FlameMagnet pushed his shoulders up off the ground as he tired to see down into the courtyard below. He didn't have the vision skills of his two allies but this low hill was a good position to spy form. He still didn't know why he was all the way out here. Brethren plains was basically a dead zone in the game.

The game map was generated by Nexus Corp's super AI's as players headed farther and farther outward. That meant most of the players were concentrated on the games frontiers or in the major cities near the center of the world. That left an ever expanding belt of places in the middle where the player population was fairly sparse. Brethren Plains was one of those areas.

Still, the guild had ordered him out here to destroy the Sword's grain storehouse so that's what he was going to do. He didn't really see the point since there only seemed to be two low-skill farmers, but orders were orders.

"You guys don't see any player guards" FlameMagnet asked the others skeptically.

"Nope, There's four towers with NPC archers, but they don't looked higher than level 20 or 25. I"ll just stealth in and kill them. " The assassin replied from his left.

"Can't you just kill those two as well?" FlameMagnet asked.

"I could but if your going to burn the fields and trash the storage shed, they'll be in your AOE anyway."

That was a point. He supposed it didn't really matter. They'd wait another hour then get things started.

********************************************************

The courtyard was just as Winston had left it after a day of homework and errand running. Rimmi was making his fields even larger. The little gnome was trying to manage a huge field now and Winston thought he was probably getting in over his head. Winston was falling behind in acreage but he just didn't have the time to manage more fields until his stats and skill levels improved.

"How are you gonna manage all that Rimmi?" Winston asked. "My small patch is more than enough work. How are you gonna harvest all that corn when it's ready?" Winston asked him. Rimmi grunted as he toiled under the afternoon sun of Otherworld. He was working the earth with his tiny gnome-sized hoe and he did not look very happy.

"I figure it'll take me about twelve hours to harvest. That's actually not that bad for a four day maturity crop. I'll basically be harvesting a ten or eleven days worth of crops every five days." Rimmi defended.

"What are you gonna do the rest of the time?" Winston asked curiously. He was usually busy in game since wheat crop cycles were so much faster but Rimmi would have a lot of down time. Winston on the other hand was nearly always working when he was in game, since he had to flip his field so often.

"I thought I'd take up a side project. Something smaller scale. I figured I'd try growing a few alchemy herbs of something. I've read online they are pretty finicky to get to grow but they are constant demand and it'll help my farming skill raise." He said. "Eventually I'd like to take up alchemy myself but I figure that'll be hard. It's a popular profession and although low-tier potions are popular alchemists usually make them at a loss starting out." He said.

That made sense to Winston. Rimmi was just farming as a side-project while he worked on alchemy. Winston however, had decided to go all in on farming. It was a silly resolution but he wanted to see how powerful he could really become by trying to master one obscure skill.

He was pondering what he should do with his time before his next harvest was ready when a trio of fireballs came streaking out of the sky like meteors. Neither Winston nor Rimmi were expecting anything of the sort and neither moved at all until the fireballs hit, blasting huge chunks of earth out of the ground and setting the fields on fire.

Rimmi let out a scream of rage and horror as the field he'd been nurturing for days went up in flames. Winston just blinked stupidly as burning glyphs of magic appeared in the sky above the keep. Winston knew a little about magic from reading online. Winston had learned elemental magic, or sorcerer magic since it had the lowest entry requirements. The runes in the sky were a completely different system used by wizards and enchanters.

Winston finally realized what was happening and started sprinting for the keep. The sky throbbed with power like the moment before a storm hit and fire started raining from the heavens. The smell of brimstone was strong on the wind as Winston pumped his short stubby legs. Comets of fire screamed down from above and smashed apart everything in the courtyard. A comet hit just to Winston's right and blasted him off his small feet. He flipped through the air before slamming into the ground.

Pain arched across his back and even with the 10% pain threshold the game defaulted to it hurt a lot. Winston's body rolled across the grass of the courtyard before he ended in a heap of half-roasted flesh. He groaned feebly and just laid where he was. Time passed then someone prodded him with steel boot.

"Heh, look at this stupid noob. What is he? Never seen a mole race before." Someone said and the boot flipped Winston over with little effort. Winston blinked up into the now clear sky and saw a rather skinny looking warrior in well-made steel armor looking down at him with derision. Winston still had no idea what was going on and just blinked up at the man stupidly.

"Hahah, Look at this dumb little noob. Looks like you picked the wrong guild little mole. The fighter said as he raised a long-sword and prepared to bring it down. Winston's confusion burned away in a surge of anger. He HATED being dismissed. He hated being trod on. He knew he had no chance against this player but he didn't care. He was furious so he attacked.

His claws slid out of his fingers even and he leapt back to his feet, or tried to anyway. Instead all he managed was a sort of lurching stumble but the warrior was obviously not expecting it. Winston raked his thick-digging claws at the man's eyes in a desperate fury. The claws dig in and the man screamed as he stumbled away from Winston's crazed attack covering his eyes but he soon realized that Winston couldn't really hurt him. The level difference was just too large.

The man drove a steel gauntleted fist into Winston's face. The blow sent Winston spinning to the ground again clutching his broken jaw.

"You think that's funny you little shit?" The man shouted. Winston saw him raise his sword again, then he just sort of blew apart. All Winston saw was a flash of blue light then the warrior was disintegrating into black mist.

[Bleep-be-deep-Bleep!]

Blue light flashed around Winston and his HP and Stamina went back up to full. He struggled to sit up while his broken jaw throbbed in agony. That was another of Otherworld's

'features'. Leveling up fixed your HP, mana, and stamina, but any wounds you had stuck around until you were healed completely. Winston was now at full HP but his jaw was still broken and he was still covered in burns.

Winston finally managed to sit and looked out at the destruction. He didn't know what spell that wizard had cast but it had been a doozy. He blinked hard, then opened his eyes again. Where had that light come from? What had happened to that warrior about to kill him. Then he saw Therion walking past him. The man was in his shining armor and had his massive sword resting on one pauldron. He didn't move quickly, but instead he walked calmly towards the raiders who were busy firing off attacks in every direction as they destroyed the courtyard.

"Ahhhhh, if it isn't a bunch of Crimsun's. You guys have done me quite the favor. The guild stuck me out here in BFE for mouthing off and I thought I'd go crazy from boredom, but here you are and you've brought yourselves right to my doorstep." Therion said as he continued to walk forward.

The attackers stopped demolishing the walls and out buildings as they turned towards the new threat."That's… That's…. Silver Sword Therion." One of the attackers said in a panic. The rest of them all gasped then all looked at each other, hoping someone would come up with a plan. The wizard decided to act rather than wait. He raised his staff and started to summon magical glyphs in the air.

"Wa, Nog, Saa, Yon, Ta, ..." He didn't get a chance to finish his spell. Therion pulled his sword off his shoulder and swung that massive blade faster than Winston could even see. There was a crescent shaped flash that crossed the distance in an instant and then the wizard was disintegrating into black-mist as coins, potions, and items rained to the ground in the spot he used to be standing.

"Tut, tut, tut…." Therion said, with false sadness. "And after attacking a couple level 1 players. What's that a forty level difference? The griefer penalty for that has to be what… eighty or ninety percent gold and item loss at least right?"

The two remaining Crimson's looked horrified. "Please…. We didn't... " One of them started but there was another slash, and then there was one player left. He decided not to stick around and made a break for it but he hadn't gone more than three steps before there one last slash and he too was dissolving into mist as his items rained down on the ground.

Therion took a deep breath a smile on his normally dour face. Then he turned around and started to walk back towards the keep. As he passed the place Winson was still sitting he spoke.

"Go ahead and pick all that up." He said, gesturing to all the gold and items on the ground. "You and the gnome can take half. I'm gonna need to rest to summon someone from the guild who can fix all this crap. Oh, and I suppose your quest for this week is canceled." He waved a hand.

[Guild Quest Rescinded]

Winston sighed and pushed himself back to his feet. He walked around the torn-up courtyard and started shoving all the gear and coins into his pack. There was a lot. All the players from the Crimson Sun guild had attacked first, flagging them for PVP. Normally that would only lose them about half their money and 20% of gear, but the penalty had been increased to a ridiculous level since he and Rimmi were still huge noobs. The players had lost pretty much everything they were carrying. There was at least 500 gold in loose coins, and likely 10 times that in items. He felt a little bad for them. They'd just lost enough gold to buy a decent laptop.

Winston shoveled all the loot into his pack. Then found he couldn't actually pick the thing up. He'd been working hard but he needed more levels to increase his stats. He'd have to start hunting or finish some quests. Still, it was still early in the afternoon back in the RL and he had plenty of time to waste.

The courtyard was a wreck. The crops had all been burnt up, the storehouses had been flattened and the ground had massive holes blown into it by the fireballs. The game would fix the holes in a few hours but for now there was no way Winston could even start rebuilding. He'd have to wait until the ground at least flattened out again.

Otherworld had a robust magic system and the game allowed powerful mages to re-shape the land. It just didn't allow the land to stay that way. A top-level earth mage was capable of collapsing a mountain pass but once it was done the game would start undoing the landscape changes until they went back to normal. It kept high level players from blocking off entire cities or zones. Players still could perform massive permanent alterations but they had to be done by hand. So for now everything he'd been working on was ruined but in two or three hours the land of the court-yard would go back to being flat farmable ground. They just had to clean up all the debris.

He look around at all the broken and scattered bricks and had an idea. He'd been thinking about how he should make Runa's shrine. These brinks would do nicely. The question still remained about what he should make though. Shrines were the physical representation of a god. How were you supposed to convey that? Especially when you had no idea what the god in question looked like or enjoyed. All he had to go on was a few rituals and general information he'd found online.

Shrines were usually put in natural settings around trees or flowers or something but that didn't really fit Runa. She was a goddess of civilization. That was the opposite of nature. She was a goddess of a once magnificent culture, a goddess that had lead her people away from their barbaric ways. No, her shrine shouldn't be a natural setting. It should be something man made of brick and metal.

An image formed in his mind. A stone tower, a symbol of protection and development. A bastion against weather and danger. Something to watch over the people as they toiled in the fields. It was simple but powerful. That sounded right.

He looked around at all the shattered stone bricks scattered around the courtyard. They weren't exactly the best material but they would have to do. He started walking around and picking up the least-broken bricks, while tossing the others away from where his new field would be. He didn't have room in his pack for them so he had to carry them by hand. It was boring, gruelling work and he wasn't even half done collecting when Rimmi appeared in the courtyard and immediately started swearing.

He usually looked angry but now as he was inspecting his ruined fields he looked truly furious. Winston walked over to him carefully. "Uhh, hey man." He said.

Rimmi turned on Winston and glared at him. "What the hell do you want?" He asked bitterly. "I just lost an entire week's worth of work. I needed that gold."

"Well you can have this gold instead." Winston said as he opened his pack and handed over Rimmi's share of the gold and equipment. The gnomes face seemed to soften a bit but he still looked angry.

"Cheer up man, you've got what… ten days to grow your crops from the guild. It shouldn't be a problem and those items are worth more than your first couple weeks of work would have netted. Getting our skill levels up is the most important thing for now."

Rimmi grumbled for a while then blinked at the bricks Winston was holding. "What are you doing with those?" He asked as he got out his hoe and started re-making his field, working around the slowly shrinking pits.

"Trying to make a shrine I guess. Although I don't exactly know what a shrine is supposed to be, or how to really make one. I've got an idea of what I want to make but how do I turn it into a shrine after that? I've gotta make one in three days for the goddess I worship." Winston said as he looked down at the pile of bricks he'd been collecting.

"What are you using for mortar?" Rimmi asked as he continued to work. Winston paused. He hadn't thought that far ahead. What did you make mortar out of? He thought it was lime but what he he know? He was a computer geek not a mason.

"Errrrr…." Winston said, stupidly.

Rimmi sighed. "You need lime and sand for basic motor. They should have some in the keep for small repairs to the keep and wall. Go get some." Rimmi said, pointing towards the keep.

Winston lowered his head and did what he was told. Rimmi seemed like he knew what he was doing so Winston just went along with it. It took some time for him to find what he was looking for. He'd never been in the actual keep before. He had to wander around for quite a while before he found the basement and the supplies he needed.

It took him three trips to lug a bucket of lime power and two buckets of sand up out of the basement. Even with his improved stats for level three he was still exhausted when he made it back outside.

Rimmi gave the buckets a gimlet eye but pointed over to an area between their two fields. I suppose you want to put it up there?" Winston nodded. "And what is it you want to build."

"A tower." Winston replied instantly. "Not like a huge or fancy one. I was thinking something maybe four or five feet tall, make it look like a the most stereotypical guard tower you've ever seen. Sturdy and with crenellations and stuff." Winston said excitedly, as he made sweeping gestures with his paws. Rimmi rolled his eyes.

"Fine, I'll make the tower. You dig the fields." Rimmi said. Winston scowled but shrugged. Digging was his specialty, there wasn't much reason to get mad about it. So Winston shrugged and started to dig.

It took hours for Winston to finish re-digging Rimmi's field and by the time he got done he was even more exhausted. He'd save his field for tomorrow. He found a soft spot to curl up in the courtyard and logged out.

Winston's body seemed to deflate as he exited the machine. He limped a few steps then bent over to rub his aching thighs. He was always so sore when he got out of his machine. He knew the exercise was good for him but he hurt all over.

He wobbled over to his computer chair and slumped down it, wiggling his mouse to turn off his screensaver. His instant messenger popped up and started flashing with notifications. He had 54 unread messages. Winston groaned and opened it up. All fifty-four messages were from Jason. Winston sighed and typed a swift reply….

Winston: What?

It took Jason only a second to respond.

Jason: DOOOOOOOOOOOOD. Where you been? Ain't talked to you for days. The whole school's gone nutso about the fight. Things have been CRAZYYYYY.

Winston: Been living the farming life. What happened at school?

Jason: Your GF got in a fight with Jessica Richards. Something about keeping her cheap hair-dye and too tight jeans away from her man.

Winston, who was drinking from half-finished water bottle on his desk sprayed water all over his keyboard and monitor as he coughed violently.

Jason: JK man, they did get into it about something though. Not sure what. I couldn't understand what they were saying. I wish I could see your face. LOL

Winston ground his teeth as he shot back his replay.

Winston: Asshole. Anything else at school?

Jason: Not really, I'm kinda jealous. Now I'm the only one in the group let without a machine. Gonna have to get creative….

Winston: Oh god. I'm not bailing you out of jail . Remember that.

Jason: You know me too well? You wanna LoTa?

Wiston: Sure.

Winston fired up League of the Ancients and prepared to lose horribly.