FB: Chapter 44 – Victory

I had paid the NPCs of the town the final payment to bring out food and drink for a celebration. I had already put in the orders with them ahead of time. All food and drink were free courtesy of the Fanged Fox Guild.

The victory had been absolute. “Guild Leader Foxy Flight, do you have some time for an interview?” Dave, a reporter for ENN asked. He had reported on the large battle for ENN.

“Just a few, I have a celebration to enjoy,” I replied.

“What are your plans now that you have won this battle?” he asked.

“Just some administrative work. I don’t expect the Fanged Fox guild to participate in any more large scale quests or battles in the near future. However, we are always available to hire if people want some extra support,” I said.

“Any person who you think did a great job during the fight?” Dave asked.

“I would thank my Guild Champions, Storm Sword and Sunfold Illumination. Storm Sword was instrumental in holding off the boss from the walls and allowing me to finish it off. Sunfold Illumination did a great job holding the West wall with their reserve forces. Also Kill Blade for his command over the battle while I was fighting,” I replied.

“Thank you, Guild Leader, and congratulations again on your victory,” he said. I just smiled and continued on my way into the town hall.

“Lady Foxy Blight, I can’t thank you enough for saving our small town,” the mayor said.

“Thank you for your kind words. I hope we can work together going forward as I claim this town and the surrounding land as my fief,” I said and pulled out the scroll I had gotten from the Administration Union. The mayor let out a small sigh but kept his smile and nodded.

“Of course. You have proven you are able to defend the town with your capabilities,” he said. The capability of lots of money. “Please follow me.” I followed him to his office where he stamped the scroll and then had a messenger send it off on a priority delivery to the Administration Union. We would hear back in a couple of days about my ennoblement to Baroness and rulership of this town.

“I would like to go over some changes, I would like to make to the Town of Halfenbrook,” I said.

“What kind of changes?” the mayor asked with a bit of concern.

“Nothing that will hurt the longtime residents, but a lot of unsavory people have moved into the town during this monster tide. I would like to register the Fanged Fox Guild as my personal guard. I will also need land for the Fanged Fox Guild to build a guild building on,” I replied.

“To take an entire guild on as your personal guard, seems a bit much. The cost must be horrendous,” the mayor replied.

“I will worry about my finances. But I do require that appointment for the guild members and the land,” I said.

“The land inside the town walls is held in trust by the Human Emperor. We can arrange a plot wherever you wish, but you will be required to pay for the land, and the construction,” the mayor said.

“That is fine. I want the spot next to the plaza here. There are several shops, which can move,” I said.

“The people managing those shops won’t be happy,” the mayor replied.

“I will purchase new locations nearby for them. I will trust you to work out the details in the next couple of days and give me a final price,” I said. The mayor nodded and the announcements would be made once I had received my ennoblement. It wasn’t easy making NPCs work for you like this, but the mayor was in a tight position.

Once I held the title of Baroness, I could unilaterally replace him with someone of my choosing. But I wasn’t going to. Better to let an NPC handle the boring day to day administration of the town. I just needed to make sure my policies were implemented.

My next stop was the Designers Union. It was time to finalize design my new guild hall while I waited for my ennoblement. Five stories tall, with a focus on stone and glass. Light gray stone of course. A large set of double doors for the entrance, with the main entry taking up three stories. Lots of detail work on the outside with a slightly blocky appearance.

The bottom three floors would be for members to hang out, with an internal quest and trade desk. Also, guild rooms members could sleep in, instead of an inn. Guild storage in the basement with a very secure vault underneath that. The fourth floor would have the offices of various officers and a meeting room next to my personal office. The fifth floor would be for staff to work out of.

The staff took the top floor for security reasons. If the building was attacked, it would likely be from the air. That meant the top floor was not the safest place to work from. A lesson hard learned by several guilds in the past.

I would be buying out the entire block inside the town to build the guild hall and the building itself would not be cheap. It was tempting to go with something smaller, but I didn’t want to have to rebuild in a couple of years. My heart nearly broke when the design manual was finished and I looked over the list of materials. It was around 85 platinum, since I had picked higher quality materials. Not the best, but still high quality.

The stone on the outside would not be easily damaged and had slight enchantments worked into them in order to repel grime. The wood for the flooring would be stained and enchanted as well. The offices were also furnished with high quality items that had a high durability.

I marked this as a loan to the guild in the accounts and shelled out the 170 platinum, since the construction cost was matched with the material cost normally. The land itself came out to 25 platinum, far less than the building itself. Normally a building like this was built in a city not a town. Moving the guild to a city would take far too long and involve a lot of headache. I would rather be in a place that I controlled as the noble to prevent drama.

Baroness
Awarded for becoming a human noble with a town in the Human Empire.
+Recognition as a human noble
+1% Stats

The title was a nice boost when I got it. But the value wasn’t in the stat increase, but the recognition as a human noble. With availability of funds, construction began on the Guild Headquarters right away. All new members were directed to this town and teams were arranged to kill any other players leaving this town to grind, while offering to pay for a carriage to take them to another town beside Halfenbrook. Time to clear out the riff raff.

That kind of pressure forced everyone who had migrated here during the guild quest to either leave or to join the Fanged Fox Guild. People were warned and carriages were available for free to take them to another town. As the guild headquarters was nearing completion, I called off the player killer teams and the funding for transportation out of town. Anymore and it would have been cost prohibitive. Only the crazy people remained, and it wasn’t worth dealing with crazy people.

The message had been sent and now there were only a couple hundred people left in the town who weren’t part of the Fanged Fox Guild instead of thousands. If the numbers ever went up again, then I could institute such measures again, but for now, the large number of guild people would look out for each other and kill other people who showed up instead of purposely hunting them down. Only outside of town though.

While guild members were marked as part of my personal guard in town, that didn’t give them leeway to kill people whenever they wanted without consequences. Thankfully everyone had gotten the message and the few cases where they didn’t they were quickly kicked out of the guild to make a point not to mess with the NPCs or their rules. If you wanted to kill players, just go outside of town and kill them.

During this time period, I also started fighting in regular matches in the nearby coliseum in the city of Halfhelm, which was closest to Halfenbrook. I would show up and register for an immediate ten regular matches. I kept my registration time as random as possible to not make it easy for anyone trying to plan out a match against me.

While there was a ranking system used, I would just be paired with the highest ranked person who was also applying for immediate matches at the same time. My goal was to get to at least 1,000 wins in the regular arena. Since I could only sign up for 10 per real life day, it would take 90 days to get that many matches. I was hoping I would get some information on a higher ranked title once I got that far.

Then there were the two Champion matches that had been scheduled with Hammer Crusher and Eagle Eye. I arranged them back to back in the coliseum in the Capital. Since I had won the tournament, I could have matches there now which gave me better return on the victory purse due to NPCs coming to watch at the main coliseum. One of the small perks for having won the tournament.