The trip to the village started again, and this time there was one more addition. The girl’s name was Elina, and she’s the sole survivor of the homestead that cost all the rest of her family their lives. Bena was comforting her as the carriage finally began to move again. They were at the homestead for two hours to allow the wolves to be looted and the burial of Elina’s three family members. She had lost her parents and little brother in the wolf attack.

GCO had random occurrences that players or other natives could intervene in. These were a true sense of the word Non player characters. These random occurrences only happened in Lord areas, and only when a player was present. In other words, if he hadn’t been in the carriage the occurrence wouldn’t of been generated. These events were timed so there was a little luck involved in finding and saving them. This time only Elina had survived, and by taking her with them he could add one more person to his village.

This was just another example of how unique the Lord system was in GCO. The chances of him coming across this occurrence wasn’t high, so it was a lucky break for him. Some of Zen’s skills had also increased in the battle, as his archery and sword skills rose half way up to level 1. He also received a total of 8 combat experience and surprisingly his level in Lord’s Aura had raised 12%. He still wasn’t sure what triggered the raise of the Lord’s Aura, and had to do a better job of noticing that.

The trip in to Coral Heights only took about ten more minutes, and as they approached the gates he realized that this village wasn’t much more than a grouping of homesteads. They were surrounded by a very poorly made wooden wall, and a gate that looked like it had to be drug in to place. The sight of his carriage must have been eye catching, because as they went through the open gates a group of villagers were standing still staring at them.

“Bena I don’t see more than a dozen shacks and huts here.” Sighed Zen. “Also this location isn’t defensible at all.”

“We should probably wait to build the manor till you find a better location for the village.” Suggested Bena. “There should be a manor house here, so you can wait to update till we choose a new place.”

“Agreed.” Zen said. “When we take control of the altar I need you to do a full review of what we have to work with. You can take Elina with you if she wants.”

“Yes my lord.” Bena said as she turned to Elina and smiled.

The carriage finally stopped and the door open and Zen stepped out on to the muddy ground. The inner part of the village looked worse than from the outside, and Zen could tell that these people lived a very hard life. There were at least a few dozen people standing watching him, and as he moved forward he could see Bena and Elina come down from the carriage behind him. He gazed over the area and his eyes stopped on a long stone pillar that’s stood near the middle of the open area. Zen recognized it as the altar right away, and with two of his guards walking with him he headed right for it.

A altar came in a number of different shapes and sizes, and in the large cities it was typically a temple. Here it was just a stone pole that was covered by mud and vines, but even in its appearance it was a holy altar. Zen walked up to the altar and stopped a few feet away before taking out his medallion, that had been given to him by the emperor. He took a large step right up beside the pole and he touched the pole with the medallion, and suddenly a blue energy transferred from the medallion into the altar and all the mud and vines fell away dropping to the ground.

The blue energy verified that Zen’s the true lord of this territory, and this has been verified under the gods. The blue energy circled around Zen and suddenly a pulse of energy expanded out from the altar, and passed through everybody in the village. A separate ball of energy shot up into the air, and created a dome that covered everything, extending outward over the village like a shield by the gods. The villagers all dropped to there knees and bowed to Zen. This included his four guards, and surprisingly Bena and Elina also.

Zen turned around with the blue aura still around him and exclaimed. “Villagers of Coral Heights, my name is Zen Martell, and I have been decreed by the heavens and the emperor as your lord. Those that serve me well will be treated in kind, and those that threaten me and my subjects will suffer my wrath. Be steadfast in your service and we will build a better future together.”

A number of blue balls of energy rose in the air and broke into small pieces, before shooting forth and entering the villagers and all in his retinue. A number of people that weren’t in the area near the altar came from where ever they had been and kneeled. Zen was impressed with the ceremony and he turned back to the altar and placed his hand on it. Bena was next followed by Elina as they walked past Zen and placed there hand on the altar. Slowly the villagers started to rise and do the same before returning to where they knelt before.

Zen could see the hope in there eyes and he could only smile brightly. The last villager had touched the altar and then returned waiting for there new lord to speak. Zen put his hand to his heart and then finally spoke. “I know your life is hard and many creatures have caused dangers beyond imagination, but I will work to improve the condition just like I ask you to aid me in doing so. Go forth and continue doing what must be done while we do what we must to keep you safe.”

The villagers did exactly that and they went back to there homes and tasks leaving only those that came with Zen there. Zen chuckled inwardly at the fact this type of reaction could only happen in a virtual game, but he didn’t say anything as he nodded to everybody to follow. He walked back to the carriage gazing around trying to absorb as much information as he could.

“Banick send somebody to find the lord’s manor.” Zen commanded. “We will have to live with that until we set up something in a better location.”

“Yes sir.” Banick retorted as he organized the search.

The process of finding the manor didn’t take to long, and as they entered the manor Bena and Elina directly started to clean. Zen on the other hand needed to go to his office, because that was the location of the portal to his sanctuary. One of the coolest features of GCO was the sanctuary system for Lords. GCO knew that playing a Lord was more difficult and time consuming, and most of players playing it were wealthy people in the real world. They balanced everything by creating the sanctuary system which allowed a player to plan and control there territory with more time.

In most virtual reality games, there is a time differential between real life and virtual life. This is because a person’s body can only handle so much, but there mind is much more flexible. This allows games like GCO to give the impression that multiple days are occurring in virtual reality but in reality only one day goes by. GCO runs on a 4 to 1 compression, which means that four days in the game world pass before 1 day in real world. The game has to use a balanced time frame, because it wouldn’t work properly if each person’s compression rate was different.

The sanctuaries though were different because they were private spaces. This allowed them to exceed the 4 to 1 ratio. The game scans and monitors to make sure that to much pressure isn’t put on the consciousness of the player, and Zen’s ratio was at 11 to 1. Which means that while in his sanctuary, Zen has almost 3 times more than other standard players to plan, train and manage his territory.

Zen walked over to the small office in the manor and opened the door revealing a worn wooden desk and chairs. There was a long table off to the side with another set of chairs around it. He shut the door and walked behind the wooden desk where there was a glowing white portal that only he could see, and with out hesitation he walked through it to his sanctuary.

A sanctuary is something that is suppose to be a place where the lord is comfortable, and thus the designs of sanctuaries differ from player to player. Zen didn’t go the garden of Eden route, instead he made it into a lush apartment that was similar to that of his grandfathers. It was a scar from his past that changed his life and in the end brought him to GCO.

The main area had lush couches, that were in front of a large monitor, that could view raw streams people posted in GCO. There were other areas of relaxation from exercise equipment to a meditation chamber, but the most important tool in the sanctuary was the giant table in the middle. The table was a three dimensional representation of his territory and including all the information on those that reside in it. There he can plan to use the villagers and his direct troops in the best way possible. Sitting at that table was a woman dressed in slacks and a t-shirt with long brown hair and eyes. She was doing research and eating a bowl of popcorn.

This woman looked very similar to Bena except younger, and why her avatar was currently cleaning the manor with Elina, she was relaxing here. She was still his AI and she was doing the tasks that he set before her previously, but what surprised Zen the most was how humanlike she was in personality. If he didn’t know she was a AI he doubted he would ever guess it.

“So what does it look like Bena?” Zen questioned as he approached the table.

“Well our scarcest resource currently is manpower.” She looked at him as she tossed a few kernels of popcorn into her mouth.

“What do you think we should do?” Zen asked. “Buy some slaves to compensate?”

“Good idea but I would make them indentured slaves.” She suggested. “They will cause the loyalty of your villagers to be less, and if you give them a opportunity to gain their freedom it will take less time to gain their loyalty as well.”

“What about funds?”

“That is one area you don’t have to worry about.” She giggled. “You are loaded with currency. So much that it is shocking to see. I am sure that they will fix this exploit in the next patch so nobody else can use it.”

Bena hit a few keys and brought up the assets that he currently had, and even Zen was shocked. He normally would of got a city with at least 20,000 villagers for his platinum VIP status. He instead shunned the fame and prestige that a city like that gave him, and basically gutted it completely. When sacking a city of that size the funds earned were usually 5% of the overall worth, but the system gave him 100% of the worth as compensation and it was something that couldn’t be taken away. They did mitigate it by putting in barriers, but they weren’t anything that his funds couldn’t handle.

The fact he had all these assets to work with didn’t actually make Zen as overjoyed as most. He had grown up with money, and in his opinion, that money had caused his family to be corrupted completely. He probably would of gone down that path as well if his grandfather hadn’t taken him under his guidance. He wasn’t a angel and wasn’t somebody that could avoid temptation like a saint, but compared to his family he was closer to human.

“Bena have you found any locations the village would be able to prosper at?”

“You received a general map of the area around Coral Heights, but nothing is marked besides topography. There are two locations that seem better than the rest, but you will have to go check them out to be sure. That way what you find will be added to the maps as you explore.” Bena explained.

“Well that won’t be to much of a problem, because the one thing I am experience in is mapping.” Zen chuckled. “Give me a list of things that have to be done right away and I will see what I can do.”

“Already done with it.” Bena said. “These next few days are going to be very interesting.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Telling you will take the fun out of it.” Smiled Bena.