The Itemancer 2 Read online

  “That sounds like you expect me to rebel at some point.”

  She smiled viciously. “Of course. We certainly have plans in place for that eventuality. Who do you think holds the keys to the prison you found? Who do you think maintains it? Certainly no one who could face genocide at the hands of a few petty insects would be powerful enough to contain such a monster. To be quite honest, we had hoped he would devour you, along with your ice devil.” She looked pointedly at Izzy who glared back at her dispassionately. “We are not quite willing to unleash him for now, but we will if you choose to become a threat. Do not make us pull the genie from the bottle. It is unlikely we could contain him again, and this world would be lost to him.”

  I was staring at her slack-jawed. My mind was on fire with the possibilities of what she had just said. After a moment, one thing jumped to the front of the line. “Am I really that big of a threat, that you’d doom an entire world to kill me?”

  She snorted. “You individually? Hardly. It’s the change you have been introducing that is the problem. Do you know what your new ‘Fleshmancy’ invention has done to us? There are rebellions in the streets led by individuals capable of eliminating entire regiments with little effort. There are also no less than three kingdoms within the empire who are in open rebellion against us; all led by those with the intelligence and means to find ways of exploiting the XP system. They are too strong to be killed by anything less than one of the three imperial dragons fighting them in single combat. I personally am not willing to risk our lives on such an endeavor. Then, there are the Item Spirits. Have you ever considered that you created the perfect soldier? Perhaps a bit expensive, given the XP requirements to train and manifest them, but with the resources of a full kingdom to manufacture them they make excellent shock troops. Able to learn many skills or disciplines with no training. Kill them, and they will simply come back to fight you again an hour later. They can be excellent spies, and assassins as well. There are very few ways to break the stealth skill you provided, and all of them are expensive to implement. To be quite honest, we are stretched to the breaking point. The problem with running an empire is that all the kingdoms and petty cultural differences are still there, united only by our strength. If our strength falters, the whole thing falls apart.”

  I stared at her in shock. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “And that is the only reason you are still alive. You are not an active threat, simply a bumbling fool with more power than sense. We certainly hope that we might harness some of that power as a means to prevent centuries of conflict, and brutality. Do not underestimate what we will do to prevent the situation from becoming worse.”

  I nodded, subdued. After sorting through my conflicting emotions, I chose the best response I could think of. “How can I actually help? Now that I know all this, creating trade routes seems like something you’re doing to keep me out of the way.”

  She sighed. “This is actually how you can help. We are stretched thin because we lack resources. Every defector removes themselves from our resource pool, and the more we lack resources the more people defect. We need troops, materials, money. I cannot conceive of any new power, or ability you could invent at this moment that would help us more than it helped our foes. With that in mind, this is what we need from you.”

  Suddenly, I had an idea. “Actually, I have something that might give you an advantage.”

  “Indeed? I would be interested to hear this.”

  I motioned Gwen forward, and took her gun. I showed it to Andrit, and demonstrated what it could do against a nearby wall.

  “This does actually seem helpful. I must ask though, do you know how to make more of this black powder? It seems integral to the function of the device.”

  My heart fell. I actually wasn’t sure. I shook my head no.

  “Then consider it added to the imperial decree. You must discover the secret of this substance.”

  I nodded. I tried to create the ability to fire guns without the powder, but it was prohibitively expensive at ten thousand XP. I could certainly afford it, and added it to Gwen because I could, but there was no way to make them on any kind of mass scale with such a high cost.

  Andrit interpreted my silence as a sign I was waiting for her to speak. “Very well. Before I go, is there anything you request from us outside of the supplies we provided you with on this visit?”

  I shook my head. “More people would be nice, but I don’t know what I would do with them yet.”

  She nodded. “We will discuss it after you complete your mission. Speaking of which, you have four months to complete it before we decide to consider it a failure.”

  “But that’s barely enough time for a round trip between here and the other continent.”

  She shrugged. “Our estimates of troop movements and logistics predict that by that point we will lack the resources to continue this venture. If you haven’t produced results by then, we will be forced to stop all support of this colony.”

  I nodded grimly. “Four months it is then.”

  “Wonderful.” Andrit said, her diplomatic mask slipping back into place. “I shall see you in four months then.” With that, she faded from existence, and I sighed heavily. It seemed there would be no time to enjoy the fruits of my labors.

  Chapter 6

  Two days later, my affairs were in order, and I was ready to go. The Rockies were staying behind to guard the settlement, leaving my core spirits free to come with me. We had chosen a settlement from the map, more or less at random. Unfortunately, there was very little information to be had about any of the colonies, just the name of the colony, and a color shader denoting which country it belonged to. The annoying thing was that some countries had very similar colorations, making it very difficult to tell where some of the borders lay. I privately wondered how Larry’s map powers selected the colors in the first place.

  Izzy remained distant for most of the trip, taking refuge in her invisibility. I wasn’t certain why, since she had been more present lately, but I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. Especially, since I wasn’t sure where she was most of the time. Finally, around five days into the trip, I managed to find a moment alone with her, and seized the opportunity.

  “Hey, Izzy?” I asked as I felt her brush into me.

  She became visible. “Yes?” She had already brushed past me, but she still stood very close in front of me. I felt a rush as she turned, and a slight breeze blew her long black hair into my shoulder.

  “I was just wondering why I haven’t been seeing much of you lately.”

  She raised one eyebrow, her snow-white eyes unreadable. “It’s just a bit… crowded.”

  I scoffed. “What, because of Gwen?” I glanced at Gwen who stood some distance away on the barren plain. Amy was doing her best to make polite noises as Gwen chattered happily. Dee stood behind her making strangling motions. Gwen meant well, but it seemed she wasn’t well-suited to long-distance travel. At least with others.

  I looked back at Izzy. “Ok, fair enough. Gwen is a bit much.”

  Izzy snorted. “You just noticed?” She asked dryly.

  I looked away guiltily. “To be honest I haven’t really been thinking about her much one way or the other.”

  Izzy’s eyes widened slightly, and a realization hit me. “Wait, you weren’t jealous were you?”

  She looked away, her expression completely neutral. “You are constantly surrounded by beautiful women. Why would I be jealous that you added another to your harem?”

  I stared at her in shock. I hadn’t really thought about how it looked to others that my companions were all female. I grabbed her face, and moved it so she had to look into my eyes. “That’s not… I didn’t choose that. You went through the same process as everyone. You know I don’t have any control over what you chose to look like or identify as.”

  She scoffed, and pulled away. “Children do what they can to please their parents. Consciously or not, you guided us on who we would bec
ome, and it’s very clear what was going through your mind when you did.”

  I looked away in shame. She wasn’t wrong. It couldn’t be a coincidence that most of my spirits had chosen to be hot women. Larry and the Rockies were the only exception. I even distinctly remembered trying to counsel Larry against making his avatar a balding, middle-aged man. Something else occured to me. “Wait, if you consider yourself my child, is it ok that we-”

  She smacked the top of my head. Hard. “Don’t go there. You’ll just make it weird.”

  I nodded, releasing my grip on her face to rub the spot she had hit me. “It’s already weird with you calling me ‘Master’ all the time.”

  Her impassive mask slipped slightly, her mouth curving up into a minute smile. “Would you rather I called you Daddy?”

  I shuddered. She was right. Now I felt weird. “Nope, Master is fine.”

  She shrugged, turned away, and slipped back into the shroud of her invisibility. “Whatever you say Daddy.” She said as she vanished.

  I groaned. I really hoped this didn’t become a thing.

  …………………………………………………………………………….

  Three days later we stood at our destination. Despite the plot of land that was technically claimed on the map, the truth of the colony was that it featured only a few shacks, and fences enclosing alien livestock. The livestock in question looked like a cross between a cow, and a beetle. Their bodies were shaped similarly to a cow, but they had a chitinous shell over their torso, and six eyes; three on each side of their face, running in a line down both sides. The rest of their bodies were covered in thick fur, and they had regular herbivorous teeth. The quasi-insectoid appearance thoroughly disturbed me; and, I did my best not to look at them for the rest of my time there. I shuddered every time I heard one of them let out a deep, gravelly mooing sound.

  Surprisingly, we didn’t see much in the way of people about. A few sat listlessly near the livestock enclosures, but otherwise it seemed this settlement was exceedingly small, perhaps meant only as a foundation for future settlers. After staring around us for a moment, one of those who had been loitering stood to greet us.

  “G’day mate. What can I do for ya?”

  I put on my best diplomatic face, and stepped forward to shake his hand. “Hello, I’m from the Duchy of Rowan’s Oak deeper into the continent. I’m here hoping to set up trade relations with your mother country.”

  The demon snorted. “Good luck with that, I doubt we’ll be here long enough.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, surprised.

  He pointed at the strange cow creatures. “See our poor Challines over there? There’s nowhere for them to graze. Within a couple weeks they’ll be dead. Another month or two after, and we’ll probably be dead too unless the ship from the motherland reaches us first. I doubt they’ll get here in time though, it’s a months sailing in each direction after all.”

  I pondered his problem, but an obvious solution presented itself to me quickly. “Would you like to defect to Rowans Oak? We’re about a week that way, and we have plenty of grazing land.” I asked, pointing back the way I had come.

  The Demon’s eyes lit up. “We’ll have to talk to the village elders, but I’m certain they’ll say yes. It beats a death sentence here.”

  I nodded, and he guided us to a small shack in the center of the colony.

  Inside the shack, three elderly looking demons sat around a wooden board game. It seemed similar to chess, but with the board shaped like a triangle instead of a square. These were they first elderly demons I had ever seen, and I noted that while they were wrinkled, their hair didn’t seem to fade or fall out with age.

  One of the wizened forms looked up, while the other two continued their efforts at studying the board. “Yes? What is it Yurkiv? Who are these strangers?”

  I stepped forward, putting on my diplomatic face again. “Hello, I’m the Duke of Rowans Oak. I was originally here to open up trade, but instead, I’d like to formally invite you to defect. I’ve got space for you to live, and graze your animals.”

  The elderly demon perked up at my words. “I probably shouldn’t say yes when I don’t know you at all, but to be honest, we’re just that desperate.” He glanced at his companions, who were now looking up at us, board-game forgotten. “What do you think?” He asked them.

  The duo looked at each other, and nodded their heads.

  “Wonderful, we should probably get moving then.”

  The next couple days were a blur of helping the demons prepare for their journey. On the third day, we wished them well, and they began their trip. Unfortunately, while I was happy that I had managed to save them, it didn’t solve my original problem. As we watched them go, Larry popped into existence. I hadn’t even realized I had left him awake.

  He stuttered as he spoke, which was out of character enough for me to take note.

  “W-we have a problem.”

  Chapter 7

  I stared at the map. Several swaths of land on our continent had been colored in a dark purple color that indicated ownership. “What does this mean Larry? Who do these belong to?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure. I can mark out territorial claims, but I don’t always know the context behind them.”

  Poring over the map like this, I also noted a slight red dot where the cannibalistic demon was held. I shivered. “Could they be ants?” Izzy asked.

  Larry shrugged. “Could be. I have no idea. They didn’t show up on the map before, but maybe things have changed now that they were almost wiped out.”

  I nodded. “We need to investigate this,” I said. “Worst case, they’re ants, and we step on them. Best case, maybe they’ll be someone friendly.” Izzy snorted her opinion of that sentiment, and I had to agree with her. Still, I had to believe that optimism was healthy.

  We chose the closest purple spot, and began traveling there. It was a few days travel northward, toward the city of Apocola, and part of me was concerned about encountering Firenzian patrols. Luckily, it seemed we weren’t quite in range of their territory. Then again, it occured to me that I really didn’t know enough about military organization to guess at where or when they might send patrols. When I mentioned my concerns, Dee’s face lit up.

  “Finally, something to do! This place has been so boring lately. I almost miss the ants.”

  Amy shook her head at Dee. “The ants were way too creepy to miss them.”

  Dee shrugged. “There is that, but at least fighting them was something to do. This place is so empty now.”

  She wasn’t wrong. In their absence, the whole continent was mostly a desolate wasteland. “Maybe we should head over to the mainland and take over some land there.” Dee said, and I stared at her in shock. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I was technically in charge of a small nation now. With Amy nearby, I was basically immortal, and I could create a small army if I needed to via itemancy. I knew that going to war over land wasn’t something I wanted, but the fact that I could was disturbing.

  Izzy smacked her on the back of the head invisibly. “Those aren’t ants, you’d be killing people.” Izzy said.

  Dee looked down at her feet. “Ya I know, I just hate being bored.”

  I patted Dee on the back. “If you’re lucky those purple spots will be ants, and then you can go wild.”

  Dee perked up, and began humming as we walked. A few minutes later, she had pulled her sword, and was moving fluidly through sword forms that I recognized from our occasional bouts of sword training. I flexed my hands reflexively. A few weeks ago, when I had invested my fleshcrafting XP from the fight with the mercenaries, I had put it primarily into mana, and mana regen. Seeing Dee in action was making me think that maybe I should strive to be more well-rounded. She noticed me staring at her and winked. A moment later an icicle popped up from nowhere, only to be deflected by Dee’s blade.

  “Not sure what I did to you this time Izzy, but bring it.” Dee called ou
t to the empty air.

  Izzy’s knife stabbed into her back a moment later, though I noticed it hadn’t been a lethal hit. I was tempted to think Izzy had been just as bored as Dee. “Consider it brung.” Izzy said cooly a moment before she faded back into invisibility.

  “No fair, thats cheating!” Dee called out. The only response was an icicle flung at her face from the front. Dee’s sword smacked it out of the air with superhuman speed.

  Gwen and Amy stood on the sidelines. Gwen looked confused, while Amy was rolling her eyes. I went to stand by them while we watched the show. The battle was intense. Dee, realizing that simple swordplay wouldn’t be enough, had begun artfully incorporating fire into her fighting style. For her part, Izzy teleported, and ducked in and out of stealth so much it was making me nauseous. Finally, Izzy found an opening in Dee’s defenses. Ducking under a swing, Izzy stabbed her dagger up into Dee’s chest. Dee fell backward, frost forming on her chest. As she stared up at Izzy in surprise, Izzy pointed at me. “Mine.” She said simply. With that, she retrieved her dagger from Dee’s corpse moments before Dee’s avatar retreated into the blade. I knew that Dee wasn’t really dead. She would pop back out of the sword in a few hours fully refreshed, and healed. Izzy returned Dee to her scabbard, slung it over her back, and resumed invisibility.

  Amy and Gwen looked at each other, looked at me, and turned back to the road without saying anything. I sighed. I really hoped Izzy wouldn’t keep doing this.

  ……………………………………………..

  “All I’m saying is, best two out of three. You can have Rowan, I don’t even care about that. I just want a rematch.” Dee said. It was about four hours later now, and I still wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or annoyed that Izzy thought she needed to fight over me. Dee wasn’t helping matters.