The Dragon's Wrath: Shadows in the Flame (4 page)

It was all for the best though, as the market was indeed my next building project.

The market would be open at the center of the village, circular in nature around the actual center point, the enclosed bonfire that served as the spawn point of Dragon’s Breach. A large pathway would be left to ensure ease of travel, mostly dirt roads that would be packed and rolled smooth for now with stone and cobble roads somewhere in the future. The concept was a simple one. Packed dirt roads in a circle starting from the center and expanding out towards the inner walls of the palisade with straight roads crossing and connecting every so often.

I didn’t have to worry about congestion or excessive foot traffic at the moment but in the future it could become an issue, thus a reduction in intersections and complicated crossroads was an essential thing. It was better to plan ahead than to have to tear apart buildings to make way for an improvement down the road.

After the market was complete, I needed to construct individual buildings for all of my crafters that were currently working out of the lodge. Though the original lodge had plenty of space for them, I wanted to tear it down eventually and reconstruct it in the same design as the new main structure buildings. Two floors below ground with one above ground and an underground tunnel connecting them. There were two of those buildings now and I wanted to have a third to complete the living quarters for the NPCs.

Each building could easily hold a hundred people but the bottom floors were musty from the overcrowding and lack of air flow. I had yet to figure out how to fix the circulation issue but as long as I kept the numbers down in each building it wouldn’t be too bad. Though that meant I needed three functional lodges for the NPCs at the minimum, along with a separate barracks for the troops.

So far, each guard tower had been built to house five NPCs with the first floor serving as their living quarters while the second floor served as a platform for them to attack from. Simple designs yet practical and tested through the ages. Those arrangements kept twenty-five of my combatants housed but I still had a few others left over.

Maybe the answer was more guard towers.

“Yeah, I rather like that plan,” I mumbled to myself as I continued to scan the vicinity.

Waving my hands about as I opened up the [Menu] and started to browse through the various tabs, I finally stopped at the [NPC Recruiter] and spent a few minutes searching for hidden gems. Sadly there weren’t any real deals to be had and I wasn’t exactly rolling in the dough at the moment either.

What little coin I gathered from all of the intruders couldn’t even buy one NPC at the current prices and with how hectic the raid was there wasn’t any time to loot those bodies. Plus if my NPCs killed a player then whatever coin was dropped was theirs to keep.

Spoils of war and all.

Exiting out of the [Menu] after I finished checking the [Player Population] tab, I was now temporarily relieved of my neurotic desire to psychotically stalk the numbers that were showcased. Player population was still at a lovely single digit of one.

That made me happy.

The northern territory roughly filled out a space about three-hundred to four-hundred miles in length running north to south and somewhere between fifty and a hundred miles wide east to west. When I started there were maybe five-thousand players in the North, with probably five in total within a hundred miles of my location here.

Now things were changing though, population numbers in the North were rumored to be around ten-thousand and there were actually a handful of players coming in and out of Andal only sixty-some miles away. There were likely a few dozen players within a hundred miles nowadays… whether that was good or bad was yet to be seen.

Twenty-some thousand square miles of land made for a minimum of two square miles per player if they all spread out equally though. That wasn’t terribly crowded by any stretch of the imagination and thanks in large part to the actual crowding around the southern border by the Central Kingdoms, this far north it was closer to fifty square miles of space per player. I really couldn’t complain about space and privacy.

Ah well, the game was still new. Hardly more than a few months old so it was to be expected. Change would be coming. I’ve enjoyed my peace and though things were moving quicker than expected, I wasn’t entirely unready for what’s to come.

Well… maybe I should amend that.

I wasn’t ready the last time and though I did enjoy the peace while it lasted, I can’t pretend that I’m not
still
bothered by what had transpired. Seventeen days real time since Selene died and it still ate at me deep down. All the self-distractions and pep talks could only disguise and misdirect my feelings on the matter for so long.

The denial part of the process was pretty much skipped instantly. I wasn’t fool enough to deny the truth before my eyes. Anger was stage one right from the get go… and as far as bargaining? Hah, there would be no bargaining. I guess that put me in the depression part of the model. Acceptance was next, supposedly.

Yeah, I think I preferred the angry portion of the stages.

Selene wasn’t even real anyways.

“Allllll righty then,” I said loudly while snapping my fingers and sticking my tongue out to try and get my mind back on track. “Let’s get this started, shall we?”

Of course, I was still talking to myself.

None of that mattered though. Off to the side I could clearly see a few idle warriors standing around chatting about who knows what.

They would be recruited for the cause.

Waltzing towards their location, a simple wave got their attention as they met me halfway. A short and quick discussion followed and was all it took for them to move out and find their brethren that were left inside the village walls. One party was always out hunting, doubling as a scouting party while the leftover combatants stayed inside the walls for emergency. So for now the only issue was with my numbers.

I really needed more NPC combatants.

“Sir Sigurd, there’s twenty-one of us accounted for, ready and willing,” said one of the low-level warriors as he returned from his search. That number included non-combatants though as there couldn’t have been more than a handful of warriors left, what with the majority of them given the day off.

“Excellent, how’s the stockpile of wood?” I calmly asked.

“About three men tall and tens as long sir,” he replied while stretching his arms out in a crude display. “I think we’ve enough wood to last us a year.”

“Hah, I bet you we’ll be done with it in a month son.”

Once the remaining stragglers had moseyed on over, it was time to start the process for the umpteenth time. Logs needed to be moved, cut down to size, and arranged to fit the desired theme. Holes would need to be dug and dirt would need to be leveled. Then when all was said and done, the finishing touches would be turned over to the carpenter and his assistants as I moved on to the next project.

Rinse and repeat.

Chapter 77: Limited Potential

(Wednesday, November 17th Game Day /
Sunday, April 18th Real Day)

Construction on the market place had been progressing smoothly and not more than twenty-four hours since I began we were already reaching the halfway point. An open design with logs placed upright into the dirt in a circular pattern with permanent stands and stalls between them. Off a bit in front and behind were more upright logs with the intended purpose of having them serve as tent poles in the future, since at the moment we were lacking the raw materials for a canopy.

To produce a canopy my tailor slash weaver needed wool or linen in amounts I wasn’t able to readily procure. Sheep would be needed to fill that void. They were the next on my list of livestock to acquire. Sheep and goats that is. Otherwise, she was more than capable of creating whatever I needed.

She had been hard at work for a few months in-game and was easily the highest level craftsman I had. She was already level forty-five, though I had little clue as to what that entailed. From my limited understanding the higher the level a craftsman was, the more complicated the work they could produce along with faster completion times and higher quality. Also, higher success chance with specialty items.

When considering there was only one person in this village that took care of all of the complicated tasks when it came to equipping and clothing every single person, it made sense that she had leveled far quicker than the rest.

She was entitled to a very fancy loom house of her own, it was well deserved and also on the to-do list… ah, my to-do list was getting longer by the day. In progress was a second longship of the same design, a Karvi class that could function in multiple roles.

Stigr was hard at work there by himself, though the wood had all been prepped for him and the nails, rivets, and other iron-related items were being churned out by Ansgar and Enok with relative ease. Regular production of weapons had slowed a bit as raw materials were starting to run out, which meant I needed to either trade for more iron or go back and farm a dungeon or two. A part of me was wondering if I could send my NPCs into an instanced dungeon to farm, that would probably be too convenient though.

Well, generally speaking everything was moving along.

“Sir Sigurd, we’re ready,” called out Astrid as she beamed a bright smile.

“Good! Let’s get started then,” I replied with oomph as I took a position off to the side of the six casters facing the mountain wall. Examining each one before continuing, I had one goal in mind for the day: impart spell knowledge successfully.

“Today is a great day, a day you should be proud of!” I said loudly and clearly for everyone to hear. “You’ve all improved your skills to the point where I can now teach you the next spell in the lightning branch,
chain lightning
. This spell will become one of your staples as it provides an enormous boost to your potential destruction, especially in situations where multiple targets are available.

“In fact, it is probably the most important spell you will learn from me. If you work together and master this spell, there is little to no chance that any small squad could hope to match up against you.”

Ready to continue with the lesson, I stood back and eyed the six casters as they looked on with eager eyes. Now it was time to put my mastery of Lightning Magic to the test.

“Take your stances and gather energy between your palms as you normally would,” I said calmly. “Don’t overthink anything yet, just gather it much the same as if you were about to conjure a lightning bolt. Right, just like that. Now hold the charge, condense it, and shrink it… yes, exactly, good job.”

Before my eyes were six pairs of hands all performing the task as I had described. Electrical energy building between their palms and then shrinking into one small condensed ball as they held the harmless charge. The next step was the complicated part, and one I wasn’t quite sure how to explain.

“Now for the tricky part… repeat the process,” I said sternly. “Without releasing the electrical charge you’ve already accumulated.”

As soon as I finished my sentence three people failed and lost their charge as they turned their heads towards me in confusion. Astrid maintained her charge but was clearly struggling as well, as two others failed.

Not long after, Astrid joined them.

“Sir Sigurd… how exactly do we do this?” asked Astrid innocently.

“Ah, trial and error,” I bluffed without any real clue. Players weren’t supposed to teach advanced spells to others. If it weren’t for my Relic I wouldn’t be able to do anything… yet somehow I was qualified to teach without a guide or any information on how to do it.

Trial and error all right, for me too.

“Okay, try once more then take an hour break,” I said after two-hours of failure.

This wasn’t nearly as easy as teaching the first tier and second tier spell. With the first spell [Lightning Bolt], they already knew the basics so all I had to do was correct their posture and guide their natural ability to control it. With [Arc Lightning] it was a simple case of teaching them to extend the energy outwards much the same as a [Lightning Bolt] but without releasing the spell to fly free, keeping the energy locked and connected.

I was out of ideas when it came to [Chain Lightning].

“Yeah, good work guys, go grab some food and take a break for a bit,” I called out as I waved them off. Dropping down onto my ass in the snow-covered grass, I was at a complete loss. The basics of the spell were four miniature lightning bolts that were shot forth at a singular target with the end result being a split off of the four bolts onto nearby targets. Astrid was my star and yet she couldn’t manage it either.

Ah this is a waste of time
, I thought to myself.

As I was lost to my own mind, eyes staring blankly at the cold gray wall in front of me, a pair of hands were placed on my shoulders as a woman stood directly behind me. Recognizing the scent of the female, I closed my eyes and leaned my head back into her thighs as I let out an audible sigh.

“How’s your day been Kate?”

“Quite pleasant
my
liege
,” she said with a giggle. “I finished teaching those four casters with an affinity for the dark arts the third spell in the holy art classification. They picked it up rather quickly to my surprise, no issues to speak of.”

“Fun,” I mumbled while leaning forward and throwing my arms up in frustration.

“Hehe it didn’t go as well for you, I see,” she said softly as she maintained her position.

“No not at all… maybe I should wait to see how you teach them holy barrage,” I mumbled to myself. “That’s a complicated spell… sort of like chain lightning.”

“Are your problems concerning the visualization of the spell forms?” she asked after a few seconds had passed. “Or is it a more technical aspect I’m unfamiliar with?”

“Visualization?” I asked in turn.

“Yes, the first step to mastering spell casting of any sort is the mental aspect,” she started to explain. “Without a solid grasp of the image of what one wishes to accomplish, there is no basis or ground for which to build upon. I am of the belief that this is standard education amongst all the magic schools across the known kingdoms. How else would one hope to learn such a difficult thing otherwise?”

“Ah,” I said.

It made sense.

I had previously assumed they already had a good mental image from all of the times they’ve seen me cast it. Logical leap was that they already had a mental picture to go from… but perhaps they were too busy focusing on my technical details and instructions that they chose to forgo the mental image.

So it was the teacher’s error.

“Hah I don’t know what I’d do without you Kate!” I blurted out as I pulled her down into me and rolled around with her in the snow. Frolicking in the snow like children, we had lost track of the time as Astrid pointed out that the hour had passed.

“Uh-m, Si-Sir Sigurd… we’re all accounted for,” she stuttered.

“Oh, so it has,” I replied with little to no shame while looking at the blushing Katherine beneath me. There was nothing to be embarrassed about though as it was good natured fun, nothing a child couldn’t see.

“Should we come back at another time, Sir Sigurd?” asked Astrid.

“Ah, no that’s quite alright,” I slowly exclaimed while sitting up. “Katherine actually suggested a few tips that I believe will help with your training. It seems I’ve been going about things backwards, my apologies to you all.”

Instructing the casters to visualize the spells in their heads before attempting anything physical, we worked with the image training for nearly an hour, going step by step through the process. Building from one image to the next and learning to take each mental step through the physical step before heading forward proved to be valuable.

It wasn’t more than another hour before Astrid had managed to cast a barely passable [Chain Lightning] towards the rock wall to everyone’s excitement. By the fifth hour, all six mages could cast very weak versions of the spell with a moderate chance of success. Spell rebound did exist since their mastery of the spell was still quite rudimentary at the moment but it didn’t bother me.

They were on their way.

Interestingly enough the game had a hidden requirement when it came to imparting spell knowledge. Simply having the knowledge of the spell’s existence, what it looked like and how to cast it weren’t enough to teach or learn it for oneself. In fact, even relaying the same information to another and having them in turn instruct failed to produce any results. The game was oddly serious about requiring the
master
of the spell being the one to impart the knowledge.

Even if I told Kate to relay what I said, the mages couldn’t progress. They were right at the edge of being able to cast the spell and when I stepped back to see if I could delegate the work, their progress stalled completely. As soon as I entered their proximity and ushered the words out of my mouth, their progress resumed.

A strange system really, but it added up with previous experiences. I couldn’t teach myself spells despite already learning them in the Alpha or Beta, such as [Fireball] and [Frost Bolt]. I could work the magical lighter and conjure cold spots as I was familiar with the magic structure, but I couldn’t cast a real spell.

Essentially, if I wanted to teach others magic with my Ancient Relic… I would actually have to be there, physically. Another time sink is what it was. That’s really all it was in my mind. Though, maybe it did help force interaction between players and NPCs, seeing as if everyone could teach themselves then there would be one less reason to ever visit an NPC town or city. I could simply browse the net, pull the information, and practice under a water fall or something instead.

I guess it made sense after all.

With the sun about to rise I decided to finally let the mages return to the village and rest. They had been working for nearly eight hours in total but would have the next day off as I started the next stage of my construction plans. I figured they had plenty of time to recuperate… the real loser anyhow was me.

Eight hours spent explaining spells to six NPCs.

That was far too much time. If this were to happen again as it undoubtedly would, there would have to be some changes made to streamline the process. Time is a precious thing after all. To use so much of it on one small task was a bit insane.

Yeah, these designers really knew how to limit one’s growth.

Ah well.