Casting a glance around the castle yard, I saw that we were surrounded by two hundred warriors. They kept a respectful distance, but looked ready to leap on me at a moment’s notice and tear me apart, or at least try. Each was at full attention, listening carefully to how I would answer their leader’s claims. They were silent. The piercing cries of cranes flying over the castle sounded loud in the quiet. Their honking sounded like distant trumpets. By the time the sound faded, I knew what to do.
I gathered plague energy into my hand—just enough to take away health, but not to kill. I grabbed Yemi’s shoulder in a death grip. The fearsome blades of Reaper’s Scythes snapped open, then closed like a mantrap. The ore gritted his teeth in pain. His harsh black hair stood up on the back of his neck, but he held back his cry.
My voice, distorted by Cloak Essence, sounded thick and cruel.
“Listen carefully, mage. My plan is too vast to explain here and now.” Plague filth seeped into the ore. His face twisted and he tried to pull away, but couldn’t. “But I give you my word—I will not hide it. I will share it with you within the next few days. Maybe right after our raid on Terrastera. In the meantime… Study this. I think you’ll get the idea right away.”
I copied the description of Unity to Yemi and released him. He lurched back, grabbing his blackened arm, which was falling in scraps from his rotten shoulder. The ore’s health was down to five percent and tears ran down his beast-like face.
“Read!”
The mage nodded and his eyes turned glassy while he read the lines of the description. The text read: All followers get +1 to a random statfor each new follower of the Sleeping Gods. If you read it without thinking, the bonus didn’t seem too impressive, but if you thought about it…
“Most of his power is from the Sleeping Gods after all…” the mage muttered, mouth open, eyes staring. When he realized what he’d read, his face smoothed and flame lit up in his eyes. Yemi livened up, waved a calming hand to his clanmates. The people breathed a sigh of relief after the stress of waiting for things to unfold. They clanked as they put their weapons away.
“Does the bonus count only adept followers?” the spellcaster answered. “How many do you have? Is there a limit?”
“Ordinary followers only get the bonus from those that came after them. But I’ll give you two priest slots. They’ll get the same bonus from Unity as the Initial. That’s me. Which means that you and someone else… Francesca, I guess? Or Babangida? To avoid a split, let’s say three priests from Yoruba. You’ll get almost two thousand points randomly distributed across your stats. The current adept limit is a little below thirty thousand.
The ju-ju class shaman’s eyes widened, glowing even brighter with each word I said. I could almost see the numbers amassing behind his eyes.
“Scyth! Assign the priests right now! I have a great relationship with the ores of the Broken Axe clan. They adore me! They have a big tribe. Thousands of warriors! I can comince them to join the Sleeping Gods!”
I don’t know where it come from, or why I acted the way I did. The ritual for appointing priests required nothing special. The Touch of the Sleeping Gods skill spoke for itself. But all the same, with a stony face under my Cloak Essence, I shouted a triumphant order: “Bow before the might of the Sleeping Gods, mage Yemi! On your knees!”
He smirked, baring crooked yellow fangs. He turned, looked out across his soldiers and announced loudly:
“Yoruba! You have heard the words of the Initial of the Sleeping Gods. Obey!”
With a screech of metal, the entire clan knelt along with their leader. Yemi rose as a Priest of the Sleeping Gods. A minute later, Francesca and Babangida joined him.
We set up a quick council meeting at a table in the Pig and Whistle. It reminded me of the good old days in Tristad, only Irita was with us now instead of Tissa.
In short, our plan was this: complete the instances on Holdest that the boys had already discovered, and the arachnid dungeons in the reptiloid island; clear the undead instance in the Kharinza mines; kill the Montosaurus and discover Terrastera. Then hand in Tiamat’s quest and get our human forms back—the undead workers had been warned and were waiting for the appointed hour. At the same time, I kept it in my head that if I had time before Nergal’s army arrived, then I had to try to find Supreme Grand Master Oyama and learn a couple of new moves, or, more importantly, increase my Unarmed Combat rank. Both would be best.
In the very long term, I wouldn’t mind dealing with Knock-Knock, a certain monster that had been terrorizing the sewer trolls. Clan chief Movarak had mentioned him. I was curious to see Knock-Knock with my own eyes and see whether we could get a Fii’st Kill on him.
On the whole, however overconfident this sounds, nothing seemed to present much difficulty—if, of course, I could convince Apophis.
While discussing the plans, I almost missed news of Bomber’s achievement. His reputation with Orthokon the kraken
