Several pop-up messages appeared on Cain's HUD, he checked them before dismissing them. The first pop-up was for completing the quest to open the main trail between Mantabele and Agiasobele.
It was followed by two pop-ups showing the number of players and NPCs killed and experience points scored.
They could hear cheering from the city walls, as Amazons and citizens of Mantabele erupted joyfully. While the cheering started the two players of The VETS turned and walked away, from the pointless but needed carnage. While the city gates opened, Daphne concentrated and ramps appeared allowing those Centaurs caught in the traps access to the surface.
Palisus and a female Centaur trotted toward Cain under a white flag. Palisus said it was to stop being filled with arrows from the city walls. He introduced his mate who looked rather pregnant, though Cain did not know how long mares carried their young.
{Anywhere between 320 and 360 days in real time. Well done, you all saved two-thirds of the herd from a pointless death. Even at the end Thaumas could have surrendered but died rather than do so. You need to go to Cybele's temple and see the high priestess so you can collect the other Amazons and begin their training. Chop, chop you have plenty to do,} Enoch said laughing.
Chapter 27
VETS Joining
Cain found the layout of Mantabele to be nearly identical to Agiasobele, though easily five times its size. Two Amazon warriors from the city guard guided Cain, Toni, Myrina and Areto to the citadel and Cybele's temple.
Waiting behind the white line until a priestess greeted them. Once formally welcomed, the priestess led them to the high priestess's office; like the temple in Agiasobele the office was underground. :The high priestess was a twin, or close enough, I guess the game programmers wanted to save time when they created the high priestesses,: Toni thought, :to the priestess in Agiasobele.: They informed the priestess the quest to clear the main trail between Agiasobele and Mantabele was clear; trade and people could freely pass.
They received a bronze token from the high priestess in payment for completing the quest. Cain knew when they used the token they could collect the two hundred Amazons, direct from the militia barracks. The priestess offered them two more quests for Cybele. One was to free the port city on the mainland, called Molyvobele, the second to kill the Pirate King freeing the oar slaves and Amazon warriors, bound by magic to his service.
Once back with their people outside the city, they sat in a large group around the former fires of the female Centaurs and waited for their caravan to arrive. They held a leaders discussion, deciding to have two days of downtime while the city and Cybele's high priestess had accommodations built for them, four long houses as barracks for their original and two hundred new Amazons.
When they met the high priestess she said, "Someone or several someones will build them in three days or maybe four days, then the Amazons you have received will move under your authority." Toni suggested to Cain and they distributed two gold bars to each Amazon, warrior and support staff receiving the same. They told the Amazons who wanted to go party, to be back here at dawn on the third day.
Sophie and Daphne found an inn that had rooms to rent if they were empty, they rented the only suite the inn had for six gold bars a day. The inn compensated the occupants with two gold bars. They piled into the suite and erected Bounty, giving them a safe and unobservable quarters. Inside Toni handed Areto twenty gold bars bringing a smile to her face as she said the rewards of being a concubine were worth having; plus the money helped.
Lesley and Sophie pinned Myrina in the shower room intending to give her the fifty gold bars she earned. One hour later they exited the room, Myrina had difficulty walking while Lesley and Sophie had huge grins.
They spent the night relaxing and making love, Cain, though he wanted only Toni, slept with each wife twice, getting three hours sleep, while most of the wives had six hours. In the morning Daphne was the first to rise, and she hit the workshop and began to create the alchemy potions she knew. They had collected a huge amount of alchemy ingredients on the way to Kerabele, but she had no time to use them.
A dozen minutes later Daphne was joined by Bethany, together they shared the workshop table. One side held alchemy ingredients, the other enchantment items. Both women pushed themselves hard, improving their Alchemy and Enchanting skills. Bethany's target was to make enchantments which could permanently work on Bounty. She had a few ideas and wanted to see if she could turn her ideas into enchantments which worked.
Sophie came into the workshop half an hour later, kissed Bethany before she hugged and began to help Daphne with the alchemy creations, using her Alchemy skill for the first time. Cain went into the city with Lesley, two units of Amazons went with them as close protection. Lesley was the first to spot the forge and she asked the blacksmith who was sat drinking if they could use his forge, and paid for him to go drink in his favourite inn. Permission obtained, Cain's first job to make improved tools which would help him and Lesley create better quality weapons and armour.
Lesley used the iron stock the forge produced and started to make stronger yet lighter pieces of armour. She and Cain focused on their tasks lost in their work until Toni came, she pulled them back to the inn to get cleaned up before they went out for a meal.
Sitting down in a restaurant favoured by the rich for a meal, they ordered their meal and began to talk and drink, they relaxed for the first time in ages. Cain who noticed the two men enter the restaurant earlier, watched as they finally walked over to their table. Two units of Amazons who were seated around the room stood, placing their hands upon their gladii, ready to intervene should the need arise. The men introduced themselves although Cain had read their Gamer Tags.
"Hi, we're sorry to interrupt your meal. My name is Nithey Chase and my companion is ShezzaRA, we represent The VETS clan. Can we sit and talk?" Nithey asked
Daphne told them to pull up a seat, Nithey looked at her and wondered why Joseph was letting his women speak for him. As they spoke at the table Rahab spoke to Toni.
[Enoch and I were expecting them to make contact yesterday, but hey time is not an issue here is it. We have found who these people are, and they have nothing to do with Jason. We have checked all listed sixteen members of their clan, each one is a military veteran. They are all friends and have played online MMOs for a long time until they stumbled across Forsaken.
[Becoming stuck here like everyone else. Enoch is telling Cain and Ruth is having her first conversation with Daphne, hence the faraway look in her eyes. They will be a great help training the Amazons, especially in wet work. The Pirate King has a large force of pirates, a mix of NPCs and players. There is no sign of players from Jason's clan, though you need to keep your eyes open for Erebus's high priests. Have fun tonight, I'm sure Cain wants to spend quality time with you, alone,] Rahab said.
"Would you guys like to join us for a drink in our suite where we can hear ourselves speak?" Toni asked. Cain and his wives stood as one, Cain linked arms with Sophie and Toni as they left the restaurant and headed to their suite. The ten Amazons followed, giving the party room to manoeuvre through the tight confines of the restaurant.
^C^ Bounty? ^
^T^ Yeah, Bounty. ^
Myrina and Areto gave Cain then Toni large kisses and said they were heading to keep watch on the troops outside. Nithey looked at ShezzaRA and raise an eyebrow, ShezzaRA shrugged and smiled.
"Don't worry, we are all Joseph's wives, all six of us and Areto is Joseph's first concubine," laughed Lesley, as she noticed their looks. "Joseph doesn't mind if you guys look, but being touched is out of bounds, you understand, don't you?"
Nithey and ShezzaRA both nodded. They kept quiet as they walked across the city and reached the inn where Joseph and his wives were staying, where they had followed them from earlier in the night. Climbing to the top floor they entered the opulent suite and stood mouths open when they noticed a canvas latrine cover.
Daphne took Nithey's hand and led him int
o Bounty, ShezzaRA tried to follow his friend but could not enter until Lesley took his hand. Inside Bounty they again stood with their mouths open.
"I think I will charge people ten credits for when they first come into Bounty. That open fish mouthed expression while they take it in, is priceless," Toni said.
"Welcome to Bounty, we can speak freely here, Tyler, Ian. I am Toni," she pointed to the others, "and that ugly mug is my husband Cain, those are my sister wives Daphne, Bethany, Lesley and Sophie. Welcome to our home away from Forsaken and the ever-present surveillance. Oh, you met Myrina who is a wife and Areto who is our first concubine. I think that is the introductions for now anyway."
Cain spoke before Tyler or Ian could speak. "We are different from other players, Toni and just now Daphne and I have AI implants in the real world. Our AIs interact with us in Forsaken, they often help pick up on things we miss and give us good intel on situations we face ourselves in. Daphne has recently started to communicate with her AI so she may be a bit distracted while we talk.
"Our AIs found out about you guys, and like you I am a former VET, but I was a dark operative for the EC government. We have an ongoing large quest, which assuming once we manage to complete it, nobody will continue being stuck inside the game." Toni noticed a look of relief on Tyler's face. For the next two hours they talked about how The VETS could help them in training the Amazons, especially in developing their wet work. Cain said,
"We will ask Daphne to create a large lake, say half a mile in front of Mantabele for training in wet work. We will also create a large covered warehouse, a building where we can run various scenarios, like storming a ship, rescuing hostages, a modern kill house in ancient Greece. We have a large problem, one I hope your clan members will help us with.
"We need to train the additional two hundred Amazons we gained as a reward in completing the quest to re-establishing the mail and goods trail between Mantabele and Agiasobele. The new Amazons need the same level of training we gave to our first two hundred, plus both groups need training in wet work. We have received a quest where we have to take out the Pirate King. Could you help us?" Cain asked.
Tyler and Ian looked at each other and jointly agreed. The thought of doing something useful in the hope they could get out of Forsaken. Lesley led them outside, telling them they needed to inform the other VETS about looking, but not touching rule. "Joseph," she said as she was walking down the stairs, is possessive. "You would not want him to think you or one of yours made a pass at a wife of his. When you come to the camp in two days, have your three-best hand-to-hand fighters spar with Joseph, three-on-one, you and your men will see why we lay those ground rules."
Cain paid the blacksmith whose forge he and Lesley had been using, to arrange for someone to build a new forge where the long houses the high priestess was having built. Toni arranged for a building company to build ten large houses, with workshops on the first floor and the living accommodations on the two floors above. They designed each house in such a way they could be made secure when locked and made into a strong point.
The builder said, "It would take me and my men a week and four gold bars to build each house frame and two weeks for my stonemasons to clad the outside. My stone masons can build granite walls, assuming I can find the granite and get it shipped here in the next two weeks." Toni incentivised him with more gold bars, handing him an additional one hundred. He left promised he would hire more workers and he would build all her workshop houses in one and a half weeks.
The builder’s stone masons arrived on the second day and expected to be idle until the builder could find the granite. When they arrived, they were shocked to find black granite blocks cut in neat two-foot cubes and floor tiles, two inches thick and two feet square. The stone masons finished the granite work in twelve days, as they worked none stop in building ten granite-clad houses. Myrina and Areto paid the stonemasons once they finished the houses, to work on the long houses. They laid a course of two foot granite cubes around each long house up to eight feet high, making them more weather resistant and harder to destroy.
Daphne helped Sophie and Lesley, together they designed a European style fortification wall, to encircle the camp and training grounds. Once they worked out the plan, it took Daphne two days to build a moat twenty feet wide and fifteen feet deep, fed by the river.
The surrounding wall looked to most observers to be ten feet tall and twelve feet wide, Daphne knew though the wall was really twenty-five feet tall, as she hid fifteen feet of its height in the moat.
Training And Skill Enhancements
With their camp and new housing for their Amazons built and now occupied, and their workshops and additional housing for the VETS finished, they began training the Amazons. Cain knew having the VETS, a clan of ex military helping with the training of the Amazons, would enable each of his wives the time and space to develop their own none-fighting skills. Cain and Toni went to Cybele's temple, prayed at the altar, knowing Cybele would appear. When she did the temple filled with golden light.
"Cain, Toni, so nice to see you again. Thank you for ending the Centaur problems and lifting the siege. With Thaumas dead and the high priests of Erebus respawned somewhere else, the island will settle down.
"Any other problems like stray Satyrs or the handful of Harpies the local militias will deal with them. What can I do for you? I'm certain this is not just a social call," Cybele said. Knowing her golden light protected them from being watched live, or being recorded via the game system, Toni and Cain spoke freely.
"Cybele, is there a time limit on the kill the Pirate King quest? We want to make sure how long we can spend training the Amazons. They are nearly there and they will become a deadly force, able to change any battle by their use. We have three quests from you, the Pirate King being the most important alongside the freedom of both port towns."
Cybele said to them, "There is no real length of time for you to complete those quests, though you need to be aware the longer you take training and freeing the first port town, the fewer Amazons you will recover. The Pirate King currently has six hundred bound Amazons, though a fleet being assembled by King Philip of Macedonia will change the balance. Once Philip's fleet sets sail they will destroy several of the Pirate King's vessels, sinking them with all those aboard, oar slaves, pirates and bound Amazons.
"You need to know the Amazons do not fight willingly, he holds them under a powerful binding spell. A spell constantly cast by a captive magician, Circe. She has been held captive by the Pirate King for the past thirteen years. They call the Pirate King, Odissemus, and you will need to kill him. He is an EI, whose sub routines someone hacked and corrupted the Pirate King's sub-routines.
"He seldom leaves his fortress in the pirate town called Molyvobele, the town is on the mainland. You will find Circe there too, captive locked in the tower above Odissemus's throne room. Odissemus' pirate fleet is very large and wreaks havoc on all the coastal trade. Hence Philip of Macedon assembling a fleet to destroy the pirate fleet." Cybele blessed Toni with night sight, like Cain earlier received. Cybele told Cain,
"Even we could not remove a blessing which was a permanent gift rather than a skill." She blessed Cain with enhanced vision, when used it would allow Cain to focus on things far away as though they were close. Cybele instructed Cain in using his new gift.
The golden light which Cybele used to hide her, and those around the altar diffused. Priestesses and the high priestess were all knelt around the altar praying to Cybele. The golden light pulsed wider flowing over each of her priestesses, blessing each NPC giving them greater health and stamina.
Cain and Toni walked back home hand-in-hand, they talked with Enoch and Rahab about things in the real world. Back at their camp they called all the DreamBabes and group leaders together, and planned when and how to capture both pirate towns and invade Molyvobele. Tyler and Ian who were at the meeting and introduced two of their players to the leadership. Their Gamer Tags were Boostoff, who played as a ranger
and Mogastation, who played as a warrior tank in all the games he'd ever played.
Inside Bounty, Boostoff and Mogastation agreed to go undercover. A planned public falling out with Tyler and Ian in the market square of Mantabele, would provide a strong impetus for Jason's people to take them onboard. Bethany gave each of them an double enchanted ring, one enchantment would allow them to communicate with Tyler what they found. The other enchantment would protect them from Erebus's dark magic. Bethany asked Sophie to meld one of the Athenian pendants under the muscle of their right pectoral.
The next morning while several of the VETs were gathering supplies, Mogastation and Boostoff had a loud and explosive, public falling out with their leaders, Tyler and Ian. The fight looked good to the watching public, everything went as planned even down to the broken nose and black eyes Boostoff received. Finally Mogastation and Boostoff were bound hand and foot forced to their knees, Tyler and Ian publicly kicked them out of the VETS, leaving them trussed like turkeys in the market square. Cain who stood with Toni, watching from the second floor of a merchants building, overlooking the market square.
^T^ Do you think the rouse will work? We aren't sending Boostoff and Mogastation to their deaths are we? I know we need inside information on Jason's plans, I hope they can find what we need without dying for it, ^ Cain wrapped his arms around Toni and hugged her close.
^C^ They are ex military, they know what they have taken on. Yes they will die if they are discovered but if they manage to hide amongst Jason's team, we will gain an tactical advantage. ^ Leaving the room they returned to their camp and continued the Amazons and their own training.
"The training of the Amazons is going well," Tyler said three weeks later, "Each squad has gone through the basics and for NPCs they are nearly as good as level thirty-five players. So much so that any NPCs and players we come across will get huge shocks, as our troops rip them apart." As Tyler was leaving, he had a chance to speak to Lesley.
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