Archeologist Warlord: Book 2 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Recap

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Archeologist Warlord

  Step 02: Expanding…

  by E.M. Hardy

  Archeologist Warlord: Book 2

  Copyright © 2018 LitRPG Freaks

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

  Recap

  Martin Fuller used to be an archeology major with an unhealthy obsession with the pyramids of Egypt. Oh, and ever since he was a child, he could hear the ghosts of the vengeful dead venting their anger and outrage at him. Unbeknownst to him, this ability of his is an indicator of his compatibility with soul magic—what the Builders called ‘pnevma.’ This along with Martin’s altruistic nature were the reasons why the artificial intelligence locked within the Great Pyramid of Khufu selected Martin, separating his soul from his body and transmitting it light years away to the planet of Copsis. With the last spurt from its dying memory crystals, another AI called Custodian 4299 bound Martin’s soul to an experimental pnevmatic core in the hidden pyramid of the Qleb Sierra. Martin thus finds himself in control of various clay-like robots called constructs: dolls for building, cow-boxes for hauling, and eyeballs for scouting.

  Lost and bewildered, Martin continued reaching out to explore his surroundings. He comes to the aid of two individuals: Yao Xiu, a bumbling but well-meaning historian from the Ren Empire to the east; and Prince Suhaib Ma’an, a keen and ambitious princeling from the Emirate of Ma’an to the southwest. While helping Prince Suhaib recover from a bandit attack, Martin stumbles upon a smaller pyramid hidden in a gulch. A memory fragment within the pyramid reveals that Custodian 4299 bound Martin’s soul to a pnevmatic core to fight against soul-sucking invaders from another world. These invaders arrive every few thousand years through giant portals in the sky before proceeding to harvest the souls of all sapient beings on the planet of Copsis.

  Given new purpose, Martin proceeds to expand his reach and influence. He now aims to provide aid to the squabbling peoples of the land while growing his power base enough to repel the invaders when they arrive. In his haste to secure a new pyramid, he almost finds himself crushed by the military forces of the well-established Ren Empire. The young girl he saved previously, Yao Xiu, intervenes on his behalf—convincing General Shen Feng to spare Martin’s forces. Martin surrenders, becoming a vassal to Empress Zi Li. This buys him time to repair the massive factory-pyramid in the Leizhu Swamp, where he discovers a template for building versatile, human-like constructs he calls walkers.

  Prince Suhaib gets back in touch with Martin, proposing a mutually-beneficial alliance between the emirate of Ma’an and Martin’s constructs. Martin would protect the emirate from the cartels seeking to destroy it, and the emirate would allow Martin to build a road and control obelisks in their lands. While they are discussing the terms of the alliance, a group of mounted raiders attacks Prince Suhaib’s entourage. This forces Martin to fight, holding them long enough for Suhaib and his group to escape north to the lands of the Ren Empire. It is during this battle that Martin discovers his ability to absorb the souls of the fallen for power, just like the invaders. A side-effect of this ability, however, is for malevolent spirits called shayateen to possess the soul-drained corpses—raising raging zombies in the process.

  The prince successfully escapes to the Ren Empire, only to get tangled up in a plot by the Empress’ advisors—the Three Sages—to overthrow the Empress. She has been preparing for this and thwarts the plot while executing two of the three conspirators. All is not as it seems, however, for the third conspirator intended for the coup to fail. He has his own ambitions, and those ambitions require the fall of the Empire.

  Part of those treacherous plans involves forging Imperial orders commanding General Shen Feng to attack Martin’s forces. Martin almost loses his pyramid in the Leizhu Swamp but repels the Imperial troops after absorbing the soul of a martial artist. This unlocks his ability to drain the chi in an area—empowering his walkers while weakening the chi-reliant Imperials. Robbed of their chi and facing strengthened walkers, Martin overpowers Shen Feng’s forces and holds them long enough for the Empress to annul the falsified orders.

  Back in the southern sands of the Bashri Desert, Prince Suhaib points Martin to some ancient ruins protected by clay constructs similar to his own. Martin sends a force to investigate and discovers an immense underground facility protected by laser-equipped constructs. He absorbs numerous casualties as he forces his way into the facility, eventually meeting the Custodian AI inside. This Custodian, however, sees the corruption in Martin’s essence from absorbing the souls of the fallen. Believing the core in the Qleb Sierra to be compromised by the invaders, Custodian 2819 self-destructs and destroys the underground facility—denying its technology and resources to a frustrated Martin.

  Martin moves on, escorting a delegation from the Ren Empire to the Emirate of Ma’an. He finds solace in the fact that the two cultures are learning from one another—growing stronger in the process. While the delegation mingles with the royalty and nobility of Ma’an, Martin intercepts an army sent by the cartels—the League of Merchants—to invade Ma’an. He strikes a deal with the League to build infrastructure, secure trade routes, and facilitate trade with the Ren Empire in exchange for sparing Ma’an. He backs this claim up by promising not to send endless waves of constructs to grind down the League. The representatives from the League agree to the pact, pulling their forces back.

  While celebrating the meeting of two cultures as well as the armistice with the League of Merchants, Yao Xiu overhears a plot by the Empress’ agents to work with hawkish elements of the League to coordinate an attack against Martin. The League spy almost manages to kill Yao Xiu to hide this secret alliance, but the Empress’ agent—Cui Dai—heals her. Yao Xiu confronts the agent, pleading with her to convince the Empress to cooperate with Martin instead of undermining him. She believes the threat of the invaders is real, and that they will need Martin’s aid to drive them away. Yao Xiu convinces Cui Dai to do so. Martin in turn overhears all this and is grateful for Yao Xiu’s trust in him—strengthening his resolve to protect the people of Copsis against the invaders.

  Not everyone shares Martin’s optimism, though. A former Sage has assumed the mantle of Shogun—plotting the downfall of the Ren Empire. In the meantime, warmongering elements in the League of Merchants will not be satisfied until blood is shed. And while the Imperial lands burn in war, a mysterious and inhuman threat builds up its forces within the hostile jungles far to the south of Martin’s Pyramid.

  Chapter 01

  Martin faux-grunted in exertion as he lifted a sandbag from the back of a cow-box. The ceramic beast of burden shuffled its four legs to compensate for the mud, wind, and water that kept pelting them from all sides. The powerful typhoon buffeted the walker with a gust of wind, causing it to buckle on one knee as it hauled its load of sandbags on its shoulder. Its leg sank into a soft patch of m
ud, causing it to stumble and drop the bags. Martin shifted his myriad focus to another aspect of himself, one inhabiting a fresh walker a few feet away from the one that got stuck. It came over, braced itself on sturdy ground, and pulled its stuck counterpart out of the muck.

  Martin didn’t bother thanking himself. His consciousness split itself into thousands upon thousands of partitions, each bound by a single super-consciousness that melted into and out of itself. He was every walker and every walker was him; it would be like having your left foot say ‘thank you’ to your right foot after taking one step.

  “Hey! You alright down there!?” called out one of the villagers, Liao Jiu, who attempted to shout over the raging rain and howling winds. She clutched her oiled reed coat tighter over herself, trying to keep the worst of the chill from seeping into her body.

  “I’m fine,” Martin said from a walker on top of the riverbank. “Or rather, my walkers are fine down here. Don’t worry about me, though. Just keep passing those sandbags as quickly as you can. We need to put as many bags down as possible before the surge hits in a few minutes.”

  Martin’s view shifted to one of the eyeballs wobbling in the air. Monsoon winds pushed the flying orb this way and that, jarring Martin’s vision, but it flew close enough to the treetops for the foliage to block the most violent of gusts. The same eyeball watched as a huge wave of water surged from upriver, reaching the village in a few minutes.

  “Okay, that’s it! Surge is coming! Get everyone away from the riverbank. Now!!!” Martin shouted, using one of his walkers. The villagers lending a hand with the sandbags scurried up and over the river, helping one another to escape the oncoming surge.

  Martin sighed in annoyance as he shook the excess mud from his walker’s leg and lifted the bag of sand up on his shoulders. He didn’t really need to sigh or even breathe, really. His clay constructs only needed the mysterious pnevmatic energy built up within his pyramids and transmitted wirelessly over a crisscrossing network of obelisks. He spent a great deal of effort keeping up these human-like gestures though, just so he wouldn’t forget what he was deep down inside: human.

  He moved in behind the other walkers, this time carefully eyeing the ground he walked on, and deposited the sandbag on the banks of a river. Other citizens in the village of Ni He worked higher up the bank, safe from the raging waters of the river below them where Martin’s walkers did most of the dangerous work. This was just fine for Martin. A walker would only take twelve hours to ‘bake’ in a massive production vat. A human being, however, needs years to mature into a full adult—and that’s not even counting the loss and heartbreak of losing someone you love.

  Good thing too, for a massive surge of water carried away all ten walkers caught in the river. They tumbled this way and that, but most of them survived their trip downriver. Two bashed violently, repeatedly, into boulders and lost their limbs. One was too damaged to be salvaged, and winked out from Martin’s awareness as a rather large rock smashed into its back. The rest either hauled themselves up to a riverbank, dug themselves out of the muck, or were dug out by other walkers when the floods receded.

  At least no humans died. Plus the riverbank held, preserving the huts and homes built along its edges.

  ***

  “Careful, careful!” Martin said, as he gently pushed a thin, emaciated mother away from the cow-box. “Don’t worry: there’s plenty of rice for everyone, with more on the way!” he announced to the crowd of townspeople desperate for food. “There’s even salted pork and fermented cabbage from Five Gorges. So please form up neat, orderly lines to receive your portion!”

  The hungry masses, however, were too busy knocking each other out of the way to listen to Martin’s words. The endless rains of a particularly brutal monsoon season had drowned the crops that had escaped the floods, leaving those in the cities of the Wo Plains to starve. This is why the eyes of the hungry flared with uncontrollable desire as they glared at the precious sacks of grain, parcels of preserved pork, and jars of fermented cabbage. They threw reason out the window as they finally, finally, found a target to focus all of their despair upon. The woman Martin pushed away started screaming as two other women shoved her harder into the scutum shields of his walkers. The two women began yelling in turn as the mob behind them pushed even harder, each desperately reaching out for their first proper meal in what seemed like forever.

  “This is getting out of hand,” Martin growled to himself. He focused, drawing in every trace of ambient chi in the air. He poured the energy into his walkers, bolstering their strength and toughness while simultaneously depriving the hungry mob of energy. People wavered and began stumbling on weak knees, suddenly cut off from the precious chi that they hungrily cycled in lieu of food. It was what had kept them alive for so long, but it also threatened to blow up in a violent display of anger at the hands of a hopeless mass of people.

  Martin counted to ten, watching as the suddenly-depleted mob started breaking up in confusion and bewilderment.

  “Right!” Martin shouted with every single one of the thirty walkers escorting the first rice-bearing cow-box. If he had eyes, he would have glared at those people, pushing his anger at them for being so unreasonable. The pain and anguish in their eyes, however, changed his mind. “Line up here for food. Don’t push, don’t shove, don’t be a pain in the ass, and everyone gets food faster!”

  The crowd obeyed slowly as they recovered from the brief absence of chi in the air, and they eventually formed up an orderly line. Martin’s walkers relaxed, and he pulled more walkers out of the line to help unload the sacks of rice. He measured a generous cup of the grains to the first recipient—the mother he initially pushed away. One walker sliced up a slab of pork while another filled a small ceramic jar with the peppered cabbage. Tears stained her emaciated face, which would no doubt fill up again in time and restore the beauty hidden by misery and suffering.

  “Please… three more portions for my husband and two children.”

  Martin considered that maybe, just maybe, the woman was lying. Maybe she was pulling the woe-is-me act to get more food for herself. Martin didn’t care since he could afford to be generous, carving and scooping up the requested portions. This was just the first in a long line of cow-boxes carrying food from the flood-free areas of the Renese Empire. It would soon be followed by another caravan from the various emirates of the Bashri. Those were filled with hard tack, sharp cheeses, salted fish, smoked lamb, dried dates, jars of lemon preserve, and other foodstuffs.

  Tears ran down the woman’s cheeks as she left, hugging the precious food to her bosom as the crowd eyed her with equal parts hunger and disdain.

  A new mob began converging around the cow-box as news of food spread like wildfire in the hunger-stricken city. Good thing the next cow-box in the convoy arrived just as the first cow-box started running out of the precious goods. This scene repeated itself across five of the hardest-hit cities in the Wo Plains, each stricken by the flood-induced famine sweeping through the land.

  ***

  So much misery.

  The thought ran through Martin’s mind as he took in the scene before him. A family of six, all dead from disease—Hei Jian, they called it. The stench of dried feces and rotting flesh assaulted the senses of his walker, and he wished he could shut off his sense of smell like he could his sense of pain.

  He gently covered the corpses with loose cloth, bundling them as tightly as he could to prevent their bones from slipping through their decaying flesh. Blood and gore slicked off their bodies as the weakened flesh gave way to rotting innards. Still Martin persisted, knowing it was up to him to clean up the diseased cadavers. Better his clay constructs do the dirty work than a laborer or physician that might contract the illness.

  He pulled the dead out of the hut one by one before handing them off to other walkers standing atop wide wagons. There is no neat, respectful way to pack bodies on top of each other, but Martin nonetheless tried his best to avoid defor
ming the corpses. Martin signaled to the cow-box hauling the wagon, and the ceramic beast of burden began lugging its load through the empty streets. A few of the “clean” villagers dared to peek out of their windows, watching the morbid display of clay men carrying contaminated carcasses through their city.

  Neighbors, relatives, loved ones, hated rivals—the survivors rubbed out all these labels. Their emotions had been all burned up in the weeks the plague ravaged their community, and they were now only concerned about keeping themselves alive.

  One of Martin’s “clean” walkers knocked on a door before hollering, “I’ve left food on your doorstep. Rice, fruits, fresh pork, salted pork, and grog. Cook everything well and drink the grog first. If you must drink water, strain and boil it well before drinking.” The family inside locked themselves in, not daring to answer. This scene repeated itself dozens of times over as Martin’s walkers visited the homes of survivors, leaving food and supplies. Martin didn’t mind. He would probably do the same if some faceless hunk of dirt came up to the doorstep of his home and rang the doorbell.

  Now that the provisions were distributed out to the survivors, Martin’s clean walkers joined their other brethren as they guided the cow-boxes to an open field outside the village of Luo Bo. A priest and his two acolytes waited, their faces covered in thick cloths. The closest walker nodded its head to the priest, who nodded back. It and the other walkers began unloading the dead down to the funeral pyre. The priest frowned as Martin stacked the corpses, but he ultimately held his tongue. There were simply too many bodies for proper cremations, so it was more practical to burn them all at once.

  When Martin finished piling the cadavers, the priest started his prayers as his acolytes seconded him. They began chanting well-wishes for the dead, willing them to find peace and happiness in the afterlife. They continued with their prayers, pleading to the spirits of the dead to pass on without coming back to haunt them.