Horn sipped his hot chocolate. Around him, in one of the conference rooms in the Gaia compound, sat Dimitri and his analytical team. They listened to his update from the last two days that the stream didn’t cover yet.

He decided to leave the game early, as he was at a crossroads. He could see four courses of action, each had its merits, but he couldn’t decide on any.

Firstly, the Scourge was coming closer with each day, unopposed and probably increasing in power. He wanted to start harassing it, he had good shock cavalry, and for sure, the other players would be willing to join up, especially with the Scourge at their doors.

Secondly, he had the quest to evolve his class. Something that was sorely needed and probably would give him some army-wide bonuses. A must-have against the invasion. The issue was that it was completely opposite to the approaching army. On top of that, he had another quest in the same arena. To kill the basilisk, and Herrak said something about the treasure trove.

Thirdly, his developing city was still a mess. He had an amazing forge, a new cult, almost finishing with the arena to enter PvP. What’s more important, a strategic trade for rare resources. He had to finish House of Learning and start research. Study Faith mechanics and how to best utilize his points. There were a thousand things to do, not even mentioning defense refurbishment, and a dungeon that would unlock in several days.

Lastly, there was the big game to be played. Visiting Gibbins and other nearby players. Forging a coalition to stop the oncoming onslaught. That would take a lot of time. There was no fast travel in the game – yet.

Each option had its merits and downfalls. The issue at hand was that he couldn’t be everywhere. The distances alone made that impossible. He even thought about dying to get back home earlier, but he was sure there had to be some kind of mechanics in place to prevent that.

After a frustrating few days of going back and forth on his options, he decided to talk to his professional team out of the game. Beforehand, he gathered his advisors and got into last moment updates, and issued some more orders.

He asked Ingrid to focus on summoning more Warboars, as his own timer was still grayed out. He wanted a good-sized mounted force. He even issued a quest to do so, to reimburse part of the Essence. He knew his agreement with her covered that already, but he didn’t have anything to do with the Essence yet.

Goran was tasked with leading his troops through the dungeon. Trying to keep it under control to avoid a beast tide. Herrak was to gather his parties back at home. Horn was surprised to find that the adventurer managed to get six full five-dwarf parties summoned. With his own, that made seven in total. Two guarded the lower levels of mines. Horn’s soldiers would take over that. Another two were on the Arcane Crystal hunt, while the final two milled around scouting and doing adventurer’s stuff – a nice way to say murderhobo.

Sigrid and Portius were out of the town, hopefully soon starting his district and, more importantly, a spy network in Arvanti. Godfrey, his new addition, already managed to convert a few scores of his dwarves to worship Fortuna and trained his adepts. The priest told him he could help with training his spells. Which was another reason to stay home for a while.

Devonus, when he stopped whining about whipping Horn’s smiths, said that the first sets of armor were about to be finished. Horn couldn’t wait to see them. The duergar’s projections pointed to the possibility of getting five sets of heavy armor plus arms ready daily. The forge could produce ten times that, but he didn’t have enough smiths – or as the crazy gray dwarf said – slaves.

Grom had some good news. The next project should finish before Horn returned. The training arena was an easy build. On top of that, they would complete a Townhall around the same time.

However, when asked about the Shamanistic circle, the dwarf replied, “When yer start shitting arcane, then you’ll have yer fricking circle.” Not bothered by the dwarf, Horn ordered the construction to start. Cutting out massive obelisks and preparing them for the runes was a monumental task on its own.

The construction was the most resource-intensive work done in the city, but mostly he lacked enough builders. With the plethora of stonemasons in refugees that came from the challenge reward, he had enough raw stone, even timber to build, but not enough dwarfpower.

Before leaving, he spent his precious summon slots to bring up another two teams. Getting up to six in total. Each team consisted of ten builders and a constructor. Currently, two of them worked on rebuilding mountain pass forts, two worked on his critical buildings, while the freshly summoned took over building longhouses and smaller workshops.

The holovid next to him showed the results of the Portius census. He only skimmed over it in-game, but now it was the main point of discussion. Thankfully, his analysts were good in their job, so the census was updated with all his summons, even those he just told them about.

Basic workers:

Menial workers

43

Food production (excluding agriculture)

21

Food production (agriculture)

33

Animal caretakers

9

Food processing

27

Timber production

14

Stone production

42

Leather production

8

Miners

51

Servants

14

Builders

60

Basic crafters:

Smiths

20

Jewelers

6

Herbalists

1

Stone processing

11

Carpenters

4

Tailors

8

Utility crafters

21

Brewers

33

Bowyers

5

Constructor

6

Advanced crafters:

Runesmith

3

Enchanter

1

Scribes

2

Alchemists

2

Scholars

5

Quartermaster

1

Engineers

8

Architect

1

Basic fighter:

Warrior melee

83

Warrior ranged

36

Warrior raider

18

Advanced fighter:

Sergeant

14

Adept

30

Priest

1

Pathfinder

1

Shield breaker

1

Geomancer adept

7

Bard

1

Other:

Ex-Nobles

9

Spy adept

4

He commanded over six hundred sixty dwarves, not including his three champions. On top of that, Ingrid had another hundred under her, and Herrak was up to fifty, including the support staff of his guild. Horn could call on over eight hundred dwarves. All that in only a few weeks, when he started with a single champion.

Of course, not everything was peachy. Over half of them didn’t have a roof over their heads, not even saying about other comforts. Most owned only clothes on their backs, there was almost no industry, and his military was both untrained, underleveled, and had to exchange weapons each shift just to keep them armed.

However, each day changed that just a little bit. Each day, more buildings were finished, more arms came out of the forge, and more materials and other goods were created. The time was of the Essence, and there wasn’t much of it.

--

“… and with that, you have the extend of our challenges. So what now?” Horn finished his long summary.

The analysts stopped taking notes and looked at each other. A moment passed before the team leader – James – said, “We believe the situation is, in fact, simple. The Scourge is still quite far away. You’ll have at least a month of freedom. The first wave of players is to arrive within sixty-two days from now. Overall, based on what we could research, the hostiles are numbered in three thousand fighters. However, based on your positioning, the clan could easily outlast a long siege. Probably even deplete their numbers and force them to back off. This is the most viable strategy, turtle up and play for time. When players arrive, you’ll have a small army at your back. The popularity of your stream is high. We expect no less than five hundred players to join your settlement, and hopefully, the clan. With such an immortal army, they can deplete the attackers in a few days.”

Horn stared back at James. His solution was completely opposite of what he had in mind. Keeping on the defensive seemed like the worst scenario, but it made sense as he thought about that. His kind was the one to build the massive fortress and fight from the walls. However, he saw one of the analysts frowning.

“Adam, was it? You have other ideas?”

“Yes. The plan is sound, but it's limited and it's boring. We’re basing the assumption on keeping the viewers entertained to the point they join you. Sitting behind the walls for two months? Boring and risky.”

“Risky?” Horn asked with wonder,

“Yes. We’re basing the strategy on the premise that the enemies are stupid. Which is possibly the worst assumption you can make. They can count as good as we do, they have their own support teams out of the game, and they’re watching us even more closely than we are doing to them. We have to show a lot more footage than them. They won’t ever keep our timetable, nor they’ll go for a long siege. Either they’ll have a plan to storm the city, or they won’t attack at all. Of two, the second one seems improbable as you’ve publicly challenged them.”

“Dimitri,”

“Yes?” His manager asked,

“Whatever we’re paying him,” Horn pointed at Adam, “Double it. And you, keep on!”

“Thank you, so your first instincts are good. You have four development areas or even five of them. First of all, to keep the viewers engaged, you have to go for the quest from Fortuna. Dealing with a basilisk will only add to the drama. The fans remember the horrifying scene of a dwarf turned into stone. But, you don’t have to rush it. Start with visiting Gibbins, get a feel of his city, his loyalties, and try to wrestle some assurances. From there, you can visit some other tribes, get allies, get your spymaster on top of that. You have a few ex-nobles, they’re useless in the city, but I’m sure at least a few of them can be good diplomats. Get them a squad each for defense and send them out.”

“Sounds good, but what about the dungeon? City? Scourge approaching when I’m away?”

“Dungeon can wait. Your warriors are barely capable of clearing the first one. If any other games were a measurement, the next wings should have increasing difficulty. Regarding the city, besides making sure they have a long building queue and someone capable of solving day-to-day issues, what does your presence bring to its development?”

“I nee-“ Horn stopped before admitting, “Not too much. But the Scourge?”

Adam pointed at the holovid, which switched to a region map. It was still covered in blank spots but was much more detailed than the last time Horn saw it. His city was in the middle of the map, with a mountain range it sat upon, splitting it in two. The Sea of Grass covered at least a hundred miles on the northeast. On southeast swamps sprawled for half of that, ending in a giant lake. On the northwest, the familiar plains ended in a menacing Dark forest. In the middle of the former was Arvanti. On southwest steps or savannah took over another vast of land.

Here and there, smaller dots marked other tribes. The area was quite densely populated, but the see of grass seemed mainly empty. Horn was surprised to see so many tribes in a day’s ride from his capital. He had no idea they were there.

A pointer appeared, noting an area just on the map's border straight east of his location. “Here is where we estimate the current location of Scourge. Almost two hundred miles from you, but they’ll have to take a long detour to reach you. The Sea of Grass isn’t suited for moving a large army, with little possibilities for forage, they can’t survive.”

The pointer started making a line avoiding the grass as Adam continued, “If they go through most probable route, they’ll have to make additional hundred miles, and they’ll have to pass through two dozen settlements. Judging by their MO, they’ll raze them all. Each fight and looting will take at least a few hours. I’d say you have around forty days before they arrive. They should also be tired and miserable, as the last thirty miles would bring them through the swamps.”

“So twenty days before the arrival of players? That’s cutting close for their assault.”

“Not at all. When they reach you, they should have a plan to defeat you within a few days. That’s if you allow them to keep the timetable.”

Horn watched the map and saw one of the dots had a familiar name on the line that the Scourge would take. “Is that Ellaine’s clan?”

“Good spot. Yes, we’ve located her.”

“So if you’re suggesting I’ll take my time to get more allies and finish the quest, then I’m leaving her to get wiped.”

“Indeed, but you’re still thinking like a micromanager. You have some gaming experience, and you’ve led in some fights, but what do you know about guerilla war?”

“If I’m honest, not too much. I see where you’re going, but my dwarves don’t know a lot either. We don’t have any rebe-“ Horn paused, realizing his analyst’s plan, “Ingrid?”

“That what I was thinking. A force of sixty-seventy riders, with plenty of clerical support you now enjoy, sent to rendezvous with your ally and started slowing down the horde.”

“That might just work,” Horn replied, smiling

--

The meeting went on for a while, with suggestions from the rest of the team about building order, focus points, and a thousand other details Horn had no idea about – like a deficiency of leathers that would halt a lot of his crafting in a week, or the issue of drink water due to lack of aqueduct, or rather its collapsed state.

In the end, Horn’s head just steamed with information. He asked Adam and Dimitri to stay behind as the meeting wrapped up.

“Great job today. I’ve really needed this,” Horn said to the analyst.

“Just doing my job,” Adam replied.

“I need you in-game with me. You know your stuff, probably better then myself,”

“Thank, but no.”

“Why?”

“I’m not a player, never was good at it. I prefer planning from adventuring.”

“So? That’s the only issue? Not a problem. Most of my advisors don’t venture outside of the city. Aren’t you curious how you would do managing a dwarven city?”

The man stopped for a bit, “And you’d let me do this? Without double-checking every single decision I make?”

“Can’t promise that, but I’ll try.”

“I need to think about that,” Adam replied,

“Do that.” Turning towards his manager, Horn added, “Dimitry. Get him a capsule, just in case.”

--

After the meeting, Horn tried calling Ellaine, but with no success. She had to be still in the game. He left her a message, telling her when he should be back offline.

Checking his emails, he saw one from Gibbins,

Horn,

You still didn’t build an embassy. That’s unfortunate. We have to start communicating in-game. I hope you’ll read this message in time. I’ve arranged a meeting with several tribes. It’ll take place in Arvanti twelve days after this message. Hope to see you there.

Gibbins

Horn checked the time of the message. He still had a week before the meeting. If it wasn’t for his early logout, he’d miss it. Cursing, he swore to build an embassy as a priority, the lack of in-game communication was already an issue, and he knew it’d just grow in importance.

Beside Gibbins, there were a few messages from his family, he replied, even considered talking, but in the end, decided to skip it this time. Thankfully, as he was offline off schedule, nothing stopped him from hopping back in. There was too much to do. With just a short visit to the cafeteria to fill up on sweets, he called Charles.