The First Legacies Of Zion: Omaye

Shepherd

NATHANIEL

Watching a herd of peculiar looking sheep for the last two days has been rather slow and monotonous. It was boring, annoying, frustrating and suffocating. Especially when you consider the fact that sheep were not smart enough to form coherent thoughts and sentences.

One of his skills was a passive that enabled him to understand animal speech to a certain degree. He was still trying to work the whole thing out, talking to sheep did not do wonders for his sanity.

With nothing left to do Nathaniel decided to take a look at his skills again. It was not as if doing such would bring him any pleasure, but desperate times calls for desperate measures.

[NATURE GUARD: LEVEL 1: PASSIVE(CLASS): Increase All Skills And Stats Effectiveness By 2% Whenever You’re In The Wild. -5% To All Stats And Skills In Polluted And Advanced Environments Like Cities And Factories.]

[BEAST TONGUE: LEVEL 1: Passive(class/special): Gain The Ability To Speak And Understand The Tongues Of Animals And Beasts. +10% Affinity With All Creatures Of The Wild, - 5% Aggro During Battles Against Animals And Beast Like Creatures.]

[ELEMENTAL RESISTANCE: LEVEL 1: Passive(class/special):

+ 1% All Round Elemental Resistance To All Elements. -1% From All Elemental Damage Received. +1% Resistance To All Elemental Caused Status Ailments.]

[RAIN DANCE: LEVEL 1: ACTIVE(CLASS): Call Upon The Forces Of Nature To Bless The Land And Weaken Your Enemies In The Form Of Rain. +5 To All Stats For 30 Seconds, -5% To All Enemy Stats For 15 Seconds, +10% Effectiveness And Advantage To Terrain, In A Radius Of Twenty Square Meters.]

[VINE HOLD: LEVEL 1: Active (Class): Entangle All Enemy Within A Radius Of Three Meters For 15 Seconds, 3% Chance To Cause Paralysis For 10 Seconds.]

[SHOCK: LEVEL 1: Active(class/special/general): Draw The Electricity In The Air To Cause 20% Lightning Damage To All Enemies. You Must Be In Direct Contact With The Enemy.]

Even though shepherding was a rather dull task, Nathaniel had used the time on his hands to think and plan ahead. At the end of every work day, his supervisor handed him ten vans, which was the currency of Zion. But the vans were the smallest denominator of money, with the highest being the silver beans. The currency was actually just coins, as paper mills were just coming into existence, the very idea of using paper money has not even occurred to most people yet.

Anyway one hundred vans, is equal to one silver beans, but with ten copper vans at the end of the day, it would take him ten days to get a silver beans. However, their period of grace was slowly coming to an end, in another three days the castle would stop feeding them, and they would all have to fend for themselves from the wages made from working.

Having a single meal in Orun would not cost less than fifty to seventy copper vans, it was too much expenditure for a single meal, not to mention that they still did not have a roof over their heads. With how realistic Zion has seemed so far, it was only a matter of time before they fell sick, or were torn to pieces by the animals that patrolled the forest just at the edge of the horizon. Nathaniel needed an alternative avenue to generate revenue, but so far it seems like the only person willing to give out quests with any monetary reward was his supervisor. And even then it was a repeat quest he had been receiving for the past three days, and all it asked him to do was look after a herd of sheep till the end of the day when he would now be paid the ten copper vans.

Of course they could all pool their resources together as a family and see what they could accomplish, but his family could not be expected to follow routine. Even for something as simple as pooling their wages to help them survive easier, would probably land them in an unpredictable situation that would see someone hurt and trusts broken for the umpteenth time.

Nathaniel would rather much prefer to be smart about this, and make a few of his plans under the radar, but regardless there were somethings you just couldn’t do alone.

“Delicious…. poop”

“sun down……. barn”

“Shepherd……. safe……. female…. need.”

Nathaniel fought back the urge to vomit, for God sake why would he be mentioned in the same thought sequence and sentence of a horny sheep. He was supposed to be a druid, but he was finding, that he really lacked the patience to understand animals. He was never like this before, but this recent development would be most likely attributed to the fact that the animals around him could not string a coherent sentence, or his beast tongue skill was not high enough for him to understand. Nathaniel let out a sigh of frustration due to his situation, but what will be, will be. Besides there was no use sitting on grass and moaning about how dull his life currently was, also it was almost sun down, which meant it was time to herd all this f*****g sheep home.

But regardless of how much he hated the job, Nathaniel was rather efficient with it. He was able to stably guide all of the ten sheep back to the castle safely and without any incidents. He collected his wages from his supervisor and headed for the west of the town back to where their plots of land were haphazardly allocated to them. But on his way back he saw the last person he wanted to see, or more like the person who he has been praying not to see for fear of how he would react.

Jerry Olagoke looked like he was having a blast, his black hair and red eyes seemed to match well with his brown skin that was a shade lighter than Nathaniel's. Nathaniel felt the urge to spit, because it seemed the sign of the good life Jerry and his family lived had followed them into Zion. He looked just as handsome and charismatic as the last time Nathaniel saw him, which was in an alley in downtown Abuja getting his face punched in after he confronted the bastard for sleeping with his sister. That conversation did not end well, but that was a story for later date.

Jerry had a presence about him, and even the massive broad sword hanging on his back seemed to exude an aura that made Jerry seem unnatural or otherworldly.

“Nathan my old friend, how have you been adjusting to Zion. I hope it has not been too difficult?” Jerry asked with a mocking tilt at the edge of his mouth.

Nathaniel wanted to shoved his hand down his throat and pull out everything that was hiding within his gut. But Jerry was probably ten times stronger than him, and it would not be too much of a problem for him to slice Nathaniel in half with that sword behind him. He was not stupid, he knew that Jerry was only trying to bait him into reacting to his taunts, as they both knew such a course of action would most definitely not end well for Nathaniel.

“My name is Nathaniel not Nathan, and thank you for your concern, I’m adjusting just fine.” Nathaniel replied in a level voice that took all of his willpower to maintain.

“Are you sure? I know there’s no such thing as drugs in Zion so I was wondering how you were holding up now that you were not getting your regular fix. Or are you clean now.” Jerry spoke with a tone of consideration that was as fake as they come. It was infuriating to say the least, but Nathaniel was able to keep his cool.

“Thank you for your concern ‘Jerry’, but I’m fine. Now if you would excuse me I need to go help my mother with something. Good night.”

“Well no problem old friend, carry on. But know this, if you need anything, anything at all come to me and I will help you. After all who knows we might even become in-laws in the future, so I have to look out for my brother in-law you know. After all your sister and I seem to have rekindled our spark from the outside world here in Zion, and it is hotter and brighter than ever.”

Nathaniel felt betrayal slam into his face for the one thousand and one time in his life. You would think that at this point he would be used to it, but it hurt like a b***h every time. He hated this guy, and he had suffered a lot at the hands of this monster and his family. But Esther did not seem to care about his feelings considering she had already jumped back into bed with the enemy.

Nathaniel walked away with a body that was shaking and on the verge of lashing out. Accompanying him was sense of failure and the mocking laugh of Jerry constantly resounding in his head. He was upset, and it was times like this he always went back to drugs, but as Jerry said there was no drugs in Zion………wait a minute. There were no drugs in Zion, which meant should there be drugs, there was a monopoly up for grabs. And there was only one person who could help him make this seed of an idea in his head grow into something more.

Regardless of where you went, drugs were always big money, and in a town as rundown and depressed as Orun Nathaniel stood to make a lot of profit. But of course he could not make drugs, he did not have the tools, but all drugs come from a variety of plants and herbs. And he knew someone who had access to something like that.