James needed to address an issue that was soon to become a very large problem, upkeep. He could go grinding for the upkeep but then he remembered something from over lord, the happy farm. James smiled he would make an entire floor for farming to lessen his upkeep. It would also have the effect of giving him the chance to add to the base some more.

The problem being if he made the floor, he would be betting practically everything on it. It was too big a project for the time being, he would have to come back to it.

So, James called his guild mates and to his surprise their numbers had grown. Sasha walked up to him and began to explain. “These are a bunch of guys that we found hanging out near the wall. I would seem they heard there was a city that would give them shelter and help them get stronger.”

James looked at the dozen or so low-level beast players, now of them had a level above 5. As James looked them over a few of them kept themselves in motion, rocking in place. They looked anxious; James wondered if someone had put them up to this.

James gave them a wide smile. This could be a blessing in disguise though. “You guys are welcome to live here. But since your new and we honestly do not know you. You guys will be restricted to the first floor of the base, this city.” Some looked at him with gratitude and others looked at him with, suspicion…?

‘I wonder what the people who put them up to this, told them? What is their objective? They are probably scouting the base, looking for weaknesses to exploit.’ James thought. James looked at them and continued. “Each of you guys will be granted a home here on the first floor and you will be expected to help defend the city.”

“While many of the aspects of the guild will be locked out for you, you will still be able to respawn at your homes and buy things here. The final thing I have to say is.” James face turned on his aura of fear, careful not to kill them with it. “You will not betray me or destroy what I work hard to build right?” James looked as most of the players dropped to the ground, paralyzed with fear. The one who was still standing however, took a step forward.

Sasha began took a step forward to block his advance, but James waved her off. The level 5 werewolf stopped less than a foot from James, slowed by his own bodies reluctancy to move. “I was sent here to spy on you.”

James’ only response was, “But?” “I have seen how you treat your team, all the improvements you have made to this town. You are not like other players. You build with all your heart.” The werewolf finally fell to the ground, assuming a kneeling position. “I will defend place if you will have me.”

James turned off his aura of fear, and bid them, “Rise up.” Slowly each of them rose to their feet after they shook off the fear. “I will welcome every one of you to my guild. I will grant you Freedom!”

No sooner had he said it, it was done. Each of them gained five levels, then they began to cheer. James simply looked at the man sent to spy on him and smiled. “Tell them only about the first floor, don’t tell them where your home is. I will give you a second place as a just in case. If you need to do something with them use the second house. Tell them that since your new that you are restricted to the town for now. That will buy us time.”

The man cocked his head like a curious dog, and simply nodded. James was going to use him against those who would seek to harm him and this place. His plans were too big and important to let these fucker’s win!

James clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Ok everyone, we are going to go outside the walls as a group and we are going to grind some monsters.”

Several hours later it was about 6 in the afternoon. James was very happy he had been working with the new people and the old to make them into a well-oiled machine. There was some progress but no more than you can expect in 8 hours.

James woke up at 6 A.M. and quickly did his morning routine, he did not want to be late to work. James arrived at 9 A.M. sharp, he hated the hour and a half drive every day e worked but he made good money, so he managed.

The elevator door slide open and James stepped out. One of his coworkers turned and pointed at him shouting, “He’s here!” James was thrown for a loop what had he missed?

His other coworkers all stopped what they were doing and began cheering and clapping. Apparently, all their hard work had earned them all raises. It was not until the head of the department came out and told everyone to get back to work did the crowd around James finally start dispersing.

Takeda looked at James, “So what crazy idea have you got today?”

(Imagine Takeda as an Asian James Franco)

“I’m going to go help Subaru and his team with the powered armor update.” Takeda simply nodded, wishing him luck as he took the stairs to the next floor. He could use the exercise. Thus, began another long week of testing, bug fixing, and general optimizations. This time whenever James took a break, he would take a trip down the stairs to check on how Takeda and his team were doing.

He was always tired when he got home, but he made a point to log on to Yggdrasil each day just to make sure that the base had not been raided. It was on Thursday that that hope came crashing down.

As soon as he logged in, he received the notice.

Your base is under siege.

Your soldiers have been dispatched.

Apparently, he had logged on in the middle of a midnight raid. He had not received a notice saying the gate had been breached yet…

Your Northern Gate has been breached!

“Shit!” James had thought too soon. He quickly opened his source console and investigated how many of his soldiers were still around. 56, James knew they were only level 20, but damn who were they fighting? James flew up and suppressed his natural light to better hid him in the darkness.

James brought Fenrir’s Howl to his lips and blew. When he was asked for which he said, “All!” No legion appeared behind him, for he still had days before he could use it again. Instead his remaining Dire Werewolf guards sprang into existence before him many had dangerously low health.

He began using all his healing abilities on them along with the few buffs he could cast. Note to self, copy Aureole Omega’s character build. Being an Archangel gave him a sizable mana pool, but healing and buffing all these NPC’s had already taken half his mana pool.

James felt a hand on his shoulder but none of the guards around him moved from their readied positions. James turned to see Fenrir. “You came, I knew you would not abandon your oath!” James looked at Fenrir’s health, it was full. Fenrir had been slain already it seemed, so him using the horn had resummoned him.

“Tell me how many remain?” Fenrir’s face was pale, well his voice portrayed that feeling, “At least 500, they came as the sun fell behind the mountains, there must have been nearly 1000 of them when they struck. For everyone we killed ten more took their place.”

James knew that life was going to be hard when he was branded with that title, but this was retarded. He would have to find a way to dissuade them from doing this for a while. His guards began to advance, the players were down the street. James opened his friends list and prayed. “Who is online?”

The one person he had most hoped would be online was TouchMe, unfortunately he was not online. If there was no one who would be there to save him he would save himself. He turned to Fenrir, “Rally the guards and lead an assault on their leaders.” Fenrir nodded and then he howled. Joining his voice were the remaining guards and countless smaller howls much farther away.

James quickly made his way to the sizable workshop/home/shop where he had placed Hephaestus. He quickly entered the building and before he could even open Hephaestus’ inventory, he held out for him a fine Adamantine Katana. James slowly took the blade from him. James was very proud he had coded that into his A.I.

James used [Holy Aspect] on the blade causing it to glow brightly. James remembered that he had suppressed his own light. So here in the home of his first NPC he let his light spring forth. “This may be the end of us, but if I go down please, keep fighting.” James did not want to start over but no matter what the odds were stacked against him here.

As James was about to leave Hephaestus stood and followed him, when he turned, he saw that in his hands were balls of blazing flames. James had not coded that into him, then he remembered, Hephaestus was a level 65 NPC with levels in elder lich. He was James’ last and best hope. He quickly added some basic fighting scripts he had on hand to him and then they were off.

It did not take James long to find the hundred or so players that remained. James charged them as Hephaestus gave him support, firing fireball after fireball from his fingers. As the fireballs went off all around James, he was extremely happy that friendly fire was disabled.

I took about 20 minutes and several close calls, but they finally won. The final player, the apparent leader was the last to fall. He fell to a combination of holy katana slashes and the accumulated damage of many fireballs.

His final words before he died in the flames were ominous. “He rides out on Sleipnir.” Odin, Odin was coming.

When all the notification were done, he had once again exceeded the feat limit, though it noted it as, barely having done so.

“You must love talking to me.” The head admin spoke, “You should raise the feat limit, so we don’t have to keep doing this.” “Noted, anyway what do you want.”

James did not even wait for the options to pop up. “Bring the NPC’s back, and give them all as many levels as you can, also raise the level limits for them by as much as possible.”

“Ok let me look.” “Can you repair the city while you’re at it?” “Sure, that will reduce the other two by a bit, but I can do that.”

James stepped out of his gaming chair, he was exhausted.