Blood Shaper

Book 3: Chapter 7

Kay slowly raised his hands, his sword held loosely in one of them, as he looked down at the blade pointed at his throat. “I yield.”

Meten grinned and stepped back, “Well fought.”

Kay nodded back and returned his weapon to blood. “Thanks. Not that I did more than stay up a little bit longer.”

“Improvement is improvement,” Meten scolded as the group of children and teenagers that had been watching seemed to come out of their collective shock and started applauding and cheering. “If you don’t acknowledge your own gains, you will stagnate.”

Kay closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then slowly opened them again and nodded. “Right. Thank you for the match and the reminder.”

Eleniah stepped up and gathered the attention of all the students who had been spectating. “Alright, everyone, please thank our guests for letting us watch their sparring match today.”

“Thank you!” The group cheered; some of the teenagers said it in a perfunctory way, but Kay didn’t really mind; he remembered being a teenager once.

Eleniah started lecturing, and Kay zoned out. She had two main duties as a teacher, educating the little ones and teaching all the older children who thought they wanted to get Combat Classes about being a fighter and things they would need to know in the future. As part of that second duty, Kay and Meten had been voluntold to show up and do a sparring match as an exhibition to show off the level of power people could reach. At least that’s what he thought it was for, it might have been for some other reason, but no one had specified, so he’d had to guess for himself.

He came back to reality when Eleniah stepped up next to him and grasped his shoulder. “Now, can anyone tell me what Mayor Kay did wrong during this fight?”

Some of the teens and children looked at each other and muttered; a few others raised their hands. Eleniah picked one out.

“He didn’t keep his distance? He let Mister Meten get in range to beat him up!” The first kid answered.

“Hmm, not quite. Even though he didn’t show us today, Meten has a number of ranged attacks and many that outrange Kay’s attacks, so keeping a distance wouldn’t have helped. Also, you don’t always choose the circumstances of your battles. Sometimes you don’t have a choice but to fight on your enemy’s terms. Not a bad answer, just not the answer I’m looking for.” She pointed at another raised hand, “Yes, what’s your answer, Annie?”

“Is it that he got in the fight in the first place?” The little girl asked instead of giving a firm answer. “You always said that it’s best to avoid fighting up tiers.”

“Again, not a bad answer, but no. Like I just said, you don’t always get to choose what you want to do in a fight. A higher-tier enemy might put you in a position that you can’t get out of except by fighting. You’re right that you want to avoid fighting up tiers, and it’s good that you remembered that, but that’s not the answer right now.” Eleniah glanced around at the small crowd of young people and saw that no one had their hand up anymore. “The answer here is that he didn’t do anything wrong.” Her face became a bit grim as she gazed back and forth across all the kids. “Sometimes, you end up in a fight that you can’t win. The best bet in that situation is to run.” She patted Kay’s shoulder. “In this case, because he was in a position where he couldn’t since he wouldn’t disappoint me like that,” She grinned at him, and the crowd all laughed, “He had to stay and fight. In situations where you don’t have to stay and fight, though, your best bet is to run away!” She emphasized that last bit heavily. “It is better to live to fight another day than to die pointlessly.” She looked around and saw the somber gazes of her students, then turned smiled. “Good. That’s all for our lesson today. See you all the day after tomorrow.”

A portion of the kids splintered away while a few gathered around Eleniah and started asking questions. Kay was about to grab Meten and ask if they could get a few more rounds of practice in once the area was cleared, but he stopped in mild surprise when some of the older kids came to talk to him.

Inwardly he smiled a little, even as he seriously addressed the kid’s questions the best he could. He was glad they felt they could come up and talk to him like this. He was doing his best to be a good leader, and the fact that kids he didn’t know felt comfortable enough to ask him questions, even if it was during a lesson, made him think he was on the right track.

He spent almost half an hour answering questions, although a number of them he had to push off onto Eleniah since he didn’t know the answers.

Eventually, he had to leave, so he made his goodbyes and left the training area attached to the school. A portion of the cliff wall to the north of the initial base camp had stuck out quite a bit, and they’d turned the entire pushed-out portion into a school. The lump of rock was massive, and the lowest part of it had been turned into an entire floor of classrooms and lecture halls. The design reminded him of his college classes a few years ago, with multiple classrooms surrounding one larger lecture hall with tiered seats. The outer section of the area had been turned into an open-roofed training ground with a floor made of dark sand, formed of crushed rock that the builders had pulled down to open the roof. There was still more than enough stone left to expand into, and there were plans to make at least four more floors for the school.

Kay wasn’t really sure they’d need all the space, but Eleniah insisted that they needed to expand and make room for more students, dormitories, workshops, and more. When he asked her if she was planning on making an academy, she’d looked at him like he was stupid.

“Of course, we need to make an academy! Do you have any idea how big we’re going to get?”

“Um… I guess not?”

“We’re going to grow like mad coming soon! We’ve already increased our population by almost ten times in less than a year! When word starts to get out about everything, we’re going to balloon-like crazy. That’s why I’ve been putting in orders with the Office of Building for more and more houses to go up.”

“Oh, is that where so much of the budget is going?”

“Yes! Kay, we’re going to be big once people learn about your title. People will flood here.”

“I still don’t get that.”

“Adding more variety to your build is sometimes the answer to getting past deadlocks, so a huge number of people will want to be taught ‘new’ classes. And the rest will want to race down a path, hoping that they can get a Class Creator title. And that’s not even including the Dungeon! People will come for you and for the Dungeon, and more people will follow them for various reasons. Looking to make money, wanting a new start in life, just following their families, whatever! We’re going to be a Town by the end of the year and a City in less than five.”

“Doesn’t reaching the City level mean more than fifty thousand people living there?”

Eleniah had gestured at the mass of rock that she wanted to turn into an academy.

“Oh.”

Kay shook off the memory of the conversation and turned into the main passageway that led to the entrance. As he passed by an open door into a classroom, he heard young voices muttering to each other.

“Why is he in charge, anyway? My dad said that the strongest person is the one in charge, and both Miss Eleniah and Mister Meten are stronger than he is.”

Kay slowed as he heard the words, then stopped outside the door.

“That’s the common point of view,” A slightly stuck-up sounding but still young voice replied. “That isn’t always the case, but it is what happens most of the time.”

“Well, why is it happening here? Wouldn’t Miss Eleniah make a better Mayor?”

“I listened in to a conversation my older brother had with some of his friends,” A new voice whispered, “And apparently a group of adults went to Miss Eleniah and said the same thing. She beat them all up. Everyone says she’s really loyal to the Mayor.”

“And Meten’s not going to listen to anything like that either.” A fourth teenager said, “Our village wasn’t doing great, and Mayor Kay already had this place. Meten asked if we could come to join, and Mayor Kay said we could without asking for anything. Meten wouldn’t turn on him after he helped us like that.”

The snooty voice jumped back in, “Look, the reason that some places don’t have the absolute strongest person in charge is that they have some special reason. If two really strong people are loyal to the Mayor, there’s probably some reason that they’re following him instead of the other way around.”

“But what’s the reason?”

“How should I know? If the adults don’t, they aren’t going to tell kids like us about it!”

Kay restrained a chuckle and stealthily moved away. As he stepped out of the door and back into the sun, he pondered what he’d heard. A group of people had approached Eleniah trying to get her to… lead a coup? That sounded like the right turn of phrase. And she’d beat them all up. And hadn’t said anything about it. He’d have to ask her about it later, not that he would expect her to turn on him like that anyway. The interesting part was that there were people getting, or already being, a little agitated by the fact that he was the strongest person.

He didn’t think it was the majority by any means, but it did explain some of the weird vibes he’d gotten from a few people. Personally, Kay didn’t really get it, even after being on Torotia for over a year. Yes, there were factors that made it more likely for a powerful combatant to take over an area, but there was enough social gravitas behind it to make people worried that he wasn’t the toughest guy around? Weird.

It might be time to let the cat out of the bag about his title. Word about the Dungeon was going to get out eventually, which meant the start of the population influx he’d already been thinking about, and they were in a pretty strong position to resist anyone trying to use or subjugate him for the title. All of that, and it was always better to control the narrative if you could. That was something he’d learned from his political science classes back in the day when he’d thought about going to law school. He’d had a dumb plan to become a politician that died when he’d finally realized how corrupt the political world was.

And now, he was the leader of a growing community after gaining the position through a combination of luck, connections in the form of Eleniah, and strength of arms. Life was weird.

Kay paused and glanced over at a crew from the office of the building who were working on extending the road to the new outer walls to the edges of the valley. “What was I actually thinking about?” He brushed away thoughts of his college classes and the hot teacher he’d had a crush on as he retraced his thoughts. “Oh, right! Controlling the narrative!” He resumed his walk. I’d rather that we release the fact that I’m a Class Line Progenitor on our terms, instead of someone figuring it out or it leaking somewhere. Plus, it's getting to the point where it’d probably be more useful as a known quantity rather than a secret. At least, I think so. Going to run it by everyone before I make that decision.

Kay strode up the steps into his office after making it there when he heard someone running up behind him.

“Sir!”

“What’s up?” He turned and saw one of the messenger corps that Amanda was setting up to become an official Office.

“There’s a party at the southern gates! They say they’re from the Adventurer’s Guild, and they’re here about the Dungeon!”

Kay stared at the nervous young man for a moment, then sighed and put his head in his hand. “It’s barely been a week. We just found the damn thing! How did they get here so fast? How do they even know about it!? There are maybe twenty people who know, and I know where all of them are!”

“Um… S-Sir, I-” The messenger started to stammer.

“Oh, sorry.” Kay walked down the steps and clapped him on the back. “I’m not mad at you or anything. You’re doing a fine job. I’m just concerned about... Well…” He trailed off as he stared in the direction of the southern gates, then gestured that way after realizing that maybe he shouldn’t be telling random people about his worries. “That.” He shook himself and patted the messengers should once more. “Run back and have them brought in. You know where we’re putting visitors?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good, take them to one of the nice ones.”

“Yes, sir!” The messenger ran off.

Kay took the steps up two at a time and burst into his office building. “Amanda!” He shouted as he took the inside steps two at a time too.

She stuck her head out of her office door. “Sir?”

“The Adventurer’s Guild is here about the Dungeon.”

She gaped at him. “Wha- What? How?”

“No idea, but they’re here. Send some runners for Eleniah and Meten; they should both be at the school still.” He walked into his office before pausing in the doorway and spinning around. “And Ahthia. Get her too.”

Amanda leaned over the banister and started snapping orders at the runners downstairs. When three of them had taken off, she joined Kay in his office.

Kay glanced up from his desk at her. “Brief me on everything we know for sure, then the stuff we’ve guessed. I don’t want to walk into this blindly.”

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