Sierra Pt2

"Well, do you INTEND to use any of these powers in the city!?" He asks incredulously, scrolling back up to the top of the cordycep skills.

"The only thing here that won't destroy everything from the civilians to the economy is transforming and after looking at the rest of these I don't even want to imagine what you look like afterward! How the hell are half of these even possible?"

"I'm lucky and loved by gods," I reply shamelessly to his last question before promptly opening my titles and revealing all of my knighthood, monarchy, and imperial aspects. "However, from man to man I promise you I would not use most of these abilities in the region without special permissions or emergency situations. I'm over level one hundred, now, so nothing around here can make me transform to begin with."

Taking a few moments to just read the information and collect his thoughts, Sir Beryl suddenly gives me a suspicious look and asks, "What about special permissions? You just explained crisis but what under the gods' watchful eyes could you need permission for?"

Wondering if I could use this as a chance to distract the old knight, I say, "Well, you know how money can be made from these goblins as well as hardcore training? I was thinking of doing the same under more controlled conditions. Consider how many levels or stats guard recruits or even legion reserves can gain after being made to duel evolved hobgoblins twice a week for a full day. Imagine a team of ten paying ten silver a head to face a hundred infected goblins who have the strength of regular hobs but are worth three times the experience?"

Simply turning around and back stepping to Sir Beryl's side of the menu window, I throw my arm around the old knight's shoulder closer to my chin and say, "Now, imagine after I meet the emperor and that things go well by the grace of your ever-watching gods. How much will I be allowed to do on my own after that? I want to make ties with lots of people to ensure my safety and prosperity and my own will affects others. Sierra and the baron should be my biggest stepping stone now while we have the chance, cause every one after this gets smaller up until the emperor."

Ignoring my antics and rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Sir Beryl finally planted his sword in the ground on the other side of his body from me. "What else you got?" He asks bluntly a moment later.

Carrying on in a more casual manner, he says, "I already have an idea of what you can do and what you can do it with. Just in material business you could help the Delai family build enough wealth to assume control over Sierra by year's end. You have to personally hand-craft a silk standard for every officer, private, and recruit in the city as well as produce ten times as much of your best quality silk and steel by year's end. Preferably within the next few days.

"I can't assure too much, but I can negotiate certain rights if you can make all of those as and initial contribution," he goes on to explain briefly. "At times like now, your showing up will help you make a name for yourself if you never even came to me and there would be little to no control. This way, you make a good impression and allow us some control over you and information. Beyond this, the baron himself will probably want something that can make the city an even larger trade hub."

"He wants a continuous supply of tithes?" I ask, knowing this was probably just Sir Beryl's way of probing. "I can promise my team and I can craft a few hundred of each standard and in a few more days produce more materials, but as for sustaining my own market I can't make any promises. I have too much to do."

"Recipes," Sir Beryl states simply.

"You've got one of the greatest gifts in the world and you haven't even offered to share it with ME yet," he complains quietly, giving me both a smirk and a pained look with his eyebrows. "Design and supply the city with its arm set of equipment and even some accessories. Every year or every so often the baron can release a supposedly limited supply of items to the market and fund city management operations with the proceeds alone."

"I love your business brain but I can't make too many promises," I reply while going for the ultimate distraction. "Right now, the focus is going to be silk standards because the forest is overrun with outlaws, but after that I can work on designing some equipment and supplying for it. I might not be around while designing it, though, so it could take until after I visit the capital before paying out on that."

Barking out a short laugh, the old knight slaps the central chaos ivory breast plate of my armor and says, "You already said the standards will only take days and that you'll be staying long enough to need special permissions. The baron might ask me or someone else to even babysit you, so you might not have much choice, but you'll definitely have to meet him tomorrow. That's all the time I can give you right now.

"Now, what's this about outlaws?" He asks with a not unhappy expression, throwing his arm over my shoulder tightly as if showing I would not be going anywhere any time soon. "All my stats are about twice yours, so even if you have more potential I'm still your superior at the moment."

[Received Penal Quest: Sierran Tithe]

"You gave me a penal quest?!" I exclaim in some shock and a lot of horror, wondering how something like this might affect my reputation.

"I can't give quests like that, sorry," he replies quickly with a shrug after seeing a notification appear before me. "Melpomene probably graded it as a hint. Take the hint. Back to the important stuff, what about bandits?"

Realizing I had been suckered into supporting the noob region with my powers, I say, "While my team was coming home yesterday, we came across a small company of outlaws hiding on the highway just at the border of the forest.

"If it were just a dozen people it would have been normal numbers," I go on quickly while Sir Beryl suddenly frowns at my news, though his face carried uncertainty now, "but there were forty of 'em. That's enough to tackle most trade caravans and even seriously injure a larger company of troops by surprise. Worse, still, none of them were below level fifty which suggests they're not from the forest at all. Considering everything that's been going on lately, I think there's a dozen camps of an estimated hundred people each scattered around the forest."

Looking none too happy despite the reveal of what was causing the animal unrest in the region, Sir Beryl says, "If that's true, then how are they related to the animals? Most of the previous beasts in the area have all run away or died out and the roads have been besieged by kobolds and the like recently. There's even been reports of saber cats."

Originally, I wanted to avoid actually telling him the plan of the outlaws so that my clan and I could profit from the chaos at the end. However, I could not safely weasel my way through this now that Melpomene had taken a stand in regards to the city. So, I decided to just hint at it openly by saying, "This is just speculation between us, but I think they are using a forced animal migration to take hostages and preparing to do something big."

"Is your clan one of the clans the Guild has been using for intelligence?" Sir Beryl asks suddenly as if something had struck a cord in his memory. "I seem a recent Guild council in which all the larger clans in the city came together and all deferred to one while giving reports about the migration and effects on local settlements."

"Tragedy's Travelers?" I ask with an obviously faked expression of shock. "Of course, who else would have the connections or reputation to set up such an event besides MY group? Now that we know the cause and effect of the situation, the only questions left are why and then when. Why are they doing this and when are they going to make their move for it?"

"I will need to report this," Sir Beryl seems to sigh, looking back toward the Elder Oak where the previous challenge was still underway. Now, though, there were a hundred armed and armored goblins attacking the team of ten who only had a few people supported by familiars.

Unlike us at the time, all but one of these familiars were normal beasts who could only fight physically while there was a single large owl of fog as if it were summoned from wind and water. This beast could unleash feathers and cutters made of either water or air but its output was too little to benefit more than its summoner.

None of their familiars were capable of healing which was also a big disadvantage.

"I need to go make my own reports," I say quickly, reaching around to grab my perma-fluttering cape and drawing attention to the aegis artifact I now carried. "My mission was a success and I gained much, much more along the way. If you need me to deliver more letters, though, I can pass them to some guard along the way."

Looking none too pleased by this quick shirking of responsibility, Sir Beryl merely sighs and says, "So be it. Wait here."

Minutes later, a single letter had been written, signed, and sealed before being given to me. "Just pass this off to one of the guards at the gate and then go about your business. I'll show up at the new Delai property tomorrow before noon, don't make me wait too long for you."

Accepting the letter like a key to freedom, I promptly store it in my character inventory under my belt before dramatically flaring a suddenly grown pair of wings. Taking the opportunity to brag, I say, "These wings were assimilated from a sun eagle and I use them mainly for travel purposes."

Then, without even waiting for a response, I lightly hopped up and flapped once with the embellishment of Force Strike. All of the tall grasses within a hundred feet of me were flurried outward in every direction flat to the ground as if suddenly crippled by gravity itself. I rose almost a hundred yards into the air and from there flapped once with Spirit Wave to propel myself forward at near-flash speeds.

The miles between the Elder Oak and Sierra were covered in less than a minute, at which point I simply closed my wings roughly a hundred feet above the ground and free fall down to the open ground outside the city walls. I did not want to attract too much attention so I landed without the use of any outward skills, simply Self-Enchanting raw mana into my body to raise my general defense and vitality.

Even with a thousand MP integrated into my system, the impact stripped thirty percent of my HP and completely splintered everything below my knees. The round beneath me cratered for more than a dozen yards around me despite only being about a foot deep. This was the price on had to pay in order to brag.

Slowly climbing up to my feet a few seconds after casting First-Aid on myself, I look around to see that the two closest outposts had bodies already heading in my direction. So, I simply cast Flash Step twice to appear before a group of a dozen guards and act proud and professional while saying, "Who's the commanding officer, here?"

Shocked more by my sudden appearance than my attitude and addressing, a brief second passes in which several of the uniformed guards glance between each other. After a second more, one of the guards at the back says, "Might as well be me. Who are you and what do you want?"

I honestly had no clear features for authority but had hoped the clan crest on my armor would be familiar enough that my presence would be respected. Instead, I felt like this guy thought I might be an outlaw myself.

Waiting to see their reactions, I wordlessly withdraw Sir Beryl's letter from my belt and hold it out to the guardsman with the wax seal on full display. I could tell that everybody in this group recognized the authority behind Sir Beryl's seal and the person who spoke quickly came forward to accept it. Clearly, Sir Beryl was fond of using letters to communicate with Sierra.

Once the letter was passed off, I say, "Make sure that gets where it's going, I have to go make my own reports now." Once again flashing away, I also add on the use of Quick Step before actually reaching the nearest gates into the city and 'leisurely' jogging through.

The streets of the city were both barren and occupied at the same time. Previously, the front roads full of rest stops and quick businesses would be surrounding in a variety of different people from all walks of life. Now, most normal citizens were gone and in their place were uniformed guards and generally armed or armored people. Only half of these, though, were players.

Out of the few hundred people I breezed by despite calls from several of them in different kinds of gear, none of them looked worried despite all of them being prepared. Rarely were there any children present but even then both the parents and kids were carrying daggers or wearing protective gear.

Having no clue where to go, I opened my menus while jogging and wrote out a brief question in the party by hand. My general destination was the municipal smithy not far from the south gate where I had landed so it only took a few minutes of turns and sidestepping through crowded streets before the large open walled building came into sight.

By the time I stopped only a few dozen yards short of the smithy, I had finally gotten a reply telling me where to go. Luckily, it was in the south side of the city where the land was least developed and cheaper. The main point was that I would recognize it as the biggest empty property in the area.

*