“Hey guys, how’s it going?” I said nonchalantly. As if nothing had just happened.

“What the hell’s going on Clive? Why are you lumbering about in here talking to Devotion? People just don’t waltz in and have a discussion with a god you know. Especially half bloody demons.”

“This again?” I sighed. “You’re a right pillock, Mal. Keep up will you?”

While he blustered again, I checked out his tag. As Joel had told me, he’d gone up by a good few levels to 29.

“Congratulations on the levels, dude. Good foraging?”

“Don’t avoid the question, Clive. This isn’t normal. What the hell’s going on?”

“Oh my,” Elsbeth said to his side. “You have bonded with our goddess?” Her expression was a mix of disbelief and wonder. Not the horror I expected.

Smiling, I raised a finger to my lips. “Shhhh. It’s a secret.”

“What? You follow Devotion now?” Mal asked, growing even more confused.

“No,” Elsbeth said. “They are… Soul Mates of a sort. Linked. Equals.”

Mal turned to me, face like thunder. “What are you playing at? You can’t go around bonding gods! Especially not mine!”

“I can and I did. It was mutual of course. But I don’t want to say too much. I’ll leave it to Devotion to tell you how much she wants to explain. Trust in your god, mate. She knows what’s best for you.”

His face went bright red, but he couldn’t really deny it, either. I felt a little bad at winding him up, but he was being a dick as usual.

“So, moving on from that. Joel told me you’ve been active to the north against Destruction?”

Mal nodded, still struggling for words.

“Well, sorry to do this, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop. Unless they enter our land, or any Malatian land of course.”

“Why the hell would I do that. I’m rocketing up in levels.”

“Because right now, I have a truce with Destruction. It’s tentative to say the least, but it’s there and it’s welcome until we get home. You're ranging out from here attacking them, could well fuck us up.”

“You’re shitting me right?” he said hands on hips.

Boris didn’t seem to recognize the tension, plodding from a side room of the main temple. As he made a beeline to come and see me, passing the others, I noticed that he had grown a lot. His head coming well above Mal’s waist. He was level twenty now and his eyes sparkled with intelligence. I dropped to a knee to pet him as he came in close. “Heya Fella, you doing okay?” I asked, while scratching his ear with an over-sized finger .

He met my eyes and bobbed his head in clear response.

“So what?” Mal finally sputtered, interrupting my moment with Boris. “You just expect us to wait for them to come to our walls?”

“Anywhere this side of the Forsaken lands will do. As that would be clear intent by Destruction’s troops. I get the feeling they won’t until they’ve battered Justice. On the central plain of Kalabri, around three hundred miles north we saw at least a hundred thousand troops. Demons bigger than Nephilim’s, thousands of Gashadokuro too. Right now, they’re focused on Justice and I did a deal with them to keep it that way.”

“This will cause some issues in regard to our position with Justice,” Elsbeth said. “While there’s no alliance with them, they expect to see Malatia actively repelling Destructions troop’s.”

“Well, Justice are on the back foot in a big way, up north. And there’s no hiding from the fact that Far Reach is no friend to them, nor will we ever be.”

“As long as you are prepared for the fall out. As we are garrisoned here, so to speak, we will prevent further incursions into Kalabri until you feel differently. But I cannot speak for the rest of Malatia.”

“Yeah, not bothered what the rest of Malatia do. But what comes from here can be tied directly to me, and I want to get these people back more than anything else. We can look at more impactful strategies after that.”

“You seem to be including us a lot in your plans and orders. Have you come to realize you’re fucked without us?” Mal asked.

I gave him a sour look. Enough for Meria to take a casual sidestep away from my friend, which I pretended not to notice.

“Yeah mate, that’s exactly right. Devotion’s incredibly charitable like that. She just Soul Mate bonds any waif and stray who might need her.” I was going to leave it at that, but I wasn’t exactly doing a good job at keeping the peace with my oldest friend, and I did value his friendship a hell of a lot more than I was showing. So I relented.

“Look, I think it’s fair to say that we need each other. I’m only asking for you to stop attacking in the north to help us get back home. I might even be begging you to come out in a few days to attack them again. So if you don’t mind helping your old pal out, I’d be very grateful.”

“I still think you need us more than we need you.”

Stifling the response I really wanted to snap back at him, I forced a smile instead. “And you’re welcome to your opinion, mate. But they’re like arseholes aren’t they? Everyone’s got one and they’re normally full of shit. Now I need to see Hek, and get back to feed everyone up. Elsbeth, try to knock some sense in him will you. Meria I can’t actually articulate how happy I am to see you again. We’ll catch up some more once I’m back.”

“You too, Lord Clive. I look forward to your return.”

I heard Mal grumble inaudibly under his breath before speaking out loud. “Look after yourself up there, and hurry up back so we can at least fight alongside each other.”

“That’d be nice mate. I can't wait to see how you're coming on.”

“Yeah same. I wanna see what an untrained Level 74 Clive can do, that I can’t. What with all of my training with the other paladins. I reckon I’ll have some surprises for you.”

I nodded and smiled. “You holding the right end of the sword would surprise me, so the bar isn’t so high.”

His face reddened again. Elsbeth looked upset too, though Meria fought to hold back her laugh.

I held up my hands placatingly. “I’m sorry, I was just messing. Right, I’m off before I cause anymore trouble. See ya later peeps.” With that, I made my way out of the temple hall as quickly as possible.

Outside, it was full dark now. That didn’t stop the full fucking contingent of my followers standing their headed by Johan and Sazor.

I muttered some curses under my breath as I made my way over to them. I wanted a relatively quick getaway, but I owed them an appearance at least. All things considered. As I looked over the crowd, I realized there was a lot more than just my followers. There must have been well over a thousand people gathered.

“Hey everyone, nice to see you all.”

“My lord,” came the reply from the people gathered there.

“We came to pay our respects, but there are others who wish to join your followers, Lord Clive.”

I groaned inwardly. I’d never get used to this shit, and I thought it was best for all concerned that I never did.

The thoughts prompted words to spill unbidden from my mouth.”

“You all want to become Aspirants of Clive?” I yelled loudly.

“Yeah!” came the thunderous roar. I suspected many of those who were already aspirants had joined the chorus.

“Okay, well I won’t stop you because I want to protect our home and I know you all do too. But I need you to understand one thing. I’m not better than any of you. That’s it. Think about it. Mull it around in your heads. If you join me in this way, I’m just the conduit of your communal power, yeah? I don’t want no worship. I just want you all as friends, who have my back and share your power with me so I can do the things that need to be done to protect everyone. No fucking bowing or scraping. We’re a team. I don’t need worshipers and I don’t want them. Now, do you still want to do this?”

I was genuinely floored that the positive response was even louder.

“Well then, let’s do it, and thanks from the bottom of my heart that you’re showing trust in me. I don’t know if I’m worthy of it, but I’ll fight every day to try to be.”

“You are worthy. And that you try is all we can ever ask, My Lord.” Johan shouted to another roar of cheering.

“Damn Clive. Even I nearly wanted to become a follow there,” Joel whispered from my side.

“I too was inspired by your speech,” Hek said more clearly. “And I will join you once my queen returns and I have her blessing,”

“Dude, you don’t have to.”

“I do not wish to serve a god. I have never wanted that, but your words showed that this is not the case with you. That we are serving our own survival and working toward a better future. That is something I can fully support.”

“Well, Hek, that’s genuinely how I feel about all this, too,” I replied, as the first of my new recruits approached.”

The next three hours were spent bonding new Aspirants. Sania contacted me after an hour to enquire what I was doing. She good naturedly told me that people were growing restless waiting to be fed. We also had six more aspirants become Clerics from their work in spreading the word of Clive. Which was quite frankly ridiculous.

I hadn’t been counting followers I’d bonded with, but my notifications alerted me to the one thousandth with some epic news. The flowing golden script that denoted a change in my Ethereal Spirit situation appeared over my vision.

You have unlocked a Stage 2 Ethereal Spirit. (1/10)

You have met one of the requirements to fully transcend the mortal plane.

Complete all ten requirements in any order to attain Godhood.

Requirement:

Gather 1000 WILLING Followers. (Achieved)

Ethereal Storage

Hold the excess Neuma provided by Followers up to x20 the value of current core level.

Spirit Gaze: (Area of effect.)

By occupying your spirit mind, observe all that occurs within a 1-mile radius of your physical body.

(Warning. Physical body will be unpiloted whilst skill is in use.)

Everlasting:

Should your Physical body die, your Ethereal Spirit will live on. Should you wish to regrow your physical body at Stage 2, the process will take 270 days and your spirit will be anchored to one place until complete. Either your place of Physical Death or your chosen Location.

(Warning: Should Physical death occur, bonded servants will still expire. Followers will still be exempt.

(Warning: An Ethereal Spirit is not impervious to all types of damage and can be destroyed.)

Followers Rank (III) New Tier

(Paladin or Priest/ess)

(Inactive)

A Paladin can sense and will follow the essence of your will rather than the letter of your word and will defend both the word and all Followers of your Order.

A Priest/ess can sense and will follow the essence of your will rather than the letter of your word and will spread the word and teachings of your Order.

(Provide 10% of their Neuma pool per day, not including prayer. They receive 8% back from your Ethereal Spirit storage.)

(The first 10% Neuma supply from a Paladin’s referral counts towards the Cleric’s balance with you.)

Power Bestowal:

You can choose ONE non-ethereal Neuma based power to bestow on Paladin or Priest/ess from the skill set you have.

Chosen Power may be different for each class and will become the permanent first option for that class.

Power Accessed from their own Internal storage of power received back from you.

Power set available:

Flight.

Provide Paladins with the ability to fly.

Clive’s Spicy Balls

Provide Paladins with the ability to produce weaponized projections of Neuma.

To activate Tier III, Rank III, please speak aloud your 1st Tenet.

I was really thrown by the last part of the notification. Speak aloud my first tenet. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? I muttered to myself. I really wanted to activate the skill and I felt the universe was being a little unfair putting me on the spot like this. What did I stand for? I didn’t know. What it really all boiled down to, was that I wanted to be left alone to do my own thing. I didn’t want to piss in anyone else’s pond, and I sure as shit didn’t want them pissing in mine. The only reason I wanted to be powerful, was to stop the gods fucking around with me and everyone else.

Those thoughts prompted words, not even fully formed in my mind to pour out of my mouth.

We stand against the domination of others. We abuse no one, nor do we tolerate their abuses against us.

The word’s had put me in the mood for another ranting monologue and I attempted to continue, but I was cut short after that statement. Something seemed to snap in my mind. Not breaking, but opening up.

I focused on the crowd in front of me. They were shouting something. It was hazy at first, but then the sound formed into meaning. They were repeating the words I had just spoken with fervor.

I was hit by a number of new notifications. My eyes glazed over as I read them.

Queen Danivra has Gained Tier III status

She has Chosen the Class of the Priestess.

Alial has Gained Tier III status

She has Chosen the Class of the Priestess.

Grigor has Gained Tier III status

He has Chosen the Class of the Paladin.

Johan has Gained Tier III status

He has Chosen the Class of the Paladin.

Sazor has Gained Tier III status

He has Chosen the Class of the Paladin.

Sazor and Johan both looked at me with an uncomfortably intense light in their eyes.

“Hey guys. Uhm, so you can have a power now. Flight or Spicy Balls. I can only give you one or the other, though. I can do a different power for Priestess and Paladin, but I’ll need to ask Grigor what he wants first. You can tell me your preference, but I’ll leave it to Grigor to choose as he’s been with me the longest.”

“Of course, Lord Clive. I will take either power with honor and pride,” Johan said arm clamped across his chest in his version of a salute.

“As will I,” Sazor said. “Either power will be of enormous benefit.”

“I reckon I’ll be able to add a second power in time, so it’s not like you’re losing the other one forever.”

As they both nodded eagerly, I spoke to Grigor across the bond.

“So you chose Paladin, huh? Now you have to choose the power the Paladin class gets. You wanna Fly or fire Spicy Balls, mate?”

“It is an honour to have achieved this tier in your service, Lord Clive. As for the decision of power, will there only be one or will we have more options later?”

“It’s an honor to have you Paladining with me Grigor and yeah, should be more available eventually.

“Then with the ranged units we already have and as we are always outmatched in the air, I will choose flight.”

“Done!” I said. “I'm gonna ask Danivra now. I’ll not be long with the food. I can hear your stomach rumbling from here,” I said before switching the conversation over to Danivra.

“I will most certainly take flight, Lord Clive. And congratulations on the increase in power.”

“I figured you’d choose that. And yeah, Ethereal stage 2. I never thought some of those Ethereal levels would be more followers, but it makes sense. I imagine there’ll be more in the future.”

“I would agree, though the increments will no doubt be dramatically higher.”

“Well, not a worry at the minute. I’m gonna finish up speaking with the people here, then I’ll be back.”

I came out of the conversation and selected the flight option for both the Paladin and Priestess classes. Watching Johan and Sazor’s expression as they received their powers.

“Johan wasted no time lifting unsteadily into the air a few feet. Sazor followed swiftly, before they both dropped back down to the ground.

“We should practice with the power at a different time,” Sazor said. “Thank you for this gift lord Clive.”

Johan bobbed his head enthusiastically. “By the time you next return we will be flying as well as can be. Ready for whatever comes our way.”

“I don’t doubt it, lads. I’m excited to see where this goes, but for now, I best get the others joined up so I can get back with the food.

Once I had bonded with the remaining people who had come to see me, I was mobbed with a thousand questions. I attempted to answer as many as I could, but it wasn’t helping with my return. Johan, sensing my overwhelmed disposition waved the crowd off.

“Lord Clive must return to the rest of our people. Pray well for him and their return will be all the sooner,” he shouted across their heads and they dutifully listened.

I spent a bit of time thanking them all for coming before finally getting back to Joel and Hek who stood by waiting patiently.

Hek stood with what could only have been the club, wrapped up in hessian. It must have been over five foot in length, measured against his own six foot height.

“Lord Clive,” Hek said as I approached. He held the wrapped club forward to me.

“Thanks Hek. And the queen is fine, you’ll be glad to know. She can fly now, too. So extra safe.”

He offered a wry grin in reply as I unwrapped the hessian material to unveil an amazing and deadly bit of kit. The Club wasn’t actually a club at all. Solid metal from handle to spiky tip. With eight sharp ridges splayed out all around its body running half the length before more spikes protruded out at its mid-point. Polished to a high sheen, blacks and grays dominated its coloring, apart from the leather grip, dyed purple. I inspected it closely and the stats did not disappoint.

< Freeler’s mace of Exhaustion>

Rarity: Unique

Damage: Bludgeon: 100

Pierce: 80

Weight: 120lbs

Durability: 100

Unique Named Attribute (1): Drain 30 points of Stamina from target on every successful strike.

Unique Named Attribute (2): Drain 10 points of Spiritual Ability from target on every successful strike.

“Holy shit, Hek. This really is awesome. I didn’t know what to expect when I read Mace of Exhaustion. I don’t want to give the dozy bastard this now. It’s too good,” I laughed.

Hek looked about to protest, but I waved him off. “Don’t worry He’ll get it,” I said, putting the weapon in the open box of Haulage.

“Seriously, I can’t thank you enough for this. The food, the weapon…” I paused, looking around. “Hey, Where’s Grimstrom?”

“Went back to the Nideland once that was made,” Joel said pointing at the mace.

“Glad to hear it,” I replied. “Was he okay as he left?”

“Yeah, he seemed content that you let him in on the making of the mace. Said he’d try and get back once you’d returned.”

I nodded, taking another look around our home. My followers old and new sloping back to their beds, among the buildings that were springing up at an amazing rate. Far Reach looked like it had been here for years now.

“Place is looking real good, guys. You’re doing an amazing job here and I can’t thank you enough.”

“You don’t need to thank us. We’re a team, right?” Joel said.

“Right!” I replied, carefully clasping his normal sized hand in mine. “Ah, one thing before I go. I totally forgot about it after I hit Ethereal Stage one, but if my body dies, I’m either anchored to the place I died or a place of my choosing. I want to see if I can select somewhere here.”

“Where?” Joel asked.

I shrugged. “Not fussy really. Here will do.”

“Do you need us to do something?”

I shook my head, then started. “Ooh maybe never build here! Don’t much fancy reforming here.”

“I’ll mark it a sacred spot,” he replied, with surprising seriousness.

I wasn’t sure what to do from there, but I found with thinking about what I wanted my soul began to vibrate.

You have selected a location for your physical form to be reborn.

I was pretty disappointed with the notification, despite being happy to have gotten that task out of the way. It was something I should have attempted the first day I found I could return here with the Protectorate title.

I turned back to Joel and Hek. “Done. And I suppose this is good bye again.”