Once Brian was back, we gave him permission to loot our kills after temporarily adding him to our party. He moved quickly and efficiently and even gave us the credits that the system auto assigned him.

Our party got c1,116 each from the spiders and quite a bit of loot.

You have gained

Spider Carapace x110

Venom Sac x22

Spider Meat x862

Medium Spear Legs x26

Large Spear Legs x14

Glimmersilk Thread Bundle x122

Magic beast core lvl 9 x16

Magic Beast Core lvl 14 x6

The Glimmersilk caught my eye and I pulled up its information.

Name: Glimmersilk Thread Bundle

Quality: Exceptional

Rarity: Rare

Durability: 30/30

Weight: 1oz

Traits: High tensile Strength, Mana Conductive +30%

Magic effects: Light Based Enchantments +50% Potency

“Hey Rowan, with all that Arcane knowledge bouncing around you head, how good is a thirty percent Mana conductivity?” I asked.

Rowan looked up, slightly confused for a moment before he replied. “It’s pretty good. Depending on what we use the material for. It can increase spell power by its conductivity rating, or if used for enchanting, it can increase the enchantment’s potency by that amount. What do you have?”

I showed Rowan one bundle of Glimmersilk. “This is silk from the spiders. It has a mana conductivity of thirty percent, but light-based enchantments have a fifty percent bonus.”

Rowan snatched the silk out of my hand and went over it carefully. “I can use this to sew in the Glyphs on my robes instead of drawing them with Mana. How much of this do we have? It’s a large bundle.” Rowan hefted it in his hand with an assessing look in his eyes. “If I’m right, this could make a full square yard of silk cloth if I had access to a loom.”

“After Brian’s cut, we have one hundred twenty-two bundles of silk,” I answered.

“That is more than enough, quite a lot more, to fully enchant my new robes. Hell, I could make thirty or forty robes with that much silk. Once we turn it into cloth, anyway.”

Overhearing our conversation, Michael spoke up. “If you want to turn that into cloth, we have a weaver with his own magic loom. Chris is our Arcane Weaver and can convert that silk to fabric in no time, I’m sure a deal can be made. We just need to get back and talk to the High Priestess.”

“Well, I think we are all set here, so lead on good sir, getting to a safe place after all of this would be a welcome break,” I said.

With that, we all set out. Cody was still out of it, but they draped him over the back of the Volkswagen sized beetle so we could move steadily. We could have made better time, but unfortunately Slate was killed by his opponent in the fight and couldn’t be summoned back for quite a while.

After about another hour, we broke free of the giant forested area and saw the Coven’s settlement. The settlement encompassed a wood cabin style camp ground. A dozen wood Cabins, most single story, were surrounded by a ten-foot-tall smooth stone wall. I didn’t mean to say that they made it of smooth stones. It was all one piece except for the gate in front. The stone had a shimmering effect over it as well, kind of like how light shimmers on a still pond.

Once we were within about half a mile of the stone walls, I got a notification

You have entered the territory of the Athens Village

Leader: Baron, High Priestess, Laura Scott

“Wow, this is our first Village,” I said in wonder. “Every settlement we came across before were simple hamlets.”

“We managed to rescue a few survivors and meet all the building requirements to reach the Village level,” Michael said, the pride in their accomplishments clear in his tone.

“What kind of requirements are there?” I asked. It would be good to know with the City Core sitting in my inventory.

“The hamlet requirements were simple enough; we needed enough housing for everyone and a building designated as administration and at least five people. Technically, the administration building could qualify for all the above. As long as it had room enough for people to live and sleep in. The Village had a few more requirements. We had to upgrade the admin building to level two. We needed a building designated as a Lord’s Manor, at least one workshop and enough food production to feed at least twenty-one people.” Michael answered.

“That sounds like it’s practically straight out of a RTS game,” I said.

“The High Priestess will give you the tour. She is waiting for us on the other side of the gate. But I should warn you, you will have to be vetted by Carson. He is our resident healer and a faithful of Apollo. He has an ability that lets him see through lies and obfuscation.”

“Apollo, so I’m guessing it’s related to some kind of Oracle ability or something?” I asked.

“Pretty much, it’s not harmful, but it is best to make sure anyone we invite to the village has no ill intent and doesn’t rely on system oaths,” Michael confirmed.

It only took another ten minutes to reach the gate at our casual pace. It wasn’t a good idea to hurry to a village filled with strangers.

The stone gates opened on well-oiled hinges as we approached.

On the other side of the gates stood three individuals. A striking woman stood in the center, blood red robes with black and white accents. Next to her was a man in golden robes with a sunburst on the breast, and on her other side stood a man in cyberpunk-looking armor. it had glowing lines of blue light between the armor segments, and it looked like it covered every inch of him. A simple-looking wood axe adorned his right hip threw off the whole look though.

Baron Laura Scott

High Priestess

Faithfull of Hecate FR 3

HP: 126/126

Stamina: 252/252

Defense: 0

Carson Henderson

Faithfull of Apollo FR 3

HP: 135/135

Stamina: 252/252

Defense: 20

Jerome King

Guardian Level 14

HP:???

Stamina: ???

Mana: ???

Defense: ???

The two faithful were what I expected, stat wise, but the guardian guy in the cyberpunk armor, most of his information, was unknown. This was the first time I hadn’t gotten their health, stamina, mana, or defense. I did not know what his values were at, and I could only assume it was some aspect of his armor.

“Greetings Travelers,” the High Priestess said.

“Um… Greetings to you too,” I replied. I was uncertain about her tone. It was like she was roleplaying some Elven princess or something.

“I apologize. My people seem to think it is important to uphold the dignity of my position now that I’m a Baron and a High Priestess. My name is Laura and these fine gentlemen with me are Carson and Jerome. Jerome is the appointed guard and defender of the village, and Carson is our primary healer. If you wouldn’t mind, would each of you affirm before Carson here that you mean us or the village no ill will? We have to be careful these days.”

“Sure, no problem. I mean you and yours no harm and hold no ill will to your village.” Carson nodded and gave me a smile before turning to everyone in my party. We all spoke our affirmations and passed.

“Thank the Gods,” Laura said with a relieved smile. “We didn’t have to go through all this before, but we had some… people visit us and then try to take over. It did not go well for them, but they hurt many of our people in the struggle. Now we have to take security much more serious when it comes to other people.”

“Oh, I get it. I actually had to, uh… deal with some rather unpleasant people frequently. Some people seem to think that since the world ended, all bets are off and common decency goes out the window. So, I appreciate you doing what you have to protect your home.”

“Well, do come in. Let me show you around our little village. Jerome, Carson, go about your day.” The High Priestess let us into their village and I had to admit, it impressed me.

The Cabins were set up in a ring around a grassy central common area, in that common area was a pair of large Greenhouses set up. Each had to be close to a thousand square feet. It was at least fifty feet wide and two hundred feet long. It had raised garden beds filling the floor and on shelves lining the walls.

“The Greenhouses cost us quite a lot of credits and Essence. It was well worth the cost, though. It was the last thing we needed to advance to a village. The half-acre greenhouse speeds up the growth of plants by three times. What would have taken a full three-month season to grow to harvest can be done in only a month now. And there are still more upgrades to speed up it further. Between our hunting for meat and the two greenhouses, we can comfortably support up to fifty people.”

I nodded in appreciation. “That’s quite the achievement. How many people do you have here now?”

“We were able to rescue quite a few people, plus our original coven of thirteen people. We have twenty-five, counting myself, living here now. We would have gotten just the one Greenhouse, but the System didn’t count the hunting of wild beasts in its numbers for food production. If we could domesticate some, we could raise up a barn and it would count what the animals produced. But we aren’t there yet,” the priestess replied.

“Between the twelve log cabins, each with 2 bedrooms, we have enough rooms for everyone to have their own right now. If we double up on rooms, we can hold up to fifty people fairly comfortably before we need to build new homes, or upgrade the existing ones.”

“Wait, what do you mean upgrade?” I asked.

“Well, if you supply the materials needed for an upgrade on a building, and spend the requisite essence or credits, the System will upgrade the building. It can increase the size, the number of rooms, insulation and many other available features,” she said with a smile.

“Michael said you had an arcane weaver?” Rowan asked.

“Yes, we have several production specialists. Chris is our Arcane Weaver, Harold is our Smith, we have Juanita who takes care of our woodworking needs, and Stephanie is our Alchemist. They each have an enhanced workshop, usually magical except for Harold. He has a Divine Forge that honestly looks like they made it out of a volcano.” At our confused looks, she elaborated, “He is a follower of Hephaestus, the Smith of the gods.”

“That makes sense.” I said.

“Why did you ask about Chris, dear?”

“We looted a bunch of spider silk and I was hoping he could make some cloth out of it for us.” Rowan said, his voice got quieter towards the end as more focus shifted his way.

“Ah yes, Brian did mention something about a trade opportunity. If you like, I can show you our workshops before settling in the admin hall. It doubles as our gathering area to relax.”

Like my own Ki Forge, the portable workshops selected by the crafters here were extra-dimensional. They had each workshop doorway lining one wall of the Admin Building. Convenient and didn’t take up a ton of space.

As they showed us around, I couldn’t help but wonder why the leader of this village was putting so much effort, explaining details of their settlements progression and being very accommodating to us. Once we were brought into the common area of the admin building and were given comfortable seats to relax in, I had to ask. “Why show us all of this? Aside from being vetted by your Apollo priest, you don’t know us. We are strangers here.”

With a deep sigh, Laura, the high priestess, Baron of Athens Village, spoke. “I was hoping if you saw what we offered, you would be willing to stay and help us. We only have six or seven combatants in the village, and they are all part of my original coven. Even with system supported defenses and my ritual magic, that just isn’t enough to keep the village safe. Brian mentioned how the five of you were solid fighters, eliminating the spiders on your own and only needing a bit of help to turn the tide against the bigger ones.” She slumped in her chair and rubbed at her forehead.

“Most of the people we rescued were vacationers, people with no survival skills, no combat skills and no desire to learn to fight. They just mope around, wishing for things to go back to the way they once were. If we didn’t require them to work in order to get a share of food, they wouldn’t even do the minimum needed to survive. We have some working in the greenhouse under Michael’s direction, others we have splitting wood, and other basic labor jobs. One survivor was a schoolteacher before all this and at least she is willing to teach the few children we have here.”

“I don’t know about the others, but my wife and son are in Colorado. I am trying to get home to them. I can’t just settle somewhere and leave them to fend for themselves. I’m willing to trade for supplies and services, and if you allow, to use the system marketplace to get what you can’t provide. But I can’t stay here,” I told her.

“My dad is still in Texas and probably needs my help. John saved my life, and I owe him a debt. I swore I would watch his back until he got back to his family, at the minimum. I can’t stay here with y’all, nice as you’ve been,” Magnus said.

Cody and Rowan were having a whispered conversation with each other, occasionally looking between Laura and me. Kiara had a conflicted look on her face. She was clearly torn between her gratitude for us saving her and the safety of living behind walls. We were still close to four hundred miles from my home, and there was a lot of danger along the way.

“Kiara, if you want to stay, you can. You don’t have to travel with us. It is dangerous and you don’t have the same motivation to go back to Colorado that I do. If you want to stay, it’s ok.” Kiara looked at Magnus then back at me.

“No, Magnus is right. You all saved my life. And I still have friends and family in Colorado. I don’t know if they are alive or dead. And I don’t know if I could live with myself if I took the safe path and never found out,” Kiara said.

“Were staying with John and Magnus,” Cody said simply, Rowan nodding next to him.

“Well, it was worth a shot. I’ll tell you what, there is one thing I can do for you all if you will spend the night. I can scry for your families, those bound to you through ties of blood. I don’t want to crush your hopes, but with the deathrate all of humanity suffered… well, I hope your families survived. If by chance they did not, I hope you reconsider staying here,” The High Priestess said with a sigh.

“I would do it now, but it can only be done by the light of the moon. In the meantime, you can rest here. Any services you need, you can ask our crafts people. They will bargain for themselves. And of course, you can use the System Marketplace. We have a kiosk set up for the villagers to use as needed. Fair warning, there is a ten percent tax on anything you buy.”

“Just buy? Not sell too?” I had to ask.

“Gods no, who would do such a thing?”

“The Evanston settlement charged a twenty percent tax on anything bought or sold,” I told her.

“No, just the onetime tax on all purchases. The funds go towards upkeep and upgrading everything in the village. We are currently working on saving up for mana turrets to be mounted on the walls. They launch arcane blasts at enemies, and will take some of the pressure off of our few combatants when a monster horde inevitably appears.”

“Have you had many monster hordes attack?”

“We’ve fought off three so far. It seems like a new one springs up every three or four days. Well, I need to go prepare my ritual room for tonight. How many of you will need my scrying services?”

Wait, scrying? I thought back to the conversation moments earlier. I had gotten distracted when she mentioned tax. She said something about viewing those bound by blood ties. That should mean she could scry my son. I could see if he was still alive. I could feel my blood boil with the need to get home, the need to see my son. I had to take a deep breath and push my rising bloodline down. Now wasn’t the time to let it loose.

“I, I will.” My voice cracked for a moment before I got the words out. Magnus and Kiara both said they wanted to as well, Rowan and Cody declined.

The High Priestess left us to our own devices. I cleared my throat, in better control of myself. “I would like to talk to the alchemist, and I know Rowan wanted to talk to the Weaver. Did you all want to go together or separately?”

“Never split the party,” Magnus said, and I couldn’t help agreeing. It was sound D&D logic there.

“Ok, let’s go to the alchemist first. I want to see if he can extract the fire essence out of those pine cones, and see if they have anything else usable for getting the energy body. Magnus, if I remember right, you had like eighty percent metal with a bit of light and earth, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, but there may be a bit of a complication with my bloodline. It’s lightning based. The book said a bloodline would alter my soul element until they were compatible with each other when open my Middle Dantian.”

“Well, we can ask the Alchemist about it. They should know what elemental mixture makes lighting.”

“That’s simple, it’s half metal and half air,” an older woman, in her late forties or early fifties, sat at a table on the other side of the room, spoke up. “I heard you saying you needed to see the alchemist, well here he is,” she said with a chuckle.

As we walked over, I said, “I apologize for calling you he. I suppose I should have said They or something.”

“Nah, don’t sweat it. I was just giving you some shit. So, what you be needing? I’m Stephanie, by the way.” She said.

I explained to her about our need to cultivate elemental bodies that closely match up with our soul elements, and about Magnus’s complication.

“I’ve never heard of body cultivation before. But if it’s elemental attuned Essence you need, you’re in luck, my friends. Well, for the most part. We don’t have any dark, water, or earth types. I’ve been collecting resources with unusually strong elemental aspects to them from the Wellspring area. On the north side of the Wellspring is an old steel mill. The plants that took it over all have high steel or fire Essence in them.” Stephanie paused there for a moment and looked at me.

“I don’t have any earth essence left, but towards the mountain further east, a bunch of earth elementals hang around. It shouldn’t take more than a couple to get the little you need. Can I see that guide you mentioned, the one that talked about elemental bodies? I need to make sure I do all this right.”

“Sure, I can let you borrow it,” I said, and pulled out the guide. After Stephanie studied the relevant information, she looked at us with a smile.

“From what I read here, I can at the very least create a set of elixirs that will give Magnus a metal based Elemental Body that would cause the least amount of risk when he levels up his cultivation. And a fire-based set for you, John. I don’t really know anything about bloodlines and how they affect cultivators. We don’t have any here beyond the first couple of body ranks, and none in the Coven itself.”

“While a Pure Elemental Body wouldn’t be perfectly ideal, I don’t think anyone on earth has the information to create custom elemental bodies yet, especially with bloodlines complicating things. Even my bloodline, that doesn’t seem to have any elemental effect, might affect my elemental affinity. I think we will take you up on the single Element Body elixirs.”

“That sounds good. Of course, I can’t just give these things to you. Let’s get down to brass tax.”

We settled in for a good round of dickering, refining what we were asking for and adding in some more healing and stamina potions. While I went through my storage ring to see what I had to barter with, I noticed something that I had completely forgotten about. Something I picked up before I even met Magnus.

“What about this Fire Drake meat? Can you extract Fire Essence out of it?” I asked as I pulled out a piece.

“Hmm… let me see…” Stephanie said as she studied the still fresh steak. “It definitely has fire element in it, but it is fire mana not fire essence, which isn’t compatible with you. I can’t process the meat and extract the fire essence out of it. If you don’t want to keep it, I have other uses I can put it to. How much do you have?”

“Good news then. I have two hundred pieces. I actually forgot I had it in my storage ring. I’ve been focusing on eating Spirit and Demon Beast meat,” I said. “If the Meat won’t work for me, we do have branches we cut into logs from the same tree we got the pine cones from. Can you extract fire essence from the wood?”

“Let me have a look at the wood you have and I’ll see what I can do.”

I pulled out one of the thinner logs we got and let her examine it.

“Hmm… well, I think I can, but we are going to need to reduce it to much smaller pieces. Here, follow me,” Stephanie said and immediately set off towards her alchemy lab.

Once we got to her lab, she had us bring the log back out. “Can one of you strapping young men chip off a few pieces for me to test?”

I brought out my Dragon’s Fang axe, the same one I used to chop through the branch and used it to chip off a few small pieces of wood. Once she collected them, she went to one of her workbenches filled with differently shaped glass apparatuses, beakers and other containers filled with different colored liquids and powders.

Stephanie put on a pair of goggles and poured a red liquid into a vial and then dropped the piece of wood in it. It bubbled and hissed; the color shifting from a pale red to a darker shade. She mixed a few other compounds and tested the rest of the wood chips. I understood nothing of what she was doing, but she periodically nodded and made some noises of interest.

“I have good news and bad news,” she said. “The good news is that I can extract the Fire Essence out of the wood. The bad news is it’s going to take a lot of wood. At least three branches of the same size, and we will need to chip it into small pieces. It will take a lot of work. Fortunately, we have many people with idle hands. It’s early enough, and we have tools available. So, if we get started right away, I can have the potions you need by tomorrow morning, early afternoon at the latest. Now let’s finish our bargaining session.”

After a bit more haggling, we settled on 10 logs from that burning pine tree, plus the three needed to be chipped, all my drake steaks and two thousand credits. In return, she would create a series of Essence potions for Magnus and me. Each taken in the proper order to infuse our bodies with the essence we needed. After a bit more discussion, we decided it would be safest to go with our primary element instead of trying to match it perfectly. I would go for a full Fire Elemental Cody cultivation, while magnus would go all the way with metal.

Once we concluded our business with the Alchemist, we made our way to the Arcane Weaver.

“Good to meet you all. I’m Chris, the resident Arcane Weaver. What can I do you for?”

“Hi Chris, my name is John. We came across a shit ton of spider silk, and we would like to convert a good bit of it to cloth. We were told you were the man to see about it,” I said.

We were inside the Arcane Weaver Workshop. Like my Smith workshop, this was a literal hole in the wall. There were a lot of mana powered devices that handled everything cloth related. There was a spinning wheel, a massive loom, various vats filled with dye, a couple of sewing machines, a large table with inset grid lines, and so much more. There were several things I couldn’t make heads or tails of, but was sure they were cloth related.

“You wouldn’t happen to mean Glimmersilk, would you? Mike and Brian brought some in just a bit ago,” Chris asked.

“Indeed, it would be. Mike and Brian helped us out when we were being overwhelmed by these giant fey touched spiders,” I said.

“How many bundles of the silk do you have? Each bundle can make a square yard of cloth.”

“We managed to get about a hundred twenty bundles. But we don’t want to turn all of it into cloth. We need to keep some of the thread as well,” I said.

“Understandable. How many yards of cloth do you want to make?”

“Let’s turn half of the thread bundles to cloth. That should leave us with plenty of cloth and thread for crafting.”

“That should be easy enough to do. Ill tell you what, ill make your cloth for one bundle of threads for every ten yards of finished cloth. Did you want it to stay golden yellow or would you like it dyed?”

With Rowan being the only one of us with any sewing skills, I turned to him and asked his preference. “What do you think? Do you have any plans for the silk?”

After a few moments of thought, rowan replied. “We could all use a change of clothes, and some cloaks against the weather would be useful. Maybe some dark greens? Brown, dark blue?”

“How much extra would it cost to get twenty yards in a dark forest green, dark brown, and a navy blue?” I asked.

Chris looked over his dying supplies and ran some numbers in his head. “I can do two different types of dye. Once is just normal dye that only changes the color of the threads, but I do have some reagents crafted by Stephanie. It can increase the Mana Conductivity by a small amount. But it is more expensive. If you want, just the regular dye job, I can do it for a bundle of threads for every eight yards of cloth. But if you want the increased mana conductivity, it will be a bundle per five yards.”

Twelve bundles of Glimmersilk thread, but we would get multiple colors with an increase in the already high mana conductivity, not too bad of a deal. “I think we can agree to that.”

“Would you, perchance, like me to make some of the clothing you need out of the silk? With the mana driven tools I have, I can make them quite rapidly. It would only cost you a few more bundles of thread, depending on how many garments you need,” Chris offered.

Rowan looked at me and said, “I may be ok with sewing, but I’m not fast and I can’t guarantee the quality either. It might be worth it. Cody is getting better with his leather working, and can make some leather pants, but some nice shirts that I can enchant could help us.”

I turned back to Chris and asked, “How much would it cost for ten shirts, two for each of us, and a cloak each?”

“A short-sleeved shirt would take about two yards of cloth each, so that’s twenty yards, give or take a yard or two. Cloaks usually need around four and a half yards each, so that would be about twenty-three yards. So, of the cloth you want me to make, it would use up… lets say forty-five yards total. That would leave you fifteen left. Let’s say, a bundle of thread per shirt and two per cloak. I will use some of the thread in trade to do the stitching instead of making you supply that separately. So, all together, let’s say… thirty-two bundles of thread for it all.”

It was half of our remaining thread, but it would all probably be worth it, especially after Rowan managed to enchant everything. “Deal,” I said as we shook hands. “How soon can you have everything ready?”

“Let me get your measurements first. It will take a couple hours for the loom to make the cloth, and the rest of the evening to make your shirts and cloaks. I can hand it over to you by morning if that works out for you?”

“We are waiting on some potions from Stephanie any way, so morning will be fine,” I answered.

“What colors did you want for the cloaks and shirts?”

“I think dark green or brown for the cloaks would be for the best,” I said as I looked at the others.

After a consensus, we all agreed on the dark green for the cloaks. Magnus took the option for a green and a brown shirt, Rowan took two navy blue shirts, Cody chose a pair of brown shirts, Kiara wanted a green and brown as well. I took a green and blue. Chris took our measurements and orders and we settled on five yards each of the green, brown and blue dyed silk.

With our business concluded, we went to the empty cabin the high priestess offered us for our stay. We had little else to do until Laura was ready to scry for us. After we settled in, Rowan and Kiara went to the system marketplace to look for new spells to buy.

With the potions we need to cultivate our bodies just a day away, I took my last Meridian Cleansing pill and settled in to open my Spleen Meridian, my last one. Magnus settled in to finish clearing his Lung Meridian. After that, he only had his Mind Meridian to go.