TS4: Chapter 43 (Patreon)

"I'm looking for a shopkeeper, someone to man the store while I'm away. Only for the next week. After that, I'll be shutting the operation down."

Taken aback, the ninth-tier swordswoman stared at Thorn.

"You want us to run your store for you?" she asked.

"Yes," Thorn said, nodding his head. "I'm just realizing that I don't actually have a shopkeeper. And if you're able to provide both defense—with my golems, of course—and a shopkeeper, that would be an ideal situation. In return, you can keep the sword."

It only took the woman a moment before she grabbed the sword and nodded.

"My name is Celeria," she said. "I agree."

Barely fifteen minutes later, there was an elven shopkeeper standing behind the counter, listening carefully as Thorn identified what each weapon was worth. Having gathered most of the points he needed, he was once again interested in fire-attributed natural treasures, though he did mention that he would accept any natural treasures that weren't of the darkness, earth, or arcane type. If warriors wanted, they could still purchase the weapons with points, but Thorn had increased the number of points required for each weapon substantially. Once everything was set up, he gave Celeria a nod and turned to go, only for her to stop him.

"How can you trust that we won't run off with your weapons?" she asked.

"Yeah, how can you trust them that they won't run off with your weapons?" Sparky echoed, clearly just as curious as the ninth-ranked warrior.

Turning slowly, Thorn gave the elven warrior a small smile.

"If you do, I'll destroy your tower," he said, "and not even the Seekers' Alliance is going to be able to stop me."

With that, he left, Sparky hurrying after him. Stello was slightly slower, and he stopped to look to speak to Celeria.

"I'd listen to what he says," Stello said, his expression earnest. "He doesn’t deal in threats, only in promises. And that, Celeria, was a promise."

Watching the three of them leave, Celeria let out a sigh and looked down at the sword she was holding in her hand. Pulling it from its sheath, she swiped through the air a few times, her eyes growing wide as she realized that Thorn had actually undersold the weapon. Her eyes gleaming, she sheathed the blade and glanced up at the two massive stone golems flanking the building before turning to the shop.

"We're playing this one straight," she said, “completely straight.”

As they walked through the market, Sparky sped up slightly to follow in step with Thorn, though he had to take two for every one of Thorn's strides.

"What's your obsession?" he asked, "with converting your enemies into allies?"

"It's just more efficient," Thorn replied, laughing. "And besides, I really don't want to have to carry out my threat. But if we don't come up with a win-win solution, I'm going to have to wipe out their whole organization. And then it'll be annoying, because the Seekers' Alliance will probably come after me, too."

"You don't seem very scared," Sparky said.

"Well, why would I be?" Thorn asked. "I'm pretty sure there isn't anybody in this ruin in the Tenth Tier. And even if there is, I'm confident in my ability to survive. Which would make it a battle of attrition, which is where I excel."

"It's hard to remember that's not overconfidence speaking," Stello said, joining them. "But somehow, I think you would actually make good on your threat."

Chuckling, Thorn nodded.

"You're not wrong. But for now, let's focus on executing our plan. We'll deal with the Golden Scale Alliance after we're done."

"So what exactly is this plan?" Sparky asked.

"Let's pick up everybody else and head out," Thorn replied. "I'll explain it on the way."

Thorn found the others waiting for them in the inn, and after saying hello to Zelle, who was giving him side-eyes from behind the bar, he joined them at their table.

"Everyone ready to go?" he asked, looking around.

"Yes, though I'm still quite curious as to what we're actually doing," Skoll said, looking between Thorn and Huginn. "People who know aren't sharing, which I think, frankly, is rather mean."

"I know, right? I was just asking him on the way over," Sparky said. "But he wouldn't say.”

“Too many ears,” Thorn said with a wide smile, "Come on, I'll explain as we go."

The group drew considerable attention as they walked out of the Seekers' Alliance camp, heading north. They had already registered the day before at the Seekers' Alliance reward station. But considering that it was two saints, a couple members of the Seekers' Alliance, and a small pile of god beasts, they drew considerable attention.

Ignoring all of the eyes following them, Thorn led the way out of the Seekers' Alliance camp, and they soon began to traverse through the complicated passages leading toward the nearest shrine. Once they were a good distance away, Thorn switched directions, heading east towards a shrine a bit further away. Halfway there, he paused and pulled out the map that he had borrowed from the Temple of Man, gesturing for everybody to gather around. They could see the shrines clearly marked, as well as the locations of all of the saints and the soldiers under them.

"Huginn, do they have anything like this in the beast camp?" Thorn asked.

"Not that I'm aware of," Huginn said, looking at it carefully. "No, I don't think so."

"Alright, then we'll abandon that part of the plan," Thorn said. "Originally, I was thinking that we'd swipe it to make this all a little bit easier. But if you don't think they have anything comparable, we'll just let it be. That does mean we're operating a little bit blind, so we'll be counting on you to keep us posted on what's going on."

"Happy to do it," Huginn replied. "There isn't much that can escape my eyes."

The shrines were set around evenly around the central tower, spread out in two different distinct circles. The first, smaller circle, contained the six main shrines that sat nearest to the tower. Control of each of these at the end of the challenge was worth three points, for a grand total of eighteen. Twenty shrines were spread around the edge of the giant castle, each one worth a single point. Currently, three of the main shrines were controlled by the Temple of Man, while the other three were controlled by the god beasts of the Council of Gods. Typically, the Seekers' Alliance agreed not to capture the shrines for themselves, simply killing all of the spectral soldiers that they spawned. However, during this shrine challenge, all those rules went out the window, and small groups could be formed in any combination. Gesturing to the shrine they were heading towards, Thorn tapped it and then traced his finger to the next shrine.

"These are the two we're going to take," he said, "at least to get started. They're going to be the linchpin to guarantee our success. Afterwards, we're going to focus all of our attention on the six main shrines, aiming to capture those and leave the rest to everyone else."

"Um, I don't mean to be a wet blanket," Consecrate Kendall said, raising his hand, "but I don't think that strategy's going to work. Taking the main shrines after they've been upgraded is going to be nearly impossible for a group our size."

"That's why we're not going to take them after they've been upgraded," Thorn said. "We're going to take them over now, when nobody has managed to upgrade them yet. As soon as we do, that's going to upgrade them to level two. From there, we'll upgrade them to level three and then level four, and then we won't even bother defending them, because we won't have to."

"I'm sorry, how are we going to do that?" Consecrate Kendall asked.

But Thorn just smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"Leave that to me," he said. "The important thing is that we take the two smaller shrines, for two points, and then we take the six larger shrines in rapid succession, not giving anybody else the chance to respond. We're going to use this map to dodge the main forces, though I imagine that by the time we get to the end, we are going to be in for a pretty serious fight. At that point, it's going to be a matter of sniping the last guardian."

"Snipe?"

This time, it wasn't just Consecrate Kendall who looked blankly at Thorn. Boreg and Vengef, both along with Stello and Sparky, all had no idea what he was talking about. It was Salliish who chimed in.

"Snipe means to steal the guardian from under the noses of anyone else who's attacking him."

"Exactly," Thorn said. "We might have to do it for more than one, but I would assume that by the time we get through the first five of the major shrines, the sixth is going to be pretty heavily guarded. That's fine, as long as we can trigger the guardian and then kill him. Even better if there are multiple forces fighting. I'm going to be the one focusing on killing the guardians because I can do it the fastest. The rest of you are going to be focusing on wiping out the spectral soldiers as fast as possible, at which point we're going to need to pool our points together. We have 440,000 points currently, but we need another 50,000 to make this plan work."

"You have 440,000 points?" Consecrate Kendall asked, staring at Thorn in shock. "Why are you even doing this challenge? Just go sell more of those weapons."

The question caught Thorn off guard, and for a moment, he just stared blankly at the other saint. "It's a good question," he said. "Mostly because it's good practice, learning to use my abilities and such. Good practice for them too," he said, gesturing to the god beasts. "And I kind of want to see what rewards there are for completing it."

"He's only doing it because he's competitive," Huginn said, outing Thorn.

"Okay, so maybe a little bit of that too. Alright, everybody ready?"

As they continued on their way, they fell into the formation they had spoken of earlier. Salliish and Huginn scouted out front, while Skoll and Vengef watched their flanks. Thorn, Stello, Sparky, Boreg, and Consecrate Kendall, who were going to be the main attacking force, all grouped together in the center. They moved swiftly, and it wasn't long before they found the first shrine. There were many spectral soldiers hovering around it, but it looked to be still in the first tier, so they dove right in.

According to Huginn, there weren't any saints or any other teams close by, which made sense. According to what Consecrate Kendall had explained, the prevailing strategy was to leave the smaller shrines until the very end, as it was more efficient to take control of them right before the challenge ended, rather than fighting over them early on. Since they were free and clear, they charged, rapidly eliminating all of the spectral soldiers.

Any single one of them probably could have wiped out the spectral soldiers around the shrine, and even beaten the spectral guardian who appeared. It was a large warrior with a giant hammer. But Thorn didn't waste any time, cutting him into pieces with a single strike of his halberd as soon as the spectral guardian spawned. With a flash, the few remaining spectral soldiers who hadn't been killed vanished as the gem reset.

*ding*

[Shrine upgraded to level 1.]

“Alright, let's head for the next one," Thorn said. "I'll catch up in a moment."

Realizing that he was going to do something, but not knowing what, the rest of the team shared a glance, and then shrugged. Thorn seemed supremely confident in whatever it was he was going to do, and so they let it be as they raced for the next shrine.

Accepting the prompt to upgrade the shrine's crystal, Thorn spent 10,000 points to go to level two, 20,000 points to take it from level 2 to level 3, and then another 30,000 points to take it from level 3 to level 4. The crystal hummed, and then gained a faint red tint as spectral soldiers in the 8th tier began to spawn. Grinning, Thorn activated Titan Step and raced off, rapidly catching up with the rest of the team. As they ran, Huginn dropped out of the sky, hovering over Thorn's head.

"That's what I thought you might do," he said, “or something like it, though I'm curious how.”

Seeing that everybody else was listening too, Thorn knew that it was time to share the trick.

"What Huginn is talking about," he said, "is upgrading the shrine using points.”

“You can upgrade them?”

Halfway through his question, Consecrate Kendall drew in a sharp breath as he realized what it meant.

"I'm not sure about everybody else," Thorn said, "but I certainly can."

"I'm sorry, can somebody please explain to me what's so impressive about being able to upgrade these shrines?" Boreg asked.

It was Stello who replied, a faint grin on his face. "If he can upgrade them, then that means they'll start spawning 8th tier spectral soldiers and 9th tier guardians, making them nearly impossible for the other teams to reconquer."

"Exactly," Thorn said. "That means that any shrine we capture, we capture for good, at least until the end of this challenge."

"Ooh, that's mean," Vengef said. "I like it. I like it a lot."

It wasn't long until the second shrine came into view. This time, however, Huginn reported a group nearby. It was a mixed group, probably from the Seeker's Alliance, and Thorn and the others paused before diving in.

"How do you want to approach this one?" Vengef asked, crouched behind a stone wall.

"I say we just run in and punch them," Boreg replied. "It seems to be working for us so far."

"I'm not sure how else to approach it," Thorn said. "We could wait for them to engage and then go and steal the shrine, but that would likely alert them to what's going on, causing word to spread much faster. If possible, I'd like to avoid that. The other option seems to just rush ahead, hoping that once they see us engaging, they decide to back off.”

“Of the two options, that one seems better," Consecrate Kendall said, and around the group, the others nodded.

"It suits our style better, that's for sure," Skoll said, rising to his feet and cracking his knuckles.

"All right, let's do it," Thorn replied.

"And if they attack?" Salliish asked.

"Anyone who attacks is an enemy," Thorn replied.

"Works for me," Salliish said, vanishing into a shadow.