Baron Sierra Pt2

Seeing how the baron was trying to play the situation, Sir Beryl promptly played his remaining card by sliding the ancient alloy sword blank down the table.

While this was going on, I was actually too busy with a sheet of paper and charcoal pencil to care. Based on the ten-pound blanks' weight and mass, I sketched out a brief schematic for the Fuller Bastard viewing the weapon from different angles with size and scale references. On the back of this was where I wrote the actual process used.

The paper in my hand soon acquired the green name 'Fuller Bastard Recipe'. Slinging the paper down the table in a similar fashion, I explain, "The bare bones iron or basic steel versions of the sword worked by hand alone come out with an Uncommon rating, the quality of the alloy itself and process used will increase its grades.

"That is an A grade alloy blessed by Melpomene at the time of creation, either of which can make the sword Rare or Magic on their own but the material itself is already treated with B and above enchantments.. The level and process of craftsmanship can raise it to epic with hard work in most hands. Just last night I had thirteen classless bystanders craft swords of a similar steel lacking the ancient components and all of them were blue.

"With your experts, Baron Sierra, these are one thousand assured Epic bastard swords or any other ten-pound weapons you can craft from those one thousand blanks," I say to reinstate and instigate the baron's role in this and his options. "If needed, I can produce several more weapon recipes of similar grades or you can skip armaments entirely and make armor plating.

"However," I add while I still had control of the conversation. "The key function of the silk armor design I am writing up now is that it is a secondary type of underarmor. You can wear it under most medium and heavy armor suits for increased benefits. Do not make additions to the silk suits unless it is simply in the design of the suits but keep the designs of said suits under four layers of canvas."

Reading over the design which included an automatic base parameters value provided by the game's system, Baron Sierra finally seems to approve of what he sees. The recipe itself was simply a hammered out swords without folding, just like my own original Fuller Bastard swords. The one on paper, though, had a base PATK value of twenty-four.

If one were to fold it for one hundred layers, the damage value would go up by an estimate thirty points- which was written by me as a note in the corner of the diagrams. Of course, the really good swords measured in thousands of layers so I left the suggestion and estimate of the thousand-layer bastards entirely up to the baron's imagination.

"Believe it or not, I have long since heard about you," Baron Sierra finally says after memorizing the recipe himself and then passing the thick paper down the table. "Young man, Sir Beryl tells me you have a special design for axes meant for hunting large game beasts. Considering the times, such a recipe would also be appreciated."

"Of course, and I will prepare one for you shortly," I assure him while glancing meaningfully toward Sir Beryl.

Picking up the hint I dropped, Sir Beryl now enters the conversation with, "Baron, I told you all about the kid and his plans last night so you know what he's doing and where he's going. I like to think he's loyal to me, but you have to think about the benefits he can bring the city. He can supply us with this and more during times of peace as well as we help him get his foot in the right door."

Looking meaningfully at Lana who wore the ever-present Aegis, Baron Sierra lightly nods and says, "I personally see no reason to stand in this young man's way as long as he can help to protect my people. As long as he is conscientious of his abilities and never uses them without permission or willingness to face extreme punishment within my lands, we can be called friends. However…" he adds and trails off meaningfully.

"A presence such as his cannot simply be allowed to walk away and go anywhere he wants at any time," he replies, finally turning his attention directly to me since the introductions. "If you, Young Hack, can agree to these conditions as well as a brief study of your body and abilities for me to precede you with a detailed report to the count I serve under then you will ultimately have all of the support that I can provide you already."

Rubbing the bridge of my nose and forehead with my pencil while I consider his words, I quickly go back to drawing and ask, "What's the tests?"

"Based on what Sir Beryl has told us… we want to see what your cordycep colony can do and how long it will last for," he replies frankly after a moment of thought in mid sentence. "As well, we want to study the way it is incorporated into your body. There are very few known cures or treatment methods for cordyceps, the legends about their speed alone is said to make them the most dangerous of plagues. If your body can present us with a way to preemptively treat the citizens of the empire to boost the empire's resistance to such plagues, you would be hailed as a saint and hero for this alone."

FINALLY! Somebody who actually looked at my cordyceps in a positive light! Sadly, though, it was probably too late for such a thing because I had upgraded from the basic Plaguedman package and needed to warn him about it.

"For the record, there are different… stages… of my race," I point out quickly. "We even have a subspecies, which is why I need your assistance in the first place. However, the initial stage of my species would be more valuable to you in this regard while the stage I am at is… physically impossible for normal people. My body has crystallized like certain B-plus and A grade creatures. The information you receive from me might not be relevant for what you want anymore. However, it is possible for me to create others in the initial stage of my race as long as we have access to a wild colony."

"That's… troubling," Baron Sierra says after a short second of hesitation as if having thought of something. "Since this issue was already brought up, I hope you understand why I have to suddenly ask this next question. Exactly how many members of this Plaguedman race of yours did you seek to… procreate to?"

"Since you said procreate, I hope you understand why I must now point out children of mine will likely come out as Infected Mortals if not completely normal. Plaguedman is a purely synthetic race which cannot be made simply by mixing genes, it requires a core colony for us Travelers to maintain a single life as a Plaguedman. As a show of trust between the empire and I, I will inform you of something critical that I hope you will not be allowed to share with any… Traveler… factions.

"My kind of Travelers can come back from the dead but… the synthetic Plaguedman race… only lasts one life," I say after suspenseful build-up to the reveal, growing quieter and quieter so that everybody actually shifted in their seats to hear better. "Infected Mortals, however, last for as long as the Traveler. As well, there are several ways for a Plaguedman to… store a part of their colony. If the Traveler loses their Plaguedman status but retrieves a stored colony, they can re-cultivate their colony."

"This… is certainly information everybody up the chain will want to know," Baron Sierra says after only a moment of thoughtfully eating two bites of his bun. "Being so forthright here and now will definitely save you some trouble in the future. However, I will not ask the ways or how many you have at this time. I will make that somebody else' trouble. For now, I will warn you, people will definitely question the authenticity of your honesty and use it as an excuse to find fault should they choose to. I will, though, put it on record I chose to afford your potential status its privacy so that somebody up the chain intentionally brings it to bear."

"Is that a good thing?" I ask without even stopping to think about it.

Patiently finishing the second to last bite of bun he had taken in anticipation of my talking more, Baron Sierra simply replies, "Neither. Such a situation will be a test of just that. The way you handle such a situation, however, will determine your future. Good luck to you."

"Thank you for the preemptive," I reply with honest gratitude, considering who up the ladder I would be going to see. "How soon can we handle these tests and send the report ahead?"

"Once my lands are at peace," He says bluntly after quickly finishing the bun, "I will have time to take care of such things. For now, the information of your skills and personal information through the Guild will suffice. To those ends, however, I would like your speculation on what the nest move we make in bringing about that peace should actually be."

I was fairly certain this question was a test in itself but knew I needed to give the best strategy possible. "Give the guild and Tragedy's Travelers full control of the situation and evacuated everybody in the region into either Sierra or Weyerhauser. The familiars will be accommodated based on professions, volunteering, and even conscription and used to solely bolster the in-city defenses.

"Before you ask why, it's because they're outlaws," I inform everybody at the table quickly. "People wanted dead or alive for money and they've been thorough in their movements throughout this process. Early on, I am told people actually thought it was natural migrations of greater beasts in a neighboring region. it's outlaws, and my people who are members of the Guild have a lot of missing persons missions going on right now.

"If they're alive, they're hostages," I say flatly, neither positively or negatively despite suggesting numerous deaths at the same time. "If they're hostages, they are either going to be used as leverage for something or they will eventually become loose ends. If we bring everybody outside the cities inside we will let them know we know or at the very least cause their next moves to be attacking some location.

"After taking everybody in, the Guild and your own forces will send people out to occupy somewhere nearby the empty towns and villages. If the cat's away the mice will play and all that," I add to help explain myself. "The outlaws will come seeking supplies, loot, and stragglers from these locations and we can temporarily cut down their numbers.

"If they plan to use the hostages, which is good for us, they will spend most of their forces besieging one or both cities into a negotiating stalemate. It would be during this when they would expect all of our forces to be inside the city and everything abandoned for their looting. Thanks to the Guild and the evacuees, we the cities would maintain a standing defensive force roughly ten times the number of the siege parties and all of their support would have been cut off in the process.

"For the sake of time, and numbers, the adventurers and guardspeople will be focused in only the closest towns, leaving villages and smaller towns further away which are closer to the known outlaw locations empty. Yes, we would give up some loot and supplies, but when they found where we drew the lines they won't even know when they toed over it. I anticipate several outlaws groups which number in a couple or few hundred apiece and total to around a thousand, we can drop a third of them at said line."

Seeing the everybody was calmly snacking and simply watching me talk, thoroughly giving me the floor, I draw toward closing with, "This will force them to either commit or retreat, and since it is divided factions those in the siege they will likely abandon those in the siege as complete fodder. During this process, Tragedy's Travelers and some of Baron Sierra's finest will be distributed outside the cardinal points of the forest to intercept retreating outlaws.

"For the sake of preserving the personal belongings taking by the outlaws, I would prefer several small teams of overwhelming power similar to Sir Beryl to lead the divided forces of my clan. I have several hundred, so a force of forty mixed shields and archers should be enough to balance the numbers of the outlaws. I promise you as well, mobility will not be a problem for my people."

"How long before you would have how many sets forty shields and archers organized?" He asks quickly as if the numbers provided were already a problem of sorts.

"There are many in my clan who have been preparing to travel outside of the region for a long time, ergo I had at least two hundred people between level forty and fifty. After a day preparing equipment, all of them would be one hundred shield bearers and one hundred archers, making five teams of forty people to support your figurative champions.

"Should five teams be a bad number for you, my own party will be divided to help cover the other combined compass points," I add quickly as reassurance. "These divided teams can be positioned at the four main points as both mobile strike teams or reinforcements with the remaining fifth set of archers and shields redistributed as five archers or five shields to the other locations as per request. Camps slipping out in the northeast and such directions will be waylaid by my group and the extra numbers will remain as reinforcements."

"Fair enough, but how can we ensure the looted personal belongings of my people actually return to my people?" He asks while eyeing Sir Beryl's boxes.

"We are preemptively evacuation, this will afford them the time to secure everything they require with the assistance of non-Traveler adventurers."

"Why the distinction between natives and Travelers?" Baron Sierra asks as calmly and smoothly as everything else, surprising me by bringing up such an issue.

Caught off guard completely, I can only say the first thing that comes to mind for honesty points and inform him, "Travelers are expendable. Natives are not. However, their abilities and loyalties are as varied as they are, or else I would say to have all the line-towns manned by Traveler units and have the combined guards and conscription forced route the siege. Tragedy's Travelers and your champion figures would then have much easier jobs."

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