“Left……” Winston said slowly around the nail in his mouth.. He was perched on a wooden beam holding one end of another beam as Jason carefully moved the other-end. Winston had to keep his end secured to one of the support poles as Jason moved it along the outside wall. The beam rotated a few inches to Winston’s right. “A little more left….. Nope too far…. Right there” Winston said. Jason let the timber fall slowly and it slotted nicely into the place on top of earthen wall Winston had managed to construct. Winston started hammering on his end, using the nails and brackets he’d brought to bind everything together.

Making the mud-wall hadn’t taken long. Since one side could be as thick as needed Winston had only needed to worry about things collapsing in one direction. With his claws and a bit of earth magic Winston had managed to build the wall nearly four-feet high without too much difficulty. With how far down he’d dug the floor it made for a decent, if low-ceilinged building.

“Thanks man…..” Winston said as he clambered off the roof.. “I have no idea how I would have done that myself.”

The large crocodile man shrugged as he dusted off his scaled hands.

“What are friends for? But it still pisses me off you’re stronger than I am.” Jason complined.

“I do physical labor all the time and I level slowly. It means I get a lot of strength each level.” Winston explained, for at least the sixth time that day. “It’s not like you couldn’t beat me up in a few seconds.”

“I know, I know, but it’s stupid. I’m this giant crocodile guy and you can still out arm wrestle me.”

Winston ignored Jason’s whining and looked over his creation. It wasn’t exactly hexagonal like it was supposed to be, two edges had come out more than a bit rounded than the plans had called for but all that would get covered up anyway.The more worrying part was the roof. The slope was not quite right. It wasn’t off by a lot but it was off. It was sub-par work overall.

Then again it was his first project. Winston hadn’t been expecting a masterpiece. The house was mostly for storage and so he didn’t get eaten by a tiger or something when he was logged out. As long as it didn’t fall down Winston was happy enough. He’d already survived a week outdoors but he didn’t want to keep betting on the forbearance of the zone’s wildlife.

“Alright, I’m heading deeper into the jungle. Gonna chop some more trees and I’ve also got a quest I’m working on.” Jason said as he picked up his axes and headed out. Winston waved, and looked over his land. It was Friday, and Winston had spent the week clearing land and planting trees.

His new farm was a rough square and Winston had separated it into four main sections. Coffee tree’s to the north-east, orange trees to the north-west, pears and apples split evenly to the south west, and chocolate trees to the south-east. 16 trees in each section. The rock formation was on the north side of his land and the Hound’s base was off the West. The land didn’t have many landmarks, other than the road, which was along the South edge of the property and the deeper jungle off farther north. Winston was happy with it overall. He’d probably go bigger eventually, but he wanted to get a feel for how much work he already had on his hands before he made changes.

Winston grabbed a ladder and some boards and climbed back up to the roof. It was the last thing he needed to finish. They’d flatted the beams on top side so Winston was easily able to nail down wooden planks over them. Once he had a decent base, the clay tiles would go on top to make the thing waterproof.

Winston spent the next two hours hammering nails and carrying boards. The tiles took another two hours and the night was coming on when Winston finally finished up. It was Friday, so he could stay up if needed but he wanted to get this done. He worked another hour before he placed the last tile. The building was slightly off, but stable and Winston was happy he’d finally have a roof over his head.

Winston smiled as his screen flashed with a notification.

[Your Construction Skill Has Ranked Up!]

[Current Rank: Novice III]

He was finally done. His new farm was up, his house, or at least the mud hut he’d just made was built and two acres of trees were planted. It felt good. Now he hat least had a functioning farm. Now he just needed to finish up the 1000 other things he needed to do to get this place off the ground.

Winston climbed down and walked towards the middle of the farm. While he’d been working on his house he’d had his golem working on everything else. First it was clearing all the trees and foliage. Then it was making paths between the sections of his orchard. Although not true roads, they were at least decent footpaths and places he could use the wheelbarrows he’d bought. It looked decent, if not great. Once he got more established he’d buy some gravel and make some better paths.

Once Winston reached the the exact center of the farm he stopped and reached for the amulet hanging from his neck. He pulled it out reverently and sat it on the ground. Then reached into his pack and pulled out his last divinite crystals.

He didn’t try any fancy speeches. Instead he placed the crystals on each side of the altar and knelt. He poured out his faith into shrine as he spoke a simple prayer.

“Oh, Runa, Goddess of the Harvest. I dedicate this farm unto thee.”

There was a crack of thunder and the earth shook. Winston kept pouring out his faith but didn’t raise his head to look at the shrine. His UI flashed.

[Your Runa Skill Has Increased]

[Current Skill: Apprentice I]

[You Have Learned A New Skill]

[Stable Foundations]

[Followers of Runa seek stability in all things. A firm foundation is the method by which one can reach forward. As such, priests of Runa seek stability more than efficacy.]

[Activation: Passive/Always Active]

[Cost: N/A]

[Rank: N/A]

[Effect: Increase the duration of all blessings by 50%]

“Rise….”

The voice was deep, commanding, but with an oddly feminine warmth. Winston jerked in surprise and raised his head. A woman stood over him, or a female anyway. She was huge, nearly nine feet tall and with heavy muscular limbs. She wore silver robe covered in light blue sigils, that matched her long blue hair, but the clothing did little to hide her extremely female proportions. She wasn’t exactly attractive but Winston couldn’t deny the creature had a bizarre sort of appeal.

Her face was symmetrical but blunt and strong with only a touch of female delicacy. Her brow and cheekbones were heavy and a large third eye sat in the middle of her forehead.

“You have done well. You have grown in wealth and power. You have used your skills to feed the people and have even brought my name to another continent, but if you wish to wield more of my power you must do more.” The Goddess’s Avatar said. Winston was smart enough to figure out who she was without help.

“God’s need faith and I have but one follower. Still, there are ways. The old ways. Before any you upright races appeared. Back when it was only the beasts, the dragons, and the gods. If I cannot have people. I must have land.”

“Well, I did dedicate this farm to you.” Winston said. He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. The divine had rather bizarre rules in Otherworld. He’d heard of gods and goddess appearing to players, in fact it happened all the time for anyone who was focusing on faith but he’d never heard of any sort of land claiming system.

“Yes, that is why I was able to manifest an avatar. You’re task though is a more difficult one. The ancient covenants must be fulfilled. A sanctum requires a great deal of work to set-up and you are my only agent.” Runa explained.

“What kind of set-up.” Winston said suspiciously. He did need a side-project until his trees grew and that would take another week at least. He just wasn’t sure how much he wanted to commit to.

“A divine sanctum requires three things. The god or goddess must have a shrine in each village in an area, if there are any. The champion of the former ruling god must be killed, and the boss of the highest level dungeon much be slain and it’s treasure sacrificed in my name.” Runa said.

Winston goggled at her. “You want me to do what?” He asked incredulously.

“You must conquer the nearby dungeon, kill the champion of Grisith, and convince the three closest villages to build a shrine to me.” Runa elaborated.

“That does not help at all.” Winston said. “Let along killing some sort divine champion, I also need to conquer a dungeon? How is that even possible? I’m a farmer.”

Runa didn’t say anything. Instead she just faded away. Leaving Winston looking at the re-grown shrine. It stood out quite sharply from the landscape around it. It was the only thing made of brick in nearly a mile. The flowers in the beds surrounding it had begun to sprout once again and blue and silver fire blazed from the braiser on top.

[You Have Received A Divine Mandate]

[The Goddess Runa has tasked you with helping her claim Jogda has a sanctum. To do so you must complete a series of tasks.]

[Task: Convince three villages to build a shrine to Runa 0/3]

[Kill the divine champion of Grisith 0/1]

[Sacrifice the boss loot form Jugda Caverns 0/1]

[Reward for Success: Improved Relations with the Goddess Runa, A Divine Power, Experience]

[Warning: Divine Mandates are not like quests. They are not optional and failure to complete them will result in a complete loss of skill ranks with the applicable God or Goddess.]

Winston frowned at the message. The villages he at least had a plan for. He could try to bribe them with food, or do quests for them to raise his fame. The problem was the other options. He could likely bribe someone to kill the champion. Jason would be the first pick but a dungeon took a full team. Maybe Trish would help him? She could likely slaughter the whole place without much trouble.

Well, that was a project for later in the weekend. Jason wasn’t even here right now. Maybe when Brad got arrived to work on the wards they might be able to take a swing at the dungeon. Winston was pretty sure he’d just be getting carried, but it would at least give him some options.

Winston waved down his golem. Then he commanded it to start moving all his supplies into the hut and out of the rain. Then he went inside and logged off.

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

Scalding hot winds howled outside the massive tent the Swords of Solomon had constructed as their forward base in the Firelands. The tent was sutur-hide, a type of fire giant so it kept out the worst of the burning heat, but the wind was still a nuisance, as the cloth of the tent snapped and fluttered with the raging winds.

The firelands were huge plain of cracked earth and jutting block rock. Magma bubbled up to the surface all over making travel into a winding slog across a burning landscape filled with monsters made of stone and fire. The only plants were twisted gnarled vines of jagged thorns. It was hell, and the reason most players never bothered stopping by. The only reason to come was the occasional raid dungeon or wandering boss spawning. That was true until the new expansion had dropped. Now a massive floating island hung above the firelands and all the top guilds in the game were rushing to get up there and explore the new territory.

“Gods this place is awful.” Growled a massive dark-furred wolfman as he found an empty spot on the floor and sat. The test was already full as the other guild officers found seats. Even though the surtr-hair tent blocked most of the heat from outside all the bodies inside were still raising the temperature.

A man in slate-gray armor stood in front of a short table looking down at everyone in the room. He looked haggard and the scowl on his face matched the expressions of most people in the room.

“Now that Karnag is here we can get started. Sariel, what do we know?” The leader of the Swords of Solomon asked his spymaster.

“The cloud kingdom has been open since the expansion dropped. That was nine days ago. We had two members with connecting quests that would have allowed us a way up but both were sabotaged. One by the Crimson Sun’s and one the by Rebel Alliance, as they are calling themselves. The Crimson’s burned down an entire block in Trith Ma’hai to make sure they killed the quest giver before our guy could turn it in. The Rebel's on the other-hand just bought our guild member a Camaro and a trunk full of beer so he’d jump ship and join them.

The Crimsun’s tried to use some burner accounts but apparently the dev’s weren’t having it. The entire guild is now KOS anywhere on Freedsmarch to any player not in the guild. That’ll give us a huge advantage in the long run but they did accomplish their goal. We’ve got no path to the new floating continent. There are five guilds that did succeeded and they are selling passage for a premium.” The undine said in her east-coast accent.

“I understand that part, the part I don’t understand is why if they are selling we haven’t been buying.” The guild leader said. His voice was tense and flat. It was clear to everyone he was pissed. “Everyday were burning more money and time out here and we’ve got nothing to show for it.”

“We’ve approached all five guilds and offered each of them 100,000 gold. They all refused.” Sarial replied. “We could offer more but we don’t really have the money to offer much more.”

“They didn't it just refuse. They told us to blow it out our ass.”Simon, the Snifirblin said some his seat. He waved dark skinned hand, weighed down with heavy rings. “Apparently you can only be an asshole to everyone for so long before it comes back on you.”

“It’s not like we’re the only guild that throws our weight around, we aren't even the worst ones.” Lidrian a human woman with a mohawk complained.

“It doesn’t matter why they are doing it.” Said the leader. “It just matters that they are. We need solutions not complaints and excuses.” The room fell silent and the conversation lapsed for at least a minute before the leader snapped.

“NOTHING!, We’re the top guild in the United States and we don’t have one damn solution!” The leader snapped.

“I’d say closer to second or third at this point.” Simon said. Everyone in the room glared at him but he just shrugged. “What? You were all thinking it. Just because you don’t want something to be true doesn’t mean it’s not true. We’ve been sliding for months, maybe a year. This is just one more failure in a long line of failures. Still, there might be one solution, but I was really hoping to hold onto it.” The people in the room muttered but no-one contradicted him.

“Just… Tell us…” The guild leader said through gritted teeth.

“The Gaia seed.” Simon said. Unlike what he was expecting the room didn’t erupt. In fact everyone inside just started at Simon in confusion.

“Really? I mean, I know I wasn’t part of the guild back then but I figured at least a few of you would know about it. It was one of the first raid loots that the guild ever got.” Simon said. “I saw it the other-day when I was rummaging around the guild’s vault.”

“We’re going to need some more explanation.” The guild leader said.

“The Gaia seed is a mythical drop, although it should probably be legendary. The guild got it back when the game first launched when the AI’s gave out some pretty bizarre loot. It will grow into any single plant. Which is really broken. I was hoping to use it to grow a massive tree and wipe out a kingdom somewhere eventually, but we could just grow it here and Jack and the Beanstalk it.” Simon said. “It’s the traditional way of getting to a new land in the sky. Hell, it might even be what the stupid seed was meant to do in the first place.”

“Alright then. Let’s do it.” The guild-leader said. “I do remember getting it, now that you mention it. Honestly though, It never seemed good for much. ” Simon just shook his head.

“One problem. It can only be planted and grown by someone with at least 10 levels in class that grants herbalism or farming as a primary skill. We don’t have anyone like that. All the famers we hired on to slave for us are still around level six or seven. We could raise someone from 0 pretty fast them have them chose a class once they get to ten 10, but it would still take at least five days and the character would be junk afterwards.” Simon explained.

There was a soft cough from the corner of the tent. Therion sat there on a three legged stool in his shining silver armor. His achievements in Brethren Plains had gotten him off the guild’s shitlist and this was the first officers meeting he’d been to in half a year. “I actually might know someone, but it will cost you.”