Chapter 134 - Preparing for War

Word was sent out to all our people in the field, telling them about the coming war. Everyone except the spies and assassins who had been happily infiltrating the Lightsiders’ camps were finishing up their current business and using magic to make their way to Lithaes. It was a three day journey from Lithaes to Amhelin, so I had a bit of time to do my preparations before we left to meet with the King.

There were two holy sites in the lands around Lithaes. One was a church with shrines to recognize all the gods worshipped in the village, though if the shrine to Sharess was a bit larger and more prominently placed than the others, no one commented, given who was in charge. The other, and the one I was headed to now, was a smaller shrine, set away from the village.

You have entered the Shrine of the Eystr’e Hare.

The shrine was a simple thing, little more than a dugout burrow in the side of a hill, with the walls shaped with magic to keep the damp and chill out. A natural shrine for a nature deity. There were, of course, wards and warnings set in place to let people know the consequences of desecrating the shrine. It was only missing one thing, as I hadn’t returned to Lithaes since I’d ordered its construction.

Pulling out a golden idol that had long sat in my inventory, but I had been vocal about not wishing to sell or trade, I set it upon the idol, and smiled when I saw the notification.

Eystr’e’s Shrine The old shrine of the Eystr’e Hare, God of Rabbitkind, was disturbed and desecrated by those who proved unworthy. Cadbury’s demise is your opportunity, however. You have created a shrine to the Eystr’e Hare upon your lands, and one that the Rabbit God finds most favorable. With the idol in place, you and yours will have the favor of the Rabbit God to help defend your lands.
Rank	F
Success	Create a shrine to the Eystr’e Hare in your territory, and place the Idol there. BONUS: For creating a shrine that fits the Rabbit God’s aesthetics, additional reward unlocked.
Failure	Sell, trade, or discard the Idol, or make your intention to not create a shrine known to others.
Reward	Blessing of the Rabbits (small game becomes more plentiful around your territory) Unlocks Wererabbit race. Vorpal Bunnies and Tardy Hares available as tamable pets in your land. BONUS: Vorpal Bunnies and Tardy Hares will actively help defend your lands for 30 days.

Blessing of the Rabbits For as long as the Shrine of the Eystr’e Hare stands, rabbits and other small game become more plentiful, and all creatures of the rabbit type are 50% more fertile.

I smiled at that. It didn’t seem like too big a boost, but the increase in rabbits would be great news for our hunters, and the werewolves, and pretty much all of us who ate meat. With winter approaching, and the farms still being reclaimed and tamed after their long centuries of neglect and disuse, the certainty of being able to feed themselves through the winter was a blessing to the morale of the villagers.

GLOBAL EVENT NOTICE! Zayn Darkmore, Leader of the guild Aria of the Twilight, has completed the conditions to usher in a forgotten god from the past back to the world. As a result of the Eystr’e Hare’s return, Rabbit-type monsters are now more powerful and aggressive, and may rarely carry the Curse of Lycanthropy. Wererabbits are now unlocked as a playable race.

Huh. So people had forgotten about the Rabbit God? That would explain why some idiot would go and desecrate the shrine. They probably thought that it was some kind of prank or something. Well, I’m sure nothing bad was going to come of that.

With that taken care of, I turned, and headed to the area the Enchanter’s Lab in the Keep, where one of the WoD Lords who had reincarnated over had apparently been working hard on a way to mass produce magical ammunition. An enchanted bow would turn any arrow into a magical one when it was fired, but an arrow with a silver arrowhead shot from a magic bow would be magic AND silver, which was perfect for killing certain types of creatures. There were also various kinds of alchemical arrows, like the ones that exploded on impact, that interacted in interesting ways with a magic bow. But enchanted arrows tended to overlap with the enchantment of the bow, so you only got the best of the two effects. Of course, firing an ice-aspect arrow from a fire-aspect bow would have a fire-and-ice arrow, but then you ran into some problems with certain elements conflicting which could cause issues when they interacted with magical shields… suffice to say, it was complicated and technical, but there was a reason why you didn’t see much in the way of enchanted arrows unless they were very specific, like Demonslaying Arrows.

Moseph Leychild Moontouched Elf Male Level 65 Frenzied Berserker (Barbarian) / Spellblade (Fighter) Titles: Furious One, Executioner, Trophy Hunter, Undead Bane, Elf Bane, Human Bane

Moseph was tall, and thin, like most elves, but his rare ‘Moontouched’ subrace that he’d gained in the Trial of Ascension had some interesting qualities that enabled him to unlock the Spellblade advanced class for his fighter. Well that, and him paradoxically being a rage-fueled killing machine, and an Enchanter by trade. Seeing the way his character was built gave me a headache, but it worked for him, and he came up with some unusual stuff because of his ‘special’ outlook on things, so I didn’t say anything about it. Much. Ok, just not to his face.

Anyways, Moseph was working on a quiver of arrows, and had just finished enchanting them when I walked in. Looking up, he nodded to me, and said, “Heard we were going to war. I’ve been working nonstop getting arrows ready. Anyone who is using a bow ought to get at least some of these, I’m sure they’ll come in handy.” He handed one of the arrows to me for me to inspect.

Exponential Prismatic Arrow of Cursed Angelblood
Type	Arrow	Rank	Rare
Damage	Special	Damage Type	Special
This arrow was enchanted by an enchanter of at least Master level, and possesses several potent enchantments. More worrying still, is that the enchantments of the weapon it is fired from, if any, stack with these enchantments where possible. However, there are restrictions upon it that limit its effectiveness. Requires: Level 70 Requires: Evil Alignment +30-50 additional damage in addition to weapon damage Exponential – This arrow sometimes splits while in flight, becoming 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, or 36 arrows before hitting the target. This may turn the shot into an AoE. Prismatic – This arrow ignores all worn armor and any defenses that aren’t part of creature’s body. This arrow does no damage to Undead or Constructs. Cursed – All creatures damaged by this arrow are subjected to a random curse, lasting up to 24 hours, or until a Remove Curse spell is used on the creature. Angelblood – All good creatures take 2x damage from this attack. Celestials take 5x damage from this attack. Neutral creatures take ½ damage from this attack. Evil creatures take no damage from this attack. Range Restricted – Cannot be used on targets closer than 120’ away.

I blinked, honestly stunned for a moment. Idly, I checked just to make sure I hadn’t been hit with some strange debuff, but I was fine, at least as far as that was concerned. It seems that, in all the chaos of me running around everywhere, I had forgotten one of the simple facts about my guild. Half the people here were in the top guild of World of Destiny, and they were there because they were frankly some of the best in their fields. They also all happened to be a little bit crazy, and have no common sense, which was natural since they followed me around. But DAMN, was this impressive!

Looking over to Moseph, I took a breath, and said, “How many of these do you have prepared?”

“Oh, about two, maybe three thousand? I started working on it back after the raid in Have Dorei, when I got my hands on one of the books from that drow house we destroyed. Had some really cool enchanting secrets in it, which I combined with what I knew from WoD. The tough part was getting enough Angel blood for the components, didn’t want to use the ones belonging to you or your pets, but I managed to force-summon a couple and drained them dry. The rest of their bodies I harvested for reagents as well. We have a good supply of Angel Hair, Angel Bones, Angel Feathers, and a pair of undamaged Angel Eyes. They’re all under preservation spells in the vault. The Angel Flesh was given to Cookie, who I think has used it all by now.”

“Excellent work, Moseph. Make as many more of these as you can before I issue the summons to join the King before the battle. Distributing these arrows to the troops will put a serious dent in the enemy’s numbers.”

“Sure thing, boss. Now that I’ve worked out the process, I should be able to get another thousand arrows out of the blood we still have available. Unfortunately, I wasted a lot trying to figure out the exact process. The book only went so far, and I had to experiment with my memories from WoD. Is it true that there’s a half-celestial tiefling in the enemy leadership? That’s an insane mix of magical lineages. I really want to see what I could make out of his parts!”

Going around to the other production areas, I found that all our crafters were going in full swing, producing weapons, potions, ammunition, food, and all the other things one might need to fight a war in the digital world. Though I think the scariest invention out of the lot came from the alchemists. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised that the alchemists came up with something crazy, given the kinds of people we had, but I never expected them to get THIS crazy! But then, I’d just hired a bunch of siege warfare specialists, and threw them in with my people. Uzig from the Disavowed had teamed up with William Peters from Aria to create something truly horrible.

Demonflame Siege Shot
Type	Siege Ammunition	Rank	Rare
Damage	250 – 500	Damage Type	Fire
Created by master alchemists, this container is designed to be launched from a catapult, trebuchet, or similar siege weapon. Upon impact, the cannister burts open, inflicting the initial Fire damage on all targets within a 20’ radius of impact. All creatures and objects in the area catch on fire and burn for 10-60 seconds, taking 25-100 Fire damage per second. Flames cannot be extinguished by any means short of immersing oneself in water for at least 1 minute. Flammable creatures or object may continue to burn after the shot’s duration, but can be put out normally. Flammable creatures and objects coming in contact with burning creatures, objects, and terrain may catch on fire and burn for the remaining duration of the shot.

I looked at the two manically grinning alchemists (FYI: the effect is especially scary when an ogre is doing the grinning), and slowly shook my head as I stepped away from the cannister they’d shown me. “Which one of you had the idea for this?”

Uzig said, “Well, William was telling me of this compound from the world you Travelers were from, and he’d been working to make something like that here. We shared notes, and figured out the missing ingredients to make it work.”

I looked at William, who simply shrugged at me. “What, you thought I wouldn’t try to bring my namesake with me?”

I sighed, and shook my head, before the grin overtook my face as well. “You two are both insane. This thing is horrible, evil, and utterly inhumane to use on any living creature. I love it! How much can you make?”

William laughed, “Give us three days, and we’ll have three, maybe four hundred shots for you, Boss.”

I laughed again. “These poor humans and their friends aren’t going to know what hit them!”

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