by Jason Cheek
“Something like that.” I grimaced thinking about the wave of fangs I’d dealt with the night before. Finishing my first skewer, I nodded towards the piles of wood and wolves. “Mind if we walk and talk?”
Seeing Chiara’s nod to continue, I stuffed the last of the meat into my mouth. Wiping the grease from my chin, I mumbled a quick thank you to Mariona with my mouth full. Giving her the empty skewers back, I began walking with the old woman a step behind me. Everyone’s eyes watched as we made our way to the entrance of the camp. The NPCs that I saw as we walked looked much healthier than the day before, but all in all everyone still looked pretty banged up and weak. Calling the barricade an entrance at this point was somewhat of a misnomer since all that was left of the tents that had made up the perimeter were just burned out ash on the ground. Still, it was a good point of reference as any.
I’d been doing some thinking this morning about the whole situation with the House of Kayden ceasing to exist in six days. In truth, there was a lot that needed to be done and not a lot of time to do it in. If I was going to be taking the continued existence of these NPCs into my hands, then these people needed to work with me on making the recovery of our house a priority. I didn’t know how flexible the software AI was that controlled the personalities for these NPCs but now was the time to find out. Otherwise, I feared I wouldn’t complete the quest within the allotted time. Stepping a little further away from the two guards, I came to a stop.
“Tell me what’s the situation is with Ilana?” I asked, lowering my voice for Chiara’s ears only.
Chiara suddenly looked older as she contemplated my words before responding. “Ilana is not dead, but she’s dying. I’m afraid she pushed herself too hard raising the zombies all at once to protect the camp. Between that and the invasion, the flight through the wild, the attack from the Light Elves and then the battle with the Goblin Raiders, it was too much too soon. I fear her body couldn’t take the strain.” Chiara’s words trailed away as she looked away uncomfortably.
“How much time before she passes away and what will happen to the zombies once she does?”
Chiara’s eyes intently studied my face as she spoke. “It could be one day or six. I just don’t know. Her body still lives, but-“ Seeing the tears, I held the old woman in my arms trying to comfort her as she cried. Getting her emotions under control once again, Chiara pushed me away to arm’s length answering my second question. “The zombies will once again become feral beasts and will be a danger to all.”
I nodded to myself at her words. It was another piece to the puzzle. The undead was an effective but dangerous resource. “What stocks of supplies do you have?” Seeing her confused look, I explained further. “Money, crafting items, food, clothing, blankets?”
Chiara’s eyes never left my face. “Between the fires and the attacks, we only have the clothes on our backs and what you’ve given us. Possibly a handful of copper coins and a few silver. Why?”
“I’m going to save House of Kayden by whatever means it takes. Either we are in this together or we will fail. I have a plan that I believe will work, but I’ll need the help of everyone here that’s healthy enough to work chipping in to make it succeed. I might ask people to do some things they’re not comfortable with, but I don’t see any other way around it if we are going to save our people. Will you support me in this?”
“What is it that you want our people to do?” Chiara carefully asked as she searched my eyes.
“Ilana gave me the first quest for saving our people which were food and shelter for all the survivors. She said we’d go to the next step of saving House of Kayden, but now she’s not able to tell me how to save our people. You, Chiara, can. I will honor my word. All the wood that I’ve gathered will go into building two longhouses and defenses with enough room for everyone to live inside but I’ll need lots of help debarking the logs and building our homes. The food and skins I’ve gathered are to feed and clothe our people, but I’ll need help preparing the skins, cooking the meat and crafting the armor, clothing and whatever else we need to equip our people with to survive the elements and the dangers we face.
Once we have that completed, I’ll need help locating BrokenFang Hold so I can find Rhenalyrr Daeralds’s symbol of power and figure out how to defeat Mergigoth Gutripper before the time runs out.” Unflinchingly, I held the old woman’s gaze. “Can I count on our people’s help when needed? Can you accept my leadership, Chiara?”
“Aye, Startum. Show us you’re worthy and in time we will all accept your leadership. Will that work for yeah, young newfar?” Chiara asked with a gruff humph as she gripped my arms tightly.
“That’s more than fair, Chiara.” Giving the old biddy one last hug, I turned us back to the piles of logs and dead wolves. “I’m going to put together several drawknives and then get to work building the longhouses. I’ll need as many bodies as I can to prepare the logs and get the structures put together. Also, maybe you can have Taiah and Mariona manage two teams to get the wolves skinned and the meat processed?”
“I can do that.” Chiara said as she eyed the work that needed to be done. “I should be able to get you ten or fifteen helpers in half an hour, milord.”
“Chiara, Startum is fine-“
“If you are going to be our leader then you must act the part,” Chiara said, immediately cutting me off mid-sentence. “Do we understand each other, my lord?”
“Yes … yes, we do, Lady Chiara.” With a wry nod, I dismissed the crafty old woman and got to work. I understood her surprisingly well. Chiara was still the boss, but she was willing to work with me to get what was needed for her people. For our people. Her recognition of my leadership position to the rest of the survivors would allow me to order people around as needed for getting the camp built. Also, she recognized that their lives depended upon me successfully completing the quest. Once I had the symbol of power and Mergigoth Gutripper was destroyed, we’d see where we stood, but for now, this was something I could work with.
Going to my pile of goblin equipment, I pulled out five of the short swords I’d set aside. Using my Rockjaw chopper, I crafted a crude handle around ten inches long to fit over the tips of the swords, which basically gave me a thirty-inch wide blade with approximately two handles ten inch long on each end. I mentally dismissed the character attribute window that kept popping up as I worked. I didn’t need to see what skills I was learning or which levels were increasing; I just needed to be able to build what I needed.
Rolling my first tree out of the stack, I began the debarking process. At first, I’d been nervous about how long the process would take and how I was going to deal with the uneven logs in my design, when the tree beneath me suddenly transformed into an even, hundred-foot long, finished log. Instead of having to work the entire length carefully, a quick run with the drawknife down one side was all it took. Once I did all four sides the entire tree transformed into a finished log perfect for crafting. Why the hell they couldn’t do something like this with skinning I’d never know but beggars couldn’t be choosy. It took a few minutes per log. By the time I had ten logs ready to go, I had fifteen NPCs women approaching me for work.
The group was led by a woman I’d seen around the camp named, Talia Beriadhwen. Talia was big boned and looked to be in her mid-forties if she had been human. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if the NPCs of House of Kayden were full-blooded Elves or not. Maybe if I had a mirror, I could compare myself to them, but I had a feeling we were all Half-elves, which might explain why they referred to the other Elves as Light Elves. The entire group was made up of women, which wasn’t a big surprise since the only men I’d seen so far were the three Elven warriors and two extremely old crafters.
Still, to my western way of thinking, I found it somewhat uncomfortable to be planning the intensity of physical labor that was needed to finish the two buildings. Not because of any mistaken belief that the women couldn’t do the work or weren’t capable of handling construction tasks, but more so becau
se the work we needed to do required so much upper body strength. Talia disabused me of any thoughts of that nature within the first thirty seconds of our conversation. As soon as I explained what needed to be done, Talia split up the women into two groups. For the debarking group, Talia assigned a woman named Jaena Sidhie and four other ladies. Jaena was a woodworker by trade, and within a minute she’d gotten her group organized and pulling trees out of the pile to debark.
Bemused at the efficiency, I pointed out where I’d planned to build the two longhouses, the defenses and the mini bridge over the stream that would act as a semi-defensive moat. Immediately Talia brought up an in-game schematic and started asking questions about my planned design. Seeing that I didn’t know how to trigger the in-game building menu, Talia quickly taught me the basics of construction and walked me through the process of pulling up the available templates.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything that fit what I wanted to build. With an encouraging smile, she walked me through the custom design option and directed me through the steps for my own design. The process kind of reminded me of designing an Unreal 4 game level. The blocks were easy to craft into the design of the two longhouses I’d pictured in my mind’s eye. Once I’d finished, Talia showed me how to share the new design with the other women working with us and then we were off.
Talia never gave me a chance to wonder how to address the physical work situation. She just went to work. As I picked up a finished log to drag over to the planned construction site of the first longhouse, Talia and three other women lifted the other end of my log, while six others pick up another log and followed. The planned site was only about twenty feet away. Setting the logs down, I began splitting the logs for the ends of the longhouses that needed to be fifty feet long, while Talia and another woman named Tara got to work scribing the logs for a saddle notch.
Even though it was generally cold, working hard in the sun heated one up fast and within an hour I was stripped down to my waist wearing only my shredded leather pants. In short order, the women working with me had stripped down to their leather pants and a thin wrap that covered only their breasts. Similar in design to a modern tube top but used more like a bra. To say my helpers were visually distracting would have been an understatement.
Once all the logs were debarked, Talia left me with my own group of women to finish up the construction on the first longhouse as she started construction on the second building. As we sweated in the hot morning sun, the women joked and laughed with me as we worked telling me about their lives at BrokenFang Hold. The whole experience was somewhat surreal. It was kind of akin to the phenomenon of skiing in bikinis that you hear about in places like Colorado's Arapahoe Basin when there is snow on the ground, but the weather is a balmy sixty degrees. At least in the sun. Either way, the pleasant scenery made the work quite enjoyable.
Still, it was amazing to see how these people took to the work at hand. The horrors that they’d lived through up until the point I’d met them was truly incredible, yet they bravely faced each new day the best they could. Talk about respect. Whether they were NPCs or not, I had it in kudos for them. On a side note, I also found myself constantly being distracted by the amount of feminine flesh and toned muscles surrounding me. More than once I found myself sandwiched between some of the younger women as we worked in the tighter areas of the construction. I did my best to remain a gentleman, but it was hard at the time, way too hard if you know what I mean.
Still, by noon the last of the logs had been split for the roofs and floors, which allowed us to finish both buildings an hour later. As soon as the last log was in place on the roof, I jumped to the ground proudly looking at my work. The accomplished feeling of creating something wondrous was one of the things I loved best about crafting in games. Although the two longhouses wouldn’t be considered anything exceptional in the annals of history, to me the two structures were beautiful. All around me I could see the happy and relieved faces NPCs as they stood back smiling at our accomplishment when a system message popped in front of my eyes.
Congratulations, you have created a Longhouses. There is currently no landowner. Do you wish to claim the land on where this structure is located?
Yes / No
My mouth dropped open as soon as I read the message. Land Ownership was the first part needed for a player to access the Real-Time Strategy aspects of The World. Although there’s been a lot of speculations on the forums, there hadn’t been much official information made available by the developers. Since this part of the game hadn’t been in the Alpha test, the general consensus was that this aspect of The World was still under development. Most of us had assumed this would only be available for high-level players for end game, but obviously, that wasn’t going to be the case. Concentrating on my interface, I found the trigger for the in-game Wiki. A quick search brought up the general information on Land Ownership which unfortunately wasn’t much. Land Ownership was needed for the Real-Time Strategy PVP aspect of the game. Players had the option of building villages, towns, and castles if the required resources were gathered or purchased.
Although no specific information was given, there was a blurb about NPCs also being available for purchase under an auction once per week after a village had been created. The progression that was given reminded me of something from Starcraft mixed in with Banner Lord and Darkfall. There were basic buildings that opened up options for more advanced structures to be created. Some of the advanced buildings required your territory to be upgraded to a higher level like a city, fortress or castle. Reading through the available documentation, I realized there was no mention of level restriction for owning property. I felt the excitement of my inner greed-monster rattling its cage as I thought about the huge end game advantage this could give me and my friends as I selected, Yes. Before I could do anything else, another system message popped up.
The First Settler: As the first person to settle land you receive a +100 Reputation bonus. This bonus is available for the first fifty settlers for each area.
Do you wish to make building Longhouse #1 a Personal Residence?
Yes / No
I froze with my mental finger hovering over the option. Reading through the text carefully, I thought back to the in-game Wiki article I’d just read. There had been no mention made of Personal Residences. What was a considered Personal Residence? The quick Wiki search I did had nothing relevant to add, except Personal Residences are structures owned by players. I mean seriously, did the person who wrote this article think it actually communicated any meaningful information? What would happen if I selected No, would I lose the structure? Thinking back to the first question’s article, I realized that since I was considered the Land Owner for where this building was built, in theory, it would fall under my ownership. Crossing my fingers for luck, I again selected ‘Yes’ as another system message popped up blocking my vision.
Longhouse #1 has been converted to an Open Residence. Information within the Property Management Tab has been updated. Rights to Open Buildings belong to the Land Owner and can be managed at any time within the Property Management Tab.
You have a Public Property on your land. Do you wish to create a Village?
Yes / No
I breathed a sigh of relief as a huge grin that could have been seen from a mile away split my face. The village was the first level needed for constructing basic structures for the Real-Time Strategy part of the game. Woohoo, I mentally danced a little jig. Regardless of the massive amount of work that I knew it would take to upgrade to the next level of Territory Development, I was just happy that things were starting to make sense. Also, if players were required to build up their own estates using their crafting skills and NPCs, then it was better for me to get a start on the building process now rather than later. Not to mention, I didn’t know how hard it was to get ahold of your own NPCs inside the game, but I imagined it couldn’t be exactly easy. Right now, I had the chance to get my hands on forty-one NPCs if I could manage to
keep them alive. If I played this right, I had no doubts it would put our small guild into the big leagues. Again I selected, Yes.
The First Village: As the first person to upgrade your land into a village you receive a +100 Reputation bonus. This bonus is available for the first 25 villages for each area.
Congratulations, you have created a village! All Property Management Sub-Menus are now available!
Please select a name for your village:
Congratulations, you have chosen ‘Requiem’ for the name of your village!
A smile came to my lips as the name came to me in an instant. My group of friends was a bunch of stubborn misfits. No matter who challenged us … no matter how hard the challenge was or the numbers against us, we’d fight. We’d fight however long it took until we won. Through every MMO my group of friends had ever played together, whether PVP or PVE, we’d faced off time and time again against the biggest guilds on the server and won. Whatever the challenge, we never gave up. It was this idea that gave life to our guild name, The Revenants. And, although we’d never had our own castle or land before now, what better name could there be for our guild’s home besides, Requiem? The word’s definition meant ‘a repose for the dead’ while ‘The Revenants’ were the dead that returned to life again and again. The whole concept fit my gamer’s sense of humor perfectly.
Unfortunately, while that was settled, I still wasn’t finished with my selections. As soon as I cleared the last window, I repeated a shortened version of the same set of system messages, only this time it was for the second Longhouse. Talia must have just finished her construction as I was going through the process for the first Longhouse. Glancing over at the muscular Elven woman, I gave a fist pump at her shit-eating grin as she gave me a wave from the roof of the second building. Sitting down on some of the leftover logs, I got busy setting up the second Longhouse as an open structure.