Town Builder - 79 -

Chapter 79:

I had to wait for Blood Crisis to log in. I was stressed about the implications, and all I could find by searching online were obscure references to the class action lawsuit on behalf of the hard-wired players “owned” by the game corp. The issue was the lawyers trying to organize the lawsuit had no way to contact the hard-wired players other than entering the game and approaching them in-game to sign onto the lawsuit.

The lawyers were having trouble as well as soon as they announced themselves as such, they became targets. Apparently, the general antipathy for lawyers hadn’t faded while I had been out of contact with the real world. I would have to wait for Blood Crisis and Mad Dog to advise me, as I had been out of touch with the real world for too long.

While I was waiting for Blood Crisis, Danny called me to Goatyah. Her small mining town was doing well, albeit with much fewer players than Malcum. Danny was all smiles on seeing me, “Tallis, isn’t this exciting!” She indicated two ad-hoc bee-oven-shaped buildings billing dark smoke.

“Are those smelters?” I asked, perplexed.

“Yes! The dwarven mechanics built them, it is the first step in building a sky steamship,” she said proudly. My architectural sense winced.

I used my inspect ability on the buildings and got nothing. “Danny, can you give me permission to inspect your buildings?” It took her a moment to find it before I could inspect the building.

Crude Smelter, Health 9,500/10,000

That was it. No bonuses, and apparently, it had already taken damage after being used a few times. The other smelter was not much better, with his health being 9,750/10,000. All the dwarves working the smelter were under level twenty, too. She had gotten the bargain basement skyship team, but I was sure it had not been an easy series of quests from her messages. “Danny, did you ask me here to design you better buildings?” I could design a better structure on the toilet with used ass napkins.

“No, I need trade contracts for lumber and charcoal. I have nine starter chain-quests to build my skyship. Ghostly Mermaid is helping, but I really need your help for bringing in materials,” Danny said hopefully. “Even then, it is going to be months before the first one is built.”

“What buildings are required for your quests? That is how best I can help you,” I said, trying not to damper her enthusiasm.

“One of my dwarves has building plans…” she started, but I shook my head. Her eagerness and slap-dash approach would cost her in the long run with an inferior skyship. “Two smelters, a metal casting building, an engineer’s lab, a mechanics shop, and drydock. But the drydock is not needed until much later when we are ready to begin construction.”

I was sure there were other support buildings she would need. Maybe something to train sailors and officers for her skyship. I stated bluntly, “Your dwarven crew is not very skilled.”

“I know, but they will advance their skills in time. Most of them are young and fresh out of their training academy,” Danny replied defensively, obviously proud of her accomplishment.

“Maybe it is time that Goatyah became part of the Kingdom of Malcum,” I finally said. “My people enjoy a lot of bonuses to skill advancement, more so if they worship the Sullen God.”

“I thought it was too early to join you formally?” Danny asked but was clearly interested.

I hedged momentarily before responding. “It probably is, but it would make everything easier, and it is not like Malcum is a secret anymore. Every major guild has agents in my town. Most of the big guilds have elaborate plans to conquer and win the prize. It wouldn’t take much to promote Planesrider and add Goatyah as a town to form a kingdom.” I held out my hands, indicating it was her call.

“And you will help me build a steam-powered skyship?” She affirmed.

“If that is what will make you happy, yes,” I confirmed.

We spent the next hour trying to figure out the interfaces. I eventually summoned Simba from a fishing quest to guide us through the process. At least he was finally useful. I had to name the kingdom and decide on the nobility hierarchy.

I went with the Duchy of Malcum and gave myself the title of Duke. Then I elevated Danny to Baroness. I figured we might get underestimated by calling ourselves a duchy instead of a kingdom. I knew the dwarven kingdom to the north and the human kingdom to the south were going to take exception, but that was a problem for another day.

I ordered the last building completed to move Planesrider from an outpost to town as well. Everything should synch together and happen all at once I initiated it. I sent a warning to Mad Dog, but he was currently offline.

Maybe I should have consulted him before pushing forward, but Simba seemed to think it was no big deal. He even seemed eager for the process to begin, but I suspected my feline companion liked chaos. That should have been a warning. I already had plans for an outpost to replace Planesrider. Well, Simba did. I could build a guardhouse over the scaling dungeon, Tomb of the Phoenix King. It would mark the location and make it easy to find, but I could staff the gatehouse and control access to the dungeon.

It would be a risk, especially if others found out it was a scaling dungeon. A scaling dungeon increased in difficulty after the final boss on the deepest level was defeated. This meant it would always have relevance no matter how strong we became as players. I had a suspicion the AI Matriarch had placed this particular dungeon near Malcum for my benefit, as they were extremely rare in the game. In the forums, four other scaling dungeons had been discovered, and three were controlled by NPC cities, while the fourth was located in level 200 wilderness and not really accessible just yet.

Mad Dog was just as nervous as me for someone stumbling across it and had the Silver Linings Playbook members regularly scout the location from a distance. The players were ranging further and further from Malcum every day.

I was about to create our new little Empire when I was alerted that Blood Crisis had just logged in. “Danny, I am heading back to Malcum to talk with Blood Crisis about my emancipation.” Danny nodded knowingly. She was a hard-wired player like me, but she had her freedom in the real world. My family had sold my body and brain to science, and the corporation designing the game had purchased it. I had a massive amount of debt hanging over my head from the corporation keeping me alive, just another hurdle to my freedom.

When I found Blood Crisis in Malcum, I felt guilty about taking up his time as his party waited for him to talk with me. His party was focused on material gathering for the guild and completing enough tier-one quests to rank up in the Adventurer’s Guild. It was abundantly clear to all the players now that the quickest way to improve skills and gain levels was through Guild quests. And I had a cheat in directing my guild mates to the juiciest and most rewarding quests.

“I already told Mad Dog, but Tallis, you probably don’t want to join the class-action suit. The law firm is actually in game, trying to sign clients. But don’t believe for a second they are being altruistic. They are doing it for a large cut of the damages since the game is raking in billions. The good news is they will most likely be successful, paving the way to freedom,” Blood Crisis told me. “You should file separately, and we already have contracted lawyers for you. Like I said, just give me the word.”

“What about my avatar and my account?” I asked, concerned about Malcum. Or maybe I was worried I would lose something I had built.

“Depends how pissed they are. They could disconnect you, move you from your immersion pod, put you on life support, and roll you out the door into your own caregivers.” Blood Crisis said critically.

“People would really let that happen?” I asked.

“Nothing illegal about it. If you want, maybe we can negotiate your freedom. Pay your debt with in-game gold and purchase your tester pod. It would give the corporation all the leverage, though, as they would know what you want from the deal. Then again, if you settle for much less, it could help the corporation against the class-action lawsuit.” Blood Crisis was being pragmatic, and in this new world, it was the corporations that held much of the power as governments slowly increased their rights and protections through lobbying.

“What do you think I should do?” I said after debating internally.

“There are advantages to being first—and disadvantages. I only dabble in law—really enough to know to stay away from it. That is why I left the States and joined Mad Dog Down Under.”

“Thank you. I will decide by the end of game day,” I shook Blood Crisis’ hand, and he rushed off with his group to grind.

To distract myself while I considered my options I went to my drafting room in the manor. I had a large number of buildings to draft, and now I had access to the internet to research manufacturing I was unfamiliar with. I couldn’t build a modern smelter, but I could manipulate the magic runes to mimic a modern device. It was a simple structure and quick structure to draft, but the system recognized my research efforts.

Rare Smelter, Requires Masonry 23, Masonry: Foundations 23, Ritual Enchanting: 7 (Spawn One NPC Smelter Level 20) (Bonus: 25% chance to improve ingot grade, +10% to smelting speed) Profession Effect: Structure Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects)

It was a success because I had an NPC spawn with the building and was automating it. I also kept the essences required to build it reasonable. In addition, my profession bonus was a huge cheat because smelters were usually damaged after every use and needed to be repaired intermittently—not my buildings! It only took an hour of focus to copy the design. Strangely enough, it would have taken eight hours if I had used the system to automate the copying. But I supposed players could set their avatar to automate and then log out of the game.

I sent the two plans with one of my builders to Goatyah. It would be best to replace those two atrocities of engineering as soon as possible. I moved around some resources and NPC builders to start work on the penal work camp as well. Maybe it would be a good idea to get the larger prison up before becoming the Duchy of Malcum.

My next drafting focus was on the guardhouse over the scaling dungeon. What kind of assets should I invest in protecting the dungeon? If I went overboard, would it just draw more attention to the dungeon? If the defense was too weak, would it invite others to try and conquer it? Maybe I should just build an entire town around the dungeon? It was almost twenty miles from Malcum. The headache of building and defending a fourth population center was not the headache I wanted.

My interface beeped, and I checked the message. Malcum had just passed one thousand players. It wasn’t going to be long before there would be more players than NPCs. Malcum’s NPC population was just north of 2,500, and when you included the two outposts and Goatyah, I was pushing 3,500.

Before I could make a decision on the dungeon or my legal path, Mad Dog logged back into the game. He opened the voice chat, and I could see in my interface that he was in the Silver Linings Playbook Guild House in Malcum. “Just read your messages, mate. Where are you? I can be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

“In the Lord’s Manor. My drafting room,” I replied and closed the link.

It wasn’t long before Mad Dog and Black Beauty showed up. Their presence was reassuring because I felt I was getting in over my head. My decisions were going to have major ripples for Malcum with the players and NPCs. Surprisingly, Simba was with them—apparently self-invited.

The wolfkin strode confidently to my desk. “Glad you haven’t done anything yet, mate. My advice is to wait. You and Malcum are already the subject of a bunch of the top forum discussions. The big boys want the attention on themselves, not small fry like you.”

Simba growled unhappily, “Tallis, you cannot cower in fear of others. Lead the way and make others follow.” Simba had actually never given me bad advice before. Maybe there was an underlying reason for becoming the first player-controlled kingdom in the game. I knew there would be a bonus, but would it outweigh the unwanted attention?

Black Beauty broke her own silence. “The Kingdom of Veeral will send another army. My spy has only been in the capital for a few days, but she is already working in the castle. Her report says they took special note of how easily Malcum defeated their Incursion Portal.”

Simba dismissed the claim, “The Veeral Kingdom probably took heavy losses in the Incursion. It will take time to rebuild its forces, and if it did send anything, it would be a token force.”

I looked at Black Beauty to confirm, but she didn’t have an answer. “I can check the player forums and try to sort out their losses. Still, their king is level 309, and his queen consort is 298. I wouldn’t take them likely or the threat they pose.”

Having allies willing to research and investigate the threats to Malcum was welcome. Mad Dog favored caution, while Simba pushed to declare. Black Beauty just offered facts. I considered everyone and decided to side with Mad Dog’s caution. “We will wait until we can build a defensive structure over the Tomb of the Phoenix King. I need to draft plans and gather materials for the structure. I have decided to build an entire town around the scaling dungeon.”

Simba looked unhappy at the delay, letting out a displeased hiss. Mad Dog looked surprised but nodded appreciatively. “When do you plan to declare then?”

“Ten days at the latest but hopefully sooner. It will allow Black Beauty to have two more spies trained. Can you get spies to the Fistulas Kingdom?” I asked. The timeline seemed to placate Simba a little, at least he stopped hissing.

“The dwarven kingdom to the north,” Black Beaty spoke softly to herself, thinking. “Probably not NPCs, but I can contact some players to gather some information. It is a hundred-plus level of the map, and only a handful of players are probably playing within the city at the moment. I know there is a direct passage to the Endless Dark within their capital.”

“What about Gray Weasel?” I asked. Gray Weasel was the vampire player from Eternal Legacy who was spying in Malcum.

“He is just solo-questing at the moment. If the Dusk Elves knew he was undead, they would kill him on site,” she said. “He has been keeping his distance from higher-level NPCs that can see through his disguise. But I might be able to get Titus to run into him.”

“Do it,” I said immediately. Titus was mostly a quest-giver in Malcum. He was a gnome paladin I had won in the NPC auction and was level 140. The next NPC auction was 19 days away and was going to be exceptionally cutthroat. I planned to stockpile more gold at the event.

“If you want, I can try opening some diplomatic channels, mate.” Mad Dog offered.

Simba hissed a laugh, “They wouldn’t let you in the palace gates unless you represented another kingdom.” It was Simba’s childish attempt to mock Mad Dog for not supporting his wishes.

“We can wait till then. We will need strong allies for the Grand War, so maybe it is best we start early.” I stated. The Grand War was a massive instance that pulled players and NPCs into a battle map for extravagant prizes. It only occurred once a game year, but it was orchestrated by one of the AI gods I was familiar with. The issue was NPCs killed in the Grand War didn’t revive. Due to Malcum’s size, I would be forced to participate.

I ordered Simba back to questing and talked alone with Mad Dog and Black Beauty about guild matters. We only had fourteen members in the Silver Linings Playbook. Mad Dog had hundreds of applications to join since we had one of the few Player Guild Houses in the game, but vetting potential members took a lot of time.

He was currently considering forty proxy members, but becoming full members was very difficult, and the trial period would be months. Everyone in the Guild had gone through some severe life crisis and leaned on each other for support. It was a necessity to grow the Guild if we wanted to be able to defend Malcum as the player population leveled to match the NPCs.

Black Beauty planned to leave four of her NPCs in the Rogues Gallery to level up indefinitely in the facility. Right now, she needed agents out in the field, but the facility could grant an NPC agent a level every six days. Hopefully, this will give us powerful spies in the future, as no level cap was indicated on the building’s ability.

It was currently the calm before the storm in the game. Players were trying to gain levels while guilds were trying to secure resources. Just before they left, we looked at the top ten players. A player could choose not to be ranked if they wanted to, so the list was inaccurate and didn’t include any hard-wired players either.

1Ghost Sage23

2Neon Bacon21

3Frost Siren21

4Silent Parrot20

5Blank Slate20

6Monopoly19

7Shadow Beast19

8Comic Twist19

9Thunder Struck19

10Raging Taco19 

Ghost Sage was still the top player in the game, and Frost Siren was keeping up. But other than those two names, it looked like everyone else was new on the list. The most impressive name, according to Mad Dog, was Raging Taco. That player did not have the advantage of an early start and had managed 19 levels in just nine days. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too long before I could start earning experience again.

After my friends left, I sat at the drafting table. My thoughts were still drifting to my looming decision to petition for my emancipation. I think I have come to a decision, but I will contact Blood Crisis after I draft one more set of plans today.

I started working on the gatehouse to guard the scaling dungeon. Since this was one of my biggest assets, I was going to put more effort into it than normal. I started with my exceptional guard houses in Malcum. 

Very Rare Stone Guard House, Requires Masonry 43, Masonry: Foundations 43 (Generates one level 50 Combat Mage Commander every seven game days, limit 2) (Bonus: Houses 8 Watchman, Spawn Rate 1 per day, Level 30, limit 8) Profession Effect: Structure Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects)

I would use two of these structures to flank the entrance and then add walls flaring up on both sides in an attempt to make the finished building look like a phoenix with its wings spread. It was ambitious, but I also knew the more details I added, the better chance I would have at bonuses for the final structure.

Jaesmin arrived with dinner, and I ate with her and Joy, briefly interrupting my work. She told me the Crescent Lake was being filled in town. I needed to find out how to add fish spawning sights to the lake—well, no I didn’t. I sent a message to Mad Dog to figure it out for me, and he said he would take care of it.

Returning to drafting, I continued on the plans, postponing a response to an inquiry from Blood Crisis asking if I had made a decision. I finished late the next morning, having spent almost an entire day drafting the plans. They were symbolic in a way. The facade of the building looked like a phoenix spreading its wings to complement the dungeon’s name but also affirm my own decision. Blood Crisis was out with his group, and I told him to file the paperwork to initiate the process. I would file by myself and attempt to negotiate with the gaming corporation.

Epic Dungeon Gate House of the Phoenix, Requires Masonry 43, Masonry: Foundations 43, Ritual Enchanting 43 (Generates one Mage Commander every seven game days, limit 4, level matches the dungeon’s final boss and scales with dungeon) (Bonus: Houses 20 Guardsmen, Spawn Rate 1 per day, level is half the mage commanders) Bonus Effect: Perfect Inventory. Profession Effect: Structure Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects)

The essence requirements were high for construction but necessary. The perfect inventory effect allowed the guards to know everything that had been harvested from the dungeon in order to tax it. There would be no way to hide anything from the ability. I wasn’t sure if I would be taxing players—or even allowing those outside my guild to enter, but it was nice to know I could.

I contacted Deific Savior with a list of essences I needed to complete both the prison and epic gatehouse. “Tallis, I heard things were getting interesting up your way,” I smirked because I knew Divine Deviants had five players in Malcum. They were posing as an independent delving group but were clearly spies of their guild. “I don’t suppose you are going to tell me what you need all these essences for?”

“Not this time Savior. What can I offer for everything on this list?”

“Give me a few moments to talk with leadership. The Incursion has created some chaos, and we just fought off a raid from Siberian Bears. They thought we were the ones who stole the Alchemy College plans. We, of course, were being framed, but the idiot Russians didn’t believe us.” He said tiredly.

I waited for a while before Savior came back. “Essences are becoming more and more valuable as our crafters level their professions and we expand our guild towns. To fulfill your order, we need something substantial. Not the alchemy school, as it would anger the Siberian Bears if we built it. We want a copy of the plans for this.” He sent me a message, and I looked at it and cursed, but I should have expected higher-level, hard-wired players to have been able to inspect the building.

Very Rare Watchtower Obelisk 750,000 Health, (Bonus: Overwatch NPC, Level 75, Always Active Unless Slain. Respawn 72 hours) (Bonus: Increases Town Map Visibility by 75%) (Bonus Ability: Nowhere to Hide) Effect: Building Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours

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