Chapter 124: Book 2: Chapter 25

Chapter 25

 

Later that night once we were back in Stormblade Harbour I asked my ladies, officers, and Susan to gather in the Strategic Command Hub at eight in the evening to discuss our next steps.

The hub was a large room that could probably be better described as a hall. The vibe it gave off was very reminiscent of Dragonstone from Game of Thrones. Except it didn’t look out over a misty seascape but had real-time images of my growing town displayed on large crystal viewing screens. The hub room itself was in the heart of my palace-cum-fortress and had no windows and only one way in or out for security.

The crystal screens were similar in shape and construction to those found in the Navigation Cabin on Marena’s Mercy. The biggest difference was these screens were made from colourless crystal indistinguishable from glass.

Both my imp and Susan’s fairy assured me it wasn’t glass. These screens couldn’t be accidentally cracked or scratched. They weren’t indestructible but any damage would be a deliberate act of demolition.

When not in use the screens could be retracted into the ceiling to keep them out of the way. The hub had more than a hundred of them available and more could be bought and installed if needed. We were using fewer than ten at the moment and most of those displayed the recorded feeds, which wasn’t really necessary with our town’s population being so small.

The feeds came from recording devices installed inside the podium and the Framework-built buildings. I could buy more of these magical cameras, but they could only be sited in territory under my control, and they had a limited range. To connect different towns, a substation would need to be bought or built that was networked via nodes to the Strategic Command Hub in Stormblade Harbour. A sub-hub if you will.

In addition to the spycam footage, several of the multitude of screens displayed statistics and information relevant to the Shattered Storm. It was mostly data related to the markets. Tallies of funds going in and out, price fluctuations of selected goods. The kind of stuff you’d expect to see on a stockbroker’s bank of computer screens. Not that there was much of that yet. The post-apocalyptic economy was in the very early stages.

One of the exceptions was the local sub-regional influence list for factions.

 

1. Michigan State: (Richard Reynolds) 212 points
2. Brotherhood of the Lion’s Claw: (Luca Gattosi) 116 points
3. West Detroit: (Trayvon Willis) 56 points
4. University of Michigan: (Doris Breckinridge-Reeves) 32 points
5. The Shattered Storm: (Torin Carter) 28 points
6. Camp Grayling: (Colonel McAtee) 17 points
7. The Hellhounds Motorcycle Gang: (?) 10 points
8. The Muskegon Collective: (The Council of Nine) 8 points
9. Battle Creek Battalion: (?) 5 points
10. Gattosi Family, Detroit: (?) 2 points

 

There were another couple of dozen small factions that had a point or two that made up the remainder of the list, but we didn’t bother displaying them as well.

When I arrived twenty minutes early, I tried and failed to stop myself from glancing at the influence list as I swept into the room and took my place at the head of the centrepiece map table.

The current standings always managed to rile up my inner Acheronian who demanded absolute dominance. Being only fifth did rankle the human part of me somewhat as well. Intellectually, I could accept the Governor sitting pretty in the top position. We estimated that half of Michigan, the parts that hadn’t been fully depopulated anyway, had submitted to him in some manner shortly after he finally made it to Lansing. With that much territory and people under his banner, even if most of them were barely levelled themselves and had useless classes, that racked up a considerable number of influence points.

Luca’s second spot on the table was a bigger sore point for my pride, though. Although his recent losses had resulted in his score dipping by five. But that wouldn’t be nearly enough. Not for my quest, nor for my desire to ruin him.

West Detroit was a breakaway faction in the suburbs of the Detroit area. I’d heard some of the details in the reports Trisha had sent me while she was embedded with the Governor’s people.

Which is how we’d learned the name of West Detroit’s leader. That information was not supplied automatically. Hence why there were a few factions that had question marks instead of their commander’s name.

There had been no cohesivity in Detroit after integration. Most of the different neighbourhoods went their separate ways before double R had a chance to impose his authority.

Since then, most of the smaller independent groups had been swept up in the Governor’s influence and large parts of the city now followed his lead. But there was resistance and West Detroit was founded when eight groups merged to pool their resources and defy his call. West Detroit had an informal alliance with the faction at number four on the list, my former college, the University of Michigan based out of Ann Arbor.

The UoM’s rise was down to much of the Ann Arbor campus being designated as a school and getting the associated protection benefits despite the students not being children. According to Quixbix, a single higher learning institute in each region was the recipient of the same benefits in order to help preserve knowledge.

On most integrated planets there was only one in any given region. Earth was, of course, a little different, but there had been no exception to the one-only rule.

UoM got the nod as it had the largest student body when the Flint and Dearborn campus enrolments were included in the tally. Although from what intelligence Trisha had gathered the buildings on those campuses went unprotected.

Much like West Detroit the current leader of the University of Michigan had no love for Richard Reynolds and didn’t want him to gain control of their territory. Interestingly, that person was the wife of the UoM president and not the president himself. I presumed he had died, and she had inherited his position as far as the Framework was concerned.

They weren’t the only groups to defy the Governor. Number six on the list was Camp Grayling. According to Trisha it had been one of the largest National Guard training facilities in the country. So big that recruits from nearby states went there for training. Which likely helped explain how the Colonel of the base was able to establish his independence.

Grayling wasn’t the only potential Guard location to go its own way. The Battle Creek Battalion in ninth was also presumed to be a National Guard unit acting for itself. That hadn’t been confirmed, though. Nobody had heard from them, and they refused to respond to any efforts made to communicate. Given what had happened elsewhere it wasn’t impossible this was an unaffiliated group that had either arisen or overrun the area.

Ultimately, that left the Shattered Storm in fifth.

There were a couple of mitigating factors that depressed our position. First and foremost, acreage and population. We didn’t have much of either in comparison to the top four entries and were technically punching well above our weight points-wise due to the density of dungeons housed on the land we controlled.

Secondly, my two market primacies barely contributed any influence at this time. This was because we were limited to the planetary network, of which there was very little, for a few months longer. When those markets opened fully, our influence score would shoot up depending on how many additional worlds my market primacies enveloped.

Similarly, we currently received no credit for having the preeminent Plexus Gateway on the planet because there were no other gateways on a fully shrouded Earth and therefore it didn’t connect to any others.

Quinntexxis assured me that we didn’t need to gain anything more between now and the six-month post-integration mark, when the shroud surrounding Earth underwent its first diminishment, to improve our current ranking. We would take the regional number one position quite comfortably with our pre-existing connections.

But I had no intention of resting on our future laurels and planned to push towards the top spot before that.

Despite showing up early, Anastasia had beat me to the hub and was sitting on a stool at the side of the map table which was the centrepiece of the room. The table was impressively large and made from dark-stained oak. Embedded in the surface was an extra-large crystal screen lying flat. Michigan and the surrounding coastline could be seen in a low-lying magical-holographic display.

The blonde dungeon avatar’s attention was rapt on the Golemic doll we had recently retrieved. The creepy doll couldn’t speak but was moving animatedly in front of Ana in what I could only classify as interpretative dance. This was the doll’s latest attempt to impart the information it had gathered over the past month when we had left it spying in the heart of Luca’s stronghold.

Anastasia was using her Golemic Communication skill to interpret what the doll was trying to tell us. So far, she had increased her skill level to +5 from a +3 but that hadn’t been enough to translate any but the basics of what the golem was expressing. To make things worse the golem’s gestures weren’t sign language that could be learned by observation. Each time it might do something different but mean the same thing. Golemic Communication was more akin to building an intuitive understanding of a particular golem. An intangible understanding.

Things would have been easier if the golem could write everything down in a report, but literacy could not be imbued, it had to be learned and built up over time like a real person. This golem was only a little over a month old and was a long way off achieving that level of utility should Ana choose to keep it around. She was still limited to a single permanent golem.

“Any luck?” I asked, as I walked around the table and settled myself on a high bench with green leather padding at the head of the table.

“Not a lot,” Anastasia sighed and looked up from the dancing doll which promptly ceased moving as soon as its mistress’ attention was no longer upon it. “It’s definitely trying to tell me something about the twin sister, Claudia. I think she met with someone not too long ago in secret.”

“That sounds promising. Maybe she is plotting against her brother?”

“Or planning a surprise birthday party for him,” Anastasia contradicted. “That’s the problem. I’m getting some of the message but without the context, it could mean anything.”

“Well, keep at it. We’ve only had the doll back for a few days and time is still on our side.”

Anastasia nodded resignedly and rather than have the golem-doll perform again, swept it up in her arms, patted it on the head affectionately, and put it away.

“Tell you what, while we wait for the others to arrive, why don’t we go over the ship’s possible upgrades,” I offered and took my spyglass from my inventory and put it in a custom socket on the table designed specifically for it.

“Sure, if we get the metamorphosis started tonight it ought to be mostly done by morning.”

With the spyglass in place, Marena’s Mercy was directly connected to the command hub and the map was quickly replaced by a three-dimensional image of the ship that hovered in the air before us.

“Show us the mark two upgrade options.”

Responding to my voice command, displays of the various options we could add to the ship rose in front of myself and Anastasia.

<If we do this quickly enough, we can keep that interfering fairy’s nose out of this> Quixbix added with malicious enthusiasm.

[I heard that you wicked imbecile, Quixbix] Quinn’s voice rang in my head as Susan rounded the corner and entered the command hub.

<Are you spying on my private channel with Torin, you nosey witch> Quixbix yelled stridently in return.

“Of course, she isn’t, Quixbix,” Susan said reasonably as she sat down on a stool opposite Anastasia. With a quick finger gesture, she summoned a screen for herself to peruse the list. “Captain Torin has inserted his spyglass into the strategy table. Your voice is being broadcast from it. Anybody nearby could listen in.”

<Bugger> Quixbix muttered.

That had been another of our recent discoveries. A hidden use of the Dungeon Corsair Captain’s Spyglass. Once it was connected to the strategy table it could project the voices of Quix and Quinn for all to hear. Or maybe it wasn’t the spyglass per se, but my unusual access to the Framework that we hadn’t quite figured out yet.

Quixbix had obviously forgotten about the inserted spyglass’ effect and to be honest, I had as well. I was so used to the background noise of his voice in my head that it didn’t register my ears were picking it up too.

“Which reminds me,” Susan continued. “With our growing population and greater use of the Stormwarden’s Palace, we should reassign some of the sentinels to act as guards. To protect the grounds and keep unauthorised persons away from places they shouldn’t be. Like the Strategic Command Hub.”

“That is a good point,” I admitted.

During the first few weeks, the palace’s security had been established by locking it up and simply keeping everyone out. But unless we wanted to clean the place ourselves and always go into town to eat, we had to start opening the doors for people to come and go for work purposes.

We could spare a few sentinels from their other duties until a proper palace guard was formed.

“Wait,” I said as something else she said suddenly clicked. “Stormwarden’s Palace? Who named it that?”

“Didn’t you?” Susan replied with genuine surprise.

“No,” I answered. “I’ve just been calling it the fortress or the palace.”

Susan smiled at me. “Well, I think you’ve lost your chance to name this place yourself then. That is what the people have been calling the building, and I think you’ll have a devil of a time breaking them of the habit. These things tend to stick regardless of how many rebranding attempts you make.”

I decided to trust Susan on this. She had been a mayor of a sizable city so would know all about this kind of thing. Besides, it wasn’t a bad name. If they had tried to call it the Puckered Butt or That Asshole’s Abode, I might have had something more to say about it.

My focus returned to the information in front of me.

 

Marena’s Mercy: A mark one N-grade Dungeon Ship.

Current Decks: Command (Unrepeatable), Hold.

Additional Decks: As an N-grade dungeon you may select to add any available deck from the third-tier options or one from any of the lower tiers. Fourth-tier options are available if you are advancing by two marks during a single metamorphosis or have held an upgrade in reserve. With the captain’s current level, you can only repeat existing decks if they are from the first tier.

First ship size expansion: The external and internal dimensions of the ship will be increased by 60%. This is the standard 50% with a 10% bonus for the ship’s dungeon being N-grade and two steps up from the tier minimum. As a tier three Dungeon Ship, Marena’s Mercy is eligible for two further expansions. The second at mark five and the third at mark nine.

 

I was familiar with most of the details on the header page. Although the little extra oomph in the size department was a pleasant surprise I’d overlooked. This led me to realise that I had perhaps grown a little too reliant on my helpers feeding me the necessary information. There was no substitute for getting your own eyeballs on the documentation and I made a note to get more personally involved doing the research in the future.

With a flick of my fingers, the introduction page disappeared to be replaced by the list of available decks.

 

TIER ONE OPTIONS

Hold: Standard multipurpose deck. Comes with facilities for storage, prisoner confinement, galley, and crew lodgings. Has a little of all the basics a ship requires.

Quarters: A deck dedicated to housing an expanded crew. Includes personal cabins and some recreation areas. Useful for longer voyages.

Brig: A deck dedicated to the confinement of captives or the transportation of livestock.

 

 

I skimmed the first-tier options out of habit, but we wouldn’t be choosing any of them. We already had a hold. I had no plans for longer voyages in the near future and the harmonic nodes to my Slave Market that we had on our existing holding facilities meant a dedicated Brig was unnecessary.

On to the next set.

 

TIER TWO OPTIONS

Armour: Not a deck as such but the armour of the ship will be thickened by 50% and comes with a customisable half-sized Hold.

Cannon Deck: A deck dedicated to housing and firing cannons or other ranged weaponry from the port and starboard sides of the ship. A secure ammunition depot comes as standard. The number of firing portholes is dependent on the size of the ship (The starting base is eight, four on each side.) This deck option comes with a complement of eight cannons, but these can be replaced or upgraded.

Torpedo Deck: A deck dedicated to the housing and firing of torpedoes or other ranged weaponry from the stern and bow of the ship. A secure ammunition depot comes as standard. The number of firing portholes is dependent on the size of the ship (The starting base is four, two at each end.) This deck option comes with a complement of four torpedo launchers, but these can be replaced or upgraded.

 

This was more like it. Armour and weapon options.

The armour plating, we would likely leave until later. We weren’t getting involved in the kind of battles where the ship came under sustained attack. At least, not to the degree that she was in any danger of being sunk or seriously damaged.

With the ship’s expansion, we would receive thirteen cannon-firing positions. Seven on one side and six on the other. The extra position on one side came as a bonus for the extra ten percent increase in size. We wouldn’t get a similar bump in torpedo bays as the ten percent was insufficient to warrant an extra. But the expansion would still mean three each at both the bow and stern of the ship.

These were obviously tempting, but we had higher-tier options available to us.

 

TIER THREE OPTIONS

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Splinter Bay: A deck dedicated to enabling, housing, and launching splinter vessels from the port and starboard sides of the ship.

Splinter Grafting: Not a deck as such but enables the grafting of splinter devices to the hull and outer deck of the ship. Comes with a customisable half-sized Hold.

Submersion Sails: Not a deck as such but enables the sails to encapsulate the upper half of the ship and allow it to submerge safely. The water must be deep enough to allow full submersion for sails to be engaged in such a way. Comes with a customisable half-sized Hold and enables the shielded wet dock option.

 

The two splinter options were related to another use for the dungeon slivers we had been collecting from the dungeons we had run. Instead of attaching them to Anastasia’s core crystal and harvesting energy from those dungeons, we could use the slivers to make small attack vessels or grafted attachments.

The splinter ships and devices would draw their energy from Marena’s Mercy reserves when they were docked onboard. The splinter vessels would need to be small to fit on the newly created deck and be deployable. You could create them about the size of a jet ski that could carry up to two people if you wanted speed or go as large as the size of a rowboat if you wanted something slightly bigger and sturdier to act as boarding craft. Obviously, once the ship got larger with future marks you could begin to house larger splinter vessels.

There was a minor drawback to us taking either of these decks right now.

Technically dungeon splinters and slivers were different things. At the point of harvesting, you had to choose whether to take a sliver which maintained a permanent link to the originating dungeon or splinters which did not. Slivers cost the host dungeon nothing at the point of extraction but when grafted to another core they would siphon ten percent of that dungeon’s future energy gains to the master core.

If you chose to harvest splinters, you would get one for each tier of the dungeon. The splinters were a one-time loss that happened at the point of extraction and could result in the dungeon losing a level, but they suffered no further ill effects.

Thus far, I had been claiming slivers, not splinters. Either way, a harvested dungeon would be immune to further harvesting activity for several years.

Then, of course, there was the submersion sails. Allowing the ship to essentially transform into a submarine. The benefits of that were self-evident.

But there was more to see.

 

TIER FOUR OPTIONS

Heavy Armour: Not a deck as such but the armour of the ship will be thickened by 100% and comes with a customisable full-sized Hold. (May be taken as a tier three option to upgrade an existing Armour option.)

Heavy Cannon Deck: A deck dedicated to housing and firing cannon or other ranged weaponry from the port and starboard sides of the ship. A secure ammunition depot comes as standard. The number of firing portholes is dependent on the size of the ship (The starting base is sixteen, eight on each side.) This deck option comes with a complement of eight Necrocloud-cannons, but these can be replaced or upgraded. (May be taken as a tier three option to upgrade an existing Cannon Deck.)

Heavy Torpedo Deck: A deck dedicated to the housing and firing of torpedoes or other ranged weaponry and depth charges from the stern and bow of the ship. A secure ammunition depot comes as standard. The number of firing portholes is dependent on the size of the ship (The starting base is eight, four at each end.) This deck option comes with a complement of four torpedo launchers and four drop launchers for the depth charges. These can be replaced or upgraded. (May be taken as a tier three option to upgrade an existing Torpedo Deck.)

Aerial Sails: Not a deck as such but enables the sails to encapsulate the upper half of the ship and extend from the port and stern allowing the ship to achieve flight in an atmosphere. Comes with a customisable full-sized Hold.

 

As Anastasia’s dungeon was in the third tier these options were out of scope unless we could double up or had selected an earlier version to upgrade. Which amounted to largely the same thing.

However, I didn’t want us to do that. Something was coming, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, which would change the arithmetic. When I reached level twenty-four, I would get the second stage of my T4 Dungeon Core claiming ability. This would allow me to name Marena’s Mercy as my flagship.

Becoming the flagship of my fleet had two primary benefits that affected these choices. First, it allowed us to pick from a tier higher than we would normally be permitted, which would give us access to these tier-four picks with a single upgrade. Later improvements might even extend that reach further. Second, the ship would get a deck added for free.

“What are your thoughts?” I asked the room when I thought they’d had enough time to digest the contents.

<You know what I think> Quixbix quipped.

Which was true. My imp had already given me his opinions on the matter. For once, it hadn’t been a desire for more destruction and a call for more firepower. Although in all likelihood that was simply because he had his eyes on the Heavy Cannon and Torpedo decks in the fourth tier that we couldn’t access quite yet.

However, I was more interested in whether Anastasia would come to the same conclusions as my imp.

Ana pursed her lips in concentration, but Susan spoke before she could give an answer. “I don’t think I’m really qualified to advise on this. Warfare is not really in my wheelhouse. Quinn might be better placed to offer an opinion.”

[I’m familiar with these mechanics even though I have never served in a pirate’s faction before.] Quinntexxis spoke up. [Other classes have similar progressions. Given that Captain Torin ought to be able to unlock the fourth tier within a few months.] The fairy paused before adding [provided he heeds my advice.]

Quixbix snorted at her words, and it was broadcast to the room via the map table.

Quinn carried on without missing a beat at his rude interruption. [As useful or tempting as some of the second-tier options appear, it would ultimately prove to be a wasted selection at this juncture. I would advise selecting one from the third.]

Anastasia nodded along to her words. “Sounds sensible,” she muttered distractedly.

“Those are my thoughts too,” I agreed.

Then I decided to prompt Ana specifically before anyone else interjected. I wanted the prickly dungeon avatar to feel like she had a semblance of control over her destiny even if the decision was ultimately mine. “Do you have a third-tier preference, Anastasia?”

There were no bad decisions, but I hoped our thoughts would align on this.

“Hmmm, we don’t have any splinters yet, do we?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then I think it would be best if we passed on them for the first round. Give it a couple of months and we can start to accumulate a supply to use straight away.”

[Also, once the markets are connected to the rest of the Darkwyrlds you might be able to purchase dungeon splinters. They will be expensive, but you can usually find some if your pockets are deep enough.] Quinntexxis supplied.

“So, what do you think we should do?” I asked her again.

Anastasia seemed pensive for a moment and then flashed the room with a devilish smirk. “I think we should take the Submersion Sails. Then we can go deep and slap those disgusting fish-fuckers silly.”

<Yesss! Called it> Quixbix crowed with joy.

Thanks to my imp’s exuberance I got a dirty look from Ana. “You’d already decided to take the sails, hadn’t you?” she accused.

“I was leaning that way,” I admitted. “Being able to go beneath the surface would be a big benefit for surprise attacks. We may have to put a pin in the revenge on the fomorians plan, though. We don’t have many people who are particularly effective underwater.”

“My avatar doesn’t need to breathe,” Anastasia commented.

“Yes, but your whip won’t travel very fast underwater and the rest of us need oxygen.”

“There are pills you can buy from the podium for that. They aren’t too expensive,” Susan piped up but then quieted down when she got a sharp glare from my direction.

“Puh-lease,” Anastasia wheedled and blinked coquettishly. “I’ll be ever so good.

This time it was me filling the room with the snorting sounds of disbelief.

“No aquatic attack missions. Not immediately, at any rate,” I added to head off a sulky pout-fest. “We will take the wet dock as part of the customised Hold. Along with extended crew quarters. We have enough of everything else with the size increase anyway. We can start doing some training sessions for underwater combat with these pills over the next few months. Maybe get our crafters to start looking at armour options and weapons that will work better in that environment. I’m not sending anyone into that kind of situation until we’ve made adequate preparations.”

[A wise decision] Quinntexxis complimented me.

<Suck-up> Quixbix jibed.

[Better a suck-up, than a sucker] Quinn shot back.

I tuned out their bickering in my head and disconnected the spyglass to spare everyone else. I would plug it back in when everyone else had arrived.

Jackson, Kristoff, Tony, and LT all arrived shortly after, but we were still waiting for Shana and Fang Mei. They would likely be a few more minutes so I took advantage of the time to view my character sheet. I hadn’t checked it out in a while.

 

Name: Torin Carter

Species: Frostbinder Acheronian (Tier 3.1.1)

Level: 10

Class: Dungeon Corsair Captain (K-grade Notorious) 68,000 XP

Physical: +20% Social: +30%

Strength: 18 (base 15)

Constitution: 24 (base 20)

Speed: 22 (base 19)

Agility: 16 (base 14)

Mana Capacity (+10%): 22 (base 20)

Perception: 15

Willpower: 36

Mental Resistance: 31

Empathy: 27 (base 21)

Charisma: 29 (base 23)

Dominance: 71 (base 55)

Leadership: 54 (base 42)

Hit Points: 1,985

Health: 29

Mana Pool: 220

Unused XP: 21,400

Armour Slots: 7 Weapon Slots: 3 Item Slots: 5

Upgrade Points: Species: 3 Class: 30 Harmony: 3 Path: 2

Notoriety: 370 (XP multiplier x2) (Path cost x 0.8) (Harmonisation cost x 0.86)

T1: Skill: Preternatural Insight +3, Acrobatics +3, Sword Use +3, Negotiation +3

T2: Chaos Magic 1: Grants ability to cast Chaos Magic spells. May cast Summon Rift Beast at will.

T3: Clarion’s Call 1: Mental communication with adherents

T4: Claim a Dungeon Core 1: One Core claimed (max 1)

Armour Penalty Offset: -1

Path of the Binder 1: This person can bind the souls of others to their own. Those bound become devoted servants and gain benefits from their Binder.

Frost Element Harmonisation 1: Minor Frost Affinity granted. Spells, Effects, or Gear that utilise the Frost element are 20% more effective.

Frost Blade Generation: You can form bladed weapons made of Impervious Ice from Mana.

Frost Resistance: Damage that utilises the Frost element is reduced by 50%.

 

Things were looking good on the character front, and I managed to finish my perusal just as Shana and Fang Mei joined us. My social stats were very impressive and although my mana pool was a bit on the low side, my willpower and mental resistance were growing nicely. The only sore point in my progression was my modest strength score, but then I was supposed to be a commander, not necessarily a frontline fighter.

I dismissed the screen and put the spyglass back in place. Thankfully, the imp and fairy had finished insulting one another and we spent the next hour discussing what I had in mind for the next couple of weeks.

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