Chapter 220: Castle of Rene

The sound of hammering and saws echoed all throughout the streets of Rene as the construction of the castle began. On the northwestern side of the town, the structure slowly erected from the ground and began to tower over the other nearby buildings. Beasts of burden pulled carts towards the construction project, loaded with cut stone blocks and pristine planks of beautifully cut lumber.

Aegis got to work on multiple skills, with the help of Ruffily. Jorik, and numerous other architect players and NPCs. His first priority was stonecutting, doing his best to carve raw stone into usable blocks. He’d arranged with Chax to order an incredibly large amount of stone from Tullan and the Night Hunter’s quarry, which was being delivered in bulk daily.

Level Up! Stonecutting has reached Level 150!

Next, it was time for woodworking and woodcutting. Aegis worked with several druid players, led by a druid from the White Flame’s guild that had been recommended to him by Erikson. With them, he repeatedly chopped down the highest quality tier2 trees on the outskirts of Rene, then had the druids regrow them so as to not completely deforest the surrounding lands.

After cutting down enough logs, he’d make use of taming and vehicle skills to lug the logs back to Rene with a Lagnok-pulled cart. Once back in Rene, Aegis made use of his water-powered sawmill and cut the logs down into usable planks, getting very quality pieces due to his increasing skill level and the low tier of the wood. As he neared a skill level of 150, he was consistently cutting 90% or higher planks to utilize in the castle’s construction.

Level Up! Woodcutting has reached Level 150! Level Up! Woodworking has reached Level 150!

After enough materials were stockpiled for the construction, it was time for him to get started on the actual construction skills, Architecture and Artistry. His architectural skill flew up rather fast, alongside his leadership skill, thanks to the work project he’d created that included Ruffily and Jorik. With their work and high level builder class skills, the quality of the build was turning out incredible and he was receiving huge chunks of experience.

This allowed Aegis to put a greater focus on his artistry skill, taking time out of the base construction to add fine artistic details into the stonework, including but not limited to statues and various other engravings depicting Eirene, or other beautiful scenes that Aegis had witnessed throughout his travels thus far in the shattered world. To facilitate this, Aegis focused on finishing the main entry hall of the castle first.

Once the hall was completed and pillars were erected to uphold the roof, he carved into the pillars the shapes of humanoid knights holding up the roof instead. Then, he engraved a scene depicting the battle of Hrath’mir on the west wall, including the dragons flying over the city in the skies and burning the forces of Darkness below. On the right wall, he engraved an artistic depiction of the races and people of Kalmoore coming together to defend Kordas from the invasion. Then, as a final touch, he carved a night sky with the focal point being on a giant star of Aegis on the roof.

Yuki then aided in the artwork by placing tapestries and a beautiful deep purple and yellow carpet that stretched from the entrance to the castle, to the far end of the hall where several doors lead further in, to rooms still under construction.

The amount of effort Aegis had put into the main hall was enough on its own to top off his artistry skill, leaving him time to focus on architecture for the rest of the build. With everyone working together under great leadership, it only took a week for the construction to near its completion, and Aegis to receive three more welcome notifications.

Level Up! Leadership has reached Level 150!

Level Up! Architecture has reached Level 150!

Level Up! Artistry has reached Level 150!

In the previous two weeks, Aegis had spent the bulk of his time either mining Mithral within the red river using Trexon and Tullan’s assistance, then refining and blacksmithing the mithral to max out those skills. Following that work, he hunted Salamanders and tanned their hides, then worked with Yuki and the others to tame and harvest Voidsilk from the Mosmir Hatchers in a secret chamber carved out underneath Rene, in the ruins of the Darxon Hideout. With that work, he’d maxed out his Tailoring, Weaving, Creature Harvesting, Blacksmithing, Refining, Tanning, Leatherworking, and Mining skills.

He’d long since met the requirements for the quest, with only his enchanting and scribing skills lagging behind, but much to his disappointment, his Crafting Mastery skill was hanging at level 149 with 99.9% experience - something was blocking it from reaching the last level that he hadn’t been able to figure out.

The problem resolved itself when the construction of the castle reached its completion, though. Thanks to the efforts of Jorik, Ruffily, Yuki, and the many other high level crafters within Rene, the end product turned out to be Aegis’ highest quality creation thus far within the Shattered World Online.

Level Up! Crafting Mastery has reached Level 150!

Castle of Rene [Rename] [Register] [Abandon]

Quality: 98%

Durability: 10,000,000/10,000,000

Option 1: Increases Eirene's favor of the land owner of any land this structure is registered to by 50,000.

Option 2: NPCs and Players that are employed by Rene, or are residents of Rene receive a 5% damage bonus when standing within the Land of Rene.

Option 3: NPCs and Players that are employed by Rene, or are residents of Rene restore 1% missing health and mana every 10 seconds when standing within the Land of Rene.

Details: A beautifully constructed castle, built with sturdy high quality materials and filled with wonderful artwork depicting scenes of the past, and symbols of the Goddess Eirene. Constructed by Aegis.

Aegis stood proudly in front of the entrance gates into the castle, with Yuki, Ruffily, Amlie, Chax, Jorik, and many other workers at his side. The group had been eagerly waiting to hear the results of all their hard work as they watched Aegis fidget into his land management menu to check the quality of the building, and register it as a structure of Rene.

Immediately upon registration, all players within the lands received the option buffs from the castle, and there were several impressed gasps from the nearby players.

“It’s mastercraft. Incredibly good quality, with really good buffs. We did it guys!” Aegis announced to the workers, and his words were followed by cheers of great enthusiasm. Aegis glanced up to see his viewership hanging around 1million, lower now since he’d taken a break and Yumily had started streaming again, but still much higher than it had been before the invasion.

“I’m still not satisfied yet, though.” Yorik said as the cheers died down, motioning up towards a tall circular stone tower that stood high above the rest of the square shaped castle. Windows and a shingled blue roof could be seen on the tower, and it dwarfed the rest of the castle by a significant amount. “Bedrooms, throneroom, dining room, kitchen - all still need furnishing.” Jorik excitedly spun his tools around in his hands.

“Ooh, I like designing rooms too. Can I do your master bedroom? Woof!” Ruffily barked at Aegis excitedly.

“Uhm. Sure, I guess…” Aegis shrugged, and following his words he watched as her tail began to wag furiously.

“We should call everyone to celebrate, don’t you think?” Amlie suggested.

“Yes! A big party in the great hall, with a huge feast!” Jorik nodded.

“That’ll be expensive, depending on how many people we invite…” Chax replied skeptically. Aegis glanced between them, and saw more eager faces than apprehensive ones, and eventually relented with a shrug.

“Okay, let’s do it. I’ll tell the Night Hunters to come along too, and ask my party to take a break. If we prioritize the furnishing of the dining hall and kitchen, how soon can we be ready?” Aegis asked Jorik.

“Heh, with my crew, just a few hours.” Jorik replied proudly, followed by a few more cheers of enthusiasm.

“Alright, let’s get ready for a party.” Aegis replied before turning to Farlion. “We’ll need to get the guards ready for things to get a bit rowdy here this evening.” Aegis instructed him, and Farlion gave a nod in response.

“No problem, we’ll be ready.” Farlion gave a thumbs up before heading away from the group. With that, everyone fanned out and got to work on the upcoming party. Aegis sent invitations to Quinn, Christoph, and Artaphernes, followed by notifying all of his party members to take a break and come by. Yuki tried inviting Yumily to join, but was disappointed to learn that her airship had already left Kalmoore to begin her next concert tour on the various other islands.

By the time the sun began to set over Rene, multiple portals had opened and hundreds of players had funneled over from Kordas. Bards began to play music, foods and ale were prepared by Erikson and his chefs, and Jorik had completed the furnishing of the large dining hall within the castle.

Aegis was in the process of helping out with the furnishing of the kitchen when the celebrations had already begun, and his first party member had arrived back in Rene. Lina walked into the newly constructed kitchen and silently watched as Aegis worked with Ruffily to place down multiple high quality cooking stations, arranging them as efficiently as possible. Once Aegis finished, he looked up to see Lina smiling at him from the doorway.

“Hi.” Lina waved excitedly.

“Hey, what do you think?” Aegis smiled back, motioning to the building around them.

“It’s really amazing! I love it.” She cheered. Hearing this, Ruffily’s tail began to wag furiously nearby, batting against the recently placed stone stove.

“You like it? I’m glad you like it. We all worked really hard, woof!” Ruffily cheered.

“Mhm, I watched a bit.” Lina nodded.

“How is your advanced class quest going so far?” Aegis asked.

“It’s going okay. I got the dagger advanced quest done. The class quest is tough though, I already died once…” Lina replied shamefully.

“Oh yeah, I wouldn’t feel too bad. I heard most people die a lot on their advance quests. Even Feng died a few times on his, they’re pretty hard. Woof!” Ruffily commented. Aegis and Lina both silently nodded at Ruffily. “Oh, Aegis said I can design your master bedroom. Do you two have any preferences for it?” Ruffily asked, glancing between them.

“Uh… well…” Aegis replied awkwardly, looking at Lina as Lina’s face suddenly flushed bright red and she looked down at her feet. “There’s two rooms at the top of the tower, aren’t there?”

“Yeah! I was thinking since you guys only need one bedroom, I could use the other room like a giant closet or armory, I’ve got some really cool ideas for it, woof!” Ruffily cheered excitedly, oblivious to the embarrassment currently befalling Aegis and Lina at the shared bedroom prospect. Her words were followed by more awkward silence, though, which she eventually picked up on.

“Unless, you had other plans for the two rooms?” Ruffily asked, and this caused Lina and Aegis to look up at each other, both of them trying to gauge the other's reaction to Ruffily’s question.

“Having an armory room does sound kind of cool, maybe… what do you think?” Aegis asked Lina, his face also glowing red. Lina didn’t immediately reply, her face first went more red, but she managed to maintain eye contact with Aegis and eventually gave a weak nod.

“Great! Woof!” Ruffily cheered. “I’ll get started, I have a great master bed design in mind too, really fluffy.” She added, leaving the kitchen with a skip in her step so that the two were alone. They remained silent, avoiding eye contact for a few moments before Aegis eventually broke it by stepping towards Lina.

“Sorry, I got caught up in her enthusiasm. We can still have separate rooms if you want,” Aegis suggested.

“No!” Lina quickly replied in loud protest. “I mean, no, it’s okay.” Her voice quieted back down. “Since… you know… we are sort of married in the game…” She replied shyly, twiddling her feet around on the stone floor of the castle kitchen. “It’d be weird if we had separate rooms, right?”

“Yeah, I guess…” Aegis replied, as he too looked down at his feet and twiddled them, accidentally copying Lina’s behavior without realizing it. “Wait, she said a master? She’s only going to put one in the room?!” Aegis realized, looking up in the direction Ruffily had gone. Lina, who had already picked up on this detail, didn’t react. Aegis, on the other hand, began rushing forward to chase after Ruffily, but was stopped in the doorway by the appearance of Darkshot.

“Only one what?” Darkshot asked curiously, followed by a coo from Darkwing on his shoulder.

“Nothing. Nevermind.” Aegis replied. “You’re back?! How are you doing?!” Aegis quickly changed the subject, somewhat flustered.

“Yeap. Advanced quest is kicking my ass though. I wasn’t expecting you to throw an in-game party to celebrate your birthday though, pretty cool!” Darkshot cheered.

“What'd you mean? This party is for the castle being completed.” Aegis replied with a raised eyebrow, spotting Pyri and Rakkan approaching the entry into the kitchen from the great hall behind Darkshot’s shoulder.

“We’re only partying in-game for a bit, okay? I made dinner reservations already.” Pyri scolded him.

“Huh?” Aegis replied confused.

“Don’t tell me, you lost track of real world time that badly?” Darkshot looked at Aegis with disbelief. “Today’s your birthday, dummy.” Darkshot shook his head at him.

“Oh. Oops.” Aegis looked shamefully between Darkshot and Pyri.

“Happy b-day, yo.” Rakkan smiled at Aegis as Aegis awkwardly eyed his livestream, then shrugged back at Rakkan.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Not bad with the castle, though. Did you do all this stuff yourself?” Pyri commented, stopping in the main hall a few meters away to eye all of the artwork engraved into the walls near her.

“The game skills helped a lot. I’m normally not really good at art stuff.” Aegis shrugged as he stepped into the hall with Darkshot and Lina behind him, all stopping to stare at the art now.

“It’s pretty impressive.” Rakkan nodded in agreement with Pyri.

“The skill can only help a little bit, so some of it has to be from you.” Lina added with an encouraging smile. Before Aegis could reply, though, a loud cheer came in from the doorway leading out of the hall into the streets of Rene.

“Aye, Watcha doin’ all alone in here?! We heard there’s a party goin’ on.” Tullan roared as he, Sapphire, Herilon, Quinn and Ren came marching into the hall.

“Free drinks, right?!” Ren asked excitedly.

“You’re too young to drink.” Quinn scolded him.

“Let’s get WASTED!” Herilon cheered, followed by a woo from Sapphire as she waved a carrot in the air excitedly.

“Guess we’re partying in the castle first?” Darkshot shrugged.

“Drunk castle party first. Reservations after.” Pyri nodded in agreement.