It's been a long fortnight without Kingston. I can only hope once he comes out, he can relax. Every day, I talk to him, and each day I feel like he was losing a part of himself. I might not have been the closest person to him but still, I consider him a friend and seeing him destroy himself with the Ikanda challenges hurts me as well. During the time he had been gone, HavenFall had gone through a lot as well. I told him it was a surprise since I wanted him to have something to look forward too.
"Leader Ian! Leader Ian!"
"What is it, Gobi?"
"He is out. Sir Kingston is finally out!"
"You're kidding?"
"No. Come now!"
I was at the bottom of the canyon helping Noah take out some bricks for the road, but hearing this news, I drop everything and sprint upwards. I see a person leaning against the door frame of the Ikanda, a white spear in his hand and tired eyes looking and talking with the surrounding goblins.
"Kingston!"
I yell at the top of my voice while jogging over with Gobi. He turns his head slowly towards me and a relieved smile appears on his exhausted face.
"Are you okay, Kingston?"
"Yeah, Yeah. Just tired. Slightly overwhelmed too. I didn't expect to see so many goblins hanging around as I walked out."
"Well, you have been gone for 14 days. So there be 14 more goblins since you were last here."
"Very funny. Is there somewhere to just sit and like, do nothing?"
"Yea, of course. Come with me. You can tell me what happened while I tell you about some stuff that has happened since you left."
"Thanks, Ian. Honestly, I'm kind of just done with things right now. I just want to unwind."
"Well, I'm taking you to a nice spot for that."
I put my arm around Kingston's shoulder as I direct him down towards the canyon. In the time he had been gone, HavenFall had changed a little. Small additions to aid in the welfare of the citizens.
Originally, there was just one big bonfire and lots of rocks and logs that everyone sat around for dinner or lunch. However, I thought that with the slow increase in population, that place would end up overcrowded and messy. I would have liked to create a large house to function as a canteen or restaurant, but the bricks that we were making were being directed to the road. Instead, I instructed Lime to gather a few people to construct a couple of large, long wooden tables and lots of chairs. The bonfire stayed, but around it were 4 long tables with chairs on both sides. Everywhere would fit and there would be extra space for people to move their chairs in and out, allowing for a more diversion group conversations.
At the same time, construction of houses had finished. While most people still stayed together in the same house, some residents have moved out and started to live either on their own or with another person. With a total of 15 brick houses, 5 large ones and 10 smaller ones, formed our very first street. I had marked out the street with sticks and vines to prepare for the eventual brick road and at the same time, marked out future plots of land to be used for residence houses.
The training grounds that Gobi used had also expanded. There were a lot more goblins now, and they have gotten better at 1-on-1 as well as team battles. With the increased goblin population, both Noah and Gobi agreed to send them as well as small teams of humans and demi-humans to expand the scouting radius. Stopping just shy of the river in the forest and just before the mountains where Luke first encountered the Blood Ogre. This area had now been under our control for the past week, and the scouts have bought back different kinds of loot.
The enemies they faced were enemy goblins, orc and a new monster, a jackalope. They were fast monsters, the size of a goblin. With fur as white as snow, two large black beady eyes and bronze-colored antlers larger than it's head, it runs as fast as a wolf ramming into their enemies headfirst. At the start there were injuries and unfortunately casualties, but after facing the monster time and time again the scouts were able to devise a plan to capture or kill the new monster. Since they always charged headfirst, having a strong individual face them head first with a shield was an option to stop the monster. The other option was dodging at the last second and then ambushing it from all sides after the monster attempts to turn around.
These methods worked, and we were able to retrieve new and different loot. From the goblins, the usual knife or club or shield. From the orcs we obtained clubs and shields. From the jackalope we were able to obtain their fur and antlers. Their fur had been transformed into clothing for most residents, shirts, coats and pants have been made from them. Whereas their antlers were useful in constructing weapons. The straightest parts of the antlers were used in the body of arrows, while the rest were used as the head. Rei, a female black cat demi-human, and Lucina had been carefully crafting the new clothing while Lime and Robin got to work with the arrows.
[Jackalope Shirt
Defense: 1
Cold resistance: 5%
Made by Lucina, Rei]
[Jackalope Coat
Defense: 2
Cold resistance: 5%
Made by Lucina, Rei]
[Jackalope Shirt
Defense: 1
Cold resistance: 5%
Made by Lucina, Rei]
[Jackalope Arrow
Attack: 5
Made by Lime, Robin]
Lucina had expanded her farm as well. After the success of her first harvest, allowing her to yield nearly three times the amount she planted, she started to get more hands to expand her farm. The first crop to come out were the potato like plants. Compared to the wild ones, her crop looked to be 1.5 times larger and were always in bundles of 2 or 3 rather than on their own. She planted more seeds and happily cared for them, as she expects the next harvest to be as bountiful as the first.
As Kingston walked pasted the new buildings and sees everyone in new clothes, he starts to ask questions. I told him to wait until we get to the bottom and as he reaches the pathway down he sees my little surprise. A small wharf jutting into the lake, with a wooden table and 2 chairs.
"Are you serious, Ian? That is so unnecessary."
"It is, but initially I wanted Owen and Frank to practice bridge making, so I made them build a bridge to connect this side to the other in the event that the stone bridge breaks or crumbles. Then, I thought, why not just make this something different, something fancy. So, I made like a wharf. Owen and a couple of other people have fished here and the stability of the wharf is great. Meaning future projects like the bridges will do fine as well.
"Alright, whatever, let's get down there."
Both Kingston and I walked down the path to the canyon and slowly made our way to the chairs, with Kingston taking the left and me taking the right, we got comfortable first before talking.
"So, are you feeling okay, Kingston? If I am being honest, you look like you aged 10 years, even though our characters don't age in the game."
"Well, I do feel like I aged 10 years as well. That last challenge really got to me. I got a skill you know. Before the reward for the last challenge. Endless Rage."
"You could get skills that aren't from an ancient ruin or like an event?"
"Apparently. There wasn't any information on the forums about this, so either I am the first one or it has happened already and no one had said anything."
"Hmm, interesting. So tell me what happened for you to get that skill. It definitely doesn't sound positive."
"I don't really know. Somewhere along the way, my mind just snapped. I was feeling like shit. Dying every day, countless times, to that monster, and even when I try my hardest, I still die. I felt emptiness at first. Then somewhere along the way, that emptiness got filled with anger and rage. I felt like hitting something. I felt like crushing something. Destroying something until it doesn't exist anymore, and then when I more or less regained consciousness. I had completed the challenge. "
"You were unconsciously fighting?"
"Somewhat yea. I definitely don't remember too much about it. I just remember I felt so good. I felt free. Like the weight on my shoulders had been lifted."
"Okay. I think what happened is that you let out everything you had felt up until that point. A person can only bottle up so much inside them. Your frustrations, your anger, your sadness, all came out after you felt like you had enough. What is the description of the skill? I can tell it isn't good."
"It is an active, but it can only be unlocked if a certain condition is fulfilled first. If the user has less than 50% HP and is in a state of extreme rage forcefully active, then increase strength, vitality, agility by 50% for 10 mins, will be blinded by rage and attack indiscriminately. However, the user will incur some memory loss, random permanent loss in stats, decrease strength, vitality, agility by 25% for 24 hours. I lost 2 stat points in strength after it activated."
"Wait. It activates on its own?"
"Yea. Scary right. I'll never know when it might activate. So i'm doing my best to keep my emotions in check."
"Alright, understood about that now what about the other rewards? I see that you have a new spear."
"It's the spear of light I told you about. However, it looks just like a spear coated in white. Nothing special in the description other than attack 20 and does 10% more damage to undead and dark monsters. I also gained some intelligence as well as the passive skill Buffalo Horns."
"A lot of gains, then."
"But was it worth it?"
"You tell me Kingston. Was it worth it?"
"I don't know. I went through so much crap in that hole. I feel sorry for who is going next. Who is going next?"
"Luke. I told him to go after you. We will find him later but for now is there anything else you want to tell me? Otherwise, I'll tell you some good news on my end."
"No, I'm all ears."
"Okay, well since we increased our scout radius we fought some new enemies and got stronger at the same time, we were able to explore more of the environment. Luckily for me, we were able to uncover some ancient ruins that were hidden almost out of plain sight. From them, I was able to acquire some stat points, increasing my strength to 10, vitality to 15 and agility to 10. My luck stat helped me in getting the best rolls for the increase in stats."
"Absolute bullshit, but go on."
"Think however you want, but that is what happened. The last thing I found form the ancient ruin was a map."
"Map?"
"Yep, it has basic signs but from what I can tell it is a map to potentially treasure. So we are currently preparing on setting out for it while the construction of the road and bridges take place here."
"Damn, so we became treasure hunters now?"
"If it is from an ancient ruin, then the treasure is going to be good."
"Then let's prepare faster, right?"
"Right."
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