Maxwell

Lapis and I managed to find an inn nearby. I tried to get her to sleep in a separate room, but after the little vision she showed me earlier, I wasn’t in the right of mind to try to argue with her. She wanted to sleep in my room, thus I let her. Too be honest, I was to the point that if she ate me in my sleep, I would just let her.

After paying the steep twenty gold price, I weakly pushed the door open to the room. I knew it was due to my race, but ignored it for the time being. I was exhausted. I dropped into one of the beds. “Good night, you homicidal dragon.”

She snorted making the room at least ten degrees colder. “Try to get some sleep. I had a fun first day.”

I groaned but didn’t say anything else. I pulled the covers over my face and let the world fade to black. I heard a loud crunch part way through the night, but decided to ignore it by covering my face with the pillow. I was sure it was Lapis breaking something with that body of hers. Just the thought of her being a restless sleeper made me worried about the furniture, but I would worry about that in the morning.

A ray of sunshine on my face was my alarm clock. I grunted as I sat up. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I found that half the room was dyed red. That was when I noticed the iron scent in the air. Sleep fled from my body instantly. “What the hell?” I looked around frantically for Lapis.

I found her curled up like a cat on the other bed along with the broken in window. It was clear from the glass that it had been forced in, thus it wasn’t likely Lapis’s fault. “Lapis.” I called gently. Waking the dragon just sounded dangerous. Her eyes snapped one causing me to jump slightly.

She yawned with a bone creaking stretch. “Morning already. That was barely enough time for me to close my eyes.”

“We don’t all sleep for years at a time,” I remarked then pointed at the wall. “Care to explain?”

Lapis licked her lips. A bracelet that had two snakes intertwined hung from her tooth before she tossed her head and swallowed it too. “Someone thought they could interrupt my sleep. No one interrupts my sleep.”

“What about me?” I had just woken her up.

“You’re special. Can’t exactly have fun watching you if I’m asleep.”

“Good to know.” I climbed out of bed and straightened myself up. There was a pot in the room to relieve myself, thankfully, hidden by a folding screen. Lapis being a dragon, I hoped she wouldn’t care too much about the whole men and women thing. Game or not, I really had to go to the bathroom.

Washing my hands in the bason, I cleaned my face. I prayed to Voasis that today wouldn’t be nearly as eventful as yesterday. I went back to the bed and sat down before pulling up my friend list. Messaging Rowena, I explained about the Jade Collective. I wanted her opinion before I committed to anything.

A few minutes later, I got a reply. She explained the guild system and how it worked with the lord’s system. Most of the time lords usually started or belonged to a guild before they established their lands. That way they had support from other players to grow their land. Looking at the information, I thought it might be a good idea to start a guild myself at some point. While she had never participated in one, Rowena thought the contract system was solid enough.

I sent her my thanks then closed the message. I needed more players in my community. The NPCs were good but the players just had that much more flexibility when it came to getting things done. I felt it was worth the risk, though I planned to find a place that I could teleport people where they couldn’t escape in the future. A nice hole in the ground sounded good for a short term.

“You woke me, but you’re not doing anything!” Lapis complained from her bed.

“I’m going, I’m going,” I replied jumping from my bed. I grabbed a piece of bread and fried egg to eat as we walked over to the Union. It was early in the day, but if they slept where they fell asleep drunk yesterday, then most of the guild would be there. Pushing the door open, I looked around for the group. Sure enough, they were lunging where they were yesterday.

Sasha spotted me and waved us over. “Maxwell! Good morning.” She dropped her hand as I walked over. “I thought you planned to get some rest. Why do you look ever worse than you did when you left yesterday?”

I dropped into the seat opposite her. “This and that. I’m willing to accept your guild in my lands.”

“Excellent. The Snakes were making it hard to get anything done around here. It will be nice to do more than transport jobs inside the city. I just hope we don’t lose too many reaching your lands. It has to be a few days travel at least from here. Those highwaymen will be all over us.”

“Nice reasoning, but don’t worry about transportation. I have it covered.”

“You sound so confident. I’m swooning,” Sasha said covering her mouth with her hand. I could tell she was joking from her tone.

“Very funny. Let’s get the contract started.”

“As you wish, my lord,” she replied with a head bow. She touched her wrist then started going through the menus. I couldn’t actually see what she was doing, but I could follow her hand movements easy enough. For detailed work, it was easier to use your hands then eye to go through the menus. A good hour later during which Kevin showed up at the Union, a screen popped up in front of me.

I took a long time to read through everything and made comments on things that needed to be changed or altered slightly. It was fairly well crafted though. The gist of it was that they would be loyal to me and my land, wouldn’t cause me any harm, cause any harm to my people or belongings, they got paid fairly, were treated fairly, and a few other things. I had her change it so that the individuals of the guild would all sign rather than just the guild leader.

I didn’t want them to move to my lands then all leave the guild to break the contract. Sasha nodded without expressing any issues. Once I had hammered out all the details, I sent it over to Rowena for her to take a look. Another half an hour later, I got it back with a few notes here and there. Going over it again with Sasha, we finalized the contract. A final clause that I added was anyone that leaves the guild would be unable to step onto my lands for a month without an exception.

“Sounds like we have a solid contract,” Sasha said showing the document to Kevin.

“Looks good to me. I’m excited to be able to get some actual work done. I’ve been couped up in this building for too long.”

The next hour was spent rousing all the hungover members of the guild. Only one of them bothered to read the contract in its completeness. The rest just blindly signed. Their names showing up on my list of contracts in my status. Once they had all signed, I clapped my hands with a smile. “Everyone ready for a trip?”

~~

This might be a bit rougher than I first thought. I looked over the three wagons that were stuffed to the brim with everything that the Jade Collective owned. We were in a game, but inventory was limited. Plus, they wouldn’t be able to access all these items if they left them here. In fact, there was a chance for them to be stolen should something happen to the bank they were stored in.

I walked long the caravan trying to get a gauge of what this was going to cost me mana-wise. Reaching the end, I knew it was going to take most of the day if not more to reach the village. I would purchase some mana potions, but the only shops that would accept me were the worse of the lot. I simply couldn’t trust their wares.

“Everyone ready?” I called out once the sun was directly overhead. Any longer and I was sure we wouldn’t make it back home.

“We’re all here.”

“Okay. Bring the wagons around into a circle.” I waited for them to complete the order. “Alright now make sure you’re touching the wagon or person nearest you.” I held out my hand to Sasha. “If you would.” She took my hand then Kevin took hers before touching an the ox monster that was connected to the wagon. Double checking that everything was touching or connected together, I pictured the furthest I could before teleporting us.

We appeared roughly seventy kilometers from the city. I had to adjust my course slightly to account for the wagons, but it wouldn’t affect us much. We just wouldn’t be teleporting along the tops of the mountains. That said, we were still rather high up with snow billowing around us. Good thing everyone dressed like I asked them.

“One down. Ten to go,” I grumbled as I fell forward. Sasha caught me in her arms.

“Ulic!”

“Don’t worry. Just used all my mana,” I said worried she was calling for a medic or healer.

“I know.” A woman with ram horns came over and placed her hand on my shoulder. I felt a rush of energy as my mana recovered at a blistering rate. I straightened up feeling right as rain. “Ulic can use Mana Share. You have about thirty thousand mana at your command between all of us, my lord.”

“That will make this much faster!” I said with a cheer. We got back into position and I used teleport again. Ulic came over and transferred mana from another member to me. We repeated this until we were a stone throws away from the village. We just needed one more teleport and we’d arrive. We just used every drop that was available among us.

“The Great Forest. Not bad. Challenging but not crippling hard,” Sasha said while we waited for everyone’s mana to recover.

“Glad you like it. This is where you’ll be operating for a while after all.”

“When we arrive, we should cover goals. If you just have general ideas of what you want done, then you should build a Union building. It will connect you with parts of the outside world as well. Information wise, at least.”

“We’re still working on the foundations, but I’ll see that its built.”

We gathered enough mana between us all to finish the last jump. I put us in the middle of the plaza that Rowena and I had designed for gatherings in the future. A few people were moving about working on various tasks. They weren’t bothered by my arrival as it happened twice a day usually.

“Welcome to Alflona. Home of the Dark Elves that make the surface their home,” I announced with a gesture.