The Dark Lord of Crafting

Brenys tapped her foot the entire time we were getting dressed. Esmelda washed her face and threw on a tan riding dress before declaring she was ready to go into town. My own preparations were more involved. Getting my armor on involved a lot of clasping and unclasping, and I'd finally traded in the ugly zombie boots for a set of iron footwear.

"You look like a proper knight now," Esmelda said as I strapped on Kevin's sword. For all the unexpected gifts of my System, belts were not a built-in formula. Brenys had given me a leather one, as well as a proper sheath, as a late wedding present. No matter what kind of attitude she put on, the old woman supported me. Or at least she supported Esmelda with such tenacity that I was the recipient of a little of that overflow. "Much better than the tunic."

My original set of zombie leathers had been disturbing to look at, and carried an inerasable mustiness that had not been pleasing to the nose, but they had been comfortable. I shifted in my boots, feeling the weight of iron on my shoulders, and almost missed the old gear.

"It's not terribly impressive," Brenys said, "but it's better than anything Gent has."

"Thanks," I said, "that means a lot."

Her gaze narrowed as she contemplated whether I was getting snippy with her, but I had long ago mastered the art of dead pan delivery, and she let it pass. Brenys had brought along a set of horses from the village to speed our return, and they were waiting for us tied to the posts of one of my vegetable plots. The gardens encircled cottage, something like a dozen acres of land given over to carrots, beets, wheat, and cabbage. The lillits didn't grow potatoes, but Gastard had assured me they were a staple of the human diet in Drom, so I was bound to grow those as well eventually.

After some experimentation, we'd determined that my reality distortion field extended roughly one hundred and twenty meters in every direction. This was the radius within which crop growth was accelerated and monsters would spawn. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been enough to feed a growing town on its own. We had a harvest every day. The crops would spring up around me as long as there was sufficient light, and the condition was satisfied by Eternal Torches as well as the sun, so they could mature overnight. There was still an element of randomness. Not every square foot was green and leafy by the morning, but it was enough. A lot of my time, far more than I would have liked, was spent harvesting vegetables and replanting them. If someone else did the planting, they still grew fast, but not at the same incredible rate. It had impeded some of my other goals, and I had more than once considered opening up the flow of gold to simply purchase what the town needed until they had enough fields prepared to feed themselves.

Godwod was still expecting a steep percentage of the "revenue" from the mine, so for the time being, I was keeping my spending to a minimum. With Williamsburg still in its infancy and war on the horizon, it was important to me to maintain a good relationship with my liege lord. In the long term, it wouldn't be necessary, but it felt good to be feeding people.

There wasn't any shade on the farm where monsters could shelter after the sun came up. The risk of someone being attacked during the daytime was actually near zero, especially with harpies in charge of massacring the phantoms, but I still felt there was always a chance something could go wrong. A new monster could spawn, one I didn't know how to deal with, or something that knew how to dig. It was safer to tell everyone to keep away.

The farm was a couple of miles from town, though still within my barony, and the ride was easy. Esmelda and Brenys discussed the management of the town. Initially, there had been a lot of talk about making me mayor, but that role had passed back into Boffin's hands. I had enough on my plate, and I avoided dealing with the day-to-day planning and squabbles as far as I could. Esmelda held authority as the Baroness, and the lillits were happy enough to bother her instead of me.

"You should have seen Dongle's face," Brenys said, as pleased as a witch brewing puppies. "Perrin told him a jeweler's storefront was not a town priority."

"I'm sure it was something to behold," Esmelda said. She didn't care for Dongle any more than Brenys did. My own feelings were mixed. The man was useful, if self-serving, and though he'd done a few things I disagreed with, the jeweler had come through for us when it counted.

"The man Gent sent," both women shot me exasperated glances as I interrupted them, "what did he say, exactly?"

Brenys tilted her head back as if she was looking down at the man already. "Nothing much. Just that he carried a message from the former baron, and he wouldn't share it with anyone but you."

"Do you think it's anything serious?"

"The games of nobles," Esmelda said. "You shouldn't worry overmuch."

Considering Gent had threatened our lives in the not too distant past, the situation did seem to call for concern, but she was probably right. Godwod was backing me, and there was nothing Gent could do about it. He was probably just seeing if he could throw his former weight around with me.

"What was his name?"

Brenys shrugged. "Something awful. Duug, I think."

Williamsburg had done a lot of growing in the weeks since our arrival. A bevy of buildings had sprung up around the side of the ridge with the mine, though most of the construction had shifted to be closer to the wells I had dug and a stream that wasn't quite prodigious enough to be called a river. It bothered me that the town spread so thin. It would make it harder to defend. I would have to talk to Perrin and Boffin about that.

A longhouse served as a community center and church for the town. People who didn't have homes of their own yet slept there as well, so one side of the hall was jammed with the belongings of families who didn't have anywhere else to put them. Bedrolls, tools and hand-me-down clothing that they had brought with them from Eerb or collected since their arrival. Tipple was at the end of the hall, deep in discussion with one of his parishioners, while Duug was scowling near the entrance.

He looked rough, his clothes patched and worn from years of outdoor living, his face red from sunburn. A skinning knife hung from his belt, and a crossbow was slung over his back. He didn't lose his scowl as we turned to him, instead crossing his arms defensively. I was sure he was one of the men Gent had brought to accost us outside the mine when we first visited.

"About time you showed up," he said gruffly.

I raised an eyebrow at his impatience. "Apologies for the delay," I replied, meeting his gaze head-on. "You must be Duug."

Duug blinked hard when he saw my eyes, his arms dropping. The lillits were accustomed to my appearance, but it was fun to see how new people reacted. "Uh," he said, losing some of his steam, "Baron Gent requests your presence at his manor. He wants to discuss the state of the barony going forward."

Brenys chimed in, her voice firm and tinged with annoyance. "Gent is no longer the Baron," she reminded Duug.

Duug glowered at Brenys, unimpressed by her remark. "Even so, Gent still holds influence over these lands."

There wasn't much to influence. The former Baron could boss around the people who lived around his manor. They probably didn't realize he'd been replaced, but there weren't any other settlements in the area apart from Williamsburg, and no one here was going to recognize him as an authority. The way peerage worked in the Free Kingdoms, Gent had little status to fall back on. He wasn't from an important family; he was just a guy who had done enough favors for Godwod to be awarded a title, and now that accommodation was gone.

The manor he lived in belonged to him, but the land under it was mine. I was happy to let him keep managing his little fiefdom, but could kick him out if he didn't pay a tithe. Playing politics with an elevated merchant didn't interest me. Gent was going to have to learn that his best option was to stay out of my way. It wouldn't hurt to pay him a visit, if nothing else, to ensure that his subjects realized they were actually my subjects now.

"Sure," I said, "I'll meet with him, but it's going to be on my schedule. He can't summon me. Was that all you had to say?"

Duug grumbled something under his breath, clearly unhappy with my response. But he gave a begrudging nod.

"You could have told all that to Brenys," I said. "Go back and tell Gent that I'll come see him when I feel like it."

His jawline hardened, but he nodded again, and I stepped aside so he could leave. We watched him walking away through the village from the door of a hall, and I flagged down a harpy who was overhead. It landed on top of a pile of building supplies beside the longhouse, thoroughly startling a lillit who was counting planks. The bird wasn't one I recognized. Celaeno was often asleep during the day, roosting near the farm, and most of the rest of the flock appeared interchangeable to me.

"Hey," I said, pointing at Duug's diminishing back, "can you monitor him? Make sure he leaves town and heads back to the other town."

The harpy croaked a response that I took as a "yes" before flapping back off.

Esmelda was frowning. "If Gent still has men calling him Baron, it could develop into a serious conflict."

"A petty man with petty dreams," Brenys said. "He's going to waste your time."

I agreed with her, but we still had to do something. "Let's see what else is on the docket for today. We can plan for a day-trip later this week."

Brenys had recently gotten her hands on a loom. Neither Perrin nor the other carpenters had been able to spare the time to make her a new one, so she had gotten it on loan from a tailor in Eerb, and now spent most of each day hard at work rebuilding her business. With Duug gone, she bid us goodbye and returned to the hut which served both as her home and workshop. Esmelda and I walked through the village together, her hand warm and small in mine.

Lillits paused in their labor to greet us, and she knew all of them by name. There was a formula to these interactions: the more faithful members of the community asked me for blessings. Tipple had assured me I could say something like "May the goddess be with you," and call it a day. My words didn't carry any power, and the act felt hollow to me, but it meant a lot to those who asked.

They would respond with a gesture I'd seen Esmelda and Tipple make many times, touching their index and middle fingers to their foreheads in the same manner Catholics made the sign of the cross. Apart from sending heroes and the occasional dream, Mizu didn't take direct action in Plana as far as I had observed. But maybe she heard their prayers, it wasn't for me to say.

Lillits had cleared a path to serve as a principal street. We had little in the way of shops, but people were practicing their crafts in their homes if they had them. I was no longer providing all the building materials. Trees were being chopped and processed, bricks were being fired from my clay, and more tools had come from Eerb to speed the work.

The stream, such as it was, was dammed and diverted for irrigation and to collect drinking water. I could see the ground being prepared for what would one day be wide swaths of farmland. The soil wasn't great here, but they could make it work for beans and root vegetables at least, and we had a growing supply of sheep and cows.

Amid all the activity, the only area free of bustle was my mine. The lillits of Erihseht had little experience in mining, and they generally regarded it as being my place alone. We hadn't made the gold or the underground base public knowledge, but there were plenty of rumors circulating that I had something special going on beneath the town.

We'd almost made it to the entrance when Perrin and Duad came hustling up to bring me a problem.

"Baron," Perrin said, his mouth barely visible under the bush of his mustache, "there's something that needs to be brought to your attention."

Duad was just behind him. The squat, muscular lillit would have passed for a dwarf if he'd come with a beard. Did Plana have dwarves? No one had mentioned any races apart from humans and lillits and things that came from Bedlam, which was a bit of a gyp as far as fantasy worlds went.

Duad's face was clean shaven, and I suspected he wouldn't have much to show for it if he ever let it grow. Lillits were mostly free of facial hair, with Perrin's mustache being the fabulous exception. The smith had a sour expression on his face.

"There's a thief in town," he spat.

Esmelda and I came to a stop. "What's gone missing?" She asked.

"Tools, mostly," Perrin said, "and some building materials."

That was annoying, and also very odd. The lillit community was tight-knit, and extraordinarily cooperative. With limited resources, I'd expected more conflict than we'd had. But aside from grumblings about the distribution of the food, everyone seemed to get along. Or else, the disputes there were didn't escalate to the level that would require the attention of the baron.

"Are we running short?"

Duad shook his head. "My forge is coming along, and we had some from Eerb. We won’t run out."

"Then what's the problem?"

The edges of Perrin's mouth turned down. "It's only what you gave us that's gone missing. No one remembers seeing where the tools you made on the first day got off to, and the same is true of some planks and shingles. A chest as well. The counts are off. We can make more, but I think someone's hoarding anything that came directly from you."

"Keepsakes?" Esmelda asked. It was a possibility, with my position in the community and connection to the goddess, some people might have been willing to steal to claim an object associated with me for themselves.

"Maybe," Perrin said, "but I don't like it either way. Your tools have a certain look to them. They're simple, but fine. Someone might think to sell them."

"Are they that valuable?"

"Valuable enough for someone who lost everything in Erihseht. The axes are worth good coin. But we're also short a sword."

That was definitely an issue. After returning from the Wastes, I'd made certain we kept an exact count of the weapons we'd taken from the Dargothian soldiers. Only a few lillits had them, men who'd been a part of the town guard in the other village. The rest were with Tipple and Boffin, ready to be handed out if there was need. It surprised me one of them hadn't come to me about it.

Aside from providing him with gold, keeping Dargothian steel off the market was the one thing Godwod had demanded of me. If new swords showed up in a market in Henterfell, he would not be pleased. One might go overlooked, but if it kept happening, he would ask questions.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Who lost it?"

"One of Tipple's," Perrin said. "I don't think he realized it was gone. Duad noticed."

The muscular lillit nodded. "I don't approve of your methods," he said, "but I can't argue with the results. I've spent some time examining them. If you actually knew how to forge that steel properly, it would be a true blessing."

"That's unacceptable." Esmelda sounded genuinely angry. "We'll have to lock the rest away. Do you have any idea who might have done it?"

"None," Perrin said.

"We don't have to hide them." I wanted them to be readily available in case of an attack. Keeping them at the farm would put the swords too far away from the hands that would need them. "Leave them where they are and don't make a fuss. Make sure everyone acts like we haven't noticed it's gone, and I'll ask Celaeno to have the flock keep an eye on them. If there is a thief, they'll want more than one. When they try again, we'll know."

"Are you sure about those crows?" Duad looked up as if he expected to see a black-winged raptor swooping down that instant. Like many lillits, he was less than comfortable with the constant presence of giant, predatory birds around a town of little folk.

"I trust them," I said.

“Good," Esmelda said, her tone still tinged with vexation. "Both of you keep this to yourselves. If we catch the culprit, we may recover the first sword as well."

"Yes, mam." Perrin said, and the pair of them took their leave.

"Alright," I said, "I want to get some mining done before anything else comes up." Level thirty was just around the corner, and potentially, a better understanding of Kevin's tools.

"Very well," Esmelda got on her tip-toes to kiss me on the cheek. "I'm sure I can find something to occupy me. I've been putting off updating father's ledgers."

"Can't he do that himself?"

"He could, but he wouldn't get it right."

We parted, and I went underground.