Enigmatic Crusade

Shaking his head, Valen decided being proactive was not the best bet. He had to start thinking before he built too much. But the damage was done. About to decide where to place the general store he got a notification. 

Valen turned to the quest board and noticed a new one right at the center. But instead of the normal pale yellow quest paper, this quest was written on a plank of wood. Walking over it read: 

“Shit,” Valen said, amazed at the rewards. “That’s a lot of rewards.”

“And your first E-Rank quest for the town,” Monk said with a nod. 

“What do you mean it’s E-Rank?” Valen asked. He didn’t see anything on the quest that showed it was a higher grade. 

“The material. It is printed on wood,” Monk said. “There are grades to quests. An increased difficulty means better rewards.”

“What are the grades for quests?” Valen asked. 

“Lowest at F grade is paper,” Monk said, pointing to the stacks of paper quests. “E-grade is wood. D grade stone, C grade is Iron, B grade is copper, A grade is silver, S grade is gold, and there is more of course.”

“Holy hell,” Valen mused. “What are the level ranges for those?”

“Unfortunately I do not have the authority to know that information,” Monk said with a frown. 

“How do you gain authority?”

“As the town grows in levels, so do I,” Monk said. Surprised, Valen used Identification on him for the first time. 

“Cool,” Valen said. His mind understanding a little more of the world, he wished he knew what grade the quests for New Rapids was. He had seen the quest board at the Raging Guild, but they were all written on paper. He had no idea where these System generated quests were going to in New Rapids. 

“Okay,” Valen said. “Back to my war starter.” He pulled the Management screen up again and a red outline of a shack appeared. Maneuvering the red outline he placed it right next to the Town Hall. A rumbling noise sounded and poof, the shack materialized right where he wanted it. About 15 feet from the side of the Town Hall the grass around the shack was trimmed down like around the Hall. 

The shack itself was just that. Four walls with a metal roof on top. The wood walls appeared to be the same gray panels as the Town Hall. The metal roof was gray steel. A small door at the front Valen walked over to it. As his hand hovered over the pull knob of the door he received a notification. 

Valen clicked yes, and of the one name shown, he picked his own. 

“Yay, more screens,” he mumbled and began to dig into it. He was given two options, buy and sell. After looking through it all everything was as he expected, except much cheaper than he normally paid. For instance he was able to buy a set of clothes for only a few scraps. They would have cost nearly 10 back in the city. Since he was able to interact directly with the System store he guessed many upcharged based off what the System would give them. 

Going through the options for selling he did have access to all the necessities. Even spacial storage bags, but they were too expensive for him. After going through the Buy screen he moved to the sell. He was able to offload the cheap rock daggers the goblins had and a few odds and ends for some extra scrap. Once he clicked sell on them they practically disintegrated instantly. Transferred to wherever the System held such things. 

After that he spent almost all of his own money on necessities. A set of clothes, tent, blanket, flint, candles, sewing items, a good dagger for skinning, and most everything he could think of. As the items materialized he knew he couldn’t carry it all with him, but Monk was firm he couldn’t store anything at the Town Hall. 

Annoyed at the situation he did have options. After going back and forth with it for a while he decided to buy a house. More of a one bedroom apartment it was about 12 feet by 12 feet. No furniture inside he also purchased a bed with a mattress, a chair, and a cabinet. They didn’t cost overly much and they were all on the city’s dime for now anyway. 

Placing it a little away from the Town Hall it was next to a large tree with a wide canopy. If the city grew bigger like he hoped, Monk assured him he could move the home for a small fee later, but for the first time in his life, Valen had a home. 

General store to purchase and sell what he needed, a place to lay his head, and more quests than he could hope to turn in for weeks, he was far better off than earlier that day. Tired and hungry he made a small fire pit in front of his house and cooked the fish he had caught earlier. His mind racing with possibilities Valen swore to do his best for this town. With luck he could maybe become strong enough to find Peter and Claire again. Invite them to join his own little haven called Valiance. 

—

Valen woke up as a thud sounded outside. Sitting up he groggily looked out the small window to his home to see that the light was still dim outside. Another thud hitting the wall outside he thought maybe Monk was knocking on his door to tell him something. Instead he looked at his only notification. 

“My lands…” He said slowly as he remembered his lands weren’t much at all. “That-” Valen heard another thud. Still wearing his new clothes he grabbed the mace by his side and ran out the door. 

Outside, his house was on fire. Three arrows that were aflame were embedded in the side of his brand new System generated house. He turned in the direction they were fired from to see about 6 goblins facing him. 3 had bows and arrows and 3 more were wielding daggers. 

“Mother fucke-” He yelled but an arrow was shot and to his surprise it embedded in his shoulder. Pain searing into him the rock tipped arrow had actually penetrated him. As more were shot his way the goblins chittered and some ran for him. Using Identification on them, they ranged from level 1 to 3. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder he targeted one of the archers and cast Leech Life. 

A black stream of Essence shot out from his body, connecting he and the archer. Life force slowly trickling into him; it was like he was hit with a torrent of adrenaline. His blood pumping with the power from the archer he ran to the small goblins making their way to him. With a roar he hit the first one with the mace and they quickly fell to him. 

The archers began to fire at him again. These arrows also aflame he dodged one then the other. Targeting one of them with Leech Life again the black thread of essence between he and the other was severed and a new one was made. He had noticed that the thread was smaller, perhaps signifying it was about to end anyway. Either way another rush of power moved into him. 

Pushing out a Retribution blast from his palm the Holy light soared through the air and missed it’s target. The three archers thought better of attacking him as he drew closer and began to run away. Cursing at them he ran full speed. With a longer leg stride he caught up to the slow one, his first target for Leech Life. Ending it with a mace smash he targeted the last one he used Leech Life on. 

His Retribution shot at the monster and to his surprise the black thread that had been connecting them snapped. Valen didn’t have time to think over it as the blast hit it’s target but didn’t kill it. Catching it he smashed it in the head with the mace as well. 

Unfortunately the yellow skinned lone archer goblin had disappeared. Annoyed at the situation Valen grabbed onto the arrow in his shoulder. To his amazement his skin had healed around the wood protrusion. With a yell he yanked it out, tearing up the newly healed flesh. The searing pain in his arm made it hard to move so he began to cast Heal, but nothing happened. 

“Am I out of essence?” He asked. He had only used Retribution a couple of times and… Leech Life. “Shit, must cost a lot of Essence.” Happy that he at least won the fight he ignored the minor pain in his shoulder and dragged the bodies back to the town. After checking the town quests he took their left ears and finally had enough to turn in his first quest. 

All the money in the world to him at one point, he was still happy with the amount. After that he took the sellable weapons and clothes and sold them for a few scraps as well. A drop in the bucket compared to what he needed, it was at least something. 

As he finished up disposing of the corpses Monk stepped out of the Town Hall. 

“I could have used some help, you know,” Valen said.

“Unfortunately, we constructs are not allowed to assist with monsters,” Monk said. Valen felt like he knew that. The goblins had attacked his home right away, completely ignoring the far taller Town Hall. There was a reason they had never bothered Monk all these years. Some sort of System work going on. “You did well to defend your hovel.”

“Thanks,” Valen said, too tired to argue. Letting out a sigh he stared at the charred marks where the arrows had struck his home. There for less than a day and it was already scarred up. “What now?” He asked, more to himself than Monk. 

“I would assume you should go about your lordly duties,” Monk offered. 

“Thanks,” Valen repeated in a far more sarcastic tone. He knew the man was right. If he was going to be the Lord of this area he needed to make something of the place. Put himself out there. Go on the attack instead of the defense. Curious if other city lords had to put up with this back in the day he went back into his home to pack. He needed to make sure he had what he needed if he was going to pay those goblin bastards back. 

—

Valen quickly realized he had been lucky his first day walking through the forest from the dungeon to the town. It wasn’t long after leaving Valiance for the first time that he ran into a new squad of goblins. Luckily for him they only stuck in groups of 3 to 5. 

Around level 1 the shorter monsters were easy to dispatch. Nearly an expert on gathering their ears and other minor items he could sell, he set out again to kill more of them. 

Problem was, goblins were like weeds. Pretty much a new batch of them around every corner, they were focused on quantity rather than quality. All between level 1 and 3 they weren’t netting him a whole lot of essence for levels but he had plenty of quests for the squishy monsters. 

Along the way of skipping between goblin encounters he found some herbs, mushrooms, and other minor gathering materials that could be useful or he had quests for back in town. Which led to one of many resupplies back in Valiance. 

The first day out he killed almost two dozen goblins and finally gained a level in Body and Class. The level up in his Class gave him a new skill, Euphoria. 

He assumed the skill was for when people were too hurt to manage, or when tanks were in the thick of it. Either way a new skill was a new skill. He was able to use the skill on himself and it really did feel like advertised. His entire body felt euphoric under the spell, and was what Valen assumed being on drugs felt like. He didn’t use it anymore on himself after the initial trial, just because it was almost addicting. 

Thanks to all the goblin parts he was able to finish 6 full quests. Once turned in he noticed that his purse was quickly getting back to his original amount of money. 

Instead of going back to his camp though he stayed out. Hoping to find some new nocturnal animals he ran into the worgs. Shaggy and disheveled, the four-legged canines were like a scruffy wolf with crooked teeth and mean as can be. 

They died to the mace hits as the others did. He had a lot of training with the weapon back in New Rapids. It was actually proving a good tool. Simple and to the point he just had to bash everything in his way. Though they got in more than a few good hits on him, a simple Heal was enough to cure most of the damage. 

More quests turned in with the worgs, it became a constant cycle for him in the coming days. Search, run into monsters, kill them, strip them, store what he could in his store bought normal backpack, and repeat. Once his pack was full he was forced to head back to the town. 

He would turn in quests. Try to memorize others and slowly whittle away at the stacks of F grade quests for his town. Piece by piece he was hacking away at it and he felt good. 

Alone in his own land he was free from the drama of other people. So far he had been lucky. No high level monsters around he got used to the forest and monsters. Trying to track, always on alert, and search every nook and cranny he could. 

The previous occupants of the area hadn’t found the dungeon entrance though it wasn’t overly far from town. Maybe he would get lucky and find another. Every odd outcropping, dip in the terrain, or semi-hidden alcove was checked. Each one a potential dungeon entrance. 

On the fifth day of checking everything, Valen was actually rewarded for his efforts. After climbing down into a natural sink hole he found the skeletal remains of a support class human. The only reason he knew this was because the special bag support classes received was at the skeleton’s back. 

After relieving the dead body of the bag Valen looked inside to find a wallet hidden away. “John Kline,” he said, reading the license. Some worthless money inside there were some plastic cards and nothing else. Valen ended up keeping the wallet and burying the body where it laid. 

It was hard to think about. The person had been transported there all those years ago and tried to help his town. Only to fall in a sinkhole alone. No one to know if he was dead or alive. 

After a short prayer he was climbing out of the pit and on his way again. His new pack holding all of his supplies he was finally able to stay out on his treks a lot longer. Things were looking up since he could venture out further. Hold more. See more sights of the land around his new home. 

On the seventh day Valen’s levels had raised again. Though he had only run into a few level 4 worgs, and no goblins had been over level 3, he was still gaining lots of essence. After review of his stats he decided he wanted to become an all-around stat distributor for the time being. 

Due to the minor training he received from Raging they had tried to drill it into his head to focus on Intelligence, Wisdom, Empathy, and Comprehension. But that was quickly proving harder than expected. He was out in the wilds on his own. Only able to rely on himself he couldn’t just use magic. When his capacity for essence was tapped out he would be a sitting duck. So he wanted to be able to do both. 

No, he wouldn’t be a master of magic or super strong, but somewhere in the middle of both. The evolution of a class was based on stats and the action of a person. After so long thinking about becoming a Priest, he wasn’t sure how much he liked the class. Thus he decided to try his luck at raising everything all at once. By the end of the week his status screen was looking like this. 

His aurous gathering was averaging over a chip a day, which was huge in his eyes. Pushing him to keep going no matter what. Also with each level he was gaining faculty points. Now that he had 5 in his Leech Life skill he was able to see a new row in the shadow faculty screen. 

He still hadn’t fought any more shadow based foes, so his Priest skills would continue to only be Holy, but he was on the lookout. Happy to stick with Shadow, his Leech Life was almost strong enough to completely kill a level 3 goblin. Helping him to reduce the danger of numbers. 

Either way his levels were growing steadily. He was making money. And life was good. As he continued to travel the area around him he even found the last threat to his land, the kobolds. 

Dasart

Alrighty it took 15 chapters. But finally to the main point of this series. During my research for Canon Fodder it was easy to see the pattern for the best series. You have to become the king of something. King of the pirates, wizard king, king of the ninjas/hokage, kill all the titans. Whatever it may be. So the theme of this story is going to be becoming the king. Becoming strong enough to take on already overpowered people and taking their city for himself. Making Valen the king eventually. I think it’s a good premise. Yes a slow burn for the time being. But hope to introduce characters and not focus on smut as much. But I do plan to have it eventually.