Chapter 07

Spoils

-Lord: Become lord of a city-state. This will require you to provide all the services to the habitants of the city. Death will result in the city losing a third of its resources, unless otherwise specified.

-Due to your selection you have become the King of Autumn’s Reach declaring it a City-State. You are awarded many powers that effect your citizens. Please study them carefully. Expanding your city-state's influence may have unexpected results, tread carefully.

-Your City Hall is severely damaged. Repair is necessary before normal operations can be resumed.

-Due to the damage to City Hall, the one-time option of Back to Day Zero has been converted to full repair.

-This is a onetime use ability when taking owner ship of a new City-State.

-This cannot be used after ten hours of Lordship establishment.

-Use?

-Yes | No

I glanced around at the ruined structure and selected yes. I had no desire to work out of a falling apart building that looked like it belonged in a horror movie. There was a surge of energy from my location then it looked as if time had stopped.

Alara and I found ourselves outside surrounded by all the zombie corpses. We watched as energy crackled along the surface of the building. There was a boom then a shockwave as everything, dirt, soot, overgrowth, and more was ripped off the surface of the building, making it look like new. The right wing of the building glowed brightly as it knitted itself back together.

After only ten to fifteen seconds the building had returned to pristine shape. It reminded me of the White House with its structure. When nothing happened for after ten more seconds, I thought the process was done, but I was wrong. The building started to glow red and began to morph.

The clean white marble stayed but plates of gray metal over took sections. Pipes ran seemingly at random from and to various parts of the building. Victorian age architecture took shape around the building. I was liking it more by the second. Finally, everything appeared to stop changing.

-Due to your strong will the repair function was influenced.

“That was interesting,” I said chuckling.

“I get to change the next one. I like your stuff, but I want to see some green,” Alara said with a pout.

“Deal. I do wonder why it gave me the choice. You were the one that killed him,” I said tapping my chin.

“It offered. I told it to give it to you,” Alara said poking Scythe’s corpse with her foot.

“Thanks, Love.”

I knelt next to Scythe’s body and looted it. It was the first time I’d actually taken the time to Loot since getting Smith, so I was surprised when a Status screen came up for him.

Name: Scythe DreadHead (Deceased)

Age: 34

Level: 56

Health: 0/1,456

Energy: 1,056

Armor: 51

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 12

Intelligence: 50

Wisdom: 54

Charisma: 19

Constitution: 23

Fate: 20

Perception: 26

Will: 36

My stats were almost the same level as his, and I was only level four. My health alone was nearly fourteen times higher than his. I couldn’t understand how that worked out. I knew the system had designated that I was an NPC-Player hybrid of some sort. This explains why we were able to one hit most of the enemies we have come up against so far.

“Smith. Do you know why my stats are so much higher?” I asked. Smith was part of the system that governed this place. He would hopefully have some information for me.

“Affirmative. It is related to the hidden Balancing System that existed in the game. Several days ago, an event caused major changes on the game world. The God Tier AI of the time tried to balance the change with a new game object. You and Alara were the result.”

“How did causing this world to become real unbalance it?” I said more to myself then Smith.

“Answer: The Players known as Administration were made into a permanent part of this world. Their power was unbalanced as a result.”

“I think I follow. Thank you, Smith.”

We looted all of the bodies before we headed back into the building. Just Scythe alone netted a nearly five million thread needle. The various zombies added up to just under two hundred thousand and a variety of items and gear. A few supers had been defeated and turned into zombies. Their gear was damaged but well worth the repair.

Back inside the City Hall, we took a moment to admire the new and improved building. The smell of death was gone, replaced by the smell of oil. A third wing had been added that we couldn’t see from the street. When we checked it out, we found a throne room, most likely since we selected Lord.

When I stepped into the throne room, a voice sounded out. “Welcome. AI being selected. AI selected. Jane is activating.”

“Evening! My Lord,” a different voice said. In front of me a girl took shape as a hologram. She looked exactly like one would expect from a secretary. She even had a clipboard and glasses donning a dark blue dress suit.

“Evening Jane.”

“My Lord. Would you like to see the reports on the current production of the city? How about the current population? There are reports that need your attention as well. Also, a total of twenty-five organizations have vanished overnight...” Jane rambled on. She was projecting screens in front of me so fast that a normal person would have a hard time trying to take in all the information. I was keeping up, but I wanted a bit more time to actually purse the information before moving to the next section. You never know when something mundane might be important. “Here is a list of powers that the Lord has...”

“Jane. Pause,” I said cutting her off and the girl stopped completely.

I grabbed the list which was part AR and took a look. Most of the powers were what I expected. Declare war, alliances, trade agreements, taxation, and more. There were a few powers that were one-time use, like the Back to Day Zero, as well as some that required a cooldown.

“Create super suit,” I said using one of the powers.

“Designate Target,” Jane said coming back to life.

“Alara.”

“Affirmative.”

The dress that Alara was wearing vanished catching me off guard, but she still had her undergarments on. Another dress took its place, a black skirt with green accents that had armor plating. Armor plating covering her chest and arms, but not enough to hinder her movements. Boots with nine-centimeter heels, that looked like they would let her kick through a concrete wall with ease and with plates led to her thigh.

“Nice. You look beautiful,” I said.

“Thanks honey,” she said blushing. She began moving around and got used to her new outfit and I turned back to the power list. Nothing else was of much use at the moment. I moved to the next list of things that a Lord or even Mayor could do. It was more generalized.

“Huh. I can marry people,” I said out loud.

“Marry?” Alara asked taking some swings with her swords.

“You know the thing mortals do to say they belong only to that person,” I explained.

“I know that it is,” Alara said with a pout, pointing one of her blades at me. I chuckled and rubbed the back of my head. Whoops. “I meant why are you bringing it up?”

“No reason. Just saw it I guess,” I said turning back to the list. I felt something poke me in the side. Glancing down, I saw Alara’s blade tip pressed into my shirt, though in a playful manner. “I mean, maybe we should do it here?”

Her pout grew deeper. I thought quickly and pulled the last of the matter blocks that I had barely enough to make anything. I channeled my energy into it. Once I was done, I turned fully to Alara. Kneeling in front of her. “Alara. Would you like to marry me?” I asked presenting a ring to her. Since I had to make things that included technology, it was a ring that could boost a power of her choice by one point.

-Item

-Name: Hasteful Love

-Attack:0 Defense:1/1

-Durability: 100/100

-Description: Made by a man that knew he was in trouble. Gives +1 to a power of user’s choice.

-Repair/Upgrade: 100-1000 Energy

-Price: N/A (Needs to be assessed)

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said placing her left hand in mine for me to slide the ring on. I stood and pulled her into a deep kiss. Then picked her up in a tight hug and spun her around. We both started laughing from the joy of it all.

“We need to do this back on Murgin,” I said once I placed her back down.

“Yes. Invite everyone. Show everyone that you’re mine,” Alara said burying her face in my chest.

City Management

A few hours later, I had mostly gone through all the information that the city provided. Everything was running smoothly considering who had been in control of this city. Moral was still down, but Jane informed me that was because the change in leadership wasn’t automatically posted. I would have to make an announcement of some sort.

I planned to send a message tomorrow morning, but it was almost midnight. It could wait. For now, I was playing with the settings to see what changes I could make without having to go anywhere. I was standing in front of a holographic display of the city, with Jane standing next to me. Alara was off exploring the building.

“So, construction will rely on the city’s own infrastructure since we’ve split off?”

“Correct. Many of the automated systems will no longer work. However, the city is level five. Many of those same systems can easily be reactivated internally. Its reliant on the amount of resources you wish to allow for them,” Jane answered.

“Lovely,” I said flicking through the hologram to get an idea of the city’s layout.

“Advisement: The city’s power grid has been cut off due to becoming a City-State. Autumn’s Rain has cut off our connection as of ten minutes ago,” Jane said moving the map to show the power lines. Giant underground trunks that led off to the East.

“How long do we have?” I asked pulling up the various power management screens.

“Seventy-two hours. The City has grown past the limits of the coal generators.” She moved the map again. At the bottom of the giant tree like trunk that held up the city was several dozen coal generators. However, they were listed as deactivated at the moment. “If the generators are reactivated that would extend the dead-line by, calculating coal reserves, two weeks. Production will be reduced to sixty percent.”

“Reactivate them five hours before the cut-off point. I want to make the coal last for as long as we can,” I ordered. “Send the Maintenance robots down to make sure everything is in working order.”

“Yes. My Lord.”

I was glad the city had a pre-established robotics department. Apparently, every city starts with a set number of drones, but they were expensive to buy. They were expensive to build as well, but cheaper in the long run. Autumn’s Reach had nearly two hundred maintenance drones, a hundred construction, and a hundred of a variety of other drones.

“Alright. So, power is at the top of the list. What’s next?” I asked.

“Food. Most stores and restaurants will face a sharp spike in tariffs and taxes. Ninety-five percent of all produce is produced from cities to the south. Most of the land surrounding the city is infertile and unable to grow anything,” Jane reported.

“That’s not too bad. Have all the stores report their taxes to us and we’ll cover it for the first two months. I’ll try to figure something out by then,” I said. I knew the city’s current budget could cover it. We would be pushing, no, we would be close to breaking by the third, but I wasn’t going to be sitting her idly during that time.

“Finances would be the next issue in that case. As an industrial city, we produced many components and hardware for the other cities. We would need to negotiate trade agreements with any we wanted to trade with.”

“How does transportation fit into this?” I asked.

“Axiscore has started restricting the use of its trains due to the rise in City-States. Of the one hundred and twenty major cities on the continent, twenty-two have been converted to city-states. Axiscore is recruiting an army to restore order,” Smith chimed in.

“Offline,” Jane said simply.

“Do you not have access to information outside the city?” I asked Jane.

“I did until the lines were disconnected along with the powerlines,” Jane said tapping a holographic pen on her holographic clipboard. “I am sorry if I am inadequate.”

“You’re fine. I’ll get you back up to a hundred percent as soon as possible.”

“Thank you. My Lord.”

“I’ll look over this again in the morning. I feel I have enough problems to work out right now. Have Maintenance repair the central plaza.”

-Power Jeopardy

-Your city’s power is draining away.

-In order to stop your city from dying of power lose, figure out a way to return it to full power.

-Remaining time: 3 weeks 5 days 22 hours

-Accept?

Yes | No

~~~

-Tower Famine

-Your city’s food reserves won’t last a week. Restaurants and stores have to import their wares. Tariffs will apply.

-Solve this to increase the moral of your people. A city can only operate at half time if there is a full famine in affect. This will severely affect city wide production. Exodus and riots are only a few of your concerns.

-Accept?

Yes | No

~~~

-Trading Partners

-Your city’s neighbors don’t know you. Interactions are limited until you properly introduce yourself and set up a proper trade agreement.

-Communications are cut off until at least one city enters an agreement with you. Depending on the partner there might be limits of the amount of information available to you.

-Accept?

Yes | No

I accepted all of them since I would be working on them either way. Might as well get some nice bonuses out of the deal. Getting to the other cities would be a pain. Alara and I didn’t know any movement abilities. Then a lightbulb when off in my head. I did have an airship. Some repairs should get it up and running.

“Sir. It is midnight,” Smith informed me.

“Go ahead and display the report,” I said. I took a seat on the throne.

-Its MIDNIGHT!

-You defeated 1 Villains

-You defeated 0 Heroes

-You Earned a Total of 138,887 Experience points

-Level Up! You are level 5!

-Level Up! You are Level 6!

Level Up!...

Level Up! You are level 29!

-You have 32 Power Points to spend!

-You have 100 Stat points to spend!

-You have 6 Feats of Power to allocate!

-You Earned 0 Hero Tier Points

-You Earned 160 Villain Tier Points

-You Earned 195 Villainous Points (Naughty, naughty. You’re a villain now!”)

-Current Villain Tier 5

-Days Until Payout 2: 1,414,306t

A bit more of a productive day than I had intended but at least I was moving towards my goal. It would still be a while before I could unlock dimensional gate technology, and I needed to place points in my other powers. I would have to spend today working on the airship to get it flight worthy. For that I would need to spend some points in technology as well as construction.

“Regan!” I heard Alara call for me from the doorway. She had a girl by the hand who was covered in a sheet.

“What do you have there, love?” I asked moving over to her.

“I found her in the basement. Whatever happened to the City Hall didn’t affect pass the second level.”

“It must be the girl that was taken from the city earlier today. Come. We’ll take you home later today when the sun rises,” I said leading them down the hall. The City Hall had a few bedrooms down the west wing.

The girl simply nodded. I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought this was all a dream. Alara guided her, treating her like she might break with a touch. I followed along just to make sure everything was alright. At least this would help break the ice with the City people.

Under New Management

Once Alara finished helping the girl into the bed, we retired to another room ourselves. I didn’t get tired, but I did enjoy sleeping. Especially when it was next to the love of my life. She curled into a ball and I wrapped myself around her. The world faded to black a few minutes later as we talked about little and meaningless things.

“Die!” preceded a sharp pain in my back. Before I could respond, Alara drove her sword through my assailant's stomach and pinned him to the wall. The assassin had managed to stab me in a place I couldn’t reach easily without causing more damage. I sat up carefully. At least the pain was already fading.

“My love,” Alara said gently as she came around and examined the wound. “Poison!”

“That’s right you fiend! You will die just like all the innocents that you took from this town!”

Alara pulled the dagger out then placed her mouth over the wound. She sucked then spit out the ruined blood. I was curious and when I checked my health, I found that he’d managed to take a solid five hundred points off and the poison was ticking off a hundred points per second. A timer in the corner showed it would last for sixty seconds. It dropped by a few seconds every time Alara pulled some of the poison from me.

“Wouldn’t have taken even half my health off,” I said looking up at the man.

I couldn’t accurately place his age since he was wearing a super suit, but I put it in the ballpark of early twenties. It looked like he was trying to concentrate to use his ability but was failing to do so from the pain. From how he managed to sneak in on both Alara and me, Alara for one being able to pick up a ghost going through a wall, he must have some sort of teleportation.

“There’s no way a necromancer could have so much health! Haha! Trying to be strong as your end comes?” the man said with a few grunts intermixed.

“One, why would a necromancer be affected by poison? Two, didn’t you notice the changed building outside? Three, Are you an idiot?”

The man stopped struggling and actually took a second to take in his surroundings. “Umm, Where’s Scythe?”

“Missed your chance as of sixteen hours ago. It is under new management now,” I said standing up as Alara finished pulling the last of the poison out. I turned and wiped the blood off her lips before bending down to give her a kiss. “Thank you, my love.”

“Man! I wanted to be Lord of this city! Now the stupid protection will stop me for the next month!” the man grew upset then calmed down quickly. “Hey. I’m sorry about this. Can you pull this out? I invested everything in that poison. I need to go do a few missions before all my assets are claimed by Axiscore.”

I was momentarily dumbfounded by the sudden change. “Who are you?”

“Daniel Warp. Teleporter extraordinaire!” Daniel answered posing, though it was ruined with the sword impaled through him.

I laughed. This was definitely a player. “I’m Regan.”

“Wow. Sick name. Honestly thought it was banned from all the games,” Daniel said.

“Can’t ban something that belongs to me,” I said with a grin then pulled the sword out.

“Huh?” he said then dropped to the floor with a scream of pain.

“Mister Daniel. Would you be interested in a business proposal?” I asked injecting him with a health serum. I found quite a few of them in the loot from the zombies. If they could be corrupted, I would rather try it on someone else.

“Business proposal?” he breathed once his complexion returned normal.

“Yes. I need information from other cities. If you would be my informant for a few weeks, I will make sure you’re paid nicely.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“Asks the man that just stabbed me in the back?” I retorted and Alara leveled her sword towards him again.

“Fair enough,” Daniel said raising his hands up in surrender.

“Don’t worry. I have a few new abilities. I opened one of the city menus and created a mission for Daniel.

-Headline News

-The King of Autumn’s Reach has offered you a mission.

-King Regan has offered you a deal. Provide him with information for other cities or places of interest and he will pay you. Sounds simple enough, right?

-100t-1000t dependent on the value of the information.

-Accept?

Yes | No

Daniel pulled his phone out and stared at it for a few minutes. “Can I get a down payment? I just need five thousand thread.”

“Why not? I have a feeling this won’t be my last city to take control over, so feel free to run,” I said pulling a needle from my pocket and adding the thread to it.

“Scary dude. Though, I like the vibe you’re going for. Don’t worry. This is easier than fighting to be honest,” Daniel said then tapped the accept button. I handed over the needle. “Here is my number. Call me when you need me to work. What do you want me to do for now?”

“Head to Axiscore and tell me the situation there,” I said.

“Was there a day or two ago wasn’t too crazy. Then someone started spreading that we’re stuck in here for good. I think it's just a patch issue.”

“Alright. Let me know what you find out,” I said, and he popped out of existence with a slight smell of ozone.

Announcement

Alara and I returned to bed after the interruption. It was still three in the morning after all. When the sun did rise, I was ready and raring to go. I liked to stay busy. Most likely a carryover from being a dungeon core. When you never had to sleep you found ways to stay occupied. When I opened my eyes, Spike and Bandit were resting at the end of the bed.

“When did you two get here?” I asked patting them on the head.

“They arrived shortly after five AM,” Smith informed me.

“Thanks.” I leaned over the sleeping form of Alara and gave her a gentle peck on the cheek. “Morning, My Love.”

“Mm~” She stretched making me stare. “Morning~,” She said yawning.

I couldn’t resist anymore and pulled her into my arms. An hour later we left the room and made our way to the girl’s room from last night. She was still sleeping which I took as a good sign given what she she’d potentially been through.

“Jane. Please send a message to all habitants of the city to meet at the central plaza in an hour. Also, please have this girl’s family notified and to report to the City Hall a few minutes before the announcement.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

There was a kitchen in the wing, so we made our way there. I hadn’t cooked in a while, but I could figure something out. A few burned pieces of bacon and a ruined bowl of cereal, don’t ask, we were all feed and making our way out to the City Hall steps.

Thousands of people were gathered. Most were looking around at the transformed central plaza and street with amazed expressions. A family, a man and woman, that stood on the steps was looking around not sure what to expect. I waved them over and when they saw the girl they broke into a run. They slammed into each other and hugged, the man lifting the two girls off their feet.

“Thank you! Thank you!” the man and woman said with tears rolling down their cheeks.

“Not a problem. This is the one you should thank,” I said wrapping my arm around Alara.

“Thank you!”

“Take care of her,” Alara said with a smile.

The family led their daughter off the steps. Everyone in the central plaza had seen what happened and were cheering for the couple. I walked up to the built-in platform that was in the middle of the steps.

“People of Autumn’s Reach! Scythe is no more!”

The crowd went nuts as they cheered and hugged each other. I waited for a few minutes then raised my hands to calm the crowd.

“I am your new Lord. I will not lie. The coming times will be difficult, but together! Together, we can get through them! Just like this couple that have been reunited with their daughter. If we keep hope close and work together, we can overcome any difficulties.”

“I may be your Lord, but that does not mean I do not need you. Every single one of you is a gear or cog in a machine that could one day roll over the world. This does not mean I want you to sit in your place, never changing or growing. As any good mechanic knows, gears can be moved, reused. I want you, my people, to grow, to change. To Autumn’s Reach’s future!”

The crowd cheered. Hats went flying. A few people with powers sent blasts of energy into the air. I had been part of a good share of gatherings like this, but each one brought a smile to my face. It was always a good sign when people work together to a greater goal. I grabbed Alara’s hand and waved to the people with my free one.