Ruthless recap

Joe races to earn a second specialization while expanding and defending the Wanderers settlement. He gains new ritual, architectural, alchemical, enchanting, and forging skills, secures an advancement tablet, loses the Golden Tome to Sam, and helps push the town to rank three. A propaganda campaign grows into a massive coalition siege. Joe leaves the defense to complete the Reductionist trial, but four days pass and he returns to an overrun town. He activates a planned quarantine system, unaware that Hannah has added Game Over's blood and removed its protections. The resulting plague kills at least three million people and ends the war. Joe blocks Mr. Banks' attempted takeover, accepts exile from Midgard, secretly retains supplies for the guild, and travels through the Bivrost. Aten is restored as commander, while Joe reaches the next zone and must choose between elf and dwarf destinations as his outpost, workshop, food, divine-debt, and Sam obligations remain open.

Previously: Joe is a Wanderers guild leader whose powers center on ritual magic, cleric abilities, unusual crafting, and Pathfinder's Hall. He has gathered a party including Jaxon, Bard, Alexis, and Poppy, while Jess supports travel and logistics. Aten and Mike direct the guild's military and settlement work. Joe also leads a developing Ritualist coven and owes his divine patron an immense amount of energy. The Wanderers are building a permanent foothold in Midgard amid competition for land, resources, and influence. Joe's advancement has given him exceptional tools but also damaging characteristic imbalances, debuffs, and a reputation that can make cooperation difficult. The next zone cannot be approached safely by ordinary travelers, making a second specialization essential. The guild therefore needs Joe to keep developing his classes, strengthen the settlement, and eventually establish an outpost beyond Midgard.

So far this book: An early attempt to cross the Bivrost shows that underqualified travelers die in transit and that the next zone is already at war. At the Wanderers settlement, Joe and his coven complete a defensive wall while Jess warns him that solving every problem personally is making the guild dependent on him. A public message exposes the settlement and falsely claims it has unlimited supplies. Aten orders Joe to pursue a second specialization and prepare a safe outpost in the next zone. Joe recovers missed cleric choices, merges several support abilities into Neutrality Aura, and begins studying architecture and professions. He also survives an explosive assassination attempt attributed to the Wolf Pack. During a dungeon expedition, the party defeats enemies that can only be harmed through self-inflicted damage. Joe receives a technical ritual book that points toward alchemically enhanced components, then accepts Jake's offer to train as a Ritualistic Alchemist. In return, Joe must secure guild alignment for Jake and build him a workshop at the future outpost.

Joe gains the Ritualistic Alchemist profession and starts dividing complex ritual work among his coven. An agreement with Daniela lets him study eligible Architects Union buildings, producing many blueprints and rapid Ritual Architect progress. His party also establishes Alexis as alternate leader when he is absent. Joe trains physical characteristics, reaches level 16, gains a magical form of energy sight, and helps raise the Wanderers settlement to town rank two after an organized attack probes its defenses. Boris then reveals a single-use advancement prize near a submerged coastal temple. Sam and his rival party are pursuing the same object. Jess maps the underwater approach with animated scouts, while Joe's coven prepares anchoring and defensive rituals. Poppy reveals a specialization that can isolate opponents in lethal formal duels, and the party enters the flooded dungeon with a dangerous temporary method of breathing underwater. After choosing the wrong historical route, they survive a powerful dwarven automaton, only to learn that Sam's group has breached the final layer and stolen artifacts.

Joe's party confronts Sam's group after the temple breach. Sam surrenders and returns some stolen objects, but secretly keeps another and breaks his oath. Jess steals it back, allowing Joe's party to complete the dungeon and secure a soulbound enhanced advancement tablet. Its extra specialization option remains locked until Joe raises Intelligence and Wisdom to the mortal limit. Joe then discovers that mastering ritual magic's component skills can improve his base class, creating Ritualist Plus and opening a prestige route. While he studies mathematical ritual design, rival guild forces sabotage the Wanderers town and reduce it to rank one. Aten rejects an ultimatum to halt development, survives an internal no-confidence vote, and orders stronger defenses. Joe's coven creates a large structural-repair ritual, and Everard begins teaching Joe polearm combat. Joe also learns that Alexis's increased aggression and paranoia come from a cursed ring. At a temple blockade, high cleric Aaron attacks unlawfully and is nearly killed by the site's neutrality. Joe saves him, and Aaron destroys the ring in repayment.

Inside the Hallowed Lands event, Joe's party competes for the Golden Tome while rising monster strength and forced player battles pressure every group. They find the tome, lose time to Sam's incapacitating attack, recover, and continue fighting for their position. After another difficult victory leaves them exhausted, Sam ambushes and kills the entire party, steals the tome, and causes Joe's quest to fail. The party is barred from the event for a year. Joe still converts event rewards into major class and skill progress, but returns to news that a mass march against the Wanderers is being organized. He and the coven prepare remotely activated defenses as the greenhouse develops dangerous dungeon-like effects. A low-level assault then walks into the town's traps and is destroyed. Public outrage reveals that the attack was designed as propaganda, both exposing the Wanderers' defenses and portraying the guild as needlessly brutal. The guild embraces a tougher defensive stance and rushes development toward town rank three while hostile powers gather.

Joe continues building, crafting, and training while the propaganda campaign raises prices and slows Wanderers development. He makes a ten-year agreement granting Jake exclusive use of an artifact cauldron. In exchange for favorable access and supplies, Joe must build a unique-or-better alchemy workshop at the next-zone outpost within one year. His coven members begin developing separate specialties in blood support, terrain shaping, projectile enchantment, and light effects. Joe studies Ritualistic Forging to stabilize combined rituals. Bard then asks him to add Hansel to the pantheon despite opposition from the Bardic College. The altar releases Hansel, a greater deity associated with bards, teachers, and political assassins. Hansel improves instruction at Pathfinder's Hall, grants Joe perfect fire affinity, and makes Bard his champion with a new specialization. The Bardic College publicly backs the coming assault, drawing more powers into a funded coalition. Joe reveals that Jess and his mother helped him buy supplies through proxies, but he also receives a new obligation to expand greenhouse support from 10,000 to 25,000 people.

The Wanderers complete a unique bathhouse despite a harmful flaw, pushing the settlement to town rank three. The reward includes a once-monthly Town Aegis that protects Wanderers members and town buildings for 24 hours while reflecting double damage. Joe reaches Ritual Architect level 10, but leaves the sealed town to gain the last Luck needed for Aten's plan. He returns to find a million-strong siege force supported by jesters, mage factions, respawn totems, and Architects Guild sappers. Joe infiltrates the army, kills its engineering group, and fights back into town. After bombers breach the wall, Aten names him First Elder in waiting and activates the Aegis. Under its protection Joe kills many attackers, then Aten temporarily raises his characteristics so he can attempt his second specialization.

Four days pass during Joe's specialization trial. He returns after the Aegis has failed, the outer wall has fallen, and surviving Wanderers are trapped in Pathfinder's Hall. Aten's message sends him and Everard to link a prepared quarantine ritual. Joe stages an expulsion from the hall to create room for a later counterattack, links the ritual, and fights through competing enemy factions. He summons a powerful neighbor leader to reach the town core, where Alexis prevents frightened defenders from killing him by mistake. Joe reports that Pathfinder's Hall is ready to counterattack and that all four quarantine rituals are linked and awaiting activation.

At Aten's order, Joe activates the four prepared defenses, unaware that Hannah has used Game Over's blood and removed their safeguards. The intended quarantine becomes an irreversible lethal plague. It persists for nine days and catches at least three million people. It destroys the coalition's siege strategy because twelve war totems funded by Floodwater keep returning attackers into the lethal area. The Wanderers gain the maximum Ruthless title, but survivors turn against Aten. Mr. Banks uses a no-confidence vote to remove him while many members are absent awaiting respawn. Joe invokes his First Elder authority, blocks Banks' takeover, starts the process of restoring Aten, and has Banks expelled into the plague. King Henry's court strips Floodwater of wealth and crown reputation for financing the war. Joe accepts primary responsibility for the catastrophic ritual and is exiled from Midgard for a year and a day. Before leaving, he secretly fills a legendary storage device with guild supplies and spends millions of contribution points on preparations. Aten is re-elected commander. Joe crosses the Bivrost and reaches the next zone, where rival elf and dwarf representatives offer routes to Olfenheim and Svartelheim. Banks' allies later suffer a delayed ritual retaliation hidden in their wine.

The siege ends when Hannah's hidden use of Game Over's blood changes the intended quarantine defense into an irreversible plague. It persists for nine days, kills at least three million people, and defeats the coalition by catching attackers repeatedly returned through Floodwater-funded war totems. Aten is briefly removed, but Joe uses his First Elder authority to stop Mr. Banks and Aten is re-elected before Joe leaves. King Henry punishes Floodwater and exiles Joe from Midgard for a year and a day after Joe accepts primary responsibility. Joe keeps a legendary storage device packed with guild supplies and crosses the Bivrost. He arrives in the next zone facing rival routes to Olfenheim and Svartelheim. Sam still has the Golden Tome, Game Over remains unresolved, Joe owes immense divine energy, and he must establish the outpost, build Jake a qualifying workshop within a year, and address the Wanderers' food obligation.