Chapter 313: Unexpected Nation Building
I left the Princess party behind as Ishi began to organize their team-building exercises for the next month. All of them had a decade or more of Delving experience under their belts, but it took time for a group to become cohesive. Their experience would certainly help, but a month was still a short length of time to nail down all the party’s disparate personalities, identify where they might clash, and figure out how best to manage everyone’s egos and eccentricities.
In that regard, Fortune’s Folly had been lucky in a few ways, such as having our early bonds forged through the fires of an avatar’s adversities. We were also all complementary flavors of crazy, willing to call each other out when there was an issue, and happily didn’t have to spend too much time as roommates since we were all individually wealthy.
For example, since we didn’t share much living space, there was no opportunity for me to get sick of Nuralie’s exacting and aggressive cleanliness, and little reason for the loson to become weary of my habit of leaving half-drunk cups of tea everywhere when I inevitably got distracted by something shiny and left one behind.
Why were there so many abandoned cups of tea lying around? Well, when I lost one, I’d make another. No reason to go looking for the last one, especially when it would have gotten cold by then.
It wasn’t a big deal. We had a cleaning golem that tidied them up eventually.
No reason to get all agitated about it.
Anyway, I wished Ishi’s group the best, and then promptly went to talk about them behind their backs with Xim and Nuralie. And by ‘them’ I meant Ember.
“Are we comfortable with this Chalgoth thing?” I asked. I was following the pair down a service tunnel, no longer in the secret lair part of the Closet. We were back in Old Krimsim–new name pending–which was officially fully rebuilt. We were currently touring the one structure that I’d let Throne talk me into adding to the city.
The arena.
“Ember evokes a different feeling from the Icon we fought,” said Nuralie. Her steps across the hard floor were completely silent despite the well-polished boots she was wearing. “She is neither evil nor profane to the Eschenden, although I am under the impression that Chalgoth’s followers could easily become either.” Nuralie gave a walking pause, where her upper body halted, but her lower body kept prowling along. “I believe that the Icon was corrupted by Felgar’s interpretation of the god.”“Surprised you remember Buster’s real name,” I said.
“I assume you’re both talking about the blood paladin?” said Xim, looking down at her bust and adjusting a strap on her formal robes.
“Do we all have different names for the guy?” I asked.
“It appears so,” said Nuralie, watching Xim work. The cleric smiled when she got the strap to do what she wanted, which was apparently to show off more
of what she had going on.“Wonder what Joma called her former party leader,” Xim added as she made a final adjustment with both hands.
“Asshole, probably,” I answered. Nuralie fiddled with a pair of silver cufflinks, and I suddenly realized that the two women with me were dressed much too fancily for a basic walkthrough of new construction.
“Anyway,” said Xim, pivoting back to the point at hand, “I communed with Sam’lia about Chalgoth after we dealt with his Icon. The two are related and have a surprising amount of overlap between their concepts. However, while Sam’lia’s teachings have a strong focus on social harmony, Chalgoth’s tenets are, by definition, selfish.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Perfection of the self and all that.” I started mentally organizing several different potential outfits. I didn’t know what was going on, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be prepared for it.
“Plenty of religions have some concept of the perfect self,” said Xim. “Not all of them are selfish. Many involve the pursuit of a holy ideal, typically one set forth by divine scripture. Then, most of those give greater weight to the good of the social whole as opposed to the individual. Where Chalgoth differs is that his concept of perfection is established by the worshipper, not Chalgoth himself. Then, the pursuit of that perfection is encouraged at the expense of everything else, including friends, family, and society at large.”
“That sounds like it would become a problem.”
“Maybe,” said Xim with a shrug. “The world is filled with the self-interested, and they find ways to satisfy their self-interest while still contributing. Civilization wouldn’t tolerate them otherwise.”
“Not sure if I’m on board with the philosophy of ‘assholes are okay because the world is filled with assholes.’”
“Then don’t be. We’re not talking about whether we like what Ember’s new beliefs are; we’re talking about whether we’re willing to tolerate them.” Xim turned back to look at me. “Or did I misunderstand something?”
“No. But the purpose of this conversation sounds pretty bad when you put it that way.”
“Some gods are shit,” said the cleric. “But, sure, it’s less about what someone believes and more about what they’re willing to do about it. I’d tolerate a worshiper of Unity preaching that we should eat one another, so long as they don’t actually try to eat anyone.”
“But the moment the steak knives come out, all bets are off.”
“And as long as Ember’s becoming the perfect archer by shooting things that I have no moral objection to getting shot, everything’s fine. As a cleric of Sam’lia, I will seek to purge that which the dark mother decrees to be profane, but I don’t think Ember is going in that direction.”
“Does that match your feelings, Nuralie?” I asked.
The loson’s tail swished from side to side as she thought. “I am not concerned.” Pause. “For now.”
We finished our circuitous route through the arena’s underground, ending on a platform connected to vertical guide rails, a pulley, and counterweights. We were below the western end of the arena floor, and I’d been able to hear the murmuring voices of a large crowd for most of our tour.
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“This isn’t a tour, is it?” I asked.
“Nope!” said Xim, reaching out to pull a lever that caused the platform to begin ascending. Large doors slid aside on well-oiled tracks above us, and the sound of the crowd grew louder. The whole thing was dreadfully slow, and Xim looked me up and down as we trundled upwards. “Do you have a kingly outfit you prefer?”
“Ah,” I said, pulling up my inventory screen with one of the outfits I’d arranged. I opened a portal to my wardrobe, and before I could ask Grotto to start animating clothes onto my body, I was already changed. There was a gust of wind as Nuralie finished the work of dressing me in about two seconds.
This was something she had permission to do when the situation warranted it, so it wasn’t too shocking. She’d even left a little flower tucked behind my ear, which I appreciated.
As for the outfit, I didn’t go for anything silly or overly creative. It was a perfectly tailored suit playing off the colors of my ocean blue leather vest, with azure highlights and a bit of periwinkle flair. A mix of muted green in the tie and pocket square completed the tasteful color contrast. There was my feather boa, of course, the incredible spectacles that Etja and Nuralie had made for me–set to a rose tint–and a Prismatite crown that glittered like it was made of metallic diamond, casting multicolored points of light across the rising platform.
Pretty fucking fabulous, overall.
“Why am I being ambushed with what sounds like a very public royal appearance?” I asked.
“Varrin didn’t want to give you the chance to make him wear a silly hat,” said Xim. I was already pulling chocolates from my inventory. “Etja argued that you’d think it was a fun surprise, and I agreed. Governess Lena figured it’d be a good final test of your character.”
“Lena’s in on this?” I asked, then looked over at Nuralie. “What’s your excuse?”
She gave me a teasing pause. “I am just swimming with the tide.”
I tossed chocolates to the women. “I’ve got the regular crown, so everyone else can have church crowns,” I said.
Xim stuffed the chocolate in her mouth and pulled out a majestic Kentucky Derby hat covered in roses. She flicked her fingers to splash the flowers with a bit of divine fire, and they burned merrily without suffering any harm. Nuralie wore a small smile as she donned a slanted black hat adorned with a waterfall of black and white lilies.
Once the platform finished its rise, I was standing center stage ahead of a crowd of some five thousand people. All of them were gathered on the arena floor, while the much higher-capacity stands around us were empty except for a few gawkers. Xim and Nuralie had moved to flank me, with Varrin and Etja already standing on the stage beside us. I quickly tossed chocolates their way, noting that Etja came prepared with her own blue Derby hat equipped, which glowed with soft magic sparkles. I gave Varrin a smile as I nodded towards the women. The Ravvenblaq’s expression was stoic as he produced a wide-brim wool felt fedora, complete with dark feathers and the silver glint of a knife in the dark.
With the important matters of fashion taken care of, I returned to my survey of the crowd before me. I already had a few good guesses as to what was about to happen, based on the mix of people.
The bulk of those present were the two thousand former Littan slaves we’d freed, with nearly as many of their friends and family beside them. One of my conditions for supporting the upcoming efforts of the Littan military in the Forest was to have those close to the slaves already here released from their servitude and offered a place in Closetland. Some Littan slave owners hadn’t been happy about it, but a healthy chunk of the Littan nobility knew which way the wind was blowing on the whole ‘people as property’ thing. The Littan government offered a voluntary buyout program, which several notable members of the peerage supported by ordering the involuntary participation of their wealthy subjects.
I wasn’t blind to the fact that this came with its own rising price tag measured in diplomatic capital, but when thousands of lives were weighed against an expense that I knew we could bear, it was an easy decision.
Aside from the Littans, there were several Delvers whom we’d rescued from the ninja warrior Delve during our rush from Level 12 to Level 16. Most of those we’d released had gotten back to their old lives, but there were a few who wanted to join up with Closetland. One Timan man wanted to help out and felt he owed us a debt of gratitude, a Grimvaldrim woman just wanted to start over somewhere new after discovering that her prior life had collapsed entirely during her imprisonment, and a couple of others had their own reasons. Each of them brought along their own entourages of friends and family.
The smallest group was composed of young Hiwardian men and women, none of whom were above the age of nineteen. These were graduates of Esquire Arlo’s School for Gifted Youngsters, the orphanage I funded in Hiward’s capital city of Foundation. Once I’d realized this whole Closetland thing was going somewhere, I contacted the Matron and arranged for an open invitation and employment offer to anyone who’d aged out since it started, and moving forward. The orphanage only ran up to age sixteen, so I tried to remain cognizant that these were exclusively teenagers, not jaded adults with decades of experience getting a raw deal. I’d workshopped a few conditions to keep the offer from being a handout, along with a few safeguards so people understood what they were getting into, and nobody felt pressured to come to some weird dimensional kingdom they didn’t know shit about.
Beyond that, we’d reached out to the Timan refugees crowding up Mittak and had a few hundred of the deer-like people agree to visit. Most had subsequently warmed up to the idea of taking up residence, since it had a much more pleasant climate than the mountainous alpine ice cube that was Mittak.
Joma had also been at work, continuing to improve our relations with various secretive societies of fantastical creatures, and had introduced a large pack of Carbuncles to the Closet. The Carbuncles were a race of sapient fox-like creatures born with a magical gemstone in their heads, the size, color, cut, and shape of which varied from individual to individual.
The social standing of any given Carbuncle was generally determined by the gemstone they possessed, although the arcane metrics by which they judged any one gemstone superior to another was somewhat inscrutable. Curiously, the Carbuncles had collectively decided that I stood at the top of that pecking order. We had no idea why. I did not have a gemstone in my head, and the Carbuncles’ attempts to explain things only made the situation more confusing. Various theories were floating around, from my cosmic eyes to my generally flamboyant fashion sense, with the current leading hypothesis being my soul connection to my Traveler’s amulet. The long and short of it was that they wanted to immigrate, and I was inclined to allow it.
I was already a foxy king, and now I could be the fox king, eyyyyyy.
The next most magical group after the Carbuncles was a large contingent from the Xor’Drel tribe, to whom I’d offered dual citizenship. While they lacked the classic wizarding vibe of the bejeweled canids, they made up for it in body diversity. My man Clive stood in the very back as the tallest person present, beating out the sole Grimvaldrim by a foot and some change, although I knew the Mittakan giant was being polite and using her inside height.
All-in-all, there was a heavy skew towards Littans, but the population had the beginnings of a solid melting pot. After giving me a moment to take in the crowd, Governess Lena took the stage beside me, having gained her title after formally accepting my job offer for her to run Old Krimsim, new name pending. Lena looked to me for permission to speak, which I granted, and what followed was a heart-warming speech about freedom, generosity, military superiority, etcetera, etcetera. She invited me to give a speech next, which I kept very brief, touching on civic pride, diversity, and the upcoming government subsidies for personal hygiene products.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the building after the pair of us bared our emotions to the emerging kingdom in a display that Grotto later characterized as “the purest form of nationalist propaganda.”
After the speeches, five thousand people took a knee and pledged their fealty to the crown, the act of which seemed to drive the Prismatite accessory down onto my skull until it held the weight of my new office. No longer was I an unattached vagabond, galavanting around the globe for fun and profit. Thousands of people had just put their faith in me to keep them safe against the incoming tide. I now had a responsibility to galavant around the globe for fun and profit in the name of Closetland.
While the reality of what had just occurred made its way sluggishly across the folds of my mind, the System threw in its own unwelcome perspective. As usual, it came with gifts, so I was happy to ignore the noise and pay attention to the content.