A harem kept King Gifford busy. As a paladin NPC, he was given certain traits that made him good at it. Being strong, fit, chivalrous, and honest helped his relations with the members. Being chaste, devoted to his god and fiancé, and adverse to what he considered immoral and degenerate did not. He took them places, both as a group and individually. He was kind and polite to all three when he could. He refused to have sex or publicly display any affection. With Arenill, his temper was short whenever he tried to seduce the king or show off his girly qualities or habits. Luckily for him, Bonding with them every so often was enough to keep them pleased. For my part, we were still at war with Igniso. Paul and Brett took several Likin peasants and each took a city. Sir Gifford made them counts as well as governors and let them run the cities as they saw fit. I decided that I could do the same if I did my best. I had Mikey, Jamie, Ulmat, Fern and Shrub. I used my male humanoid body and rode on Mikey's back. Going West, we reached the gates of another Igniso occupied city. I gave them my terms.
Just entering the gate was a breeze. Far from being a big hassle, Mikey and Jamie were able to take them down by bashing them with their rear hooves. Only a handful of bucks were needed from the both of them. At that point, all that I had to do was wait and keep myself from getting killed. That was the part that was easier said than done. Even with my level in the mid 80s, there were still over 100 enemies gunning for me. The ones that tried to end the fight early by absorbing me ended up getting killed and absorbed themselves. My greatsword did enough damage to kill in one strike, but I still had to connect. They used fire and long vines to try to pin me down and eliminate me. I could now run and dodge with the best of them now that I had only two legs. I cut over a dozen down. Ten in all were absorbed into my body. The others killed the rest of the enemies. We stormed the keep and a small force met us. We slaughtered them. I became the ruler of the city. The 74 Igniso commoners had 3 hard choices: Bond with me, be banished or die. 28 decided to Bond. 37 left. The rest chose death.
Keeping the city under control was easy. They all loved me and it was only three days later that I got a letter from King Gifford. He said that he signed a peace treaty to end all bloodshed in the the war between Igniso, Verdantis and Skigh. With that in mind, I could not take any more territory. I was also promoted to count and governor of the city. Skigh had 4 cities, 2 towns and a village. By Ether standards, it was pretty small. The other countries were massive in comparison to the average country. While there were a bunch of forts dungeons and cathedrals on Ether, there were none that we could see in Verdantis. Even the concept of weaponry was foreign to them. They fought with their natural powers. if the odds were against them, they would Bond into stronger warriors and try to take out as many enemies they possibly could before the end. Sabira, Byryn, and Cedin came with Shayne and my lovely Yola. They had news to share. Sabira, Byryn, and Cedin had been knighted for their noble valor and bravery on the battlefield. King Gifford was probably pushed into it by all of his Likin subjects.
Lording over the city was not too hard. There were many rulership missions to attend to. A series of fetch quests or escort missions were needed to do or delegate away in order to keep the settlement running. I was able to do a lot of them by myself. The ones that I did not want to do, I let Shayne, Sabira, Byryn, and Cedin do them. Their popularity rose as a result of that. A cleric from the camp was brought over to run the temple that was in the city. As a popular person, there were a lot of bandwagoners that only came because I was there. It did not matter. As long as they were there, they could learn about the Church of the Sky. I wondered if we could open a good Likin seminary for more clerics. They were not suited to be paladins. We were going to need more to attend to the spiritual needs of Skigh. Just as I was going to walk on the streets to see if there was anything else to do, my whole body felt as if it was on fire. I swayed on the two feet I had and collapsed. This was way worse than before. It was if my bones were melting. I groaned out loud from the pain before my vision went black.
