SK4 - Chapter 22 - The Test of Governance

Nick had spent a couple of hours rewarding the remaining monsterfolk girls after the event, and they were all absolutely pleased to get some time with their Alpha, their Boss. With that completed, he went out and thanked his leaders, met with his citizens, and enjoyed his city’s first major celebration. 

The mood was good, the people’s spirits light. He had felt during his speech that their fealty had built–their acknowledgement of their loyalty to him as their lord and also as their hero. Nick had a great time, and so did his girls. They had plenty of delicious food and drink along with dancing and speaking with all their subordinates and friends.

The crafting and invention show run by Lumos showed a number of tools and lifestyle inventions. The bikes and their many variants had become a big hit inside of Frosthaven, and there were numerous other things that Lumos had decided to tackle. From tools for most civilian professions to magical appliances, things that would make people’s lives easier and more enjoyable. A magic washer, dryer, and fridge were all interesting, requiring only a supply of mana each use or a weekly recharge. 

After going through one more cycle of his usual cultivation–time on the Throne, his Ideal, the Soul Forge, demon cores and priestess worship, he rested a full three days in preparation to enter the Ordeal. His original plan was to begin with that, but Thelisse’s strange soul healing had him wanting to take advantage of the special recovery and get just a little more in.

The family all got geared out, most of them having upgraded armor from Lumos. She had refined the frostiron ore into froststeel, and so now his entire family upgraded to the armored variants created by it. 

Everyone wore a stonesilk gambeson and chausses underneath their armor, a powerful defensive weave created by Jasmine. Closer to kevlar than linen, the magically woven thread fibers provided excellent protection against projectiles, and with essence flowing through them caused them to have more properties of stone which also had excellent protection against slash and stab attacks.

Fang, Kaya, and Shara went with something that did look a lot like samurai armor, with small interwoven plates–a lamellar armor. They were bound together using Jasmine’s stonesilk threads, making the connections strong and sturdy, and replacement plates for those removed during battle were available for her and Eirwen to repair them easily, with or without her skill and essence pearls.  

The rest had gone for a little lighter, more focused set of armor, having helmets, breastplates, bracers and vambraces meant to protect critical areas of their body, leaving only the kevlar-like stonesilk to protect their joints and similar parts.

Jasmine was an exception. She wore stonesilk woven by her only, but hers was different in several ways. Her stonelight threads could only be worn by her and allowed her to not only store more light energy but also use it to improve her defense. It needed her stonelight essence to maintain the improvements the special material provided. Otherwise, she would have gladly woven the limited resource for his entire party.

Despite being silk, the stone properties really showed in the way it looked while she wore it. It looked like she was wearing plate armor made of stone and rocks, but she could use any property of it that she wished to take advantage of. 

And Nick was, of course, another exception. Lumos had done a fantastic job keeping his armor with a similar feel, somehow merging the froststeel and gems from the mine to make a sort of metal-ceramic. It still looked a lot like his old, plastic, carapace-like armor and shield, but it was now even more accepting of light and dark essence and had a light blue sheen. As always, he wore his black and blue martial robes underneath, recently woven with the strongest stonesilk Jasmine could provide.

Important to his family, all equipment was designed to be easy to remove. The stonesilk under armor had special clips their top armors snapped into, allowing for a quick peeling off of their equipment. Even if that weren’t available, it turned out there was a skill for that, which Supporters could grab. 

Thanks to the skill, Eirwen and Luna could both easily undress and dress them for battle now by infusing their essence and making the armor more flexible for brief moments.  

Still, being able to remove things easily, whether those two were around or not, was helpful. They had no idea what the Ordeal was going to throw at them.

Everyone had gotten an upgrade from Lumos and the crafters of Frosthaven when it came to their weapons too, except for Shara who had her ancestral tetsubo, and Nick, who only received the improved shield. Froststeel was the mainstay, but Sable’s gear had needed special materials broken down from the bandits and sourced from Silverbrook. Still, her shadow bow, arrows, and spear were deadly, enhancing her frostshadow attacks.

Froststeel was accepting of ice mana and essence, which meant Nick’s party would be quickly covered in a protective layer of ice during battle, and Luna’s skill added onto that. They had tested it in the Training Grounds, and the defensive properties were substantial. This equipment would serve them well early into the third stratum, so he was happy about the upgrades.

Birdy and Jasper had returned, and Nick had finally used his Soulscape to learn the creature’s name: Ishkara. He hadn’t gotten many other details from the bird, but it seemed while it was alive, it was in the third Stratum and had a master. 

And that master was alive, currently underneath the Frostspire mines. The demon wouldn’t or couldn’t say more, and it seemed to be a combination of Orion preventing it and her having a bunch of grief regarding its situation. Whatever the case was, Ishkara was happy to be alive, but it had a tragic death that it did not want to delve into.

Nick was only able to learn about the name thanks to it being in his information crystals, a way to divine a name from the souls he held in his Soul Scape. And he could communicate with demonfolk on a level that wasn’t all that different from how he could communicate with monsterfolk. It was general impressions and feelings as they spoke.

Ishkara and Jasper were both larger and more deadly, and Nick was impressed at the powerful, cold auras they emitted. The two had truly improved on their frost essence, and now he couldn’t wait to see them fight. 

He was excited to learn that it wasn’t actually that hard for monsters and demons to evolve. They only needed to eat a powerful enough monster or demon core with enough essence, and it would occur. He hoped to get something good from within the Ordeal. 

Arriving on the 18th Floor they were once again bombarded with some information, a set of memories that helped establish the stage. Nick arrived in a throne room nearly by himself, only having Jasmine and Eirwen next to him, and barely had a chance to look around before a man entered.

Nick immediately recognized this man, despite never seeing him before–not like this. It was a cheetah beastfolk man, wearing tribal-themed armor and with two curved swords strapped to his belt. The man approached Nick before removing his helmet and kneeling, holding the helmet to his side.

“Milord, I have news. The Town Guard has encountered and detained some suspected spies, but one managed to slip away, and two are dead. They were caught snooping the grounds across the keep from the common areas, and we moved to capture them as soon as they were spotted. They bear no mark, but we suspect them from the Tagron Kingdom.”

Despite being a cheetah beastfolk, this man was somehow Renzou. Nick’s subordinates, who had entered the Path of Kings, now appeared inside the Ordeal, like strange facsimiles or clones that acted a lot like the originals and bore the same names. His implanted memories told him about his various subordinates and allies of the coalition, thankfully making this transition relatively seamless.

Nick replied, “Would you like some tea? Please, have a seat or at least relax, Captain–no need to kneel on ceremony. I’d like to hear more about how your men made this capture.”  

Renzou chuckled and stood as his long, spotted tail flicked behind him. “No, that’s okay, thank you for offering, Sir. It seemed they smelled off–they underestimated our beastfolk and monsterfolk guard. It was fortunate we caught them…they had some explosives.”

That was a little alarming. “But one got away, you said? What kind of explosives? I take it they weren’t very open for questioning.”

“No, Sir. In fact, in detaining them, we lost two–they managed to take some kind of suicide pill. But the third, well…we disarmed him in time. As for what kind, it likely couldn’t accomplish much on its own. I think they intended to disable our wards or harm our reputation rather than accomplish anything meaningful. With only one of them left, they will likely flee–Orion’s Will makes their chance of the explosive even working in the first place rather minimal.”

Nick nodded. “Good work. I’d like to question the prisoner myself tonight. You may go, unless there is anything else?”

Renzou nodded, as if it was normal. “Understood. And no, I will get back to my duties.” He saluted and marched out of the room.

Jasmine arched her brow at his retreating form. “That was a little freaky. Like a strange doppleganger that doesn’t look like them but talks and acts like them…kinda.”

Eirwen giggled. “I can’t wait to meet Andross and his wives! They’re drakans now. It’ll be different.”      

This floor continued the story that began on the 11th floor at the Marquis Grand Ball. On that floor, his family had convinced a number of nobles to join their cause, to stand up against the Tagron Kingdom rather than accept it bullying each one individually.  

Not only that, but the kingdom he ruled within the scenario now strangely resembled his own, like looking through a distorted fun-house mirror. His Frostspire Mines were replaced with the Diregator Spawning Pools as a significant, important resource, and the geography was completely different. But his people and their makeup were now largely similar, their races changed to show a similar makeup among his populace. 

And his choices during the 11th floor mattered. Some time had passed within the story, Lord Brightclaw, the ratfolk administrator Lord forming the center of his coalition to counter Lord Tagron’s kingdom. He had the geographical advantage, able to prevent the enemy’s forces from carrying out their threats to the several, more vulnerable kingdoms, even if his Control Radius reached far beyond.

Thanks to this, there were very few Paths that would offer Conflicts where his people could not actually reach. Nick couldn’t activate his Land Skirmish for land that wasn’t contiguous, for example, and so all Lord Tagron could do was harass the allied kingdoms using non-Orion sanctioned methods. And if he got caught, then their coalition could gain valuable Cause for Wars–justifications for initiating Conflicts on their terms, depending on their Paths.  

The price Lord Tagron’s armies would pay to pass the fortress that was nearly complete would simply be too great to make it worthwhile. Thus, Nick’s kingdom had to send constant support to the fortress they built in both manpower and supplies, and so did the other kingdoms they allied with.

And it wasn’t just Lord Tagron they had to protect against. He had his own coalition of lackey kingdoms that bent the knee, and there were Monster Kingdoms that constantly flooded the lands with monsters, requiring an army to defend against them. The keep was a constant target of these attacks, and it was all thanks to some maneuvering by the Marquis. The man was letting those monsters through, making it difficult for their coalition specifically.

The challenge made him wonder what things would have been like had he made other choices on the 11th floor. If he hadn’t taken it seriously and gotten what he considered the best possible outcomes, would this floor be harder? Impossible? Easier if he just took the low road? 

At that time, the floor prompt merely stated that the goal was to set up your kingdom for success and survive the Marquis Grand Ball. Nick could have left Lord Brightclaw to his fate and merely bent the knee to survive, giving up the Diregator Spawning Pools.

But Nick didn’t want to bend his knee, even in a fictional scenario. And besides, the Ordeals were about testing oneself and becoming more. And choosing a way that went against his beliefs and values, who he was, was not something he wanted to do. 

He had learned a lot about how the essence of Orion worked since that day, and now he was glad he made that choice. It’s just…now he was going to have to work his ass off for that choice, so he was lamenting it as he read the prompt.    

[18th Floor - Test of Governance. The Path of Kings requires the skills, or at least the understanding, of governance. Lord Tagron is not happy to be denied the resources he believes are rightfully his. He plots to destroy your coalition and claim your resources for his own. Display your leadership, consideration, and foresight by preparing your kingdom for these threats as if this kingdom were your own. Defeat a satisfactory number of plots and prepare your kingdom as best as possible for the future to proceed to the next floor. Your decisions can influence the next floors and the threats you might face. 

Note: Time is significantly dilated within this floor, nearing a five-to-one ratio compared to the outside. As a balance, the essence within is significantly reduced outside of recovery.]

There was no such thing as a free lunch on Orion. While he was excited about getting five times the amount of time to work on his cultivation within, the lower essence made it barely worthwhile. And the time dilation had a well-known effect, according to Rebecca. 

It had a strange impact regarding connecting to Orion to progress one’s Concepts. As cultivators tried to become one with the essence, it would feel sluggish or slow, to the point where it was actually worse than the normal situation. 

For example, if he spent all of five days working on his Concept, he would actually gain less than a single day’s worth of effort on the outside of the Ordeal. That’s not even considering that at home, he had a Concept Chamber, and in this strange facsimile of his kingdom, he did not. 

This truly limited what he and his wives could potentially accomplish to better themselves and prepare for ascension, shifting the focus of their personal progression. Rebecca was excited to feast upon the knowledge in the library, and each of his girls planned on continuing their weapons training to bring themselves closer to Nick’s capability between tasks. 

Tasks that Nick now had several of them doing. Sable was leading a group of hunters, clearing known bandits as she headed beyond Lord Brightclaw’s Kingdom for espionage of the enemy coalition. The prompt itself warned that this Lord Tagron plotted, so Nick wasn’t about to sit there and do nothing as he did so. He would uncover his plots, thwart them, and prepare his fictional kingdom for success.

And Shara, Kaya, and Fang headed to Lord Brightclaw’s Kingdom, escorting supplies with their drakan soldiers for now. Instead of orcs, Lothar and his people were the evolved form of this monsterfolk race, having aspects of them that were similar and yet different. 

The coalition formed around Lord Brightclaw was only as strong as the support for the fortress was, and all it took for the house of cards to fall was him not receiving enough.

While their coalition had five entire kingdoms in it, they were more like small, individual city-states, and each was only a few days on foot away from each other at most. Even less with bikes or his utility vehicles. He was somewhat thankful for that, but this was normal on most shards of Orion as they opened. 

The North of their actual shard was the matured result that often occurred over time, though not usually before the Open Relay was established. Most of the time, it only took a few decades or up to a century for this to happen and would lead to the shard rapidly changing toward this paradigm. Ordeals would be destroyed, merged, claimed, and spawned as the landscape sprawled, slowly taming the wilderness as Orion shifted and changed it.

“So, what else is on the docket for today?” He looked over to Eirwen and smiled as Jasmine poured him some more tea. They had already spent a few hours getting their bearings and sending people on their tasks, and he thought he was starting to get the hang of it.

Winny opened her book in front of her. “Hehe, looks like it really considered me your seneschal, huh? I guess that’s right, but here it seems formal-like. I know you’re not big on that, but this is kinda fun.”

Nick chuckled as he looked over this throne room again. It was the stereotypical room of lords, with an area filled with small tables and chairs for the court near the entryway and the red carpet down the center of the room. 

His throne was on the dais, and there was a single table for Nick to meet with valued visitors or advisors, like he had offered Renzou to sit with him with. There were also a few chairs and sofas aligned facing the court next to his throne–places for his wives to sit, which he found interesting. 

“It’s different. It has a certain sort of charm, but if it does not serve me, then I am not willing to waste my time and resources. If we had real ambassadors and other people showing up to Frosthaven, you better believe I’d give them the appearance of majesty and professionalism. As for the seneschal role, you’ve always been the one to manage both my personal and business meetings and manage much of our family’s resources, so it’s very fitting. You know I appreciate you.”

“I know, Hubby! This is neat, but I do love our cozy home and our friends visiting more than this stuffy old place. Anyway, it seems the tribal clan heads are visiting later, discussing funding for equipment and rights to a logging camp. Then it seems the froglocks have some concerns for the diregator spawning pools, that a dam appears to have been built upstream, and the water is receding. If this continues for too long, we’ll lose our treasured location.”

The frogloks were basically the replacement for much of the monsterfolk that Nick had saved in his kingdom. They replaced the wolflings, kobolds and snakefolk he originally had, but there was a separate replacement for his beetlefolk–mantisfolk.

The little frog people were like goblins mixed with frogs, and they excelled in beast taming–perfect for managing the diregators. They made up a substantial amount of his forces thanks to all of this, and so he had to keep his valuable people happy.

“Damn.” Nick chuckled. “They’re just throwing me right into this, huh? Fetch me a map, and then we’ll take a look at what we can do about this before we meet with them.”

The day went on, and Nick had to work through the challenges presented, and he also had to gather information to make plans for future potential challenges. It was like he was given a ton of puzzles to solve, using his people and his resources effectively. 

After the meetings with the two factions, he was working in his study, researching information about the problems he had coming. It wasn’t so easy as to just destroy the dam in the river–they would have to cross unallied territory to reach it, and it was nothing more than a trap–they could just dam it further upstream or somewhere else entirely. 

This would force him to have to play dam Whac-A-Mole. And that was if he didn’t start some international incident in the process, opening his people up for Conflict–likely the true trap. 

Nick needed a permanent solution, one that his enemies could not easily tamper with. If he could just tap into the natural spring nearby, then…

Things were going smoothly in his research of the area until suddenly Jasmine came into the room with a frown.  

“Master, I’m sorry to bother you with this, but… You sent Winny off and now Elyra and Myron are here, and they’re unhappy. Luna is trying to talk them down, but… I think you know how that’s probably gonna go.”

Nick groaned as he got up from his desk. Rather than star oni, Elyra and Myron were moon gnolls. They were like tribal, anthropomorphic hyena people. And the differences that made on his valued mother and father-in-laws were…rather unfortunate. He wondered if the Keeper was just screwing with him or what, making this more annoyingly difficult than it should be.

Leaving his study, he arrived near the conference hall around the corner, where…noisy barking could be heard.

Luna’s calm voice could be heard. “Lord Noblefrost would never slight you. He cares about all his warriors, and I’m sure he has a task for you in mind. He is only keeping you in reserve because he values your speed, not because he looks down on you. You–”

Elyra’s voice was rather upset, already taking on an accusatory cadence. “You think I’m gonna believe that, ah? That you gave the drakans such an important task, leaving us to stay here and fiddle with our nipples, like a bunch of useless younglings?” She then barked several times angrily, the high-pitch barks actually hurting Nick’s ears from around the corner. Then she said, “Where’s the Lord? I must speak to him about this wronging at once!”

“Yes, speak at once, we say!” Myron’s altered voice was heard, followed by a bunch of deeper barks, as Nick stood at the edge of the hallway.

Luna sensed him near. “He’s on his way. He’ll be here in just a moment.”

Nick took a deep breath, doing his best to get in the right mindset. As dumb as these two were, they were strangely extremely perceptive about body language and scents. If he let himself feel how weird it was to speak with them, they would sense it, even smell it. And it was very weird, and not just because they were so different from Myron and Elyra. 

The expression about the nipples thing was related to them having most of their…everything pierced, including their nipples–of which the females had more than just a single pair. He shivered just thinking about it. 

That out of the way, he rounded the corner and then called out to them with a smile. “Myron, Elyra! My valued leaders. What brings you here to the keep today?”

Walking toward them, it was still difficult despite his preparations. Elyra was actually a rather small gnoll, about the size of the wolflings originally, her barks reminding him more of a chihuahua than anything else. And they both wore weird, crisscrossed leather-strapped armor, almost like something straight out of a bondage outfit, barely covering their furred forms. 

And Myron was the large one, larger than Nick, and he actually reminded him of the wolfling alpha with the ball and chain that he killed to claim Fang’s wolfling tribe. It caused the unfortunate side effect too, where both of their intelligence…was less. Much less when that was Myron’s original strong point. 

The two still acted roughly how they did, or would, if they were moon gnolls. In the end, it meant that with both of them, they had all their disadvantages with none of the advantages–as far as their personalities went. But the males were huge, much like the star oni women were, and their moon aspect had similar properties to fatestriding and starlight magic. So, the men were valuable as warriors, and the women were good at support. There was no question about this, and Nick respected their capability. 

Nick nodded at them seriously, meeting their eyes and doing his best not to look anywhere else. “I understand that you’re unhappy. Taking the resources to the fortress is critical, and it is an honor to carry out.”

Elyra snarled. “You know it! T-Then–” 

“But I have a more important, more honorable task in mind for you and your people. And, can I tell you a secret?” 

The moon gnolls leaned in, with grins on their canine faces. Moon gnolls loved secrets, but were terrible at keeping them–they would bark, howl, and brag about just about anything, real or fake. 

He leaned in and said quietly, “The task I’m going to send you on is definitely going to have much more action. The drakan? They’re likely to be the ones… fiddling with their nipples, doing nothing exciting. You guys will be taking a gift of two dozen diregator eggs to our allies in the coalition, and you will almost assuredly see some battle. And if you don’t, you’ll still earn much more merit than them for completing such an important task, surely.”

He looked at them seriously, standing up once more. “But you need to keep it quiet. We normally wouldn’t want our enemies learning that we are transferring diregator eggs. That would be dangerous.”

Of course, Nick had worded that in a way that it was still true–he couldn’t lie, after all. Even still, he felt a little unease for misleading them. If they were actually his Followers there was no way he would be able to last however long this crazy floor was without caving in and telling them.

Their eyes lit up, and Myron started barking, howling with glee, and bouncing up and down as his tail wagged. His weight actually shook the ground, the monsterfolk heavy and large, just like Elyra the star oni was.

Elyra said, “You mean it? Oh, so you do value us so!”

“Of course I do. Now, I need you to prepare your people to leave for tonight, so make haste.” 

The two saluted and left with their tails wagging, and Nick was happy with the spur-of-the-moment idea. It was two, and if he was lucky, three birds with one stone. 

Elyra and Myron would no doubt blab their secret task to everyone, and they would see action because they’d get ambushed as a result–just like he promised. Then, it was a concession to buy one of the coalition kingdom’s loyalty, as well as a show of force, both from showing the moon gnoll’s capability and also in thwarting whatever ambush their enemy created. 

There were talks about Prince Tagron’s investments in the allied kingdom, so this was a reminder that their current allies valued them–and that they were watching. Their people even had beast tamers, so a promise of frequent diregator eggs was going to be enticing for buying their loyalty. There was even a small compatibility with the moon gnolls, that should go well enough as they stayed at the allied kingdom.  

And thankfully, Agatha and Lothar, despite being drakan, would be much more understanding of hearing whatever crazy rumor was started as a result from the moon gnoll’s bragging. And that was if they didn’t just think the moon gnolls were blowing hot air, as they often did–Elyra was all bark and no bite in this strange world.

Jasmine came over to his side and pouted. “It was smooth. I liked how you dealt with them, Master. But…”

She knew his thoughts. Nick chuckled, smiling at his maid. “I’m gonna need your help, Jas. You’ve got two dozen eggs to cocoon so that they don’t get damaged, and then a band of gnolls to rescue from trouble. Would you do that for me?”

“I don’t like it, but you know I won’t say no to you. I’m worried… what if the prince or his father sends some powerful assassin? They had explosives, after all!”

Shak’terra suddenly appeared, the troll manifesting her flaming spirit body near them. “Tis’ not a problem. This place is heavily warded, and I check their integrity frequently and have added some backups of my own. That’s in addition to my scrying and the lady checking the town with her Soul Sense. We just weren’t here to defend against their plots yet when it happened–we weren’t on the floor yet.”

Nick added, “And it should only be a few days before you’re back. I’ll be very careful until you or Sable arrive, I promise. I still have Winny, Jeffrey, Jasper, Ishkara and Luna here too. They’ll keep me out of trouble until you’re home.”

Jasmine sighed. “Okay. I take it that it won’t just be me, right?”

Nick nodded. “Take some mantisfolk with you. They are excellent to blend in and hunt, but make sure they stay downwind. We wouldn’t want the moon gnolls to smell them.” He hugged her to him, having her lean her head down for him, and then kissed her lips. “I appreciate it, Jas. I’m counting on you, and don’t worry. We can still visit each other with the Soulscape here.” 

She smiled. “Mm. Well, I suppose if we’re here, we are going to have to do our best to enjoy ourselves. We can’t win a war when we’re tired, after all…”

Nick chuckled. “I don’t know how long this scenario will run, but it’s already proven interesting. It’s challenging in ways managing our home is not; this is a good experience for all of us.”

Luna smiled, her tail wagging. “I’ll say. It’s kind of fun, even if it’s challenging! But those angels are going to be a real pain in the tail, I just know it.”

Nick already understood how important and valuable this floor was. This was a place for him to test his Path, his sort of thesis for how to rule his kingdom, much like the crazy vision he experienced. And he wouldn’t let this opportunity go.