The Forgotten Faithful: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 2) by Cajiao, Jez (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

at the minute, but the potential! Once it’s repaired, it will be a powerhouse. The ability to literally build our own Golems ensures our productivity. The Tower will be our bastion and our capital; we can secure the local area, gathering what we need, and keep our people safe. I can’t imagine a more secure or better start to a nation than we have. It’ll be tough, but nothing worthwhile is ever fucking easy, mate.”

I straightened, knowing I could be saying all of this better, but I didn’t know how. “I can get materials; I can get the physical things we need; what I don’t have is the most valuable resource of any nation: I don’t have enough people!”

“And you want us to what? Join you?” Flux asked slowly, and I nodded.

“Ideally, yes, I do. I want you to join me, but if that’s too much to ask, then I want us to at least trade. Tell me what you need, what you want in return, and I’ll buy food and goods from you for my people.” I shrugged as I looked at him, knowing he was studying me minutely. His tendrils were fully extended, and an almost uncomfortable thrum filled the air. “I think you’ve got a good measure of me from today, but if not, then come and help me. I’ll take you at your word if you swear you mean me no ill will. Come to the Tower and help me to make it a home for both our peoples, and you can leave whenever you want.”

“I’ll discuss it with my people,” he said finally. “I will return in the morning to the shore where we first met. That is the best I can do at this time.”

“Thank you, Flux,” I said, smiling at him, and he nodded his head, letting his tendrils relax as he got to his feet. I stood as well and we gripped each other’s wrists, shaking once and releasing. With that, he turned and set off walking through the ruin, disappearing around the corner, and I sighed. I liked Flux, I reflected, and I hoped he’d accept my offer, or at least not dismiss it out of hand when he spoke to his people.

I finally turned to Lydia, noting the way she sat, exhausted despite the hours of rest. “You haven’t had any healing, have you?” I asked her, getting a shrug in return, and I shook my head at her. Sitting back down, I drew in a deep breath and cast ‘Battlefield Triage’ on her.

It focused in on the most grievous wounds first, moving through her body in stages, fixing each injury as far as it could before I ran out of mana three seconds later. She wasn’t fully healed, but she looked a hell of a lot better than she had before.

“Oracle…” I said suddenly, as a thought occurred to me.

“Yes, Jax?” she asked.

“At the end of the battle yesterday, you asked me if it was okay to give out a healing spell…who did you give it to?”

“I gave it to Ardbeg; he’s one of Cai’s people, and he had the best affinity with Life magic. It wasn’t much, but…”

“Can you get up to Oren? Tell him to get back to the Tower and bring Ardberg back with him as fast as he can?” I interrupted her, and as my stomach rumbled, I added, “and bring back enough food for everyone. Hell, bring back a Golem, too! Tell Cai I want as many alchemy ingredients gathered as he can manage. When we get back tomorrow, I’m going to start teaching someone basic Alchemy, and we’re going to make sure we have enough damn potions in the future!”

Oracle spun in place and blurred away at high speed, disappearing down the corridor as I turned to Decin and Lydia who were both watching me. “Well, let’s get started. I know we’re all wounded to one degree or another, but for the next few hours, let’s get the main room cleaned, as best we can at least. Once that’s done, we can shift to removing the dead. By then, we’re going to have at least one Golem to help us, and it can do the truly gruesome bits.”

Chapter Twelve

It had taken Oren about ten hours to make the round trip to the Tower and back, and he brought an extra handful of people with him to help. Oracle had returned to my side, assisting me as we all worked, trying to return the ruin to a livable condition. We knew Oren had arrived when there was an almighty crash from above, dust suddenly falling from several places as the ruin creaked ominously.

He’d apparently decided that the best way to clear a space for the warship to land wasn’t to use the cannons, but instead to drop the Golem off over the side in the area he’d thought was near to the ruin. He’d in fact dropped it directly on top, and it was only blind luck that it hadn’t done more damage or killed one of us.

Oracle had found a way through to the surface at one point, an enterprising badger having cleared some of the way before being eaten by goblins, and she immediately used it to get out to see what had happened.

Once she finished berating Oren, she took control of the Golem, and commanded it to clear the immediate area of smaller trees, then the larger.

Soon after the Golem began its work, the Servitor Golem was finished charging, and it stepped from the recess in the wall where it had been stored, causing the room to explode in panic for a few minutes.

Once I’d settled the room, I took control of the Servitor Golem, glad that it was a higher class than the other one stationed in the Great Tower. Those Golems needed to be directly controlled when they were as simple as the first level or ‘Basic’ versions. In the Tower, Seneschal or Heph usually