”Adi, it’s time for me to make a new class,” Laryn said. He stood in the center of Annar, looking at the kingdom core he’d claimed from the elves. Now that he had a second core, he wanted to use it.

  “Sure,” Adi said. “This core can manage a new class. It’ll generate stat points the same way as your [Ruler]’s core; based on the number of claimed hexagon rings surrounding it. Right now it has four.”

  “Wait,” Laryn said. “I already created the [Overseer] class. How did I do that without a core?”

  “Well, you can have as many classes as you’d like! But if you want to assign stat points to a class, You need a designated core to manage that class.”

  “Okay,” Laryn said.

  “Yeah,” Laryn said. “I want to create a [Mage] class. Someone besides me needs to be responsible for [Sift].”

  “Okay, that’s easy to do,” Adi said. “In order for someone to use [Sift], they’ll need to have one Magic Affinity point. If you create the [Mage] class with +1 magic affinity, you’ll be able to assign four mage classes, since this core has four completed rings around it. Or you could make [Mage]s get four magic affinity points. But then you could only have one mage, until you claimed more tiles.”

  Laryn rubbed his chin. “Too bad I can’t move this core easily,” he said. “If I just put it next to the [Ruler] core that would be more efficient.”

  Adi nodded. “You’ll have to find a coresmith to do that though,” she said.

  “How hard is it to respec a class, once I’ve created it?”

  “You’d have to reset the core.”

  “Need a core smith for that, huh,” Laryn said.

  “Yeah. I mean, to do it safely. You could always let someone capture it and then retake it from them, but—”

  “I get it,” Laryn said with a wave of the hand. “So I need to make sure I set this up right.” He sat down on a carved bench and ran his hand over the ornate elven carvings.

  Adi nodded.

  “What about elemental affinity?” he asked. “I currently have affinity with water and with air. I can do a water [Dart] or an air [Dart]. What would a mage be able to do?”

  “Both,” Adi said, “Or neither. The elemental affinity portion of the magic is shared. Having the point in Air or Water simply unlocked that element’s [Dart] spell for you. You could assign a [Mage] to have a water [Dart] or an air [Dart] ability, or not. It’s up to you.”

  “I don’t see any reason not to, at this point,” Laryn said. “But if it’s locked in…”

  “It’s not!” Adi said. “Only stat points are. You can come to this core at any time to adjust the permissions of the class, like what spells they can use.”

  “I see,” Laryn said. “Then I won’t restrict that for now.”

  “Makes sense to me!” Adi agreed. “Classes really are quite customizable. And besides, in the future, when you unlock stronger abilities and spells, you may want more control over how and when they’re cast.”

  Laryn turned options over in his head. Nearby a few people worked, collecting supplies that the elves had abandoned in their village. Hela was arguing that they should move everything over to Annar and live in the elven houses. Laryn didn’t like the idea, though. He preferred having everyone close to the core, protected on the island.

  “What if the core is destroyed?” he asked. “It kills the mages?”

  Adi shook her head. “Might hurt them. But it’ll just strip the class from them.”

  Laryn nodded. “If there are two of us that can cast [Sift], we can do it twice as often, right? The cooldown isn’t universal, it’s personal?”

  “That’s right,” Adi said with a nod.

  “Okay,” Laryn said. “So we’ll create a new [Mage] class. They just need one magic affinity point to gain the ability to [Sift], along with [Dart]. I won’t restrict the elements they can use.”

  “Got it,” Adi said.

  “If I gained another magic affinity point, and captured more life tiles, unlocking life [Dart], would they also be able to use that without me changing the class?”

  “We can set it up like that,” Adi said. “You can leave the elemental type of the spell unrestricted. The elemental modifiers are based on the capabilities of the kingdom, and can come and go depending on the land you’ve conquered. You can choose to weave restrictions into the class if you want, but I don’t recommend it right now.”

  “What do we have to do to complete the class, then?”

  "You just have to decide how many stat points you want to assign to the class. Magic affinity, Strength, and Constitution.”

  “I think I want my [Mage] class to be more capable. Able to do more than just [Sift]. They need to be more versatile. If I gave someone four magic affinity, would they unlock spells that I haven’t unlocked?”

  “Nope,” Adi said. “Spells unlock as your kingdom tier grows. Anyone with a magic affinity point could cast any spell you have unlocked. Some spells—like enhancement or combat spells of a higher tier—will do next to nothing if you only have one magic affinity point though.”

  “Okay,” Laryn said. “One more question. Can I multi class? Can I be [Ruler] and [Mage]?”

  “I like how you’re thinking,” Adi said. “Unfortunately no, I don’t think so.”

  Laryn rubbed his hands together. “Great. Then lets go ahead and make a [Mage] class. Two points in magic affinity, one in strength, and one in constitution.”

  “It’s done!”

  A blinking notification in Laryn’s system interface indicated the presence of the new class.

  “You’re amazing, Adi.”

  The Lepidoptera blushed, her wings fluttering softly. She grinned. “I aim to please,” she said. “Bring your mage over to this core and you can assign the class to them. Every four additional rings you claim around this core will let you add another [Mage].”

  Laryn crossed over the river and found Gaten, working near the kingdom core. The young man had been working hard, preparing materials for Laryn to sift.

  “What’s going on?” Gaten asked.

  “Come with me.”

  Laryn lead him back to the [Mage] core, and placed his hand on the obelisk.

  “Gaten, you’ve been a great help with all this work,” Laryn said. “Gathering materials for sifting isn’t an easy job. But I need more help from you.”

  Gaten glanced at Laryn suspicously.

  “I’m making you into Vallor’s first [Mage].”

  Gaten’s eyes bugged. “Me?” he asked. “Why me? I’m not… I’m the youngest one here!”

  “Second youngest,” Laryn corrected him.

  “Won’t people be… Jealous?”

  “I need someone reliable, and you’ve proven yourself. I trust you. I don’t think anyone will be jealous of you… just don’t go around showing off your new [Dart] ability. I can take that away if you abuse it.”

  Gaten grinned. “Elemental [Dart]s? Amazing!”

  “I’m serious,” Laryn said. “Stick with [Sift] or I’ll reconsider.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gaten said, straightening up and looking serious. “I won’t be a problem.”

  Laryn nodded, then triggered the class assignment in his system interface.

  “Woah,” Gaten said, waving his hands in the air. He’d been grated access to a system interface when Laryn assigned him the [Mage] class.

  “Good. Now you can focus on sifting as much as possible, to help improve our influence. Get familiar with the core interface. I’m going to be capturing more tiles, so influence is going to wane as it gets spread out. We need to get as much essence into the core as possible. With two of us working it should go twice as fast.”

  “Okay,” Gaten said, his eyes glazing over as he examined the core interface.

  “One more thing,” Laryn said. “There are some peculiar specifics about how this core works, that I’d rather not have shared with everyone. I could obfuscate them in the interface, but you’d still be able to figure things out eventually so I won’t demean you by trying to hide things. Please don’t discuss it with anyone.”

  “Of course, Sir,” Gaten said.

  “Figure out [Sift], and see how much you can do. I’m going to check on the others and take a short break.”

  As Laryn walked away from the kingdom core, Adi approached him. “If you’re worried about what he might do, we could use a Geas.”

  “I’m not,” Laryn said. “I’m trying to give him responsibility, and show him trust, so that he’ll work harder. If he betrays me, I’d rather it be something easy for me to detect and not of critical importance.”

  “Ah,” Adi said. “I see. Interesting.”

  “I trust him,” Laryn said. “But I also killed his father. So, if you wouldn’t mind, help me keep an eye on him?”

  “You got it, boss man!”

  Adi walked alongside him a second longer.

  “Anything else?” Laryn prompted.

  “Um, well, I’m just wondering. Why choose the youngest one in your [Homestead]?”

  “Everyone else has some kind of skill that I want to utilize, in a different way. Gaten’s the only one who’s mostly only good for manual labor,” Laryn said. “Even Widan is useful for his cattle herding knowledge.”

  “Ah,” Adi tapped her forehead. “I won’t repeat that to Gaten. What you said to him made him feel a lot more special.”

  “Now you’re getting it!” Laryn flashed her a grin.

  Later that day, Laryn worked with Gaten as they sifted more essence for the kingdom core. The boy worked hard, trying to validate Laryn’s faith in him.

  As they rested during a [Sift] cooldown, a dark shadow crossed over the sun.

  Everyone on the beach paused, turning to look up at the sky. Three black blobs hung there, drifting slowly through the cerulean air.

  “Void spores!” someone yelled.

  “They’re high! They’ll pass right over us,” Laryn said. Was that going to be a problem? If they took root in Elvandar and no elves were around to destroy them before they rooted, Vallor could become surrounded by void.

  As they watched the spores drifted higher into the sky, floating lazily on the breeze. They could drift for hundreds of miles before landing. It wasn’t worth it to pursue them.

  “Incoming!”

  Another spore drifted in, low over the trees.

  “Fire!” Laryn yelled. “Ready to burn!”

  People were already running from the bonfire, bearing burning brands.

  The spore moved with a surprising speed on the wind. A gnarled, bulbus glob of jiggling matter, it crashed down to the ground hard, just where the trees met the beach on the island. It burst with a loud pop, and flung sticky sludge around it in a wide radius.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Plant life struck by the discharge immediately began to wither and decay. At the core of the spore, a pulsating, wriggling grub the size of a horse began burrowing into the ground.

  Laryn grabbed a burning stick from someone nearby and ran forward. The other villagers had clearly done this before, and needed no orders from him. They piled on, throwing their burning sticks atop the wriggling grub.

  It shrieked in pain, writhing desperately as it tried to eat down in the earth, where it would put out roots, and send up the voidbloom flower as it sucked essence from the ground.

  Gall and Thallon lead the team cutting down blighted plants, carting them over to the smoldering heap atop the grub and tossing them in, fueling the fire and letting the flames consume the disease.

  It took a dozen more minutes, but eventually the grub stopped squirming. Its skin blistered from the heat of the fire, the cracked, splitting open and spilling white puss across the sand. The goo sizzled and burned, turning black.

  “That one was fast!” Laryn exclaimed. “It nearly rooted, even though we were right on top of it!”

  “They’ve been getting faster,” Gall said, brushing ashes off his hands as he approached.

  “Laryn!” Kenna ran up to him. “There’s a man across the river!”

  Laryn groaned. “Why are there so many people in the wildlands? It’s supposed to be wild and full of goblins.”

  “He’s asking for help,” Kenna said, ignoring his grumbling. “Thallon knows him.”

  “He does? How?”

  “Jarden wasn’t the only one to try founding a city in the wildlands, after the goblins started disappearing,” Kenna said. “We used to trade with a few of them, occasionally.”

  “So he’s from a sister town?” Laryn asked. “Where are they?”

  Kenna lead him to the north bank of the island, where they found Thallon and a few of the others wrapping blankets around a soaking wet man.

  The man’s eyes were sunken, and he had a hollow look about him, like his soul had shriveled up and hidden in a forgotten corner of his flesh.

  “Who is this?” Laryn demanded.

  “This is Falnor,” Thallon said, his arm around the man’s shoulders. “He nearly drowned trying to get here!”

  The man—Falnor—gazed up at Laryn pleadingly. “We need help,” he gasped. “We’re being overrun!”

  “He rode all day and all night to get here,” Thallon said. “He’s exhausted.”

  “Help him to the bonfire,” Laryn said. “Get him food and drink, then I’ll hear his story.”

  “No!” Falnor gasped. “We don’t have time!”

  “Fine,” Laryn said. “I’ll hear your story while you eat. Come on!”

  As they walked, Falnor mumbled parts of his story out, the semi-coherent ramblings of an exhausted and desperate man. Thallon filled in the gaps where he could.

  “He’s from Orfswell,” Thallon explained. “We used to trade with them once in a while. Good people, there. We were trying to find them when Coril and Tasam got us lost in the wilds.”

  “Suddenly overrun by blight,” Falnor muttered. “Voidlings, too many to fight. We holed up, though… I had to break out.”

  “How did you know we were here?” Laryn demanded.

  “Cairns at the cow pastures,” Falnor said.

  “When you sent us away, we set up cairns to help us find the way back. They’re small piles of rocks—”

  “I know what cairns are,” Laryn snapped.

  “Jardensvale was destroyed,” Falnor continued, “I was desperate, to find anyone who could help us… We need you. We need help. We’ll do anything. We’ll join you if you can come quickly!”

  “I don’t know what we can do for you,” Laryn said. “We’re not even a dozen men…”

  “Please!” Falnor exclaimed.

  “We have to!” Thallon pleaded.

  Laryn eyed the man, scanning for any sign of the obsidian black jewelry that might give away a connection to the void cult. He unconsciously tapped on the elven ring, still secure in the pouch at his side.

  Just because the man didn’t wear the symbols of the cult, didn’t mean he wasn’t associated with them. Then again, Laryn had a ring, but he wasn’t a member of the cult.

  Still, something about the man troubled him.

  “Why didn’t you destroy the spores before they rooted?” Laryn demanded. “It can take them days to root.” Unless cultists were planting them and speeding the process along. Or was there something different about Catarian soil?

  “You saw it yourself earlier,” Thallon said. “They are rooting faster.”

  “We tried!” Falnor protested. “There were too many of them.”

  “I don’t see why a half dozen spores—”

  Falnor scoffed, a barking laugh that turned into a wheezing cough. He took a moment to recover. “A half dozen is not nothing. We killed some of them, but the others rooted before we could do anything. Everyone is holed up in our lodge.”

  Laryn opened his mouth, but words didn’t come. He’d never heard of so many spores. In Endara spores sometimes blew down from the north, but never more than two or three in the same place.

  “Is this a common occurrence here?”

  Thallon shook his head. “I’ve neve heard of so many spores in one place before.”

  “Orfswell isn’t far from here,” Laryn said. “If the void is taking root and growing strong there, then… We will need to cut it off before it overruns us.”

  “We made a mistake,” Falnor said. “We thought a small, independent village would allow us freedom, wealth. But we are fighting for our lives with few resources. Please. Help us, and we’ll join you.”

  “You have a kingdom core?” Laryn asked.

  “Of course. How else could we have survived this long?”

  “It wasn’t destroyed?”

  “Not when I left.”

  “We can help you,” Laryn decided. “There aren’t a lot of us, but I’ll muster a force.”

  He needed more manpower if he was ever going to build a kingdom.