Sword Sergeant Herston Kratz stood on top of Grimstone keep and surveyed his domain. The keep wasn’t technically his, but it was part of the Seeds of Solomon guild. There was a strict hierarchy to the guild. Even the lowest member of the Swords was higher-ranked than anyone but the guild leader of the Seeds, even Silver Sword Therion was lower-ranked than he was now. He was a Sword Sergeant, a Squad commander, and only a few levels away from making one of the raid teams. That made him as close to the owner as anyone in this backwater.

He inhaled the cool air of the night. Friday night and here he was in the back-end of nowhere. The grasslands of the Brethren Plains stretched out below him in all directions, broken only the a river that cut the scenery in half as it meandered through the land. Granted he’d likely just be hanging out in one of the capitals screwing around or doing something for the guild but at least there’d be something to entertain himself with.

Outhere there was nothing but grass, miles and miles of it. He watched as one of the new workers hopped over the keeps fence and headed towards the tiber a few miles out in the distance. He had a heavy a pack that he seemed to be struggling with. He walked a few hundred yards and a group of orcs melted out of the tall grasses.

DemonzSlay93 watched as the two groups came together and the mole-man poured something out of his pack and into the pack one of the orcs was carrying. What were they doing, some sort of trade? It was hard to tell from this distance. Where those NPC’s or players? As he watched the mole-man headed back to the storage shed, filled his pack and headed back to the orcs. DemonzSlay93 decided it would be worth looking into, maybe the little bastard was stealing from the guild. If nothing else, it would be something to do.

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

Winston sat bleary eyed in the back of the ore wagon as it rumbled down the road. He felt like hell. He’d sat out all night in the rainstorm to watch the Friday night homecoming football game. He’d woken up with a nasty head cold and even in Otherworld he felt drained. His real body didn’t feel anything happening to him in game but there was some transference the other way. It kept people from bathroom problems and to remind them of hunger and thirst if they stayed in game too long.

Winston would have written off the whole day as a bad job and gone back to bed if he didn’t have so much to do. Therion sat next to him in his shining silver armor but with a hat pulled low over his eyes as droused.

The rest of the Swords were riding next to the wagon in formation. They looked formidable but Winston couldn’t help but think they’d be a bit too vulnerable to ambush. That was one of the problems with a convoy guard. A caravan was always susceptible to an ambush. The enemy knew exactly where you were going to be and had a good idea of when you were going to be there.

“Why are you in game?” Therion asked. Winston looked over at him but the man hadn’t moved or even taken the hat off his face. “I mean, there’s nothing for you to do here and if there’s a fight you’ll be useless.”

“Ya know, I thought about that….” Winston said. “Problem is I REALLY need to get to the city and the caravan seemed the best way.”

“That fine….. But it doesn’t answer the question. You could just be off-line and wait to see what happens.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got the best chance of survival if I’m actually awake an in-game when the attack happens. Which should be in the next few hours by my calculations.” Winston said.

“Your calculations?” Therion asked skeptically.

“The Crimsun’s had three people in this zone. With their main goal to be pissing off the Swords.”Winston explained. “The caravan would be a prime target, and the three Crimsun’s could have probably managed it if they hadn’t attacked the keep, or me in town. But the did so the swords sent troops to protect the caravan. That leaves the Crimsun’s with two basic options.”

“They can either not attack, or attack anyway. If they don’t attack, obviously everything is fine. If they do attack……”

“Then they’ll send their own reinforcements. You said that yesterday.” Therion said.

“And if your going to attack a convoy with a bunch of heavy slow-moving cargo. Then you need to do it far enough away from the enemy spawn so they can’t catch you after you kill them. That means any time now should be just about right.” Winston finished.

“Ya know, you’ve got a dour outlook on life.” Therion said, as he adjusted the hat on his head. Winston shrugged.

“I’m just telling it like I see it. I just don’t understand why you guys go to such length to screw each other over. I mean, this caravan isn’t carrying that much stuff. Even if they manage to steal all of it it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth. They would have had to teleport people over here. That’s not cheap. Both guilds just seem to not care about anything but pride.” Winston said, honestly confused.

“It’s… complicated.” Therion said, sounding tired.

“Doesn’t seem that complicated.” Winston said.

“That’s because you only see it from your perspective. You’re just starting out. You’re poor, gold is very precious to you. You need it both for your in game activities and for things in real life. To you wasting 20,000 gold just to spite someone is idiotic, but you’ve gotta realize that the people making the calls are rich. They run the whole guild. They get money from streams and sponsorships that’s more than enough to live comfortably on. To them this is still a game. The swords have some of the best MMO gamers in the world, but they aren’t good managers. They aren't trying to get the same thing out of the game that you are. They aren't trying to build their empire. They are just having fun.”

Winston thought about that. He couldn’t really argue with it but he still thought they were idiots. Then again they ran the most powerful guild in otherworld and he was just a punk kid trying to make some gold by farming.

“Still, you might be right about the ambush.” Therion said as he laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. The blade was laying on the seat next to him and it gleamed in the morning sun.

Nothing happened for nearly an hour as the convoy continued it’s plodding way towards Verith. That was when the ambushed happened. There was no warning but Therion apparently didn’t need one. He moved faster than Winston could see. There was a loud ‘ping’ and chips of wood hit Winston’s face as Therion blocked an arrow that would have hit him right in his eye.

Winston gaped for a moment before Therion twisted in his seat to looked out across the grasslands. A female elf with a bow stood about sixty yards from the road as she raised her bow for another shot.

“Shit.” Therion swore as a dozen dozen horsemen charged down the road in front of the wagon. The scene dissolved into confusion as the sword’s wheeled their horses and charged out to meet them. The archer was still there and power started to radiate from her as she pulled back her bow to fire another arrow..

The arrow on her bow started to glow. First an off gray color, then it darkened to black and the grass around her started to wither and die. Therion swung his sword in her direction as she released her arrow. Light flashed for a moment before the two attacks collided in the air. The explosion of energies smashed apart the wagon and sent Winston flying sideways until he hit the packed dirt of the road and rolled in a bouncing heap of flailing limb until he came to a stop.

He raised his head in time to see the battle had descended into general chaos. Spells flew back and forth, while swords clashed against shields. Winston saw a horse go down as a flail smashed into the animals knee, sending the rider flipping onto the ground. A lightning bolt from somewhere cut down another fighter as he was battling two others.It was general mayhem and Winston couldn’t even tell who was on who’s team .

Winston army-crawled into the tall grass at the edge of the road and tired to think inconspicuous thoughts. This battle was way out of his weight-class. He was a farmer. He didn’t even have a weight class.

Winston watched as the battle gained in ferocity. The guards from the swords fought well but they were outnumbered over overmatched. Therion seemed to have his hands full with the archer, but still managed to kill three of the Crimsun’s on his own. The problem was he just didn’t have enough stamina. That sword beam attack he used consumed a lot of stamina and they were wearing him down.

Winston thought about his options. He couldn’t really impact the fight. Then again, they were likely closer to the city than the keep. If he died he’d probably end up in town anyway. Maybe he should have just stayed in bed. He felt like hell anyway and the tumble off the wagon hadn’t helped.

Therion dodged another black life-snatching arrow and fired off two more of his sword-qi attacks, or whatever the hell he used. The archer dodged one and fired off another arrow to explode the second. The last two Sword’s guards were fighting back to back against six Crimsun’s and Winston decided to take the better part of valor and get out.

He got up to a crouch then started to move away from the fight keeping his head down and moving between the sparse shrubs to try and hide the best he could. He made it to a copse of scraggly trees before he felt safe enough to stop.

That left him in the middle of nowhere with no mount or wheels and a group of hostiles on the only road between him and civilization. He rubbed his aching head. It would be a long walk to the city and he had to get to Ruger’s contact to have his berries teleported to the starter continent.

He was getting readying to start walking when something cold touched his neck. Winston froze as a feminine voice spoke into his ear.

“Don’t move or I’ll open your throat.”

Winston blinked a few times, recognizing the voice. Then he asked in a confused voice. “Jessica?”

The figure behind him paused and moved around him until Winston was looking at an attractive dark elf with Jessica’s face. She was dressed in tight black leather and wore it well. A faint smell of orchids and cinnamon came from her as she stood close to Winston with her knife still at his neck. He did his best to remind himself he had a sort of girl friend and that he didn’t particularly like Jessica. Still, with her standing right next to him his hormones were trying to by-pass his common sense.

“Who are you and how do you know me.” She asked, her hand was steady but her eyes were already slicing him into pieces.

“Because your the one that got me this crappy job. And why are you here interrogating me instead of helping Therion with those Crimsun’s.” Winston snapped back at her.

Her face scrunched up a bit in thought before her eyes widened slightly.”Winston? What the hell are you doing out here?”

“I was gonna ask you that. I got stuck out here by the guild. I was riding the caravan into the city to sell some goods.” Winston said. “That doesn’t explain why your out here, or why your still holding a knife to my neck.”

Jessica blinked at him the put away the knife and took a step back. A scowl made its way onto her pretty face. “The guild put up a mission to come watch the fight and see how the caravan guards did. They got crushed in less than three minutes, it’s was sad.” She said heartlessly.

“If you’d have taken that archer with your sneaky assassin powers you Therion would have pasted the rest of them.” Winston said. “Why didn’t you step in?”

“I could have but that would have saved both the guards and Therion, neither of which the guild officers are too happy with at the moment or they’d be raiding dungeons instead of stuck out here. Also, Therion we can stick out here in the hinterland without too much consequence because everyone knows the guild is mad at him. If I step it’ll be another guild officer out here in the middle of nowhere and then the Crimsun’s will wonder why we care so much about this outpost. They’ll send even more people out here just to find out what we are doing.” Jessica explained.

Winston tried to wrap his head around the logic and came up with nothing. The guilds actions were totally crazy. “That’s not logical. If your willing to sacrifice a months worth of a goods just for a smoke screen and a test that’s one thing, but then why would you have sent reinforcements to begin with? That’s like saying the goods are important but aren’t important.”

“No, it’s saying that the program is important but this shipment isn’t. This is only the first load. Now that the harvesters have gained more skill levels the next one will be bigger and we’ll have already established were willing to defend the shipments with man power from the main guild but not too seriously. They lost more money to portal in raiders than we did by losing the shipment. We can protect it best by showing we don’t care about it.”

“The guards will hang around on Lunari until next month then they’ll come back to the keep and we’ll do it over again. Next time the Crimsun’s likely won’t bother and the guild will get their goods.” Jessica said.

“Politics….” Winston muttered darkly. He still didn’t get it but it didn’t really matter to him. If the guild wanted to piss away their money and do stupid things. Winston didn’t care, his quota would stay the same regardless. It wasn’t his money. He just had to hand over the crops. It didn’t matter to him if the guild threw them away afterwards.

“Common, my mount is over here in the trees.” Jessica said as she turned and headed into the trees.

“What?”

“You need a ride to Verith and my work here is done. I’ll catch the merchant portal to Sword’s Bastion. There are no guild goods to ship but the mage will still pop the portal. The guild already signed the contract with the merchants. So you might as well come with me. I’ll drop you off in town.” She said.

The two moved through the woods until we came to Jessica’s mount. It was a black tricorn with scales along its neck and teeth that did not look like they belonged on an horse. It’s three horns were all slightly twisted giving the horse-creature a sinister appearance.

“Classy.” Winston said as he eyed the creature warily.

Jessica smiled and it was a killer look. She did have a great smile. “Shela won't hurt you. She doesn’t really like men, but it’s only a few hours ride to the city. Now get on.”

Jessica had to help him up onto the creatures back. His legs were too short to get up myself. He wrapped my arms around Jessica’s waist and tried to ignore the feel of her body under the leather. He felt vaguely guilty and didn’t even know why.

The two rode in silence over the rolling plains until Jessica spoke some time later. “Sooo, how’s Josh doing?” She asked, her voice small and tentative.

Winston took one arm away from Jessica’s waist and rubbed his forehead. It wasn’t like no-one had ever tried to get to Josh through him before but seeing Jessica do it? It was just weird. He wasn’t sure what had really happened between the two. They were the king and queen of the school and they’d dated for about two months last year year. He’d never heard the whole story but they’d had some sort of big blow up.

“Pretty well honestly. The football team is doing well and he’s already got offers from quite a few schools. I doubt he could start at a division one school but he could be a back-up. There’s also a bunch of smaller schools chasing after him so it’s basically just down to where he wants to go. Assuming he doesn’t tear out his throwing shoulder or something before the seasons over.” Winston said.

“I don’t mean that. I mean….” She paused for a breath. “How’s he doing, personally?” She asked, her voice not sounding like it’s normal confidant self. Winston rolled his eyes so hard he thought they might stick.

“You mean, does he ever talk about you?” Winston said.

“No, well, kinda…….. I just miss him alright.”

“No.” Winston said honestly. “He doesn’t talk about you.” He felt her stiffen with the arm still around her. “Before you get super depressed. The fact he never talks about you says something. He always talks about the girls he dates. Not like graphic details but he talks about them. You he never mentions. That means something. I don’t know what. He never talked about what happened between you two. If you managed to piss him off as much as you did though it must have been something epic.”

Her body was rigid for a moment before she seemed to deflate. It was an odd look for her. She was always so in command and when she wasn’t it was generally an act. Now she seemed truly vulnerable. Maybe she’d really loved Josh. Most high-school relationships were infatuation and hormones as far as he could tell but there were exceptions. He thought of Trish and a a stupid smile crept onto his face. He pushed away the thought and sighed. This wasn’t his problem.

“Do you think you might….” She started.

“No.” Winston said firmly. “If you want to talk to him. Do it yourself. I’m not going to run notes between you two like it’s middle-school.” Winston said. Jessica fell into a sullen silence as Winston shook his head in exasperation. Then he spoke up again, against his better judgement.

“If you want to talk to him, be sincere. Like you are now. Don’t try and BS him. He hates that.”

It was only mid-morning in game when Jessica’s mount galloped into the city. Winston felt

miserable. The fast gallop of her mount hadn’t helped his head and now his stomach seemed to be rebelling as well. Jessica reigned the horse to a stop and Winston stumbled to the ground, wobbling on his unsteady legs. He waved to Jessica who didn’t even say goodbye before she rode off.

That left Winston in town needing to meet up with a merchant to ship his berries. He’d gotten the meeting location from Ruger, so Winston walked to one of the local taverns, wishing he could just go back to bed.

The tavern was bustling when Winston finally found it. It was Saturday and the place was full of NPC’s eating lunch and a few players sitting at the tables in their armor. The merchant was an older dwarf with shoulders about a meter wide.. He had a round ruddy face and gray at his temples and streaking his long braided beard.

He sat at a lopsided table and sipped at a ale in a large wooden mug. Winston slid into the table and the man looked up from his drink. So, your the kid I’m supposed to be getting something from. Winston shrugged at him.

“I think so. Your AleHeart right? Ruger wanted me to send some berries back to the starter continent.” Winston explained.

“Well, as long as it’s not too much it shouldn’t be a problem. Wagon is out back, just go put them in one of the bags tied on the side.” He said, not really paying attention to Winston. It was clear he was just doing this as a favor and didn’t really care about Winston one way or the other. That was fine with Winston. He couldn’t say he really cared much about the merchant but that could just be his antisocial tendencies talking.

Winston did as the man told him then logged out. He felt like crap and just wanted to go back to bed.