I’ve been forced to take a role of leadership, and I hated it.
rmaid society was primitive. Without fire and durable materials, we were very limited in our choices of clothing and tools. It also valued the ability to protect the pod (or school for the other side) and bring in food. at, if possible. That led to a warrior society where levels ant strength.
As the highest-level fish-rmaid in the reef, daya was elevated to the position of guard captain and queen’s advisor. The position had no formal na so it just ant she was in charge of organizing our warriors from both tribes. That move pacified the fish-rmaids that thought of themselves as “victorious” from the Heralds’ war ga. daya was the third rmaid in the chain of command beneath and mom, and the sixth most prominent creature in the reef once you added Nenandil and the Heralds to the list.
I had to swallow my desire to take revenge for the ambush and make peace with daya. Be the bigger person and all that shit. I bit my lower lip and approached her.
“daya, could you help ?” I approached her one day and asked.
“Princess,” She bowed. “Would you swim with ? We can talk while we do so chores.”
It seed paradoxical at the first glance, but I found that daya developed a deep respect for . The reasons were three, I’d survived her backstab, defeated her with a single blow, and spared her. That sa warrior-hunter-gatherer primitive culture made the other rmaids doubt my abilities. They thought that I defeated daya with a stroke of luck. The rmaid, however, knew what happened. She had the ssages and was wise enough to understand no Luck score could’ve caused that.
“My pleasure, daya,” I smiled.
She still had to hunt for food. I had so ideas on how to change that. It would take ti, though.
“What troubles you, my princess?”
I didn’t try to correct her or make her not use formal speech. Maybe later once we bonded more and my annoyance at my mother’s treatnt vanished over ti.
“We need to unite the two tribes. nd the rift. Put aside our grudges. And I need ideas on how to bridge that gap. Seize their hearts and convince them to cast away our old ways.”
“You order them to do so, and punish those that don’t,” She said with a burst of boisterous laughter. “But wait! That’s how we did things before, so I don’t think it would help us ‘cast our old ways,’” I could almost see the air - water - quotes.
Smartass. I didn’t answer.
“What level are you now? I don’t have {Appraise} but I’ve been told they can’t read it.”
“Eighty.”
“Ranked up?”
“No. I have a few billion Exp to give out as quest rewards.”
“Princess power?”
“Sort of.”
“How does it work?”
“Like this. {daya, Allow your princess to nd your fins. This is a quest.}” I paid 4.2 million Exp to {Royal Order}.”
daya’s tail was like a red fire goby. Her dorsal and anal fins were close to the body, giving her an arrow-like look. But they were frayed from combat. It didn’t hinder her ability to swim but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.
She froze on the spot. “Is this real? You can issue QUESTS? I thought only the Heralds could do that! What are you?”
“Your {Princess}. Now, co on. Hand over that rmaid ass.”
She chucked. I used my [Spirit Surgeon] abilities to restore her fins to a pristine state. Once I finished, daya gasped.
“I just gained one hundred and twenty-seven thousand Exp for finishing a Quest!?! My fins,” she sniffled and grasped my hands. Once she had a good hold, she pulled into a hug, “I'm so happy I didn’t kill you.”
I pushed her away. “Nice way to remind why I don’t like you,” I mumbled. “daya, you know how you can show your gratitude.”
She took so distance and then lowered herself prone. “I pledge my eternal loyalty to Queen Eathelin and you, Your Highness. You proved to have the power, wisdom, and kindness to help us. I’ll help you win the hearts of the rmaids.”
I smiled. “Your oath has been heard and accepted, daya. Now, what do the rmaids want?”
She t our eyes. “Food, shelter, and n,” daya’s eyes glimred then she squird and confessed with a sultry voice, “By the Kraken’s tentacles, It’s been so long since I last…”
Yeah. Tentacles. I raised a hand. “Say no more.”
I was floating on the warm side of the bank, with a thousand rmaids assembled before . Mom and daya were behind along the squid and sea dragon-serpent. I knew what I had to say and I was not ashad of paraphrasing the great n of my (forr) world.
“The feud between the Heralds is over. The siblings behind have settled their dispute and made their peace with each other. From today on, no rmaid shall fight another rmaid. It doesn’t matter the shape of our fins or the color of our skin.
“Today we forge a nation. Our gods blessed us with a Queen, wise among us, one that knows the needs and dreams of the reef. But a nation is nothing without its people. You, sisters. We bled on this reef for food. We grew suspicious of each other. No more! Today we put the past aside.”
daya swam forward. “Hear our Princess, my sisters! I witnessed her strength, her power, and her kindness. I hold no doubt that she will bring us into a new age of prosperity and happiness. My heart holds nothing but respect and admiration for my Queen and Princess! She told of her dreams of our future, and I saw a reef where no rmaid shall starve anymore.
“Believe if not in our Princess, if not in , in the wisdom of our Lord Heralds! If they could put their millennia of differences aside, how can’t you? I pledged before her and now I pledge before all of you. Queen Eathelin and Princess Arista have my loyalty until the day I die. Their wish is my wish. Their dreams are my dreams.”
She glanced at and I nodded. daya withdrew to the back row and I took the stage again. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true aning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all rmaids are created equal.’
“I know what you need, sisters. Shelter from the monsters in the depths that crawl up to devour us. Food so we no longer starve or steal from each other. And n to replenish our population. I promise you to deliver all of these to you!
“rmaids! Even though the Sun was stolen from us by a foolish deity and many of our sisters have fallen, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight for our food, we shall fight for our mutual safety, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the water, we shall defend our reef, we shall never surrender.”
"This is my pledge to you. Stand by my side. Rember your pain, your loss, but use it not as fuel for more pain and grief, but as a burning ember that will never allow that to happen again. {Unite as one nation, rmaids!}," I finished imbuing it with {Royal Order} to make it a quest. The rmaids’ gaze unfocused for a while and I saw my available Exp plumt to zero.
Divine Negotiator active.
Charisma check successful. You shifted the rmaids’ opinion by six steps.
You gained 12 points of [Diplomat] Proficiency.
Leveling up [Diplomat] was the easiest so far. I guess that with [Musician] it would be just a matter of singing so coral to health.
I couldn't help but feel I was cheating. The anger in the assembled rmaids was slowly switching to hope and sadness. Longing for their dead sisters but with a strong will to survive.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us. Those of you that have injured fins or limbs, co forward. Allow to show you."
One of the dolphin-rmaids, with a beautiful spotted pattern across her tail but a big dent in her tail fin ca forward. "I won't be goaded by your false words, princess," she basically spat at my title. I raised a hand.
“What's your na, sister?"
"I'm called Custenya," she replied with a hateful glare. It was as if I was a traitor.
“Sister. Co closer so I can heal your fin. I already healed daya’s when I took her pledge. Would you show a heart as big as hers and put our differences aside?”
“Heal , and I’ll pledge myself to you,” she challenged and almost slapped as she shoved her tail in my face. I let the faux pas slip and touched it. Pouring my SP into her flesh, I regrew what was missing in a dozen or so minutes.
The other rmaids watched with their mouths open. “There you go. Now, your oath.”
Custenya swallowed her pride. “I’ll do as you say, Arista. But I won’t swear myself to you before you prove your worth. Your words are nice and sweet like sugar kelp.”
I expected skepticism from the fish-rmaids but the trauma of the month of relentless raiding left deep emotional scars on the dolphin-rmaids. They still think Nenandil betrayed them and that keeping my mother alive wasn’t worth giving out the food she did.
I had a long path ahead of . “I won’t force any of you, sisters. You’d do well to rember who ended the fighting. Who convinced the Heralds to stop their gas.”
Yeah, I said gas. I could taste the two demigods’ anger at my words but it would do well to show them who held the cards. My {God-Slayer} Perk, that’s who.
The other rmaids soon followed Custenya and I healed them until my SP bottod out. Exhausted, I promised to heal the others over the next few days.
I reached my "room" after the longest day in Arista’s life. rmaids had little in the way of worldly possessions but we did have a few. Tools that didn’t rust, weapons with or without rust, odds and bits from the surface. Our crafting materials were coral, bone, and fish leather. But without a proper curing process, the leather eventually decomposed away. That's why surface items that withstood the harshness of the saltwater were prized, like my bracer.
I called it a room but it was just a corner of the reef where Mother and I kept our things. Spare spears, so broken blades, and interesting trinkets like an etched porcelain teapot. Maybe the rmaids could use a proper ho underwater. I'll think of that later. Now, I just want to take a very long nap. Maybe one whole hour, what a luxury.
I spent the next two weeks talking. Talking, persuading, discoursing, cajoling, bonding. Both tribes of rmaids were brought into a sort of truce for the ti being. The threat of not getting free surface food from Nenandil went a long way toward achieving that goal. Speaking of the fairy, I barely saw her. She was running around, working as a liaison between the rmaids and helping us put our new Realm in order.
I didn't want to choose my rank-up evolutions. Instead, I spent my ti talking the rmaids into putting a century of racial grudges behind and teaching mom on how to be a proper Queen. Mom's professions were [Sentry] and [Trapper]. I'd love for her to take a social profession but now it was too late. But [Sentry] seems a nice one. I decided to pick [Sentry] in my next life. What I needed now was to find a solution to our food situation. The kelp farms would take months to start to produce food again. I took an object from my item box and pulled its stats again.
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Kerberos-Anglerfish Illicium [3 in inventory]
Estimated value: 2 kingtal coins
This luminescent organ will glow if supplied with magic energy.
That should do it. The glowing esca and attached tendril were ridiculously rare. If I dug a sufficiently-sized Magic Core, I could enchant it to beco a magical battery and energy generator. Then use the affinity of the organ to generate light at a ridiculously cheap cost. Even so, I didn't expect it to be able to glow on its own unless I cranked up the MP generator enchantnt to the limit.
I'll need to cast a mold with gold to join the two...
I'm underwater. That's not going to happen.
I needed a workspace on the surface. The nearest island was several hundred kiloters from here. The sandbank did surface during extrely low tides on nights with no moons but I couldn't put anything heavy on top. The solution was to make my own island.
I swam around the reef, trying to find a suitable spot. A pod of dolphins swam around and played. As I went, I sang at the reef, spending the MP I had on growing and healing the coral. I did that every day whenever possible. This ti, I had a surprise.
You gained 12 points of [Musician] Proficiency.
Two abilities are available.
You unlocked an ultra-rare Class.
It’s been so ti since I got a new Class halfway into a life. This one required a hundred points of [Musician] Proficiency. How people would et that requirent at level one was anyone’s guess but I think the whole “Path” chanic was to allow soone to “reroll” their Class choices.
[Spell-Singer] (ultra-rare). Spell Singers use songs to weave their magic instead of incantations and gestures.
You gain:
1 to Magic at every level.
1 to Charisma and Mind, every even level.
1 to Dexterity, Willpower, and Soul every odd level.
Nothing, then 1 to Strength, Endurance, and Luck at every level, alternating.
3 ( 4) HP per level.
11 ( 4) MP per level.
7 ( 2) SP per level.
1 Perk every 2 levels.
You’ll gain the Perk: Spell-Song (rare, situational): You can cast spells you know with song. The spell ends if the song ends.
There it goes, the pesky "Situational" marker on the Perks. Eighty-five Attributes in twenty levels was an amazing progression before the patch. Now they were as useful as the bonus from enchantnts. You wore them but they would go away at the end of the “day”. These situational Perks won't contribute to my long-term growth as they would vanish (along with the Attributes) once I died. The cherry on top was that they granted no Skill Points.
The bugged class I got was a legacy one that didn't get patched or even offered. It didn't have Perks, a clear sign it was intended for sothing else. I think Wyxnos created the System this world used from sothing else and didn’t start from a clean base. There were too many glitches and bugs.
Because of all that, I didn't pick that class for my second Path. It would be just a toy, a novelty for playing in this life that would not carry over into the next. This patch curbed my growth by half among other maladies. Not having a super-powerful Class ant I gained twice as much Exp. That could help foster my growth, not so nerfed-out Class. My main gripe was that I wouldn’t carry over the Attributes and Perks from the classes anymore. Because of that, I’d stick with the bugged Class that gave Skill Points.
I found the perfect spot on the eastern side of the sandbank. It was a place with a bit of turbulence between the hot and cold currents. The terrain was sowhat flat.
I sent to the curious dolphins swimming around .
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