Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It was impossible to know just from looking at him, but Rizok remained just as vigilant walking through the streets of TalQamar as he would have been in some far off battlefield.

Rizok couldnt help but find it a bit sad that he felt more at ease fighting in distant lands than walking the streets of the city hed been born in. Hed traveled to many lands during his involuntary stay away from his home, but TalQamars internal politics were deadly in a way few cities could compare.

The fact that the Conclave could so easily find [Assassins] capable of fighting him on equal terms demonstrated that perfectly. For someone with his degree of training, it was utterly embarrassing, and made Rizok pay much closer attention to the mission given to him by High Command.

That mission, of course, being the protection and monitoring of a strange human [Cultist] by the name of Zareth. Currently, that human was secure in his home and being guarded by a squad of competent soldiers. Rizok was loath to leave Zareths safety in the hands of soldiers who were doubtlessly weaker than himself, but it had to be done. General Nasrith had requested his presence personally so that he could share his thoughts on the [Cultist], which meant that there was little he could do abo

Rizok jolted from his musings as his eyes snapped toward the sudden movement of a young human girl sprinting between the nearby alleys. It was only when the child disappeared from view that Rizok forced himself to unwind and continue on his way toward the palace.

He had no problem ignoring the strange looks being thrown his way by the civilians. Most of them had lived in TalQamar their entire lives and knew nothing of how deadly the world could truly be. Even an apparent child could be someone changing their appearance through the use of a Skill or enchanted item.

It didnt help that some very powerful people would want to see Rizok dead if they learned more than they should.

My life would be much easier if the only [Assassins] I had to worry about were the ones coming after me, Rizok thought ruefully as he kept a portion of his attention on a passing civilian with a knife hidden under his shawl. High Command never gives me the simple missions.

Zareth himself didnt seem to care too much about Rizok leaving his side, despite the fact that he had definitely been shaken by the recent attempt on his life. The human had actually seemed to become completely oblivious to the world over the past few weeks. Hed become completely engrossed in his body modifications, only breaking that focus for another meeting of his cult or the occasional combat lesson.

Rizok had seen this kind of behavior several times. It was a common reaction among new soldiers who experienced near death combat experiences. That brush with death would cause them to focus everything on improving themselves and raising their Levels. There was a good reason that new recruits had a tendency to either die during their first campaign or gain Levels several times faster than they normally would.

Rizok hoped that Zareth would come out stronger for it, rather than be consumed by his ambitions as many people were. After all, he had grown unexpectedly fond of the human over the past few months

There was just something about Zareth that Rizok found both strange and fascinating which made it quite interesting to watch the human go about his business. For example, Zareth was undoubtedly more knowledgeable about the world than any street child had a right to be. Rizok personally wouldnt have been surprised if the human had been illiterate, but that couldnt have been further from reality.

Instead, Zareth had used a significant portion of his budget to purchase as many books as he could about the outside world. Hed even mentioned plans of using those books to educate his followers and teach those who were illiterate as a way to entice more people into his temple.

It was the kind of plan that Rizok would have expected from a [Scholar] rather than a [Cultist] whod reportedly learned to read through his own painstaking efforts.

Rizok had already reported these inconsistencies to his superiors, but every investigation into the human failed to reveal anything particularly insidious. By all accounts, Zareth was merely a particularly clever human with a healthy degree of ambition. Once that was verified, High Command seemed to lose any special interest in Zareth beyond how he could be used to combat the Conclaves influence.

That was why Rizok was very curious to find out why General Nasrith was interested in personally receiving his most recent report. Rizok would normally submit his observations in writing to his immediate superiors, so this was a clear departure from procedure.

Once he reached the palace, it took quite a while for him to get inside. Security had been intensified even more than usual as High Command prepared for war against the Conclave for their attacks against TalQamar, though it was clear to him that was just a pretense.

Rizok was forced to endure a thorough inspection at the gates after handing over his credentials, which included being asked several questions and the scrutinization of a [Mage] specialized in revealing shapeshifters.

High Command hadnt managed to recruit many [Mages] due to the restrictive requirements in gaining the Class, but each one that they had was frightfully competent. Most of the officers responsible for recruitment belonged to House Vhelan, and they were not known to tolerate incompetence.

Once he had been cleared, Rizok made his way through the palace toward General Nasriths office, weaving through the bustling corridors filled with officers, soldiers, and other personnel. The General had notably not chosen to conduct his business in Raqasors old throne room, instead opting to repurpose the wing of the palace that had been used by its former administrators.

Rizok once again endured one more security check before he found himself standing at the desk of the Generals adjutant, a middle-aged naga woman named Anaya. The two of them were passingly familiar with each other, having both been sponsored by House Vhelan. Still, Rizok didnt allow that familiarity to compel him to break proper procedure.

Master Sergeant Rizok reporting, maam, Rizok greeted the senior officer with a crisp salute, easily falling into the routine of being a good little soldier.

Lieutenant Colonel Anaya looked up from her paperwork for a single moment to return his salute. At ease, Master Sergeant. Im afraid that youll have to wait until the General is finished with his current meeting.

Rizok allowed himself to fall into a more relaxed stance as he responded. Did I arrive at the wrong time? I was instructed by High Command that the General was expecting to meet me at noon.

He had never known the General to be anything less than exact with his time.

No need to worry, Master Sergeant. Youre as punctual as ever, Anaya said with a faint smile. Its just that the Generals previous meeting has run a bit longer than expected. Things have gotten a bit busier here than usual in preparation for the coming campaign.

That seemed reasonable to Rizok. Planning a war had a way of upending a persons schedule.

Very well, maam. Then Ill just wait until Rizok trailed off as he noticed that Anayas gaze had grown distant and that she wasnt listening to him. After a moment of awkward silence, her eyes refocused on him.

Ah, I apologize. My Skill [Administrative Intuition] just informed me that General Nasrith wishes for you to join the meeting, Anaya said as she gestured toward the doors of the Generals office. Youre free to go on ahead.

Feeling curious, Rizok nodded toward Anaya and made his way into the Generals office. As he made his way into the room, he was immediately greeted by the sight of General Nasrith standing in front of a large map of the Qahtani Desert, his gaze fixated on a myriad of strings and markers.

Rizok felt a familiar surge of resentment well up inside him whenever he saw a member of House Vhelan before immediately forcing it down. He had plenty of experience hiding his true feelings, and knew with certainty that none of his disdain had shown on his face.

Next to the table with the map was a black-scaled naga who Rizok vaguely recognized as being a high ranking officer of the militarys intelligence division, although he couldnt remember the mans name or rank.

Master Sergeant, thank you for joining us, said General Nasrith, his aristocratic voice smooth and calm as he kept his eyes on the map in front of him. My discussion with Colonel Salzin has gone on longer than expected, and I am loath to add any more delays to my schedule. Given that the rest of his report is in regard to the citys internal security and thus related to your current mission, I decided that it would be best to hold your meetings simultaneously.

Rizoks eyes widened in surprise as he turned his attention to the naga who he had mistaken as just a regular officer. Not only was Colonel Salzin the highest-ranked member of the intelligence division, but he was also a member of House Zarqet.

Understood, sir, Rizok said as he pulled his gaze away from the Colonel. I will help in any way that I can.

It was normally unusual for someone of his rank to participate in a meeting between high ranked officers, but Rizok was used to situations like this one. His unfortunate affiliation with House Vhelan and his status as one of the militarys stronger individual combatants often placed him in company beyond his station.

Excellent, General Nasrith said as he finally looked up from the map. Then continue, Colonel. I believe you were just about to share your findings in regard to the citys internal security.

Rizoks interest grew as he heard the subject of the Colonels report. Unlike most of his fellow soldiers, Rizok would be staying in TalQamar for the duration of the upcoming campaign, so this information would be extremely useful to him.

The Colonel merely nodded and began speaking. Seditious activity of civilians who worship the gods of Conclave is within a tolerable level, and efforts to suppress their activity have been mostly successful. This is likely why the Conclave has switched their focus to cooperating with the local criminal element. The cooperation of the [Cultist] and his criminal contacts has been helpful in this regard.

Rizok was glad to hear that Zareths criminal associates were actually making themselves useful. In his experience, working with such individuals was generally more trouble than it was worth.

Still, he knew for a fact that High Command and the Great Houses already had a relationship with a particularly dangerous criminal organization, so Zareths contacts didnt actually matter.

Of course, that wasnt something that he should know, so Rizok simply kept his mouth shut.

Our efforts to evaluate the citys former guards for loyalty and competence have been concluded, Colonel Salzin continued. Of the 578 individuals who we investigated, 122 were found to have strong sympathies towards the Conclave. These individuals have been detained, pending further investigation. The remainder are currently being prepared to be reinstated into their previous roles with several of our officers acting as appointed overseers to ensure loyalty and efficiency.

That was good to hear. A proper [Guardsman] should have several Skills dedicated to enforcing the peace and protection of their citys civilians, such as [Detect Guilt]. If they could be ensured to be both loyal and competent, then that would go a long way to inhibiting the activity of hostile actors.

Good. That will ease the burden on our forces, General Nasrith said with a hint of satisfaction creeping into his normally monotone voice. This war will be difficult enough that we will need every capable soldier to be available. What of the current water supply?

Rizok didnt understand the situation very well, but he knew that the Temple of Rayya had been responsible for blessing the citys oasis and increasing the available supply of water. After they were expelled from the city along with the rest of the Conclave, the oasis had begun to shrink back to its natural size.

It wasnt an immediate problem, but it was something that would become a problem if it wasnt addressed.

Progress has been made, but our current methods are not sustainable, Colonel Salzin said, his expression unchanging despite the seriousness of the situation. The cost of the [Hydromancers] that we hired from Eldamir is not negligible and places us at the mercy of foreign powers, though that risk is mitigated by their internal difficulties. Acquiring FalAshirs method of managing their limited water supply should be a high priority.

Rizoks confusion must have been obvious, because General Nasrith decided to elaborate after glancing in his direction.

It is not common knowledge, but the people of FalAshar are known to require less water than is natural, General Nasrith explained.

General Nasriths expression grew thoughtful and he ordered Rizok to do what he could to leave Zareth with a favorable impression of House Vhelan. The moment that Rizok agreed, Nasrith sent him away with a curt dismissal. It was clear that the General had no particular interest in continuing their interaction any longer than necessary, something Rizok was more than happy to comply with.

Exiting the office, Rizok took a deep breath to steady himself before starting his journey back to Zareths temple and continue guarding the human. Now that he was certain House Vhelan had a special interest in Zareth, he would do everything in his power to keep the human as safe as possible.

After all, this opened up the kind of opportunity for Rizok that he had been patiently waiting for most of his adult life.

Within the lantern lit room of his house that had been remade into a makeshift laboratory, Zareth carefully reviewed the changes that he had made to his body.

It had been nearly a month since he first began studying the creatures delivered to him by the Adventurers, and more than two weeks since he started applying what he learned.

It had been surprisingly simple to make use of the quillhares sharp spines.

As he had expected, they were much more similar to the thorny spines of a porcupine rather than those of a hedgehog. Much like hair, the spines were composed of keratin, except significantly thickened and designed to be frequently replaced. If Zareth wished to use the spines against anyone who attacked him, then he would be forced to regrow them back quickly with his abilities.

While it did not sound like an issue, it would distract Zareth from other things, such as closing stab wounds in his throat. He also had to factor in the Skill exhaustion that would accumulate if he constantly used his [Permanent Flesh Manipulation] during a fight.

By the time Rizok chased off the [Assassins] who tried to kill him, Zareth had been completely and utterly exhausted. He might not have had many wounds on his body, but he had been far closer to his second death than he liked to think about.

However, Zareths [Veterinary Knowledge] Skill revealed a rather unique quality to the quillhares musculature that offered a solution to this problem! In addition to its ability to launch its spines at high speeds, the quillhare was also capable of hardening and softening its spines at will!

It honestly made very little sense to Zareth from a scientific standpoint. Keratin was a substance found in hair, skin, and nails as a part of the integumentary system, but varied significantly in its properties depending on a variety of factors such as its molecular structure and accompanying components. There was even an entirely different variety of keratin found primarily in reptiles and bird claws called beta keratin, as opposed to the alpha version found in mammals.

The quillhare seemed to possess a strange hormone releasing organ in its endocrine system that could instantly alter the creatures keratin properties, allowing it to become soft or hard at will.

Zareth didnt fully understand how it worked and was half convinced that the answer was just magic, but that didnt really matter.

After replicating the organ in his own body, Zareth discovered that it worked exactly as he expected. This meant that he could effectively cover every hair on his body with a thin layer of keratin and turn it into a spine ready to be hardened and launched at his enemies!

Zareth could already imagine the look on that [Assassin]s face once his eyebrows literally flew at her like arrows. It was a glorious image, and he couldnt help but chuckle at the thought.

Unfortunately, Zareth was forced to consider his own comfort when he began slowly converting the keratin in his hair to the modified version. Even in their softened state, they felt incredibly uncomfortable and irritated his skin. Zareth could always just disconnect his nerve endings, but there was a good reason that humans developed the ability to experience pain and discomfort.

Without it, he could die before he noticed that there was something wrong with his body.

Because of this, and a variety of complications that would come with creating so many specialized muscles across his body designed to launch the spines, Zareth decided to limit the process to only certain parts of his body. Most of the hairs on his head, eyebrows, and forearms were now ready to be launched at anyone who attacked him.

Not only that, but Zareth had discovered that he could launch them at several times the speed of the quillhares themselves. This was most likely due to the System, which enhanced every part of his body due to his physical stats.

The ones on his forearm were particularly dangerous, as they were closest to the venom glands that Zareth had derived from the Qahtani swarming silkspider.

While the biology of the quillhare had been relatively simple to understand, the spider had been much stranger. Even with his [Veterinary Knowledge], there were some parts of the creatures biology that didnt make all that much sense to him. There were organs in the spiders body that he didnt recognize or understand their function, and the magical protuberances on its abdomen were beyond his [Flesh Perception] Skill to properly comprehend.

Zareths current hypothesis was that the spider was just more magical than the quillhare and thus more different from the animals back on Earth. He would probably either need to upgrade his [Flesh Perception] or purchase some books on magical biology if he wanted to learn more than he already had.

Still, both the venom gland and the pyriform gland had been recognizable and reproducible after a little bit of effort.

Zareth couldnt stop himself from pulling back his ring and middle fingers as he launched a thread of silk from his wrist to the other side of the room. When he first managed to get that working, Zareth had spent hours pretending to be Spiderman and making a bunch of strange poses in his room.

He was really glad that nobody had been there to see him acting like an excited kid.

Unfortunately, the rest of Spidermans abilities werent exactly easy to replicate. The special hairs that the spiders used to walk on walls were not nearly strong enough to hold Zareths body weight, and there wasnt anything about the spiders senses that could grant him super intuition.

Until he could learn more about magical biology and make progress in replicating its geomancy, the spiders main contribution would be its silk and venom. Sadly, this meant that the last creature that Zareth had been brought from the Adventurers was next to useless. The System Spawns biology was an ever changing mess that he could barely understand.

Although Zareth hadnt been able to get as much from the spider or the System Spawn as he had hoped, he had still been able to leverage [Malleable Flesh] to make many more enhancements to his body.

His lungs had been significantly improved, his olfactory senses had been sharpened significantly, and his eyes could now see several colors outside the human visible spectrum. His liver had also been fine tuned to handle all of the poisons he intended to use.

Zareth had made some attempts to enhance his muscles and reflexes, but the results had unfortunately been negligible.

The System already made him physically superhuman compared to any person on Earth, and it seemed to operate through some unknown means unrelated to biology. A petite human woman who possessed a higher Strength stat than a fully grown ogre man would indeed be stronger than the ogre.

Zareth hypothesized that any enhancements related to Strength, Vitality, or Agility would first need to surpass whatever the System gave the person before the enhancements would begin having an effect.

It was a disappointing finding, but one that made sense once Zareth considered it. He doubted that he was the only person in the world capable of manipulating a persons biology. If it was possible to just give soldiers the muscles of a bear and turn them into super soldiers, then such a practice would already be commonplace.

Maybe thatll change once I get higher Leveled, Zareth thought optimistically. But until then, Ill just have to settle for being a bit creative.

Hidden along various parts of his body were several retractable tendrils tipped with venomous spikes, all of which were ready to snap out with the crack of a whip, and he could now spit acid into the face of anyone who got too close.

His vital organs had been moved from where an [Assassin] would expect to find them and were now covered by a thick layer of reinforced tissue.

His heart had been segmented, each section capable of functioning independently in case one was damaged, and hed added a few redundant arteries in case one was cut. Zareth eventually intended to add an entire set of redundant organs, but that had proven a bit more difficult than expected.

Zareth believed that these changes, along with several others, made him significantly harder to kill and allowed him to react with several nasty surprises for anyone who tried.

Cerebon certainly seemed to approve, as he had noticed the gods interest in him grow slightly over the past few weeks. It was an absolutely strange feeling to be going about your day only to suddenly feel the weight of a divine beings attention on you. Whenever that happened, Zareth wished that he knew more about Cerebon than he actually did, but knowledge was not easily available in a world like this one.

Zareth was so caught up in his wandering thoughts that he didnt register that someone was knocking on his door. He recognized the scent as belonging to Rizok, so he shouted out to give the lizard permission to enter.

Sir, have you prepared yourself for the Declaration Ceremony? Rizok asked as soon as he entered the room, wearing a crimson cloak with several formal adornments.

Zareths mind drew a blank as he tried to remember what Rizok was talking about. He recalled the soldier mentioning something about a week ago after returning from the palace, but hed been a bit too focused on his work to pay attention.

The what?

Rizoks sigh was embarrassingly similar to the one he used when Zareth forgot to eat meals.

Once he finished explaining what the Declaration Ceremony was, Zareth realized that he couldnt afford to skip such an important event. Although he would much rather continue making modifications to his body as his research had brought him fairly close to Leveling, he couldn't ignore the outside world forever.

Alright. Lets get there early so that I can see if any of my old clients are there, Zareth said as he began making his way to the door. Im hoping that some of them will be willing to do me a favor.

Zareth thought he saw a hint of worry pass through Rizoks expression at that statement, but the soldier didnt say anything so he must have imagined it.

Look on the bright side, maybe Ill be able to find a contact who can help me find the books I need, Zareth thought as he tried to cheer himself up about being forced to attend the upcoming ceremony. I doubt that Ill be able to find anything about magical biology on the open market.

Besides, today was the day that TalQamar officially went to war for the first time in decades.

That wasnt something that he could miss.