Chapter 6 - Location Location...Location?

Abbigale was able to swiftly close the small distance between them and fell in step next to Harold.

They walked along together without talking for a while, Abbigale's curiosity on where he was leading them building as time went on. Finally, she reached the limit of her self control and was about to open her mouth when the silence was suddenly broken with a loud chuckle from Harold.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"It's nothing, I just realized I said a funny pun earlier," he replied.

"What pun? When?"

"Earlier when I said I would teach you something. It's funny because I'm actually a teacher. Well, a substitute, but it's still funny." he explained.

Abbigale stopped and looked at Harold in curiosity as he continued forward. "You're a teacher..." she murmured to herself.

Harold kept walking, turning to look back after a few steps to see why she stopped. He almost tripped and stumbled to catch himself when he did.

Abbigale was now kneeling, leaned forward to touch her forehead on the ground and had her hands placed on either side of her head.

"Wha-what are you doing?" he managed to stutter in confusion.

Abbigale lifted her head. When she met his gaze he saw a devilish light in her eyes. "Please teach me Senpai!" she exclaimed.

'Wait what? What?!?' Harold's thought in shock. 'I'm guilty of watching a few anime but come on! No one does that in real life! That's so..so..cringy!'

Abbigale burst out in laughter a few seconds later. "Oh my God, you should see the look on your face! Hahaha priceless!" She said clutching her sides while falling to roll on the ground, laughing uncontrollably.

Harold realized that she was making a joke at his expense and rather than dignify her with a response, he chose to scowl at her instead.

She managed to recover after a moment as her laughter receded and she pushed herself back onto her feet. She saw Harold was still scowling at her. "Oh come on sour puss, that was funny."

Still annoyed at her antics, Harold turned and started walking away again. "Hardy-har-har. I'm starting to think you're not even an AI. Just some other player pretending to be an advisor that they sent to annoy me."

Abbigale stared at Harold's back as he walked away, her face blank. He made it a dozen steps before she burst out in laughter again and ran to catch up to him. "Hahaha, that's rich! Me? A player?!? Haha, that's way funnier than your stupid pun earlier Teach." She clapped a hand on his bony shoulder and wiped away an imaginary tear from her eye.

He shrugged her hand off, "You're wasting time. And don't call me Teach, or Senpai, or anything else. My character's name is Thanatos."

Abbigale held both of her hands up defensively. "Okay, okay! Humor train has left the station! Only serious from here on out."

He didn't respond, continuing forward instead.

She sighed and dropped her hands. "Could you at least tell me where we're going that's so important that you wont use the Land Claim right now? I might be able to help."

He turned to look at her, trying to determine if she was actually taking things seriously. He nodded his head, deciding that she was being genuine, and explained his plan to her as they walked. "Where we spawned in at sucks. We are in the middle of a forest with no idea where anyone else is. We don't know who else spawned in our region or what their races are. If we start building our base in the middle of the woods then people can just sneak up on us at any time. Especially since someone could be playing giants or ogres or something and we couldn't see them coming. Even if we clear out the surrounding trees it will be hard to defend against a large enough force." 'Or a fucking dragon.' he thought silently, 'Worry about crossing that bridge when we get there.'

"Okay maybe, but you still haven't explained where we're going that's so much better." Abbigale pointed out.

"Do you have a map too? Open it up and see if you can tell." Harold told her.

She opened her map without saying anything further, much to Harold's surprise. He was expecting a quip or jab instead of her immediately following his direction.

Staring at her map she zoomed it out and moved it around as much as it would allow. She zoomed back in and out several times before giving up. She looked away from the map and asked Harold, "So what am I supposed to be looking for? All I can see is more forest."

Harold frowned at her, "Really? Here, share your map with me so I can see it."

Abbigale shared her map and Harold moved closer to view the screen. Before them her screen showed the same map that Harold's did when he accessed it earlier.

He pointed at a spot further along in the direction they had been heading. "It's right there."

Abbigale followed his finger where he pointed at the map but she could not tell anything special about it. "Yeah I still don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at. That's just more forest isn't it?"

Harold stared at her in disbelief. "Are you serious? You can't see the hill or the river right there?" he asked while tracing along a blue line that crossed the map.

"Well duh I can see the river," she scoffed. "I just don't see what's so special about a river. Plus, how can you tell there's a hill there? It just looks like more trees."

He shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, it's something about the way the trees are growing on the map. Even if I'm wrong and there isn't a hill, we should set up next to the river and not in the middle of the woods."

"Why?" she asked confused. "There won't be any difference to production and we'll still be in the forest, so all the stuff you are worried about is still a problem."

Harold shook his head. "I'll show you when we get there." With that he started heading toward their destination once more. Abbigale gave the map another glance before she closed the screen and followed her player.

* * *

"Have there been any major developments?" Jack asked as he walked into the room the tech team had setup, following his orders to watch the player. Several monitors were placed on tables around the room and a couple of cots were in the middle of being assembled in a corner.

One of the technicians looked up from his computer, "No sir Mr. Bormer. In fact, there hasn't been any developments at all."

Jack stared at the man intently. "Explain," he commanded.

The technician gulped nervously under Jack's withering glare. "Well sir, you see, he hasn't used his Land Claim yet. They've just been walking through the woods for the last hour."

"What do you mean he didn't use the Land Claim? Did Abbigale tell him not to activate it?" Jack couldn't understand why a new player wouldn't start his base immediately.

The technician shook his head. "The opposite in fact sir. She seems to be mostly following the Advisor Package and tried to get him to establish his faction right away, as is recommended within the package. He ignored her recommendation and started walking through the forest."

Jack moved over to stand beside the man and watched the stream playing on his monitor. On the display was a skeleton whose remains were cloaked in swirling crimson, giving the illusion of a ghostly body clinging to its former frame. Alongside the skeleton was a woman, her body and clothing in an obvious state of decay with bones protruding in several locations. Abbigale.

He recognized her avatar instantly, even though it had been five torturously long years since he had last seen it. In that brief moment he relived every failed attempt to retrieve her consciousness from the main server's clutches. Anguish at his failures combated the relief of seeing her again. Careful not to let his inner tormoil surface amongst his employees, he forcibly suppressed his emotions. He focused back to the skeleton player she was walking with.

"This player," he said tapping the display. "Everything is borne on his shoulders whether he realizes it or not. I want that complete list of permissions in my hands the moment it's finished. In the meantime, I know that main server allows quests to be sent from NPC villages. See what we can do to get this guy some quick Experience to power through the lower levels, he's going to have a hard enough time as it is playing as a skeleton in this round."

Another technician in the room spoke up. "Yes sir we can, but they have to be zone quests. The server will try to prevent that much individual influence. If we issue him a quest it will automatically send it to everyone else in the region as well."

Jack turned from watching the stream, nodding toward the speaker. "Do it anyway. As soon as he gets his base organized I want to try getting him something to help. We'll have to trust him to seize the opportunity and pull ahead."

He made eye contact and nodded to everyone in the room, once more turning back to watch the actions of the two on the monitor.

* * *

"Ooh! There's another Redcap!"

Abbigale hurried over to squat next to a tree a few feet away. Harold stopped and waited for her to finish harvesting the small, red mushroom growing on the bottom of the tree's trunk. She carefully plucked it from the tree with glee and sent it to her inventory to join the others she'd found along the way. She stood, brushing her hands off on her dress, and rejoined Harold where he was waiting.

"That makes nine Redcaps!" she said with a smile.

"What are they even used for?" Harold asked as they started walking again.

"They're the base ingredient for most of my starting potions," Abbigale informed him. "I can make a few things with my starting mortar and pestle, but the really cool stuff has to wait until you build me an alchemist station. Then things get fun."

Harold realized that although they had been walking for the last hour together, he had yet to ask about her class. "What kind of potions can you make? Should the station be something I make right away?"

She shook her head, "Nah, you won't be able to make it anyway. It requires glassblowing, which wont become available until you have a source of iron being worked. Until then I'll have to make do with my mortar." She then started listing off a variety of potions she had access to. "Health, Mana, Stamina, different Elemental Protections, a couple types of explosive flasks. If we find any high quality ingredients I can use them to make a potion with a random effect."

Harold was impressed. From what he could tell the alchemist class was exactly as he had suspected it to be. The explosive flasks sounded pretty good to have up one's sleeve in case of an emergency. He also made a mental note to have her make up a few health potions when she got the chance.

The two continued in this fashion, stopping every once in a while to allow Abbigale to collect some ingredients as they made their way along.

As they traveled, the trees grew thicker and taller. The distance between their trunks shrunk until Harold noticed there was barely enough room for himself and Abbigale to continue casually walking side by side. Often a growth would force one of them to follow the other around the obstacle before resuming their position from each other. He also discovered they had been walking at a slight incline that was gradually growing steeper as they went.

Soon the sound of running water in the distance reached their ears. The slope had increased drastically and the pair had to assist each other as they finished climbing the final hundred feet or so to the top.

Once they both reached the crest Harold was surprised he didn't need to pause to regain his energy. He found he wasn't even breathing hard despite such a steep climb. 'Yeah, I could get used to this. Normally I'd be dieing right now. I feel great.' he thought to himself.

The terrain at the top flattened out and the trees no longer grew so densely. Ahead of them the forest thinned until it almost reached the banks of the river Harold had seen on the map.

The two made their way over to investigate. The river was about thirty feet across and cut lazily through the forest. Its water was a murky grey, slowly flowing along in the midday sun. Harold found a lengthy stick and used it to probe the depth. While the water was shallow and gently lapped against the banks, after walking a third of the way across the depth plunged and Harold could no longer feel the bottom with his stick. He waded further upstream and downstream, checking the depth again multiple times before he left the water.

He met back with Abbigale, who'd waited on the shore while he was splashing around. Tossing his impromptu measuring rod into the river, he watched as it slowly bobbed on the surface until it drifted out of sight.

Harold nodded his head in satisfaction before turning to Abbigale.

"Alright this should work great. How big of an area does the Land Claim cover?" he asked.

Abbigale looked at him curiously. "It doesn't really cover anything. The Land Claim will summon a Claim for the area where you use it. Once you do that anyone who has discovered where it's at will see it when they view their map. As long as you control at least one Claim then your faction will stay established and you will still be able to play. Once you control all the Claims of a region then the region becomes under your control and will show your faction colors on the world map. All of the region's Claims will merge into one at the location of your choice."

Harold scratched the top of his skull, "Huh, I thought there would be a helpful aura or influence range or something."

Abbigale shook her head, "Nope, and you're free to build wherever you want. Hey, you never told me what's so special about this place!" she said, realizing he still owed her an explaination.

Harold waved her to follow him and walked back into the forest to the edge of the hill. "Here look at this. Remember how long it took us to get to the top? There's no way to charge uphill to attack, and if anyone tries then we can rain projectiles down on them the entire way up. I actually thought it was going to be a small hill and not nearly so steep. This is way better than I hoped for. It's a natural defense that completely nullifies cavalry. Even someone playing a race as big as giants will have a hard time to climb to the top once the trees are cleared away." He paused as a thought occurred to him. "We can clear away the trees right?"

"Yeah, when a tree is cut down you have the option to leave the stump so the whole tree will respawn in the morning with the refresh or you can have it pulled to leave it chopped permanently." Abbigale confirmed.

"What's the refresh?" he asked.

"Every morning after the rest period all the resources refresh. So if you chop down a tree or mine out a mineral node it will respawn the next morning. You'll also get your Recruitment Points at that time." she answered while pulling a small rock loose from the earth. She tossed it over the edge and grinned when it made several loud thunks as it bounced off the trees on its way down.

"Okay got it. So what are Recruitment Points?" he asked as she started rummaging around for another stone.

"Ughh, listen you would know all of this if you just used the Land Claim already." Abbigale stopped looking for a rock and poked at his ribs several times. "And you haven't said why the river was so important to have!" she said accusatory.

"Alright alright!" Harold said while defending from her prodding finger. "It's important for the same reason as the hill. It's a natural defense that will help stop attacks. I hoped it would have a stronger current than it does but it should still work fine since it's deep enough in the middle. Unless the attackers are several heads taller than us they wont be able to cross without swimming. Think of it as a moat for a castle. With both the hill and the river we have two sides of the base heavily defended and nothing is even built anything yet."

Abbigale stopped assailing Harold and considered his explaination. "That actually sounds pretty smart. I doubt anyone else has thought it through like that. The advisor package recommended getting the base started immediately so I imagine all the other advisors told their players to use their Land Claims right away as well. How did you know about using a hill and river as part of your defense?"

Harold chuckled as he rubbed one of the ribs she'd jabbed, "I told you, I'm a teacher. My major was in history. I've always found the age of swords and knights and all that fascinating. Some of the best defended fortresses and cities historically were built next to a river or ontop a hill or mountain. This is the only one I could see on the map so we should have the best base position in the area."

Abbigale nodded her head in agreement with Harold's judgement. "Well the only thing left now is to use your Land Claim. Once you do so you should get several notifications immediately about new permissions, faction established, blah-blah-blah. Just minimize them all and wait to go through them until after you get some units recruited and start on building the base. It's already been a couple hours since we spawned, the other players have been working on stuff for a while now so we shouldn't waste time catching up."

Harold couldn't argue with that. He walked back in the direction of the river, stopping midway to pull open his inventory screen. Clicking the Land Claim once more he selected to use it. A final warning popped up.

Land Claim

Confirm Use

He pressed and the screen dissolved into pixels that spun in the air before condensing into a simple pole rising from the ground. Its height stopped at roughly twice Harold's own and a flag of his faction's colors blossomed into existence, waving gently from the top of the pole.

A new notification screen appeared.

Faction has been established!

Name Land Claim:

Surprised Abbigale didn't mention being able to name the Claim, Harold couldn't think of something suitable. He opted to press instead.

Processing...

Fallmarrow founded! +50 Recruitment Points!

Increase your base of power and spread your influence across the realm! Conquer all who oppose your rule and unite the regions under one banner! Reforge the Kingdom Shattered!

'Fallmarrow eh? Sounds like somewhere you'd find a skeleton that's for sure. Let's get this party started.' Harold smiled and closed the remaining notifications.

"Alright, Land Claim used and faction established. What's next?" he asked Abbigale.

"Simple, you can access your Recruitment Page now and recruit units by using 'Recruit'. You should have 50 Recruitment Points to spend with your first Land Claim. Every day when the refresh happens you'll get more Points depending on how big your base is, amount of Claims you control, etc. I'd recruit several workers right away and maybe a couple basic fighter units. Higher tier units become available once you unlock their requirements." she recommended. "We probably don't have to worry about anyone attacking the first couple days since they'll be too busy working on building their own bases. It won't hurt to be prepared though. We can also go out hunting with them. Food isn't an issue for your skeletons but we can still get materials and some experience from killing things."

"Sounds good to me," Harold agreed to her suggestion and opened his Recruitment Page for the first time. "Recruit."

Recruitment

Points Available: 150

Worker: Basic construction and harvesting unit. 5pts

Fighter: Melee. Bottom tier combat unit armed with a club. 8pts

He was about to recruit a few workers to get started when he noticed something wasn't right. He close the screen and then reopened the page to see if refreshing it changed anything. 'This can't be right' he thought.

"Hey Abbigale, how many points am I supposed to have again?" he asked.

"Everyone starts with 50. There's no exception to that regardless of what race you're playing. Why?" she answered.

"Well, uh, I think I might be that exception." He shared his Recruitment Page with her so she could see his options.

"That's not right! How could you start with an extra hundred points?" She pondered for a moment. "Look at your notifications, maybe there's a reason for it."

Harold closed out of his Recruitment again and brought up the notifications he had closed earlier.

Faction established. Recruitment unlocked.

Claim Fallmarrow founded. Current daily Recruitment Points: 5

Construction screen unlocked. View to see buildable projects.

Achievement Unlocked: Just the Two of Us. You have successfully recruited a second Race's Unique Class to your forces. +100 Recruitment Points

Finding the source of his wealth he shared the notification with Abbigale so she could see it. When she read the achievement she started laughing.

"I guess that's one way to go about it. Normally players don't unlock that until way later but you got it because I'm your advisor. Haha I told you I'm awesome!" she said happily and punched him lightly on the arm.

Harold found he couldn't help but to smile at her joy. 'She might be slightly insane but I think I'll keep her.'