Outside the numerous slim windows of her tower, the largely undeveloped land of Alyssville lay in a lush fertile stretch of varying terrains in all different directions, from soft green fields to deeper shades of the dense woods that flanked both sides of the buildable area. Alyss turned her attention toward the reed-filled land to the south. On the edge of the misty blue lake that the river flowed into, the superimposed hexagons from the Village Building UI lit up to mark the future location of the much-coveted Player Market. She let her focus linger on the spot, and the vague gray outlines of the grand-looking four-storied market tower slowly materialized, a ghost-like illusion of a place she would one day build, with thousands of wood planks and marble and gold paint and whatnot.

Well. Alyss took a deep breath. That day would have to be soon.

“Everything all right on the other side, Guardian?”

Alyss jumped. Cleite was right behind her, but the fact was not what had made her jump. His question had startled her, and it took her a second to realize that no one had really asked her that question in a long time.

Her guide’s green eyes were looking straight at her, bright, round, un-human-like, with a spark of interest that perhaps had always been there but that she had never noticed, and Alyss was suddenly tempted to tell him everything as the reality of her situation caught up with her.

She had come very close to being murdered in her state of semi-consciousness. Shouldn’t she be able to at least talk to someone about it? A stranger was in her house, standing over her bed, planning to end her life. Shouldn’t someone at least care enough to ask her how she felt? She knew well her problems were ultimately her own to fix, but shouldn’t someone at least acknowledge they existed and say “Yes. It’s terrible. I’m sorry you’re going through this”? And here was Cliete, a game-generated NPC, a mindless program, an information box, who at least appeared to care. Comprehension or no, he would listen without interruption, without waving his winged arm and saying a dismissive “That’s nice, honey. Keep us updated.” before disappearing into his own bedroom. Whenever she logged in, day or night, for five minutes of five hours, he would be here, waiting for her in her own kingdom, her own Alyssville.

“Guardian?” said Cleite again. “You all right?”

Alysss blinked and inhaled deeply as she fought down the urge to hug him out of the blue. She was going to fix her life, and for that she needed to stay focused.

“Yes.” She tried to sound as cheerful as possible.“Perfectly fine. It was just… my… cat.”

Even if by any slim chance that Cleite could understand her predicament, now that she was flirting with the idea of hacking, the last thing she wanted was to go anywhere near the authorities. What if the guide was auto-programmed to alert the cops when he hears mention of a robbery? She had heard that similar safety features existed in many of DreamScape’s virtual worlds.

“I… forgot to close the door.” She found herself stammering as she turned away from her feathered lizard guide. “It’s… a new cat and… my parents forgot to register him as a member of the house, so he triggered the security alert.”

It was a blatant lie, and a horrible one. Security alerts didn’t really work that way, and her family wasn’t anywhere well-off enough to afford an actual pet. Alyss secretly winced and told herself she might need that ‘Lie’ skill on the Diplomacy tree after all.

Luckily, Cleite only appeared a little confused by her unnecessary explanation, and she took the chance to quickly change the subject.

“Now that it’s all taken care of, let’s look at the damage, shall we?” she said brightly, making a slightly exaggerated wave to sort through her previously-dismissed notifications to look at what she had just earned.

— Fwoosh —

First Battle: Repel the first threat from a neighboring demon-controlled city

Quest Complete. Congratulations.

You have fended off the first wave. The Lich Trakada has no mana or troops to continue and has returned to his tower. But beware, this is only the first wave.

Group XP 200

Group XP is awarded for collaborative achievements that involve more than one player. Up to 50% of group XP can be allocated to your Followers who have participated.

Quest reward: 1 Leadership Point, Minor Healing Salve x 3, Wood Plank x 12, Refined Stone x 6, Marble Block x 1

Not having been expecting the extra resources, this gave her hope. If she could gain resources directly from questing and battles, she would not have to solely rely on her Followers to gather them. She pulled up her inventory to check her new acquisitions.

——

Rough Stone: 0

>> Refined Stone: 6

Wood Logs: 5

>> Planks of Wood: 26

Marble Blocks: 1

>>Marble Tiles: 0

——

All right, stone and marble! Not bad considering how she had not even managed to build a quarry yet. A quick check of the Player Market requirements again, however, turned her smile into a slight frown. She had no idea how many tiles she could get from one marble block, but she was certain it was not the required 800.

But Gordon had said he had a way, and if his hack would allow her to capture other towers faster, she might be able to speed it up as much as her playing time would allow. You allegedly only need one meal a day. She would force that horrid Soylent down her throat in the morning and stay logged in as much as possible. Determined, Alyss waved the quest notification away and the next one popped up.

— Bong —

You have reached level two!

You have gained one skill point

Skill points granted per level increases with each level achieved

Not bad. One more skill points to spend, plus another leadership point. Switching back to her skill map view, existing icons rearranged themselves to make room as more gold-trimmed options bloomed around all eight skill branches, like yellow spring flowers in time-lapse mode. Alyss couldn’t help feeling a rush of excitement.

Physical Combat now had ‘Tackle’ as the third option. The Magic branch had ‘Minor Heal’. The Diplomacy branch gained ‘Negotiation’, and the Trade branch gained ‘Market Sense’. Culture, Crafting and Subtlety now got ‘Etiquette’, ‘Decoupage’ and ‘Stand Still’ respectively.

“Stand Still?” Alyss muttered. “I can do that without a special skill.”

Under Love was now ‘Self Sacrifice’, which she rolled her eyes at.

“At this rate, won’t I end up with a billion options in few levels?” she said. If each level added one more option for each branch, in ten levels there would be eighty skills for her to choose from. She had no idea how that would fit onto her map.

“Luckily, no,” said Cleite. “After Level Three, options don’t automatically show up when you level. You will need to invest a certain number of points into each skill before additional options show up.”

“I see.” Alyss looked at her new choices. With her Knitting sitting at 999, her skill map looked completely lopsided, and at the moment her one additional skill points looked very meager. Putting another point into Stab or Listen seemed sensible, but she wondered if she should also explore new avenues. Once the Player Market was up, she guessed she needed Trading skills. Should she start investing in that now? Haggle would be useful, since it was something she was pretty bad at in real life.

No. Alyss shook her head, deciding to concentrate on what mattered right now. “Anything that can help me gather resources faster?” She turned to ask her guide.

“You can keep leveling Motivation,” Cleite suggested. “Upgrading your village is the fastest way to gain resources.”

Alyss sighed. “Not what I want to hear.” It meant dealing with Followers again. And it’s definitely not faster than hacking. She wondered what Gordon was doing, and how he would meet up with her. As far as she knew, there was no way to actually visit another player’s instance of the game before the Player Market was built. Or was there? A thought occurred to her. Maybe, he could sign up as one of her Followers? That made perfect sense.

She was limited to only three Followers at the moment, but she could increase that number by building a Villager’s Hut. She quickly checked the requirements.

---

Villager’s Hut Level 1

Allows you to recruit 3 more Followers for your village.

Cost: 48 planks of wood

Time to build: 1 hour

---

“Exactly what I need,” said Alyss. Pulling up the village inventory menu again, however, she saw her Wood Planks count change from 26 to 27.

“What are they even doing?” she cried in frustration. Almost half the number had come from her completing the battle quest, which meant they had managed to add only two more during the time she was gone. Annoyed, she found a different menu that listed the status of her village.

Woodcutter’s Hut [Forgad – Level 1]

Status: Active (Productivity boosted by 2% from Motivation. Estimated time to next Wood Plank: 4.39 minutes)

Woodcutter’s Hut [Bob – Level 1]

Status: Inactive (Damaged, 87% repaired)

Woodcutter’s Hut [Kaliope – Level 1]

Status: Inactive (Damaged, 62% repaired)

She only now recalled her Followers mentioning something about having to repair the huts before they could continue production. Alyss sighed. Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. Battles came with a cost. She probably wouldn’t be able to smash her way through quests and dungeons on her own and gather resources that way.

After staring at the numbers for a minute or so, Kaliope’s number change from 62% to 63% repaired.

Alyss felt a small pang of guilt. She had not spared her Followers a single thought after what had happened. If she remembered correctly, they had told her repair work was free work and they got nothing in return until their station was fully functional again. From what she was seeing, the rate of repair was depressingly slow. To her Followers, it must have appeared as if she had logged out and left them to deal with the tasks on their own.

But I was robbed and almost killed! Alyss reasoned with herself. Unfortunately, she could never tell that to a bunch of strangers. The game could have simply given her NPCs and cut all this drama.

“Be right back,” Alyss told Cleite as she dashed through the wooden door of her tower into the sun-lit field in the front. After hesitating for a little, she decided to make her way toward Forgad’s hut by the nearest copse of trees. His station was already up and running, so he would most likely be in a better mood than the other two.

“Hi again,” she said as she approached. Forgad’s hut was once again in perfect condition, a simple structure with wood planks for walls and thatched hay for a roof that was hardly big enough for anyone to lie down in. Beside him was a small pile of newly-finished wood planks.

“You logged out,” said the woodcutter casually as he swung his axe at the nearest tree. It was more of an observation than an accusation.

“I had a real life emergency.” Alyss grimaced as she realized how much it sounded like a lazy excuse.

“Understandable, ma’am,” said Forgad.

“Alyss, please,” she said.

“Sure, Alyss.”

Alyss paused for a moment. She was not sure what she was trying to do, and whatever it was, it was clearly not working. Talking to people had never been easy. Hi’s and bye’s? Sure. How are you doing? Same as usual. But beyond that? Alyss had no clue. Real people never behaved like her kind of people in her treasured books: adventurers with hopes and dreams, heroes with upstanding morals who vowed to die defending the weak. Even villains had clear goals at world dominion. Real people were, well, complicated, complacent, dull, perfectly content with wasting their life getting distracted by the blinking lights and sounds and pleasures that DreamScape had to offer. She looked at her first Follower again, but the only information available to her was his brief description:

--

Forgad the Woodcutter

Poor, but honest

Level 1

Equipment: Simple axe

--

Taking a deep breath, Alyss decided on a different approach. “Okay, poor but honest, right?”

Forgad turned to look at her in slight confusion. “What?” His jaw dropped after a moment. “Wait. That’s what my description says?”

Alyss nodded.

“My God!” Forgad laughed, a hearty laugh like when he had laughed after learning about her max-level Knitting skill. “Well, unfortunately that’s completely right, ma’am – Alyss.”

Laughter apparently have magical tension-repelling properties, and Alyss found herself grinning. “I’m dirt poor, too, which is why I’m playing this game in the first place. So I’ll be honest with you and tell you that I have no idea what I’m doing right now.”

Forgad smiled. “That much is obvious.”

Of course, honesty was going to be a bit rough. “Okay, be honest. How am I doing?”

Forgad stopped to think. “As a glitched player with 999 Knitting, somehow incredibly lucky so far. As a village builder… nothing special. You got three huts up and running. A better way might have been two woodcutters and one hunter to give us food buffs, but at this level it doesn’t really matter. As a village leader…” He paused for a moment, most likely to decide how honest he really wanted to be. He looked at her, and Alyss met his eyes, unwavering.

“Not great,” Forgad finished. “Not the worst, of course, not even close, based on the stories I’ve heard. But… not great.”

Even when she was somewhat prepared, and even when she knew he had not been completely honest, Alyss still winced. “What am I doing wrong?”

“First, you didn’t share the group XP. Then you didn’t allocate resources to help us repair our huts. You didn’t even stay logged in to give us the 2% productivity boost to help speed it up.”

And you all didn’t get robbed and almost clubbed to death while in sleep paralysis, was Alyss’s first thought. Still, it was true that she had completely forgotten about her Followers. The game was their livelihood, too. Or, at least for Forgad it was.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how to do all these things.”

“As Followers, we don’t get any XP from anything beyond what we’re directly assigned to do. I get XP and achievements for chopping trees and turning them into wood planks, but I don’t get any XP from combat.”

Alyss blinked in surprise. “But I thought you all leveled after the battle?”

“Yes, for taking part in the battle. Technically, you did assign us to fight, so we each got a flat 10 XP for participating in the ‘quest’ you gave us.”

“Ten?” cried Alyss in horror. Of course, she realized after a brief moment. That was what it had taken for her to go from level zero to one. It must be the same for them.

Forgad chuckled, perhaps at her genuine surprise. “All group XP sits in the shared XP pool that only the Guardian can access.”

“Right.” Alyss recalled having just read something about it. “Okay, thanks,” she said as she dashed back to her tower. “Give me a sec.”

She wondered why her feathered lizard owl guide would not follow her out of the tower just to make things a little more convenient.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, after pestering Cleite with endless questions, Alyss ran back toward Forgad with a grin on her face and announced she was calling her first village meeting.

“Come with me!” Barely able to contain her excitement for what she considered a genius plan to kick-start her leadership, she waved to the woodcutter to follow her.

Next, she fetched Bob, who said nothing, from his station, then marched up toward Kaliope, who was replacing one of the broken wall planks on her hut with a new one. Alyss noted in slight fascination how the process required no nails, and as soon as the woodcutter ripped out the old plank and put the new one there, it automatically stuck in place as if held by invisible glue.

“So, the bossina has decided to return,” said Kaliope after a very brief glance at the group before returning to her work.

Ignoring the woman’s sarcasm, Alyss called up the shared XP menu, which she had managed to locate with help from Cleite. According to the description, she could share as much as 50% of it with her Followers.

“So, I didn’t realize how group XP worked,” she began. “Now I’ve found it, and the group XP from the quest and killing the undead we have between us is 548 XP, so-”

“So you’re giving some to us like a semi-decent leader,” said Kaliope.

“Nope,” said Alyss. “First, I’m going to allocate my own skill point.”

Her Followers gave her slight looks that spoke volumes about their annoyance, but Alyss ignored them. She had coaxed a lot of haphazard information out of Cleite in the limited time she had, and now she had decided on the best option. “Where should I put it?” she said nonchalantly. “Nothing looks amazing.”

Kaliope sighed and forcefully yanked another damaged wood plank from the hut, muttering something about wasting her time.

“Minor Heal will be mildly helpful if we have to fight the lich again,” said Forgad.

“You’re right,” said Alyss. “But you know what? I think I’m going to go with… Love!” She made a gesture to allocate the point into Self Sacrifice, whose icon was actually a bleeding heart with a sword thrust through it, something you would expect from a clichéd tattoo. The icon lit up with sparks as it grew more saturated in color.

Her Followers were utterly confused.

“Oh, look,” Alyss continued casually before Kaliope could open her mouth. “Dropping a point in Self Sacrifice has opened up a new Leadership Option. Generosity, a cross-tree skill between Diplomacy and Love. I guess I’ll use my Leadership Point to buy that right now.”

The notification popped up as soon as she dropped the point into it. Generosity appeared on her map, depicted with a giving hand with some nondescript small items on the open palm.

— Ding —

Congratulations! You have reached level 2 in Generosity.

You may share an extra 10% of Group XP with your Followers.

——

Without waiting for the other players to ask, Alyss called up the relevant menu:

Unallocated Shared XP: 548

Under it was golden mental sliding bar, which Alyss slid as far as she could to the right, until it said 60% (328 XP).

Below were icons of her three Followers, and she tapped on all three of them.

Are you sure you want to allocate 328 XP to Forgad (Level 1), Bob (Level 1) and Kaliope (Level 1)? [Yes/No]

Alyss tapped [Yes], and she could hear all her three villagers gasp.

--Ding-- Kaliope has gained a level. She is now level 2.

--Ding-- Forgad has gained a level. He is now level 2.

--Ding-- Bob has gained a level. He is now level 2.

You gain the remainder 220 XP.

— Bong —

You have reached level three!

You have gained one skill point

Skill points granted per level increases with each level achieved

--

Alyss had simply meant to impress her Followers, so the personal progress came as a nice surprise. The extra XP from the shared pool was just enough to push her through the threshold of the third level, but there was no time to rejoice.

“Also,” she said as she called up her personal inventory. “Take this.”

Are you sure you want to give 1 Minor Healing Salve to Forgad?

Are you sure you want to give 1 Minor Healing Salve to Bob?

Are you sure you want to give 1 Minor Healing Salve to Kaliope?

She tapped three [Yes]s in quick succession. “It’s not a lot but it’s all we have right now. Your woodcutting axes are much better at killing stuff than my Knitting Needles. If the lich comes back with his army, you’re more likely going to be in the frontlines while I knit up my golems, so you’re going need the salves more than I will … although I hope before that I will be able to get some basic Alchemist’s Huts in place so we can make more.” Before her Followers could wonder at the sudden magnanimity, Alyss added. “Anyone dying will be a waste of everyone else’s time. So let’s try to keep each other alive and make the best out of what we have, okay?”

“Did someone give you a crash course in Leadership 101?” Kaliope frowned, although she was sounding much less annoyed by the second.

“I learn fast,” said Alyss. Maybe people were just like NPCs. Only you couldn’t see their Satisfaction percentage. Give them what they want and tell them what they want to hear, right?

“Like you said, I’m not your boss,” Alyss continued. “I just need to make money, so let’s be the best money-making team we can be and make sure everyone profits.” Boisterous, but blunt would probably appreciate blunt in return. To be honest, Alyss wasn’t averse to blunt herself. It cut all the social skills things she didn’t know how to do.

Forgad’s face split into a wide grin. “Sounds good to me.”

Bob gave an ambiguous grunt.

“All right.” Kaliope smiled. “I guess I’ll reserve my judgment of you a while longer. But just so you know, I’m investing all my skill points in Physical Combat, so you’d better building me that Barracks pretty soon and get me out of this wood-chopping business.”

“On it.” Alyss returned the smile. “Now how many wood planks do you need to immediately repair the hut so we can get production started up again?”

As she allocated wood planks to help Kaliope and Bob complete their repairs, Alyss breathed a secret sigh of relief. Yep, just like NPCs. Fetch-quest NPCs who won’t tell you exactly what they want. It’s all business transactions. What’s the cross-tree Leadership Skill between Trade and Diplomacy again? I’m sure that will come in handy.

* * *

“That was not very fair at all,” said Forgad as they walked back to his station.

All three woodcutter’s huts were back in operation, and Alyss was down to 19 planks of wood in her inventory. But in a few more hours she would finally be able to afford the Villagers’ Hut.

What now? Alyss thought in horror as she turned to look at him, only to realize he was joking.

“I had to repair my own hut,” Forgad said. “The other two got freebies.”

Alyss smiled. “Show me where Fairness is on the leadership tree and I’ll consider buying it.”

“You unlock it with Level 3 ‘Etiquette’ and Level 3 ‘Tough Love’ on the love tree.”

Alyss had no idea if he was making it up or continuing the joke, so she simply chuckled.

Forgad has sent you a Friends Request. Accept? [Y/N]

It had been so sudden that Alyss was not prepared for it. Friends? She had friends. Female friends who were always disappointed when she refused to go to Virtual SuperDeals with them to spend money she didn’t have. Male friends who were not exactly content with being just friends. Friends, like Gordon, who was essentially a business partner. “What are… ‘friends’ anyway?” she muttered, only to realize how silly it sounded.

Forgad smiled. “Names you fill your friends' list with to convince yourself you are not a complete loser.”

Alyss snorted as he continued.

“RESTART friends can send you messages straight to your lobby even when you’re not logged in, so we can let you know if the lich comes back when you’re off dealing with the next real life emergency.”

Laughing, Alyss tapped [Yes], and Forgad’s name appeared somewhere on one of her menus titled ‘Friends’, listing his status as online and logged in.

— Fwoosh —

Adventures are more fun with friends: Find a friend to help found your village

Quest complete

You gain 10 XP

You gain 1 Skill Book

Follower Tools are now unlocked

Followers Tools allow you to view your Followers’ stats, equipment, and skill map, as well as assign quests for them from the Command Table.

---

Alyss had nearly forgotten about the quest, but she appreciated the extra skill point she could now spend. She took a brief glance at the menu that said ‘Follower Tools’, and saw now listed under her three woodcutters their HP, equipment and empty slots, as well as other things she did not have time to look at.

“Can I ask a question?” she said after closing the menu to keep it for later. “Is it possible to hack RESTART?”

Forgad shrugged. “Like everything that’s too big for its own good, DreamScape is full of holes. RESTART is no different. If you’re wondering about your Knitting glitch, that’s probably what happened. Someone hacked something and accidentally deleted a line of code, and it produced a weird glitch somewhere else in the game. Item cloners usually do wonky things to numbers.” He picked up his woodcutting axe again as he reached his station. “They catch you, they ban you from DreamScape for life.”

Alyss winced as Forgad swung his axe at the nearest tree, which had respawned during the time they were away.

Forgad turned around to grin. “But don’t worry. The glitch wasn’t your fault. If they find out, they will just knock your skill level down to what it’s supposed to be, but in the meantime, I have nothing against using it to our advantage.”

“Yeah.” Alyss forced herself to smile, yet her heart sank under a new weight. If she was caught hacking, Alyssville would be deleted, and that meant her unsuspecting Followers would have to start over somewhere else, all their time and efforts wasted.

But this is the only way. She steeled herself. She didn’t have time. She needed to amass a small fortune within three months. Actually, she needed $150 today, to get the lock fixed, as she didn’t trust her parents to notice the note she left. What if that kid came back to finish what he was trying to do, against his older companion’s advice? Alyss felt a shiver. No, this is the only way.

At the back of her mind, she could suddenly imagine seeing Forgad’s name disappearing off her lonely Friends List one day, accompanied by his last message that said, “Hacker.” She was not sure why it bothered her, when it wasn’t even real.

My real life matters more. She left her Follower with a good-bye wave and walked back to her tower and forced herself to concentrate on the next thing. Two skill points to spend. So many things to do. Villager’s Hut, quests, dungeons, Command Table, golem army. Player Market and money. I really have no other choice.

* * *

Lesser Lich Trakada Grayfellow stood calmly in front of his undead liege lord’s Command Table and watched him fume. Kratawar didn’t need to be here. The undead skeleton had unlocked ‘Mental Commands’ a long time ago from his investments in Physical Combat and Subtlety trees, allowing him to dish out quests without being at the table, but Trakada himself had requested a meeting in the tower, perhaps to make a point that he could not through telepathy.

“What do you mean you need a quest?” Kratawar roared. “You failed the last one, miserably! Going up against a Level 1 Guardian!”

The skeleton slammed his hand on the table, where it clacked so loud Trakada thought the bones were going to crack. “If anyone deserves a dungeon quest, it’s Supitha. She delivered! She showed me results! She defended Dearbhgilla’s Forest against Defa’s sneak attack and forced them back into their sorry land, and then managed to destroy two of their towers.”

This was to be expected. Trakada remained silent and waited until Kratawar had finished. “The Guardian had a golem army that my Below Average Hordes couldn’t defeat,” he stated calmly.

Kratawar scoffed. “Golem army at level one? She probably put up a Golden Beacon and called in a friend.” He shook his head in disgust. “These rich players with real life money to blow.”

“There wasn’t a beacon.”

“Well, maybe you just didn’t see it through all that Haze!” Kratawar bellowed, before taking a deep breath to calm himself. “But it doesn’t matter. This is no longer your problem. I’m sending Supitha as soon as she gets back from the borders. Rich kid can put up a Beacon all she likes and watch Supitha’s elite wraiths destroy both her and her helper’s armies.” The skeleton smiled. There were no muscles left on his face to actually emote it, but that was what Trakada guessed he was going for by how his lower jaw jutted out a little.

“There was no Beacon,” said Trakada again. Reaching into his inventory, he retrieved a wriggling mass and slowly placed a damaged mess of knitted twigs on the Command Table.

Stick Golem [HP 2/20].

Minion of Alyss – Level 3 Guardian

Missing three limbs, the miserable thing was still twitching pitifully, swinging its arm around as it tried to attack Kratawar’s hand.

“Impossible,” said Kratawar.

Trakada waited for a moment to let the fact sink in. “I propose we do not destroy her yet, as she obviously knows something we don’t, so why not first learn what it is?” It was Trakada’s turn to smile. His delivery had been perfect, and he could see Kratawar swaying. “Which is why I need that dungeon quest in Noridah Depths right now.” He pointed his pale finger to a location on the map sprawled out on the table, a jagged line hidden in a dense forest, which was where Kratawar would need to tap to activate the quest for him. “You know what that dungeon has. We’ll wring whatever we need out of this new Guardian. Maybe we’ll even get her golem army to attack your sworn enemy Defa. And maybe even beyond that. Then once she’s of no more use to us, we’ll crush her.”

At the word ‘crush’, he smashed his clenched fist down onto the wriggling heap of twigs.

Stick Golem is dead. Your level is too high to gain XP from killing this enemy.

As someone who once had the Player Market under his finger, Trakada knew he could sell anything. The demonstration of force was unnecessary, and had been more for his own amusement than anything else. With Kratawar, the mention of Defa at the end was enough to seal the deal. Sure enough, a moment later Trakada had his undead liege lord tapping away on the Command Table map, assigning a significant amount of Quest Points and resources to fund his expedition to Noridah Depths.

Trakada left his liege lord’s tower and stepped into the cool air of the night, feeling perfectly satisfied. This new little Guardian was the most entertaining thing he had encountered in months, especially now that he had his side-project going. In front of the tower, his loyal horde of fifty zombies and thirty skeleton archers stood waiting. He frowned as he thought he saw one skeleton shambling to its proper place in the rows. Skeletons did not need to eat, rest, or even move. Yet one had. But it had been a long day. It was dark, and he had had to spend quite a lot of time grinding dead bodies in a nearby NPC village to replenish his missing troop members. He ultimately dismissed it as a trick of the light combined with his tired mind.

Things were in motion. No need to rush. The faster you got to the top, the faster boredom caught up with you. A slow death for the mind and soul in perpetual chase. Someone once said that DreamScape had especially been built to fight apathy. Beneath the dashing eyeballs of the technologically-induced REM sleep that had charmed the masses, everyone was running.

Trakada heaved a small sigh through his wilted lips.

It was late, and his daughter was coming for a visit tomorrow. Perhaps a good chance to be off DreamScape for a bit.