The Shatterplate War Chapter 23 (Patreon)

Kay watched as Tyuah concentrated on the floating ball in front of her. Slowly with multiple jerks and spasms, the amorphous blob of blood turned into a close approximation of a cube. It wobbled in the air for a moment like jello before the shaking suddenly started getting faster and faster, until the lopsided cube ruptured and the blood that had made it up dropped to the ground. Tyuah stared at it with a defeated sigh.

Kay reached out with one hand and gathered the blood back up. He shook his head at her. “Don’t be so hard on yourself; you’ve only been training for a couple of weeks.”

“I feel like I should be able to do this, though!” She snarled, glaring at the collection of blood that was flying up from the floor in clumps to gather above Kay’s hands.

“Why?” Kay gestured with his free hand at the blood. “You’re trying to do this-” He formed the blood into a cube and solidified it into a solid where it slowly rotated in space. “With level seven Blood Manipulation. I got Shape Blood from its Class by hitting level twenty Blood Manipulation. I know getting the Skill early would be great for you, but I don’t think you’re going to be able to do it in only two weeks.”

She sighed as she drooped in her seat, “I get it. It’s just…” She turned and looked at the stump of her leg, then to what was left of her arm.

Kay leaned forward and grabbed her other should. “Don’t worry.” He smiled at her when she looked up. “You’re going to get to that point. All you have to do is keep practicing it.”

“Right,” She nodded with determination flaring up in her eyes. She carefully took control of the blood after Kay turned it back into a liquid, and she started manipulating its shape.

Lauren was on the other end of the training room practicing some Blood Manipulation of her own, although she wasn’t trying to skip to a more difficult Skill, so Kay went over to check on her progress.

Things had changed with Kay’s announcement that he was a Blood Line Progenitor. They hadn’t seen the rush of people that they were expecting yet; communication was still mostly through word of mouth, so the news was only traveling as fast as people could move. Some of his advisers were sure that more powerful groups with access to magical means of communication knew already, but the average citizen that everyone insisted would come to join Avalon hadn’t had time to hear the proclamation and make it back to Avalon themselves yet.

What had changed, though, was the behavior of the people that already lived in Avalon. Most people already treated Kay with a level of respect since he was the noble of their settlement, but in almost all cases, that respect had increased noticeably after he’d told everyone about his other title. There was also a new sense of… well; the only way he could think to describe it was hope.

People were ready and willing to work and face the difficulties of making and growing a new village and town and city, but there wasn’t this much sheer joy in doing it before this. I don’t think anyone was all that unhappy, but people are almost giddy now. I guess the reassurance of my titles is bolstering their spirits or something.

The other thing that had happened was people wanting, and in some cases demanding, to be trained by him in his Skill. It was weird calling it that, at least out loud, but that was the way of things. He’d made it, so it was his. Apparently, every Skill that the Rune Master had created and Class Line they’d started was called theirs. Every person that had wanted to be trained in Blood manipulation was required to go through two tests. The first was technically optional since Kay wasn’t using it to weed people out, but Eleniah had insisted that he at least have it available.

“Affinity testing is important to people,” She had insisted, “And yes, Affinity is just a fancy way of saying talent for something, and people put way too much stock into it, but it’s important on a societal and a personal level.”

“Why is it important? Just because you aren’t as talented at something as someone else doesn’t mean you have to give it up.”

“You don’t have to, but a lot of people choose to,” She’d countered, “There are an insane number of Skills and Classes that exist, and that’s not including the ones we don’t know about, since we don’t know about them. Getting to tier five makes you effectively immortal, but not a lot of people make it to tier five. People don’t want to spend their time working harder at a Skill or Class when they could be spending less time leveling a Skill that they’re talented at.” She’d shrugged while grimacing. “I don’t agree with it, but it is what it is. Giving people the chance to test what their Affinity is will weed out the people looking for an easy path to glory and let you focus on the ones that actually want to learn your Skill for your Skill. The ones just looking for power will leave on their own.”

“What if some of those people looking for an easy path have high Affinity?”

“It can happen. Most people will be of average Affinity because that’s how a bell curve works, but yeah, some of them will show up eventually. At that point, it’s up to you. Get to know them, and if you don’t like them, you can refuse to teach them. It isn’t like you have to teach anyone.”

So he’d put the test in place, which involved having someone try and use Blood Manipulation while Kay stood nearby coaching them and holding a small enchanted gem that glowed different colors based on how much intrinsic talent someone had with the Skill, which Kay thought was completely insane. How the hell were they quantifying that? No one actually knew, which made Kay suspicious of the Affinity Stone, but everyone swore by it, so he left it alone. He personally didn’t care much about Affinity; he’d always believed that hard work was infinitely more important than talent since you couldn’t just coast on talent forever, but Eleniah had been right, and a lot of people had given up when they saw they didn’t have higher than average Affinity.

The rest of the glory seekers that had remained had been put off by the second test/requirement for Kay to teach them. An Agreement permanently binding their service to Avalon and then Kay, in that order. Someday, when Kay was much more powerful and established, he’d probably allow people that weren’t bound to him in some way to learn Blood Manipulation, like the Rune Master did now by having an academy where people taught her various Skills, but for now, he was going to use his monopoly on Blood Manipulation to boost his own power and make Avalon safer and more secure.

The two people who had demanded that Kay teach them were incredibly angry about that. One of them, who apparently felt that his powerful merchant connections meant he was important enough for Kay to do whatever he said, had given up after Kay had told him the requirement of the Agreement and refused to budge against his numerous demands. He’d eventually left, shouting threats about cutting off trade to Avalon through his contacts. Kay had never heard of the trading group the man had claimed he was with, and they didn’t do any trading near Tumbling Rapids from what some of Kay’s people had told him, so he wasn’t that worried. The other person making demands had also felt that she should be obeyed based on her connections, although her confusing relationship to some minor noble in the Bannerthrust Empire hadn’t been something Kay cared about either. She was also a ten-year-old who wasn’t even old enough to pick her first class, and her parents had apologized profusely when they’d showed up to frag her away, so Kay had promised that she would have the option to learn from him in the future if she had a better attitude when she came back as an adult. Her ranting about how she would overthrow said minor noble she was related to and return her family to glory as her parents literally dragged her off, one of them grabbing each of her arms and her heels dragging on the cobbles, had been hilarious, although Kay had kept a straight face till she was out of sight, just to keep her adolescent pride intact.

In the end, the only two people who had “passed” both tests had been Lauren, who Kay had somewhat forcefully recruited into his personal guard, or whatever they were going to call his household troops when he got to the level of having them, though she thankfully had gone along with it happily once he’d explained what he was doing. The first few days of him showing up and telling her to follow him had been confusing for her, she’d explained after finally confronting him, and she accepted his offer once he’d actually told her about it. Her Affinity had been average, not that either of them cared.

Kay had decided that he was going to teach Blood Manipulation to all of his household troops, and he was thinking about making most if not all of his students join the organization once it was formed. It would be a good propaganda piece for him and Avalon for his direct subordinates to be the only ones with the Skill, at least at the beginning.

His second student, who was also going to be part of his household troops, and yes, he had actually asked her ahead of time, was obviously Tyuah. She’d been intrigued by the prosthetic leg made of blood he’d created for her while they were in the Dungeon, and she’d asked about learning Blood Manipulation to eventually make one for herself when he’d visited her while she was recovering. Her Affinity was also average, and she’d easily signed the Agreement, so once she’d gotten out of the hospital, they’d started on her training. Once she’d gotten Blood Shaping to go with Blood Manipulation, they’d start working on making prosthetics for her to use.

Lauren had been working on making more complex shapes out of Blood to advance her Skill level, and they discussed her current limits and what she could try working on for a while. She’d reached level twelve in the last couple of months since the announcement, which was a bit slower than Kay’s original speed of progression, but that was to be expected. It wasn’t stated in the Title description, but everyone knew that Class Line Progenitors got a boost to their leveling in their Skill.

After giving her a bit more advice, Kay stepped off to the side and started working on his own practice. He’d been working on making larger amounts of different blood constructs and manipulating them simultaneously earlier, but now he was focused on his new pet project. He’d felt a hint from his title when he’d been working on Tyuah’s first prosthetic, and he thought he knew where the hint had been pointing to. Or at least one of the directions. Kay wasn’t really sure what counted as something distinct from Blood Manipulation and thus a different Skill, so he had to experiment. Making blood constructs and firing beams of pressurized liquid blood were both parts of the same Skill, but healing and blood doping were two different Skills.

His pet project, though, he knew was a separate skill, and he felt like he was close to getting it.

Kay concentrated on the pool of blood he’d laid out on the ground and started forming it into the shape he wanted. Combining Blood Manipulation and Blood Shaping he contorted the blood into a generally humanoid shape with no features. The arms and legs were spindly, the hands were a little odd, and he wasn’t quite sure whether the joints would work properly, but it was a start. The actual shape was a problem with his own mental images anyways; he just had to work on those.

Concentrating even harder, he tried to go beyond his Skill driven ability to control blood through his magic. He didn’t want to control the slightly disfigured blood mannequin; he wanted to give it orders. If he didn’t have to mentally control every action of the figure and let it function on its own…

“Mayor Kay, sir!”

Kay sighed and froze his experimental blood golem in place and kept it there with his will as he turned around to face the messenger who’d just run into the training room. “Yes?”

“The trade caravan to Tumbling Rapids has returned!” The young woman reported, holding herself stiff in the doorway.

Internally Kay sighed. He’d rather the people that literally ran all of Avalon’s messages around would be more relaxed around him, even if it was only to help their energy levels when they had to report to him or bring him a message. He didn’t need them locking their knees and falling over. He also didn’t really like them being so nervous around him, although he knew he couldn’t do much about that on a short-term basis.

“And? I mean, that’s good, but why run over here in such a hurry to tell me that?”

“Lady Eleniah said that two of the people that the Adventurer’s Guild scouted for government positions hitched a ride our caravan! Sir Meten is giving one a tour of the village, and the other is waiting in your office to have a meeting! Lady Eleniah and Miss Ahthia are there as well!”

Kay still wasn’t sure why those particular forms of address had sprung up for those particular people, but he was rolling with it, along with everything else that was happening in his life. This new thing was at least harmless as well as mildly amusing when he was the looks on Meten’s and Eleniah’s faces each time they were called that. Someday he was giving Eleniah a noble title, though, no matter how much she seemed to hate the idea. She’d basically forced him into this position, and he wasn’t above a little bit of petty revenge. Plus, I would probably be good for Avalon once it grew larger. But mostly, it was the vengeance.

“Alright.” He glanced over his shoulder, “Lauren, want to stay and practice some more or come along?”

Lauren glanced over at Tyuah, “We’ll both come. Tyuah can keep practicing while we head over there.”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

They loaded Tyuah up into her wheelchair, which was simple compared to some Kay had seen back on Earth, but effective all the same, and Lauren pushed while they made their way over to Kay’s office. Some people stopped and gave short, respectful bows while others just waved as they walked.

When they got to the government building, Kay took a moment to look it over. They were already getting large enough to need to expand it, and soon enough, they would have to expand it again if they were going to grow as much as was being predicted. Someday they’d have to build Kay some kind of manor that doubled as living space and a workplace, and someday farther than that, a palace. Kay wasn’t really looking forward to that, although most of that was because of the sheer amount of space the word palace made him imagine. What was he supposed to put in that many rooms?

He shook his head and put his thoughts back on track. He left Lauren and Tyuah in one of the downstairs rooms to practice and headed upstairs to his office.

The door to his office was closed, and there was a guard, one of Meten’s adventurers, standing outside the door to the meeting room they’d made when the Adventurer’s Guild had shown up. The guard opened the door for Kay and shut it behind him as he stepped through.

Inside, Eleniah and Ahthia were sitting on each side of one end of the long table, and a non-descript-looking human man sat at the far end.

“Good afternoon,” Kay greeted the man. “I’m Kay, Mayor of Avalon.”

The man smiled and opened his mouth to reply when he was cut off by someone outside shouting loud enough to be heard all the way inside the room they were in.

“Dragon!”

Seconds later, footsteps could be heard pounding down the hall, and someone burst into the room. “There’s a dragon flying towards the village!” One of the adventurers on guard duty downstairs exclaimed.

Kay and Eleniah shared a surprised and hopeful look.

“Please excuse us,” Ahthia said to the man as she started to stand.

Kay and Eleniah almost knocked over the guard as they rushed out of the room and started sprinting outside.

******

Gasp! Who could it be?