Chapter 457

“So Blackleaf is expanding,” Mark said, sitting down with the group and diverting the conversation toward productive ends. Andria softly asked, “Are you… okay?”

Pearl, Amy, and Uva didn’t want to engage with that. All three of them thought it was unkind to even ask that question in the first place, for they all felt like minor outsiders to the situation happening right now.

So Pearl stood up and softly said, “I believe we should head out, for tonight. It was lovely—”

“No, stay,” Mark said, “I’m fine. I just found out that Lola died in the attack and that Jessie brought her back because Freyala offered to let her come back, and Lola accepted.” Mark tried not to get emotional again, so he chuckled instead and said, “A bunch of people came out of the Battle for Memphi with the same kinda story, ah ha! Feels a bit more real now, though.”

Sally, Eliot, Andria, Derek, and especially Isoko, all wondered if Mark was actually okay.

Pearl knew he wasn’t, but she extended a kindness when she said, “Then I would speak on matters of Empire building, with concern toward this new capability of yours upon which a generation of True Powers will rise.”

Mark smiled, moving past the discomfort of before, and said, “I’ve extended invitations to the settlement— Oh, yeah. We’re calling it Dawncoast, now. Reeni said I should just pick a name and not make anything special out of it, so that’s the name of the city.”

Various disbelieving looks were leveled at him.

Mark happily added, “I’m going to keep Castleblack in reserve for the eventual flying castle.”

“Because that’s the important thing,” Eliot deadpanned.

“Exactly—”

“Why one?” Sally asked.

Isoko scoffed, saying, “You can’t unilaterally decide these things! I wanted Bignonia! They’re cute flowers. What the fuck is ‘’.”

Derek helpfully supplied, “We’re on the east coast of the Shine, and that makes it a coast!”

Isoko scoffed at Derek, “Don’t even get me started on your multi-vote shenanigans.”

Another Derek said, “If you don’t engage in a little voter fraud then are you even doing democracy right?”

“That is the worst fucking shit I’ve ever heard,” Isoko said, even as others laughed.

“It was the fourth or fifth in line for favorite,” Andria said.

Sally said, “Only because our stupid fucking ‘Gate-whatever’ voting bloc split down stupid lines and then we got three of them. If all of those people had voted on ‘Gatetown’ then we would have won!”

Eliot said to Sally, “Gatetown was the lowest option among all of those.”

“And that’s how compromise works!” Sally said, “But noooooo. Instead of winning, we got split.”

Isoko grinned. “Gotta love democracy.”

“See! You get it, now!” Derek said.

“And see? That’s another issue,” Sally said, “Because we really should have stuck to the rank-choice voting method but then those two assholes Jake and Jeorge running the campaign had that argument over waffles in that restaurant and they broke up— I think someone did that to them…” Sally paused.

Sally looked at Derek.

Four Dereks said, “We did nothing to them!”

Sally scoffed.

Andria said, “It wouldn’t be the first time someone poisoned a competitor’s option in order to win an election.”

Mark proudly declared, “Which is why tyranny of the strong is always the better governmental option.”

Derek laughed. Eliot spoke about ‘Careful your Blackvein is showing’, and Sally enlarged a couch pillow and threw it at Mark. Isoko grinned and Andria giggled, and even the witches seemed to be better at ease, or at least they were blending in easier thanks to the nonsense of the name of the settlement… Well. Truly, the politics behind the entire ‘name the settlement’ had been major news story of the settlement for a good month there, leading up to the one year anniversary, where it would have been customary to actually name a settlement, if the settlement was thriving. The other option would have been abandonment of the entire project.

Most settlement projects were abandoned.

This one was never going to be abandoned; not with the gate up and running.

But then Nobody Important had happened, and the whole ‘name the settlement’-thing kinda fell apart.

Perhaps they would have continued with that conversation, but Tartu, Lenny, and Shawn were by the front door, and Derek invited them in.

Mark locked eyes with Tartu and proclaimed, “He’ll back me up!”

“What,” Tartu deadpanned, stopped in his tracks.

“The tyranny of the strong is always better than the weakness of the masses!”

“Say ‘no’, Tartu!” Isoko called out, smiling as she did so.

Tartu instantly adopted his Spherix persona and proclaimed, “Blackvein must be taken down for the good of humanity as a whole! And then my own choices for governmental entities must be instituted.” He added, “I was thinking a Monarchy.”

“BOOoooOO!” a whole bunch of people said.

Blackvein proclaimed, “See! Even the imperialist agrees!”

“When Blackvein puts it like then maybe we should do democracy,” Spherix said, “But if this is about ‘Dawncoast’ then I will have to vehemently disagree, and Celewich is clearly the better option and I will fight you for it.”

“Gah!” Blackvein said, “It doesn’t matter how you heard it, but you did! I should have expected you to both have your spying ways, and also to make bad decisions, Spherix, but there is no way we’re calling Dawncoast ‘Celewich’.”

Miss Masher stood, smashing her fists together, and saying, “Gateroad.”

Platinum Princess proclaimed, “Bignonia! It has to be Bignonia!”

Blackvein exaggerated a look among his team, saying, “Come on, guys. Rally behind me.”

“Oh, I see,” Very Human exaggerated, “the tyrant needs his masses to rally behind him.”

Reflectman said, “I want to talk about Powers and weaponry and being prepared for war, please.”

“Oh, uhh… Yeah,” Mark said, the mood shifting to something less heightened, more grounded. “Of course— Oh fuck. Sorry! I completely forgot to actually offer it to you and Lenny. And weapons, too. All of that stuff. What kinda Powers do you two want?”

Shawn said, “Battlemind.”

“Excellent choice! I don’t have it, but I’ll keep a look out for it.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Tartu said, “We checked the monster hunt listings, and there’s a troupe of monster monkeys that moved into a part of the dragonoid canyons that probably have Battlemind. We’re going hunting, and we want to bring it back here for you to do your thing with it and give Battlemind to Shawn.”

Mark said, “I’ll go down there and strip them all. It’ll only take 10 minutes.”

“We can get them ourselves—”

“I know you can,” Mark said, “But a lot of shit is happening, and you guys shouldn’t be risking yourself on a normal monster run, and I need to do a whole run through the dragonoid canyons anyway. I bet there are lots of neat, weird powers in there.” Mark said to Lenny, “And you, Lenny?”

Tartu kinda… just didn’t argue. He still disagreed, but he didn’t say anything about it.

Lenny said, “I want something that will support my Arcane PL and round me out, so something to upgrade my Knack for Terra Knowledge to an actual Mind Power for land knowledge, and to get maybe a Manipulation Power? Or maybe Natural? I… I wouldn’t know how to thank you if I could get any of that. But… thank you.”

Lenny was a lot less sure about his needs than Shawn had been, which was probably because Lenny had turned his simple Knack, which was mostly Mind-based, into full magery. That took A Lot, but it was how the best mages were made. That difference in gaining PL the hard way while starting with a very low Talent allowed one to use all of their future Power Level for spellcasting.

That’s why Mark was ‘never going to be a good mage’. His PL was huge and it was all Talent-derived, leaving him barely any room to cast actual spells; almost no free mana… Though that was based on old spellcasting methodology, with Quark mostly doing Sigildry… Eh! The shape of the argument remained the same for other people.

Isoko had a naturally high PL because of Platinum Body, but hers was specifically tuned by the demons that organized the system to require very little personal power for Platinum Body and to leave a whole lot of power open, for spellcasting… or at least that was the going theory. Ever since Isoko got Sky Shaper and True Union, though, her ability to cast spells had completely cratered, just like Mark’s.

Tartu’s ability to cast spells had also cratered, because he got Farmer in addition to his Healthy Body, but he also had Domainer, which allowed him to cast spells outside of his body, as long as he had enough mana to ‘bind’ those spells into the air. With Farmer, he had that extra mana.

But now Lenny, the mage, was asking to become a Bi-Talent, instead of a Knacker.

That was a big deal. It was the choice to change his entire life trajectory.

Mark wasn’t even really aware that Lenny wanted such a thing… but that was Mark’s own fault for not seeing it before now. He knew what had happened, now that he was looking.

Both Shawn and Lenny struggled deeply with being outdone by everyone else around them. Ever since the teams came back as godly Tri-Talents Lenny and Shawn had been… lesser. They had barely talked to Mark the entire time they had been there for the Winter Ball, and maybe that was Mark’s fault, but… Part of it was just feelings of inferiority.

Mark could fix that, though.

Lenny would have more trouble casting spells, but he could make that choice, and he was fully aware of what that choice meant, so Mark would respect it.

Mark strongly said, “I’ll make sure that both of you rise tall. There’s no need for thanks, either, because I know you two. We’re all going to be fighting for our lives against Okuana and their dryads, and you’re both great guys.” Mark continued, “So how about this:

“Lenny. You and I can talk in private a bit, to discuss your needs.

“But Shawn, I have Strength Unending right now. I only got one of them. You wanna upgrade your Brawny? We can do Battlemind later.”

Lenny looked deeply relieved, though he tried not to show it.

Shawn kinda stood there, like an ant under the eyes of a god… and maybe he was being eyed by a god right now. Shawn was a Paladin of Drakarok, just like Sally had been, and was. So yeah, Drakarok was here.

Shawn said, “Strength Unending is a 5x Strength modifier, isn’t it.”

It wasn’t really a question.

Mark added, “And a 2x Speed modifier, but only really because the body will be supercharged to never stop. You’ll go at full strength, in every battle, all the time. And I think it has one of the highest non-magically-directed rates of healing.”

Shawn smiled, and then he joked, “Do you have a Glorious Body in there as an option?”

Mark grinned. “Glorious Man has ‘Supreme Body’, and no, I do not.”

“Aww, dammit!” Shawn said, sarcastically. “Well I , if I settle for the lesser option— Fucking YES! Hell fucking yes, man!”

Mark grinned, and then he stepped toward Shawn, to stand in front of him, about a meter away, and said, “Attack me. Full f—”

Shawn instantly threw a punch into Mark’s guts, Mark’s shirt rippling with the force of the punch, his skin flickering black and absorbing the hit. Shawn didn’t break his hand; he had a good Body already. He did wince, though, as Mark opened his soulhouse to him.

And then Shawn kinda faltered, his soul directly under a counter-attack from Mark. His Retribution rippled, sparking gold against Mark’s penetrating Union and doing a whole lot more damage to Mark than the punch ever could. It still wasn’t enough to actually matter, or to stop what Mark did next.

With one hand, Mark held Strength Unending, the dreamy scroll unfurling and shifting into a real, true Binding.

With the other hand, Mark reached out with the dream, with Union, directly into Shawn’s sparking soul.

“We do a little exchange,” Mark said softly, as he proceeded to Union with Strength Unending and Brawny.

Retribution ripped across Mark’s adjustments, sparking everywhere, but Drakarok was there, in the edge of the dream, at the edge of Mark’s black soulhouse, just beyond Shawn like a guardian spirit. The God of War and Murder helped quiet Shawn’s Retribution, and the exchange went wonderfully. A bit of pain, a bit of adjustment, and Mark pulled out the most typical Power of people born on Earth, and then he closed up Shawn’s soul, burying a better Power in its place.

Mark pulled out of the dream, out of Shawn, and Shawn’s fist fell away from Mark’s stomach and he fell onto his ass, onto the carpet beside the couch.

Everyone else watched, transfixed.

And then Lenny and Tartu were there, helping the guy up, and Mark gave him some space, and Shawn blinked for a bit before he steadied himself on his feet.

Tartu asked, “You good?”

“I’m…” Shawn flexed his fist, and Mark practically saw his shirt tighten as his muscles bulged, as his veins flexed under his skin, as Strength Unending surged throughout his Brawny-primed physicality. He’d be getting stronger, and fast, but even now he was experiencing a rather standard strength-buff that all brawnies got, but . Shawn shuddered a little, breath hitching, and then he breathed easy once, twice, and he relaxed his fist, saying, “I’m good. This is good.”

Silence.

Staring.

Wonder and amazement.

Tartu cracked the ice, saying to Mark, “Remind me never to attack you ever again.”

Mark smiled and said, “I’ve already demonstrated this exact capability to a whole bunch of people, so I’m hoping that most assassins will think twice.”

Isoko said, “Expect to get a whole suite of assassin Powers.”

“This house is assassin proo…” Eliot paused. “Assassin .”

Mark laughed, other people worried or politely chuckled.

Mark said, “Let’s talk about the organization of Blackleaf. Pearl? Amy? Uva? Any of you want to get in on this, in this way? I’m gonna need someone to organize all of the requests for Skilling.”

Pearl took the lead, saying, “We all three will take this deep responsibility.”

The three witches bowed, and then they rose.

Mark thought that was fine.

Pearl continued, “But to talk actual numbers… What are you ?”

Mark started with a question, “I don’t know how Skillers usually do it, but I assume it’s not nearly as complete and easy as I can Skill, right?”

Amy muttered, “Oh my gods, that’s an understatement.”

Pearl merely nodded, deeply and seriously.

Andria said, “Skillers help you figure out how to grow your own Skill into something more, or they fix an issue if you crack your Binding. That’s they can do.”

Sally said, “Some Skillers like Thrashtalon could do more, and that’s something we have to keep in mind, here. We’re in the realm of real, worldly powers, and the dangers are just as large. People will come here and try to fuck up Mark and even if they don’t do that they’ll take the powers Mark gives out and use them toward bad ends. Cultists will be a major issue.”

Mark began, “I don’t expect cultists to be an issue— Actually, Walaria is going to be sending me prisoners and I’m switching out their Powers with Healthy Body, and I bet some of them are Cultists…” Mark saw eyes widen, vectors tense, and questions burgeoning to be asked. Mark shifted gears, saying, “Okay, so. Let’s rearrange things and sit down for a big conversation.”