Book 2. Chapter 12: Fortress Assault Begins

Book 2. Chapter 12: Fortress Assault Begins

It was a fun evening, and the Hart family were all sleeping curled up on the same bed now. Jake enjoyed his position and especially his pillows: Berris massive chest. But it was time to get up. It was a couple hours before dawn, and they had to make for Roseburg to lead a massive assault against thousands of outsiders.

They also had to do it with an enemy in their midst, which would be exhausting. Still, Ira was on the lookout, and Jake would have the [Arcane Eye] trained on the woman as much as possible. Jake would also keep spells in his runic bubbles to counter or otherwise trap them with little more than a thought, should they open themselves up to Jakes retaliation by springing their own trap or attack.

Jake just had to clear something up real quick with a mental conversation with the demoness first.

I hate to have to ask this, but Are you doing strange experiments with my body?

Jake could just feel the mirth radiating over their bond, [Why, whatever do you mean, Husband?] Fhesiah giggled, and he just rolled his eyes. [In all seriousness, I know how you feel about this subject. You definitely wouldnt want me changing your body without getting your permission first, yes? I have been practicing my skill, but I have been absolutely putting things back exactly how they were when I started. Ophelia allowed me to practice on her body, as well. I would never take risks with my precious husbands body, rest assured that I am not playing around. I am preparing a surprise, and I will present it to you for your approval once it is fully ready. Can you trust me?]

Jake trusted her, but the odd episodes were just hard to reconcile in his mind. But what about

Fhesiah snorted, [Your rod grew on its own, your race gradually improving towards Tier 2. You got a little taller, too, didnt you notice? Your Divine Hearth core is doing even more to your body than the Hearth Core in Tier 0. I promise you, I didnt play with your precious rod any more than usual. Why would I make it bigger? I have already crafted myself for it to fit just how I wanted it. I can just make the sheathe smaller, after all.

When I laughed at you considering yourself a human like Antonius, you should understand why it was funny to me. You only need to look at yourself with your Arcane Eye to see that comparing yourself to him as if you were the same is a laughable joke. I was hoping you would realize this for yourself, but you are on a completely different level from them. Youre about as close to a human as Ophelia is now. Just because you look similar on the outside does not mean you are not different. Antonius would be hard-pressed to give you more than a flesh wound now, even if you were not wearing armor.]

Jake had noticed getting slightly taller, and wasnt sure what to make of it. So far, it was like the cuffs of his pants didnt reach, and even his sleeves were just a little short on a sweater he had, similar to what happened when he received growth spurts while growing up. Perhaps Ophelia was growing as well, otherwise he would have noticed no longer being eye to eye when standing up. Luckily, it wasnt yet enough to require him to need new armor, but he imagined in a month or two he may need to have it modified in some way, if they didnt simply need a new suit by then anyway.

He had noticed that while looking at the others in the battlegroup with Arcane Eye that he was on a completely different level. Even the casters magical auras within their bodies were barely pervasive; the energies mainly concentrated on their chests. Of course, Jakes mana was concentrated there too, but like his enchanted items, his entire body was filled with solid magical energy. Combined with Divine Reinforcement, Jake was in fact quite sturdy, even without armor. Thinking back to the gnolls he fought, Jake could almost fight them without armor or weapons now and come out unscathed.

Thinking back to his preparations, Jake was starting to feel that he was getting powerful. Now that Fhesiahs hearth was bound and nearly every skill of his was level two and some nearing level 3 of Tier 1, and he had his technique, he was nearing the jack of all trades level. Except unlike his summoner in the game, he could fight admirably in melee combat as well.

He couldnt compete with any of his girls in melee, the fight with Ophelia last night being mainly a fist fight with attributes only, and her not using her winged movement until that surprise in the end. Also, he got the feeling she sort of let him win, or at least made the fight about strength only rather than out-skilling him. But he could hold his own against his girls. His stats would improve once again once Berri reached bond level 5 and was in love with Jake and Jake with her, allowing her hearth to be bound as well.

Jake wasnt really sure what might be holding Berri back in regards to the bond itself, or if the problem was him. Jake already thought of her as an important family member, and loved having her around. She was also an important member of their team, and Jake didnt want to imagine his world without her in it.

Berri was a bright spot in their lives, always bringing her positive attitude to everything they did. Still, there was something strange going on with her, as he noticed almost every time she was going to move forward in understanding or caring about others, her emotions would become turbulent and she would slump back into the apathetic attitude.

All the detriments of keeping his summons permanently out were now reduced further, and even Fhesiah earned the energy hunger ability, propelling both her cultivation and counteracting Jakes loss in mana regeneration. Her body would draw in more energies that she didnt need and would otherwise harm her cultivation, but these energies were filtered through the hearth and sent to Jake rather than absorbed directly by her [Spiritual Sea]. She could much more rapidly and reliably absorb the kill energy, as well.

Jake and his party geared up and got ready. All of their equipment now held the maximum number of runewords Jake could currently enchant, and the effect was becoming quite large. As long as the item was powerful enough to hold the enchantment, he could keep adding runes for more effects, though at only three at a time per skill level, the effects he could add would be minor each time his skill improved.

Still, Jake knew they would be due for new equipment soon, as the drake scale equipment could only barely hold the last three. Jake thought that for the next set, Ophelia and Berri themselves would craft it, finally reaching their needs for equipment with their own skill levels.

They departed for Roseburg, and met up with Antonius and Alisara. Jake sent Alisara a party invite through his menu, this being unnecessary for his bonded permanent summons that are permanently added to Jakes, and they joined the much larger [Battlegroup] that Antonius had set up.

When the boss arachnid emerged, larger than an elephant, the three girls made short work of it. Jake couldnt help but feel like he was bound to three very violent women as they dismembered the creature with relative ease.

Ophelia hollered and cheered in victory as she came by Jake to talk about the fight. Fhesiah continued her dance, but with an extra swagger of her hips near him, for Jake. Berri made quick work in the cleaning of her metal caveman club, as well as approaching Jake for helping clean off her large amounts of armor of blood and viscera. Jake wryly smiled at how the girls all sought his attention after their wanton murder and destruction.

Jake deactivated his Runebound ability, and the lit runes faded from his body and armor. The covenant required a deactivation period of about fifteen seconds, where he would still be limited by the covenant but receive none of the benefits. This was a near eternity in combat, and so Jake would have to plan around disengages or using a few of the caveats that enable him to work around the restrictions in order to safely deactivate the ability.

In a team fight, Aegis was not overly restrictive, as he would rely on the girls heavily for offense anyway, but his other two bound states would be taking a large risk in activating them if the enemy proved more difficult than expected.

They cleared out the second rift as well. This time it was Tier 1 kobolds. Larger than those of the previous tier, they also had a wider variety of types among them from mages, shamans and priests, as well as fully armored and otherwise equipped variants.

Still, they hardly posed a challenge for their battlegroup, as aside from Jakes group, the people meant for the [Fortress Assault] were among some of the best for their level. The [Sons of Rome] had some of their better groups, and a few of the other associated guilds had supplied their best among them to participate in the assault. After all, this was a large opportunity to gain a large amount of contribution points at once, and personal rewards for the victory were often tailored for them from [The Framework], earning equipment that fit their needs, or even valuable skills. In addition, an achievement like participating in this often improved your class choices for when you increased in tier.

After clearing the second rift, Jake had finally hit level 14. With it, he gained his first spell of this Tier aside from upgrades of the previous: [Summon Humanoid]. Jake had wondered why he hadnt gained some of the other spells that he would expect from a normal Summoners toolkit, and learned that it was because they would be redundant to spells that he already knew, so the framework focused on what he needed when stuffing the information of the spell into his soul and mind. For example, most summoners would gain some spell that would heal their summons. But Jake didnt, as he had already learned two alternatives.

[Summon Humanoid] would allow him to summon various creatures temporarily similar to the Summon Beast spell that he already has. While he wouldnt be penalized as much, he would still be penalized for the spell not entirely matching his specialization. Probing the skill, he smiled as he spotted a few of his mainstays from his time in [The Labyrinth].

While he could gain more options by capturing and binding creatures or gaining magical templates for summons, it looked like the Framework gave him somewhat random options for what would be starters. He learned that he should be soon unlocking the [Monster Menagerie], which allowed him to store other permanent summons in a sort of void, and even use them like a temporary summon at level 16.

He would have to find the right creatures to bind, and keep them in the void. Jake learned that as part of the menagerie, he would gain 5 more permanent summon slots. In his mind, he was planning on using these slots for monstrous humanoid summons, as keeping a person of regular intelligence in the void only to come out for fights would be a terrible existence for them. Regarding using these slots for additional wives, he was very much opposed to the idea.

A party was 5 in the eyes of the Framework for most of the important events, and that would never change, as far as he knew. In Jakes mind, his warrior family was 5, and no matter how much fun Fhesiah thinks it would be, he was not planning on filling a battlegroup full of wives. He wanted to give his current girls all the attention they both needed and deserved, and if anything, last night was proof that this line of thinking was correct.

They took a detour to what Jake considered near the center of the operations surrounding the [Fortress Assault]. There was a rocky hill that had a somewhat treacherous climb, and Jake decided that this would be perfect for his plans. Here, he would build a crude fortress while they waited on the other rifts to be cleared.

Luckily, some of Jakes spell rods could be used by others. Ophelia was able to help with Jake flattening the top of the hill, as well as placing the stone. The stone grew from where he envisioned it as he channeled mana into the rod from several feet away, and what was produced was a rough and uneven-surfaced rock that was nearly a cubic foot every few seconds. Jake couldnt really make flat surfaces without using other spell-rods to smoothen things out; he couldnt just imagine precisely what he wanted to make as he conjured the stone. Jake even handed some rods out to a few of the casters for them to aid in constructing the keep.

Within a bit over an hour, they had already produced a fortification that was quite impressive, complete with a path on top to walk on to rain ranged attacks on assaulters and at the four corners of the fort, large towers that contained ballistas at the top of them. With these, even the healers could help defend against an aerial assault. It certainly didnt look like much of a keep though, more like a rocky mountain top that just happened to be arranged like a keep somehow.

Jake had even enchanted the bolts, and should they hit, they should pack a mean punch. Part of Jake wanted to make this fortress just as a test of his ability to construct. When they arrived at the new world, they would probably help various towns construct defenses and rebuilding. The other part wanted to protect the battlegroup from Tartarus machinations. If a new rift spawns, or creatures that have no business being near there showed up then having these defenses as something to retreat to could save lives.

While Jake was constructing his makeshift fortress, he had been listening to the result of other groups assaulting their own rifts using the headset. They had made more progress, but one battlegroup had been set back by a stampede of creatures. Another battlegroup intervened to keep the losses minimal, but some had still died as a result. Their losses would prevent them from assaulting another rift after they completed this one, and so they would be relegated to guarding other groups for now.

Only six rifts had been closed up to now. Antonius approached from where he had been walking up on the battlements Jake and Ophelia had made. He said, This was quite something. While I hope that it doesnt see any use, I know thats wishful thinking. Are you willing to sell these? I think my guild would find those very useful for this Tier on other worlds.

Jake gave Antonius the details on the rods, and Antonius offered to purchase them from Jake, even if their mages couldnt keep up with creating fortifications nearly as rapidly as him, the mana cost too high to sustain over large periods. Tier 2 Mage-types that specialized in earth could easily create similar, and was a common specialization. It was that any Tier 1 that could use mana could use it that made them useful to them. Jake was excited at the prospect of selling them, as they would help both those that used them, but also allow him to make funds while they were in transit to other worlds.

Jake looked over to Berri, who once again was killing time playing with birds, her mask currently removed. At the very least, she wasnt getting into trouble. Jake was both looking forward to, and was a little worried about, hearing what was on the girls mind once their bond improved just one more time. Just what was going on in that head of hers?