The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

Joram entered his room to a dying Asami as she rolled on the bed, her face as red at the fur on the tips of her ears and tails. He looked around that the other women present and found them just as dumbstruck as he was.

“What happened,” he asked Myra, who seemed torn between trying to help Asami somehow and running for help.

“I don’t know! One moment she was fine then, just before you came in, she burst out laughing!” Myra said, looking at a complete loss for what to do.

Avi perked up at her words, looking thoughtful, which triggered a thought in him.

As the thought went through his mind, Asami sobered up remarkably fast, going so far as to pinch herself while taking deep breaths.

‘Yeah, I thought as much,’ Avi said, nodding. ‘There were just too many coincidences for it to be natural.’

Joram sighed, now resigned to having two women reading his mind all the time.

“It’s not all the time!” Asami protested, looking a bit panicked. “It’s more like, I don’t know, watching the surface of a pond. Yeah, like that!” she rushed to explain, getting more and more frantic as she went.

Joram stepped over to her and plopped his hand down on her head, then gave it a gentle rub.

“I can’t blame you for being you,” he said, shaking his head as the three gals looked on in confusion, though Arise seemed as though she might understand something. ”Heck, I might soon be like that too,” he said, further confusing everyone else.

Asami looked up at him under his hand and nodded seriously, though her eyes were still devastatingly large and dilated.

“Let’s get to bed,” he said, motioning for everyone to get moving.

For his part, he went and got changed, thankful that he was the last one who needed to do so. When he was done, he bade the three gals a good night, then climbed into bed and waited as Asami and Myra got comfortable.

“What was that about?” Myra asked, barely whispering her question into his ear after having wiggled up higher than she normally laid.

“Spirit Fox stuff,” he whispered into her ear, causing her to gently shudder, which in turn had him reaching for [Clear Mind].

She nodded lightly before scooting down again so that she wasn’t right by his face anymore. He was amazed at how clear his heart felt, not to mention how relaxed his body was. He wondered if passing 50 Ranks in [Clear Mind] had unlocked a hidden feature, especially when he realized that he didn’t seem to be hindered in any way by having it up and running.

He pondered that for a while before getting to the business of restoring his body. He was happy to note that the Ring of Sustenance he’d assimilated was working well. Maybe too well, as after only an hour of meditation, he found that he was once more good to go.

Had that been the case the night before? He wasn’t sure, though he did notice that [Clear Mind] was still running, which got a few ideas sprouting in his head.

He quickly checked his regeneration rates and smiled.

Regeneration Rates:

HP: 540/minute

ST: 540/minute

PP: 694/minute

MP: 712/minute

After saving his progress, he then dismissed his current [Schism], then remanifested it with more Minds added, getting him a whopping eleven additional Minds to work with. He even had plenty to spare. Actually, he could probably get many more Minds running, but that would likely cause a headache.

He promptly assigned M12 to keeping [Clear Mind] running, then had M5 to M11 start on Dust production. M3 and M4 were set to learning and understanding the psionic database in his head. M2, though, was a floater. He’d help him with anything he needed, but would shift back to learning stuff when he wasn’t actively needed. Oh, and M2 would also be responsible for his daily Powers upkeep. Things like [Barred Mind] and his defensive Powers were very important, after all.

M2 was also responsible for re-manifesting [Genesis, True] everyday as well. Since he would now be able to afford the 200 Dust Crystals per day, he’d be more than happy to accelerate his Realm’s growth!

Smiling, Joram started his morning ritual, pleased with his progress.

By the time he left his room, it was still early in the night, so he decided to go to his office to work. Because: office.

Once there, he sat in his comfy office chair and pulled up his Dungeon tab. There were still a dizzying number of options when it came to the denizens and flora available, but now he had the time to go through it all.

*Day 7*

Joram stretched, then got out of his chair, and started on the rest of his day.

The cooking lesson went well, though he was running out of the basics to teach. As much as he wanted to teach them other things, he felt that it would be best for everyone to develop their own styles of cooking. Sure, he could go on and on about various techniques, and he would, but those only stretched so far before he’d need to “graduate” his class.

Even the horticulture lessons were likely to end soon, for he knew less about that than he did about cooking. Though with Shae’ra there, he was confident that she’d be able to teach the younglings- he liked that word- for quite a while yet.

Once that was all done, and the younglings were hard at work starting the harvest, he made his way to Kirkwall, though on foot this time. He’d considered crating a bike for himself, but felt that it would be a pain to deal with the many questions that would come with it.

At the bank, he found Zerava already coming out of the back, likely forewarned of his coming.

“What can I do to help you today, Joram?” Zerava asked him warmly, surprising him with her happy smile.

“Well, I’d like to set up a payment schedule for, well, my new employees, I guess,” he said, finding it very weird to call them his employees.

“That should be easy enough to do,” Zerava said, nodding. “Do you have their information with you?” she asked as she guided him to one of the empty desks. As they walked, he noticed that her hair was very similar to Celys’ hair, even having the black-tipped ears and tail.

“I know that this might come off as a strange question, but are you related to Celys?” he asked once he was seated across from her.

“Hmm? Yes, we’re cousins,” Zerava said, looking up from her paperwork.

“Cool,” he said, not really knowing what to say after that.

“The information?” Zerava prompted as she held out a hand.

Feeling several levels of silly, he retrieved the paper with the names and accounts of his new employees and handed it over to her.

“So, what is the rate of pay, and the schedule?”

“Oh, twenty bronze coins per day, and… ah, paid weekly,” he said not having really thought about when their payday would be.

“Might I suggest monthly? There is a service fee each time a payment is made, and I’d be remiss charging you without your prior knowledge,” Zerava said, looking up from the paper.

“Oh, right,” he said, feeling very much out of his depth. “Then, once per month should work. How about the last day of the month? Oh, and the same for the others as well,” he said, nodding.

“Others? Oh, the… younglings. Certainly, I’ll get that set up as well. In fact, that will save you a bit seeing as how you’re having more than fifty processed at the same time,” she said, nearly causing him to choke at the mention of “fifty”, reminding him of that damn Achievement.

“Are you alright?” Zerava asked, looking a bit concerned, further raising his anxiety.

“No, I’m fine! Just thought of something else that I forgot to do, that’s all,” he said, lying his face off.

“Alright, then,” she said, giving him a dubious look before getting started with the paperwork.

While she worked, he wondered how hard it would be to earn the almost 4.5 gold pieces- coins, per month that he’d be paying out from his account. If he could just sell Dust Crystals, he’d be fine, but given how risky that was, he was sure that he’d be needing the monsters that his dungeon produced on the sooner side of things.

When Zerava finished, she handed him a sort of receipt outlining the costs, as well as the names of the payees. Sure enough, it was 4 gold, 42 silver, and 40 bronze coins each month.

“I know that you’re fairly well-off, but maybe you should consider delving the local dungeon for some extra coin?” Zerava said, surprising him with that considerate suggestion.

“Thank you,” he said, leaving it at that, though he did offer her a smile of thanks. “I’ve still got to have a chat with Celys, so I need to get going. Thank you again, and have a great day,” he said, working very hard to be polite due to his anxiety.

“You’re welcome,” Zerava beamed at him before he could escape the bank.

Holy mother of-. What is going on? Is it that damn Achievement at work? He wondered as he made his way across to town hall, figuring that Celys would….

“Damn,” he said, facepalming. He’d already forgotten that he was going to be with the other women until the caravan left.

Shrugging, he went inside anyways, hopeful that someone could answer his question.

“Hey, how’s it going today?” he asked the clerk who’d been helping him since he’d first purchased his land.

“Pretty good, thanks,” the clerk replied, then gave him a shrewd look. “You’ve forgotten my name, haven’t you?”

Pinned by both the bluntness of the question and the truth, he had no option left besides admitting the fault.

“It’s fine,” the clerk said, waving it off. “That name’s Kalorin, though most people just call me Kal, which confuses everyone when Kalduin is around,” he said with a grin.

“Sorry, I’ve been traditionally terrible with names,” he replied, knocking on the wood of the desk to ward off that bad habit. “Say, how much do you know about the legalities of guardianship? Specifically, taking guardianship of a minor.”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Kalorin said, shaking his head. “I mostly deal with real estate and property taxes. You’d have to speak with Melaida about that, she specializes in the family side of things,” he said, pointing at an office just to the side of the lobby, on the right if you were just entering the building.

“Thanks, I’ll go ask her,” he said, quickly shaking Kalorin’s hand before walking over to Melaida’s door and knocking.

“Come in.”

He opened the door to find another foxkin sitting at their desk. He was happy to note that she looked to be in her sixties, which meant that she probably wouldn’t be as susceptible to his damn Achievement…. He hoped.

“Hi, I’ve got a question about guardianship,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

“Ah, would this be about the younglings, then?” Melaida asked, sharp as a tack.

“Yes.”

“Then, please, have a seat,” Melaida said, motion with her off hand. “Celys told me about how you had wanted to free them all a couple of days ago, and what she told you. I’ve since been going through the law codices and I believe that I have an answer that you might like,” she said with a faint smile that reminded him of a librarian.

“Please, do tell,” he said, unconsciously leaning forward.

“First, ask me your question. I don’t want to go off and answer the wrong one, wasting both of our time,” she said, once more proving how on point she was.

“Well, here’s what I’ve been wondering. Is it possible to register myself as the younglings’ legal guardian? That way, I could free them while still making sure they’re taken care of in the eyes of the law,” he quickly said, wanting to know what she’d come up with.

“Well, that’s certainly a good idea, better than the one I had of you just marrying them all,” Melaida said, nearly causing him to die of embarrassment and indignation. Then she chuckled.

“Oh, that was worth it,” she said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t trying to pull anything.

“Anyways, your idea is sound. That said, you’d effectively be opening an orphanage and registering them all that way. You’ll still be personally responsible for them all, though you’ll receive quite the tax breaks for running an orphanage, I’d wager,” she said with a smile.

“Tax breaks are a thing here?” he asked, getting a bit of cultural vertigo.

“They certainly are,” Melaida said as though it was common sense. “Anyways, you’ll just need to bring them all in one day so that we can get everyone who’s still a minor registered. Oh, and you’ll need to speak with Kal about getting the orphanage registered, but that shouldn’t take long.”

“Well, thank you very much! I can’t express how grateful I am,” he said, smiling for all he was worth.

“Then just treat this old lady to dinner, and we’ll call it even,” she said with a wink that metaphorically dropped him into a vat of ice water.

“I’ll bring something by tomorrow when I come with the younglings,” he said, trying for all he was worth to keep his nervousness hidden.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Melaida said with a mischievous smile, making him wonder if he’d overreacted.

He quickly left her office and returned to speak with Kalorin about setting up the orphanage. He was surprised when he only needed to fill out two forms, but was happy that it wasn’t anything too complicated. He only had to designate the apartment building as the orphanage, but decided to also include the mess hall and the bathhouse as well to make sure that the facilities needed to care for the kids were properly covered.

With that done, he went back to the bank under Kal’s suggestion.

Fortunately, things also went quickly once he’d passed the paperwork over to Zerava. They went a bit slower as she, and the other employees, began praising him for his generosity. Incidentally, his thirty employees were then listed as working for the orphanage, entitling him to further tax breaks when it came time to pay taxes.

With his social batteries now thoroughly drained, he hurried back to his place to take a breather.

Once there, he deftly avoided everyone with liberal use of [Improved Stealth, Advanced] to sneak by everyone. Once he got to his bedroom, he quickly made his way to his bed and flopped down.

He was sure that [Clear Mind] was still up and running- M12 piping in just then that it was indeed still up-, so why had he felt so anxious today? He’d been fine this morning. Heck, he’d been fine during the lessons as well. So, what had changed?

The only thing he could think of was that he’d been overthinking things. Had he somehow overridden [Clear Mind] with his worry? How did that even work? Wasn’t the entire point of [Clear Mind] to keep his mind clear?

Frowning, he gave up on that line of thought and instead started playing with his dungeon settings.

He decided that the first floor would contain monsters between Levels 1-5. Then the next floor would have Levels 6-10, going up at the same rate that the monsters were classified as, which corresponded to Adventurer Ranks. So, the whole dungeon would effectively be from Rank F to Rank A, one for each floor.

The next thing he determined was that he really would need a theme for each floor. Ultimately, he wanted each floor to both train his people and to provide useful materials for them all. Namely: meat. But what kind?

He definitely wanted some pork, for bacon was simply a must. Yes, he could just create some, but he also wanted his people to be a bit more self-sufficient in the long run. Which meant that they’d have to get trained.

Well, he could help them, as could the three gals, especially after he’d finally used [Analyze] on them and found that Arise was an [Assassin], Fyrellia a [Sorceress], and Qyress a [Trick-shot Archer]. Considering their classes, he suspected that they’d been, or part of, a scouting party. He just hoped that them being captured and enslaved wouldn’t cause any issues….

Anyways, he needed to plan out the dungeon…. Wait. It might be easier to just make six dungeons instead of just one huge one….

Smiling, he got up and snuck his way out of the house and over to the dungeon site. He then went to the 1st floor, and used [Create Dungeon], then repeated that again and again until he made the last one on the 6th floor. With that done, he now had six dungeons that he could plan out.

Thinking about it, he decided to add the feature that allowed for the ceiling to appear as though it was the sky. Really, it was just in illusion that copied the open sky above the dungeon, but it would also allow for “natural” lightning, while also providing a less claustrophobic environment for the delvers. Ultimately, it didn’t even cost that much mana, so it was a win-win for him.

Looking at the bare stone floor, he decided to supplement things a bit with some of the stored earth he’d picked up while excavating the place, which made it easier to add some grass through his menu. Then a couple small ponds with the help of some clay… and voila!

Perfect for poultry!