Considerations

Chp 157

I lay on my settee, tail over the curled back and my head and shoulders hanging off the foot. It was a comfortable position since I didn’t have bones to get in the way like a normal being. On my back, the hounds and their pups lay napping in a literal dogpile on top of me.

Since I’d taken to laying on furniture and had fireproofed it, they’d developed the habit of laying on or next to me. A turn of events I had no objection to. I’d even gone and installed a special teleportation circle from their protected area directly into the Palace of Shadows to make it easier. I didn’t mind visiting them in their area, but I did like my own space too.

While everyone else was busy napping, I was reviewing a few things from the slaughter in the maze the prior night. I was still under the needed points for my tithe despite the culling in the stone maze. Forty-three victims had yielded thirty-five points. After reviewing all of the alignments involved, I’d been surprised by the number of neutral and chaotic individuals.

My new alignment was more forgiving, thankfully. The point yield was unquestionably lower but I’d take it over the possibility of a negative score. Slow gains were preferable to heavy losses.

This was the first intrusion into my domain since the hero party incident. It made me think about the first incident. The bandits I’d slain. I hadn’t pitied them and I felt even less for the seekers. A life was a life, but they were dedicated to genocide. Fuck them.

Going through the gear of the slain, I’d found a pile of religious pamphlets and small collections of them sewn together into covers. Only one actual full religious text had been among them.

The book of Strom I’d found had a standard origin myth before veering off course and claiming all other gods were false or subordinate. After a couple of chapters of reducing them to minor deities, aspects of himself, or saints, the rest was dreary instructions to obey, give the church money, and basic civil laws like don’t steal or murder.

It honestly felt like someone with a shit memory for historical events attempting to recreate a fantasy version of the lengthier Christian canon. The book being handwritten instead of printed also raised questions.

I knew printing presses existed well before this. The pamphlets I’d found had also confirmed Stromhold had access to the technology. They only seemed to have

the carved woodblock type, but that was still massively more efficient than hand copying. The book also didn’t look fancy, but had a giant intricate seal of authenticity on its first page.

I suspected the puzzle I was being presented with was evidence of an attempt to control access. Perhaps similar to printing such texts in an uncommon language like Latin at the time back on Earth. Refusing to let print copies be made meant the books would be expensive and difficult to get, so the few permitted owners outside of the clergy would defend them as precious.

If I wasn’t fairly certain 24 hadn’t existed prior to our first encounter, I’d have been tempted to think she was the architect. Too many of Stromholt’s traits innately pissed me off to feel it was completely a coincidence.

Despite being flush with points, I didn’t spend any. I was still under my tithe after all. I needed to consider any purchases I made carefully. With everything I could think to double-check about the fight done, I turned my attention to a different set of tasks.

I still needed to tie up some details about the town’s layout and keep an eye on the Lepusan. Since they weren’t hostile, they didn’t prevent me from altering things like normal. I didn’t want them to see buildings moving about or the river changing though, so I had to be careful about when I did things and how much.

Even though it was extra work, it was fun to watch them and the bone brigade interact. Though the Lepusan were staying in or around the dorm for the moment, the ‘town folk’ were making a point of coming around to visit. Most of them came bearing gifts no less, which made me chuckle.

Plenty of the skeletons had been indifferent to taking up crafts and trades at first, but eventually picked one. What started as a simple way to alleviate boredom snowballed into them actually enjoying themselves. Now they were taking their wares out to show off to an appreciative audience.

On my back the hounds shifted, finally waking up after a long nap. Done being lazy, they showed themselves out after giving my face a parting lick goodbye. Free, I rolled off the settee and knew I needed to make up my mind about how I’d interact with the Lepusan now they were here.

It would have been easy to delegate the position of Mayor to someone else. I decided against that immediately. I needed a solid point of direct contact with my new residents, especially if they were bringing more people later on. I didn’t need things to end up getting weird via a needless game of telephone.

That meant making a final decision about my alternate appearance avatar. I’d been putting it off for no particular reason other than a lack of urgency. That and my habit of tinkering with various appearance options for way too long. Character designers were a black hole for time in any world it appeared.

Looking through the various avatars I’d made, I decided on my species first off. A fairly quick decision since I’d had limited humanoid options. Hands were a must and I preferred something generally non-monstrous.

Settling on a specific appearance took considerably longer, but I eventually found something I liked and selected it as my final choice. Activating it, I fell over with a squeal of surprise as gravity asserted itself to a degree I’d forgotten existed. My body was insanely heavy and it took me a few moments of floundering just to get on my knees.

Upright took longer, but as I worked at it I found the sense of weight lifting. It was a bit like when I hadn’t been properly integrated with the server, as if some part of me was being adjusted to fit. As movement became easier my vision altered weirdly, a fluttering disruption to it. I took way too long to realize it was because I was blinking.

On my feet finally and able to walk, I moved to examine myself in the mirror and found I had to adjust it to a larger size to accommodate my new, more fixed height. Looking myself over I spotted an immediate issue. I was wearing little more than some shredded straps of cloth artistically arrayed to make me look like a fantasy magazine pin-up.

I texted Henry, I needed clothes asap.