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

controlled them; here in an outpost, however, they either needed a local commander or to be semi-autonomous.

The Servitor was a level three or ‘Complex’ class Golem. All I had to do was give it orders and it would obey, returning to me if there was an issue. Much of the condition of the Waystation was beyond its ability to fix properly, as the structure was magical in part, but the walls and floors, it could do, and the magical nature of the building could repair the rest.

I ordered it to clear the goblins’ kitchen first, sorting the bodies into three categories: goblin, animal, and sentient. I was worried it would need more direction than that, but it clattered away happily. It took it less than an hour to do a job that would have taken us days, and when it was done, it was immediately redirected to begin clearing a way out of the ruined Waystation. Oren landed as soon as he could, and Ardberg and a team from the Tower worked their way through the corridors to us from the old goblin entrance.

By the time the sun rose, the building was partially uncovered, and the ‘Simple’ or level two War Golems that were charged were being commanded by their unit commander, a ‘Complex’ Warrior. The commander Golem took charge of the lower leveled versions effortlessly and directed them to clear out corridors, shoring up sagging roofs and walls, and generally uncovering a building that had been entirely lost to time until now.

Riana was running from one section of the building to another, examining uncovered walls, carvings, and the occasional rusted hulks that she swore were important finds. I just left her to it and sat on the warship deck, talking quietly to Oren, and idly flicking through the intermittent notifications I received from the Waystation, when I found one I’d earned a few hours before and missed.

Congratulations! Through hard work and perseverance, you have increased your Wisdom by one point. Continue to train and learn to increase this further.

That made three points my Wisdom stat had jumped in twenty-four hours, which seemed insane, until I thought about the fact that I’d essentially been casting healing spells continually for the entire night. I’d scrapped the notifications that told me about a spell levelling up, keeping only the ones that told about reaching an evolutionary point, but when I looked at my stats, I found that not only was I close to reaching that point with my Firebolt, but I was at level twelve with my summoning spell!

Repairing Bob alone had been enough to bring me to that stage, since I’d had to basically rebuild him entirely, twice over, in the last forty-eight hours.

“Well, laddie, ye ready to head down to’ th’ shore? Meet up wit’ yer Mer-mates?” Oren asked, and I grinned at him, making him look at me askance.

“Yeah, let’s go…” I laughed. “Hey, back home we had legends of mermaids. You made me think of them when you said that; are they real here?”

“Mermaids? Ye mean th’ female Mer? Aye, how else d’ye think ye be gettin’ wee Mer kiddies?” Oren replied, confused.

“No, I mean…oh, forget it. In my world, Mermaids were half human, half fish, supposedly beautiful women that would lure sailors to their death.”

“Aye, still female Mer, laddie…” Oren said, turning to shout orders to the crew. Oracle and Bob began heading over from the ruin, where Bob had been working to clear a section with her direction.

They clattered up the makeshift gangway that had been rigged to lift the loot aboard. Bob took up station halfway down the ship, watching everything, while Oracle flew to me.

“I don’t know…” I muttered, thinking about Cheena. “They were supposedly beautiful creatures, made sailors jump over the side of their ships, drowning willingly to die in the arms of the mermaids while boinkin’.”

“Hah! Ye dinna know many sailors ‘til now, did ye! I tell ye, most o’ ma crew would no say no to a tumble wit’ Cheena after a week’s sailin’, and after months? Ye’d be beatin’ them wit a shitty stick just to get their attention!”

I grinned at him, remembering my time in the army, and reconsidered Cheena for a second. I couldn’t see it myself, but after months on deployment… yeah, the world looks so much different that a civvie would ever understand. I shrugged, making my way to the upper deck, near Oren and Jory, the ships old helmsman. I leaned forward, resting on the railing, and watched as the ship slowly raised itself, lifting through the trees that surrounded the Waystation and into the clear morning sunlight. We slowly turned, the lake coming into view, and began to head down toward the shore. I stayed there for a few minutes as Oracle sat by my side, neither of us speaking as we enjoyed the other’s company, the fresh morning breeze bringing the smell of the forest mixed with the clean scent of the lake.

I’d never really thought about being able to smell water before, but it had always been there, and here, surrounded by the forest, it was clear when the breeze brought it to us. We watched the morning fog gently rolling off the water, and I relaxed.

It was beautiful, and even though it only lasted a few minutes, it felt fantastic.

All too soon, we were coming into land on the shore, touching down close to Decin’s ship. It was as fixed as we could make it now, the engineers taking advantage of the extra time we’d given them to fix a few other issues.

As we came to rest, I saw Decin walking out of the Captain’s cabin, and he gave a little wave as he saw us. He’d found the damn purple robes Oren had told me about and was wearing them proudly already.

Flux was there as well, waiting in the shallows with a dozen other Mer, and I recognized both Bane and little T’lek among the group. When I