The System Seas

Chapter 123: Idealist’s Club

“I hit him with a big hammer.” The Overseer swung his arm down until some imagined target stopped it, appearing to relish the memory of squishing a man. “I was something called an back then. The only one I ever heard of, too. The fool tried to block my best shot, knowing that. Made a good sound when he broke. There’s a song about it I’m fond of.”“Neat. Can I see your hammer?” Riv had fully lost track of the conversation’s initial purpose now. Elisa sent Marco a look, and he refrained from breaking in when Riv pulled out his club. “I have this one, but once I finish absorbing what it can do, I need ideas on what to do next.”

The king held out his hand and touched the club, then raised his eyebrows. “That’s a neat little skill. You don’t see them inside weapons very often. Sure, you can see it. Hell, you can have it if you want. Not like it’s doing any good up on a wall. Let me get this talk done first, though.”

Riv stiffened up a little bit as he came back down to the ground from the excitement of the talk. Elisa shook her head at him, letting him know it wasn’t a big deal.

“Point is, I took the temple from him. After that, I could have kept on going, but there were people starving on this island. This wasn’t the safest place back then, and I decided to stay a little bit to make sure they did all right. Pretty soon, it was a permanent thing. I got stuck. Didn’t hurt anyone, really. Not even me. I’ve had a good run.”

“But now something’s changing.”

“Two things. I’m dying. The system doesn’t do much about old age, you see. You get to it, generally, but you can’t beat it. I’m coming up on ninety-eight years of life, if you believe that. That’s about enough for anyone. If I die and nobody has claimed this temple, it and every other temple I have become an up-for-grabs affair. This wasn’t an inner sea when I found it, you see. I don’t think I’d like to see it backslide.”

“You made it an inner sea?”

“I helped. Drove off the worst of the pirates, killed the biggest monsters. Pacified it a bit to help the people. Sooner or later, I got a notification that I was the ruler of an established, reasonably safe territory.”

“Can they really revert?” Elisa asked. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“Don’t know, don’t want to find out.” The old man took another swig from his water. “The second issue is that while I don’t know what those temples are really for any better than you do, I’ve found out what they aren’t for in some ways. I have… oh, I don’t know. Several of the things are under my control; I lost count at some point. I figured there was a chance I was fulfilling the plan for the buildings when I settled here. Recently, though, the system has been telling me I’m wrong.”

“Oh?”

“In no unclear terms. I had my scribes write this out for you once I found out from the system that you were on your way.”

Temple Stagnation Event

You have been in control of several temples for a long period of time without further increasing your temple-controlled territory. While the system does not control the specifics of the temples’ objection to this act, it can see and understand some of the coming backlash.

The power of the temples is increasingly running wild within your territories. For many years, the consequences of this would have been difficult to discern; however, they are now becoming increasingly apparent. Taking the form of various irregularities in the weather, the behavior of the sea and earth, and the overall normality of the beast population in your territory, these effects are either running amok or are prepared to do so at any time.

Please venture into uncontrolled territory and seize an additional temple to restore stability to your territories.

“We got caught in a hurricane on the way here,” Marco said. “A big, scary sort of storm. If I were you, I’d fix that sooner rather than later. We barely kept above water.”

“I’d do that if I could. I’d like nothing better, and my advisors couldn’t very well argue with that kind of logic coming straight from the system. The only problem is that I’m like this.” The king gestured generally over his wasted body. “A good-sized housefly could break me in half, now. I’m in no shape for that kind of adventure.”

“So you want us to do it for you.” Elisa frowned. “I believe him, crew, by the way. There’s no reason why he’d lie like this. Sir, can I try something?”

The old man smiled.

“Sure, if you like.”

Elisa stood up and circled to the old man’s side of the desk, laying her green-glowing hands on him as she infused him with healing energy.

“How’s that? Did it help?”

“It feels nice,” the old man said. “Healing always does. It just doesn’t make me young. My joints are still mostly sawdust and my bones are still frail, I’m afraid. Thanks for trying, though.”

“I understand why you need something like us,” Marco said. “What I don’t understand is why you’d trust us. You know how we behaved over the course of a few days, but anyone can be good that long. I bet even pirates have moments of kindness.”

“You’d be surprised. Kindness is a fragile thing, once you get around to attacking it directly. But to answer your question, I normally wouldn’t do something like this. I’ve been telling the system no for a long time when it asked. It never seemed like a good gamble to make with my people’s lives. Now I’m out of options. The perfect safe choice never showed itself. You’ll have to do.”

“And if we flip the switch to drain the land and starve your people?”

“Then big ships will chase you, you’ll get away, and that will be that.” The Overseer coughed again, this time harder. It wasn’t a healthy-sounding cough, and Marco felt that every time he heard it. “I just ask you not to. That’s all. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you will. Nobody fights this hard to avoid taking power unless they don’t care about it much. You lot don’t seem to.”

Marco scanned his eyes over his crew. It wasn’t so much to see what decision he had to make. That much was starting to be clear. It was to remind himself who they were. Not a single one of them felt anything but sick thinking about misusing this power. There might be some people out on the waves who could match them in that way, but he guessed not many.

“We’ll take it, then. And you have our word that we’ll leave things as they’ve been.”

“Good.” The old man exhaled and let his head droop down a bit before standing, hobbling over a few steps, and pulling a cord on his wall. “My people will get the process started, then. The system wanted a few things to make it happen.”

“What kind of things?”

“Nothing we don’t have plenty of. Don’t worry about it. It’s on me. Now, as for you.” The overseer looked at Riv and smiled. “Help me downstairs and show me what you can do with that club. I’ll give you some pointers.”

For the next half hour, the king had Riv swing his club. At first, he had him swing it at a convenient nearby building, knocking stones out of it in big clumps. That game stopped as soon as a middle-aged man Marco could only guess was one of the aforementioned advisors showed up in a dead panic and very politely but firmly asked the king to stop. After that, Riv worked with the air. The king gave him little tips about his footwork interwoven with all the little tricks he had learned over the years about how best to fake out an opponent, create an opening, and use that opening to crush them into a new, less convenient shape.

“Thanks, old man,” Riv said. “I’ll put all that to good use.”

“Glad to hear it. Here, might as well take this, too.”

The king held out his hand, set a ring on his hand glowing, and materialized his weapon. He had called it a hammer, and in some ways it was. Marco was sure it would have no problems driving a nail, at least. But in shape and intent, it was like the crossroads of a huge mace and the kind of club Riv already carried. Though the weight of the weapon was clearly concentrated near the end, the overall shape of the weapon was like a mushroom-headed, stretched teardrop. The end would do the most damage, sure, but the handle was nasty enough to hold its own, as well.

As for quality, there was no mistaking that. The thing all but blinded Marco looking at it. It was made of some silver-like metal, gleamed in the sun, and had no speck in its makeup that wasn’t clearly top craftsmanship. Marco couldn’t imagine giving up a weapon like that.

“Here you go. It turns back into the ring when you don’t need it. Convenient when it gets dropped in the ocean, that.”

“Oooh.” Riv reached for the club, held it up for inspection, then gave it a few cursory swings. “This feels nice.”

“It should. I fed it enough weapons.” The overseer smiled. “Read them the description. I bet your scholar-girl gets a kick out of it.”

Idealist’s Club

Salvaged from the deepest rooms of an undersea dungeon labyrinth, this club grows by consuming other weapons. When it does, it takes the best aspects of them into itself, moving closer to perfection. If a weapon offers nothing with which the club can improve itself, the donor weapon is destroyed without any gain whatsoever.

In its current state, the club manifests as Majestic Enchanted Silver, a high-grade system material. With further feedings, its material may shift to a more appropriate representation of its strength.

Current Effects:

Technique Enhancement: Light

Defensive Enhancements: Medium

Strength Enhancement: Light

Dexterity Penalty: Light

“Just light on technique and strength? And a penalty on dexterity?”

“Don’t think you know the whole story, boy. I’ve fed that thing thousands of weapons. It only gets a bit from each, if it gets anything at all. That dexterity penalty used to be heavy. I think most clubs are, whether they say so or not.”

Riv gave the club a test swing.

“It does feel light. Weirdly so.”

“I bet. Now, come along. My advisors are having a fit over there.” The overseer nodded towards a group of men and women just like the one who had forbidden the king from letting the visitors destroy valuable buildings. “We might as well put them out of their misery. I’ve learned from experience they don’t stop worrying unless you force them to.”

The advisors brought forth a wheeled chair the overseer flat-out refused to sit in, opting instead to hobble after them on a cane.

“It’s not far. Good thing, too.” The king hacked out a cough for what must have been the twentieth time since they came outside. “I’m not sure, but I think I wouldn’t make it there if it wasn’t.”