Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]

Chris

Frostheim

~~

Name: Christopher Zalenski

Race: (E) Human*

Class: (E) Hammer of the Jotnar(Legendary) – Level 100 Evolution Available

Profession: (E) Runesmith(Rare) – Level 100 Evolution Available

Affinity: Arctic

Faction: Frostheim (Leader)

Title: Viscount

~~

A Viscount. Something I wasn't sure how to feel over. On one hand, it was an accomplishment to be proud of. The challenge alone would be a tale to be told joyously.

But it was the other implications and where it was all headed that I wasn't quite sure of. Already, this 'Assembly' was creating a noble-only atmosphere. I knew it would only take time for such a culture to spread like wildfire, and if I knew anything of history, that elitism would be ugly.

The only thing I can do is curb it as best I can.

I wouldn't be able to enforce such values everywhere, but I'd be able to instill them here at least. In Frostheim and its holdings, I'd die before such pompous arrogance set in.

Implications aside, the new Rank came with benefits, but I waved those off for later. I knew they'd be discussed at length when we finally met up afterward. For now, I focused on the gains I made from the fight.

And boy, was it a fight.

I remembered the Baron challenge fondly for several reasons, and while this new challenge didn't quite exceed it, it came close in different ways.

The Wolfbear we faced before was a rewarding challenge to defeat. Austin, Abigail, and I had all worked together to take it down. Others pitched in too, Rachel, Jon, and the like, but they were mainly dealing with other beasts while we focused on the boss.

But this challenge, against this new wave of cat-like creatures, the System called [Feline Shadowtooths], was met with overwhelming force. Austin's attacks did extra damage due to his light element. Rachel's fire did well.

My cold was slightly hampered, but it still did enough damage to be useful. Physical force still worked, and that accounted for many of my kills.

The Orders were far from the burgeoning force they had been a few years ago. Elliot and Hal had spent hours upon hours forging them into something respectable. They alone accounted for a large portion of my confidence going into the fight.

The D-ranks we had were just too much for the wave, which made the sense of battle and hard challenge lesser, compared to the Baron wave.

For once, we had grown faster than the challenge had risen. Most of that was because it had been a long time since the last challenge, but that fact didn't take away from the accomplishment.

I attributed that to the hardships we were forced to go through. The saying of 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' only became more truthful after the Change. Not only were we successful in our upgrade, we did so without casualties and with improvements abound.

The snow lingered, still fluttering in the wind, and I felt a connection to it on a level I never had before. The frozen ground as well felt easier to reach and subvert to my mana. The air and ground around me in a fifty-foot radius were connected to me through one skill alone. A skill I hadn't had before the fighting started.

You have upgraded a skill:

Permafrost(Uncommon) + Desolate Blizzard(Rare) -> Tundra's Descent(Epic)

It took a while to play the two skills off each other. Longer than I thought it would. The groundwork had already been laid by the many times I'd used the two in tandem and the idea of them being one wasn't so hard to push into reality.

The Epic title didn't mean all that much. Yes, it was still powerful and something I was proud of, but it was the fact that it would soon return to Rare that made it bittersweet.

I couldn't put off my evolution forever, and the time to see all my skills demote a rank was soon coming. The urge to go through with it before the attack on Lakeshore was there, but not something I felt was worth the consequences.

[Tundra's Descent] was a great mesh of the two, in my opinion. It forced Arctic mana into the ground and the air, while also creating ice and snow to work with. Naturally, with anything Arctic mana was involved with, the Cold came with it.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

After achieving what I'd set out to do during the battle, I wasn't able to spend any more time playing around with Skill improvements and had to turn my full attention on the Boss. With a plethora of D-ranks to bombard the Boss Shadowtooth, it didn't last long.

After it was felled and the pylon rushed to claim more land, I got to watch the battlefield be picked clean of any of the shadowy cats worth salvaging while one of the last snows of the year covered up the sea of red.

"Chris!" A voice called for my attention, "They're waiting for you in the Great Hall."

They hadn't needed to send a runner. I knew I was needed by the buzzing in my pocket from the Messaging Stone. It wasn't like I was holding them up for hours, just a little bit longer to play with the new connection [Tundra's Descent] brought.

I held back a huff in disappointment as I cut the flow of mana and turned away from the ruined field. The Earth and Nature mages would have it back in shape in no time. They would most likely be done before the sun set, and that was saying something. The days were still short this time of year.

As I walked through the city and into the Castle, I took the time to shrug off my many layers of armor. It wasn't anything fancy, just a remade set that buffed out the burns from Lakeshore. My hammer was likewise left behind.

Waiting for me inside the Great Hall were everyone of importance or with responsibility in Frostheim. Abigail, our Mayor. Jon, the Head Merchant. Elliot, Hal, and now Gabriel, Captains of their respective Orders. Phillip, our Head Builder. Vincent, our Head Crafter. Sam and my mother from our Council.

Even Austin was seated in a chair teetering on two legs. I'd thought he'd run for the hills when invited to a managerial meeting like this, but his curiosity to see what the new Title brought won out over his fear of responsibility.

The only one missing was Lucile, but she wasn't really needed for something like this. She was content with her Dungeon Curator job and didn't care for meetings that didn't involve it.

No one rose as I entered, as I found the custom pointless. Anders, the stubborn bastard, would have done it anyway, but he wasn't here, thankfully.

"What changes does being a City bring, Abigail. Have you had a chance to explore everything in the Pylon screens?" I asked to kick things off, turning everyone's heads toward our Mayor.

"Our available appointments have increased. Before we were allowed an Owner, Administrator, Guard Captain, Head of Construction, Head of Trade, Head of Crafts, and a Dungeon Curator." She listed. All those positions were filled by some of the people in the room. We called Phillip our Head Builder instead of Head of Construction, though.

"And now, we are allowed three Guard Captains, all under a Guard Commander, which leaves four Guard appointments compared to the one before."

The three Captain slots would go to Elliot, Hal, and Gabe. The Commander position was unknown. My initial thought was Jonathan, but I wasn't sure if one person could hold two appointments.

Abigail didn't wait for my thoughts and continued, "We also have an unnaturally vague Policing appointment. From what I've been able to read about it, different Factions handle domestic policing differently, which makes the appointment variable."

Vague? How does that work?

Sure, we deviated from the exact title, Phillip's, for example, but this sounded more than that.

"Like a Police Captain?" Hal asked. It was usually his Order that handled tracking down criminals and the like. The dogs were good at that, and it matched the skill set of some of his scouts.

They were closer to Hunters of Men rather than detectives, but they did the job.

"Yes, or Head Adjudicator, Punishment Hall Master, or even Chief Justiciar. The Title will change depending on how we choose to handle it." She described.

"Is that all?" I asked, not wanting to get stuck on the matter.

Abigail held a suppressed smile, saving the best for last, if I had to guess. "No, we can also appoint two new Barons."

"Wait, what?!" Austin heard the possibility of becoming a Baron and tuned right in. We'd lost him talking about positions he didn't care about.

Some of the others showed surprise as well, but I at least knew it was coming. A noble Rank could appoint a set amount of Nobles under him, which I knew from reading, but the amount was a shock.

I'd thought I would only be able to appoint one Baron, not two.

"Yes, two Barons." She confirmed, "One is for owning a City-level pylon, Frostheim, and the other is for a mixture of things. We meet the land size requirement, the total pylon requirement, and also have a second pylon at the Small City level."

The one for owning a City-level Pylon was the one I knew about. Frostheim's pylon not only allowed me to be a Viscount, but it also allowed for a Baron as well. I wasn't sure what the thought process was behind it all, but I thought of it like this. The pylon, on a micro level, was what awarded the Baron appointment, while I, the Viscount, was in charge of all of it. The macro level.

All four pylons we owned fell under me, but Frostheim's Baron only had the one pylon to deal with. It made sense, in a way, but I also wasn't sure if I was right. Guessing at the machinations of the System was an exercise in futility.

Austin opened his mouth only to be shot down by a ready Abigail, "No, Austin, one of them isn't going to you."

I knew he wasn't advocating himself for real, and he took the refusal in good nature, by feigning a mortal wound to his heart and slumping in his chair.

"Victor's position..." Hal caught on. "I hadn't realized he was a Baron."

"I didn't think he was either." I admitted, "But now we have to appoint one to run Lakeshore."

We had already been looking for someone to fill the Mayoral Position, but now we had to look for appointing a Baron as well.

"Does it have to be for Lakeshore?" Sam asked, "Can we appoint someone who stays here and just have a Mayor run the city instead?"

It was a good question, and one I wasn't sure about. It seemed like we were given free rein to appoint how and who we pleased, but I also wasn't an expert on the matter.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Abigail answered, taking the floor. "The appointments we've made so far are more than just a promotion or arbitrary title. They have actual effects and can influence a person's evolutionary choices. My Profession choices are better for my role, and so are Jon's. I'm guessing Elliot's was as well."

The sole appointed Guard Captain nodded, but didn't divulge what those benefits were.

"If we don't use the appointment to its full extent, we would be wasting it." Abigail finished.

No one else here had any experience with having a Noble Title, as I was the only Baron so far, so I knew what Abigail was getting at.

"My options were influenced by being a Baron, but more specifically, they were influenced by what kind of Baron I was," I said after she had finished, "One is called Warrior Baron. It is, as the name implies, a Warrior-based leadership class gained through having the Baron title." I felt comfortable sharing the Class Option because I wasn't going to choose it.

"The name implies that the way you govern, or use your Title, can affect what impact it has on your options. The way I have led made the Title empower my Class Choices, but I suspect if Abigail had been the Baron instead, she would be getting a Professional boost from it instead." I continued.

Those in the room already knew how much of a help holding an appointed office was, and now we had to choose who would be getting that boost. Especially the Baron ones.

If Warrior Baron was a thing, I could easily see a Merchant Baron, or Ranger Baron, or Mage Baron being a thing. Maybe if we gave one to Vincent, he'd get Smithing Baron as an option.

Everyone understood the implications. The appointments were more important than they thought.