Rudeness aside, having other players around was interesting. Alyss took the time to investigate the other two woodworking stations where she met Kaliope and Bob, respectively.

Bob wasn’t much of a talker. He nodded when she introduced herself, barked his name, and went back to work. His pop-up display read:

——

Bob the Woodcutter

Reserved, but resilient

Level 0

Equipment: Simple ax

——

‘Reserved’ is a word for it, Alyss thought.

Her meeting with Kaliope went better. The square-faced young woman had a small stack of wood planks already waiting by the time Alyss beat her way through a thick copse to the final station.

“I hope. You know. You're not. My boss,” Kaliope said, punctuating each word with an ax swing.

Alyss stopped in her tracks. What the hell had she done to deserve that greeting? A few feet remained between herself and the other player, giving her the room both to appreciate Kaliope’s rippling muscles and read the player’s pop-up display.

——

Kaliope the Woodcutter

Boisterous, but blunt

Level 0

Equipment: Simple ax

——

“Nice to meet you, too,” said Alyss, amused despite herself. Blunt indeed.

The ax met wood with a resounding thunk, the blade remaining buried as Kaliope stepped away from her work. Crossing her arms, she fixed Alyss with a cheery grin.

“Don’t take it that way, yeah? This is the third instance I’ve tried, and I’m getting tired of people ordering me around like they’re my personal messiah or some shit.”

“You mean the different ‘dimensions’ of the game?” Alyss said, remembering what the goblin from the tower’s third level had told her. The Player Markets would connect her tower to other versions of the game. She supposed if a player rolled a crafting character they’d have the ability to migrate between other players’ games until they found one they liked.

Just what she needed, really: game politics. Great. She wished the game had just spawned some NPCs.

“Sure, why not,” agreed Kaliope. “Point is I’m here to work on a team, not to be anyone’s lackey.”

“Fine by me. I didn’t know the game would put other players in as the villagers until you guys showed up.”

Kaliope gave Alyss another assessing look. “Newb?”

“Just started today.”

“Damn, girl. You work fast.”

Alyss spared a glance at the tower looming above them. She hadn’t thought clearing it was all that difficult, one sneaky goblin notwithstanding. But this was the second player who’d implied otherwise.

“You didn’t restore the ruby, either?”

“I did.” Kaliope sounded offended for half a second. Then she was grinning again, and shrugged. “Lost it pretty quick, though. That lich is a bastard.”

She yanked the ax out of the stump. “Thought about rolling another Guardian, giving it a second go but, eh, I’m not much of one for resource management. Figured I could lend a hand, get promoted up the ranks a bit.”

Thinking back to what Forgad said, Alyss offered, “Are you looking for a specific title?”

“Not as a crafter. Figured when you can spare the woodcutting, you might promote me into a fighter or, like, a general? By the time we’ve a barracks up, my Physical Combat should be off the charts.”

“Why not roll a soldier from the start?”

“Can’t. If there’s a way to unlock that, I haven’t found it. I know a few guys who got cross-promoted by their Guardians though.”

After pondering that a moment Alyss said, “Then why does the management system have an option for archers?”

“Oh, base soldiers are NPC craftables. They’re not too smart, though, which is why you want other players working with them.”

“Huh. I need to dig into this more.”

“Sure thing. You know where I’ll be. Though you might have to yell. I’m putting a podcast on.” Kaliope ended the statement with another swing of her ax. Quickly, she fell back into rhythm, oblivious to the world.

* * *

Introductions out of the way, Alyss found her way back to the top of the tower. She pulled a few pillows up to the battlements with her, making herself a perch from which to survey her little kingdom as she handled character and village maintenance.

As she was about to close the hatch door leading into the upper chamber, Alyss spotted a familiar journal lying beneath the spot where she’d strung the boss up. A skill book? She slid back down the ladder and scooped it up.

Yeah, it was a skill book! But where—

“I’m a moron,” Alyss groaned. In her hurry to get started with settlement building she had completely forgotten about the quest she’d completed. It must have dropped as part of the reward.

She returned to the battlements, book tucked under one arm and plopped onto her pillow seat. The lands surrounding the tower splayed out before her on all sides, once more overlaid with a faint tracework of hexagonal regions. A small panel at the corner of her vision showed the current inventory of her little kingdom:

——

Rough Stone: 0

>> Refined Stone: 0

Wood Logs: 9

>> Planks of Wood: 11

——

It’d been just over an hour since her huts were up and running. Each woodcutter was supposed to produce six planks an hour. That meant there ought to be eighteen planks. Instead, there were eleven? She sighed to herself. Stopping Forgad and Kaliope to chat clearly impacted production.

Promising herself she’d be better about not wasting the other players’ time, Alyss continued sorting through the Village Building menus.

There was a leadership skill tree, as promised. In fact, it was tied to the main skill tree. Both shared the star field-map, her little icon in the exact center. A toggle on the side let her grey out either the main skill tree or the leadership tree in order to see the other more clearly. She took a +-moment to understand why.

Whereas on the main skill tree Alyss could see all available skills under the main branches, on the leadership tree she could only read the skills available under the “Crafting” section. There were other skills in the network, each tied to one or more of the main skill trees, but they all read “?????”

“Great. So I have to spend a point in a skill class to gain leadership skills of the same class. Is that it?”

“Pretty much!”

Alyss screamed and flailed at the unexpected voice.

Cleite blinked its owl-like eyes. “Are you done?”

“Where did you come from?!”

“Around. Do you want to learn about skill improvement or not?”

Pressing a hand over her racing heart. Trying not to be annoyed at the strange little… thing, Alyss nodded. It was about time it showed back up.

“Okay, so, you’ve found some skill books, I see! That’s great!” Cleite whistled sharply. “A whole ton of ‘em, by the looks of it. Has someone been item cloning?”

“No. Your screwy intro-quest glitched on me.”

“Huh. Y’know if it were anything but knitting, I might report you. As it is…” The owl-lizard ruffled its feathers. “Your main skills don’t just influence who you are as a Guardian, they also decide what sort of leader you’ll be.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Cleite drawled, “New leadership skills are unlocked by putting points in regular skills. Then, you activate the leadership skill with the required number of leadership points. The better the leadership boon, the more expensive it is to activate.”

“What about upgrades?”

“Leadership skills automatically upgrade based on the number of points you’ve spent in the corresponding main skills. For example, that lvl 999 in knitting will net you some ridiculous crafting perks.”

Alyss’ grin was cut short as the little lizard cocked its head to one side. “I’d be careful with that, though. Some skills have drawbacks, and some don’t play well with others.”

“Like what?”

“Oh. You’ll find out.”

With that dire warning, Alyss returned her attention to the skill tree spread before her. The one linked to crafting was …

“Artist’s Soul?” she said.

“The Artist’s Soul inspires skilled laborers to produce works of greater quality at the cost of quantity,” said Cleite.

Alyss made a face. That could be useful if it only applied to people making sellable goods. She didn’t want to sacrifice the number of resources. Besides, it wasn’t useful right now.

“What about a skill called ‘Motivation’? Which skill line is that?”

“I guess you’ll have to play around to figure it out.”

“Cleite!” Alyss knew she was whining. She didn’t much care. She’d had a hard day, if a rewarding one, and didn’t understand why her self-professed helper was being so unhelpful.

“Fine, fine. Motivation is a cross-tree skill. It draws levels from both Physical Combat and Diplomacy lines.”

Which meant Alyss would need two main skill points to unlock it. She sighed, already resigned to waiting when she flipped back to the main skill tree and noticed a mark in the upper left hand of her vision:

——

Points Unspent: 1

——

Where had that come from? Alyss glanced at the book still tucked under her arm, then back at the message. Wait. What level was she?

“Character Sheet.”

The Skill Map was replaced with a panel that had a mirror to one side, reflecting her avatar’s face back at her, and a list of stats on the other. She skimmed through until she found the level indicator: level one.

She hadn’t gained another level. So where…?

Groaning, Alyss realized just how bad things could have gone with the goblins. She’d been so distracted by the skill book glitch she hadn’t even assigned her level-up skill point!

“At least it gives me one of the points I need,” she said, then grinned. “And the skill book gives me two!”

Half expecting another mysterious boon, Alyss rushed to open the skill book. This time, however, she was met with unaltered text and a choice of skills.

“Too much to hope for,” she muttered, looking first to Physical Combat and Diplomacy. To her surprise, there were new selections there; ones she hadn’t noticed when she’d been focused on leadership skills.

“Punch,” was still Physical Combat’s first offering. It was followed by “Stab.”

Diplomacy now offered both “Lie,” and “Listen.”

“Listening is a skill?” Alyss asked no one.

“You’d be surprised,” said Cleite. She’d almost forgotten it was there.

“Yeah, well…”

The other skill trees also had new offerings. Magic gained “Minor Illusion,” trade had “Appraise,” and culture had “Dance.” Those seemed pretty normal, and possibly even useful.

The other three Alyss didn’t know what to do with. Subtlety included “Detect Odor.” Love listed “Repel,” which she supposed could be a good thing if you didn’t want to bother with weirdness like the sexual harassment goblin from the tower’s second level. Crafting now listed, of all things, “Origami.”

It wasn’t a hard decision. Alyss needed to take a point in Diplomacy for the leadership skill. While lying wasn’t abhorrent to her, the notion of putting points there on purpose made her uncomfortable. Besides, who would she be using combat skills against?

She selected “Listen,” and turned her attention to Physical Combat. Finally, something straightforward.

“Stab goes well with my needles, doesn’t it?”

Cleite chirped. “Given what you did to the goblins, yeah, I’d say so.”

She selected it. When the little “lvl 1” indicator lit up beside Stab, Alyss toggled the skill map back to Leadership. Two new entries were listed. The first entry for Physical Combat read “Pragmatic Defense.” Next to it, with a glowing green line connecting it to both Physical Combat and Diplomacy, was “Motivation.”

“Score,” she said and spent her skill point.

— Ding —

Congratulations! You have reached level 1 in Listening.

You’ve learned the fine art of shutting up. People say more than they mean to when you show interest in what they have to say.

——

— Ding —

Congratulations! You have reached level 1 in Stabbing.

You’ve learned to penetrate just a little deeper, causing 2% more direct damage with stab wounds, and a 0.5% increase in bleeding damage upon weapon removal.

——

— Ding —

Congratulations! You have reached level 2 in Motivation.

All villagers receive a 2% production increase so long as you’re around. This boon decreases to 1% production increase when you are not present.

——

* * *

By the time Alyss finished with character maintenance, the sky had darkened to a blood red-orange. She waved away the UI and cleared the alerts before standing and walking to the nearest crenellation.

The game's world stretched around her bathed in sunset light. The landscape was vibrant and enticed her with the promise of opportunity, perhaps even conquest.

This world really is beautiful, she thought. I can see why the heroes of LitRPGs would want to get stuck.

Wait. No! What was she thinking? Alyss stepped back, perturbed by her own thoughts. Wasn’t this the exact thing she’d derided her parents for; getting so caught up in a virtual world that they ignored their reality?

She wasn’t ignoring her reality though. It had only been… Alyss thought back. It hadn’t been a full day, yet, in game. She tried to find a real-world clock, and couldn’t.

“Hey, Cleite?” Turning, Alyss found the lizard-thing had disappeared again, leaving her alone atop the tower. “Great. You’re not any help at all, are you?”

She could log out to check. In fact, she should. Though she wasn’t feeling hungry, some games were known to override sensation from your real body. That’s why most people set timers when they went into the DreamScape. Still, there was a lot to do here, and a long way to go before the Player Market was available. If she wanted to make real progress, well, some sacrifices had to be made. Right?

Cleite was mostly useless, sure. However, he wasn’t her only option. There were three other players around, each with more experience than her. She didn’t think either Forgad or Kaliope would mind answering a simple question. Besides, what harm could it do? Alyss turned for the hatch leading into the tower proper.

A scream rose from the nearby woods, startling a flock of birds into the air.

Alyss whirled around. The birds were near Bob’s woodcutting station. She pulled up the village UI, hoping to get more information, and frowned to see the once-golden hexagon around his station was blinking red.

Alyss remembered something, a passing comment Kaliope had made just a little while ago: “That lich is a bastard.”

Alyss hadn’t thought to ask what the woman meant.