Richter nodded, worn out as well, but now was not the time for rest. He started summoning mist workers, dipping into the thousand-point mana pool of the village for the first time in a good while. As far as the chaos seed was concerned, every moment spent away from the village was a moment that allowed for another attack. These undead were not the strongest monsters he had faced, but their resistance to most physical attacks made them insanely dangerous. They were certainly deadlier than most of the monsters he had encountered in his domain so far. The fact that they were undead, and were attacking during the day, didn’t make him feel any better. He knew that he had to discuss this with Hisako.
Less than two minutes later, the war party was on its way again. Caulder had asked if he wanted to do anything about the remains of the goblins. The chaos seed shook his head. The only thing he felt about the dead goblins was regret that he didn’t get any War points from their deaths. Richter took a moment to retrieve his moonstone dagger from the body of the first monster he had killed and let his summoned constructs carry the bodies of the lugash. Another carried Tovar. The eviscerated remains of the dead goblin captives were left behind.
The party traversed the remaining miles back to the village without incident. All of their nerves were frayed by the time the white stone walls of the settlement came into view. Richter, himself, breathed out a sigh of relief, and a bundle of tension he hadn’t even recognized was there eased in his neck. The battered group of warriors skirted the trench surrounding the village until they reached a bridge. The guards stationed there shouted in dismay when they saw the dead bodies and rushed out to help. Richter ordered one guard to go ahead of them in order to notify the healers that they were back and that there were casualties.
As the chaos seed looked at the guard with the ruined face, it hit him that if Sumiko had been in the village, then she might have saved his eye. Nexus’s practical joke of taking multiple villagers for their Trials at once just might mean the man might be partially blinded for the rest of his life. Instead of relying on his trusted village healer, Richter had to hope that Hisako could, and would, heal the man. It was true that they were allies, but the chaos seed had become more pragmatic in recent days. He no longer simply assumed that another ruler would necessarily take the time to heal his people. He cast Cure Weak Disease on both injured men in the hopes that it would help their recovery, then the entire party started walking into the village.
Richter ordered another guard to find Randolphus, and took a moment to give Caulder his field promotion. The sergeant nodded gratefully to his lord, but his face was stricken. The chaos seed completely understood. Though they had won the day, it had not been without cost. He let the man organize the guards, and then Richter turned his attention to the hill sprite.
The chaos seed ordered a guard to lead Liddle to the healing tent. He also asked the hill sprite to hold off on forming the meidon with his pixie until Hisako could speak with him about the goblin encampment. Liddle looked longingly at his pixie, but nodded in acquiescence. Though the sprite clearly yearned to bond with his meitu’meidon, he understood that what he knew could mean the difference between life and death for the other prisoners. Satisfied, Richter sent one more guard running ahead to find the Hearth Mother and ask her to attend the injured at the House of Healing. He prayed that the Life Master could bring his guard back to full fighting strength.
With all of that done, Richter and Sion walked off together alone. Both men were weary from the battles of the day. It was nearing dusk and the two shared a brief moment of silence as they walked, reflecting on everything that had just happened. Once they were back inside the inner village wall, Sion returned Richter’s elementum short sword. The sprite had held onto it after the lugash attack, needing a weapon until they were safely back in the settlement. “I guess you’ll be wanting this back?”
Richter heard a faint note of regret in his friend’s voice as he proffered the weapon, but what was truly notable was his friend’s use of a conjunction. It was a strange quirk that people of The Land did not seem to use that linguistic practice, though they never seemed to have a hard time understanding him when he did. The chaos seed found it slightly amusing that he was rubbing off on his friend.
He took the green blade back from his Companion. They kept walking but with his other hand, he took a handful of soul stones from his bag. They were all filled with poor and weak level souls. Richter expended the stones refilling the charges on the blade, and each turned to dust as the souls were expended. The Freeze enchantment greatly improved the damage and deadliness of the weapon, but the enchantment needed to be fueled. Each enchanted weapon had a finite amount of charges and each time it struck an enemy, some of the charges were expended.
Since Richter had started enchanting weapons regularly, he had found that the stronger the enchantment, the more charges were used up per hit. The enchantment on his sonic sword, for instance, was much stronger than the Freeze enchantment because he had used concentrated crystal to enchant it. Even though it had more charges than his freeze blade, it was almost continually running out of charges due to that increased strength. Like all things in The Land, there were checks and balances. Having enchanted weapons made you a powerhouse, but it was an expensive advantage to maintain.
The enchantment on the elementum blade greedily drank in the soul stuff from the amber gems. Each stone only restored a few charges before crumpling to dust. Given enough time, the charges would have restored on their own, but it could take days or even weeks. That wouldn’t do with what he had in mind for the weapon.
Once the full charge was restored, he stopped walking and asked if he could see Sion’s rapier. His friend’s blade was a sprite weapon. It looked like it was made of hardened wood and looked like nothing so much as a long thorn. There was no denying its deadliness though, and the sprite had claimed many lives with his sword. Still, the weapon was looking a bit the worse for wear.
You have found:
Sprite Rapier.
Damage: 6-9 (Max 14-18)
Durability: 19/53
Item Class: Uncommon.
Quality: Well Crafted.
Weight: 1.1 kg.
Traits: This weapon has been created with Earth magic. It is considered a magic weapon and will give extra damage to Air creatures.
“You’ve kinda been rough on it, don’t you think?” Richter asked with mock judgement in his voice.
“Hmpf. We can’t all have weapons made of fey metal,” Sion retorted. “The flesh of those undead bastards was ridiculously hard, not to mention that parrying the attacks of a goblin Warrior is not exactly easy.”
“But you did it,” Richter said. “You took them both down and you’re still standing.”
Sion puffed his chest out. It was even more comical when contrasted with the exhausted look in his eyes. He still managed a cocky and clear bravado when he said, “Of course I did. That is what we do, right, brother?”
Richter smiled wearily back, “Hell yeah it is. That’s exactly why I think that you need an upgrade.” He handed his Elementum Short Sword of Freezing back to his friend.
The sprite’s eyes widened, “Are you sure?”
“I am,” Richter replied firmly. “We are in this together.” The chaos seed closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. A prompt appeared.