is insane damage, Leo thought to himself as he looked at it. I could potentially kill a small dragon with a good critical hit, even past their armor and such. Benefits of now supernatural Strength and Magic, but still. Oof.

            Although, concerns about his enemies doing as much damage back had led to Leo putting his Level Ten stat increase into Toughness, which, along with his bestial toughness ability, raised his Health to thirty… but it concerned him that he could still kill himself in a single blow. It implied others likely could as well. I’ll need to give my Health and Toughness even more love soon. Or perhaps take Toughness-increasing items instead of my Strength ones, now that I have inertial weapon… or I could take inertial armor as an ability.

            Makes me wonder how strong that Level Thirty hero from the Havi Imperium is.

            Leo felt his stats as he moved. He was now stronger, tougher, and far more graceful than he’d been as a human, thanks to his ever-growing magic and body.

            Although, it was getting harder and harder to level—it had taken a week of constantly fighting the undead in Zadrin’s hollow for him, Lily, and Hugh to level, whereas Zun had made three levels despite not getting in on every kill, and Zir had made two.

            I wonder what I’ll need to start fighting to keep up the growth.

            Leo was brought back to the moment by the presence of a sailor waiting patiently next to him.

            “Um…?” Leo managed, blinking his eyes.

            “Most everyone has disembarked, milord. I was told to wait here with you.”

            Leo laughed to himself. That’s what I get for staring at my charts when I should be dealing with the here and now.

            “Thanks, sailor.” Leo tipped the man a copper coin.

            The burly human—mildly shocking after all the elves Leo dealt with—put it in his belt pouch and then hoisted Leo’s rucksack. “Shall I take this to the capitol building, milord?”

            Thanks to his magic-enhanced muscles, Leo took the bulging pack from him easily. “No, thank you. I need all the training I can get.”

            Before Leo took off for the capitol building, however, a man on the edge of the cliff overlooking the north bay called out, “Ship ho!”

            A ship was headed down the river, barely visible a mile or two away. Leo struggled to make out a flag flying on it, mostly in blue—likely the Haviden national flag, which was a stylized dragon in a lake.

Probably five to fifteen minutes till it gets here. Just enough time to assemble a small force.

            Leo rushed off the pier and up the large ramp to the main island, calling for backup.

            A bit later, the ship came into port and inched up to the pier with all the maneuverability of a beached whale. It was larger and ‘fatter’ than the River Darter, and absolutely full of crates. Leo wasn’t much of a seaman, but he was pretty sure that the ship was overburdened.

            By that time, Leo had gathered Val, four of her new ghost wolf soldiers, his own Wolten, Hugh, and Lily. All waited on the pier with the inspector George had appointed—the elf Wylwyn ‘One-Hand’ Riverkyn, the one who had asked Leo about being the court jester on that first night everyone had arrived.

            The captain came walking down from the ship. He was about six feet tall and slender, with a cutlass at his hip, dressed in a buccaneer’s outfit complete with the jaunty sailor’s cap over his wavy brown hair. He was also muscled like a model on a romance novel cover. He walked across the pier and planted himself in a wide stance in front of everyone.

            He held his hand out to Leo. “Captain Jarl Seahaven. What’s with the huge welcoming committee? It seems a mighty large reception for little ol’ me. What’s going on?”

            His eyes briefly flickered to Lily, whose supernatural beauty demanded a second look.

            Leo snapped his fingers. “Just making sure the collection of the toll goes well. It’s five percent of goods.”

            “What?!” Jarl barked, his face florid with shock, Lily forgotten. “What kind of piracy is this? The toll was clearly set at one percent. Our king promised us.”

            Leo saw the numerous oarsmen and sailors on the huge galley fingering knives and other sharp objects as their captain exclaimed. It was a sign of a good captain, Leo figured, that they wanted to back him immediately.

            But Leo, and his people, had been wronged by this man’s kingdom. He couldn’t make exceptions just because the captain was a good boss to his crew.

            “The petty tyrant Damien the Dullard bade me agree to his terms under threat of death,” Leo responded. “So, that deal is worthless and more than worthless. The price is five percent for members of the Havi Imperium, and two percent for everyone else.”

            “I’d heard something like that,” the captain muttered. “Doubted it’d turn out well.” Then Jarl mustered some indignation. “But… I didn’t know. How’s this fair to an honest merchant captain? I came here, in good faith, to trade. I’m being robbed.”

            Leo narrowed his eyes. “I was robbed first. You may either turn away and go back to Lakusi or pay me the five percent. If you attempt to pass without paying, however, we’ll board you on dragonback and seize your entire ship.”

            Jarl stared at Leo with mute rage, like he wanted to set fire to him with his mind. His hand briefly strayed toward his cutlass. But his eyes flickered toward Hugh and Wolten, and he restrained himself.

            “I should leave just to spite you, but I can’t afford to pay my people for a five-hundred-mile river trip for no reason, may all the gods damn you.”

            Leo waited.

            “Fine!” the captain said, throwing his hands in the air. “You’re damn near stealing the food from my kids’ table, but what can you do against would-be kings, hmm? Try to avoid ’im is all, I figure.”

            Then the captain looked shrewdly at Leo. “I’ve got a deck full of Havian silk and Lesoth Worm fur, as well as a bit of amber jewelry. Care for some pieces as part of your toll, perhaps for your woman here?”

            He motioned to Lily.

            Lily blushed and flicked her hair back.

            “She’s not my woman,” Leo said.

            The captain smiled and took Lily’s hand, raising it to his lips. “Then perhaps, beautiful woman, you’d care to spend the evening at dinner with me?”

            This guy, Leo thought to himself, annoyed at his presumptuousness, and impressed by how fast he’d tacked in a different direction both.

            Lily briefly glanced looked at Leo, still blushing, before focusing back on the captain. “I, um, I’m not seeking to be courted at the moment.”

            Jarl let go of her hand and shook his head. “This place is just kicking me in the unmentionables. I’m gonna go sit on my ship for a bit.”

            The weirdly hot captain tromped back up the gangplank to his ship, and Inspector Riverkyn followed him, waving to Leo with his hook hand and calling out, “Don’t worry, milord. My sense for the value of things is barely less than my sense of a good joke.”

            “Well, now I’m worried,” Leo called.

Riverkyn laughed.

            “A pox on both your houses and senses of humor!” Captain Seahaven called, which made Leo laugh a bit more, despite the likely fallout with the Haviden Imperium from the encounter.

            A dockworker came down the pier and waved at Leo. Leo motioned him over, and the weathered man came running over. “Milord, Seneschal Orsini is asking for you. He says it’s urgent.”

            “I’ll see him, then.”

            Leo jumped onto Wolten, and the two of them raced up the incline out of the bay and onto the top of Elgin Isle, and then through the tiny settlement to the old admiralty building that was serving as their temporary capitol.

            Hugh, Lily, and Val followed him. Hugh carried the duchess, and Val followed on Helwo.

            He entered the large marble building, walked past the currently unmanned front counter, and went into the room they were using for meetings. It had a large stone table and some hastily assembled wood chairs, but no other decorations.

            Felix and Molly were already there, which was pretty much his entire council. Additionally, a woman Leo didn’t recognize was there, lounging against the table in weathered leather armor, picking at her fingernails with her dagger.

            George had their map of the Inner Sea rolled out in front of him on the table. “Milord, I have terrible news, and nothing to break it with. Meryl Cavendil—the mercenary captain who fought with us last summer?”

Leo nodded.

“Meryl sent one of her people on a trading ship”—the lady lounging against the table briefly raised one thick-wristed hand—“and Rachel, here, let me know that House Orsini has allied with the orcs of the Blood Tribes!”

“Why?” Leo asked, feeling dread in his stomach.

“In order to conquer Star Port and re-enslave the Belmoria family, and to provide a permanent favorable trading outpost for the Orsini family.”

Of course.

“The Orsini family doesn’t have a lot of soldiers, however?” Leo asked, his mind racing.

“No…” George said. “But they have a pretty big trading fleet, and it’s being assembled as ships come in. Once assembled, they’ll likely come for us, transporting the orcs.”

The old seneschal hung his head. “I think this’s my fault… Mavis hates me. She has ever since I gave up my rank. I beat her at everything, and she knows she’s always second best, even now. And she can’t even rub my demotion in my face. I wear it as a badge of pride.” George shifted uncomfortably, leaning on his cane. “I’ll give myself over to her. Perhaps she’ll leave you alone if I do.”

Lily and Hugh nodded, as did Val.

But Leo glanced up, a small, fierce hatred burning in his chest. “What? No. Never.”

Lily furrowed her brow. “We have few defenses, Leo… I mean, one human against the harm a war would cause…”

“No!” Leo said, slamming his hand down on the table, and everyone jumped. Lily’s blue eyes were wide and watery as she stared at him in shock.

Leo took a deep breath and calmed himself. “And again, no. Not if I am king here. We do not surrender our own. Not while I still draw breath.”

“By Merdrek’s Thundering Roar, tone it down,” Hugh said, baring his teeth slightly at Leo. “C’mon, my friend. I’m down if you choose hunt. But be, as you say, cool. You’re scaring Big Sis.”

He butted Lily, who frowned and flicked her hair from her face. “I’m fine, guys. Don’t treat me like I can’t handle a loud voice. I handled the death of my fiancée, I’d remind you.”

            Leo put his hands down on the map and leaned over, his eyes catching every one of his leaders. “No one threatens us and gets away with it. We must be a porcupine—the cost of messing with us needs to always be higher than the benefit to doing so. House Orsini will choke on this war if they pursue it, and someday I will end them entirely.”

            Hugh swished his tail and placed his head on the table. He smiled wide. “Yes. I like this. Porcupines are the exact opposite of birds. But I say we be more like the honey badger.”

            “That’s right.” Leo half-smiled. “No one messes with a honey badger.”

            “I really like this.”

“Damien the Tyrant pushed us around, the dragons pushed us around… I’m tired of it, and it needs to stop. We need time to build and the only way to get it in this world appears to be to fight.”

“Is conflict the only way?” Lily asked.

 Leo frowned. “I wish, truly, that we could simply grow—I’m an architect—” no word for civil engineer “—by trade and mindset, and I’d love to spend my entire time on this world growing a larger and more efficient civilization… but if they choose war, we need to bleed them, leave them desperately wishing they hadn’t chosen to fight us.”

            “The gods tend to favor those with the most catapults, Leo,” Lily said, her voice tight.

            “But they’re coming by sea?” Leo his mind spun as his eyes went wide.

            Hugh’s bared teeth in a feral hunting smile, and Leo met his eyes. Leo felt a kindred sense with the dragon and knew they shared a thought. Those fuckers are going to pay—Leo was having ideas again.

            Val nodded and reached her hand down to trace the long, very thin shore from Star Port almost two hundred miles west. “They would almost have to, King,” she said. No one commented on her use of the title. “It’s a thin, almost completely worthless stretch of land here. The powerful Shadow node in the Dark Warren makes this already marginal strip even worse for growing. There isn’t enough forage to come close to handling that number of soldiers on the move. They’ll starve faster than the poor during a famine.”

            Val pointed farther along the map, another couple hundred miles, to a city called Port Yuval. “It’s another two hundred, two hundred and fifty miles past that through swamp, which isn’t as bad, but still… It’s boats or nothing for any orc invasion force.”

            “What are our forces?” Leo asked.

            Val shrugged. “Twenty elite ghost wolf cavalry, which will hit like an apocalypse titan. Forty elite elven archers, all with at least one combat ability or relevant stat boost. Between the two, we’ll have an incredibly dangerous core of soldiers, but that’s sixty people.”

            “We’ll have the militia as well, right?” Leo asked.

            “Yeah, three hundred more, which is about sixty percent of our remaining adult males, and they’re all Level Two or higher as well… but except for the very small number of adventurers, no one in the militia picked combat-focused powers.”

            “Hmm…” Leo thought he had a plan to deal with the situation, but he wanted a backup. No plan survives contact with the enemy. “I assume if Meryl’s giving us warning, we can get Cavendil’s Coterie back?”

            Rachel raised her dagger to Leo. “Aye.”

            George, still leaning on his cane, nodded. “Through Rachel here, Meryl told us she’d be here in four days if we were willing to pay. But since she’s a Level Two through Four mercenary group now, she’ll be asking six hundred gold.”

            Damn, this war will drain us of finances like crazy.

            Leo glanced to Lily, who nodded. Technically, the last bloodline scroll was hers—she had been hoping, once she got strong enough, to create a ‘Willowynd’ line.

            “Get her here, and have her get me two telepathy rings—one needs to be long-range, maybe a fifty- or a hundred-mile ring. The other just fifty feet or line of sight or whatever. And I want to spend about two hundred gold on essence potions.”

            “Will do.”

            “And get me every mercenary galley captain you can, especially the eight who helped us before,” Leo said.

            George nodded again. “This is going to be a hideously expensive war.”

            “I understand. How many enemies, by the way?”

            “Two thousand orcs,” George replied in a despairing whisper. “Led by Kruegar Bloodhands, once Kavahk Rockbreaker, son of Grakith Demonborn.”

            It was Lily’s turn to meet Leo’s eyes, and he knew they shared a thought.

            “He’s coming to finish us off,” Lily whispered, twisting her fingers in her hair. “To kill the chosen one and choke the elven rebirth before it can leave the cradle, just like he was doing when he killed Wylla.”

            And if it’s my Kruegar, he’s after me, personally.

            “We have a history, George,” Leo said. “I don’t think this is entirely about you. Two sets of history, really.”

            Leo waved off the explanation that George’s impressive, raised eyebrow asked for.

            Then he turned back to his ground commander. “So, no chance they’re coming by land?”

            Val shrugged. “Well, it’s entirely possible they choose to march. But they’d have to provision their army by ship the whole way. So, if you hope to defeat them at sea, it’s the same either way—their defeat will just be a matter of whether they drown or starve.”

            “I do aim to destroy them at sea… Zun picked up a divination ability called ‘find object.’ If I’m understanding it correctly, she can try to ‘find object’ ships, right?”

            Everyone nodded. “But that’s an old trick, milord. They’ll almost certainly have their own Mind mage capable of using divination, so we can’t surprise them.”

            “But they’ll be looking for ships, right? Not anything else?” Leo asked.

            “Yeah…”

            “Perfect. You and your friends will save us, Hugh, just like you told me they could. I don’t think they could possibly know about your friends yet.”

Leo’s own smile went feral. “I aim to introduce both submarine and aircraft carrier tactics to this world…”